I Don't Like It, but

"It's your mantra," jokes Shari.

It is my mantra. I sing the line so often, at least once a day, many days more often, "I don't like it but I guess things happen that way. Ududbadub, ududbadub."

It's from a Johnny Cash song, Guess Things Happen That Way.

The Camera Bag, Seattle Airport, and the Wedding

I was introduced to my niece's fiancée, Caleb during Shari's and my recent short visit to Seattle. Stephanie, my niece, asked me to videotape her wedding ceremony. Of course, I was flattered. The wedding was scheduled two weeks later and one week after Shari and I had already planned to return to Tucson. So I had bought a ticket to return to Seattle the following week for two nights so I could attend the wedding.

By the time I got back to Tucson, I had only a week to buy a new video camera, figure out its basic operation, and mail order an extra battery, charger, and camera bag. I should have spent some time learning the basics of how to carry the bag.

Only two nights in Seattle, I traveled lightly. I boarded the plane with a small, wheeled and draggable carry-on and my new little camera bag. The new fangled, high definition video cameras are extremely petite and light. I removed that little bag's flimsy shoulder strap —  it was more of a nuisance than a help. Its hand strap worked fine, a bit like a man clutch purse. The little bag, stowed beneath the aircraft seat in front of me, also served to hold my wallet and wireless phone, cautiously removed from my coat pockets because I shoved my coat in the overhead bin.

I'm still getting used to using my wireless smartphone. I get nervous when it makes its little sounds because, like a baby crying, I'm not sure what it wants me to do. Plus the protective cover I bought for it has a flap that covers its screen, so it's a bit cumbersome to use. But use it I did on my flight to Seattle.

I did really well. I even used the Alaska Airline app to create a boarding pass with the "QR" (square) barcode on my phone screen. Just in case, I had a printed paper boarding pass and kept it in my coat pocket, but I bravely fumbled and exposed my phone underneath the boarding scanner; several times, actually, because I had a hard time believing it worked. "Am I okay? This is my first time using this." She smiled faintly and I proceeded into the jetway, dragging my carry-on, clutching my camera bag, and fumbling with my smartphone.

Two hands and three things. Like chewing gum and walking at the same time. I already knew that if I wanted to use my phone on the go, like people everywhere do, I needed a way to strap the camera bag onto the drag handle of my carry-on. I mentally decided to jury-rig something for the return flight.

Fate deigned to impress that resolution deeply into my psyche.

"Airplane mode", some Kindle-book reading, and a lot of solitaire got me through the flight. Seat belt signs extinguished, I retrieved jacket and carry-on. Very deliberately I removed phone and wallet from the camera bag, turned "airplane mode" to "off", and put the two items in my inside coat pockets.

I was doing fine until the phone made one of its little noises as I was walking up the jetway. I had no desire or competence to field a phone call or text while disembarking in a narrow tunnel — or even just walking in an airport crowd. I fumbled with the nuisance and, mercifully, accidentally swiped it upside down, turning it off.

Those familiar with smart phones know how to swipe right to answer and left to hang up and leave the caller with the "please leave a message" prompt. I had my smartphone several weeks before I figured that out.

I didn't want to block any of the many streams of human traffic armed with clumsy baggage, so I walked towards the nearest blank wall, put down my two bags, and reached for my phone.

It had one text message from Shari forwarding a photo of our niece Jessica suckling her newborn, Lila Marie, born while I was in flight, born a week and a half past due and after a day and a half of painful labor. Over the previous days, Shari had shared periodic text message reports from Jessica's mum who was in attendance. Delivery required an emergency C-section, but the smile on Jess's face in that photo was a precious relief to me. And the first distraction.

My phone also had two voicemail messages. My sister Cini called to let me know that sister Böbe would pick me up. Böbe called to let me know she was already waiting. I called Böbe to let her know I was off the plane. Even as I pushed the red phone icon (the shape of an archaic phone handle no longer in general use) to hang up, I mentally patted myself on the back for being so tech-savvy.

I briskly walked through the North Satellite, down the escalators, onto the connecting train to the main terminal (knowing not to get off at C-concourse), past baggage claim and out the exit doors to the street where I saw Böbe and her blue Honda about a hundred yards away — I felt smugly competent. Heck, I knew that airport.

Then I realized I didn't have the camera bag.

Time slowed down as I realized I had left it somewhere.

I had to go back and retrace my steps, I thought, but TSA would never allow me back into the terminal.

Poor Böbe, with a startled smile mixing welcome with confusion at my agitation, took my carry-on as I blurted out that I'd left my camera bag behind. I turned and fairly ran back inside the baggage claim area. For the next half hour or more I telephoned her periodically to give status reports as the drama unfolded.

First I went to the Alaska Airlines lost baggage desk. They were helpful to make some calls, take a description, and explain how, if I had left it on the train, I'd have to check with the SeaTac Airport police. The police have their own lost and found and, the Alaska employee suggested gravely, it was harder to claim stuff from them. She pointed me towards the nearby police counter.

I was pessimistic. I was thinking I'd have time in the morning to buy a replacement camera. I was in disbelief of how careless and distracted I had been.

There were two uniformed officers inside the protected, glassed-in counter. I located the open window and explained my situation to the woman officer; awkwardly because she was sitting by a computer to left and inside of the window. The man officer sat on a desk on the other side and just listened.

I explained my theories of where I might have left it, likely at the North Satellite but possibly on the train. I was certain I had it with me as I walked off the airplane. I thought it was black, but it could have been dark blue. (I couldn't remember.) It was small and the only identification was my printed Alaska itinerary folded up inside.

The more I explained, the more helpless and hopeless I felt.

"When was this?"

"Maybe twenty minutes ago."

"Which gate?"

"I think N-3. It was the Alaska flight from Tucson."

She calmly looked it up on the computer. It was gate N-4.

She located the security camera and found the time in the recording when they opened the door to the jetway. The time stamp read three-thirty. I was leaning inside the window and to the left as she turned the screen towards me. She said, "It's on fast. Each minute is actually seven in real time, or we'd be here for an hour." She remarked to the man officer that the Alaska folks had opened the gate very early.

"More time," I thought as my sister Böbe waited outside.

It was a security camera in the jetway that faced towards the terminal. We would see the backs of passengers as they filed underneath.

It took forever. I made a phone call to Böbe waiting outside, a combined status report and apology. I told the woman officer that we had disembarked around four, but she let the recording play from three-thirty.

I couldn't understand why she was focused on the jetway. I knew I had it with me there. I supposed it would confirm that I didn't leave it on the plane.

"I walked inside the terminal past one or two other gates to a blank wall where I could stop and field some phone calls. I think that's probably where I left it."

Minutes passed agonizingly slowly as we watched the empty jetway with the occasional Alaska employee walking through. More time for someone to pinch my bag.

"Did you have the bag on a shoulder strap?"

"No." I'd taken it off and had held it by a short handbag strap.

"What color pants are you wearing?"

"Light tan," I said stepping back from the window and looking down. I realized that sitting in her enclosure, she couldn't see my bottom half.

"Shoe color?"

"White tennis shoes," I said, again looking down to make sure.

More minutes passed in real time, many more in virtual time. Sure enough, the backs of passengers started passing under the camera. I awkwardly leaned in the window and to the left to make out the images on the screen that was a bit too far away from me. My job was to recognize me.

There I was. I was a bit surprised at the paleness of my figure: white hair, light colored jacket, light colored pants, and white shoes. I thought I should have chosen more color and variety for my ensemble. I had dressed in Tucson sunshine but here I was in the dark grey of the Pacific Northwest. My light shades didn't suit the grey environment.

The security camera recording showed me pulling the carry-on with the right hand, the small camera bag in my left.

Okay, I thought. I didn't leave it on the plane. Maybe now I could cut my losses, leave my name and number, and go.

She kept looking at the computer screen at slow playback. It showed me walking into the terminal. Other people got in the way, but we could see a blank wall space in the image, on the other side of the adjacent gate. Somehow, the angle of that camera in that narrow jetway included that blank wall space maybe thirty or fifty yards and crowds of people away.

The little camera bag; tennis shoes for scale. A re-enactment
to show how small it is. Imagine it by the wall of
a crowded, hectic major airport terminal.

She zoomed in a little, but the image got blurry quickly. I wanted to crack a joke about the unreality of computer enhancement on CSI and other TV shows, but in my agitation, I couldn't remember the name of any high-tech detective TV show. But every time I could, I complimented and thanked her.

Through scores of other passengers passing between the camera and me, we could follow as I walked up to that blank wall space, camera bag still in my hand. I stopped. More scores of intervening passengers later, my pale, ghost-like figure walked away and out of view. It took a little more time to confirm the remaining image. Sure enough, left behind on the ground was a small dark object.

Now, maybe, my risk was that someone had pinched it, or someone had turned it into lost and found where it could remain lost in the system for hours, days, or even forever.

We kept watching the screen as passengers and airport employees passed by. Then the jetway doors closed. The show was over.

I think by then that the woman officer had sent the man officer off to check on the train. She dialed him up on some wireless phone-like link, or got a call. I really lost track. But she did get a confirmation that the bag had been recovered and the man officer was bringing it back. She told me to call my sister, who had been waiting in a nearby parking lot, to come back outside to the arrival pickup area.

As we waited for what seemed to me a really long time (I thought to myself, had he stopped for a cup of coffee?), she explained how this surveillance camera work on my behalf was good practice for her. Only a few officers in the force knew how to work the computer application. She told me that she had used the system and some if its hundred or so cameras to identify, track and capture a murder suspect trying to flee the country.

She also told me that the previous day she had worked the arrival curb area and how much more difficult that was: standing on her feet and having to tell less than cooperative people they couldn't park and had to move. SeaTac is a very congested and busy airport. She walked outside to check on my sister's blue Honda, again parked by the no-parking curb, then called the officer on duty to tell him or her to let that Honda be.

Finally the man officer returned carrying my little black bag. All too quickly I thanked both officers, then ran out the automatic doors and towards the blue Honda. I barely remembered to say hello to Böbe as I sat in the passenger seat and apologized for my carelessness and delay.

As we drove off, I remembered something else. "Say, is my carry-on bag in the car?"

Bond

It's always good when a new James Bond movie comes out. The movie channels play the old ones back to back. There are twenty-six so far. That's happening now, which is in addition to BBC America's periodic Bond evenings.

