New Friends and Old

December 25-28

On Christmas Day Scottsdale had just about shut down. We had run out of most of our breakfast supplies. Yogurt and almond milk were gone. We were almost out of muesli, and even with milk that’s like eating straw.

We were saved, though, from a diet dropped out of vending machines. Kristin was going to cook chicken for Christmas dinner. 

She and Patrick also had a couple of Christmas gifts for us.

They were hand-made products from Seeds for Autism, an organization formed to teach skills to people on the autism spectrum.

Mine was a pen with a wooden barrel. 

Joanna’s was a hand-woven towel. In addition there was a t-shirt from Northern Arizona University, Peter’s school.

Besides the pen, there was a box of chocolates in my gift bag. 

Dinner was chicken soaked in brine and roasted. We had that with the remaining Pinot Grigio from the other day. If I remember right, there were no leftovers.

Sunday, Boxing Day, was full of errands. We managed to get all of them done except for the sneakers.

First, we went to Walgreen’s. This time it was Joanna’s turn to order meds. She had filled out a form that included contact information for her pharmacy and her doctor.

She had a ten-day supply left, and the lady at the counter said it might be too soon for the insurance company to OK a refill. 

Uh-oh, I kept my fingers crossed.

We took the laundry to the same place that we used on our previous road trip to Phoenix, in 2019.

I still had the card we used to run the machines. I had stuffed it into the wallet where I keep the car registration and my proof of insurance.

The shop is called Coin Less Laundry. You put credit on the card and use it to start the washers and dryers. I may have had almost a dollar credit left on the card.

We put the laundry in and went for a walk through one of the strip malls that line Indian School Road. Just as they do almost everywhere.

We found a curious-looking antiques store, huge with meandering tight aisles lined with jewelry and bric-a-brac cases, furniture, paintings, prints, busts, bas reliefs, and that’s just for starters. 

It could have been endless, but I wouldn’t know. We didn’t stay to explore it all.

It was mildly interesting to me, but most of this is the kind of stuff that I paid to get rid of six years ago. The only jewelry I own now is a pocket watch and a collection of switch-blades. Oh yeah, and some cufflinks.

I still own one piece of furniture (if you don’t count the seats in the Ford). It’s a folding director’s chair that stays in the storage shed. 

I actually used it once since I put it there. I made the mistake of booking myself into a Rodeway Inn that had no seating at all in the room. Nothing. You were expected to perch on the edge of the bed to used the desk.

It was in Belleville, N.J., so I drove out to Fairfield to get my own chair. That whole weekend was a debacle. I booked the Rodeway because it was next to a bar that had craft beer. I found out too late that the bar was out of business.

I admit I have a chair, but forget a mirror framed by a ring of wooden shoe trees. The store had two of those, by the way.

I’m just too clumsy to stay long in a cluttered environment. Hey, if I get distracted and turn around too fast, I could do several hundred dollars’ worth of damage in one swoop.

So after a brief visit, we strolled back to check on the washer.

We sat outside while the dryer dried our clothes, and we were out of the laundry after an hour or so.

We also stopped at Safeway, not far from Coin Less, to lay in some provisions for breakfasts yet to come.

For dinner we went to Oregano’s Pizza Bistro on Scottsdale Road. 

Oregano’s had a very interesting pasta dish, plenty for two. It came as two boneless chicken breasts Parmagiana on a bed of linguine in a cream sauce made with capers. Capers are right up there with basil and oregano among my favorite vegetables.

It was delicious. And the kitchen didn’t scrimp on the capers. Those little berries with vinegar and salt permeated the entire dish.

The flavors were rich enough to hold up to two glasses of the house Chianti.

Joanna and I both like spinach, and green vegetables can be hard to get on the road.  So we had a side of that for nutritional balance.

Monday, the 27th, we met some new friends. Richard and Linda live in the middle of a Zen garden in a place aptly named Paradise Valley.

We had not met them before. We hadn’t even spoken on the phone. Beatrice introduced us by e-mail, and that’s the medium we used to fix a date and time to meet.

They had decided to host us for lunch at their house. The house sits in a yard planted with carefully spaced native flora, even a few saguaros of some size. They are a slow-growing variety of cactus that is heavily protected here. 

They are the ones with arm-like branches that become animated and dance in cartoons. The arms start to grow when the plants are 75 to 100 years old.

They are in the yard, along with other cacti, and many species of growing things that I can’t name. All the space in between is paved with yellow gravel. 

The day was overcast, the colors intense, and the effect serene.

Our connection to Richard and Linda was Beatrice. The connection between them and Beatrice was the playwright Dale Wasserman. Beatrice’s memoir, “Misadventures of a Would-Be Muse,” chronicles some of her experiences as Wasserman’s assistant.

She had helped arrange a reading of a new play called “Premiere!” Wasserman didn’t come to New York for the reading, but asked friends, namely Richard and Linda, to represent him there. Beatrice invited me to the same reading.

If I met Richard or Linda then, the encounter was so brief that none of us remembers it.  Anyhow, this kind of coincidence is the reason you always have to behave in public. You never know when you’ll meet someone who can identify you.

We started by sipping Prosecco and chatting about ourselves—Joanna’s roots in China, mine in failing as a teacher and becoming a hack writer, Richard’s in advertising and writing, and Linda’s in theater and TV.

The aperitif was followed by an extraordinary chicken salad with a white wine. I think it was Pinot Grigio. It may have been Chardonnay. If Linda reads this, she may want to set me straight. Or may choose to let the mystery stand.

At one point, we looked out the window and saw flocks of birds at their lunch. They were attracted to a feeder that looked like an upturned flower pot on a pedestal. 

Unlike most birds, they seemed to be taking turns instead of trying to fight each other off.

We had a meeting with an old friend of Joanna’s the next day, Wednesday the 28th. Bitsy, as everyone calls her, is another refugee from New Jersey winters.

She and Joanna were friends early on, and they have stayed in touch long after Bitsy moved west.

I had met Bitsy once before. She is now settled in a new house. 

We picked up Patrick, who joined us for the visit and guided us to the house.

It’s another stunning location. There is a park full of saguaros climbing a hillside behind the house. There are trails for hikers and bikers. 

We were hoping to see the javelinas that live out there. They come up to the wash outside the back fence from time to time, but it was raining and they don’t like to be out in the rain.

We had seen video of them on Patrick’s phone. Bitsy gives their babies names.

At her front door, there is a tile mural of St. Francis preaching to the animals, including a coyote. He had put on a red cap for the season. 

We went back to Patrick’s house later and found that Kristin was back from work. She had gone in for a holiday party. Peter was out with friends, and Natalie had been home all day.

Joanna had pasta e fagioli that Kristin had made. The rest of us had pizza. 

Here’s to the old and new, my friends.

Be well, all, and may the higher powers bless.

Love.

Harry and Joanna