Author: Rudy

It’s cold here today. We decided to ‘warm up’ by going for a brisk walk before lunch. We walked across Gold Canyon to Bashas — picked up some bread — and back home again. According to that new ‘MapMyWalk’ app on my phone we waked almost 9 kilometres.

After lunch (the ‘usual’, sandwiches, but with very fresh bread today!) we drove to Mountain Brook Golf Course. We’d booked an ‘online special’ for 1:45pm. I guess the weather forecast (cold, cloudy) meant few golfers were booking tee times — we hardy Manitobans will brave any kind of weather for a ‘deal’! We ended up being paired up with a couple of older guys who are parked in the RV Park across the road for the winter.

After the first two or three holes the sun came out and it warmed up a bit. Golfing was fun, but our games were not very good. And by the end of the afternoon it was quite cold again. The old guys didn’t have jackets and they looked VERY cold. We finished our round (both shot 106) and went home to warm up. Leftover Chinese for supper.

We finished the first season of ‘Suits’ tonight and followed that up with a LONG movie, ‘Boyhood’. I’d heard that it’s Obama’s favorite movie of the year. We both liked it too. It was filmed over about a dozen years, and it follows the growing up of two children in ‘real time’ so the main characters actually grow up as the movie progresses. After the movie we watched the ‘At Issue’ panel on CBC and the Daily Show before going to bed.

Sue finished her book (Lisa and Laura Ling’s North Korea book — how fitting, since today Sony Pictures announced that they will cancel the Christmas opening of their anti-Kim Jong-un comedy “The Interview” because of threats from hackers — reportedly backed by North Korea!). I did some computer work — although very little ‘hacking’. Then, before lunch, Suzy Homemaker got out her oven mitts and made another batch of chocolate-chip cookies. Yep, we’re getting ready for the holidays here — we can hardly wait until the kids arrive on Saturday. I can hardly wait until I can have some of those ‘treats’ Sue has stashed in our pantry and on top of the fridge — chocolates and peanuts — no, don’t open that, it’s for when the kids come for Christmas!

After lunch we went for a walk. I tried using my ‘MapMyRide’ app again — it counts all my vital statistics while I walk and even maps my route. Except it STOPPED halfway through the walk, when Sue and I were walking the golf course. We were walking the golf course because it was kind of cool and misty — no golfers out today. We stopped at Walgreens on the way home and Sue picked up more Christmas lights for our tree. Sue decorated the fake tree and even tried to hang a stocking for Max. It’s looking festive in here. We watched “Locke”, one of the many new movies I’ve downloaded before supper.

I picked up Chinese from the Great Wall restaurant at the corner for supper. After supper we had the usual: a couple of episodes of Suits and the CBC News. Ice cream and (freshly baked) cookies for snack. Three more sleeps.

Today we did some counting. Mostly, Sue did some A-ccounting. All morning she was busy with her calculator and her iPad and her little notebook and pencil. And I had the printer hooked up to the computer and was printing out statements. Once a month I have to answer questions like “What’s this $32.45 charge from VALEROINTHEZONE for?” and I have to stop whatever I’m doing and try to figure out what the MasterCard shorthand stands for and what I (or often Sue!) bought there. The more we are not ‘in business’ the more accounting we do. By the end of it all, in spite of all Sue’s worry and warnings, we’re not broke (yet). (And it seems that the less I use Sue’s iPad, the more I am at fault for icons and buttons that may have changed position or function since the last time we ‘did the books’.) Anyway, all that doing BUSINESS meant that we did NOT go to the driving range this morning as planned.

In fact, we had to hurry through lunch so we could get to Mountain Brook for our 1:45 tee time. Cool weather today, but once again, the afternoon sun meant that we golfed in shirt sleeves until midway through the back nine when the layers started to come back on. I tried out a ‘demo’ driver from the pro shop — and, for the most part, it worked pretty well. Not as well as when I pulled out Sue’s driver by mistake and hit the ball straighter than I had with the trial club! But I’ll give the driver another try — maybe with a “senior flex” shaft it will be right for me. We skipped Hole #2 because 3 old ladies, one of whom could barely walk!, were ahead of us, so we jumped ahead to Hole #3. We figured we’d rather golf 17 holes than watch this gong show and get in at most 9 holes all afternoon. So in the end, just like our ‘accounting’, we had to ‘estimate’ what we might have gotten on Hole #2 and ’round up’ our scores. While we’re not getting much better golfers, we’re probably not getting worse either. And we had fun.

