Category: August 2021

Truly the butterflies are amazing. We went for a walk to see the flooding at Sabino Creek and butterflies were everywhere! I’ve never seen so many butterflies in my entire life. They were denser than in an enclosed butterfly exhibit at a botanical garden! Turns out I’m not very good at taking pictures of butterflies so you can’t really tell in the pictures. But here’s what you can tell: everything is so green it’s unreal!

These pictures were taken from trails near the Sabino Canyon Visitor’s Center, which is right on the edge of town, only a 15 minute drive from our house.

It doesn’t look hot in this picture, but it was actually quite hot. I’m covered from head to toe because butterflies aren’t the only flying insects that have suddenly appeared in the normally bug-less desert! I’m not a fan of bugs. Which is one of the main reasons I’ve chosen to live in the desert all these years. Usually there’s no bugs! But not this year. Record breaking monsoon rains have brought out the bugs.

It sure is beautiful though.

And ridiculously green.

In this next picture I was trying to take pictures of the swarms of butterflies. You can sort of pick out a few spots of yellow. The experience was really well beyond what I was able to capture on camera.

Sabino Creek, flooding:

Floodwaters pouring over the road:

Barrel cactus blooming:

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

The Tucson monsoon is breaking all records this year. So far we’ve gotten ten times more rain as we did last year! We’ve gotten nearly two years worth of rain in the last two months!

I already posted about the mess John and I returned home to after our 3-week van trip to the west coast in July. Mud and roof leaks and downed tree limbs!

We quickly fixed what we could before having to go to Albuquerque again for a couple of weeks. Albuquerque is also in middle of monsoon season, but not with such a crazy amount of rain. We came back to Tucson in mid-August to…another big mess!

Water blew onto the landing outside the front door and ponded there (even though it is two steps up) and then leaked in under the front door. Luckily all that did was saturate an area rug and create a puddle on the cement floor.

Still, I’m not happy with water coming into the house, even if it’s rare, and even if it’s not causing significant damage.

Water had also pooled in the track of sliding glass patio door in the master bedroom, and leaked through, saturating the rug. Apparently the patio door was installed backwards. It’s a very old door and will just need replaced.

In addition to saturating the carpet, it also water-stained the bottom of my curtains.

The roof sealant around the skylight in the hall bath did not do the trick, so more water came in around the skylight. Oh, yeah, looking good! (Not.)

Rain also beat up against the pool bathroom door (which opens to the outside), causing water to leak into that bathroom too.

All this damage happened while we were gone in Albuquerque. After we got back to Tucson, it rained some more so we could watch it leak in real time.

The roads were flooding too, but not enough to cause serious damage. Just enough to wash sand and gravel into the streets.

On the positive side, we suddenly have grass.

John and I are starting to plan a big remodel project, but first we have to get the leaks and flooding issues straightened out. We’ve been talking to contractors about some large projects, so I’ve also been showing them our leaks while they’re here. But of course all they want to do is our expensive kitchen and bathroom remodels. No one wants to mess with leaking doors and skylights!

The contractors propose preposterously complicated and expensive fixes. For example, in order to prevent the water leaking under the front door, one contractor proposed completely redoing our front steps and landing. This is to prevent the less-than-one-inch of ponding that sometimes happens on the landing when the rain blows in sideways.

The front door landing is 2 steps up off the ground already, and the entryway is covered. The only way we get water in there is when there’s a violent enough storm to drive the rain horizontally into the entryway and up against the door. That doesn’t happen very often.

That landing was poured as part of the original foundation so, no, we’re not taking a jackhammer to that.

A second contractor wanted to prevent the front door from leaking by raising the front door by an inch, which would involve completely reframing the door and putting in a new header, as well as somehow building up the threshold without creating a trip hazard, etc., etc. These guys are all nuts.

What we’re actually going to do is buy a new threshold and door sweep, and John is going to install it himself: tight with plenty of caulking. And I’m going to buy a 6-foot wide, extra thick door mat with water sopping properties to keep the water from ponding on the rare occasion that rain is blown into the covered entryway.

