How Cool!

Your Monday Photo Shoot: In a picture, illustrate how hot it is where you are. This can be be something as simple as a picture of a pool packed with kids, or, if you want to get really creative, something more imaginative. - J.S.




Remember the picture on the left? This was the temperature in Tucson on June 21st. My has car said it was 110 degrees or higher every day for the past month. But not today, I think. Although the coming of the monsoon has quadrupled the relative humidity around here, the actual temperature has fallen quite a bit. The official high today was "only" 100 degrees, and it was down to 84 degrees by 6 PM. You see, it rained this evening.

It wasn't exactly a gullywasher. It rained a little bit off and on, but there was no lightning and it never poured. Still, check out the car's thermometer at 7:30 tonight. In the past I've often seen it up over 90 degrees late into the evening.

Tuffy isn't fond of thunder or lightning (no surprise there), but she seems to be pleased with the wet back yard. Maybe she'll stop knocking over her water dish for a while. We think she does it to cool her feet.

When we get a decent rain, there's always a puddle that lines our side of the street for a while. Yes, that's our mostly yellow-to-brown grass, and our blue mailbox. You can tell we needed the rain! We still do.

If my sunset pictures from tonight aren't the best in-town ones I've had yet, it won't be because Nature didn't cooperate. I've never seen the colors brighter. I drove around until dusk, taking a few dozen photos...okay, it was more like 50. Satisfied? I'll show you more of these tomorrow night.

The first ones here were taken in the Safeway lot again. Given the number of photos I take there, you'd think Safeway was the Eighth Wonder of the World.






I allowed Microsoft Photo Manager to "correct" the color on that last one. Which do you like better, the original colors (tending toward orange) or the ones the software gave me (tending toward purple)?

Karen

Don't forget the dog!

This is Tuffy Toro, sometimes called simply Toro or Tuf. She was named after Tuffy the Toro, the mascot of the AAA Tucson Toros, now known as the Sidewinders. Someone on the AOL sf writers' boards wanted to see a picture of her, so we took some today. I'll try to get a picture of the mascot uploaded here soon.

Like her namesake, Tuffy can look fierce--cute, but fierce--but she wouldn't hurt anyone. In fact, our Tuffy is a scaredy-dog. Bark and run away; that's her M.O.

We're told that Tuffy is part chow, having a chow's blue tongue. We've never really figured out the rest of her ancestry. She's about beagle-sized. Any ideas, anyone?

Please see http://mavarin.com/karen.htmfor "Four Things that Dogs Want" and "Five Things Your Dog is Trying to Tell You." And if you see my dog, be vewy vewy quiet. She hates loud noises, except for her own barking!

Karen