Yesterday was the hottest day recorded for downtown LA, ever- 113 degrees at noon! I am not often driving the freeway, but I happened to be driving downtown at noon yesterday and my car thermometer said "117" outside. I wondered if there was a malfunction, but I guess it was close (the extra four degrees being freeway heat, I suppose). So, what does this all mean? If you don't live here you may ask: "How can you take the heat?"

Here are some observations.

• It's hot right now.

• 113 degrees doesn't feel much different than 100 degrees because, as we Angelenos are fond of saying, "It's a dry heat."

• The weather doesn't change much here, it is usually sunny and usually hot for a big chunk of the year.

• Because the weather is about the same much of the time, we probably are the birthplace of the colorful, humorous, unusual, and/or very attractive weather reporters over the years. How else do you hold the viewer's interest in a place where you say, "Sunny and warmer today, sunny and a bit cooler, partly sunny…." You get the picture.

• Without real "seasons" we miss out on the classic natural metaphors for life (growing season and harvest time), death (fall and winter), new life (spring). Actually, there are other ways we purposely hide metaphors for death. Our funeral homes are generally well hidden, our cemeteries look like parks…A whole topic for another day.

• Those of us who moved here from seasonal places don't miss shoveling, plowing, bundling up like a mummy, slipping on the ice, doing "donuts" because we hit "black ice," or if you are old enough to remember, "plugging in" your car. Not because it was an electric car, but because you had a separate heater for your radiator so that it didn't freeze overnight!

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