Happy pride

It’s pride weekend here in Palm Springs and for the first time we had a pride pot luck at the clubhouse. I never thought I’d see the day!

A small group of us from the potluck.  There were about 20 people in attendance.  It was open to everyone.  So we had some allies there too.

Husbands

I’ve  been thinking about lot about how my relationship works.  There are some quirks that come to mind.  Some of these I am sure other couples can relate with having similar experiences.

Ricky does the cooking and I do the clean up. Seems fair.  The laundry is a waiting  game. I usu6lose and start the laundry because I need something like underwear or t-shirts.

Clean the house usually  falls on me, though he will pitch in on occasion. I just finished packing up all the Halloween stuff and clearing the guest room for company arriving today.

Ricky does all the bills through a bill pay app from the bank.  A few bills come to me and get paid through account transfers. We argue about the payments every month. Some how they miss his “budget” or are entered with the wrong amounts.  Fun stuff.  Of course it’s  my fault, because I don’t have access to the bank app. Every payday we go through the same routine.

Then there are the quirky things. We run the dishwasher at night.  In the morning I make the coffee and unusual empty the dishwasher. Attually, the dish sterilizer because I pretty much wash them by hand first.  Anyway, in the middle of my unload he pipes up and says I can do that….to which I reply it’s already done now, thank you.

He is also a stickler to expiration dates and is constantly throwing things out of the pantry or the fridge. To be honest I don’t know where all this stuff comes from with year or more expired dates on them. But there seems to be an endless supply.  must be time travel. Maybe I show climb in the pantry and come out years younger.

Ricky takes care of the yard. I take care of the ring cameras keeping the batteries charged. I also organize the garage and the closets.  Which leads to “searching” expeditions for things i have hidden from him in my attempt to tidy things up.

Then there is the setting of his watch. My syncs with my phone but his requires an internet instruction manual an multiple attempts at push the button in the right sequence.  Why we don’t just look at our phones or one of the many clocks in the house  beats me.

Of course, every clock has a different time. The mantle clock runs slow. The cuckoo clock stops with the weights on the floor.  And how do you set the one on the oven. The alarm clock has a battery back up but it still flashes after a power outage.  It uses a transistor radio battery and never gets replaced in time to be useful.  Do people know what transistor  radio is anymore? I set the alarm on my phone to be safe.

This post is trivial. I guess the point is don’t sweat the trivial things in life.  Being there for each other is enough.  When we went out for Halloween and Ricky got drunk to the point of throwing up, I was there to pick him up off the floor and get him to bed…..and clean up the mess.  He fell on a plant in the bedroom and broke the flower pot. He thought he broke the windows.  His tail bone is still sore.

Even in his stopper he argued with me that he could get himself  up.   I should have took pictures it was funny and sad.

Enough. Hope you all had a happy Halloween, stay safe and remember to vote!

Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.  The woman with the dark hair is my mom.  This was taken at a League of Women Voters convention in Sacramento, California.  My mom (Norma Johnson) was president of the Pomona Chapter. She would have been 90 this year.

Goblin

The goblin has started. We bought some Halloween candy and it calls to me every afternoon. We made reservations for Tday too. More goblin.  Forget the waste line. I need a hip hypnotist or something.  On the bright side my santa suit won’t need a pillow.

We are having a potluck on Saturday here. So we are going down town on Friday night.  It’s a two day celebration on Arenas. Also a new Eagle is supposed to open in Cat City on Friday. Probably will be packed so .maybe wait a few weeks to check it out.  It’s i. The old  Wolf Den location but it’s been torn down to the studs and rebuilt. I was hoping for new studs. Maybe sore will show up. It was most recently know as the barracks. It got shutdown over code violation. Which translates to some city officials weren’t getting enough bribe money to look the other way anymote.

Today I am at the pool relaxing and getting some exercise too.

Strange things you find in the bathroom

I had an MRI this morning at 8 am. It was of my hump on my back which seems to be growing.  It took 2 hours.  Most of that time was waiting because the PA wrote the order wrong.  She had the codes for my lower back and it was actual upper between the shoulder blades.  There are medical terms for these locations and the tech shouted them off to me. The up shot was a call to the doctor to get insurance approval  for the new location.  Seem nothing can be done without proper coding and approval. 

Anyways, it got approved. I was in the machine for maybe 20 minutes. Contrast was administered and then another 10 minutes shoved in the tube.  Oh and 20 minutes wasted on the first machine  that was to tight for my body. Oh the embarrassment.  But they we nice about it all.

