Category: July 2023

I’ve been continuing to work on making connections in Tucson. I haven’t gone to that African drumming class yet. I’m still dubious about that idea. There’s a different drumming class, taiko drumming, that also sounds interesting but is probably more challenging than I want to take on. What I really want to learn how to play is my handpan, which is a metal drum with notes.

It’s not anything like an African drum or a Japanese taiko drum! But I have not been able to find anyone in Tucson who teaches beginning hand panning.

Meanwhile, I checked out a new book club a weekend or two ago. I’m still not convinced that I want to regularly attend a book club. I didn’t particularly enjoy sitting around talking about the book with a bunch of strangers. But the book itself was fantastic. We read La Maravilla by Alfredo Véa, Jr.

I loved the book because it really had a strong sense of time and place (mid-century rural southwest) and the characters were amazingly real and unique. I felt completely immersed in a culture that is unfamiliar to me (actually a mix of several cultures) and yet relevant to my own current existence in 2023 in this same area.

While I’m recommending books, here’s two non-fiction books that I’m currently reading that I also recommend: Work, by James Suzman, and Divergent Mind by Jenara Nerenberg.

Twice now I’ve gone to a new Meet-up group for people who are neurodiverse (autism spectrum, ADHD, sensory sensitivities, etc.). The group is just getting started again after being defunct for awhile, so the first time I went, I was the only one there other than the organizer. That worked fine for me – it was fun to get to know her. She’s about the same age as my kids, and I think she has both autism and ADHD.

We met at a teahouse that’s close to my house.

The tea was expensive, but it was a pretty place, and quiet. I wasn’t familiar with the teahouse, so that was a good discovery. She and I have been texting some since. Our lives are in very different places however, since I’m so much older than her.

The next time I went there were four of us. The others were still a lot younger than me, but that’s ok, usually it’s the opposite – sometimes it seems like there’s nothing but baby boomers in Tucson, who are on average about 10 years older than me. It’s nice to meet some younger friends too.

Then, drumroll…on Saturday night John agreed to go with me to a nearby bar to listen to a live band! John and I don’t like noise and crowds, and we don’t drink, and we like to go to bed early, so we don’t usually go to bars. But I really like live music and I love to dance. It’s a conundrum!

We got lucky – the place was not at all crowded and the patrons were a very tame bunch. Definitely not a pick-up bar, lol, it was mostly old people. Really old! The band members were old too! But still lots of fun.

The place also had a nice outdoor courtyard, which was nearly empty. I don’t know how the place was making any money because the few people who were there didn’t seem to be doing much drinking. There was a small cover charge and we each bought a soda. Lol. It was a great night.

But it was a bit too loud for John. So the next weekend, I tried to find something that was less bar-like and more resort-like. We ended up at the Lookout, which is the smaller and more casual of the two restaurants at the Westward Look Resort. The website said, “Bring your dancing shoes” but I didn’t really believe it. It’s a nice place and caters to out-of-town tourists. I doubted anyone would be dancing, and if they were, I figured it would be ballroom. That doesn’t work for us because I freestyle, and John refuses to dance at all.

We got there right at showtime, and snagged the last table, close to the front. I was afraid it would be too loud for John, but the volume was more reasonable than the previous place. And sure enough, as soon as the band started up, lots of people started dancing, all kinds of types of dancing, anything goes! So my freestyle was fine. And nearly half the people there were out on the dance floor! It was fabulous!

My only complaint was the band was advertised as classical rock, but what they were playing was so very, very classical that it hardly counted as rock. Golden Oldies, maybe, but even that was a stretch. In my opinion, if it was written before I was born it’s not classic rock! But it was danceable, so it was ok.

Almost everyone was older than us (like I mentioned, that seems to be a thing about Tucson). But I did notice one couple about our age (she was actually a bit younger) who were both very good dancers. And they turned out to be super nice too! Our table was right up in front in the crush of the dancing, so they invited us to sit back where they were, which was much nicer. And the volume was low enough that we could actually have a conversation.

