Mini Vacation in Phoenix

I recently told you about a new anti-anxiety medicine that I was hoping would help me enjoy traveling more. The first time I took it, it seemed to help. On my way to California in April, my flight was delayed and then cancelled, and I couldn’t get out that night. I took it all in stride, and I credited the medicine for that.

But on my subsequent flights – my flight out to California the next day, and on the way home from California, and on my way out to Ann Arbor, the medicine didn’t seem to work as well. Instead of making me calm, it seemed to just make me stupid. I don’t want to be stupid. I am already stupid enough!

I particularly didn’t want to be stupid after my flight from Ann Arbor to Phoenix because it was a late evening flight. It would be dark by the time I arrived. I’d have to figure out how to get on the correct shuttle to get to my car and I’m not familiar with the Phoenix airport yet, or the parking situation. My car was somewhere near the airport…I had a claim ticket…actually I had completely forgotten that I had a claim ticket tucked away somewhere, but I figured my app would tell me what to do.

And then I had to navigate on freeways in the dark to an Airbnb where I’ve never been, and figure out which place was mine and which door was mine and hope the keypad code works. And my hosts would not have been still awake to help me.

So I decided I needed my brain to be working more than I needed anti-anxiety meds coursing through my system. I didn’t take any meds on the flight back and I was ok. I don’t think I was any more anxious than I when I took the meds.

It got me thinking – I don’t think my problem is anxiety. I think it’s some sort of sensory overwhelm that’s different than anxiety. That’s probably why every anxiety medication I’ve ever taken has not worked.

Actually, my anxiety medicine did work when I had reason to be anxious – when my flight was so delayed that I was not going to my connecting flight to California. But the med didn’t help when everything was going smoothly. I was still miserable during the trips – but it wasn’t anxiety making me miserable. It was something else.

The closest I can describe it is sensory overwhelm. Everything is too loud and visually complicated and everyone is moving and the plane is moving. It’s just too much going on. But it’s not causing anxiety exactly, it’s causing confusion, which is different than anxiety. Although confusion can cause anxiety and frustration.

Anyway, I just took my time and tried to keep my head on straight. We landed, I found my luggage, I found where I needed to catch the shuttle, talked to a shuttle driver to figure out which shuttle I needed, talked to another shuttle driver to figure out which location I needed (the parking company has two or three near-airport locations, with different shuttles serving each one). I found my car, found the directions to my airbnb, managed to navigate in the dark on the freeway through construction (my poor eyesight doesn’t help me any).

I got to the address, dragged my suitcases through a patio gate (now remember, it was pitch dark at the time, not this bright happy sunshine of the next day)

…and discovered not one, but TWO doors, both of which looked exactly like the one in the internet picture I had memorized. Which door was mine? And for that matter, why am I standing alone at midnight in this total stranger’s yard?

It’s all quite cheerful in these pictures I took the next morning, but at the time it was dark, I was exhausted, and there’s always that lingering concern that if you’re trying to get in at midnight and you pick the wrong door, someone might decide to shoot you!

I went ahead and tried my code on the right-hand door, and it worked. Whew! I made it!

Turns out in the daylight it’s quite easy to tell which is the main house and which is the guesthouse. The guesthouse is the cute little square unit on the right, attached to the main house by a breezeway. But it was not obvious at night.

The next morning I was completely delighted to be there.

There was a park and a walking trail at the end of the cul-de-sac two houses down. I got up, walked outside, and it smelled like the desert, and it felt like the desert and I felt instantly at home.

I walked down to the fountain and was greeted by a man walking his dogs, who identified himself as my host, Phil. He must have seen me exiting the gate and standing in his driveway, holding my sunglasses aloft while I tried to decide whether they were dirty enough to warrant heading back inside to clean them, or if they were good enough. I judged them good enough.

“Why are you here?”, Phil asked. That wasn’t actually the first question he asked when he and his three overfed fluffy dogs spotted me walking toward the park. Phil’s first question was why my car had a New Mexico license plate when my Airbnb profile says I’m from Tucson? Well…yeah. About that. My husband hasn’t got around to registering our cars in Arizona yet. Lol.

