Friday, April 22, through Thursday, May 5, 2016: The Saga Continues:

Becky had a facial in Flagstaff  Friday afternoon.  She wore out the dogs in the morning, so the four of us spent a very quiet few hours while Becky was gone.  After she returned, she tried another reset of our spa, but it still is not heating up.  The Friday movie, recorded from HBO, was Confirmation, about the fiasco surrounding the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. 

I remember the event vividly, but it was interesting to see the stuff that happened in the background, which was not on TV.  Of course, the movie was slanted against Justice Thomas, but it was still watchable.

Saturday morning, we decided to take a short trip with our RV in May.  I tried the website of the Pechanga RV Resort in Temecula, and was frustrated by the mechanics, so I reverted to the old way---and called them on the phone.  It took only two minutes to make the necessary reservation. 
Saturday afternoon we watched a Netflix documentary about Joan Rivers called A Piece Of Work that covered only one year of her life.  Very interesting.  She was quite the complicated person, mostly insecure.

Sunday was a glorious Spring day in Williams.  It seemed as if Becky and the dogs were gone the whole day.  They spent part of it touring nearby Kaibab Lake.

After a delicious pasta dinner, the redbox movie we watched was The Lady In The Van, a delightfully odd British film starring Maggie Smith. 

We woke up to another dusting of snow Monday, but it melted fairly quickly.  Late in the day, the Summit Spas fellow arrived to fix our hot tub.  It turned out the pump that simply circulates the water through the filters had gone bad. 

By chance (?) he had another one with him, saving a second trip.  That meant the cost was only prohibitive, not astronomical.  There are four other pumps in the thing,.  I wonder when they'll start failing.

Tuesday involved a visit to Flagstaff to see Dr. Mathern.  All seems to be well.  The Tuesday night movie from Netflix was the first three episodes of the second season of Boss.  It's still fascinating. 

I saw Dr. Boettcher on Wednesday.  He applies another bunch of the magic stuff that is slowly closing the tiny hole in my scalp.  The redbox movie that evening was The Walk, a regular movie version of the documentary we watched a few weeks ago of the wire walk that Philippe Petit took between the Twin Towers in the 1970s.  It starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the fellow who played the kid in the Third Rock From The Sun TV show a few years back.  He did a terrific job.

Thursday was another day of a little snow, and a walk through the slush with the dogs at Buckskinner Park.  After that, Becky got a massage from Natanya Nagy, her new best friend.  That night's Netflix movie was The Grifters, a favorite of mine from 1995. 

On Friday (the 29th) we had some morning snow, then Becky took the dogs to the Grand Canyon Railway as part of their big walk. 

She dropped them off at home while she then went to the Grand Hotel in Tusayan to visit Shannon Baas, a former co-worker at the Bright Angel Lodge at the canyon.  They hadn't seen each other since 2009, and they had a nice reunion.

Our next-door neighbors, Jay and Connie, brought home a new dog, a border collie named Bear. 

The Friday "movie" was three more episodes from the second season of Fargo.  Still good.

Safeway, our local market, has been issuing tickets to pay Monopoly, a sweepstakes-type game being offered by Safeway and a number of its related companies over the past few months.  Becky took it up a few weeks ago, spending about five minutes a day opening and matching the tickets.  The game is coming to an end soon and Safeway has a large number of undistributed tickets.  So on Saturday Safeway began giving away ten at a time (per dollar spent) instead of one at a time---just to get rid of them.  Some of the tickets award more tickets by themselves. 

The two of us spent several hours on Saturday opening more than five hundred tickets, matching them to the game  board, and going back to Safeway to exchange "winners" for more tickets.  It was exhausting.  But it was a good way to while away the day since we had a little snow to deter us from doing anything outdoors.  The final result of all the work was nothing (!!!) except a bunch of discount vouchers for 25 cents off a lot of food items we rarely buy.

On Sunday the dogs spent most of the day sleeping, and I finally finished Liberty And Tyranny, and began re-reading Dennis Prager's Think A Second Time.  I read it ten years ago when it was first published. 

That night we watched (from Netflix) Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino's first movie as a director.  Very nasty.  Not great, in my opinion.

On Monday we got back on track with the medical team.  I went to Flagstaff by myself for a follow-up echocardiogram, to see if the cancer medicine was negatively affecting my heart (one of the possible side effects).  It turned out it was not.  Yea.  We celebrated with dinner from Pato Thai, which I picked up on my way home.

