The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
This is me in Tucson:
I’ve been here since November and have joined a variety of groups to get to know people. I feel like I know people here – but I’ve still not met them in person! I’m probably over-estimating the extent of our friendship because to me, they’re the only ones here I know! To them, I’m just a square on their screen.
To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com
Here’s Thea on the famous shark!
One day John took the older two girls on a hike to see the saguaro cactus. He tried to get them to stand still for photos.
I bought them an underwater camera and they had lots of fun with Uncle John taking photos under the water.
The underwater camera didn’t do as well taking pictures above water, but I couldn’t resist including yet another infamous shark sequence!
Whoops!
Both girls are very comfortable under water.
John’s really great with the kids. He never gets tired of playing with them. I’m more of a logistics person, making sure there’s food and dry pool towels. I’m less fun, lol. They adore John. Thea kept accidentally calling him “Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa!” and then Daphne would correct her, “It’s Uncle John, not Grandpa!” We didn’t mind. Emily and Laura are only 2 years apart in age, so he very well could have been Grandpa! He’s bald enough 😉
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Emily and Bryan and their girls are visiting us from Boston!
Watch me!
John bought a blow-up shark that the girls could ride on!
John decided to try it too.
Whoops! Roll-over! Shark – 1, John – 0!
John took the girls to Target that morning, plus some deliveries from Amazon showed up, and the toys are multiplying! Here’s a fishing game that John thought was the best!
That’s a big beach ball for that little kiddie pool.
Uh no, the life vest isn’t for the kiddie pool. The life vest is because she was in the big pool earlier. Plus she’s still only three short steps (and three short seconds) from the big pool.
“But I don’t want to wear a hat!”
Zooming around in a circle, fun!
Late afternoon and time to take a break. It’s a new look for the backyard!
Now the shark gets all the toys to himself.
Looking forward to more fun tomorrow!
To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com
It took a week and a half; several days longer than originally promised, but at least it wasn’t several weeks longer. I’m so done with workers in the house! (For now. There’s more this house needs, unfortunately.) But I’m meanwhile excited to get my house back!
The painters even worked on Saturday. They took Sunday off, and we used that as a chance to have John’s brother Dan, his wife Dawn, and their kids over to play in the pool before they head back to Minnesota for the summer.
They were our first guests! We’ve all had at least one vaccination shot, and we visited outdoors. They considerately arrived in masks, but we all felt safe enough without them outdoors.
Now we’re getting set up for Emily’s visit tonight! She’s shipped us a crib, a carseat, a stroller, some pool floaties and a few other baby items. And we’ve bought a variety of toys, since we didn’t have any children’s items at the house at all.
We barely have time to put the house back together after painting before Emily gets here. And Emily won’t mind if there’s still a few piles of things here and there. And we’re not going manage to get all the pictures on the walls. They won’t care!
Here’s how it looks (without pictures on the walls yet). It’s a nice, neutral blank slate:
It looks cleaner, newer, and lighter.
The painters did a good job in most of the house, but they did a rushed and sloppy job on the last day. Unfortunately, they painted my fireplace the wrong color, and had to redo it at the last minute and made a huge mess of it, slopping paint onto the hearth and over the edges of the brick.
They weren’t even supposed to have painted the fireplace at all; I had done a much better job myself when we first moved in. I took a lot of time with it and did a very careful job, keeping the paint off the brick. They just slopped over it all, first with our off-white color and then with brown, both of their coats of paint slopping onto the brick and the hearth.
I was not happy about that! At some point I’ll try to minimize the damage. They’re not going to fix it because they don’t see any issue, and all they do is paint – they’re not in the business of removing paint from brick. Grrrr.
They also did a rushed job in the pool bathroom. It accesses from the back patio instead of from inside the house, so I guess they figured it didn’t matter. But it’s a regular 3/4 bath. There were paint drips on the toilet, the floor, the shower curtain, etc.
I wouldn’t hire them again. But overall we’re glad it’s done and it’s mostly not awful.
To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com
Originally we were just going to be in Albuquerque for a short period of time while I got my second covid shot Friday and John did one day’s worth of work onsite. Then we were going to head back to Tucson for a week or so to get the house ready for painters and then up to Nevada for a quick camping trip with Serenity.
Originally. But then John got a couple more things added to his work schedule, and then he got “the call” for the covid shot. So we delayed in Albuquerque until the very last minute and ended up driving directly to Nevada.
The painters did the outside wall while we were gone. It looks great. Except, hmmm, not sure what they were thinking here.
Maybe they wanted to leave a blue patch so I wouldn’t forget how awful it had been, and would fully appreciate the improvement. Lol. How could they not have noticed that big blue spot?
We enjoyed our camping trip with Serenity and finally got to Tucson Sunday night, with painters arriving at 8:00 the next morning to start on the interior of the house. Yikes! We had been told that all we had to do was remove art from the walls, and they would take care of the furniture themselves and “not to worry about anything.” I knew they were going to push the furniture away from the walls a bit, but I didn’t anticipate how thoroughly disruptive it would be.