We like James Bond movies, particularly the older Bonds: [Sir] Sean Connery, of course, is tops. Pierce Brosnan, even Timothy Dalton, are great. [Sir] Roger Moore, who played Bond most often, is passable, but the franchise is loosing some of its innocence with Daniel Craig. It's not that Craig is a poor Bond, au contraire, but the movies have gotten darker.

Most movies, even the ones I like, I don't care to see again. The genre is different from music. If I like music, I'll play it often. With movies that depend on plots, once you know the ending, that's enough.

The Bond franchise, in the main, is different. Each improbable scene with its unlikely gadgets and escapes is a mini-movie. Great sets, on-location filming, beautiful costumes, and a constant thread of light humor make even the chase scenes fun. It's eye candy, light, with fantasy and a cast of comfortable characters because you know the good guys and the bad guys get the appropriate ending.

Escape is a major reason I watch movies. Unless the subject matter is something I want to learn about, I prefer escape. Each movie, after all, is another person's creation of a dream. Why would I spend time with someone else's dark dream? Brutality and endless tension are dark.

Bond films, like Star Trek Next Generation (also a weekly marathon on BBC America and another welcome opportunity to escape), and their characters somehow do not lose their charm and keep a sense of lightness, fantasy and even idealism.

Weddings, Ties and Smiles

I don't get many opportunities to put on a necktie, and I believe the last time I wore this black sport jacket was at another wedding, that of Stephen and Laura.  It, too, was outdoors, as was the wedding celebration of Raphael and Woan Ching.

By contrast, the wedding of Madhu and Rie was indoors, although we did light a fire as part of the ceremony. It burned not in the fireplace, but in a temporary brick pit in the middle of the living room carpet. It's a bit of a story, and I digress.

What do these weddings have in common? Shari and I helped officiate. That's an honor and a delight for us.

Mind you, with Raph and Woan Ching, it was unofficial. I do not know if the authority conferred upon Shari and me by the International Assembly of Spiritual Healers and Earth Stewards Convocation of Ministers extends to Arizona. Fortunately, Raph and Woan Ching got married by a judge a year earlier. But this was the big celebration and they went all out. They needed someone with gravitas to play the role of officiant, and if there is something I regret about the past, it's not turning out for drama in high school.

Good thing I printed the script in large font because for the first half of the performance, I forgot to put on my reading glasses. The crowd made me nervous. I couldn't figure out why the letters were a bit fuzzy. But read the script I did, managing to look up occasionally, although I mangled some Chinese names and certainly mangled the Mandarin blessing at the end. "Bai neean how hö … jung gyie tong shīn" is how I wrote it down in my own mix of Spanish and Hungarian phonetics.

Fortunately, family and friends enjoyed the show. Most importantly, bride and groom were happy, which makes Shari and me ecstatic. Thanks to everyone who made it possible, and as we say in Mandarin (Woan Ching's translation),

Be in love and devote yourselves to each other.

Good advice for everyone, married, committed, single or not.

Bed Number Four

Concrete to build up the low end. This is the area where,
the following weekend, I dug a post hole through a
cowboy concrete foundation.

I had forgotten how much work went into the three raised beds in our garden. I remembered over Memorial Day weekend. A lot.

We now have a fourth bed. It's just like the other three: parallel with them, but staggered a bit to the south.

It took a day and two runs in Smoke Ganesha, our Ford Explorer, to collect some seventy concrete blocks, thirty concrete caps, six sacks of concrete and four sacks of gravel. I was exhausted just loading them in the car, then unloading and piling them up in the garden next to the chosen location. A total of about a ton and a quarter, but Ganesha's tires held up.

It took all of the long weekend to build the bed. A day to lay the lines and dig the trench. (Can you spell, c-a-l-i-c-h-e?) That included sifting the dirt for small rocks which I treasure because they make great material for the paths in the gully.

Day Two was spent figuring out what was level, building up the lower end with concrete, then laying the blocks. Liquid Nails is good stuff. Then off to the local dump cum garden dirt place to stock up on twenty-five bags of, well, garden soil. 

Memorial Day we dug inside the bed to sift more dirt, then turn it over and mix it with the bagged soil. We needed more soil. Off to the mega hardware store for another fifteen bags. Mixed them in with the sifted dirt from the original trench dig. Of all the stuff we bought to make this fourth bed, the garden soil was the biggest expense — by far.

Of course, writing about a day's work merits a little explanation. It means no more than six hours in the early morning. For one, it gets hot. For another, I'm no spring chicken. I get tired to the point where I can't think too straight. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how I had the stamina to build the first three beds, except it was easier to have a truck deliver two yards of garden soil than buying forty bags worth.

Shari planted tomatoes, draping shade cloth over them to afford some protection from the relentless afternoon sun and hundred degree plus heat.

New, fourth bed canopy frame completed,
with two connections to the existing
three-bed canopy frame.

We had to build shade. That was this last weekend. Another trip to the mega hardware store to stock up on twenty foot long boards, treated 4x4 posts, angle brackets, curtain hooks, shade fabric, rope, and screws. I had enough energy left to paint all the boards and cut the smaller ones to size in anticipation of the great erection.

Next day I had to dig two post holes, one on each end of the bed. First was an easy sixteen inches through relatively soft dirt. I was about to plant the post in concrete when it occurred to me that I'd better dig the second post hole before I committed to anything.

