Hello, Friday Fools! 

Continuing with the Valentine's Day touchstone, and a Friday Fun fact, did you know that Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912? Arizona and New Mexico (1912) were the last holdouts of the Wild West, I suppose. Texas (28th state) is their own sort of wild and special, lol. What I think is even more interesting is that Alaska and Hawaii both became states much later, in 1959.

When we first moved to Phoenix back in the summer of 1992, we rolled into town with no place to stay. You heard me--we didn't have an actual place to stay. A fellow resident told Chief, "Housing is plentiful--you'll find something, no problem." Chief is adventurous and trusting that way, so that's what we did--rolled into town and looked for a place to live. In his defense we didn't know what part of town we wanted to live and didn't have the funds to be flitting back and forth prior.

The plan was to stay in the motel Chief stayed at when he interviewed for Residency. It was a terrible Motel 6 that the hospital had actually recommended on Van Buren which is riddled with prostitution and drug dealers (all the "President's streets were "bad" back then, many still are). Why do I bring this up? 

Our arrival was like something out of a spaghetti western.

We drove into town on the West side. Our city slicker selves drove along Grand Avenue behind a truck with loaded gun racks as the sun began to dip below the horizon. We watched the traffic slowly diminish, newspaper drifting across the road like tumbleweed, and people wandering to the side of the road watching our caravan drive by with mild curiosity and a look of you don't belong here--you're either crazy or passing through.

Crazy it is, because we've been here ever since.

Good times, people. Good times.

I slept with one eye open because I was convinced someone was going to drive off with all of our worldly possessions and the rental truck we couldn't afford to replace. The following morning while searching for apartments there was a three to one vote we move to a hotel in a different part of town. Can you guess who the holdout was? 🤨

Time's up: it was Chief. His friend, my brother, and most definitely I put our collective foot down.

Mind you, this was the same motel that another resident moved out of during the interview process because some prostitute kept banging on his door for him to let her in. She had him confused with someone else. I do believe the residency stopped suggesting that special location after that. 🙄

All's well that ends well. I do have a cautionary fairy tale (a.k.a., true story, names omitted) that didn't end well on the blog. Again, keeping with the theme of Love and Valentine's Day.

With that, I hope everyone is well and that you find something funny, curious, or thought-provoking to brighten your days. 

Take care and thanks for reading The Friday Tomfoolery. 🐴

-Ami 💜