January 17 to 23, 2010

January 17 to 23, 2010


Sunday ; Happy 11th Birthday to Joanne’s niece Madeleine

That’s it ! I’m putting my foot down ! No more date shakes for Bo and no more buffet restaurants for Joanne ! SHEEEEESH ( shaking my head in despair ) !

Today was a petty relaxed day. I spent quite awhile this morning providing a sympathetic ear to a fellow in the park from Ohio whose 11 year old Siamese cat Spencer has been missing for two weeks. The day after he arrived here Spencer escaped and hasn’t been seen since. His owner is still looking for him, and has increased his reward for the return of Spencer from $100 to $500. He’s not yet ready to acknowledge that Spencer may not be alive any longer. I think Spencer’s life likely ended within hours of escaping. Spencer is an Oho cat, and, in my opinion, would likely not have the “Arizona desert / street smarts” to avoid being a snack for a coyote.

This afternoon I went to the clubhouse to get online, update my blog, and send birthday greetings to Madeleine. We spent some time floating around the pool. We met our new neighbour Bob and his Canaan dog Samantha. We invited Bob and Samantha to join us on our daily walk around the dog park with Bo. Canaan dogs are an Israeli breed, rare in the United States, but Samantha is Bo’s second Canaan friend. The other is Gypsy, whom we first met here at Kofa Ko-op a few years ago, but whose home is actually at SKP Park of the Sierras in Central California.

We went to the regular Sunday evening ice cream social, and chatted with Bob and a woman from Michigan whose son and daughter-in-law live in Summerland, about an hour north of us in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley.

I spent a long, tiring, frustrating evening trying to finish my photo copying / backup project. I have now copied all of our photos from CD to the portable hard drive, except for one folder containing 91 photos from February, 2009, our last year’s trip to Mexico. Some of the photo files in that folder are corrupt or infected. With a lot of trial and error effort I have managed to save / copy 26 of the 91 photos. I don’t know if I will succeed in saving any more of them, but I’m too tired tonight to continue.

Monday ; Today was what constitutes a bad weather day in Yuma. Temperature of only 70 degrees, overcast, very windy. I wasn’t feeling well, so I spent most of today in bed, reading and napping. Our TV died today ! It’s 11 years old, so I’m not too surprised. However, I was recently looking at new televisions and all new televisions seem to be rectangular. Our TV is square, and fits in a square opening in the trailer’s entertainment center wall. I expect that we will not be able to find a new TV that will fit that square opening. Temporarily we are watching our little 5 inch AC / DC TV that we use only when boondocking without AC power.

Using the flavour injector needle I bought myself for Christmas we injected a roast with a mixture of red wine and barbecue sauce before cooking. It was excellent ! The roast was very tender and tasty. Late in the evening I went to the clubhouse to get online and look for some software that might help me recover the 65 photos that remain on the corrupt / infected CD. I didn’t have much success. I got distracted by checking out whether the new and improved Wi-Fi signal in the clubhouse would support VOIP / Skype. I ended up having a lengthy video chat with Joanne’s brother-in-law in Winnipeg about travel in Mexico.

Tuesday ; Well, today was a truly foul weather day, cold, windy, and raining. A real rarity in Yuma ! Because of the foul weather we stayed indoors most of the day. Joanne did a load of laundry. I did some online work at the clubhouse. Our biggest accomplishment of the day was giving Bo a haircut … indoors ! Made quite a mess in the trailer. Late in the day Joanne realized that she had some coupons that expired today for advertised specials at Albertsons. So after supper we put the solar covers on the pool and hot tub then went shopping to Albertsons.

Wednesday ; Because Bo and Sully had to go for dental cleanings today, we deprived them of food starting at 6 PM last night. By bedtime Sully was hungry. And he woke me up about hourly during the night demanding food. Poor Sully. Early this morning we took them to Arizona West Veterinary Clinic and left them for the day.

When we returned from the veterinary clinic Joanne went off to her daily morning water aerobics session in the swimming pool, and I …. sliced my finger open cutting a bagel ! Not the first time I’ve done that ! ! ! Gotta get me a bagel slicer !

My plan for today was to do a small spray paint job. But it was too windy today to spray paint. Instead I climbed up on the roof of the trailer, removed the MaxxAir cover off the kitchen fan roof vent, disassembled and cleaned the roof vent and the “top side” of the Fantastic Fan. YUCK … guess I’d better schedule that as an annual chore ! The Internet and Joanne’s brother-in-law Doug both recommended that I try using somebody else’s DVD / CD drive to attempt to read my archived photo CD with the corrupt file. Sometimes one piece of hardware can read what another can’t. Good suggestion ! I was able to read and copy the CD using my next door neighbour’s desktop computer. Got all the photos except the one corrupted one. WOO-HOO … nice work, Daniel.

Well … today’s veterinarian bill was U.S.$835 ! ! ! YIKES ! ! ! And not all the news was good. Dr. Millikan ascertained with little, if any, doubt that Sully is blind ! I’m slightly dumbfounded that he has been functioning as well as he does. He certainly fooled us ! Being blind may partially explain why he did so poorly at the animal shelter. And he needed three teeth extracted. Poor Sully ! And he has high blood pressure which will require medication daily. The veterinarian is of the opinion that the high blood pressure was probably what caused his retinas to detach causing blindness. And he had some trouble resuming breathing on his own after being on the ventilator during anaesthesia. We picked Bo and Sully up late in the afternoon. Having been “under” general anaesthetic barely slowed Bo down. Certainly he was a bit lethargic and sleepy tonight, but when we were driving home from the vet he was almost “normal”. Perhaps a bit subdued when we passed the field of sheep, but … ! HA HA HA ! Sully, on the other hand, was in pretty rough shape tonight. It’s pretty hard for an animal of his age to fight off the anaesthetic. I hope he’s a lot better by tomorrow morning.