Smart move. It turned out the south end was centered over cowboy concrete. There's an old, barely buried foundation that runs from the neighbor's driveway into our garden space. It has branches. I've dug into it in several places. It is old concrete. That means it has had decades to cure and get harder and harder. It means that when I hit it with my iron pike, it chipped off just enough to create a little cement dust and the iron bounced back — a rather jarring experience. It's thick enough that even a sledge hammer will not crack it.

Saturday was spent chipping away and pulverizing old concrete, alternating sledge hammer on chisel with the iron pike. The original design for a twelve inch hole was modified. I got eight inches out of that cowboy concrete and never reached its bottom. Enough for me. Bring on the posts, the level, the concrete mix, and the garden hose.

Another day was spent measuring levels and erecting the boards. Looked nice, I thought, until the neighbor complimented and made an observation. He's a retired builder who is engaged in adding a two-level guest house overlooking our property (another story) and with whom, along with his loyal worker Jesus (not the Christ; he's Mexican), I just recently helped build a 18,000 pound, almost sixty foot long, concrete block privacy wall on our property line (yet another forthcoming story). Howard said I needed to attach the new canopy frame to the existing one. Otherwise, one or the other new 4x4 post would snap in a good wind.

We get lots of good wind in Tucson. Years ago a gust snapped a mature palo verde tree trunk. A few months ago, a good gust snapped the fig tree we had planted in the very same place we constructed the fourth bed. Snapped not just the fig tree trunk, but the stakes holding it up.

Bed number four.

Testing Howard's advice, I pushed each of the two new posts. The whole structure wobbled. Then I pushed one of the six 4x4 posts holding up the canopy over the first three beds. Nothing moved. Howard had a good idea.

The next day I attached the fourth bed structure to the big one. Lot less wobble.

Then Shari went to work measuring, sewing, reinforcing and grommetting (is that a verb?) the landscape fabric. We put it up a couple of days ago.

Looks nice. I can hardly wait for the tomatoes. Thank God we are running out of space inside the Great Fence of San Simeon.

Hundred Degrees

Yesterday was the first hundred degree day in Tucson this year. The day the thermometer hits 100°F is an occasion for articles in local newspapers and news broadcasts. Local TV stations have competitions to see who can guess which day will be the first. It's a summer time rite of passage, like Memorial Day, barbecues, and (in other parts of the country) shorts and flip-flops.

Well, today the thermometer in our cement pond hit 100°F, so we ain't taking a back seat to nobody.

Fan-tastic

There are many things we'd like to fix or change about our home. Among them was the funky track lighting in the TV room. It wasn't just that the floodlights looked tacky. We also had been dreaming of installing a ceiling fan.

I don't have a "before" photo. You know how that works. It was so ugly, why take a picture of it?

We spend our mornings and evenings in our recliners, the most comfortable seats in the house, sipping coffee, watching movies, reading email on our tablets.

It gets hot in Tucson and we are entering summer. We try not to burn too much money running the air conditioning. Eighty degrees can be quite bearable — with a small breeze. Previous summers, we plugged in a floor fan and had fun tripping over the wire or pointing the fan towards or away, depending upon who felt more heat.

Unsatisfied with what the mega-hardware stores had to offer, we bought a beauty at a local lighting fixture store. That was the easy part. Installing it was quite the project.

I've already installed or replaced three ceiling fans in this house, but this fourth proved the most challenging — and rewarding. I will summarize or this post will run for pages: 

• cut out (literally, using blade and chisel) the track of the track lighting which had been caulked into the ceiling drywall; 
• lay plastic sheets everywhere to catch the dust;
• cut out the damaged drywall and sweep;
• marvel and explore wire connections taped and wire-nutted together (definitely not Code);
• buy and attach electrical box to ceiling joist and shove the loose wire connections inside;
• pray the wire connections hold after having shoved, poked and forced inside the box;
• install fan support bracket (thanks, Ace Hardware); 
• cut new drywall to shape and affix without mucking it up too badly; 
• rely upon Shari's talent and two days of her work to match stucco texture, then match paint (unsuccessfully), then paint the entire ceiling; 
• lay plastic and sweep again and again;
• pray the new ceiling fan with LED light will attach to the bracket;
• interpret instructions and drawings written by someone who obviously knew what he was doing so he didn't feel the need to really explain;
• attach ceiling fan and wonder whether I should have used the parts still in the box;
• pray the circuit breaker doesn't trip as I turn on. Viola!

The fan rotates quietly. Its LED light is a bit bright, but it's the fan we wanted, not a ceiling light. The breeze is refreshing and cool. Folks, we are in love with our new fan.

Shadow Puppets

Shari inherited two beautiful puppets her great aunt had collected from Indonesia. Those two, three-dimensional puppets, plus a recent occasion re-watching the Indonesian movie, Opera Jawa, (a "must see") were the inspirations for doing something special for Raphael's and Woan Ching's wedding.

It was their second wedding. A year earlier, they had a rather public if somewhat frugal legal wedding at the courthouse, along with a hundred or so complete strangers. We joked about Rev. Sun Myung Moon mass weddings, expecting several scores of happy couples to shout in unison, "I do".

Wendy made the puppet of Woan Ching. She's flying with the
crescent moon and star symbols of Malaysia on her wing,
a piano in her purse. Roy made the dancing violist puppet of
Raphael. The pianist and violist met at the U of A music school.