Her name is Amy and I think her husband is Fernando, but John and I both forgot his name. We are terrible remembering names. I do really try.

Turns out they are locals too. They were on their second night without power because of that huge storm I wrote about last time, and their house was too hot to sleep. They happened to have a gift certificate for that resort, so they were making the best of the situation and enjoying themselves.

She is a professor at the university, and he used to work at the university in administration of some sort I think, and is now retired. He also lived in Albuquerque for awhile, and we like the same local Albuquerque band, Nosotros.

Now they live in Winterhaven, which is an older planned community in Tucson, locally famous for their extensive Christmas light show. It’s a tight knit community and all the neighbors know each other. I’d like that. But it also has a strong HOA with a lot of rules, including that you have to have a large lawn. That would bug me. Also the community is a complete traffic jam for two weeks every Christmas because thousands of people go to see the Festival of Lights. If I lived there, I would have to be gone every Christmas! But they are very happy there.

We exchanged contact information and I’m hoping we can get together with them again. I also want to go back and dance at this venue again. Here’s the playbill for August.

It looks good – but I’m going to be gone a lot of August and most of September. I wish I could just tap my heels together and instantly commute between Tucson and all the other places I want to be!

That’s what’s next – traveling! First up – Idaho. Stay tuned.

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

The first of the major storms, on July 17, won the prize for being the loudest. We had pouring rain, lots of hail, and high winds.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, in our crazy house there’s no separate ceiling and roof. Our ceiling-that-is-the-roof consists of 5-inch thick wooden slats, placed close to each other, like wooden decking except thicker. The wood is then covered on top with some thin roofing material. So there’s no crawl space, no insulation…just hail beating on wooden beams. It was deafening and unsettling too.

Having hail come down when it’s 110º is also a little bit surreal.

Our screened-in porch flooded with about an inch of water, but the inside of the house stayed dry. I think we have finally fixed all the leaks that have been plaguing us since we bought the house.

Due to the high winds and heavy downpour, several trees in the neighborhood lost branches and there were even some trees down. We were grateful we took out the enormous mesquite that used to lean over our house.

The noise is quite muted in all the videos. It was actually very loud.

The water pooled several inches deep outside of the screened patio. It did seep under and through the screen to some extent, but the patio doesn’t flood nearly as often or badly as it did before we had it screened in.

In the next storm I nearly got myself killed by lightening. I have a pre-storm afternoon routine that involves taking Biska out to potty and cleaning up the yard. I bring in the pillows and cushions, dog toys, etc. and make sure everything is ready. I also pull the pool vacuum out of the pool (if I haven’t already that afternoon), which involves the use of a 10-foot metal pole. Yeah, you can tell where this is going.

Usually I prepare the yard for the storms well ahead of time. But on this particular day John was home, and we had gone to the grocery store. By the time we got home from the store, the storm was further along than I realized. I went outside and started my usual tidying up. I could hear the thunder in the distance but thought I had plenty of time.

I used the pole to grab the handle of my pool vacuum, and then set it down beside me as I hauled the vacuum up out of the water. Suddenly there was an enormously loud, high pitched, deafening noise, followed immediately by a huge flash of light. I found myself a few feet away from the pool, cowering in the grass. I wasn’t sure if I had thrown myself down in reaction (that’s what I think), or whether I was tossed down. But after a couple of stunned moments, during which I realized I was still alive and apparently unhurt, I scurried in the nearest door.

Later when I was trying to recount the events, I didn’t understand why I heard it before I saw it. Sound travels slower than light, so typically you see the flash and then hear the boom. A five second delay between the flash and the boom means the lightning is one mile away. So when there’s no delay, it’s very, very dangerously close. But apparently when it’s literally upon you, it can seem like it booms first and flashes second because our brains register sound faster than sight. That’s how close it was.

But I don’t think I was still holding the pole when it hit, because afterwards I saw that the pool vacuum was sitting on the edge of the pool. And I usually set the pole down before pulling up the vacuum. So I probably would have set it down several seconds before the lightning hit.

Yeah, so I’m alive.

