Pandemic Diaries - Year 2, December

 2 January 2022

 

Yes, it's January already!  2022!!!  And yes, we've been in Tucson for three months now, and I have said nothing about where we're staying, our little house, what we're doing, all that stuff.

 

What can I say.  We're pandemicking.  We arrived after a two week road trip, and thought okay, we were around a lot of people in a variety of states, we'll lie low a bit and make sure we didn't pick up anything along the way.  Don't want to infect anyone.  

And then, Covid rates in Arizona went up.  Then across the US.  Omicron got started in the southern chunk of Africa and arrived here.  We went to New Mexico somewhere in there, but, well, we're still pandemicking.  Staying mostly in our house, going out for walks, going shopping once or twice a week.  Seeing medical people when needed.  But not really doing much of anything else.

The same as many people across the US, who are trying to be sensible and not catch nor spread anything, symptomatic or not.

We celebrated our anniversary quietly, with a nice meal and flowers.  We celebrated Thanksgiving quietly, though I insisted on some turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts, and an apple pie.  We celebrated Chanukah quietly, with my new Mexican stars of David - and yes, they really are designed to be attached to Christmas tree lights, but I just hung them in a large window/sliding glass door area.

Then Richard's birthday, which we un-celebrated, with a not-birthday-cake.  Christmas we kind of ignore, since it isn't our holiday, but we decided to really live it up and went to a casino!  Masks were mandated, slot machines were divided with plastic barriers, and we kept our distance from others as much as possible.  (And Richard won enough to take us out for a very nice dinner at the nicer café at the casino.)  What can I say, it was nice to get out and do something - but it also was a little stress-inducing, knowing that Arizona only had 18 available ICU beds state-wide.  (I repeat, 18 ICU beds available in the entire state at that point.)  No, we didn't intend to need them.  But facts like that make us very aware of the crowded conditions of the healthcare system here, and made us even more desirous of avoiding needing such care!

 

Old Year's Day and New Year's Eve were another quiet celebration - there were small personal fireworks going off, but none large enough to stand outside and watch.  Oh well, that's okay, the weather turned really cold, and it made sense to stay in our cozy house.

 

And that's about it for our excitement.  We found a furnished house to rent for seven months, on the east side of Tucson.  It's mostly a residential area with some businesses nearby - the usual support businesses like grocery stores, pharmacies, eating places, medical services, and gas stations.  No industry that I can tell, but we're not very far from the University of Arizona.  Not close enough for student housing, but close enough that people care about the sports teams.  Actually, we're just a few blocks down from the Tucson Desert Art Museum, which I joined three years ago when we spent a winter here.

 

We find things to do each day - reading, walking, TV, art projects, and all the things that the internet provides.  We watch the mountains to the north change colors depending on the time of day and the weather (the Santa Catalina Mountains, known just as "the Catalinas").  These small rocky mountains are dusty purples and greys during the day, but they reflect the setting sun and turn all shades of reds with deep purple shadows each evening.  On cold days like today, the peaks are dusted or fully frosted in snow.  And on grey rainy days, the tops of the mountains are wreathed in clouds like shrouds, fading down the sides and collecting in the canyons.

We also watch the moon, planets, and stars since most nights are dark.  Our little housing development is next to a huge park with various ball fields, so on nights with big games there are huge lights over the fields.  

Some nights we hear the coyotes yipping and howling from the undeveloped area in the park.  I've seen one coyote trotting around down the road closer to the park.  And one morning, there was a rattlesnake on our street!  Well, it had been run over by a car and was rather flattened, but it was a good-sized rattler, and I haven't seen one outside a zoo, so this one counts.  

So, our house.  Each house has walls surrounding the yards, as well as gates, I presume to keep out the occasional coyote or even javelina who might wander through.  So most of the houses aren't really visible except through the gates.  We actually have a garage for our little car, complete with an electric garage door opener!  (Yes, this is the first one I've ever had in my life!)

Our house isn't as colorful nor as exciting as our little house in Florida, but it's similar in size, maybe a little smaller.  The furnishings and decor are definitely desert-influenced, with the subdued colors and occasional ceramic or metal Mexican touches.  

 

We seem to share a common wall with the house next door, so I guess technically we're in a duplex - and the windows and sliding glass doors are on only three sides of our house.  But we do have three or so skylights, so on sunny days it's very bright inside.

We have a nice kitchen, a guest room (and bathroom), and our larger bedroom (and another bathroom).  Richard has a small office.  There's a large room which is the living room/dining room area.  The area that once was an outside covered porch was enclosed, so it's kind of a sunroom, and that's where we both like to read, or where I do some smaller art projects.  There isn't a large table, however, so currently the dining room table is my art table.

There's a small patio off the kitchen, a nice place for coffee or tea on sunny mornings.  And we have a larger patio in the back yard, complete with a table and chairs, as well as a fire pit.  Or maybe a free-standing fire pit, since "pit" sort of implies a hole in the ground.  At any rate, that's another nice place for reading on sunny days - it's on the north side of the house, so this area is shady and cooler than the other outside areas.

We don't have any trees, just the usual desert landscaping with rocks, gravel, and paving bricks.  There are some low drought-resistant plants, which means we can ignore them.

 

Some people in our complex have trees, and I've seen tropical fruit trees, such as oranges and grapefruits.  One person even has a pomegranate tree in their front area!  

 

I've gotten to know several dogs - most people walk their dogs a few times each day, so I've met several of these dogs, including a most enthusiastic Golden Retriever.  There's also one reddish dog, maybe part pit bull but part something with longer fur; he barks at me each day and wags his tail as I talk to him and tell him he's a good guard dog.  He barks at me less now that he knows me, but I guess the barking is his way of saying hello, how ya doin', whassup?  So, I chat with him as I walk by.

One morning, I opened our bedroom drapes and saw a grey hawk outside on the wall.  Well, I didn't know it really was called a grey hawk, but it was a lovely soft grey with black bars on the tail, with a pale face and breast.  I knew it was some kind of raptor, so I looked it up.  Turns out that yes, this is a grey hawk, also known as a Mexican Goshawk.  The only region they live in within the USA is here in southeast Arizona; their usual habitat is Mexico on south through much of Central America.  They're a small hawk, and considered tropical.  It has been estimated that there are maybe 50 breeding pairs within the US, so I was quite honored to have this grey hawk visiting us that morning.  (I've seen it once or twice since then.)

 

For my birding friends, here's more info about grey hawks:  https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Gray_Hawk/id# and https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/gray-hawk

That's about it.  There's more excitement, but that will need to wait for another blog post.  Because, well, when one is bunkering in during a pandemic time, sometimes any exciting news needs to be spread out over time - sort of like saying that last little chocolate for the final bite of a meal, to make it stay as long as possible, and to be able to savor it slowly.

So yes, there is more exciting news, but you'll just have to wait a bit until things are more finalized.