Beating the Heat

In Foster City the thermometer hit 97 °F, but we were lucky. Inland it was 110 °F:

Our solution: one cool bedroom

Temperatures soared above 100 degrees across the Bay Area on Thursday — with Fairfield peaking at 110 — as the sweaty and sweltering sought ways to stay cool, plunging in pools and swarming to the coast for a cool breeze...

Fairfield appeared to be the hottest place in the Bay Area, reaching 110 at Travis Air Force Base, according to the National Weather Service. Concord and Livermore followed with 107 degrees.

Records were broken in San Rafael, which hit 103; Santa Rosa, 104; Kentfield, 103; Redwood City, 102; and Gilroy at 106. Santa Rosa broke a record set for the same day in 1922, when it hit 101.

Out with the old. Luckily it
was appliance pickup week.

In a rare display of forward thinking, I spent last Saturday installing a window air conditioner and disposing of a portable A/C that had stopped working. We have one cool bedroom to which family members can retire if they can't take the heat.

(Our central air conditioning coolant had leaked out in the 1990's, and I've been too cheap environmentally conscious to spend thousands of dollars just to cool off the entire house for a couple of weeks each year.)

The temps will drop back to the 70's next week. Meanwhile, I'll be drinking lots of ice water.