Tag: Weather

March Mellow?

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Hardly. The latest western winter storm battered Arizona last night.

It dropped temperatures, ushered in the wind, and dumped a few feet of fresh snow on Flagstaff. Sixteen inches on Prescott, less than two hours north of us.

While, down in the Valley of the Sun, heavy rains soaked our saguaros.

This afternoon, nature’s afterglow appeared. A brisk fifty-five-degree walk along the Crosscut Canal proved we are protected on the north and east by ranges adorned with snowy peaks.

Squint, beyond a woman texting while walking her dog. See the tops of the Superstition Mountains thirty miles east? They won’t stay white for long.

Small Potatoes

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I’m not a wily weather forecaster, sage soothsayer or tenacious tarot card reader. Just someone (like you) who is alive in 2020. Trying to stay healthy and sane. Hungry for certainty.

In times such as these, I wish I were a premier prognosticator. Not a pollster. I’m done with that margin-of-error stuff. I want news of actual results from the future.

Of course, the outcome of the presidential election is at the top of my list. Along with the arrival date of a reliable vaccine. But I also want to know if and when it will ever rain again in the Phoenix metropolitan area. After our hottest summer on record, we’ve gone months with no more than a few errant drops of natural moisture.

At least the days are cooler. On this morning’s walk, I wore a sweatshirt and long pants for the first time in seven months. The temperature was seventy degrees. Yes, I am a desert rat.

There is one other important piece of information I need from the future. Will that Carlo, mid-century chair (saffron upholstery with brass legs) Tom and I ordered ever arrive or is it lost forever?

I will now proceed to share the details. While in the throes of the global pandemic, we have been making a number of improvements inside and outside our condo: painting and carpeting our bedroom and den (check); casting our votes for the November 3 election (check); replacing our interior doors (happening this coming week); buying and receiving a stone-colored Carlo mid-century couch for our living room (check); and welcoming a lovely and comfortable chair into our refashioned den (???).

After a minor hitch, the couch from West Elm arrived on October 17. Ryder (the people West Elm contracts with) were supposed to deliver the chair before that. But I got one message telling me the truck had broken down and we would need to reschedule. We did that. Then I was told by Ryder they had misplaced our beautiful chair. An angry outburst ensued. Our chair was likely somewhere in a local warehouse and didn’t make it on the truck for the rescheduled date.

West Elm later told us the chair had been found. So we rescheduled the delivery a third time … last Thursday. The chair never arrived. I’ve had two or three additional intense conversations (with various Ryder folks and two West Elm managers).

Now it is Sunday, October 25. Two months until Christmas. I’m done with the angst. I have entered a Zen stage with the missing chair. Maybe it will arrive. Maybe it won’t. West Elm assures me they will get to the bottom of this and make it right in some fashion. I believe them, but I’m not holding my breath. Worst case scenario? I’ll get our money back.

After all, in the scheme of things, the mysterious case of a missing chair is small potatoes. As a new surge of COVID-19 cases crosses our country and November 3 approaches (finally), all I really want for Christmas is a blue tsunami, a new president, a reliable vaccine, a day or two of rain for the Valley of the Sun, and the end of this 2020 madness.

Is that asking for too much?

Advanced Degrees

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It’s July. It’s hot. It’s dry. It’s the Sonoran Desert. No surprises there.

But one-hundred-eleven? One-hundred-eleven again? One-hundred-thirteen? One-hundred-fifteen? One-hundred-seventeen?

These are the forecast high temperatures for Scottsdale, Arizona for Wednesday through Sunday of this week.

I’m not sharing this information to inspire pity or compassion. After all, I chose to live here.

Plus I won’t ever have to worry again about snow removal. Or icy sidewalks. Or digging decaying leaves out of gutters.

Or shoveling two-to-three feet of drifting snow. Or the cilia in my nostrils freezing solid in winter. Or driving down the street to discover that the snowplows have come through and blocked our driveway.

These are Chicago memories. November. December. January. February. March. April can be cold too. So can May.

Anyway, back to July in Arizona. It will rain again in the Valley of the Sun … some day.

Probably a vengeful monsoon or two in late July and August. The washes will fill up. And when they do, the thermometer will dip below 100. Sweater weather?

The local weather forecasters will have another monsoon story to tell. How to prepare for the next storm.

They’ll send their TV news crews out on the roads. To show us that actual rain is falling.

That the pavement on streets is wet. That windshield wipers are swooshing back and forth across glass. Only in Arizona will these ever be considered newsworthy.

Tom and I have figured out ways to manage in the Arizona heat. Early morning walks or swims or masked trips to the store. Reading and writing and yoga in the middle of the day in the AC of our condo.

Lighter meals. Fruit smoothies for lunch. Complements of the new Ninja we bought.

Scrabble. Game shows. Reruns of old sitcoms. That Girl and The Brady Bunch are our latest fixations.

Quiet dinners at home. Late evening strolls to the canal after the sun is down and the temperature is closer to 100 again.

This is the life of a desert rat. Living under the radar. Thinner. Tanner. Dryer. More tolerant of our advanced degrees.

Let It Commence

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DePaulCommencement_061519

We’re a day away from the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. But, based on the weather I experienced in Chicago this past week, you wouldn’t know summer is about to commence.

It was definitely a windbreaker week in the Windy City, where unpredictable weather abounds. Cool temperatures. Sporadic raindrops. Fog rolling in and out along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Just a fraction of the changeable weather I was familiar with when I lived in northern Illinois from 1980 to 2017.

The good news is none of it put a damper on my reason for being back in the “City of the Broad Shoulders” (thanks Carl Sandburg) for five days. I flew from Phoenix to Chicago with my husband for joyous reasons. We attended DePaul University’s 120th commencement. We celebrated my younger son’s latest achievement. Kirk can now add the designation Master of Education to his resume.

Last Saturday, the day before Father’s Day, I was one of several thousand proud family members and friends seated inside Wintrust Arena to share the moment with loved ones. The crowd included my older son Nick, who sat beside me. He and his girlfriend had also traveled back to Chicago to support his brother. It was a constant sea of smiles, cheers, blue caps and gowns as Kirk and the other beaming graduates crossed the stage one-by-one and accepted their diplomas during the commencement ceremony.

Incidentally, after this experience, I’ve decided I prefer the word “commencement” over “graduation”, because the former aptly describes the beginning of new opportunities … new doors opening in a person’s life that come with a significant achievement. (The latter feels more like an ending, a conclusion or a door closing after success.) At any rate, if you–or someone close to you–recently walked up to accept a diploma on any level, I wish you the greatest success in your next endeavor.

Summer is the perfect season for good things to commence. Warm breezes. Plenty of sun. A much-needed vacation. Perhaps even a little time to read a book just for the fun of it or explore a new degree or business venture you’ve been wanting to try. The one deep down inside you that keeps calling your name.

Go for it. Happy Summer. Let it commence.