A nice cool down

.  We Friday is a busy day.  It happened that our kitchen band had to schedule our performance at the nursing home on Friday this week.  We wore our hospital clothes so we could have lunch without rushing.  We spent an interesting day working.  Evelyn helped with the Masquerade jewelry sale all afternoon and I helped some too.  I know nothing about jewelry but did hand out the small plastic tubs that the customers could load up with many items.  Everything cost $5.  For some reason, the manager of the sale gave her 5 items for the price of 3.  The hospital auxiliary gets some of the profits to buy some equipment for the hospital.   I spent some time at the information desk as usual.  We didn’t have our usual Friday fish dinner but enjoyed delicious gumbo.  Saturday we went to the hall for Saturday pancakes.  We go about once each year and went this time because there was a bike club ride scheduled after breakfast.  We rode about 7 miles around town into a moderate wind some of the time.  I had to return to the hospital afterward to get my Bailey’s Irish Cream that our security guard had bought for me.  He lives in Mexico and gets it cheaply.  I watched Purdue finally win a basketball game and began perusing the message for Sunday.   We went to Mercedes for the church chili supper in the evening.  I had bought 3 tickets for our neighbors and his mother.  He and I share mowing obligations during the summer and winter months, but he does much more in the summer by keeping our yard from becoming a jungle.  We carried out our meals along with some for our widow across the street.  We went from there to the outlet mall where Evelyn bought a scarf and blouse for the trip.   I then spent some time practicing during the evening.   When I wakened Sunday morning, I learned that Evelyn had not slept until 3:30 in the morning, so I let her stay at home asleep.  She has had the sleep deprivation problem for a couple of weeks.  Sue Hamel offered her some melatonin and Ambien to help her.  We had 45 in attendance this morning, quite a blessing to me.  I have only one more service before we visit the Holy Land.  I was blessed to serve Holy Communion and consecrate the elements for my replacement.  I came home and enjoyed another of the steaks I had barbecued yesterday for lunch.  I had done 4, but they are large enough for us to share.  They are Omaha Steaks and will provide us with 4 meals.  I finished typing the message for next week during the afternoon while Evelyn talked with Emily and repainted the barbed wire fence on our newly painted wall.  It really looks like a real fence.  Bonny wanted us to meet her grandson, Joseph Winston #4, so we went to meet him at her house after we rode a couple of laps around the park.  He is a vey handsome young man who studies law at Fordham and will go to China to study sometime soon.  He was interesting to listen to.  We came home and snacked some as we watched a program I had recorded about a young man who fasted 40 days while touring around Israel.  About half way through, Evelyn said she felt sleepy so I told her to go right to bed without even undressing.  She did and when I checked about half an hour later, she was asleep.  I certainly thank God for His mercy.  I watched some of The Book of Eli” before going to bed.

Wonderful neighbors

Thursday was another nice day.  Our kitchen band performance has been postponed until tomorrow, so we had little to do this morning.  I went for the mail while Evelyn prepared some of the servings for our Super Bowl party next week.  So far only 1 couple has shown interest.  The day was so nice that Armand and I were off to the golf course again.  Our round began fairly well and he was shooting lights out for holes 3 and 4.  I was playing very poorly.  I couldn’t hit the ball in the air at all.  I made mistakes that I had not made for many years.  I finally hit stride on hole 7 and ended up beating him!  He had an 11 on hole 9.  We came home and showered before going to his house for a dinner of red snapper Armand had caught last week.  Judy Kruse came too.  She was widowed this past summer but is nearly always gone.  The dinner was quire good, but I had one of my sphincter attacks during the meal.  We came home around 7 so Evelyn could go to the LWML meeting in Mercedes.  I found a suitcase that is the correct size for being a carry on bag for our trip to Israel.  We have had to borrow 2 because ours is larger than is permitted on the airplane.  I just watched TV until Evelyn came home.  She still isn’t sleeping well.  Perhaps she will tonight.

Disappointment: no rain

Tuesday is Bible study day.  We walked earlier and attended the study at 10.  Reddels are using a DVD from Focus on the Family of a tour of the Holy Land led by Ray Vanderlan.  We always learn much Biblical history from his talks.  Evelyn had declared this no cook day, so we asked Don and Donna to go to Border Barbecue with us.  They are very picky eaters: they don’t like barbecue and don’t eat fish.  We did find something they could eat and had a good visit.  They had chicken tenders.  We were home by 1 and took a nap.  I was in the process of retyping a sermon from 1999 that I will use in Sunday’s worship, so I had plenty to do.  I like to bring the older messages up to date by including some current illustrations.  I have measured our carry-on suitcase and find it to be too large.  I called Bonny to see if they had any we could borrow.  She had one 9X14X22—the correct measurements.  I ended up inviting her and Joe and their son Randy to meet us at the Blue Onion for supper.  I had a coupon and wanted to try their chicken and sausage gumbo.  It happened that it was on the menu only on Tuesday, but they were all out of it.   We had a salad and a sandwich.  We watched Purdue lose there before coming home.  Evelyn has gone into her no sleep mode again and is always tired.  She is unwilling to just stay in bed without sleeping, so she walks around in a partial daze.

