Making Friends on Mabel St.

It's late Friday afternoon on Feb. 22. We turned the corner onto Mabel St and parked in the driveway of our mid-town rental a few minutes ahead of Ralph. I felt relieved he wasn't waiting for us, ready to hand us the keys and give us his 50-cent tour. I wanted to savor that smidgen of quiet time, marking the end of our 6 days on the road.  The three of us were poking around the front yard--surveying the damage the prickly pear and brittlebush sustained during last week's winter weather--when the green vintage Cadillac slid to a stop in front of the house. Ralph had arrived. In the process of extracting his long legs from behind the wheel and unfolding them into an upright position, he thrust a foil-covered plate of still-warm chocolate chip cookies at us. "Welcome to Tucson!" he boomed. The words were only slightly garbled by the cold, thumb-sized stump of a cigar snugged into the corner of his mouth.

Ralph is our Houston-based landlord's ex-father-in-law. . . and our local contact during the month we'll be living in this quaint, colorful, vintage-1940s house. As we stood with him on the porch waiting for him to unlock the door, I couldn't help staring. At 79, his skin is a fried and sun-spotted testament to what decades of devil-take-the-high-road desert life does to what started as the soft, white skin of a child with (what I'm assuming is his) Northern European heritage. I marveled at the various hues of brown leathery skin stretched taut over his lean bare shins. (Note to self: find a Walgreen's and stock up on spf 65.) Despite his being a walking warning about sun-damage, Ralph is a gracious, warm, old-school Tucsonian. We were well-welcomed. I'd love sitting down with him over a couple martinis and getting his scoop on life.

Like Ralph, our charming, vintage-1940s bungalow has its own stories to tell. If only these walls could talk, as they say. I instantly fell in love with the colorful tile and polished hardwood floors, the mosaic trim around the doorways and on the stair risers, the pumpkin-colored stucco fireplace surround, the Mexican dinnerware stacked neatly in the open kitchen cupboard and the wide louvered windows that open to the enclosed brick patio in back. If it weren't for the seamless wi-fi, the quite-adequate stereo system, and the traffic noises wafting from the busy arterial a couple blocks to the south--it would be easy to pretend we've time traveled back to post WW-II days, when this venerable old neighborhood was young and in its heyday.

It wasn't until an hour or so later that we realized the kitchen had no microwave---which proved an easy fix in Gale's hands, with a quick trip to Lowe's. After a pleasant welcoming dinner at the apartment of our friends Janice and Doug--who are building a new home just a few blocks away--it felt good to come "home," brew a cup of tea in the new machine, and settle into bed to read. We spent most of the next day unpacking, exploring the local dog-friendly open-spaces, and grocery shopping.

It wasn't until we returned home from Safeway late Saturday evening and had toted a dozen grocery bags into the house, that we discovered the broken glass scattered over the sink, floor and toilet seat in our master bath. In our absence, something had shattered the window with deliberate force. Upon our inspection of the narrow side yard outside, we found a 3" rock that had obviously been "imported." It was not part of the native landscape. Given the height and closeness of our fencing and the neighbors', how anyone so inclined could've accomplished such a feat still baffles us. Not to mention WHY. There had been no entry, and no other damage done. Our landlord felt terrible when we called to report the incident. The window was fixed by Monday noon, but our fairy-tale honeymoon with our little house was beginning to fade.

It wasn't until after dinner the next evening that we loaded the dishwasher for its first run. We'd settled in front of the TV to watch a Tony Hillerman movie when G's phone rang. He went back into the kitchen to answer it and stood gaping at the water streaming out from under our charming (vintage 1940s?) Maytag. The steady flow was flooding the kitchen tile and encroaching onto the living room hardwood by the time we stopped the run and dashed to the linen cupboard to grab an armload of bath towels. Landlord had a repairman at the house by 10 the next morning. $250 later-- out of his pocket-- he observed with some chagrin that we'd gotten off to a "rocky start." A rocky and wet start, to be more precise, I thought.

Having weathered the storms of entry, we are still here-- a week later. Gale found a neglected hummingbird feeder in the yard. He washed and filled it, and re-hung it in the vintage 1940s mesquite tree out back. Friends of all feathers are coming to sample his elixir. . . hummers, wrens, flickers and woodpeckers. Charlie's making new 4-legged friends every day in the park, and I'm making friends with the gas range and unfamiliar lay-out of the kitchen. (The old Maytag is purring like a kitten, working on the dinner dishes as I type.) We're more at home here each day. I'm feeling an extra fondness for the place, now-- like you feel for a friend you've weathered a few storms with and come out clearer and more sure of yourselves on the other side.