Hot Dog!

Growing up, I never liked hot dogs. Brats? Yes. Hamburgers? Yes. But hot dogs? Don’t they make those from pig lips, intestines, and sawdust?  Anyway, that’s what I always thought.  I don’t think I’ve eaten a hot dog since I was nine.

Today, my world shook a little bit when I had my first Sonoran Hot Dog at La Reina in Tucson.  We pulled into a worn strip mall. And there he was.

This is a one man operation, open 365 days per year. You place your order at the cart, pay the man, and then head into a small air conditioned dining area, where you grab your cold drink. The man then brings you the hot dog and heads back to the cart to cook up some more in the 105 F degree heat. 

This is not your ordinary hot dog.

For $4.50, you get a toasted, buttered bun, sausage, bacon, beans, roasted onion, tomato, raw onion, mayonnaise, mustard, jalapeño sauce, and a big roasted hot pepper. Washed it all down with a Dr. Pepper.  To be honest, I could barely taste the hot dog. We will be repeat customers.

Accepted Offer

Well, we are committed now. We put in an offer on an Oro Valley home. After some back and forth, we have a contract, contingent on inspections. In Wisconsin, doing an inspection means hiring a house inspector. In Oro Valley, there are additional specialty inspections for termites, roof, HVAC, and sewer. If the inspections go well in the next two weeks, it is full steam ahead with the closing set for the third week of July.

Without locating the house for the internet, I will say that we are close to trails, pickleball and have mountain views of the Catalina and Tortolita ranges. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s a single family house, single level house with a walk-in shower. The back yard is walled/fenced for Callie’s enjoyment.  We definitely downsized and stayed within our budget, but the house has high ceilings and still feels spacious. Julia likes the house, and I like the outdoor space, so we are both satisfied.

This morning on our six mile walk, we spotted three javelinas. I managed a photo of one, but the other two were romantically involved behind the brush.

This afternoon, we stopped in at Dragoon Brewery for a hazy IPA.

With our business on the house done for the most part, we headed over to The View for burgers and music. It was nice to sit outside in the shade with a moderate breeze and cooling temps (98).  The View is the golf club restaurant at the Sun City in Oro Valley.  We looked at some homes within that community, but decided against it. Our new house is in an all-ages neighborhood.

Those old folks have some nice views though.

One or two strong possibilities

We saw all 13 homes yesterday before 1 pm. The realtor was impressed with our decisiveness. Julia knows what she wants in a house, and I know what I want in outdoor space. We have a few more homes today that are on the list towards the east. Yesterday was the northwest. Not too hopeful as the realtor said that homes in the NE foothills are quite a bit more expensive for the same square footage, but he still wants us to see them. So we will be looking at a mix of townhomes and smaller older homes. Julia is hoping for something without shared walls or in need of major updating so we will see.

Tucson has a weekly newspaper that I’ve been enjoying. In the archives is a story about Arthur. Someone on Reddit saw him yesterday on the street and asked who he was. In these times of cutting benefits and forcing conformity, I hope he continues to survive and, in his own way, thrive.

Dry Heat

We flew from Rockford into Phoenix-Mesa this afternoon, rented a car, and made it to our Airbnb in Casa Adobes by late afternoon. By then the temperature had dropped to 106 degrees. 

Ate tacos and buros at Amelia’s kitchen and enjoyed margaritas. 

Everything tasted wonderful. Tomorrow is a big day. Seeing 13 homes with the realtor. The heat will continue.

Inhale, Cough, Cough

 

Smoky Haze

We have been experiencing poor air quality over the past few days, due to Canadian wildfire smoke moving slowly across Wisconsin.  Julia was all excited to see that the Northern Lights were going to appear recently in the Upper Midwest.  Not in southern Wisconsin, I'm afraid.  Those aren't clouds.  Just smoke.

Last week, Julia and I helped move my Mom to her new apartment in a Continuing Care Residential facility.  The multi-building campus has independent living, assisted living, memory care, and a nursing home.  She qualified for independent living and was "allowed" to pay an entrance fee that guarantees a lifetime rate that includes all higher-level services, except for inflationary adjustments.   

My mom is downsizing, moving from a two bedroom condo to a one bedroom apartment, but it is a much nicer space with freshly painted walls, newer appliances, a walk-in shower and great natural light.  Breakfast and dinner are included, although she does have a full kitchen if she doesn't feel like going to the restaurant-styled dining room.  She is already enjoying her new community.  

We are back at the campground.  Julia just came from the showerhouse, reporting that the showers are now working, but the stalls are out of toilet paper.  We are living at the Ritz, for sure.  At least it's quiet mid-week. 

 

Life by the River or If Momma Ain't Happy

Originally, we thought we might stay at this campground for at least a couple of months, as we tied up some loose family ends in Wisconsin and Iowa. However, there have been a few potholes on that road.

When we signed on for the month, the owner of the campground warned me that "he's only one guy", and things can take awhile to get some attention.  That only raised a little red flag. On the other hand, we might have thought twice if he had said: "The toilets may go ten days without getting cleaned, and the showers don't really work."

Now, you may be thinking, "what about the bathroom and shower in the Scamp?"   It's true that there is a small wet bath, but Julia doesn't like to use it, especially if there's a full showerhouse and toilets less than 100' away.

