summer's upon us

We've pretty much gone into excessive heat alert lockdown here at the Laurel Avenue summer estate. Which consists mainly of shutting all the windows, turning on our three pathetic window air conditioners and then pointing fans in all sorts of random directions. This in the hope that at least a little bit of cool air will collect in some corner, any corner, of the house. If that's actually happened, I haven't yet been able to figure out which corner it's hiding in.

I'm thinking about working up the energy to make a dash for the kiddie pool we've got filled up in the back yard. It looks like it's sitting in a nice puddle of shade from the little tree out there. But that would mean going out into that inferno and it's going to take some convincing before I decide that's worthwhile. My only other idea for beating the heat is to walk (or maybe drive) up to Snelling Avenue and do some circuit training between the Dairy Queen and a barstool at O'Gara's just across the street. But that would also involve enduring the Turkish bath conditions outside. I just don't know.

It could be worse. I could be at work and forced to unload pallets of cartons of textbooks onto a small cart and then schlep them into the store. I managed to duck that work detail this past week and I'm still trying to reconstruct whatever it was I did to avoid that. It would be worth remembering for the next time we get massive deliveries dropped at our doorstep. I did bring home a shopping bag full of paperwork from the store that needs to be pushed into various piles and marked up in ways that will guarantee that I won't remember what the markings mean when i get back to work. I think that I'm expressly forbidden from even thinking about my job during my off hours but I've had a tough time dumbing down to that extent. I'll probably never be the ideal government employee.

I, for one, am definitely grateful to be working. Plenty of other state employees aren't. I feel particularly bad for Kurt Zellers and Amy Koch, our GOP legislative honchos. Daily, these poor, humble servant leaders have to scuttle out into the bright, hot glare of the media spotlight and come up with new ways to call Mark Dayton a low-life dirtball who's intent on sabotaging the will of the people. GOPers love talking about the will of the people. Well, you didn't hear much of that will of the people stuff in late 2008 and into 2009 after they got their ears pinned back by that pesky Obamma and his evil ACORNers.

I don't give much credit to those carping lefty critics who accuse these hardworking Repubs of being dupes and lackeys of the corporate big money financiers and string pullers. Hey, hasn't anyone heard of trickle down economics? Doesn't everyone realize that if we just let the millionaires alone to run their businesses as they see fit, we'll see thousands of subsistence-wage, service industry jobs opening up for recession-plagued middle America? Why, some of those very jobs might be food service and swimming pool maintenance gigs at the country clubs of the upper crust. Or, for the most fortunate, jobs right on-site at the Lake Minnetonka and North Oaks mansions of the trickler-downers. Jeez, guys. Wise up.

I don't know about Speaker Zellers but Majority Leader Koch is reported to have refused her paycheck during the shutdown. She deserves tips of hats if this is the case. Maybe she's got some money stashed away at home or there's a second income in the family. At any rate, I'm thinking of taking up a collection to make things a little easier for the Speaker and the ML during these tough times. I was thinking that maybe we could pool our nickels and dimes and buy a new bowl for Kurt Zellers's haircuts. He's been looking a little more stylin' since he got his promotion last November but it couldn't hurt to have that extra bowl on hand if the evil DFL retakes the House in oh-twelve. I'm at a loss as to what to get for Senator Koch. The first things that come to mind are mean-spirited and, despite what people have come to expect from me, I'm going to resist those. I am open to suggestions, however.

OK, time to get serious about watching the tail end of the the Twins game and that shopping bagful of paper work (don't tell my boss). Maybe the Twinks can cling to their 5-0 lead over the hated Southsiders and maybe I'll actually push some of that paper into sensible piles. And there's always Dairy Queen calling.