SMELL OF RAIN IN THE EVENING CLOUDS

Technically, I do not live in the desert.

We receive enough rain to classify as "high chaparral", which means twice a year we get enough rain to keep our yuccas, mesquite and broom cactus alive.

But we receive little enough that we do refer to it locally as "moisture", not rain.

And it's more than a little bit of an event when it falls.

We're on the cusp of our summer monsoon season, and every afternoon, we look with eagerness to the gathering dark clouds over the mountains.

And we rejoice even when a few sprinkles come fluttering down.

We need the rain badly.

OCTOBER

I like the month of October.

School's begun, and every one's back to their usual work schedule and commute.

There aren't any major holidays you need to prepare for until Halloween at the very tail end.

And Halloween is one of those "optional" holidays - the younger your children, the more you get involved in it, with decorations and costumes and special trick-or-treats; the older you are, you just hand out candy.

I have it lucky there.

I live way out in the country, where even if there were loads of children, we have no streetlights and generally no outside lights on our homes, in order to preserve the incredible night sky we have.

And it is DARK.

So I don't have to decorate or prepare in any such way.

October is also when it (finally) begins to cool off around here - at least at night.






The leaves on the trees in the mountains begin to change, and the green slowly becomes those beautiful reds and oranges.

Yeah, I think I can take on October this year just fine.

DOUBLE THE TROUBLE

Military wards work just a little bit differently than completely civilian wards.

You usually are only at a duty station for 2-3 years maximum, so you don't have a lifetime to make friends.

And you normally are quite a ways geographically from any actual family.

So you make friends pretty quick - and you adopt family from the people around you.

I became a grandmother ante partum of some twins; the dad was in Afghanistan, and the family had already been blessed with a VERY active two year-old that the mom was having to deal with during this pregnancy.

And it was primarily only a sacrament meeting grandparent - I entertained Alister, and when the twins were born, was normally holding one of them.

The twins grew - the dad got home safely from the Middle East - they began sitting by themselves in a row behind me.

Until today.

The bishop, who obviously was NOT thinking very far ahead, asked BOTH the parents to give talks in sacrament meeting this morning. 

So one other not-quite-blood-grandparent took one girl - Rose, who took the switch fairly easily -- and I got Penny, who did NOT react well to her mom leaving her to go sit on the stand.

So I spent an entire hour holding, bouncing, walking, playing, following Penny.

I got my aerobic exercise, even on the Sabbath.

AT THE TWIGHTLIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING

Growing up in Los Angeles, I would never have believed a photograph of what I saw this evening.

I took the horses out early tonight in hopes of terrifying someone.

We occasionally get dirt-bikers out here, racing up and down the roads, raising tons of dust and making that ultra-annoying WWWWWHHHHEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW high-pitched noise.

I admit the noise is the worse part for me. My partial deafness is concentrated in the mid-range - which means high and low pitches come through where normal voices and sounds don't. They come through EXTRA irritating.

But when we get bikers who are out here obviously to 'just have 'fun', I will either go out, stand in the middle of the road and force them to stop -- or follow them with my truck. block them on some dead-end path -- and give them a stern lecture on how these are NOT public roads, these are PRIVATE roads which we LIVE on, and if they wanna run their little cycles they are gonna have to go ELSEWHERE like the Sand Dunes outside of Yuma and do so QUICKLY before the county sherriff I have called shows up.

I'm 5'9", in my fifties, and believe me, I can make anyone under the age of 43 and 2 months on a bike SHAKE in their little black boots.

Which is what I was intending to do when I took the horses out, but as an additional threat, cut them off with two horses, neither of which has ANY fear of machines, motors or people.

But before any dirt bikes returned, I caught sight of the clouds glowing in the last beams of the setting sun.

And suddenly the silly dirt-biker didn't matter at all.

WATCHING LIFE ON A 3" SCREEN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hk8IzdwYEA

What is wrong with this picture?

This commercial displays a lovely young woman in a green green valley who is surrounded by hundreds of orange-costumed dancers in a wonderfully exotic and beautifully choreographed display.

And what is she looking at?

The aps on her new cell phone.

Does that bother anyone else?

It's like seeing people videotaping a beautiful sunset, but not watching it themselves. A couple walking down the street, holding hands, but each talking on a cell phone to someone else.

Are we missing life around us and watching the imitation on a screen?