Climbed out of bed … and it does require climbing, because the mattress is on the floor. That seems to be fairly common here in Hong Kong. When, really, every bed here should be an extra 12 inches off the floor so you can have one of those storage-under-the-bed things, because nobody has closets or room for armoires.

Anyway. Crossed the threshold out of the bedroom, a cramped space about the size of a jail cell, it occurred to me, the other day. (It even has sliding doors, like something in Folsom.) And into the living room … where the air-conditioner was cranking. Of course.

We live on AC here in Hong Kong. It’s everywhere. In every room of every house. In every bus and every cab. In every business. Even the smallest and humblest. (I often can feel a building’s AC while walking down the sidewalk; it’s cranked up so high and so intensely, it just hemorrhages cold air onto the street and washes, blessedly, over me for about three strides.)

Because without AC, we’d all melt.

It’s late October, but the forecast today is for temperatures in the 80s, with lots of humidity. Making it feel significantly hotter than it is. And turning any outdoor activity — breathing, even — into a sweat-fest.

I’ve lived in “hot” before; I was in the Inland Empire for 30-plus years.

But that heat is far easier to deal with than the sub-tropical conditions here in Hong Kong. Because you don’t have the same humidity, in San Bernardino/Riverside. Never mind Palm Springs, where it may well be 105 but the humidity is about 5 percent.

And, too, “summer” lasts only about five months in the IE/low desert. Not seven months. Or eight. As it apparently does here. (Click here to see a graphic representation of temps/rain per month. And then click on “imperial” at the bottom of the graphs to get degrees in Fahrenheit and rain in inches.)

We were standing on the sidewalk outside a local bar the other night, and it was pushing midnight, and we realized we were sweating … just standing there. Clutching a beer. At midnight. I was mopping my face and neck. Just Standing There.

I asked about the weather. In mid-October. I thought it might not be so relentlessly sticky. And one of my co-workers said, “October is the bridge month. It can go either way.”

So far, the way the “bridge” has gone has been to be about 86, 87, 88 Fahrenheit, every day. And perhaps down to the high 70s just before dawn. But not cool enough to risk turning off the AC in a tiny apartment — which heats up faster than a match head.

I was assured it actually cools off here in November. “First of the month. Count on it.” And then it apparently is nice, even cool, even cold (by HK standards) through February.

“Cold” here is a relative term, of course. It might get down to 50. And then everyone apparently freaks out.

In the little bedroom of this apartment is a rather impressive portable heater. Almost the size of a European-style radiator. Maybe two-and-a-half feet tall. I’m thinking it could broil alive everything in the apartment (except the cockroaches, of course) in about 10 minutes. But it’s almost impossible to imagine it ever will be needed. Or even a good idea.

I was told, however, by someone else at the office, that it was so cold last winter that she stayed in one room with her space heater on for a couple of months. It was just too cold away from that one room.

Hmm. Too cold. What a concept. I think I’ll take my chances with that. It’s far easier to put on a sweatshirt than it is to strip down to shorts and a shirt and wait for the AC to kick in as you drip sweat.

Oh, but I should conclude this little whine-fest with the following concession: At least it isn’t raining an inch per day, as it does during the actual summer. I guess hot and sticky — but no rain — constitutes fall, here. Put down those bumbershoots (but hang on to the towels) and enjoy!