Hello Week! We Are Ready!

It’s Monday, so you will get to hear one of my favorite tunes.

We were up at 5:30 am this fine morning as we needed to be at the surgeon’s office at 8:00 am to get a little cancer removed from my neck.  We wanted it done so it would have time to heal before the trip.

 

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St Paddy’s Has Arrived!!

We have nothing planned until 5:00 pm when we are headed to the Elks Lodge for the bi-monthly Starlighter’s Dance Club.  We got up early and headed to the garden/backyard, where we attempted to prepare things for our extended vacation.  We wanted everything to be automatic when we leave on our three-week vacation!

While transplanting an eggplant, I overheard two bugs talking…

There is always a wise ass in the crowd!

We have two vertical towers which contain 35 individual compartments for living things.  Mary has her herbs in the one closest to the kitchen and edible flowers in the other.  They require watering every other day but were not connected to our sprinkler system.

Using a battery-operated timer, courtesy of Colleen, I connected the timer to the local hose bib, ran a hose to the top of the tower, and put in a “U-shaped” 3/4″ PVC connection to hook into the top layer.  Every two days, they get ten minutes of water at 30% force, which readily waters all the levels.  Problem solved!

We tested it, and now, at 11:00 am, the vertical planters get their daily water ration.

The settings are easy to make!

We will reset the time as approximately 13.5 gallons per minute travel through a 3/4 PVC pipe at 60psi in a minute. We will try one minute twice a day!

No more manually watering the towers!

While adjusting the pressure at the side of the house, we noticed the Loquat tree was getting ripe with fruit.  These should be ready to pick and make desserts in about three weeks!

We love loquats!

We had supervision!  Scout kept an eye on us the whole day!

“Keep the noise down; I am sleeping!”

We cleaned up and headed to the Elks at 5:00 pm to help set up the room since we were on the  Board of Directors.  We wore green, of course, as we did not want to get pinched!

What do ghosts drink on St. Patrick’s Day?  BOOs, of course!

Vicky, Irene, Jim, Bob, and Donna were there when we arrived.  We had the room set up in a few minutes!

Of course, we headed to the bar for a glass of vino!  They did not have green wine, so we settled for light gold.  Linda was next to us, so we got a bottle and shared it with her!

Green was abundant!

Taking pictures was challenging because the lighting kept changing.  We had to wait until the lighting returned to “normal” before snapping a picture.

We had 86 people this evening; the club is growing.

You can see the entire party on the Starlighter’s Dance Club Homepage.

Just us having fun!

We danced, dined, and danced again, including a little Texas Two Step.  We waltzed and cha-cha’ed and sailed across the floor many times.  We had a marvelous time.

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Out And About!

Take a minute and listed to “The Carlton Weaver”

Did You Know? In the summer of 1787, the journeymen weavers of the Calton started to agitate for a wage increase. The dispute grew bitter, with the strikers cutting the webs from the looms of weavers who continued to work at the old rate, and making bonfires in the street from the contents of warehouses.

On 3 September the city magistrates, with a force of officers, went to the Calton but were driven back by the mob. A detachment of the 39th Regiment marched, and a pitched battle occurred at Parkhouse, in Duke Street. The Riot Act was read, and a volley of musket fire killed three of the weavers and injured others.

Further disturbances were quickly suppressed by the troops.[19] This was the earliest major industrial dispute in Scottish history. The Calton Weavers became Scotland’s first working-class martyrs.

The garden looks pretty good, as evidenced by the security camera that keeps an eye on everything.

We need melons and corn, and we are on our way to another bountiful harvest!

This area now had six more plants, namely zucchini and summer squash!  We ran the dripline under the straw, making the garden look neat!

We used 3/4 of a bale of straw in this area. Two to three inches of mulch saves a load of water and keeps the roots cool in the summer months.

The old security camera died, but I had several replacements ready to go in the garage.  I am going to cover this one and protect it from the sun and rain by wedged a thin sheet of steel into the shingles.

Stand by; we are going live!

The weather was a bit brisk, but we decided to work until it was time to go to the Elks.   We donned our cold-weather gear, including four cans of sterno, and kept working with the sterno cans providing heat!

