Now This Is The Truth: You may think that in life, a lot of things happen to you along the way. The truth is, in life, you happen to a lot of things along the way.
First thing in the morning Paul unloads the pictures from last night and begins the process of making a story out of 300 snapshots…from last night Nightlighters dance. The theme was “Shell We Dance” and indeed we shelled! In about 90 minutes got all the photos off the camera, into Adobe Lightroom, and first droppings on the “cutting room floor” was completed and it was 9:00 AM. Paul did some of the cropping before deciding it was time to walk.
Sue popped up about 8:00 AM and we always sit and talk over a glass of champagne…the good stuff…no alcohol and only about 40 calories. Makes the day begin with a bubbly outlook.
Happy Birthday Lee! Lee was Paul’s High School girl friend and currently lives locally and is a good friend. She was unlucky enough to be born four months ahead of Paul so she gets four months of teasing as being “the older lady”, “the senior”, etc…we enjoy our visits with her!
Random Memory: Paul went to his 20th High School reunion with his previous wife and the whole evening was ruined because we just happened to sit at the same table as Lee and her husband. OMG! We accidentally sat with my High School girlfriend who Paul had not seen in 20 years! The ex made the evening miserable including going home early and missing visiting people I wanted to see. I “paid for” that situation for months!
Ratchet forward a quarter century and the 50th reunion comes up. Not only did we sit with Lee, we drove her to the reunion! Paul could not get a word in edgewise with Lee and Sue talking about everything. We had a wonderful evening with Paul getting to dance with two beautiful ladies all evening! Paul is blessed to have such a wonderful bride…Thank you Sue for being you!
The clock struck 9:00 AM, Jesus was just finishing his broadcast on KFI, and Paul gets two hours of un-interrupted “House Whisperer”. Today he was talking about patio decks. Almost every week Paul learns something new and Paul really enjoyed the talk on concrete. You can listen to his blogs on KFI!
Today was going to be sticky plus Paul wanted to hit the garden before it got too hot and sticky so it was a walk to Von’s market which only takes about 90 minutes round trip! I had done all the “heavy lifting” yesterday so it was a buy nothing day!
Paul uses some of the walking time to catch up with the grand kids so he called Jonathan (our oldest) and then Zachary (next oldest). It still seems funny to talk to Zachary who we knew from day one and now hear him talk about his babies. We don’t feel old but wow…we have four great grandchildren…GREAT!
638 miles so far but look at those steps…1.6 million? The Good Lord must be a miracle worker to generate bones and joins that can take think kind of wear and tear! More importantly, at 74 years, Paul is upright and moving right along!
This time of year, the Crape Myrtles jump out because of their magnificent flowers. An especially showy bloomer, the crape myrtle needs a location in full sun to put on its best display. This plant is a poor choice for a fully shaded spot, but in regions with strong, hot summer sun, it does well where it receives sun in the morning and light, filtered shade in the afternoon.
Typical in our neighborhood 
Von’s parking lot on Seal Beach Blvd
On the way home I passed a home on Shakespeare which is like ours…no grass, only fruit and veggies! Paul stopped and talked to the owner and spent 20 minutes in conversation about gardening. Paul learned how to cut the blackberries which was on his today’s to-do-list anyway! Paul also saw, with his own eyes, a process to change a healthy grapefruit tree into a tree hosting three different oranges…yes, he is a mad scientist. He has three varieties already going and more on the way!
We have all heard of grafting but we did not know you can graft lemons and oranges onto a grapefruit tree! His daughter moved away and his wife cannot eat grapefruit (sounds like us) because of the heart medicine but the tree was health so…graft time! Sounds like something Paul needs to try! Read more…
Back home and time to attack the berries… so in Paul goes armed with heavy (welder’s) gloves! He still got bit by the thorns as tied up the berries required no gloves and no gloves around blackberries means OUCH! Blackberries are a fruit often considered a berry, even though technically speaking they aren’t, and various species originated in parts of America, Asia, Europe and northern Africa.
After getting OUCH-ed several times and blood running down his arm, Paul decided NCIS, even with its murder theme, was safer than continuing with the blackberries. Besides, it was in the 80’s outside…temperature and humidity! Inside it was 79 and 40%…much better numbers.
Bewitching hour has arrived and it is time to transform from a caterpillar existence to a butterflies…yes, second Sunday of the month means Old Ranch Dinner Dance. That is were 24-30 of our friends join us for an evening of talking, visiting, dancing, dining, and otherwise cavorting to Steve Dudek and his magic saxophone!
Our group is interesting to watch as everybody gets along well and people move from table to table seeming like new stories and new facts are learned every time we meet. Special thanks to Bob Z who left Donna home this evening to join us and dance with all the ladies. Bob is a caring gentleman who we are proud to call friend. And, he is a FANTASTIC dancer!
Donna is fine, she is having a “procedure” Monday and needed to be home to prepare for it…if you are old, like us, you know! Bob didn’t want to be “in the way”.
Random Memories: When Paul grew up, his mom and dad had many good friends and there was always company dropping by. They were all older as mom and dad were married 20 years before Paul was born…hence their friends were older. When Paul was first married, the ex really did not like people and preferred to be alone..including not visiting her own parents? Paul lost track of his family only reconnecting through intermittent visits when he could not stand it any more…it’s a long story!
Ratchet forward twenty years and Sue was the other way around…she liked family and friends and we have been blessed for over thirty years of having wonderful friends and great family relationships! We miss our parents and the aunts and uncles a lot. Due to Paul’s family having longevity, we still have and aunt and uncle both in their mid nineties and doing well! Again, Sue was and is a blessing allowing people into our lives and sharing ours.
The evening is done so we are off to watch some more NCIS and learn some more of Gibb’s Rules like:
