Many things do also make a post...

[akirlu]

...but this is really only one of them.



Here's a picture of cool evening for those who are about to have a stinking hot day. Yes, here in Seattle it's again going to be somewhere between the mid-80s and mid-90s today, which is of course why Weather Underground is posting an Excessive Heat Warning. There was a time, living in Southern California, when I would have scoffed at the idea of categorizing 85 degree temperatures as dangerously hot, but that was when living in a place where most buildings are air-conditioned. You try working productively indoors when the room is in the high 80s and see how much you get done.

This was shot Friday evening, just outside Chuckanut Manor restaurant, after a lovely seafood and prime rib dinner celebrating Hal's birthday.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I do every day (we can only afford to run the a/c when it's over 100) but yes, you're right, it's miserable. I have my spray bottle right here, and a fan going, and I keep my clothes and hair wet.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Yeah. Admittedly it was also easier for me in Southern California because once it got warm it stayed warm, and I acclimated to it. And our place in Costa Mesa was surprisingly cool almost all the time despite being an upstairs apartment -- I think it was the combination of tall ceilings and being angled in such a way that it caught the coastal breezes and we got really nice cross drafts with the windows open. Here what makes the heat grim when it comes is that it only comes in spikes, so my body has a chance to re-adjust to Seattle normal before the next hot spell comes to make me miserable again. Like tomorrow it's supposed to be back down in the 70s. So I probably won't resort to sleeping in the basement. Probably.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That acclimating thing is important. I always have a tough time each year when the really hot sets in, then it's business as usual for the next seven or eight months.

My spouse really noticed perceptions when he went to England for a seminar, the summer of 1981. He got off the plane at Heathrow, and got into line for the bus or train, I forget which, but there were a couple of older women fanning themselves, and one said to the other that the weather was intolerable, it had to be almost eighty. Since he'd just left temps of 114 for three straight weeks, he had just been thinking how wonderful it was to be so cool and pleasant.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, my facile quip for climate adjustment in these parts is, "Seattle makes weather wimps of us all." You move to Seattle, and in very short order you find yourself unable to tolerate extremes of temperature, whether hot or cold, that used to be trivial in prior sojourns elsewhere.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Here in Colorado at 7200 feet, few rural houses (at least those built thirty years ago) are air-conditioned. When we moved here in 1992, it was rare to have more than a day or so a year when we missed air conditioning. Now we are up to about seven or eight days each summer when it would be really nice. We make do with floor fans and ceiling fans, and try to keep the drapes shut to keep out the sun. If the overnights temp drop into at least the low 60s, the house cools off enough each night to be quite comfortable most of the next day.

[daystreet.livejournal.com]

Is that Chuckanut Drive? Used to love that thing on my motorcycle...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Chuckanut Manor is on Chuckanut Drive, yeah. It's a sweet little drive, so I can see why you would like it on the bike. We drove up it between Edison and Bellingham, and it's very reminiscent of parts of the coast road in Northern California. Much moreso than the coast road out on the Olympic Penninsula, which I found disappointing.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

How lovely.

I wish we had air conditioning. So do my cats.