April California Trip – Laura has great friends!

I forgot to mention, before our Sunday morning at Filoli Gardens, on Saturday night I met some other of Laura’s friends: Chloé, Rhea and Frank. We met for Japanese food at an Izakaya, which is the word for a Japanese pub. The food was excellent!

Chloé and Rhea are Laura’s coworkers, and Frank is Rhea’s partner. Frank and Rhea are both trans and Rhea uses they/them pronouns. Chloé is married but her husband wasn’t able to come that night.

There was something about how open, genuine, and accepting everyone was that really put me at ease. Pretty soon Laura and I were telling stories from her youth and riffing off each other, and we were all laughing harder than I have laughed in a long time!

The Izakaya staff finally had to encourage us to finish up and let someone else have the table. We were having so much fun we hadn’t even noticed the line forming out the door!

Next time I’m in California I hope to hang out with Laura’s friends again.

Next up – more of California!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

April trip to California – Filoli Gardens

On my second day in California, Laura and I were invited to Filoli Gardens by Laura’s friend, Bridget.

Bridget has been going through a horrible, tragic time – her husband recently took his own life. Laura has been doing what she can to be supportive.

Originally our trip to the gardens was going to be a mother-daughter outing, with Bridget’s mom invited too. But Bridget and her mom were struggling to get along that morning, with everyone grieving in the aftermath of the tragedy. Bridget texted that she was going to be late.

The weather was iffy. Cold and windy.

Laura and I decided to wait for Bridget inside.

A peek at the courtyard:

Bridget arrived alone, in tears. We were glad she came despite it all. It was good for her to get out.

Here’s photos of the kitchen and dining areas in the mansion.

Next we headed out to view the gardens.

Here is Laura with Bridget; Bridget with a brave smile for the camera. She’s a lovely, strong, woman and I’m glad Laura has her for a friend.

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

April trip to California – the flight out

At the beginning of April I flew to California to go to John’s retirement party, visit Laura, and visit my good friend, Tracey. (Yes, he’s retiring and starting a new job in Tucson.) You may be wondering why John’s retirement party was in California. Hasn’t he been commuting back and forth between Tucson and Albuquerque for the last 2 1/2 years? What’s this about California?

So actually…although the main branch of John’s previous company was located in Albuquerque, John worked for a team located at a smaller branch of the company on the far eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. So could we have moved to California instead of Tucson? Oh, absolutely. If we wanted to deal with the traffic and several thousand dollars per month more in housing costs, we could absolutely have been living on the eastern edge of the Bay Area.

Alternatively, John could have been commuting from Tucson to California instead of to Albuquerque. There’s a non-stop flight from Tucson to San Francisco twice per day. But we didn’t have a house there. It’s quite possible that the cost of renting an airbnb in California plus plane tickets would not exceed the cost of maintaining a house in Albuquerque and driving out there regularly. But John was more comfortable driving to Albuquerque and staying at our house there, rather than flying to California and staying at an airbnb. But it’s all a moot issue now because John has a new job in Tucson, which he starts next week. And we are selling our house in Albuquerque. No more interstate commutes for John! Yay!

So back to my story – at the beginning of April, I flew to California. I was very nervous about the flight because I didn’t know how I’d do. I haven’t flown anywhere since February of 2020 when we flew to Boston for my cancer surgery. I’ve never enjoyed flying and then chemotherapy in summer of 2020 changed my personality. I became much more timid and I get overwhelmed more easily. I lost my moxie! And I’m only slowly regaining it. How would it feel to fly again?

I’ve tried the most common anti-anxiety meds and they make me depressed. Not helpful! So, after an unfortunately bad encounter with office staff during my third attempt at finding a primary care doctor in Tucson, (which is a whole other story I’m not going to go into, but it was awful), on Emily’s recommendation I tried a “direct pay” nurse practitioner. Direct pay means she doesn’t take insurance. It cuts out the middle man and all the paperwork rigamarole and gives her more time with her patients. She can make a decent living without rushing patients through, dozens a day. And she’s super easy to reach by phone, text or email. She even makes house calls!

