Sunday ; Thin overcast, warm, a bit windy early in the day.
I started the day with a Bo-gility session followed by routine yard chores. I helped Joanne with a furniture refinishing idea she had. A good idea, it turned out well. In the afternoon we worked on the photos I took at Eilene's farewell party. Joanne will be making an album for Eilene. We attended the weekly ice cream social, then had supper while watching two episodes of Downton Abbey. I ended the day by printing and reconciling our February MasterCard billing.
Monday ; Overcast in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, warm.
I spent the morning slowly doing routine chores. At noon we went out for lunch with Eilene. We drove to Somerton, a small village southwest of here on the way to the Mexico border. And not surprisingly, Somerton is a "Mexican" village in Arizona. There's more than a few of those. We went for lunch at Somerton Main Street Cafe, a small Mexican restaurant operated by a small culinary school catering to Hispanics. The food was interesting. The prices were a tad too high for what was offered. The service was atrociously bad. Like the cooks in the kitchen, the wait staff are "students" of the culinary school. The "tip" I wanted to leave our waitress was ... "find another career" ! HA HA HA !
After dropping me off at home, Joanne and Eilene went grocery shopping for the rest of the afternoon. I napped with the animals. I watered all our plants and gardens. I did monthly maintenance work on the computer. < sigh > I recently attempted an unsuccessful download of Windows 8.1, so the process of "disk cleanup" today took about two and a half hours ! Waiting for that to be competed caused me to waste a lot of time ! At dusk I went bicycling. BRRRRR ... t'was a bit chilly. Well ... Yuma chilly, not real world chilly. HA HA HA !
When we walked Bo around the dog park, Joanne stumbled and fell heavily. < sigh > An annual event, it seems ! And ... as usual for her annual fall ... < sigh > ... she scraped her palms, elbows, and knees, and severely bruised a knee and hip. < heavy sigh > Well ... at least she didn't break an elbow this year !
Tuesday ; Sunny, windy, warm.
A few months ago a dark red coloured lesion began to develop on my skin between my sideburn and my ear lobe. As it slowly got larger and uglier I thought it might be skin cancer. About a week ago it was the size of a lima bean, inflamed and tender. It burst ! Blood and pus spewed. OH ... just a boil. I was relieved. It drained, then began to heal nicely. By yesterday it looked almost healed.
Last night at bedtime, it suddenly burst again. HUH ? I thought it was almost healed. It spewed blood and pus again. When I woke this morning ... WHAT ? ! ? It was infected ! An oozing lesion surrounded by obviously infected tissue, about the size of a Loonie ( Canadian dollar coin ). YIKES ! I took an antibiotic pill and will continue for a few days. Frequently during the day I applied a hot compress to the boil. It slowly oozed all day. By the end of the day it looked a bit less inflamed, but ... it still looks pretty scary ! And it hurts !
This morning I did some annual "spring cleaning" maintenance in the trailer. I spent quite a bit of time today weeding my cactus gardens in the dog park behind our rear fence. Joanne went to the Humane Society this afternoon for her regular Tuesday afternoon shift of cat cuddling. I did not go the Humane Society today. I wasn't feeling well, perhaps as a result of the infection. When Joanne returned we went to Wal-Mart to buy some supplies to make a photo album for Eilene of her farewell party. Bo enjoyed going for a drivey. I think his upper respiratory infection / cold is almost over.
In the evening Joanne did laundry. I barbecued steak for supper ... and some wieners for me for tomorrow because I won't be able to eat what is being prepared for tomorrow's Renter's Appreciation Barbecue Dinner.
Wednesday ; Sunny and warm.
This morning I disinfected the trailer's freshwater holding tank, then did an obedience session in the dog park with Bo. Well done, Bo, good dog.
I spent much of the afternoon working on printing photos for Eilene's farewell party photo album, Joanne's farewell gift to Eilene. YIKES ! I had no idea how quickly printing "high quality" photos on glossy photo paper would consume the printer's colour ink cartridge ! I ran out of ink, and will likely need two more colour ink cartridges ( at about thirty-five bucks a pop ) to complete the job. < shrug > Oh, well !
Late in the afternoon was Kofa Ko-op's Renter's Appreciation Barbecue / Picnic. The lot owners provide a meal to the renters to express our appreciation for them choosing to stay in our park. And ... spending their money / paying their lot rental fees that helps defray the lot owners' annual maintenance fees. The lot owners contributed potluck salads and hot side dishes, the park paid for bratwursts to be barbecued, and a couple of large cakes, and the renters just show up and eat ! It was very well attended, and there was more than enough food. Joanne was in charge of the salads table ... or more precisely, four tables ... and I was the photographer.
Immediately after the dinner Marilu came over with Sammy the Australian Shepherd to have help performing "minor surgery" on him. Sammy had a large abscess inside his ear flap that needed to be lanced and drained. And drained, and drained, and drained ! Poor Sammy ! His ear flap was filled with blood, and was puffed up like a balloon ! Joanne and Marilu held and calmed Sammy while I lanced and drained. And he tolerated it amazingly well. It actually seemed to bring him comfort to have that fat ear drained.
Later in the evening we watched the premiere episodes of Survivor and Amazing Race.
Thursday ; Sunny and very warm.
