you watching the weather on the local news channel and hoping the weatherman mentions that a hurricane is heading towards the nearest coastline.

...when you visit relatives in a city located by Lake Michigan, take a boat tour of the harbor on a cold, windy day, and stay alone on the deck in the 50 degree weather with the wind and drizzle lashing at your body, your nose and hands going numb - and loving it because it had been so long since you had felt this cool...

(true story! the tour guide and crew thought my family was nuts. they kept asking us if we didn't want to come into the cabin where we could be warm :) we just laughed.

when you have to go to the ER to have the watering hose extracted from your hand.

...your air conditioner goes out! Really. It was finally fixed this morning. As you burn up with the heat, you're willing to do what it takes. Load the credit cards down and give up any cash you have. Whatever it takes. Too HOT to wait!

Anytime the weatherman predicts highs of 98 and 10 percent chance of rain you laugh and tell yourself that's just his wishful thinking...

It'll be 102 with no rain forever...

You see pictures of your garden in past "drought" years and wonder how it ever really looked that good.

Linda - Glad you got the A/C fixed so you're okay now.

I want to kick the pretty of white face of my brandnew AC in. That Damn Hummmmmmmmm is driving me nuts.

You want to jump through the phone and throttle your mother when she tells you it's 85 degrees and raining in your hometown. I don't want to know, mom...

When considering companion plants for roses, or what's left of them, you can only think of cactus and agaves.

When you consider 103 a "cool" spell.

You actually appreciate the sight of the first mesquito you see and feel. There is hope?

When you find yourself doing Emotional Freedom Technique and saying the Ho'oponopno prayer asking for forgiveness and love from your garden for stopping watering it. I am truly loosing my mind here.

When your kids ask what you wished for when you blew out your birthday candles and you answer "rain".

when your boss takes a vacation and drives to michigan... about half way their, he runs into a rain storm and starts sending everyone back in TX pictures of the rain... and it's all anyone can talk about the next two days. - true story

You run around in little circles screaming at the top of your lungs nonsensical words in your pasture because you hope it might amuse God enough to let it rain. Or you go snake hunting hoping to find one to hang one belly up on the fence.

1. When you want your town to cancel all events that bring in out-of-towners and subsequent extra flushing/bathing that will stress the already stressed aquifers.

2. When you ride around in your car, talking smack about the people who have a green yard.

3. When you regularly get into internet arguments over who's the driest/hottest one of all.

4. When you start getting that faraway stare of the early settlers...

you go to Seattle and are disappointed by the sun shining the whole trip. I really would have liked to see rain.

I want to see that rain HERE! Right here over my house and property! Rain elsewhere only feeds the rage...makes you want to throttle the people elsewhere that are whining...that are wishing it would stop raining long enough to get outside and enjoy their wet, soggy, lush green yards! Grrrrr!

When you see a picture of a sunflower field in Fukushima prefecture, grown to extract radioactive chemicals from soil and water, and all you can think is "How beautiful, those green and yellow sunflowers had lots of water".

Sigh. I'm sorry they have something worse than drought. That is beautiful farming country.

When you get an email from your friend at 5:30 am and find out she has been up gardening all night "under the BIG lights" because of the heat and you realize that we are all loosing our lives and turning into Bats as she so eloquently says. I never go outside after 9am if I can help it. OH dear, I need to now...D@MN IT!!!!

When you invent Rube Goldberg contraptions in your head to reuse toilet, shower, sink, dishwasher, and washing machine water.

You are working outside in the shade, and your 3 dogs who normally will not leave your side go on the porch and start crying. They want inside where it is air conditioned. They leave you outside for hours while they enjoy the cool air. Barbra

When you hear on the weather report on the 5:00 news that it is 106 in Dallas, glance over at your thermometer and smile because it's only 104 here. Then I thought, "what am I thinking! That's still too hot!"

When you go to Lowe's, then across the street to Home Depot, then back to Lowe's, and stop in the aisle because you feel the breeze of the air conditioner there, and EVERY Lowe's employee who walks by has another suggestion for their favorite place to stand and cool off.

Hey, I was blooming and the nectar was running down my back.

Barbra, my cat does that too.

