I thought the North was cold.

It hasn't rained in over a week now. It's been nothing but bright blue sunny days. Because the sun is almost always up, it gets much hotter than what we're used to. I'm talking stinking hot. I'm talking, I-want-to-throw-up hot.

Another one of the local characters came into the store today. Walter comes in every day, sometimes two or three times a day. He stops to talk with just about everyone he meets, wearing his ever-present smile and his ever-present navy blue ballcap. It's not really a ballcap. It's more like one of those trucker hats that were in style for about three days a few years back.

Walter only goes at one speed: slow. He walks slow, talks slow, and drives his truck (which is the same color as his hat) slow. I always greet Walter by name. I don't think he knows my name yet.

"Hello Walter."

His ever-present grin gets a bit wider.

"Feels like we're under siege out there."

"Yeah. it's pretty hot. Supposed to be like this for the rest of the week."

"Like the movie, Steven Segal. Under Siege. That's a joke."

"Ah, haha. Yeah. Good movie."

Maybe you had to be there for that one.

We discovered on Saturday that our fridge is dead. I wasn't sure until after I ran into J, our landlord, on the road. Luckily we still have a deep freeze, and the freezer on the fridge still works. Because there is so little fresh produce in town, the only thing at risk of rotting was our milk. I'm fairly sure it has rotted by now, but I'm afraid to check.

Nicole and I have to pay our first month's rent on Thursday. We decided to go to J and offer to take care of buying and setting up the fridge. The cheapest fridge at the store is just over $1000, which coincidentally is what we will owe in rent.

You would think that tracking down one person in a town of four hundred would be easy. Not so. At lunch, J was "uptown." We live "downtown" in Tulita. Uptown is anything south of the store. His mom said he had broken some ribs on the weekend while doing stunts on his bike. I am not making this up. I don't think she was making that story up either. It would explain why J was rubbing his ribs while hanging of his girlfriend on Saturday.

She told me he would be home soon. I left my number. After supper (chicken that we took out to thaw yesterday and was starting to smell funky), I went over to his place again. His mom still hadn't seen him. She thought he was uptown.

"Any idea where 'uptown' he might be?"

"No. Not sure. He'll be home soon."

I think she's covering for him.