Beat the heat without using air conditioning

The sunflowers love it. We Portlanders, not so much. I speak of this tropical heat wave that's baking the Willamette Valley right now. They say (you know: they) that we only average ten over 90-degree days each year. This week we should get a handful of those, as well as a few over 100s. That's one of the reasons I love Portland so. It's not a hot place. Except for now. I'm hot. Wah-wah-wah!

Here's why I'm not throwing myself a major pity party:

• It's a dry heat (ha, ha, ha!! oooh boy, I crack myself up. As if that's supposed to make it feel cooler!!)
• We have a basement that stays blissfully cool even in these searing hot days.
• Sometimes there's a breeze that wafts through all the open windows in our 1942 house that was built with cross-ventilation in mind.
• Best of all -- our dear, dear neighbors with a pool invited us over to cool off today!! I'm feeling terribly grateful and absolutely have to take them up on it since the last time they invited us to their pool was over 6 years ago, and hit my daughter's nap time, so we didn't do it!! (Yes, I know. Major losers to give our kid a nap instead of going to the pool on a wickedly hot day like today).

So that's about all I have to say today. Time to put some enviro-friendly sunscreen on my back, and go play Marco Polo. Alley-oop!

How do you beat the heat without air conditioning?