It’s hot. We know this. It’s the desert. It gets hot.

Our hands burn on our steering wheels. Night feels like an oven. Our lips burn. Backyard drunks holler from midnight pool parties. We curse them, sun-blinded, the next day. We post photos of eggs baking on a sidewalk, of our car thermometers reading 114, of our iPhones collapsing in the heat, needing to cool off before they can be used again.

We’re stunned and hyperbolic—as if we expected moderate and gently breezy afternoons (with a sprinkle of rain). We close the shutters, lower the blinds, shield our eyes and turn on the TV, awaiting nightfall or the early morning, the chance to step outside, maybe run a few errands, ride our bikes or go for a jog.

Snowbirds be damned. We locals are here year-round. We winter here with glowing Santas on dry rooftops and holiday lights on our cacti, concerned if it rains because the streets are wet and that never happens, except for the last time it happened the year before. Then summer comes and it’s hot again and we hide out (or in) more than usual and wonder if the drive to the store for a Slurpee is worth it.

It’s not so much a complaint as it is a topic of conversation, because when the heat bears down on us, there’s little more to think about except where the best shade is in the sea of parking lots that connect the subdivisions from one end of the Valley to the other. And we adapt.

Mostly, though, we suck it up, remembering the snowstorms, blizzards, downpours and mudslides of elsewhere. But, yeah, it’s hot.