My new extra-large, plain brown welcome mat isn’t going to be as cute as my current turquoise llama welcome mat, but the new one should hold in place any ponding water until the storm passes and it evaporates into the desert air – instead of seeping in under our door. And anyway, I have faith in John’s ability to install a new threshold piece under the door.

Keep it simple! If for some reason our do-it-ourself remedies don’t work, we can always pursue fancy contractor ideas later.

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

On the final day of our 3-day anniversary weekend (and the day of our actual anniversary), we headed up to Madrid, New Mexico to buy ourselves an anniversary present. We hoped to buy a piece of southwest art for our house in Tucson. Madrid is a small artist’s colony located on a rural highway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

When I first moved to New Mexico, I assumed that Madrid, NM, is pronounced the same way as Madrid, Spain, with the accent on the second syllable. I was very quickly corrected by everybody I met in Albuquerque – the accent is on the first syllable.

I was informed repeatedly, it’s pronounced Mádrid, like you’re mad at somebody. Maaaadrid. Ok, fine. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? So I called it Madrid with the accent on the “a” for years and years, just like everyone else I knew. We all imagined that was the correct, local, “in-the-know” way of pronouncing Madrid, and the people who said “Madrid” as in Madrid, Spain, were just out-of-town tourists.

But then when I was working in Santa Fe, I consulted with a coworker who was a true local. Turns out the pronunciation of Madrid isn’t that simple. Let me back up for a moment and explain what the term “local” means in New Mexico. There’s locals, and then there’s LOCALS. Regular locals are like locals in any region – they were born in Albuquerque or maybe they moved here many years ago, they raised their kids here, they’re local.

But then there are the locals who are of Spanish decent who have been landowners in the rural areas of New Mexico for many generations. They come from a very distinct culture that you really don’t find anywhere else in the country. Adding to the confusion is the strong Native American culture in New Mexico – the original locals.

Anyway, back to the pronunciation of “Madrid.” For years and years, I did what everyone told me and awkwardly put the accent on the first syllable rather than the second. Like a sheep. Baaa – Maaaadrid. Then my local-local coworker, whose Spanish family has lived in a very rural section of northern New Mexico for many generations, and still speaks the local variety of Spanish, told me that Madrid is actually pronounced the same as Madrid, Spain. With the accent on the second syllable. What?! All these years of trying to pronounce it the special “local” way, and it turns out the true locals pronounce it the same as Madrid, Spain after all? How is that possible?

So here’s my quandary. I can pronounce Madrid weirdly, like all the other non-hispanic, transplant locals such as myself, or I can insist on pronouncing it the way I was taught by my true local-local coworker and in doing so, sound like an ignorant tourist!

I really don’t want to sound like a tourist on their first day visiting New Mexico, so I guess I’m going to continue to mispronounce Madrid, just like all the rest of the sort-of locals in Albuquerque who call New Mexico home. Regardless of what you want to call the Madrid, we were on a mission: local art.

The air quality was poor that day, so we figured it was a good day for a sedentary stroll through the small art galleries that line a block or two of the highway through Madrid. We were glad we had already done our hiking a couple of days earlier.

After glancing in a few shops, we went to our primary destination – the gallery with the bighorn sheep. We have long admired the art of Jill Shwaiko.

She is a successful artist, primarily known for her amazing bronze statues of bighorn sheep, which are well beyond our price range. Even if we could afford a statue, it really wouldn’t work in our average suburban backyard. I imagine her statues residing in park-like grounds with expansive vistas. But we were hoping to pick out a print of one of her paintings.

We walked in and the woman at the front desk asked us what she could do for us. We explained that we have long admired this particular artist. Then she told us that she was Jill Shwaiko herself! She explained that sometimes she drops by her gallery on Sundays. It was really great to get to meet her in person!

John liked this painting the best, of two bighorn sheep staring out of the canyon at the moon:

Whereas I liked this one, a bit more abstract, and in my mind more triumphant, with the sheep on top of the mesa:

We couldn’t decide! I also liked this third one with a group of sheep; it seemed less lonely than just the two sheep by themselves.

In the end we took a deep breath and bought all three. Even though they are just prints, not originals, they were expensive because they are high-quality prints on canvas and she is a well-known artist.

