OK, so it's mid-August, which in most parts of the country (et tu, Houston?) means the dogs days of summer. It's been with some amusement, then, that I've been listening to people here in Portland whining about the heat. The high in yesterday was 100, and today it's supposed to be something like 104. Yeah, OK...so it's hot; I get that. After ten years in Houston, though, this all seems pretty manageable. The humidity this afternoon was 20%...Jeebus, y'all; haven't any of y'all been in Phoenix during the summer time? Two days of hot weather and you'd think that Portland is suddenly a suburb on the southern fringes of Hell. If this is as bad as it gets- and it really is- then we have nothing to complain about. Hey, I could still be stuck in Houston. Ughh....
There are a few things that make Portland ill-suited to hot weather, I suppose. F'rinstance, most apartments and houses aren't air-conditioned. Most days, all you have to do is open your window and the temperature inside ceases to be an issue. A box fan might come in handy, but that's about as far as one nornally has to go in dealing with the summer heat. A fair number of people here also drive cars without air conditioning. In Houston, one spends summer days moving from one air-conditioned environment to another. Here in Portland, you might prop a fan in a window, or, if you're in your car, you just roll down all the windows and stomp on the accelerator.
Yeah, so it's going to be 102 today. Big deal. I'll just pretend it's a cool day in Phoenix, and everything will be good. Besides, highs are supposed to be back in the mid- to low-70s by early next week. At least we don't have to live with the risk of hurricanes.
