After weeks and weeks of dry, triple digit weather it has finally dropped to the high 80’s, escorted by thunder, lightning and sweet smelling rain.  Open doors and cool breezes are such a treat.  Funny how perspective can change with such a simple event.

We’ve been running around town prepping for the move into our new home.  It’s echoey and empty right now.  I call out “we’re home” to my cats’ picture in the hallway when I enter.  Our 200+ boxes of “stuff” are waiting for transport from the storage warehouse, which will be next week.  In the meantime there are trips upon trips of crawling through furniture stores, looking for the right desk, bureau, and other things to replace the pieces we left behind in California.  Consignment shops hold puzzling pictures of other people’s lives.  Outlets, mega-shops and local shops of every vintage carry dirt cheap or insanely expensive sofas and chairs that stare back at you like a straggly and abandoned mutts or overprices pedigree dogs.

Not a lot of this furniture is speaking to me.  Or when it does I know it will not fit in our new digs.  Well, at some point a decision will be made, and it will become part of our new home.

Landscaping is another adventure.  Overgrown bushes stretch, begging for a fresh trim.  Several bags of clippings later, they spring back to life, chipper in their comportment.  Not all are desert based.  What was the former owner thinking when she planted 4 ficus trees on the side of the house, 3 of which have been dead for at least the last 3 months?  And the tree she planted right next to the driveway?  (I can see future cracks in the concrete as it takes roots and grows.  That baby is going to need to find a new home.)  Right now I am at odds with the paddle cactus.  Their hair-thin needles seem to launch from several feet away and penetrate into the skin.  It’s painful and lasts several days.  I swear these things are alive and conscious in ways we don’t know.  But in time the Joshua tree and saguaros will be planted and keep us in synch with our desert environment.  And all shall be well.