Saturday morning. Oh, all you faithful readers, you know what that means — bacon and eggs! Speaking of faithful readers, I can’t wait to stop writing this drivel! I started this when we first headed south, partly as a way to document what we are doing FOR OURSELVES and partly as a way to stay in touch with family. And I know that others are reading this, and sometimes it’s fun to write for that audience too. I also know that I need to do this every day, and that if I miss a day I will soon miss several days and then I’ll stop doing this altogether. (It’s a bit like my stint on the treadmill was — either do it daily or don’t even start.) But really! MOST of the time we don’t DO anything. Reading about how lazy we are, or how great the weather is, or how bad my golfing is, has got to be the most UNINTERESTING reading in the world! Pain and suffering makes for interesting reading; living the good life in a sunshiny country club does not.

Now that we are on our own here, I’m once again playing music from my humungous iTunes library all day every day. Today’s ‘genius playlist’ is based on Steve Earle’s “Remember Me”. What a great playlist! Speaking of Steve Earle, if you really want to read good writing, listen to Steve Earle’s music. He’s been in jail for heroin possession, and he just divorced his seventh wife. Hello! Talk about pain and suffering! And he’s got a new album out, Terrapin, and it’s a blues album, and it’s good. Steve Earle can tell a GREAT story in a 3-minute song.

While Sue read I worked on my computer. Sue was feeling a bit better today, although not a hundred percent yet. So for lunch she made noodle soup and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. That’s what we have when one of us feels poorly. Yum! almost makes you wanna be sick.

It was HOT here today (oh boy, now he’s going to talk about the nice weather again!). I called Mountain Brook Golf Club and booked a 3:45 tee time — hoping it might have cooled off a bit by then. But it was still quite warm when we pulled into the parking lot. And as Sue went in to pay I put together our pull carts and loaded our clubs. Oh no! I forgot my driver and all my hybrids in the garage after my last visit to the driving range. What now? Okay, I’ll golf with what I’ve brought. So no nice long drives today, right? Wrong. I reverted to my old fairway wood and was pleasantly surprised when I smacked that ball almost as far as I can hit my driver. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that cool when I dinged the ball off the roof of a house on the eighth hole, but I quickly pounded a second ball straight down the fairway and was careful NOT to look at the homeowner as I made my way down to the green.

After golf we decided to (finally!) check out the Fairway Grille, out on Highway 60. We’d not been there yet this winter — and every time we go by the parking lot is packed. So we waited for a break in the parade of cars coming back from the Renaissance Festival just down the road and then crawled the quarter mile to the restaurant. Parking lot was full again. Upon entering the crowded restaurant we were immediately bathed in the overwhelming aroma of deep-fried everything. The restaurant reminded me of the Hitching Post and the smell reminded me of the good old Pioneer Inn in Steinbach. We got a table for two. All around us, enormous old people were overflowing their chairs while stuffing their faces with the broasted chicken and fried fish dinner special. We ordered a couple of draft beers. (I could go on about the joys of American “Lite” beer here, but this is already too long an entry.) I ordered the fish, Sue had sweet potato fries. The big fat guy sitting behind his laptop in the corner was entertaining the crowd by singing along with Waylon and Willie karaoke soundtracks. How is this considered ‘live’ music? At one point he was singing a chorus that sounded like “I don’t want to get older” — I was considering helping him achieve that! The highlight was when a drunk Mexican guy got up and started dancing along with the soundtrack for a couple of songs. While the huge people all around us were chomping on their greasy drumsticks and texting their grandchildren all about it, Sue picked at her fries. Not that good. Neither was the fish fry, but I gave it my best shot. When we were done we had to get out of that parking lot, back onto the 60, to get back home. I edged the van into the solid lanes of traffic kind of like how we crossed the motorcycle-clogged roads in Vietnam years ago — just close your eyes and start moving into the traffic and the sea of cars will part for you. Made it.

Back at home, we opened all the doors and cranked up the ceiling fan to help cool down the place (and to air out our greasy clothes). The internet was working again — and we made one more push to finish watching the final season of ‘Suits’. We didn’t quite finish — I think we have 3 episodes left. By eleven o’clock we were in bed. Thank goodness we won’t lose any sleep to Daylight Savings Time like people at home will — they don’t do that here in Arizona.