Winter News

Today, I can’t go hang out at the pool. Yesterday I stayed too long and got a little crisp. Need to be more responsible about getting the sunscreen on earlier. We have had perfect pool weather, close to 90 with a breeze to cool you off. So here I am writing and I’m not sure what to write about. Since the roads are now complete there hasn’t been much to complain about. Possible subjects

Cues: Don’s ears, Sparky, Palmdale activities, Kelly’s visit, I still haven’t written about my Christmas visit to Minnesota

Yesterday was the annual Hog Roast which is completely run by the resident’s association. They don’t actually roast a whole hog but get a bunch of pork butts and cook them to delicious tenderness, and make some Cole slaw and beans. The hall is filled with decorated tables and we all line up for a generous serving and homemade cakes. The money we raise goes to local charities – the women’s shelter and the EMT’s. Unfortunately, the EMTs do make calls at our park from time to time so we like to take care of them. Following the meal, all the tables were put back into rows and a couple of musicians who regularly participate in a jam session provided some music for dancing.

I don’t know if I can find the words to properly describe this part of the evening. When we sat down before dinner, we talked to an older couple sitting at our table. The man said that he and his wife are the last people still here from the group that was here when they first started coming years ago. The rest either can’t make it back or they have died. That is something we all have to look forward to if we are lucky, I guess. Then later, when my favorite old couple came out on the floor moving to the music with the ease and familiarity of having spent their life together and danced a thousand times, the word that comes to me is treasure. Later still, the dance floor was filled with many familiar friends arms around their long time lovers moving to the music with no self-consciousness. How exquisitely precious is this time and how fortunate I feel that we are part of this community. One of our group, recently widowed was watching from across the room and it reminded me how fragile this all is. Our musicians have not played for long together and I suppose a critic might not have appreciated the music but they carried us through the night with familiar music. They had practiced a rendition of “Elvira” which I had requested for the line dancers and we danced.

 

There is no news about the outcome of Don’s ear surgery. We won’t know till he goes back to the doctor on March 20. Until then he is pretty deaf on that side.

Sparky continues to be very popular among the residents around here. We have many new and short-time visitors for whom Sparky is new though the old-timers don’t seem to tire of his antics. If they do they don’t tell us.

We seem to be pretty busy…. Same old stuff.. walk aerobics, line dancing, golf, yoga, and now shuffleboard. Shuffleboard has always been to me the thing that you do when you don’t have anything better to do in your life. I guess that’s where we are for now.

We also frequently leave Palmdale and venture out. Tonight we are going to the Charro Days night time parade in Brownsville. The parade crosses the border into Mexico and celebrates the culture of the Rio Grande. Last week we saw the Los Fresnos Rodeo Parade. Two nights ago we went to another much larger RV park to see a show from a group called December 63 playing music from Jersey Boys.

Two weeks ago, Kelly and Jason flew in for the weekend. They stayed over on South Padre Island. While they were here, they toured Palmdale and we took a trip to Mexico over in Nuevo Progresso, fished on the surf on the gulf and took a sunset cruise to see the dolphins. That is a weekend that I will never forget for the wonderful time we had.

My phone which has not been working all that well has completely died and I have not been able to resurrect it though I haven’t yet tried putting it in rice. I think I will just get a new one in the next couple of weeks. So for the time being don’t call or text me. I can get email, FB messenger, hangouts or phone calls or texts through Don’s phone.

Christmas deserves a post of its own and I will get that done eventually.

Coping

Coping with the news. First of all, I’m not going into a news blackout but only watching the CBS evening news. I know it isn’t complete but by itself it is alarming enough. I’ll be dropping the New York Times…. Don’t need all that news all the time. If I want an in depth story about any particular issue I can find it on line. I’ve identified 4 things to focus my energy and resources 1) contributing to organizations that focus on protecting the bill of rights and voting rights 2) contacting appropriate people in congress to express concerns on a regular basis by phone. I guess that works best though I have sent emails. Thought about twitter. 3) limiting my exposure to alarming news and views from either side. I can’t live in a constant state of upset or outrage which comes from that. 4) practicing love and compassion in the community in which I live. It includes a majority of conservatives. Listening and not trying to change minds. That’s going to have to do it for now. The other thing I might do is to find some way to be involved in getting out the vote and making sure people vote in the mid-term elections or working for the election of democrats because the longer this goes on the more difficult it will be to reverse the backwards direction that our self-serving leader and his cronies are taking our country.

Life at Palmdale…. Don had a surgical procedure called tympanoplasty in which the surgeon made an incision behind his ear and placed a skin graft on the inside of his ear drum last Tuesday. Today he is getting his stitches out and hopefully will be cleared to play golf and return to all of his regular activities as well as remove the cup that he has had to wear over the ear to protect it all week. I will describe the cup by reporting the feedback he got from some of his more creative friends. Someone suggested that he had his dust mask on the wrong place. Another friend wanted to know why he was wearing some kind of bra on his head. Another helpful friend said he would get him an eagle feather to put in the band. Someone else informed him that wasn’t the place to wear a cup. Someone else wanted to know if I had slapped his ear. Most people just wanted him to tell about the procedure. It will be good for him to have something else to talk about. Now that the roads are finished, there isn’t a lot to talk about though.

Sparky took advantage of the new roads and posted a sign, “Sparky’s Miracle Mile Toll Road” and tried to collect tolls from those who walk by. He did get $1600 Canadian dollars printed on paper napkins and 75 cents in US change. We will turn all of that into the association on behalf of Sparky. We seem to be doing very little of anything. I continue to read whatever novels strike my fancy from the park library. We play 500 on Tuesday afternoons. I’m now doing the 4 mile walk aerobics a couple of times a week and continue with line dancing. I have a partner now to go to the aerial yoga class over in Harlingen at least once a week. That’s a pretty full life. We are beginning to work on getting our new car set up to tow and think about the route we will take when we leave her in April… East and then north and west back to Minnesota.

 

Don is now free to resume all his normal activities and can go golfing and fishing again though it will be another 6 weeks until we know if the surgery is good and he can wear his hearing aid again.