Monthly Archives: May 2016

May4

Bike Theives

Posted on by
Standard

During my 20s, I lived in a dangerous city. Almost everyone I knew had been mugged at least once, sometimes at gunpoint. Homes (and by “homes,” I mean the substandard housing that nearly everyone I knew lived in) were burglarized. Wheels were stolen from bicycles. Entire bicycles were stolen. The murder rate was through the roof.

As I walked or biked around the city (I didn’t have a car), in the back of my mind was always the worry I’d accidentally witness a drug deal or a murder and get shot because of my wandering eyes. I learned to navigate through the city by moving briskly with my head up, alert, paying attention to my surroundings, but not showing any interest in what illegal things other people might be doing.

One night I was walking with my male friend. It wasn’t too late–maybe 10pm. I can’t remember where we’d just left (maybe work, maybe a bar) or where we were going (probably a bar). We’d left the busy tourist area and were walking through a residential neighborhood, but we were only a couple of blocks away from a cluster of bars where people were likely partying.

My friend was pushing his bicycle. Normally, he would have been riding it, but since I was on foot, he was walking too.

I don’t remember how it happened–if they stepped out of the shadows or approached us on the sidewalk from the opposite direction–but two men we didn’t know were suddenly right there with us. Before my friend could walk past, one put his hands on the bike’s handlebars and said he was taking the bike.

As is so often the case in this type of situation, it all happened so fast.

I didn’t see a gun or a knife or a weapon of any kind. I just saw two guys–one with his hands on the bike, saying he was taking it; the other silent, acting almost as if he didn’t really want to be involved.

I started yelling. I probably screamed Help! I think I screamed Fire! (My mom had told me to scream Fire! if anyone ever tried to kidnap or rape or otherwise hurt me.) I started running in the direction of the bars where I knew there would likely be people.

While I was screaming, but before I ran, I saw my friend had his hands on the handlebars too, fighting for possession.

(For years, whenever I remembered this incident, the image I saw in my mind was that of my friend swinging the entire bicycle up and over his head. My friend says it didn’t happen quite that way. Memory is a fascinating and untrustworthy phenomenon.)

So I ran screaming away from my friend and the would-be bike thieves. I ran a couple of blocks, right up to some guys standing outside a bar. My friend is being robbed, I told them. Two guys are trying to steal his bike. I asked them to please come with me and help my friend.

The guys were slow to react. Maybe the alcohol that was surely in their systems had slowed down neural connections, making what I was saying difficult to comprehend. Maybe they feared I was trying to lure them into the dark where I had friends waiting to rob them.

Before they could decide if or how they should help, my friend came around the corner pushing his bike. He’d gotten away from the would-be thieves. He’d escaped transportation disaster.

I can’t remember now (so many years later) what made the would-be thieves leave, but I’m going to believe my screaming and running for help discouraged them.

We were so cavalier back then. As we continued on our way, we critiqued the technique of the men who’d just tried to rob us. How silly of them to try that without a gun, we laughed. They didn’t even have a knife, we jeered. The second guy should not have let me scream, much less run, I marveled. He should have had me on the ground with his hand over my mouth, I strategized.

We decided we could could be much better robbers than those guys were. They didn’t even know how to do what they were trying to do.

In my naiveté, I thought everyone lived more or less in fear. I didn’t realize until I moved away that I’d spent almost all of my adult life always feeling afraid. Some events were scarier than others, but I always felt some degree of fear. Being afraid was so normal, we laughed at scary situations.

IMG_5848

I took this (only marginally related) photo.

May3

So Many Chickens, So Little Time!

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_6014

I was hanging out with Sue Soaring Sun of Sun Gallery fame.

(Never heard of Sun Gallery in Truth or Consequences, NM? Check it out here: http://www.sierracountynewmexico.info/shopping/a-z/name/sun-gallery/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/sungallerytorc/timeline. The gallery’s Facebook page says,

Sun Gallery is a folk art and antiques gallery in Truth or Consequences, a fun and affordable spa town in beautiful southern New Mexico.

The gallery is located at 407 1/2 N. Broadway.)

We were talking about a restaurant we both know, a place where the decor is heavy on chickens. One of us piped up with So many chickens…Sue’s boyfriend grinned and added in and so little time. When we quit laughing, we agreed it would be a perfect theme for an art show. Sue decided it would be a fun May show for her gallery, so she sent out a call for submissions.

