According to our local weather station located about 6 blocks from my house, our neighborhood hit 110 degrees today.  Nothing like going outside and feeling like you stepped into a furnace.  What’s interesting is that Garbanzo and the girls just got back from Central Oregon which is high desert, and the temperature which is usually about 20 degrees hotter than Portland was within a degree or two of here.  I think the only difference was the fact the desert gets cool at night.

Work has also been interesting because of the weather.  The “west wing” of the building has been having HVAC issues all week.  While my wing is a cool 68 degrees, the other side was seeing temperatures of 90+ degrees.  I’m really surprised more people didn’t start doubling up in cubes on the east wing just to get some relief from the heat.

After getting home from work, we decided to take the girls to the park with the killer water fountain (aka: The Rock Park as the girls call it).  We each got a slice of pizza, sat in the shade (which was still 100+ degrees) and relaxed.  The girls would go sit in the water for a while, the come back.  At one point, I went and joined them.  It was a nice break and really made a difference.

You know it is unusually warm when you see this:

The Weather Channel is filming weather updates – both live reports as well as forecasts for tomorrow.

They also interviewed our Mayor Sam Adams.  DJ was funny because she commented she never sees the mayor.  I pointed out that maybe she should start paying attention when we got to the grocery store because he lives in our neighborhood, and I constantly run into him there.  Also, he has been known to commute via bike, so I’ve seen him then too.  (He’s a HUGE bike advocate!)  She acted as though she didn’t believe me.  I guess Derek, Garbanzo and I will need to start pointing him out as we run into him in “The Hood” as we call North Portland.

I had originally started with the idea of walking the four blocks over to get pictures of the Broadway Bridge. The Broadway Bridge as my daughter DJ would tell you is a bascule bridge.  In fact, it the longest rail-type bascule bridge still in existence – and the first one ever built.  (There was a patent competion for it.) Oh, and a bascule bridge means it has lifting mechanism that see-saws upward.  Gotta love the 2nd grade Portland Bridge project for these great facts.

The lifting spans used to be a metal grating which, when wet, was quite fun to drive on.  Nothing like feeling your car slide a bit (or a lot) as you are going over it.  Around 2000, they replaced it with a different material that made crossing during the rainy season a bit safer for everyone.

See that sign on the left – that is the suicide hotline sign. While I’m not advocating anyone jump off the bridge or do I think suicide is not serious,  I don’t quite think this is the bridge to use if you want to kill yourself.  It’s not really that high in the air off the water.  It will hurt, sure.  But, your chance of survival is probably pretty darn good. 

And, no trip to the “Rock Park” would be complete without a wacky picture of DJ.  DJ, who used to call me “Mo-mo”, has now shortened it to simply “Mo”.  I asked her why tonight, and she launched into this whole story about Phineaus and Ferb and this pink fluffy alien named Meekie, and … well, somehow she thought based off of all of that that Mo was a good name for me.  I think Mo fits me a lot better than Mom anyway….so I told her that I could live with it regardless of the reason.

And, because I didn’t post the hot picture of my husband that I took….maybe I’ll save that one for another day…..I will post the picture he took of me relaxing reading my Kindle.  All I have to say is that at least I wasn’t in the park doing blog posts off of someone’s open WiFi like he was. 🙂

Happy Thursday!