Author: Rudy

Today is Black Friday. A good day to stay away from shopping centers. Another warm day in Gold Canyon. Twenty eight degrees. A good day to go for a bike ride. We went for a spin around ‘our loop’ this morning. We think Superstition Mountain is almost as beautiful in the morning sunshine as it is at sunset. The ride felt great. We got home just after eleven — not quite time for lunch — maybe I should Skype my mom. Had a long Skype — showed Mom and Dad the house. Although I did my best to persuade her otherwise, Mom was convinced that we were NOT having a good time here. And anyway, we SHOULDN’T be enjoying ourselves — why don’t we just come home and take care of them and ‘be normal’. The usual. But it’s good to know that my parents are content where they are; they have a busy life socializing with friends and neighbours.

After lunch Sue went to the pool to read. I stayed home to do the same. Sue ended up napping more than reading and I spent most of the time at the computer — organizing photos from previous trips and ordering a new garage door keypad online.

We skipped happy hour and had an early supper. Then at 5:30 we hopped into the van and headed out to Mesa, to the Superstition Springs Mall. We ran around in Macy’s for almost an hour — tried on a few new pairs of shorts — and then got in the lineup at the cheap theatre for movie tickets. Wow! This place is rockin’! Not like it was a few years ago. When I finally got to the cashier she says the movie we want to see is ‘sold out’. Really? Well actually, almost sold out. Oh no. There isn’t really any other movie playing here right now that we want to see. We’ll take our chances and if we can’t find two seats together we’ll come back for a refund ($4.00). We hurry into the theatre and find three empty seats in a row about 5 rows from the front. Great. And for the next two and a half hours we sit there in that dark theatre and enjoy a movie. “The Judge”, starring Robert Downey Jr and Robert Duvall. It was a very good movie! We didn’t even need the little bag of smarties that Sue had packed in her purse to help us to stay awake. We didn’t NEED them — but we still ate them.

We got home in time for the CBC National and were in bed by eleven.

Today is American Thanksgiving. Our mailbox is full of flyers advertising Black Friday Sales. It’s a big holiday here.

Sue and I went for a hike up Silly Mountain in the morning. We parked the van at Bashas and walked ‘the old route’ behind Jill’s house, up the mountain. I found a ‘new’ way down from one of the trails — Sue wasn’t too impressed as she inched her way downward. It was another hot day here — probably too hot to golf. We stopped at Bashas on the way home and Sue picked up a roasted chicken (our turkey dinner) and a box of stuffing.

By the time we got home the first of three-in-a-row NFL games was already over half finished. The neighbour across the wash in the backyard was entertaining a few friends — we don’t see a lot of him otherwise. It’s a holiday today! Sue spent part of the afternoon taking that roasted chicken apart and getting her supper ready. I watched the second NFL game.

The Peters arrived at 5:30pm. Happy hour and snacks. More football. I played the Loudon Wainwright “Thanksgiving” song and took a photo of the table. Dinner was great — not turkey and ham, but close! We watched the evening football game and visited. Of course, my predictions for who would would today’s games were WRONG — ALL THREE GAMES! I certainly am learning how to be a good loser.

Said goodnight to Ed and Val at around 10:30 and went to bed feeling very thankful.

The Dycks have left. We read and computed in the morning. After lunch we went to Mountain Brook — Sue hopped into Val’s van and the two of them headed out to Kierland Commons, a shopping mall up in Scottsdale. Ed and I golfed. We were teamed up with a couple of retired guys who had sold their homes and were now living permanently in their motorhomes — on the road. The visiting went better than my golf game, although by the time we were on the last two holes things seemed to improve. I guess it might have been because we HAD to hit our shots straight — it was too dark to see the flight of the ball and the only way we could find it was to drive down the fairway and hope to see it where we thought it had gone. Yikes. It’s getting dark early here — we can’t really golf after 5:30 anymore.

I gave Ed a ride back to his house and was just about to go in for a drink when Val and Sue drive up the driveway. So the Nikkels went home and had a lovely supper. Sue phoned Alex for a while and we watched last week’s episode of Frontline (AirPlay from the computer to the TV). After the CBC National News I was done. Off to bed.