Actually, each wedding party was called into the various courtrooms privately. It was quite nice, as was our dinner at Trattoria Pina Italian restaurant afterwards.

Woan Ching is from Malaysia. Her parents were unable to attend that courthouse wedding. But Woan Ching more than made up for it with a delightful family and friends wedding celebration this past Mother's Day (coincidental, but mothers in attendance were honored) -- with all the trimmings.

So what do puppets and Raph weds Woan Ching have in common? Well, to honor the Chinese Malaysian family, Shari thought of making shadow puppets to decorate our backyard for the pre-wedding party we hosted. She made six puppets and inspired Raph's parents, Roy and Wendy, to make puppets of Raph and Woan Ching.

The happy couple and their puppets.

The whole idea was kept secret. It was to be a surprise. It worked.

The eight puppets with the spotlights were set up the day before the sit-down, pool party buffet function. Just enough time to check the lighting the night before, then that day, a quick run to the hardware store to replace a non-functioning spotlight. Which was good because the light that died was pointed at Raph's and Woan Ching's puppets, and the new replacement was brighter and brought a nice focus to the display.

Bride and groom, parents Hee Tek and Chin-bee, and others were suitably surprised and impressed, as were we with our new Malaysian dresses and shirts.

The happy gathering of family and friends the evening before the formal wedding. (Thanks, Randy.)

Gammons Gulch

It's a name that evokes images of cowboys, which it should. It's a cowboy movie set in Cochise County, in the San Pedro valley north of Benson. We wondered whether Gammons Gulch could have been the Xanadu of the Southwest movie locations, the El Dorado where Dirty Little Billy was filmed in 1971, with appearances (if precious little acting) by Michael J. Pollard, but starring our dramatic and theatrical hero and movie producer, Richard Evans.

You need a reservation to visit the site, which we had. I wasn't expecting much at all, but it was something to do on a Sunday morning. The drive is nice. Perhaps because of the low bar I had set, but most likely because of the place itself and its curator, the tour turned out to be a fascinating immersion into Americana of the Wild West cowboy variety.

The force behind Gammons Gulch is Jay Gammons. The world is always a better place because of eccentrics, and Jay is a good natured, talkative eccentric who has managed to construct enough buildings (salvaging material from century-old houses in Benson slated for demolition) and collected enough memorabilia to recreate and furnish a small Western town. 

Inside the blacksmith's shop.

We were one of two automobiles that turned up for that day's tour. Jay welcomed us wearing overalls and joking about looking like Junior Samples. (Look up Hee Haw.) Jay was a joke a minute. They came so fast, and he used them so often, it didn't take long for him to repeat himself unwittingly. He had the script down.

Even ad-libbing. For example, there were some young kids setting up staging for a shoot the following day. "Young kids" means minimum wage college grads, I expect. Jay explained they were making a movie called Aurora, then joked that it sounded like it was about toilet paper. It was a fresh joke for Jay, so he used it three times in the hour or more as we listened to him explain the buildings, memorabilia, Hollywood actors and producers, his going-to-town (that's Benson) car, and his former wife.

Wall of fame inside the saloon.

Jay complained about Hollywood types. I suppose after over twenty movies, plus numerous music videos and television programs, and even small roles with big stars, Jay has a basis from which to complain. It seems the Hollywood types like his sets and furnishings and offer to give him rolling credit in exchange for their use. Jay expects to be paid.

(Watching the recent Tom Cruise-vehicle, Mission Impossible, and gazing at minutes and minutes of rolling credits at the end, I wondered how many got paid or just got the small font credit. I also wondered whether the young folk setting up for Aurora were getting paid.)

Square pole; take down the cross and
church converts to school-house.

Jay liberally commented on the character (or lack of it) of various well known stars. John Wayne, Andy Griffith and Tom Selleck are good folk, he assured us, as he pointed to photos taken during the glory days. If you want to know more, take the tour.

The stuff that Jay has collected over the years is a true museum collection. He doesn't believe in fake replicas and he scorns the amusement park that Tombstone has become. He has Edison light bulbs about a century old and worth over a hundred dollars a piece. I couldn't believe that he turned them on for the tour! Old radios and typewriters, giant horseshoes, blacksmithing and mining equipment, a rare square telegraph line pole, vintage cars, and enough vintage bottles and cans to fill a general store.

What serves as a hotel facade is also the residence of Jay
and his wife Joanne.

He joked about the old safe that he had acquired for the "bank". It's a monster that weighs several thousand pounds. One Hollywood type wanted to move the safe to a different part of the room, to make the room more photogenic. Sure, encouraged Jay. When a burly crew of three or four couldn't budge it, the Hollywood type let it be and Jay chuckled.

He not only knows a little banjo,
he also played the old piano in the saloon.

People gave him the stuff, like the authentic clapboards and siding with which he constructed his buildings. He told us about tearing out old floorboards somewhere in northern Arizona and finding a nest of "buzz worms" underneath. That's what he calls rattlers — buzz worms. Sadly, being an old school cowboy aficionado and routinely packing a pistol, he shot them.

The good news is that our tour was way more interesting than any of us had expected. The letdown was that Little Dirty Billy wasn't shot at Gammons Gulch but at another nearby set run by the "Old Tucson" folk and known as Mescal. Trouble is, Mescal is so run down that the place is closed and people can't visit.

