Long Weekend

Been a nice stay in Tucson, but I think we wore out the grand puppy!!

Happy Memorial Weekend

How you know when a pack of hillbillies live next-door

When they park their rolling ghetto in front of the house. Guess it's cheaper than adding on to the house and the occupants provide fodder for "People of Wal-Mart."

Dry Heat

Been quite a while since we've seen any rain here and it looks as though it'll be dry until Monsoon season starting around Mid June, maybe. The monsoons are iffy at best and often only bring winds and dust. Lots of both. They start moving through the East Valley and they usually get some rain out of the deal, but the West Valley only gets the wind and dust storm.

Already in the 90s and flirting with the 100s by the end of the next week, summer is knocking on our door. The snowbirds are pretty much gone, not willing to put up with the summer heat, but many have retired here and are happy to trade shoveling snow for the 100s in the summer time.

It is also fire season. Brush that grew by leaps and bounds during the rainy season (and we had a lot, for here) are now drying out. By June they'll be nice and crispy, so add the wind and some idiot starting an open fire or the stray bolt of lighting during the monsoons and let the fires begin. The winds also help the fire to spread rapidly and make them tough to fight. In the North at the higher altitudes pine borers have killed off or sickened many of the pine trees, so if a fire gets started up there it also spreads rapidly because of all the available fuel and wind. Funny that one of our state senators thinks it would be a good idea to legalize fireworks here in AZ. And people wonder why I say our state legislature is insane.

For me summer means not having to put as much charcoal on the grill to get it hot enough, sunscreen, wide brimmed hats, and spending more time in the air conditioned house. It is usually very pleasant in the early mornings -- that is the time to be outside, and a great time to walk huskies to avoid "hot-paws."

Don't wreck your grill

I was horrified to read an item by a Canadian woman about grilling vegetables on her new grill. Apparently Canadian men haven't read the rules regarding grilling or her husband would realize the biggest rookie mistake of all is letting your wife near the grill in the first place. The second is allowing vegetative matter to taint the finely tuned meat cooker that is your grill. The grill is an altar of the meat god, and nothing pisses him off quicker than someone polluting his domain with some fru-fru veggie concoction. Laugh if you will, go ahead and slap that squash on your grill, but don't come crying when all that comes off the grill ever after is burned up hot-dogs. The meat god don't play, my man.

So man up, point the wifey back towards the kitchen where she can steam spinach all the livelong day and then slap a cowboy cut steak on grid -- send the smoke skyward in praise of the meat god and you'll never have a grilling "situation." This is your turf, bad enough all the stuff from your college days has been relegated to the garage this grill is your one space where you have control. Or you can hand in your balls, forget the secret man-handshake and let your wife defile the grill with (shudder) singed lettuce leaves and retreat back into the garage looking through the boxes that contain what was once your life and pine for your manhood. Just saying...