heat wussies!

No offense to my neighbors.

It started getting in the mid to upper 80's for a high. This is way better than a year ago. I remember a year ago yelling at the gods saying it couldn't be 100 degrees before my birthday. I also remember getting a bit sunburned at the Civil War weekend since it was pushing 90 in the middle of March.

This year is so much better than last year.

But still I already hear a few homes around me are already running their AC units!

What the hell?

Granted, I'm a cold wussie. So I'm enjoying this with my windows opened. The only exception is hearing the drone of AC units.

new home

I think that I'm ready to make the plunge and get a house.

I met with a realtor the other day and saw a couple places. There's one that I think I can pretty much deal with.

The pluses: Tile floors (except bedrooms), high ceilings, big backyard, pet door already installed (dog sized, but cats will probably get used to it), split bedrooms, two bathrooms, backyard against a wash, and the previous owner built (and left) a craft center in the second room, some shelfs in the garage, and in the front hallway.

The minuses: Small kitchen, old appliances, and small master bathroom. The small kitchen really bugs me because the kitchen is so important to me. I think there were some cracked tiles in the living room.

Oh, and not sure if it counts as a minus, but I can see the first house my parents built from the backyard. It was kinda weird.

Post #1000

It'd be a doozy if fianance would give me use of the left hand.

Okay, got the hand back.

So he's done with his first semester at NAU. He's been here for a week now, and I've been stuck working. He got some great pictures of a visiting javelina party using my camera.


Here's the javelinas enjoying the stale peanuts that fiance was throwing out in the driveway after the desert rats starting to show up.

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Fiance got a special bonus with the appearance of a baby piglet.

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Still not used to the term fiance.

This Christmas was planned with his dad coming to visit and get to know more of my family. He showed up early today.

Had to get presents for all my coworkers from the janitors to the physicians. I did these handmade ornaments and got two back so I guess I started a trend ;-)

So with fiance and his dad we're going to have to brave last minute shopping tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, peace and goodwill towards all with a Merry Christmas to all.

sheer torture

I will need to get a picture of this and turn it into an LOL cat or something. The light right now is not that great - maybe tomorrow.

With the nice temperatures when I get home, I've been sitting outside with the cats while I drink some vodka. (And I finally remembered the laptop with the WiFi today.)

First of all, these two "masters of the urban jungle" are scared to death to be outside. The first sudden sound and they run for the door. Which makes it easy to round up the cats when it's time to go inside.

Second, these birds are not scared of the cats. There's this one bird that takes delight in being on the ground a few feet away from the cats. This lures them into getting into stalking mode. Just as they quietly begin to sneak up on this bird, it flies up and out of their reach. The pitiful look on the fluff monster was priceless.

Third, the fluff monster can eat the brush with no problem. The furr monster takes one bite and starts puking a few minutes later.

Fourth, the sunsets are beautiful here on the patio.

Early taste of fall

We got a nice treat in the desert. Although the storm system that passed through last weekend didn't bring the house much rain, it really cooled off the temperatures. It hasn't been 90 degrees in a few days!

Last night by dinner time, we turned off the AC and opened the doors. The cats loved it because they could smell the great outdoors. And it cooled off to the mid 60's overnight. I needed all my blankets overnight!

Usually this doesn't happen until October. It's not supposed to last, and it's supposed to be in the mid-90's today. But it inspired me to find some fall recipes at Gluten Freeda. I'm going to try their golden pumpkin bread this weekend.

desert heat

Just before noon, my best friend/matchmaker called me. She was in town to get hubby's trainey fixed and was "in the neighborhood". So we met for lunch.

She complained about the heat. Funny that it was a cool kind of day (maybe got to 100 degrees today). I had to tease her a bit about being a wus living up in Prescott area.

It was a nice surprise to hear from her. I rarely go out for lunch, so it was a nice change of pace. If only I didn't have to hear about how hot it is here.

Animal sensitivities

I keep forgetting that I work with a lot of Indians (Native Americans). During lunch, I was complaining that an owl keep hooting near my window last night waking me up.

"Oh, that's a bad omen to my people. We believe that it's trying to tell you some bad news about a family memeber." as one kindly informed me.


To me, there's lots of owls around here. I live close to the high school and you can see them nesting up in the rafters of the gym. So to me, it's just a neighborhood owl doing his thing.

This morning, a medium sized trantula was walking on the sliding glass door. So I just stood (inside) and watched it crawl off the glass, and walk across the patio until it disappeared into the yard.

So I asked the "owl expert" what it meant if a trantula paid you a visit. Apparently, not much to his people. But if you pick fun at it, you'll get sick. Then he started to tell me a story of how when was a boy he took a stick and flipped over a trantula.

"So did it get you sick afterwards?"

"Yeah, I only did that once."

waiting for lightning

I finally decided to eat it, and invested in a good tripod. Using the wall for the fireworks on the 4th of July made for mostly disappointing pictures.