Here’s the call, as it appeared on the gallery’s Facebook page:

CALL FOR ARTISTS
So Many Chickens, So Little Time

All artists of any age or ability are invited to each bring ONE piece of artwork to Sun Gallery for our May 2016 show, “So Many Chickens, So Little Time.”

You can price your work or just show it without offering it for sale. If it sells, the artist gets 100% of the sales price. Sun Gallery will not be taking a percentage for this show.

Have fun with the theme! There are no rules about the medium or size of the artwork.

Sun Gallery will be open for both Fiesta weekend and Art Hop weekend, so your work will be seen by many.

Drop off your work on TUESDAY May 3rd between 12 noon and 4 pm.

Pick up your sales proceeds or unsold work on SUNDAY May 15 between 11 am and 4 pm.

Thanks for your participation!

I responded to the call with a big ol’ chicken collage. First I bought a used canvas and a red and white checkered napkin at Goodwill. I ironed the napkin, then used a staple gun to attach it to the canvas. The napkin made a great background to fill in any gaps between chickens.

As soon as I knew the show was happening, I requested catalogs from several chicken supply companies. Unfortunately, only one catalog had arrived by the time I really needed to get working on the project. I needed to find another source for photogenic fowl.

I had credit at bookstore that buys used books, DVDs, magazines, video games, CDs, craft supplies, musical instruments, and knickknacks. I went to the store’s periodical section and found several copies of Grit, the magazine Celebrating Rural America Since 1882. Chicken photo jackpot!

One additional source for poultry pictures was a beat-up children’s book given to me by the Lady of the House. Called The Lifesize Animal Opposites Book, it afforded me with my rooster focal point.

I spent a few evenings cutting, arranging, and gluing photos of chickens while sitting in front of a television IMG_6012playing late 20th-century game shows. I even made a special artist bio card to go with my collage.

I ended up pleased with the outcome of my work. There are a lot of chickens in my collage. There are SO many chickens!

I decided to call my piece Chicken Tractor because I think that’s a hilarious term.

My collage will be on display at Sun Gallery starting tomorrow until May 15. If you are in the neighborhood, you should stop by and see it live and in person. (As usual, my photos don’t do justice to the real thing.) The collage (13″ by 15″) is most definitely for sale. If you want to add it to your very special chicken collection or display in in your heretofore fowl free home, please contact me and we can negotiate.

IMG_6006

I took the photos in this post.

May2

Space Age Lodge

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_5756

I think the Space Age Lodge may be the only cool thing left in Gila Bend, Arizona.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_Bend,_Arizona,

Gila Bend (/ˌhiːlə ˈbɛnd/; O’odham: Hila Wi:n), [was] founded in 1872 [and] is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. The town is named for an approximately 90-degree bend in the Gila River, which is close to but not precisely at the community’s current location.[3] According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 1,922.[1]

Just outside the town is the San Lucy district (O’odham: Weco Cekṣanĭ) of the Tohono O’odham Nation, with a tiny settlement, San Lucy (O’odham: Si:l Mek) bordering the town itself.

The town of Gila Bend is situated near an ancient Hohokam village. When Father Eusebio Francisco Kino visited in 1699, the older site along fertile banks of the Gila River had been abandoned and other tribes, lived in the vicinity.

As late as the 1820s Maricopa were living at Gila Bend. After the 1820s, the Maricopa, under relentless pressure from the Yuma and other tribes, and population loss from epidemics, had been compelled to leave the Gila Bend and join the Pima in the Middle Gila region. By the time of the California Gold Rush the Maricopa villages, were all located east of the Sierra Estrella, on the Gila River, below the Pima Villages.[4]:111-112

From 1857, the place was named Gila Ranch and was a stagecoach stop on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line and the later more famous Butterfield Overland Mail route to California located 17 miles from Murderer’s Grave Station to the west and 40 miles east of Maricopa Wells Station. After the American Civil War, other stage and freight routes converged here especially after the railroad arrived in 1879. The nickname the “Crossroads of the Southwest” stems from the area having been part of an important transportation route in the settling, development and growth of the Great Southwest. Gila Bend was the “center of a wheel”, with spokes leading in many directions throughout the region.[5]

These days Gila Bend is still a crossroads of sorts. Go west and end up in Yuma. Go east and end up in Tucson. Go south and end up in Ajo. Go north and end up (more or less) in Buckeye, then go a bit east from there to Phoenix.

