Author: Rudy

Saturday: Bacon and eggs. Hiked on Silly Mountain — not too strenuous because Sue’s back is still “iffy” and my feet are still sore. After lunch Sue went outside to read and I played on my computer, downloading and organizing a bunch of Yo-Yo Ma music in iTunes. We left early for our 4:00 tee time and hit a bucket of balls — I was trying out Tim’s driver and had a bit of success. It didn’t really improve our golf scores — Sue had 55, I had 57 — but we had fun. The weather was perfect, no pressure from other golfers. When we got home Sue started making supper (stir fry) and Charlotte from next door came over to deliver the junk mail — and my new Kindle! After supper we watched a bunch of “48 Hours” reruns on TV, then the movie “The Hangover” (on TV), then SNL. Went to bed before midnight.

Friday: Spent the morning working on my kindle and ibook files — the kindle I ordered is supposed to arrive here on Monday. Sue read and talked on the phone. We had an early lunch. Then we headed out in the van — filled up gas (it’s getting close to $4.00 per gallon again!), and went to Talking Stick up in Scottsdale to the Salt River Field baseball park. Watched the ‘home team’ Colorado Rockies lose to the Oakland A’s. The weather was great — about 74 degrees. We sat on the lawn and watched kids running around, guys sitting around drinking beer and talking sports, and girls in skimpy sun dresses looking great. Good times. After the game we had ice cream cones at McDonalds. Then we went to a nearby Walmart to buy tea towels for Sue and soap refills. Then to Macy’s on Power Road where Sue did NOT get the lipstick she went in for — after almost an hour of sampling and ‘negotiations’. Next time. We only got home at around 7, after sunset. Barbecued 2 sausages, Sue made beans and ‘cheesy’ rice to go with it. Watched our Comedy Central shows followed by our DVD rental “J Edgar”. A bit slow-moving. Letterman. Then off to bed.

Thursday: I spent all morning and a good part of the afternoon going through a bunch of books that I downloaded using Vuze — and I worked on converting them to ePub and to Kindle versions — which works! So I uploaded them to iBooks on Sue’s iPad and a couple as Kindle versions too. We went for a bike ride to Walgreens after watching Charlie Rose until 2pm. We returned the DVD from yesterday. Tried to buy a new watch battery for Sue but they didn’t have one. We got home just in time to get ourselves ready for our 4:15 tee time. It is a perfect day for golf today. And we hit a small bucket of balls on the driving range before our game. And we had a great time — no one behind us.

For supper Sue made another great fish dish with potatoes and a salad. Then, after we watched our Comedy Central reruns, we watched the movie “We Need to Talk About Kevin”, which I had downloaded and burned to a DVD. It was pretty bleak. Then Sue watched a bit of Piers Morgan and played Scrabble before going to bed.

Wednesday: Don’t think we did anything today except we walked to Walgreens and returned our movie and picked up a new one. Then, after a supper of leftover Chinese and a Skype with Tim and Alex, we watched the DVD, “London Boulevard”. It was so-so — a bit hard to understand the dialogue and accents, and the plot was forgettable. It was cold today. We barely made it back from Walgreens before the 11am iPod 3 announcement which I watched a live blog of on the computer. Sue read a bit in the afternoon. That’s about it. Oh yeah, Sue called Irmy who is home from Chile. And we got word back from Jill that it’s okay for us to stay here an extra 2 weeks, until mid-April. So that’s a relief.

Tuesday: Sue had a bad night. Severe headache. A full-blown cold. But this morning she was feeling a bit better. Jim was up since 5 in the morning, listening to music and reading on his iPad in the living room. After breakfast the Peters left on a bit of a drive: up to Tortilla Flats, maybe even to the Roosevelt Dam. Then they planned to slowly make their way back to La Quinta in California. It seemed that between Bonny’s and Sue’s less than 100% health we really hadn’t done very much. But it was nice to see them and to have them see where we’ve been hanging out.

After Jim and Bonny left Sue sent Jill an email asking about the possibility of us staying here an extra week or two. Then we sat around all afternoon. Sue did some laundry. I played on the computer. We ordered our favourite chinese food from the restaurant at the Walgreen’s corner and I also booked a Redbox DVD online. I went to pick up both at around 6 o’clock while Sue watched the Lang and O’leary Report, live streamed on CBC.

We had honey-walnut shrimp and lo mein with chicken and then sat down to watch our regular Comedy Central shows at 7pm. After that we watched our movie, a sweet little romance called “Like Crazy”. It was okay. We also watched a little bit of news, since today was ‘Super Tuesday’, where 10 states had Republican primary votes. Mitt Romney won, but it was probably closer than it should have been, so the other candidates will stay in the race. That means we’ll have this gong show for probably another month.

Went to bed before midnight. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be cool — a high of 60. Another lazy day at home, I guess.

Monday: Jim and Bonny were up already when we got up. Bonny hadn’t really slept well at night. Not feeling well. She opted out of the hieroglyphic hike this morning — so it was just Jim and Sue and I.

It was supposed to be quite hot today, but a bit of cloud cover seemed to keep the temperatures from reaching their projected highs. We got back from the hike and had lunch. Then the Peters had a nap while I had a shower and did a bit of computer work. We headed out to Superstition Springs Mall for a 3:00pm cheap movie: We Bought a Zoo. It was an entertaining, if somewhat artificial, movie. After the movie we came back to Gold Canyon. We stopped at Walgreens for some sinus medication for Sue, who was feeling miserable with a sinus cold. We had planned to go to the Mexican restaurant for supper but with Sue feeling poorly and me thinking perhaps our restaurant was actually not even open on Monday nights, we decided to order in pizza instead. Jim and I went to pick it up from The Hitching Post. Not bad. Sue added a salad. We skyped with Werner a bit too. Sounds like things at the SR are about as bad as ever. Karen and Sarah are planning a spring trip to Greece. We were watching the Winnipeg Jets beat the Sabres on our computer/TV. Then we watched 2 episodes of “The Mentalist” in a row. Sue went to bed early. By midnight the men we were all in bed. Hope Sue is feeling a lot better tomorrow.

