Category: 2024

Thinking back to early October

The next noteworthy event after our trip to Albuquerque at the end of September was another trip to Albuquerque! My big event in early October was the wedding of two dear friends of mine. I knew both Miriam and Casey before they started dating, so it was fun to watch their courtship unfold.

John wasn’t able to go, and I was reluctant to make the drive by myself in one day. Google says it’s a 6.5 hour drive, but it takes me 7.5 or 8 hours with stops, and it’s a long day for me by myself. My back hurts! Although I discovered that a low-volt electric massager that can plug into a car outlet is a life saver. But still, I splurged on an Airbnb on the way over. I drove most of the way, and stayed south of Albuquerque in Truth or Consequences, a small and weirdly named town along Hwy. I-25 in southern New Mexico. There’s a story behind the name, you can google it.

I drove John’s 4Runner because my new-to-me, older electric BMW i3 has very poor range. On the way out the door, I sneakily stuck 2 election magnets onto the back of the 4Runner. This was, you remember, back in October.

I had originally bought the magnets for my i3, but turns out my i3 is made of some sort of lightweight composite material that isn’t magnetic! So I couldn’t use my election magnets on my car.

I like to get into the spirit of the election. But John doesn’t like us to display bumper stickers or yard signs. He and I generally agree about politics, but I’m guessing he just wants to avoid the public controversy. It’s not polite to have a public fight with your neighbors with competing yard signs! I understand how he feels, because it’s gotten extremely contentious in the last several years, which has taken all the fun out of it.

I have always had a somewhat more a blasé attitude than many of my friends. I prefer to treat the election more like a fun and healthy community event than a life-or-death battle. Although I do agree that we need to protect our democratic form of government. We need to keep having free and fair elections. Unfortunately, an inevitable consequence of democracy is that we will sometimes elect total freaking idiots, and it will have genuinely harmful consequences.

Anyway, enough of that. Back to my story. I had slapped on those election magnets and then sort of forgotten about them, because I’m not used to having bumper stickers. So when people in other cars on the freeway would wave and pump their fists in solidarity, I would just frown at them in puzzlement! I would figure it out a moment too late, and smile or wave the instant after they turned back to the road. It was hilarious. I’m such a dork sometimes, just too slow on the uptake!

It wasn’t long before I had made it to Truth or Consequences. It was a quirky Airbnb to match the quirky town. The decor was quite fun, and I got there early enough to enjoy it.

This is the interior taken from the front door. The full kitchen is in the back, through the open door.

Living room:

There were many cool and quirky handmade things. On the lower right of this next photo, you can see what looks like a lamp perched on old suitcases, but it was actually a lamp made out of old suitcases; the suitcases were part of the base of the lamp.

Dining area:

I was traveling with food on ice packs and the instructions said to use the freezer in the barn. This sounded dubious. But it turned out to be fine. The barn is that quaint wooden building as seen through the back door out of the kitchen in this next photo. Inside it was like a modern garage, clean and well-lit. No hale bales, pitch forks or manure.

This is the beautifully sunny retro kitchen.

It was genuine retro, with all the quirks and nuisances of old things. It was completely clean, but the drawers didn’t slide smoothly, and the gas stove didn’t have an electric sparker and need lit with a lighter.

This is the genuine retro refrigerator.

There actually is a little icebox inside it that would have worked fine to refreeze my blue ice packets, but it was frosted shut. In my opinion, all they needed was a little sign instructing people to close the refrigerator door fully, by pushing firmly near the handle rather than up on the corner. That would keep the ice box from frosting up. Instead, they had a little sign saying not to use the freezer and to use the one in the barn.

Making sure the door sealed when you closed it seemed like a no-brainer to me, but sure enough, the previous occupants had closed the refrigerator door wrong, so there was no seal, so frost built up around the ice box. Maybe only old people know these things.

Here’s the back side of the casita, taken from standing near the barn-garage:

The “barn” is actually a nice garage. The overhead garage doors on the other side, not shown in this photo. Sorry about that camera lens light scatter, I didn’t realize it at the time and didn’t take a second photo.

There was also a large front yard with a friendly resident cat to keep me company.

Screenshot

The next morning I drove the rest of the way to Albuquerque in plenty of time for the early-afternoon wedding. Miriam and Casey had a Quaker wedding, and those are the best weddings! You would imagine a Quaker wedding would be stuffy and boring, but it’s the opposite. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a more genuine, heartfelt, REAL wedding. There was laughing and weeping and candor all kinds of joyful closeness.

They also managed to successfully do a hybrid Zoom and in-person gathering, and still keep it real and spontaneous and wonderful. The hybrid part almost didn’t go off as planned because, when the volunteers arrived earlier in the morning to get set up, they discovered there was no internet! It was out for some unknown reason. The internet company was just about exactly as non-helpful as you would imagine. They had no estimate of when the internet would be working again.

What to do now? Half the wedding attendees were planning on attending by Zoom! Then one of the volunteers thought to call a young member of the meeting who had been helpful once before with a technical issue. He told her not to worry, he’d get it working.

The young guy (whose name I don’t remember) went out and purchased a subscription to a cellular hot spot line, purchased the hardware, set it up at the meetinghouse, and made sure all the computers and devices could connect to it. Problem solved.

The hot spot was more than adequate, and everything worked great. I continue to wonder (as I’ve mentioned before) why any of us (including John and I) are still dealing with internet companies – at least those of us with good local cell coverage, which is most people nowadays. It’s cheaper to add a hot spot line to your existing cell phone coverage. Just saying. Not that John and I have bothered yet, but we will, one of these days.

Anyway, technicalities aside, it was a beautiful wedding, and I’m so glad I went out to Albuquerque to be there. Here is Casey in the bow tie on the left and Miriam in a dress on the right. Their joy was inspirational!

After the wedding I stayed with my friend Tara and her three cats, which was very nice and I was quite grateful. Her guest room has a fun Florida theme.

Mark and Steve’s casita wasn’t available on my first night because it was the last day of the balloon fiesta. During the balloon fiesta everyone’s casita (and guest room, basement, attic, barn, garage, shed, RV, couch, tent-in-the-backyard) fills up during the fiesta, when the population approximately doubles for two weeks. I was lucky to be able to stay with Tara, and we had a lot of fun. Sleepover!

The next morning Tara and I went to the Rio Grande Art Show, which happens twice a year, both times in the fall, once during the balloon fiesta and once later in the fall for holiday shopping. I’ve gone many times in years past, and it’s where I get a lot of my artwork. It’s the biggest art show I’ve ever attended (maybe that’s not saying much) but it is truly huge without being impossibly crowded.

There’s hundreds of vendors, but still plenty of room to move around and actually get a good look at all the art for sale. I always buy something. It’s a great way to purchase quality regional art directly from the artists. There’s so much to choose from that I’m always exhausted by the time I’m done.

I took a lot of pictures of the art in order to send them to John, to get his opinion. I figure if it’s going to hang on the walls, we should both like it. We bought the small painting in the lower right of this next photo.

I liked this movable wire art, which would have been great in the Truth of Consequences Airbnb, but didn’t match our own house, so I didn’t buy any. If you turn the crank, the bow goes back and forth on the fiddle.

Fun but they definitely would be dust collectors.

After the art show, Tara and I took a break for lunch and then headed down for an afternoon show at Popejoy, the UNM campus theater. The show was called Sugar Skull and it was quite cute. The intent was to explain the tradition of having an ofrenda for Día de Muertos.

The main character was a resentful teenager who initially thought the old traditions were stupid. This simple plot allowed the audience to learn about the tradition themselves and also be won over, right along with the protagonist, without the show being patronizing. It was a lot of fun and I learned more about Dia de Muertos and the importance of having an ofrenda, which I’ve always thought was a meaningful tradition. Certainly more meaningful than our Halloween tradition of trying to scare each other.

After hanging out with Tara, I went to stay in Mark and Steve’s casita, which was now available, with the balloon fiesta having finished up the day before. That next morning, I met my friend, Debbie, for a walk and lunch. The casita is just a short walk to the acequias, which are beautiful for walking. I’ve posted pictures of them before. The locals mostly just call them ditches. So Debbie came over to walk the ditches with me. The very beautiful ditches.

Next up: Halloween and Día de Muertos, and the election, and Callan’s visit, and a car show, and Thanksgiving…I’m pretty far behind, aren’t I? You can all take bets. Will Kristina finish the year’s posts before the end of the year, or will it be Christmas in February? Stay tuned to find out!

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

Missed poets, felted berets, and tsunami scares

I’ve been sick, so I missed seeing my favorite poet, Ada Limón, who was in Tucson on Tuesday. Dana even scored two difficult-to-come-by tickets and invited me, but I wasn’t sure I was well enough yet. Here’s my lucky friend Dana, getting her book signed by the beautiful and talented Ada. I have that book too, but alas, mine is not signed.

After that disappointment, I was determined to make it to my felting class with my friend Michelle, two days later on Thursday. The teacher, Olga, had scheduled it over a month ago, reserved a room at the wool shop specifically to accommodate our schedule. There were only 4 of us, so I didn’t feel like I should cancel at the last minute. But obviously, I didn’t want to go if I was still contagious.

Turns out I was completely fine by Thursday, yay! The wool shop is literally walking distance from my house, and the weather is amazing right now. I had a pleasant walk over in the sunshine, while chatting with my sister on the phone.

We had all just gotten settled around the art table, and Olga had started giving instructions, when my phone chimed. I apologized, “Let me just turn this off,” I said. But as I opened it to switch it off, I saw this text from Laura: “We just got a tsunami warning, I guess there was a pretty big earthquake off the coast near eureka. I’m at Meta, which is right on the bay, so my coworker and I have gone up to the second floor of the building, though nobody else seems to be reacting at all”

I’m a speed reader, and all I saw was “tsunami…earthquake…right on the bay…gone to the second floor.” My mind pretty much exploded at that point.

Remember the horrible tsunami that hit Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand in December of 2004? That was just two months after Laura and I had been to coastal Thailand. The section of coast where we had stayed was completely devastated. I tried, but failed, to find out whether or not the family who owned and ran the restaurant and four bungalows where we stayed had survived. When I googled the small town, the news reports carried horror stories of bodies in trees. When I went back some years later with John, the little set of bungalows had been rebuilt and expanded, and no one would tell me anything that wasn’t both vague and positive (that’s the Thai way).

And remember the horrible tsunami and reactor meltdown in Japan in 2011? Yep, Laura was in Japan during that entire, drawn out catastrophe. She wasn’t exactly in that same area, but not all that far away. What is it with my daughter and tsunamis?

Typically she works at home in Santa Clara, well away from the bay. But not today. Today she was right smack on the bay.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Menlo+Park,+CA+94025/@37.4856429,-122.147099,892m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x808fbc96cee50b3f:0x4a186d43719c540f!8m2!3d37.4856429!4d-122.147099!16s%2Fg%2F11kjjw02xn?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIwMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

One could imagine the far south end of the bay is super protected, but tsunamis are weird and are often at their worst – highest waves – in the narrow inland sections of the back bays, because that’s where the bay gets shallow and constricted, leaving nowhere for the masses of water to go.

