Man, it’s hot. I mean, convection oven hot. Blast furnace hot.

I know, I know, that’s life in Arizona - as the saying goes, you don’t live in Arizona for the summers. You expect it, this time of year, the blazing heat, the shimmering blue skies burning above, the monsoon season when it’s not just the heat, it’s the humidity. You plan for it every April when you call the A/C guy to come out and inspect your system. I get it.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t tire of it. Last night, in that special place between waking and sleeping, when your brain starts thinking all crazy sorts of things, I was thinking of January in New England, the winter coats and boots, the bundling up just to go outside to get the car started, the bleak landscape of snow, bare trees, and unforgiving clear skies, the chill factor, the crunching of boots on the sidewalk, the breath coming from your mouth, the redness of your ears and cheeks after being outside. Pushing a grocery cart through a half-plowed parking lot of slush and ice out to get to your car.

And for that moment, I was in heaven.

I was never one who hated the winters as much as some. And, to be brutally honest, winter in New England is great for a day or two, but you tire of it easily. Were I living in New England this January, all I’d be thinking about is cool nights on the patio by the tiki bar under the pineapple lights in shirt sleeves, nursing a Pinot Grigio, and gazing out at the green grass and flowering bougainvillea in my back yard.

But there remains something precious about the cold and the winter. So, thinking about that moment between my being awake and sleeping, here’s a gorgeous Carl Wilson vocal from the Beach Boys’ 1979 “L.A. Light Album” to cool you off. Enjoy!

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Pool temp: 92 degrees