I’m sitting here on the back patio in Tucson–the east facing patio–which, due to the grove of palm trees in the corner of our yard, has been cool and shady since the sun came up much earlier. It’s late morning. The wind chimes are chiming because the breezes are picking up. It’s predicted to be much hotter this afternoon and windy as well. That means that we’ll have a mini-sandstorm of bright yellow palo verde blossoms drifting across the patio later today. (Palo verde blossoms are beautiful to look at, but once they dry and fall off the tree, they’re not much fun to walk on, at least not for someone who’s preferred style of footwear is NONE OF THE ABOVE!)

From here I can see the occasional hummer attacking the blooming desert spoon. I can also revel in the pots bordering the patio that are brimming with colorful snap dragons, geraniums, and petunias.

On the block wall that separates the inner courtyard of our property from the desert garden outside are two bird blocks which are attracting plenty of birds–mostly paloma blanca (white winged doves) and sparrows as well as our resident family of quail. The bird blocks came from the same place–Home Depot–at slightly different times. The first one has been eaten from the top down. Several weeks old now, it resembles a fallen layer cake with a dove munching away and serving as a cake decoration. The other bird block, however, has turned into our personal Leaning Tower of Pisa or else into one of those fascinating balanced boulders from the Chiricahua National Monument, aka the Wonderland of Rocks.

The second block is more round now than square. The problem is, the birds are not engineers and they don’t have a grasp of structural engineering. They have eaten the block mostly from the bottom up. That means that the base is getting smaller much faster than the top. And it’s also been eaten away at about a 45 degree angle. That means that the whole thing is now listing ever so slightly to the right. One of these days, like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, there will be one too many birds perched on that top leaning side, and the whole thing will come to grief. That should create quite a flap, as it were, and I’m hoping I’ll be sitting here to enjoy the show.

But why am I talking and writing about the weather and the birds? To keep from being cranky.

Last night we sent out notices for the Second Watch paperback edition. (If you didn’t receive one and believe you’re in the newsletter database, please let us know. We may have a problem with your e-mail address.) Sending out notices at night means that, the next morning, lots of people respond. Make no mistake, I’m happy to have those responses, read them, and, if appropriate, to send my own responding response–I believe I now understand the origin of the word correspondence. But sometimes some of those e-mails “gar my greet” as my mother would say. This morning, any number of the notes have said, yes, Second Watch, Beaumont, fine. But what about Joanna? Aren’t you ever going to write another one of those?

Of course, if these folks had actually read the newsletter, they would have seen that the information about the next Joanna Brady book, Remains of Innocence, and due July 22, is RIGHT THERE IN THE NEWSLETTER!! Which causes me to wonder, why do I even bother WRITING a newsletter?

But then, as another layer of falling palo verde blossoms drifts across the patio, I remember TWO things. The first is this: Drifting palo verde blossoms are much better than drifting snow. Quit your gritching!

The second is something else my mother used to say: The customer is always right!

So even though I’m having a crisis of crankiness right now, I’ll get over it. I’ll continue to answer my e-mails. But for just a few moments, I’m going to go back to watching the bird watcher’s version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Which reminds me of something else. Years ago, on a Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door Tour of Italy, we stopped in Pisa to see the genuine article. As we disembarked from the bus, one of the ladies in the group stopped short and gasped aloud, “It’s still leaning. Wouldn’t you think they’d have fixed it by now?!!!” Her amazed consternation caused a few moments of eye rolling among the people walking behind her, but I just now realized–she’s someone else who wouldn’t read to the end of the newsletter, either.