Torture by Mariachi

Oh, it's been a long, long three weeks since I last posted. Our landlords are having the house painted, which originally brought a comment of, "Oh, how cool!" from us. Three weeks, hundreds of hours of droning compressors, grinding sanders and blaring mariachi music later, not so great. I would recommend to anyone who's having a house re-painted on the outside to put drop cloths over all your furniture, bring everything that needs to remain in one piece inside your house (plants, animals, outdoor furniture) and go away for several weeks. When you return, it will all be shiny and new, and you'll never know the hell that occurred while you were away... definitely not conducive to blogging, or any other kind of writing, for that matter. Unfortunately, I write for a living, which is a problem...

In an attempt to turn "lemons into lemonade", we went away last week, thinking the painting would be over when we returned... alas, this was not the case, but we are having a quiet Saturday, so here I am! The trip took us first to Phoenix, where I interviewed for some project work at The Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) at ASU, which is headed, happily for me, by my old friend Rob Melnick. He and I had a delightful lunch in the lovely shaded patio of House of Tricks (great name!)with his communication director, Karen Leland, who is also lovely, though not shaded.

Then I spent the weekend getting very revved up at the USTA's Community Tennis Development Workshop in Scottsdale. I'm determined to get some kids out on these public courts of ours, and I went to Scottsdale to learn how other people do it. The byword these days at USTA is Under Ten Tennis - with a format called "QuickStart", which is tennis for kids with smaller racquets, a large foam ball, and a small court. We learned fun games that teach skills to children without boring and pressure-filled drills - we can't wait to get started on this... stay tuned! Had plenty of fun with the adults at the conference, too - serious tennis players are generally very geeky and nice.

Sunday evening was the surprise 65th birthday of our old friend Marc Cavness, and his daughters were kind enough to invite us when they found out from my wonderful pal Linda Stuckey that we'd be in town. Marc and his wife, as well as most of the attendees, are from families who have been in Arizona for several generations, and it might surprise you to learn that they are all pretty liberal folk. Marc, who's a lawyer, had created thousands of campaign-style buttons that say "I could be illegal", which we all wore in his honor at the party. And I brought home lots of them to share with my radical Bisbonian buddies. Marc was genuinely surprised and touched by the crowd, many of whom had flown in from a distance... so good to connect with old friends.

Next it was on to Cottonwood, where Jim and Sara were housesitting for their daughter, Penny. We had the perfect 48 hours in the Red Rock Country - a hike up Mingus Mountain the first day, leafy and beautiful, which ended with a sunset view dinner at the Haunted Hamburger in wacky old Jerome - another copper mining town that's been revived by artists and tourists. The next day a visit to the ruins of the pueblos of the Sinagua people, who built their homes into a mountain cavern that allowed warm sun in winter, shade in summer... ingenious architecture; on to Boynton Canyon, where we hiked with the multitudes and admired the brilliant colors of Sedona's red rocks - which display more than just red: orange, purple, blue, grey, turquoise, and umber against green trees and blue sky.

Now we're back in the construction zone - but today is the Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb, a 5K race that was written up in the Wall Street Journal as one of the country's best. We're not running - in fact, we're not even walking - but we're sure to have some fun!