It's all plot.

I've lived in Colorado for eight years in October. It is my home, I love it here so fiercely I cannot imagine living anywhere else, and that includes my hometown even though I love it dearly. I am continually in awe as we drive just about anywhere. Coming around a curve, or over a hill on a side street can be breathtaking. It hasn't gotten old and I doubt it ever will.

I have often heard people who didn't grow up in southern Arizona wax poetic about the landscape that I took for granted my entire life. It's brown, guys. Even the green of the trees is brown. The saguaros are cool, I guess, but they are EVERYWHERE. We decorate with rocks. We wear flip flops on Christmas day. I've never quite understood people (particularly those from the eastern part of the country) who called our boring desert "ethereal" and "beautifully alien" and "it's like being on a completely different planet" and "the sky is so BIG and so BLUE." Uh, okay?

But I've been away just long enough, I've visited huge cities just enough, I've grown so used to my new environment that despite my frequent visits home, it has finally sunk in.
A few weeks ago I snuck into Arizona for a week to hang out with my dad after his knee surgery. We took the back roads from Sky Harbor to Oracle Junction and as I drove along quiet, tidy blacktop - mostly alone on the road with the music of my childhood softly playing on the radio, my dad silent and sleeping in the passenger seat - my breath caught, gooseflesh raised on my arms, and I felt a little teary eyed.

The whole area had been drenched in unseasonable rain in the week preceding my visit and the desert was alive in a way we usually only see in the spare weeks right before it hits a hundred degrees. The sky was crisp and brightly blue, wild flowers lined the roadside. It was good there was absolutely no one else on the road because I caught myself many times leaning far forward over the steering wheel and gazing in awe at the pristine white clouds; massive blinding thunderheads building higher and higher, climbing far into the cobalt that stretched all the way to the horizon.

We don't really get clouds like that here. Our storms tend to crawl across the sky in a great grey mass, overtaking the pale blue steadily, light drizzles giving way to heavier rainfall.

It was breathtaking. It was ethereal. It was alien. It made me so homesick I nearly shook with it.

It was hot that weekend, right before I left. It wasn't so bad in Mammoth, dad lives right next to the river, but I drove into Oro Valley to have lunch with Amanda (we've gotten to see each other three times this year. It's kind of surreal to be honest) and get some groceries for dad and it was hot.

It wasn't quite a pleasant sort of hot, especially since fall was beginning to march its way steadily into Colorado, but it was a familiar kind of heat. Hot in Colorado is sharp, occasionally damp and cloying. But it *is* only a couple of months.

Hot in southern Arizona is total. It envelops you completely, not just where the sun touches your skin. It radiates from the ground, the plants, the *air* is furnace-like. It wasn't comfortable, but it was *comforting*.

Today I got caught in a link spiral through a series of lists about the truths of Tucson. They're funny because they're so true. The end result, however, is that now I'm sitting here waxing poetic about the place I grew up even though I was glad to leave and am glad to be where I am.

I present, in a vague sort of numerical order, a glimpse of my hometown to amuse my Tucson-native friends, and those who've never been there, alike.

Nine Things Only People From Tucson Will Understand
Ten Tucson Stereotypes that are completely accurate
Twenty-nine Things People From Tucson Have To Explain To Out-of-towners
Thirty Things You Need To Know About Tucson Before You Move There
Fifty Things You Probably Didn't Know About Tucson

omg

So, hi. I've been useless as a fangirl for the last MONTH or so. Probably more.

Lets start with getting sick. And then staying sick that turned out to be early pregnancy. And then adjusting to being pregnant. And then...Then! I had to get on a plane and head to Arizona for two weeks.

OMG I had so much fun. First I spent two days with loralienasa in Phoenix. The weather sucked but it was SO NICE getting to spend time with her, just the two of us. And the dogs. *snicker*

So then it was on to Tucson and shinybug and wedding planning. I spent the first few days with her while we busted butt and got a lot done for her wedding. Stringing lanterns, ordering plates and flatware, shopping for cake ingredients. An on and on. We had fun. We listened to podfic, we laughed about the good old days. We remembered why we have been friends for 14 years. *G* And then her beloved came into town and I skeedaddled to my mom's to attend my cousin's graduation and spend time with the fam.

Graduation was windy, my aunt and uncle bought me baby socks, grandma was prepping for double knee replacement, and there was a kitten who liked to sleep on me. I got to see my brother, and spend time with his wife, I adore her FWIW, and generally had a nice quiet time of it.

Saturday dawned and i was time to head back to Amanda and the wedding. And her fiance. Who...ah...um. See he and I used to date. And when I say date I mean lived together for a year and a half before I went completely fucking off my rocker and ruined it.

There has been some...ill will there for a long time. But we are both adults, and we both love Amanda, so we decided to try and be civil.

By the end of the wedding Sunday night, I'd gotten a couple of hugs out of him and we were downright friendly. It kind of rocked.

The wedding was BEAUTIFUL, they both SMILED...BEAMED the whole way through the ceremony and were just glowing the whole night. It was...it was an amazing thing to be a part of.

Monday took me to Mammoth and daddy and grandpa. We had cheeseburgers for dinner and watched westerns and I headed to bed early and slept until noon Tuesday. And then we thinned out the turnip greens in the garden. *G* And I helped daddy find the water leak, and then we drove by Roosevelt Lake on the way into Phoenix.

And then I landed in Denver at 11:30 pm with two extra suitcases, bringing my total return to four bags as opposed to the two I left with. *G*.

My mom likes to buy me things.

Once home I promptly caught a cold and have been down for all of the last week. I'm on the mend finally.

And that's me. Maybe I'll be around more now. :)