I call them "thunderbumpers".
They piled up yesterday afternoon but we only got a brief evening shower this time.
I call them "thunderbumpers".
They piled up yesterday afternoon but we only got a brief evening shower this time.
Some of my (you) readers commented unfavorably on the Legado project in downtown Prescott Valley that I reported on the other day.
Yes, right now it looks very ugly.
But as I've been trying to say, that is the parking garage and it will be enclosed with apartments and retail businesses.
Here, courtesy of Legado, is one picture of what it will look like when it's done.
It will have a rooftop restaurant, a smaller Arcade dining spot and a market at ground level, all operated by the well-known Prescott chef and restaurateur Barry Barbe.
The Legado Project, which I told you about earlier this month (click here) continues to grow in the heart of Prescott Valley.
Well here it is Friday, time for some amusement, and it's going to be hard to top that Paul Newman story from yesterday.
But mine is not to court delay but proudly rather to leap into the fray.
Yeah, I know.
I blew the iambic pentameter in that one but here we go anyway.
I've heard this story before but I want to thank a blogger friend, Kate Mura, for posting it once again on Facebook.
Regrettably once again it is fire season in Arizona.
Two fires are burning in the mountains to the northeast of us here in Prescott Valley.
I made a big batch of Sunday Gravy yesterday.
This isn't a photo of it but it resembles it.
Now I know what you're thinkin'.
That doesn't look like gravy.
And that proves to me that you're not Italian.
Italian-American, to be exact.
Now this recipe isn't exactly Sunday Gravy because it doesn't have several kinds of meat in it, as traditional recipes do.
It's just a ground beef pasta sauce that includes onion and peppers and garlic and basil and tomatoes and tomato sauce and tomato paste and salt and pepper and a slash of red wine, simmered on the stove top for an hour or two.
Gadfrey!
Now I'm hungry again.
But the name Sunday Gravy came about because Italian nonnas (grandmothers) used to fix it after mass on Sundays, filling their houses with wonderful aromas.
Mine was delicious, served over some rainbow rotini yesterday.
The BIAD (Beautiful Impoverished Artist Daughter) has been working on a project that she has brought to fruition.
She says it is a pedestal that could be used for a gazing ball.
Or maybe a birdbath.
Or a sculpture.
Or whatever you want to display for you and the world to see.
At any rate, here it is.
We made it!
Perhaps a bit tanner, perhaps a bit redder, perhaps blistered.
But we have achieved once again and arrived at Friday.
We got through Ice Cream Day, Hot Dog Day, Corn Fritters Day.
And without even having to say TGIF once, we have arrived at the cusp of another weekend.
So let us not lollygag.
Let us launch into laughter.
Allow me to introduce you to Mimi, one of three members of the BRD's cat family.
And while she appears to be lying back, relaxing, contemplating the meaning of the universe . . what she's actually doing is waiting for Gayle to throw her mouse.
No, not a real mouse.
A small fabric replica with which the cats love to play.
But there's one odd fact in this family.
Gayle has taught her various cats over the years not only to play with their "mice", tossing them around and in the air and catching them again, but also to "fetch" them back to her to be tossed yet again.
I've heard of dogs doing this but never, except for Gayle's pets, for a cat to do it.
I learn something every day.
A few weeks ago Judy and I heard some disturbing news about our longtime friend, Diane Kalas.
She had suffered a stroke in Flagstaff, Arizona, and was in the hospital.
Diane is a vigorous 91 years old but a medical emergency at that age is frightening.
However, Diane being Diane, after a week in the hospital and ten days in a rehab facility she and one of her daughters and a mutual friend left for an annual vacation planned a year ago.
In her beloved Laguna Beach, California.
It was two weeks late but our first monsoon storm of the season arrived yesterday afternoon.
As I remarked, it's as if it was making up for lost time.
It rained, blew and hailed for three solid hours, sometimes lightly and at other times torrentially.
If you turn your audio on you can hear it pattering down.
In this later video, where it was raining harder, you can hear the water pouring down from the flooded eavestrough over the front entrance.
Vive la France!
Yes, it's France's National Day also known as Bastille Day!
So let's eat lots of snails!
Or you could celebrate another day today: It's National Nude Day!
A day when nudists around the world go au naturel.
But if you plan on celebrating it, probably better put off that trip to the store.
Here in Arizona the mercury is threatening to pass the 100 degree mark so let's begin, as we did last Friday, with something to cool you off.