Dreams, Moments, Travels
As I have said here before, I could post photos of the sky every day. On the way home, speeding down the freeway, sun rays pushed down to the earth and stretched across the sky and even a little bit of rain fell to the north. I whipped out the camera and started shooting pictures through the windshield of our car traveling at 70mph. You can only think, oh what an idiot he is. And I think people talking on cell phones while driving is a hazard.
When did it rain hard enough for this? Was it last night? This morning? No, this is from up north somewhere. While we did have some scattered minor rain showers, it was the north that received the brunt of the monsoons and so for the residents of our part of Phoenix our encounter with the cooling rains is in the form of this muddy water running through a wash.
Take me away from this overbearing heat here in Phoenix, Arizona. The 100-plus-degree days of summer just keep coming. Some days it’s only 105, a few are coming in at 109, even 110, fortunately, we have not seen any 120-degree days yet. I say fortunately as we have had some high humidity with the monsoon season now present. While I sat in the parking lot where these palm trees did not rustle in the wind, we had not the slightest of breezes. I tried to dream of Hawaii, cool water, shave ice, and 100-degree summer heat on a beach with sand so hot your feet blister. Summer – there is no escape from the sun.
This pedestrian bridge crossing Greenway Parkway in Phoenix, Arizona is one of the nicest examples of such a contraption in our fair city. I have never seen anyone using it, but I am sure it must be used at some time or other or why would the state build such a thing? Matter of fact, rarely will one see a pedestrian at all on our streets. At our bus stops, it is just as likely the person waiting is not actually waiting for a bus but is using the bench to get some sleep. I have seen crazy people running down the street, not away from someone chasing them, but running for exercise – in this heat? Checking my memory I just can’t remember anyone walking that would make bridges such as this useful.
For brief minutes, sometimes mere seconds, the late afternoon sky can alight in colors and patterns seemingly unbelievable to those who do not live in Arizona. Some people guess the colorations are a byproduct of the sun’s light filtering through Southern California’s smog that drifts east. As for me, I don’t know, don’t care, I just wish I were more attentive to sunsets so I can see more of these beautiful moments.
Unscrupulous lenders sold mama and papa bear an Adjustable Rate Mortgage on a McMansion in a gated community these Teddy Bears along with their adopted baby dragon from China should have never qualified for, leaving them homeless. In the heyday of the real estate boom, anything on two legs could qualify for a loan. Prices for homes were going to go up forever and ever like endless streams of a chocolate river running through the Willy Wonka factory. But then one day, like Hansel and Gretel, the uninformed consumer, our poor stuffed bears above, find themselves in the oven ready to be consumed not by the witch but by the even more fiendish banking system. Oh, the woe that befalls those with not much more than stuffing in their heads.