Because our house is old and terribly insulated, the dog days of summer can be very uncomfortable. This last week, with temperatures reaching and overtaking 100 degrees, my thermostat has read 85 on more than one occasion.

Chilly, if you’re a reptile. But I’m more of a waddly little penguin, so it’s miserable. I have the fans going in every room, and I’m not embarrassed to admit I’ve spent the week in my underwear while the baby roams around in just a shirt and his diaper.

Forget classy, we’re going for cool.

A side effect of the heat is an awful bout of insomnia. I suffered through it for a couple of nights, but found that I was unable to think, write, function or properly execute acceptable hygiene practices.

So last night, I was determined to fall asleep at a decent hour. I popped two Simply Sleep, which are Tylenol PM’s without the Tylenol (basically Benadryl) and sat down to read email before bed.

Only, my email was chock full o’ blog subscriptions. So I began to comment. If I got to you in the beginning, I’m sure what I wrote was coherent. My deepest apologies to anyone I visited 20 minutes post medication.

I expected to nod off in the middle of writing, praising someone’s heartfelt blog entry with, “Great posssssssssssssssssss” as my head hit the keyboard, but a funny thing happened instead.

I was AWAKE!

So I got on the Twitter. This could have been bad, but looking back, most of my posts seem intelligible, so I’m not too worried today. I talked about parenting, met a bunch of dad bloggers and learned about something called a Tripel, and I’m pretty sure I told Jessica I was coming to visit her in Nevada.

I also had this mad craving for cold noodles. I could picture in my mind exactly what they would look and taste like. I knew that Sriracha would be involved.

It became a mission.

I dumped varying amounts of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, fish sauce and yes, the ever-tasty, always-good-in-a-pinch Sriracha in a bowl, whisked it around into an aromatic, savory nectar, and set about boiling the only noodles I had – some leftover Ramen from when my nephews were here.

Don’t judge. It was amazing. I rinsed the Ramen in cold water to chill it a bit, and ate the whole darn thing with chopsticks. Each bite was better than the one before: spicy, sweet, tangy – but most of all cold.

It was more refreshing after a hot, miserable day than any popsicle or lemonade. Ice cream pales in comparison.

What? I was high on antihistamines.

Anyway, I’m including the recipe below because after I go buy more rice wine vinegar and sesame seed oil, I’m going to try and make it for lunch today. I’m not sure if I can recreate it just so, but I’ll give it my best shot. We’ll see if it was the noodly paradise of my dreams, or if I was just stoned.

Noodly Near-midnight Nosh

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

3 tbps soy sauce

1 tbsp Sriracha

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp toasted sesame seed oil

Splash fish sauce

1 pkg Ramen (just the noodles) 

Boil Ramen. Drain and rinse with cool water until chilled. Mix vinegar, soy sauce, Sriracha, sugar, oil and fish sauce. Top with noodles. Swish around a bit. Slurp.

*Update: It tastes just as good sober! If you’re digging it, try this recipe from earlier in the year! I love the way the flavors combine in it.

Also! I’m linking this up with Bruna at Bees With Honey for Let’s Bee Friends. This week, she’s featuring Kim from Mama’s Monologues. I love Kim because she’s frank, funny, and she can rap.