We had a great time in Madrid. And we were not yet done with our anniversary celebrating!

Next stop, dinner at El Pinto.

The menu at El Pinto is only okay; standard New Mexican food. But there are a couple of items that we do like, and we don’t go very often so we don’t have a chance to get tired of ordering the same two things on the rare occasion that we do go there.

The main reason we sometimes go to El Pinto is for the ambiance. They have the largest outdoor patio I have ever seen, and it’s very well shaded and beautiful. (Only a tiny fraction of the patio is open during shoulder seasons, so if you go late in the fall or early in the spring, and you’re unimpressed with their modest little side patio and are wondering what the heck I was talking about, well, it’s a summer-only phenomena).

I didn’t take any pictures of the patio itself, but here’s John and I trying to nail an anniversary selfie.

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

Saturday the 7th, the day before our anniversary, turned out to be just an amazingly packed day and it’s taking 3 blog posts just to cover it all!

To recap, first, we discovered the new coffee shop – the Flying Roadrunner – in Old Town with the excellent coffee. By the way, I had reverted to instant coffee while I was overwhelmed by cancer treatments, and was recently thinking I needed to get out my French press again, so finding some excellent coffee beans was perfect timing. (I’m grinding it myself and brewing it for 24 hours in cold water in a French press.)

Then after getting coffee, I was amazed to discover the handpan drum, being played Dean the street musician. A musical instrument easy enough that maybe I could learn to play it! Then we went to the botanical garden. Then back to Old Town for lunch on the patio at Church Street Café where we ate huevos rancheros and listened to the guitarist. Then we discovered Cristina making punch quilt wall hangings in front of the artist’s co-op and I was like, this is it! The new art form I’ve been looking for!

All in one day. Then I told you I’d write about Sunday in my next post, but no, turns out there’s still more to Saturday. I forgot to mention that evening, after a very eventful day, we still had enough energy to go back down to the Old Town & Biopark area for Zoo Nights, which is an outdoor music event at the zoo. I love music in the park. I’m not a fan of the zoo, but any park will do!

There were three bands playing outside at the zoo. (Plus one in the theater, but we’re not going into theaters during a pandemic). The first outdoor band, near the entrance, was a jazz band. They were ok but we figured we should check out the others. The next one, a Latin band, was good and I figured we should stay there, because why mess with a good thing? But John wanted to check out the third band so we continued on. I’m not sure what kind of music the third band was, but I do remember making an abrupt U-turn and going back to the second band.

They were quite good and we enjoyed sitting out on the grass listening to them. https://www.soldelanoche.com/

There was actually a fairly large crowd, they’re just all to the right of the picture. Most people weren’t wearing masks because it was outdoors, but I did see some masks, particularly on children. I feel bad for the parents trying to keep their kids safe from this new more contagious delta variant while they wait for the vaccination to be approved for young kids. The parents who can homeschool are the lucky ones. It’s hard for single parents. I don’t know what I would have done – I was divorced and had to work when my kids were young.

Anyway, back to the concert – I love outdoor concerts because they combine two of my favorite things; being outside and listening to music. I also love being able to wander around and not have to stay put in my seat. Lol, just like a kid.

The final event for the day was the lottery drawing. John and I almost never play the lottery because the odds are stupendously ridiculous, but sometimes for fun we’ll get a ticket. We figured I was having such a streak of good luck that day, with discovering handpan drums and punch quilts, that who knows, maybe I’d win the lottery too!

We didn’t win the lottery, but it was still a great day!

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

I am getting so behind on this blog! It’s nearly the end of August and I’m still writing about our 3-day anniversary weekend from the beginning of the month. I left off after raving about an excellent cup of coffee and discovering the amazing phenomena of handpan drums. That would have been enough to have made a great day. But no, the day was only getting started!

After admiring the handpan street performer, we went on to the biopark. The Albuquerque Biological Park actually consists of a zoo, an aquarium and a botanical garden, but we mostly go to the botanical garden.

We know the garden well and we always enjoy it. And this time of year is especially green because Albuquerque gets most of their rainfall during July & August monsoon rains.