Here’s pictures from another storm, this one on July 26.

On this evening we were able to go for a walk afterwards to take some photos at sunset of the flooding across the streets in our neighborhood.

The street is built to dip down low where it crosses the wash. So that water is very deep in the middle where the road dips down into the arroyo. After the rainwater recedes, city workers come out and clear away the deep sand that collects in the dip in the road.

In this next photo, note the footbridge in the background and how far the water is below it – a good 5 or 6 feet. Because in the next storm, two days later, we have footage of the water hitting that bridge.

Our next big storm was on July 28. You can see it gathering in the distance. It’s a weekend and John was enjoying the pool, but I was still shell shocked from my close encounter with lightning the week before and did not feel up for swimming with an approaching storm.

So yeah, that is an old fashioned TV antenna on our roof, pulling in local Tucson stations, but with a digital age twist. Instead of being directly wired to a TV, it goes to a box that allows John to access it using wifi through an app called Sling TV. The crazy thing is, he can access it from anywhere, so he was able to watch local Tucson TV when he was out in Albuquerque. So why would he even want to watch a local TV station? Football!

Also you can see we haven’t stucco’d the back part of the house yet. We want to build a porch roof or overhang, and want to get that figured out before we stucco.

This storm had very little wind, but the hail was alarmingly large.

The hail hit the roof so hard that sand drifted down from the cracks between the beams and left a fine layer of grit everywhere.

I know, about this time you’re all wondering why the heck we moved to this crazy place. No, actually, you all wondered that a long time ago and now just shrug and figure, whatever.

The flooding from that storm was very high and the arroyo overflowed its banks a bit here.

Here it’s hitting the footbridge that was 5-6 feet above the water during the previous storm I mentioned earlier. The bridge is about 8-10 feet above the arroyo in dry conditions.

Here’s the same arroyo where it crosses another nearby street. It’s called the Alamo Wash, and it crosses three streets in our neighborhood. Again it’s very deep in the middle where the road dips down as it crosses the arroyo.

There’s a city truck in this photo – the workers are probably just checking on things and putting signage up to not drive across the water (duh).

A good portion of the city lost their power in this storm. We’re just slightly southwest of where you see the “Costco Wholesale” in the middle of this screenshot.

The Alamo Wash is not pictured on the outage map because it’s too small, but it runs parallel to the Pantano Wash which is slightly to the east of us. The Pantano is the one you can see on the map that runs past both the Home Depot and the Costco. The Alamo and the Pantano are tributaries to the Rillito River, which is located to the north of us and runs westward. The Rillito is also mostly dry except during floods.

The larger arroyos don’t wash over streets the way our little one does. There are big bridges over the larger arroyos. Lots of people walk out to those bridges to watch the floodwaters when it rains.

By the way, a wash and an arroyo are essentially the same thing. I think the word arroyo is used more in New Mexico because it’s a Spanish term. Both Albuquerque and Tucson have a heavy Spanish influence, but it did seem stronger in Albuquerque – at least in the government and in the naming of things.

John and I had our electric power restored after several hours. We didn’t want to open the refrigerator and let the cold air out, so we tried to get take-out for dinner that evening. We had trouble finding anywhere open because many of the local establishments didn’t have power. We finally found an open Whole Foods. I was very happy with my shrimp salad and fruit, but John was disappointed with his sandwich. He liked his caramel bars though, lol.

We were lucky – some people lost their power for two or three days. But by morning our power was restored and our frozen and refrigerated food survived.

The round light that looks like a ceiling light in the photo is actually a solar-powered nightlight that is a feature of our solar tubes. I like them because the house is never completely black at night (we don’t have them in the bedrooms). They aren’t very bright at night, it just looks that way in the photo. But they are solar – and handy during power outages!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

We’ve been meaning forever to get down to Patagonia Lake and we finally managed to a few weeks ago. It was amazingly green! It appears to have a stable shoreline, unlike some reservoirs with fluctuating water levels, so it has actual established shoreline habitat.

