It is 91 degrees in our house right now.

It’s been hot, real hot. Actually, there has been a record breaking heat wave cooking the West. I know that we are not the only ones sweating out 100+ degree temperatures right now; but the sweltering days of summer have truly been getting to me lately. “Aren’t you from Florida?” you ask. Yes. I am. From SOUTH Florida none the less. Down there we are used to days where 99 can reflect degrees Fahrenheit and the percentage of humidity at the same time. But we know how to beat the heat in the South: we have air conditioning.

When we moved to the Bay Area I was shocked to find that MOST homes in our neighborhood do not have AC. I asked my landlady skeptically, “Don’t you wish you had it in the summer?” Oh no, most people we talked to said that the summers are lovely and cool with highs in the mid-eighties during the day and breezy cool sixty degree evenings. Supposedly we might have a week or two in the late summer when temperatures would climb into the nineties, but the nights would still be cool. They have not been.

The nights have been sticky and hot this last week. Last night was the worst yet. At eight o’clock pm it was still 90 degrees in our house. I am sure the three of us made quite a sight sprawled out in our birthday suits (plus a diaper on Sonny, of course!) on the bed, with not so much as a sheet covering us. There was certainly no snuggling last night. There was more of a breeze on our bed than in his cradle so the baby got to hang with us last night. Poor kid was still a sweaty mess this morning.

Yesterday, to beat the heat we decided to walk the mall and enjoy the air conditioning. By “we” I mean my little family and everyone else in San Jose. I have never seen a mall so packed. Seriously, yesterday made Christmas Eve look like a Monday morning at the mall. It was so crowded in fact that the industrial sized air conditioning system could not compensate for the mass of bodies packed in like 65 crayons in a box for 64 (Thank you Antique Mommy for once again providing my deepest laugh of the day). So much for that brilliant idea; we might have been cooler at home. At least we would not have had to wait ten minuets in line to use the changing table in the ladies room.

Oh well, we will know better next time. Now you will have to excuse me; I am going to go stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open.