HOLY BAZOLEY! It's 105 DEGREES IN THE SHADE HERE!

I just stepped outside for a moment and it took my breath away! The thermometer on the BACK side of our house (away from the sun) reads 105 degrees! That has to be a record up here in the Pacific Northwest, and it isn't even the hottest part of the day yet -- that comes just under two hours from now this time of year at 6 p.m.!

Unbelievable!

I've let every local elderly friend know that we have air conditioning, in case they don't. So far no one has taken us up on the offer to hang out with us, but it's supposed to be even hotter on Thursday, so I anticipate that at some point we'll get some visitors.

This is just awful!

I've had to leave my office a few times today to get to a cooler area of the house because even with the AC set at 72 on Jackie's side, my thermometer reads 74-80 over here (depending on where it is and whether there are lots of windows). I'm okay here, even comfortable in most areas... but it's still mighty darned warm. I have fans running in the rooms I'm in to keep the AC circulating well.

It's just astonishingly HOT! I feel for anyone without air conditioning. And most people DON'T have it up here, because temperatures like these are so rare... or have been, before the past few years. I think global warming is doing its number on us here, for sure! (I knew that when I went to Alaska a few years ago and saw what has happened to the Tracy Arms glacier -- Sawyer Glacier -- and Mendenhall Glacier in just the past 60-100 years.)

We'd better turn this around or our planet will become uninhabitable to everything except tortoises and cockroaches!

I'm making sure our birdbath has water in it. Flocks of several species of birds are hanging around it like it's the only fresh water for miles... and for all I know, it may be!

This is horrendous!