Did You Know? Sterno is a brand of jellied, denatured alcohol sold in cans and meant to be burned directly in the can. The name comes from the original manufacturer, S. Sternau & Co. of Brooklyn, New York, which has been making chafing dishes, coffee percolators, and similar appliances since 1893. It had previously applied the name to its “Sterno-Inferno” alcohol burner.

In urban areas, especially among the homeless during prohibition and the Depression, “canned heat” was the cheap, easy, and often deadly way to get stoned.  Desperate drinkers would take cans of Sterno, strain them through socks, and make “jungle juice” with cheap fruit drink mixers.

Sterno (manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive) is a canned fuel used to heat food in homes, restaurants, and when camping.  It contains 66.0% ethyl alcohol, 3.4% methyl alcohol, 3.3% acetone, 2.0% nitrocellulose, and water and is poisonous when ingested.

We continued working in the yard for several hours, but at 3:30 pm, we stopped working, clocked out, and went inside to clean up; we were going to a St. Patrick’s Day party at the Elks!

We arrived at 5:40 pm, and Brenda and Gail were already there, raring to go!  Donna, Bob, Robin, and Bob are also joining us this evening, so we had a table for eight.  I was looking for a four-leaf clover!

We found one!

Did You Know?  The leaves on four-leaf clovers are said to stand for faith, love, hope, and luck.  Four-leaf clovers are extremely rare—there are approximately 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every one!  In Ireland’s early stages, the Druids, or Celtic priests, thought four-leaf clovers could protect them from bad luck.

We love those Irish smiles!

Mary and I got Bob to photograph us under the balloon display.

Who was Cinderella’s date on St. Patrick’s Day?  Pinch Charming.

Yes, we were here!

We returned the favor and got the kids, who were all decked out in the greenery!

You guys are looking good!

The lodge was packed, and I understand we had nearly 350 people here this evening.

What do you call an Irish spider?  Paddy long legs.

We sat in the McCallah Lounge to avoid all the racket in the main ballroom.

The ladies were so cute last night.

Female leprechauns, for sure.

Bob and Donna were also decked out for the evening.

We all had corned beef and cabbage, which was pretty good, considering they were feeding 350 people simultaneously.

We love those outfits!

We all had similar hats, so a photo was needed!

See, Hear, Say no evil… Yah!  Right!!

Mary and I bought shirts for each other separately two years ago, and we selected identical shirts!  It was meant to be!

Several Elks complimented us!

We entered the main hall and danced, swinging to Irish music or an occasional waltz.

The band was excellent and could be heard from a mile away!

We decided dancing in the lounge was better, and the girls picked up on a line dance, and off they went.  Donna was going solo in the other room.

Go, Girls, Go!

Mary kept looking for the pot of gold, and she found it complete with a wee fellow!  We opted NOT to take it home as we wanted to share it with others!

On the way home, we stopped at Aces for a wee drink before facing the wrath of Scout, who was on strike until he got some corned beef.  We stayed for about twenty minutes and came home at about 10:00 pm.

We watched two more episodes of our newest series, Alien, before crashing for the night.

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Green Weekend Ahead!

Irish music all day long!

Click the arrow to listen to Danny Boy.

We were up and ready for the torture session at the gym.  We arrived at 8:30 sharp to begin our bicycle ride.  At 10:00 am, we exited the front door in severe pain and exhaustion!  We ran to Ralph’s Market for some last-minute pre-Friday night dinner items.

Below is a new photo gallery “add-in” I discovered for WordPress; it looks like it might be fun. Click the image and it gets bigger.  You can use the tiny right-left arrows adjacent to the enlarged picture to move between photos.

When we got home, Mary made me lunch, and at 12:30 pm, we were in the garden working our little fingers to the bone.  I went to the He Shed and drug out the nuclear-powered Black & Decker rototiller, connecting it to the wall outlet via a two-guage 440 VAC power source.  When it started, the lights in the city dimmed.

The big digger!

