Welcome!

It's been nearly 2 months since I've seen anyone in my family, but that's what life is like, living this far south, 15 miles from Mexico.  So let me catch you up on a few highlights.

Two weeks ago it was monsoon season down here.  Now, we don't get a few weeks of wet weather like Phoenix does, mostly because we're 200 miles further west.  What we get instead is a few weeks of unwarranted humidity.  It's so gross to be standing in a classroom at 7:30 in the morning and feeling your clothing sticking to you, when it's sunny outside without a cloud in the sky.  Believe me, you don't want it.  Of course we do get some rain: violent, scary, warning across your TV screen interrupting your watching of The O'Reilly Factor to stay inside rain.  This only happened once this year, but it was spectacular.  Hard, heavy, immediate puddle-creating rain, the kind that is creating flash floods in some washed-out delta in the middle of the desert, just down the street.

As the rain fell, I stood at my door to watch and appreciate.  Some of you might mock this.  Before you do, please realize I live in a place that has been deemed the sunniest place in the U.S.  We have sunshine 98% of the year.  In fact, rain for us is so scarce that January of '10, we got such an uncalled for, angry storm, that they closed school early.  Yes, in Yuma, we close school early because of RAIN!  (Turns out they wanted to get the kids, who live out in the counties, home before the roads washed out.)  The kids down here get excited, just as I do.  If it's even sprinkling outside, there is usually a dull chant in every classroom to head outside and enjoy.  Sometimes living without, makes one appreciate simple things even more.

So on September 5 I was standing in my doorway, enjoying this weather, when the voice of Micheala, my niece, rang in my head.  I knew that if I didn't step out in this weather, I'd regret it.  So next thing I knew I was standing in this torrent (and that's no exaggeration), near instantly drenched.  Lucky for me it was laundry day, and I'd been wearing my swim trunks already!  :)

I had a neighbor standing outside, under the carport, waiting to sell his car.  We talked and joked for a bit, then I asked him to snap a picture for me.  The first one, posted above, was acceptable, but he suggested I do another.  The one on the right I call my "Shawshank" pose.  :)

The storm lasted about an hour, which is HUGE for this town.  In fact, yesterday as I was driving to the movie theatre, I noticed storm clouds in the east.  I was reminded that the news last night warned we might see rain today, Sept. 25, and at that exact instant it started raining.  I used my wipers twice, and the storm was over.

Welcome to Yuma.