I didn’t say that. I just told him we’re still getting moved. What I didn’t mention was that we’ve been moving to Tucson for over two years now, but we’ve been New Mexico residents until this month. The nuanced truth just gets too complicated for a brief sidewalk greeting. I’ll be so glad when we’re finally done with all this complicated not knowing where I live, and I have easy answers for friendly neighbors.

So why was I there? Partly because my plane arrived late at night and I didn’t want to drive 2 hours home in the middle of the night. I don’t see well in the dark, and I get tired easily. Plus, I thought it would be nice to decompress after my trip to Ann Arbor. Also I wanted to do errands in Phoenix.

I have been thinking of buying an exercise machine but neither of the brands that I was primarily interested in are available in Tucson. I could order them, but I wanted to try them first before deciding which to get. So one of my main goals was to visit a couple of fitness showrooms and try out some options.

After my walk, I started on my big-city errands. In addition to wanting to try out exercise machines, I also wanted to look for tile samples with a Southwest or Mexican feel. Visiting tile stores took me all over the city – and Phoenix is huge and sprawling.

You haven’t heard much about our remodel recently, but yes, we’re still slowly plugging away. Very slowly. Right now some smaller projects are slowly being done. Did I mention how slowly the projects are going? Neil drops by occasionally, but most of the time he is on vacation or working elsewhere. Slowly.

Later this summer I want to remodel the master bathroom. That will be a very disruptive job, so I hope to hire a bigger firm in order to get it done in a shorter length of time. There’s usually a several-month wait before a big firm can get to your job, but once they start, they’re better at getting it done in one big crush of activity. I do not want my master bathroom being remodeled in little bits at a time every few weeks.

Anyway, tile samples:

Haha, no, this was a bit much. It reminds me of a clown.

I ended up buying a few copper colored tiles for the master bathroom. The white tile behind it will be the primary tile, with copper accents to add interest. We did the hall bathroom in white with dark blue accents, and the master bathroom will be white with copper accents. (Note to self – we need to pick out new edging, the off-white that looked good in the hall bathroom will look too gray here.) There is always something.

I also ordered the tile in this next photo for our fireplace hearth and for accenting on our patio. The reddish-brown tile underneath is our floor tile, and our hearth will be the plain orangish-brown one on the left, accented with an occasional flower tile.

After I got done with my errands I sat out on the courtyard with my computer. I love courtyards, even in the intense Phoenix heat.

Some of the neighbor’s names for their internet accounts were amusing.

Speaking of remodels, I couldn’t help but think about how my hosts had remodeled their guesthouse. Phil told me that it was originally a studio with no kitchen. It had the main room plus the bathroom and a closet. Phil and his wife, Peggy, converted the closet into a kitchenette by adding a window and a sink, mini-fridge and microwave. I had guessed as much because there was a door to the kitchen with a mirror on the back of it, lol. It pretty clearly used to be a closet.

Their solution worked ok, but I would have taken that couple of feet of wall out; the doorway and that little bit of wall to the right of the doorway. That would open up the kitchen space which would then have enabled the kitchen to continue around the corner to where they have a clothes rack. Then they could have had the kitchen on two walls in an “L” shape and have twice as much (or more) kitchen space. There still would have been enough room for a small closet under the TV where this desk is:

And the desk could have gone between these two chairs instead of the little useless end tables:

If they had run the kitchen around the corner, they would have had room to include a full sized sink, modest refrigerator, stovetop and a dishwasher. The kitchen doesn’t need to be behind a door and a wall.

It wouldn’t have been very much more work and they could have doubled the size of their kitchen. The floor tile would need to be patched where the wall was. If they couldn’t find an exact match, they could do a decorative span across the threshold. That is a very common technique for visual delineation even if you have matching tile.

It’s possible they might have needed to do a little bit of drywall patching – but probably not, if they put cabinets and backsplash across the 4 inches where the unnecessary wall had joined the main wall. It would not have been very much harder, and it would have looked so much better and had been so much more useful than having shoved a tiny bit of kitchen into a closet.

See, I am incorrigible. Always thinking about remodels.

Anyway it was a cute little place. They allow dogs too. Maybe John and I will go back together someday. Phoenix is our nearest big city and there’s lots to do there!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism