
Here's how I beat the "heat" in Seattle every summer: I open my windows. This works really well because the little Devil Girl Pad is on the ground floor and has windows facing north - the bedroom and bathroom - and even bigger ones to the south - the kitchen and the living room, where the Wendling sleeps.
Problem #1: We're right on a two-lane arterial with a bus route. My son doesn't like the noise. He says he can't sleep with ear plugs, so he shuts the windows to the south and turns on the fan.
Problem #2: In classic autistic fashion, he likes to sleep under heavy things. He's also an active but not very lucid sleeper. This means that this morning in the steamy living room I found my son wrapped like a burrito in his favorite reasonably warm blanket, head covered, with a much lighter empty duvet cover next to him. Le sigh.
Problem #3: He has skewed perceptions of what's hot. Whether that's because of autism or living his whole life in the Seattle area I'm not sure. He tried to talk me out of opening the kitchen window just now because, he claimed falsely, it's warmer outside than in. He may have gotten that impression by walking to the supermarket in the sun wearing a dark shirt.
If the impending global warming apocalypse doesn't kill my son directly, he'll whine until someone else snaps and kills him. It won't be me, though: I can still laugh at it if he isn't with me too many days in a row.