Monsoon Madness #11, Curtain of Rain

August 4, 2016
   By my count, this is my 60th monsoon season and I have to say, it never gets easier. The scorching hot temperatures around the clock (when it's 90 degrees at midnite you do not want to be outside), sap any enthusiasm for living. Seriously.

   Most of my friends have summer escape houses in Prescott (Ed Mell), Christopher Creek (Marshall Trimble), or Hawaii (Danny Zelisko). 

   There are some benefits to gutting it out, of course: hardly anybody is on the road in Cave Creek this time of year. You can make a left-hand turn off Spur Cross and 9 times out of 10, there's not a car in sight. This is a beautiful thing. An offshoot of this blessing is that all the riff raff has fled. No snotty Snow Birds hogging the road and the local bars and bistros with their "world class" claims of back east superiority. Good riddance. It's just us desert rats and that is a bonding thing. We grunt at each other in the post office (it's too hot to actually talk) and we raise the one-finger steering wheel salute (no, not that finger) letting each other know we appreciate just sticking it out together.

   I believe Allie Earp once owned up to being a desert mouse. Her husband Virgil, told her she was too small to be a desert rat. My kind of gal.

   Here's one of the small blessings of being left behind. Yesterday, I witnessed this:

Daily Whip Out: "Monsoon Madness #11: Curtain of Rain"

   The actual curtain was a tad more subtle than this, but I have amped it a smidge for effect. it was a literal curtain of rain sweeping across the pass between Fleming Springs and Sugarloaf, and if I was lounging in a cool cabin up on the Mogollon Rim, I would have missed it.

   For everything you lose you gain something, and for everything you gain, you lose something. In this case, my sense of humidity.

The Learning Trail
   Thanks to a recommendation from Larry Winget, I have been reading an instructional and sobering book. Here is a snippet:

Nobody cares "about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchoupitoulas. It isn't that people are mean or cruel. They're just busy. Nobody wants to read your shit."
—Steve Pressfield, author of the book "Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit"

   I needed this. I also need to clean my upstairs storage space, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. Why? I'll let Ann tell you why.

"No person who can read is ever successful at cleaning out an attic."
—Ann Landers