Can't write about my weekend without delving into the heat wave that has gripped the Bay Area since last Thursday. I caught the weather report on the news on Thursday night and saw highs of 104° and 105° predicted for Friday and Saturday. I consoled myself that this must be for regions further inland, like Livermore, but come Friday the thermometers in Redwood City shot up to those levels. Egad. The problem with our little house is that it does its job almost too well. It traps heat so effectively that it is very difficult to convince it to release it. In the morning the interior is relatively cool, and manages to stay so until 2 or 3pm when the fires outside really began to heat up the air inside. However, after the sun goes down and temperatures outside begin to slide into the 90's, 80's, and 70's, the house holds on to its 90° temperatures for dear life. Falling asleep is no fun when you're covered in sweat. Our fan does an admirable job but cannot stem the tide of the heat. Ack. Tara's favorite position of the last few days has been lying on the hardwood floors, panting with her tongue hanging out.

Our weekend began a bit early when Michelle and Sean drove up from L.A. on Thursday to hang out for a couple of days on their way to Redwoods National Park in northern California. I met up with them in Redwood City and drove them up to the city that evening for dinner with Veronica at Thirsty Bear, followed by a jaunt to Popscene. Sean and i discussed web programming while Ima Robot played onstage. Around 12:30am the two of us left the girls to their night of dancing, opting to return home as i had to get up for work the next day.

My Friday work day ended up only running until 2pm, when i sent off a revised copy of my postdoc's paper to Sam Gambhir for review, then headed home to fetch Michelle and Sean for lunch. Liberating them from the stuffy house, we had a leisurely meal at City Pub on Broadway in Redwood City. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Montel and Maury (and i thought All My Children was bad ...). Shafted in attempts to get dinner reservations in the city at favorites Betelnut and Slanted Door, we invited Naomi and Phil down for kebabs and belly dancing at Kan Zeman. They served us the usual wonderful meal, and we got to see my favorite performer do her sword-balancing routine. Mystifying. She even got me to get up and shake my hips with her. What a sight. Despite our initial intention to head to the city for drinks and cooler temperatures afterwards, we ended up bidding farewell to Naomi and Phil (who opted for just that) and instead returned home to Tara and the heat, whiling away the night with intermittent games of Guitar Hero and assorted Xbox 360 titles, and watching the Soup and a DirecTV special live concert by Gorillaz.

Saturday morning was, to the untrained eye, a lazy affair. To the more astute observer, it was the four of us trying unsuccessfully to do something useful in the baking heat. We slowly rotated through the nice cool shower, then drove down to Menlo Park for breakfast at Stacks. The thermostat in my Jetta told me it was 113° outside, which i doubted. A local bank's reading of 130° was even less credible. According to weather.com today, temperatures in Redwood City peaked at 109°, so my car wasn't too far off. Egad. Michelle and Sean lefted for the slightly cooler environs of Eureka around 3pm, and V and i decided to drive over to Best Buy to look at air conditioners and take advantage of the cooled store. A handwritten sign informed me they had sold every last one of their AC's, but we wandered around anyway, with me trying to resist the urge to pick up a beautiful Alpine IVA-W200 car stereo/DVD/iPod/satellite radio. We returned home and took doggie for a car ride over to San Mateo to fetch a dinner of Le Cumbre burritos, then again revisited our own personal hell and ate dinner while watching old episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on the Game Shown Network. I got an additional air-conditioned interlude at 9:30pm when i drove to SFO to pick up my parents, returning from Amsterdam after a 10 day cruise around Scandinavia. Little did they know they were exchanging humid Europe for scalding California.

Faced with another record-breaking day on Sunday, V and i concocted a scheme to beat the heat by taking Tara to the beach in Half Moon Bay. My short-sighted brain however failed to appreciate that we would not be the only ones with this idea, something that became clear to me when we saw the backup on the 92 heading over the mountains to the coast. Eek. We tried taking Woodside Ave. through the woods towards La Honda, but Tara tired of riding in the car not long after taking this route, and we decided to pull a U-ey and head home. Home again, heat again, jiggedy jig. I escaped one more time by taking Veronica's Mini for a long overdue wash. After that, i only had to while away 90 minutes or so in the house before the two of us left to drive up to San Francisco for the evening's Raconteurs show at the Warfield. Arriving in the city by the bay, i was thrilled to experience mere 70° temperatures, which felt heavenly to me in my shorts and t-shirt. We had dinner at the quite good Sanraku in the Metreon, after which i saw my next laptop at the Sony Style store (the lovely hi-res 11" TX770 Viao), and resisted the temptation to buy the beautiful hardcover Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album at the Metreon bookstore. After grabbing a mocha frap at Starbucks, we walked over to the Warfield and had a good time relaxing while watching the brilliant Raconteurs show. Unenthusiastically we then returned to Redwood City, which had cooled only to about 85° by midnight. Yick. We cooled the house by opening all the windows and doors and cranking the fan, to a degree which allowed us to sleep. Albeit in the living room directly next to the windows and fan.

Weather.com informs me temperatures should begin dropping now, starting with the mere 95° today in Redwood City. By midweek we should be down in the 80's, which at this point will feel to me like winter.