Well in some ways I should thank my ex-wife. Life after the divorce is, shall we say, very exciting. But I am getting ahead of myself here, so let me tell you a little of the years before.
I was married to Jean for 19 years and 6 months, three days, 17 hours, 36 minutes and a couple of seconds thrown in for fun. Living in the cultured city of San Diego, California. In what I had thought was domestic bliss. My ex was a social mover and my rough and ready lifestyle was her biggest turn on when we met.
When I first met Jean I was a desert rat if I wasn't jeeping, or out riding my quads in the lower deserts or on the sand dunes with my buddies, I was chasing the Baja 1000, down the coast of Baja, Mexico. I met Jean and my world came to an end, she was a red headed beauty with a body to die for, five foot five and one hundred and twenty pounds of pure women.
She was vacationing in Mexico and I was part of a group of freelance photographers out celebrating the end of the Baja 1000. It was lust at first sight or it was pure love caused by the vast amount of tequila I had been drinking. Gotta love that Anejo tequila and carne asada tacos. After a year of seeing her off and on we were married, in Mexico; yes I know it was the tequila again; and moved off to the wilds of San Diego to be closer to her family and their precious money. I was a novelty to them. My outgoing lifestyle was their only real outdoor adventure outlet in their 9-5 lives.
Over the years we tried for children with no luck. Countless visits to the doctors only made it worst for me since it was me and my lifestyle. The first to go was my weekly 100-mile bicycle rides, then off-roading since they jostled the twins. As the years went by, nothing, we still couldn't have kids and just learned to accept it. I was Jean's starter gun, a big bang, no lethal bullets. I guess when you're looking for kids, and your toy gun doesn't work, you sort of lose interest in shooting. The wild sex went from two or three times a day, to two or three times a week, then month, then year, then never. My novelty to her might have worn off, but to her family, it never wore off and as her rich Uncles and Aunts started passing away we were left a lot of their money, as the favorite Niece and nephew-in-law.
We moved from the quaint suburbia of Glenview to the plush hood of Balboa Park. Over the years I had gone from a simple floor machinist to a programmer, then to an engineer, with lots of help from night school, sleepless nights finishing school work, lost weekends. Was it worth it? As my income grew, we grew to enjoy the finer things in life. A nicer house, we went from paper plates to those fancy Styrofoam ones. Ok, true china plates, German crystal, you name it, she wanted the finer things in life. Lavish dinner parties with the in-laws, favorite Aunts, and Uncles.
As the years went along I thought this is where I wanted to be till the death of one of my lifelong buddies back in Arizona. Mat rolled his jeep in Moab and broke his neck. Over the years I had kept in touch with most of my friends via e-mails and phone calls, but we sort of lost contact socially. Well, Mat's death brought home what I had lost. This was my first chance to re-visit that life in nearly seventeen years.
The funeral was a sobering event, getting to see all of my long lost friends, their wives, kids, and some grandkids hurt. Nearly all of them were still fit and trim whereas I settled into the business world and had let myself get 40 or so pounds overweight.
After Mat's funeral I planned on staying over the weekend to 'catch up' with my friends, my ex refused and flew home that night since it was mostly drinking in the garage while wrenching on the toys.
They had different plans than most to memorialize Mats life. They planned a day-long ride on quads to memorialize his life. Something Mat would have approved of. In borrowed ride gear and bike, I spent the day trying to catch up. Years past most of them always tried to catch up to me. This was humiliating.
Once I returned home my life wasn't the same. There was a certain fire that had gone out of me over the years. And this trip home had shown me that empty fireplace. I soon traded my Mercedes for a Ford F350 and started looking for a Quad to throw in the back. This didn't go over that well with Jean.
"People in our social standing don't ride Banshee's in the deserts or drive smelly-ole pick-ups."
This argument went on for the next year till it all came to a head two months before Thanksgiving weekend. I planned on meeting my friends at the annual sand dune run, just outside of Yuma for the first time in 18 years for the traditional thanksgiving weekend, when my wife informed me that I had to cancel due to a white tie party at the museum for a premier opening of some new artist that did art deco type of paintings.
I was in the process of calling my friends when my old roommate John asked me, "Why are you doing this man? You never canceled a sand duning trip before...especially to go to some funky, white tie party!"
"Well, Jean wants to go...and..."
"Now tell me, why would you want to go, rent some tux, just to go to some snobbish party anyway?"
"Rent! No way John I own two perfectly good tuxes, one is this sweet little Italian made number I had custom made for me..."
John just laughed "never knew you to own a tux before, 'man' you've changed...who are you...either way, it's your loss."
John hung up and I just sat their thinking..., "who am I?"
I was torn between two worlds, my wife's and my former life. As the party got closer I fought with myself. A week before the dune trip I made my decision and got the quad ready to go with a new set of paddles and two new gas cans.
