December 26, 2010 to January 1, 2011

December 26, 2010 to January 1, 2011


Sunday ; Today was partially cloudy and mild. This morning I made the Kirby family’s traditional Christmas brunch of Belgian waffles served with a layer of strawberry jam and vanilla ice cream. WOO-HOO ! Well, that’s not how Joanne eats waffles. Or my brother-in-law Bud. I guess it’s just the Kirby family that slathers jam and ice cream on their waffles. Joanne was satisfied with the waffles I made on my new waffle iron. I wasn’t. I guess there’s a bit of a learning curve with a new waffle iron.

After brunch we went to do a bit of shopping. A local mattress and bedding business had advertised a Boxing Day Sale with all sizes of sheet sets on sale for $16.99. Well, we drove halfway across town to find out that they meant all sizes except short / RV Queen size. That really pissed me off !
I dropped Joanne and Bo off at home then continued on to Kofa Ko-op to use their excellent Wi-Fi signal in the clubhouse to upload my weekly blog entry, and to make a very long phone call to my sister.

Back at home I did some minor maintenance chores then we took Bo for a long walk beside the agricultural fields adjacent to the RV park. We’re all going to miss Kofa Ko-op’s dog park. We chatted with some French Canadian residents of the park / neighbours who have lived in both BC and Ottawa.

One of the Christmas gifts I gave Joanne was mulling spices, so at bedtime I made us hot mulled apple cider.

Monday ; Los Algodones, Baja California, Mexico

This morning we headed down to Mexico. I had an appointment at 11 AM for an examination and consultation with a periodontist at Alamo Dental Clinic. Well … what a thorough and professional examination and consultation. It took about an hour and a half ! It involved a full mouth series of x-rays, a full mouth series of digital photographs, an upper and lower set of moulds, and a tooth by tooth examination and documentation. The equipment used was very “high tech”. The x-rays were transmitted to and displayed on the computer in the exam room, as were the enlarged photographs of all my teeth, from the front and behind. The female dentist and her female assistant were both very personable and spoke English well. And the cost was … wait for it … < insert drum roll here, please > … absolutely nothing ! ! !

WOW ! ! ! But … her approach to my dental “requirements” resulted in an estimate of $5236 ! Which is probably something in the range of $21,000 worth of work at a Canadian ( or American ) dentist. Her “suggested” work would result in me having the most perfect mouthful of teeth you could possibly imagine. Her definition of “necessary” and mine are quite a bit different, I think. So … after all that, I decided the smartest thing to do would be to return to Dr. Camacho, whom we have been seeing for about the last six years or so, and have him do a cleaning and examination. His definition of what is “necessary” dental work is far closer to our definition. I’m not going to be surprised if his estimate of what dental work I “need” is no more than a couple of hundred bucks !

By the way, the Doctora’s ( female doctor’s ) first name was Yuri. With the Spanish “Y” sounding like an English “J”, and a heavily rolled “R”, the pronunciation sounds like “Judy”.

Joanne went to make two appointments with Dr. Camacho for next week while I went to get a much needed haircut. A $3 haircut ! And a damn fine one at that ! My hairstylist today was a young lady named Fabiola Carrera. Then we went for lunch to a small restaurant that is a favourite of ours. MMMMM … each of us had tres tacos ; uno taco carne asada, uno taco pollo, uno taco pescado por Joanne, y uno taco camarón por mí. A buck a taco !

After lunch we crossed the street to Mini Mercado San Valentin to buy 2 litres of Yomi-Lala, Joanne’s beloved Mexican chocolate milk. Next door at the paleteria y nueveria ( frozen desserts shop ) Joanne bought a chocolate and shredded coconut coated frozen banana for dessert < rolling my eyes >. We went into a health food store … Centro Botanico “El Chicural” … to look at different teas and buy a jar of Arnica ointment. Then … WOO-HOO … the panaderia for some pan dulce. The line up to cross back into the United States was as long as ever, but thanks to last year’s redesign of the border crossing building and process, we were across in less than thirty minutes. As opposed to previous years’ 1½ to 2 hours !

