Author: Rudy

Tuesday: We went to Scottsdale soon after breakfast. The drive was less than an hour and seemed even shorter. We’d forgotten what an attractive city it really was! We’d left our house in the pouring rain (yes, POURING RAIN!) with the temperature only 8 degrees and by the time we got to our destination it was sunny and 12 degrees.

Our first stop was the Museum of Musical Instruments. It had been recommended to us by Dave and MaryLou who were going to meet us there for lunch. But first we had a couple of hours to view the exhibits. The museum is excellent. The building is new, the displays are very attractive, and the audio tour is at your own pace. We probably spent too much time in the Africa and Asia rooms and rushed through the North America room because it was getting close to lunch time and we had arranged to meet the Dave and MaryLou in the museum cafe at 12:30.

After lunch we did a quick walk through the musical ‘artist’ gallery and the ‘experience’ gallery. We were hoping to make the 2pm tour at our next museum, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. 

The weather was cool again when we got the famous winter home of Frank Lloyd Wright. And tours were getting booked up quickly. We missed the 2 o’clock but our 2:30 tour left early because it was all booked up. Our tour guide walked us around the grounds and told stories about the architect. Again, the visit was excellent, a great way to learn about this famous artist in 90 minutes. Because it was so cold our guide saved his longer talks for when we visited some of the rooms inside the house. 

We were invited to have supper with Dave and MaryLou at their Scottsdale apartment. We stopped at a Trader Joe’s before following Dave to their condo. We sat around and visited before supper. Supper included a variety of delicious pastas and a nice salad. Just as we were about to sit down to eat Dave’s brother and sister-in-law returned from their evening out (Valentine’s Day) and so we enjoyed another visit with Paul and Shirley. Dave and MaryLou thought they might be heading back to Manitoba soon. We hope we’ll still get in at least one more round of golf with them here at Mountain Brook before they leave.

We said goodbye at around 9:30 and got home an hour later. We watched a bit of late night TV, even stayed up to watch Jon Stewart and Colbert until 1:00am! Whew! We are turning into party animals!

Monday: Cooler today. Sue did laundry. Sue went grocery shopping. We went for a bike ride to Walgreen’s, picked up a DVD, noodled around in Mountain Brook then came home for lunch. After lunch I took the van to the car wash for an oil change and a car wash while Sue finished doing the laundry. I had booked a tee time for 3:30 so we really had no time to sit around. Shorts but a sweater for some of the holes, although the sun came out and it got nice after a couple of holes. We both had some good shots, but too many bad shots in between. But we had fun. After golf we came home and Sue got busy in the kitchen. What’s totally crazy is the most people wouldn’t believe that we eat fantastic meals EVERY SINGLE DAY! Not just when we have company, although we eat well then too. Even though it’s just the two of us, Sue makes a beautiful meal every day. Here’s a look at our dinner today:

Roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and ‘shmoant fat’ (cream gravy), an avocado and tomato salad, asparagus, and broccoli, and a glass of red wine to wash it down. Crazy, eh?

After dinner Sue cleaned up the dishes and I took out the garbage and started my blog post. Only crap on TV so we’re going to sit down and watch my Redbox DVD rental, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, which is nominated for “Best Visual Effects”. After that, if we don’t find anything good on TV, we’ll watch another of my downloaded Oscar-nominated films.

Sunday: I woke up early. Watched CBS Sunday Morning. Then Fareed. Then Reliable Sources. Had French toast with fruit and peanut butter somewhere in there. Then I talked to Alex about trying to burn an iTunes movie to DVD — ended up downloading the movie from torrents and sharing with her via Dropbox.

After lunch I started watching golf (Woods vs Mickelson at Pebble Beach). I was thinking it would be a good day to go golfing — sun shining but a bit windy and cool — probably not too many golfers out today. But Sue decided we would rather go to the big Methodist church on King’s Ranch Road to hear some classical guitar concert. So, of course, that’s what we did. We walked through the golf course to get there. Very nice church (we’d never been inside before). The guitarist was a professional — played some highbrow music very well. Concert ended after about 90 minutes and we went to Walgreen’s to return last night’s DVD. Then back through the golf course.

Golf was over by the time we got home. Watched 60 Minutes and barbecued big fat pork sausages to go with the beans and salad Sue made. Sue liked supper even less than I did.

