A day of miracles and it's not over yet

Today was a day of multiple miracles. I call them miracles. I don't know if they emanate from a divine source—unlikely, in my human opinion—but these occurrences weren't orchestrated by me, that much I know. All I did was say yes. 

First miracle. A friend from Minneapolis flew into Tucson to join the rabid rock and mineral fanatics for a gem show now happening at the Convention Center. Gems shows are a thing, apparently. I am not part of the gem show cult. That's not the miracle. Well, maybe it's sort of a miracle that I'm not a member of a cult. I reserve the right, though: There's still time. Anyway, I the miracle is my MSP friend came to Tucson! 

Second miracle. I found my way to the Tucson Convention Center. I know what you are thinking: Carol, really? In this era of GPS, you probably would not classify that as a miracle. I do. First, I barely know how to use my phone. I use this amazing device called a roadmap. It's actually paper. I know! Crazy. The upside to using a roadmap is it uses no data while I'm sitting in my car trying to figure out where I am. The downside is I forget the map as soon as I close the atlas.  

I do know how to use Google Maps. How do you think I got to Tucson? Well, I did get lost on the way once or twice, but I'm here now, no arguing with that. Whenever I need to find something, I check Google Maps. Yesterday on my laptop I Google Mapped the locations of parking meters near the Convention Center. I wrote a few notes to take with me, otherwise I would be, like, wait, what was it again, do I turn right off Stone Avenue or left? As it turned out, the parking meters I had mapped myself to had been removed. No parking on Ochoa! 

Third miracle. After driving around downtown Tucson in circles for a few minutes, I found a metered parking space. Meters are free on Sunday, which is why I was determined to find a spot. The hotel wanted $16.00 per day to park there. The Convention Center was definitely not an option: the line to get into the almost full parking lot was a half-mile long (and $10.00 per day). No thanks. 

Fourth miracle. I parked the Beast in the spot. More or less. I mean, I was within eighteen inches of the curb and almost parallel with the curb. Honestly, it was a very small spot, even for a small car. I was parking a Dodge Caravan, which if you know minivans is not a sleek little soccer-mom car. The Beast is a box, a mini-box truck. And, oh, did I mention, the parking spot was on the left side of the one-way street? Not my favorite side of the street to park on, even in a Ford Focus. I've been known to botch the parking process when I'm parking on the left side of the street. That parking disability probably has disturbing implications about the condition of the right side of my brain. 

Anyway! 

Fifth miracle. After a lovely visit, I agreed to give my friend a ride to one of the many gem shows happening around town. Even while we talked, I was able to retrace my steps back to my car without having to refer to the many photos I snapped on my walk over to the hotel. Multitasking! 

Sixth miracle. I drove my friend to the Kino Sports Center, a couple miles south of downtown Tucson, where she was meeting the other members of her party. Now, I admit, I was guided by the GPS Google Gal on my friend's iPhone. Given enough warning, I can usually follow directions, even from a robot. We found the place with no wrong turns, no detours, no backtracks. The giant dusty parking lot was packed. I double-parked outside some tents, where we said our goodbyes. The miracle is that I realized I could easily hop on the I-10 freeway and find my way back to the Bat Cave. I did not have to wander in circles. As long as I can see the Santa Catalina Mountains, I know which way to go. I admit, the fact that it was broad daylight and bright sunshine helped. At night, I would have been hopelessly lost until I happened to come across a familiar street name. Even then, I have a better than fifty-fifty chance of heading in the wrong direction. 

That's a lot of miracles in one day! I'm not done!

Seventh miracle. Eighty-plus degrees Fahrenheit. Need I say more? Crystal clear postcard-blue sky. No wind, not a hint in the air to indicate that by Wednesday the temperature is forecast to be ten degrees below our average high of 68°F-ish. Bundle up, the forecasters are saying. It's going to be below 60°F! Some outlying areas might see rain. Mt. Lemmon might get a little snow. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, it is 8°F below zero. That's minus eight. I would not survive in MSP. I shiver when the temperature drops below 50°F. I'm such a hothouse flower. 

I suppose every day could be a day full of miracles, if I just shift my perception. Miracle I haven't caught COVID. Miracle I haven't been killed by a neighbor with a gripe and a gun. Miracle I haven't killed anyone with the Beast. It's not hard to find miracles. They are everywhere, all the time.

Every moment is a new adventure

It's 449 miles between here and Albuquerque, a drive of approximately six and a half hours, or more like eight hours, the way I drive. I drive like my father, who coincidentally would have turned ninety-five today. Happy birthday, Pop. Your legacy lives on. I think of you whenever a semitruck blows me off the road. Well, what's the rush, right? I have one pace.

