My Year Among the Sunflowers (Month 6)
This month is the first of the two biggest tourist months of the year, so there are more people than ever in town. It is also the most dry and comfortable month of the year, so all activity and especially construction activity is at its most frenzied. I come from colder weather and have always considered the holiday season to be a somewhat reverent time of slowing down, contemplating, dreaming, planning, being thankful and prayerful. And staying the hell inside. :) This year, my 6th in this town and 1st in this active adult community, I admit I find it a lot less cute watching and listening to all the Sunflowers. For example, the construction noise is now in stereo, which I am trying not to find contemptible (to have your roof or your flooring or your pool replaced while others might have invited family from afar for a visit). But when has anyone over the age of 60 in Tucson shown any common decency. My answer to that is never.
All this to say, I am the square peg, the complainer this month. if you read this one, you may have to hunt more for the funny bits. I know I’m still
December’s theme: The DON HO HO HO Season!
Don Ho, Sunflower black market Viagra dealer, snowbird home caretaker, resident DJ, bourbon monitor, and overall party dude has put up so many Christmas lights on his 20 X 20 desert gravel yard that you can see the light from the neighborhood's entrance a 1/4 mile away. There are 4 flashing-white-light life-size reindeer in various poses tethered to a cactus that's lit up to be a tree. There's a light machine that casts shadows on the garage that I think are supposed to look like falling ice or snow? Garlands - not the thin kind you put on a mantle, but the foot-long hairy kind - are attached below all the gutters and across the top of the garage. The driveway lights are red on one side, green on the other. A bush on the side of the house that goes from garage to driveway is covered in two of those light sheets.
The piece de resistance, though, is a spinning blue orb with mostly blue and red light on one half of the roof’s slope facing the street. These lights spin, they blink - no that’s minimizing - they FLASH, they dance some old man drunken dance, which means that, through my windows, it looks like a small town cops showing up to their first murder in 12 years. It’s all just a mystery. I have no understanding of what it is. Is it a globe? An orb? A spaceship? It’s a mystery.
Then, the four white-light trees across the roof’s ridge. Trees on roofs? Shouldn't the reindeer be on the roof and the trees in the yard? Maybe, he was going for "tree house"? I imagine he might be funny, or think he's funny, so maybe that's the connection. Flashing trees on the roof = tree house. If not, what was the conversation in Ho's head? "I'm out of room in my 20-foot yard, where could I put more trees? Ah, the roof! Let me put down my tumbler. Oh, a customer!" I hope he put the bourbon glass down before climbing the ladder. I need him to be healthy to take this shit down in January.
But so far no blow-up dolls. I imagine he keeps those inside.
At first, I thought this was retaliation for someone asking him to remove a few of his more scandalous Halloween decorations (involving cats and witches), or maybe he just wanted to be seen as the rookie (first year here) cool party dealer dude to drum up fans and business. But I discovered that there are loads of households here who’ve decorated as though they have land. Come to find out, there’s a Holiday Decoration Contest. Why wouldn’t there be?
So it’s more LIT here in December than ever before. In every sense of the word. Sunflowers give a big fat middle finger to the Dark Sky Ordinance that’s so lovely. You can’t sit outside and see the stars here much anyway, but with Christmas lights like Christmas Vacation, you can’t see beyond the big white flash in front of your eyes.
According to the Google, LIT = 'Lit' has been a slang term meaning "intoxicated" for over a century. More recently, it has acquired the meaning "exciting," as well as a broader meaning along the lines of "excellent." I thought Wilbur was the brightest light. Until the Community Christmas.
It seems that all the Sunflowers start going to the light long before their last days.
The monthly newsletter, normally 27 pages long, is now 32 pages to fit everything in:
Aforementioned Decoration Contest, winner probably gets an extra 30 minutes of pickleball court time
Cookie Decorating afternoons on Tuesdays, just like a Hallmark movie
Winter Wonderland Potluck will be on Friday, the 9th. “We’ll have a drawing for a beautiful holiday wreath made by our talented resident, Sherry Bumstead. We will be playing the “left right” game, so bring an inexpensive, wrapped gift to pass around a circle of friends and neighbors. And get ready to have some fun!”
The Community Chorale performs holiday favorites in the Siesta..…oops..Fiesta Room every Wednesday morning. “Thank-yous abound for the work on the scenery and costumes to make this happen!”
And every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, a different holiday-themed dance, on the patio with Chester the Resident DJ spinning the tunes. “BYOB/W/D, we’ll have ice!”
