Tuesday, May 31, through Wednesday, June 8, 2016: A Not-Too-Relaxed Week:

Tuesday started out early---a pedicure from Corey for Becky and a massage from Natanya for me.  Aaaaah!

Becky then went to the UPS place to return the dress we had decided was not quite right for the Buckelew wedding.  The rest of the day was normal.

Wednesday, June 1, a new notebook computer arrived.  It was to be my birthday present---but it didn't work. The screen showed a message to the effect that it had no ability to boot up.  Strange. 

So, after discussing the situation with the seller, Overstock.com, we packed it back up, preparing to return it.  Becky and the dogs then went for a long walk in the forest, and I later picked them up.

Becky received a replacement phone from Verizon on Thursday----because she could no longer hear the radio through the ear buds. (It turned out the defect was in the ear buds not the phone, but Becky decided that Verizon didn't need that information.)  Becky went to Flagstaff for a haircut and to drop
off the dogs at the Cinder Hills Kennels for the weekend.  She also picked up two "glamor" photos of my parents that we had duplicated at the Tom Alexander studio in Flagstaff.  My brother Bob had found the originals recently and we decided we both needed a set. 

After dinner, Mel and Roy Henderson stopped by on their way from Salt Lake City to their home outside Phoenix.  Becky worked for Roy at Union Bank some years ago (Roy was a vice-chairman) and they have stayed in touch ever since.  It was fun seeing them again; they're an interesting couple.

Late in the evening I dropped Becky off at the GC Railway Hotel to pick up the shuttle to the Williams Junction Amtrak "station" as she was headed to southern California for the weekend.  Over then next two days I did nothing but read, play free cell, and watch TV.  Exhausting.  But Becky was busy.  She stayed at the Jonathan Club in downtown LA.

Friday morning, just after her train arrived in Los Angeles, she was shocked and saddened to learn that one of her cousins, Bill Boggs, had a heart attack and died on Thursday.  Bill was a great guy.  He lived in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and had recently retired from being the "root canal king" of nearby Spokane.  He bought a Minnie Winnie Class C RV and planned to travel extensively.  He will be missed.

In the early afternoon, Becky met her long-time friend Honoria Vivell at the club to "catch up" before they attended what was called a "Goddess Tea" at the Pacific Dining Car restaurant in LA.  The participants were all former female employees of Union Bank who get together periodically.  One of the founding members of the group recently died, so they met to celebrate Sami Myers life!

That night Becky had seaweed salad from Ralph's at the club.  On Saturday, she went to the Jonathan Club at the beach in Santa Monica to have lunch with Aileen Garrigues and Shelley Gibson, both of whom are old friends and former co-workers.  I understand they had a great time. 

Becky's train left LA at 6:10 pm Saturday evening.  She had picked up some sushi at Union Station for dinner Saturday night, which she ate before getting on the train for the trip home.  Her train arrived in Williams only a half-hour late Sunday morning---a little after 4:15---and I picked her up at the GC Railway Hotel. 

I went back to bed for a while; Becky started working on transferring data from her old phone to her new one.

It turned out that transferring data from Becky's old phone to her new phone was going to take so long that her patience and our data plan would be exhausted---so we headed to Flagstaff and dropped the phones off at the Verizon store and let them do the transfer while we picked up the dogs at the kennel.

Late in the afternoon, Mark and Ellen Burstyn dropped by.  They are people we know through Barbara Coad and my brother Bob--definitely a USC crowd.  They are driving from their Calabasas home to their second residence in Oxford, Mississippi (the home of Ole Miss).  It was fun having adult beverages and snacks with them.

Monday was the 50th birthday of our daughter, Donna.  She's still in Israel so the best we could do was send her a congratulatory text.  We then packed up my new computer and Becky's old phone and sent them on their way back to whence they had come. 

Tuesday was our granddaughter Emily's 20th birthday.  She's with Donna (and the rest of her family) in Israel, of course, so again we just texted her congratulations. 

Otherwise, the highlight of the day was another massage from Natanya for me.

Wednesday morning I headed for the Flagstaff Medical Center for the procedure Dr. Boettcher had recommended to finally close the tiny hole in my scalp.  He had said the procedure would take only a few minutes but I still had to show up early and spend 2-3 hours going through pre-op. 

He was right, but it was no big deal.  I was awake throughout the procedure which involved "roughing up" the area a bit with what sounded like a dentist's drill, then packing a bit of what they call Integra (not the car model) and covering the area with a bandage.  I had no anesthesia since that area is permanently numb, and it was weird listening to the doctor and the nurses talk. 

We had left the dogs at the GC Railway kennel since it was going to be hot (at least 90 degrees) in Flagstaff and we didn't know how long they would otherwise have to spend in the truck.  They were happy to be picked up, of course.  After dinner, we watched Galaxy Quest from Netflix.  It was better than I had expected.