Caps Without Markers

Sounds better than markers without caps. For some reason.

I wanted to be sure I didn't give the wrong impression of a smoothly-running, no-speed-bumps kind of school.

Today it was 110 in the yard and about 100 degrees in the house. We don't have air conditioning. Almost no one here does--with average year-round temperatures around 70 and lows in the 50s, why on earth would you need it? We just open our windows at night and wake up to a cool, fresh house. Shut the windows and it stays cool during the heat of the day. Usually. You only need it about 7 days out of the year. Today was one of those days--and tomorrow should be another one. Whew!

Last night we had sundowners, which are hot winds coming down the mountains (instead of outr usual cool mountain air, or occasionally cool ocean breezes). The sundowners just started up again tonight--it had dropped to 94 outside, but now at nearly 9pm it's back up to 99. this means we can't cool the house off overnight--which means tomorrow will be muy toasty.

So, I'm sure you can understand why Pixie didn't ever get around to doing her math today--she had ridden her scooter outside in the morning for a bit at recess, only it was so hot that upon her return she got in a cool bath and I just didn't have the heart to make her get out. We'll double up tomorrow.

The real fiasco was Wombles, though--dear Wombles, playing so well in his room while I taught Bud his Math. Dear Wombles, playing so well with his trains while we finished up the Gupta Dynasty of India.


Dear Wombles. Pixie saw him and started yelling. His clothes were soaking, but not with sweat.



Dear Wombles--he put five markers in his pocket without the caps on. "Do you know what that stuff does to a kid?" (Name the movie, -ish).



It made the marker I just cleaned off the tile look positively tame.

Under the Clothes

When I got home from teaching Spanish this afternoon, J had the kids doing their science. With a window air-conditioning unit in the sliding glass door (since the fire, our new windows cannot accommodate one). Brilliant. He's amazing. It's the only thing keeping the main part of the house remotely comfortable right now. We're trying to use fans to blow the air into the kids' rooms.