Monday: I loaded up the big pink bike into the van. We’re taking it to Al & Shirl’s trailer in Chandler today. Sue tried again to clean the shower — and finally I remembered Gerald Dyck, our junior high shop teacher, telling us that tooth paste is an excellent polish. So we tried that. Sure enough, it seemed to work. And if it wasn’t exactly 100% effective, it surely was as good or better than any of the myriad of cleaners we’ve discovered in the closet and tried so far. And it sure smelled better than the WD-40 I tried on part of it.

I showered and we hurried off to the Mediacom office in Apache Junction. We joined the long line-up of people returning cable boxes and modems and waited our turn. Swapped our cable modem no problem and soon we were off. Heading to Al’s trailer court.

We unloaded the bike, adjusted the handlebars and seat, and parked it in Al’s shed. Then we headed for the Chandler Fashion Mall. Along the way we discovered an In-N-Out Burger restaurant — which I had wanted to try since last year when we were in Arizona. The restaurants are only to be found on the west coast and many bloggers rave about it. We tried the ‘double double’ burger, a plain hamburger for Sue, and a strawberry milkshake. Not bad! A VERY simple and short menu, low prices, freshly made food.

After lunch we went to the big Lowe’s hardware store just across the parking lot. Found our cleaners and detergents and a couple of other things on Sue’s list. Good service here too — quite different from what we’ve come to expect at E.G. Penner Building Centre in Steinbach.

Then we went to the Chandler Fashion Mall. We parked the van near the cinema. Walked into the mall. Visited Sears, the very nice Apple Store (to check out the iPad 3, which I still hadn’t seen), and Nordstrum. Then we went to see the 1:30 showing of the movie “Salmon Fishing in Yemen”. Enjoyed it.

After the movie we decided we would leave a visit to Walmart for later in the week. It was 37 degrees, stinking hot, but we decided to hurry home, change, and go golfing. And that’s what we did. We had a wonderful time on the golf course, and shot better than I had for quite a while (49, 50 for Sue).

Home for gin and tonics and imitation crab appetizers. Then Sue made spaghetti and meat sauce for supper while I fiddled with the new cable modem. I finally got it working just before supper.

After supper I called my mom — last time our internet hiccups cut her off and I hadn’t finished the call. No word from either mom or dad about the news of their impending first great-grandchild. Better not to talk about things like that — makes them nervous. But they seemed happy and doing fine — once again, their weather is far superior to ours.

We spent the rest of the evening surfing the web and watching a bit of TV. And trying to cool off.