Cloudy Wednesday

Cold and cloudy today. Well, cold for a Phonecian that is. I suppose if you were visiting from Minneapolis or Moscow you'd think it was quite pleasant at 63 degrees (17C), but I've been converted so now I complain when the temp gets below 70 (22C). It's funny really, when I used to live in Seattle I remember in March or April when we had our first sunny day in four months and it was in the mid-50s (13C) we would run outside in shorts and bask in the sunshine like we were in Florida. Now when the weather is that cold I wear a coat! Last week I was in Florida and it was about as cold as it is here now, and really chilly at night for there in the 40s (8C) and people were walking around wearing overcoats and scarves. I wonder what all those folks who are sitting under a meter of snow would have to say about that! :)

I'm currently looking forward to summer, for now, because I know as when it's here I'll be bitching and moaning about it being 120 degrees (45C) outside and how my sandals are melting to the pavement. But for right now, as I look out on the rain falling off of the fruit on my orange tree and hear the cats meowing for me to build them a fire I long for summer. Beau is the worst about that. She'll start on me as soon as I come out of the bedroom in the morning with her "build me a fire!" meow and keep it up until I either, build her a fire, lock her out of my office or turn on the heat. I am so easliy manipulated. Pam says that Beau was someone special to me in a past life and can just push my buttons. :)

We had a water scare here in Phoenix today. I woke up to the news that the city's water system had been contaminated by runoff from those rains we had week before last and that we were supposed to not drink the tap water without boiling it first or drink bottled water. This affected 1.5 million people who use the city of Phoenix water system, which includes us who live in west Scottsdale. So I went to the grocery store to buy some bottled water and there was a land rush going on there. There wasn't a bottle of water left on the shelves save the 9 dollar Evian (which is naive spelled backwards BTW) and people were even snatching that up. I saw people with grocery carts full of water, and I mean full. Now keep in mind this was only supposed to be a 25 to 36 hour problem while the city filtered out all the dirt clogging the filters at the treatment plants, but people in there were going at it like it was Y2K part 2. I was appaled. I expected people to be smarter than that, my mistake. A person is smart. People are a panicky, reactionary herd that follow one another like lemmings. So, with no water to be bought I instead bought a 3 gallon water container and went home and boiled 3 gallons of water, which worked just fine. So, now after this crisis is over (and I seriously doubt it was that much of a crisis, what is a little dirt in the water?) I'll be able to fill that up, put a little sodium chlorite in it and store it in the garage for next time.

Society is a funny thing.