and the extreme afternoon thunderstorem.

That's what monsoon season is in the Southwest deserts.

I don't miss the heat, but I do miss those thunderstorms every many days. A lot.

I am just nodding my head while reading questers post and THEN I'm all WHA?!?!?!? sweetened shredded coconut is AWESOME!! just light marshmallows and pecans. It just so happened that those three items were stored in matching tupperware containers in my mother's kitchen and I would often add all three to dishes of ice cream and coke floats.

and I'm pretty sure there will be no Hookers or Blow, or sadly anything even close to it. maybe beer and ice cream.

I like nuts. The oilier the better. Cashews, macadamia, peanuts, piñon or their shelled sistren the pine nut, pecans. But nuts are not nice to my skin. Probably the oils. Serious crack to me are the TJ's honey-sesame-d cashews. OMG. But my face and my guts hate those.

Sorry to disappoint you, msbelle!

Brazil nuts

They make my teeth squeak. I hate that!

Pecans and cashews are my favorite nuts. Raw for the former and salted/roasted for the cashews.

I especially love pecans in my faux cake. (nuts, dates, cocoa/carob/protein powder, with a little bit of water...to which I sometimes add candied ginger, mint flavoring, etc.)

It gives me the dessert feeling while being reasonably healthy. Very rich and satisfying.

No icky nut texture.

but I do miss those thunderstorms every many days. A lot.

Cass is me. Well, these days I bargain with nature for t-storms to not interrupt my swim, but I do miss the storms you could set a watch by, the smell of mesquite and creosote and wet ozone. I miss watching the wall approach and the air cooling and standing in the cold runoff in the gutters.

Right now, my parents are dreading the monsoons. Fires haven't been so bad in their area that they have serious flood concerns, but the bad freeze this winter killed a lot of vegetation . My parents are hauling off dumpsters of dead cuttings. Won't know until next spring really if some of the vegetation made it. Some of the massive 50ft pines are questionable, and some of their massive mexican elders have had to be pruned back to stumps. With that and the drought, monsoons bring lightning, lightning means more fires. It's going to be a rough monsoon season.

When I think of what the freeze did to their xeriscaped yard, it makes me want to cry. That's stuff that we planted largely in the first 5 years they lived there, so it is 15-20 years of growth. And it was gorgeous and native. And 2-4 days of seriously fucked up cold (froze utility plants, caused blackouts, loss of gas pressure) killed a lot of it. Thousands of dollars in their mere 1/3 acre. The smaller stuff is easier to replace. The big trees, nsm.

Jesse, did I submit a Batman link to the goodstuff tumblr?

Yeah, it should have posted by now, but I haven't gone to check...

I had drinks with a new friend tonight, and am now sweating like a pig and thinking about chocolate chips.

Gah, you guys, just reading all the nut talk makes me want macadamias!

(What? I *said* I was easily swayed.)

Awesome, an episode of Clean House is on. This show makes me feel so good about myself.