They pushed all the furniture into the middle of each room, completely jammed together with plastic over everything. There was no way we could access any of our drawers. Meaning – any of our stuff in our drawers! They also taped over our medicine cabinets, cupboards, etc.
I had just gotten home after two weeks in Albuquerque plus a camping trip – to a completely nonworking house! My new office is the backyard.
Well, I kept saying all I want to do is live outside all year round. I guess I got my wish!
I’m sort of disappointed because the paint looks a bit greenish-yellow in certain lights.
It’s not actually green – not when it’s painted on a testing stick or something. I think it’s the blue showing through, even though there aren’t any places that I can point to where you can clearly see blue showing through. It’s just a vague overall impression and not any specific areas of incomplete coverage. I know for a fact our painters aren’t going to redo it all, particularly when it’s so generalized and non-obvious. There’s nowhere I can say, look, see here, blue is showing through. Maybe I’ll get a refresh done in a few years.
The guy who did such good work for us in 2019 in Albuquerque has returned to Albuquerque (he had been in Hawaii for awhile). I’ve told him if he wants to spend some time in Tucson, I have a lot of work I could give him! He’s one of the few contractors we’ve had good luck with. He’s slow, but I trust him with everything and he will redo it if it’s not up to his standards, which are high. I wish he could just come out here and get this house into shape for me!
To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com
First of all, a note about Serenity. Serenity is doing great! When I look at facebook, it sometimes makes me wonder, OMG, what exactly is going on up there in Boise?!?This weekend we were able to hang out together and it was very reassuring for me. All seems to be fine.
The latest is Serenity may change their legal first name to Callan, which is Scottish/Welsh/Irish for rock. They still want to be called Serenity as their nickname, with they/them pronouns. It’s been fun to watch the evolution of this as it is unfolding. And quite the learning experience!
We met in Nevada to go camping, with the practical purpose of giving our dog Kai to Serenity and their roommates. Kai has been challenging me lately and Serenity and their roommates have kindly agreed to adopt him.
It took us a day and a half to get there from Albuquerque, because we couldn’t leave until mid-afternoon. We made it as far as a rest stop near Flagstaff. We have been finding rest stops to be decent places to stay in the camper van overnight; the trick is to find one with parking behind the facilities, well away from the freeway so it’s not too loud. This can be assessed ahead of time using google satellite view.
Along the road we saw the recent aftermath of several accidents. Traveling never feels safe to me.
Finally we made it to our destination, Big Rocks Wilderness in Nevada. It’s at the halfway point between Boise and Tucson. Turns out we weren’t coming from Tucson, but that was the original intent!
After getting the van situated and sending Serenity updated, detailed directions to our campsite, we went for a walk.
We didn’t go far, just a bit of a wander around to stretch our legs before dinner.
We were poking around a little in the boulders near our campsite when suddenly we realized Kai was gone! We had seen him right behind us just a moment prior, so we knew he was nearby. We called him, but Kai has been less and less willing to come when he’s called. For one thing, he’s getting deaf. For another thing, he just doesn’t seem to care too much what we may or may not want him to do nowadays.
After looking around and calling for a few minutes, we started to get really worried. The desert is no place for a small dog to be lost. He wouldn’t survive long with no water. And he would be an easy target for coyotes.
I figured he had just gotten hot and laid down in the shade, but where was he?
After about 10 minutes of frantic calling and whistling, we decided to split up and I would head back to the campsite to see if Kai was there. We were only a few hundred yards from the van, not even a quarter mile. There was just a low ridge between us and the van, so no chance that John or I would get lost.
We agreed that if I found Kai, I would honk the horn three times so John would know to come back. Otherwise, we would meet back at the van in an hour.
I went over the low ridge and intersected the road just a short way down from the van. The moment I got onto the road I saw Kai, a few yards ahead of me, ambling casually up the road toward the campsite. I called him. He heard me, glanced back, and kept walking slowly along. It was as if he were to say, “Oh, so you got tired of this stupid hike too? It’s nearly dinnertime, time to be getting back.”
He was not lost, not worried, and not excited to see me. He was completely indifferent, trudging up the road toward the campsite. When we got to the van I honked the horn 3 times as agreed, put Kai on a leash, and set back out to find John.
Well, Kai was having nothing to do with that. He was done walking! So I left him in the van, honked 3 more times, and went to find John. It turned out John never heard the van honking. We were both surprised the noise didn’t travel such a short distance. No wonder rescuers come within a few hundred feet of people without finding them! If John couldn’t even hear the van horn, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to hear me whistling.
Kai was once an extremely well behaved dog. He’s very reward oriented, so with the proper reward structures set up, he was motivated to follow the rules. For example, if he sat quietly, he got dinner. If he whined or barked, he didn’t get dinner until he sat quietly. So guess what – he aways sat quietly!
But unlike my other dogs, who tend to get into good habits, Kai will try to get away with anything that he can. When the rules are consistently rewarded in the expected manner, Kai will behave flawlessly. But any confusion and he will regress badly, because ultimately he’s not a people-pleaser; ultimately it’s just all about what’s in it for him.
