What to do when you're hot & crankyand without air conditioning

1. Sit in front of the fan.
2. Fill a blue glass spritzer bottle with cold water and lavender essential oil (or whatever else you like – ylang ylang is good if the heat is giving you anxiety attacks) and spray yourself with it while sitting in front of the fan.
3. Line a shallow pan with a hand towel, set a block of ice on the towel, and then set the whole thing on top of another towel in front of the fan. Then position yourself in such a way as to catch the cool breeze as it flows across the ice.
4. Fill a round purple plastic basin with ice chips and water, set it on a towel on the floor in front of the tv, and stick your feet in it, while sitting in front of the ice in front of the fan.
5. Put some ice in a ziploc bag, wrap it in a damp dish towel, and drape it over your neck while you sit in front of the fan with your feet in the basin of ice water.
6. Fill the outdoor bathtub with cold water from the hose, and sink yourself in it until only your nose and mouth are sticking out. Float like that for as long as you can stand it, listening to your own heartbeat and trying to calm down.
7. Consider trying to sleep under water ... various combinations of drinking straws, snorkels, pvc pipe, et cetera. Realize that this is not possible.
8. Cry.
9. Go to Friedman’s to buy an air conditioner. Find out they have not had any in since yesterday. Their last shipment was gone within ten minutes of being brought out onto the sales floor.
10. Go home and lie in the tub some more. Try to get a grip on yourself.
11. Drag out the old crusty air conditioner that was buried in the pile of stuff that was supposed to be going to the dump, praying all the while that it still works.
12. Stab yourself in the eyeball with a piece of rebar while leaning in to see what the air conditioner is stuck on.
13. Finally get the air conditioner in place and plugged in, and discover that – YES! – it does still work.
14. Fall asleep on the living room floor, snoring like a pirate (complete with eye patch, ostentatious jewelry and filthy, sweaty shirt open to the breastbone).

Sorry for the boring list; I haven't been sleeping and my brain is fried.

The old air conditioner is working, sort of. Definitely better than nothing. I hate myself for using it – I know it's probably leaking dangerous chemicals all over the atmosphere. But that's what happens when you reach the apex of misery. Your world shrinks to the size of a single, quivering drop of sweat and you cease caring about anything but finding relief.

Is it really hotter in Davis than it is here? I keep hearing that yes, it really is. Hrrmm.

We did another bee thing on Saturday, hive maintenance – scraping wax off the bottom of each frame so they don't build it all up inside into one huge mass of honeycomb, a difficult mess to separate. I wore long sleeves and pants, and socks for the first (and probably only) time this summer. Also a hat, veil and elbow-length white leather gloves. Trés elegant.

It was lovely inside the hive. Gold and brown and sweet-smelling, bees everywhere, humming and buzzing and fanning their wings. I held a softball-sized swarm of bees in my hands like a present.