99°

Unretouched photo from an hour after dawn, August 8th, 2026, in northern Spokane, WA, where three wildfires burned uncontrollably.

Ninety-nine:
French bread hot,
water steaming for
each loaf's crusty,
chewy finish. 
Traveling inside
cool comfort,
knowing this
cannot last forever.
"Hot enough for you,"
quips farmers market
vendor, blue eyes
twinkling beneath
weather-lined, browned
forehead supporting
white buzz cut.
"Yes, but barely,"
my clever retort.
He laughs, takes my
money, knowing which
one of us will soon 
be walking across
hot, radiating blacktop
back to his car.

65/100
“One hundred poems in one hundred days!” (but my sense of time is fluid)

No poem today

I feel bad because I’m breaking the chain for real today. I had planned to write a poem as we flew eastward, but I chose to finish Hamnet instead… and sleep. Then I thought, “I’ll dash it off at home.” We walked into a house without air-conditioning! 😲😰 It was 60 degF as we walked to the Seattle airport. We dropped into 85 degrees with over 70% humidity here in Raleigh, NC… And the house was the same.

I love the East especially the southeast of North Carolina where we landed, but I was raised in Eastern Washington where hot days didn’t carry that humidity and were balanced by cool nights. This was reinforced by our recent visit there. (Of course all the smoke from fires and the dry, dessicated grasses reminded me why I like the East. )

I will get drafting right now!

Benny prepares; Charlie leans in

Benny began in July to prepare for August. Perhaps, given our weather in July, he just thought the calendar had turned already? Regardless, the “dog days of August” do not interest this cat. Instead he will withdraw until the temps cool down.

Charlie defies the heat, regards it as Finns do the sauna. He spends hours ‘on the boards’ relaxing with the moist heat penetrating his bones. His version of a cold plunge? Walking indoors for a food break and a quick nap in the A/C-cooled house before resuming the therapeutic 100+ heat indices.

Charlie soaking up the moist heat. Yes, that’s a worry-patch on his right foreleg. July 2025.

Humidity

Second from left=outdoors. Raleigh, NC. June 2025.

The photo above shows the indoor and outdoor temps/humidity before the heat dome here in Raleigh slightly broke. My indoor display for my rudimentary weather station tells the tale: it’s less than 45 minutes since sunrise. Outdoors on the deck immediately behind my living room it’s already in the 80’s and the humidity at that temp is still 83%, which boggles my mind given that it’s a relative humidity indicating how much moisture the air could hold. It implies the dew point is in the mid-70’s. And disturbingly, this usually runs below the official temperature a few miles west of here at the airport. The deck is shaded, the sensor is located up by the house, and our neighborhood boasts many tall trees unlike the openness of the airport environment. The A/C had been running all night, hence the basement temperature (on the far right) reading less than 65 degrees. The other two temps are in upstairs locations. Welcome to the Southern Summer, boy!