Even though the heat is still very much here to stay for a while – that break everyone around here is so much looking forward to is still nearly two months away – you can still still tell August is here. Almost imperceptably, the seasons are changing, even here in the Valley of the Sun where there are only two seasons, hot and “not”.

(Of course, you wouldn’t know the seasons are getting ready to change if you’re working outside during the day. 106 degrees is still hot, no matter how you slice it. And this time of year, it only feels more so because there is a slight amount of humidity in the air this time of year.)

Back home in New England, August typically brings lots of sticky, cloudy days where all the trees seemed to sag under the weight of their heavy deep-green foliage. But here, all seems business as usual, even amidst the appearance of small signs that indicate the year is flying by.

For one thing, it’s not quite as bright when the classical music comes on at 6:30 AM.

…And it was only a couple of weeks ago that I noticed when I begin my workday the sun is still behind my neighbors house, which is nice – the shady green of the lime tree outside my window makes for a calming, pretty scene. And even when it does appear, the angle is lower, allowing me to keep my blinds fully open without it getting too bright, which makes for a nice change.

…And those pretty little flowers my neighbor planted in pots along his walkway – primarily to make his front more attractive to hopefully make his house sell faster (it didn’t) – are now getting long and leggy. Whatever variety he chose I think it was the wrong one.

The pool temperature appears to have maxed out at 96 this year. Last year it got up to 100. So much for global warming…

I know Rob likes August because it means football season is once again here. Which means baseball is in that strange interlude between the All-Star Game in late July and when the pennant races really get cooking at the beginning of September. It was yesterday watching the Sox game in Chicago that I saw for the first time the kind of late-afternoon shadows creeping across the playing field that tell you it’s time to start watching the out-of-town scoreboard.

When I was growing up I used to hate August because that meant back-to-school was just weeks away. You tried to avoid thinking about it, but when the bus routes were published in the Merrimack Valley Advertiser you knew the jig was up. Here in Arizona, like in many places, the schools are already open and, in some cases, have been for more than a week.

One fond memory I have about this time of year when growing up was that August meant gladiolus season, the time of year when we would put up a little table roadside and sell the gladiolus my grandfather grew in our garden by the dozens. It’s been years since I’ve even seen a gladiolus; I wonder if people still grow them?