In the late eighties and early seventies, I lived in the El Encanto area of Phoenix in a long low ranch-style home that had been built in the fifties by Del Webb. Just outside the kitchen window was a fully mature Texas ruby grapefruit tree. Every morning, from mid-January through late May, I’d go outside first thing in the morning and pluck down one of those plump pieces of yellow-skinned fruit. There was nothing to compare to eating that fruit, fresh off the tree, while it was still warm from the sun.

I have to admit that, later in the season, when the low hanging fruit was all gone, I had to enlist help from my kids to reach the ones still hanging on the higher branches.

In 1981 the kids and I did an “adventure in moving, arriving in Seattle in a 1978 Cutlass Supreme Brougham pulling a U-Haul trailer loaded with all our worldly possessions. And what did I miss most about Phoenix after that move? Well, the weather, yes. There’s that. But I also desperately missed what had become an essential part of my daily breakfast menu—fresh grapefruit.

I tried grapefruit from the Pike Place Market, from Safeway, and from QFC only to be disappointed every single time. The grapefruit I found in Seattle turned out to be a long way from the juicy, sun-ripened fruit I had encountered in Arizona.

Bill and I purchased our Tucson home in 2001—another long, low ranch- style house built in the fifties and badly remodeled in the seventies. In the past decade we’ve gradually brought the place into the new century—that includes new kitchen, new bathrooms, new plumbing, and new electrical service. Our rehab process continues today as a work crew replaces our old single pane windows with triple pane ones.

We live in what’s known as Tucson’s “central area.” Our deed came with water rights. When we were told we needed to use them or lose them, we dug a well. That’s about the time we updated the landscaping, including planting both a lemon tree and my own personal Texas Ruby. Citrus trees are all about delayed gratification. You don’t just plant them and start harvesting the next year or the next or even the next.

A little over four years ago, when we arrived in Tucson in January, I went out to look at the grapefruit tree. I was so stunned by the amount of fruit on it, that I stopped paying attention to my feet, stumbled and fell ass over teakettle into a decorative border of river rocks. Fortunately I was wearing a straw hat. That kept me from scrambling my brains. Also fortunately I had my cell phone in my bra and was able to call for someone from inside the house to come out and help get me back on my feet. Trust me, in those kinds of circumstances, the words “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” are no joke!

But the grapefruit was terrific that year. In January. In February we went off on a book tour. I remember it well. During the tour Tucson suffered its worst cold snap in eighty-five years. Water pipes broke everywhere, including some of ours. As for the grapefruit? They were done for. All of them.

It turns out it takes years, if ever, for trees to bounce back from that kind of frost damage. We had some grapefruit last year but hardly any lemons. This year we have a bumper crop of both.

Yesterday afternoon, for a mid-afternoon snack, I went out and plucked one of the grapefruit off the tree. I’ll chew my cabbage twice here and say again that there is nothing whatsoever that compares with the taste of a Texas ruby grapefruit still warm from the sun. It was delicious. Nectar of the gods.

Since the sun is shining again today, I think it’s about time I go out and harvest another grapefruit off the tree. I’ll be fine, I promise. I will be careful. I will watch both feet in both directions.

But just in case I need to call for help, my phone will still be with me, right where I need it—inside my bra.

Grapefruit and cell phones. That may sound like an odd couple, but they work for me. Not quite like toast and jam, but close.