Monday, Day 9 AZ

Sure is hot in this ole state. Why am I not surprised? The dryness of the air makes the heat different. I hardly break a sweat unless I get physically active in a hot kitchen then I get drippy.

We all got invited to a cookout yesterday. Unfortunately, Alex started running a fever so I stayed home with him while the others went. He seems better today but is not going to school. Don't know what I will do today. Maybe just chill (that's a joke in AZ) and get more reading done. Might chance to read more stories to the two youngest sometime today if they want to hear more stories. I simply must think of more stories of either my childhood or their dad's because they love "made up" stories more than those in books. Even Sofie seems to like those. I had many adventures as a child. Perhaps they would love to hear them?

More later of this continuing saga....

AZ 6th Day Lazy One

Woke up early and read more of my current book Dreams From My Father by Barrack Obama. Ummmm... it is a great book. Both cats found my bed last night as their spot to sleep. You'd never know they were there, they are so quiet. Had breakfast with the family and while they went about their busy schedules I just went back to my room and read and napped a bit... Later I went with Cris to the Waldorf school . She had some work to do there so I found me a bench and once again dug into my book. Afterwards we went to the grocery store where we discovered parking places up next to the store that were for "Hybrids Only." Very interesting, don't you think? We got a pic of the sign but I don't have it at my disposal tonight so I will post it later.

Tag is at a training until 9 so we had dinner and then the kids were off to bed. I had an opportunity to read some more and I expect to finish this book before morning.

I have discovered that Vivian, their little French bulldog, likes to catch flies and when she gets one she just eats it, of course, so fly swatters are not as needed. Cash, the male of the two cats, is a whiner. He likes to bug you with this pathetic sounding, high pitched, faint meow like he is starved (which he certainly is not) or otherwise in need of some other kind of attention.

I am sleepy so I may just hit the sack. Good night!

Birthday Fun in AZ on Day 4

My birthday day started very early with a 4 AM phone call from Lynn to wish me a happy birthday. She had forgotten about the time change. :) We talked for over an hour. It was great. Then, very early on, I was awakened with the patter of little feet as the Eury grandchildren ran into my bedroom wishing me happy birthday. I was then given a birthday card signed by all (yes, even Bella was helped to sign her name and she was so proud). They left my room but before I could get dressed and get downstairs they came in again because the kids couldn't wait until I came down so they rushed in with a beautiful miniature pink rose plant full of blooming roses. It is so lovely. I immediately tried to figure our how to or if I could get it on the plane to take home. Alex handed me a long envelope all licked shut with a little lump I noticed inside. I opened it and found two little shiny mineral stones. One he said was a "tiger eye" and the other is a beautiful purple and white stone. I love them.

Upon checking my e-mail I discovered I had an e-card from Bonnie. Being the sentimental slob that I am I teared up while reading it as I listened to the really sweet music that accompanied it. I tried to call her but couldn't get through . She called me instead and we chatted a bit before she had to get back to work.

Later in the day I received phone calls from Anne and Bill wishing me a happy birthday. Bil and Marziah stated out singing but stopped prematurely (Hee, hee, I asked if they had gotten too old to sing the song all the way through. We all laughed).

After Tag came home from work we all hoped in the car around 4ish to go to the restaurant where I was to be treated with the "best pizza in the entire country." That would be at "Pizzeria Bianco" owned and operated by Chef Chris Bianco That is him in the picture. Sorry I cannot figure out how to rotate this pic of the restaurant.


We did have a void in our midst. Sofia had left by bus with her class from school early this morning to go on a field trip to California. She will return on Thursday evening. I am sure she is having a great time but we miss her.

It is a good thing we arrived 20 minutes before the restaurant opens. That kept us from having such a long wait. Ha Ha! Our wait was only about 1 hour and 25 minutes before we were seated. While we were waiting I received a phone call from Mary wishing me a happy birthday. She was on her way home from work. We chatted a bit seeing as how we were still outside waiting for the restaurant to open so that we could then get on the waiting list for seating.

