Sonoran Sue: Dishing Retirement Life with a Side of Prickly Pear

Sonoran Sue: What’s up with the Monsoons??

Dear Sonoran Sue:

“We’re rounding 3rd base into Labor Day That robust Monsoon season we were promised has been a total bust in Saddlebrooke. My skin is drier than my sister-in-law’s Thanksgiving turkey! I saw lots of Cumulonimbus, those fluffy thunderheads hovering over us, but they seemed to just fluff away. What gives? Where’s the rain?”

Catfished by Mother Nature

Dear Catfished,

I’ve been wondering about those Cumulonimbus clouds myself…maybe they were AI projections generated by our Saddlebrooke Monsoon Weather Committee in an effort to cover their “clerical error.”

They accidentally filed our annual rain request under “sprinkler repair.” So Phoenix got all the water, and we got nothing but dust devils and parched cacti.

Alas, they’re not fully to blame. There is a phenomenon known as “Barometric Betrayal.” Our low-pressure system mysteriously disappeared and never came back. Meanwhile, a rogue high-pressure ridge set up camp over Arizona like your freeloading cousin who “just needs a place for a week” and is now ordering DoorDash on your dime.

Then there’s the cosmic angle. Mercury went retrograde in July, tripped over Saturn’s shoelace, and spilled out our designated rain into the Big Dipper. Only problem is it doesn’t dip. Ever wonder about that?

And don’t even get me started on the butterflies! Monarchs were late migrating this year because they stopped for brunch in Tucson. Without them flapping their little wings on schedule, our whole monsoon conveyor belt collapsed.

So what’s the forecast? According to Doug Wolf’s trick knee, we’ll see rain right after the Fry’s finally opens on Saddlebrooke Blvd. Translation: don’t hold your breath. In the meantime, sit outside at Sauce Pizza and Wine on Oracle when the water mister is active, open your umbrella and send a selfie to the Monsoon Weather Committee. You may want to follow up with a link to the Youtube video, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”

Addendum: Dear Readers, my column was submitted for publication on 8/19, before the incredible microburst that took Saddlebrooke by storm (note clever pun) the evening of 8/20. If anyone would like lessons on how to do a rain dance that yields results, please write in and I’ll publish it in my next column.

Keep the faith,