When you spend a lot of time asking yourself if you really want to live in a desert.

When you actually think of moving back to your hometown because it's so much cooler and raining there ....

You go to a different church and look to see where the regulars are sitting because they know where the cool places are.

Your good friends who are farmers tell you they are checking everyday on the prices and availability of acreage in Oregon. But they can only afford one trip so they'll have to buy site unseen and stay when they get there.

I'm the one with the big lights. Turns out to be the best gardening investment we ever made. It gets downright tolerable out there after 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. Thats when the ground quits sending up heat like an iron and you can get in a good two or three hours. I haven't seen my garden up close in the daytime in two months. I look down from the upstairs window and decide what I need to do next or where it absolutely needs water.

I've been making the rounds and spraying coreid bugs off the cactus with Raid almost every night. The Texas guys finally found me up here. "If you plant it, they'll come" Thank you Mara, for the bugs.

You don't see anything wrong with this picture until you read it on a garden forum. I guess another symptom would be using binoculars to check out plants from upstairs for a closer look at what needs tending and what is doing what that you put on your to do list come 3:00 a.m when it cools down to the 80's.

{{gwi:1368523}}

You know it's getting to you when one stares at green globs on the radar and then call up people you know just to hear the raindrops drumming on their roof and the water coursing down their rainspout and spilling out UNUSED on the ground. The long distance bill on the landline is going to hurt. I called my sister in New Zealand after checking her out on Weather underground and seeing that green blob over her house. She was COLD AND WET. A double whammy. I called my other sister in Alaska to hear her storm. She said "Termination dust" ( snow that marks the end of summer ) was falling on the mountains. I cross the OK-TX border to digitally visit our fellow sufferers on the OK Garden forums on GW just to hear them proclaim RAIN RAIN!!!! Then I check small towns in New Mexico to see their precipitation amounts, chasing rainstorms.

HEY , Janet you were complaining that you had those bugs before my cactus because you told me how to deal with them when I asked, early on. Maybe you sent them to me (naah). I think you made such an oasis for them they had to stop sucking juniper trees and come to your place for the good stuff. The drought has been a deterrent for those rascals here. I have only had about two batches of them and I got them when they were tiny. I caught a heard of them today and got the mama too.

I think I need to send you some infra red nighttime visors to you. So you can turn off that light and let your neighbors get a good night sleep.

I can tell funny stories but this summer is really getting me set up for a deep depression. I haven't been depressed like this in years.

Mara, those corieds I had before were merely scouts. I realize this now. The mass invasion this year is no laughing matter. I am on my third can of Raid. I got the pump type last time. Maybe the cactus in Texas are just so shriveled they can't suck out a single drop there. So here they come to my garden. You know, it don't take much watering to plump a cactus up and keep her going for quite some time. I could brag about this but I feel people from Texas would start throwing some other plague my way.

We are out of the humidity and back in the Heat Dome. I have to say, my choice is the Heat Dome. We at least get some breeze with it and really, the diff between 99 to 101 + humidity and 107 without humidity and some wind is an easy choice for me. You can't even breath in that other situation. Any rain hasn't been worth the cost of the next couple of days and then its dry as a bone again.

marti8a
Where did you get that picture of me?
That is how I feel like I look by 11:30 AM every morning.

love that picture Marti, even if it's a shot of Soxxxx :-)

Marti, Your future is so bright, You should have worn shades

Thanks wantonamara. I think?

I got that picture in an email. It just cracked me up.

I was quoting a song from Timbuk 3. The picture made me think of it for some reason.

...when you start a crazy obsession with non-native houseplants because you can't bear to watch the decline of every one of your little Texas-native, drought-tolerant, unkillable and practically invasive garden-plants die.

On the brightside... my Texas-Star Hibiscus has not skipped a beat even with the watering ban... and her flowers actually last past noon with the latest cool front!

Thanks guys! Y'all had me cracking up with this post!
~Sara

Oh, ok, mara. I didn't know what you meant. I haven't heard that song I guess.

I have been told that my humor can be a little hard to get sometimes. sorry. I guess it was a play on skeletons not having a future and it always being so d@mn bright out there...maybe I just wanted to put some Fostor Grants on that guy.
-Mara