Alternatives to air conditioning in Bay Area climate? I'm in the Peninsula, so don't get the ocean air to cool our place off.

Last summer we had some real scorchers that were unbearable during the day indoors, and led to sleepless nights if it didn't cool off enough.

I'm not sure if it is arid enough here for a swamp cooler, but I'm ideally looking for a solution where I don't need to dedicate a window to it, perhaps something freestanding on the floor.

My concern is that AC is too expensive to install/maintain for what amounts to a couple weeks of super hot weather during the day and night. For various reasons, just sweating it out isn't an option, so if there are no good alternatives, I may have to cave and do AC or a window unit (although it would need the ability to be removed).