The roaring noise and dirt being thrown behind the machine was just like the Apollo Moon Rocket taking off!  The sky became empty of birds, and John Wayne Airport changed its flight pattern!

The machine kicks up a lot of dirt.

According to Amazon, it was last purchased Feb 19, 2014, so it has lasted ten years.  It is no longer available as it was replaced with a cordless tiller that connects to the internet and automatically calls 911 when needed.

Turns the soil eight inches deep!

It was time for a rest.  I watched Mary lovingly plant the peas, string beans, and cucumbers, and she got the spaghetti squash and zucchini ready for me to plant.

When I was gardening, I created a system that would water our plant towers automatically when we were not around. The system consists of a hose with a battery-operated timer (provided by Colleen), and a U-shaped 3/4″ fitting that hangs over the top of the tower.  I checked it out and adjusted the water pressure and time so it will go off every day in the morning!

Farmer Paul resting.

The Alexa Studio we have in the back yard to entertain us while we work announced, “Someone is at the front door”.   I was closest so I went and there was David, about two hours early.  He had had a doctor’s appointment and decided to come over early.  He got to see us in action. He’s like Mary’s brother and part of David and Dianne.

David joins us for dinner.

We shared stories for nearly three hours and devoured several corned beef and cabbage servings. The centerpiece was Irish soda bread and two flavors of green ice cream!

We had a wonderful meal!

David departed around 8:30 pm, and we cleaned up the kitchen and watched three more episodes of Resident Alien.  We finally crashed at 11:00 pm.

Good night all!

Scout was not interested in going outside, so I awaited his call early in the am.

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Off And Running!

Last night, the wind started, sounding like a freight train coming down the street.  The house moaned, and pots fell on the patio.  I glanced at the new gazebo cover, which was withstanding the onslaught.  Around 2:00 am, I closed the bedroom window and crawled under the covers, hoping to avoid the noise.  As I dosed off, I wondered what a gust of wind’s favorite color was.  I decided it was Blew.

I love the feeling of the fresh air on my face and the wind blowing through my hair, but not when I am under the covers!

We finally got up around 7:30 am and turned on the heat.  After yesterday’s doctor’s visit, I entered the breakfast room with my hand covering my wrist.  Mary thought the worst, but I explained!

We stayed inside as the wind was still blowing at 60 mph.  Around 9:30 am, we began to get ready to make the trip to GZirls Night Out via Dianne’s.  We had to return a dish and bring her yesterday’s peas we picked to Dianne.

The wind was howling, but trusty Silver Fox made his way through the clamor and rolling tumbleweeds to the Elks, which is 12 minutes from Dianne’s home.

The calendar revealed that we are approaching the fourth anniversary of “Girl’s Night Out.”  Bob Z. first got me to go out on July 7th, 2020.  I hope we are in town to celebrate this event later this summer.

Eight of us were there this noon and had a wonderful time swapping the same old stories.  Mary regaled the crowd with her story about getting information about Pfizer’s new pill called Viagra.  She bought a lot of shares.  Bob Z, of course, had to ask, “Did it go up?”  The whole table about fell on the floor laughing.

Bob looks so innocent!

In case you were confused, we dressed like Mary on the left and Paul on the right.

I didn’t have a hat!

On our way home, we called Miss Vicky, as we had not heard from her all week.  We understood that she is getting ready for her European vacation with Jim.  We arranged to go to Renata’s for dinner at 6:00 pm and asked Bob Z. to come along.  We all met there right on time.

Bob departed early as he wanted to be home when the boss arrived.  We swapped stories, laughed, and giggled until close to 7:30 pm.

We came home from Jan Monghel’s house, which looked dark.  We watched several episodes of The Resident Alien before crashing at 11:00 pm.  We are now into season two and saw that season three started in February 2024.  There is more fun to come.

 

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A Mid-Week Crrisis?

Who, me getting grumpy?  In a single word, yes!  When I get up in the morning, that is the best I will feel all day!

Today, we had a free morning and afternoon, and we knew that our cleaning staff would arrive around 2:30 pm.  So, we decided to spend some time in our garden.  Mary finished planting the last of everything we bought yesterday, and I added another Concord grape plant to the vineyard.