You may be saying, wait, no insurance? Isn’t that expensive? And the answer is no, not really, not for a nurse practitioner. What’s expensive is my cancer care. Surgeries and scans and specialists – all that needs to be covered by insurance or we’d quickly be bankrupt. But a simple visit with a nurse and some routine bloodwork – no, not expensive. Anyway, my new private nurse spent lots of time with me, and carefully listened to my history and came up with an anti-anxiety med that actually works for me! The internet says it works best if taken daily, but she told me I could just take it as needed. Wow, it’s amazing.

So here’s what happened on my trip out to California – I got everything arranged, overpacked my bags, reserved an Uber ride to the airport, printed my tickets and got everything all organized just so – because I was nervous! And then I encountered one glitch after another. My Uber reservation didn’t work (software glitch) so I had to call an Uber on the spot, meanwhile my app was giving me error messages that were undecipherable. I have two phones and several google profiles, so somewhere in all that the wires were getting crossed. I was trying to summon an Uber with both phones – please, I just need a ride to the airport! Quit throwing me error codes! Finally I got an Uber to come. Whew. On my way.

At the airport I checked my bag and found my gate and…uh-oh. More problems. The flight to Phoenix was delayed and I wouldn’t make my connecting flight to San Jose. It was evening, so people were saying there weren’t any more options out of Phoenix that night. Normally I’d be panicking at this point, but the meds gave me a sort of “let’s just see how this plays out” attitude. I calmly got in the ridiculously long line, way towards the back, and eventually arrived at the desk with the frantic agents trying to reroute passengers.

Initially the agent suggested some horrible flight out of Phoenix going into Seattle, which wouldn’t even leave until late the following evening. I could practically drive to California by then. I realized that since I clearly wasn’t getting out of Phoenix that night, I was better off staying the night in my own home in Tucson and flying out of Tucson the next morning. But I had checked my bag! My bag was going to Phoenix without me.

I asked her to pull my bag. She didn’t understand and kept frantically offering ridiculous options to random Bay Area airports out of Phoenix through out-of-the-way hubs like Dallas, arriving the following night or even the day after that! And she was getting upset when I wasn’t accepting any of them. I was trying to explain that I wasn’t going to Phoenix after all, please try to get my bag back and I’ll worry about trying to change my flights later. Just get me my bag back please! I couldn’t get my bag back until she canceled my flight and she was reluctant to cancel my flight without an alternative. I reassured her that I would sort it out later. She finally canceled my flight and put in the order to pull my bag. I headed downstairs to see if we had managed to get my bag pulled before it was loaded on the plane to Phoenix.

It was evening by then, and eerily empty at ticketing and baggage claim. By that time I had John on the phone for moral support and was simultaneously texting Laura about her availability to get me from San Francisco the next day instead of San Jose that night. The only reason I hadn’t booked the non-stop San Francisco flight to start with is because San Jose is easier for Laura.

I was the only one down in baggage claim and the attendants spotted me immediately. Is this your bag? Did you ask for your bag to be pulled? Yes! My oversized, overpacked bag, crammed with stuff for Laura that she probably didn’t actually want, and overflowing with junk for my trip that I probably didn’t actually need, yes, that’s my bag! Thanks!!!

Then I went to the equally deserted ticketing counter, marveling that I was the only one there except two ticket agents to help me. Pandemonium upstairs at the gate, but no lines and no waiting downstairs in ticketing. Laura gave me thumbs up for the morning option, and I asked to book the non-stop to SFO the next morning. The first agent didn’t think she could make that change because it’s a different airline, but I remembered that some of the ridiculous options being offered to me at the gate upstairs were also on different airlines. So I persisted, calmly, patiently and sure enough, and I had my new ticket for the next morning.

Normally I would be completely stressed about the idea of a really early morning flight, but I was hey, cool, non-stop to SFO, that works. Then I had to hire another Uber to get back home (that one cost twice as much as the way out). The whole thing was a nuisance, but wow, I love my anti-anxiety med. I’d take it every day but who knows what side effects would start building up, and I don’t want it to slowly stop working. I’m going to save it for special occasions!

The next morning my 5:00 AM Uber ride was already there and waiting when I looked out the window at 4:50. Excellent. I popped another anti-anxiety pill and enjoyed a smooth flight to SFO. And that early in the morning on a Saturday, Laura and I had no issues with traffic on the way to her house.

