THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

When my husband and I moved to Tucson, Arizona, new friends warned us that, “Now that you are in sunny Tucson, you will receive lots of visitors---some of them more welcome than others.”

The day we moved in, we discovered that a mother coyote had given birth to pups in a bush next to our front door, and Pop kept proudly marching up and down the street. So, our first visitor was an agent from the State Wildlife Department. He said, “Don’t go near the coyotes.” Do I look that stupid? “They will leave soon. Then trim the bush up from the ground, so when they return next year, their ‘cave’ won’t be here.” No cave for me. I cut the whole damn bush down.

Our next guest was a roadrunner. He was not Disney cute when he beat a lizard to death on our front walk. Then we met a neighbor who told us that a Great Horned Owl had picked up her cat (who was obviously not hitchhiking), and all she found were some whiskers and claw marks. At that, I realized that, like Dorothy, I was not in Kansas anymore---although we had moved from Atlanta.

It took a few days to get settled, before we received a phone call from a woman in Atlanta. “Great news!” she said. “We are coming to Tucson.” I didn’t have the heart to say, “Who are you?” But I remembered that she was a person that I had briefly met a few years ago at a loud, non-conversational party. So, as I had been instructed by my new friends in Tucson, I responded, ”That’s great, and where are you staying?” There was a silence on the other end of the line, and she said, “Perhaps, we will see you when we get there,” and she hung up. Didn’t see her then. Haven’t heard from her since, and I still don’t know who she is.

Don’t get me wrong, I love when out-of-town friends and family visit and stay with me. I know who THEY are! I was so excited when my former college roommate, Linda came for a visit. I planned all kinds of enjoyable activities. What I hadn’t planned for was a visit to an Orthopedist. When I brought her home from the airport, I parked in my driveway (that sits on a slight slope). As she reached into the trunk to retrieve her suitcase, the case started to roll down the hill, and as she grabbed it, she broke her finger, before she even got into my house. Happily, she has come to visit a few times since and left with fingers intact.

A few years ago, I received a call from a couple that was best friends with some dear friends of mine in Denver. I didn’t know them, but invited them for lunch. They were pleased to accept, but before they hung up the phone, they told me that they were vegans. When asked what I fed them, I always tell people, “No problem, I invited them to graze in my backyard”.

However, the strangest visitor I had was a woman who lived in my neighborhood. One early evening, my husband was having a martini and called that I should come to see what he saw in our backyard. Looking out the window, I had a great view of a woman sitting in our mesquite tree. Her parrot had escaped and had found a perch in our tree. But that was only the beginning of my adventures with visits from unusual birds.

My friend, Sally and I were invited to attend her daughter’s fancy party in San Francisco. So, Sally flew to Tucson to spend a few days with me before we both flew to San Francisco. On the morning of our flight, Sally shouted, “Esther, come here! You have to see this.” “This” turned out to be a very big, beautiful peacock marching up and down my front walk. I tried to shoo it away, but it flew onto my neighbor’s roof and screamed, “Help! Help!” We had to leave, so I locked the door and set the alarm so the peacock couldn’t break in.

A week later I returned home. My front walk was covered with peacock poop. That peacock must have thought he was a goose. Anyway, it turns out he had escaped from a small backyard zoo. One of the neighbors had thrown a raincoat over him and returned him to his owner.

I am still delighted when friends and family come to visit me, and my door is always open---except in rainy season when the tarantulas come out of their burrows.

So come see me anytime.  If I can take it---You can take it!

Esther Blumenfeld (Next time I’ll tell you about the bobcat who visited me, when I was sitting outside in my hot tub. But that’s another story.)