I was tending the garden!

When the ladies came, we visited for a few minutes and then headed down Tustim Blvd to find some missing plants, mainly zucchini, pears, and squash.  We hit the jackpot at the Laguna Hills Nursery!  They had a wide selection of good-looking veggies at a reasonable price!  Read about them here.

It’s an excellent place to shop; they seem to have everything!

We brought our new babies home and made them ready for Thursday morning planting or perhaps Friday morning if the wind kicks up as it is forecasted.

More to plant.

We have dancing tonight!

Mary whipped up a pre-dance dinner, suggesting a salad.  I mentioned that I would cook up a chili size if she got the chili ready.  We had a deal.  While cooking, we talked to Colleen and ate dinner at 5:30 pm.

Did You Know?  A chili burger (also known as a chili size, or simply size, stemming from “hamburger size”) is a type of hamburger.  It consists of a hamburger, with the patty topped with chili con carne.  It is often served open-faced, and sometimes the chili is served alongside the burger rather than on top.

Why do they call it chili size?  This dish is said to take its name from the “hamburger size” ladle that legendary Los Angeles chili parlor proprietor Ptomaine Tommy used decades ago to spoon chili over the open-face burgers they served.

Homemade Chili Size!

Everything except the mushroom was from our garden!  Seeing this beautiful salad made me think, “How do nudists like to have their salad?” The answer is obvious: ” They prefer to have it without dressing.”

Salad from the garden

My partner in crime and I demolished dinner, knowing full well we would work it off dancing within the hour.

Yummy, so was dinner.

We traveled about five miles to a fantastic dance venue.  Although the room could have been a gym, the hardwood floor made it ideal.  The live band played an excellent mix of dance music.  As we are all a bit “old,” their song selections were short, so no one needed to catch their breath after each dance.

For $7.00, we hear live music, and people bring in “snacks.”  Tonight, we munched on donuts, cookies, and other goodies.

Just down the road a bit.

The line dance got underway, and many people were up and going.  Mike was dressed for the occasion, and Mary was right behind him.  I will re-learn the line dance, which I could do several years ago.  Sue’s health kept us from line dancing, and I lost my ability.  Line dancing is fun.

I made up for not lime dancing when the band played some Texas Two-Step, and Mary and I walked, twirled, swirled, and sasshade the floor, stepping right out!  I needed my cowboy boots and twenty-gallon hat to go over my ten-gallon head!

Mary, in the back, loves the dance.

Our friends at the next table enjoyed the show!  We will see them again on Saturday at the Elks and Sundat at Starlighters.  It’s going to be a green weekend.

We had six tables full of dancers.

I have been practicing my jog and am ready to go both evenings.!

Look out for loose parts!

We were there!  I do have to train some of our friends to use the iPhone camera!

…and wearing the green!

A few of our dance friends.  Two of them are dance instructors; guess who?

Ffiends.

A little AI, and we were off to Ireland.

Off to Ireland

We returned home and watched our alien series until 11:15 pm when we fell asleep.

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D-Day!

No Shit!

We were up at dawn and needed to be in Huntington Beach to see Dr. Anne by 8:30 am sharp.  One of my implants came “loose,” and after a lot of research dating back twenty years, Dr. Anne ordered the necessary parts.

In her opening remarks, she said we could have an easy job of it by opening up the tooth, finding the screw, and tightening it down.  She did not hold a lot of hope for that approach.

The other options dealt with the possibility of a loose implant, a broken screw during tightening, or a damaged tooth cap that requires a new crown.

Well, I must love a good life because she opened the tooth, used a micro-torque wrench, put the tooth back at the prescribed 30 milli-newtons, and we were done; 45 minutes tops!

She is using a pipe wrench to tighten the tooth!

Check out the micro-torque wrench. Ncm is a symbol for the Newton centimeter, a metric unit of torque equal to 0.01 Newton meters (see below) or about 1.416 12-inch ounces (in·oz) in traditional English units.

A unique little device!

Now she is clipping my toenails!