In the spirit of the season, Sue made a pot of chilli for supper. It almost felt like we had gone for a sleigh ride and carolling with our church group! After all that whacking the ball around in the cool afternoon, I ate heartily. Actually, I ALWAYS eat heartily. Then ‘the usual’ — a couple of episodes of ‘Suits’ (with appropriate ‘snack breaks’ while Sue visits on the phone) and the CBC News before going to bed early again.

We went for a long walk in the morning. I was trying out the ‘MapMyRide’ app on my phone — it tracked where we went, how far, how fast, how high, how many calories… Yikes! that can take the fun out of a boring old walk pretty fast. But we wandered around another residential area and saw some great views of Dinosaur Mountain.

After lunch we went into town. First to Apache Junction. Knick-knacks, some groceries, some Christmas things, etc. Even a stop at the Fruit Market for more of that. Then we went back to IKEA one more time. Those $5 seat cushions are costing us about $15 in gas! Now the ‘new’ ones are even shorter than the first set we bought, so we went back to exchange them for the original ones. And, just for the ‘fun’ of it, I took the scenic route there. Thirty-five miles each way. Through Gilbert and Chandler and Tempe. We enjoyed some rush hour freeway traffic on the ride home.

I over-barbecued (according to Sue; I thought they were just right) some pork chops to go with the fried rice and salad that Sue made for supper. Then we watched another two episodes of ‘Suits’ before switching over to Monday Night Football. The game was in the last quarter and the Saints easily won over the Bears. Two pathetic teams. Then the news and off to bed.

Breakfast while watching our Sunday morning shows. Then, after Fareed, I watched NFL Countdown — the countdown to another Sunday of football at our house. And from 11:00 until sometime in the evening when it became clear that the Cowboys would beat the Eagles, I sat on the couch and watched football. (Giants won, Vikings lost, Cardinals didn’t play. Seahawks, Broncos, and Patriots won, and the Packers lost! Oh well, for what it’s worth, I still think that at the end of February the Broncos will beat the Packers in the Superbowl.) It’s my last ‘football-all-day’ Sunday this year. Sue is happy about that. She had to get out of the house, just to get away from the TV noise, and go for a long walk. Bonus: She came home with boxes of Christmas chocolates from Walgreens.

Although it doesn’t feel at all like Christmas here in our place, the countdown to Christmas has begun. Next Sunday our kids will be here. Sue and I are looking for things to do with them. Sue’s marked her calendar for local church Christmas programs. She’s got baking and cooking to do. We have bags of goodies that I’m not allowed to touch — “they’re for when the kids come!” It’s all I can do to keep her from stringing up ‘icicle lights’ on the house! If it didn’t feel so wrong, we’d have stopped at one of the Christmas tree lots next to Walmart and jammed one of those poor spruce trees into the van next to the golf clubs. And, in all truth, I’m counting down the days too. I too am looking for things to do and places to go with our visitors. I only hope that we have enough time to do all the things we’ve got to do! Let’s hope that Tim and Alex don’t want to come here for a RELAXING Christmas vacation — that ain’t gonna happen!

Apparently we won’t have a ‘special’ date format like this again until 01-02-03, 89 years from now. We started off our Saturday morning with a FaceTime call from Alex and Max. Today Tim and Alex are having their big annual Christmas Dinner Party, so it’s a busy day for them. After making our morning coffee and bacon and eggs, OUR day wasn’t all that busy! It was cool and RAINY this morning! low, heavy clouds hid Superstition completely from view. And it poured at night — all our patio furniture was sopping wet.

We didn’t know whether the golf course was even open today, but Sue called to confirm before we headed to Mountain Brook for our 12:30 tee time. Not too busy at the course, which was great for us!

It was cool, sweater and jacket weather, winter gloves and hat and scarf weather for Sue! But we had a great afternoon. We both golfed pretty well, under 50 on the front nine. And it seemed to get nicer — warmer and sunnier — with every hole we played. By the time we were halfway around the back nine we were sorry we hadn’t worn shorts and short sleeves! My 45 on the front nine didn’t hold up and I finished with 100. Still, okay for me.

