Nature Walk at Dusk

February 20, 2015That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Yesterday was hella hard, guys. It was just one of those days, like we all have from time to time.

My work day ended at five, as usual, and Callaghan gamely came to get me, as usual. We had to run some errands at Tempe Marketplace, so we went there and did that. Then we were almost home when I suddenly felt the need to feel the earth under my shoes… I mean, the actual earth, as opposed to pavement. I wanted to feel and hear the gritty crunch of desert as I walked. Callaghan is always up for my whims – spontaneity is a part of his DNA – so we swung a right on the Mill Avenue bridge and went over to Papago Park, because why not? It was right there, five minutes from home, and it was dusk, the ideal time for a little nature walk. It was around 6:30pm.

The second I stepped off the pavement and onto the desert ground, the aroma of creosote seeped into my senses, even though it hadn’t been raining, or wasn’t about to, and I was exactly where I needed to be. The sunset progressed as we made the gradual ascent toward the red rocks, picking our way over fragments of jumping cholla. When we were almost there, we paused to look out west.

Dusk over the Phoenix skyline (Papago Park, Tempe, 2/19/2015)

We stepped aside as a couple of guys toiled past us on their mountain bikes. Higher up, we could hear the quiet voices of others who likely had the same idea… tough day, long day, the desert calls, the desert heals.

When Callaghan turned around again, he found me sitting on the ground. I’d planted myself on other the side of the trail, and I did not want to get up.

Hi. I’m not about to get up.

No, REALLY! I’m staying right here.

But I was thinking about how I’ve lived in Arizona longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere… about how I moved here with almost no possessions after my military service, and how I built up my life here over two decades. I was thinking about how I left for two and a half years and then one day woke up with every atom of my being aching to be in this desert again. I was thinking about a poet teacher I knew who’d moved to Arizona after his parents died in a plane crash. He said, “I came to the Southwest in ruin. Both real and metaphorical deserts have helped me recover my life.” That’s a part of the magic of living here… you can come to Arizona in ruins, with nothing, and you’ll find yourself gathering the desert’s power and rising up from the ashes of your former life, just like our city’s legendary namesake. Phoenix.

I know I’ve said all this before, but I think it even more than I say it. I think these thoughts often, and I’m so grateful.

I had to get up eventually, of course. We headed back, and I felt blessedly centered and calm. Walking in nature is my favorite way to soothe frayed nerves, even if it’s just down the street from home.

Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m SO glad it’s Friday! Happy Friday, everyone. =)

Freedom is Never Free!

November 11, 2014November 11, 2014That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

It’s November 11, which means that here in the States, we’re observing our national holiday to recognize veterans of the armed forces – the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

At the end of October, I received this incredible email at work:

Saturday, November 8th ASU is hosting Notre Dame at 1:30 p.m. With a desire to honor all of our veterans at ASU, a limited number of tickets have been made available for our veteran faculty and staff. You served with honor, now we honor you. Thank you for your service!

This came from the Salute to Service committee out of the Pat Tillman Veterans Center, a wonderful campus and community resource for veterans and their dependents at ASU. November 3-14 had been designated as “Salute to Service” week – a week of events with focus on military appreciation built around Pat Tillman’s birthday, November 6, and today, Veteran’s Day, November 11. With this, ASU celebrates the entire week as a way to honor vets and Pat Tillman in continuing his legacy as a heroic Sun Devil and pro football star who sacrificed his life in serving our country.

Callaghan was especially excited about the opportunity to go to Saturday’s game against Notre Dame because he’d never been to a college football game before. Coming from France, he had no real concept of the importance or spirit of athletics at the American university (there’s no equivalent of it over there – no collegiate athletics programs, no mascots, no school colors, no marching bands, no cheerleaders or rivalries or tail-gate parties or events like homecoming or play-offs, etc.), but he had heard all the stories. I mean, he knew about it, but he’d never experienced it.

Man, did he get a first-class education in American college football spirit on Saturday! We walked down to the stadium – the joy of living downtown will never fade – where he dipped his virgin toe into the traditional institution of American college football. His foray turned out to be more of a head-first dive straight into the insanity that was Sun Devil Stadium that day. The game against legendary and well-seated Notre Dame proved to be a phenomenal, exciting, well-fought battle on Frank Kush field (55-31 ASU, final).