OK, the tooth is fixed, and we went home for brunch.  Mary fixed a great breakfast, and afterward, I went to the yard to get some areas ready for planting.  Mary stayed inside and prepared a small corned beef and potato meal for tonight’s dinner.

She joined me in about an hour, and we spent until 3:00 working in the garden.

I finished off the berry garden with only a few scratches.

It is 3:00, and it is time to wash off the mud and head to the next doctor’s appointment!  This time, it was the orthopedic hand specialist whom I needed a cortisone shot in the right thumb.

The short is usually somewhat painful as he has to get the needed way down into the joint area, but today, it was easy!

Ready to be shot!

The needle was inserted in about five minutes, and the drug was delivered.  The cortisone takes a few days to react, and then I should get some relief.

Just a simple shot!

When we left for home, our GPS suggested taking the 55, but we decided to take Jamboree instead.  When we had the chance to take the 261, we did, and we arrived home in just eighteen minutes with no traffic.

We brought Jeff over some CB&C and Irish soda bread.  We visited him for about 45 minutes before returning home to watch TV before crashing.  We began watching “Resident Alien”.  It is a clever story.

Summary: Based on the Dark Horse comic, Syfy’s Resident Alien is a murder mystery sci-fi dramedy that follows Harry, an alien played by Alan Tudyk (Rogue One, Firefly) who crash lands on Earth and passes himself off as a small-town human doctor.  Arriving with a secret mission to kill all humans, Harry starts living a simple life… but things get a bit rocky when he’s roped into solving a local murder and realizes he needs to assimilate into his new world.  As he does so, he begins to wrestle with the moral dilemma of his mission and asks the big life questions like: “Are human beings worth saving?” and “Why do they fold their pizza before eating it?”

We crashed at about 11:00 pm as we had to be at the gym at 8:30 am to get tortured again!

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Monday And Time For Torture!

It is Monday, so you will hear another of my all-time favorite pieces of music!

“Lollipop” is a pop song written by Julius Dixson and Beverly Ross in 1958.  It was first recorded by the duo Ronald & Ruby, with Ross performing as “Ruby.” It was covered more successfully by The Chordettes, whose version reached No. 2 in the U.S.

It was dark out when I got up, the time has indeed changed!

The older I get the confusder I are!

I woke up Sleeping Beauty at 7:15 am and told her she had an hour to get ready.  She rushed into the bathroom in 0.002 seconds, and the sounds of brushes, oils, lipsticks, eyeliners, miscellaneous beauty aids, and hair dryers provided Scout and me with a cacophony of entertainment!

She emerged from the bathroom as a fantastic butterfly; a few minutes earlier, she was a caterpillar!  Mother Nature is amazing, or perhaps it is simply magic?

We went to the gym, arriving at 8:30 am and immediately being strapped to an upright torture device they call a treadmill!  I prefer treadmills over cross-country; at least I know where I stand.  Today, I did 345 push-ups.  I was supposed to do 25, but every time Mary walked by, she would say start counting 1,2,3,4… and I would lose my place and have to start counting over.

From the gym, we went to our favorite shopping stop, Home Depot.  We needed supplies for the garden!

It was a magnificent day to go shopping!

We now have a large basket of plants and gardening supplies, so we will keep busy all afternoon!  Mary even found another plant inside the house.  The place is beginning to look like a rainforest!

The basket is full, we have to leave now!

We loaded up the Silver Fox and headed home.  Mary returned inside because they forgot to give us her military discount, almost $25.  My wife is quite thrifty, another trait I admire, and I wish I could do better.

With the help of the automatic trunk lid closer, the trunk was shut with only a small amount of grinding gears.

Stuffed to the gills!

Arriving home, Mary went inside and fixed an excellent “pre-hard-labor breakfast” of turkey bacon, rooster eggs, and potato pancakes.  While she made breakfast, I loaded up the trusty two-sheeler and headed to the garden, which was about 200 feet away from the car.

Whoever invented the two-wheeled wheelbarrow was a genius!

It was close to St. Patrick’s Day, and when we got home, I saw our neighbor going up a hill with a wheelbarrow full of horseshoes, four-leaf clovers, and rabbit feet.  I thought: “He’s pushing his luck!”

Everything fit!

While Mary finished making breakfast, I was slaving away outside, preparing three areas for her to plant. I removed the mulch, removed the existing veggies (or transplanted them to another location), turned the soil, and added azemite, fertilizer, and peat moss to make the beds ready to plant.

Did You Know – Much of the peat mined today was formed from swamp vegetation trees, sphagnum mosses, grasses, and fungi 9000 years ago at the retreat of the glacial ice sheets.  Peat grows or builds up at about a millimeter a year or inch, hardly something that can be quickly and easily replenished.

400 to 450 million cubic feet of peat are extracted yearly in Canada.  Approximately 85% of the peat is exported to the U.S., which provides 90% of its imports.

A small footprint of 65,700 acres (0.02%) out of the 285 million acres of Canadian peatlands has been extracted.

The dinner bell tolled, meaning the eight “dinner bell b’s.”  Better bring buns briskly before breakfast begins, Buttercup!

Everything was dropped with a responding “clunk, crash, and clatter,” and my tired, beat-up post-gym body flew to the breakfast table like the wind!

While dining, Mary thought she saw a small fly.   Her instinct was to save me.

She went to the kitchen counter, chose her weapon, and moved back toward the table stealthily, barely moving a single air molecule. Then, all hell broke loose!

Mary entered medical doctor mode and did a triple-bypass reverse-stitch inverse slap at the offending item! I thought I heard her mumble something like “die, sucker, die,” but the “whaap” sound caused by hearing aids to go into temporary shutdown.

Calling upon her medical skills, she put the hurt on him!

UPon close examination, the flattened item had no legs, antennae, wings or any other animal-like features. It was a compact raisin.

Flat as a fizzle!

Almost choking, laughing at the situation, I was invited to go back outside, which, under the circumstances, I did not refuse for fear I might become raisin-like.

It was back to working in the garden where I sweated and strained, body all achin’ and wracked with pain.  I toted the barge and lifted the bales!

Mary stayed inside and made corned beef and cabbage for dinner.  She is a fantastic cook.  After about 30 minutes, she came to the garden with a bottle of water and a coke for me and began planting!

She learns quickly!

She planted broccoli, eight peppers, several basil plants, and other needed summer garden items.  She mulched them well with our never-ending straw supply we keep along the back fence.

That looks good, girl!

At 3:00 pm, we stopped work and went inside to clean up.  After our showers, we went across the street to visit Jeff, our neighbor.  We shared a glass of vino with him and swapped stories.  We found another coincidence: our first cars were both 1962 327 Chevy Impalas.

His was black, and mine was white!

Neither of us had the common sense to park it in a garage and forget it for sixty years!  We could have bought them for $2500 and sold them for $200,000 today!

We returned home and had dinner of corned beef and cabbage.  Between us, we darn near finished off the entire piece of beef.  So we would have some tomorrow; we stopped and put everything away before returning for thirds!

It was now movie time.  We watched a good movie called “A Knight’s Tale”.  Summary: After his master dies, a peasant squire, fueled by his desire for food and glory, creates a new identity for himself as a knight.

It was 10:00 pm, and it was time to go to bed.  I took Scout out for an evening widdle, and then it dawned on me why Scout falls asleep all the time!

Good night, all.  Happy Birthday to my grandson Connor, who is now twenty-eight years old.

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Sunday, Time For Fun!

The time changed, and we do not care!

The time was ???  Half of our clocks were connected to the internet, while the other half were not. This caused me to be unsure whether it was 6:00 am or 7:00 am. Feeling confused, I checked the time on my iMac, which gave me the correct time. I then updated the remaining clocks, including the grandfather and grandmother clocks situated at the front of the house, to reflect the accurate time.

Yeah, I didn’t have to do that!

We had our coffee and worked in the office until 9:30 am, when we got ready for Robin and Bob to arrive.  We are going to Roger’s Gardens Tomatomania.

There is a new mania, which looks like it could be fun!  We will likely be going on vacation.

Another Mania is on the way!

