Paradise Re-established

Thursday Jim washed and treated the roof. He worked like an animal. Right after he finished it, it started raining. His timing was excellent. It rained all night.

Today was cool, but just amazingly bright. The air was clean and everything just sparkled. Your eye adjusts to the increasing haze and dust here when it doesn't rain. Then, when it does, everything is brighter.


We went out towards Gates Pass and the Marriott and rode all the hills out of the saddle. It was a short ride, but tiring. Then we came home and Jim washed (and dried) the entire RV. He's a tired puppy tonight. Tomorrow Marco comes and waxes the RV. Then we'll be sparkly, too.

This is from the Tucson Bicycle Lawyer.

Ajo Bikes lost a case yesterday in Pima County Superior Court in which they were alleged to have failed to properly tighten a rear axle nut on a BMX bike. The rider suffered a concussion and a fractured arm. I am not aware of the full extent of his injuries, but those appear to be the big ones.
After a four-day jury trial, the rider was awarded over $500,000.00.

There weren't any additional details provided. It's hard to know how to feel about this.

Paradise Interrupted

Yesterday we drove out to to the Mo Udall park and then rode the bikes out to Saguaro East. I love that place. It's just beautiful. It was a gorgeous day for a ride.

When we got home I decided to check Zappos and see if they had the flip flops we wear daily in stock. They did! I ordered up 2 pairs for me and 2 pairs for Jim. I'm not sure if we're reaching hoarder status yet (because there are a few pairs in the bedroom closet), but it's good to have backup. Anyway, they arrived today. Free shipping, free returns. I love that site. They must have a warehouse next to an airport.

Today we went out to Fantasy Island. I did not ride so well, had sort of a nut bag kind of a day. Some days I'm Queen of the Trail, and some days not. We had things to do, places to go, so we bailed a little early to go run errands.

While we were riding, a front started pushing in. Clouds came in, giving us a great sunset. Tonight and tomorrow it's supposed to become much cooler and rain. Feh.

We hope you are all well and are ready for Christmas. We're done, no presents can come in unless something goes out. I think the bedroom closet is now well and truly full.

The Horse Water Tank

The hike we do goes by the horse tank, where there is much vegetation. It was just lovely.

4th Avenue Street Fair

This weekend is the winter 4th Avenue Street Fair. It's a big crafts fair. Some of the vendors have pretty good stuff; others, not so much. Direct TV was also there, I was not aware that satellite TV is a craft, but what do I know. They'll have good weather for it, unlike last year.

This is a performance artist. One gives her money and she dances a little on her platform, she also has a squeaky toy that she would "talk" with. She had to be really hot in all of those clothes.

T shirt we saw on the street. It says "Wifey".

Meat! And fried things. There was a booth dipping zucchini, onion rings and potatoes in batter and deep fat frying it. They were selling all of it like hot cakes.


Nothing says holidays like matching Christmas scrubs.

Jim and I often remark that it has to be difficult selling things you've made. We always feel bad for the vendors who don't have people in their booths. It has to be difficult putting your work out for the universe and no one comes in to look. This young man was playing a steel drum, badly, and singing reggae (really badly), but he was putting it out there. He'll need to keep his day job.

This band was really good. They had six instruments and sang close harmony. We should have bought their CD.

Another fair treat can be seen on the tall skewer. That would be a Tornado Fry. They do a spiral cut on a potato, skewer it, and then boil it in oil. They were pretty popular.


Click on this to enlarge it. Look at the ink. It seems like the ones on the elbow would really have to hurt.

So that was today.

The past week in Tucson

Greetings Earthlings! Have you missed me? I have not deliberately excluded you from the minutia of daily life; nay, my computer has been at the virus remover. It was just terrible, at one point Don (virus remover) was contemplating a total flatten and reload because it had damaged Windows. He did not have to do that, so that was good. I have since loaded a new anti-virus package and copied mass quantities of pictures, music and documents to external storage. We also have a new Norton system disk and backups. People who write viruses need to be tortured.

And now, back to the minutia.

This was taken at Williams Sonoma, a high zoot kitchen store. It's pie crust mix, just add butter and water. So basically this is a $10 box of flour. But it is nicely packaged....

This is Jim's front tire out on the desert. The True Goo in the tubes kept him from flatting. Our new favorite tool, a pocket comb, removed them nicely.

This is Jim's thumb. Last Wednesday he had a momentary lapse of knowing where his thumb was, reference the hinge on the screen door. I've caught my thumb in it before and it's just unbelievably painful, and I've never broken the skin. So, this was pretty awful. There's a blunt dissection along the edge of the nail.


We did get the tree up - this year we bought some ornaments for it. Cuuuuuuuuute.

Sunday we rode out the Aviation Parkway bike trail. These are C130s that are surplus. There are a lot of them.

Behold the major cuteness of the new curio. It's hard to get a decent picture of it, so ignore the blurriness. The two little carved guys standing on flat rocks are Zuni fetishes. And look - there's room for more.

After a few cold nights, the weather has rebounded to being phenomenal. Highs are in the upper 70's. It was, however, cold last night, particularly since the propane tank emptied itself in the middle of the night. My nose was cold. We had to get up and turn on the electric heater and add blankets.

This is what's happening at the end of Q street. They are redoing the drainage for water. Today was day two of jack hammering the old concrete out. Hopefully that part is done.

The Tucson police department is facing budget shortfalls. Therefore, they are taking officers off of traffic detail. So, if you are in a traffic accident that does not result in bodily damage (yours, not the car) they will not respond. If you are in a traffic accident, make sure you get sufficient pictures to make the case that it was not your fault, unless it was. After the accident, you will have to go and file an accident report yourself.
So, other than Jim coming close to amputating the tip of his thumb, it's been a slow news week.

Cold and Windy

Yesterday was an extreeeeeeeeeemely frustrating day. It involved dealing with Paypal, really really rude shop keepers, and just in general not being able to accomplish much of anything without jumping through 14 hoops. Part of it was the cold and the wind, which just drives me crazy. The wind and low humidity make my hair get full of static and I swear my scalp gets too tight. Sounding like a nut-bag am I? Today is much better, although I still have to engage Paypal on the phone, I'm going to leave that for a couple of days.
So the seminal event was my desire to have a small curio that I could hang on the kitchen cabinet and put my fetishes and my bear from Quebec in. It's a simple request, they're made in Mexico, surely someone in Tucson would import them. No. We went into one store and asked, and the guy said they got requests for them "all the time" but they did not import them. Let's think about that statement, people are in here with money, wanting to buy a particular item, and you don't stock any. Isn't that the point of retail? Determine what the customer wants, stock it, sell it? Argh. So, after walking up and down 4th Avenue in the cold and the wind, we gave up.
This is a Tiki guy in front of a small restaurant, I think he was rescued from a Putt-putt golf place that went belly up.

We had lunch at the always popular Rincon Market. The pigeons were getting a drink from under the pots.

Then the search continued at the Lost Barrio. No joy there, either. I like the carved saint. The tag says she's from Vietnam, and the 1800s.

So, I googled for the curio. Ebay. Always check Ebay. It's not exactly what I wanted, but it's close enough. And hey, there's room for more fetishes. These are Zuni fetishes, in case you're wondering about sex toys in the living room. As soon as I figure out Paypal, this will be mine.

So, a warming trend is on its way, soon we can go outside and be happy.