But the times I’ve passed through Gila Bend on my travels from Ajo to Phoenix, I haven’t seen a whole lot going on in in the town. During the Divine Miss M’s excursion to Gila Bend, she was told there used to be a grocery store within the city limits; the grocery store is now closed. Currently the town boasts a few fast food joints, a few gas stations, a Love’s truck stop, a Family Dollar, a Dollar General, and more hotels/motels than it seems able to support.

The jewel of the hotels there is the Best Western Space Age Lodge. IMG_5758

I have to admit, I’ve never spent a night in the Space Age Lodge. I haven’t seen the inside of a guest room. But if I were passing through Gila Bend and needed a room for the night, the Space Age Lodge is the hotel I would pick.

According to a June 2015 article at  http://www.phoenixmag.com/History/space-age-lodge.html, the motel opened in 1965.

The retro hotel was one of five special “space age” destinations the late [Al] Stovall designed in the early to mid-’60s.

The lodge is now in the care of Bill O’Connell, who first began working with Al Stovall as a 21-year-old in the boss’ hotels in Anaheim, Calif. Every futuristic detail at the Space Age Lodge, from the lamps to room dividers, was hand-designed by Stovall, O’Connell says: “It was all his imagination and creativity that they used to build the hotel.”

Outer space was what “everyone was talking about” in the ‘60s, and the Space Age Lodge remains committed to the theme. In 1998, a fire sparked by a malfunctioning neon light destroyed parts of the lobby and restaurant; the owners took it in stride, stretching a banner outside the burned building that read, “Attacked by Aliens!”

IMG_5754

This photo shows the entrance to the hotel’s lobby. Notice the UFO perched on the roof.

IMG_5761

This shot gives a better view of the UFO on the roof of the lobby.

IMG_5760

Just west of the hotel is the Space Age Restaurant. I didn’t spend any money doing research in the restaurant. I didn’t even walk inside. As with most places serving food, the reviews online are mixed.

I appreciated many of the details I could see from outside, such as the metal screens which help to block IMG_5763the view of the rooms, as well as UFOs showing the room number on each door. The blue and white color scheme is a nice combination.

If I were ever flush with dough while passing through Gila Bend, I might stop to eat at the Space Age Lodge Restaurant or stay the night in a guest room. In reality, I’ll probably just enjoy this blast from the American past from the outside as I roll on down the road.

IMG_5759

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took all of the photos in this post.

May1

Spending Report for April 2016

Posted on by
Standard

If anyone doesn’t know or has forgotten, one of my goals for 2016 is to keep a record of every penny I spend this year. (To find out how this project came about, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/12/31/spending/.) At the beginning of each month I give a report on what I bought and how much I spent in the previous month.

I’m pretty sad about my spending report for April 2016. I was doing really well until I was told I needed four new tires. (Read about my tire saga here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/04/29/tires/ and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/04/30/tires-a-cautionary-tale-continued/.)

My insurance came due in April too. I prefer to pay for six months of insurance at a time so I can save money. Because I moved my insurance to a new state when I renewed my policy, my premium for six months increased $120

As follows is my spending report for April 2016.

4-1-16  Today I spent 50 cents for hot water when I took a shower at a campground. Total spent: 50 cents

4-2-16  Today I went to town. I always seem to spend money when I go to town. Total spent: $26.54

79 cents for a brand new collapsible funnel

$20 for gas

$5.75 to the supermarket for cookies to contribute to a party and ice

4-3-16  Nothing spent

4-4-16  Nothing spent

4-5-16  I went back to town today. Total spent: $10.55

$3.50 to the post office for postcard stamps

$2 at thrift stores, for, among other things, two Rubbermaid containers for with lids for holding ice in my cooler and a Klean Kanteen water bottle in fantastic condition

$5.05 for food at the discount grocery store

I did NOT eat at the pizza buffet today. I wanted to. I really, really wanted to, but I told myself no.

4-6-16  Today I headed to the big city for a house and pet sitting job. Total spent: $51.65

$40 on gas in the van

$11.65 to Wal-Mart for double sided tape (which is crap–I should have paid for higher quality), interdental brushes, a tub to go under my bed to hold up the board under the memory foam so I don’t spend the entire night trying not to roll towards the front of the van, and two pairs of boot socks which were on sale for $1 a pair.