We went on a hot, humid, swampy walk along Sonoita Creek that feeds the lake. Luckily we got there in the morning, but it was still hot! It felt tropical, not like a desert at all.

The only bummer was the cows. I’m not a fan of cowpies, and I didn’t want Biska to get herself kicked in the head. I was surprised they allowed grazing in a state park, but I assume the right was grandfathered in from a long time ago.

Those are some darn lucky cows.

We were super happy to finally get out to our largest local lake. I didn’t get a picture of the extent of it; this is just a little inlet on the far edge.

We’re looking forward to returning and exploring more of the main part of the lake – and maybe bring our kayaks.

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

Remember how I thought I had found a new primary care doctor? Well, that one didn’t work out! Turns out he’s a poor listener and gets on a roll with mansplaining and…ugh. Totally annoying. I’m grateful I figured it out fairly quickly, but wish I had figured it out before I paid him several hundred dollars for nothing! I didn’t even manage to get my prescriptions renewed, because we were waiting on lab results first.

In the end it all worked out – I found a nice nurse practitioner at Walgreens and got my prescriptions renewed there. Maybe I’ll just keep going to her! It seems weird to go to Walgreens for my primary care provider. But she was very patient and kind. Clear, direct, respectful, listened carefully – she was great!

Like many people, I don’t like having medical care done and it can be scary and upsetting. I’ve decided it’s important for me to take the time to find health care providers that I’m really comfortable with because I feel very vulnerable in the medical system. It’s hard enough for me to deal with certain types of people in happy circumstances. It’s impossible when I’m in pain and scared.

I’m really grateful I already have a good oncologist here in Tucson. I’ve been seeing him since the end of 2020 and he’s always been very respectful, thoughtful, and helpful. Listening skills make such a difference!

And here’s the thing: it would have been so easy to just blame myself for being a problem. Because it sort of is my fault. I’m difficult. I’m picky. These things are true. But what is also true is – it’s going to be a lot better for me (and my doctor) if I take the time to find someone who is easy for me to deal with. Because if I’m just blaming myself, why would I even bother trying to find another doctor? A new doctor wouldn’t make any difference if it’s all my fault. If I took all the blame on myself, then I would just tell myself that I need to try super hard to be nicer. And then exactly when things got difficult – I would fail.

Wouldn’t it be a lot better to have a doctor who is easy for me to get along with, and who also finds me to be easy to deal with too? Yes, it would! And it’s worth the trouble to find that doctor. This is not an area where self-blame and stoicism are useful!

This recent new doctor I tried turned out to be terrible for me. But he’s probably wonderful for some other people. Likewise he probably thought I was terrible, and for him, I was. But I have excellent relationships with other medical professionals. So there’s no point me trying to point fingers and figure out who is to blame. The point is for me to find someone I can work with, even when (and especially when) I feel stressed or vulnerable.

For example, I love the doctor who does my colonoscopies. He’s the one who found my cancer, and he’s the one who broke the news to me. There is no more vulnerable time in the world then when a near-stranger in a white coat tells you that you have cancer. I am grateful to this day for that doctor and the way he broke the news to me.

And yet, his “bedside manner” would not have worked for everyone. He’s a man of few words. And those few words were quite blunt. He just came right out and said, “You have cancer.” Some people don’t want to hear it like that. They want expressions of care and sympathy and hope and bla, bla, bla. Yet for me, there was something about his quiet manner that made me feel completely cared for. I felt his compassion, sadness, concern, respect…all of that he somehow quietly but convincingly portrayed.

Whereas John liked our friendly doctor in Boston. Chatting about vacationing in Florida helped put John at ease during a very stressful moment in our lives. But I was like, can we just talk about my cancer now? I don’t care about Florida. Can somebody please tell me how bad my recovery is going to be?

In the end, I was not remotely prepared for how bad the post-surgical recovery was going to be. I was completely blindsided. I understand that they don’t want to scare you off, but I like to have some idea what I’m getting into, because it helps me be mentally prepared.

