With this weekend being the Labor Day holiday, I found myself saying to friends here in Arizona that the summer is over. They looked at me aghast, and I caught myself: 24 years after departing the Big Apple (08/26/1996) and living in the Southwest, I still can't seem to shake the idea that school starts after Labor Day, the air begins to take on the crisp coolness of the impending fall, and a wish for an Indian Summer is standard. The reality is that here in Arizona school started almost a month ago for some children, we're lucky if the temp is "only" 100 degrees, and the regular wish is for it to be some month between October and March!

The photo above is when I arrived in Santa Fe having driven across country in time to spend the Labor Day weekend with my friends who just months before had also chosen to leave behind the skyscrapers of Manhattan for the desert and openness of the Southwest.

Blessings and cyber hugs,