Here she is showing off her backyard kale crop:

You can see her fig hasn’t leafed out yet, but by August this will be teeming with fruit.

That same morning we went to the farmer’s market, which is part of her regular Saturday morning routine. What a beautiful day!

I made it, I’m here, in California, yay!

If you’re wondering where is John in all this, he arrives the following day. More California posts coming up!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

Oh shit, a camera

LOL! John found this on the news – I hadn’t even thought to look. Watch the first 35 seconds or so:

https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiTGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmtvbGQuY29tLzIwMjMvMDQvMTYvYWxsLWF1dGlzbS1ldmVudC1icmluZ3Mtb3V0LWRvemVucy1mYW1pbGllcy_SAVtodHRwczovL3d3dy5rb2xkLmNvbS8yMDIzLzA0LzE2L2FsbC1hdXRpc20tZXZlbnQtYnJpbmdzLW91dC1kb3plbnMtZmFtaWxpZXMvP291dHB1dFR5cGU9YW1w?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Yes, that was me, at an autism fair, belatedly noticing a news camera. Whoops, guess I’ll walk this other direction instead. In hindsight, too bad I didn’t have a great big advertising sign all ready to flash at the camera. “LIFE COACH FOR AUTISM! APRIL SPECIAL 25% OFF!!”

I remain anonymous. But I did manage to take some photos of some more notable characters while I was there.

That’s the news from Tucson – all in a day’s work at the autism fair!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

March moments in pictures

Let’s do all of March in one big post! I am so far behind. I have a number of random pictures that by themselves don’t seem to be enough for a post (although I recognize my posts are usually much longer than what social media encourages). I just want to get caught up!

First up, pictures of Steven’s neighbor’s leaning tree in early March:

The following Monday the power company came out to deal with it. Whew!

Meanwhile, in Tucson, Laura was enjoying our pool in early March:

This was a couple of days after I almost, but didn’t quite, adopt a puppy. She was so cute! But it really wasn’t a good time to adopt a puppy.

Oh my gosh that puppy was so nearly irresistible. But she was destined for someone else. Meanwhile, Biska was in a cone for what seemed like forever because she wouldn’t stop scratching at the top of her head with her back paws.

Biska is finally better now.

John’s been in Albuquerque a lot, but one weekend he came home and we had a fun time buying stuff.

Here’s a painting my new friend, Barbara, in Tucson did. She’s teaching me a little bit about art, but I don’t think I’ll ever be this good. She’s a professional artist.

Here’s a hilariously weird huge prickly tree on campus:

And startlingly vivid sign on campus:

My maps fit perfectly in the built-in shelves along the side of the office closet! I was so ridiculously happy. Those file folders are really old and I had exactly the right amount for these particular closet shelves. It made my day. But I’m so tired of moving! And we’re not done yet.

We’re still remodeling too. Here we are having cement poured. This is connecting the family room to the laundry room, via the back porch.

Our contractor is pretty much AWOL these days, but he shows up occasionally and does something. A couple of weeks later, when the cement was obviously completely cured (it only takes a day or two), John gave up on our contractor ever returning, and just took the forms off himself. Mid-April update: they are finally back and tiling it. A month later!

Here’s an owl on the power lines behind our house. We hear him every night, and sometimes we hear the female return his call. You can tell the female because her hoot is slightly higher in pitch.

Here’s a couple of pictures of spring flowers:

That’s all for March. I’ll get going on April soon!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

Congratulations, John!

John is retiring from Sandia after 29 years, and will be starting a new position with Raytheon in Tucson!!!! It was a hard decision because he has a lot of respect for Sandia and they have a lot of respect for him. He had an excellent career with Sandia. Raytheon is an unknown; it’s exciting, it’s scary, it’s risky. But we have decided we want to settle here, connect with the Tucson community, and start this new phase of our lives.

If you’ve wondered why I haven’t been posting much recently, that’s the main reason. I’ve been less able to speak my mind than normal, because John wanted to be able to tell his management before the news hit a public blog. And he wanted to wait to tell them until the offer was official. This new job has been in the works for some months now and it took forever for it to be finalized! It’s been difficult to find anything to say that didn’t allude to the probable (and now finally official) new job.

