Thursday, July 30, 2009

Shock to the system

Temp Trio
I've been re engaging with a skillset I thought I had lost. It's the secret art of keeping a house cool during intense heat. Growing up in Southern California, I'm used to warm weather, and going to school in the Northern Central Valley of California, that was major heat. But there were beaches and rivers and parks with rivers and cool places to incorporate into your daily life. Including numerous pools. Aah, to have an inground pool.

Here in Portland? Few and far between of us have Central A/C. There's not much need for it. But this week we've just been slammed with a heatwave that seems to want to hang around and stay awhile. I snapped the photos above in my car: I thought the 105 was shocking. But a little while later there was the 108, and whoa, the 109. Those are numbers I don't think I've ever seen in Portland. This is hot. As in hawt hot. The kind of hot where you lay down in bed at night and the sheets are hot. You go to sleep sweating and you wake up sweating. You shower and you're already sweating. The cats lounge lazily, spread out all over the floor, just like cat butter (hat tip to WM for that term!). The air is heavy and the sun is truly that burning orb in the sky we call out for in the bleak days of February. Here, grey, dark February, is your wish.

I've been throwing open all windows early in the morning and blasting the fans to turn the air around. Just as the sun hits the house or windows, the windows are shut, doors are closed, and shades are drawn. For windows without shades, covered in paper or my black presentation boards pull double duty. The little window AC unit turns on, and that is it. It's been livable, actually. Given, the trees and garden help tremendously. And don't let me catch anyone holding a door open...

Until 9pm, things stay closed, and then, the garden watering begins. The impatiens are angry at me, declaring they didn't sign up for heat like this. I mist their downtrodden heads. And everything else is getting deep saturated watering at their roots, slowly and determinedly. So grateful we got in those soaker hoses. Well, almost all of them. Dangit! The tomatoes are growing by leaps and bounds in this weather, and I can practically hear the corn ripen.

My computer tells me we won't be back down to our normal 80's until Tuesday. Oh sigh. Keep your fingers crossed for those thirsty hydrangeas and very sad impatiens: it's going to be a long, hot week.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

you are living in my world!!! good thing there is relief in sight...send some this way..haha

love you..

Kari said...

Whoa! That is HOT! There is something so nice about summer heat though. You make watering at 9:00 p.m. sound fun and refreshing - stay cool!

Zoe said...

Seems like you guys have our usual end of July weather, I feel for you. It's been unusually cool here, and I love it.
Hope you get some relief soon.

Heather said...

OMG! When you first posted those photos, I thought it was the speed you were driving, not the temp!

Malady said...

Tell me about it! I thought my cat was dead yesterday when I saw her motionless on my carpet (in my non-airconditioned second-story apartment.) But she wasn't dead, just hot.