I live in the central portion of Arizona; that is, in the “Valley of the Sun”, which, if you’re familiar with the area, may technically be a valley if a valley is a big-ass flat area with mountains scattered about the perimeter.  Southeast of us is Tucson with proper mountains (according to the Hubster) and north of us is Flagstaff sitting pretty at about 7000 ft where, while we were still sweating it in the 90-degree weather, they got a bit of snow.  It’s an odd state.  But here where I live, we seem to have about 800 days straight of 110 degrees Farenheit and then we get an increasingly shorter and shorter stretch of fairly pleasant weather.  Suffice it to say, we don’t have “seasons” like most of the rest of the country.  Autumn for us here is simply a set of dates on the calendar.  We don’t have the vegetation that alters color with the passage of time.  Cactus tends to stay green, palo verde tends to stay green, and grass on the lawn tends to stay dead.  However, there is one particular indicator that autumn and the holiday season will be upon us soon:

The arrival of cinnamon scented pinecones.

Pinecones aren’t necessarily scented in nature.  Maybe they smell a bit like bark, I don’t know, I don’t tend to smell pinecones.  I actually have a bit of a “hate-hate” relationship with pine trees because they are also odd in the arena of flora:  when most other trees (palo verde and other desert trees excepted) are in their fall colors, pine trees are determinedly green.  When other trees are budding into their green leaves, pines shed their brown needles, but not before they magically quintuple the sheer amount of needles before they drop.  Or perhaps pine needles breed and multiply much in the manner of wire hangers as the sheer volume of pine needles that I have been forced to rake up in the my life seems to completely be at an amount far above and beyond what a normal-seeming pine tree should be able to produce.  And while you can rake up normal leaves and then have a bit of fun leaping into the pile with wild abandon, leaping into a pile of pine needles is like leaping into something about as pliable as a soft brick, and all the pointy ends turn magically upward to imbed themselves into your skin.  Also, pine needles don’t burn well, and they don’t compost at all.  The only redeeming aspect of pine trees (at least the ones I grew up with in Florida) is that the trees are so wet with sap, that, if you happen to get your pine trees TPed by a bunch of roving hooligans (or your best friends) you can actually light the end of the TP on fire and it will burn up all the TP without setting the tree on fire.

But in Florida, we didn’t have cinnamon-scented pinecones.  Pinecones were generally run over by your car, chucked at your little sister, or swore at if you happened to step on one with your bare foot.  It’s kind of fun to play stickball with them, even if they do have the aerodynamic capacity of a whiffle ball, and it’s also fun to stick them full of fire crackers and light them up.  But soaking them in cinnamon oil or water or what ever they use and then putting them in your house?  Nah.  Sure, they’re a good firelighter but it’s better if you dip them in paraffin first.

But now I walk into my local Joann’s or wherever, and I’m assaulted with the odor of cinnamon pinecones.  This is how I know that the holiday season is coming.  And now, of course, the holiday season begins shortly after the back-to-school sales end, which, here, is in the thick of 122 degree weather, higher humidity than normal (for a desert), and this year, for some reason, a dust storm every Tuesday.  Why Tuesday?  Who knows?

Who decided that these pinecones needed to be cinnamon anyway?  What’s wrong with natural pinecones?  I don’t require stinky pinecones.  And those pinecones are stinky — stinky to the point where I can be in the back corner of the clearance section (back behind the yarn) and I’m wondering if some jackass dropped a stinky pinecone into my purse.  The smell of those pinecones does not dissipate with distance.    Unless maybe I get a full parsec away.  If I were to attempt to decorate my house with stinky pinecones, I would have to put them in my neighbor’s house in order to not get a migraine from them.   I kind of like my neighbors, but we’re not chummy enough for me to extend my decorating off my property into someone else’s.  And even then, I would have to keep my doors and windows closed because I’m sure I’d still be able to smell those damn things, even from the house next door.

I wonder if Joann’s also sells hermetically sealing kits for those pinecones.  But then I’d have to get close to them to seal them up.   Oh well.  I suppose I should remind myself that if the pinecones are here, then I can expect the temperatures here in the Valley of the Sun to be in the double digits.  That is, for about 36 days.  Yay!

However, this time also has proven that I am in fact clinically insane.

Well, that’s according to the Hubster.  And considering he’s a Vulcan, anything beyond mildly looney is bizarre to him.  One thing I have a habit of doing is spitting out anything that comes to mind, and if you have ever read my Conversations with Hubster, then you already know this.  I also have this tendency to break out into spontaneous song.  This is not a new occurence; I’ve been doing this most of my life by the songs have gotten more bizarre as I’ve aged and even more so since meeting the Hubster.  I suppose he brings out the silly in me . . . a good example is the “Naked in Sedona” song, which I created when, well, we were *ahem* naked.  In Sedona.  In a hotel bed.  TMI, I know, but at the time that song was one of my masteripieces.  It had about 17 verses and expounded on being naked in Sedona in a hotel bed.  Hey, we got engaged that weekend.  It must have been a good song.

On a recent walk, I nearly reduced myself to hyperventilating because I was giggling so much at a song that twisted into my head, that went like this:

I am . . . EVEL KINEVEL!

I’ve broken . . . ALL MY BONES!

I’ve got . . . PUBIC LICE!