My cardiologist, Dr. Cohen, had moved to a new location (and a new group) and I was unfamiliar with his parking lot.  I backed into a tree---and ruined my bumper while also re-arranging a little of the nearby fender.  I've hit other things in the more than 13 years we've had the truck, but this was the first time the damage was enough to have fixed. 

On Tuesday, I took the truck to Custom Designs Auto, which is one of the few repair shops in Williams, and had a conversation with Talon, the owner.  He will replace the bumper on Friday so the truck looks only barely damaged; we'll then decide whether to attack the sheet metal at a later time when we can leave the truck with him for a week.  My insurance company (Progressive) is standing by for my decision.

Also on Tuesday, we had visitors.  Carl and Salli Middleton, long-time friends (Salli was a sorority sister of Becky's at UC Santa Barbara) stopped by on their way from "the Valley" to Las Vegas.  The Middletons live in Seattle, and are on a vacation loop through the Southwest.  We haven't seen them in four years.  It was a lot of fun catching up.  Becky made a tasty chicken curry salad for lunch.

The Tuesday night redbox movie was Remember, starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau.  Excellent movie with an interesting twist.  Well worth seeing.

Wednesday was a day for visits to Dr. Mathern and Dr. Boettcher in Flagstaff.  Both reports were positive.  Thursday we were back to the regular routine of reading (me) walking dogs (Becky) and watching TV (both of us).  We also tidied up more than usual, since our friend, Barbara Coad is due to visit us starting Saturday.  Because it was Cinco de Mayo, though, we had to have Enchiladas (made by Becky) and Margaritas (made by Jose Cuervo) for dinner.  Delicious!


            

Friday, April 15, through Thursday, April 21, 2016: Now It's Really Tax Time:

Friday boded strange weather, but we decided to take a field trip anyway---to Cottonwood.  We hadn't been there since 2013,  It was an easy less-than-two-hour trip.  Our GPS actually took us on a route we've never taken for the last 10 miles or so.  It took us through the hills to the North of town.  A nice diversion.  We drove though historic old town, and it was nice. 

There were some new galleries and restaurants.  Becky took the dogs on a half-hour walk through town while I killed the time by reading.  (I'm still in Liberty And Tyranny.)  Then we visited the Thousand Trails preserve in Cottonwood.  We spent two months there at the end of 2013.  It's been one of our favorite parks. 

They had a few electrical storms recently that wrecked some of their equipment, so they've had to shut down a large number of sites while they do the repairs.  The place is not "jumping" in the usual way, therefore, and it's kind of depressing.

We had lunch at the La Fonda Restaurant in nearby Camp Verde.  Mexican food is usually delicious, and this was no exception.

During the 190-mile round trip we had blue skies, very gray skies, and some drizzle.  But we got back to Williams without incident and settled in for a quiet evening.  We awoke Saturday morning to a thin layer of snow everywhere. 

As in the recent past, it sneaked in overnight and melted quickly.  I guess Spring isn't quite here in full force yet.  The rest of the day was bright sun. 

For the past few days we've been waiting expectantly for the Shelton Trust income tax returns to come (via email).  The deadline for filing taxes (in our case, extensions, as always) this year is Monday, the 18th.  The accountant, Dan Floyd, promised that drafts of the returns would be sent to the Trustees by Friday night.  It didn't happen.  Once the drafts of the returns have been reviewed and approved by the Trustees, the actual returns will be filed electronically---to avoid the hassle of getting the necessary Trustee signatures.

Saturday night's Netflix movie was the classic, To Kill A Mockingbird, which I'd never seen. 

It was an excellent film, of course, and it justly won a lot of awards.  It's hard to believe we were that backward as late as the 1930s.  Later movies show we were that backward as late as the 1950s, though, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Sunday was a relaxing day, with just the first three episodes of the second season of Fargo to watch.  It's still weird and fun. 

Becky saw Dr. Knutson Monday morning for her annual full body check.  Everything was OK.  She had the dogs with her, and they went to Buffalo Park in Flagstaff.

We still hadn't received the Shelton Trust return drafts by late Monday morning.  We mailed our extension request based on just the information we knew.  It may be way off.  Disappointing.  Late Monday afternoon, we received estimated tax information from Dan, but since we had already mailed our extension request it didn't matter.

Monday's redbox movie was Concussion, which I gave up on half-way through.  Becky stuck with it to the end and liked it.

On Tuesday Becky took the dogs by the Williams Visitor Center to have their picture taken with Smoky The Bear.  Becky and the dogs have become quite a fixture in "downtown" now.  Since there are three of them, they are even more noticeable than before.