Sorry, Richard, our pilgrimage to the scene of your acting tour de force remains unrequited.

Gadgets

How many ways can we surf the net? Let me count.

We just bought two Droids, one for Shari and another for me, so that's two.

We each have our front line laptops, Shari's MacBook and Tom's new HP, so that makes four.

Then we have three tablets: two that we use each morning to wake up and play solitaire, and to keep us occupied while we have the telly on in the evening. Plus there's the virtually free Verizon tablet that we got with our new Droids. It was a package deal we could not refuse. So that makes seven.

Then I have a bad habit of hanging onto laptops that still serve a function. My old Toshiba that runs Windows 2000 (I bought it at Costco with Windows 97) and operates the old scanner that scans slides.

Does anyone remember slides? You know, film that used to thread through a camera that when processed was a positive, as opposed to a negative. The images on the roll were individually cut and framed in cardboard or, if the film processor was upscale, in plastic. Never mind. the nice young man who sold us the Droids had no idea what I was talking about either.

That's eight, although since Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 2000, I don't use it to access the web. It was also my computer of choice to create websites, but Microsoft decided not to support its own Expressions, the web design program I use. But it is a working laptop, so it counts as number eight.

Then there is my full sized Mac G something or another. It's so big it sits on the floor. It's so old it's pre-Intel processors. Just try to find anything that runs on a pre-Intel Mac. I bought this machine over a decade ago when I was editing video and burning DVD's from our 2004 tour in Eastern Turkey. The behemoth still edits video nicely, and I have no great desire to buy a current version of Final Cut. (I have Express. Apple long since has
pulled the plug on that application.) Anyway, the behemoth makes nine.

And of course, counting as we do in a decimal system, there has to be a tenth. That's the MacBook I just retired. A few years old, it fried itself because -- gasp -- I would leave it plugged in. The battery overheated, expanded, and rendered the "Superdrive" inoperable pretty much within the first year, then proceeded to damage the touchpad, hard drive and motherboard. It didn't work. So in a fit of unbridled loyalty to Apple, and considering the outrageous prices Apple charges for its products, I got it fixed. All the parts I have identified had to be replaced. Machine worked okay. Then I made the mistake of upgrading to OS El Capitan. Ask me about Apple. Go ahead, ask me.

So my MacBook is retired and I'm trying to figure out whether I can make it work running music on my stereo system.

Anyone remember stereo systems? You know, receiver, amplifier, CD player, turntable, and big speakers, all connected with stereo cables? No, I didn't think so. But I still have stuff connected to my thirty year old Bose speakers.

Now my music system originates in an iPod Touch that Apple and time have passed by. That is, it can't take the current iOS or whatever operating system runs the little beast. That means current "apps" (short for applications) can't run on my iPod Touch. Apple is the leading technology business when it comes to planned obsolescence.  They are masters at it. But the iPod Touch, only about six years old, does connect to the internet. That's eleven.

I won't count another four iPods rarely used, two of which no longer work. So the number is at eleven. If you know a little about numerology, eleven is a master number. Trouble is, when it comes to all these devices, I feel more like a slave.

Oh, there's a twelfth device. Surely twelve is the number of completion. The Sumerians thoughts so. The twelfth gadget is my work laptop, the one I use to earn money so I can afford the other eleven.

My favorite new gadget? A hand-crank ice crusher. To make a good martini, the ice should be crushed.

Easter 2016

Dave Kenison's cartoon, 1973

Easter Sunday has many memories for me.  From a Catholic childhood, it's an inherently sweet holiday. It comes after forty days of purple covered artwork in churches, feigned sadness, and the guilt-ridden pretense of giving up something for Lent, all of which culminates in scoldings on Good Friday should I smile or hum a tune. So the Easter egg hunt on Sunday was a welcome relief.

Randy Wollenmann's creation, 2016

Easter isn't as big a deal as Christmas, but it's more significant than other annual events, whether Memorial Day or the opening day of boating season. It's somewhere with Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July, neither of which were celebrated in Australia when I was growing up.

Easter means Spring. It's a Spring festival. That by itself brings up sweet memories of waking up one Easter Sunday at the University District house in Seattle to one of those rare sunny days in Lower Alaska with a gloriously blue sky. Outside my window, the huge cherry tree was in full bloom. It was stupendous.

This Easter Sunday created some new memories and some new associations.

My Easters will forever be enriched knowing that in Martha's family, they have been cooking rabbits on each Easter Sunday for decades. Martha's daughter, Jamie, did us the honors by barbecuing this iconic symbol of Spring.

I don't know why we are squeamish about the idea of eating rabbits. Lord knows, they are pesky varmints in any garden. We eat cows, pigs, lamb, fish, and chicken. What's the deal with bunny wabbits?

I admit that I made a note of the butcher where Jamie got her rabbit, and I paid close attention to how she cooked it because it was scrumptious.

We had no reservations about ham, a traditional Christian food for such auspicious occasions as Easter and Christmas. We maintained the hoary tradition for our Sunday celebration,

My Easters will forever be enriched knowing that grown ups can still enjoy Easter egg hunts, wear silly hats, and smile for the camera.

What are your Easter traditions?

Wa:k Pow Wow

We cannot take credit for this wonderful photo.
It's taken from the Wa:k Pow Wow Facebook page.