So now I just need a good lightning storm to catch some awesome pictures. The summer rain season is here, but off to a quiet start. Only one good lightning storm, and it got started at 11PM, and didn't feel like dragging out my gear at that time of night.

At least I'm not chasing tornadoes.

rattling the windows

Get the minds out of the gutter. The windows are rattling from the thunder.

Boyfriend is still in Hawaii.

I love the monsoon season. This is a very promising start to an otherwise dreadful summer heat. I watered the plants and left my car windows rolled down a bit. The car was washed a couple weeks ago and still looks good. So I'm tempting the gods with everything in my arsenal in trying to think that it WOULDN'T rain.

What are the odds that it actually will rain? About 10%. But hearing the windows rattle from the thunder gives me a false bit of hope.

it's hot when...

You know it's hot when you jump in the hot tub to cool off.

dumb luck or just quick to clean up?

Okay, I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but any two cents about why would be appreciated.

Drive in the desert parts of Arizona for any time greater than 30 minutes, and you'll come across them. A grey bird walking in front of your car. Just when you think it'll get past your car in time, it turns around and walks back towards your car.

Then at the last second it flies away. And your car doesn't have any grey feathers stuck under a tire.

We call them kamikazee quails. Stupid creatures.

And now that the babies are out and about, they do the same thing. But they are very cute little balls of fluff that I misidentified as a bit of debris blown on the street yesterday. Luckily, I didn't end up with any fluff balls stuck to my car (just bugs).

But I was wondering about these stupid creatures. I never see any quail roadkill. Sure, rabbits, coyotes, and other birds, but no quail. Are they just destined by God to NEVER to get run over. Or is there always a bigger carnivore nearby that knows how tasty quail can be and quickly takes care of the recently departed grey ball of feathers?

attention AZ visitors

If you ever wonder why there's a high number of cars running around with major crack lines in their windshields, it's not because we're trying to make Brittney Spears feel at home.

The 365 day a year construction season means that if you drive your vehicle on the road, it's going to come into contact with a rock or bit of debris. I had accumulated four such marks on my windshield.

And they'll stay like that for years sometimes. Then as the heat builds up, it'll suddenly create long crack lines in your windshield. Mine took two days to get to where I called the insurance company. My co-workers took three hours!

So we don't do it on purpose. But the crack lines develop suddenly from an old rock into the windshield. So while it looks like we're trailer trash and don't give a rats ass about our cars, it's completely 100% false.

Have a nice weekend. Stay cool since this is our first weekend this year over 105!

bird brains and snake wacking

We live out in the NE part of Phoenix where there's still open desert. You go to sleep hearing the owls hooting and the coyotes howling.

Heaven.

The downside of the desert living are the rattle snakes. We've tried relocation, but they'd come back. So we've just gotten used to having to destroy the snakes. I perfer shooting, but that's not allowed.

Since my dad's been sick, my mom has had to perform this undesireable task since the snakes started showing up in March from the early warm spell.

Last night, mom and I were in the hot tub, and I was facing out to the bird feeder. After about ten minutes, about a dozen male and female quail came walking down the hill from the feeder right up to the wall (we built into a hill). I made some sort of snarky comment of the quail go marching on. Instead of looking for food, they were just watching something.

Now it was getting creepy. Just then a movement in front of the quail caught my eye. The familar pattern of black and white bands by the rattlesnake tail. As he moved, I could tell it was a young one.

As I informed my mom of why the birds were behaving they way they were, she said "hope it doesn't come down the wall." I almost felt sorry for the snake as the birds kept following it (kinda picking on it).

But sure enough, the snake slid down the wall as I was bringing my bikini out to dry. I didn't say anything to my mom, but went and got the tool we use to kill the snakes, came back to face my fear.

Was I scared. Oh yeah. I got lucky in that he was still against the wall so I used the wall as a choke point to help quickly decapitate the poor snake (much easier than the uneven gravel). Then I made the offering to the desert, and put the head in the bushes (so nobody steps on it by mistake).

Came in shaking. My dad said "get that girl some vodka." I admitted that I wouldn't have done that if it was an adult. And I conceeded that shooting would be a lot easier (if you didn't have to deal with a visit from Sheriff Joe).

Summer's here

It's been a strange spring. Back in mid-March, it got to almost 100 degrees for a few days in Phoenix. Then it cooled back down 20 degrees, and pretty much stayed there for the next month.

Then a couple weeks ago, it was 100 degrees for a day and cooled back down 15 degrees.

But it wasn't feeling like summer. Today is supposed to break 100 this afternoon. And the extended forecast keeps us there.

The big difference between a day fluke of 100 and four months of 100 degrees are the evenings. It's not going to cool off at night, but continue to be hot and oppressive as the asphalt and concrete give off the heat built up from the day's sun exposure.

Maybe by July, I'll be tired of the heat. Right now, I'm loving it. I have to wear layers or at least long sleeve shirts in my lab because the thermostat is set to 50 degrees. I was bringing a t-shirt to wear in my car since the car would be nice and hot. Right now, I've forgotten said shirt the last couple of days, and I still get home okay without feeling overheated.