Triple Digits

The remote thermometer attached to the other side of our front door (in the summer, usually a little cooler than the outside temperature since it's affected by the cooler temperature inside) just hit 100 degrees for the first time this year. The thermometer on our back porch (also in the shade, but attached to a piece of wood that absorbs heat) reads 115 degrees. The true temperature is probably closer to the front-door thermometer, but either way, it's hot out there!

Before I moved to Arizona last August, people told me that dry heat wasn't bad. That it was nothing like the energy-sucking humid heat in the east. There is some truth to this*, but on the whole, they were wrong. This desert sun (actually, this is semi-desert), at 5600 feet elevation and triple digit temperatures, is seriously hot and intense. It feels mean. It makes me long for some humidity to thicken the air between me and the sun. It makes me really glad I don't live in Phoenix, where it's about 10 to 15 degrees hotter right now.

We're heading to Baltimore on Thursday, and I must admit that I'm really looking forward to some humidity again! And the color green. I think I'll spend the first few days just feasting my eyes on the green of my parents' backyard, and letting my skin drink in the moisture. Then I'll probably start longing for dry heat again. Such is human nature.

*Dry heat mixed with intense sun is very, very hot. But dry heat in the shade isn't that bad, and dry heat as the sun goes down feels wonderful. Last night around 7:00, the sun was setting and it felt positively heavenly outside. When I glanced at the thermometer (the "cool" one), I was amazed to see that it was still 89 degrees! It felt much cooler to me than the early morning's 73 degrees with bright sun. And only in the desert can you have triple digit days and lovely, cool 50 degree nights. I still can't comprehend why so many people choose to live in Phoenix and Tucson, however.