EMPS: Frozen Cure for the Summertime Blues

Now is the summer of my discontent...

Okay, that's an overly dramatic paraphrase, but that's how I've been feeling recently. Although I supposedly qualify for a new benefit year for unemployment benefits, they still aren't in place, and none of the avenues for (re)applying for them actually work. I've had no income since the end of May other than my small paychecks from St. Michael's. I had a supposed job interview yesterday, but it turned out to be a "cattle call" "reverse interview" to recruit commissioned insurance agents. Sorry, but I'd be terrible at that! And today I had a rather prickly conversation with a recruiter of people for medical industry. It turns out that billing coders need specialized knowledge that I don't have - which helps to explain why I've been unable to break in with any sort of accounting position. I just don't have the grounding in insurance codes and medical regulations.

And it's hot. 101 degrees, as seen on my car thermometer above, isn't a remarkable temperature for Tucson in July. Given all the recent days at 107 to 109, it seems a bit cool - until you realize that the photo was taken at 7:30 in the evening! The monsoon has started, so it's not "a dry heat." It's been relatively humid, and so far we haven't had much rain to cool things off.

So when Carly asks for things "Seen In Summer" for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot, I inevitably think about the worst part of summer in Tucson as well as my personal malaise. But I also think of something I see pretty much every time I drive to and from the dog park. You see, there's a Dairy Queen on the way....

...and I've wanted to photograph it for a while now. Every evening in this hundred degree weather, people line up to buy ice cream.

It's mostly an evening thing, according to my observations. I'm guessing that most Tucsonans spend the day in their air conditioned offices and houses and stores, and emerge at night once it starts to cool off. At the dog park, there definitely seem to be more and more dogs around at dusk. It makes sense; I've been worrying for a while now about taking Pepper out in 100 degree weather. After all, her breed is meant to be herding reindeer in the frozen north!

I love ice cream. If carbs, calories, cash and crowds didn't argue so forcefully against the practice, I'd eat ice cream every day. I'm especially fond of Dairy Queen's cherry sundaes and their chocolate-dipped cones. But every night, no matter how tempted I am, I see that line out to the edge of 22nd Street, and more cars making their way around the DQ building. That's when I say, "Not today!" and keep driving past.

But once in a while, say on a Wednesday afternoon with no dogs in the car, I succumb.

Karen

EMPS: Pumpkin Anything on a Winter's Day

For Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #23: Winter Days, Carly asks to see photos of "WINTER DAYS in your neighborhood," and, for extra credit, "the current temperature where you live." For people who don't live where it is currently wintry-cold, she offers an alternative assignment: something COLD, such as ice cream, and, for extra credit, that "cold" color blue.

Very well, then, I'll do all of the above! First off, here's something cold and blue.

Blue vending machines vending "Glacier"-cold water.

And here's something else that's cold and packaged in blue: two cartons of ice cream I bought last night:

Pumpkin cheesecake ice cream adds to my Pumpkin Anything life list.

Notice that one of the cartons is Pumpkin cheesecake flavored, a limited batch and a new victory in my continuing quest to try (almost) any pumpkin-flavored foodstuff I can find. Yes, it was excellent. I also found a much more adventurous pumpkin-y food, which I had for lunch today:

Pumpkin What???!

I was almost afraid to try this, because in my experience, pumpkin doesn't really work in a food that isn't meant to be sweet, such as soup. But I bought and heated it up anyway:

It helps that there is asparagus in it. I love asparagus.

And it was really rather good - odd, but good. I may even buy it again.

But this EMPS isn't meant to be about Pumpkin Anything. What about this winter Monday in Tucson, AZ? Just over two years ago, at the end of January, we had a rare Tucson snowfall:

From my Picasa photo album Tucson Weather

But check out the temperature today, a couple minutes before sunset:

Even last night around 10:30 or 11 PM, when I bought the pumpkin stuff, the temperature in the car registered as 54 F initially, 49 F coming back. I could show you a composite of those temps, but it's not that interesting.

And here was the scene at the dog park itself, as dogs ran to take part in a momentary commotion. The weather could hardly have been nicer:

Really, though, there's a shot I took today that's more emblematic of winter in Tucson than yet another picture of the dog park, or an item of frozen pumpkinness. Here it is:

Tony's Ice Cream - one of two competing ice cream trucks that haunt Reid Park.

Even in February, late in the afternoon as the temperature begins to drop, at least two ice cream truck operators find it worth their while to tootle through the parking lots of Reid Park, offering their wares to picnickers and dog owners. Tony's is the one that leaves its music on a continuous loop of a dozen or so songs, from Happy Birthday to You to an odd version of It's a Small World (After All) with lots of extraneous notes. At the exact moment I photographed it for you, this truck was playing Jingle Bells. On Groundhog Day! Behind it, we can see that not all trees in Tucson stay completely green through the winter, but they mostly don't lose their leaves, either.

Be sure to check out Ellipsis each Monday for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot, with links to the previous week's participants.

Karen

Monday Photo Shoot Result: Exotic Foods

I almost gave you folks an extension on last week's Monday Photo Shoot, You Gonna Eat That? which called for photos of regional, unusual or just plain strange foods. But then I decided an extra day probably wouldn't help. You see, the only response to date has been from our faithful friend from Singapore, Jama, who offers us the beautifully exotic fruit Rambutan. Go take a look!

John bought this flavor one night...

...and I later bought the Rocky Route 66!

As for myself, I took a few pictures of regional ice cream flavors from Shamrock Farms, named after Arizona locales and sports. The Tombstone Roundup turned up in our freezer one day, having been purchased by John the night the Trouble Dogs and I woke him up. The others were in the Fry's frozen food section. While I appreciate the sale price and the coupons, I do think that covering up the joke flavor name with the coupon is a bad move.

If anyone still wants to do this shoot in the net couple of days, I will still add you to the results. Anyone? Anyone?

New topic follows instantly.

Karen