Author: Rudy

Friday: Another warm day in Arizona. Maybe the warmest this year. After breakfast I downloaded some new music and listened to it. Then we hopped into the van and went to the fruit and vegetable market to buy some fresh fruits. We also stopped at Fry’s, a big grocery store, and bought a few more groceries there. Then we went home and had lunch. After lunch I vacuumed the house and Sue did some laundry and cleaned the bathrooms. The she went and sat outside and read. I went to wash the car and then hit a small bucket of balls at the driving range. Then I went home and we had a little afternoon snack to tide us over until our late supper.

We drove down to the airport and Sue headed into Terminal 3 to pick up Paul and Kathy. We waited in the ‘cell phone waiting’ parking lot for about 30 minutes and then picked them up at the terminal. We drove back home along the 60, and got home at around 7pm. Sat around the table and visited.

Sue made a big Mexican tortilla for supper. Good — but we’ll need to be a bit careful not toe serve food that is too spicy for Paul. Then we sat around the table and visited until 11pm, which is 1 am for our Ontario guests. Pretty impressive. We went to bed after that.

Thursday: I wasted most of the morning on the internet while Sue went out after breakfast to shop for groceries. Her back is still not very good and so today was a ‘no exercise’ day. Actually I also watched the last 45 minutes of last night’s movie, “Take Shelter”, since I’d slept through it yesterday. I skyped with Jill a bit — talked about our neighbour’s trip to the hospital and possibilities for us to stay past the end of March. After lunch Sue spent the afternoon on the lounger in the back yard, reading. I finally finished my book (Mark Whitaker’s autobiography). Then it was time to head out to the golf course for our final golf game before Paul and Kathy come for a week. It was 80 degrees today — a beautiful day — and I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised it was a busy day at the golf course. So we ended up golfing with that same couple who were ahead of us (and golfing rather slowly) on Tuesday. But it was okay. We learned that they were leaving to go back to Ohio tomorrow — they have a house here in Peralta Trails. The golf didn’t seem to bother Sue’s back too much. And we had fun. When we got home I barbecued cheeseburgers and traced a logo on the computer for Tim. After supper we watched Jon Steward and Colbert before sitting through 90 minutes of dancing — which is the Oscar-nominated “Pina” (Best Documentary Feature). What a waste of time. But the second film (also one of my downloads) was quite a bit better: “My Week with Marilyn”, nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. I think we’ve now caught up with all the movies we need to watch before the Oscars show on Sunday. We’ve not seen “W.E.” (1 nomination), and I have not rented “Transformers” and “Harry Potter”, two movies with 3 nominations each. But in all the major categories we are good to make our own Oscar picks. We ended the night with a bit of ice cream and cookies and watched the last part of Letterman followed by Jimmy Fallon.

Wednesday: Woke up from a great sleep — I guess it helps when you go to bed after 1am (watching Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report). Breakfast was interrupted when what sounded like a school bus or big truck running on the street in front of our house turned out to be a big fire truck and an EMT van — and then I saw our neighbor lady being taken from our home in a gurney with an IV attached — YIKES! At around 11 Sue and I went for a walk — went to Walgreen’s to pick up the movie “Take Shelter”. Stopped at Bashas on the way home to pick up some fish (and imitation crab!) for our supper tonight. I also printed out the Cactus League schedule at UPS — looking forward to the start of spring training. After lunch Sue did a bit of laundry and I read.

Tonight the Republican Presidential debate takes place in nearby Mesa. The public will not be permitted into the venue although big outdoor screens will be set up in the area. Sue wanted to go see it. Maybe a chance to see Anderson Cooper close up. Or maybe Rick Santorum.

At around 4pm I went to the driving range. Sue stayed home. Worked on hitting my 5 iron. When I got home I talked to neighbor Mike for a bit — found out that his wife had fainted at breakfast and he called 911. They’re keeping her in the hospital for observation tonight, but she should be home tomorrow. Probably a lack of electrolytes he thought.

We had fish and chips for supper. Then we watched the Republican debate from 6 to 8pm. And another 60 minute news show after that. And finally at 9 we put in our movie, “Take Shelter”. It was okay. I had trouble staying awake for all of it. Then off to bed.

Tuesday: Hanover School Division cancelled classes today because of a big snow storm. Lucky Alex. Weather here was just fine. After reading for a couple of hours we went for a bike ride. Went to return the movie at Walgreens. Then we stopped in at the Mountain Brook clubhouse and asked whether anyone had turned in a Titliest 7-iron (Wayne Peters thought he left his club lying on the front nine here last week Wednesday). Yep, we got the club back. I tried to tie it to my bike for the ride back home. So finding the missing club was the first really good thing that happened today. But there were better things to come.