Then it was time to get comfy in front of the telly and watch 5 hours of Grammy Awards. We didn’t think we’d know any of the performers, but actually the show was quite entertaining and we knew lots of the artists. They’re all getting older with us. Bruce Springsteen, Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Diana Krall, and a whole lot of Adelle, who won 6 grammies. And many references and tributes to Whitney Houston who died yesterday. And just like that, the day was done!

Saturday: Bacon and eggs interrupted our morning movie, “A Separation”, a wonderful film from Iran nominated for Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay. It’s one of my downloaded movies and it has subtitles and there’s no way we could stay awake watching it at night, but it was an excellent way to spend a Saturday morning! Sue and I both really liked it. We headed into Apache Junction to the Fruit Market to restock our fruits and vegetables for another week. We always come away from that market with a van full of food and marvel at how much fresh food you can buy for $20-30.

In the afternoon I watched a bit of golf on TV and Sue sat outside and read. Then at around 3:30 I called the golf course and asked about our chances of walking nine holes — and was surprised to learn that it wasn’t busy and we could come on over. So we did.

Sue’s golf game was encouraging, mine a little less so. That’s the beauty of golfing with a partner: it’s never a complete write-off. And really, any afternoon walking the fairways at Mountain Brook with a beautiful red sunset reflecting on Superstition Mountain is pretty good. After we finished our nine holes Sue went to the putting green and I took a small bucket to the driving range. Time well spent.

We went home (Highway #60 is now plugged with traffic as the Renaissance Festival has started again — it will create a traffic jam on our road every weekend for the next 6 weeks!) and Sue presented a great supper (curried chicken leftovers). We watched a bit of TV and then put in our DVD rental, “Real Steel”, nominated for Best Visual Effects. Sue pronounced it one of the lamest movies we’ve watched — it was a silly movie about fighting robots.

Friday: I got up and watched the second half of the documentary “If a Tree Falls” (I’d fallen asleep last night while Sue watched it). Did a bit of computer work this morning. Then I went and sat outside and read my book, “The Art of Fielding”, which I’ve borrowed from Dave Driedger. It was quite warm today! After lunch I finished reading the book. We planned to go for a walk but it was a bit too warm during the day. So instead, we watched a second Oscar-nominated documentary, “Hell and Back Again”. Yesterday’s film made you think about ‘terrorists’ — and maybe even sympathize with the radical fringe. This afternoon’s movie was the story of a wounded soldier who returns from the war in Afghanistan — but left me feeling somewhat depressed about the war and American gun culture and the hopelessness of it all. After the movie we drove to the Firehouse Bar, parked our van, ordered a pizza for an hour later, and went for an hour-long walk around Mountain Brook. Temperature was still warm, sunset was magnificent. We stopped at Walgreen’s and rented the DVD “The Warrior”. Took our pizza back to our house. After supper we watched a bit of TV, then “The Warrior” (Nick Nolte is nominated for Best Supporting Actor), then a bit more TV with our night snack (pineapple with pomegranate).

Thursday: Sue and I read our books this morning. When I called the golf course to book a tee time I learned that the first available after 3 o’clock was at 4:10pm — and considering that yesterday the sun was only setting at around 6:30 I took the late tee time. I called Koop and we talked a bit about his trip to the Super Bowl. After lunch Sue decided to clean the windows in our house. I continued to read while she cleaned. When she finished we had a beer and then headed off to the golf course, just in case we could get on a bit early. Nope. So we ordered a small bucket of balls and spent a bit of the time on the driving range. We teed off at 4:10 and right away I had a par on the first hole! Sue did not — and by the third hole she’d announced that she absolutely hated the game of golf.

Well, things improved from there on and by the time we finished hole number 9 not only was the sun still peaking over the horizon, but Sue’s disposition had improved considerably.

Another perfect afternoon in Arizona. We went home and Sue whipped up a most delicious supper: curried chicken over rice-a-roni and a salad on the side. Yum. After supper we skyped quite a while with Werner (and then Karen) Pries and with Tim and Alex after that. Then we watched one of the Oscar-nominated documentaries, “If a Tree Falls”, which I had downloaded on the computer. We had fresh pineapple slices for ‘night snack’ and watched David Letterman before calling it a night. Can’t wait to do it all over again tomorrow.

