Oh Dear! It’s Tuesday Meaning The Week Is Underway

Posted on Tuesday, August 20, 2019 by Paul

Just called to make an appointment with a psychic but she told me that I don’t show up.

It’s easy to tell when you are getting old…the number of times you go out to eat and the number of times you see a doctor in a single week are the same!

We began the day as we usually do…glass of champagne and talking…keeps us together. We discussed the cases we had last night (recapping ER, Grey’s, and The Resident).

Off to thee the doctor at 11:30 AM and this time it was for Sue. We are attempting to avoid any UTI’s and so far the meds seem to be working. We do not have to see him for another six months!

We decided to dine at A’Roma, our favorite Italian place (which is a parking lot away from Panda Inn). Lunch was terrific abeit a bit pricey. Perhaps it was all the food we ordered plus the drinks biut $200 for lnch seems a bit steep. I must say, the sausage and petter is to die for!

Our table is third from the back on the right hand side…a view to the outside!

So kiddies, “What comes after lunch?” If you answered Coldstone Creamery you would get the prize! We fired up the Silver Ghost and said into the radio’s all listening microphone, “Take us to Coldstone!” and dutifully she pulled out of the parking lot and nosed herself down Valley View to the nearest Coldstone Creamery!

Since I had already been a good boy by bringing home half my sausage and peppers, I demanded dark chocolate with peanut butter in a “Love It” cup…out bathroom scale will be joyful in the morning when I tips the scale!

We love our grandkids and decided to join Becca and the kids tomorrow for lunch in La Habra. Zack, grandson, is working too hard and Becca must go back to work next week so…time to visit her! We get a bonus…Remy, Lilly and their cousin will be joining us! Each of us gets a kids to watch at lunch!

Great Granddaughter Lilly goes to kindergarden!

Returning home I attacked by electrical issue and took apart the front yard lamps…I now have a plan and tomorrow I will execute it accordingly. We both read for a while…we read the same book and then do book reports to each other later on. Interesting the take we get from the book…usually the same understanding! No wonder we get along!

We watched some TV and then crashed around 11:00 AT (Ac? Yes, After Tookies)

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Doc Eat Eat

Posted on Monday, August 19, 2019 by Paul

The doctor told his patient to stop using a Q-tip, but it went in one ear and out the other.

The sky was already bright as I lifted myself from bed at 7:49 AM. First things first I headed to the garden and to my surprise (Not!) I saw tiny footprints along the brick…Mr Raccoon has been visiting. He is getting smary, he does not rustle the levaes in the trees…he merely eats what had hit the ground. That is OK my me, we do not have to rake it up!

Just keep eating the figs that have dropped and we will be OK!

We just piddled around the house in the morning with me finishing off some bills and trying to find out when the property taxes are due. Thanks to the internet they data was at our fingertips.

The 2019-20 Property Tax bills are scheduled to be mailed the last week of September 2019. The first installment will be due November 1, 2019 and will be delinquent if paid after December 10, 2019. The second installment will be due February 1, 2020 and will be delinquent if paid after April 10, 2020.

Off to see Dr. Rucker and he prescribed another breather which I will try for a couple of weeks. We go back to see hime in two weeks. He didn’t seem overly worried. He did however order another ultrasound of the carotid arteries which I will get next week.

Talked to Lisa and we are going to meet her and Pete half-way and celebrate Pete’s birthday on the 1st. We meet at the Sundried Tomato Factory down the street from San Juan Capistrano Mission and have done this for years now.

We departed for Dr. Rucker’s office at 11:00 AM and then went to lunch at Panda Inn, our favorite Chinese eatery. Our supply of left overs is down to a minimum. Perhaps Italian tomorrow?

After that to Coldstone Creamery… I am beginning to feel the effects! Yes…need for beauty sleep! I decided at 4:00 PM to take a short nap so I set Alexa for an hour. She did her duty playing music at 5:00 PM but my ol’ body just wanted to lay there so I stayed in bed for another hour. At 6:00 PM we had to get up as it was time to go to Malarkeys!

We met up with Irene and talked for an hour so so! Catching up!

The sun had set while we were gabbing so we missed the actual setting set but on out way home, the sun did provide an amazing backdrop against the buildings and palm trees. I stopped the car the hoisted the trusty iPhone to the windownand snapped a picture.

Kinda breath taking!

We headed home and watched the start of a new series, recommended by Dr. Rucket. It’s on Amazon Prime and called “Expanse”. Hundreds of years in the future, things are different than what we are used to after humans have colonized the solar system and Mars has become an independent military power. Rising tensions between Earth and Mars have put them on the brink of war. Against this backdrop, a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain come together to investigate the case of a missing young woman. The investigation leads them on a race across the solar system that could expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

We returned to the medical shows and finally crashed at midnight after our tookies!

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Sunday Was Productive

Posted on Sunday, August 18, 2019 by Paul

I used to make loads of money clearing leaves from gardens. I was raking it in!

The alarm struck six and farmer Paul was in the overalls and in the garden pulling tomato plants and weeds like there was no tomorrow. Sixty feet of vegetable beds went from overgrown jungles to dirt over a few hours. When I went around the back yard I decided to dig in several bags of fertilizer which were only partially full…now I can go to the store and buy new bags as everything is now gone!

  • Ready for planting
  • Transplanted Tomatillo plant

Walking in the garden always reveals work to be done. The Japanese Beetles were hacing a picnic in the fig tree so I gave them a bath…they departed for a while but soon came back!

  • So sweet!!
  • Such a pest!!!

I decided to go to war so off to Amazon and I ordered two sets of traps which will arrive Tuesday. We are hoping they work!

All it has to so is get the ones in the fig tree! Beetle soup anyone??

Did You Know? The Japanese beetle is native to Japan. The insect was first discovered in the United States in 1916 near Riverton, New Jersey in a nursery. It is thought that beetle larvae got into the United States in a shipment of iris bulbs before inspections of imported goods entering the country began in 1912.

The yard got more attention today with a slight trimming of the pomegranate tree to get it off the wall. The silly thing is almost twenty feet tall and loaded with fruit. We are awaiting them to become ripe so I can take some down the street and exchange it for pomegranate chicked!

Sue read while I worked in shop. We got several calls from our grandson about water heaters and suggested he go tankless. He found a great deal from the SoCal Gar Company as they would pay for half of the cost! This is good. The target is to get it installed before Remy’s first birthday party coming up on the 9th.

In the afternoon I worked on cleaning up two oil painting my mother made in the mid 1960’s. They had been in Dave Mall’s parents home for the past fifty years and needed some attention. The hardware stored suggested a wood renewing wax for the frames and hey, were quite right…the frames soaked up the moisture and look pretty good. The pictures are not Mom’s best work but my bride insists we hang them to remind us for Mom!

I worked in the shop for a while in the afternoon troubleshooting an electrical problem I have with our wall nights. seems one of the wires came apart but it is buried under a lot of concrete so I developed a work around…which I do not like but have no choice. The ground wire will be used to carry the hot side of the circuit and the ground will be lifted from the light circuit and replaced with a line going into the physical ground. Definitely a jury rig but it’s the only way.

We watched TV and crashed at 10:00 PM in order to read. Clive Cussler and I read for about two hours before lights-out at midnight!

Tomorrow the doctor!

Funny funny stuff!
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Work Work Work Play Play Play

Posted on Saturday, August 17, 2019 by Paul

Most people are shocked when they find out how bad I am as an electrician

Into the abyss I poured myself…summer is coming to an end so the garden must be torn out and replaced with winter veggies in the next few weeks. So it begins, today it was the back yard and a start in the front yard.

The tomatoes have been super and we have enjoyed them but now we are down to the last 100 or so! Watermelon and pumpkins are doing just fine and the grapes and figs are going wild!

  • After the trimming
  • Before the trimming

Several hours later, it was looking better. The trash cans were full to the brim and me and Ben Gay had an appointment when I entered the house! I checked my pedometer and I put on two miles just walking around the yard. Didn’t move fast but I moved!