Meanwhile, we’ve been spending a lot time trying to figure out logistics. We’ve been strategizing everything from my own career, to what to do with the houses. Our primary home is in Albuquerque, as are our two rentals. We’ve decided for sure to sell our own home, and we might sell one of the rentals this summer too.

Moving benefits, real estate agents, storage units, potential medical insurance gaps, mail forwarding, new driver’s licenses…it’s a lot to juggle. In Arizona you’re supposed to get your new driver’s license immediately. The time requirement is something ridiculous, like a week after you move here. But when am I moving to Arizona? Now? Two years ago? When the moving van comes later in April? When John starts his new job in early May? When our primary residence in Albuquerque sells? Who knows and whatever. We’ve just got so much un-fun stuff to do.

But wow, we’re going to finally actually live here! Together! Yay!

Here we are, celebrating over ramen:

Here we are on a recent hike, which we mostly spent in heavy discussion about all the big moving-related issues.

We’ve seen very little of each other this winter and spring, and have been having difficulty finding time to have fun AND do the talking needed to make all the big decisions.

We’re looking forward to getting through this move and having more relaxing time on the weekends together.

Woof, Woof! There’s something up there!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

Too much (and not enough) stuff

There’s a lot of heavy concerns going on in the world right now, so to distract you from all that, here is a lighthearted peek into the minutiae of my life. Specifically, the many, many, too many items of minutiae in my life. I’m not a hoarder, really. Nor did I stockpile during the pandemic. But I still have far too many duplicates of things. See, it goes like this:

Imagine I have a bottle of shampoo in both houses, one in Tucson, and one in Albuquerque. Ok, that’s fine so far. Now imagine that I’m in Tucson, and I notice that my shampoo bottle is getting close to empty. Not wanting to be caught entirely without shampoo, I buy a second bottle. All good so far.

Then we go to Albuquerque. While in Albuquerque I notice that my bottle of shampoo there is also getting low. So I buy a second bottle. Now I’ve got 4 bottles of shampoo, but two of them are nearly empty. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount. Not yet.

Then once I’m back in Tucson, I notice that my shampoo bottle (the original one) has, at most, one more day’s left. I realize I need to buy a new bottle. My brain chimes in and reminds me that I’ve already bought a new bottle. Yeah, I argue, but that was in Albuquerque. My stuff in Tucson keeps getting boxed up as the house is being remodeled, so it’s actually impossible to tell. There could be a bottle of shampoo in a box in the garage somewhere. Who knows? So I buy a bottle of shampoo.

Now there’s 5 bottles. Actually, soon we’re back down to 4 because I really did finally use up the nearly-empty first bottle in Tucson. Whew.

Next trip, John goes to Albuquerque without me. Every trip we bring more stuff to Tucson. I’ve been wanting my fine collection of shoe polishes, which I haven’t used since the pandemic started, so I ask him to please bring the bin of supplies from under the master bathroom sink, which contains my shoe polish.

When John gets back to Tucson, I unpack my bin of supplies that he brought (Yay, shoe polish, finally), and I discover an extra bottle of shampoo. At this point it dawns on me that I probably need to stop buying shampoo.

Then I head back to Albuquerque with John. While in Albuquerque, I run out of shampoo. I remember that I told myself to quit buying shampoo, but since my spare bottle accidentally went to Tucson with the shoe polish, I now have no shampoo in Albuquerque. So I reluctantly buy a bottle. There are now at least 3 full bottles of shampoo in Tucson and one full bottle in Albuquerque. Or maybe there’s 4 in Tucson, who knows at this point.

Then imagine that I go on a short trip involving a brief hotel stay. It’s a nice hotel but on the first morning I discover that I hate the hotel shampoo. I’d like to buy a bottle of what I prefer and just bring the remainder home with me. But never mind, I’ll just use the stinky hotel shampoo. Because I’m not buying any more shampoo ever again!

And that’s just shampoo. Don’t even get me started on coffee!

