Posts Tagged With: Phoenix

Almost as Good as Dandelion Wine, Delicious Creamy Citrus Blossom Delight

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Kami

Real, unadulterated, pure citrus blossom scent dances through the air this time of year.  So heady, the fragrance at times throws my equilibrium off ever so slightly.

Citrus BlossomWho’d have thought such a small delicate looking blossom could carry so much weight. Of course, it helps that each tree holds hundreds of blossoms and that there are thousands upon thousands of citrus trees in our area.

The Phoenix area once was filled with many, many more orchards, but those have given way to houses and retail spaces, parks and roads. But there remain enough trees to fill the air to overflowing with an ocean of citrus scent.

Driving past an orange grove causes gas pedals to lift, cars to slow. Runners strides shorten, walkers linger, bicyclists find a reason to stop. Everyone breathes deeper when the breath of citrus blossoms pirouette in the breeze and flit about in the open.

There it is. That sweet, tangy burst of color in a smell. Can you sense the bright mellow, flourescent pastel taste mixed with oxygen? Add a sparkle of fairy dust and you have the exact recipe for this cologne.

There it is again. Take a deep breath. Hold it, let it swirl through your mind, now exhale slowly. Then grab another breath, don’t get too greedy, there’s plenty for everyone. Ahhhh. Now don’t you feel better? I know I do.

The perfume of citrus blossom energizes, fills, enhances, charms, freshens, enlivens and lifts even the most curmudgeonly of souls.

Citrus Blossom clusterA temporary scent at best, in a few brief weeks its intoxicating powers will disappear, leaving behind a memory that many will recall throughout the year.  Anticipating the nirvana of blooming trees rivals Christmas. I wonder at the lack of an orange festival in an area filled to overflowing with citrus.  How about a grapefruit fiesta, a lemon merengue menagerie, a tangelo tango, a lime holiday, a kumquat parade?

I suppose we all celebrate and imbibe in our own private ways.

Like a fine Dandelion Wine,  the memories of a beautiful day are hidden and kept, bottled and stored in an orange, a grapefruit, or a lemon. The beauty of a spring day bursts out of citrus fruit like the riot of blossoms in March. Bite into an orange, slice a grapefruit, squeeze a lime, press your lips to a lemon and tell me it isn’t so.

Me, I prefer to simply be outdoors, letting the blossom revolution of citrus fill my head. The cologne eau de citre’ sings a melody so memorable, I find myself almost dancing. Nothing else says spring quite like this.

orange blossoms

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Sleepless in Phoenix, Or a Suburb Nearby

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Kami
Caffeine has a significant effect on spiders, ...

Caffeine has a significant effect on spiders, which is reflected in the construction of their webs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Either the decaffeinated soda I had at the movie wasn’t, or my brain is being hotwired by miniature gangsters.  Little zingers of electricity keep pulsing through my head every twenty to fifty seconds, just enough to keep me from dropping into dreamland for some much-needed rest.

Today Yesterday was my first Saturday back at real life after my three-week attempt at turning my body inside out through the process of coughing. Luckily the experiment failed and I remain skin side out. I’m a bit tuckered. I think I might have overdone it with the weekend warrior thing so soon after recovery. Oh well.

It felt glorious to be out doing yard work, (remember I’m in Arizona, 75° F today, all the windows of the house open, sorry northerners.) I cleaned up most of the leaves that froze and fell when the temps dropped below freezing for our one week of winter, and I took care of the weeds that sprouted after last weekend’s glorious rain.

Equally satisfying was juicing oranges from our backyard tree, mopping up the mess afterwards and getting some household tasks done that I’d neglected for a month or two.  I also successfully avoided battling the Saturday grocery store crowd by simply not going. I didn’t dust, but I did open the windows and air the house out, which probably added a layer of dust.

So yes, a tiring but satisfying and productive Saturday.  You can insert whatever image of me you want to conjure, smiling happily, wiping the sweat from my brow, cheek smudged with dirt, hair sufficiently mussed. I’m inserting a lovely image of a caffeine molecule. Isn’t it pretty?

Caffeine mol2

Caffeine molecule model  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Luckily this sleepless night won’t turn me into a frog princess for the entire week.  I can sleep all afternoon on Sunday, since I won’t be watching the Superbowl or the overpriced commercials. I’m not actually anti-football. I’m really just anti-doing-what-everyone-else-feels-compelled-to-do.