Wednesday is the German dinner day for this year.  We met John and Sue for the dinner but later than we thought.  He was shuffling and winning, so they couldn’t make it to the happy hour festivities.  I had played golf during the late morning and early afternoon, so I worked on emails while Evelyn was able to catch about an hour’s sleep.  We met Hamels and 10 other couples from Ranchero Village at the dinner/dance.  Our friends, the Bauknechts, came with the big group.  They are trying to sell their unit and don’t plan to return next season.  They are from Winnepeg and likely will never be in our presence again.  We didn’t have much opportunity to talk with Heinz and Alice because theywere seated at the other end of the table.  We didn’t dance much after dinner although the band was quite good—Bellows and Brass.  We were both tired and Evelyn’s leg is hurting again.  We were home by 8 and in bed by 10:30.  At least I was.  Evelyn went down about 8:30.

 

These are our friends, Paul and Betty Volkmer, who we stood up for lunch. They came to visit for lunch at our house.

hese

Here is the set of the play, Star Spangled Girl that we attended with John and Sue at the Tower theater in Weslaco this past Saturday.

Back to dancing

Evelyn talked me into going to Silver Sneakers again this morning.  I am sore because I haven’t gone for some time.  We have lost interest in functioning in the activities of the park so we rarely attend the park meetings on Monday mornings.   We did some light shopping before returning home.  We ate lunch featuring leftovers and then went to the hall to check on some activities of the bike club and then came home to drive to the square dance lessons.  We were surprised to realize that we were taking plus lessons instead of reviewing mainstream.  We were surprised to see that we did better than we could have dreamed of.  We made final plans to meet with John and Sue at the German dinner Wednesday and came home for supper.  Evelyn made delicious enchiladas.  I often wonder what kind of life I would have had if the Lord had not brought us together almost 52 years ago.  He has made my life much richer through her just being here.  She talked with Rosalie and Elizabeth about their involvement in a Shakespearean play.  She was supposed to make an Elizabethan dress for them, but that may be on hold for a while.  We watched a movie before the news report.  The weather has been quite temperate all winter.  It is often too hot some days even in the winter.  We have some cool weather but nothing like what we would experience in the north.  The only thing missing and desperately needed is rain.  Perhaps some will fall Wednesday.

Disaster

Wednesday night, this computer was attacked by a vicious malware.  The entire screen began blinking and then disappeared.  I tried to do something to stop the action but couldn’t.  I shut it down and went to bed.  We went to the hospital for a luncheon and called the hospital IT guy.  He came and worked on the computer for over an hour before we left.  He took the computer home to work and was to bring it back next day while we were working.  It took longer than he thought it would, so it wasn’t fixed then either.  The good news was that he was certain he could save all the files and pictures.  Saturday we picked up the computer and praised God that most of the things were still on the computer.  It was had getting along without it, but I did have Evelyn’s to work with.  But then it developed a problem: each key had to be held down to make an imprint.  Of course that would not do, so I gave it to a guy in our park to work on.  He took longer than the hospital guy but did fix it.  There was a simple problem that was easy to fix, but he took a couple of days to find it.  He charged me $25.  The IT guy only charged $40 and did a much more I just thank God that all things were saved.

The other events included playing a good ground of golf with Armand, worked on Sunday’s message, went to support local music students at Ranchero Village, performed with the kitchen band (Evelyn was having her hair cut short) watched Purdue lose big to Michigan State (they had slept only about 4 hours the day before), went to downtown Weslaco for the monthly street party and heard a jazz band, went to the Tower theater to see “Star Spangled Girl”, went for a pizza buffet and went to a concert organized and partly performed by Vance Greek.  Today we had a good attendance at our worship service and came home so Evelyn could try to sleep.  She has not slept well the past 2 nights.  I just worked around the house until lunch of delicious gumbo she had made earlier in the week.  I had planned to go to McAllen to buy a new television set, but we couldn’t get our act together.  We invited Rose and Armand to play Phase 10 until 8 when they were expecting a call from Canada.