Riding back along our loop, just as we were passing some of the great holes on the Dinosaur course, I spotted a big dog running across the road just ahead of me. That’s weird! I never see loose dogs running around here. Hey, that’s not a dog. It stops on the road to look at me as I approach. It’s a mountain lion! Right here in town! It turns away from  me and saunters into the ditch and onto the golf course. I’m waving my hands like crazy, hoping Sue will see it too. Nope. She thinks I’m pointing out some features on the houses in the distance.

We’re getting close to the new fire hall they’re building on Don Donnelly. Sue thinks this may be enough cycling for her still-sore back and heads homeward, but I take a little diversion through a big open gate and cycle through the exclusive gated community of Superstition Mountain. Very nice. Nice golf courses, very nice roads, nice houses. Luckily a couple of cars were just leaving through the gates as I was cycling up to the guarded entrance and the I ‘escaped’ through the gates just as they were closing. So that was cool, too.

Lunch. More reading. Sat outside in the warm sun. Then at 3:30 we left for the golf course. Four o’clock tee time. Had to wait for a slow foursome ahead of us. But we still finished just as the sun was setting and the mountain looked great. Sue’s game was pretty good — and that was with a bad back! No excuse for me. I’ll be hitting the driving range tomorrow.

Back home for some leftover spaghetti. Then at 7 we watched part 2 of the two-part Clinton special on PBS (excellent) followed by a 2-hour Frontline about gang violence in Chicago. Sue was tired and went to bed. I wrote my blog entry and watched late night TV.

Monday: Sue’s back was a bit better today — I think the ibuprofen is working for her. She’s still very tentative when she moves around but there is less wincing and grunts of pain when she turns the wrong way.

So, although it’s Presidents’ Day (2 for 1 entry fee at the Renaissance Festival today!) and the weather is great, there’ll be no exercise activity today. Actually, just because Sue has a back issue doesn’t preclude me from having a bit of exercise. Ironic then that Sue went for a walk around the block today while I sat inside and read my book.

After an early lunch we headed into Scottsdale for the afternoon. Went to the Harkins theatre at Camelview 5 to see the 12:45pm showing of “Albert Nobbs” (nominated for Best Actress, Supporting Actress, and Makeup). It was better than we expected.

Then we headed up on Scottsdale Road to the Harkins at Shea Blvd for the 4:10pm showing of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (nominated for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Original Score). We had almost an hour to kill first so we went to a great coffee shop in the strip mall there and had coffee and watched people around us. After the movie (plot was too complex; we’ll need to either read the book or watch this movie again — or maybe watch an earlier version of the movie — to catch on to what actually happened here) we hightailed it home. Stopped at a Carl’s Jr along the way to try to drop of our Redbox DVD rental but the machine was out of order.

Got home at around 7:15. Sue got going on making supper (spaghetti and meat sauce) while I called Paul and Kathy to talk about their visit here, arriving Friday night. After supper we sat down at our respective stations in front of the TV and enjoyed part one of two 2-hour specials on PBS about Bill Clinton (Sue’s hero). Pretty good. And after that it was beddy-bye time.

And a final note of explanation to my two readers (Sue and MaryLou): Why am I writing this drivel? Is this really a ‘blog’ for anyone else to read? Why is the most interesting detail I write about every day what my snacks and meals consist of? No, this is not a general interest blog. It is a record of the ordinary mundane events of my life. In Roy Loewen’s research about the pioneers of Blumenort he reads the journals of long-dead farmers who recorded the daily weather and how much they sold their grain for — boring stuff. Okay, the weather today was sunny and about 68 degrees. The same as always. And the movies cost $6.50 for a senior ticket. That’s it for today’s important news. See you tomorrow.

Sunday: Woke up early and got settled in front of that TV for the Sunday morning talk shows. Sue woke up with her back feeling even worse than it did yesterday. No activities today. We read a bit. French toast for breakfast. Read some more. Waited for golf on TV to begin at 1pm. Final day of the Nationwide Open. Mickelson in the lead. Lots of drama. Show dragged on a bit when the leaders began to miss their putts. Then, just as it looked like the tournament was done, Mickelson and Bradley made birdie putts on 18 to force a 3-way play-off with Bill Haas. Haas eventually made a 45-foot putt to win it. Too late for me to go hit another bucket of balls at the golf course, although after watching golf all afternoon I felt quite inspired. It was already after 5pm. That left less than an hour for us to drive to Apache Junction to pick up my Redbox DVD rental, pick up supper from Jack-in-the-Box, and go for a short walk. We managed to do all three things, although the walk was cut a bit short! Still, we made it home with a movie and burgers in time to see the beginning of 60 Minutes. After the show we watched our movie rental, “Of Gods and Men”. The movie was number one on both of the Thiessen’s best of 2011 list as found on their website Vic & Walter Thiessen – On Movies. Well, 2 hours later, Sue and I looked at each other and wondered if we’d missed something! Ended the day with a bit of shlockey TV (what else is new?) and listened to the dishwasher as we tried to go to sleep.

