Lights Out

Good Morning -

We had ourselves a heck of a storm last night. I picked my partner up from the airport at 7:30 and the entire drive back into town we saw the mountains in dark relief as the lightning lit them up from behind - huge bolts, giant white bolts, the kind of bright jagged volts that you'd see on the cover of the Lightning! 2009 Calendar (I know there are such calendars, but, no, can't say with complete certainty that they are named "Lightning!") or on the TV spots by the local electric company about safety during storms.

We were both hungry and my partner had a craving for wings, so we headed over to Rocco's (hands-down winner for best billboard comments) because it was Cheap Wings Wednesday there. Once, there, though, we saw a whole hoard of student-looking people hanging out by the door waiting for seats. We only had 50 minutes left at that point for the wings deal and were hungry, so decided to move on.

Our next attempt was at Bumstead's, which has great food and (mostly) adequate service. They seem to struggle with the staff/customer ratio so that the server on duty is almost always overwhelmed, but their sandwiches and sweet potato fries are so good, it's worth it if you have time to wait.

As we walked in last night, most of the booths were full of student-looking types, which had my low-blood sugar self (read: more primal, less filtered, more feral, less socialized) blurt out, "Are they back already?!" before I could stop myself. I love the students, but it is hard to live in a college town where the worst season (summer) is when you have all the restaurants and entertainment venues to yourself and then, in an evening, like locusts, suddenly the skies darken, the streets crowd, and everywhere you look are young collegians looking for a good time.

In addition to the Return of the Students, there was apparently Bingo going on last night at Bumstead's, which meant we would have just now, this morning, gotten whatever sandwiches we would have ordered last night.

Deciding to cut our losses, we headed out and drove down to the Grill for a burger and some of their famous tots. All planets aligned and we were able to find parking downtown and get a booth. Two beers (see the Steam Engine Lager from Durango, CO on the Virgen), a burger, a roast beef, and 12 pounds of tots later, we were satiated and headed home.

While we had been eating, the lightning storm that had lit up our drive back from the airport had transitioned to a great monsoon down pouring - so much so that our waitress, who was fantastic, had ran to the window when it started and uttered little happy sounds (a good monsoon rain is a site to see - all that ice cold water just pouring out of the sky).

Our ground here, though, is rocky, thinly soiled, and quickly saturated, so all that fantastic monsoon rain water that comes pouring out of the sky ends up making raging rivers in the streets during these big storms.

We were so busy crossing these "rivers" to get home from the Grill that we didn't notice that the lights were out on our street until we pulled up and I noticed the porch light I had left on was out. In places that don't rely on electricity to create a livable climate, downed power lines means, "Oh, how romantic. I'll get the candles, you get the wine, and we'll cuddle up and wait out the storm." In places like Tucson, downed power lines means, "Oh, God. We're going to cook. How long do we wait this out before trying to find a hotel room or friend's house in a part of town that isn't without power?"

We were both pretty tired at this point, and I had a Virgen to make, so we tried to just wait it out. I used a lighter to guide me to our camping supplies, where I found my headlamp. That worked well until the bugs started circling my head. Picking up my pace, I was just starting to look for black paper to use as the background for the Virgen (for the darkness), when the lights, and more importantly, window units, kicked back on.

A hearty, out loud "Thank you" rushed from my lips (the phrasing that came to my head, even though it sounds like a line from a bad lesbian romance novel...), and I switched to the image of a saguaro against the darkened evening sky.

And so that's our Virgen - the desert dimly lit, but not pitch black, and a label from a good bottle of Colorado beer.

Here's to that. Here's to rain. Here's to headlamps, and here's to weather that makes you utter little happy sounds.

Boris at my feet. It looks like I'm stepping on his tail, but I'm standing on my toes (a familiar stance for me - see previous Twinkle Toes post), so I can get all of him in the frame. He's my familiar - always there with me - silent witness, silent support, silent guide.