What a Difference a Day Makes

Wow - air conditioning is nice. Really, really nice. So nice I could keep talking about how nice it is for about an hour. Though I'd be repetitive.

Portland's all time record high temperature is 107 degrees. The news stations all went on about how we were going to hit that record Wednesday. Portland news stations are like that. In Alaska, the wind would be howling around the house and I'd search all over the news to see if it was safe to go to work, and they'd finally say something like, "It's gusty in the valley this morning. It's pretty slick, too." Winds to 60 mph and more on an icy day and that's all I'd get. In Portland, every year at least once all regular programming stops for hours because two inches of snow fall, with reporters standing ankle deep in slush in an intersection, pretty much saying, "Yep, look, snow!" except with a lot more words.

And don't laugh so hard about two inches of snow, Alaskans. I say this with love, but I've seen how you drive. Portland has, like, two snow plows, and most of the vehicles on the road are rear wheel drive with regular tires. Portlanders aren't complete babies.

So back to summer - sorry I got distracted. It's easy to do when you are sitting in air conditioned bliss (it's SO nice). So Wednesday the weather doesn't even bother to get up to 107. We got 106. It's miserably hot, who asked Portland to turn into Phoenix, and it doesn't even hit the record high. We hit the high for July 29. Oh, and we hit the all time high night time low, if you can follow that. Lame.

Monday evening I ventured out to the vegetable garden to water my seeds, and amazingly, I had sprouts! And after all my whining about how it was all going to shrivel up and die on me, here are seeds coming up in less than a week. I had to show everybody. I nearly ran out into the street and dragged pedestrians to the back yard so they could see, too. My theory is that the ground is so hot the little guys wanted to throw their jackets off and pop out of the ground. I definitely need to remember this for spring planting. Those warming pads for seed trays could make a big difference. And so far, the seedlings are doing just fine. I'm watching over them like a mother hen.

The vet didn't buy my "my son made the dog sick" story. But he did prescribe her Robitussin DM and Benadryl. I kid you not. He took pity on our unemployed state and did some conversion math in his head so we could use OTC people medicine on our dog. She doesn't like the taste of Robitussin any more than I do, but I don't make near as much fuss. I don't think. No, I'm sure I don't make that much fuss.

Rick applied for a job with the FAA (seriously) and I sent off my soon to be famous children's story, "The Moose Ate My Broccoli." We'll keep you posted.

love,

cat