Spring in Arizona

I've never really had a favourite month. When I was younger and people would ask I'd always say August because that's the month I was born, therefore it is special. But living in Arizona I finally have a proper favourite month and it is February (it'll go back to being August once we move back to Ireland). I remember loving February here last year and I've kind of been spending the whole year waiting to see if my memory was correct. And it was. I just went for a walk with River and it is the most perfect day out there. And that's what February in Arizona. 28 (or 29) days of pure perfection.

I also want to jot down (for posterity) that I fixed my mouse today. Ever since I got it (over a year ago) the scroll wheel has been a bit sticky. It just never scrolled smoothly. So yesterday I finally got annoyed enough at it (can't even remember what pushed me over the edge) to go buy some small screwdrivers and open it up. It took me about half an hour just to work up the courage to yank off the outer casing. I didn't want it to break. Anyway I got it down to circuit boards and pried off the wheel eventually. And sure enough, the grippy part of the wheel was loose and floppy and altogether bad.
I cleaned it up a bit (lots of gunk floating around it) and put it all back together. But it was even worse after being poked and prodded. So today I opened it up again (it took about 1 minute this time), cut off the offending grippy circle and stuck a new piece of grippy rubber on with superglue. And oh my god, it's like super-duper-extra-responsive scroll wheel. It's like having been crawling and now I'm flying. Everything goes up and down so fast.
I kinda love that I fix things. I don't think that happens much any more. People tend to take the easy route and throw the thing out and buy a new one. But I love fixing things, and even more when I make them better than they had been.

dog park adventures

We brought River to a dog park with a lake (pond) yesterday. She swam for her (possibly) very first time. She really loved jumping through the water - I don't think she liked swimming so well, so she got around by doing this leaping-forward-through-the-shallow-water thing. It was cute, and pretty funny.

While we were there a little dog swam too far out and panicked. He swam around in circles for ages. His owners called and called him, but any time he started heading towards them he'd get turned around again and start swimming the wrong way. Eventually the man took his shoes and t-shirt off and went in to rescue the dog. Everyone got back to shore safely, but I'd say the little dog was wrecked for the rest of the day.

The weekend was seriously hot. The thermometer in the car read 41 at one stage. The thermometer in the house got up to 38. It's really too hot for doing anything much - we did manage to laze around in the pool for a bit yesterday, but I worried about getting burned (because obviously I was too lazy to put on suncream).

First sunburn of 2012

It is official. The sun here is very strong. I got pretty burned across one shoulder while wandering around the ostridge festival today.

The festival was fun. We got to see a very silly ostridge race, pet a bunch of animals, watch a dog-jumping-into-water show, a monkey show, and eat some ostridge. Nom nom nom.

I don't know what else to say... I think I'm a bit tired. I might go a lie on the hammock.

Further to Yesterday

More news. Which conveniently escaped my brain as soon as I started typing. Typical.

So, I got a sunhat. Actually, it's not so much a sun hat as an autumn hat. It's made of black felt and I have an idea that if I wear it out in the sun my head will bake. But it's lovely - 1920s style cloche (there are loads of pictures on google if you want to know what style that is). I'm wearing it now :)

I also got a cake decorating funnel with shaped metal tips - for putting icing on things. Ooh - that was my main news. I made muffins yesterday. I used a kind of modified banana bread recipe and they are gorgeous. This recipe called for egg and butter and they made the muffins come out light and fluffy (well, lighter and fluffier than any other bread I've tried). I got the cake decorating thing, because I think some chocolate frosting on top will make the muffins simply decadent :) nom nom nom. And because I've always wanted to have a go with cake decorating / making cupcakes. And yes, muffins magically turn into cupcakes when you add frosting on top.

I don't have much other news.

I don't know if I've mentioned World of Warcraft on here before, but I've gotten up to level 73 and Wrath of the Lich King stuff, and boy are the quests and storylines amazing. I'm playing alliance (because they feel like a big supportive family, where horde feels like a bunch of selfish individuals) and the storyline involving the 7th legion was fantastic. Totally epic. It's funny, because when it ended, I went on to a new area, and it was back to killing animals and providing food for the local community. It felt so small-time.

However, at the same time I reached the alpine area (can't remember what it's called) lordkilljoy was watching Bear Grylls (Man vs Wild, which is a amazing show - I wish I could be like Bear - he can survive in the wild on nothing but insects and plants he finds along the way) in Alaska, and the terrain was so similar to that in WoW that it almost felt like I'd find Bear just over the next hill. So that helped add some of the missing vitality back into the game.

Yea, I think that's about it.

Phonecalls and Daily Life

Phone calls in this country are the weirdest things ever. I just got a call, saw on the display that it was the Democratic Party and wondered did I have to talk to someone who was canvassing. I didn't. I picked up the phone, said 'hello' and in return got a recorded message telling me to press 1 to call and complain to some guy about cutting movie rights in New Mexico (and therefore jobs). Needless to say, I hung up at that stage, but jeepers, people - I can't imagine how successful your recorded message phone campaign is.

And they love doing that over here. I think I've had about 10 calls in the last 3 months and 2 of them were from real people. The rest were all pre-recorded or a voice telling you to push buttons in order so that they can get their records straight, or something.

*

I had another lovely day yesterday. It was wierd, though, becuase I got woken at 5, and didn't really get back to sleep. At 7, I got up, marvelled at the sun on the balcony, and went painting miniatures. I went to the park again, for about an hour - bliss, though it was slightly colder than Wednesday (there were more clouds). I might go again today, but it's really windy at the moment.

Wise Man's Fear arrived yesterday. Anyone who doesn't know of Patrick Rothfuss should go out and buy both of his books right now. They are amazing. Well, okay, I havn't read Wise Man's Fear yet, but I'm sure it will be good.

For having gotten up so early yesterday, I wasn't that tired. I didn't fall asleep that fast. Last night lordkilljoy was on call and he got called loads of times. So, I guess I'm a bit tired today. I imagine I'll feel it later.

I think I'll make muffins today. I have an interesting recipe involving bananas and spices. Ooh - google recipes is amazing. I put in chicken last night (because that's what I had taken out of the freezer), told it what other ingredients I had, and it came up with ramen (a kind of japanese chicken noodle soup). And the ramen was lovely. Slightly too salty (even though I added no salt - stock cubes and miso must have had loads) but really good. I'd definitely make it again.

I think that's about it. I'm going to go to the shop today (we need butter) and I'm going to buy a sun hat. While letting my parting get burned in Ireland is fine (because it only happens 4 or 5 times in the whole summer), it's already been burned twice, and I don't think constant burn on my head is the best thing ever.

Oh, I reinstalled Oblivion yesterday. I am totally excited about Skyrim and needed something from Bethesda to take the edge off.

Lizard in the Park

I should remind myself that when the thermometer reads 12C in the shade, it's about 24 in the sun.

I discovered a park close to us. I am so happy because of this. I can walk 10 minutes to the park and sit out in the sun and not feel like all my neighbours can spy on me. Yeay. So I went today, brought my book along and read for about an hour. It is seriously hot out there. Okay, I was wearing two layers on top, one of which was a dark long-sleeve, and jeans. Every part of me was boiling.

And I saw a lizard. It was dark greenish-brown with a slightly lighter stripe, and really small. It looked like a newt - about 1cm in diameter and 10cm long (half of which was tail). It was so cute. I only saw it for a moment as it popped its head out of a bush. I wanted it to come out and lie in the sun so I could get a photo of it, but it stayed safely in the bush.

I kind of want to grab a blanket, put on lighter pants and go back to the park. But I'm a little scared I'll get sunburned.