Hot, hot, hot

It hit 90 degrees in Boston today, and when you add the famous New England humidity factor, it’s pretty miserable outside. It’s not much better inside, unless you have a good air conditioner or central air. We have air conditioning in just one room — the upstairs bedroom (because the entire upstairs is as stifling as an oven if you don’t turn on an air conditioner). Our downstairs air conditioner would normally cool the living room, where I’m sitting right now, but a pair of swallows built a nest beneath it this spring. I can hear almost constant chirping coming from the nest now, so the babies must have hatched (although you’d think it would be late in the season for that). I therefore adamantly refuse to turn on the air conditioner (to my husband’s chagrin), for fear of frightening away the avian parents and harming the little ones.

So here I sit, sweating in the living room with my laptop set up on a small fold-out table, a fan blowing hot air at my face. And the birds are chirping away, oblivious to the fact that their decision to build a nest in my windowsill has made the summer a bit challenging.

I’m reading (or listening to) several books at the moment — Tana French’s “The Likeness” (the second in the mystery series that started with “In the Woods”), Daniel Silva’s “The Rembrandt Affair,” (which I listen to in the car periodically on long trips, because I love the Israeli spy protagonist, Gabriel Allon), and Ned Stuckey-French’s informative new book, “The American Essay in the American Century.” I’ve just started Ned’s book, but I can already tell it’s going to be both engaging and informative. I was hooked as early as the preface.

I have so many books waiting to be read around the house — Meg Tuite’s “Domestic Apparition” is up next. I recently received my beautiful signed copy, ordered from Meg’s website, here. And the essays that are piling up! Don’t get me started.

So much reading, so little time. Although I might have more of the latter if I didn’t get caught up in the  sound of baby birds chirping, and lose all my energy melting in the heat.