Saturday: Today we said goodbye to our friends Dave and MaryLou. After our usual bacon and eggs breakfast they loaded up their car and headed north back to Manitoba. Their plan was to spend a bit of time at the Hopi mission in northern Arizona along the way.

Sue was out of commission today. She got a pinched nerve or something like that in her back yesterday during our golf game (or maybe it started on our morning cycling trip) and this morning it was worse rather than better. So we stayed home all day, hoping that a bit of rest (and some pain killers) would help her mend.

I’d gone to Bashas in the morning for some fresh bread and saw the ‘market’ tents on the parking lot. I headed back there for lunch, picking up a couple of hot dogs for my lunch. I also bought some more pills for Sue. On the cycle there I checked out the low-flying helicopter that ultimately landed in the parking lot behind Bashas — I guess there was an emergency on the Mountain Brook golf course right on hole number 11, and emergency vehicles and the helicopter were taking someone to the hospital.

I washed all our golf clubs and used golf balls in the garage. We skyped for a long time with Alex. We watched golf on TV. Then at around 5pm I went to the golf course and hit a bucket of balls on the driving range — which felt really good. The highway was crawling with Renaissance Festival visitors. I stopped by Walgreens to pick up a DVD rental and then joined the parade to get back home.

Sue spent most of the day sitting and lying on the couch with a hot pack (thanks, MaryLou) on her back. We had our leftover pizza for supper. Then we watched a couple of movies. The first film was my download of “Rundskop” (Bullhead), a Belgian film nominated for Best Foreign Film. It was pretty good — a drama about a cattle farmer who was brutalized as a child. We’ve seen four of the five nominated films in this category and I predict that the Iranian film “A Separation” will win. The second movie we watched (well, actually only I watched it; Sue fell asleep on the couch) was the DVD I rented earlier, “Hanna”. Interesting, but a bit too ‘stylized’. When it was over we had a bit of trail mix for a night snack and watched Saturday Night Live before going to bed.

Friday: After breakfast Sue went grocery shopping. When she got home and we’d put the groceries away we hopped onto our bikes and went for a ride — today we headed out on highway #60 east down to where the Renaissance Festival is held. We also pedalled around Peralta Trails and once we got back to Gold Canyon we came back home along our regular route. Lunch. Sue got the pizzas ready while I watched a bit of golf on TV. Dave called to say he’d had tire trouble and wouldn’t be here before 3:30. And that’s when Dave and MaryLou arrived.


    


We loaded up the van and headed out to Mountain Brook. We walked 9 holes; had to wait for the golfers ahead of us every once in a while, and only finished our last hole at around 6:15 — and it was getting dark. Went back home and Sue put the pizzas in. Had supper. After supper we watched a Whitney Houston special on TV (not that good) and some David Letterman. Everyone was tired and so we went to bed just before midnight. All day if felt like it was Saturday, but it wasn’t. But tomorrow it will be.

Thursday: Went cycling (for a change) this morning. Cool, had to wear our jackets. After lunch we headed out to Superstition Springs, to the Harkins 25, to see the Meryl Streep movie, “The Iron Lady”. Best actress shoe-in (according to the critics). After the movie we went for a ride around Mesa, checking out the big trailer parks. We ended up at the Superstition Springs Mall, at Macy’s. Sue bought some golfing shirts, I bought a pair of golfing pants. All ready for tomorrow, when Dave and MaryLou are coming back here for a final round of golf at Mountain Brook. We took a quick walk through the (empty) mall and then headed home, watching as the sun set behind the clouds and did its best to tint Superstition Mountain in pink. Once home, Sue made (another) great supper — spicy shrimp with pasta and a salad. After supper we called Angie and discussed options for celebrating my mom’s 80th birthday in June. Settled nothing. Sue sat and played iPad Scrabble while I watched the last period of Jets hockey on TV. Then we watched the first part of a Clinton documentary on PBS online and another of my Oscar downloads, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (Best Animated Short Film). We ended the evening by watching the 2 hour documentary “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” about the West Memphis 3. Went to bed just before midnight.

Wednesday: Did a bit of emailing and stuff after breakfast. Weather was cool. We went for a hike up Silly Mountain before lunch. After lunch Sue sat outside and read until around 2pm, when Wayne and Justina arrived. They’re staying at Justina’s brother’s place in Maricopa. We sat and visited for a bit and then all got into our van and went for a short ride around our loop. We ended up at Mountain Brook Golf Course where Wayne and I had a 3:30 tee time. Sue and Justina walked home from the clubhouse. Wayne and I had a pretty good time — no one behind us and never waiting for the golfers ahead of us. And although the temperature was cool, when the sun came out we actually took our jackets off and had a nice leisurely round. Back home after our game, we had drinks and appetizers and visited a bit more. I barbecued steak and the four of us sat around the table for the rest of the night. A great time, talking about France (the Peters are old pros at touring France). We said goodbye at around 10pm and watched a bit of Letterman before going to bed.