I can hear my ex-mother-in-law clucking away under her breath, shaking her head at the foolishness of it all.  She used to love to say that  there is no fool like an old fool.   After a certain age, one was expected to show some constraint and demonstrate a reasonable amount of good judgment.   I don’t think of myself as old, at least not in spirit or attitude but, considering the number of candles on my last birthday cake, I might be living representation of the ‘old fool’ adage nonetheless.  I've decided to take a subjective stance on this one though, particularly the good-judgment part.  “So what has she gone and done now?”  you ask. OK.  Here goes.  Confession time.   I’ll just close my eyes and answer in one deep breath.  Yesterday I signed-up D and I up for dance camp. That’s right.  Dance camp.  Ron Montez’s New Year’s dance camp   The check is in the mail and we are now committed (no pun intended).  I still can’t believe we are actually going.  Lucky for us, Montez is based in Tucson now and the camp will be held at a local resort, about 15 minutes from our house.
www.montezdance.com/index.html

The full camp covers three days of lessons, culminating in a New Year’s Eve dinner-dance party and a professional show produced by the dancers teaching the classes.   The party, alone, is worth the agony -- and potential humiliation -- of the camp.   We opted out of the classes on New Year's Eve day, but  will be dancing for the two days straight prior to NYE, taking six, one-hour lessons each day . I’m giving us New Year’s Eve day to recup for the party that night.  I repeat, that’s six hours of dancing, two days in a row!!!!  Three of our classes will be taught by the amazing Ron Montez himself!  The first day we’ll take classes in Waltz, Rumba, Tango, Cha-Cha, Night Club 2-Step, Jive, and then get to rehydrate during the one-hour lecture at the end of the day.  The second day we’ll be doing Foxtrot, Samba, Viennese Waltz, Swing, Bolero, Mambo/Salsa, then sit in on another lecture.  We catch our breath on the 31st, and  return to the resort that evening for the big party.  We usually do nothing on New Year's Eve, so this is going to be a huge evening for us.  We very well might end up spending New Years Day, 2010, massaging our aching muscles with Flexall and leaving frantic messages for the chiropractor, but I’m thinking it will all be worth it.  

Old fools we may be, but I've decided I would rather go out saying "I shouldn't have done that" than saying "I wish I had."

Over the past few months my usually low voice has become very raspy and hoarse. It’s not unusual for callers to ask if I have a cold or to apologize for waking me up.  I guess I didn’t realize how bad I sounded; the concern in their voices always took me a bit by surprise.  I didn’t worry about it much though, a raspy voice can be kind of sexy, or so I’ve been  told.  But then the raspiness went from occasional to constant, and my voice began to crack with male-puberty-type squeaks.  It’s damn hard to be a sex symbol when you sound like Minnie Mouse.  Even the dog started looking at me sideways.  I finally gave in and called the doctor (it took four weeks to get an appointment); I saw him a couple of weeks ago. The examination, which consisted of shoving a scope through my nose and into my throat, revealed polyps on my vocal cords.  CRAP.  The surgery is outpatient.  I’m scheduled for Monday, 2 November.

Post-surgery, I’ll have to avoid using my voice until my first appointment with the speech therapist, which is set for 10 November (my husband's BD).  After that, I’ll have to ‘bring it back’ slowly, using my voice ‘gently’ for the next eight to twelve weeks.  You understand what this means, right?  Very little talking  for the remainder of November and December, which are birthday and holiday months around here. Somehow I have to muddle through several birthday celebrations, the Thanksgiving holiday (with a house guest), several Christmas holiday events including D’s company party, dance camp and the New Year’s Eve party, without much verbal communication.  How am I going to do this?  Understand, I’m the type who talks to herself – out loud – all day.  I comment back to TV commentators, ask myself where in the hell I put whatever it is I am looking for, curse at bad drivers, mutter about my spouse, and carry on long conversations with the dog.  The phone never stops ringing, and I call my mother, who is in an adult care home, two or three times a week.  God forbid I have to call 911 or the Vet or – think about this one — stub my toe or drop a carton of milk.  I am not one to suffer in silence.  I might have to wear a gag or try duct tape.  The next few weeks are going to be challenging.  The therapist said something about looking at it like having my vocal cords in a cast. Just made me think evil thoughts about casting someone in cement and throwing them off the nearest pier.  Good thing for all concerned that I live in the desert.


On a happier note, I was able to postpone the surgery until after Halloween.  We had a record number of kids at the door this evening, and by 8:00pm I had given away every piece of candy (eight or nine bags of small-sized chocolate bars), boxes of stickers, plastic spider rings, and practically every book I put out on display.  Here's my set-up this year.  All but seven are gone.



