Isn't it Ironic? Don'tcha think?

So: I have been avoiding talking to my mom and grandma for a couple of months now. I didn't mean to not talk to them this long, but I was mad at them and then once I got over it*, it had been too long. Do you know what I'm saying?

* I am not completely over it, by the by. I mean, I am not as mad at them as I was, but I still have things we need to discuss. What I believe has happened is that I'm pissed off about a larger pattern of behavior and this was the last straw, so now we need to fight about that larger pattern of behavior. I'm not a fighter, so I've been staying away out of fear.

At any rate, I took a deep breath and dialed their number this morning.

It was busy.

Somewhere, God is laughing and laughing at me.

Ah, Phoenix

I haven't yet written about our trip to Phoenix. In truth, I was kind of taken aback by my first Phoenix experience. Forget the heat (my God, the heat!) -- the areas we saw (except for downtown) had me scratching my head about why in hell people would want to live there. Granted, there's a booming housing market, with lots of development of the scary "every house looks alike" variety, and you can buy a house for substantially less than in other major metropolitan markets. And apparently, there's been explosive employment growth over the past few years. And it is huge and spread out, even more so than Los Angeles, apparently, so I am basing my first impression on what is evidently a smidgen of what Phoenix had to offer. But it seemed kind of desolate, dirty and cow-town-ish to me. There was a brown tinge to everything. And don't forget the heat. My God, the heat!

But one of the things I love about it is that according to the city of Phoenix's official website, the residents of Phoenix are called Phoenicians. Kind of ironic (wait, this is a theme today), since the original Phoenicians were a seagoing people historically associated with maritime trading, and Phoenix is, well, in the middle of the desert. Indeed, one might say land-locked. I am a geek, so I love this type of juxtaposition.

I did see my first ever dust devils during this trip. Keep in mind that I was only in town for about eight hours.

Low points of the trip:

Getting dropped off by the Budget Rental shuttle in front of our car rental, which was supposed to be an SUV (since there were 5 of us). Instead, it was this.

Eating at a restaurant/bar in the Phoenix Airport, where they allow smoking in eating establishments. Oh my God, come on!

Bizarro point of the trip:

A rodent (either a small rat or large mouse, it is debatable) got trapped and died in the electrical panel of our new house. Big Mike donned some rubber gloves, removed the rodent, and then came running into the house, swinging it in a plastic bag, doing an Eddie Murphy: "Doo-doo! Gonna put it on you!"

Cool part of the trip:

Realizing we actually owned this house, even though we are probably just going to fix it up and re-sell it rather than renting it out. We friggin' actually own something besides a Jeep Grand Cherokee and thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Pretty sweet.