As you can imagine, the Sun Devils’ victory parlayed into an outrageous all-night party at the many bars, clubs and restaurants up and down Mill Avenue, the main street of Tempe.

Later that night, the passionate and gracious Notre Dame fans we spotted on Mill stood out in their navy and gold gear as they took in the chaos of the festivities with wide eyes. It was like a UFO had deposited the Fighting Irish fans in downtown Tempe, and they had no idea where they were. We saw them wandering slowly down the street in their unseasonal-to-them shorts and t-shirts, looking around with dazed expressions, and maybe it was just me, but I didn’t think they were thinking, damn, we lost, so much as, damn, now we have to get on the plane and go back to freezing Indiana. Because that’s what I would have been thinking, if I were them. (Aside: I’m certain that Arizona gets some of its transplants because people decide to move here after visiting from their cold places to support their teams playing the Sun Devils in sunny Tempe. It got up to 90 degrees that day. Callaghan and I were in long-sleeve t-shirts because we wanted to avoid getting farmers’ tans, but most people were in regular t-shirts or tank tops and shorts. You can generally get away with that year-round out here.)

Here are some pics from Saturday:

Tickets to the game. Thank you, Pat Tillman Veterans Center and Salute to Service committee!

Entering Sun Devil territory. Fear the Fork!

Sun Devil Stadium is built into the cactus-studded “A” Butte at the north end of the Tempe campus.

Score!

The game aired on ABC.

The Sun Devils played an enormous game. The spirit of Pat Tillman was with us, and we veterans in the crowd were recognized.

This brings us to today, a day off, and, most importantly, a day to remember and reflect with gratitude. Happy Veteran’s Day, and to all of you vets out there, thank you for your service!

Little Ranch House in the Desert

August 29, 2014August 29, 2014That Asian-Looking Chick 4 Comments

In my “July Favorites” post (that seems all too recent), I mentioned an on-going adventure that consumed the month. It actually started on the last weekend of June, and the situation changed so frequently from the very start that we just decided not to mention it until the end. That brings us to today. We’re moving!

No need for alarm. We’re only moving down the street this time. Heheh.

We loved our apartment, truly. It was peaceful, and we appreciated the unfettered feeling of renting rather than owning our living space. Having lived in many apartments and owned properties in the past, I’ve always felt more comfortable as a renter than as a homeowner. But over the last few months, several compelling reasons to reconsider welled up.

One, we needed more space. Callaghan used the larger of the apartment’s two bedrooms for his studio, but still, the room overflowed with the accoutrements of his multifaceted craft… plus, we also had to use that space for storage, making it even more cramped.

Two, we weren’t properly set up to host guests, and when your guests mostly come from Europe for longer stays, that’s a big deal. Two of our visitors from France slept on an air mattress we put in the middle of said cramped studio room at night, which wasn’t very comfortable for anyone, and the third – a couple and their daughter – stayed in a hotel (yet somehow, they were the ones who accidentally saw me naked).

Three, I didn’t have an office, and I had been sorely feeling that lack of a dedicated writing space. Obviously, I can survive without one, but I just reached some kind of limit after several years of officelessness. I needed that room of one’s own, to echo Virginia Woolf. Since 2010, I’ve been carving out little office spaces for myself here and there by placing a small desk in the corner of a crowded room, usually the bedroom. I longed for an office again.

Four, nearing the end of our apartment lease, we discovered that our rent would be raised upon re-signing. We had to make a decision.

All of this led to the final thing (and the catalyst for everything) that happened: I was half-joking around one night at the end of June when I filled out a form online. Next thing we knew, we were swept into the eye of the house-hunting storm that defined the months of July and August.

It’s a good time to buy, and looking for a house was fun. The twists and turns of our search initially took us out of our preferred area, but eventually, a house right down the street from our apartment appeared on the market. It happened at precisely the right time, and it happened that we both loved it at first sight, and it happened that our inspector found it to be in excellent condition (unlike the previous house we’d almost committed to buying).

Built in 1958, the house is your standard four-bedroom/two-bathroom ranch-style abode so common here out west. It has everything we need, and nothing we don’t. It was critical to us that we didn’t get more house than we absolutely needed. Most importantly, its location is ideal. The appraiser recorded the house as being situated “1.5 miles from the center of the ASU campus, in a highly sought after area of old town Tempe,” and that’s exactly where we wanted to be.

