Summer Finally Arrives

Been a cool and wet spring -- big surprise in Oregon and SW Washington -- but finally, yesterday, summer got here. 101 degrees F. in beautiful Beaverton officially, a degree hotter than that at Steve's house, by two different thermometers. Dry, hot, great. Got the wading pool out for the dogs, kept the lights mostly off in the house, let the computers sleep when we weren't using them. We drank enough ice water to float a battleship.

We do have a window unit AC, but we generally hold off installing it unless it looks as if we are going to get a week's worth of such days. As long as it cools off in the evening, it's not so bad, and our house has storm windows and lots of trees in the yard, so it stays relatively cool until late in the day.

When you string four or five such days together, usually at the end of August, and it stays at seventy degrees all night so the house doesn't cool down, then we unpack the AC from the garage and stick it in my office window. Computer starts to do funny things north of ninety degrees, and that's not good.

Cooler today -- might hit ninety -- and muggier -- got some clouds, and a chance of isolated afternoon thundershowers. Rest of the country has been sweltering or drowning, so we can't complain because we had one day of a hundred-plus temperatures.

(You can cook an egg on the sidewalk when it gets hot enough, but it doesn't exactly fry. On top a dark automobile, though, it will cook pretty fast -- though it's not a good idea if you value the paint job ...)