I have trouble imagining having to ever go through something like my cancer treatment again. It was so awful. But the reality is, we’re going to get old, and most of us have miserable hospital experiences in our future. And the last thing we need is an irritating doctor when that happens!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

I went into the local art co-op this afternoon and struck up a conversation with the two elderly artists whose turn it was to run the cash register today. It’s funny how the brief bit of small talk that passes the time between strangers or slight acquaintances in Tucson sounds so much like Albuquerque. Everywhere, people talk about the weather. But in the desert we have our own particular twist on weather.

The old women: “How is it out there, just as hot?”

Me: “Sure is, but it’s starting to get muggy.”

The old women: “Muggy today? But there’s still no rain. Just clouds; not a drop of rain. So hot.”

Me: “Oh I got it, I got rain at my house!”

The old women, suddenly excited and both talking at once: “You did? You got rain? When? Where? How much?”

Me: “Last night, 10:35, for fifteen minutes and hard too, really coming down.”

The old women: “Fifteen minutes! Oh wow, fifteen minutes!” (That’s a lot, by the way). “Where? Where?…There wasn’t any sight of it at my house…Mine either. I swear I’ve got a dry dome sitting over my house.”

Me: “Right near here, I’m only a few blocks that way. Maybe there was even some here too. My yard was still damp in the morning! Gone now, of course.”

The old women: “Fifteen minutes?! Right near here!”

Me: “Maybe ten. But I’m pretty sure it was fifteen.”

The old women: “It stayed damp all night?”

Me: “Yep, in fourteen days I’ll have mosquitoes.”

The old women: “It’ll be faster than that!”

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

John decided he wanted to check out an old Tucson institution, a Tiki bar. I was dubious, but John has a sense of adventure and he thought it would be fun.

It was amusing to see, but I doubt I’d go back unless I have out-of-town guests wanting to see the insider view of the weird and wacky (and very dated) side of Tucson.

Here’s Biska’s July 4th picture she had taken at Tally’s, her dog sitters. That ears-back look means she’s all hyped up and she’s saying, “I want to play, play, play and if you don’t play with me, I’m going to pester you until you do!”

She goes to Tally’s for half of a day every couple of weeks, because she loves it there with the other dogs. Originally Biska was going to spend several days with Tally while John and I went on vacation. I was thinking Mexico sounded good. But in the end John did something else other than vacation with his long weekend.

John went and got his boat! Remember the boat? It has been sitting in a storage lot in Florida for a couple of years.

It’s a sailboat, but it has a unique feature allowing the mast to fold down, so it’s trailerable. He left it with everything all covered and tied down well. It totally managed to survive two hurricane seasons sitting out in the open on the Florida Keys. Impressive! He even put a solar panel on it to keep the battery alive.

We had such an amazing sailing trip in February of 2021. I have something like 37 blog posts about it, wow. We left the boat in Florida intending to fly back out and go sailing every so often. Well, that didn’t happen and John decided he wanted his boat back. I offered to go with him, but no, he didn’t want me slowing him down. He flew out there last Thursday, rented a pick-up truck, and towed the boat back. He drove and drove and hardly stopped to sleep.

He sent me a link that allowed me to see where he was (that is, where his phone was), so I could track his progress. He’s the green circle:

He hardly stopped to rest, and arrived a day earlier than I expected. That left us two days on July 3 & 4, before he had to go back to work. It was just like a regular weekend, except it was actually Monday and Tuesday, which left me scrambling a bit, because I had scheduled clients for Monday! But it was nice that he didn’t have to go back to work immediately after such a long drive.

Now we have a sailboat sitting on a trailer in our driveway in Tucson. It’s not much use there. Where will we take it next? The Gulf of California in Mexico? The Puget Sound in Washington?

Speaking of the Puget Sound, Laura spent July 4th in Washington with a friend who lives near Seattle. Laura met Kelsi while they were both expats in Japan, teaching English. Kelsi has since gotten married and has two little girls. Kelsi in the center, carrying one of her daughters, and on the right is Chinatsu, a friend of Kelsi’s who also has two small kids.

Pool time! The best part of summer.

The Puget Sound! Even better than a pool 😉

Her kids have a lot of energy. This little one ran round and round and round.