Little Ranch House in the Desert

The house-buying process was almost complete when the universe, in a flamboyant move to confirm our decision – just in case we were having doubts! – hurtled a spectacular monsoon into our apartment neighborhood, knocking out our power, taking down trees and permanently altering the botanical composition in front of our balcony. It’s still lush and green out there, but suddenly, the tree house effect that had so captivated us in the apartment was gone! We were sad for the destruction of the trees on our street, but it was a magnificent storm.

Our apartment is the in the upper left….

The storm made quite an impact on our street!

I don’t think anyone was hurt, though.

It was the one good storm of the season.

We got the keys last night, and this weekend will be all about the move. It is, in fact, happening, and I’ll be so glad when it’s over and we’re unpacked and organized! I’ve been fantasizing about an organized life with a place for everything for years, it seems. It’s amazing. I’ll have an office, and Callaghan will have a studio that’s just a studio, and visitors will have a guest bedroom and bathroom, and Ronnie James and Nounours will have lots of running-around space, and there will be no shortage of storage space, either.

So, that’s the story behind this latest move into this latest dwelling, which we see as being a Very Long-Term Situation. It’s sweet. It’s a sweet little house, and we’re grateful to have gotten it. We got lucky, is what we got.

Happy Friday!

Blog Design Change!

June 17, 2014June 17, 2014That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

I took a critical look at my blog over the weekend and said to myself, “Self, your blog needs a design overhaul.” I clearly remember sitting in the Little House in the Rhône-Alpes in France back in the fall of 2012, selecting and setting up my first theme and writing my first post. Now it’s 18 months and 161 posts later, and I’m in a totally different place in more ways than one. My blog should reflect that, I thought.

I decided on a new theme, found a dusky photo of Tempe Town Lake I’d recently taken from half-way up “A” Mountain (representing our downtown Tempe neighborhood), and, early yesterday morning, asked Callaghan if he would be so kind as to lend his clicking finger to an impromptu photo-shoot, because what better way to start your day than to go outside and take a million pictures of your overly-detail-oriented partner? (I wanted Virgil’s cute cactus garden in the background!) I also updated content where updates were needed and just generally cleaned things up a bit. We threw it all together last night. It took less than an hour, but the minimal, streamlined result pleases me very much.

So that’s the main thing. The only other thing I wanted to tell you about today was… and this is random (with so much going on all over the place, this week already feels more random than usual, and it’s only Tuesday)…

You know you watch too many horror movies when you hear the low tinkling of a classic lullaby from a back corner of your apartment, and when you cautiously venture forth to investigate, the following dialogue takes place:

“Are you listening to a creepy lullaby?” I called to Callaghan, who was somewhere.

Or it’s the ghost of a child. This apartment complex is probably between 50-60 years old, so a lot could have happened.

“I’m watching sleeping puppies and kitties! Haha! I’m almost done, Baby.”

He was in the bathroom with his tablet, watching cute animal videos!

It was Brahms’ “Lullaby and Goodnight,” and actually, I did have an eerie experience involving that particular nursery rhyme when I was a teenage babysitter. But that’s a story for another time.

One Year Ago Today…

May 30, 2014That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Despite our intentions and efforts, a fly on the wall at the end of May last year would have seen us running around chez nous as we prepared to leave the Little House in the Rhône-Alpes and our alternate “places of residence” on the French Riviera. The undertaking seemed monstrous in its magnitude. It felt like we had loads of stuff scattered all over the southern half of France. Wound up in the chaos of making the trans-Atlantic move back to the States, we had to admit that we were no more organized about it all than we were in the days leading up to our (my) move to France 20 months prior, at the beginning of September 2011.

(I say “my move” because Callaghan never actually lived in Arizona, so he didn’t really move to France. He was here with me for just over three months, and during that time it was decided that we had to live in France because of his work.)

Such as it was that our move to the U.S. of A. was slightly less than seamless. It all turned out well, though, right down to Ronnie James and Nounours behaving beautifully, with exceptional patience, in their carriers the entire way. From the 90-minute taxi ride from La Combe to Lyon, to the two-hour layover in Frankfurt, to the 10 or so hours flying to Houston, to the three hours driving from Houston to Austin the next morning (how they appreciated getting to run around in the Houston hotel room that night!), and the final four hours being carted around town as we searched for an apartment (the one we’d initially arranged didn’t work out), waiting to check into a hotel room for a few days, we discovered that our little boys are Amazing. Superstar. Traveling. Kitties!