Laura said the tsunami would hit in one hour. What does one do when disaster might happen in an hour, or might not? Should she try to evacuate? If everyone tried to evacuate, it would immediately become gridlocked. Everyone’s phones had alarmed with the tsunami warning, but there was no further instructions. How are we supposed to know how seriously to take these things? Sometimes everything’s fine. Sometimes thousands of people die.

So I interrupted my teacher, gave my apologies and dashed outside to call Laura. I must have said something about tsunamis and her being right on the bay, because I remember as I headed out someone in the room called to me, “What bay?” And I’m like, “San Francisco!!”, and I was out the door.

First I called Laura. She seemed fine, a little bemused, not sure what they were supposed do. She and a coworker were hanging out upstairs instead of the ground floor. Most people weren’t reacting at all. What are these alarms for, if we’re not supposed to do something?

I didn’t talk to her very long because I figured the last thing she needed was to have to calm down her panicking mom while she tried to figure out whether she needed to evacuate. Then I tried to call John, but John is so darn hard to reach in the middle of the workday. This frustrates me to no end. So then I called mom, who is always ready with a prayer. Not sure how much that helps, but it’s definitely more useful than me just stressing out.

Then I decided to go back to class, where the teacher patiently helped me pick out colors and got me caught up. They offered to let me reschedule, but what was I going to do, walk back home just to pace alone at home? I stayed and listened distractedly and tried to follow instructions. Luckily nuno felting (wet felting) is a forgiving art form and we had a good teacher.

Shortly before it was time for the tsunami to hit, they canceled the warning.

We each made a wool beret. It only took 3 hours and our berets turned out amazing. We’re going to do another class in January to make scarves.

Here’s a picture of mine:

Michelle said it looked like the ocean, which is a lovely thought but also a little strange given that the majority of my mind was on an impending tsunami. I had not made the connection.

The berets can also be worn inside out. Here’s the inside of mine:

Here’s Michelle’s. Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s the inside of Michelle’s:

Another student named Liesl made this one, which looks fantastic with gray hair. She was making it for a friend who has gray hair, touched with pink highlights.

The underside of liesl’s:

Liesl has a glass studio, which we’re all excited about, because she says after the holidays we can come over and try a few things. She does mostly slumping with frit, not glass blowing with a torch and a glory hole. I would not want to do glass blowing; I’m too timid. But I love glass art and would love to learn how to slump frit in a kiln. Frit is little bits of colored glass, which can be layered on a mold to make plates and pictures. It’s heated in a kiln and will slump (melt) over the mold. Glass blowing is much more difficult.

Wet felting seems way easier to do at home than anything with glass, and lots cheaper too.

Here’s a few more pictures of my beret.

What a day! After I got home I put my exercise playlist on at high volume because I was still way wired. I wonder why pounding music can be calming?

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

Too much stuff and not enough time

It’s time to run out and buy a lottery ticket because today is my lucky day! Amazon just fixed a $50 mistake (of theirs) with only an 11 minute phone call. This was unprecedentedly fast, a complete record. Amazon is usually horrible to work with. I brace myself for an hour of frustration if I decide it’s a big enough problem to actually call them. Of course I’m not sure it’s actually fixed. I’ll know after I see the $50, right?

This morning’s Amazon story leads me to today’s topic: too much stuff, and not enough time (and how we got here). This is a continuation of a theme I mentioned in another post a couple of weeks ago.

Recently, I read a NYT Bestseller called Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman (2021). I don’t recommend you rush out and buy it. It’s a bit repetitive. Although I’ve read tons of these kinds of books over the last 25 years, so if you don’t generally read self-help books, you might not find it as repetitive as I did.

His thesis is, 1) Life is ridiculously short, but we think of it as never ending, leading us to imagine we can and should do more than we can actually do in life, and 2) We have a near infinite number of great, useful, reasonable, helpful things we could do with our (very limited) time, thousands of which are important enough to seem necessary.

This author also spends a fair amount of time criticizing the implicit “you can do it all!” message of productivity books, which he sees as delusionally optimistic and making us all miserable. He points out that we are missing life if we are continually focused on the future. This is true, but I do appreciate good time management tips and tricks, because if I am going to do a thing, I might as well do it efficiently.

But we cannot solve time management issues with efficiency, any more than we can solve budget issues by only shopping discount sales. To live well, we must choose to do (and buy) only a few things. And whatever we choose is never going to seem like it’s the very best of all the options. This is because life ultimately boils down to the mundane moments when we are simply talking to a neighbor or searching the internet for a good pecan pie recipe (that’s my own example, not the author’s, and I will hopefully tell you more about that pie in another post).

Life is full of great opportunities, but to function well, we need to whittle it down to a just a few things – leaving many, many valuable, worthwhile, pressing options undone.

When people talk about “learning to say no,” we usually imagine being determined to cut negative choices out of our life. For example, to resist being bullied into sitting on a non-profit board that doesn’t interest you, or resist spending time on a work project that isn’t the direction you want to take your career. But it’s actually about saying “no” to tons of very valuable, appealing, meaningful opportunities, in order to leave room for a small number of regular ol’ stuff that we’ve chosen to do.

I volunteer at the botanical garden two hours a week on Monday mornings. Is this the highest possible use of that two hours? Probably not. But it’s what I do. And I deliberately don’t do much else for 2 more hours afterwards because I find it to be too much to do another activity in the same morning. I figured this out through trial and error!

I’m having a similar conversation with Guen and Callan, who are working on doing a better job with their budget. There are inevitably more useful, valuable, seemingly-necessary things to do with their money than they have money. And this is the case for all of us in our current culture, regardless of how wealthy we are. There’s always more amazing and important things to do with one’s money.

Over 20 years ago, when I was first learning to be a life coach, I was taught that yes-or-no decisions aren’t really choices. I didn’t understand it at the time, although I grasped that more options could potentially increase the likelihood of a better outcome.

The key here is, it’s not a matter of recognizing whether a potential purchase is good or bad and making a yes-or-no decision about a particular purchase. There are too many good options out there to simply use good-bad or yes-no as a decision criteria. It doesn’t narrow the options down enough.

Pretty much all the stuff that Guen (or I) want to buy is good and useful stuff. So we can’t decide by using the question of, “Is it worth it, yes or no?” Instead, it’s a prioritization exercise. What we have to do is ask, “Is it a very top priority?” In order to ask that question, we need to have some idea of what our other options might be, for comparison.

What are our other options? Nothing short of thousands and thousands of other things! For example, check out this list that hits my inbox every week, https://thisistucson.com/todo/things-to-do-tucson/article_7eb41308-b105-11ef-b0c1-23abc06dbcba.html

100 things to do just in my mid-sized city, and it doesn’t even include the music events I like! The opportunities are near-endless.

So how do we choose? I suggest keeping a list of things that have caught your attention, whether it is activities you’d like to do or things you’d like to buy. Note how much each of those options would cost in time and money. Think about what you and others are likely get out of each of them and what your priorities are. Sit with the list for awhile. See which things slowly percolate to the top.

Amazon has a handy “save for later” option to help save purchase ideas, which can use as a list of potential purchase, in order to prioritize between all of them. Likewise, I’ll put potential events that I’m considering on a separate calendar so I can still see them and use them as part of my decision making, without yet committing to them. If I signed up for everything that sounded good, or bought everything that seemed necessary – you know what would happen. Too much stuff and not enough time!

I am dedicating this month to getting rid of stuff. I actually started in November, but it’s a difficult, time-consuming process. I also want to refrain from buying so many good things in the future. Realizing that it is good things – but too many of them – that I’m buying, is key for me. It’s not that I’m buying bad things! I like the things I buy. But I have too many. So it’s not sufficient to simply quit buying bad things. I also need to quit buying most of the good things!

I’m also going to do fewer activities. I have a set of criteria (values) I designed for myself to help guide my activity decisions. Your values would be different, but I’m sure we would overlap in some areas. Here are mine (not in any order):

  • Helpful to others
  • Friends
  • Family
  • Outdoors
  • Active/exercise
  • Learning
  • Music/dance
  • Art
  • Science
  • Local community/nearby

Not everything I put into my calendar is going to check all the boxes. But some things will check several boxes at once. I can even play a little game to see which activities check the highest number of boxes. For example, going to see a local live band performing on an outdoor plaza where there’s dancing, checks four values: “Outdoors”, “Active/exercise”, “Music/dance”, and “Local community”. And if I can find someone who wants to go with me, even better, that will also check off “Friends” for a total of 5 categories and a great evening!

If I discover an activity that seems compelling but doesn’t check any boxes, then I’ve probably left some important values off my list, and it might be useful to rethink the list. For example, for some things, I like regular activities better than occasional or one-off activities. There’s a couple of reasons for this. For one thing, I like some structure in my week.

For another thing, I’m working on making new local friends, and it’s definitely easier to make friends if you’re going to repeat events and not one-offs. At least for me! I’m not friendly enough to meet people and remember their names and get their phone numbers and schedule something to do together – if I’ve only met them once! Most of my friends are other volunteers on my team at the botanical garden, because that’s where I see the same few people over and over for a year now. It takes me awhile! So maybe I should add “repeating” to my list of values for potential uses of my time.

I wonder if I should make a similar list to help guide my purchases? Because I can’t just buy everything that sounds reasonable or I will very soon again be drowning in stuff. And out of money!

So how about that lottery ticket? I guess I’ll pass on that.

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

Finishing up the September Stories – Albuquerque

At the end of September, John and I went on a quick trip to Albuquerque. Less than two weeks later, I went back to Albuquerque again for a wedding. If I had known back when we booked the first trip that I would be turning around and going right back for a wedding, we might have skipped the first trip! But we went, and had a good time, and here’s that story.

One cool thing that came out of our trip to Albuquerque was that we were able to do a favor for our friends, Mark and Steve. (By coincidence, this couple have the same first names as my brothers. It makes it easy to remember their names, lol!) Mark and Steve have a wonderful guest casita on their property in the North Valley, where we stay almost every time we go to Albuquerque.

We were at our campsite in Utah when we unexpectedly got a call from Mark. The tone of his greeting sounded hesitant and reluctant, or apologetic. I couldn’t imagine why Mark would be apologetically calling us except to cancel our casita reservation, and I couldn’t imagine him doing that unless something was really wrong – maybe his husband, Steve, was sick? I was worried. “Is everything ok?”, I asked, “Are you ok? Is Steve ok?”

They were fine. Whew! Turns out that Mark was calling to ask a favor – hence the reluctant or apologetic tone in his voice.

The story went like this. Mark and Steve own a cabin in the Jemez Mountains north of Albuquerque. This is in addition to their nice house and casita in Albuquerque. Their “cabin” is actually a house with a detached garage, presumably quite nice, knowing them. They were doing some remodeling and had newly stained the wooden exterior of their Jemez Mt. house, intending to stain the nearby garage the same color. But the manufacturer discontinued that particular stain before they were done.

You would have to know Mark and Steve to understand what a catastrophe that was. They are very particular and they would not be happy with a garage a slightly different shade than the house, even though they are two separate buildings. They would have to redo the entire house if they couldn’t manage to buy up enough of the original stain to finish the garage.

Mark was trying to explain the story about the stain, but I had a very poor cell connection at our campsite out in the middle of Utah. (We would have had no connection at all except for our Starlink, which boosts the connection quite a lot). Mark was saying “stain” but I could not parse what in the world he was saying. I was still surmising health issues. Finally he said, “Like paint, you know…” Oh! We are talking about a remodel issue! Now we were in familiar territory.

Of course John and I, who have done several remodels, totally understood their predicament. When they found out their stain was discontinued, they had quickly bought all the discontinued stain they could find in New Mexico and online (exactly what I’ve done myself, except in my case, for a specific color of grout).

After exhausting the New Mexico supply of discontinued stain they still needed 4 more gallons. Determined, they called every hardware and construction supply store in the region and finally found the remaining 4 gallons at an obscure hardware store in a suburb of Phoenix. They immediately bought it over the phone with a credit card, and the store agreed to hold it for them for one month.

But now, how were they going to get the stain to Albuquerque? Stain is considered a hazardous material so it’s not easy to ship. Someone would have to go get it. It was a long shot, but Mark decided to call us, even though Tucson is a full two hours drive from Phoenix.

We could have driven up to Phoenix for them, but as it turns out, we were camping in Utah and planning to drive back home through Phoenix the very next day! And we had a trip to Albuquerque scheduled for the next week! It wouldn’t even be out of our way. So that was the silver lining to our rather difficult camping trip in Utah. We were able to pick up Mark and Steve’s stain along the way home, and deliver it to them the very next week.

Our trip to Albuquerque also had another practical purpose: we were able to pick up a piece of furniture we had ordered. We are slowly over the years collecting furniture from Antigua Home Furnishings in Taos. https://antiguahomefurnishings.com/

I’ve probably mentioned them before. I get excited every time we get a new piece! We started buying their pieces quite some years ago, when we still lived in Albuquerque. We’ve been their customers so long that we’ve become friends. They’re up in Taos, but they frequently deliver to Albuquerque. So we arranged to meet them in Albuquerque to pick up our new cabinet when we were out there.

Here they are, unloading our latest piece. It’s a big cabinet but I had measured our 4Runner ahead of time and knew it would fit inside. You can see Mark and Steve’s casita behind the adobe wall.

By the way, here is a photo of the entry to Mark and Steve’s house. The interior is really beautiful too, with the walls full of Steve’s art, as well as many other local artist’s work.

We weren’t in Albuquerque just to collect and deliver goods however. There is a music event called Globalquerque that we like to attend at the end of every September. I’ve written about it before. It’s free and fun, and runs for two evenings, and is one of the many things that makes Albuquerque special.

And that leads me to another funny story.

On the first night of Globalquerque, John saw an old friend he has known for many years. Apparently Tom was once a close coworker of John’s, but they haven’t worked together for many years, so I had never met him and his wife Myra. When John pointed them out to me from a distance, I marched right over there to introduce myself, with John trotting along behind.

They seemed nice and we chatted and hung out most of the evening. Afterwards, on our drive back to the casita, John explained that Tom was not just a previous coworker – he was the brother of John’s ex-fiancée, Jane.

John had never been married before he married me, but he did have a fiancée when he was in his twenties. Jane was Tom’s sister, and that’s how John had met her – through Tom.

I had heard the story before. Apparently, it was a long distance relationship that fell apart when Jane was reluctant to move to Albuquerque and John was reluctant to find a different job elsewhere. Sounds like there were some communication difficulties too. In relationships, there always are.

Anyway, on the evening that we ran into Tom and Myra, I didn’t know they were Jane’s relatives. I only knew they were old friends of John’s. And no one mentioned Jane. Myra later told me that she spent the whole evening wondering if I knew about Jane, but not saying anything. Lol. So yes, I knew about Jane, but no, I didn’t realize that Tom was Jane’s brother.

It wouldn’t have mattered to me either way. Jane was a long time before me. There was no overlap; John did not leave her for me, nor did I ever worry that he would go back to her, nothing like that. She’s always just been a name from his past.

We ran into Tom and Myra again the next night and that time, I knew who they were. I asked about Jane and was glad to hear that she is well. She has a long-term partner, is still living in the same region up north, and has recently retired from the same job she had way back 3 decades ago when she was engaged to John. So yes, apparently not a woman who likes a lot of changes in her life. Uh, let’s not talk about how many job changes I’ve made and how many times I’ve moved in 3 decades!

It was nice to hear that Jane’s story turned out fine. I like to imagine that John’s did too (lol, right John?) And I was reminded how old we all are. We go through life making decisions that seem momentous, so significant at the time, decisions that completely alter the trajectory of our lives. But in the end, nothing stops the passage of time.

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The start of December

I have a cold. I’m not ridiculously sick, just sick enough that I canceled all my fun stuff planned for today. I was planning to dance in the park with a group that puts together a very good set of world music each week. I only recently discovered them and I have been wanting to go back. But not today. I also had planned to go listen to a local blues band with a friend tonight, and had to cancel that too. Bummer!

I guess the silver lining is now I have some unexpected time to blog! I haven’t posted about anything since a camping trip back in mid-September, so wow, how to summarize the rest of September, and all of October and November?

But first, Happy Birthday Dad! I’m listening to some Jimi Hendrix in your honor.

Next up, I’ll completely switch genres and go for some Andres Segovia.

Screenshot

Those are two of my favorites from my childhood, and still two of my favorite genres: blues and Spanish guitar.

If the technology worked, that’s a link for Tárrega: Recuerdos De La Alhambra from The Legendary Andrés Segovia – My Favorite Works

Next up: back to September to see if I can pick up what got missed.

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Utah Camping Trip in September

John wasn’t so enthused about yesterday’s post. He called it a “smorgasbord” which I guess is polite for “rambling”. And he said it didn’t have any amazing pictures. I beg to differ. Pictures of my friends aren’t amazing? Pictures of me in a dorky striped blue hat and purple gardening clothes holding a large metal star isn’t amazing? Pictures of high-end turquoise mountain bikes on the back of a Sprinter van isn’t amazing? I mean, yes, it would have been more amazing if they were our bikes and our Sprinter van and not just something I saw in the botanical garden parking lot.

Here is what John means by amazing:

Unfortunately, our September Utah camping trip was mostly not fun. But we got some great pictures! I could just post the rest of the beautiful pictures and wax poetic about the wonders of nature, or I could tell you what really went down.

Let’s just say…every pet in our life was sick that weekend! Laura was texting from vacation in Peru saying that their cat, Caden, was in the hospital in California and might have to be put down. Luckily, Alex’s mom was pet sitting for them and was able to get the cat to the veterinary ER. Meanwhile, Callan and Guen were calling saying their dog Blue was in the hospital and might have to be put down. This was sudden and unexpected for both animals.

Meanwhile, our own dog, Biska had a bad case of diarrhea and John spent all night getting up with her because she kept needing to be let out of the camper van. It’s not really safe for her to be out alone at night in the wilderness, so John would have to pull on clothes and boots and leash her up and go out there in the cold, every couple of hours. I don’t think anyone slept for two nights. (Yes, it was John going out there with her, not me, because he’s amazing like that.)

We also had a totally traumatizing unexpected encounter with horses, which I can barely even think about, except to say that we’re ok. But I’m still upset about it.

Then the weather forecast changed, as a front approached. And we were worried about Biska’s health, even though she was running around with her usual energy, she wasn’t eating much and continued to have the stomach bug. So we gave up and went home. But we did somehow manage to get a ton of good pictures. So yeah, I could have told a much more cheerful story, but my truth is what you’re getting.

Here’s the rest of the amazing pictures:

Yep, beautiful photos but not exactly a relaxing trip. So fast forward to now…how did it all turn out?

Unfortunately Callan and Guen’s dog, Blue, did need to be put down, although not for another few weeks. Blue was an older dog, who used to live with Guen and her previous partner. Blue only recently started living with Callan and Guen. Understandably, Guen was quite upset to lose her dog, and Callan was too, even though they didn’t have the dog very long.

Laura’s cat, Caden, recovered to some extent, but continues to have some long term health issues.

Biska was fine as soon as we got home, thank goodness.

We’ll go back to Utah again next year. Hopefully with a more cheerful story to go along with the inevitably amazing photos.

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Time, friends, stuff, and the meaning of the universe

Looks like I’m gearing up again for my once-a-month spurt of blogging. I would like to get more regular with this blog. The culprit is me over-scheduling myself. I am apparently not yet used to not having a job, and being healthy: two blessings I’m very grateful for – which have led me to think that I can do all the things, all the time. I have to learn to moderate. Otherwise, I won’t have the sense of expansiveness around time that I would like to have.

But there are so many things I am not doing at all, that I still want to add into my schedule! One thing I really would like to add to my schedule is art. I have a lot of art supplies and ideas, but I’m just not getting sat down to do it.

Eventually, I am going to cut back a little bit on the social activities. Group gatherings are very stressful for me. So why am I doing so many of them? They are a means to an end. My goal is to make a few close friends in Tucson. I’m attending group events in order to meet potential new friends. Once I have a few close friends (and I’m making good progress with that), I will go to less events. Maybe then I’ll have time to do some art?

I’ve made some very good friends while volunteering at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Here is a picture of me working on a recent morning. It’s been in the 70’s or even low 80’s during the middle of the day, but quite cool in the mornings.

We are putting up lights for Christmas. It’s a huge task, an incredible number of lights, and takes a couple of months. My volunteer group only does a very small part of it. Most of the work is done by garden staff, and the tree lights are done by professional arborists.

Here we are setting out luminarias along a wall near the café.

My volunteer group is a small group of 6-8 of us, and we really enjoy each other. It’s also a very beautiful way to start the week.

In addition to all the social activities I keep scheduling, I’m also trying (again) to get a handle on all our physical stuff. Too many things! John and I are drowning in household goods. I seem to always think I need new and better things. And as I’m getting older, I’m failing to remember anymore where everything is. I’m really trying to reduce the volume of stuff and get it all organized and labeled and put in logical places.

I don’t enjoy the task. To put it mildly! Everyone sees all my carefully labeled items in my closets and they think I’m an exceptionally organized person and must love organizing. But it’s really the opposite. My natural state is complete disarray, but along with disarray comes vast amounts of frustration because I can’t find anything.

Also the visual impact of disarray is confusing and overwhelming for me – like the chaotic sound of an orchestra warming up. If my brain can’t make easy sense of what it hears and sees, my brain fries. If things are where they belong, then my brain doesn’t have to continually figure out what it’s looking at. Clutter everywhere can be a visual onslaught for me.

I’m ok with decorative items sitting out, and frequently used items sitting out on the kitchen counter, because they stay in the same place all the time. My brain gets used to them and expects to see them, so it’s not confusing. I don’t actually have to have a minimalistic house. I just need a place for everything and everything in its place. And I need to buy less, and give away more. Easier said than done, though.

I just want a simple, quiet life and a few good friends. But between trying to reduce chaos in my house, and trying to get out and make friends, I am keeping very busy!

Here are two of my new friends, a married couple, Dana and Chris.

Dana is a retired engineer and does a lot of environmental volunteering, and Chris is a retired nurse and is now a textile artist. I met Dana while volunteering at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, and now we go to the gym together. I think I’ve mentioned Dana before.

Typically I would not be interested in exercising at a gym. It’s too loud and confusing! Too many people! But I just follow Dana and she keeps me on track, which allows me to block out everything else.

Also it’s a good gym, where they strongly discourage clanging the weights and grunting and other types of startling noises. How do they do that? With cute little sayings on the wall, like, “If you’re grunting, you better be in labor.” It sets the expectations and helps keep the sudden loud noises to a minimum. Still, it’s crowded and loud and challenging for me. I always lose count of my sets, but Dana counts with me – and continually reminds me to breathe, lol. It’s like having a personal trainer but for free. I’m very grateful for that, because without her, I would not go to the gym.

If you’re wondering why I like music events when I’m so noise sensitive, it’s the same principle of an orderly house vs. a chaotic house. Music is (generally) an orderly form of noise, so my brain can track it and not be overwhelmed by it. And if a concert is too loud, I can just wear earplugs. I’ve thought about bringing earplugs to the gym, but it won’t help the fact that the noise is chaotic rather than predicable. Plus, I need to be able to hear Dana.

The other thing that’s great about this gym is that it’s so close to where I live that I can easily ride my bike there, even in the heat of the summer. And it’s very affordable at the basic plan, which is just the machines and weights (not the classes or the pool). Chris takes the classes, including the aqua aerobics. She has invited me to go to the classes with her, but I don’t like following along in classes, and I don’t like public pools (I’m so grateful to have my own). So I just lift weights with Dana.

I am really enjoying biking places when I can. I don’t like to bike in traffic, but I live quite near the bike loop. We did that intentionally – proximity to the loop was one of our top criteria when house hunting. Near the loop and with a pool!

My bike is very old and I would really like a new one. John has been diligently keeping it running for me, but it’s time to replace it. That’s yet another thing I haven’t found the time to do – sit down and research what type of bike to get. And we need to decide which bikes to get rid of, because we can’t just keep collecting stuff! We have several bikes, all of which are very old. We really need to get rid of all the cruddy bikes. Right John? Lol, we are both challenged when it comes to getting rid of stuff. The stuff he’s willing to get rid of, I’m not, and the stuff I’m willing to get rid of, he’s not. Of course.

Yesterday I saw this pair of fancy bikes on the back of an expensive Sprinter van, and I thought yeah, that whole package, yep, that would work for me.

Thus we muddle along. Hopefully in the next week or two I can try again to get caught up with this blog and put up pictures of our recent camping trips, among other things.

But first I really want to get the backpacking equipment back into bins – it’s currently exploded all over my screened porch. And the guest bedding is also in piles everywhere. I’m trying to get it organized better. And my Halloween and Dia de Muertos decorations are still up. I put up an ofrenda this year. I’m hoping to post about that too, among other things.

And then of course, there was the election. I do care about that and there are things I could say about it. But I feel like you already have plenty to read on that topic. So I will just stick to stories that are strictly my own. I did not volunteer at the polls or door knock, but I have friends who did, so that might come up in my blog. Or not. We’ll see!

Another thing I haven’t mentioned is physics. I’ve been trying to read physics books for several months now. Not textbooks, but books written for educated adults about all the new science in the past few decades. I’m interested in reading about physics because as I get older, I’ve been more curious about reality and our place in the universe.

I’m not finding the answers in religion, which is based on a very outdated scientific understanding of our world. I don’t know of a serious religion that has evolved to incorporate our increasing understanding of reality, although there have been a few flaky attempts made at times. So I’m just going straight to the science books to try to understand what science can tell me about who we are and how is it that we’re here. I’m not finding the answers in science either. But it’s fascinating and amazing how much we’ve learned about the universe in the past few decades since I was a kid. It’s also amazing and discouraging how very little of it I seem to be able to understand. It’s completely counterintuitive.

I had hoped to be able to write a blog post summarizing what I’ve learned and recommending a book list. But I’m really not there yet. Not sure I’m ever going to get there, but I’m continuing to try. So far all I can say is this: reality isn’t what we think it is. And there’s a lot more about our universe that we don’t understand than we do understand. Maybe eventually I’ll have something more intelligent to say than that.

So lots going on, lots to tell you about, and not enough time to do it all! I’m also, ironically, reading a self help book that suggests we stop over scheduling ourselves (rather than continually trying to optimize our productivity). Which is apropos because apparently retiring doesn’t automatically cure the tendency to stay overly busy. We do that to ourselves.

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

Recipe: Kristina’s Pico de Gallo

My version of Pico de Gallo has significantly less onion than what you usually find in the US supermarket versions. I also like the slight sweetness of a bit of fruit – it balances the heat of the pepper and sour of the lime – but fruit is not a traditional addition. What is traditional, however, is making this fresh relish with whatever the cook has on hand and feels like throwing in.

  • 2 large tomatoes or 3-4 roma tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 firm fruit (such as an apple, greenish nectarine, fuyu persimmon, or grapes), chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped (any color, I used red bell pepper in the batch in these photos)
  • ½ fresh jalapeño pepper, finely chopped (can substitute other fresh hot pepper)
  • 1 TBS red onion, finely chopped
  • 1 green onion, finely chopped
  • 1 TBS fresh cilantro, chopped
  • Juice of 1 lime (approx 1 TBS)
  • Salt to taste

Hot tip: don’t handle jalapeño with your bare hands and then wipe your eyes 🥵. Use gloves. Or if you’re lazy like me, just put a piece of paper towel between your fingers and the pepper while cutting it. Then don’t forget to wash your hands!

Serve chilled with chips, or as a salad topping, or on top of eggs or any Mexican dish such as burritos, enchiladas, tamales, etc. I recommend pairing with cottage cheese or sour cream or queso fresco (fresh cheese).

I like it in an omelette, but I think my favorite is to put it on rice cakes with cream cheese.

Language note: Pico de Gallo is a weird phrase. Pico translates literally as a small amount, or a peck or a bird beak. De Gallo means “of rooster”. There are several explanations on the internet having to do with idioms like “a pinch of” being similar to how a rooster’s beak pinches a small amount. The explanation that made most sense to me is to think of how chickens peck the ground, foraging little bits of this and that with their beak. Pico de Gallo is little bits of this and that. By the way, the words gallina and gallo generally refer to live hens and roosters, and the word pollo generally means chicken meat. So this isn’t little bits of chicken meat. This is yummy little chopped fresh bits to eat – like what a rooster would love to eat. And us too! (Except not the bugs, lol, nope.)

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Life Coaching for Neurodiverse Professionals

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

I really enjoyed the Gloria Trevi concert, but I still wasn’t done. It gets better! The next Friday I dragged John all the way up to Phoenix to see an amazing guitar duo, Rodrigo Y Gabriela. Luckily John really liked the show.

After our excellent experiment staying onsite at the casino the previous week, there was no way I was going to drive all the way back down to Tucson late at night from Phoenix. I was able to find a room at a hotel immediately across the street from the theater. We could look out our window and see if there was a line at the door!

But first we walked a block or so to get dinner.

When we first arrived at the hotel, we parked the car in a 10 minute zone while John went into the hotel lobby to inquire about parking. Within just a couple of minutes, a doorman gave me a hard time for being there, even though we were parked approximately 3 minutes and I had never even left the car. However, this purple Lamborghini parked in the 10 minute zone for the entire evening. You can do anything when you own a purple Lamborghini with green wheels and no license plate.

There were driverless cars practicing in the streets.

The concert was excellent! One of the best I’ve ever been to. Rodrigo Y Gabriela are extremely talented guitarists.

I didn’t take very many photos because I was too busy listening to the music.

This movie will give you an idea of how fast their fingers move! But the sound quality is poor.

Here’s a link to their youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aEvw7VlapqdI6TB6AMjNQ

They’re done touring for now, but I’m hoping they do another one soon with another stop near us. They’re the best, and I’d listen to them every week if I could!

Here we are, walking across the street to our hotel after the show.

What a great night!

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Life Coaching for Neurodiverse Professionals

Gloria Trevi

The next Friday I dragged John out to the casino amphitheater to see Gloria Trevi perform. If you haven’t heard of her, she has sometimes been called the “The Supreme Diva of Mexican Pop” and the “Madonna of Mexico”. She is my age but doesn’t look like it (at least not from a distance). In addition to being an excellent singer, she puts on a very fancy, sexy, glamorous show with lots of dancers.

I had gotten a hotel room onsite at the casino so we wouldn’t have to drive home at midnight. Have you ever stayed in a hotel in your own town? It’s such an extravagance and hard to justify! Usually the only reason people do that is if there’s something very wrong with their house – a flood, fire or major remodel. Not just for fun!

But this time it was for fun and convenience. I get quite stressed in the press of traffic after an event, particularly in the dark with thousands of pedestrians trying to find their cars. And the casino is on the far side of town, quite far from our house. I was also thinking that if John hated the show, he could just go up to our room and wait for me there.

The previous time we had gone to this venue John was miserable, so it wasn’t an unlikely possibility. The problem the first time was that I had unknowingly bought tickets right in front of a big speaker, so it was far too loud and the sound was muddy. We had similar tickets this time (because I had bought both shows around the same time, months ahead of time, before we went to the first show, so I didn’t know any better). Since our tickets were so close to the front, I was worried he would be miserable again.

We went early to enjoy the casino before the show. We aren’t gamblers, but we do like a nice resort. At first we thought we’d get dinner at one of the several restaurants, but it turns out they were all indoors.

It doesn’t look like indoors, does it? The domed ceiling is very cleverly painted and lit to look like evening. But there’s one big glitch in the mirage. When we first walked into this space we could instantly tell we hadn’t gone outdoors because it was cold! This was the first week of September and outdoor temperatures were over 100º. We weren’t fooled for even a second. The air conditioning was so cold, and the slot machines were so loud, that we didn’t want to eat there.

After inquiring, we were told we could get sandwiches poolside. The advantage of 100º heat is we had the pool to ourselves.

I have no idea why no one was enjoying this beautiful pool. They were all in the noice and din, gambling. Somehow that’s more fun?

There was plenty of full shade thanks to the hotel tower, and there was a nice breeze, so we weren’t too hot.

Plus, bonus, we could hear the band warming up. We joked that John should just stay and listen to the the band from poolside. They weren’t too loud from way out here!

We happily ate our sandwiches until eventually the hungry yellow jackets drove us back inside to our room. We had a great view of the desert from our room. It felt like such a spurge to get a hotel room in our own town. But it really made the event feel like a vacation.

Here’s a few pictures from the show. The problem with concerts is that they aren’t all that photogenic, unlike, for example, our camping trips. Our camping trips are usually beautiful, even when they are completely miserable. It always looks like we had a great time, regardless of reality. But concert pictures don’t tell the whole story because there’s no sound (which is the main point of a concert). You can’t tell if the band was any good, but you can tell we had great seats.

All glammed up with early 80’s hair. I remember how we all ran that single curl down each side of our face.

Gloria Trevi had talented backup musicians and dancers. I particularly liked this male dancer in drag. I think I took as many photos of him as I did of Gloria, lol.

It was a fun night, with a happy crowd. And I’m pleased to report that John liked the show too! When it was over, we walked up to our room and watched the crazy traffic out our window. Now that’s the way to watch a show!

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

Life Coaching for Neurodiverse Professionals