Ricky and I when to breakfast after to Breakfast Republic.   It’s okay but that’s another story. 

Came home watch the View on tape and went for my swim.  Came back took a shower and when I was drying off I found this on the floor.

Strange object

What the heck is it?  I ask Rick and he didn’t know either.  Took a picture and asked Gemini.

This is a MR-Spot® skin marker (specifically item #121 by Beekley Medical). 

Key Details & Function:

Medical Purpose:

It is a radiological skin marker used primarily in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. 

How It Works:

The small clear tube filled with yellow liquid contains a specialized contrast solution. When stuck onto a patient’s skin before an MRI, it glows brightly on the scan images without causing imaging artifacts or shadows. 

Common Uses:

Technologists place these adhesive markers on specific areas of concern (such as a painful spot, palpable lump, surgical scar, or point of interest) so the radiologist reading the MRI can easily locate and correlate the exact area on the images. 

So somehow this thing was left on me from this morning’s imaging experience. It stayed on during my swim and shower. It only came of when I dried off.

Update on the neighbors

Our Saturday happy hours are now called socials.  Reminds me of the church ice cream socials when I was a kid.  Alcohol is now BYOB. It seems there were county code problems with sell drinks. You need a permit or a liquor license and proper insurance  coverage.  Until the board and management company  work this out we are dry town USA.

Unless it’s a special event we probably won’t  be attending the socials anymore. Mind you we like our neighbors, but some are barely tolerable with a drink or two (in both them and me!).

The ones we do get along with we continue  to have at the house for cocktails. Often we go out to dinner first or cook something here at home.

Cooking for other people  involves concern for dietary restrictions. Gluten free, dairy free, nut allergies and so on make for a fun time modifying recipes and deciding what to make. I don’t remember my mother having  such concerns. Back then you ate what was presented or you didn’t eat, end of story.

Going out is not without it’s problems. Again does the menu offer gluten free items. Thankfully most do now. Making the reservation and getting everyone to show up on time has become a challenge.  Even when cooking at home late arrivals persist.

To that end here are a couple of examples.  First we planned a dinner party.   Cocktails at 5:30 and dinner at 6:00.  It was dinner for six at six.  One quest didn’t show.  That’s  would be okay except he kept texting that he would be here shortly.   Finally we ate with out him at a out 6:30.  Then he showed  up after all the dishes were cleared. My kind husband fixed him a plate and the rest of us watched him eat. Crazy.

Here is the thing. He is ADHD and maybe on the spectrum for autism.  Why was he late?  He started working in the yard at 4:30 and was compelled to finish the job before he could leave home. (Literally two culdasacs away).

He has no concept of time or time management. Yet he teaches high school  physics and chemistry. We asked him how he resolved being late to school.  He gets up at 4:30 which gives him three hours to perform all his rituals or rather tasks before leaving  for work. He has an exercise routine and lord knows what else. Which brings us to the second example.

We were trying to schedule a trip to Big Bear for October fest.  Our schedules couldn’t align so he, I call him squirrel, suggested we have our own  October fest at the local German  restaurant, Alps Village.

So we are set for this past Saturday night at 6:00.  This time it was a party of five.  Well, late boy strikes again.  We are leaving for the restaurant at 5:45. He is not here. Ricky is texting him.  The back and forth  texts (he won’t pick up the phone) become heated and we send the other guest ahead to confirm our table. Finally he says he’s walking out of the house. We get in the car. He is nowhere.  We drive towards his place. Rick thinks maybe he is over at the clubhouse so we pull in there first. Then we see his car racing pasted headed for the gate. We follow, he goes the wrong way.  We go to the restaurant.

Party of four we don’t know if he is coming.  Rick is still in text conversations. There is some disconnect he says he’s not late they always have room you don’t  need a reservation blah blah blah.  Then at the table he texts he’s  not coming.  We order and are finished  with our meal when out of the blue he shows up.  Again we sit and watch him eat.  The other guest order another glass of wine.

This is the same guy whom I wrote  about before that is taking up Rick’s time.  Anyway it was a stressful night. Back at the house I needed a drink. Philippe who lives right next door and Rick and I drank till 2 am.  Squirrel went home about 10:30.

