Saturday it hit a record high of 119 degrees. That is 48.3 degrees Centigrade, for those of you who swing the other way. And Plain Jane sent the rain, so the humidity was 66%. Can you say sweltering? When you stand near a wall or a door in my house, you can feel the heat radiating from it, knocking on the outside, demanding to come in.

We've turned off absolutely every electrical applicance except the refrigerator and one wall air conditioner for a single room. Even the laptop is on battery, to conserve power, as the power companies have requested, to prevent brownouts or rolling blackouts (power cut off to one section of the city after another, to reduce the load on the power stations and lines and equipment). They've been running at peak demand for a week now.

We have moved on into the "hot season" so I do not expect a break in the weather until mid-September or so. The only happy living things around here are the tomatoes (except the Early Girls, who died in the heat).