Cold Snap

This morning was sunny and cold, cold, cold. We’ve been in an abnormal cold spell for a week now and I’m sick of it. This is supposed to be the Valley of the Sun. We have three visitors in our yard, three huge coyotes who have spent the last three hours lying in dappled shade beneath our arbor vitae trees. They must be siblings, ones who have frequently made their slow pace through our yard hoping to flush an inattentive rabbit, but never till now have they decided to sleep with us. Maybe they think that if they lie still long enough, that silly rabbit will come sit on a head, take refuge down an open maw. That would serve him right. The sun is bright, but the breeze says otherwise, rocking the arbor vitae branches back and forth, giving the lie to our present season, which is supposed to be in the low eighties. Instead, we wake up to low forties rising to upper fifties. Folks up north would say, what are you whining about. We used to live up there and know what cold is all about, but our bodies have adjusted to Arizona temps and now we freeze in weather I would have been happy with for playing a round of golf when I was younger and northern-stupid. Now I wouldn’t even consider golf on days such as this. But I’m old and southern-stupid, and the chill settles in my bones like a frozen blanket. I feel like lying with the coyotes, pulling them close for their wild heat. I’m sure they wouldn’t welcome me, though, and I’d be too big to swallow.