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I Have A Mid-Week Crisis!

“Middle age is when you’re faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o’clock.”- R. Reagan

Love being retired with someone I love! Damn, life is great. We awake, shake off the sleepy sand in our eyes, stretch, head for the dining room table and plot the over-through of what might be a bad day! No bad days here! A glass of champagne and a hard look out the front window into the orange tree forest is all it takes to make the day start out right! Yeah!

“Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music, and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.”

Our cleaning folks are heading this direction meaning we are going out to lunch. Decisions decision!

Got a text message from my cousin Dave Mall (my first cousin, once removed) and wow, was I surprised!. The picture is of Dad and James Ray (my cousin) taken in the mid 1950’s…based upon the car! It was taken in Downey on Stuart Mill Road just up the street from the North American Aviation plant where the Apollo and Space Shuttle were built!

Taken in Downey California

We decided to go to the Royal Khyber in Costa Mesa, our favorite Indian Restaurant! Great food and wonderful service! We began with Samosas. We have been going there for thirty years! We started off with a vegetarian sampler which contained samosa’s amongst the goodies!

Did You Know? A samosa is a fried or baked dish with a savory filling, such as spiced potatoes, onions, peas, meat, or lentils. It may take different forms, including triangular, cone, or half-moon shapes, depending on the region.The Indian style, often accompanied by a chutney, is probably the most widely-known of a broad family of recipes from Africa to China, which have origins in medieval times or earlier.

“Make it spicy!

We both decided to try something new as their menu is just too good to order the same thing…needless to say we took a lot of food home. Mine was HOT HOT HOT…we talking spicy! Sue tried a new dish (Navrattan Korma – A delight for the vegetarians, the 9-jewels put together in rich korma sauce perfumed with kewra essence.) …I said watch out!

We ordered way too much so it is Indian tomorrow for lunch again! Yumm!

Two lamb dishes, Vindaloo and Lamb Rogan Josh

We limped home. windows down, with our tongues flapping in the breeze as we rocketed up the 405 toward Coldstone Creamery where we put out the final burning embers from lunch!

Arriving at home the temperature was in the low 90’s so we hid in the house with the air set at 80 degrees. The humidity was about 40% inside so we stayed quite comfortable.

This blog is approaching 4,000 pages so it was time to assure it is backed up. We decided to go with UpdraftPlus and began the backup…we did not realize we had close to 20 GB of images, databases, and text. We decided to backup the system into Dropbox as well as UpdraftVault once a week.

I did some shopping at Ralph’s including getting two watermelons and hiding them in the watermelon patch out front. We are hoping the folks from down the street come by with their kids (or grandkids) and “pick” the watermelons! It’s so much fun to see the kids eyes light up as they get their own watermelon from “Farmer Paul’s” garden.

Sue was surprised when I came out in by bob overalls…she said that I looked like “Farmer Paul”…it was taken as a complement but I am not too sure. I really don’t care as they a) comfortable, b) have plenty of deep pockets, and c) don’t need the belt squeezing me around the middle!

Paul the “fashion plate”

I also got a new orchid at Ralph’s as I just acquired an “orchid pot” from Amazon. I replanted the orchid according to the new “How To Raise Orchids” book before bringing it into the house.

It’s a beauty

I checked the time and wow, it is getting dark earlier and earlier.

Mr. Orchid wanted in the picture also!

We watched TV, our son Joe called so we jabbered at home for an hour getting the latest on the adventures of the kids!

We watch TV, made our tookies, and crashed at 11:00 PM…a little early but it was too warm to do anything else!

About Paul

Just an old retired guy trying to finish out my last years on this planet. I lost my best friend and wife in early 2020. I was blessed again by reconnecting with Dr. Mary Côté, a long-time friend. Mary and I got married July 28th, 2021, and are enjoying life together and plan to spend the rest of our lives being a blessing to our friends and family.
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