Monsoons and the like

I've been struggling with what to post.  Nothing brilliant has come to mind, but I thought briefly of posting about the beginning of our monsoon season that starts June 15th and ends October 15th though the "big" part of the season usually is between June and August with a rare one in September and October. Our first one this year happened last Thursday. The day started bright and sunny but then I got an alert on my phone of a severe thunderstorm later in the day. I laughed as the day was so bright and sunny and devoid of clouds.  But then as the day wore on, the clouds came in with the wind and the dust storms (called haboobs and really nasty) and then finally in parts of the valley a deluge of rain.  We got a little shower, other parts got more.  That's how the storms seem to be.  Hit one area hard and another a few miles away remains stone dry. I like a "good" thunder and lightening storm. We got some lightening and a little thunder so that was nice to see.  What I don't like is the destruction that can come from the monsoons with downed power lines, trees, and the like.  Arizona desperately needs a good monsoon season as we are in a drought with talk of water rationing so I can only pray we do have a productive rainy season.

Then I thought of writing a post called "in the news".  It would not have featured anything that happened nationally say last Friday.  Everyone has an opinion about that and I'm pretty sure if you know anything about me, you know what my opinion would be. But no, I was going to write about how many young children already have been pulled out of Phoenix and the valley pools this summer unresponsive and in a few sad cases have died.  These are toddlers and preschoolers for the most part.  The recent case a 3 and 4 year old who one fell into their pool and the other went to help rescue them.  One died (not sure which age fell in and which age died).  There have been at least 9 children pulled from pools so far this season and at least 4 have died.  These are such senseless and tragic deaths and incidents and do not have to happen.  The obvious "solutions" are a fence around a pool (of which I am an advocate and our pool has a fence around it) and/or teaching young ones as early as possible how to swim, at least how to get out of the water safely if they find themselves in it accidentally, but the simple act of watching a young child constantly and continually is just as effective (perhaps even more so).  I literally scream (not out loud but to myself) whenever I see a headline of another child pulled from a pool.  I watched my children like a hawk when they were young (and beyond, perhaps I could be guilty of being a helicopter mom) and watch my grandson like a hawk when I am around him.  They were not out of my sight when they were young unless some other adult was there who I asked to make sure they kept an eye on them.  I just don't get it.  This frustrates me to no end.  People talk about bringing up criminal charges to those parents/caregivers of those pulled out of pools.  Maybe that is what it is going to take for people to watch more carefully.  I don't know.  I just know for the most part this can be avoided.

And then I was going to write about the delightful afternoon and evening I had with my grandson.  His sister, who is 16 years old, is visiting her dad in another state for the summer so his built in babysitter is no longer available.  I made myself available to his mom this summer to help out if she wanted to run errands and the like on Saturdays as she was used to having her daughter around to keep an eye on him.  Yesterday she had a lot of errands to run as she was planning a brunch for today.  She asked me if I could watch him, which of course I willingly said yes.  He at 6 years old is inquisitive and active and loves to play.  Me at almost 60 years older than him loves to play but I'm feeling it with more aches and pains this morning.  We were playing some imaginative game and he kept saying "these are the ka-posters".  I realized he was trying to say "imposters."  It gave me a good chuckle. They had gotten a trampoline (with netting) from another family member so he had fun going out (in the heat) to jump on it a few times while I was watching him. Thankfully he didn't ask me to join him (that would have been a firm no, lol).  His mom brought home Subway sandwiches for dinner and he ate his entire footlong turkey and cheese one.  I was worn out after watching him, lol, and slept really good last night.

And so now I have written what I had thought about writing in blog posts over the past week or so.  We are heading into a 3 day weekend with the 4th of July coming up so very soon.  We bought some calming pills for Winslow as fireworks are not his friends.  We'll see if they help or not. (They don't have CBD in them, but valerian root, lavender, melatonin and the like.  They are made for dogs).  

I'll be back around the first of July for a review of June books.  In the meantime, be safe out there.  It's a jungle!