Category: November 2023

Sonoran hot dogs in Tucson are something like what Frito pie is in Albuquerque – a local comfort food consisting of a least-common-denominator mash-up of North American and Central American fast food.

I don’t like hot dogs – I don’t care what you put on them, I’m not going to like them. But I live here now, so trying Sonoran hot dogs was inevitable.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and we had been on our way to what was advertised as a live music and art show. I love live music and art shows! I imagined us walking around in the sunshine, looking at the different art booths, buying street fair food from food trucks, listening to the band…it sounded like the perfect Saturday afternoon activity.

We plugged the address into our phones and headed out. We arrived in a somewhat sketchy part of town, which doesn’t really mean anything because Tucson is definitely mixed. There are gems to be found in sketchy neighborhoods. And all the neighborhoods are safe enough in the middle of the day.

But at that particular address, there was not a park or green space or plaza of any sort. There was a small, mostly empty, disintegrating parking lot next to a square cinderblock windowless dive bar. John wasn’t even inclined to bother getting out of the car, but I had to see how this was an art show.

We went in and stood near the door long enough to let our eyes adjust to the gloom. Sure enough, there was a band on a small stage in the back. And along another wall there was a folding table with a few items piled on it, like you’d see at a garage sale. A particularly disappointing garage sale.

So we headed back out to the car. Now what? John was hungry and that’s how we ended up getting authentic Sonoran hot dogs a few blocks away.

It wasn’t quite a restaurant. It was almost. It was a food truck – no actually, a food trailer – parked in front of a small storefront in a rundown strip mall. The indoor space was where customers could sit and eat out of the heat. But there was no kitchen in there, or servers, or employees of any sort. The kitchen was in the trailer. It was a one-man show. The dude in the trailer.

The Sonoran sauces were in that refrigerated gray box you can see plugged in along the bright yellow brick wall. They were excellent.

When we first got there, we were hesitating over the menu taped to the trailer. John and I know enough Spanish to generally be able to order food. But the menu seemed to have a lot of varieties of the exact same thing (hot dogs) and the details of the different options were not immediately clear. Luckily another customer came by and ordered in Spanish for us.

Here’s what I ended up with. The item on the top right is the Sonoran hot dog. It’s a hot dog in a bread pocket, with mayonnaise and various salsas. In the front is a couple of grilled chiles, which we had specifically seen and made sure we ordered. We both enjoy grilled chiles, so we ordered all three kinds.

Help yourself to the soda in the refrigerators. A highchair thoughtfully awaits if your little one needs it.

And cool art. Yep, I got my art show after all. Look close and you’ll see that’s the guy cooking in the trailer. The very dude himself, looking a little younger in the picture, but definitely recognizable.

A true local cultural experience that you won’t find on Trip Advisor.

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

Life Coaching for Neurodiverse Professionals

In my dream last night, John and I were at a resort-style conference hotel on a business trip with a group of people we only knew slightly. The pool at the hotel was huge and meandering; not just a large rectangle but one made to resemble a real river.

The pool resembled a river more than was originally intended, because it was dirty! Big chunks of old logs were floating around in a mess of dead leaves. The entire resort looked like it had recently been hit by a hurricane. Construction workers were everywhere. The workers were constantly barging into our meetings and barging into our hotel rooms, and even into our bathroom.

(Ha, you can imagine where my brain got that imagery. Yes, our bathroom remodel is finally done. More about that sometime, maybe.) Meanwhile, back to my dream…

That evening (in my dream) several of us watched a movie together in the hotel’s movie room. The characters in the movie included a young crop scientist who works at a university. In one scene he’s planting some seedlings by hand in an experimental field when a love interest of his walks over and they strike up a conversation. 

The scene is filmed from the autistic scientist’s point of view. The resulting camera work shows mostly a nearby orchard in the distance, as he gazes that way when listening to her, and also when he collects his thoughts to speak. The trees in the orchard had large, bright green leaves with deep, rounded lobes. I was distracted, wondering what kind of trees they were.

The camera also shows occasional brief glimpses in the woman’s direction, particularly if she says something unexpected. She is just a slightly silhouetted shape, her face in shadow. He doesn’t even look at her long enough for us to be sure of what she’s wearing, much less what her face looks like.

The camera also steals slightly longer glances at his seedlings during lulls in the conversation. He appears to want to continue with his planting while also talking to her, but he doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to concentrate on her words and also his plants. Several times he starts to plant, but has to stop and gaze out at the orchard, it being the least distracting option. That way he can concentrate on her words and formulate his replies.

As the audience, we hear him talk while we’re seeing one part of the orchard through his eyes, and then we hear the woman talk while we’re seeing another part of the orchard. It was surreal, watching as the camera rested on the orchard in the distance, occasionally jumping to a different place in the orchard, while we listened to the characters speak. It was brilliant! Instead of watching the scientist not make eye contact, we saw what he was seeing as he didn’t make eye contact. It was immersive and realistic.

I was like, yes! That’s what it’s like. That’s exactly what it’s like.

Too bad the movie was just part of my dream last night. Otherwise I would tell all of you to go see that movie. Maybe movies often make use of that technique. I wouldn’t know. I don’t watch movies. Except – apparently – in my dreams.

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

Life Coaching for Neurodiverse Professionals