This is what I see when I turn into my neighborhood here in Portland, OR. Ladd's Addition is the name of this historical district. Got home to catch the latest local TV news about our "heat wave". 86 degrees American at broadcast, down from the scorching 88 only minutes earlier but relief is on the way, 84 is the temp for tomorrow, thank you Lord!

So yeah, there's a lot of trees to be seen here where I live. Portland's first mayor laid out this housing development in 1891 freshly returned from a European tour and determined to try out ideas he'd seen in continental residential areas. I could supply you with plenty of the details but I'll just make this a short tour. Oh, the trees. Most notable are the 197 American Elms on the main radial streets of our neighborhood. Those babies get pretty tall after 108 years. Got some Norway Maples around but mostly Lindens filling in the side streets. The point? Shade Baby! It's like 75 degrees in my little '33 American Four Square wannabe. Little, because most of the American and Craftsman Four Squares around here are three stories tall and mine is only two, although it's still listed as an "historical asset". That one Rhodedendron bush in the back yard is about two stories tall also. Did ya see the Roses in the pic above? We have four half-block squares at compass points from the central round-about garden that are given over to Rose beds. Silly neighborhood (10 blocks by 8 blocks) smells like Roses most of the time. Yep, real tough!

More from the TV newsies. Hard hats interviewed. Frighted mothers and their small children seeking help. Cameras cover the city's Emergency Rooms and various quacks queried about "heat related casualties". HYDRATE! There you are, hydrate! It'll save you and me from being a heat victim! SUNBLOCK! Those melanomas will eat your face off without that old SPF paste. On and on these Casandra's go wailing abut the perils of this un-Gore-like heat. Stay inside. Open the windows...NO! Don't open the windows! Rapists will come in the open windows! And burglers! And clipboard dorks from the Sierra Club will taunt you through screen doors! The Horror. It's still 85 degrees here! Quit yer job and move into the basement! Buy a Prieus! Oh, the humanity!

Here's the neighbors' car parked out in front of my house. Couple of real nice kids with a pretty cool Dart. At the end of the street is Hawthorne Blvd. Used to be named Asylum Street but that's another story for another time. Art house movie theatre at the corner, natch. A Starbucks, natch. Couple of brew pubs with beer that will break your heart. geez lookit those trees man