We came home for happy hour and skyped with my parents. They’ve had some exceptionally nice weather at home too. Here the sun, which had burned away the shrouding around our mountain, painted Superstition in pinks and purples. Sue made a delicious curried pork and mashed potatoes dinner. And then we settled into our stations in front of the TV and watched an episode of ‘Suits’. After that we watched a bootleg copy of “Still Alice”, a movie based on a book by the same name. Sue’s bookclub had read four years ago. The movie was great! We watched the first 1/2 hour episode from “The Trip to Italy”, a British comedy series, before going to bed.

Today, before lunch, Sue and I went to the Gold Canyon Golf Course to hit balls at the driving range. We swung our clubs for over an hour. I actually tried out a TaylorMade driver from the pro shop, but was disappointed. I can hit the ball very well with Sue’s driver — so I’m tempted to buy one just like it for myself.

As has become my custom, I watched “Holmes on Homes” on TV while we had lunch. The hour-long show was followed by a second episode, so I stayed on the couch to watch it as well. When I woke up I heard Sue, sitting in the bedroom, talking on the phone. I went outside and practiced my putting. I’ve been putting better lately, in part because I’ve been practicing on our little backyard putting green. Until today, I just couldn’t seem to get all four golf balls to sink in a row. I could sink three almost any old time, but until today I could not get the fourth one to follow. And, if it’s anything like the game of golf itself, once you break a hundred (or ninety, or maybe someday, eighty) apparently it is easier to repeat the feat from then on. And so I expect to be able to putt four in a row from now on.

I noticed that my internet was acting up — I couldn’t access any of the sites on my server. So I spent an hour on the phone trying to get to the root of the problem. I ended up in a long ‘chat’ session with Mediacom, our ISP here in Phoenix. I’m convinced it is their system that has me locked out — but the ‘techie’ on the chat session wasn’t very helpful. I’m hoping that it will get corrected soon. In the meantime I’m using my phone as a ‘hotspot’ to connect and to post to my site. Not ideal.

After supper (pizza) we sat in front of the TV and watched a couple more episodes of “Suits”. We also watched a movie on Netflix (“Stuck in Love”). So-so. News at 11:00. Good-night.

I woke up next to an older woman this morning. (Old people like old jokes like that.) For much of the morning Sue was either on the phone or on her iPad getting birthday wishes. I went for a bike ride around the loop while Sue sat outside in the sun and read. Our neighbour looks to have moved into her house — she was planting a new cactus in the front yard and a carpenter was building a patio roof structure similar to what we have in her backyard.

After lunch we drove into the city. First stop, IKEA — to exchange those seat cushions for larger ones. Then we had the GPS guide us the long way around up to the Tempe Marketplace. We’d not been there before and wanted to go watch a matinee at the Harkins theatre there. We wandered around the outdoor mall for half an hour before going in to the movie. We saw “The Theory of Everything”, the story of Stephen Hawking. Sue cried through some of it, although it wasn’t a sad movie. In fact, we both thought it was a very good movie.

After the movie we drove back to the restaurant we’d gone to for Sue’s 60th birthday three years ago. We got the table outside, next to the big wood fireplace, and had a very nice dinner.

Back at our house we watched the last quarter of the football game (Arizona won) and the CBC ‘At Issue’ panel on the news.  And THAT’S how we celebrated Sue’s birthday!

Woke up just before 7:00 to the sound of my phone ringing in the kitchen. What’s up? It’s still dark here. I answered the FaceTime call — it’s Max, sitting at his breakfast table, eating pancakes, and giving Opa a call. They’re coming to visit in Phoenix real soon! A great ‘wake-up’ call.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. No, it’s not Saturday, but the Christmas hamper from the Peters had another dozen eggs in it so we had to celebrate.

After breakfast I worked on some websites for a couple of hours. Sue did her exercises and laundry. It was another beautiful day here, 10 degrees above normal.

After lunch Sue took her putter and marched across the road to the Gold Canyon putting green to ‘practice’ her putting. She’s of the opinion that practicing on OUR little putting green in the backyard doesn’t help anything. We’ll see. I putted in the backyard — got 3 in a row in quite a few times, but that fourth ball just won’t listen.

At around 2:45 we went to Mountain Brook — we had a 3:15 tee time. It was a slow day at the course, and as we drove there we noticed that there was no one on hole 9. So we asked if we could walk the BACK nine today, and they said okay. So that’s what we did.