And lately, as he ages, he is showing an increasing indifference and impatience with the rules. He’s getting to be a grumpy old man! Unfortunately, he’s also becoming more of a bully. It was a few years ago when I realized I needed to keep him away from small children. He never really hurt anyone, but he would get growly and snappish, which isn’t appropriate and worried me.
He also started bullying the other dogs. Again, nothing serious, but still annoying. He growled if one of the other dogs sat down to close to him, yet he would sit right on top of them if he wanted their spot! We started calling him Butthead because that’s how he was acting.
Then when I was sick on chemo, he started being a butthead toward me too. Again nothing serious. But more and more frequently he would act hostile, and I just wasn’t up for it mentally or emotionally. He also snapped at me a time or two, completely unprovoked. At first I brushed it off, figuring I must have accidentally scared him because he is losing his hearing. But I started wondering if he might someday actually bite me.
My friend Sandy volunteered to take him for awhile. At one point she was considering adopting him, but then she got a new job and is planning to move away this summer. So she was going to keep him just until later this spring. Then while we were in Florida Kai’s behavior tanked, badly. So we picked him up from Sandy’s as soon as we were back from Florida, and brought him to Tucson.
I didn’t want to be bullied by that dog again. I got an idea. I figured he would be nice to me if I was the source of his food. I asked John to let me be the one to feed and care for him. At first that totally worked! Kai is too smart to bite the hand that feeds him, or so we thought at the time. For a whole month it seemed to work very well. I gave him his food and all his loves and cuddles and he treated me very well – because, basically, he had to.
Until Saturday. We were all sitting around in camp chairs in the middle-of-nowhere Nevada desert having lunch, when suddenly Kai tried to steal Serenity’s bratwurst sandwich. Serenity grabbed it back from him and Kai bit Serenity’s hand and wouldn’t let go! I rushed over to rescue Serenity, and Kai bit me too! Hard. I was bleeding and I have bruises under my fingernails. And all I had done was reach toward him.
Meanwhile, the other dog, Kira, was acting like a good dog should. In the confusion of both of us being bitten, we abandoned our sandwiches on our camp chairs. While John leashed Kai and we all searched for a first aid kit, Kira was left alone with bratwurst temptations right at nose level. But she just sat there, sniffing the air hopefully. She’s a sweetheart and I really miss her (I gave her to Serenity last summer because Serenity was lonely and really wanted a dog.) So of course I gave her some bratwurst when everything calmed down. She earned it!
Here she is right after having rolled around in the grass. Kira’s favorite thing is playing ball, her second favorite thing is jumping in water, and if there are no balls or water, she will just roll around in the dirt, lol.
I was surprised Serenity still wanted to take Kai after the inauspicious biting incident. But Serenity’s roommates have been really enjoying Kira and were looking forward to getting Kai too. So we’re giving it a try. If it doesn’t work, John and I will take Kai back, and then we’ll have to see how it goes. Kai is 15 years old and won’t live forever. He probably has the beginnings of dementia. The end of a dog’s life is often difficult and we’re just going to have to address things as they arise.
Despite the dog issues, we had an excellent visit with Serenity. Here they are with Kai.
That tattoo isn’t finished by the way – it will be filled in and colored. When done, it will be a big dragon.
Big Rocks wilderness is aptly named.
Hey, get that dog away from the cliff edge!
Ok, that’s better.
We didn’t go on any long hikes because it was too hot mid-day for the dogs, and Kai has limited energy nowadays. We just mostly walked around a bit in the morning and the evening.
John can get a little bored when the hiking isn’t difficult enough.
No, I don’t know what he’s doing. Just, you know, big rocks in the Big Rocks Wilderness!
To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com
I have spent all day trying to find a primary care physician in Tucson. First I verify on the internet that they are taking new patients, then I call to make an appointment. Turns out most people’s websites aren’t up to date. “We’re sorry, we’re not taking new patients.”
I have good insurance. I speak politely with good English. I’m completely flexible with my schedule. I am a model patient! The only criteria I am using to limit the search is – she must be female.
Every place I called said the same thing – she’s not taking patients. One place I tried had no female doctors available but offered a male who does not prescribe birth control. Well, I’m long past needing birth control, but that’s just unconscionable.
The other doctor I found who was available had a membership program called a “concierge” where you pay a ton of money (in this case $1,800 annually) for the privilege of being one of their patients (this money gets you nothing except their willingness to give you an appointment – in this case not for another two months). This is on top of the money your insurance will be paying for the actual appointments and services. Talk about buying privilege.
After several hours of searching and calling, I finally found a doctor. Here’s what I did. I went to the website of the largest association of physicians in Tucson and scrolled through the physician listings. These listings include a little profile picture, their name, their speciality, and office location. I looked through several pages of profiles, looking for the female with the darkest skin and least English-sounding name. I called her number, and now I have a doctor in Tucson.
Maybe this was just chance, or maybe this says something not so nice about our culture.
To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com