California summers getting worse each year

I am no longer a fan of the land of the endless summer.

When I first came to California in 1990, we still had at least a semblance of seasons. I remember a day or two when the temperature actually got down near freezing, and January and February could be counted on for a lot of rain.

Well, call it global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it, but summer has stretched out to about nine or 10 months a year in Los Angeles now, and summer is getting hotter and more humid every year.

Not true, you say?

You've got facts.

Well, I'm sticking to my story.

It has been a little more than two weeks since I returned from two weeks in Europe, and each day seems hotter than the one that preceded it. I'm pretty sure our local temperature has hit the high 90s the last three or four days, and my energy level is usually a converse relation to the heat outside.

We sleep with an overhead fan in our bedroom as well as an open window, and I still find myself getting up in the morning drenched with sweat. It reminds me of one thing I always loved about Colorado summers -- it might be 95 in the daytime, but it would drop to 48 or so at night.

All we have in our apartment is a room air conditioner, and it's in the living room. Once we know we're going to be staying here for a while, we'll buy a window unit for the bedroom. And for my lovely wife Nicole -- who truly loves heat and hates cold -- to agree to that, the weather has to be truly awful.

We do have a swimming pool at our apartment complex, as you can see from the photo, and it has been a Godsend. In fact, I have spent a total of about seven hours in the water the last three days. If the weather stays this hot, I may double that in the next three.

It makes it tough to get much done, so I don't. But it does make me feel better, and the good feeling stays with me for an hour or two after I'm back in the heat.

Two more weeks and we're off to Seattle.

It had better be cooler there.