Photoessay #55 - Cool water

I'm continuing with the summer theme which I seem to have going this week. Only appropriate as today will likely be the hottest day of the year. My pictures for the last week or so have shown summer activities. Why not? Summer is so short in the Pacific NW.

Today's picture was taken from the end of the dock during my visit to the Civic Club last week. Various views around the lake. This just shows cool water with some sun highlights.

Seattle just cannot handle extreme weather. Cool, dark and wet is what we are all used to. When it hits 70 degrees, people will start to ask you with concern "How are you dealing with this heat" Heat? Are you KIDDING? I grew up in the Sacramento Valley and there we did heat. Endless bright hot days. Rain in the summer, never! I don't know if I could handle it now, there was a physical process you went through in the late spring, where your 'blood thinned'. You became accustomed to the heat, you got used to it. Sure, lots of places were air-conditioned (what a mammoth use of power!) but the house where I grew up did not have air conditioning and we did ok. As a child, I walked down to the neighborhood pool EVERY day. My mother would take us or would hire a teenage girl to take us. I went swimming in an outdoor pool every day, no other option. As a young adult, I lived in Chico and that was even hotter.

Today, the temperature is in the 90s and the whole city will likely fall apart. We have very few days this warm, some years none at all. I read in the paper that only 7% of Seattle area homes have air conditioning. I don't believe the number is even that high. You just don't need it. My house will be ok even on a hot day because of all the trees in the back of my house to the west. But some of the houses in the neighborhood can get very very warm especially if the they have pavement on the west. It's a whole different climate. I used to tease my friend at the other side of the neighborhood "How's things down here in Yakima"

I am going to take my old dog down to the local vet. She's not doing so well, I know that the vet is going to say either very bad or very expensive things. But she's old and smelly with some annoying habits but she's gentle and lovey and my baby-pie. She's always been good at being big and being lovey, those are her strengths.