We had the good fortune of attending the pow wow in San Xavier del Bac (or, in the alphabet devised to write the Pima language used by the Tohono O'odham people, Wa:k). The Wa:k Pow Wow is the largest in Southern Arizona and attracts indigenous people from several states; many from Oklahoma.

The Mission San Xavier is a small place and a small portion of the Tohono O'odham ("Desert People") nation, most of its allocated land being on the other side of the Baboquivari Mountains. But San Xavier is just south of Tucson and boasts the most beautiful mission church in the United States. The church is a five-star must-see, obviously popular with tourists who not only get to see the "Dove of the Desert", but also get a good glimpse of how indigenous people like the Tohono O'odham preserve their traditions, in this example, many of which are adopted and adapted from the Spanish.

The Pow Wow was held down the hill behind the church in a dusty baseball diamond surrounded by modest metal bleachers. Around the area were numerous booths selling jewelry, T'-shirts, bottles of cold water, and probably close to ten or twelve areas selling what seems to the the major export from the San Xavier Mission: fry bread.

We got seats in the already crowded venue about an hour before the "Grand Entry", scheduled for one o'clock that Saturday afternoon. We saw white people wearing Kokopelli T-shirts (a somewhat sexually vulgar symbol to indigenous people) and brown people wearing Cleveland Indian baseball caps. But what impressed us most was the friendliness we experienced everywhere. Nice people.

Apache drumming and chanting filled the time as one, then two gourd dancers, both older men, elegantly stepped around the open area. During breaks in the chant, a jovial, soft-spoken announcer talked about the schedule, indigenous people, encouraging participants to get ready, and not block others' view.

The Grand Entry was a parade that came down the hill below the church. The crowd had thickened in that area, so the announcer asked the people to move aside to let the parade through. "It's like what the government asked indigenous people to do," he sweetly jested. All laughed. The entire atmosphere was so friendly, there was no room for misunderstanding.

The Grand Entry was led by four flag-bearers carrying the flags of the United States, Arizona, the Tohono O'odham nation, and the black flag for those missing in action that originated out of the Vietnam experience. The participants followed, dancing to the sound of drums and chanting.

I confess. I teared up. People were honoring symbols associated with the prejudice, violence, and greed that robbed them of land, livelihood, culture, and life.

Some white folks joined the parade and danced with the elegantly dressed participants. The announcer had encouraged any and all to join in. That's a pretty amazing invitation on oh so many levels.

First Day of Spring

First day of Spring?  Really?

We had out stretch of cold weather. I suppose that was Winter. I complained about it because for about three weeks in January it froze each morning.

Swimming pool temperature was as low as around 50°F. Then the weather got warmer, so in February we covered the pool with our solar blanket. Now it's up to about 83°F. 

So this is how we celebrated the last day of winter.

Getting Active Again

I'll blame it on El Niño. Late 2014 through the "Holiday Season" and into January of 2015, I was pretty active with various outdoor projects. This late autumn and winter, of 2015-6 we've had more rain and grey days. Not so active.

Now we've had a stretch of warmer weather with clear skies, and I feel as if I have emerged from quasi-hibernation. This kind of weather begs a person to go outside and be active.

Stepping stones seem insignificant,
until your back strains trying to lift one.

In the garden, Shari is cultivating, planting, tending and watering kai-lan (a type of Chinese broccoli or kale), garlic and herbs while I weed grass and Nazar the Wonder Dog watches.

There are a couple of crossings of the dry watercourse that's at the bottom of Coat Hanger Valley.  I have been thinking of a bridge, or maybe stepping stones. Scrounging around our acre, I found enough large flat rocks suitable for my back to embed as stepping stones.

The trail to the south point.

I have been mining more rocks to support the bench I dug into the east side of the Valley that serves as a trail to the south. The trail has been expanded to the southern most boundary marker of our Sonoran acre, and a small area cleared and flattened there on the hillside. The site is hidden from neighbors and offers an interesting view south looking over lower San Simeon Drive, parts of Tucson, and the Santa Rita Mountains.

The west side.

Then there is the west side which slopes down into another little wash. Only a few weeks ago my neighbor showed me the actual location of our northern most boundary marker. Of course, I had to clear that area of our Sonoran acre and a path down to get to it.  The last few days I have been working on a new cinderblock wall that will help define the path down the slope to that north boundary marker.

Four Asian solar lanterns
("Made in China") by five steps.

I am also stuccoing and painting other cinderblock retaining walls on the west side that I had constructed from material salvaged from the former backyard garden. (See 500 Bricks & 600 lbs of Sand.) Stuccoed and painted with the neutral house color, the grey concrete blocks disappear.

Tiny cactus flowers remind us of spring.
Eucalyptus leaves offer a sense of scale.

Which is what I did with the four grey plastic solar light lanterns I found at Home Depot: make them blend in with earth tones. I spend a delightful couple of hours at the garage work bench, garage door open and sunlight pouring in, wearing my bib-overalls and carefully painting the grey lanterns with the beige-colored house paint. The little LED's help define the steps when they light up in the dark like small stars.

Yep, it's the time of year when I can wear bib-overalls and work outside all day. It's a great season for outdoor work.

Winter

The subtitle to this blog is Life in the Sonoran Desert. This is an update.