We had another lazy day here. I had some web fix-ups to do in the morning. Sue was madly reading her book, hoping to finish it today. We were waiting to hear how Arlene’s visit with the doctor would go, and maybe go down to the Arboretum with the Dycks after that. At noon Robert emailed to invite us for happy hour and supper out — according to the doctor, Arlene’s ankle will be fine by the time they’re scheduled to go sailing just after Christmas, but I guess the ‘hike’ around the nature park is out. I looked for books to read in JP’s Dropbox and downloaded a few to my Kindle. Sue sat in the garage and read (we get the warm southern sun there in the afternoon). When she finally finished her book (“A House in the Sky”) we went for an hour-long walk. We got to the Dycks  at around 5:00 and after an hour of drinks and snacks we went to the Mexican restaurant for supper. The restaurant was busy — I guess being closed on Monday nights means folks here are extra hungry by Tuesday! We had a very fine evening, visiting with Robert and Arlene. They say they are packing up the motorhome bright and early tomorrow morning and heading out to Goodyear for a couple of days before leaving Arizona on Friday. We said our goodbyes at around 9:30. It’s been great spending time with them these past days — Arlene’s unfortunate ankle-break turned out to be a blessing when they decided to extend their stay here in Gold Canyon — and we’ll miss them.

It was cool here this morning — too cool for a bike ride. So we went for a long walk instead, all the way to the end of Sleepy Hollow and back, about 1.5 hours. We got home just in time for lunch; we had a 12:30 tee time at the Sidewinder Golf Course just across the street from our place, and we need to be at the course by 12:15. Arlene was already well into her wordsearch by the time we’d loaded our clubs into the cart. We hit a few balls on the driving range and then we were off. Once again it seemed that all my best shots were wasted on the driving range — or maybe it’s just that the driving range doesn’t have one of those little holes that you’re supposed to get the ball into. Or maybe it’s just that I’m not half as good as I think I am. Well, for sure I should NOT be trying to hit the ball out of the gravel.

After golf Val joined us and we all came to our house for happy hour. We were going to all meet at the Mexican restaurant behind Bashas, but when we got there we realized they are closed Mondays. Oh oh. Well, how about the Hitching Post? Hey, they were open and they were busy! We really couldn’t even hear the two NFL games on the TV because the table next to ours was SO LOUD! To add to the din in the room, a young Stevie Nicks wanna-be was trying her best to ‘entertain’ from the corner. We washed down our food with a couple of pitchers of Arizona ‘Kilt Lifter’. Robert told us about how he got to be in the restaurant business. By 9:30 we were back home — and too tired to watch the news.

Crepes with fruit and great coffee for breakfast. Skyped with Alex and Max. Watched ‘our shows’ in the morning — CBS Sunday Morning and Fareed. In fact, I had to try to see over the top of those feet ALL DAY! Because we’re in Mountain Time Zone, Sunday afternoon NFL starts BEFORE NOON. And, as is becoming more and more the custom, pretty much ALL my teams lost again. If learning how to handle losing builds character I’ve got character to spare. The Lions got destroyed by the Patriots. Then (my ‘new’ adopted favorite team) the Arizona Cardinals lost to the Seahawks. And in between those games I checked the Winnipeg Jets hockey game during commercials — the Jets were winning 2-1 when I first flicked that way, but quickly fell behind as soon as they realized I was watching and ultimately lost another one. If I had had any interest at all in the CFL I could easily have influenced the Eastern and Western Finals — but I don’t even follow that league enough to know whom to ‘hex’. Sue called up Val and the two of them spent the afternoon ‘reading’ (not a page — too much to ‘discuss’) at the pool.

After supper (leftovers) Sue joined me in the living room to watch Sunday Night Football. Cowboys at New York. Even though the Giants are more-or-less out of it, you gotta have hope. And what do you know — Manning and the offence was having a great game! In fact, Giants rookie wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. made a ridiculous catch which put the Giants up 14-3 in the second quarter. Unfortunately the Giants’ defence couldn’t stop Dallas from ultimately winning the game 31-28.

Spent most of the morning cropping my photos from the hieroglyphic hike into those cool ‘Arizona’ web banners. I had to hurry my lunch.

When we pulled into the parking lot at Mountain Brook Golf Course the Dycks’ little black rental car with the Texas plates was already there. We putted a bit and then headed to the tee blocks. While Arlene looked for meaning in her book of word searches the rest of us looked for pars and birdies. Robert continued to quietly hit his drives down the middle. Rudy and Sue both finished the front nine with 50s.

After the turn Sue cranked it up a notch. An amazing TWO on the par three 14th hole helped put her at 4 over after 7 holes on the back nine. Unfortunately things came apart a bit on the final two holes. Still, even with an 8 on the final par 4, she finished with a 46 on the back nine — and so did Rudy! We golf together!

After the game we all went back to our house for chips and G&Ts. Lots of visiting — so much that I neglected my duties at the barbecue and got the cheeseburgers a bit crispy.

After the Dycks left I promptly fell asleep in front of the TV. What else is new?

Not in that order.

