Ai, que calor!

Yesterday, it got up to 88 degrees here in Seattle. I am a person who likes hot weather, but I think that every year I've spent here has dropped my definition of "hot" by a degree or so.

When it gets over about 82 degrees here, you would think people are dying of heat exposure. "Oh, the heat! It's terrible." To be fair, due to our mild climate we don't generally have air conditioning. Oh, we have it in our office buildings and shopping malls and movie theaters, of course, but not usually in our homes or even our cars (though nowadays new cars seem to come with it no matter what). So, it is a drag to sleep in a hot house. But I used to laugh at my fellow Seattlites, and although I still love the heat more than most - I found myself acting a bit lethargic yesterday too.

The dogs, too, have trouble with the heat, increasingly so as they age. I saw our dog walker yesterday, and he repeated the refrain of the day - "it's so hot!" and said some of his larger, older dogs simply refused to walk. No way, I'm not goin' out in that. What, are you blind, I'm covered with fur! Drive me down to Lake Washington for a dip, and then maybe we can talk.

The warm weather has triggered the annual summer shedding season for our dogs, and fur is literally coming off of them in clumps, clouds, handfuls, sheets. Fur rolls through the house in tumbleweed-sized balls, collects on absolutely everything, tickles my nose and wakes me up at night. Every year I think, there must be something wrong with them, it's not possible to lose this much fur. As the days go by, I wonder - how is it that they're not bald yet, since we've removed enough fur to stuff a mattress already? With a blond dog and a black dog, it's impossible to wear clothing that doesn't show dog fur, and eventually I just give up on the lint brush. When it's hot, bits of fur stick to our sweaty skin and make us itch.

Ai, que calor.