Have I ever told you I used to live in Oregon? The saga started out in SuperOregon. Then I moved on to the big city, living in Portland about three years. Fun fact about both Standard and SuperOregon: They sometimes get hot in the summer.

But not this hot.

During my first summer, when we’d read the weather report on my first station, I would explain to listeners if that they needed anything, I’d be sunning myself on the top of Hat Rock.

“Wait until tonight,” the host explained.

Terrified, I huddled in my apartment. I could hear the cow on the farm that backed up to the complex.

“That cow will surely perish in this heat tonight!” I exclaimed. “And then be delicious!”

But the next morning, my air conditioning had turned off. The apartment was still cool.

And that’s how I learned about deserts. Even though it was about 100 degrees during the day, the air was dry enough that at night, the temperature still dropped to a brisk 65. It would get hot during the day but was still cool enough at night to open the windows, so I’d just lie there, listening to the cow.

Many native Ohioans want to punch the face of people who declare, “It’s not the heat so much as the humidity.” Then I moved to SuperOregon and found myself saying, “But it’s a dry heat.”

When I moved to Portland, I learned most buildings don’t even have air conditioning.

The Pacific Northwest has a reputation of being a rainy, cold, dark place. In reality, that’s only true eight months a year. During the summer, the sun comes out thoroughly and consistently. When I started work in Portland, I worked overnight, but during the longest days of the year, the sun was out when I drove to work and was already coming up when I drove home.

Most days, even in the summer, it’d only be about 80 degrees, but a few times a year, we’d get up above 100.

“That’s fine,” I explained to myself. “It’s a dry heat.”

But in the big city, there aren’t any apartments with herds of cattle to lull you gently to sleep. Since I was sleeping during the day, I found the 100 degree heat unpleasant.

Pro tip for Portlanders: Put tin foil on the windows to block out light. Keep them shut during the day to try to keep the heat out. Working in an artificially darkened room cut off from society will also give you time to work on your manifesto.

Then at night, open all the windows before you leave for work so it’ll be pleasantly cool when you get back in the morning… to put up more tin foil.

Probably the more substantial pro-tip is to have air conditioning. When my lease was up, I started studying Craigslist with “air conditioning” as a key word.

I found someone subleasing a condo. On the riverfront. With views of Mount Hood.

The woman who owned the place wanted an unreasonably low rent, saying she was relocating to Phoenix [so she could, I swear I’m not making this up, retire in a city with warmer weather] but didn’t want to sell her condo in Portland.

“But it does have air conditioning?” a reporter asks.

So I had a great view and didn’t even have to keep tin foil in stock! I didn’t even need the cow anymore! I vaguely recall turning the air conditioner on a total of about half a dozen times.

People are being told to stay inside right now. Even in a dry heat, 115 degrees is dangerous. But Portlanders must feel so conflicted: This is a city that knows how to throw a protest. How can you protest the heat [and have a corresponding counter-protest in favor of the heat] when the safest thing is to stay indoors!?

I’d propose opening the Moda Center, where the Trailblazers play, as a temporary shelter where protesters can walk around on the court with signs. Then counter-protesters can walk around on the other side of the court. Then Clyde Drexler can show up and dunk some of their signs.

That National Weather Service decal at the top of the blog urges people to “seek air conditioning if possible.” In Texas, you’re never far from conditioning. The electric grid just won’t let you turn it on.

But we’ll get through this, Pacific Northwest. That same boss in Hermiston who alerted me to the cool nights sent me a clip from a newscast there, featuring the governor saying she’s excited for the Pendleton Round-Up this fall. So to speak.

We’ll get through this, temperatures will get back to normal and soon it’ll be time to start looking forward to the rodeo. So to speak.