Choose Your Own Adventure

Leaving your refrigerator door open is not an effective method to cool your home. Trust me on this one. With the hot summer days well upon us, we are all looking for ways to stay cool. I offer the following:

You arrive home, exhausted from work/school/family/insert other item here, and you find that you have a bottle of white reading water in the fridge. Lady Gaga streams from your ipod. You pour yourself a glass each of wine and soda water, sit down with The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt from NPR's suggested "Laugh Yourself Cool: 5 Funny Books to Beat the Heat" when the door bell rings. [Turn to page 47.]

or

You arrive home energized and eager to expand your mind's horizons on new material. You start your favorite Bach LP on your vintage record player and relax on the chaise with a title from NPR's "Summer's Biggest, Juiciest Nonfiction Adventures." A glass of red reading water sits on the small but sufficient end table to your left. Twenty pages into Turn Right at Machu Picchu, your telephone rings. [Turn to page 38.]