There are numerous exhibits, including a replica of an old farmhouse in a traditional New Mexican style, situated near a small, working farm. It’s an interesting house, authentic to the history of the region, complete with a tin roof, mud bricks walls, and a generous front porch.

But wait, what’s this? An old dresser sitting out on the front porch with its drawers half hanging open? Are they in the process of moving it into the house? Or is this part of the exhibit the way it is, abandoned on the front porch? In which case, someone has a sense of humor!

LOL, a bit more authenticity than I would have expected. Surely they don’t intend to just leave it there? We’ll have to see if it’s still there the next time we’re at the biopark!

The butterfly exhibit had been closed for quite some time, due to covid, and also it always closes in the winter. So it was nice to see it open.

These are bee houses. Apparently a lot of bees don’t live in hives, they are solitary. They live in small holes in wood and other nooks and cranies.

After the biopark, we went back to Old Town for lunch. The Church Street Café has an excellent patio hidden in the back – you’d never know it was there.

A guitarist was playing near our table out on the back patio. I enjoyed talking with him.

According to John, I was being unusually friendly, outgoing and talkative. I don’t know, maybe I was still high on too much coffee? Plus, I wanted the guitarist’s picture for this blog, and I wasn’t going to take his photo without saying hi. That would have been rude. So you see, you, my blog readers, are increasing my (generally very limited) extroversion simply by existing. Because I need to get myself out there and get those photos for you!

After lunch, we were heading into an art co-op that we like, when we ran into this amazing lady.

Her name is Cristina Diaz-Arntzen and she makes punch quilts.

I’ve always wanted to make pictures with fabric, but don’t quilt because I dislike sewing. Getting the stitching right just drives me out of my mind. Meanwhile, I’ve been saving fabric for awhile, wracking my brain to figure out how I can use it without sewing it. I had even bought some fabric glue to try to experiment with it, but I was skeptical and didn’t think glue was the right answer.

And look – wall hangings made from fabric with no stitching!

This was the answer I’ve been looking for! Once again, I was completely entranced. First I saw an amazing handpan drum, and then not more than a couple of hours later, I discover a method of quilting without stitching. What kind of crazy karma day is this?

Here’s Cristina showing me her technique. She has a pattern she’s drawn on paper to guide her. Then she lays batting on top of foam board, and the fabric on top of that, and uses a rounded exacto knife that’s no longer sharp to gently push the edges of the fabric into the foam board.

Cristina buys fabric with colors and patterns to mimic what things look like. For example, fabric with a night sky pattern or a green grass pattern.

I don’t think I would do that myself. I think I would be more abstract with the colors.

Here’s a nice addition of beadwork in the center of a flower:

It’s hard to tell in the close-up, but that’s actually a nicely done butterfly on top of the flower.

We decided to buy the roadrunner piece Cristina was working on. It wasn’t done of course, but it’s done now and we’re looking forward to picking it up when we’re in Albuquerque in September.

Meanwhile, back in Old Town, here’s John watching another street musician. Doesn’t it look like he’s standing in front of a mural? It’s just a trick of the camera (a washed out background) but the background looks like a painting to me. I guess I’m just seeing art wherever I look today!

John picked out this small puppy print, which he thought was adorable. John does have a soft spot for cute & quirky.

Stamp Puppy isn’t exactly fine art. Just whimsical and fun!

The next day, on our actual anniversary, we drove up to an artist’s town, Madrid, New Mexico, to look at some very nice art up there. I’ll post about that next.

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

Remember last post when I wondered why would anyone imagine me as a grumpy person? Well, on the Saturday, the second day of our 3-day anniversary weekend staycation, I woke up grumpy. Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy pants!

To my credit, I was well aware that I was grumpy, and I didn’t try to blame John for it. I decided to push through. After all, we had a whole weekend of fun stuff planned together! I got up, drank my coffee, and got ready to go on our first planned excursion for the day – the Albuquerque Biopark.

We were halfway to the biopark when John was like, “We really need to figure out what to do about you.” Yeah – my grumpy was showing! So I whined back, “I don’t know? More coffee?” He figured we could get coffee at the biopark, but I was like, “That is not going to work.” And I wasn’t just being grumpy, I was right. The food and drink options at the biopark are abysmal.

