Gold Canyon, Arizona

Our resort back yard neighbors are Mona and Don.

We haven’t met Don yet, but we have visited with Mona twice in the last month.

We had to. 🙂

Here’s what happened:

Our First Meeting

About four o’clock one afternoon, Mona walked out of her back door with a glass of wine in her hand. She walked onto our patio and into our hearts.

She promptly sat down, introduced herself, and started talking.

Mona doesn’t look anything like da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but she’s just as intriguing as these two stories show…

All. Her Children

Don and Mona have four children and multiple grandchildren. On the first night Mona and I talked about our children. Mona told me short vignettes about three of her children.

She then said, “And our other son is just plain odd.”

Turns out he lives off the grid in a small town just south of the Canadian border in the Idaho panhandle. He and his wife have homeschooled their children and make their living selling their wares at local markets.

While that son’s life doesn’t produce the same monetary rewards as his siblings, Mona is as proud of this son as she can be.

Mona is very proud of ALL of her children. They are all successful in their own unique way…

Her New Sister-in-Law

Just after Thanksgiving, Mona came over for a short visit, again during happy hour with wine glass in hand.

When asked how the holiday was for her and Don, she proceed to tell us about her new sister-in-law, “Debbie” who is married to Don’s brother, “Bill”.

Hang on, this is a wild ride…

Bill lost his wife to a two year battle with cancer during April 2014.

After over 40 years of being apart with no contact, Bill and Debbie reconnected recently and were married on December 1. 2014.

Debbie used to live near Bill and his first wife. They were good friends. Debbie even worked for Bill and his wife in their family business.

This was over 40 years ago.

Life moved on. Debbie’s husband was transferred to another state, they moved, and eventually the once good friends lost track of one another.

After his wife’s death, Bill started reminiscing and wondered where and how Debbie and her husband were.

He hired a private investigator who located recently widowed Debbie in Seattle.

Gold Canyon, Arizona

Our RV resort held a patio sale yesterday. Residents could sign up to sell items from their RV spot or patio home

I signed up to sell felted soap, so I got a front row seat to the craziness.

Think of a cross between garage sale and Halloween on steroids.

Transportation varied from golf carts to bicycles to cars. Oh, and the occasional pedestrian.

Late Friday afternoon, early lookie loos wandered around the park scoping out the hot spots so they could be first in line in the morning.

The sale started promptly at seven. Why seven you might ask? Because the sun wasn’t up at six. 🙂

Husbands and wives often split up. One would drive to one end of the street and park while the other would walk along slowly and look. Reminded me of Halloween because that’s exactly what I did with my kids.

The other day I heard about a drive-by funeral home. This patio sale was a drive-by sale. I lost count of the number of cars that slowly drove about five mph and about five feet from my table.

I would say “Good morning.” The husband would say, “It’s soap.” The wife would shake her head, and they would drive away never even acknowledging my greeting let alone making eye contact. It was like they thought being in their car made them invisibile to me.

The good news is that I did sell some soap. And the better news is that the morning provided some of the best people watching moments ever!