I'm driving to Albuquerque to cat-sit for a friend who is going out of town for the holiday. I'm thinking of this as another house-sitting job. I'm practicing for my new career. Yep. Intentional houselessness, here I come. I think. We'll see. I still have nine months on my lease. After that, who knows? Housing costs are going up everywhere, it appears, and so are Medicare premiums. 

My tentative plan is to dry up and blow away. I've achieved Stage 1 of my plan: contract osteoporosis. (Is osteoporosis something one can contract? I'm not sure. Mom had it so it's probably genetic. Which means Stage 2 will be dementia.)

My Tucson friend E has a dream of creating a hot springs oasis in the desert, a place to grow old soaking in hot water. I'm on board with that dream. I'd happily volunteer to be pool boy. Girl. Whatever I am. When all the hair migrates from your legs to your upper lip, gender tends to blur.

I published my second novel this week. Sorry I can't tell you what it is because this is an anonymous blog. Note to self: In the future, if you want to publicize your accomplishments, don't be anonymous. 

When I get back to Tucson, I have some medical and dental tasks on my calendar. It's not a surprise. I turned sixty-five and the grand vista of Medicare opened up before me. Over the past few years, I postponed my healthcare needs while I orbited my mother, knowing there would one day be a reckoning, and that reckoning has come.  

Is it true that we don't fall apart until we achieve the goal—then we relax and let go and everything falls apart? If that is a thing, then I am in trouble. I kept things together for five years, getting closer and closer to my own personal abyss as my mother inched closer to hers. (No, I did not push her off the cliff, although I thought about it, usually when I was mopping up her messes.) Now she's gone, and now it looks like the edge of my own cliff is crumbling under my feet. Maybe it's more like taking a used car to the mechanic. Fix one thing, get ready to fix everything. I got one tooth pulled and smithereens! 

What does smithereens look like? Thanks for asking. It's a systemic slow-motion mildly tragic disaster.  

My bone marrow, in its quest for sustenance, has apparently cannibalized my muscles, so now I'm a breakable stick with flaccid funbags. My joy at fitting into my old non-stretch Levi's has pretty much evaporated, because the pants no longer support my droopy butt. Now I look like an old baggy version of Mr. Green Jeans. I predict a hip replacement in my future, if I don't fall down and break them both first. 

My hair is falling out pretty much everywhere except my nose and upper lip. I have the beginnings of cataracts. I can't see well enough to pluck the whiskers from my upper lip but I can see my mother in the mirror just fine. This week, I think I somehow managed to contract a hernia. Is that a thing? Germs are everywhere, who knows, hernias could be, too. I wear my mask at the store, but hernias could be spewing out through the ventilation system, how would I know, until I bust a gut lifting my grocery bags into the car? I blame politics. 

On the bright side, I went for a bike ride on the bike path with my Tucson friend E. Luckily there weren't many up hills and down dales; thus, I managed to pedal the whole way and back without falling in the Rillito River or getting bit by a Gila monster. I thought there was a better than fifty-fifty chance either my brain would give out or my body would give up, but neither one came to pass. Once again, I discover I am capable of more than I thought. I am not a quitter in most things, but sometimes I give up on myself too soon.

Well, it's not time to give up yet. However, if dementia is in the cards for me, I have a plan. I hope it is a long distance in the future, because the plan is pretty vague at this point. The plan depends on many factors, few of which are in my control. However, I think it will involve hot springs, warm blue skies, good friends, something tasty to drink, and a few magical pills. 

Meanwhile, I have miles to go, people to enjoy, stories to write, and places to see. Until I reach the end of the road, the road trip continues. 

Starting a new life in the desert

Howdy Blogbots. At long last, I'm coming to you from beautiful northwest Tucson. It really truly finally happened. As promised, I moved. It happened fast. On Wednesday, April 21, I took a deep breath and unplugged from the internet. I spent a feverish day loading up my minivan with as much stuff as I could fit and still leave room for me to drive. That night, I slept snuggled in the reclined passenger seat. Apart from setting off the car alarm when I made my final trip to the bathroom, everything went smoothly. I drove away from Portland at daybreak on Thursday, April 22. 

After a three-day road trip through the nether regions of the American West (perhaps the topic of another blog post, yes, I got lost several times), I arrived at my friend's house in Tucson on Saturday afternoon, more or less intact, and have been trying to find myself ever since. 

I've had a lot of alone time to figure things out. My friend and her partner left on Sunday in their fabulous RV with their orange cat who rides shotgun above the cab. I've spent the past week alternating between driving my minivan in circles (which I call "learning the city") and hunkering in the cool burrow of their mobile home. With only myself to talk to, I'm fully present and feeling things.

