I might go for a drive today. Not because I want to go anywhere, but I can turn up the air conditioning and be almost sweat-free for a half hour or so. Until my conscience gets the best of me: Fuel for our economic little Renault costs €1.70 a litre, or $7 and change a gallon. Not bad, and probably a decent price to pay so that my brain doesn’t fry.

In case you’ve been offline or not paying attention, Southern Europe is in the midst of a heat wave. I forgot the heatwave’s name this week—yeah, they started naming them in Europe. Maybe Cerberus? Anyway, it’s hot. Really hot. Go out the door and flinch hot. Here’s a screen shot from my weather app:

For the Celsius-challenged of you, 37 is body temperature; each degree C is almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit, so 38 is 100.4F. Ugh. Serves me right. A couple of years ago I boasted that we could live without air conditioning up here on our hill. My bad. Even our hyperactive puppy (and new addition to the fam) Niko has taken to sleeping in the dark during the day. Actually, all three of us do. We try to bottle the cool morning air by opening up overnight. Then in the morning, we close the shutters and lock the windows shut. Then while inside we live in the dark like vampires, trying to avoid too much movement. We make it outside to swim as the sun starts to descend late in the afternoon.

Problem is, people gotta eat. The Spartan Woman did make a supermarket run yesterday morning—lucky her, she got to turn on the A/C. Old Perugian friends were coming over and we had to feed them and us. But instead of the typical mid-day meal, we had cold stuff: cheese, a Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil), and salumi (Italian charcuterie, or cold cuts). We drank cold liquids and ate in our cool (literally) downstairs kitchen.

Luckily, we were able to go swimming. We built a pool when we bought this house and it’s the best investment ever. Silly me, after last month’s endless rain, dark cool cloudy days and general low temperatures, I thought we’d hardly get any use of the “cee-ment pond,” as they called the pool in that stupid TV series The Beverly Hillbillies. Wrong! I’d live in it if I could, except that I have to swim underwater to keep the sun from overheating my head. Yeah, I know, first world problem.

So, splashing around. That’s what we did all weekend. Friends and ex-colleagues of TSW were due to arrive in Perugia on Thursday, and we were going to show them the town. But a train strike put an end to that. They rebooked for Saturday, but instead of trekking around the hilly city and dying of heat stroke, we brought them to our lair and we spent a good part of their few hours here in the pool. It was a nice change for them from touring; the videos and photos from tourist favorites like the Trevi Fountain are horrifying for this crowd-averse blogger. Take a look: