Arizona Living

The work day just ended and I walk out the door to very high temps -- 116+ -- and blue skies overhead.  I hop in my car and very carefully grab the seatbelt as the metal part gets very hot! and snap it in place, fire up my Cruze and turn toward home.  The onboard dash reads the outside temp as 119F.

Off over the mountains, about 10 miles away, I can see clouds -- oh boy, maybe a monsoon is headed our way!  As I drive about a mile toward those mountains, I can see low in the center of the dark clouds a bit of yellowish white and then my phone buzzes me with an alert.  Dust storm advisory until 5:30pm!

I drive another mile and I can see that this yellowish white patch has gotten taller, and much wider.  I cross my fingers that I'll reach home before the onslaught of wind and debris reaches me.  I turn a corner - two miles from home - and I can tell it's closer with every minute that ticks off the clock.  Another mile to go, and bits of leaves and gusts of wind buffet the side of my car as I pass each side street.  I miss the final light before my turnoff, so there I sa
t for another 90 seconds, watching the winds pick up.  The light finally turns green and I give her some gas, another half mile to go.  I watch a bird trying to fly from left to right in front of me straight into the wind.  He didn't make it to the grassy area but only reached the sidewalk.  Just past this grassy park is my turn for home, and I'm relieved that I'm finally home!

As the dust storm passes over my house, inside becomes so dark that I turn on the living room lights.  The wind kicks at my wind chimes and set them off, adding a nice tinkling noise.  Odd comforts as the rest of the storm passes through.

I am thankful that these dust storms don't last if you're in one spot.  They usually pass through in under 20 minutes, unless it's a really large one.  If you're out on the road, it can be worse than driving in fog.  You can't see very far in front of you; at the same time, you feel your car rocking with every blast of wind.  Then there's the other drivers, you have no idea if they are practiced in driving in any kind of wicked weather. 

ADOT tweeted this photo - thank goodness I drive all surface streets to and from work!

1..2.. Lights Out!

As always, a busy day at work.  But I've been "sticking to it" and hitting the gym during my lunch hour.  Today, I got there, changed clothes and jumped on the treadmill.  I got my stride going, and was just getting into a real rhythm, completing my first quarter mile when .... ZZZZZZzzz ..... we lost all power.  The dim emergency lights kick on, the folks using weight machines and the ellipticals were OK - they don't require power to run.  And I thought "hmm, I could stick this out, hop on some other machine ...."  BUT without power, there's no AC.  Now, I'm not a wimp - ok, not MUCH of a wimp - but it's 105 outside, and there is no AC and no fans.  And I have to go back to work after this. 

I grabbed my cell phone and found my way into the ladies' changing room (where there are no emergency lights) and by the dim light of my cell phone, I'm trying to dial up the combination on my lock.  I usually leave my glasses in the car when I'm working out, so add in a whole lot of squinting in the dim light and I'm praying "please open please open please open" and click, it did!  Hooray!

Get out of the gym clothes and back into street clothes, hoping I don't leave anything behind, or wear anything inside out!  And the thought occurs to me:  Power may be out in MY store as well, since we're kaddy korner to the local PF.  So I zipped around a major block because street lights are out and not all Arizonans stop for street lights not working!  I didn't want to try and cross 6 lanes of traffic, so I took the scenic route back to my store.  And nope, power wasn't out!   Thank goodness!




Needless to say, I'm feeling a little bit cheated on my workout, but that's ok because with all the heat and being really busy in the store, I've still managed over 14k steps again today!  

I know that whatever I need to do to reach some new goals won't happen overnight, so I'm trying to be patient, and consistent.  And I'm trying new things.  Today's new:  vegetable lasagna

It was pretty good!  I'd buy it again.