Summertime ...

Look at one of those color-coded temperature maps of the USA, and it's all orange and red for today and tomorrow.

Local forecasters are predicting 102 degrees F. in balmy Portland and vicinities. (That's about 39 degrees C. for those of you who are Fahrenheit-ly challenged.)

And we aren't gonna be anywhere near the warmest, locally or nationally. Supposed to be five or six degrees hotter than that just over the hill in central and eastern Oregon.

Just after eleven a.m. as I write this, and in the mid-eighties, going up fast enough to look like the minute hand on a clock. Risen two degrees since I started typing.

I took the dogs out early, the sun was already sharpening its claws ...

I realize this is nothing for you folks who live on the Equator, and not even a patch on the summer days back in Louisiana -- where you could get three-digit temperature and matching humidity at the same time.

At least it will be dry here -- humidity staring out about thirty-five percent and dropping to half that when the heat peaks. But still warm enough in a place where most folks still don't have air conditioners. I have a window unit out in the garage, but I usually don't bother to truck it into my office until we get several days of ninety-plus and it looks as if it isn't going to cool off for a week or two.

I gotta go water the garden and fill up the kiddie pool for the dogs now.

Summer has entered the building ...