The day I loaded my quad my ex informed me that if I went to the dunes she'll never forgive me for this insult. A week later I returned home a new man, unshaven and in desperate need of a bath. Not even a welcome back dear... all I got was a frosty glare that could split a diamond. I didn't care I was alive inside for the first time in years! Oh, I did hurt, but that fire...it was brighter than the noon-day sun!
That year was hard for my ex. What she carefully changed over the last 18 years, reverted back in less than a year. I was riding at least once a month now all over California. The last straw was when I brought a new jeep a year later and dumped another 20 grand into her for summer trip over the Rubicon trail. We fought constantly over the next four months till I left with my jeep on a trailer behind the truck.
"If you leave on this trip I will not be here when you get back!"
"Your loss Jean...are you sure you don't want to go? John, Tim and the rest, let me know you're more than welcome to come along, their wives are coming."
A week later I came home to an empty house and divorce papers. I can live in an empty house, an air mattress, sleeping bag and I was good to go. Called up a riding partner, a senior partner in JP Law. Jean wanted everything, so she got half, but hey so did I.
Four weeks after my lovely homecoming, I was back in Arizona, I bought a nice two bedroom condo in downtown Tempe with the money Jean paid me for my half the house and the artwork we had bought together. I didn't want it, but I wasn't giving it away either.
With a new house and a new job, it was time to change me. Like I said, I gained almost... 50 pounds since I left Arizona and it was time to lose it, ok I lied, but who really admits their weight? I joined a local gym and started putting this 40-year-old body back into shape. From winter, into late summer I sweated trying to loose the gut. What the gym failed to take off, the summer heat did! Those weekend rides with the old gang melted the pounds off me. 118-degree heat has that effect on some people.
Along with a trimmer me I grew my hair longer. What hair I had, the forest was thinning a little at the front borders. That left me standing at 5 foot 11 inch weighing in at 180 pounds, with a barrel chest and enough definition to look good shirtless. With honey brown eyes and a salt and pepper goatee and shoulder-length hair. Not bad I thought, looking in the mirror.
Now I chose my new digs with some care since downtown Tempe was home to Arizona State University. There was sure to be a lot of nice looking ladies running around. Ya, like a guy of 40 had a chance with them. My ego told me to buy here but my mind told me you didn't stand a chance pops! Oh, how my ego was so right! Sorry, mind you lose.
Most of the condo owners didn't live there but made their rent by sub-leasing their condos out during the school year to rich people so their precious sons and daughters didn't have to live on campus. Some were owned by some major corporations and had it set up for their people when they needed someone in Arizona for a while. It was constantly moving day around the condos, as some moved in others moved out.
From fresh-faced co-eds to mature business people this place constantly changed. When I first moved in I noticed that I didn't get a second look from any of these ladies, but by late summer I did get a lot of second looks. The first one that I knew of was an older woman who moved in two doors down. Older? Maybe fourth five-ish? I knew that condo was owned by some business back east by the constant change in tenants.
She was a gorgeous redhead with sparkling green eyes that took my breath away...
Why redheads I thought? I am constantly attracted to them, addicted to them even!
She carried a few pounds extra here and there, but what little she did carry made her little five foot three frame, shake her business outfits just right. Her short red hair framed her face on both sides, giving her that elfish look. Enough for me to rush back to my place and relieve some of that pent-up frustration every time I saw her.
We had talked several times, either when we met in the elevator or in the hallways.
I knew her name was Jill. She was divorced and was out here to oversee a new mainframe installation in one of her company's new office. But that was it, until that fateful day in August.
During the later parts of summer and early fall, Arizona gets these swift summer storms called monsoons, they sweep out of the southern deserts with hurricane force winds that just plays havoc with power lines. A good set of power flickers can blow any fuse made today, so when your air conditioner is chugging away trying to cool your condo while its 115+ outside and some errant storm come along and flicks the power on and a half a dozen times...do not expect your A/C to be working when you get home.
Just after I moved in I made it a point to learn where my A/C's fuse box was and kept spares just for those little emergencies.
I came home early one Friday with the wind howling, blowing that 100 degrees, dust filled air, to find all of my clocks flashing 12:00... again. My condo was already in the nineties and threatening to cook my furniture to a well done. A quick change of the main fuses upstairs and the AC was back on-line. Not wishing to sit in a sauna till it cooled down I drove across town to the local store and bought a six pack of coke so I could mix a few drinks and watch the coeds swim from my condo's balcony if the storm abated. My favorite summer activity, it's better than soft porn on cable TV.
When I got back, the dust storm was still blowing. Well, there goes my entertainment for the night. As I passed Jill's condo she had the door wide open, waving a paper plate as a fan trying to cool off.
Waving to her I asked, "What no AC?"
"No," she replied slumping her shoulders from the heat, "the super says too many condos blew their fuses and the hardware store doesn't have enough. Some of us won't get power or AC back until tomorrow."
I nodded and offered use of my condo, "Well I have both if you want to get out of this heat."
