It's 4:30 AM, Sunday morning. Even through the closed patio door I can hear Mexican music from next door, the desultory last traces of a rousing birthday party for a seven year old child. (As Dale Sr. found out when he parted the oleanders, he said, and looked through to see what was going on over there.)
Friday, after catching up with the dishes and tidying, I resolved to walk my eight miles. (My goal is to do four hikes of eight miles each this month, four of nine miles each in March, and four of ten miles each in April. The long hike is in May.)
I went to Starbuck's and brought up Google Maps. I was hoping that the Recycling parking lot was four miles from the restaurant I wanted to eat lunch at, but it was only 2.3 miles. I kept trying different things until I found a large parking lot which was 4 miles from the Thai House.
I drove to McKellips Road via Signal Butte, so that I could drive through some desert. The scenery was beautiful, and I was amazed at some of the huge mansions which have been built on the north side of the little chain of mountains which runs east-west between Brown Road and McKellips. All of them are in desert colors with rockwork (or rock veneer).
I parked in the far corner of the large parking lot at McKellips and Power Road, which is back in the populated area. (There's a Safeway, several restaurants, and other small storefronts of various businesses.) I locked the car and started walking South.
The first couple of miles were pleasant and pretty, with nice landscaping treatments against the walls of housing developments.
Looking into one of the ritzy "gated communities" (no iffy-looking people walking up and down the road here!)
This church is pretty tech-savy:
Actually I've been inside there, when I went to hear my piano tuner sing. It's a Lutheran church. There are quite a few Lutheran churches in this area because of the large population of retired people from the Great Lakes States, whose ancestry is Scandinavian or German. They have this horse-shoe shaped kneeling bar around the pastor's pulpit, where people take turns coming up to kneel at the end of the service, rather like Catholics taking communion except that they don't get the wafer and the wine.
I liked this ocotillo shadow:
Around Main St./Apache Trail, the traffic started getting thicker:
About two thirds of the way, at Broadway and Power, I photographed these phone towers disguised as palm trees, at the entrance of a golf resort:
I was so glad to get to my destination, and I ordered their wonderful green curry. I had told myself that because the walk was so long, I would allow myself to eat the entire meal (their bowls of curry are twice the amount of calories which it's reasonable to eat, so I usually eat half of it) but I found I could eat only half of it anyway.
(I couldn't carry home the rest, of course, because I still had to walk the four miles back, and the food would have had to sit too long at a tepid temperature.)
While I was eating, I chatted with a young woman who worked from home as a project manager for a chain of ATM machines. About half the time, she said, she had to be traveling, but when she did work from home she always walked to a restaurant for lunch, to get out of the house. She was Thai, as it happens.
I started walking back and stopped again after a mile, to get on the internet at Starbuck's.
The last three miles were pretty much of a tired trudge. I was glad that I'd devised the scheme which forced me to finish the eight miles in order to get to my car.
It was a really nice time of day to view some of the desert plants in the landscaping of some of the housing developments:
A chuparosa:
A "pink fairy duster" (I've planted six of these, but they are still very tiny.)
Palo Verde, "Desert Spoons", and "desert sage"
By the time I did get to that parking lot at McKellips and Power, it was five PM.
I had planned to get some stuff done at home in the evening, but found, not surprisingly, that I was too tired to do anything but drink a couple of beers, eat some of the take-out barbecue, and read! I was pleased with myself for accomplishing the eight miles, though.
Yesterday, Saturday, was a long, busy day. I had to drive down to the bank where my savings account is, and withdraw some money to help several people who are having problems. On the way to a get-together in north, north Phoenix with my travel club friends, there was a scary near-miss on the freeway. In the evening I had a visit with Laure, whom I have not been able to see for a month because she's been so busy with the combination of work and interning.
In the morning, Dale Sr. and John Ducette were starting to put the stucco on the pizza oven. It was beautiful to see how smoothly and professionally John D. applies that stucco:
Through the oleanders you could see the bright colors of of a rented "bouncy house" for kids. You could see that our Mexican neighbors must be preparing for a birthday fiesta.
After my bank errand, I bought gas at the Shell station which is owned by the nice Nepali family. He told me that he has finished his ten-year contract with Shell and will be entering into a ten-year contract with a cheaper kind of gas. Since the Circle K station moved in across from him, he gets so many complaints that his Shell gas is too expensive. The new company will replace the gas pumps, re-paint, "everything new".
I wished him the best of luck with all of this, and will continue to buy gas there, though the quality of the gas will not be so good (it will be similar to the quality of the gas at Circle K, he said).
A few years ago when the big new Circle K moved in across the street, the nice Nepali guy was so upset. It was the only time I ever heard him use bad language ("How can I compete with their f-ckin' prices?") And he still had to finish out his Shell contract.
Before I left the station I did something I have been meaning to do for awhile, air up my tires. As I suspected, they were all around ten pounds low on pressure. As it turned out, it was a very good thing that I did!
I was going to the home of one of the long-time members of my travel club, Nancy A. She's a very independent 65-year-old with a hilarious sense of humor, who lives an hour away from me, in north north Phoenix.
We usually meet at a restaurant, and the meetings are scheduled on-line through "meetup.com".
