The boys are in the kitchen, playing Cadoo.  I am still trying to wake up. 

I hate this heat.  It’s overwhelming and stifling and it makes for dog days of summer before we’ve even gotten to July.  We don’t have a membership to a pool (although we may be remedying that shortly) and none of the family has a lakehouse of any sort, so we’ve resorted to board games and cartoons. 

I HATE THAT WE CAN’T BE OUTSIDE.

The Boy and Bryan both love taking their new bikes out, but damn, when it’s already 85 by ten o’clock in the morning, you hate to think of climbing on to a black leather seat.  I’m a huge fan of walking down to Five Points for no particular reason, but God, I can’t do this heat.

This week is going to be a bear for me.  We’ve got a huge offsite on Wednesday, which means late hours and long days every day until Thursday.  But then, Bryan and I head north for a few days away.  I can’t wait.

(They have a pool.)

For all of you pregger folk, Motherhood Maternity in Madison Square Mall is having a great sale right now.  I found a lot of cute dresses on sale for $14-$19.  Shirts were even less.  Now, I didn’t pick up anything, payday being Thursday and all, but I thought I’d share the news.

It’s so cool to bring out games that we haven’t played in a couple of months and listen to The Boy now read the cards/questions without pause.  He read “iguana” the other day without even sounding it out.  Won big props from me.

And before I leave, I want to give you some TV notes I’ve been meaning to share with you for the last week (since we’re coming into the great summer reality tv blitz):

• How ecstatic was I to watch the Top Chef Smackdown between seasons 1 & 2 last week?  And as a reminder, the premiere of Season 3 is this Wednesday on Bravo.
• Speaking of chefs, Hell’s Kitchen is back with a vengeance.  We missed the premiere last week, but they’re showing an encore (followed by a new one) this Monday night on Fox.  We’ll be taping, since we have a tournament game to play.
• So You Think You Can Dance has returned to the top of my “must watch list”, and they just selected the top 20 competitors last week.  I was so proud of the judges this year for not pulling any punches (like those crappy, sugar-coated judges on Dancing with the Stars) and for defending their art.  And.. I hate to share this info, like if I hold it close to my chest, I’ll be the ONLY one there.. but Wade Robson is slated to teach a master class here at the new Merrimack Theatre.
• Oooh, oooh, following Hell’s Kitchen?  Flip over to ABC for a new Super Nanny.
• Has anyone been watching the new ABC series The Next Best Thing?  It features celebrity impersonators, which is either really cool or really, really hard to watch.  We’ve seen some stellar Roseanne impressions, some good Kramer impressions, and one really, really dead-on Borat impression.  Catch some yourself (and you’re guaranteed to try a few) Wednesday nights.

And since I’ve adequately given you tv viewing pleasure for the next week, I’ll leave you.