It rained almost all day yesterday, dark and overcast with the temps barely getting above needing-a-jacket level. More rain overnight with a thunderstorm that woke me from a bizarre dream about toothbrushes. The dark clouds have rolled in again. Dark enough that we need the lights on in the house at lunchtime.

Previously I'd worry about the rain. We bought an old house a few years ago and had some bad luck with water damage after a particularly bad monsoon season. Now we have a new roof, new upstairs balcony, fancy patio door. Rain all you want Phoenix, now I couldn't care less.

Desert dwellers love days like these, for we know what's coming soon enough. This time Thursday it will be 20 degrees warmer. And the inevitable test of whether we can make it through April without having the air conditioning on in the house.

Spent a bit of time hacking on lastweekly today to rip out Twitter integration. It's been busted since Elon broke the API last year; that and I'm not really that interested in Twitter these days. Slowly replacing all that with WordPress integration so the weekly cron job will now post last.fm stats here automagically instead.

It's that time of the year where we get our Olive trees sprayed to prevent the fruit from growing. Dear reader, why would anyone ever do that? The trees look pretty, but the actual olives themselves are a bit of a pain in the ass. They fall on the driveway and if you step on them they stain the concrete and then you walk that lovely olive splatter into the house. Plus they're a Pigeon magnet and no one wants to host a Pigeon party.

Because there are more TV shows to watch than hours left in my life, I decided to add yet one more watching project to the list. As you do. Last night was the start of the big X-Files re-watch extravaganza. All 11 seasons of it. One episode down, 217 left to go!

Well, doing my part to choose the candidate who will run against the deranged orange fella in November.

A thunderstorm rolled through last night. A few flashes of lighting to begin with, followed by thunder and wind. The heavens absolutely opened shortly thereafter and we got ALL the rain as far as I could tell.

It was just delightful. We're having some extreme heat this summer. A couple of our trees are having a hard time even with deep root watering. Thankful the lemon tree got a nice extra long drink. The desert just smells so great after a thunderstorm. Savored every minute standing outside taking in deep breaths.

Of course our back yard is a neighborhood debris magnet. So it was a different story this morning once I could see how much I was going to have to clear up. But we'll take it.

It's hot.

After being out of town in a significantly milder climate for a couple weeks, flew back into Sky Harbor airport on Sunday. Feels like an oven. Which it does every year to be fair – this is the desert southwest after all. But something's a little different this year, for we just broke the record for number of days in a row over 110° F.

Please, if you can spare it, send some left over rain or clouds to this sandland of ours.

Obviously you can never over share on the internet. And I'm of an age now where I'm going to do a thing. A really really fun thing. Want to guess? Here's a clue.

You may have heard that the Super Bowl is this coming Sunday. And it's here in our fair city. Well, it's in Glendale to be fair, and we used to live in walking distance of the stadium before we moved into Phoenix proper.

As you can imagine it's the only thing the local news is talking about. There are "NFL experience" events all over town, concerts, and visitors. Drove past one of the smaller public airports this morning, the private jets of the rich and famous are already arriving and parked.

This is my one "football" game I watch a year. I don't have a horse in the race obviously so just hoping for a decent game. The fun of it is really going to see friends and the odd frosty beverage while the game is on TV.

When the never ending summer has day after day of the same weather you yearn for something, anything, that's just different. Variety, after all, is the spice of life. And we Phoenix residents are a funny bunch. We're never more happy when clouds appear over the mountains, even happier when they deliver rain.

So at this time of the year it's nice to be…cold. It's been bitterly cold here in the mornings every day this week. Like, see your breath and make sure your plants are covered, cold. My car's dashboard pinged a 'low temperature outside' warning as we hit 32°F driving to school.

There's just something about being able to wear a coat, sip hot Americanos, and breath in that crisp air.

What happened was, a cricket got into a vent pipe on our roof. And is now stuck somewhere in the ceiling of the bathroom around the extractor fan. Which is about as fun as it sounds. So loud for one so smorl Mr Cricket.

Options: (a) move (b) take apart extractor fan housing and try to rescue the bugger (c) wait it out because how long could he last?

We're on day three.

UPDATE: well, bless him, he lasted another two days. That sound we hear is NO MORE CRICKET. Glorious.

The afternoon clouds roll in. The sun but a faint memory. Thunder begins and the heavens open. These are the days Phoenix craves. And so we sip coffee and watch it all unfold.