Summer has arrived.

Officially.

And here in San Diego we had a rather unusual start to the first weekend of summer. It was actually H.O.T.!!! Yesterday was the hottest day I have EVER experienced in San Diego. It hit 89 degrees in central and coastal San Diego, and the inland part of the county hit 116! Our only saving grace was that there wasn't a lot of humidity.

There is a misconception that San Diego gets as hot as L.A. and Orange County does in the summertime, but that is actually not true. San Diego is south and west of the Santa Ana Mountains, so the way the wind brings in ocean cooled air makes the county cooler than northern counties in the summer.

It is not unusual to be 10 to 25 degrees cooler than northern counties, no matter what the season. Most summers it stays between 70 and 85 degrees pretty much the whole summer, especially in the coastal areas. So, this weekend has been pretty reminiscent of my years growing up in the intolerable summer heat of Chicago, although not as humid.

But, I would be an ungrateful person if I complained about a few days of heat. Listening to the news and hearing about homes swept up in floods around the Mississippi, I quickly thank God that I only have to contend with a few days of heat. It is a horrible start to their summers, for sure.

In our little 150 square feet of shared space, we have become kind of a precision driven unit, by necessity no doubt. It feels as if we're in some kind of a bunker. Without television, we resort to reading, talking, napping, laughing, occasionally "debating", working on the house, and more reading, when we're home. Otherwise, we have plenty to occupy our time.

Speaking of reading, I was in Chicago for Father's Day weekend and I had to go through 3,000+ books of mine and pick ones I wanted to keep and ones I had to donate to the library because my parents are selling our Chicago home. It was a trip down memory lane and it was so difficult having to pick between my books. I saved about 200 of them and will have to find bookshelves or something for them when they arrive out here to San Diego. I'm sure Ed will be thrilled. Great, more of my crap to fill up the newly remodeled home. Ha!

Let's see....shopping for tile, wood flooring, carpet, paint, shower heads, fixtures, and all kinds of home stuff pretty much took up our entire day yesterday. When we arrived home we found a couple of HOT dogs waiting for a cool treat. I quickly whipped up a smoothie of peanut butter, crushed ice, a wee bit of vanilla ice cream, and frozen banana. Achilles & Milo slurped their treat bowls clean. I swear, I heard an audible sigh of relief from them, "Aaaaaah, that was sooo refreshing Momma!"

Today, I walked my boys early in the morning on the shady side of the street. We then decided to take Stinker Butt and Fish Head to the dog wash. It has been a while for them. Two purposes served: 1) get them clean and 2) cool them off. So, off to Noah's Ark in Pacific Beach we went.

Stinker Butt and Fish Head packed up and movin' to the dog wash.
Stinker Butt gets a whole dog's worth of undercoat brushed out of his fur. That should cool him down some, huh? WOW. I was drenched in sweat after completing this task since Stinker Butt Milo kept hopping around the tub trying to escape the evil villain that is the undercoat comb. Oooh, scary!
But, I figured brushing Milo out was probably a whole lot better than having the task of doing so for this snowball. Let me introduce you to Maako. His papa spent over an hour brushing him out, and then about another hour bathing him, and then a half hour blowing him out. DOUBLE WOW. His face looks like a sweet cookie in this picture and I wanted to gobble him up he was so cute! Adorable!

Back to Stinker Butt, with the undercoat brush out complete, it was time for papa to get to work. Our boys were diiiiiirty. Two bottles of shampoo were needed for each. All the dust and debris of the remodel really settled into their coats.
Stinker Butt no more! Papa made *very sure* of that!
Meanwhile, Fish Head only likes mama bathing him. He looks so scrawny and puppy-like when he's wet.
"Hey mama, what's up!? Ready to lather me up?"
Towel massage time. This is Achilles' favorite part. Sometimes he'll lean his head into my belly and just remain there for 3 or 4 minutes as I massage him with the towel. I need to hire someone like that for own self!
Sweaty, hot Mama and scrubbed, shiny Achilles. No more Fish Head!
Finally, it was time to head home. Dog was our co-pilot.
Co-pilot wanted to shift for papa sometimes, but he tends to ruin the clutch so we don't really let him drive much.

Normally we take the boys out for lunch at a patio grill and then for frozen yogurt after their baths, but it was too hot today. We brought them home and I whipped another smoothie for them instead. They're both crashed now, sleeping off another tiring trip to Noah's Ark.

Now, I'm waiting for it to cool down a bit so I can attack the clean up of one of our spare bedrooms. Since it is the official beginning of summer, I decided to change up the colors of my blog. I went with a cool, oceanic/aquatic color. It felt soothing to me on such a hot day. I also need to add some blogs to my links and update some pictures. Of course, I got as far as changing some of the colors and then decided to take a "break" and post instead. Hence, this post.

Before I go, just wanted to gush over our Captain Morgan. I feel he gets the short end of the blog attention stick, when in reality he is a major part of our every day interactions. This morning I had cold ravioli and broccoli for breakfast. Don't ask why, I just had a taste for it. El Capitan happens to love broccoli. I love how he holds and eats it.

Lest you think that El Capitan is some kind of a vegetarian health freak, I'll let you watch him decimate a Cheez-it. He is very precise in how he eats his food. A Cheez-it requires exact, geometrical gnawing. He eats each corner of the sqare first, and then continues circling the cracker in his foot as he eats until finally he has a tiny little circle of cracker left to gulp. One day I'll capture him eating a strand of spaghetti. Let me just say it is HILARIOUS.

He is such a sweet soul. Someone in Blogistan asked if El Capitan gets along with our doggies, and the answer is yes!

But, that is not to say that all Goldens will get along with birds since they are bred to retrieve birds. We actually took El Capitan up to Orange County to see how well Achilles reacted to him before we adopted Achilles. Same for Milo. We got lucky that both of our puppies peacefully coexist with CM. That's not to say that Milo wasn't "curious" at first, but he has since outgrown that and they are now BFFs.

Our bunker at bedtime. All the animals snuggled in and getting ready to snooze.

You know, it has been a challenge coexisting in this space, but I've got to say that I will actually miss it a little bit. It has been close, cozy, humorous, affectionate and pretty fun most of the times. We've certainly had our share of laughs as we bumped past each other and slid behind walls of boxes. A bit like "I Love Lucy", especially when something comes sliding off the wall of boxes and one of us says something like,

"Oh, oops. I thought I'd secured that."