Once the game starts all the great walking paths will be deserted and it’ll be like an early morning walk, without the cold and without the sun in my eyes. Nap or walk, walk or nap, oh the indecision. Oh, oh, I could do both! What an idea!

The other bonus of being sleepless is being able to catch up on my blog reading. I’d gotten spoiled having all day long and all night long to troll the blogosphere while I was sickly. I think I spent way too much time reading. Is that really possible?

Now that I’m back at work, back on a schedule, and plugged back in to my audio book listening binge, I’ve had to pace myself with the blog reading and tangible book reading. Sigh. There’s a stack of eight books on my desk just begging me to open them. I have a feeling I’ll be pressing the renew button on my library website a few times.

Phoenix, a Cray X1E at Oak Ridge National Lab

A Cray X1E at Oak Ridge National Lab (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Speaking of the internet. Do you ever get the feeling that your entire life revolves around or is dependent on computers? Think about it. From buying groceries, even with cash, to finding out movie times, to communicating with anyone in any way except face to face, requires a computer involved in the process. Unnerving isn’t it?

Most people are in shock on hearing of someone who doesn’t own a computer or a cell phone or who aren’t connected somehow to the internet. I only feel envious. How glorious to live at such a slow pace. It’d be like going back in time twenty years.

That’d be tough to go backwards though. Once you’ve been exposed it’s like you’re a technology junkie for life. There is no going back. Sigh.

I guess having my bankcard mysteriously duplicated, used in some other state and subsequently decommissioned by the fraud detection dudes has put me on edge and made me a bit jaded.

I should be grateful, and I really am, that someone is brilliant enough to write software that recognizes that I can’t possibly be buying groceries or books from a brick and mortar store in one state while buying gas and soda in another state on the other side of the continent. Lucky me. Lucky bank account. Not that they could have bought much with the funds that are in there; another tank of gas, maybe a movie, some popcorn and an extra-large caffeinated soda.

Okay, okay. I’m done being a cranky whiner.

In my defense, the caffeine is still playing games with my brain cells; Space Invaders or Tetris, or both at the same time I think. I’m probably not accountable for anything I’ve written in this entire post.

My pillow keeps calling my name. I wish it’d stop.

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Top Ten Reasons November is the Best Month Ever

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Kami

A Dust Bowl storm approaches Stratford, Texas ...

10. Snowbirds convene for the longest flashmob ever staged.  What?  You didn’t know they  were the original inventors of the flashmob?  Wait for it…wait for it…wait for it….keep waiting.  Gotta love those retirees!  They have such perspective, incredible wisdom and lots of cash that flows into our local economy.  There are many reasons they are known as the greatest generation.

9. Perfect weather.  Well, it is here in Phoenix.  Not too hot, not too cold.  No apocalyptic dust storms, no skies opening up with a year’s worth of rain in one hour, no searing I-can’t-touch-the-steering-wheel heat. Mmmmm.  Ahhhhhh. I am in heaven!

8. NaNoWriMo  National Novel Writing Month.  It’s fun to watch and read about various writers’ efforts to write an entire novel in one month.  Oh, the obsession, the angst, the insanity, the desperation! Sounds so fun!  Maybe someday I’ll try it.  Or not. For now, my novel’s characters are all in a drug-induced stupor until the holidays are done and over with in January.  Believe me, it’s for the best.

7. Water returns to the local Riparian Preserve, bird sightings increase.  I start bringing my binoculars on walks so I can get a better view of all those incredible birds. Where do you think all those northern species hang out while winter cold rages elsewhere?

6. My favorite cousin is coming for a visit and a 10K race.  You should be excited too!  She’s awesome, cool, smart, a killer Scrabble player, very funny, athletic, a book reader, a water engineer, a biker, hiker, runner and she’s single. Just saying.

Arizona Sunrise

Sun rises at it’s scheduled time, once again.

5. Daylight savings time ends for six months, give or take an hour. I don’t have to do complex math calculations before I make a phone call out-of-state.  Arizona doesn’t participate in this odd hoax on time manipulation.  We’re waiting for actual time warp machines to be available at Walmart.

