BUT It's A Dry Heat... o_O

      So I think if anyone ever says but it's a dry heat to me again I may have a complete mental breakdown. While normally it is that doesn't mean it is any where near pleasant. It just feels like you are being baked in an oven. I feel like people who say but it's a dry heat should be forced to spend an entire summer outside of Las Vegas, and see if they ever say it again. To make things worse on days like today where it is not so hot but is humid due to a flash rainstorm you walk out and it is more like being broiled. 95 degrees plus humidity is pretty much one of the worst things in the world. I sympathize with lobsters being thrown in the pots to boil. I am used to dealing with so much humidity you could practically drink the air but not with heat like the desert can produce. A guy came out to spray our house so we don't get bugs and by the time he went though our small house and the back yard he was winded and practically panting. It seems you can never be adequately hydrated in this place, I have finally just started to refer to it as Satan's arm pit it just seems appropriate at this point.

      While this has nothing to do with the desert and maybe more to do with my poor imagination its going in here. I miss my friends and I just keep thinking they are going to come out here one day to visit and god forbid it is the summer. They wont be able to leave the house without dropping over from heat stroke. Being from PA we are quite accustomed to fall and spring, most of my friends regard these as their favorite seasons. While they are getting pumpkin flavored everything and getting excited for fall I just want to see a temperature under 70 degrees... EVER that is sadly a goal of mine. Getting to wear a hoodie would be a bonus. Not only have I not seen pumpkin flavored anything none of these grocery stores smell of apple and cinnamon like the ones at home do this time of the year, with their scented bags of decorative pine cones. Instead people sit mindlessly in the grocery store and play video poker. WHO GOES TO A GROCERY STORE TO PLAY VIDEO POKER?!? I feel like maybe I just don't understand are places where it seems intelligence is squandered. You want to come and gamble for a weekend or see a show fine I don't care how you spend your money but if you feel the need to gamble while looking for eggs or filling up your gas tank I believe you have a problem my friend.

      Thirdly since my birthday just passed I thought I would add in some birthday related fun. I was told hours before my birthday by one of my good friends that 24 was by far the weirdest birthday to date and I can honestly say she wasn't wrong. It may have been the truest statement I have heard since I got here, other than its really hot outside (which is always an understatement). Now I guess it needs to be said that my parents seem to think I am weird bordering on being Wednesday Addams from the Addams family. Not that it is true it just seems that my like of dark colors and a more solitary life has led them to that thought. So for the most part my birthday was normal as you can see by the picture evidence... 

My best friend sent me surprise flowers <3

My one Aunt sent me a gift card for amazon so I got a bunch of books sadly since I read so fast this is maybe a week worth... 2 down already.

A birthday cake that I feared would burn down the kitchen. Also clothes from my parents.

We also went to the strip so I could get post cards for my friends and found this gem of a sign.... Need I say more about squandered intelligence?!

AND last but not least A DEAD BAT IN A CUP. Wednesday Addams status achieved.

      Like I said she wasn't wrong about it being the weirdest birthday. My dad who is super nice and thoughtful found this at the base he worked at and saved it from being "stepped on to make sure it was dead" and CARRIED it around all day in that cup.. I hope. Needless to day he was super excited and thought I would love it beyond anything anyone else could find. I was hoping for a live lizard since he always sees them and all I see is roaches but instead Dead bat in a cup. So the best I could do was to make a face rather like this O_O and tell him to put it in a shadow box and write a short song about it. Because weirdly while I refuse to sing I have quite a few jingles stuck in my head.

For my 24th birthday my good friends gave to meeee
A bunch of flowers
7 murder books

4 tank tops
3 pairs of pants
2 amazon gift cards
 ANDDDDD A DEAD BAT IN A CUPPPP

Sadly the bat reminded me of Batty Koda from Fern Gully my favorite movie as a kid and it was rather like being handed my childhood dead in a cup.... but I tried to make the best of it since he seemed so sure it was going to be a smash hit. After taking me to Michels to get a shadow box my dad spent a good part of the day asleep hugging one of our dogs. Which was entertaining enough to watch and giggle at.


Since this one was so long I figured I would put up some other pictures to ogle at, they are not great but I never seem to have my actual cameras on me so oh well.