4-7-16  Back in the city, I hit a couple of thrift stores and bought some groceries to get me through my time house sitting. Total Spent: $23.82

$19.32 for groceries

$4.50 for art supplies for chicken project and yarn.

4-8-16  Nothing spent

4-9-16 Today I bought my four new tires (cringe) and handed a dollar to a man flying a sign. Total spent: $416.83

$415.83 to Discount Tire for tires

$1 to panhandler

4-10-16  I need boots for my summer job. I went online today and found a pair on Ebay that were still in great condition and substantially less than they cost new. I also went to Panera (where I was given a free bagel every day of the month of April) to write for a few hours. Total spent: $54.85

$46.40 for work/hiking boots

$8.45 to Panera for a drink and later a salad

4-11-16  Today I moved to the Airbnb room I rented to stay in while I worked scoring standardized tests. (If you wonder why I haven’t mentioned paying for that rental, it’s because I haven’t yet. I borrowed money to pay for the room, and haven’t repaid the money yet. That payment should show up in the May spending report.) I mailed two packages and bought some groceries before I moved in. Total spent: $50.72

$9.82 to post office

$2.98 for brown rice (There was a GREAT sale going on; two pounds of rice for $1. I should have bought ten pounds)

$37.92 to discount food store on groceries

4-12-16  Nothing spent

4-13-16  Nothing spent

4-14-16  I ran some errands after work. Total spent: $27.49

$6 to Goodwill for jars to use in making ghee, and for two shirts and a pair of jeans (The clothes were only $1 per piece!)

$1.49 to the supermarket for half a gallon of milk

$20 for gas

4-15-16  My big Friday treat was dinner at Taco Bell. Total spent: $2.37

4-16-17  Today was half-price day at Goodwill. After work, I hit a couple of stores. Total spent: $7.95

$2.49 for a birthday present book

$5.46 for two books for me, yarn for infinity scarf projects, and an sleep mask made from corduroy for a young man I know who is soon going off to collage

4-17-16  Today I made ghee, and had to buy butter and cheesecloth at the supermarket. I haven’t decided if the project was a success or a failure. Total spent: $11.69

4-18-16  Nothing spent

4-19-18  Driving to and from works uses gas. Today I had to put more in the van’s tank. Total spent: $20

4-20-18  I stopped at Dollar Tree after work to get an envelope in which to mail the chicken art. There was nothing big enough for my chicken art needs. However, I found nice adult coloring books and bought three as gifts. I also bought a stylus to use with my new phone. Total spent: $4.32

4-21-16  I could barely stay awake at work today and had to buy a cup of coffee from the machine in the break room. After work I found the box I needed to mail the chicken art. Total spent: $1.72

55 cents to coffee machine

$1.17 to Wal-Mart for box to ship chicken art

4-22-17  Today was payday. In celebration, I ate fried chicken and steak fries I picked up at the supermarket when I was buying tea to get me through the sleepies at work and a couple of other food items. Total spent: $11.73

4-23-16  Nothing spent

4-24-16  Today I went to the grand open of an international supermarket. I bought sriracha sauce, a pack of toothbrushes, and a tube of sunscreen. Total Spent: $5.48

4-25-16  Today I mailed the chicken art and paid for six months of insurance (cringe). Total spent: $380.95

$8.45 to post office to mail package

$380.95 for six months of insurance

4-26-16  Nothing spent

4-27-16  My temp job ended yesterday and I moved out of the Airbnb room today. I stocked up a the discount food store and took care of some things with my van registration and residency. Total spent: $79.46

$47.46 to discount grocery store for food

$32 MVD

4-28-16  Today I went to a junior high school play and took care of some more van registration details. Total spent: $33.95

$5 admission to play

$28.95 to MVD

4-29-16  My monthly phone payment was charged to my debit card account. (I get a discount for using autopay.) Total spent: $34.99

4-30-16 Last day of the month, and I bought supplies I’ll need for the summer.  Total spent: $36.58

Total spent in March: $1.294.14

Excuse me while I go off somewhere and feel depressed.

To read my other spending reports, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/02/01/spending-report-for-january-2016/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/03/01/spending-report-for-february-2016/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/04/02/spending-report-for-march-2016/.