We're not used to the cold. We were spoiled last winter because it froze only once, maybe twice, and that was in late November. This winter we've been covering sensitive plants with white sheets so often the garden looks like a Ku Klux Klan hang-out. We watch 10-day forecasts regularly, subtracting a few degrees from the predicted downtown lows to account for our elevation and location near a major wash. 

At least El Niño has brought lots of snow in the Catalinas and ground-soaking rain below. We got enough rain by the 7th to account for the January average and the Rillito River flowed for almost two weeks. We even have had several overcast days.

The blood thins as you get used to the Sonoran Desert. After weeks of monsoon heat and sleeping without covers, we now have a thick duvet on our bed, usually supplemented with a blanket. A space heater is on low in the bathroom to take the edge off the cold tiles. We wear fuzzy mukluk boots, hiking pullovers and throw blankets as we sip our morning coffee. Our closets are bulging with long sleeves, polypropylene, heavy pajamas, overcoats and wool.

I like to joke that if you don't like the weather here, wait a few hours. It also works for our five seasons. A few weeks, a couple of months, and it's a different climate. I'm ready for spring.

Young Americans

David Bowie's passing makes me reflect because he is associated with some very significant events in my life. I suspect this is not the case for my siblings and I don't know how true this may be for later generations, but let me explain.

We were raised on a diet of classical music, complete with music lessons. Mine was the violin. We inherited my father's disdain for all things modern-popular and he considered the Beatles to be no better than monkeys. My older siblings listened to Bill Haley, Buddy Holley and Beach Boys genres, but the British Invasion didn't really register with our Hungarian family in Sydney.

Even in high school in Seattle, my musical diet was playing classical music records on the family turntable while I lay on the couch imagining I was conducting or playing the solo.

By the time I started university, my living situation changed. It was the same house, but my house-mates had become rowdy friends. I had a car, I fed myself, we figured out how to get beer underage, and I had less reason to get haircuts. It was a very different environment, but I still clung to my father's deprecation of monkey-music.

That first year in college, l was driving my two-tone Chevy Nova home, south on 15th NE, left onto NE 55th, and an immediate right into the alley behind our house on 5224 15th NE. For some reason I don't remember, I had the car radio on a rock station. Sufragette City (1972) was playing. I was mesmerized. I couldn't believe how great it was. I had never heard anything like it. I pulled into my parking spot behind the house and kept the engine running. I had to hear the entire song and find out what it was. The DJ said David Bowie, Sufragette City.

From that experience, I got into Rock music. It was only a matter of time before I would succumb to cultural influences, but still, it all began that first time listening to Bowie.

His Space Oddity (1969) became a bit of anthem for my four to five year career as a pizza truck driver. My name is Tom. Bowie sings about Major Tom. It was a good fit made perfect because the drivers communicated with the dispatcher using CB radios. "Ground control to Major Tom."

Rebel, Rebel (1974) was played on record often enough, and under less than sober circumstances, that we anticipated every cracking sound scratched into the vinyl grooves. The musical climax for a 5224 kegger often was Jean Jeannie (1973).

When I broke up with Carla, I was devastated. Although I instigated the breakup, I became desperately depressed. Pulling myself out of that was another major watershed in my life, but during the process Young Americans (1975) and especially Sorrow (1973) gave me opportunity to express my grief. Young Americans also expressed my acceptance of being American, something I'd resisted through high school. Odd, a young American identity acceptance coming from a Britisher.

Time passed and I made friends with a gay former priest. Shelly's Leg was the place for gay guys to go dancing and it was the disco era. (If you don't know what Shelly's Leg was, look it up on the internet. There is a Wikipedia article on it.) By God those men could move. I associate Bowie's Fame (1975) with that wonderful, if superficial exposure to the gay world.

Time passes and I take my main squeeze to my most extravagantly favorite date: dinner at the Oyster Bar on Chuckanut Drive. As Shari and I drive through the Skagit flats towards home on Whidbey, intoxicated with lamb, sorbet, chocolate, and port, I remember playing Rebel Rebel, the sultry version by Ricky Lee Jones.

Time continues to pass and my music taste favors stuff you find in the Ethnic or World Music bins of a CD store, if there is any such shop still around. My iPod still has what's left of my six or seven Bowie vinyl collection, but there are few boisterous occasions when I dial up a youthful, rebellious rock song. As for current popular music, I checked out when New Wave turned to Grunge. I suppose I'm of an older generation and I like to complain that they don't make music like they used to.

Three days ago, for some reason that not even Shari knows, she decided to read the Wikipedia article on David Bowie. She was fascinated by the description of his education at Bromley Technical High School. David Bowie never meant much to her, but she urged me to read it. Two days later, yesterday, we woke up to the news that he had died.

BBC America, the news half-hour that shames every other American news or quasi-news program, put on a wonderful fifteen minute tribute to David Bowie last night. Afterwards, I put on my head phones and watched several You Tube videos of Bowie, then played some of those old vinyl tracks on my iPod. The man was amazing, and his exit from life pure artistic class.

It's a pity we wait for obituaries to celebrate someone's achievements. The accolades from people who know popular culture better than I consistently praise Bowie's genius, creativity, originality, and performance. They say his work influenced all who followed. If David Bowie is new to you, do yourself a favor. Become a Young American, if only for a senior moment.