And I have to add this one of Lizzie and me, taken about two weeks ago on Mt. Lemmon (just above Tucson).  This is the only spot around here to find a bit of fall color, and this year we timed our visit up the mountain just right.  It was gorgeous and well worth the hour and half it took to drive up there.

 

I was watching bees going about their tasks in my salvia bed.  It dawned on me that we are probably the only creatures on this planet that ever ask, "Why are we here?  What is our purpose?"   Do we have a purpose?  We are the only creatures who understand the concepts of good and evil and we so often chose evil  We are also the the only creatures with the power to destroy and wipe out entire ecosystems and destroy the planet through our technology.  I wonder what we actually contribute to the web of life on this little ball called Earth ( besides art), or are we just an aberration of nature, marching towards an extinction brought on by our own bad choices.

I was watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 this past week.  Kate is struggling with life after divorce.  In this episode she was putting on an outdoor movie night for the kids - big outdoor screen, sleeping bags on the vast lawn, rented a movie-theater-style popcorn machine.  I couldn't help but wonder how much longer America will stay transfixed in front of their TV screens, once the voyeurism of post-divorce drama has lost its appeal.  This show is no longer about a young couple struggling to raise 8 children (6 a set of sextuplets) on a tight budget, and managing to hang in there and still love each other.  It is now about  eight overly indulged young children; a selfish young father, who couldn't keep it in his pants and couldn't deal with all the stress; and the emotionally drained, brave single mother, struggling to keep it together all by herself, with the help of Nannies, a film crew on site all the time, and tons and tons of money from the TV show.  Just how many shows can we watch about the kids getting custom-made play houses, free vacations all over the country, a house the size of Kansas with acres of forest.....   Then again, this IS America....  it will probably still be on the air when the kids hit college age.

I was watching the news the other night -- watching the democratic process die as neighbors screamed each other down at town hall meetings.  I'm so sickened by the ignorance and small-mindedness taking over this country.  Can't deal, so I just turned off the news.  I'm in burying-my-head in the sand mode.  The health-care debate (which shouldn't even be a debate) is turning neighbor against neighbor when we should, instead, be opening our hearts and minds to those around us who are in need and are hurting.  Just can't deal with the direction this is going. 

Actually, this post is getting depressing so I think I'll just leave you all and go practice some of those dance steps I am trying to commit to muscle memory. Better use of all of our time.

 

Saturday, June 20:

Picked D up at the airport mid day.  He'd been at a mine site in Peru all week, and I was glad to see that he looked pretty chipper as he descended the stairs to the greeting/baggage area.  The previous day I had received an email from him, which I think was intended to reassure me that he was doing OK, despite the extremely high elevation at jobsite (15,000 feet).   He had told me not to worry because the company had arranged to have an ambulance follow behind  the consultant's trucks all day, just incase one of them succumbed to altitude sickness. This man totally did not understand why I didn't find this little piece of information re-assuring !  An ambulance bespeaks the very real possibility of a major medical crisis arising.  And, quite frankly, I was concerned about the level of equipment in the ambulance: oxygen tanks or just brown-paper bags to breathe into?  Conditions at  some of these sites can be just a hair above primitive.

Sunday, June 21: 
Father’s Day. Excellent day. D had a perfect day. Started out with a breakfast in bed of his favorite sticky buns and orange juice. The day was nicely balanced between opening gifts, time to relax, time with the kids, and a family dinner. Everyone coming over and giving their time was the best gift of all.  His daughter lives out of state, but she sent him a wonderful story she had written and a poem.  It was nice to see him enjoy his day and know that he is appreciated by all.

Monday, June 22:

Is there a worse feeling than turning the ignition key in the car and … Nada.. nothing....?   Not a whirr or a plunk or even a chunkety-chunk-spurt, just heart-sinking, dead-engine quiet. Crap.  Should have known.  Car batteries don't last in the desert heat.  It's more-or-less SOP to replace your car's battery -- no matter how expensive it might have been -- every two years.  Turned out we had last replaced the battery in August of '07, so we were two months under the wire with the warranty, meaning we could get a free replacement.  The problem was getting the car to the dealer to get the darn battery out, checked and replaced.  It was in the garage, next to the vehicle we were going to have to use to get it jumped, but too far away for the cable to reach.  Not to mention, it was practically in the lap of the furnace and water heater, both gas, and paranoid me was terrified of sparks causing an explosion and blowing us all into Kansas.   We managed to get the car into neutral (which it wasn’t happy to do without being started first), and D pushed it part way out of the garage as I rode the driver’s seat ready to apply the brakes – the plan was to just get the car part way out of the garage but prevent it from rolling backwards down our sloping driveway into the street.  Long story short - D got it jumped and started, made it to the service center before they closed, and was home in time for dinner.

