the next move

I'm gonna miss this...watching RVers arrive, pull in, back up, hook up, then unload chairs, grill, dog(s), open the awning. I wonder what kind of neighbors they will be. How long will they be here? These people, I see, do their smoking outdoors. Their dog is a miniature something-or-other. They have six chairs - must be expecting company - and potted plants. Memorial Day party?

For over three years I have lived in RV/trailer parks. On Tuesday I'm moving out. I'm moving to a friend's lot in a neighborhood in town. I'll be within walking distance to the Circle-K, hardware store, thrift store, farmer's market, taco stand, Italian restaurant. My rent will be so low that the job pressure will be eased somewhat, at least for a little while.

I will be the only person living in a house on wheels. My friend - and landlord - lives in a cottage on the lot as does a woman I have yet to meet along with our own personal hunky Jack-of-all-trades who will back my trailer in for me and set to work building a deck. A deck! I'll have a deck! I'm really looking forward to this move, looking forward to living in a little town I can walk around in.

I'm still not sure if this is the place I'm meant to be but with gas prices the way they are, it's good not to be living at a freeway exit and having to drive 15 miles to the nearest Safeway...as I did at The Home of Dashed Hopes. And did I mention I'll be able to walk to the Farmer's Market!?

So it's time to get things ready to be moved. Although a wee bit of a hassle - stashing, stowing, battening down the hatches - it sure beats the alternative of getting boxes, packing boxes, lugging boxes. Springing for pizza and beer as a bribe for friends as they carry furniture. Cleaning the new place, cleaning the old place, paying pet deposit and cleaning deposit and coming up with first and last months' rent.

I tell ya, if the economy continues to tank, trailer living is the way to go. Here's my advice if you've lost your job or your house: Get yourself a cheap trailer or motor coach, plop yourself down in a friend's backyard, or nice RV park where you can watch the neighbors come and go, and weather the storm until things sort themselves out. As they will surely do after January rolls around and we undergo a regime change...(oh please oh please oh please).

Have a good holiday weekend ya'll. And let's hope that we get our boys and girls and men and women home from Iraq soon so families can stop visiting new graves on Memorial Day.

arizona thermostat

Check it out. It is 58 degrees and I am freezing my ass off. Not just my ass but my knees, my feet, and my hands which are nearly frozen blocks of ice making typing extremely difficult. My shoulders are hunched forward in an effort to keep body heat closed in. It's not working. I am wearing socks, sweat pants, wool sweater.

I turned on the furnace for the first time in 16 months and it did not take the chill out of the air.

After relighting the pilot on the hot water heater - which had been blown out in last night's 60 mph gust - I did dishes, just so I could thaw my hands.

I'm not complaining about the weather what with cyclones, earthquakes, and tornadoes in other parts of the world, but fuck, it's cold. And fuck this wind.

Actually, I'm happy that I'm this cold because I've been craving that Arizonan's thermostat wherein down jackets are donned when the temperature drops to 73. I want to be able to wear a turtleneck and boots when it's 90 degrees - as my sister does - because 'I'm just soooooo cold'. I want to not turn beet red and break out in an unattractive sweat because the temp has risen to 82 (the temp at which most western Oregonians turn on the AC in their vehicles).

It's taken three years of desert living but I think I'm making progress. Last week when it was 94 I felt okay with the windows open and the fans going, didn't even contemplate turning on the air conditioning. I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to tolerate summer here in my new town, which is at about 6,000' elevation and thus 10 degrees or so cooler than Tucson. So I don't imagine I'll be facing many 110 degree days as I did on the other side of the mountains. Groovy. Now if I can only get through the winters.

Snowbirds come to Arizona to escape their winters but where do the Arizonans go?

Looks like I better get back to those Spanish lessons.

barfly's lament

On Friday I came upon a bar I had not been in before, here in my new town. I liked it immediately. Biker bar. Nice owner. She made a killer Tanqueray and tonic. Asked if I wanted it in a tall or a short glass. Then some cute bikers came in to deliver pencils for their scavenger hunt. They left and were replaced with a big ugly biker with a wonky eye who pulled out a dollar bill with Hillary's face on it and the caption "The Feminist States of America". The bartender thought it was funny and passed it over to me. Then the ugly biker pulled out a bill with Obama's face which he and the bartender also found hilarious; I didn't look at it.

They talked politics. I turned my attention to the man on the bar stool next to me so I wouldn't have to hear what they were saying.

Later that night I was with a friend and I mentioned my experience at the bar and he said he used to like that bar but then he knew people who worked there and when the owners had a slow night, they wouldn't pay the help. They did all kinds of stuff like that, he said.

