I know it’s ridiculous to complain about the sunshine! and the gorgeous weather! and the warm! and the chance to go to the beach! again!!! but I am SO DONE with summer. It was an especially long and hot one here, made longer and hotter by the oven attached to my midsection. Plus, I FINALLY found a pair of brown flat boot to fit over my giant calves and I want to wear them before the pregnancy swelling gets too bad.

The in-between seasons – Spring and Fall – are the best times of the year here in New England. (Although I don’t know why I think of them as in-between. They’re just as long as the Winter and Summer.) And as much as I love the budding trees and melting snow and daffodils and balmy days in March April May, Fall is sort of New England’s “thing”. If you don’t slow down just a little to enjoy the beautiful hills flaming with reds and yellows and oranges or get the sudden urge for a steaming mug of mulled cider on a cool evening or sigh with happiness when the smell of wood stove starts drifting through the neighborhood then you’re dead inside. DEAD INSIDE.

But yesterday it was 84 degrees. And today it’s supposed to be almost 9o. And humid. I would be turning the air conditioning back on…if we had any air conditioning.

I’ve decided the best course of action is to just WILL Fall into being. I got out the pumpkin decorations. I changed the wreath on the door from a jaunty bucket of yellow (fake) flowers to (fake) twigs and leaves and berries. And then, in a blatant act of defiance against Mother Nature, I took Baby Evan apple picking. I wore flip-flops. He wore socks but no shoes (also known as the hobo baby compromise).

Holmberg Orchards

Baby Evan was REALLY convinced he wanted to eat one of the decorative gourds. He tried to sample one in every color.

He did a lot better in the orchard, although that face in the middle is from eating an apple he found on the ground. P.S. The adorable little girl is his friend Amelia. She's FRICKIN ADORABLE.

We’ll have to go back when it’s Fall for reals and do the hay ride and get our pumpkins and buy some mums and cider and do the rest of the traditional New England Autumnal Family Weekend. Hopefully when it’s cold enough to wear boots. Or at least shoes.

Or maybe this weather Al Gore’s fault. I think just to be safe we should go ahead blame all dudes named Al and force them to fan us with giant palm leaves and spritz us with Evian. That’s getting off pretty easy if you ask me. What I COULD do is trap them in an unairconditioned house with a grumpy, rashy, non-napping baby who screams unless he is ON YOU at all times. Of course, to make them TRULY appreciate my pain they would need to be pregnant too. And now I have an image of an Al Roker-Al Gore love child suck in my head. Even air conditioning can’t help me now.

We’re currently headed into week three of what the weathermen like to call “unseasonable warmth” which is a bit of a misnomer as the only place you could call 95 degrees “seasonable” is the surface of the sun or the fourth circle of Hell.

(I’m watching the Today Show as I write this and they’re doing a story about Yellowstone, where it is cool and shady and pleasant. Jenna Bush is on my TV wearing a FLEECE JACKET. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a member of the Bush family more than I do right now.)

The real problem with this weather isn’t the actual temperature, it’s the duration. There are generally a few days every summer in late July or August where the humidity is out of control and the heat is unbearable and half the population runs off to Walmart to fist-fight for the last of the AC window units while the other half stands naked in front of box fans reminding themselves over and over that this too shall pass. When you know you’ve only got a couple weeks to go before Labor Day you can sweat through this kind of misery.

But it is JUNE, barely the start of summer in Connecticut, and I am one of the many many residents of the North East who have no air conditioning (or any hope of getting some – our windows are the wrong size, the house is too big and leaky to do much good, we can’t afford the unit OR the electricity). This is also barely the start of my second trimester, which seems to have gotten confused with my first trimester, since it’s given me all day nausea and zapped my energy and ripped away every ounce of patience I was clinging to when it comes to handling a toddler. The best I can do right now is pray for some relief from the afternoon thunderstorms the weatherman keeps promising but never seem to appear, drink iced tea by the gallon and refuse to move any more than absolutely necessary.

Or maybe move to Seattle. I hear they don’t have this problem.