Friday, New Year's Day, was a relaxed day. I started with an Ebbert Fizz, of course, followed by phone calls to Donna and Rick, and to our friends John and Nancy McCrady (a tradition going back to the '70s), and from our friends the Wheelers and Van Dusens who are spending time together at the Pio Pico Thousand Trails preserve near San Diego. Then the football started, of course. In the afternoon, Stanford thumped Iowa in the Rose Bowl, which pleased me greatly but also surprised me a bit.
We had a delicious filet mignon dinner prepared by my darling, of course, then relaxed for the rest of the evening. It was a nice beginning to a year that we hope will be better health-wise than last year. On a personal level, it cannot be any better than last year; 2015 was wonderful from that standpoint.
Saturday there were a few more bowl games, of course, which I enjoyed. Becky took the dogs for a walk at the Escalante development. It is a new, gated community in Williams. We've been talking about taking a look at it for a long time and never seemed to get there. So this was Becky's chance to see it up close. The three of them somehow breached the gate and discovered that there are only a few (short) paved streets and only a few houses. Becky was not impressed at all.
Becky also watched Bone Tomahawk, a redbox movie which she pronounced to be awful---which is too bad because it starred Kurt Russell, who is one of our favorite actors. Sunday there was the final week of the NFL regular season and, because some of the teams were already set for the playoffs and didn't want their players hurt, some of the games were a little weird. But those that weren't were very competitive. This time Becky watched War Room, another redbox movie that Becky pronounced to be good.
Monday, Ramsey's new collar arrived. His old one (also red in color) was very faded.
Also arriving were some old photos of Becky's ancestors which some lady in Washington somehow dug up. Becky was a little suspicious of their validity until she saw them. She was very impressed. Tuesday, we started taking down the Christmas decorations. It turned out to be a multi-day affair. And kind of depressing since it signaled the end of my favorite season. But, we move on.
Wednesday, in the late morning, we headed for Flagstaff for my weekly meeting with my plastic surgeon. We had started receiving some snow overnight but the roads were just fine. We ran some errands.
Dr. Boettcher (who had shaved off his Van Dyke for New Year) was a little more comfortable with the progress of my healing from the last surgery. That's good, but I'm still wearing a gauze bandage around my head to protect the area on which Becky smears the magic cream every day.
The snow had kept coming so after returning from Flagstaff we fired up the snow blower for real I started the project, but then Becky finished it.
The next day was a big dump of snow. Becky cleared the entire driveway.
I offered to help but she was having so much fun she wouldn't give it up. The snow accumulated a bit on our satellite dish, just enough to shut down the reception. I tried to hose it off, but the dish is so far up our roof that the eater wouldn't reach. We had a Plan B or two, but decided to leave it alone for a day or two, to see what happens. In the late afternoon, Becky went to the local clinic to meet Dr. Richard Gibula, the new Primary Care doctor there. We have decided to establish a working medical relationship at the clinic since our usual primary care doctors are in other states and we're spending more time here in Arizona. Becky's first appointment was on Wednesday; mine will be on Thursday. Becky reported that Dr. Gibula was a nice man but very talkative. It took nearly two hours to get through the process.
Wednesday afternoon, the UPS man delivered a package from our friend Beverly Newhouse. She has decided to downsize and sent us a lithograph she wanted us to have. It's called "The Diagnosis" and shows a bunch of doctors haggling over a problem. It's quite cute. The best part is one of the doctors flipping a coin. Each time we look at it, we will remember Beverly's deceased husband, "Dr. Bob," who was a wonderful man and a wonderful doctor.
Thursday afternoon was my turn with Dr. Gibula. He was fine and it was a productive visit. But he is a talker! Becky came with me and we left the dogs loose in the house. Big mistake. We came home to a destroyed cloth cover on Ramsey's crate, a missing section of a family heirloom quilt, and a bunch of torn up paper and other items---some of them related to our Christmas decorations.
With two dogs, of course, you can't be sure which one did the damage, but we think it was Kelsey. If she didn't do all of it, at least she was the ringleader. Or so we concluded. Becky ordered a new cover for Ramsey's crate and I re-activated his old Vari-Kennel for the duration. The snow had really started coming down on Thursday, and the dish was completely covered, so we suffered through another TV-less evening.
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