The showers here are coin-operated.  Two minutes for a quarter.  In theory.  Thinking that she needed a good six minute shower, Julia plugged 3 quarters in, and nothing happened.  I advised going to the other shower, and trying just one quarter.  The guys' shower starts up right away (with cold water).  After a minute, the water turns lukewarm, and I add more quarters, if needed.  The women's shower started right up, but sprayed sideways, soaking all of Julia's clothes and backpack.  After moving her stuff, she managed to get a decent shower in with additional quarters.

On the next day, Julia went back to the shower that "kinda worked" and stepped in when the shower warmed up.  She added two more quarters for a six minute shower.  As soon as she got wet and lathered up, the shower abruptly stopped without warning.  Julia was not a happy camper and has been taking showers at the school swimming pool since that time.  

Yes, she did tell the owner.  And he said, "I'm only one guy, you know.  But I'll look at it."  

He hasn't, so we took a road trip to another campground between Wisconsin Dells and Portage and signed up to switch over there in mid-June.   It's much nicer with lots of amenities and many guys making sure everything is clean and working. More expensive, but if Momma ain't happy, no one else is happy.  

The downside to all of this is we love this area.  We can walk to one of Wisconsin's best breweries. 

Scaredy Cat Oatmeal Stout

We see eagles and pelicans on the river walk nearly every morning.  It's a close enough drive that I've been able to play lots of advanced pickleball.  

And Callie gets a four mile walk in the morning and a couple of miles in the evening.

Kennel?

In other news, I made another trip to Iowa last week to further prepare my mom for a move to senior housing.  Julia and I will both go this week for the actual move, which will also involve Two Men and a Truck. Once she is settled, we can turn our attention to relaxing for awhile in Wisconsin.  There's a family reunion in mid June (Julia's side of the family), and then we're flying to Tucson for a week to look for a house.  Callie will stay behind at the kennel.

 

 

 

Exhale

 In retrospect, the last year was a tough one without a lot of joy in our lives. Besides adjusting to life without Justin and my dad, the process of de-accumulating and selling the house was an emotional one. Now that we are back in the Scamp, we can literally feel all of that stress begin to melt away.

We are not traveling yet. We have some family stuff to take care of on both sides of our families. And once that’s done, we may still stay at our current spot, enjoying the Wisconsin summer. Eventually, I think, we will find a house in the Tucson area and move by fall.  But with temperatures already nearing 100 in southern Arizona, there doesn’t seem to be any particular urgency.

So we will spend our days along the Wisconsin River, taking long walks with Callie and hanging out with friends. We live in interesting times and control very little on the national or global scale. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. And everything tastes better on a tortilla. 

Homeless

 And feeling fine. More later.

Tick Tock

A glorious Wisconsin sunrise turned to wind and rain and then back to sun again.  

We are twenty days from closing on our house sale.  Julia's brother Scott is arriving later today to manage our moving sale, which starts on Thursday.  His take is 25% of the proceeds.  Whatever he can convince people to take will be one less thing to donate, throw away or store.  The moving sale will take place over the course of three days, which coincides with our community's garage sale weekend.

We are pretty much done sorting and deciding what we will put into storage.  It's been an interesting and liberating process.  Once the decision is made to let go, it becomes pretty easy to let go and let go and let go.  

One of the easy choices for disposition is my book collection.  We have bookcases and bookcases of books:  fiction, non-fiction, law school textbooks.  Most of these, I haven't touched in ten years. To be honest, almost all of the books that I read are ebooks checked out from the library.  Yesterday, I started to reacquaint myself with Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.  Once I started reading, it was like sitting down with an old friend.  

More Steps Forward

The house is under contract.  My mother has decided upon a continuing care facility in Iowa, where she will start out independently and move to higher levels of care, as needed.   Time to start packing to move stuff into storage for the summer.  We have to be out May 19th.

 

A Little Too Busy

 We've done a lot of sorting, preparing to either move or move stuff into storage until we figure out where to move.  One of the things I discovered was an autographed baseball and card of Hall of Famer Robin Yount.  I don't recall who gave it to me, and it's been in a box for many years.  Someone on Ebay wanted it, and it's now one of the items that's gone.

 

 There's good news and bad news.  

Our house is on the market.  We have open houses this weekend and a handful of private showings already  on the schedule.  On the bad side, we have incredibly warm weather for the end of March, and the Asian beetle eggs are hatching, making our home a hatchery.  We are doing what we can to minimize the proliferation of beetles, but it isn't fun.  At least no mice have died in the walls recently (knock on wood).

My mother's health issues have not improved.  I got a call from her Sunday morning, and she was headed to the hospital by ambulance.  There were then two trips back and forth to Cedar Rapids.  She hated the hospital and wanted to go home but doesn't feel secure at home by herself.  

So, in between preparing the house for sale/showing and assisting Mom towards the best path forward, it's been crazy.  I'm feeling a little PTSD, similar to going through Justin's and my dad's end of life.  The doctors haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with my mom, except that she's not eating enough  or keeping hydrated.  There's loss of appetite, feeling full after just a couple of bites, and no energy.  

Julia is headed for San Francisco for a previously-arranged trip to see Allie on Tuesday.  I'll be spending some more time in Iowa, figuring things out.  My uncle Lawrence used to tell me repeatedly, "It's hell getting old,"  when I was a teenager.  I didn't understand then.  I understand better now.