It was about this point I actually had to stop walking because I was giggling so hard I lost my breath.  And I almost tinkled myself. I’m not saying that I’m coming up with the next Ave Maria, for heaven’s sakes, you know this, right??   I think I come up with this stuff because at work I speak a certain speech all day long (on the phone, and CALLS ARE ON HOLD, you know) so my brain has to tickle itself with silliness once I get out of there.  It’s all balance, you know.  It makes for a nice evening.

So does being naked in Sedona in a hotel bed.  Y’all should try it sometime!

Hubster:  Which Doctor?

Valkyrie:  David Tennant.  And the Doctor was jumping all around, doing that “put ‘em up” thing you see in all the old cartoons, and Jamie was just standing there.  Finally, Jamie just slugged the hell out of the Doctor, one punch, and the Doctor fell like a bag of rocks.

Hubster:  Well, you don’t tease the Walrus!

Valkyrie:  I wonder who decided that softball was the official sport of the lesbian community.

Hubster:  Softball?  I thought it was roller derby.

I don’t like people.

I suppose I should clarify. I do like some people.  I mean, I like you guys, even though I don’t know most of you.    But then I’m not actively out there seeking out people to bring into my circle of acquianance.  At my previous job, I went nearly 4 years before I learned everyone’s name, and it wasn’t that big of an office.  Here at Big Conglomerate Huge Office in 3 Buildings (or, if you like, Six Flags over Stent Grafts and Biopsy Needles) there’s lots of people I really don’t ever have to meet.  And that’s okay with me.

 Working on the phone is interesting because I can despise people without ever having to get to know them.  My experience with them is so limited (usually 2 minutes or less) that I never have to invest into any kind of relationship.   Shelley (of I Miss My Sanity) probably understands this best.  I sure she remembers my habit of being very sweet-voiced on the phone and then growling “fucker” as soon as the connection is broken.   Of course, anyone who’s worked in customer service knows that every single caller is a moron, no exception.  I mean, really, if you do this all day long, every single day, don’t you get asked for the same information every time?  So if I have to ask for the same information and then have to wait for you to figure out which is your ass and which is your elbow, don’t you think I will opine that you’re mentally deficient?  Seriously!

Misanthropic?  Maybe.  But then I’m sure that the people on the other end of the phone don’t particularly care for me either, so it all works out in the end.   I mean, I don’t have to like people, and I suppose it might make life more interesting to meet more people, but I like the folks I have currently.  Besides, a good number of them like me too, and that’s pretty good.

I have spent the last few minutes doing a bit of catch up; long enough to quite ashamed of myself for at not at least lurking and to wonder why I spent so much time away.  You see, I really liked being here and talking to you all (that is, anyone who’d listen on this great interwebs) but I drifted away for no good rhyme or reason.  And when I came back tonight to find that . . . well, damnit, I had no idea about Barb.  Some of you know who Barb is, and you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Holy crap, scotvalkyrie, you didn’t even know about Barb??”  And I’m not looking for platitudes from y’all because it was my choice to not keep in touch to find that there is no more Barb on this coil fully six months after the fact.

I’m sorry Barb, so sorry.  I hope that the things I knitted for you kept you warm.  I wish I had a picture of you in that kicky red beret!  And thank you, thank you, for being Barb.

 So anyway, I’m just going to skip any sort of preamble explain where I’ve been since March, because it’s probably just easier for all y’all to think I’m lame.

 Anyway, I woke up the Hubster early recently because I had a nightmare – I walked into the pool area of a resort to find the Hubster curled up on his side on a chaise lounge with a Salsa-dress wearing-Vampire-Bitch (hereafter SVB) latched on to his shoulder and I said, “Hey, SVB, WTF?” and she said, “Hey, I’m with him now; who’d want a pant suit wearing loser like you?” and I looked down to see that I was, in fact, wearing a peach-colored pantsuit of this variety:

 But it was more peachy and more vibrantly colored on the jacket, which I remember also had chiffon trim, and I started to cry and I looked at Hubster and he was sleeping there on the chaise and the SVB went back to chewing on his shoulder, and I began to beat at her with my hands and scream that I was the only one who could chew on Hubster, and then I woke up. 

 Hubster, once he was awake, only really wanted to know more about the SVB and why he couldn’t have been dreaming about her, at which point I gave him a smack on the arm and pointed out that the only SVB ever going to chew on his shoulder was me, and he said, “Wow, are you possessive.”   So now he feels that it’s only fair that he tease me about the peach pant suit and I told him to kill me if I ever came home with one.  I would be afraid that he’d actually buy one for me, but I think that he will never try to actually buy me clothes, and frankly, I don’t blame him.  Once, after one of my surgeries, I need looser, non-binding underwear and I sent him out and he was gone for three hours and he came back in a panic after going to three stores.  Unfortunately, I never did send Hubster out for feminine hygiene products, which I do think would have sent to poor guy into apoplexy, even if I had sent him out with a box top to match to.  I do remember once sending him out after sliced American cheese (with the package label and all!) and he came back with the wrong stuff.  So I try not to do that anymore.

 So anyway, peach pant suits invite salsa-dress-wearing vampires in to chew on your man.  Maybe that was Hilary’s problem?  Who knows?  Anyway, you heard it here first.