Rain Man

Shawn thought he was done for the weekend. Quiet day. Cool, "feels like it's in the 80s" evening, he said when the rains came after a nice little Sunday night pizza party for dinner. Then Shana came running. There was water streaming down into her room through a light fixture on the ceiling.  As I screamed, "Don't turn it on," Shawn headed for the roof. In the rain. In the dark. And it was lightening. Lots of lightening.  

See, we have this pine tree. Starting out as a two foot cute little Christmas tree in a pot gift years ago that we plopped in the ground, not giving it much hope, it now wreaks havoc on our roof, blanketing the flat part with pine needles, clogging up the drainage thingies and forcing water inside our walls. So, besides thoughts of cutting it down in the middle of the storm, I thought about Shawn, trudging around above me, standing in several inches of water, holding a metal flashlight as the sky kept lighting up. I thought about one of his patients telling him last week about two of her relatives sitting outside in Northern Arizona a couple of weeks ago during a storm. One is now permanently in a wheelchair after getting hit by lightening. Her father died from the same strike. I ran out there with an umbrella, jumping up and down, making everything worse, standing right by the pool, then figured maybe we both shouldn't be such risk takers, not on the same night, at least. He yelled for a broom and dust pan. I heard more trudging. My heart was racing. Life insurance crossed my mind. Worried. Mad. But sort of relieved that somebody was up there taking care of business. Smart? Stupid? Some kind of one-track minded, time for Wapner, Rain Man? Shawn finally appeared inside. Wet, crazy, all he-man, safe. And then the water stopped in Shana's room.

Money Bags

Come on guys, pull it together. 

Travel Lag

It happened back in Spain. Suddenly, Shana was the one showing me around. After dragging that kid all over all those other years, it was her turn to show me. She kept going, too, trekking through Europe, even alone sometimes, for five more months and the message sunk in. I'm done. I freaked out for years trying to show her new places, cramming in as much as possible, giving her ideas, hoping she would be ready to get out on her own. And now, for her last summer at home before graduating, we seem to be staying close. Going to some of the old near-by faves, maybe pushing in a different kind of world view that she'll remember.

There's no place like home. Right?

Glee

It's official. I'm late to the party, but now I'm a Gleek. On Sunday afternoon, afraid to venture outside into the hot muck, Shawn and I turned on Glee, then proceeded to stream through almost the entire first season. I never knew what all the hoopla was, but now I'm hooked. First of all, I love Jane Lynch.

She has cracked me up in the Christopher Guest mockumentaries and now she has the part of a lifetime - Sue, the fast-talking coach of the award-winning cheer leading squad, The Cheerios. She's angry. She's politically incorrect, devious, needing to win at all costs and, oh, she sings and dances, too. They all do. No matter what the problem of the day - fake pregnancy, cheating boyfriend, gay football player with facial moisturizing issues, as long as you just break out into song, there will be a happy ending.

Hello?

I'm hanging up now. Hanging up on the home phone. After making a long overdue switch from Qwest to Cox at the office, I did a little home review. When's the last time I even used my home phone? Does anybody important ever call it that doesn't usually just dial one of the many of our other numbers right away anyway? Plus, I'm sick of the thing ringing. Sick of searching for one of two long lost in the couch probably dead-batteried phones. Sick of playing Russian roulette when I answer and cringing when I get the Hello, Mrs. Soooolavahn, this is a robot from India, or a solar panel salesman, or a politician just calling to waste your time, to beg for money, to interrupt your dinner. I used to feel bad for hanging up on the people, then after a twenty minute conversation with the solar panel guy, who had Google Earthed my house, I started to get scared. These people know my address. They know where I work. What kind of car I drive. I had better be nice. Last week a nice guy from ASU called and told me he knew I had seen Billy Elliott recently, knew what shows I went to last year, too, and then all about the needy children at ASU that can't afford to see plays, somehow resulting in fewer dollars in my bank account before we hung up. Those poor kids. But now, all because of me, even though there are much more worthy causes out there, a few more teenagers will be able to see Rent. I guess I feel better about that, but starting tomorrow, I won't be the one having to listen to the disconnected signal. You can reach me on my cell phone. Or at the office. Or on email, regular mail, Facebook or just drive over to my place and we can talk face to face. 

Lazy Days of Summer

It's too hot to blog...

Chilling at the office with this guy

hanging out with these ladies

Happy Hours with this crowd

Baseball games, the Jungle with Louise, the Spotted Donkey with Lisa II, Paradise with Yogi Mary - just keeping it cool here in the desert.

Movie Madness - Queen To Play

Queenies, you're the most important part of the game. A Monday Movie Madness Mini Vacation to France. Beautiful film.

Book Club - We Had It So Good

Roarin' to go - book club at The Roaring Fork - we have it so good...
The Big Ass Burgers, the big armed neighbor, the summer lovers, the Billy Joel bottle of red, bottle of white, the does a four pack of wine beat a three carat rock?