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

Looking Forward

I had another CT scan this week. As usual, my results are great…No cancer found! Yay! Double Yay!! But as usual, there’s just enough worrisome bits that I never quite feel like I can let down my guard. The little spots on my lungs? They aren’t growing and aren’t thought to be cancer. All those liver cysts, some of which are quite large? Just harmless cysts. Not cancer. No cancer anywhere. And yet, why is my white blood cell count abnormally low and continuing to drop? Why are my neutrophils low? Why is my calcium high? And why is my CEA cancer marker slowly climbing? It’s still low, below the reference range, but why has it been creeping up?

I am superstitious. I have a superstition that goes something like; if I’m too optimistic, the universe is going to laugh and prove me wrong. People like me touch wood a lot. “The weather is perfect…knock on wood.” “Everything is going great…knock on wood!!” I’m the sort of person who imagines that we will die the day after our life insurance lapses. But if our lives are heavily insured (ie. expecting the worst), then we won’t die. It’s sort of a complicated version of Murphy’s law.

My superstition is all a bunch of bullshit, obviously. But the cancer could come back. I’ve been tenaciously and determinedly keeping myself as ready as possible for the very real possibility of a cancer reoccurrence (or more accurately, a discovery of “cancer-never-went-away-and-we-just-didn’t-realize-it”).

But something happened to me over the weekend that has made me wonder if maybe I am ready to start walking down the road labeled “no cancer” even though I don’t have the ability to distinguish between “not yet cancer” and “no cancer”.

Laura visited this weekend. And in addition to having a lovely time, as I always do when I get to see my kids, I also had a bit of an eye opening discussion with her. Laura works for an amazing consultancy, a large national (or international?) firm that truly walks the talk. This is the sort of progressive, employee-oriented firm we all wish we could work for. And she’s very well qualified to work for such a firm. She has two master’s degrees; an MBA and one in data analytics. She’s doing very well in her career.

I was congratulating her, and I must have said something about how I would have loved to have been able to work for a company like hers. And she said, why not? I could. I could work, in fact, for her company.

No way? No freaking way. I don’t have an MBA, I’m not a data scientist or a programmer, what would they do with me? This consultancy has clients like Google and Facebook and all those big names. What would I have to offer them?

My career seems disjointed and fragmented to most people. Life coaching, environmental science, planning, management, a little of this, a little of that. My resume has periodic 3-year gaps. Except I have always been coaching. I have been steadily coaching since 2001, without any breaks whatsoever. But my past employers have always completely discounted my life coaching, like it’s some weird hobby. They’ve eyed it with suspicion – at best.

But Laura says, oh not at all. Apparently her colleagues don’t all have MBA’s and they’re not all programmers and data scientists. She said I could be in the business advisory services group. She said many of her coworkers are actively working on getting coaching certifications. Really? They are? I was certified 22 years ago.

Which brings me to another issue. I’m old! Right? Isn’t it the culture of the youth? Does anybody even hire anyone past age 40 nowadays, much less past 50? But no, she says her company prides themselves on being “multi-generational” and she has plenty of coworkers older than me, even though her company is dynamic and not some old dinosaur.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not old and washed up, foggy-brained and out-of-touch, with a fragmented resume, unable to make even half of what I made in my prime. Could I still be in my prime? Most of my friends – many of whom are fellow cancer survivors – are in their early 70’s. They’re happily retired baby boomers. Part of me feels right in there with them. And yet – I’m not in my 70’s and I never retired. I was just in the midst of a job change when cancer and a pandemic threw me off track. Presumably, I could work another decade. Maybe I’m only 2/3 of the way through my career? Is it time to start back up again?

How would it feel to interview with a bunch of young faces looking at the dates on my resume that start out with the number 19? Degrees in 1993 and 1999, and coaching certification in 2001. I’m not used to being the old one in the room. I’ve never actually worked for someone younger than me. I’m at the age where that’s going to start happening now. But you know what? I think I’m fine with that. If they are.

Laura made some suggestions about some refresher training, and she’s been helping me with the newer business terminology. The tables are turned and my daughter is now my mentor. Maybe that’s what makes me old!

My kids have always kept me young. They’ve introduced me to newer music, kept me up to date with the changing social norms (non-binary!) and now Laura’s helping me with career strategy. I’m lucky to have kids I can learn from as I claw my way back from the brink of being old.

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

A Tribute to Kira

For several years, the main picture on the top of this blog was me with our three little black poodles; Kira, Rosie and Kai.

