Beauty and Pain in Arizona

I’m spending a couple days with my friend Anna, and even though we haven’t seen each other since high school it’s like we were never apart. When I got to her house in Green Valley after a long day’s drive, she had a delicious, healthy dinner and glass of wine waiting for me. It’s all I could do to not drop to one knee and propose right then.

She lives in a subdivision, which sounds boring, but it’s not. Each house has a personality:

What Anna wakes up to every morning. Don’t hate her.

Christmas Cactus

More Christmas, Arizona Style

The landscaping is stark and gorgeous:

Ditch your lawnmower.

I love the shapes and textures:

Like tasty little fruit.

Barbie pineapple!

Barbie javelins!

The family that sold the land to the developers included a provision that this cemetery, which sits smack in the middle of the houses, remain:

In Through the Out Door

Elaborate graves…

… and not.

Alberto isn’t thirsty in the afterlife.

Here’s your photography tip for the day: Use a zoom lens to shoot sharp plant life.

See the round ends of these branches?

Ouch

If you accidentally lean into them they pop off and hang from your body like evil, spiked mice.

As if the pain of the impalement wasn’t enough, I then had to get them out. There was a moment when I was pulling one clump from my bare thigh and I thought my skin might actually rip. The spines clung so tenaciously that they pulled my flesh out to resemble spikes itself, like a skin Mohawk.

I won’t be sharing that picture. You’re welcome.