So I dragged out my phone and searched for coffee near the biopark and came up with a brand new café on the edge of Old Town called, “Flying Roadrunner Bakery”. https://www.flyingroadrunnerbakery.com/

It was even better than its name. New, spacious and utterly empty except two friendly baristas who handed me little tasting cups of different brews. One of them was out of this world. The brand is New Mexico Piñon Coffee and the flavor is “Biscochito.”

I know those of you who are coffee purists out there are going to put your nose in the air about flavored coffees, but this isn’t the artificial junk you get at conference hotels. This is good! I mean, at least I thought it was good. No, amazing. A-ma-zing!

I don’t usually drink very much coffee because I’m quite sensitive to the caffeine. And I’d already had my little half-cup of coffee that morning. So I ordered a small with the intention of not even drinking all of it, because even a small is three times as much coffee as I usually drink in the morning.

But that coffee was so awesome, next thing I know it was completely gone. Uh, leaky cup maybe? Lol. I was high on coffee.

Meanwhile we were still in Old Town, the coffee was working its magic, and on our way back to the car we came across a street performer just getting set up. He had the most amazing instrument I’ve ever seen in my life. I was transfixed. Was it the handpan or the caffeine surging through my neurons?

Whatever it was, I was entranced.

We went on to the biopark, but all I could think about and talk about was that handpan drum. I was googling it on my phone – what is it? How do I get one? Is it expensive? Can a non-musician learn how to play it?

So yes, it’s a fairly new instrument, based on several other similar types of traditional metal drums. Several companies are currently making them.

I want a real one, not a knock-off from Amazon, so it’s going to set me back about $1,500, which is not unreasonable for a musical instrument. There are also tongue drums, which are similar, a bit quieter, and slightly less expensive.

Here’s a photo (copied from the internet) of a handpan on the left and a tongue drum on the right. The tongue drum actually has cuts in the metal to create the location of the notes. The handpan has dimples.

It’s a good beginner’s instrument. I’ll have to learn how to drum with my hands, and obviously good drumming technique will produce better sound. And the more dexterous I become, the more intricately I’ll be able play.

I’ll also need to get familiar with the notes on my drum. The handpan only has a limited number of notes per instrument. Each handpan is created in a specific scale. Once the handpan is made, that’s the scale it’s in. (Although it will occasionally need to be shipped back to the manufacturer in order to be retuned.)

Because the handpan only offers a limited number of notes, and all the notes are designed to work together, a non-musician can improvise without really messing up. This is good news for me!

I just need to decide what scale of handpan I want to buy. There are a lot of choices! All the different handpan scales sound slightly different. I’ll want to buy one that has a good scale for my purposes and the sound I want to achieve.

A lot of people play handpans slowly for meditation or yoga. I’m not really into the “new age” sound, and prefer faster and more upbeat music. I can imagine using it more like a Caribbean steel drum than something to accompany pan flutes. I would have to get good enough to play in the faster style that I like.

I would also want to buy one with a cheerful, rather than a haunting scale. Typically in Western music, the minor scales are considered more mysterious, melancholy or haunting than the major scales. But after listening to a number of handpans, I’m pretty sure I’d be fine with either a major or a minor scale, as long as it’s a typically Western scale. What I’m going to want to avoid is something that sounds Middle Eastern or Asian. I think I’ll be fine with anything that’s generally Western. I also like the lower notes better, so I’m going to want something tuned fairly low.

Except – and here’s where it gets really complicated – I don’t want a hand pan tuned to the lower 432 hertz rather than the western standard of 440 hertz, because I want to be able to play with friends who have guitars and other common instruments in this country, which are at 440 Hz. Turns out 432 Hz is common for handpans because it gives them a mystical sound that a lot of people want. I don’t want the mystical sound, even though I do want the lower notes, so I’ll get 440 Hz with a low scale, for example, G2.

All right, are your eyes glazing over yet? Of course they are. I lost you at 432 Hz (if not several paragraphs before that). Yeah, I’m smitten. That’s what happens when you fall in love. No one else wants to hear the details!!

Plus, tons more happened on that same day! I’m not even half done with this post yet! I’ll have to stop here and write about the second half of this amazing day in another post.

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