Plowing through a little summer reading this month: South of Superior

An Accidental Sportswriter

and Free Food for Millionaires.

Animal Planet

After a wild week with Shana and Shawn and Amy and Zach and friends and parents and fireworks and haboobs and little kids in the pool, it's pretty quiet around here. There have been two entire days in a row when the dishwasher and the washing machine weren't spinning at all. Now Shawn's in his man cave and I'm left walking around wondering where everybody went. 

Road Trip

Shana hit the road. With Zach. Zach, the guy that has practically been moved in to our guest room over the past month. The guy that tagged along to San Diego. And Pinetop. And to dinners and movies and X-boxing and swimming. The guy that met Shana last October. The guy that waved good-bye to her when she left for Spain and the guy that counted down the days of the semester and waited for her to get home. That guy. So now she's on his home turf, Sacramento, after heading north for a two day car ride. She's hanging out with the family for a week. The little brothers. All the friends. Seems so fast. So serious. So weird. Last week she was saying bizarre things about moving out of Arizona. And even asked how to choose a bridesmaid without upsetting anybody. Crazy talk, right? For a little girl?

What a trip.

Movie Madness - Horrible Bosses

Ditched my not so horrible boss and snuck into Summer Movie Madness with the girls. The cast was amazing, the jokes raunchy, the theme not so far-fetched and the laughs kept coming.

Beats working, you MoFos, now bend over and show me all fifty states.

It's a Pool Haboob

Rainy days and Mondays always gets my haboob down. After five days of breathing dust and scratching my eyes, it finally rained. Big rain. Thunder at three am and it's still drizzling. Dirty haboob drowned, sky clear and bottom of pool nowhere to be found.

The Girls of Summer

Celebrity All Star game with the Divas!!! Phoenix is all abuzz with the MLB All Star Game.

Going anywhere with Ronnie is always first class. We weren't even the only celebrities there - here's the cute Dan Majerle with our very own Louise.

We all took the Pedi-cab through downtown in the breezy afternoon to oh-so-hip Hanny's

for a dinner date and tried to figure out with Copper "germinator" Mike how to save the world.

A Little Bill Maher Lesson

Here, watch this.

Good thinking, Bill

Ten Things We Like About Amy

1. Joie de Vivre
2. Smart
3. Tries new things
4. Shoves a million activities into one day
5. Hard working
6. Cultured
7. Well traveled
8. Attractive
9. Artsy
10. Plane rusher

...wait, there's more
11. Savvy shopper
12. Animal lover (some animals)
13. Men lover
14. Men love her
15. Pure wit
16. Cool WHip
17. Haboob survivor

And greatest sister/aunt ever...

Summer Spectacular Art Walk

If you can't beat the heat - join it!

Started off a cool night with the spectacular Shana, Xandi, Amy, Ronnie, Carla, Carol and Jaye gang at Herb Box Happy Hour. Cool cucumbers, sangrias and tasty delights kept us happy until we hit the heat while some Katy Perry songs on the flute guided us from one gallery to the next. We met the way cool Lisa Sette, even got invited back to her lair when we told her we've been to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and she introduced me to my new favorite artist, Binh Dahn

who is doing some pretty amazing things, taking us back to the most incredible place I've ever been.

Spectacular!

What's All The Haboob?

Talk of the town/country today was little 'ol Phoenix. Here are some great photos (click on viewers photos)

And some videos - Haboob

Haboob

Dust Might

Steven Speilberg, was that you? I felt like I was Ben Affleck, standing in my front yard as a massive mountain of dust enveloped the neighborhood, waiting for someone to call "Cut!" as the slow-moving beast blacked out the sky and filled the air with dirt. Minutes earlier, sitting on the grass on some beach towels with Shana and the in from NY Amy, who's always on the lookout for a great desert sunset, even in 100 degree weather, we noticed something to the west. It looked like a cloud. Then smoke. Then lava or an avalanche. The brains weren't functioning in the required sci-fi mode. Then, looking to the east, we saw the same thing. The miles wide blob coming at us from both directions. Crunching on dirt in our mouths, scratching our eyes, we went inside, turned off the lights, checked online to make sure we weren't crazy (we weren't) and watched in awe as Dust Storm 2011 rolled over the house.  

Woke up to this.

A brown car.

The dust pile.

Movie Madness - Larry Crowne

Tried to pick a light, fun, funny holiday flick for a hot July 4th. All fluff, no fireworks.

AAHhhh

Pinetop - 67 degrees. That's more like it. Family weekend with the in-laws. Even the BF came along. Reading in the hammock, Monopoly for hours, food, food, food, boutique shopping, Corvette driving, rainy walks in the woods, sleeping with the windows opened.

Uncle

115 degrees
I give
Going to Pinetop