A NIGHT OUT

The girls (SWMBO and the BRD) and I dined at the House at Secret Garden last night.  It's a wonderful restaurant co-owned by a mother and son, Pat and Dustin Christofolo.  Dustin is the chef and a fantastic one.  Unfortunately I took no photos so you'll just have to savor this in your mind.

We shared an appetizer of the house specialty - Sweet Potato Planks.  They are grilled rounds of sweet potato, topped with creme fraiche, scallions and pancetta wheels.  They are two-bite-sized and delicious.  We also shared a cheese tray of (our choices) Black Mesa Goat Cheese, Life in Provence Double Cream Brie, and Point Reyes Blue Cheese accompanied by grilled bread, dried cranberries, golden raisins, figs and salted almonds.  It sounds like a lot of food but it really wasn't.  

And we went on!  The girls each had Shrimp and Grits with bacon, baby carrots, corn and Serrano peppers for their entrees and I had (what do you suppose?) Lemon Chicken with smashed potatoes.  I had a taste of the grits because I am a notable opponent of them.  They were good and tasted more like risotto to me.

All of that and a bottle of wine made for some happy campers.

The restaurant is located in an old Spanish mansion under tall trees near to South Mountain.  It's a wonderful place with exquisite food.

And then when we got home, I found an email from my cousin Bonnie in Montana (she of bluegrass fame) with a picture of one of my favorite cookies from my childhood.  My mother used to make these.

They're chocolate cookies with chocolate frosting.  They may have been my start into a life of chocolate addiction.  Thanks for the picture, Cuz.  I haven't seen these in many years.

O.K., O.K., I'VE BEEN BUSY!

My good friend, D-K, emailed this morning to let me know she was unable to access my blog because the last post she was able to read was days ago and she just knew I had been blogging since then.

Well I haven't and I told her we'd been too busy to even consider blogging.  But even I was surprised to learn it had been a week since my last post.

The BRD is paying her first visit to our new "crib" today.

So I figured I could take some time off and let you know what we've been doing lately.  We've been unpacking boxes and boxes and boxes.  It's a long and agonizing process though the house is coming together day by day.

But once the BRD arrived, things slowed.  We went to our new favorite Mexican fish taco restaurant for lunch.  Since coming home the gals have been on the couch catching up on each other.

By the way, two days ago . . . April Fools' Day . . . was the day when the BRD and her Beau Jack took a limousine and a bottle or two of champagne down to downtown Prescott to get a new marriage license for the sixth consecutive year.  (They've been together for nine years.)  They haven't been married yet and have no plans to.  But it's become an annual joke and a fun time for them and some of their friends.

What a couple of jokesters!

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.

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.

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.

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.