Wednesday: Doddled around all morning again. The forecast for today was for rain, so we did NOT book any golf. We haven’t golfed since last Saturday. But the day turned out to be just like every other day here in Arizona — beautiful!

Finally, at around 11, we went for a brisk walk to Walgreen’s to return our DVD. Hurried back for lunch, we both showered, and then we hopped into our van and headed out to the Harkins Theatre on Power Road for our first (1:00pm) movie: The Artist, a black and white silent film which is nominated for 10 Academy Awards. The theatre was surprisingly full. The movie was pretty good. At one point I was nodding off and Sue pulled out the pack of red licorice that we’d bought at Walgreen’s in the morning — and that help to keep me awake. At the end of the movie we just about ran down the hall to Theatre #2 to catch the next film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Again, the theatre was packed and we had to sit in the seats in the front section, craning our necks to see the big screen. The movie was good — we’d seen the 3 Swedish versions on DVD last spring and this version was probably better than that. We got out of the cinema at around 5:30 and headed back towards Gold Canyon. Sue had a little grocery list — mostly paper towel and kleenex and stuff like that — so we stopped at Walmart on Signal Butte and picked those things up.

It was 6:30 by the time we were heading east on Highway 60 looking at Superstition Mountain — and it was still not totally dark! Quite a change from just 4 weeks ago. At home we called Paul and Kathy, and then barbecued cheeseburgers (actually bacon burgers) for supper. Watched a bit of TV. Then we watched a couple of Oscar-nominated documentaries (downloaded on my computer) before watching late-night TV and going to bed.

Tuesday: Said goodbye to our friends Dave and MaryLou today. They were busy packing and planning their next adventure this morning. They didn’t even stay for lunch (missed another great sandwich!) because they were going to visit some other friends. I watched the “Jane Eyre” movie that the girls watched last night while we were at the hockey game. Sue sat outside and read. After the Driedgers left we sat around and twiddled our thumbs for a bit. Felt a bit lost. What next? What should we do? We frittered away enough time so that we couldn’t even go see a movie. Finally Tim Skyped me and asked for a bit of help with a logo — and once again I had purpose in life! At four o’clock Sue commanded that we go for a bike ride, so we returned the DVD to Walgreen’s and picked up a new release for tonight. The best thing about the bike ride was that I finally broke my speed record. The weather was a bit cool, but really not cool enough to NOT go golfing — but we didn’t. When we got home Sue started supper (leftovers AGAIN!) and I showered. After supper we watched our shows before putting our movie on at 8pm. “Anonymous” is nominated for Best Costume at the Oscars. Story about who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Sue said she didn’t get any of it. I found it interesting if not great. A bit of David Letterman and then off to bed. Goodnight, Dave and MaryLou, wherever you are.

Monday: Went for a hike up Silly Mountain today — with Sue and Dave — MaryLou opted for a v-e-r-y  l-o-n-g bike ride instead. We got home after nearly 2 hours of hiking and had lunch. Showered and got ready for the trip to Glendale. At around 4pm Dave and I left for the hockey game, which started at 6pm. Along the way we stopped at a golf store and Dave got a couple of his clubs re-gripped. I thought we had lots of time but we actually only got to the Jobing.com arena just before 6pm. And we didn’t have tickets to the game. Luckily there were lots of ticket sellers near the parking lot. We strolled along and negotiated a couple of ‘cheap’ seats for $25 apiece. But we still hadn’t had supper! So we after we got our tickets we sat down in one of the many restaurants in the ‘Westgate’ complex outside the arena and had a big platter of cheeseburgers and onion rings and a couple of beers. The first period was nearly over by the time we got to our seats. The arena wasn’t sold out, but we were surprised that about half the fans were cheering for Detroit — wearing Detroit gear and cheering loudly when the Red Wings scored their (only) goal! It was a pretty good game — the Coyotes outplayed the Red Wings and deserved their victory. We were out by quarter to nine and home by 9:30. The girls had watched “Jane Eyre” and were sitting at the table visiting. We watched a bit of shlocky TV and then one-by-one headed off to bed.

Sunday:

Before turning our full attention to the Super Bowl we watched the final day of the Phoenix Open where Kyle Stanley, who last week blew a seemingly sure victory at Torrey Pines, came from eight shots back to overtake a stumbling Spencer Levin and win.