Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Heat Wave

So the reason this week's blog post is a little late is nothing less than the heat wave that's been gripping the entire eastern U.S. for days and days.  Not sure what the Harrisburg official temperature has been, but it's hit 40º C. (or 104º Fahrenheit for my metric-impaired countrymen) for the past two days according to my kitchen thermometer.  That's the temperature in the shade.  Since we recently had several thousand dollars' worth of landscaping done, I have been outside every tolerable moment watering, watering, watering.  Thankfully, we are in the middle of just a heat wave, not a drought.  But it takes quite literally hours to get it all soaked, and then twelve hours later everything is drooping and wilting again.  The hydrangea and the new cherry tree are particularly worrisome.  All we can do is water and water, though, so we are doing it.

At least until tomorrow.  Friday the landscaping is in Mother Nature's hands, so I'm hoping for that long-promised thunderstorm.  The reason?  We are taking a brief trip to Pittsburgh for a campus visit to the University of the same name, aka Pitt.  My daughter Olivia is extremely interested in their biology and fine arts programs, and is intrigued by the idea of city life in the 'Burgh.  So we are checking it out.  Several hours of prospective-freshman programming for her, prospective-parents-of-freshman programming for us, tours, class auditing, and interviews with admissions and financial aid people.

This is the first of our campus visits.  It's starting, folks.  By this time next year, we will know where she is going to be, how much it's going to cost, and all of our lives will be in turmoil as we prepare for the next phases in them.  I have all the usual parental ambivalence; proud that of the job we did as parents preparing a child for the world; sorry to see her enter that world as we say goodbye to what has been such a huge part and focus of our very existence.

I hope she is excited in Pittsburgh.  I hope I am too. 

It's really starting.

Yikes.

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