Tuesday's redbox movie was Black Mass, with Johnny Depp.  It's a very tough film about the Boston mobster Whitey Bulger.  I'm not a big fan of Depp, but he did a good job. 

Wednesday morning I had my now-weekly appointment with Dr. Boettcher in Flagstaff.  The new stuff didn't quite close the tiny hole in my scalp, so the doctor applied another treatment of it.  Maybe it will be closed by next week. 

Wednesday night we watched the first three episodes from the second season of True Detective.  It had a different cast and a totally different feel from the first season.  But it's still watchable.

Ramsey has had some slight medical problems lately, and Becky took him to the vet Thursday morning.  He had to be anesthetized, so he couldn't eat until after he came home.  In late afternoon, he was still woozy when he came home, but everything now seems to be OK.

Thursday we had a power outage that lasted for one minute, but the heater in our spa is now not working.  I tried a "reset" that failed.  We'll need to have the Summit people come out to fix it.

Friday, April 8, through Thursday, April 14, 2016: Tax Time, Etc.:

Friday morning we had a little rain (drizzle, actually) so Becky dressed up the dogs in their new coats to keep them warm and at least a little dry.  I dropped them off at Holden Lake, which is actually now a meadow, and they hiked home while I went to the post office to drop off some mail.  When the four of them got home, three of them (guess which three) were wet, notwithstanding the coats. 

In the early afternoon, we heard from Dan Floyd, the accountant who is preparing the tax returns for the Shelton family trust.  He had a bunch of questions.  We prepared the responses and emailed them to him.  We haven't heard back, so we may have done it right.  The rest of the day was spent puttering around.  We had filet mignon and corn-on-the-cob for dinner.  Delicious.

Early Saturday morning Becky attacked the problem with the water feature pump that was not working well.  After considering taking it apart, which idea was rejected, it turned out there was a bunch of pine needles that had clogged its intake opening.  It's still not working perfectly, but it's good enough.  Hurray!

Saturday night, Becky watched the new Star Wars-The Force Awakens movie, while I puttered.  For some reason, or no reason, I can't get into sci-fi movies of any sort, and the futurama stuff bores me to tears.

Saturday was also the twenty-third birthday of our Granddaughter Meghan.  She took high tea with friends at the Plaza Hotel.  Wow.  Happy birthday, Meghan.   

Sunday was mostly a day of rest.  (How do you take a day off when you're retired?)  I started re-reading Liberty And Tyranny by Mark Levin.  I first read it six years ago when it came out.  Excellent book.  At night, we watched the last two episodes of the first year of Fargo from Netflix.  Still a fun show to watch.  Very quirky.

Monday was a drizzly day, so we didn't do much.  The highlight was The Intern from the redbox, starring Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway.  It was a much better movie than I expected.  Very good, and DeNiro was terrific. 

Tuesday was a rerun of Monday, weather-wise.  So we did nothing but the usual.  The Netflix movie was Witness, the 1985 film starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis.  I had remembered that it was good, but in fact it was wonderful. 

Wednesday was a beautiful day, and we headed for Flagstaff for two medical appointments.  First, Dr. Knutson, my Dermatologist, gave me my periodic full-body exam.  It's of course embarrassing to reveal this monstrosity to anyone, much less a female doctor and her cute young nurse, but it's necessary in this age of melanoma I'm living in.  Dr. Knutson found a couple of little goodies to slice off and send to the lab, being pretty sure they weren't cancerous, and sent me on my way. 

After a pause for some shopping, the next stop was Dr. Boettcher, my Surgeon.  While the healing from my December surgery has been considered a roaring success, there has been a tiny hole in the top of the site that we've been trying to close with the application of the same cream Becky has been applying to the site as a whole.  It has stopped working, so last week Dr. Boettcher tried a different application.  He was almost shocked when he took off the bandage:  The hole was almost completely gone.  Becky confirmed it.  Dr. Boettcher figures the hole will be gone entirely with one more application---which he did on Wednesday.

We picked up Cashew Chicken at Pato Thai before leaving Flagstaff and had it for dinner.  It's always so tasty and this was no exception.  We celebrated the continuing good medical news with a bottle of Prosecco, and after dinner watched the last two episodes from the first season of Boss.  Very nasty.  Thursday was a beautiful day, which we spent in the usual way.  Becky walked the dogs their usual five miles, of course, and cleaned some pine needles off the roof, while I puttered, read, and watched some TV.  After dinner, we watched Brooklyn, an absolutely delightful, sweet redbox movie from 2015 that received three very well-deserved Oscar nominations.

It was a very nice week.    

 

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.