Those of you who’ve been reading here for a while – thank you! =) – may remember this picture:

Kitties touch down on American soil, and Ronnie James says, “Wrahwrahwrahwrahwrah” in English for the first time.

We enjoyed five months of fun summer/fall times in Texas before I realized where I had to be.

We packed our entire household again, put Ronnie James and Nounours back into their carriers, and headed west to return to the desert. We arrived in the Valley of the Sun on November 9, moved into our Tempe apartment and eased into an unusually mild Arizona winter.

A few weeks ago, in the heart of spring, we visited the Desert Botanical Gardens and felt truly welcomed home as we wandered amongst the desert flora. You can really see the personalities of the cactuses when you visit the DBG:

Hey there, Stranger! Welcome home to the Land of AZ.
(No one sculpted this cactus to look this way, by the way)

Contrary to what some have been led to believe, Arizona is a friendly place on many levels!

So this is my reflection today. One year back in the States. Seven months back in Arizona. It feels so good to be back. When we left Texas, there was still some uncertainty about the future, but the instant we got here, we both knew that we were home.

When we stepped outside early yesterday morning, the rich, heavy fragrance of creosote settled around us, telling us that it was going to rain. Sure enough, within the hour, a few drops fell, and I thought, how could I live anywhere but this magical, intoxicating place?

I first moved to Phoenix after the Gulf War in 1991. It’s been over twenty years, and I still meet people who come here that way… they arrive in some state of limbo or instability, despair or even ruin, and they rise, like the Phoenix, from the ashes. Arizona has a history and even a documented tradition of people moving here in need of healing (even when the reason was mostly consumption back in the 19^th-century). This is a healing place, a land of powerful Native American spirituality and a sunny, dry climate conducive to recovery.

An artistic take on the logo of the City of Phoenix (at Sky Harbor Airport)

On Monday night, we went down the street and climbed halfway up “A” Mountain to take pictures of the sunset with Callaghan’s father, who was leaving the next day. My breath catches at the splendor of an Arizona sunset to this day.

Sunset beyond the Hayden Flour Mill and Tempe Town Lake

Silhouette of the Phoenix skyline against the deepening sunset

Tempe at dusk, between the sunset and nightfall

Happy Friday, All. =)

Blunt Parking Meters in Downtown Tempe

January 8, 2014That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

This being a new month, I wanted to stay on trend and post about my favorite things from the previous month, but when I sat down to do it, I actually couldn’t think of anything new I loved in December that I didn’t already love in November. However, it’s only the 8^th of January and there’s already a growing list of simple-pleasures things tickling my fancy, so when February rolls around, there’ll be that.

So, what I thought I’d share with you today is an odd thing I never noticed anywhere before. Maybe it’s just me… you know how you can walk by something a million times and never notice it? This might be one of those things: I just recently became aware that some parking meters display messages. That is, they display information other than the amount of money left on the meter.

This, for instance, is a typical parking meter display:

This parking meter has no money left on it.

This was one of many parking meters in downtown Tempe that Callaghan and I passed as we were walking home one day a few weeks ago. We were on Ash Ave., talking as we walked, as oblivious to the parking meters as always, having no need to take notice of them, but then Callaghan stopped and said, “Wait! Did you see that meter?” We went back to the meter in question. It said:

RIP, parking meter.

“I guess that meter is dead,” I said. “How thoughtful of it to let us know.”

Curious, we re-traced our steps to see if other meters would have anything interesting to report. Most of them displayed the -0:00 reading like the first one, but sure enough, another meter down the line read:

This parking meter is FAIL.

Clearly, the people who work for the City of Tempe enjoy this part of the job! Maybe they’ll see this post and know that someone was amused.

THANKSgiving, “A” Mountain and the Hayden Flour Mill

November 28, 2013That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

Today was my first Thanksgiving in the States since 2011, which means that it was my first Thanksgiving in two years! It’s so good to be back. If I’m going to tick off a list of reasons to be thankful, I’d have to put that up in the Top 5.

We started out the day with coffee on our balcony.

Thanksgiving morning in our neighborhood was peaceful.

Then we headed out the door, walked down the street, and hiked up “A” Mountain.

The “A” on “A” Mountain, as seen from the path just below… awkward angle, I know, but there it is!