On the way home we stopped to shop for a few items at Family Dollar. We arrived home shortly after 4 PM and headed for the pool and hot tub. It seemed a bit too late in the day for the pool, but the hot tub was great ! When we were finished, there was just enough daylight left to take Bo for a long walk.

Tuesday ; Today was sunny and very warm.

Our priority task for today was to open a bank account here in Yuma. We will need to have a bank account here to transact a real estate deal some time within the next year. So this morning we headed out for an appointment we had to open an account at Bank of America. We were a bit early so I made a stop at Pep Boys Auto to shop for a couple of items.

It took over an hour to get our bank account established. It’s a bit complicated for a “foreign visitor” to open a bank account in the United States. And likely much more so since 9/11. Fair enough ! From Bank of America we went to Walgreen’s for some advertised specials then Albertson’s for some groceries.

Back at home we had a very late lunch, I napped with Sully, Joanne prepared to do laundry, and we headed to the park’s laundromat adjacent to the pool area. While the laundry washed we lounged around the pool and hot tub. And lay on deck chairs soaking up the warm desert sun. AHHHHH !
I need sunshine ! While the laundry dried we took Bo for a long walk. We have established a daily routine of going for a long walk along a sandy trail beside some agricultural fields and citrus groves adjacent to the RV park. While Joanne finished the laundry I took Sully outside for a “walk” in the warm afternoon sun. Sully’s “walks” don’t cover a lot of ground !

Wednesday ; Today was cold, cloudy, windy, and rainy. A pretty crappy weather day !

This morning I went to Rancho Bonitos’ weekly coffee social to introduce myself, meet the “neighbours”, and ask questions about Qwest Internet and Time Warner Cable TV. Afterwards I packed up my little netbook computer and some paperwork, and drove over to Kofa Ko-op to use the excellent
Wi-Fi signal in their clubhouse. I phoned Qwest Internet and Time Warner Cable. I decided to subscribe to Qwest Internet but not Time Warner Cable TV. I will have to go pick up a modem / router at Qwest’s retail store in the Yuma Palms Shopping Center, and a service technician will come out to Rancho Bonitos on Monday to set up my service. I will have to borrow a computer from a neighbour on Monday to configure the modem / router. It requires connection to a computer via an Ethernet cable to download the configuration for my site / account and my little netbook doesn’t have an Ethernet port. Once the modem is configured, it becomes a router and transmits a wireless Wi-Fi signal.

I phoned our local veterinarian and set up appointments for examinations and inoculations for Bo and Sully next week. I signed onto the Bank of America online banking website and completed the setup of my online banking account. I returned to Rancho Bonitos and went to see Ron, the caretaker and son of our lot owner, to get the key to our site’s mailbox and to ask for his help on Monday with configuring my Qwest modem / router. Our mailbox had a lot of junk mail in it. And a letter from our veterinarian addressed to last year’s renter of our lot. I will return the letter to them when we take Bo and Sully in next week.

It was too cold and windy this afternoon, even though the rain had stopped, to wash the truck which was our plan. Joanne spent much of the afternoon cleaning in the trailer with an awesome cleaner that she discovered last year at the Arizona Market Place flea market. It’s called … wait for it …
“Awesome”. We bought a bottle last Thursday and today she did a lot of cleaning with it. Guess we’re going to have to soon buy more ! We took Bo for his daily long walk.

Since arriving at Rancho Bonitos the only TV we have been able to watch are the four stations we can receive “free over air” using the trailer’s antenna. One station is English language religious programming. The other three are Mexican stations. We are slowly improving our Spanish language skills. Every evening I watch the news in Spanish, then Joanne watches Mexican soap operas. HA HA HA … the Mexicans / Hispanics certainly do love their drama ! The most educational are the commercials. HA HA HA … VENTE PERCENTO DESCUENTO ! ! ! SOLAMENTE HASTA TRES ENERO ! ! !

Thursday ; Today was sunny, cool, and windy. We slept late so accomplished almost nothing this morning, but had an extremely productive afternoon.