What a huge, lovable German Shepherd!

Aww, so cute.

Speaking of getting one’s hair done, Chirstina celebrated the holiday by getting her hair dyed a fun red! They spent the holiday chilling. After all, they had just driven all the way to Tucson to visit us a week or so before.

The award for the most unusual vacation goes to our friend, Alan. He and his oldest daughter, Rhodes, are doing a big trip in Europe (and his wife and younger daughter will be joining them for part of the trip as well). One of their excursions is a week-long hands-on experience learning to live like prehistoric people. Alan was interested in the prehistoric class to help him with his research for the series of science fiction books he is writing.

Here Rhodes is learning flint knapping. According to Wiki, “Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls, and flushwork decoration. The original Germanic term knopp meant to strike, shape, or work.”

And here’s Alan practicing with an atlatl. Again according to Wiki, an atlatl is a spear-thrower, “a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart or javelin-throwing, and includes a bearing surface which allows the user to store energy during the throw. It may consist of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the spear. It’s usually about as long as the user’s arm or forearm.”

It looks cold and wet to me, but I’m sure the vacation is amazing. It’s certainly unique, and I’m looking forward to hearing all about it when he’s back.

Mark sent photos from two rafting trips. Mark never says much (if anything at all) in his emails. All I know is the first 4 pictures are labeled “Lodore” which I assume means the Green River in Lodore Canyon, Colorado. Beautiful!

The remaining three are labeled Rogue. The Rogue river is in Oregon (actually I see there are several Rogue rivers in the US, but the one in Oregon is known for whitewater rafting and I assume is where he went).

Emily sent an adorable photo of a raccoon in her tree. Unfortunately, Emily is still in remodel hell, with their fourth baby due next month! They had a sewer line disaster that was so alarming that I called a plumber out to my own house to snake a camera through our sewer lines to make sure all is well. Remodeling can dislodge pipe deposits and construction debris can also end up in sewer lines. Meanwhile, Emily’s house isn’t done and her in-laws are coming to visit in two weeks. Her furniture is in the garage and her possessions are in crates and boxes. Hopefully they will all soon be as comfortable in their home as that raccoon looks, cosy in the tree!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

I think I mentioned – I have a new doctor, yay! I’ve been trying and trying to find a good primary care provider. I’m relieved to have maybe found someone.

Turns out he also runs a Meet-up group to introduce newbies to the wonders of Tucson and to help get to know people. Well, I’ve been trying to get to know people, sign me up! It’s very hard to meet people when you don’t go to school, church, gym, etc., and don’t work in an office with coworkers. I still consider myself new to Tucson, because we were very Albuquerque-oriented until last month.

You know how one right person can help you find a lot of great people and places? I like the housecleaners and the veterinarian he recommended, so I thought, sure I’ll try his Meet-up group too. My doctor’s Meet-up group is an LGTBQ+ group, but it’s not a dating group. It’s a social group for people new to Tucson – he just wants to make sure that LBTBQ+ folks feel welcomed.

Meet-up, for those of you who might not know, is an online forum where people can organize groups with the purpose of meeting (in real life) to do shared activities . Meet-up groups usually organize around a shared interest, such as book clubs, hiking groups, bicycling, art, music, etc.

Anyway, the next scheduled event for the Meet-up group that my doctor started was an evening at the zoo. Wandering around the zoo sounded easier to me than cocktails at a bar or something (most Meet-up groups meet in public spaces, and there’s no shortage of groups focused around happy hour). I’m not a happy-hour person. But the zoo sounded good; outdoors and informal. I wouldn’t be stuck in my chair trying to figure out how to make small talk with the person next to me, in a loud environment where I can’t hear anything anyway. The zoo – I figured I could go to the zoo.

Not that I actually like going to anything with a group of strangers. Not even outdoor events on a lovely summer evening. Uh-hu, no way. I’m not into small talk with strangers. But I decided to go in order to get to know people. I like people AFTER I get to know them. And I don’t know of any way to skip the “getting to know them” stage, UNFORTUNATELY!

