Category: 2019

When I’m not reading bewildering books about the coming of the cyborgs, or unpacking moving boxes (which I’m still doing, yes, I’m still unpacking moving boxes; I’ve done all the easy ones, now for the hard ones)… when I’m not doing all those other things, I’m obsessing about that pool in Tucson.

I’m a poor swimmer. I had swimming lessons as a child, but I kept flunking them. Yes, it is possible to flunk your YMCA swim lessons, in fact, I flunked the first level several times…year after year. I was small for my age, so for the first couple of years I looked like all the other kids. But as I failed to progress, and grew taller than everyone, the kids started asking me my age and I was very embarrassed.

I don’t remember why I wasn’t passing the lessons. I don’t think I was particularly afraid of the water or refusing to do what I was supposed to do. I was a timid and insecure child, but also motivated to please and trying to do the right thing. This resulted in me becoming accustomed to doing things I thought I was supposed to do, even if they frightened me.

I suspect my failure to learn to swim had more to do with an impaired kinesthetic sense than anything else. Basically it’s hard for me to understand what to do with my brain in order to have my body do what I want it to do.

So on our vacation in Tucson, I was determined to work on my swimming, and very excited to have an entire private pool all to myself for several days. Here I am, blissfully resting on a pool noodle.

Here’s John relaxing by the pool.

I don’t have pictures of me actually attempting to learn new swimming techniques, but it went sort of like this:

Me: THRASH-SPLASH-THRASH-SPLASH, GASP-GASP, “Did I go anywhere?”

John: “Um, well, maybe?” (He’s so polite.)

Me: “I didn’t go anywhere, did I?”

John: “Well, maybe not.”

I can swim across the pool doing a couple of different versions of “my own thing”. They’re not official swimming strokes, and are inefficient, inelegant and exhausting. I’m also fairly decent at just staying afloat on my back.

However, when resting on the pool noodle, I could kick myself across the water with very little effort. I went back and forth across the pool, over and over. It was relaxing and meditative and very wonderful.

It reminded me of a pleasant hike; a smooth, flat hike in the trees. (No cliffs, no lightening, no steep slippery crushed granite, no high winds, no cactus, no rattlesnakes – ok, I assume rattlesnakes don’t get into pools? I hope? Right?

The water was very relaxing, the way it pushed against all of me in an equal, gentle pressure. I loved being in the pool! I also credit that pool for alleviating an oncoming migraine one day.

I know that public pools are readily available and I’ve tried them. They’re loud, they’re confusing, there’s people everywhere, I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know where I am, I don’t see very well, I’m freezing cold, people are bumping into me and splashing me, indoor pools stink and are echoey and echoes give me migraines (I know that’s weird but they do), and I don’t know or understand the subtle norms of locker rooms or the pool itself, and it’s total chaos.

I’ve never actually been in my own private pool before. When the pool is quiet, and still, and calm, and warm, I can focus on just the water.

John spent a lot of time reading his book poolside, but he also enjoyed the water.

It’s cold, he says. Haha, look at that face!

Ahh, happy now.

We’re continuing to check out Tucson whenever we visit. Here’s a pool at a house we went to see during an open house. The house was just completely remodeled and the pool was brand new.

It was a nice house, but more money than we want to spend. There was a time when Tucson was very affordable, but not so much anymore. Tucson is definitely more expensive than Albuquerque. Most places where people would choose to retire are more expensive than Albuquerque. Guess we need to save for a few more years!

When I mentioned to Darren that we were going to spend 5 days vacationing in Tucson this month, his comment was something like, “What fresh hell is this?”

And I understand the sentiment. Earlier this spring, when an employee of mine submitted a leave slip for August, and mentioned they were going to Tucson, I also wondered why someone would go to Tucson in the summer. He explained that they rent a house with a pool and spend the week relaxing by the pool. And I realized that actually sounded really nice.

I’ve always wanted a pool, ever since one of my favorite weeks in my childhood:

It’s not even an in-ground pool, but the distinction was lost on me.

I was raised in a cold and rainy place and the highlight of my year was when I would get to go down to California to visit my grandparents all by myself, or sometimes with my brother.

On this particular occasion, my grandparents and I went to visit friends of theirs who had a little girl my age. I don’t remember for sure what her name was – I imagine it might have been Jenna.

I am also not sure where they lived. I have a memory that it was Redding, but it’s possible it was somewhere else and this family only later moved to Redding, or it’s possible it was a different set of my grandparent’s friends who at some point moved to Redding.

Regardless of the details, it was a magical week with a built-in best friend and a pool in the sunshine.

Skip forward to last fall. In October, John and I made the decision to sell our house in Placitas in the spring. The decision to sell that house opened up the bigger question of where we wanted to live.

One option would be to get new jobs elsewhere. We would like to be somewhere between John’s mom in Houston and my kids in Boise and California. And we like warm climates.

Tucson was high on our list because John could easily get a job at Raytheon. Also on our list, where we felt we could both find jobs, was Austin (very cool city), Houston (where we have relatives), Sacramento (centrally located between the kids), San Diego (except it’s expensive), or Santa Fe (under that scenario, John would commute to Los Alamos).

You all probably remember that nutty time last winter when we were seriously looking at moving to a variety of places. We considered a house in Nambe, between Santa Fe and Los Alamos. I tried hard to talk John into considering a beautiful house in the south valley (it has a rough reputation down there and he said no). We made a low-ball offer on one in Corrales, near the river just north of Albuquerque. We bid over list price but still lost the bid on a house in Santa Fe. Then I resigned from my job thinking we were moving to Texas. Finally we abruptly just bought a random house in our old neighborhood in Albuquerque, for lack of a better idea.

We tossed away our dream-house wish-list, and just bought something small and practical that should sell well once we do decide where we eventually want to live. We’re still going to move again. Just not right away.

Anyway, that whole digression was just to explain our other reason for going to Tucson in August. We wanted to see how bad the Tucson summer heat really was, because we’re still considering moving there someday. We have heard horror stories about the summer heat in Tucson! And certainly the population of Tucson drops in the summer time.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my biggest criteria for a location is being able to be outside comfortably, for as much as the year as possible. Is that possible in Tucson summer?

What we discovered on our visit, is that Tucson it feels exactly like Albuquerque in the summer; hot with afternoon thundershowers.

When we left Albuquerque earlier this week, the previous day had gotten to 100 degrees. When we arrived in Tucson, it was 105. I don’t know about you, but I can’t really tell the difference between 100 and 105!

Also while we were there, Albuquerque temps actually exceeded Tuscon temps. Then it cooled off a bit and was in the 90’s in both places for the remainder of the week.

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Of course, those of you who don’t live in Albuquerque and/or don’t like the heat, are not going to be impressed with the argument that Tucson is no worse than Albuquerque in the summer. But for me – well, I love Albuquerque in the summer!

Another big criteria of mine is not just being outside, but also being able to exercise outside. In middle of the summer in both locations, as dawn arrives, it rapidly gets too hot to hike or jog. That is when a swimming pool comes in really handy!