After lunch we washed the truck. Washing the truck in Yuma is always more work than washing it anywhere else. There are so many minerals in the water, mostly salt I think, that the entire truck must be dried with towels. Letting Yuma’s water evaporate off a vehicle after washing it leaves the vehicle horribly streaked and spotted. Yeah … been there, done that ! And … BRRRRR … it was a bit cold for truck washing today ! After finishing the truck we took Bo for his daily long walk, then I decided to start another job. I needed to rewire the fridge to a dedicated 12 volt circuit. During all that new fridge drama I discovered that it was a voltage problem for the new fridge to share a circuit with the lights in the kitchen, one of which is fluorescent. So … since the installation of the new fridge we have not been able to use the fluorescent light over the sink. That’s a bit of a problem for cooking and washing dishes.

I started … and finished … the job. I rewired the fridge so that the kitchen lights have a circuit to themselves, and the fridge is all by itself on a new circuit. That was possible because the new converter / charger has more circuits available than the old converter. Well done, Daniel !

Friday ; New Year’s Eve ; Today was sunny and cold again. BRRRRR … hope the warm weather returns soon !

This morning we headed to Yuma Palms Shopping Center to run some shopping errands. Bo came along for a “drivey”. On the way there we passed a field full of sheep. I pulled over to the side of the road, rolled down the window, and let Bo bark ferociously at them until they stampeded away. HA HA HA … hundreds of sheep running away from Bo’s barking. He loooooves to make sheep and cattle stampede like that. Bad Daniel !

As we arrived at Yuma Palms Bo got very excited. Darn … he recognized that we were in the PetsMart mall. I went to the Qwest store to pick up the modem / router for the Qwest Internet service I have subscribed to and which will be installed at our site on Monday. And then we went to PetsMart. Not to buy anything, just to wander around the store for a few minutes so that Bo could “shop”. Bo loooooves shopping at PetsMart. Joanne wanted to look for an item at Target, and I wanted to look for an item at a fabric store. There was one next door to Target. She found what she was looking for. I didn’t ! We drove to Albertsons for some groceries, then home. WHEW … what a lot of shoppers on New Year’s Eve !

This evening we attended the Rancho Bonitos Casino Night / New Year’s Eve party. It was an evening of casino games with a break on an hourly basis for an auction and door prize drawing. We each started the evening with 6000 purchased “Bonitos Bucks”, used for gambling and bidding on auction items. At the end of the evening I had 7300 Bonitos Bucks. Joanne had zero ! And we won door prizes, first a large can of mixed nuts at 8 PM then a bottle of red wine from Argentina at 11 PM. Too bad we don’t drink red wine ! We were surprised, although we shouldn’t have been, when it was spontaneously and impulsively decided that the festivities ended after the 11 PM door prize draw and auction. Most RV parks that we have been in on New Year’s Eve are filled with old folks who can’t stay up until midnight. The one notable exception was Saguaro Co-op, the SKP park in Benson, Arizona. Now those folks know how to party !

We returned to the trailer, made mulled apple cider, and watched the New Year arrive on Mexican TV … Celebrando Año Nuevo En Vivo !

FELIZ AÑO NUEVO / HAPPY NEW YEAR

Saturday ; New Year’s Day ; Today was sunny and cool.

For much of last year I held onto a dream of passing from the old year into the new while standing in the dark with a glass of wine in my hand in the warm waters of the South Pacific Ocean at Villas Onac Resort in Teacapán, Mexico. Oh well, another dream dashed !

After a late morning brunch I drove over to Kofa Ko-op to use their Wi-Fi signal. I retrieved year end banking and investment statements. I purchased … I hope … two tickets to an event next Friday. I used a Canadian bank issued U.S.$ MasterCard to buy the tickets online. As has happened in the past, my MasterCard number may have confused the computer that was processing my order. Maybe the transaction was completed successfully … maybe not !

Back at home at Rancho Bonitos I napped with Sully, we took Bo for a long walk, I printed the banking and investment statements, reconciled the bank statements, then began updating my investment files with year end data. From an investment perspective, 2010 was a “good” year, I suppose.

DSK