This morning we headed out to Wellton with the Arizona room's snap on vinyl wall panels, to the place where I was going to have them remade. We travelled 50 km. / 30 miles east on Interstate 8 to Wellton. After about fifteen minutes or so of frustrating discussion with the staff at this specialty sewing business, I rolled up my wall panels and left, convinced that they do not have the expertise necessary to do this job, despite them being the original manufacturers of these wall panels thirteen ( or more ) years ago.
We returned to Yuma and went to visit two of the four Yuma Community Fishing Ponds, the two we had not yet seen. Both of them were a bit north of Hwy. 95. First was Fortuna Pond. I estimate it to be about ten acres in size. There were quite a few boondocking RV's around the pond / small lake, and quite a few fishermen. We had a leisurely picnic lunch beside the lake. Next we drove to Redondo Pond where we parked and walked around a bit. Nice place to relax and fish. A bit smaller than Fortuna Pond.
From there we drove to the Yuma winter home of Dave and Joy, neighbours of ours back home at Riverside RV Park Resort near Keremeos, BC. Dave and Joy had invited us and three other couples from Riverside that spend their winters in Yuma to a barbecue party. So ... the five couples spent the afternoon and evening chatting and eating, with very little < snicker > gossiping about the rest of our neighbours back home. Hope they're all enjoying the winter back there. HA HA HA !
Friday ; Sunny and very warm.
This morning I trimmed my beard, made difficult by the still oozing, very sore, ugly looking, infected skin boil between my sideburn and my ear lobe. I also cut some Prednisone pills in half to "lend" to Marilu for Sammy the Australian Shepherd. She ran out of his Prednisone medication.
Immediately after lunch we left for a small adventure outing ; date shakes in Bard, California. In Eilene's car were me driving, Joanne, Eilene, and Marilu. Laszlo and Gayle followed us in their truck. Laszlo assured all of us ( especially his wife ) that he could have a date shake even though he's diabetic ! He would just combat the rise in his blood sugar with more insulin than usual.
We crossed the Colorado River into California and headed north on regional road S-24 towards Bard. On the way I stopped beside a Romaine lettuce field that had been harvested earlier in the day ( the harvesting crew was still on the field, but further away ) and I harvested / "gleaned" six heads of "leftover" Romaine lettuce. Many heads were "leftover" because they were "too large" and / or perhaps dusty because of proximity to the gravel road. We continued on to Imperial Date Gardens where we all enjoyed date shakes. I felt guilty having a date shake without Bo.
On the way back towards Yuma I stopped beside a field of "artisan lettuce", furrows with eight different types and colours of lettuce planted side by side in colourful rows. Fields of "artisan lettuce" are so pretty ! While we were stopped beside the field, Marilu taking photos out the car window, all of us watching the large equipment and harvesting crew, one of the workers ran across the field to present us with four sealed bags of artisan lettuce. WOW ! Muchas gracias, señor ! It was labelled as artisan lettuce for the Trader Joe's chain of gourmet food stores. WOW ! It was our first real example of lettuce that is picked and immediately sealed / packaged right in the field, never to be opened / touched again until the consumer tears open the bag, a few days from now, anywhere in North America.
Did you know ... Yuma produces over 90% of the lettuce and leafy greens consumed in North America during the winter months ? Chances are that salad you had tonight was made with lettuce that came from here in Yuma.
On the way home I stopped at Arizona Market Place and picked up the dash cover ( for our "new" minivan back home in BC ) that I had ordered a week ago. When we arrived back home I realized that I had "miscalculated", especially now that we had the sealed bags of artisan lettuce, and had cut too much Romaine lettuce. I gave away a head of Romaine lettuce to each of two neighbours.
Joanne and I took Lanoire the truck over to the storage area and mounted Elsie the truck camper onto the truck. We are going to San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico next week.
Our neighbour Merilee came over to chat with us about the trip she and her husband have just returned from. They went to Laughlin, Nevada for a few days to attend their Missouri high school reunion, about fifty years after they graduated.
Laszlo and I had accepted Marilu's invitation to join her tonight at the evening performance of the annual MCAS ( Marine Corps Air Station ) Air Show. Just before we were to leave, Gayle came over to tell me that Lazslo would be unable to attend. Apparently ... < snicker > ... he was a tad incorrect about his ability to consume a date shake and simply adjust his insulin dosage. He was sick and asleep ! I decided I also was going to "bail out" on Marilu's invitation. I was feeling a bit "behind schedule" in my workload / obligations. I still have a lot of work to do to complete Eilene's farewell party photo album, amongst other things I have to do.
Joanne took Eilene grocery shopping. I took Bo for a walk around the dog park.
I polished shoes. I went bicycling. After supper we watched episode 2 of Amazing Race. I worked on photos and finances !
Saturday ; Partially cloudy, warm, a few drops of rain in the afternoon.
This morning we went to the clubhouse for a communal potluck brunch. MMMMM ! ! !
This afternoon I took care of routine outside chores, then spent the afternoon at my desk, working on the computer. First chore was finances ; pay bills, transfer funds, etc. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on Eilene's farewell party photo album. And ... I finished it ! Almost forty photos, printed in high quality format, on 8½
" x 11" glossy photo paper, used more than two colour ink cartridges ! Costs ; about a hundred bucks ... but ... results ; priceless memories for Eilene, we hope.
A neighbour was taken away by ambulance early this morning. Early diagnosis ; brain hemorrhage while sleeping. Not sure what the prognosis is !
DSK
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