Wednesday, March 27, 2013

BACK TO THE FUTURE

We finally got our gas turned on today so we've both had our first showers since last Friday.  Wow!  Didn't know a shower could feel that good.

Each day a little progress is made.  Met one of our new neighbors at the mailboxes today.  He told me a couple of good keys to open the gates leading into this place.  Maybe I can get it programmed into the buttons on my rear view mirror like the garage door opener.

SWMBO received her first forwarded magazine since the move.

She was checking out my upper body after my shower and remarking on the number of bruises and scrapes I have all over my body.  I said "I'm sure glad we hired movers!"

Hooking up the Internet yesterday has made all the difference in my attitude.  Those smart phones are great but I can't stand the tiny keyboard on it.

Oh, I forgot to tell you.  I got my first smart phone last December and was complaining to the BRD about how I couldn't get email.  And I couldn't access that Suri-type woman who gives you directions to anywhere you want to go while you're in the process.  She said you should have all that and told me to check with Verizon, where I've had an account since December.  An incredibly young woman listened to my complaints, glanced at my phone and said that I didn't have my network turned on.  (Or something like that.)  She scrolled and poked for about a minute and then pointed out that I now have 4G up and running.  I don't really know what that is but I can now email from anywhere and the little tour guide has already guided me to several destinations without a hitch.

Sometimes us old guys just have to be led by the hand.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

WHAT A STRUGGLE THIS HAS BEEN

The movers showed up at 8 a.m. Saturday, right on time.  A few minutes after 11, they left with a full truck and our home now empty.  Less than two hours later we showed up in Phoenix to find the truck waiting for us!  Amazingly, they had beaten us there somehow.  Several  hours later everything was unloaded and into our new home.  Staggering a bit, we looked around at a complete mess with unpacked boxes everywhere.  It's achieving some normality now but still a lot of it looks like this.


Here's our temporary breakfast area, currently serving as a sorting space.


SWMBO and I are aching from muscles that had atrophied over the years suddenly being forced into movement.  I won't show you the rest of the inside of the house at this time.  (SWMBO would kill me!)  But we have DIRECT TV hooked up to our aging television sets though we really haven't had time to enjoy it yet.  Some time, maybe today, we'll go buy a big flat screen t.v. for the living room.  It will be sandwiched by two book shelves.  SWMBO won't start shelving until she knows how big the screen is and how far to move the shelves out.  But she hates that.  Her theory is that a house is not a home until there are books shelved and showing.

So, here's a bit of the outside area.


We live in a golf course community and the golfers come right past our back yard.  That's part of the course in the center of the picture over our block wall and our neighbor's wrought iron fence.


We are happy to have a large shrub of mock roses.


One corner of the back yard has a large palm tree sandwiched by two citrus trees.  I think the one on the left is an orange tree and the other is a lemon tree.

Oh, yes it is.  Here's the proof.


The fruit on the tree is obviously from last year's crop as both trees are blooming and our evening cocktail hour on the patio is fragrant with the smell of the blossoms.

So we are now, once again, residents of Phoenix, Arizona.  Further updates will undoubtedly follow.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!

For all you whiners who complained about your snow, here's one more picture from an Arizona spring I shot today.


Be sure you check out that nice blue sky!

Oh heck, here's one more taken over the fence from my back deck.


Happy springtime everyone!

SPRING!


Just as we're about to leave, a few days of warmer weather have brought spring to a flowering boil.  I shot this photo as I was about to enter a restaurant last night.  It's one of many trees in this area that have bloomed in the last couple of days.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

I'M FEELIN' BETTER

I spent all day today on the phone with tech support people trying to get my computer problems fixed.  I think they're o.k. now.  Just in time for a new ISP (Internet Service Provider, for you non-nerds).

All of this, of course, keeps me away from packing boxes.  I do have to hurl a few of them (that's a figure of speech) into the garage but mostly I've left all the grunt work to SWMBO.  Which is best since she will only find fault with what I do anyway.  Oh, that's not fair.  She's pretty good but she knows how she wants things done.

And I know how you women are reacting.  Dirty pig!  Uh, yeah.

But I do what I can and that's not very much these days.

There are three days left before we move.  SWMBO has finally agreed to have someone come in and clean the house after we leave, rather than come back and do it herself.  The BRD convinced her of that after, of course, I had spent weeks trying to convince her. 

So it continues.  There's really not that much to do but it will increase in velocity as the days shorten.

I'll keep you posted.

Monday, March 18, 2013

THE MOVING BLUES

OMIGOD!

