Heat Advisory--Really?

This last week in Phoenix has been a little warm, like the seventh level of friggin' Hell warm. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am getting older, my hands swell, and sometimes I find myself turning my head to hear what someone is saying. But I also think its because it is actually getting warmer. It also seems like this year, unlike years past, professional groups like the news or some new governmental agency, has spent a bunch of money to put out these 'Heat Advisory' warnings you hear on the news, radio, even read them in the paper-the next day, which makes great sense.

I haven't seen rain at my house during daylight hours this year. So the two times I have seen wet sidewalks when I woke up, could be from sprinklers. Oh, sure, it threatens a lot. The clouds build to the north and east an threaten everyone, just not here. I've lived in this valley all my life. I know exactly where I was when we hit the all time back to back days of 121 and 122 degrees, shutting down the airport and finding people lighting candles in church for their air-conditioner. I was in a motor home, monitoring a wiretap of a murderer's home and the A/C in the motor home burned up. So, really, I was in a metal box with no ventilation, balancing an unbalanceable check book. Yep, good times. But here's the thing, I didn't need anyone to tell me it was hot. I knew it was hot. I live in Phoenix for Christsake! Having someone telling me "Hey, uh, well, be careful, drink water, stay inside--its hot outside," kind of seems, well--dumb.

That must mean there are people out there that wander outside and just keep wandering, I guess, kind of like someone in Buffalo, New York during a lake-effect snow storm. "Oh, look honey, its snowing! Let's take the kids, pile into the car, and go look at Christmas lights!" Okay, I get it; they deserve to be thinned from the herd, but do we have to spend tax money on it?

Look, this is Arizona. Summers in Arizona, especially central and southwestern Arizona is just a place you don't necessarily want to be without a completely filled swimming pool that you can carry on your back. As a matter of fact, you don't want to be anywhere except in a cool mall or the rank darkness of a movie theater, moving from movie to hiding in the restroom until another movie starts, to another movie to hiding in the restroom to another movie, until the sun goes down. We had a low temperature the other day of 91 degrees. 91 DEGREES FOR A LOW! Who does that?

Yeah, I know, I hear it all the time-"Well, you just don't know what cold is like. This feels so good." Okay, then take a bottle of water with you if you're out in it. If I was in New York, near Buffalo and it was snowing, I would travel-if I did travel, with a blanket, jackets, gloves, a fire place, a sleeping back, food for a month-all the things the natives travel with. I wouldn't need someone to get paid to tell me "Hey, ah, its cold outside. We have a 'Cold Advisory'. Wear your Mukluks."

Nope, don't need that.

So, if you are coming to Phoenix or have been relocated by your company to Gila Bend, halfway between Phoenix and Yuma, there are two things you need to know the answers to. 1) Who did you piss off to get re-located to Gila Bend and 2) where is the movie theater?

There, there is your heat advisory. Now, put butter on your popcorn and find a quiet row.

This is one of my favorite pictures!

This is one of my favorite pictures. I've used it before and with this blog, I think its totally appropriate to use it again.

I am sorry for the lateness of this blog. You see, here's the thing. I think my secret love is writing. It would be wonderful if I had a one room cabin up on the Olympic Peninsula, overlooking Puget Sound wearing a big sweater, a pot of chili on the stove, and this computer, cranking out stuff, the gooey stuff that makes writing my crack. I would find myself standing in the door way with a mug (not a cup) of hot coffee, watching the morning rain and the deer family in the front yard. But until then, I need to make a living, so I teach high school and actually, I'm pretty good at it. The last few weeks have been a little busy, requiring my attention and causing full fatigue with no juice for writing. Nights come and my favorite time, bedtime, which usually brings some quiet reading in cold sheets, has been ending with me opening the book and then falling asleep with it on my chest, not a word consumed.

We got kids last week.

Yep, for you fans getting this in Turkestan and the Yukon Territories, who have been keeping me afloat with your Kindle purchases, allowing me to get cheese on that occasional burger, thanks and yes, its high school-right in the middle of the peak hormone cycle for a human. They cry and laugh at stuff that usually isn't even a complete thought. They walk off without their gym bag, leaving it in the room. Don't you think you would feel you are missing something, like a forty pound gym bag, with all your dirty laundry and football helmet in it? Nope, you call the young boy back in who is walking down the hall to his next class, which of course is in the next building over in the opposite direction, once you notice the bag and have him come back and get it. "Oh yeah," he says as he sees the bag you are pointing at. You are sure he would have wandered out to practice after school in his practice gear minus the $130 helmet. You want to be there when coach asks him wear his helmet is and he shrugs his shoulders. You know he actually walked half way out to the field not realizing he didn't have it on his head until some mentioned it.

High school kids, especially these guys-sophomores, are fun to watch and mess with. They're clumsy, hormonal, testing, and unfortunately, with some-sad. Home life is anything but home life. We get a ton of kids that are refugees. Their stories make you cock your head to one side and say 'huh?' Makes you want to go out and kiss anything American.

This being Sunday, tomorrow is week two. Usually the first week students are getting settled, schedule changes, their lost, loads change, whole classes disappear then re-appear as something else so its pretty useless to actually teach anything the kids will be measured on. The worst ones in the group, however, are the teachers.

You got to understand something about teachers, we do love our job, love maybe being a little strong of a word. You would have to at least like it to do it for so long when the job is attached to so many crazy decisions made by people who have only seen a classroom thirty years prior when they were young or in a magazine. I guess that's the way it is with most jobs, we promote or hire or vote for those that seem to sound good, but who have never walked in the shoes of those they lead. Of course, that's our fault. I feel, like most teachers, any one of us could fix the problem with the American education system (still the best in the world) within four months if we were given the chance. Actually, its not a chance we need; we have the chance. We just need the energy. Yep, don't have that.

So, I think I will just keep with the pace I'm at. I've been asked every year if I would go into Administration and after watching those guys do that job, I am convinced I would rather disarm IED's in Afghanistan-at night.

So, as you send your children, grand-children, nieces and nephews out into the fray, we are ready to receive them. Oh, and at the end of the day, we'll make sure they have their bag of laundry.