It's raining tonight. Not much and not constant, but sporadically it trickles lightly and fills the air with a summer scent we should not yet be smelling. Miles away--not far away--the cactus and prickly pear are burning. The desert wild fires continue on thier insidious path of crisp distruction while the people, they frown, and they wonder what we did wrong. I have a memo here from Mother Nature. It reads: You can't control me. I made a sad connection driving home. I could smell the fires through the windows of my car and the first thing that came into my head was my favorite Christmas song, Chestnuts roasting. I sang the song and emerged with this: Cacti roasting on an open fire, Summer sweating down your back. The desert burns, the sirens sing, Swelter summer... is here. It's horrible, I know it, like playing that song "What A Wonderful World" during the middle of a war. I guess the contrast just makes the situation all the more dramatic, as if it needs to be dramatized. The land where our new house is being built was once burnt by a wild fire. It's pretty much recovered now and with all the houses going up it's hard to tell. I haven't mentioned that in a while. The house--my house--is really making progress. We broke ground a few months ago (I guess I haven't made a big deal about it because the construction was stagnant for so long) and we have walls now. Anyhow, that's all I care to say about that right now. Well, that's all I care to say about anything right now. Hope everyone is staying safe and enjoying their summer. Carrie PS- Babylon is a great song. I forget who it's by, but I burned it on a CD ages ago and can only and always play it at night. I went to play it tonight and it skipped and sputtered and is utterly ruined, which makes me very sad. Bye-bye, Babylon. : ( Two minutes later... I take it back, it's absolutely pouring!