What Does It All Mean??

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What Does It All Mean??

By Meri Ulrich
June 28, 2006

Lately, I find myself walking around my house humming the theme to "Alfie".

"What's it all about Alfie...?"

I moved to Arizona over 16 years ago and at first I found the heat and the monsoons that come every summer beautiful, exciting and awe-inspiring. That delusional thinking disappeared around the third year that I lived here.

Now, the temperatures reaching a staggering 116 degrees in early May and the 30-50 mile an hour winds accompanied by both horizontal and vertical lightening strikes don't amuse me. The loud claps of thunder and the wall of dust that sweeps across the Valley that encompasses the city of Phoenix and it's surrounding burbs is frightening, annoying and allergy inducing. We pray for a few drops of rain and seldom see any although we can occasionally smell it. We count the days in-between rain storms. The last one was over 139 days and it looks like we are in the midst of another long dry spell as we wait for the monsoon season to officially begin. It's supposed to start around the first of July but this year it began in May. I have a feeling that the usual May through October summer temperatures will exceed that time frame and we will still be sweating it out around Thanksgiving.

On top of all of this heat related nonsense there is the fact that it's difficult to go anywhere outside of your house. Our car is small and it has an old a/c unit that doesn't have much power so the trip between stops is unpleasant and one has to learn to speed along in order to keep one's groceries from going bad by the time one reaches one's home. I have spent upwards of $300 on food and come home to unload it discovering that a third of what I bought was spoiled. Also, touching anything in the car can cause third degree burns so you learn how to put on seat belts and drive without touching the buckle or the steering wheel.

Why am I telling you all of this and why all the apparent self-pity? What a miserable, depressing article this is turning into. Well, there is an upside.

Yesterday I finally got a full night's sleep One of my neighbors in our supposed Retirement Community, has three of his GROWN children staying with him on a semi-permanent basis since it appears that none of them can hold a job for more than a week so along with this influx of youth (late 30's to mid 40's) comes youthful habits; like blaring radios and loud trucks. One of them comes home in the wee hours of the morning and forgets to turn his radio off before he enters our usually quiet street.....he parks across the street from my bedroom and the sound of some country yahoo wailing about his dog, his lost love and his truck has been my unwanted alarm clock for over a week. I used to like country music...USED to.

Anyway, yesterday I finally had a full night's sleep (the country music fan was away for the entire night) and I felt really good. The heat had cooled from about 110 degrees to a mere 105 and things were all right with the world. I was even in the mood to do my daily exercises and had made all of the preparations for a tasty dinner so I was feeling pretty good. I was looking forward to watching "Hell's Kitchen" with Gordon Ramsey who I adore and things were definitely looking up ( I just realized that this article is beginning to sound like the words to one of those country songs).

I decided to venture outside into my enclosed carport for a quick smoke (yes, another reason to be depressed about life), and just as I lit up and started to relax three things happened simultaneously:

1.) The otherwise clear, calm day turned into an orange swirl of wind and dust

2.) The country music fan arrived with radio at full blast

and.....

3.) The Church on the corner that plays it's lovely bells three times a day began the slow dirge of "Nearer My God To Thee".(the song that was being played as the Titanic sunk).

Needless to say I was back to where I started........hot, annoyed and positive that I AM the Titanic.

With sinking heart and runny eyes I returned to the coolness of my home and sat here in front of my computer for a little R&R. I soon wandered into the Rebuttal area to find that I was being skewered by Sir Dayo and promptly decided that things were not going to get any better.

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..."

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About the author: Meri has a Medical/Legal background and is a former forensic researcher specializing in psychological profiling.

https://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=27335

Email: writers2@cox.net

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