2005-10-05

The Perfect Snowstorm


Happy New Year!

I mean.... if you're Jewish and stuff.
Otherwise, it's Hump Day? Rocktober 5? Nothin' special?

It is indeed Rocktober. My Classic Rock station, like every Classic Rock station in the world, is featuring Rock Blocks of my favorite Classic Rock giants for the entire month of Rocktober.
Every Classic Rock station calls October "Rocktober", you know? It's got to be in the Credo that if you are a radio station playing a mix of Rush, Pink Floyd, and Eddie Money then you have to refer to the tenth month as Rocktober.

Regardless of what you call it, the season is Autumn. Indeed. I hate that word. Autumn. Augh-Tum. Aught-Um. Ottum.
Fall.
Better.
Believe it or not, regardless of where you live, learn this: Tucson? It's not very warm in the fall and in the winter. Sure, during the day is just fine. The sun acts with the Earth to be an organic EZ-Bake Oven and those two forces bake off anything that is bakeable. Like people and kitty-cats and the inside of my Bitchin' Honda.
And around 5:30, 6 pm?
The sun, she sets.
Immediately, you need a sweater over that sunburn because if you don't act quickly to switch gears, you are going to be a shivering, confused mess huddling on the couch with your dog and your two cats and you'll all take turns with the lighter, trying to warm up your little hands.
Or paws, as the case might be.
I can't believe that everyone thinks it's so warm here. Now, while I realize that I am a human lizard, a hot rock who makes any bed-sharer wake up as sweaty and sheet-tangled in December as he would in July if he was sleeping on a pile of cats. I see benefits to this. In the unheated adobe world of The Tucson Winter, I am an invaluable asset. Home heating costs are expected to sky-rocket this winter and those folks here who are on a limited budget might be smart to consider my heat rock capabilities. I can keep anything warm and I do take trades.

I just can't stay warm for myself. You know, like how cats lie in the direct sunlight and when you touch them, they give you a second degree burn because they are so hot? And they LOVE it? That's me.
I'm pretty sure that if the surface of the sun were to be colonized in my lifetime, I would buy a one-way ticket and wave at you from my window-seat on the shuttle. You would be able to read my lips as they formed the words, "Screw you guys, I'm going home." And I'd take G-Love and Maggie Sauce because they're cats. Not only would they miss me a lot, they'd really be happy if they got to lie on the surface of the sun with me and forge a new life like the pioneers of yore.

It's 95 outside and what I wouldn't give to blink my eyes and Jeannie off the walls of the Cubicle Castle right now.
Oh Sunshine, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
There's really only one important one.
You make me feel like the world is not ending tomorrow.

Growing up in Illinois? I had to go almost a month without seeing you sometimes and that made me hurt more than the skin cancer that I bet you'll give me. I know. It's only because you care.
Mon Dieu! If you have never had to spend any time in the Midwest, you might not know the pain involved with winter. And it starts in the Fall. I was chilly this morning when I walked Rosie in a tank top and my oh-so-over Juicy sweats. I was planning how, tomorrow morning, I would have to wear more clothes and be better prepared for the chill in the air.
If I still lived in Springfield, I would be wearing mittens and my Green Bay Packers sock hat by now to walk the dog.
Wait.
No I wouldn't.
I wouldn't walk the dog in the morning.
Hell, I probably wouldn't have a dog.

Why get a dog when you are going to spend 6 months inside your house, frozen in the face of unrelenting grey skies and the constant brown of your backyard. I don�t care if it's mulch. I like COLOR. Brown and grey are not PALETTES that make sense to me. If you're going to have brown, you need some red and if there's a grey back-ground, at least let some purple flowers bloom.
But god said no to that idea whenever somebody had it so long ago and shortly thereafter, people started making their way West (and sometimes South). People who find that the winter anywhere is intolerable find at least a little solace if the sun is out in Tucson.
Even so, in the dead of winter, you can see your breath in Tucson and you can't stop shivering. A couple of years ago, Tucson had a colder winter than Anchorage. Look it up.

It even snows here, sometimes, all the way down into the Valley. It's an event, like Fox News would call it, "Snow on the Desert: The Perfect Snowstorm." and there's be a tight shot of a little dingo family blinking behind the veil of snow falling in front of their warm den, followed by a reporter shouting into his hand-held microphone: "The people are confused, they are cold, they are afraid, and they need America right now." He would shake his head in dismay at the way the weather turned so cruelly against the desert Southwest and as the music swelled in the background, the camera would roll images of prickly pears covered with 1.5 inches of snow and road-runners darting across a highway where a dusting of what looks like it might be snow blows toward a lonely mesa in the distance.

I bet it's only going to be like 59 degrees tonight and I'm not even kidding that I'll be in the fetal position under a down comforter and two cats like every other sensible desert-dweller, keeping warm enough to be able to get out of bed in the morning and put on 3 layers of dog-walking clothing.
I'M NOT KIDDING
I was the only person this morning not wearing long sleeves and yes, I regretted every shivering minute of it.

arizonasarah at 9:15 a.m.

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