L'aventure américaine

When one is getting a fever and has the chills, all you have to do is sit outside to combat them. I think that I was the only person in Arizona this weekend to put on long pants, wool socks, a sweatshirt and turn off my air conditioning. Fortunately, the fever has passed. However, the 110 degree weather has not.

I've broken both of my rules now. When I got a dog, I told Art Boy that if I ever called myself the dog's mother or put clothes on him, he could slap me across the face. I think that I may have said that he SHOULD slap me across the face if it came to that. Well, I now merit two solid slaps. I have filled out so much paperwork at Petsmart stating that I am the dog's parent and just got so used to the Petsmart employees calling me Odie's mom, that I started to doing to it too! (First it was for convenience's sake, but then it just seemed catchy.) Slap #1. This week, Odie, Spinner (my bike now has a name!) and I went to my new favorite lunch spot for a delicious (DELICIOUS!) sandwich. On the way back, Odie searched in vain for the shade and started prancing about and whining when on the asphalt. It has finally gotten hot enough in Phoenix to burn my dog's feet. And so, today, I looked for shoes for Odie. Slap #2. However, Petsmart didn't have shoes in O...

This weekend, I commenced in earnest, my quest to discover Arizona. I went camping with a friend from work and her friends in Show Low, Arizona where her boyfriend was doing a triatholon. Odie was very excited to go camping and waited outside with the tent and sleeping bag until I was finally ready as well. Our first stop ("our" referring to me and my pup) was at the Boyce-Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona. This was started in the 19th centure by a man who, with incredible foresite, wanted to preserve the desert flora for future generations. He included native species and also desert plants from around the world. This included a very rare tree called the Boojum Tree. (BOOJUM! What a great name!) It was named by a man who saw it and thought it might look like Lewis Carroll's imaginary boojum tree from "Jabberwocky." It is a weird looking thing, it's true. Odie and I then continued on to Globe, which features the Besh-ba-Gowa ruins from the Sala...

For the first time of my nomadic life, I changed my place of residence according to the government. This morning, I registered in Maricopa County in Phoenix, Arizona, smiled and received my Arizona Driver's License. I am registered to vote in this red, red state and am now part of Donate Life Arizona. Incidentally, did you know that you could register as a Tea Party member? This group of citizens is that official now? Wowza.