Ricky has more patience for this crap then the rest of us. He has been reading up on it and trying  to figure out how best to deal with him. He went over on Sunday afternoon to talk to him. He was in full hyper drive running around from laundry to mopping the kitchen floor etc.  But just maybe he heard some of what Rick was explaining. 

Until next time.

Collectibles on display

We moved here five years ago and still there are things to unpack.  We didn’t move our huge curio cabinet from Reno.  Not the stye we wanted here plus it mostly would have broken in transit.

As a consequence Rick’s Disney stuff has remained  in boxed in the garage closets.  Some were put out in the bedroom.  As were some of his prized German smokers.

Cabinet in bedroom. This is the only curio display we brought with us.  It was a place for bar wear once upon a time.

Alice, Dumbo, and smokers, oh my.

Side two.

Last year I gave up the bar idea in the living. First it was a cocktail bar the a coffee bar.  But the distance from the kitchen  made it hard to use. No sink.

So the smokers came out of hiding.

This was a bar. But without a sink it was a long walk back to the kitcnhen.  Last year I decided to make this the home for German smokers.

I found a console on-line that could be used as a display cabinet in the guest room. It came in a flat box, IKEA style. But i managed to build it with only one blood letting.

Guest room console.

I added some lighting.

More Alice

More Disney

Snowwhite

Tinkerbell

So now these treasured (Some might call junk!) Disney pieces can see the light of day.

It gave me something to do last month. The retired life.

P.S. The there were 4 casualties from what we unpacked.  Donald lost his head. The White Rabbit lost a foot, Tinkerbell broke a wing and Pinocchio lost a hand.  Nothing a little  epoxy can fix at some point.

Bagged and tagged for later repair.

Voting

We dropped  our mail in ballots off at Palm Desert City Hall.  We can’t trust the post office  these days. Such a shame.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

There’s nothing in there a out MAGA.

Palm Desert City Hall parking lot.

The return

The season officially starts the month.  We are hoping  the snowbirds return in droves to boost our economy, though I do love the quiet summers.  Canadians may be reluctant to return thanks to our dear leader.  Fifty percent of our residents here at Park Palms are part-timers.

We had a dry run of the clubhouse happy hour last Saturday. The official welcome back party is this Saturday.  It was truly a dry run. No alcohol. Seem the there have been some issues with the county soon to be resolved. They even closed our pools. Certain safety stands need to be met. Then a reinspection and  hopefully all is well.

So I haven’t been swimming.  I am lethargic and becoming addicted to games on my phone.  Mahjong is my latest captor.  I made number 1, but must keep player or drop down the leader board. I now dream about Mahjong tiles. Time to take a break and find a new obsession. To bad I can’t  be obsessed with exercise and  diet or something useful.  But the games do keep my mind sharp so it’s  not a total waste of time.

Oh, we got a new couch. The excuse was the old one was uncomfortable and hurt Rick’s back. Also the new one can accommodate more guests.

New sectional. We are still working on lighting and thro pillows.

There have been thunderstorms and lightening. This has given us beautiful sunsets.

Love the clouds.

Enhanced by our friend Tommy in North Carolina.

The original. Both are amazing.

66

I turned 66 a few days ago.  Like the route I am a trail of faded attractions, potholes, and dreams.  It’s  not all negative. Though I show signs of wear, I am still going strong.

A recent check up so me on track.  My ailments are controlled. Nothing is completely out of order demading immediate attention. 

I do have some issues. I asked the doctor to check my cortisol levels.  It’s  a special  blood test to rule out something call cushing disease , a disorder with the adrenal glands.

I am also following up on my Buffalo hump with an MRI and a trip to the surgeon.  Hopefully it can be removed.

And finally I am talking to my heart doctor to see if changes in medication will help with my lack of desire and ED.

I suspect it is all just aging and I can live with that too.

I did have a nice birthday.

Streetcar name desire

Looking back

Took a ride on the streetcar  through the garden district.  Tennessee Williams wrote a play with this trolley in the title.  Blanche and Stella lived in the French Quarter where this line starts.  We boarded just off Canal Street.

We got off and had lunch in the Oak lined neighborhood at Paulie’s Delicatessen Italiano .  There was even live music.  Lots of memorabilia on the walls.

Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park.

Imagine  seeing the Beatles for 4.50.

Passing another car.

Lots of trees and houses.

For just 3 dollars you can have unlimited rides all day.  After lunch the line broke down. But never fear they sent us an air conditioned bus which was much more comfortable.