Word of the Day

Reincarnation (n.), the belief that you'll come back as a flower.

I was born and grew up in Minnesota. My memories of winter are still fresh in my mind even though I haven't spent a true winter there for over 25 years. There is a reason that HTP and I moved to Arizona. HTP and I made our decision to get out of Minnesota on that fateful day when our house developed ice dams on the roof. It was the heart of winter and it was raining outside. I suppose you could say that it was raining inside too. Water was leaking in all over the house. HTP had to climb up on the roof of our ranch-style house in the pouring rain, braving lightening, to see if he could remove the ice dams. Now, you can't just go up on your roof and start hacking away with an ice-chipper like you'd do for on your sidewalk. Shovels are out too. We'd just re-roofed the house the previous summer and damaging the shingles wasn't something that we wanted to do. HTP went up on our roof armed with an ice pick. I still have this ice pick. I keep it in one of my kitchen drawers. It comes in handy when my freezer needs defrosting. After HTP returned from his roof adventure, wet and cold, he turned to me and said, "Why are we still doing this? There are actually places in the United States that aren't this #$#%# cold." I suppose we could have remained in Minnesota, never leaving it except for weekend trips to our cabin in Wisconsin, but we decided on that very night to look for a warmer spot to work and live out the rest of our lives. It's not that I don't like winter. I love seeing that first snowfall of the winter. I don't even mind shoveling the stuff on occasion for old times sake. But I can live without it.

Nothing is perfect. Arizona summers are hot. Really hot. They aren't messing around with any cameras when they drag out that poor egg and fry it on the hood of a car to illustrate this. After the temperature reaches 107°F, you just can't tell people that it's a dry heat with a straight face anymore. You learn to recognize the people who have just moved to Arizona from the Midwest. They plant grass in their frontyards. I learned to wear mid-calf sundresses instead of shorts. It was cooler and the additional fabric would protect me from the heat of the car's seats when we were out driving. I learned to wear a swimsuit under that sundress instead of underwear. Every so often I'd run outside and jump in the pool to cool off. No towels required. It is a dry heat and evaporative cooling works. Except in July and August. These are the monsoon months. It's humid. Not by Minnesota standards but anything over 50% is humid in Arizona. The evaporative coolers (used in tandem with regular air-conditioners) just don't work. We never actually had an evaporative cooler. We decided to avoid this moneysaver because they require someone to go up on the roof and fiddle with them every year and quite frankly, they just add a lot of humidity to the equation along with the cooler air they provide. HTP and I aren't too fond of humidity and after the ice dam incident, HTP decided that roof climbing was not for him. July and August and even into September there are duststorms. Windows you thought were air-tight, prove that there is no such thing as an air-tight window. Not if you want to open it. So everytime there is duststorm, you end up with tiny little sand dunes on the ledge of each of your windows. I can dust everyday but I can live without it.

Eventually, I was able to escape the worst of the heat of the summer. The kids and I would drive up to Wisconsin for a couple of weeks. People who come to Arizona for a couple of weeks in the winter are referred to as snowbirds. I don't know what they call people from Arizona who go to Wisconsin for a couple of weeks in the summer. And then the two weeks expanded to three weeks, a month, two months. One September when the kids were back in school, HTP looked at me (the temperature outside was 110°F.) and he'd just swept the sand out of the pool after yet another sandstorm, and he said, "Why are we still doing this? No one even uses this #$%@$ pool anymore." We moved. Arizona still, but no pool. We loved that house. It was on a man-made lake. Unfortunately, we had to have grass. If you have grass, you have to mow grass. I suppose we would still be living there during the winter if it weren't for the HOA (homeowner's association and I won't tell you what else we called them even though during a moment of utter rage I might have referred to them using this title in a previous blog). To top this off, the fact that finding someone to take care of yard upkeep while we were spending summers in Wisconsin was impossible. We tried. We moved. Again. We're older now and wanted someplace warm for the winters, no grass, and low upkeep. I like this house. But only during the winter months.

HTP and I can now call ourselves snowbirds. Now that our children are all grown, HTP and I plan to spend most of our year in Wisconsin. I'm looking forward to seeing the tulips and daffodils bloom. I'm looking forward to fireplace fires in the spring and fall, and the first green leaves unfurling as the weather warms the trees. I'm looking forward to planting my garden, picking berries, and making jam. I'm looking forward to watching the thunderstorms as they flash and bang over the lake. I look forward to fishing, hiking in the woods, birdwatching and seeing the first fawns. I'm looking forward to watching the green leaves turn to gold and red and orange in the fall. I'm looking forward to that first dusting of snow. Let's not get silly. I don't look forward to mosquitoes, wasps, deerfly and really, really cold weather. Nothing and nowhere is ever perfect. HTP and I will return to Arizona as snowbirds must before it gets too cold just as we'll head to Wisconsin before it gets too hot.

Are we satisfied now? Are we done with all our moving from here to there? For right now, I can say in all confidence that we're settled. Tomorrow, next year, ten years from now? No-one can honestly tell you what tomorrow will bring much less next year or ten years from now.

Murphyism of the Day

Foster's Law (no relation)

The only people who find what they're looking for in life are the fault-finders.