During the afternoon I was blessed to do some chaplain type work in listening to a friend.  He had attempted suicide by breathing into a plastic bag.  He had been depressed because of a problem with his daughter’s family.  He has suffered from depression for several years and had planned suicide several times.  This time it was a spur of the moment event.  He told me of the ordeal and the treatment he had received that had helped him overcome his depression.  He seemed pretty good when we prayed together and I left.  It is a real blessing to counsel and pray with someone who is hurting.  I always thank God for these opportunities.  Tomorrow marks about 2 weeks before we fly out to Israel.

Friends for lunch (forgotten day)

We were up working on lunch by 8.  We had invited the Volkmers since we had stood them up last week.  We served pork medalions we had marinate and cooked with Raman needle slaw.  Evelyn made muffins and served a razzleberry pie made by Marie Callender.  We served some leftover boudin as an appetizer.  We also delivered some we had bought for Betty on our way to the Valley in November.  We had a good visit because they had to leave by 2 so they could go square dancing.  They left and I watched the Saints and Drew lose.  Their defense cost them like last year.  5 turnovers didn’t do much good either.  After that game, the Broncos and Tim Tebow lost too.  I worked on what I thought was a pretty good sermon and received many compliments Sunday, but the glory goes to God.

Fantastic guitarist

Sunday was an exciting day.  We had 43, most of the season, worship and be blessed by Holy Communion with us at Trail’s End.  We then rushed to Llano Grande to bring the same message to 260 people there.  We came home to watch both Tim Tebow’s Broncos and the Packers lose their playoff game.  Many of our friends from Wisconsin will be sad for a week.  They are probably the most devoted fans in virtually any sports town in the country.  We intended to invite Joe and Bonny over to talk about the concert tomorrow and play a game.  The final result was that they invited us for a salad supper and a game of Sequence.  We learned that they cannot go with us tomorrow because of a voter’s meeting at church.  They gave us their tickets to sell o give away.

Evelyn went to exercise this morning while I mowed our grass, the neighbor’s grass and his mother’s grass across the street.  I also rode to the pharmacy to get the prescriptions I had left Friday, but they had expired and the doctor’s office was closed because of MLK day.  I had planned to go to the bank and some other drug stores for bargains in the afternoon, but Evelyn decided I should go Wednesday.  I just rode around the park asking about a dozen people if they wanted the tickets.  Finally I found one man who was interested.  We drove him and our 2 widows to dinner and the concert.  We left at 4:30 and drove to McAllen.  Evelyn tried unsuccessfully to enter the address of the restaurant, so everyone in the car decided to give directions all together.  I decided not to take the abuse and stopped the car and gave the wheel to Evelyn.  We have 3 more concerts to attend, but I will never drive that bunch anywhere again.  We found the restaurant but were quite early.  We ate and then walked around the mall.  We went to Best Buy and found a deal on a TV and installation.  I may go back tomorrow and buy one.  We went to the concert featuring Edgar Cruz.  He was phenomenal.  I have seen few artists with more talent.  He played many styles of music on his 2 guitars.  He was anything but humble but “If you can do it, it ain’t braggin’”.  He could do it!  I saw something I have never seen.  He played with both hands.  His right hand played most of the bass notes and his left played the treble.  I always thought the left hand only shortened the strings, but he played with both hands.  I seldom give the performers a standing ovation but did this one.  One of the songs he played was “In the Mood” and he offered a free CD to the first 2 couples to come forth to dance.  We had seats near the front and were the 2nd couple.  We won one of his early recordings.   We were home shortly after 10.  Tomorrow we may go dancing in the afternoon.

More fun in the Valley

Thursday was a cold, windy day.  I walked around the park before going to perform with the kitchen.  I almost didn’t make it.  I had gone to the park library to call our broker, Clayton.  We made some decisions as to what to do with some excess money from a stock sale when I saw Evelyn drive out of the park, headed for the Ratama Manor nursing home.  I went to the main hall and found a friend who was willing to drive me there.  I almost rode my bike but had my music folder and would have ridden into a strong north wind.  We all sang for half an hour, entertaining the residents.  I have been assigned the job of playing the “bass fiddle” (I will try to post a picture late) and sing “Celito Lindo” in Spanish.  Most of the residents there are Hispanic Americans and probably laughed to hear the geezer gringo sing in Espanol.  We returned and I waited all afternoon for Armand to come to ask if I wanted to go golfing.  He never came and I never went to ask him.  I joked with him that we were both hiding, afraid the other might want to play.  We then went to the “Welcome Back” dinner provided by the park owners each year.  It was brisket this year catered by a park resident who owns the local Fat Daddy’s restaurant.  We were home in time to see Purdue lose to Wisconsin.  I have also been working to tweak the message for Sunday.  I am blessed to preach at 2 parks this week.