It's not easy finding the perfect watering hole - that ideal combination of savvy bartender, colorful clientele, expert mixology, quality of tonic water, left-leaning politics, kick-ass background music. I'm willing to overlook one or two missing ingredients but treating employees unfairly, that's a hard one to ignore. However, in my quest for the perfect bar, I may give them another shot. It's a small town and there are only so many taverns to go around.

On a different note, although I doubt if I ever want to live in a part of the country with more gray days than not, I want to say that it's times like this that I truly miss my old home town...Portland, Oregon. An estimated 75,000 turned out to hear Obama. Of course, it didn't hurt that the weather cooperated. Bikini-clad supporters waved from boats on the Willamette River. 'Bikini-clad'? Truly a miraculous day. May the miracles continue.

(photo from The Oregonian)

a death in the family

I didn't know her. I once heard her read from "Almost There" at my neighborhood bookstore so I kinda felt like I knew her. She was my favorite memoirist. I wanted to be like her when I grew up.

I just learned while surfing the 'net, avoiding online medical transcription typing tests, that Nuala O'Faolain died on May 9.

Her writing was beautiful but it was her honesty about herself, the sometimes embarrassing and unflattering self-portraits, that I admired the most.

Here is an article from The Independent, an interview with Nuala just six weeks after her diagnosis of metastatic cancer.

Funnily enough I don't care about losing the hair. What I do care about is that sometimes I see people frightened or repulsed and that is why I went and got a wig in which I look like a rather striking but elderly chorus girl.

Damn it. I was so looking forward to her next book. Now I guess I know how the story ends.

naked elder

Last week while in Mexico I made plans via email to go hiking in the Chiricahuas with a friend of a friend upon my return to Arizona. This friend of a friend sent an email with an attached photo: "This is what I wear hiking". It was a picture of him standing on some outcropping somewhere, gazing out over the distant mountain ranges, a backpack on his back, hiking boots on his feet, and wearing nothing else. Of course I had to show that photo to my friends who all commented on his cute butt but, ewwww, what a bizarre thing to do, send a photo like that to a woman you barely know, and thus he was dubbed "The Naked Hiker".

Getting older is a bitch. No doubt about it. I'm not real fond of it. It's gotta be worse for people who were beautiful when younger, or had killer bodies, or had heads full of hair. What's that saying? "Getting old ain't for sissies" or something like that. So every time I've been with the Naked Hiker I've gotten the impression that he is having more trouble than most with this getting old bullshit. He brought along a picture of our mutual friend. "This is what she looked like 50 pounds ago," he said as he handed me her photo. Why should I care what she looked like with less bulk? Is this his way of saying "look, when I met her she was beautiful and thin and I can't help it if she got older and fatter."

As The Naked Hiker and I hiked (both fully dressed), he told me over and over what great shape he used to be in and I wanted to tell him to let it go, to stop fretting over his shape and his friend's shape and probably everyone else's shapes. Life's short, paddle hard, as my friend Bobito is fond of saying.

Lucky us, we ran into a group of 78 grade-schoolers from one of the border towns, out there in the Chiricahuas with their very own Forest Ranger for a guide. The parents looked exhausted and bedraggled but the muchachos and muchachas were going strong, shouting out greetings when they saw us. One little boy asked "Are you elders on vacation?" I said "Elders!?" and he said "Yeah." And, well, he left me kind of dumbfounded. Elders. I guess that's better than "old people", more respectful, but it bothered me. How old did that kid think I was? I reminded myself that kids have a warped sense of age, that someone 35 can look old to them. Fuck, talk about being in denial about the aging process; hell, I'm as bad as The Naked Hiker! I nearly let that little shit ruin my day.

After our hike we returned to town where we had dinner and roamed the streets and listened to music and stayed out past midnight. Not bad for a couple of elders.

mexico on the cheap

Ride down with a friend. Share gas costs. Fill gas tank in Mexico. Your share: 40 dollars
Once in Mexico, sleep on a cot outdoors in a friend's palapa. 0 dollars
Let the friends who house you also feed you. Drink their booze. 0 dollars
To reciprocate, buy dinner at the least expensive place. 10 dollars for 5 people.



Retrieve tethered gas tanks from sea and deliver to friends.
0 dollars






Walk the beach. Reconnect with your favorite furry blond friends.
0 dollars

Let your friend take you out into the desert on his sand rail.
0 dollars






Get up early in anticipation of boat ramp repairs. 0 dollars






Avoid looking for a job for another week: Priceless.