But not today. Tonight we went to a Mexican restaurant, Agave, in downtown Palm Desert. We had supper there. I had 2 margaritas. Sue drove home. The end.
The rest of the story (updated Saturday morning)
Actually, Friday was a ‘work day’ here in Rancho Mirage. It felt a bit like the old days in Gold Canyon when Sue and I would do some of the day-to-day housework and chores, just like at home. So, as I write this on a bright and cheery, if somewhat cool, Saturday morning, here’s what I recollect about our day yesterday.
In the morning Sue and I did quite a bit of skyping — with Alex, with Tim, with Koop. It was too cold and windy for golfing and we’d seen or we weren’t interested in seeing any of the currently showing movies. So it was a day to putz around. I did a bit of computer work. After lunch Sue gave me a haircut. Then at around 2:00 we headed out into Cathedral Canyon to have the oil changed on the van. I had a printed out a coupon that I found online. We went for a bit of a walk while we waited for the oil change. Sue got a call from her brother Dave — there’s an opening at Bethesda Place for their mom, so she’ll probably move out of Maplewood Manor this next week.
After filling up gas we went looking for a hardware store so I could try to find replacement rollers for a broken shower door at the house. Some of my faithful readers will know that I am a bit anal about ‘fixing’ things around the house. I can’t stand a burned-out lightbulb and can hardly concentrate on anything else until I’ve changed it. I’ve had a little shopping list in my pocket now for at least a week — the house we’re in is nice, but there are little things all over the place that need to be repaired or adjusted or cleaned. 
And one of the things on my list is to fix the shower door in the guest bathroom. One of the rollers is missing and the door doesn’t slide open very easily and already the bottom track has some serious wear on it where the door has scratched along the channel. So we found a Home Depot and I flagged down a clerk and explained what it was I was looking for. Oh yes, it’s on the right-hand side in aisle 11. He was a very friendly and helpful older man, who then came and helped us find the item on the pegboard in aisle 11. (Wow, Penner Building Centre should be shaking in their boots if ever a Home Depot with friendly and helpful staff move to Steinbach!) Well, now the problem is what size might our rollers be — there are 3 different sizes here. I picked the middle size — I could always exchange the $2 item if I’d guessed wrong. We made another pit stop at Albertson’s, to pick up a movie rental and some more of that great peanut butter chocolate ice cream, and then headed home. When we got home I took the shower doors out and discovered that I need the ‘small’ rollers, not the ‘medium’ ones I’d bought. Well, we could exchange them next time.
Sue had made a dinner reservation at Agave’s, a Mexican restaurant the Tim and Alex had highly recommended. We could only get 5:30 or 7:30, so we’d booked 5:30, thinking that that way we’d have time to watch our movie before bedtime. So we got all dressed up and drove into town for a Friday night out.
The restaurant was busy. We got a table. We knew what we wanted — the chimichanga, but not the one on the menu; no, ask for the ‘pork’ one — it’s the best. And the margaritas are big and strong, so have one of those. Calamari appetizer. Share the chimichanga. Each have a big cold margarita. Good times. Good food. And yes, those drinks are pretty strong! No wonder Tim went to bed early the night the kids went out for Mexican food!
Rudy ordered a second margarita. Whoa, Sue, you’d better drive home after this. I’ll navigate, but I shouldn’t be driving. We shared the chimichanga and decided to forego dessert and enjoy some of that new ice cream at home later, after our movie.
Sue headed back home and I navigated. We were heading up along Monterey and since we were going right by it anyway, we decided to stop at the big Lowe’s hardware store and exchange the shower rollers. (Stick with me here now, kids.) While Sue took the receipt to the returns clerk I headed down to aisle 11 to get the right-sized shower door rollers. I knew where they were. But I couldn’t find them. I stumbled around, checked aisle 9, aisle 13. Nope, none of these aisles have a pegboard with shower rollers on them. After a few fruitless minutes of searching, I see Sue coming up the aisle — big grin on her face. Rudy, we’re in the wrong store! We didn’t buy this at Lowe’s. Oh yeah, it was a Home Depot. So we sheepishly left the store and got back into the van. Oh well, the Home Depot was just up the street. We went there and exchanged our rollers, no problem.
When we got home I quickly wrote my journal entry. That’s the little blurb at the top of this entry. Then I put the DVD into the player and pressed play. I remember the opening title credits of the movie. But nothing else. Sue watched the movie alone, with me sleeping soundly on the couch beside her. After the movie she woke me up and we had some new ice cream. I don’t really remember that. Then we went to bed.
Next morning I got up at 6:00. I’d slept 10 hours. Sue made coffee. She caught me up on what had happened last night. Well, why don’t I go fix that shower door now.
I removed the shower doors and checked the new rollers. Yup, those are the right size. I put the new rollers on the door. Well, maybe Sue would like to clean this tub before I hang the doors back on the track. Okay, let’s get out a selection of cleaning products (from the many stored under the bathroom sink) and there’s my Susie on her knees, scrubbing away at the tub. Okay, that will have to be clean enough. Now help me hang these doors back on the tracks. A bit of finnagling and their done. Work nicely. No more shearing and rubbing metal on metal. See? Fixed it! We wipe everything up, wash our hands and put the cleaning products back under the sink. I pull open one of the drawers in the vanity. What’s this? Brand new shower door rollers. Still in the package! They’d been there all along.
