Summer is coming. Like a freight train - we can't see the headlight yet, but we can feel the rumbling.

In the mean time, it's been nice.

According to the local paper, this has been the coolest June in the Valley of the Sun since 1913.


             


That's an interesting thought - it's REALLY interesting if one realizes that, in 1913, Maricopa County did NOT have five million people, all driving cars at the same time over a paved area the size of Connecticut (I can't find population figures older than 1950, when Phoenix has 108K people. It's a good bet that it was considerably smaller in 1913 :)

So, if this is the coolest June since 1913, and yet now we have all of this heat-producers in a huge heat-sink - what does that really say about the weather? It seems to me that producing that we're enjoying that nice, cool temperature under conditions that 1913 could not have imagined - which may mean that the actual weather conditions themselves haven't been experienced since (possibly) much further in the past.

Whatever the causes, and whatever the comparisons - I'm loving it.

Of course, all good things have to come to an end, and the forecast highs for the next four days is 102 F, 104 F, 105 F, and 103 F - which are about normal for this time of year. I'm not really looking forward to that, but it's a lot easier to take having had this nice, long cool spell. (It's also easier to take realizing that, one month from tomorrow, we leave for three weeks on Oahu).

Maia is really loving it - now that she's been shaved almost bald, she's jumping around and acting like a puppy. I'm ready to order a set of doggie clippers to keep her this way; I've thought about shaving Ethel to see if she'll start jumping around and licking me, too, but I don't know how I would hold her still while I worked her over with the clippers (Ethel, unlike Maia, has yet to learn the "stay" command).

When it hits 102 F in town tomorrow, it'll only be 97 or so at the house - and the same temp range at Lake Pleasant, which is where I'd like to go sailing tomorrow, if'n I can get Ethel out of the house. I've been invited to go wakeboarding again on Sunday - I might do it, if'n I can get Ethel out of the house (there's a definite theme here - a repeating issue - but I can't quite make it out).

Tonight Ethel has obligated us for Ugly Baby Duty - after only seven months, Floyd and Angela have decided to get out of the house for the night, and we have been drafted coerced shanghaied volunteered invited to keep the little darling overnight. I've tried to explain to Ethel that it's been seventeen years since we've had an infant in the house overnight - not only that, but we practiced Family Bed with Silas; when he would wake up, she's roll over, latch him on for nursing, and go back to sleep. We won't be doing that with little Jackson - it'll be rocking and walking and drivng the baby back to sleep at 3 AM. But Ethel (everybody prepare yourself for this - it's gonna be a shock. Get smelling salts and fans to bring yourselves back to consciousness after reading this) - Ethel just won't listen to me.

And why do I have this funny feeling that, just about the time that Jackson wakes up for his 3 AM temper tantrum, Ethel will suddenly come down with some menopausal ailment or other? "Honey - get the baby. I've got the hot flash/cold chills/leg cramp/mood swing/running-out-of-egg-cells galloping never-get-overs".

It's gonna be a long night. But I might take the kid out back, onto the back porch, into the cool of the evening - while we've still got a "cool of the evening".

Because Summer Is Coming.