My Year Among the Sunflowers (Month 7)
January’s Theme: Can you hear the engines, Festus or Fernando? (I can’t remember the last time I was able to make an ABBA reference.)
It’s been yet another busy, busy, busy month here among the Sunflowers! Management refers to it as “quite the exciting time” in the community newsletters.
The Tucson Senior Olympics was this month. From what I could gather, the bocce ball team made it pretty far despite all the headaches. There were repairs to the field (?), lanes (?), painting of new lines, and a whole lot of make-do practicing. I noticed many a Sunflower gentleman proudly toting their balls all over the neighborhood this month, even though they had been relegated to practicing in the Craft room, which was quite emasculating. That email to us all said, “Due to the kitchen being inaccessible, the Bocce Ball Club may be accessing the craft room during the Senior Olympics Tournament. Thank you for accommodating them at this exciting time.” I’m not clear on what the kitchen had to do with it.
A local psychic medium gleefully reported that she’d never been so busy with appointments here! (This one’s a mystery. You’re 85. Even I can tell your future.)
January is the coldest month in Tucson, which means that, while all their workers and trash trucks still come between 6 and 8am, the Sunflowers themselves don’t venture out until closer to 11am. And it’s like watching kids waiting on the rain to stop so they can go out to play. Or Midwestern men watching from their windows with hats and gloves on, waiting for the last snowflake to fall so they can fire up their snowblowers. Or ants sniffing out a lone, lost sugar cube in a summer Southern kitchen. It just takes the one, and then here come all. Since the sun still sets before 6pm, the mania to get it all done has to be crammed into only a 7-hour window. So, from 11 to about 5:30, it’s mayhem. But, that 9-11 is the sweet spot. And that 7pm to bedtime is a dream. No dogs barking, no street basketball, no families, no kids. Just a perfect world. If only I could bottle these hours and take them elsewhere…
The third week of January was too cold for any Sunflower to be outside. It was a week of peace. Down to 30 degrees, up to 50 by 8am. Still too cold. Flowers withered, but they certainly weren’t dead. They must’ve spent all their time inside making arrangements. When a Sunflowers wants something, they want it NOW. They must get on their landlines and order people every night for the next day. It’s the only explanation for all the 18-wheelers, the concrete mixing trucks, the lumber haulers, the construction crews. It’s a toddler mentality, and I’ve been told that we old folk do revert. The lead’s mother in a recent Hallmark movie moved to an active adult community and loved it. She compared it to being in college without the exams, but I think that’s giving maturity credit where it might not be due. Combine that with what I’ve mentioned before about the mania in time running out. But it’s Month 7 and I’m spiraling.
The management announced that the swimming pool would be closed for 90 days for construction. They added, “We know that we all may be a bit cranky without our pool.” I guess that wasn’t satisfactory, because just a few days later, a special announcement was sent out listing alternative locations with pools nearby and special discounts.
There are now food trucks every Tuesday in the community center parking lot. It really is a nice thing, but it’s quite the feat to leave the house on Tuesdays what with all the tricycles, golf carts, walkers, etc., all balancing food and conversation. The Volunteers placed some plastic tables and chairs in the parking lot, but that’s been troublesome with all the cars.
Crazy Rhythm now performs every Friday night in the Fiesta Room, and had to add a couple of Wednesdays due to high demand. I have no idea how the office keeps up with all the game nights now. There has to be a team of Love Boat Julie Cruise Directors on the job.
The most humorous newsletter retraction/correction was this one: “ERROR: Desert Ministries (not miniseries) will be having a vigil to remember deceased loved ones.”
The Chinese New Year potluck here on the 12th was a big success. (I think they got the date wrong?) Scads of SUVs were parked on the street. Women toted dishes and pans and grocery bags to and fro. I think they all gathered to cook together, which was kind of cute until Festus or Fernando (still can't tell them apart) had to put his stank all over it by staying home that morning so he could stand around his driveway speaking to every gal he could. That Festus or Fernando is always blowing something - leaves, bushes, dirt, pebbles, streets, lady gatherings. The morning after was dead quiet. Not even a car went by. Hangovers? Food poisoning?
My only New Year’s wish was that Festus or Fernando, the brothers or cousins or friends or 65-year-old roommates who live in the house to the side of this one and one house down, would go back to work. Just when I didn’t think the vroom-vrooming of hoopdie cars or leafblowing could get more ridiculous, they REVVed (get it?) it up. The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day:
Monday (the observed Christmas holiday - a long bed tow truck, you know the kind you see on the highway hauling multiple cars to a dealer, hauled off one of their seven cars.
Tuesday - same tow truck brought same car back. It had to be tested, I guess, because Festus or Fernando revved it up and drove it around and around the block most of the afternoon.
Thursday - Festus or Fernando spent all (!) day in double-digit-feet yard and driveway, blowing, raking, moving pebbles, I have no idea.
Friday - at 6:30am (on a day most people have off) five of seven cars had to be moved so that a professional wood-chipping truck could park in front of their yard. Festus and Fernando have one (ONE!) mesquite tree in the yard that stands, I’d say, about 9 feet tall, that warranted a professional wood chipper. The chipper ran until exactly 8:51. The din, the fumes, and the crunching at regular intervals ended at exactly 8:51. When that nonsensical task was complete, of course, Festus and Fernando had to spend four more hours leaf blowing.
On both weekend mornings, one of them blew again between 9 and 10, dressed in his fancy Wrangler jeans and black cowboy shirt and white hate, before he left in his fancy car for what I assume is church. He looks like Pigpen with clouds of dust all around, because that’s what he’s accomplishing. Blowing the fucking dust. Yesterday, he was in the middle of the gravel yard blowing around a tree. Seeds? All I know is that it’s ridiculous!
This was just one week’s activity at one house. Holidays have little meaning in Tucson. They’re just another day off. The construction crew worked on Christmas Day. All day - flooring, painting, building, heaving shit in a dumpster in the driveway. Nobody giving a shit about Baby Jesus or a Sunflower who might have out-of-town company or family visitors. I don’t think those thoughts enter minds here. It’s always been so odd to me, coming from a foreign land. : )
The brightest spot to report on this month is that I have only heard two dogs bark since I moved in, and that was just when they were on their morning walks and spotted an approaching ne’er-do-well that needed to be warned. I love this kind of barking. Proud pups protecting things. I have lived in a couple of neighborhoods where people had what they called “yard dogs”. As in, “They’re yard dogs. That’s what they do. They bark all day and night." People who shouldn’t have had dogs, yet had numerous children. A few years ago, I lived next to dogs who cried and cried all day while their parents were at work. I tried talking to them, I tried talking to their landlord, I tried talking to animal control. I even recorded the crying in hopes somebody would feel something. They never did. It was gut-wrenching, so I’m always especially glad when dogs aren’t abused. I know, I’m demanding. Karen, some might call me. : )
I always close with Wilbur. He’s lit up with two floodlights and his Edison patio lights from about 5pm to 6am most days/nights. The HOA sent out a reminder to the entire community that holiday decorations must be down by January 16th. And dogs must be leashed and not left to bark on patios. It irks me because neither of those is mentioned in a bylaw, but patio lights are. (This is really the landlord’s fault for not taking any action, but that’s been an unrelated nightmare. It might be a blessing in disguise though, because if I have to rent a home from one more 65-year-old female(s), I’m going to just drive off a f&*ing cliff instead.)