4. AnClOuGaSoMo. Not familiar with this one? Annual Clean Out the Garage Sometime Month. Also known in the Tilby house as Pack Rat Rearrangment Day or I-wish-I-lived-anywhere-but-in-this-household day. Once we’ve survived the self punishment of organizing all our junk it’s a nice feeling to be able to find things we didn’t know we owned but might want some day.

3. Gratitude, thankful status posts and happy lists abound.  Nothing wrong with a little optimism, some paying attention to the positive in our lives. Some people set a goal to post something they’re grateful for as a Facebook status every day of the month.  We are a very blessed group of people and ought to acknowledge that a little more often.

2. The Presidential Election will be over with – for a couple of months anyway. Hopefully, (cross your fingers) there are no hanging chads or other such anomalies.

1. Pie.  ‘Nuff said.

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Categories: Humor | Tags: , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Gardening for Arizona Summer Survivors and Other Interested Persons

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Kami

African Daisies from my front yard last February

It’s gardening time in Arizona.  Hard to believe but true. Most of the northern hemisphere has already experienced an early taste of winter, a dash of snow, some frost, some dang is it really that time of year again driving.

Here in this odd pocket of strangeness that is the desert southwest, (no I’m not going to capitalize it) we are finally coming into our own, emerging from our air-conditioned caves, cars and hovels, to the bright new season that is sanity.

There is a good reason the town is named Phoenix.  A mythical bird that rises from the ashes.  That would be us, the desert rats, I mean, dwellers, the real survivors.  We don’t sneak away during the heat and come back later when it cools down like the snowbirds have the luxury of doing.  But that’s just me being bitter.  Sorry.

We come out in droves once the temperatures begin to stay below 90 degrees and the night-time temperature dip into the 70’s.  This morning it is a brisk and chilly 50 degrees if I step outside, which I’m not going to do since I’m still in my jammies. Yes, I said, chilly.  It’s a sixty degree difference from the 110’s we, ahem, enjoy, during the summer onslaught.  So yes, 50 feel chilly.

With such reasonable and lovely temperatures outdoors we Arizonans begin to think life is once again livable and endurable and we head outdoors to do all sorts of things we can brag about to our northern neighbors.  We post photos on Facebook of ourselves in the pool on New Years Day even though the water truly is too cold for swimming.  We throw some steaks on the grill in January and call a sibling to incite more rivalry, which we miss dearly.  We plant a garden and text or online chat about the tomatoes we just ate fresh off the vine in February.

And then we wonder why we get so many visitors in the winter.  Go figure.

I digress.

It’s gardening season.

In honor of that, I’m sharing a batch of information and websites from a recent very amature class I taught about Arizona gardening.

It’s handy stuff if you’re interested in growing anything here in the desert, from a solitary pot of flowers, to an all out miniature farm in your backyard (which MSH would love, but I won’t allow.)

For those of you in the wintry states, it’s a bit of interesting reading if you like gardening.

A California poppy, from amidst the rocks of my front yard.

I might make a quick mention that if you want wildflowers to bloom amidst your rocks or elsewhere you have another week or two to scatter those African Daisy seeds or California Poppy seeds.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have not planted my garden yet this year.  I’m a slacker, yes.  At least this year I am.  I could give you all my lame excuses but that would be boring.  I’m happy to try to answer any gardening questions you might have if I can, but honestly, all the websites below are where I learned ninety percent of what I know about gardening here.  So check them out and learn.  Then grow!

Phoenix Area Gardening Basics

Sun – 6 hours minimum is needed for a healthy garden.  Protection from afternoon sun is ideal but not absolutely necessary

Soil – lots of compost/organic matter and gypsum added to your soil (6 inches deep) or buy several good potting soil mixes to spade in together

Season – consult the planting guide for what to plant when (cool season or warm season)

Seeds – buy seeds that indicate early crop.  Store for up to 3 years if kept in a dry, cool spot, like inside your house. Dollar store kinds are fine. Our growing season is short, very short, hence the need for early crop varieties.

Water – a timer hooked up to a sprinkler or drip system is easiest.  Deep watering on a regular schedule will promote a strong root system and a healthy plant.

The early stages of one of my square-foot garden beds, sadly, not this year.

