A lovely, breezy night here in the East Valley, and all around us, the houses are dark with nary a sign of humanity to be had. No TVs playing, no cars, no dogs barking; only the occasional sound of jets on their final approach to Phoenix Sky Harbor, 25 files away.

Today was hot – I mean, h-o-t hot, feeling like the kind of damned, dusty Arizona southwest hot – the kind that beats you down and sucks every last ounce of energy from you. Hot like you can’t wait to get inside a dark, cool bar and quench your thirst with 20 glasses of water followed by one tall Sam Adams draft. Hot like you thank God for the fact you’re not out on some damned manicured golf course winding its way around some quaint subdivision filled with houses after houses that look exactly the same from one end of the course to another. Hot like when you see a baby jackabbit crouched under a cactus and the smallest amount of shade within 100 feet. Hot like when your shirt turns wet with sweat even though you’re not doing a damned thing, even when there’s no freakin’ humidity and you’re sitting under a large umbrella but it makes no damned difference. Hot like knowing that it is, after all, a desert you live in, and this is the way it’s supposed to be come late May. Hot, knowing that this is nothing – that in a few more weeks the mercury will consider 105 just another brief bus stop on the way to 112 or 155, or higher.

After such a hot, damned dusty day the swimming pool feels refreshing and the pineapple lights on the patio supply a friendly glow as they sway in the night breeze, the winds chimes providing a tinklin’ musical accompaniment to their light. It’s a late Sunday night, and sitting out here on the patio another week of frenetic activity and travel (last week, San Francisco, this week, Montreal) is rarin’ to start on the other side of this night. Still – thankfully – it all seems light years away.

It’s a late, warm Sunday night in Gilbert, Arizona, and the rest of the world can go pound sand as far as I’m concerned.