Rosie passed away from old age during the summer of 2020, and Kai followed her a bit over a year later during the fall of 2021, also of old age. Now Kira has passed away yesterday, at age 8, of an unknown but several-months-long illness.

Kira, who has been in Callan’s care since my cancer treatment in 2020, first developed a mysterious lump last fall. We had it surgically removed when it became infected. They expected to find a cheatgrass seed, which can burrow under a dog’s skin and cause an infection. There is a lot of cheatgrass in the Boise area. But after the surgery it turned out it wasn’t cheatgrass. We also tested the lump for cancer, but it wasn’t cancer either.

Later we removed a second lump on her other side, equally mysterious despite testing. Then she started losing weight, so she was put on a round of antibiotics. After more testing, the vet seemed at a loss, and unable to help.

We took her to a second vet, who did more testing and prescribed a stronger antibiotic for a longer length of time. She rallied briefly, but soon started losing weight again. So once again she went on more antibiotics, plus an appetite stimulant and painkillers. She’s been in and out of the vet’s for several months now.

Nothing was working, and she became frighteningly thin because she had essentially stopped eating or drinking. Yesterday morning when Callan took her into the vet she was in liver failure, so we made the difficult decision to put her down. Despite extensive testing, we never did find out what she had wrong with her.

Eight years were too short, but they were good ones. We adopted Kira as a puppy during a time when both Callan and Laura were living with us in California. She was truly the whole family’s dog. When I got cancer in 2020, Kira went to live with Callan and Chirstina while I recovered. They kept her even after I recovered, because Kira was such a sweetheart.

Here she is as a tiny puppy in November of 2014. It doesn’t get any cuter than this!

Learning to go on walks with the big dogs:

Her first big hiking trip:

Bigger by springtime, playing tug-o-war with Kai.

I didn’t export these photos in a way that maintained the chronological order. So the rest of these pics are in random order. When the three poodles are together, you can tell which one is Kira by the white on her face. And the ball at her feet! Unless hiking, she was rarely without her ball.

Eclipse viewing:

We are all very sad, but we had lots of fun times together. May she be in a happy place of endless ball tosses.

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

Paying it Forward

This week I helped my friend, Tara, who traveled to Scottsdale (in the Phoenix area) to get some extensive inner ear surgery done. She’s from Albuquerque, but decided to get her surgery done at the Mayo clinic instead. Smart decision! It’s not that there’s not some good doctors in Albuquerque – certainly there are. But Albuquerque is not a major mecca of great medicine. That’s why I had my cancer surgery done in Boston (that, plus Emily’s help was invaluable).

The Mayo clinic is a bit over two hours from my house, so Tara and I got a hotel for the night prior and the night after the surgery. We didn’t know the time of her surgery until the evening before, and it would have been difficult to drive all the way up there in time for an early morning slot. Also I didn’t think she would feel up to the drive home immediately after the surgery (and she wasn’t).

I arrived before Tara, so I went out to eat by myself, which I rarely do. I didn’t feel like driving anywhere in the Scottsdale rush hour, so I just walked to the closest place, which was a fancy pizza place. (Most places in Scottsdale are quite nice – it’s an affluent area.)

It wasn’t crowded because it wasn’t quite dinner time yet.

I didn’t feel like pizza, but I figured I could get a salad. As I was reading the menu, one of the descriptions of one of the salads mentioned that instead of a chicken salad, you could get the chicken on a bed of sautéed spinach and mushrooms. This was just hidden at the end of the description of one of the salads – I can’t believe I even spotted it. It’s so rare to find good vegetables at restaurants – particularly at a pizza place!

The first night at the hotel, the night before her surgery, the wind got so bad it woke us up with all the noise outside. It sounded like a million things dragging and flapping. I couldn’t believe how loud it was, and it just went on and on. It seemed like a hurricane in the desert out there. At least it conveniently drowned out any noise of late-night people in hallways! But it was very unsettling, at an already stressful time.

The next morning we headed to the hospital. The hospital personnel didn’t want me to leave after they took Tara into the surgery prep room (where I was not allowed). I had plenty of time to leave and come back later, but they wanted me to stay on the premises. Probably in case there were any complications. So I just hung around the entire day. There is actually a hotel on premises, but it was completely full, so our hotel was offsite.