Was it always like this?

Packing, cleaning, telephoning, emailing, grunge!

I must say that SWMBO has been doing 90% of the packing.  She's starting to look a bit glassy-eyed.  

I have been on the telephone and the computer for much of two days.  My eyes are looking bloodshot.

We move Saturday.  5 days from today.  Will we make it?

Who knows.

Nearly everything we own is in boxes, hopefully carefully labeled so we can find everything when we get to our new destination.  It's only two hours away yet it seems like light years.

If I ever mention moving again, somebody, everybody . . . please slap me up side the head.

We've been in our present home for 12 years.  We had forgotten what a pain it is to move your entire household.  In the past, in a couple of moves, we just sold everything we could and moved the bare minimum.  This time, it's all going with us.

OMIGOD!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

A pint o' Guinness would go well with this:

Thursday, March 14, 2013

O.K. IT'S NOW OFFICIAL

Finally!  I got a call from our realtor a short time ago and he said it is finally official.  We got our new home in Phoenix.  It's a three year lease rental and we've been on pins and needles for days now.  We'll make a trip to pay the deposits, get the keys and put a carload of fragile stuff in the house and take some measurements and then we'll be happy.  Here's a picture or two.



That's a raised patio in the back yard from which one can see a small portion of the nearby golf course.

I can remember many decades ago when my boss in Bismarck, North Dakota moved to suburban San Francisco to take a new job.  The thing he was most excited about, I think, was that he had a lemon tree in his yard.


That tree on the right in our new back yard is . . . a lemon tree!  And I'm as excited as he was.

Quite obviously we have a lot to do before we're settled in.  But stay tuned.  We'll keep you posted.

GLOOMY GUS


"Man, all this sitting around with everything in boxes, just waiting for something to happen, is driving me crazy!"

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

HE'S WAITING, TOO


The BRD says cats always relate back to their jungle ancestors and will find a high spot on which to perch.  Blackwell has found his sleeping place, even after I moved it up a box yesterday.  He loves that pillow.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

ARE WE MOVING?

Hard to say.  We have found the house of our dreams (temporarily) and have made an application to rent it.  We have submitted paper of various types.  And now we wait.  Our realtor had told us he hoped to have an answer for us by today.  Nothing.

SWMBO is confident.  I retain my normal pessimistic outlook.  But it is Sunday, after all, and in spite of my loving wife's confident assurance that realtors work every day of the week . . . we have heard nothing.

We have probably two-thirds of our possessions already in boxes.  Waiting.  Like me.  Waiting.

The place looks ideal.  It is very close to several shopping centers that will have nearly everything that we need.  Closer than we have had in some years.  It is a gated community.  It is nicely landscaped. It seems quiet.

But.  We wait.

Stay tuned.  I certainly will.


Tuesday, March 5, 2013

THE MASTER

I finally saw "The Master" yesterday, via Netflix.  Many who have viewed it ahead of me talked about the mastery of Joaquin Phoenix in his role.  While I thought he was good, I failed to see the mastery. What I did notice was his strange hands-on-hips posture and his equally strange tittering laugh when he seemed nervous about something.  His violent rages I did not understand, other than that they seemed an exertation of anger at how his "master" was being mistreated.  But that didn't seem to hold true as he abandoned him at several points in the film.

The silliness of the mental routines for Phoenix (and others) didn't hold true for me although SWMBO said it was very similar to the mind-bending employed by the leaders of the Scientology movement, which many say this movie is based on.  Since I have never studied Scientology, I can't say.  But the accusations of one person in the movie, a John More, seem to go to the narrow focus of the cult.  But, is it a cult?

Scientology certainly seems to be and the followers of Lancaster Dodd and his wife certainly seem to be.

But back to the movie.  Is it good?  I'd give it about a 5 on a scale of 10.  It's fascinating but it doesn't seem to provide any truths.

Hooray for Hollywood!

Monday, March 4, 2013

A $5 A DAY STORMY MONDAY

I watched a movie from Netflix today.  "$5 A Day" with Christopher Walken, Alessandro Nivola, and a very hot looking Sharon Stone.  Considering the movie was released in 2008, she is holding together very well.  Walken, of course, is the centerpiece of this entertaining story of a lifelong con artist.  Very enjoyable.

As is this Monday song.



Sunday, March 3, 2013

I AIN'T GOT NO HOME TO GO TO

No luck yet in our search for a new home but we're headed back down to the Big Valley this week with our heads held high and hopes intact.  

Meanwhile . . . 





And one more . . .