I used to enjoy the sun when I was younger, but never the humidity which always makes me feel as though I'm suffocating.

We've been pretty lucky so far in the Seattle area, though we've had some warm and wet days that make you feel as though you are living in a sauna. I work in an air-conditioned building and never take any time off between July 5 and late September, that's our summer here. Seattlites are famous, or infamous, for walking through 50 degree weather and rain in their shorts and sandles, and then getting extremely testy as soon as the temperature gets into the eighties. That's when our crime and accident rates go up, and production down.

As things have changed this past year in my cat-ruled household, this summer will be easier in some ways and harder in others. I won't be able to leave the deck doors open after sunset because my FIV+ cats can't have rabies shots and I have bats in the garden. However, I can now leave the door to my daylight basement open and we can all go down there when it gets too hot on the main floor. It's earth-bermed on three sides and never gets warmer than the low seventies down there.

I'm going to make you envious by saying that I'm wearing cord trousers and a velour top at work today, because it's only in the sixties in the building, and I'm looking out at cloudy skies and wind tossed pine trees. I keep a summer dress in my office so I can change to go outside when it does get warmer!