How I have missed it!

I always enjoy that little hike and the view of Tempe and The Valley beyond, but my focus this morning was on the old Hayden flour mill on the subsequently named Mill Ave, our main street here in Tempe (which, by the way, was originally called “Hayden’s Ferry”). The mill is one of my favorite local landmarks, and I’ve been trying to get good pictures of it since we’ve been back. Needless to say, lots of pictures were taken this morning. Here are just a few:

A shot of us with the mill in the background.

We approached the mill on our descent from “A” Mountain, and I was able to admire it from many angles…

The mill with Tempe Town Lake in the background.

The mill up close. LOOK AT THAT SKY.

Now, we’re off on an exciting last-minute Mission Which Shall Not Be Named At This Time. (Sorry to get all Harry Potter meets the C.I.A. on you guys. There’s a reason for it.)

If you celebrated Thanksgiving today, I hope it was fabulous! Happy weekend, and GO DEVILS!! Our annual Territorial Cup game will take place here on Saturday, and it’s going to be epic, as always.

…and there shall be great fanfare, with trumpets (and fireworks)

November 18, 2013That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Toward the end of our busy weekend, it occurred to us that one interpretation of happiness is when the light at the end of the tunnel starts to look more like the bottom of a cardboard box. An empty box is a glorious thing, indeed! Make that many cardboard boxes. Things are starting to look pretty well unpacked around here, and soon, there won’t be a box in sight… a state of affairs we haven’t experienced in almost a year. We’ve literally been surrounded by boxes since January, and that’s a long time. We found that our unpacking-fu is more formidable than we’d thought, or, more likely, it’s just been coiled up in expectation for so long that when we were finally ready to unleash it, it sprang. Produce the magic box-cutter and things practically leap out of the boxes themselves! We’ve been here for one week, and we’re down to one box. One. Soon there will be photographic evidence of how civilized we are, haha!

One of the many pluses of living in a downtown Tempe neighborhood is, well, living in downtown Tempe, and practically having Mill Avenue in our backyard. It’s less than a ten-minute stroll from our front door. Late on Friday night, we spontaneously decided to wander down there. We were browsing around the upstairs of Urban Outfitters when a girl who looked to be about 19 came up to me and asked a question about the stock. When I told her that I didn’t work there, her expression flashed to disbelief and dismay, like there’d been an unexpected shift in her worldview, and it was more than she could bear. She looked at me and said, “You don’t?” And I suddenly felt terrible about not being able to answer her question. Should I be amused by this? I mean, do I really have that person-who-works-at-Urban Outfitters look/vibe? Yes, I think “amused” is the appropriate word.

We’re also enjoying being close to Sun Devil Stadium, because when ASU plays at home, we know when they score due to the convenient, informative fireworks. On Saturday night, for instance, the celebratory explosives told us a) when it was half-time, and b) that we (ASU) were handily kicking ass. A quick look online confirmed it: the half-time score was something like ASU-20, OSU-3. (Final score was 30-17.) Kitties were alarmed at first, but they’re already getting accustomed to all the unusual sounds… the fireworks, the howling crowds, the karaoke and Shouting Preacher Man across the street (last night) and the planes overhead (the airport’s a stone’s throw away, too).

Somehow, at the same time, our neighborhood is quite peaceful.

View from our balcony, looking to the left…

…and to the right

Now, off to tackle that last box!

NEWS – You Can Take the Girl out of Arizona, but You Can’t KEEP the Girl out of Arizona.

October 4, 2013That Asian-Looking Chick 6 Comments

Yeah, good luck with that!

So. Our move has evolved, rather surprisingly, like this:

Phase One: (planned) Back to the States (June 2013)

Phase Two: (spontaneous) Back to the Desert (November 2013)

Surprise! Surprised?!

That’s right… we’re moving in November, as in, about a month from now. According to the Taoist calendar, I’m in a CHANGE year, which I guess I might have figured out by now, anyway, even if I didn’t know it. We just decided on this move in the last, like, week and a half.

One thing’s for sure – Texas is a fun and interesting place! We agree with our friend who remarked, “Austin is a town to fall in love with.” We’ve been here for four months now. Great times have been had and awesome people have been met and there’s so much to do here, it’s just been crazy-wonderful. Our plan was to stay for a year and then decide what to do after that. We’ve had a few other places in mind, in the case that we did decide to re-locate again. The short list included Lincoln, NE and Denver, CO.

