Its so hot...

Yep, its summer in Arizona again... and its hot.

It is hotter than normal quicker than normal this year, though. Usually we don't start hitting OMG kind of temperatures for a few more weeks... but I guess Mother Nature was in a hurry this year.

Its funny really, how we handle the scorching heat here. In Phoenix, especially, we wear the highest of the high temperatures as a badge of honor. "In Portland, it was 85F today, and we were roasting.," someone will tell us. "HA!" we exclaim, " It was one hundred and eighteen today in Phoenix. Now, that's hot." Maybe it proves something - that we lived through it, that we suffered... even though, most likely, we were safely ensconced in our air-conditioned homes or cars while the sun baked our little city. Maybe we're just trying to take advantage of the one thing that our city is universally known for, or to live up to the hype at least.

"But it's a dry heat, right?" someone will ask us, usually someone from a more humid place. No one here likes this question, because it makes our "suffering" sound somehow less grueling, as if the absence of humidity makes the high temperatures somehow more bearable. And, secretly, on some subconscious level, we don't want 118F to be more bearable because we want people to stand in awe of the fierce heat of the desert, and, more importantly, that we live here in it.

This is the place, here in our dusty city that suffers from an on-going identity crisis, that makes us tough as nails. This is the place, here in the place of the OK Corral, that humanity has taken on the brutal heat of high summer and stared it down. Amongst the arroyos and the canyons, in the high prairies and plateaus, here in Arizona, we complain about the hot weather in the same breath that we use to proudly display it. I am just as guilty, complaining about how miserable the heat is and then snickering at what folks in other places think of as "hot". It's certainly not nice, sure, because let's face it - hot is hot, no matter the actual thermometer reading.... and yet somehow, my hot, Arizona's hot, is way more hot than anywhere else, right?

Visitors will adopt this crazy behavior as well, as they flock here to partake of the mild winter temperatures. Many a photo has been sent back home, to cold and icy winter climates, of folks gathered around a swimming pool with frosty drinks in hand.... in the middle of December. Yep, here we are in Arizona, a week from Christmas, the pictures seem to say, enjoying the pool while you suckers back home freeze in the snow! Somehow, the reverse (a photo of cooler climes sent to Phoenix in the summer) never seems to have the same effect.

This bizarre sense of accomplishment must be born of our state's world-wide recognition for being hot in the summertime. Its not a unique attribute by far, as nearly every desert in the world experiences the same phenomenon each and every summer.... and yet, whenever I travel and tell people where I am from, inevitably the first thing people will say is "Oh yeah, its hot there, right?"

Yep, it sure is. Like baking in an oven. Just the way we like it.