All ending on NYE with a dance that’s a little different. Rather than the usual 5:30 - 8:30 schedule, this one is listed as lasting until “?” with a devilish emoji.
Sally and Joseph bought the house directly across the street from me in April. but I’m not sure they’ve really lived there yet. They were here a week at Thanksgiving (who isn’t?), and Joseph bonded with Don Ho, his next-door neighbor to the south, over their garages. Sally and Joseph have two grandchildren, both girls, who squeal a lot. (I know I never did this as a girl. :) ) Maybe these two very old elves were wearing a gravel path between their workshops, putting up lights and building trains. I think one waited at the kitchen window for the first sign of the other outside, so he could come out to play! Gathering their pieces of wood and trash bins, the old man version of a ball and bat.
I said the third day of squealing girls, that this could only get worse if Sally started a daycare center. Why do I do this to myself? I’m a prophet; I should know better. I have noticed what looks like a swing set combo jungle gym combo (no) tree fort in the backyard. This is against all the HOA rules, but we know how that worked out in Months 2, 3, and 4. Besides, Don Ho is to one side of them and he’s got a new shirt that would make people under the age of 8 giggle and he’d only love that, and on the other side, Ed and Myrna, a super skittish couple with plumbing issues (SOS Plumbing trucks come every other week. It’s very mysterious.) All three houses back up to the gazebos and bocce courts, so who’s to have or raise an issue. So, Sally and Joseph are now hosting 5 children every afternoon. I assume they’re grandchildren and their friends that need after-school care until their parents get off work. Because it’s Tucson, all 7 (the 5 under the age of I’d say 8) and the 2 adults are in the driveway and street playing for about 3 hours every weekday now. I don’t know if they’ve forgotten about the fort and the backyard. But we know Sally and Joseph have a desperate need to be heard, so can seen be that far away.
Why am I picking up popsicle wrappers from my active adult community yard every day?
Anyway, not a week later, the family skedaddled and two or four contractors have been in the garage and driveway every day since. Sawing, banging, hammering, loading, unloading, toting, and working on their trucks during “breaks”. It sounds like a horror movie. Next week is Week #6. Why is this taking so long? Nobody's starting from scratch or replacing marble at the Taj Mahal here. Maybe they’re doing trigonometry inside - figuring it all out? There’s nothing coming out in a dumpster, so maybe it’s a lot of thinking? I worked with a programmer once eons ago who said his work was 90% thought anytime anybody mentioned that it looked like he wasn’t doing much.
On the other side of Sally and Joseph is a pitiful couple sandwiched between them and the people who have been having their roof completely replaced for the last three weeks. (I say pitiful, because not a week goes by without a plumbing, carpet cleaning, or AAA emergency roadside (garageside?) assistance truck out front. Pest control man comes a few times a month and whatever he does requires a huge hose. I think they might be drinking from my curse well. Anyway, three weeks. For a roof. Ladders, pogo sticks, screaming saws, banging, hammering, yelling at each other, fetching, slamming. Is this reasonable ? Are the workers really smart and screwing them or complete morons? I'm pretty sure I could've been done in a week and I don't even know how to get ON a roof.
And we’re talking Spanish tile roofs. Do you know how long a Spanish tile roof lasts? 100 years!! Typically, companies offer a 50- to 70-year warranty. These houses have been here for 10 to 20 years. And let’s say you’re pushing 85. Is it even prudent to invest in any new roof, really, much less replace one that will outlive your great-great-grandchildren? Are you hopeful? Or arrogant? Or stupid? Since you hired 2 guys that took 3 1/2 weeks to finish the roof on your 1,500 square-foot house..……
And their servants are reproducing! 14 work trucks with tires bigger than my car were parked here Monday. Are these active adults SO active that they're just wearing out their homes? Is this why I've seen mention of 3 pool repairs in just my 5 months? And why, in your 80s, do you want to spend so much time in conversations about your house? Go to the pool! Oh, wait. Closed for repairs.
Assuming these tasks are completed before 2023, it'll be a welcome relief to see and hear the 12 old men around me taking down all their Christmas decorations. That'll take us to Month 7 and 8.
I could go on, but I’ll close with Wilbur. He hasn’t added or subtracted any lights for the holidays, thank God. I’ve been nervous every night that I might see Don Ho level lights on his back patio. I don’t know what kind of window film would block that. He and Edna have been sitting out on the patio a lot lately, though. Yes, I can hear their voices in my living room with my television on. So, maybe they can’t see or hear? No, he heard me. Now is not the time to go soft about Wilbur. It’s because we’re all ten feet away from each other. It’s unnatural.