And I thought it wouldn't be hot enough...

When I decided to move to Portland, all anyone could talk about was how rainy it was going to be. "Ugh, but the weather!" they would say. I think it was just one of their many totally transparent attempts to get me to stay in LA...where the sun always shines...but I saw right though it. Sure, Portland is known for its dreary and rainy weather. But, everyone who lives here says that they have marvelous summers. All reports indicated that the summers are beautifully sunny with moderate temperatures. I liked the sunny part...but moderate temperatures? Like, in the 70s? All summer? Some of you may think that's perfect...but I'm the kind of girl who likes it hot. 70s don't cut it for my perfect summer. I like it in the 80s with occasional days in the 90s (very dry of course, no more Washington DC summers for me, thank you...I only like to feel that wet when I've come out of the shower). But hot weather is what summers are all about. I want the weather to make me feel the urge to run through a sprinkler or jump in a fountain. I don't want to be shivering in the cool breeze of a moderately warm day after I come squealing out of the arches of water spewing from the ground. So, I have to admit that I had my concerns that I wouldn't be hot enough this summer.

Well, all of those concerns were allayed this week. Actually, the whole summer has been more than moderately warm. I am convinced I moved to Portland at exactly the right time. It has been quite perfect on most days. There has been the occasional rainy day or cloudy morning, but all in all, it's been lovely...until this week. Portland has been in the middle of a record breaking heat wave. And, while the competitive side of me totally loves when records of any kind are broken, I'd prefer they not be broken while I'm stuck in traffic in a black car with no air conditioning that's been sitting out in the sun all day. I walked out of my nicely air conditioned building today and had I been a blind person I would have sworn I walked out the wrong door and directly into an oven. It knocked all of the freshly cooled air right out of my lungs and I actually gasped. Luckily, like Colorado and LA (and I'm sure many other lovely places in the southwest), it is a "dry heat" which is preferable to a "soaking wet heat" that you tend to get on the East coast and in the South. Typically, dry heat is nice because it means that it's a little cooler in the shade and there is usually a nice accompanying breeze that will cool you right off (which becomes important when you are driving a car with no air conditioning). However, there was no breeze in today's dry heat and even the breeze generated by driving on the freeway felt like the stream of air that comes from my blow dryer when it is on hot and high. No cooling effect whatsoever. Two days in a row I arrived home with visible sweat marks on the back and bum of my clothes...lovely. So, while I absolutely adore the heat, I also like being able to escape the heat in an air conditioned building or car and should really look into getting my a/c fixed. I obviously didn't prepare for this as I was too concerned about not being hot enough in the great Northwest.

In other hot news...I saw Live Free or Die Hard tonight. It was entertaining enough...just what you'd expect out of a Die Hard Movie (somehow battling robots are more believable to me than really fancy government buildings). But man...Bruce Willis still has it after all these years. He's still as hot and bad A as ever.