At last month's meeting, the five of us long-time regulars were left sitting there after the other members left. One of the regulars suggested closing down the public group, now that we had all met through it, and continuing to meet on our own. (This is the first year that we have experienced a member..."the talker"...who wasn't completely likeable.) I pointed out that we wouldn't have met each other if the group hadn't been public, and that there might be other wonderful people we could get to know if we kept the club open to new people.
However, I did suggest that for March, the five of us could just meet privately, and Nancy A. invited us to the gathering I was going to today.
So, there I was, on the 202 freeway, in the far right lane because the junction with the 51 North was only a couple of exits away. There was not much traffic, everyone going at the limit or faster. I was coming up over a slight rise when suddenly the traffic came to a complete stop! I absolutely slammed on my breaks with all my strength, and came within a foot of hitting the car in front of me! The car behind me likewise came to a stop, as close to me as I was to the car before me.
My heart was pounding so hard in my chest. Now, at the top of the rise, I could see that the entire freeway, all lanes of traffic, was stopped.
The lane I was in started to move a bit, because people were able to take the exit (the one I'd been aiming for anyway). I was soon on the 51 north, where it passes through the beautiful desert mountains of the "dreamy draw" which lead to the far north of Phoenix:
I felt extraordinarily glad that I had aired up my tires, extraordinarily glad that I had not been looking momentarily at the scenery, and extraordinarily glad that the person behind me had been paying attention also!
The gathering was really nice, extraordinarily nice. We all agreed that we have all had an effect on each other's lives, and they all thanked me for starting the club. I thanked Ann (2nd from left in the second photo) because until she joined, no one came more than once (in other words, I had the initial idea, but not the personality needed to make people want to return). Nancy A. (on the left in both photos below) had a nice salad meal for us and we all chatted "a mile a minute" for around three hours.
Nancy A., divorced and retired from a career with one of the airlines, deliberately minimalized her household in order to be freer to travel. The condo is tiny and she got it at a very low price when the former buyers defaulted. She sold and gave away more than half of her possessions and has spent some money and time fixing up the condo apartment, which is on the ground floor with a shady north-facing outlook, a little polished jewel.
She spends about a third of the year at her son's in upstate New York, helping to baby-sit his new baby. She's happily single, "At my age, all they're interested in is 'a nurse or a purse'." She also has a handicapped son (Down's Syndrome) whom she visits for several long visits a year, at a facility in Florida.
Ann has just returned from a "hospitalero" training session in California. This will enable her to serve as a volunteer at one of the "auberges" on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail in Spain. The usual volunteer session is two weeks. Ann is also the one with whom I'm doing the "Migrant Trail" hike in Mexico, this May. Ann has done this hike for the last two years. (There will be a large group going, and support vehicles as well).
In October, I may join Nancy A. and two friends (one in his eighties!) in Berlin and Prague. We will probably sightsee separately and get together for dinner each evening. She says the train trip to Prague is easy. I've never been to Berlin, would love to return to Prague, and I'm excited about doing the train trip between the two cities.
(I had decided not to go to MCC this fall to have time to work on the Democratic presidential campaign; if I go to the Berlin/Prague trip it is true that I will miss a week of campaign volunteering at a crucial time.)
We also discussed the pluses and minuses of renting a car in Europe, as Diane and her partner Dan are planning a trip to Provence and Italy. Ann knew of someone who received an expensive and confusing traffic ticket from some city in Europe, months after she returned home. It was decided that renting a car in the countryside made sense, but not in congested areas.
We also all exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
By the time I got back to the East Valley there was only a half hour remaining until I was supposed to be at Laure's house. I bought a tuna sandwich at a Quick Stop, pleased that it was under 500 calories and that it was on firm wheat bread (a whole step up from the ones you buy at Circle K) I got to Laure's neighborhood around fifteen minutes early, so drove a little ways to pull over and make a phone call I had to make.
Now there was desert on both sides, and it was dark except for a low line of red and orange in the west. I delighted to hear coyotes, their erie calls coming from both sides. After my short phone call, I sat a few minutes just enjoying this wild atmosphere so close to the town.
It was good to visit with Laure, I hadn't seen her for so long. She's still doing the punishing schedule of work plus evenings interning as a counselor in at the Phoenix office of Jewish Family and Children Services.
She has a new dog, some sort of "Hairless American Terrier".
She showed me an "app" called "Lose It" which you can use to track your calories and exercise. As a beginner on the "app" it took me much longer than it would to just jot down on the same thing on pencil and paper! But she pointed out that this would be a good way for me to start getting used to using "apps", and that eventually it would be fast.
The app says that if I continue on a 1323 calorie/per day I can lose forty pounds by August 16th of this year, sooner if I add exercise.
When I got home, the Mexican music from the kids' birthday party was audible throughout the house. I just thought it was delightful. You could hear about a dozen kids yelling, "Go Jo-sie, Go Jo-sie, etc." probably the piñata being hit. Nice to hear the happy sounds.
"Lucky I like Mexican music!" I said to Dale Sr. He didn't seem to mind it that much either. The music was recorded but didn't sound that professionally done, perhaps it was some small town band from their home town who made their own CD.
We did close the window in the bedroom.
Love,
Lennie
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