Thursday ; A fierce winter storm blew in off the Pacific reaching as far inland as Yuma. It started raining heavily during the night and continued throughout today. Apparently the heaviest rainfall in over 20 years for this region. I was awakened at 3:40 A.M. by an earthquake. Joanne and the animals slept through it.

Around midnight last night Sully awoke and asked for food despite still being groggy and wobbly. This morning he was quite a bit more alert and steady on his feet … and very hungry. I considered rescheduling my dentist appointment in Mexico this morning because of the bad weather, but … decided not to.

The roads and walkways were flooded in Yuma and Los Algodones. This is desert ! The roads are not designed with drainage in mind. And the flat roofed buildings in Mexico are certainly not designed to be rained on heavily. The dental clinic’s ceiling was leaking all over the place. They were behind schedule because they were unable to use some of the rooms in the clinic. Halfway through my procedure they had to quickly relocate me and all their instruments and supplies to another room. A huge water filled bubble had appeared on the ceiling of the room I was in and was about to burst.

I had one old filling removed and replaced. And one new cavity repaired. First cavity in many years. And it was a big one ! Dr. Camacho showed it to me on a TV using an intra-oral camera., both before he began drilling it out and after he had partially drilled out the large section of decay. The work took over an hour and a half. The bill was $130 ; $10 for x-rays and $60 for each of the fillings. I wonder what the cost of that work would be back home ? ! ? There was no line up at the border crossing. But the last 100 feet or so of the walkway to the Customs & Border Patrol building was covered in ankle deep water !

By this afternoon, 24 hours after their anaesthesia, both Bo and Sully were completely back to normal. The wind became very strong. The rain seemed to be falling horizontally. For a few hours in the afternoon there was a tornado warning. But I’m eagerly looking forward to the stupendous desert blooming in a couple of months that should be the result of today’s heavy rains. Yuma gets four inches of rain annually. Half of that fell today !

In the evening, after the weather had calmed somewhat, I went to the clubhouse to do some online work. The birthday gift I ordered from Amazon.com has been returned to them and they have issued a refund to my MasterCard. Another problem solved !

Friday ; Today started out nice but became cloudy with a bit of light drizzle this afternoon.

We spent the day shopping and running errands ( sigh ) again. First stop was the Arizona Market Place where Joanne bought some produce and I bought a bagel slicer. No more sliced fingers … hopefully. Next it was over to Yuma Palms Shopping Center to browse for a new TV at Best Buy. Then it was across the Colorado River and over to Bard, California to pick up our mail at the Post Office. It wasn’t there ! I’m very frustrated and angry. We have been away from home for almost 3 months, half the winter travel season, and we still have not received any mail from home. Changes will have to be made to our mail forwarding arrangements for next winter !

We went to Sun Gardens Date Farm to buy date shakes, then drove quickly back to Yuma where we went to Wienerschnitzel for lunch. Chili cheeseburgers, chili fries, and date shakes. We browsed at Wal-Mart for a new TV, then went back to Yuma Palms Shopping Centre to browse for a new TV at Circuit City, which we found was no longer in business at that location. We returned to Best Buy and bought a new TV. Our main criteria was size. It had to fit the existing opening in the trailer’s entertainment centre wall. Our old TV was square shaped, and all new ones are rectangular shaped. I guess it’s time we jumped into the 21st century. We selected an LG brand LCD TV that was on sale this week for $100 off. New televisions are not as cheap as I thought they would be. Well they are, but the really cheap ones are … well … cheap junk !

Back at home I installed the new TV and discarded the old one. Gee, the days of just plugging in and turning on a new TV are gone. This one came with an instructional CD which I have not yet viewed. I just stumbled around the on screen menu for awhile, then decided that I would have to review the CD within the next few days.

After supper we watched a movie on the new TV. While watching it I printed and reconciled this month’s MasterCard statements. At 9 PM we went to the clubhouse and put the solar covers on the swimming pool and hot tub. Then I went in the clubhouse and did quite a bit of online work.

Saturday ; Right after lunch we headed downtown to attend Yuma Lettuce Days, an annual event we have attended before. We wandered around visiting the many arts and crafts vendors. I bought myself a little light for my computer. It’s an LED light on one end of a flexible arm, with a USB connection on the other end. It’s perfect for working on the computer outside after dark on warm evenings, which I like to do. And it will be good for when we are boondocking. I can use the computer without having to turn on any lights in the trailer, thereby conserving precious trailer battery power. I also bought myself a “pocket” kite. It’s a small kite without any “spine” or poles. It’s all nylon and folds up into a little pouch. It flies in light breezes only. It’s not meant for flying in strong breezes. It will be perfect for flying on Mexican beaches next winter. The kite I selected is a Canadian flag design.

On the way home from Lettuce Days we stopped at Wienerschnitzel to buy milk shakes. Once back home at Kofa Ko-op we took Bo to the dog park for a walk, and I flew my kite. WOW … it was great. In just a light breeze I had it up to 300 feet in no time ! I’ve always enjoyed kite flying, although I haven’t done it much or often. I worked on spray painting the corner braces I installed on the trailer slide. It went poorly. If there’s one thing I can’t do well, it’s spray painting. And I ran out of spray paint before the job was finished.

After supper we went to the clubhouse for a performance by a barbershop quartet called The Celltones. I like barbershop quartets. At 9 PM we went to put the solar covers on the swimming pool and hot tub, and I went into the clubhouse to do some online work.

DSK