Tuesday, June 23:

Upside of the day:  Two-hour dance lesson today: first hour cleaning up our rumba and cha cha with our usual instructor, David,  followed by an hour of Argentine Tango with Jenny. Worked out really well, actually. Still cannot believe D took time out of his work day to do this ! I’m loving the Tango.  Great fun.  Lots of interesting footwork.

Downside of the day:  It is 100 plus G-only-knows-how-many degrees outside with a nasty wind blowing. This weather is for lizards, and lizard hunters, only.  Anyone in the Portland area interested in a having a house guest?  Do you take dogs?  Do you have lizards?



 

Actually, it’s more like Snakes and Frogs,  No Fun for the Dogs. 
 

And what the hell is she on about now, you ask? Desert dwellers. That’s what. Indigenous critter desert dwellers. 
The longer I live in the Arizona desert, the more convinced I am that most of us humans – indigenous peoples excluded – have no bloody business here. It belongs to the rattlers, scorpions, tarantulas, bad-tempered javalinas, hawks, coyotes and, let’s not forget the millipedes. We were not meant to live here, and I believe that our domestic canine friends – indigenous canines excluded – would be in complete agreement with this point of view, were they able to offer their opinion.  This time I am not even bitching about the relentless, suffocating heat; it’s the unsociability of the creepier of the creepy-crawlies that have me in a snit.  Most of you know me as someone who appreciates wildlife in all its diversity and forms, but some of the wildlife in these parts are unsociable enough to make it just plain hard for even me to get all warm and fuzzy about their proximity to my home and, more importantly, my dog.
 

It’s only May and I’ve already seen three rattlesnakes. Three. That’s three too many. And then this evening I stepped out onto the patio and almost stepped on a large toad. A toad. In May. They aren’t supposed to show their gnarly little heads until well into the rainy season. Now it’s not just the proliferation of rattlesnakes that keeps us scanning the ground every time we take the dog for a walk, now we have to worry about poisonous toads in our backyard, two months too early.

In Arizona we have a critter called a Colorado River Toad. They secrete a substance that can be lethal to dogs. If your dog is foolish enough to wrap its mouth around a Colorado River Toad, and you are fortunate enough to catch the dog in the act, the standard operating procedure to save your dog is to immediately rinse the dog’s mouth with a strong stream of water from the garden hose (sideways across the mouth, of course), for a minimum of 10 minutes. Then you hope to God the dog doesn’t have seizures or begin to foam at the mouth, and you rush to the nearest emergency Vet. Crap. Made one mad dash last summer. Don’t want to have to repeat it.  So tonight, immediately after my toad encounter, I had to bring the dog in. She was happily persuing lizards on the patio (she never catches them), and I completely spoiled her fun. Can't take a chance with toads. Was this particular toad a CRT or a standard, garden variety toad? I have absolutely no idea. Toads don’t bother to introduce themselves and, even if you get down eyeball to eyeball with the toad in question, it’s very hard to tell from its markings. This evening we decided to err on the side of caution. I ushered Lizzie into the house while D captured the toad and then released it in the desert about 100 feet down the street. Let's just hope it doesn't find its way back.  I wonder if it was a bachelor toad or if it has a family hiding somewhere close-by, lighting little toad candles for it to find its way home.

Anybody in Cleveland or Seattle or anywhere else want to trade houses?  Anyone with alligators in their backyards need not apply.

I take a lot of garden photos when the light is very low, just before twilight.  I think the lack of glare from the sun intensifies the colors, even if you do get a bit more shadow.  Took this today around 5:00pm.

Can you see the tiny, striped spider sitting on the upper, right petal?

My brother-in-law was almost killed on Monday. He stepped off a curb and was hit by a car. He was thrown 10 feet and did a 360-degree flip through the air. The only thing that saved his life was the quick reflexes of the driver, who managed to stop in time to just hit R (my BIL) rather than hit him and then run him over. R called my husband yesterday from S.A., absolutely giddy with the realization that he was still alive. He got away with only minor injuries and an overnight stay in the hospital.

Now, here’s the kicker. The accident happened in South Africa where R was presenting at a conference. R is an award-winning producer/director/writer of safety videos ! He evidently forgot to look both ways.