But the longer I’m back in the States, the more I find my thoughts returning to the desert, to the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area, aka the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix is situated in a vast desert valley, surrounded, as per definition, by mountains). Callaghan loves Phoenix, too. We talked about it, and then we looked around at The Shipping mostly still in boxes, and we thought, why wait?

We’re going back to the Land of AZ!

It’s not that I think that one place is better than another, because I don’t. This is simply about feeling right somewhere, which is a very personal thing… feeling spiritually connected to our environment can only be a deeply personal thing. Just as some people believe in soul-mates, I believe in soul-places.

I was born in San Francisco and raised in San Jose, and the whole 18 years I spent in the Bay Area, I never felt comfortable there… not because of the people, but because I didn’t feel that I belonged. It wasn’t my place. In high school, I ~~plotted my escape~~ planned my departure for the earliest opportunity (hello, U.S. Army!) and never looked back. Now, I’ll go to California to see my family and just to visit, but live there again? Not going to happen. I’m hardly alone in this. It’s a pretty common phenomenon, people growing up and leaving their hometowns. It’s like we have to wander away from the place of our upbringings in order to discover where we really belong. Often, we find our special places by accident. You arrive for one reason – school, a job, a significant other – and before you know it, it’s been decades and you’re still there and you’re feeling that content, rooted belonging feeling, and you can’t imagine being anywhere else.

That’s how it happened with me and Arizona, back in 1991. After the Army, I accepted my then-boyfriend’s (also an ex-soldier) invitation to move to Phoenix. It was August, right when Arizona’s at its feistiest. It was scorching hot, dry, and alarmingly sunny year-round with brilliant blue skies and these ridiculous sunsets you just wouldn’t believe, and alien red rock formations with holes in them and gigantic cactuses everywhere. The sky was enormous. There were haboob (dust storms), and the July-August monsoon season brought the heavy aroma of creosote with the rain and the lightning over the desert. It was magical. With the surface streets laid out nice and neat on an idiot-proof grid system, you can get all over the enormous Valley from one end to the other without ever setting tire on a freeway, but an elaborate and efficient freeway system does exist should you desire to use it.

Next thing I knew, I’d been there for 20 years, longer than I’d lived in California. I never wanted to leave. I loved it. Being there just felt right. It was my place.

Then I met Callaghan. We got married. The plan was for him to live with me in Arizona for a year, but it turned out that he had to be in Europe for his business, so after just a few months, we ditched the plan and moved to France.

By January this year, Callaghan’s business circumstances had changed, so we were free to move back to the States (he has dual citizenship, as you may recall). We both wanted to move, and our adventurous spirits tingled with the possibilities. The question “Where should we go?” carved out an enticing open door in our lives, and there were so many places that could answer it! It was easy to sweep my beloved Arizona under the “been there, done that” rug while scanning the horizon for something new. The United States was like a gigantic candy store, and we were standing in the middle of it with ONE decision to make, to start.

We decided on Austin for all the reasons in this post.

And Austin is truly fantastic! What I didn’t anticipate, though, was seeing Phoenix everywhere I looked! The similarities are real, but I’ve come to realize that the reason I see Arizona all over the place is that I want to see it. I miss it. The saying goes, “East or West, home is best.” Arizona is my home. For me, it is best.

There’s great diversity in the Valley, and I’ve lived all over it… Phoenix’s many suburbs include (but are not limited to) the municipalities of Avondale, Glendale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler, Gilbert and Mesa. We’re going to settle in Tempe, because it’s my favorite, and I’m planning to find a job there.

We’ll rent an apartment at first, but we’ll eventually buy a house so when the BIG ONE hits and California falls off into the ocean, we’ll have beach-front property.

I can’t believe it! We’re moving in November!

Here’s a smattering of pictures I’ve taken in Arizona over the years:

Desert blooms in the springtime make me so happy! This was one of the plants in my front yard.

A shot of the sky at dusk

I miss the giant Saguaro cactuses, too

I love these alien red rock formations near the Phoenix Zoo and Desert Botanical Gardens…

I can smell the creosote in the air just looking at this monsoon season sunset!

Stormy monsoon sky!

Phoenix’s Camelback Mountain

This was my favorite sunset, and I remember it well… I came home from work to my Tempe apartment and went straight out to the balcony to take this picture.