The top picture is of the park volunteers who prepared, distributed and cleaned up the catered dinner.  The bottom is of Evelyn kibitzing with the people we ate with.  We waited more than half an hour for our table number to be called and had a good time laughing with the others.

Friday is our normal hospital volunteer day.  This Friday was also my day at the doctor.  I walked to his office so Evelyn could attend the Silver Sneaker class.  My bloodwork from last Friday showed good cholesterol levels, etc and my hand was no longer swollen and painful so I had the doctor give me a digital prostate exam (my Christmas Goose").  He declared I was ok there too.  Much of the time left was spent in discussing the sale of the local hospital.  We are both against it.  I walked on to the hospital about an hour early and got ahead on my Bible reading.  Evelyn brought lunch for me to eat before taking my position at the information desk.  She worked at the Foundation again.  We had a fairly busy day.  We went to the Elks lodge for what has become a weekly ritual: getting a carryout of their catfish and shrimp combo.  We brought it home, ate, and went to the hall where we worked at the final Friday night dance.  Evelyn’s arm hurt, so we didn’t dance very much.  We were home by 10:30.

We have guests coming for lunch tomorrow and will have to rise early to prepare.

Beautiful, cool weather

Monday we returned to the Silver Sneakers class in the morning.  In the afternoon we went to the square dance classes.  There were only enough people for 1 square.  The teacher decided to not have classes because of lack of numbers.  We danced better the first time we went before Christmas.  Speaking of which, we finished packing up the Christmas decorations.  Of course we will find an item here and there for a couple of weeks.  Tuesday was a big blunder.  We attended the Bible study that Reddels are leading.  The class is from 10-11.  We had some more things to recycle and real estate taxes to pay.  We also planned to meet the Volkmers for lunch in Edinburg.  We left home just in time to get to the recycle center 3 minutes late.  It was closed for lunch.  We went to Pep Boys to have the windshield wipers replaced and on to McAllen from there.  We got some paper from Staples and went on to Armando’s Pizza.  The problem was that I had got us there 1 hour later than we had agreed.  They had eaten and gone home just before we got there.  We ate half a Calzone and brought half home.  We returned to the park to attend the meeting of the bike club.  We had missed the poker run but were there for the meeting and the pizza.  We had just eaten a couple of hours earlier and were not very hungry.  We didn’t bring any home because we had some Calzone to eat later.  We took a ride around both the parks here and then came home for the evening.  Wednesday was another delightful day.  We took a walk around the park before lunch.  Then Armand, Roger and I went to play golf.  It was breezy enough that we weren’t bothered by mosquitoes.  I played a bit better even though my score was only slightly better.  We had a very good time.  After supper Evelyn added a liner to her hoodie while I looked for a defective bulb in a string of Christmas lights.  I couldn’t get it to light and will likely throw it away.  I hate to dispose of so many tings but have little choice since repairs are seldom possible.  I also have to throw our battery operated radio away.  I like to have one incase of power failure.

Beautiful day on the Island

We  were up early to take our bicycles to the tow trailer.  We were told there were more signed up to ride than the trailer would carry.  We had no other way to transport our bikes.  Some have pick up trucks and bike racks and can take their own.  We drove, taking our Canadian neighbors.  He can’t ride because of a hip replacement this past summer, but she can.  The day was quite temperate with the normal ocean breeze.  Most of the riders are capable of coping with that, but some still have trouble and 2 even fell over.  The trailer is parked at a restaurant having a large parking lot.  Most of the riders eat there but we usually don’t.  Our passengers know of better places and directed us to one in Port Isabel called Pelican Landing.  It is one of “Dirty Al’s” 5 restaurants in the area.  It has wonderful shrimp and other sea food.  We shared a botana for 4 and had far too much to eat: shrimp, fish and f]French fries.  We split the leavings and came home.  It is about an 80 mile drive from Weslaco to the Island, so we have plenty of time to talk.  The neighbors are quite interesting but somewhat overbearing, a trait common with many Canadians.  They aren’t offensive but are strong in personality.  We weren’t home until 3 and were tired.  Evelyn lay down to rest, and I cut down a pesky small tree with a borrowed tree saw and took our yard Nativity scene and star down.  It was too late in the day to nap, so I finished making the orders of service for the rest of the season and tweaked tomorrow’s message.  Drew Brees and the Saints played football in the evening so I had to watch.  They won and I was in bed by 10.  Oddly, I wakened around 4 and was up until 5:30.  I dozed in bed until 6:30 when the radio called me to action.  I only preach once today but have an additional opportunity next week.

