A short visit to Arizona

(Note: this post written yesterday on the palne trip back from AZ)

Today I went and paid an afternoon visit to my grandmother in Arizona; she still has a man living out in back of her place that I call “Shed Guy”. I’m not sure how Shed Guy (aka “Dave”) ended up in her back yard, but he’s been there for several years now. He does odd jobs for my grandmother (she paid him something like $2.00/hour to paint her house, an amount she justified by saying that he never really worked that hard) and generally serves as an aggravating foil (she needs someone to get annoyed at); although he is a serious alcoholic (he’s not eligible to get his drivers license back until 2026), I don’t think my grandmother would be able to stay in her current house without him around (she’s almost 84, and in poor health).

The last time I visited, Shed Guy showed me how to find tarantulas. They live inside holes that are spread out all over the yard……I always thought that rodents lived in these burrows.

Here’s a photo of the shed.



And here are Shed Guy’s chickens. It’s surprising how four chickens can make the whole yard (including the front) smell bad.



And finally, Shed Guy himself, cursing up a storm while trying to fix the swamp cooler. He’s taught my grandmother a few new words recently……



My grandmother lives near two towns, Coolidge and Florence. Florence has a bit of old town charm, but is mostly known for the several prisons located on the edge of town. Incarceration is the main county industry. Today, as I usually do when in the area, I visited the prison craft outlet. It’s full of handcrafted leather wallets, beaded jewelry, and hand-painted (or sometimes just colored-in-the-lines) pictures of popular themes such as Disney characters or comic book heroes; this “art” is generally over-priced and crude at best. Maybe they need to charge $36 for a picture of Spider Man so they can cover their lawyer’s retainer for the inevitable copyright infringement suits. Although the picture frames decorated with pagan symbols and the oddly-proportioned hand-crocheted stuffed alligators looked especially appealing today, I didn’t buy anything (actually, I’ve never made a purchase there, but Christmas is creeping up on us……).

At the hardware store in Florence, I noticed a set of tools with a package labeled “Distributed in the USA” below a little American flag. That made me think: it’s bad enough that the screwdrivers were made in China, but it’d be horrible if they were also distributed over there and you had to fly overseas to buy them.

Coolidge really has no redeeming qualities. Think of the armpitiest town you’ve ever visited in the US: double the hairiness and you’ve got Coolidge. I had to go there today to pick up some cooler parts; the cooler shop was notable not only for not being cool inside (and thus probably being one of the more ironic places in the city), but also for selling Mary Kay cosmetics. For a company that prides itself on its image (think pink Cadillacs), Mary Kay doesn’t seem to have very high standards for their distributorships.