WARMIN' UP

It's 85 degrees at 3:30 in the afternoon.  June 10th.  Less than a month until the monsoon is scheduled to start.

Oh yes we do!  (I heard those dubious snickers about a monsoon in Arizona.)

It's a regular season here, usually starting around the 4th of July and running until September.  If you were to check the description of a monsoon, you'd learn that it is a change in the direction of the wind.  Where normally our "breezes" (heh-heh) come in from the West Coast, during the monsoon season they blow up from the southeast.  Dust storms down in Southern Arizona first, sometimes bringing rain.  Up here the mountain tops apparently dig into those clouds, releasing more rain.  Not a lot, mind you, but enough to cool down the late afternoons and evenings.  After a few weeks of dry, sunny heat-filled days, the cooling monsoon rain is a relief.

I remember my first day in Phoenix, back in July of 1972.  I was in a little store when raindrops began coming down outside and everyone rushed outside to get wet.  I thought they were crazy but then I learned that it hadn't rained for something over 100 days.  I got used to it and became a little crazy myself, in time.

YOU DIRTY DOG . . ER, CAT

We've taken to letting Blackwell join us for cocktails on the back patio.  It took awhile.  He was taken, initially, with jumping over into the neighbor's back yard and then, who knows where, until he got tired, or hungry, and came home.  Well.  I didn't like that, even though he wears a collar with a badge with his name and our telephone number.  I would get very nervous about where he had gone and I'd search and call his name and worry, worry, worry.

Ridiculous, eh?

But that's the life of a pet owner.

So I finally put up enough fencing and chicken wire and glass chunks that he was defeated in his escape plan.  So, now he is confined to our fenced-in backyard and he has only us to commune with.

Now if I could only break him of his habit of rolling in a patch of dirt immediately upon his escape from the house.

A DAY IN THE (BALL)PARK

I accepted my friend Steve's invitation to go to Phoenix yesterday and attend the final game in the series between OUR Arizona Diamondbacks and the Washington Nationals at Chase Field.

The next photo shows an angry Justin Upton, just after being hit by a pitched ball for the fourth time in this series.  An umpire is trying to calm him down as Matt Williams moves into the center of the action.  The Washington pitcher has been tossed out of the game and their manager is about to be evicted.

Both managers and two pitchers were ejected and four players were hit by pitches.  Espinosa of Washington was hit twice by two different pitchers.  We kept waiting for a "donnybrook" to break out but it never did.

This young fellow was a hero in our section as he made a great one-handed grab of a high foul ball.  He got a standing ovation from the crowd.

Finally, here are the two old codgers - Steve on the left, me on the right - getting ready for a Diamondbacks victory.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  Our team made a gallant run in the 8th and 9th innings when they scored their only runs to tie the game at 4 apiece.  But they couldn't bring the winning run across and a grand slam home run in the 11th inning brought victory and a series split with the lowly Nationals.  Still, a great day in the park.

CRAFTY

Prescott Valley advertised an arts and crafts fair for this weekend.  I stopped by briefly this morning.

Unfortunately what I saw was more crafts than arts.

Woof!

STUFF I LEARNED ON FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK, as some of you know, is one of those "social networking" sites.  I joined it awhile back, then got off it when a former colleague of many years ago got "pissy" with me, then got back on it with limited "friend"-ships.  Sometimes I post, sometimes I comment, but mostly I just read stuff that others have brought to the site.  One of my longtime bookseller pals, J. Godsey, seems to spend an unconsciounable amount of time turning up interesting items.  For example . . this bit of information.

Later, she turned up a great list of non-fiction articles which I suppose I could have found on my own if I read the Atlantic.  But I'm having enough trouble trying to keep up with my New Yorker subscription.  But there's some interesting reading on that list, like the article about Trader Joe's.

Then there's Turner Classic Movies, one of the few commercial sites to which I subscribe.  They send out tips on upcoming films they'll be showing on television.


Of course, I had to subscribe to my Arizona Diamondbacks site, which tells me lots about my favorite team.

Then there's my blogger pal, Joan Perry who keeps me up to date on restaurant news from Charleston, as well as a ton of other items about the city.

I could go on and on but I think I've given you enough information on what keeps me turning to FACEBOOK.  With all of that and blogging and e-mail and much more on the Internet, I'm having trouble getting through two books I recently brought home from the library.

Good thing I'm retired so I have all this spare time! 

A LOSS IN THE FAMILY

Please forgive the use of the word "family" above but it seems that once you get to know someone really well through the blogosphere, they become part of your family.  One such person is Meggie, away down in Australia.  She has just recently lost her husband, Les, after 45 years of marriage.  He was known as GOM, for Grumpy Old Man, on her blog.  They had some rough times together, as he would pull up her plants, mistaking them for weeds, or rearrange the kitchen according to HIS wants so Meggie couldn't find things.

But they had many, many good times together, too.  Many of those good times Meggie related on her blog as well.  Now she has to slowly accustom Les/GOM's favorite dog, Leo, to the fact that his master is gone.  Time and the love of friends, family and "strangers" from all over the globe will help Meggie through the difficult days.

So, if you knew her from her blog, Life's Free Treats, or from anywhere else, be kind and send her a message or a comment on her blog.  She needs us now.

HACKED!

I know.  Those hackers are taking over the Internet and causing a lot of problems.  I shouldn't feel this way.  So, I'm sorry.  But this story tickles me pink!

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/602525/