In the afternoon, I did a wine run and got four cases of our special wine. Dropping by the hardware store, I shopped the tool section and alas, I needed zip nadda nuthin’! Wow! The 60 gallon upright stationary two-stage air compressor was giving me the eye but I need to find a place for it and a 220 VAC outlet…probably outside the garage!

Our daughter Colleen is getting into genealogy so I assisted her by updating our family website with more pictures and explanation of who was who! Thanks to Colleen I have made connections with several cousins, cousins one removed and cosins twice removed. Great fun and to a person they are conservatives! Yeah! We have good genes!

The Liles’ side circa 1945

We watched TV for a while and then decided it was time to get ready for tonights dancing. It was fun!

We got gussied up and headed for Garden Grove to listen to Full Spectrum…super music albeit a little loud. We dance and dined with the Zaitz until about 9:30 PM and we all turned into old folks! Tonight they were serving lemon chicken with capors and it was just fantastic!

One of our many friends does jigsaw puzzles and I asked him if it was OK to stop a puzzle and put it back in thebox! He asked why and I told him the crrent puzzle is a Christmas scene…snow…sleighs…etc. I just can’t get it started. I got the OK to stop!

On the way home we listened to conservative radio and I could not pass this up! That woman is a genuine dufus!

Coo-Coo for Coco Puffs!

We watched TV and crashed after some additional episodes of Grey’s and ER. Tomorrow should be a restful day.

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Friday…The Week Is Done!

Posted on Friday, August 16, 2019 by Paul

I looked up my family tree and found out I was the sap.

4:51 AM and the fig tree is making funny noises! What now? I slips out of bed, grabs my iPhone and get the 2000 lumen flashlight and head for the door.

They apparently were frightened by my sudden appearance (most people would be scared at my appearance at 4:30 AM). They scampered out of the tree and over the garage of our neighbor. I counted five of them, You can see two in the following picture.

He is terrified by my jammies (they look like skin!)

So it is now 6:00 AM and I am up! The garden needs some work so I head to the back yard!

Checking the email, I got a monthy report on our heating.cooling usage:

We are managing our thermostat better this year!

We have the thermostate connected to the internet via the Honeywell software so we can control heating/cooling/temperatures/fan from anyplace on the world!

Time for work! WORK? Eeks!! Out to the back yard and trim back the tomato plants. I filled 200 gallons of trash containers with dead vines and old tomatoes (sounds better than rotten, right?).

Looking better now!

We went to the Garden Grove Elks and danced for hours. We have 17 members of the gang this evening.

Dine and dance… Fun fun fun!

We were thinking a lot about Brian and Jan this evening and when our waiter came up, I broke down and had a burger!

Thinking of you Brian and Jan!!

we headed home about 9:30 PM and watched TV before crashing. I was in bed before midnight so I could be ready for the “Great Raccoon Battle” that may occur in the morning.

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I Dood It Again!

Posted on Thursday, August 15, 2019 by Paul

I hate Russian dolls, they’re so full of themselves!

Last week we fooled our neighbor’s grandkids by buying Ralph’s Market watermelons into the front yard watermelon patch. They were excited and we had a ball!

So the ol’ grey matter got to cooking and I thought our neighbor’s down the street have two young daughters. We see the mom walking the dog (Sprinkels) and I explained to her my “nefarious plan” for the girls.

Into the Silver Ghost and off to the market at 8:00 AM…ahead of the planned walk of the kids with their mother. Returning just in time, I sneaked in two nice size watermelons into the vines. Mom saw me come home and plant the melons. A few minutes later, hearing some giggling, the iPhone and I went out front!

Too cute…The girls are so precocious! Sprinkles is looking for a bone!

We talked about the garden, about the pumpkins which will be ready for then at Halloween and about the pomegranates. Mom is Persian so she offered to bring us pomegranate chicken…yeah!

It was amazing that I was able to tell mom how to peal pomegranates…peel them underwater…the pith floats to the top and the seeds drop to the bottom! We both laughed!

