Ninety-one degrees, and my portable air conditioner is fighting the added heat of my second-floor, poorly insulated attic-turned-office at the very end of the work day. I don't know why I didn't think of this yesterday when it was ninety-six, but now I'm hauling out the box fan in an attempt to drag some of the cooler air over from the quarter of the room that the air conditioner's magic reaches.
Plug the thing in, start to walk away, yank the plug out somehow with my foot, step back over, plug it back in. Angle the thing toward my desk and then go sit down into the rush of relative comfort.
And it occurs to me. This is the first time I've taken the fan out since Nicholas. This is the first time in I couldn't say how long—years maybe—that I turned on a fan and aimed it at me instead of at a little warm body curled sleeping on his pillows at my feet.