Had a lazy morning. Sue phoned almost all her friends all morning. I phoned my mom and dad. Fiddled a bit more with my TV antenna — I now get NINETEEN channels over the air, originating from Tucson, some are even in English! After lunch Robert came by and we drove out to the parking lot at Superstition. It was a bit cloudy, not too hot, perfect for a hike. So, instead of NO photos today, I have a whole gallery!

We decided to go out for pizza and a movie on our descent. When we got home and checked the movie times online I realized the movie I had chosen wasn’t even being shown until mid-December. Plan B. Sue chose another movie — “Gone Girl” — a movie she’d seen before and thought we would all find entertaining. The showtimes for “Gone Girl” meant we would have to hurry to the pizza place, eat an early supper, then get to the theatre in time for the 6:30 show. We called the Dycks and it was arranged.

We’d heard about the Organ Stop Pizza place from others who had been there. I was a little leery about it, but I figured we should at least check it out. It had been described as a big pizza restaurant built around a huge Wurlitzer organ, with hourly performances. When we got there the sign said it opened at 5:00pm. We were 5 minutes early! And there was a lineup! This MUST be a good place!

Once inside all our worst fears were realized. After ordering at the counter (first your pizza, then another line for drinks, then another line for ice cream) we entered a large hall with rows of picnic tables and sat down to wait for our order number to appear on the overhead display. And while we were waiting for our number to come up, the show began! Up from the stage arose a over-sized ‘Liberace-style’ organ. The organist took requests and then played various movie themes and 80’s love songs accompanied by lights and pipes and drums and keyboards around the hall danced along. Chuck-E-Cheese for seniors!

Too bad we didn’t have time for the ice cream dessert! We had a movie to catch. We drove back along Hwy 60 to the Harkins movie theatre. Had to hurry there too — the theatre was almost full. Luckily Sue found us four seats in a row on the far left, row 2. And for the next two-and-a-half hours we lay back in our chairs, necks craned back, and watched “the most elegant, exquisitely made trash”. Twists and turns and sex and violence all rolled into one big beautiful entertainment package.

Robert delivered us to our place after the movie. Not too much discussion on the ride home — we would need some time to process all we had heard and seen tonight. We said goodnight and soon headed off to bed. Tomorrow’s Saturday — we’ll have bacon and eggs.

I worked on the newsletter all morning. I had bought two TV antennas at Walmart a couple of days ago — one for $10 and one for $45. Since the $10 one worked so well (actually, a makeshift coax cable worked quite well!) I needed to return the other antenna. So after lunch I tied the box onto the carrier on my bike and Sue and I cycled into Apache Junction to return it. The shoulder on Hwy 60 has been repaved almost all the way to Apache Junction so the ride was quite easy. No wind. Got to Walmart and stood in line at the ‘Customer Service’ for a while. After the refund we cycled back home. Had a shower and a quick ‘sundowner’ drink. Then just after 5 we went to the ‘trailer park’ to the Dycks for dinner. The evenings are cooling off! Robert had correctly guessed that Sue really wanted barbecued salmon and it was delicious. After supper Robert found the Thursday Night Football game on TV. We got home just in time to see the Raiders win their first game in over a year, shocking the KC Chiefs. Wow.

Spent part of the morning cleaning up stuff in the garage. Worked on the newsletter project for Koop. Had to hurry lunch so I would be ready for our 1:00 tee time at Dinosaur Golf Course. Robert and Arlene arrived at our house at 12:30 — Sue and Arlene would while away the afternoon reading at the pool. Robert and I met Ed and Art and their wives at the golf course. We hit a few balls on the driving range (turned out that I wasted ALL my good shots there!) and then rode our carts up to the tee blocks at Hole #1. Rudy’s up first. Ka-BANG! The ball flies low into a cactus bush. Mulligan. Ka-BANG #2. The ball slices right over the nearby hill of desert bushes. Hmmm… off to a rip-roaring start!

As the afternoon progressed I became more and more convinced that the spectacular scenery on this course is in fact a HUGE distraction. I was losing at least one ball per hole. I was seeing A LOT of the course — WAY more than Robert, whose drives were ALWAYS straight and on the fairway (and hardly saw any of the interesting flora and fauna that I was discovering along the way). Well, as I so often say (lie?) after a game like that, ‘I may not have had a GOOD game, but I had FUN’.

We said adieu to Art and Wendy — they’re heading home tomorrow — and went back to our house. After drinks and a short skype with Alex and Max, we got the barbecue going. Robert checked on the pork and Sue apologized for the potatoes. Arlene rested her cast on an upside-down pail and I talked way too much. After bidding goodnight to the Dycks we barely made it into bed before sleep overcame us.

(Thanks to Ed Peters for the great photo!)