Bob and Robin have goodies to plant.

Picking out tomatoes.

We have selected a whole mess of plants, and we will be planting them in the next few days.

Mary joins the selection process.

After getting the tomatoes, we went to Roger’s vegetable area and got some additional veggies to plant.

We picked out about a dozen new plants.

On the way, we passed through the shade plants, and they were quite colorful.

Pretty

We saw a whole mess of mushrooms and decided they were too colorful to plant.

We are thinking about buying mushrooms.

We will plant herbs in the standup rotary gardens as soon as I connect them to the watering system.  The herbs looked great.

Decisions decisions.

We could not get into the Farmhouse Restaurant so we went back home and went to Rockwell’s in Villa Park.  It was full, but the service was still quite good.  We laughed and giggled .

We walked right in and sat down!

They had a fantastic soup which Robin and I had.  We also got an apple and cherry roll for Jeff, our neighbor.

We went to Rockwell’s for lunch.

We just have so much fun together; we must look like kids.

Just us!

Off to Ireland with my iPhone PhotoRoom application!

Off to Ireland.

Having fun!

We came home to find ducks in our pool. Scout watched as Bob chased them away and they flew off.

Bob scared the ducks out of the pool!

We completed the tour by filling a plastic bag with fresh groceries for the kids!

We did a tour of the garden.

As the kids were leaving, Doris came over.  Our next door neighbor brought a shopping bag full of grapefruit.  We invited her in and took her on a tour of our garden.  We filled another bag of goodies for her.  We are lucky to have great neighbors.

The rest of the day, we worked in the office.

 

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Do Nothing Day!

Yes indeed!

We were moving slowly this morning after gardening all day yesterday, so we decided to take it easy. We then thought about what we could do to feel better and came up with a great idea!

We do not want to be grumpy!

We worked in the office getting tax information ready to go and then got cleaned up for our appointment, which was an in-house massage scheduled for 10:00 for her and 11:00 for me.

Mary went first, and I went to the other room because hearing a grown woman cry distressed me. The commotion, pandemonium, ruckus, and sound intensity level emanating from the family room scared Scout and caused the police to make a surprise visit. After 45 minutes of thundering screams, it got quiet.

Oops!

That only means one thing: my turn!  I took it like a man; I fell asleep!  Mary woke me up when it was over!  I was going to tell you a massage joke, but I kneaded more time to work on the punchline.

I’ve never trusted an amateur masseuse.  They rub me the wrong way.

One more rib to go!

By 12:30 p.m., we were both like jelly, very relaxed and ready to do nothing! We decided not to go dancing, as the band we found to be horrible was playing at the Elks. We stayed home. Mary fixed a little snack to keep up with our dietary needs.

Around 5:00 p.m., we decided to go to the spa before making phone calls to Robin and Colleen.

Come on in; the water is fine!

Around 7:00 p.m., we headed for the TV room and tuned in to “First Knight.”

The movie was long, and Mary did not make it through the entire movie. Summary: Handsome swordsman Lancelot (Richard Gere) is incredibly skilled at fighting, but when he meets the lovely Guinevere (Julia Ormond), he can’t seem to get past her defenses. She is betrothed to King Arthur (Sean Connery) and plans to proceed with the wedding despite her attraction to Lancelot. When the devious warrior Malagant (Ben Cross) rises up against Arthur, Lancelot must try to put his feelings aside and defend his king, Guinevere, and all of Camelot.

Mary crashed about 2/3 of the way through the movie, and I let her sleep in the chair; we had a rough day!  Finally, we went to bed, and I could not get Scout to go outside, so I gave up!

At 3:00 am, Scout scratched the side of the bed, and I knew what he wanted, so I popped up and took him out.  The little stinker went to the back of the garden and did not return, so I went to the computer and played for about 20 minutes.  When I went to the patio to call him, he didn’t answer.  I put on my houseshoes, got a flashlight, and wandered about the backyard, freezing my poor little tuchas off.

I went inside to tell Mary I had lost the dog, and Scout was sound asleep in his bed. I jumped under the cover and shook for ten minutes while my body warmed up!

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