We both had only good drives! Really good drives! It must be Sue’s driver which we are ‘sharing’. Now if only all that putting practice would pay off on the greens. But no, after a fun time walking the back nine, we finished with a 50 for me, 55 for Sue. And it’s the putting that’s letting us down. We threw our clubs into the van and headed to the grocery store. As we drove there Sue announced that the best way to improve would be to NOT practice, to NOT go golfing every day — all that practice actually HINDERS your progress!

We bought a couple of steaks at Bashas and went home to barbecue. The evening was warm, the sun setting on the mountain. After supper we watched a movie I’d downloaded, “The Immigrant”. Too bad my download didn’t include subtitles for all the Polish parts of the movie! But I think we ‘got’ most of it. We followed that up with the pilot episode of “Suits”. That was good, too. We tried to keep our eyes open long enough to watch Jon Stewart and then to bed.

One more thing: Sue reminded me that I hadn’t said anything in yesterday’s entry about the news of her friend Phyllis, so I’ll add that here. My sister Irmy invited Sue to join her Winnipeg bookclub (Harafish) about 15 years ago. The other 5 or 6 members were mostly librarians. Phyllis was one of them. The group met once a month. At their October meeting, just before we left for the winter, they were surprised that Phyllis didn’t attend. They found out the next day that Phyllis had had a stroke, and was in the hospital. The stroke had affected her one side and she’d lost her ability to speak. And for the next month Irmy would send us updates to tell us how she was doing. It looked like things were getting a bit better at first, but in the last week Phyllis was not making progress. Then, yesterday at noon, Sue got an email from Irmy that Phyllis had died that morning! Quite a shock. Phyllis was 60 years old, younger than Sue. She was still working but so looking forward to retiring and seeing more of the world. (We’d stayed at her son Peter’s apartment in Paris a year ago.) And now she is gone. R.I.P., Phyllis. Just another reminder that we need to take the opportunities to do what we want to do while we still can. And if that’s golfing in Arizona for the winter then that’s what we should do.

Tuesday. That means it’s garbage day here at Vista Point. Yippee! Okay, it’s not THAT special — we have TWO garbage days a week here.

After breakfast we got our bike shorts on and went for a ride around our ‘loop’. Another beautiful day here. I had to stop on the way back (after climbing the ‘big’ hill!) to take a photo of ‘our’ mountain. Ever since we first came to Gold Canyon 4 years ago, Superstition Mountain has been a landmark for us. And for prairie folks like us, who really don’t know anything at all about a mountain on the horizon, we’ve come to love and appreciate our mountain. No matter how mixed up and crazy some of the little bays and cul de sacs here are, or which hole you’re on at the golf course, you can always orient yourself by just looking up to Superstition, from whence cometh our sense of direction.

When we got home Sue took out the shears from the garage and proceeded to give the big bougainvillaea bush on our front yard a haircut. Too many ‘dead’ branches. Sue had gotten permission from the owners to do this. Now our big garbage bin, which had just been emptied, is full again — with thorny branches. Good thing Friday is another Garbage Day.

After lunch Sue went to the pool to read. I did some work on the computer and made a couple of phone calls. I also got the leaf-blower out and cleaned off our putting green in the backyard. I putted for a bit — still can’t get 4 in a row in.

We had an early supper and then went to Ed and Val’s for 6:00pm. In the spirit of the season, they greeted us with a couple of Christmas hampers — all the leftovers from their fridge, etc. They are coming back at the end of January, so I guess they didn’t really need to pack more than the one little suitcase they put in the van. We headed to the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and dropped them off at the WestJet gate. Said goodbye and Merry Christmas.

We tjriesled our way down to the IKEA store in Tempe on the way home. We were looking for some chair cushions for our kitchen chairs at the house. Man, that is a bizarre system of so-called store layout those Swedes have invented:  winding and circling and following arrows on the floor like a giant game board for shoppers. But I guess it works. We found our cushions alright, but then followed that maze around most of two floors towards the exit, all the while picking up more things that we didn’t know we needed! We finally managed to find the checkouts at the end, where we quietly stood in a long hardly-moving line for the final half hour before making our escape. The 35-mile drive home was less complicated and way less stressful.

At home, we snacked on more of that homemade caramel popcorn and watched the news.