Square foot gardens You will only need 20 percent of the ground you would use for the row-and-furrow method. Lay out your garden in 4-foot-square boxes (or multiples like  3 x 4, 4 x 4, 4 x 8) so you can reach in from either side. If you have a box along a wall or fence, then make it only 2 feet wide (or multiples like 2 by 4, 2 by 8, 2 by 12) because you can only work the garden from one side and you won’t have to walk on the soil.

Use Miracle-Gro garden soil (or any other high quality gardening soil) – about four bags of 2 cubic feet each per box. If you have more than three 4 by 4 boxes, call Pioneer Materials and order sandy loam soil. It costs only $45 (at least a couple years ago it did ) for delivery of 1 cubic yard or more. Tell them how many square foot you will need, times 6 inches deep to figure volume. (http://www.melbartholomew.com/  (This blog is by the original guy who invented square-foot gardening!)

Containers – Many plants do well in pots, especially herbs, tomatoes, peppers.  Just keep a closer eye on watering needs

Gardening Websites

*Timely Tips – what to do each month, problems you might encounter, and how to solve them.  Includes lawn care and some tree info. http://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/html/t-tips/t-tips.htm

*Herbs – azherb.org  This site has great tips for soil preparation and discussions about herbs specifically and gardening generally

*Maricopa County Cooperative Extension – Anything you could possibly want to know or ask about gardening in Maricopa county.  http://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/html/general/hort.htm

*Flower planting guide – What to plant during which months, and bloom  times.  http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1100.pdf

*Square Foot Gardening  http://www.melbartholomew.com/

Categories: Gardening, Outdoors | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Different Kind of Air Freshener

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Kami

The atmosphere is heavy with moisture this morning.  To say it’s humid would probably be stretching things a bit.  There is certainly a difference from the usual overly long lingering summer heat we’ve had until now.  The sky is almost completely overcast, the sun trying to break through the clouds, but not having much success.  It’s glorious!

The bedroom communities of Phoenix are hotbeds of sameness, consistency and boredom.  Every third house in a subdivision matches; every landscape holds the same selection of trees, bushes, and rocks.  There’s some small variety, a few “county islands” where the yards are bigger, the houses unique, the sidewalks missing.

This suburban sameness mirrors the weather here.  Every third day, every second day, heck, every day is identical to the others, sunny, hot, blue skies, sunny, hot, blue skies. Oh sure, we have our monsoon season, of towering dust clouds roiling like something out of a scorpion laced movie, but those are rare and out of the norm.

Any change in weather from the trifecta of sun, heat and blue is a welcome change.  So the clouds moving in are all but getting a party thrown in their favor.  “Welcome Back Rain!” our signs taped to the garage door would say.  “We’ve missed you!!  Heart, heart, heart, heart, heart. “

Washing my car was a kind of rain dance a few years ago.  Spend the time to do a nice thorough water and soap in a bucket hand washing in the driveway, buff out the spots, shine the side view mirrors and sure enough there’d be what we call around here, “spit rain.”  Just enough water would drop out of a nearly cloudless sky, mixing with the dust in the air, to create little muddy spots on the car windshield and mess up that shine.

Clouds battling it out with the sun.

Today, however, looks promising.  There’s a wet smell to the air and the clouds seem to be winning out in the battle over the sky.

So in homage to the tentative onset of autumn in the desert, my doors and windows open wide today, exchanging stale indoor air for fresh, moisture-laden air.  Did I suggest it might be fall like weather today?  Oops!  I didn’t mean to let that slip out.   I’m hesitant to say such things for fear of jinxing it.

Just now, while writing, I heard this weird sound.  A wagon on the sidewalk?  Someone going by with a walker to help them shuffle along? The parakeets tearing up the newspaper in their cage?  A cat clawing at the screen door?  Something seriously wrong with the refrigerator motor? Crackle, crunch, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.  Thought I better investigate.  Lo and behold, it’s raindrops hitting the sidewalk, the patio furniture, the rooftop, the leaves on the trees!  Five minutes of a smattering tease of rain.

I’ll take it.  Any rain, even amounts not measurable in a rain gauge are welcome.  (Insert a sigh saved up since April.) What that infinitesimal bit of moisture in the air adds to my day also can’t be measured.  Wet sidewalk scent should be a choice on the air freshener aisle.  Why isn’t it?

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