Arizona is a strange place. To foreigners, they imagine this region like a ghost town with Saguaro and tumbleweed, horses and stagecoaches. Well, maybe not the stagecoaches, but certainly a desolate place full of mirages and streets that feel like solid Hell. But once you've lived here, once you've seen a sunset and a sunrise, once you've survived your first few summers, this place becomes a home you grow to love like a sibling; you mock it, make jokes about it, but in the end, there's no where else you'd rather be. This past winter seemed exceptionally long. At the slightest hint of summer's approach, a wind would come and blow away the weak rays of spring. I don't remember wearing sweatshirts for so long. Winter is terrible here. Your skin becomes as dry as the sand you walk on, paler than cow's hide and often your hair fills with static too and girls walk look like they're walking on the moon with strands sticking up 8 inches from their heads. But then that sun comes back to us, warm and full. So far, Sun's been wonderful and kind. I walked out the front door around 11 today in a tank top and skirt and the breeze almost gave me the goosebumps, if you can imagine that in June. In Arizona we're all pansies to the cold. We only swim in pools above 84 degrees. Most of us can't face the day without 4 layers of sunblock and solarized sunglasses. Not me. I've got dark eyes so the need to squint is rare. I look the Sun straight on without fear or hurt. I can take it. And my skin, too, isn't shy or in need of protection. I spend hours baking like a marshmallow over a campfire, evenly browned but never burnt. There are so many things I love about summer. Intense tan lines from bathing suits, swimming pools and barbecues, curly hair and unmade faces, tank tops and flip flops, late-night parties and blockbuster flicks, pitchers of iced tea and lemonade, fruit bowls and ice cream, the hum of the ceiling fan and more hours of light. The Flereses and Acquaros came over for dinner tonight. And the Dollanders, naturally. They're old friends of the family who we don't see too much any more. All our parents were friends back in New York and now all the kids have kids of their own (except me, of course). So this evening the house was bit zooey with blurs of color running in and out of doors and rooms. Three little rugrats racing around and swimming and two babies. I asked mom and dad if life was that chaotic when Jackie and I were little. They said no, we were never that crazy, but then they thought maybe they were just getting old and perhaps back then they knew how to tune it out. At any rate, it was very fun. They swam and ate and put on a show and smiled for pictures, wanted to play the piano and marveled at the fish. We ended the night in the library, listening to the "story lady" as she read Swimmy and Funnybones. It was very cute, exactly what mom intended the library and the house in general to be.