Today the forecast high in Ottawa, Ontario -- supposedly the Great White North -- is 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 Fahrenheit), and tomorrow we're promised 34 C (93.2 F). God only knows what the Humidex is; I don't want to know. If you walk up and down our stairs twice in a row (for example, when doing the wash), the sweat will pour down your face like water from a shower head.

We don't have air conditioning (though it seems more and more like a good idea), so the windows and doors have to be open all night and closed all day to keep the inside of the house barely tolerable. Even with the completely unnecessary annual crisis of the Departmental Performance Report, the office is a refuge in these conditions.

I would mind the heat less if it didn't come with smog alerts and that ol' bull-clamp around the trachea feeling all asthmatics eventually experience. I've been wheezing, coughing and choking for three weeks now, and started a course of Prednisone on Friday. {{{Whine}}}