Moving is very difficult and getting to know your new community is a big part of that. Although we are lucky, in the winter time we have relatives in Tucson; Dan and Dawn and their three kids. It’s great to actually have family in town and kids to play in the pool. But they are busy in Minnesota during the summer.

Anyway – Meet-up groups – this isn’t the first Tucson group I’ve tried. I’ve checked out two or three book clubs, a couple of community service groups, several art classes, and a cancer support group, but have not found a group I resonated with yet.

So off to the zoo I went. I was so nervous I nearly went out with two different shoes on. Clearly, I need more light in my closet!

Luckily I noticed the mismatch as I was leaving and managed to get to the event with a matching pair of shoes! As an aside, you may be wondering why I own two nearly identical pairs of sandals. I bought the second pair in Ann Arbor this spring when I showed up with a suitcase full of boots and jackets, expecting cold rain, and ended up getting wonderful summer weather. Anyway, one is pure white and the other is off-white, which is quite different 😉

I made it to the zoo group, and it was fine. Here’s a picture of giraffes. I didn’t take very many pictures because I was busy trying to make small talk with a bunch of people I’ve never met before. Ugh. They were all nice though, whew.

So do I have a bunch of new friends now? Well, no, it’s never that easy. It takes consistency – meeting the same people several times. That requires attending something with the same group repeatedly. Which requires finding something I’m willing to do more than once! I’d actually go back to the zoo, or other activities that feature wandering around outside, but the next couple of activities scheduled for this particular group are happy-hour types of things, which I am not willing to do.

I have also tried a couple of book clubs. I would find a book club scheduled to read a book that sounded good to me, so I’d join the book club and read the book. But the next month I would be out of luck because I wouldn’t want to read the next book. Or the book after that – they would keep choosing books I didn’t feel like reading. Apparently I lack flexibility. I like to read – and I read a lot, and I read a lot of different genres – but I guess I only want to read what I want to read.

Maybe I would do better with something more creative? Next, I tried an on-line drawing class. Problem was, the students all left their videos off. And there was no time to chat with the other students. It was 100% instruction, no sitting around drawing and chatting. It was no different than watching a YouTube video, which I can do for free whenever I want. As far as making friends goes, the online art class was absolutely useless. Next!

Next, John and I went to several in-person painting classes. We had a good time but never made any new friends. The problem was, even though we went repeatedly, we never saw the same people twice. They were stand-alone painting classes, and not something most people went to regularly.

Also, people would go to the painting class as an outing with their own group of friends. They weren’t looking to make other friends. It was like showing up at a restaurant and expecting to make friends with parties at other tables – uh, no, that doesn’t usually work that way (unless it’s a small local cafe with regulars). Anyway, those painting classes didn’t work to make friends, although we did have fun painting.

What I needed was a repeating activity so I would see the same people several times in a row. Next I chose a 4-part art class, which met once a week for a month. That should work, right? As it turned out, there was only one other woman in the class! It was just me, the instructor and one other person. And the other student was grumpy as all get-out. She was struggling with her art – unhappy with her progress, frustrated with the assignment, and dissatisfied with the instructor. I don’t think she even once acknowledged my presence in the room. So no friend material there, although I was somewhat sympathetic with her plight. I also didn’t like having to do what the instructor was telling us to practice. Ok, fail. Next!

This past Sunday I tried a new group – some artists meeting at a coffee shop. I liked how it was set up – we just bring our own sketch books and do our own thing. As I’ve mentioned, I like doing my own thing, lol. And this group that meets once per month, so with luck, I will slowly get to know the regular attenders.

Plus, the coffee shop was close by and the meet-up was free except for the coffee, and well, what did I have to lose? Other than my pride, because I’m not actually an artist.

Luckily I’m not self-conscious about not being a good artist. I just winged it. I brought some oil pastels, which I don’t really even know how to use. Pastels are complicated. There’s hard ones and soft ones and chalk and oil. Who knows! I brought oil pastels because they seemed almost like crayons and are less messy than the chalk pastels, which get colored dust everywhere. At least they do how I use them, lol.