Did You Know? After the pomegranate is opened by scoring it with a knife and breaking it open, the seeds are separated from the peel and internal white pulp membranes. Separating the seeds is easier in a bowl of water because the seeds sink and the inedible pulp floats. Freezing the entire fruit also makes it easier to separate. Another effective way of quickly harvesting the seeds is to cut the pomegranate in half, score each half of the exterior rind four to six times, hold the pomegranate half over a bowl, and smack the rind with a large spoon. The seeds should eject from the pomegranate directly into the bowl, leaving only a dozen or more deeply embedded seeds to remove.

We got cleaned up and headed toward our favorite Mexican/Caribbean restaurant in Seal Beach. We met Robin there 1t 11:00 AM and had a super lunch catching up on everything! I was good having a soft taco and only 1/2 of a chili verde burrito!

Yucatan Grill in Seal Beach

From thee we zoomed off in the Silver Ghost to Sue’s eye surgeon to pick up her new specs. We picked them up and are not letting the brain adjust to the new glasses. One look at my bride and I knew immediately that Coldstone Creamery was in our near future.

By the time we arrived home I was so sleepy that I took to the guest bedroom and crashed until 5:00 PM. Now it was time to go to the Phoenix Club for dancing!

Great music – Great time!

We celebrated two birthdays and danced until 9:30 PM before heading home! Arriving home, we watched TV, had our tookies, and crashed!

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Visiting “Long Lost” Family

Posted on Wednesday, August 14, 2019 by Paul

When I call a family meeting I turn off the house wifi and wait for them all to come running.

We are going on an adventure today! Into the Silver Ghost we go and off to Temecula, just short of light speed, leaving bright and early at 10:15 AM. 90 minutes later we are sitting at a table in the Pinnacle Restaurant adjacent to the Falkner Winery having glass of wine and enjoying the 100 degree weather!

Great view – Great food – Great company!

We are awaiting my first cousin once removed Paul David Mall and his daughter,Kristin Mall Macy, who would be my first cousin cousin, twice removed. We had visited Dave when he was in Oregon four years back. (Checkout the visit from August 2015).

His mother is Jen and his dad was Gene… I remember Jen and Gene quite will but Dave I remember as an infant and I liked him because of his name!!

Dave is NOT my second cousin… He be “removed”

We sat and gabbed for almost two hours finding out all sorts of interesting things about the family…it dawned on my that Dave’s grandmother (Aunt Alma) was the sweetheart of my “uncle” Otis Tucker back around 1916! I knew this from a long conversation with my Aunt Kaye who knew Otis and Alma quite well! Wow! Family secrets!

Paul, Sue, Dave, and Kristin

After a super lunch and a lot of sharing, we were not done yet! Off to Thornton Winery to taste a little of the bubbly! We talked for another hour and just really really enjoyed ourselves. Dave is 66 so he and Sue had some things in common. Fantastic fun!

  • Checking on the first day of school
  • Swapping stories

Heading home the traffic was really not too bad…some stop and go but mostly wide open going into town! Not so much coming the other direction!

We watched some TV, did our tookies but at 10:30 PM we both decided to read for a while. I worked on the Daily Diary as the website interface was down for three days. I crashed at 11:30 PM…an early night for me!

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Time To Walk!

Posted on Tuesday, August 13, 2019 by Paul

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

Time to rise! The bat-phone rings and it is Lisa C. We have been lax the last few weeks in talking to each other so we made up for it. Biggest news..her Prius finally died after 300,000 miles! She and Pete got a brand new Prius with all the bells and whistles and they are quite happy.

We worked in the latest puzzle which we thought would be easy…not so much!

Looks cold!

Christmas in Cologne is a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle designed by artist Barbara Behr. The department store is lit for Christmas as shoppers fill the streets. Angels fill the sky as children and families watch as a hot air balloon descends wishing all A Merry Christmas.

I hit the road again but today only for an hour and that was good for the second day in a row!

Got a late start so I didn’t want to miss lunch!