More dancing fun

We had a nice Thursday.  John and Sue came to join us at our park’s happy hour.  A young man who has mesmerized the Valley named Diego plays a keyboard and sings for 2 hours.  Many people who would never come to dances in the evening will come in the late afternoon.  The hall was packed as usual.  We took J&S and had a very good time.  They had wanted us to go to their park afterward and eat at a fund raiser.   Evelyn had thought they would help us by eating the leftover jambalaya from last night.  They stayed.  We had boudin for an appetizer, jambalaya for dinner and played Sequence afterward.  They left and we watched some TV.  I had forgotten that Purdue played basketball that evening and didn’t watch.  They lost. 

We didn’t arise in time to go to exercise on Thursday because I had an appointment with Dr. McDougal at 10:30.  We dressed in our hospital clothes and rode our bikes to his office.  My left hand continues to swell from the infection but doesn’t cause as much pain as even yesterday.  I had a difficult time when Evelyn would slightly squeeze near my thumb while we danced but not today.  He prescribed some ointment and some pills.  I stopped on the way home at the pharmacy from the hospital to get them.  They had the pills but not the ointment.  I started them immediately before we went to an Epiphany party at a friend, Connie Tuttle’s trailer.  We were late because Evelyn needed to rest a while.  We were told that there was a huge crowd earlier but only a dozen or so when we arrived.  They served tamales and other Hispanic dishes along with cheeses and other snack foods.  We came home and went to bed early.  We have to go to South Padre Island to ride with the bike club tomorrow morning.

Lost in the New Year

I don’t remember much about November 30 but we did work at the hospital as usual and had our catfish dinner for supper.  Saturday was a football day and New Year’s Eve.  We went to the dance and sat with Rose and Armand.  We had planned to sit with a couple we had met in Lafayette, LA but they had separated.  He was there with another woman but sat with the band.  We left the dance at 11 and went directly to bed.  I was a bit “happy” and went to sleep quickly.  I woke around 6 and reviewed the message.  We went to worship and were blessed with Holy Communion even though my message was very mediocre.  I had planned to nap in the afternoon, but several friends were Packers fans and couldn’t get the game at their homes.  Ed and Nona Drews from Wisconsin Rapids came first.  Sue Hamel followed closely after and John joined us during the 2nd quarter.  I didn’t get to sleep but had fun.  We snacked and drank beer—that is they did.  I didn’t have any, an astounding event.  They left after the game, and we invited Judy Kruse for popcorn so she could tell us about her trip to Chicago to visit family for Christmas.  We went to bed early since I had not napped as planned.

Monday was a slow day until the afternoon when we went to Hamel’s to watch the Rose Bowl game featuring the Wisconsin Badgers.  This time I joined in the cerveza libations and snacks.  I rode to Bauknecht’s at half time to ask if they wanted to go to the German dance at our park.  They paid me cash for 10 tickets since the people in charge of the dinner/dance are Canadian too and have no checking account.  I returned to Hamel’s and we played a game of dominoes and had pizza for supper.  We left there around 9 to come home.  I discovered that the sermon I planned to use for next Sunday was one that I had given a bit more than a year ago, so I have to find another one.  I am recycling sermons.  Tuesday was a bicycle day.  I had to go get our tickets for the German dinner and then deliver them to Bauknecht’s so I rode my bike to Ranchero Village to make sure they had theirs.  I tried Hamels but they weren’t home.  I rode back to the hospital to tell Imelda I would work the information desk in the afternoon.  Then I rode home, ate lunch and rode back to the hospital. (All this riding might have totaled 8 miles—not far).  I worked until 3 and then came home.  I had to continue to work on creating the sermon all evening.  Wednesday we went to the Silver Sneakers class and then shopped for more groceries.  We came home, unpacked the bags and had lunch.  Armand came over and we left for golf shortly after 1.  I wanted to play but had to endure some pain due to some problem with my left thumb.  I must have torn a ligament or something because virtually any use of it is painful.  I blamed my poor game on it.  After our post game beer, Armand left for his supper.  We had wanted him and Rose to join us for the jambalaya Evelyn had made this afternoon, but Rose can’t eat spicy food.  We invited Mitzi and Roger Pederson instead.  They had just arrived from Iowa yesterday.  They had a tragic summer: their adopted daughter hanged herself in their garage and their son died of esophageal cancer two weeks later.   We were blessed that they were willing to trust us with  so much of their pain.  They talked for over an hour and a half after dinner.  It is difficult to understand what God had in mind during their ordeal. We prayed with them before they left.  We cleaned up the dishes and relaxed in the evening.