The first two days, the weather was lovely, blue sky and sunshine, not too hot. The next two days, thunderstorms blew in and dumped bands of torrential rain across the trailer park, rattling the awnings and turning the sky an ominous gray. It was cold. I was glad I hadn't tossed my fleece into the U-Box. The City of Tucson upped the chlorine content of the city water supply. For a couple days, I thought I was drinking from a swimming pool. I looked up how to neutralize chlorine in tap water: You can boil it at least twenty minutes, let it stand (could take days or longer to dissipate), or you could add ascorbic acid, also known as vitamin C. After a few days, the chlorine is gone, and that is how I realized that rainstorms upset the quality of the City's water supply.

When I'm feeling discombobulated, which I am right now, lost and confused, I turn to my routines and task lists to ground me and give me structure. My routines are shot to hell, starting with waking at dawn. I've never been a morning person! But as soon as the first white-winged dove starts chortling, my eyes pop open. One particular dove is getting under my skin: I can almost make out what she is singing: It's either Give us this day or Hang up and drive. I have no opinion on religious white-winged doves, it's the repetition at 6:30 a.m. that I find irksome. So my routines are toast, how about my task list? Thanks for asking. My task list evolves daily. I managed to find my dinky bottle of white-out, thank god. My calendar is getting pretty crusty as things keep changing. For instance, I successfully applied for an Arizona driver's license, but I have to wait to register the car until I get the title from the State of Oregon in about three more months. I can't get a local bank account until I get the driver's license. I couldn't get the driver's license until I got a street address. See how that works? White-out is my little helper.

I'm house-sitting in an amazing over-55 gated trailer park. The trailers butt up close to each other, all painted in pale shades of taupe, gray, and peach. All the front yards are filled with rocks and various types of cacti. Some of the saguaros are home to multiple cactus wrens. There are mourning doves and white-winged doves all over the place. I saw four Grendel's quail marching in a row across the street. Rabbits noodle around in the gravel. 

It's an orderly but strangely silent community. Other than the Neighborhood Watch person Linda, who drove over to me in the golf cart on the second day I was here to find out who I was and what I was doing in their community, I rarely see anyone. In fact, since the day my friends left, I have had no interactions with anyone in the trailer park, other than to wave at a gentleman who drove by in the golf cart (husband of Linda, I believe). The house is on a cul-de-sac, so I know he received a call from someone across the way. Suspicious activity, better check it out. I was outside organizing the boxes in my car in preparation for taking them to my new storage unit. That is how I know people are watching me, even though I don't see them. I don't tend to peer into their windows. 

Tonight I decided I would give them something to talk about and even call the golf cart dude if they felt inclined. I put on my sneakers, a long-sleeved shirt, and a sunhat. I brought my mp3 player and strapped a mask around my neck. I locked the kitchen door behind me (I don't trust anyone) and went out into the breezy 88°F evening sunshine. I walked in the middle of the narrow Disneyland-esque street, admiring the twirling pinwheels and spiky cacti, smiling to show I was not a threat. I did not dance, nor did I flip anyone off, as I walked past a dozen or so mobile homes to the secret gate leading onto the bike path along the Rillito River. My friend left me a key to the lock that leads from the trailer park onto the bike path. In moments, I was through the gate, free.

I walked to the west toward the setting sun and then turned around and walked to the east, taking photos of cacti, mountains, the Rillito River, and the Tucson Mall. The river bed is wide, dry, and overgrown with shrubby trees. I wish I'd thought to see if it filled with water those two days we had rain. I imagine it's pretty spectacular when the water starts flowing. Now it's like the ghost of a river, all sandy bed, rocks, and beat up plastic bottles, chairs, and bags. I saw a jack rabbit. I guess it was a jack rabbit. It definitely wasn't a plump fluff ball like the rabbits in the trailer park. He posed, and I took his picture.

It felt good to be out walking. Distances are less than I imagined. This area of northwest Tucson is consumer heaven, if you like shopping, which I don't, all stores, strip malls, and wide traffic lanes occupied by speeding SUVs. I'm learning the grid of streets in the area. On Friday I found my way to the vaccination site at the University of Arizona. On the way back, I stopped at Trader Joe's for Vitamin C tablets, just in case I need to treat the drinking water again. Before she left, my friend warned me to pound down the water and she wasn't kidding. With relative humidity in the single digits, everything desiccates quickly to a husk, including human bodies, especially if there is a breeze. Today there's a red flag fire warning in Southwest Arizona. Fire danger is everywhere, and in the desert, water is a scarce resource.

So, in other news, the check engine light came on again on Friday. I'm hoping it's just the gas cap, you know, maybe I didn't get it all the way screwed on—it's been twenty-four years since I pumped my own gas. The gas cap is new. But you know how it is with cars. And teeth. They rarely heal themselves. 

Tomorrow the plan is to deal with reality as it comes at me, like we all do, the way we all meet the bumps and potholes in whatever road we travel.