The flowers are still quite pretty even though the weather has turned war…no, hot! We have the pool heater on so I also take a swim on the afternoon and it is working…214 this morning! Yeah!

I listened to Rush and Dr. Laura, mu two favorite radio personalities. They were both on a roll this morning!

Ain’t it the truth!

After getting home, we ate and I went for good old bacon, sausage, and eggs plus I prepared some beef bacon also. I was protein rich today and only about 700 calories!

In the afternoon I got a craving for corn soup and being blessed with a fantastic cook as my wife and best friend, we went to work. I took the kernels off of six ears of corn while she did the onions and spices and other secret ingredients. We cooked it for a while using half-and-half and it came out beautiful. When we tasted it, I wanted just a tad more salt.

Sue, thinking salt was boring, went to the panty and rustled around coming up with a package of Lipton Onion Soup Mix. What a great idea…it was deposited carefully into the soup and after a few more minutes of simmering we had the best corn soup I had ever tasted!

So good…the Lipton Onion Soup Mix was a stroke of genius!

We messed around the house the rest of the day resting up for a big day tomorrow. We are off to Temecula to visit my second cousin, Paul David Mall…he was named Paul david after litle ol’ me!

Tookies at 10:00 PM and bed at 11:00 PM!

.

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Monday And Melanies It Is!

Posted on Monday, August 12, 2019 by Paul

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

A wonderful day to walk and I did! Four miles in two hours and it felt really good! Up to Staples and I acquired some plastic pencil boxes for my tools.

When I got home, I walked into the house and forgot to turn off the pedometer so it looks like I took ten hours to walk four miles… needless to say I won’t publish that summary!

While walking I decided to call my High School Sweetheart who was celebrating her 75th birthday today. I always like talking to older women. She was fine and happy to hear from us. Lee lives in Lake Elsinore now so Sue and I can stop and get her on our way to wine country!

Lee and her daughter in Las Vegas celebrating 75 years!

Before getting home I got a call from my plastic surgeon as he received the fax of the dermatologists results…another bit of squamous cell carcinoma around the ear. Great…now I get tot look like Vincent Van Gogh!

I have visited the good doctor before and I suggested that if I send a picture of the area to him, we could avoid the consultation. He agreed so I spent 20 minutes taking portraits of my own ear…an interesting task! After a while, I got several good shots and emailed them to his office! I go under the knife in a couple of weeks.

Did You Know?  These cancers are the second most common type of skin cancer, accounting for approximately 20 percent of non-melanoma skin cancers. They develop from the flat squamous cells that make up much of epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin.

This type of skin cancer is usually found on areas of the skin that have been exposed to the sun, such as the neck, ears, face or the back of the hand, but they may develop in other areas, such as in scars, skin ulcers or the genital region. Squamous cell cancers usually grow slowly, and it is uncommon for them to spread, or metastasize. But they are more likely than basal cell carcinomas to invade fatty tissue beneath the skin or to spread even further.

Speaking of looking like VanGogh, I didn’t realize he had such a large family!

We had a super lunch, watched TV, and then headed to Melanies for a drink! We were pleasantly surprised as Wally and Ghislene joined us. The five of is spent two solid hours laughing and giggling. We watched the sun set slowly into the sea!

We all enjoyed the evening!

Returning home, we watched some TV, did some reading of of course had tookies before hitting the sack!

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Shrek Versus Dancing – Dancing Wins

Posted on Sunday, August 11, 2019 by Paul

The problem with kleptomaniacs is that they always take things literally.

We have a busy day planned. We have tickets top see Shrek at Cerritos and then the monthly Old Ranch dinner dance.

Well… we had lunch and headed to the musical but at half-time we departed. It was an OK production but not terrific! At least we sat in a cool room and enjoyed a glass of wine!

We stopped by home and I grabbed my camera before landing at Old Ranch by 4:55 PM.

We had so much fun IO didn’t even take the big camera ouf of the box!

One selfie the whole evening!

After the dance, we headed home after dropping off Nancy in Long Beach. We watched TV and crashed!

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