At some point I recall wondering how long it would take Bly to adapt to Tucson. The question is no longer relevant. Tucson, it seems, is adapting to her.
I mentioned that it rained yesterday. For ten minutes, then it was nice and cool for unloading the truck. Today it rained much longer, and it hailed, too. How is that Tucson adapting to Bly? She was sure it would rain today too. I told her no way. Yesterday was a fluke. It doesn’t rain in Tucson in June.
She just had to prove me wrong. I checked the weather, and it (darned thing) said possible rain, maybe even nickel-sized hail. Bly said (at this point we were emailing) when I forwarded it to her, that nickel-sized was nothing, in Ohio they regularly got golf-ball-sized. I said we probably wouldn’t get anything.
It started just as we opened up the truck (naturally) and it started slow. We took a few boxes up. Then it started pouring. Bly was in the truck, I was on the porch, Hope was in the driveway. I let her stay out there (7yos have a need for mud) until the lightning started. Then I gave her my jacket and we stood on the covered stairs to wait it out.
Then it started hailing. Nickel-sized, but still, hail. Hope wanted to go find the “biggest one,” I worried the biggest one would find her head, and didn’t let her. Bly was still on the truck. I sat down on the stairs. The rain changed direction, started blowing up the stairs. Which, coincidentally, meant it was blowing onto the truck.
Does it rain horizontally back East? I can’t recall ever seeing it do that.
Anyway. Here it does, and it took turns coming from every direction to make sure it wet as much as possible. Bly has decided to investigate whether someone has put a curse on her and her move. I keep my mouth shut, she doesn’t really need me to point out that things could be a heck of a lot worse. (We saw two nasty accidents on the way to Arizona, in one of them the cab of a semi was lying on its side on top of what had once been a small car.)
She’d probably hit me if I said such a thing. Because, one, we all know as soon as someone says “It could be worse,” it gets worse. And two, she hurt herself yesterday, putting the ramp up in the truck without waiting for me to help. As I told her (before she was in real pain) just because she can do something herself, doesn’t mean she has to. I was coming, she could have waited for me. But no, she was putting the ramp up herself, and had to get a running start to slam it home hard enough it would latch. And for some reason–it caught. Today she has a bruise longer than her hand, black and angry-red, across the top of her thigh, and it hurts to walk. She can’t stand the thought of the weight of an ice-pack on it, and things like my small dog putting one paw on it, trying for attention, make her bend over and cuss silently (yes, I know she’s cussing.)
Therefore, even though she never has hit me and I don’t take her threats to do so seriously–I walk carefully around the hurting Bly-Bly.