I found this gem in the Touring Vegas book.. how to use a payphone and all of our monetary values, In my opinion if you don't already know our money maybe you shouldn't be near casinos where you could loose more than you came with...

Also this is the picture of the gas pump they show to people who come from other countries... If I had to find one of these I would be broken down on the highway. Unless they are driving a Delorean and happen upon the 30's-50's by accident ... maybe then they might get lucky..

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

      So yeah it's going to be different moving from forest-y Pennsylvania to the hot dusty desert of Nevada but the changes are things that you wouldn't expect. While I thought it was weird that the neighbors ran outside to watch the rain I think I am already starting to understand. While I think they do it for different reasons, I now stare out the window intently when it happens as well. It rained the other day and I could not tear myself away, for me it was not because it is unusual here but because for some reason the thing I miss the most other than people is the sound of rain. In Pennsylvania it rains all the time, and It is so loud and heavy a good deal of the time it sounds like a monsoon. I don't sleep much but for some reason when I hear the rain its calming enough to allow sleep to come for a while I got used to it raining every night. Now I hear thunder and I think I am hallucinating, like... that cant possibly be rain... it doesn't rain here. Then again thunder doesn't mean its raining here, actually it normally doesn't rain if there is thunder. The other thing I have started to miss daily now is just trees, the color green. I have never lived somewhere without a yard of grass and trees surrounding and while there is a tree in the back yard... the rest is cactus and dust. It seems all I want to do is see a rolling expanse of green and then have rain pour down.

      In a completely unrelated topic I am having trouble understanding the clothes that are being sold here. It is Summer..... and 105 degrees on a normal day. Go to get some clothes and they seem to only sell long pants and more than not the shirts are long sleeve and chiffon. If you are hot a good deal of the day why the hell would you want to be trapped in a long sleeve chiffon shirt. It's going to be similar to the feeling you get when walking through an unexpected spider web. But alas when there aren't any choices so it is going to be interesting to say the least. Only one of my shirts ended up being both chiffon and long sleeve so that one can be saved for a day that is a breezy 95 degree day lol.

The Desert Endurance Test: Can You Handle It?

      So this week has been a pile of good and a pile of bad all rolled into one slapdash pile and thrown at my feet. Somehow in the move half my memory cards are missing, and not the easily replaceable half. As if that wasn't enough I won an e bay bid to get Photoshop and got sent a homemade download in fancy wrapping, it worked like a normal program until you go to activate it and it sends up a fun little PWNED! message. Of course the seller ran from e bay like the road runner because that is my luck. Win something for cheaper than it should be and end up paying for something they got for free and burned to a DVD. If it didn't work I could report it but now I am not sure what to do.
      
      Now to the part about living in the desert. I am pretty sure that either the world is somehow testing me or the desert just likes to mess with people just as they start to get comfortable. Normally I am not this paranoid, but the last few days have been crazy. Our landlord sent out a handy man to fix my shower that leaks BUCKETS a day at least... 5 decent sized buckets daily. We were told that our landlady only approved that fix but he said that she had told him "they will have about a million things to fix they always do." Why because nothing was ever fixed when we moved in and she is a HORRIBLE landlady. She also said she would call an exterminator and have them come out so we got one for free. Just kidding that is never going to happen. But when you live in the desert you have to have your house sprayed every 2-3 months, or live in a bug haven. GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS! Bug haven time. Two days ago I discovered a species I did not even know existed while brushing my teeth. The armored cricket. I have seen many a cricket living in Pennsylvania surrounded by woods for years but nothing like this. It looks rather like a roach, except it is black and not so much jumps but glides across the floor in short bursts really fast like an ice skater. So one day and one bug down. Tonight I am sitting drawing having a good day and relaxing only to look up and see a cockroach on my TV stand watching Duck Dynasty. I get it, it is fun to watch and laugh at but you were not invited to this party, so you need to leave. After killing it with my now busted drawing pad I left a note for any other bugs next to its smashed corpse alerting them to be fore warned because I do not mess around when it comes to bugs and my living area. It also warned that an exterminator would be coming... promptly. Sad realization at the end of one of few good days I have had, I don't think I am cut out for this place. I can handle spiders, normal crickets, mosquitoes (which eat me alive), and even ticks if I have to but when bugs have armor it may be time to cut your losses and leave.

Desert = 1
Jess = 0