Saturday, April 2, 2016

Friday, April 1, through Thursday, April 7, 2016: Spring Continues to be Evasive:


Friday was simply a beautiful day here in Williams.  Becky took the dogs to Cataract Lake for their long walk. 


Just before dinner, we hit the spa again.  Nice.  Becky made shrimp tacos for dinner.  Yum. The Friday night movie from redbox was Room, starring Brie Larson, who justly won a Best Actress Oscar for this unusual but very watchable independent Canadian/Irish film.  The film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. 


Saturday was normal.  The weather was fine, the sky blue, and the dogs were frisky.  We did a few little projects around the house.  The redbox movie we watched was Spotlight, which just won Best Picture at the Oscars.  I can usually ignore movies about how wonderful journalists are, but this one was pretty troubling---the subject matter, not the film, itself.  Well worth watching.

Sunday was a nothing-to-do day, and we did just that---except that we watched Steve Jobs from the redbox after dinner.   Becky liked it more than I did.  Monday, Becky left early with the three dogs to meet her friend Lucy Daggett in Flagstaff for a hike in the Coconino National Forest.  Lucy was spending her Spring Break week in Sedona and came up for the day. 


While they were doing their thing, I met with Gordon Bice, the electrician who came up from Cottonwood to work on our electrical problem in the RV barn.  He determined that the lights and the plugs had all been connected to the one GFI circuit in the barn, which was not the problem but was strange, and that the problem was that the GFI receptacle was acting strangely---intermittently disconnecting the circuit for no reason at all.  He replaced the receptacle and all was well---until, that is, I turned on the water feature.  At that point we saw that one of the electrical parts of the feature was trippingg its own GFI circuit as soon as it was plugged in.  That was beyond Gordon's assignment, so we left it for our gardener, Troy Mortensen, to determine what was going on there.

After Gordon left, I got back to reading---and finally finished Clarence Darrow's autobiography.  It wasn't easy reading.  But it certainly gave insight into his complicated and brilliant mind. 


Becky and the dogs returned about 3:30, all of them totally exhausted.  We scavenged some dinner, and everybody hit the sack early.

Tuesday morning, very early, I headed to Flagstaff for an appointment with my Dermatologist, Dr. Knutson.  As I neared her office, I was passed by seven fire department vehicles, all of which turned up her street.  I was afraid there was a fire nearby that might make me detour.  It turned out that they were all heading for her office.  The explanation was that there was a strange smell in her building that was though might be either volatile or hazardous to breathe.  So they evacuated everyone until the FD could determine the cause and declare the place safe. 


That took only a half hour, and soon Dr. Knutson did her thing (freezing the area around the spot she had removed last week) and I was on my way to the barber.  After I was shorn, I headed back to Williams.

Becky had investigated the water feature, not wanting to wait for Troy, and found a second pump.  Since we hadn't known about it, we hadn't winterized it.  Apparently that oversight was the cause of its malfunction and shorting out the GFI receptacle into which it was plugged.  She removed the pump and ordered a replacement.  She's becoming quite the trouble shooter around here.


Tuesday night we watched Creed from the redbox.  Good movie.  I think Sylvester Stallone should have received the Best Supporting Oscar for which he was nominated.  And Michael B. Jordan gets better with each film.

On Wednesday, we went back to Flagstaff---Becky for a haircut and me for my regular follow-up visit with Dr. Boettcher, my plastic surgeon.  We arrived very early and did a little shopping.  Then to kill some time we had lunch at The Horsemen's Lodge, a restaurant (not a real lodge, by the way, since they have no rooms to rent) that had been suggested to me by Gwen Pike months ago.  The food was fine and the portions huge, but I'm not in a big hurry to return.


The Wednesday movie from Netflix was Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in her first movie---released in 1953.  She was in her early 20s and unbearably cute.  It was a formula remcom, but watchable, but, alas, in the end the guy did not get the girl.

Thursday, very early, we went to Flagstaff to have some more blood work and to see Dr. Mathern.


All seems to be in order.  When we got home, our new pump had arrived and we set about installing it in the water feature.  It works!  But the other one is now not working as well as it has in the past.  We'll have to look into that.  After dinner, we watched the last two episodes of last year's True Detective.  Very weird, but watchable.

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