Sunday: We got up at 7 and watched a bit of CBS Sunday Morning before Jim and Bonny got up and joined us. We all watched Fareed and then Sue made toast — no, not French toast; just the same old normal toast. After breakfast we all went for a walk around the block. Jim and Bonny needed to be at Ric and Helen’s house by 11, so they left as soon as we returned from our walk. Sue and I read a bit. We had lunch. Then we watched a bit of the Honda Open golf tournament on TV. Sue was feeling a bit like she was suffering from a cold. She tried to nap a bit. Then, at 3:15 we headed off to the golf course. Not too busy there. We teed off right away and played okay for the first half of the game. It was very hot today. By the time we were back at the van it was even hotter, and our golfing was more of a good walk than it was about the game. After the game we putted for a bit before riding back home. We watched 60 Minutes and then had leftover spaghetti. We were sitting in front of the TV watching the Amazing Race when Jim and Bonny returned. They’d gone to visit Harv and Barb Lane and Ric and Helen at their mobile home park. We visited a bit and then Sue got the remote control in her hands. We visited and watched a bit more TV before a night snack of cookies and tea.

Finally at around 10:30 everyone was yawning and tired and Sue announced that she was going to bed. So we all did.

Saturday: After bacon and eggs we spent a bit of time this morning cleaning up the joint. I vacuumed with my newly repaired vacuum cleaner. Sue did a couple of roads of laundry. I worked on the sink a bit more — don’t know if I fixed the leaky drain. Sue cleaned the barbecue. We had lunch. Sue went to Basha’s for groceries while I washed the van. Put more salt in the softener. Then I went to the golf course and hit a bucket of balls. Worked on my iron shots — 5, 7, and P. Sue sat out in the backyard and read. We waited for Jim and Bonny’s arrival. The were here at 5:30 — a 4.5 hour drive from their place in La Quinta (Palm Springs). We had drinks and snacks. Sat and visited. Then Sue got supper going and I barbecued chicken. Had supper. Sat around the table. Moved to the living room. Jim gave me over 100 books for the iPad. Went to bed at midnight.

Friday: Paul and Kathy were out for one last hike this morning by the time I got out of bed. When they returned they were excited to report that they had been surrounded by coyotes on their walk. No pictures though.

After a final breakfast with Paul and Kathy they spent the morning packing and cleaning up. Sue also did a bit of laundry. The sink was leaking again and the vacuum cleaner wand was too broken to be usable so I decided we’d try shopping for repairs and parts on the way home from the airport.  We checked the flight status of Paul and Kathy’s flight to Detroit — everything was okay. Kathy hoped that the plane would avoid the tornadoes that are causing so much destruction up in the midwest.

After lunch we left for the airport. We arrived at the airport at 1:30 and said our goodbyes. It had been another great week.

On the way home we stopped at a Trader Joe’s for more Two-buck Chuck and cheese. A couple of stops at various vacuum repair shops. Finally in Apache Junction we found a repair shop with an old guy who repaired the vacuum cleaner with 3 rivets — for 10 bucks. A great deal. And a stop at the Superstition Fruit Market.

Hurried home and got to the golf course just in time for our 4pm tee time. A couple of golfers got in ahead of us so they could finish their ‘shambo’ game, but after that we never had anyone ahead or behind us. Cool wind, but sunshine. Game was the shits. But it was fun. My feet were very sore. Sue’s back is still not 100%, but golf didn’t seem to hurt it.

We got home a little after 6. I tried to fix the drain on the kitchen sink. I tried out the vacuum cleaner repair. Sue warmed up the leftover pasta and shrimp from yesterday and made a great tomato and avocado salad. And when supper was done we sat down for our comedy channel reruns. More ‘investigative’ journalism after that — 20/20 and 48 Hours.

At home there’s a big snowstorm — highways are closed. Hope our kids are home safe and enjoying their weekend. Tomorrow we’re expecting Jim and Bonny.

Thursday: No internet today. Modem only had 1 light flickering so I unplugged the power and replugged — in order to reset the modem. Now no light was on. Dead. So after breakfast I headed into Apache Junction to see if I could get the modem replaced. Big sign on the MediaCom door: Internet is down in CA and AZ. Oh. Okay. But now what? When internet is restored I will have a dead modem. They can’t replace my modem because their systems are down and they need to record the serial number, etc. How will I know when they’re back up? I go back home with my broken modem.

I worked on the MJ’s logo for Tim until lunch time. Paul and Kathy took the van to Santan to shop for the afternoon. After lunch I read a bit. Sat outside a bit. Sue went to the store to get some shrimp for supper tonight. She stopped in at the cafe and found out that MediaCom is back up. So when Paul and Kathy returned I jumped into the van and went back to their office to get my modem replaced. A busy place! Had to wait my turn. Finally they replaced it. Got back home and had to fiddle with it for a while to get it to work. Now all is good. But it was 4:30, too late for Sue and I to go golfing. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Sue made a great supper again. Not sure that shrimp will become a regular feature of Paul and Kathy’s weekly menu, though. After supper we sat around the table and visited. Then we moved to the living room and turned on the TV. Watched a bunch of crappy TV and had ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert. To bed by 11:30 for everyone but me.