Pastels can’t be mixed together directly and then applied as one newly created color like paint can. And I’m all about color more than form. So I may end up feeling limited by the pastels. But blending paints takes a good amount of table space and something to blend them on, and water, and brushes, and we’re talking about a bunch of women crammed into a coffee shop on a busy Sunday morning. Pastels sounded more practical.

It actually worked out very well. The woman who sat across from me, Becky, was friendly and non-judgmental. She gave me a useful pointer without being overbearing with her advice. She saw me smearing and blending the pastels with my fingers and mentioned that they make blending stumps for that purpose. I am truly a novice and I’m sure anyone who knows the first thing about art would just be cringing to watch me!

In this next photo, the women standing on the right is Becky, and the woman on the left, bent over her work, is Kristina, spelled the same way as I spell my name. There were also three of us along the windows where I was sitting, as well as several at a larger table behind Becky.

Someone complemented me on my perspective and proportion, which was hilarious because that is exactly what I did the worst, lol. I put John’s head too high up from his kayak, elongating and straightening his back in an awkward and unrealistic pose. But oh well!

Anyway, Becky encouraged me to take art classes from the art school that sponsored the Meet-up (the Meet-up wasn’t a class, it was just a group of us doing our own art and chatting, probably organized as a means of drumming up new business for the school). But I don’t think I want to take a real art class at an art school. First of all, I like doing my own thing. I don’t want to draw something that someone else wants me to draw, in the way they want me to draw it, with the media they want me to use.

Secondly, I don’t want to start striving. I don’t want to know what I’m doing wrong and feel like I need to do better. I don’t want to be struggling to do it right. I don’t want to be dissatisfied because I can see how wrong it is. I don’t want art to become work, with goals and effort and success and failure. There is so little in life that I do just for fun. I’m usually too goal-oriented. John and I both work so hard. I just want to have a few areas of my life where I am not always striving to do better and better.

I like my “ignorance is bliss” approach to art. It’s freeing. Plus I’m not there to become an artist, I’m there to meet new people. If I can relax and occupy my mind with something fun and engrossing, all the better!

Although maybe I should buy some smoother paper – that rough watercolor paper made it hard to blend the pastels. And maybe I could buy a few blending stumps, like Becky suggested. And maybe if I did a better job of marking all they key points before shading I would get the perspective and proportions more accurate…and maybe…

I’m not against learning all those things. As long as it doesn’t become yet another area of my life where I’m suddenly no longer good enough. And yeah, I hear you. That’s all in my head. The idea of not being good enough is something that I could/should ideally just let go of, mentally. But certain activities and situations are tailormade to trigger “not good enough” gremlins. Like art classes!

Next up, I might go to an African drumming class tomorrow. I have to decide soon, because they want RSVPs so they can do a head-count to make sure they have enough drums for everyone. It sounds fun but it also sounds intimidating. And it’s not particularly close by. I hate going to things for the first time. But it could turn out to be the best thing, right?

I have a friend who also moved to Tucson from Albuquerque, who loves, loves, loves his senior baseball group. He plays every morning and it’s all he ever talks about. Those baseball guys are his best friends now. Total instant built-in community. So maybe someday I will find my equivalent of senior baseball. It’s probably not African drumming, but who knows, it could be!

Then yesterday I signed up for yet another book club. I have two weeks to get the book and read it. It looks like a good book, but we’ll see. If not, should I make myself read it anyway? Or just give up on book clubs? Because I’ve already tried a few of them now.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for the new friends I have made. Here’s a great photo of my friend, Amy, laughing because a beautiful green beetle had just landed in her hair.

Amy and I went for coffee the other day, and enjoyed their semi-enclosed patio early in the morning before it got ridiculously hot. The big green beetle flew around and around before abruptly deciding to land on her head. We had a great time sipping iced coffee and chatting, until it suddenly we realized it had gotten too hot. We checked our phones and yep, 97º. That’s about my limit – assuming I’m sitting in the shade with iced coffee!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism