I was driving home from grocery shopping yesterday when I noticed an old, decrepit car parked about a block from my house. I’ve seen the car there before, with a young man inside. He shoves rags and other pieces of junk into the windows to keep the sun out, and sits there with the car door open so he doesn’t fry in the heat. It is generally over 100ºF in Tucson in the summer, and only getting down to about 80º or so at night. It’s not a fun time to be living in your car.
It was nearly midday when when I drove by. The car was all shut up and the door was not hanging open. At first I assumed he wasn’t there. But as I drove past, I saw a figure in the driver’s seat, sitting a bit slumped, with his head hanging down and forward, like you would if you were asleep on an airplane with no one to lean against.
I assumed the worst and immediately called 911. It is too hot to survive very long in a closed car sitting in the open sunlight in the middle of the day without any shade. I spoke to the police as I drove the final block home and got my groceries out of the car. I had barely finished on the phone when my doorbell rang.
I thought it was the police with follow up questions, but then I could hear a young man talking to my Ring doorbell (which is a video recorder), about a local faith-based gym. I peaked out, and it was a couple of guys in gym-branded T-shirts with fliers, and they seemed legit.
I wanted to ask them if their gym was gay-friendly. Not that I really care, because I’m very happy with the local gym that I go to with my lesbian friend and her wife. It’s a perfectly fine gym, a few blocks from my house. I bicycle there, even in the heat.
I never thought I’d enjoy going to a gym (I do not like the noise and all the people and movement, and some of the vibes can get competitive or worse, pick-up bar-ish). But it makes a world of difference to have a calm, knowledgable, no-nonsense gym buddy to help me with the machines and free weights.
I would have been interested in asking those guys if their faith-based gym was gay-friendly because some Christian groups are, and some aren’t. And if they weren’t, I would be curious as to how they would phrase that politely. Would they say something about how God loves us all and Jesus died for our sins, and none of us are perfect here on earth (with the implication that gayness is wrong but we tolerate sin in each other because Jesus did)? Or would they say something vague and dodgy, like a gym isn’t a dating venue? Anything but a strong affirmation of gay friendliness would be suspect in my mind.
But instead of indulging my curiosity, I thought about the poor young man slumped in the car in the heat, and I asked them to go with me to make sure the homeless guy was ok. To their credit, they agreed to walk down there. As we turned the corner, we could see that the police had already arrived. Reassured, I went back inside to put away my groceries, and the faith-based gym missionaries went back to their door knocking.
Soon the police called me. Apparently the guy was claiming he lived at the house on the corner near where he parked, and the police wanted to know how much I knew about him and his situation. I was relieved to hear he was alive. I doubted he lived at the house, but I didn’t actually know for sure. I told them that I had seen him sitting in that car before, but I didn’t know any more than that. I felt bad for being the cause of his undoubtably unwelcome police encounter, but I didn’t want to do nothing if he was dying of heat stroke while tripping in his car.
When I looked out later, the door-knockers were gone, the police were gone, and the guy in the car was also gone. I hope he does ok.
A pick-up truck trolled slowly into view. It pulled a trailer heavily loaded with choice items gleaned from the piles of junk some neighbors have already started to set out for the City’s Brush and Bulky trash collection next week.
Soon the junk collector was also gone, leaving only the silent heat and the slowly building thunderclouds in the distance.
John left for Alaska this morning. I am happy that he gets to go, and I am sad that he is going to be gone for 9 days.
I didn’t go with him, because the kind of adventure he wants to have is the kind of adventure that does not sound fun to me. I would enjoy a lodge in the woods with a water view and an on-site restaurant. I would enjoy 1-hour kayak excursions in flat water, and 2-hour hiking excursions along sun-dappled trails, soft with pine needles. That’s not what John is going to be doing.
Originally, John had joined a kayaking and camping tour. The group would kayak for a few hours each day and then camp on the beach. It sounded fun, but still too difficult for me. I encouraged him to sign up for the trip. Unfortunately, the tour did not get enough people signed up, so they canceled it and refunded his money. John had already bought his plane tickets and had his heart set on an Alaska trip, so he decided to go anyway.
I hoped he would get a room in a nice lodge and sign up for fishing and kayaking day trips. But no. For some reason, he has decided to rent an SUV when he arrives, and car camp. He has not even reserved campsites. He plans to just wing it, living out of a car for 9 days, hiking in the woods alone in Alaska with the grizzly bears. I am less happy with this idea, but he wants an adventure.
I have never fully understood what he means by adventure, but I gather it includes a certain amount of difficulty and not knowing exactly how it’s all going to turn out. Life is not hard enough as it is?
He has only a rough itinerary. He is flying to Juneau tonight and then up to Anchorage in the morning. He may ferry to Kodiak Island and back, and then drive up to Denali State Park or possibly the other way around. He says he may see Kenai Fjords from either Homer or Seward, before or after Denali. He might do an all-day kayak trip in Kenai Fjords instead of the ferry to Kodiak Island. The reason for the vagueness is he is trying to optimize for weather – he may be getting a lot of rain.
I tried to tell him that in that part of the country, when it rains, it rains everywhere, for days at a time. It’s not like the desert where you can drive half a mile out of the downpour and not get a single drop of rain. I also tried to tell him all about grizzly bears. And moose! He has been very patient with all my objections.
Now it’s evening and he just arrived in Juneau.
The bits of pink in the above weather map is light wind, not precipitation.
In my last post I talked about Quakers. Laura attends a Quaker Meeting in San Jose, CA. They are fundraising for some renovations for their Meeting house to be more wheel-chair accessible.
If you click on the link, you can watch the video of Laura explaining the fundraiser. (Go, Laura!)
The video editing is a little rough, but apparently it was done by an 80-year-old friend of Laura’s who had never edited video before. So, kudos to you both!
In June I went to a retreat in Durango with a group of Quakers from the intermountain area: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Texas. A few of you know, I have been attending Quaker meetings off and on since I was in my early 20’s. I like to go because services are primarily meditation. I will also sometimes meditate with Buddhist groups. In fact recently, I’ve been meditating weekly with a Buddhist group who happen to meet at the local Quaker Meetinghouse.
I’m not sure why I don’t write much about that side of my life. I’m guessing that religion/spirituality is a bit like politics – a topic to avoid in a blog with the tagline of “The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.” Although politics, wow, I may comment at some point because what a wild ride recently.
A quick note about Quakers, in case you are unfamiliar: yes, there are still Quakers out there, and no, they do not wear gray wool skirts and funny hats. They also don’t have any extremely unusual or outdated religious beliefs.
There are two main types of Quakers here in the US; programmed Quakers who have services much like typical Christian church services, and unprogrammed Quakers who do not hold a Christian service. It is the unprogrammed variety that I will sometimes attend.
Instead of traditional church services with a priest or preacher or pastor, when unprogrammed Quakers meet, they sit in silence and meditate. Or more accurately, they are not meditating quite in the same way as Buddhists – instead, they are listening. Quakers listen to that “still small voice within” that connects us to each other and the greater universe (and whatever you may envision as god). If someone feels led to speak, they do. In larger meetings, a variety of people may stand and speak. In smaller meetings, in can be common to sit in silence for the entire hour.
Although Quakers come out of the Christian tradition, some of the unprogrammed Quaker attendees are also Buddhists or other faiths, or even agnostics or atheists. On the other hand, the programmed groups tend to be more Christian. Those groups are more common on the east coast, and even more common in other parts of the world, such as Africa.
The common core is that Quakers have always been active in the pursuit of social equity. You may have heard of their role during the underground railroad (that was all I knew about Quakers when I first discovered a small group meeting on campus at the University of Idaho over 30 years ago). There is also a strong tradition of pacifism, but the nuances of that vary between individuals. It is not a simple topic with easy answers. Nowadays Quakers work to improve our society in areas such as racial equity, immigration, poverty, homelessness, prison reform, healthcare, LGBTQ+, and anywhere else where underprivileged people are suffering due to inequalities in our system.
There is no hierarchy in an unprogrammed meeting, just volunteers. Everything is done by committee, and final decisions are made by the entire group in business meetings. Those meetings are slow, with silence after each time anyone speaks, in order to take the time to really hear the message. I’ve never met any group who listens even half as well as Quakers. Quakers deliberately, patiently listen to each other as well as their inner voice.
Quakers can be wonderful people; thoughtful, caring, humble, mostly introverts – quite a few of them on the autism spectrum, I’m sure! The reason you may never heard of them is that there is a culture of not proselytizing. That has been the Quaker tradition for a long time, but I think they’ve taken that too far. I can understand not wanting to try to convert people, but I think they should at least let people know they exist, in case people want to join.
The only reason I know they exist is I saw a handwritten directional sign on campus all those years ago. It wasn’t even an announcement flier, it was just an arrow and a room number and a date and time with the word Quakers. Quakers? Whaah? I got curious and crashed their meeting. And of course they were welcoming.
Now, all these years later, I find myself at a Quaker retreat in Durango, CO. It turned out to be quite a lot more intense than I expected! Both more difficult and more amazingly wonderful. On one hand, I don’t really have the temperament for large gatherings. But on the other hand, the personal connections meant so much more to me than I had even anticipated.
The entire reason I went to the Quaker gathering was to connect with everyone. People, people, it’s all about the people. This is coming from an introvert on the autism spectrum. So yeah…do we see an inherent conflict here? People, people…too many people! That and the dorm-style living, were by far my biggest challenges of the trip.
I had not expected it to be as overwhelming. Quaker activities are quiet and thoughtful. Our group wasn’t all that large (maybe 150?), and we were scattered across a small, pleasant, rural college campus. There were a few summer students and others on campus, but in general it was quite empty. The events were optional – I imagined myself skipping many of them and sitting quietly on a bench under a tree.
For that matter, Quakers do as much outside as possible (just like me), and many of our small groups gathered in circles of folding chairs scattered around under trees on the lawns. And what were we doing in those small circles under the trees? Silently meditating, mostly. Sharing a little, with large silences between sharing. So how could that be overwhelming?
I had planned to go to only some of the activities, but I underestimated how many connections I would be making with everyone. And I volunteered more than I originally intended. The whole thing is run by volunteers. For my service, I had signed up to drive golf carts, to help attendees get around the college campus. It turned out to be a great way to meet people, and I liked zipping around the campus on the carts.
I had planned to only drive golf carts 2 hours each day, but then one day it rained and everyone wanted cart rides to and from the activities. I ended up driving for a total of 5 hours that day. In hindsight, that was too much! But I was glad to be able to help.
Here is a couple of photos of people dancing.
This was in the evening, and was a smaller group than the meetings in the middle of the day. I only danced one simple, silly dance, involving trading a hat. The other dances were a bit too complicated for me. I enjoyed the music and the chance to visit with people informally.
I made some excellent connections including with some people here in Tucson. And it was wonderful to reconnect with several old friends from Albuquerque. Despite my overwhelm, the event was one of the more meaningful things I’ve done this year.
It seemed sudden. Nothing for months, then all at once we have another car. That is how it can be with major purchases. When it comes together it always feels sudden, no longer how long the process took.
We are now the proud owners of a 2014 electric BMW i3. It looks quite red in the photos, but it’s actually a rust-orange.
We’ve been talking about replacing the Mini Cooper for quite awhile. According to my google drive, I created my “Car Stats” spreadsheet on September 5, 2023. I probably hit a pothole that day that threatened to swallow the Mini.
The BMW i3 has always been high on my list, except it was discontinued in 2022. And they always say not to buy an old electric vehicle, right? There’s some good reasons for that. The engine battery eventually wears out and the battery is a major percentage of the price of an electric car. Also, range improves every year, so old electric vehicles have terrible range.
This old i3 can’t even make it to Phoenix and back. In fact, in the heat of the summer it wouldn’t even make it to Phoenix, much less back. And Phoenix is the holy grail around here. Therefore, this car has been sitting on a local used car lot for some time. I’m pretty sure I’ve noticed it online before. But it’s a 2014 and who buys a 2014 electric car?
Us, apparently. The prices of used electric cars are dropping a lot, so if you were assuming, like us, that they are by definition a bad deal, you might want to recheck that. True, this car won’t last forever and its range sucks, but it barely made a dent in our bank account.
We wanted an interim car because I’ve had it with the Mini Cooper, but who knows if/when the Telo truck we want will actually be available. It might be available in a couple of years. Buying a fancy new car does not make sense if you hope to replace it in 2-3 years. But continuing to drive a car we no longer like, while waiting for a concept car that’s at least two years out and may never make it to the market at all, isn’t a great strategy either. So we bought an interim car.
The i3 is oh so much nicer to drive than the Mini! There’s a fairly big difference in the driving experience between a 17-year-old gas car and a 10-year-old electric car. Wow.
We don’t mind the low range because we were only looking for something for me to use around town. All I ever do is go to the botanical garden on Mondays (a 6 mile round trip) and the UPS store, Trader Joes, and Sprouts once a week (also a 6 mile round trip) and Tally’s, where Biska goes once a week to doggie daycare to socialize (14 miles round trip). Plus the occasional trip downtown or to see a friend or to meet John for lunch. I bike to the gym, even in the heat of the summer, because it is truly that close (less than a mile).
We are currently charging it slowly on a regular 120 volt outlet (just like you have all over your house). When John has time, he will install a 220 volt outlet for it (like for a dryer or a stove). On 120 the car is like a cell phone – plug it in at night and it’ll be charged by morning.
We’re not worried about public charging options because if we’re going somewhere outside of Tucson we’ll take the 4Runner or the truck or the van. It’s not like we have a lack of car options! And the i3 isn’t an out-of-town sort of car. Did I mention the range sucks? Yeah.
It does have a small gas engine and a 2-gallon gas tank that can partially recharge the electric engine if you run out of juice. Two gallons hardly seems like enough to bother with all the extra mechanics involved in a hybrid. But apparently they wanted to meet a certain set of EU regulations in order to qualify for an advantageous category of vehicle in Europe.
The i3 small but not tiny. Here’s a screenshot of part of my handy-dandy spreadsheet comparing small electric cars. The i3 is 6 inches longer than the Mini but has a tighter turning circle. I have a thing about a tight turning radius, lol. Like I’ve mentioned before, I want a small maneuverable car! But I also want it to be tall enough for good visibility.
It has rear-hinged back doors for a clamshell effect. Our truck has that feature too, and it makes for really easy access. It’s particularly useful getting the dog in and out.
It has much better rear passenger space than the Mini does.
The upholstery is also in surprisingly good shape for such an old car. It comes from central California and doesn’t have a lot of mileage. (Probably because you can’t realistically leave town on a charge!)
Like the Mini, the rear seats fold down. The i3 has significantly more space in the back than the Mini does.
And that privacy cover can easily be removed if you want to put something tall back there.
See, tons of space. I could go furniture shopping!
It also has plenty of room for groceries without having to put the back seats down at all. Compared to the Mini, this has a huge trunk. Even with the seats up!
It sits higher than the Mini so I can see out better. Here’s a shot from a distance so you can get a feel for the size.
Our friend’s first comment when they saw it the other night was “another car?!?” Because yes, we now have quite a collection all stacked up in our driveway.
It looks like a used car lot, and you can’t even see the Mini Cooper in that photo! Our 2008 mid-sized pickup we are keeping for now (but would love to replace with that Telo truck I told you about, if it ever comes on the market). And we have our 2012 camper van that we are very attached to and have no intention of replacing anytime soon (we hope it lasts a long time). And John has a 2018 4Runner SUV. He bought it for the 4-wheeling capacity in the mountains, but it is large and offers a smooth ride, so it is also good for when we have visitors.
That’s not counting the sailboat which is on a trailer in our driveway (under the dark blue canvas in the background of the above photo), that we haven’t used since our epic trip to Florida in 2021. We have plans for that sailboat, just you wait and see.
So yeah, for now, too many vehicles. But we’ll get it all figured out. It just takes time. One step at a time. Let me know if you know anyone who wants a 2007 Mini Cooper in excellent shape (for a car that old). John did a great job of taking care of it. And it’s turbocharged, lol.
Meanwhile, the next step was to get the i3 home and figure out if it actually works. We had test driven it – it was fun to test drive. And the AC even worked (no small feat for an old car in our climate). But does the battery hold a charge? We bought this car cheap – with no warranty. I’m not sure if there is a 72-hour remorse law on the books in Arizona or not. That’s the biggest issue I could imagine; getting it home and realizing it couldn’t hold more than 20 miles worth of charge. I don’t mind not making it to Phoenix and back. But I at least want to be able to get to Dan and Dawn’s house on the westside (26 miles round trip), or my friend Peggy’s house even farther west (40 miles round trip) and of course the Desert Museum (41 miles round trip).
The Desert Museum, I may have mentioned before, isn’t an indoor museum, it’s a botanical garden and wildlife exhibit with some indoor exhibits of reptiles and things, showcasing everything that lives in the Sonora Desert. So the zoo-like section doesn’t have giraffes, it has javelina and other animals that live in this region. It’s a great place. But I’m way off topic.
The million dollar question is (actually, the few thousand dollar question is), will the new-old i3 engine battery hold a charge?? We plugged it in overnight and prepared to run it through its paces the next day. Would I be able to drive this thing any further than I can walk?
I’ve only been driving it for a couple of days, but I have figured out that it indeed has terrible range. I don’t actually know exactly how terrible it is, because the read-out estimating miles left on a charge isn’t accurate. At least not in the Tucson heat, with the AC blowing high the entire way. Also sometimes a fan runs even when it’s turned off and sitting in the driveway – trying to keep the battery from overheating, I assume.
But what I am noticing that I didn’t expect is how fun it is to drive! It handles the rough Tucson roads vastly better than the Mini Cooper. And the i3’s responsiveness is amazing. It has regenerative braking, as well as very rapid acceleration.
The regenerative braking means that all I have to do when approaching a red light is just ease up on the gas a little and it gently brakes rather than coasts. I don’t have to switch my foot to the brake unless I need to brake hard. This greatly reduces switching back and forth between the brake and the gas in stop and go city traffic.
The responsiveness of the acceleration is a real joy too. I’m not the sort of person who needs to go from 0 – 60 in some tiny fraction of time. But I really like how the car immediately does what I ask it to do.
In contrast, our Mini Cooper is turbocharged, which has a noticeable lag before the turbo kicks in. I’ve been putting up with that full second of lag time for, what, 15 years or more, and I got used to it. But I don’t miss that lag. It always felt like reluctance. I imagined my Mini Cooper whining at me like a child, “Uhh! I don’t wanna! I’m tired!…Okay, FINE then, I’m GOING! You happy now?”
So yes, I’m happy, I’m very happy with our new used i3. Although I think it needs a new name. I don’t want to call it “the electric car”, which is clunky, and i3 is impersonal. I sorta like “Tether” because it needs to spend most of its life tethered to an electrical outlet and it can’t go very far. Lol.
I’m also thinking maybe Elly, short for “electric” but also sounds a little bit like “i3”. Or is that way too contrived? We could just call it i3. I mean, we were kids when the cuteness of R2-D2 stormed the world. No one complained about R2-D2’s name being too long or impersonal. You just have to say it with the excited energy of a 10-year-old going to see the best movie EVER.
I’m still trying to get caught up with my posts. This is the third installment of our Colorado trip series from June. After John and I stayed at the cabin on Vallecito Reservoir, we split up, and I went on a retreat held at a college campus in Durango, and John and Biska went backpacking.
Since I didn’t go on this backpacking trip, I don’t have very much commentary.
I gather they had a great time. They caught some weather, but missed the worst of it. Biska did overall quite well. Turns out she is spooked by night noises, but is fine if there is a nearby roaring river to drown out all the noises of the nocturnal animals. I can just picture us backpacking with a sleep machine to make white noise for our dog, lol.
Here’s Biska, wondering why there’s no couch. Not even a lawn chair.
At one point Biska was being taunted by ground squirrels, who would pop up and chatter, only to pop back underground as soon as she headed their way. She was so distracted that she refused to come when John called, and he had to hike up the scree and haul her down.
Apparently they made it out one step ahead of the deluge.
My dad was complaining recently because he’s been getting ads for old Mini Coopers, ever since he googled my 2007 Mini Cooper back when I wrote about the yet-to-be-manufactured electric Telo truck I’d love to replace it with.
It’s funny how spookily relevant some ads are, whereas others are still so way off base. I mean, no, I’m not interested in dating someone called Olga. I wasn’t interested in dating someone called Olga a decade ago, and no, I don’t anticipate wanting to date someone named Olga anytime during the next decade either – unless the big AI in the sky knows something I don’t know about my life trajectory?
Then there was this ad, buried in the middle of an Atlantic article about how electable Kamala Harris may or may not be. It hit a little closer to home:
Screenshot
In case you can’t read the mug, it says, “I Came, I Saw, I Forgot What I Was Doing. Went Back, Got Distracted, And Have No Idea What’s Going On. Is This My Cup? I Have To Pee.“
I’ve been reduced to a cliché. Tried, trite, and predictable, I know. Too bad everything that cup says is true. But I do want to point out that the words shouldn’t all be capitalized. Did you hear that AI? I’m unimpressed with the grammar! You got that?
Luckily it did not rain the whole time. The next day we had a lovely, sunny, canoe trip on the lake.
In my last post I misspoke and said we went kayaking, because that’s what we usually do. But we actually went out in a canoe. The lake resort had a variety of canoes, kayaks and stand-up boards to use. We thought the canoe would be easiest with Biska.
The only reason we own kayaks instead of a canoe is because we can rack our small kayaks on the back of the van like bicycles. We can’t as easily transport a canoe. So it was fun to have one we could use at the resort.
Biska wasn’t so sure about the whole thing. You can see she has her tail down. But she did ok.
It was very beautiful, and still calm in the morning.
As usual, John is doing all the work of paddling. We did find the canoe to be harder to steer than kayaks, but that might just be because of what we’re used to.
This photo didn’t exactly work. I was trying to take a picture of John and Biska. I didn’t manage to get either of their faces. Still, it’s sort of cool – one of those real life shots at a crazy angle with everyone looking away. And front and center: a red carabiner.
We were glad we got out on the water in the morning, because as the day progressed, the wind picked up and the clouds gathered. But we were still able to go on a short hike up the canyon and along the creek on the north end of the lake.
I did not much like this ledge. The path was quite wide, but the drop was sheer and a really long way down. Mainly I was worried that Biska would go running off it like an idiot. She can get excited and lose her head sometimes. Squirrel!
I don’t mind a ledge if there’s trees down there. You can see the clouds are building again.
There is a biting insect in those mountains, maybe a type of biting fly, that is found in northern Idaho, Colorado, and eastward, that is not found in the Sierras and Cascades. I happen to react quite badly to this particular insect; they’re much worse for me than mosquito bites. For that reason, I am not such a big fan of the Rocky Mountains. And whatever they are, they were ambushing this trail.
Then when I heard thunder, I was done. Yep, time to head back to the cabin and take more pretty pictures of the lake.
Confusingly, I’m going to blog about Colorado while in Michigan. Because that’s what happens when our trips are spaced too close together. Earlier this month, John and I (and Biska) went on a trip to Colorado. The first three days we spent in a cabin at Elk Point Lodge on the Vallecito Reservoir outside of Durango.
We were very glad we got a cabin because it rained off and on and would have been cold and muddy without one. The cabin was small and cute and had an amazing lake view.
I took a ridiculous number of pictures of the lake.
The light kept changing with the weather and it was always beautiful.
Biska was as entranced by the squirrels and chipmunks as I was by the lake.
(We always travel with a couple of old sheets to toss on top of everything, so she doesn’t get the bed and furniture dirty.)
She also got to play with some neighboring dogs.
The lake was even beautiful in the rain.
The sunset was amazing.
The next day it was even more beautiful. I guess the view of the lake was my favorite part. Right from our very own deck.
We did manage to get out on a short local hike in between showers. Note the hawk on top of the snag in the center, silhouetted just above the mountains.
Biska’s eyesight is excellent and she watched the hawk as we approached.
That evening, the lake was even MORE beautiful.
I could not stop taking pictures of that lake! Of course, there wasn’t much else to do, lol.
Look at that sky!
I could have sat on that deck and watched that lake all day long.
Except of course, for pausing to take photos.
That’s enough photos for one post. Next post – kayaking!
My friend Dana’s oldest daughter’s house burned down yesterday!
Hannah, her husband, and their 5 kids are all fine, thank goodness, they weren’t home at the time. But their house was completely destroyed and they’ve lost everything.
Apparently it was caused by a neighbor’s fireworks hitting their doghouse and catching it on fire, which then spread to their shed and then their house. It’s hard for me not to be angry when the cause was someone’s fireworks.
I can’t imagine how devastated I’d be if I were to lose everything. I’m very attached to my house and all my stuff.
Here is the picture of her family from the GoFundMe site.
For my older relatives who may not be comfortable or set up to use GoFundMe, just let me know if you want to donate and I can do that for you.
Dana and Chris are going out there to see them on Friday (Indiana I think?), but they’re flying out, or else I would send some of my extra household items out with them. I have too much stuff. But Dana says her daughter doesn’t have a place for household stuff yet anyway. Right now they’re in a hotel. All 7 of them!
I’ve really appreciated Dana and her wife, Chris, who have been very welcoming. I met Dana while volunteering at the botanical garden, and she is the one who told me about the Master’s Naturalist class I took last semester, when I learned so much about the Sonoran Desert. It was such a good course!
Then recently Chris and Dana invited me to start going to the gym with them. Chris does the group classes while Dana has been teaching me how to use all the weight machines and the free weights. I would definitely not be going to the gym if they hadn’t invited me. And the gym is right near my house; I can bicycle there in 5 minutes! Now I’m going to the gym regularly and am enjoying it more than I expected.
Chris and Dana have also had John and I over to dinner a few weeks ago – and it was fantastic. Homemade spanakopita! Grilled steaks! Salad and homemade cake with strawberries! We owe them a dinner when they get back from Indiana – we’ll have to get our cookbooks out and hope for the best.
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