The Sunday night before my first trip to Arizona, I checked the local temperature in Scottsdale at 10 PM. It was 95 degrees.
Luckily, it's a dry heat, and yes, that makes a difference. One of the locals told me that their heat index sometimes drops below the real temperature. This is unheard of in Chicago, where humidity is a malevolent force and the heat index can be likened to the Terror Alert Level (except you actually give a shit about the heat index).
Arizona's insect population is more hoary and nightmarish than that of any state I've visited so far. My coworker went househunting in the area and spotted three black widows in a single home, nearly walking face-first into a web on the way in the front door. (An indigenous welcome mat, maybe?) Housing divisions invade areas with high scorpion populations, but the original tenants are too stubborn to move. Scorpions glow under black light, and many new homeowners are surprised by what turns up in a black light scan of the backyard.
After hearing stories like these, I was afraid to sit on the ground to stretch after my evening run. I could only imagine how welcoming the open leg of my shorts looks to a scorpion.
The local flora are no more benign. I gently touched the spines of a cool-looking cactus and my friend laughed condescendingly before describing the skin irritation and inflammation those spines can cause. Chill out, Arizona nature!
Two weeks into this assignment, I'm starting to see why people live here: the evenings are 75 degrees and usually rainless, and locals tell me that this moderate weather sticks around all winter while snow plows patrol the streets of Chicago. Summer precipitation comes in the form of thunderheads that rain furiously for 15 minutes but put on a spectacular lightning show as a prologue and epilogue to their visit. The buildings are new and polished, and their low profile allows for fantastic views of extended sunsets.
The Southwestern aesthetic is ubiquitous. Color schemes waver within the bounds of beige and red. Most of the fonts look like they were lifted from a Chili's menu. Sand, rocks, and intimidating cacti are the norm.
Two quick plugs:
- Lucy's book, French Milk, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com! The new & improved version has lots more pages and contains even more John Horstman than before. How much more? Buy it and see!
- My friend Lane made a 3-minute film for the Chicago Film Race, and because his film is rad it was picked to be one of the top 10 finalists. Please watch it and hopefully vote for it here. It's titled "Tomorrow." Click on the picture of the sunrise.
2 comments:
Arizona is really cool in that I don't believe in global warming way. We love to visit my parents in Tucson, but the expansion in population and housing thats going on the south west is insane, when you realize there actually isn't any water, yes it is a desert. But yeah my parents are doing the snow bird thing, winters in AZ. Good thing you haven't seen the big fauna, a bobcat walked right past me drinking a glass of wine in my parents front yard. I could have splashed him.
check your shoes in the morning, that's where the scorpions like to sleep.
Cool pics of AZ. I've been there once - you gotta love 75 degrees in February.
The scorpions I would probably be able to tolerate. However, the black widows is a bit much for me...damn you, John Goodman, and your comedic lure in Arachnophobia! That movie has poisoned my forever.
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