Dreams, Moments, Travels
Other parts of the valley of the sun are getting rain, only we don’t. Threatening heavy clouds glide by and are soon gone without dropping even a fine mist. Early in the evening, we hear some thunder but nothing else materializes. By morning we read about flooding in areas surrounding Phoenix, but for us – nothing.
Found a new tea shop not far from home, it is called Souvia and while they don’t have BoBa tea, they carry just about every other gourmet type of tea known to humankind. I had a green tea if for no other reason I love watching the leaves unfurl, expand, and float in their liquid space. The shop is a nice addition to a rather boring side of Phoenix.
Yeah, the humidity goes way up, occasionally the electricity will go out with a nearby lightning strike, and even a bit of flooding comes with the onset of the Monsoon season – but the skies – the skies are brilliant. From the middle of July to the end of August I could post sky pictures every day. The best views are at sunset when billowing white thunderheads crawl up into the sky while a low sun paints the bottom of the clouds with hot pinks, oranges, and reds. But even on these days when miserable grey skies loom overhead threatening torrential rains, the sky can look amazing.
Jeez, there’s got to be something better than this on TV? Besides reflections, images are rarely seen on our quickly becoming archaic TV, we are still in possession of an old picture tube-based television. Due to the fact we have not had cable, satellite, or even rabbit ears on our TV for years, we are not the best candidates to upgrade to plasma, LCD, DLP, projection, HD, or any other means of TV viewing. Sure we watch movies, they come to us via Netflix and we watch them in a small window on our computer monitor. Quickly we have become social rejects as our vocabulary regarding Lost, Survivor, Friends, the Sopranos, or any other hit show is crippled. No, we don’t watch sports, no broadcast news, no sitcoms, nothing, nada. Instead, we travel, visit friends, cook, read, listen to music, do stuff. Currently listening to The Sea from Morcheeba after the Thai song Duay Nam Ta from the Num & Ning CD Love and Dream, with the TV still off.
The Wizard gazes into his crystal ball at the Wizard of Odz on Bell Road in Phoenix, Arizona and while attracting customers to this lamp repair shop, he told me on the side that the future looks bad. From an unpopular war to crazy executive orders, state secrecy rivaling communist Russia, to poor people about to lose homes they should have never been sold, rising energy costs with disappearing supplies, a cooking planet whose tears are drying up at the damage we curse it with, the future of America looks like a great place for haves and hell for the rest. Where is our celebration, our happiness, has the spirit of America fallen down, stumbled, bruised its shin? When will we dump King Bush, shake off the shackles of corporate governance gone astray, and embrace our freedom again? Crystal ball says, not soon enough.
Hand me a pacifier. The home foreclosure rate in Phoenix, Arizona is up 168% from some time a year ago due to the overinflated real estate bubble that landed hardest in California, Florida, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. So I can’t help but wonder if our low gas prices are acting as a pacifier for the bruised pocketbooks of Phoenicians. While this station is selling gas for $2.75 a gallon, another down the street is selling for $2.63 while Nebraska folks are paying $3.22. What really doesn’t make sense though is that oil is selling for $76 a barrel and the price of gasoline keeps going down, I wonder what surprise is in the works.