At the clinic, they had two big boards listing updates for each patient (identified by a patient number for privacy). Earlier in the day it was mostly beige and yellow for registration and pre-op, and later in the day there were a lot that were all done.

The Mayo grounds are very pretty.

I would have spent more time outside, but unfortunately it was cold and windy. The weather in Arizona has been unseasonably cold. I keep thinking I don’t have the right to whine about the weather because after all, I’m lucky enough to live in Arizona. But still, I’m expecting warm sunny days and not getting them!

By the time Tara’s surgery was done and she was able to leave the hospital, it was 8:00 at night and I had a big migraine. Probably from the windy weather, although hanging out all day at a hospital presumably didn’t help. And of course Tara was in much worse shape than I was. She was groggy from the meds and in a lot of pain. I could barely get her back to our hotel room. In hindsight I should have asked the hotel staff to take her up to the room in a wheelchair, but I didn’t think of it. We were certainly grateful we didn’t have to drive back down to Tucson that night.

I still had a migraine the next day, and there was a lot of wind while we were driving back down to Tucson. I was very happy to get home. But the first thing I saw when I walked in the door was water stains on my leather couch. The roof had been leaking!

We had put in new lights a couple of months ago, and like everything else, they required roof penetrations (as I’ve mentioned before, our ceiling is our roof, so they have to run the electrical lines on top of the roof for anything in the ceiling). One of the new lights was leaking.

I called my contractor and he sent the electrician over. I appreciated the immediate response, but we had barely been home an hour and I was nearly crazy from exhaustion and my migraine. The electrician was in my face, trying to insinuate that it couldn’t be a leak from the lights because the lights were put in 2 months ago and it’s not the first time it has rained in two months. But it is the first time that couch had been in that location. That couch had been in Albuquerque until John brought it out on one of his trips recently. And if there had been a little spot of water on the tile during these past couple of months, I wouldn’t have noticed. I was so irritated with that electrician. I told him three times the couch hadn’t been there for more than a couple of weeks, not two months!

And I had such a migraine. And I still had to pick Biska up from the pet sitters. We finally got settled in, and Tara and I (and Biska) all went to sleep about 7:30 that night, and didn’t get up for about 12 hours! We were all done in!

Meanwhile I had noticed that Biska had a little scratch on the top of her head, and it had gotten much worse because she was scratching at it with her hind foot. So first thing in the morning I went out in search of a cone. PetsMart wasn’t open yet, so I tried Target with no luck, and Walmart with no luck, and had to wait until PetsMart opened. Finally a cone!

Meanwhile, while I was running around looking for a dog cone, the electrician showed up and decided to treat my couch with leather conditioner without even asking me! And the couch wasn’t even fully dried yet! That’s not the right method – it is better to try to work on the edges of the water mark with a damp cloth first, then let it all completely dry, then use leather cleaner, then leather conditioner, applied in even strokes over the entire couch. Instead he was scrubbing hard at one spot and making everything worse. I know he was trying to be helpful, but I was just so mad that he didn’t ask first. And he probably set the stain in with the waxy crap he was rubbing into my still-damp couch.

Now from a distance there’s a big dark area where he applied product – without applying it evenly to the whole couch. I’m just going to have to buy my own product and try to redo it right to save this couch. But first, I just needed my headache to go away!

Meanwhile poor Tara was still really woozy from the pain and the meds, and slept most of Thursday. Finally on Friday things were much better for both of us. Tara felt better, my migraine was gone, and the weather got better too.

Here we are having lunch at the café at the botanical garden. It was the first time Tara had eaten solid food since Monday. She was determined to eat a burger!

This vine was in full bloom at the botanical garden. I didn’t see any identification signs. From a quick internet search, I believe it might be called Hardenbergia. I want some of that in my yard! I could use the February blooms, because I always get February blues.

Things continued to improve on Saturday. Tara and I bought take-out food and went to a very pretty outdoor mall and sat outside and ate by the fountains, murals and bougainvillea vines. I picked up a new iPad I had ordered, and she bought some favorite perfume she couldn’t get near her house, and we had a nice time walking around in the sun.

A hard week turned out well. Whew.

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

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism