The grass is always painted greener

PHOENIX is a place designed for cacti, not humans. In summer, it puts the "G" and "F" in god forsaken. Starting in June (sometimes May), the temps motor up to over 100 degrees and stay there until November. Fundamentally, that's crazy. And don't think that a place with the surface temperature of Mercury for half the year doesn't affect the brain (see Arizona's illegal immigration politics).

Take homeowners here. There are two types: those with grass lawns (truly crazy people) and those with more sensible, desert flora lawns (i.e., burnt rocks). The homeowners with grass lawns blissfully empty the Colorado River each summer to keep their monuments to vanity green, which is the definition of crazy.

Making matters worse, grass or rocks are the only options for Phoenix homeowners. The Stasi, I mean, the homeowner associations, insist. And woe betide the homeowner who lets his or her grass go brown ("Herr Smith, your grass is not in order!"). I'm told there are re-education camps deep in the desert for violators. And god help you if you happen to be a Democrat, too. We're as common here as an ocean breeze.

Now, here's the really crazy part. According to the New York Times, cash-strapped homeowners with grass lawns are resorting to painting them green. It saves on the water bill and keeps the HOA jackboots away. The trouble: green-painted grass turns blue in about three months. So repeated re-spraying is required. That, in turn, leads to a lawn of green goo that will eventually kill the grass off entirely. Wash (reseed), rinse (re-grow), repeat (re-paint). Or spend mega-bucks to buy artificial turf (which some homeowners are actually doing). And all for the sake of maintaining the pretense that Phoenix is really Indiana.Like I said, crazy.

As a townhome-dwelling, non-lawn-owning, Californian expat, I define this as utter madness. In Phoenix, the grass is always greener on the other side, but only because it's painted that way.