What Are You Doing For Excitement Today?

[larryJ]

Diane, I am not sure where there is a mention of "no clothes" here.   Alfresco simply means dining or partying in an outdoors setting.  However, given the location, the friendliness of the people and the promise of excellent weather, I am sure that there will be some ladies who will be dressed rather scantily.  It is the beach after all.  I did fail, or to be more specific, didn't mention any modes of dress that some might show up in.  Until you mentioned it, I hadn't really thought about that part.  But then I'm getting old (and senile according to that ingrate son!)

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

Yes, I know what it means.  Someone once told me it meant eating outside in the nude. I about fell on the floor laughing. I'll never try for a joke again. Never mind.

[larryJ]

I know, I know, I got it.  LOL

I wanted to follow up on yesterday's adventure.  When I mentioned that I would like to go to the AL Post for food and entertainment (I said this on Saturday), the comment was, "What time do you want to leave?"

Now after being married to the same woman all these years I have learned that if I want to leave at a certain time, let's say, 12:00 PM, I must say that I want to leave at, oh say, 11:30, because I know that is how it will work out.  I made a mistake on Saturday and said I would like to leave around 12:00 PM and immediately regretted it, but didn't correct it.  As it turns out, we left yesterday around 1:15!  However, there was little traffic until we actually got to Newport Beach where the entire population of Orange County was trying to get to a beach parking space.  Arriving at the AL Post, there was no parking close by.  We circled the block twice and then spotted someone who was walking to their car and was able to park right across the street from the Post. 

No parking available means it is going to be crowded inside.  Sure enough there were no tables outside on the patio with the exception of one stool at a ledge next to the wall.  My wife had her walker which allows her to sit when necessary and I let her cousin have the stool.  After about 20 minutes a table became available and we sat and ordered our lunch. 

Imagine in your mind, sitting on a long patio facing Newport Bay with thousands of boats, both anchored and some who were actually going for a ride.  There were the usual paddle boarders with their long oars poling around while trying to keep their balance.  There is a kayak rental place next door for two seater kayaks.  (Side note here:  I saw a story on TV recently about a woman who decided to open a paddle boarding/Yoga business.  Yep, you take your board out on the water and begin doing Yoga positions.  She calls it YogaAqua.)

Anyway, all is good.  Live 60's and 70's oldies and surf music by the Surftones, people dancing, laughing, drinking and eating and just enjoying a gorgeous day.

As we had a committment to take care of our neighbor's house and their dog, we decided to head back north to the...........GASP!  Huge cloud of smoke over the San Gabriel Mountains, 40 miles to the north.  At about that time, my son-in-law posted pictures of the smoke, from the front yard of his house which is about 10 miles from the foothills.  It appears a car might have caught on fire and now as of this writing, we have a brush fire estimated at about 3600 acres and only about 5% contained.  This will burn for days.  It is funny, however, because on Saturday morning we were outside and observed the two Superscoopers that they use for fires.  It is rare to see them live and I was looking for smoke.  I didn't see any and there was no mention of any fire on the news, so they must have been practicing with the scooping.  Today, we will probably see them and also the big DC-10 that is converted to hold thousands of gallons of water or retardant.

Life goes on in SoCal.

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

Al's sister Beth had her double Mastectomy yesterday morning at Scottsdale Health Care and she is home already! All is well, the node was clear and hopefully she'll never hear the word cancer again.  When we called her cell a little while ago,I was amazed when she said she was home.  I am so releaved.

[larryJ]

That is great news.  It seems that modern medicine nowadays is to the point where recovery from surgery is accomplished just as well at home rather than the hospital, depending, of course, on the kind of operation.  I know that the Kaiser hospital here where we have our insurance has a big white board on the wall of each floor where patients are recovering.  On the board is the patient's name, the date admitted and the room number, as well as the attending physician and the nurse of duty.  On the third day, a red checkmark is placed next to the patient's name indicating that, with the doctor's okay, the patient is to be discharged. 

(BTW, Ms. schoolteacher, far be it from me to correct you, but it's "relieved" rather than "releaved."  Unless, you have lost some leaves and need to be releaved............or am I wrong?)

Larryj

[larryJ]

This excitement will last for two weeks.  The other grandparents have left town for a two week vacation.  This means we will have the two oldest granddaughters every day, well, every school day for the next two weeks.  On top of that, #3 will also come for a visit once of twice a week.  So far today, I have taken #1 to school, came home for a few minutes before taking #2 to preschool. She also has some paperwork that needs to be signed by the school administrator and other papers to be submitted to the administrator.  On returning home from all of that, I see that my son has been here and returned my van that they were using and has taken his car.  This also means #3 is here again today.  Today, however, she is grumpy and wanted to go back to sleep so my wife and her are getting some shuteye.  At 12:30 I will pick up the one at the preschool and at 2:20, I will get #1 at her school. 

Two weeks of this and I will need a vacation!

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

    HA! I was so relieved I went and releaved my deck...the leaves had all blown off and needed replacing. Good catch!  It just shows that the wrong word spelled correctly isn't caught by my spell check. So that's two.(to,too) I really was distracted, not that that is any excuse. The phone rings here constantly with political polls (poles). Are you getting that too?(to,two) Beth was glad to go home early also, less chance of in hospital infection. Her doc said she was three days ahead of herself because otherwise she is so healthy.
   Sounds like much the same system as where you are. She says it's a huge hospital that even has trollies that run from one section to another. I'm not familiar with that even in Philly and Baltimore.

[larryJ]

Our hospital is huge as well.  There is a three story parking garage as well as two (to, too) surface lots which are mostly reserved for handicapped parking.  There are two (to, too) separate buildings, one of which is the hospital proper and most of the specialty departments such as neurology, hematology, the ER, a lab, radiology, etc.  The second building houses other specialists like the optomology department and another lab and another radiology section.  There are eight-passenger shuttles that run through the garage and around the area surrounding the buildings for those that have a hard time walking.  A service my wife uses a lot is the valet parking attendant located in front of the hospital building.  This service costs five dollars, four if you're handicapped, and they are very fast in retrieving your car when you are ready to leave.  Landscaping includes a large pond to the rear of the hospital complete with ducks and fountains in between the two (to, too) buildings.

Larryj

[Wilma]

This might not be excitement, but it is gratifying.  Any of you who go by my place of abode knows that there is a big trash cart in my front yard.  It is there for the purpose of containing the yard trash that I create whenever I am ambitious enough to do some yard cleaning.  Well, recently, due to the storms that we have had, it has been overflowing.  I was thinking that I was going to need to ask someone to empty it for me.

This morning, on my way out to re-hang the wind sock that doesn't seem to want to stay on it's hook, I found this cart empty, not a leaf or a twig left in it.  Then I remembered that one of my sons-in-law was here last night with his wife and that he had gone outside for a short period.  Now I am glad that I had a lemon cake on hand.  He is diabetic and she is overweight so they don't keep any sweets in their house.  Having a piece of cake at my house satifies the sweet tooth without the temptation of it being readily available.  That might be the reason they came to see me.

[Janet Harrington]

Probably right, Mother. They just come over for the cake.