Now, the unusual thing about this restaurant, besides having really great pizza is that the Chef/owner creates and cooks them himself. There are 6 choices of pizza. One is called "Wise Guy" and appeared to be a family favorite for the Eurys. Another is named "Margeurita" and that one proved to be my favorite. Two others were ordered as well so we had 4 choices of pizzas from which to savor. Naturally we all wanted to try at least one piece of each one. Except Bella, and the only one she wanted was , you guessed it, my favorite, the "Marguerita. She knows a good thing when she sees it.


After we were adequately stuffed on pizza we came back home to get the little ones ready for bed. After all, it was after 7:00 by this time. We decided to watch a little TV (a rare event in this household). All of a sudden here comes Tag with, you got it, a birthday cakecomplete with flaming candles, the whole smear. Cherries, my favorite, on top. Only, if you look closely you will see that I appear to be celebrating my 48th birthday (he didn't have any sixes and thought it better that I appear 48 rather than 98 or 88). That gave us a good laugh.
Oh, I just had a thought, that 48 could be for the anniversary Wayne and I just celebrated earlier this month! Yea...



So my day was quite meaningful with happiness abounding.

AZ Day 3

It is not too hot this time of year and therefore the weather is quite pleasant here in Arizona.

We went to Sofie's choir concert Monday night. It was awesome. Then last night we went to her band concert. She plays the trumpet. They were great. It is so thrilling to watch young talent. I really enjoy seeing all my grandchildren perform whether it be singing, musical instrument or sports. It is very special and I am delighted when I have the privilege to attend their activities.

I read books (about five) to the two youngest last evening while their mom was fixing supper. Kept them occupied and was good bonding time for the three of us. Both really love being read to. I always loved to read out loud even as a child. Reading to others is a great way to share time with each other.

Love all of you... Bye for now....more later.

Day 2 in AZ

Well, nothing bombshelled today. As we were getting out of the car on our first outing today, Sofie said to her dad, ?"Do you have the keys?" whereupon we all laughed. I said he was going to get asked that question for a while, for sure. :)

We watched a movie today that was really nifty. "The Railway Children" Trusat me, if you haven't seem it, it is a good movie for all ages. It is from an old Masterpiece Theatre production, yes, it is British but it is quite good. Came from the library.

Guess I will hit the sack, now that I have slept on the couch for 2 hours... I just noticed that my Blog posts in EDT so don't think I am up at 2 AM. Ling Ling just joined me and is sitting on my bed behind me waiting to be carressed..... Nite nite!

Arizona or Bust

I kissed my sweetie goodbye, shed a few tears and began my journey to AZ on April 19. Here I was at the Nashville airport having arrived more than 2 hours before departure, just to be sure I was there on time for all the check-in stuff to be done. I had asked for a wheelchair on the advice of Cris who told me I would be able to get the seat that best met my needs by doing so. She was absolutely right. Not to mention how much it would save my back and feet from standing excessively in lines. So on board wheelchair with carry-on in tow, we processed everything and I was placed at the gate with nothing left to do but board. It all went so quickly I still had a wait of greater than 2 hours before leaving. Meanwhile Wayne was well on his way with the 6 hour drive ahead of him. Just as we were boarding we were given the news that our non-stop flight would have a refueling stop to make in Amarillo, TX. Wouldn't take long, sorry for the inconvenience. Yada, yada, yada. As it was, we did not arrive in Phoenix more than 30 minutes later than the original scheduled time.


I need to back up for a moment and tell you about our adventure in the Ramada.... Gone are the days of motels meeting our expectations. To make a long story short, we had to change rooms after Wayne looked at the A/C unit and found it to be caked with dust from the 20th century. That was after we discovered that the potty had problems that were unacceptable also. What you can see in the pic is layers of grime. along the entire area where the air is "filtering" thru when the unit is running.

Now back to arrival. Sofia and Alex met me at baggage claim and we quickly got luggage loaded into the Eury van. Due to the now lateness of the dinner hour, Tag had made the decision to go to a new restaurant to have dinner. It was called the Original Hamburger Works. We had a nice meal and as we proceeded to leave Tag discovered he had left his keys in the car (that had been carefully locked to protect my purse and camera). Oh, I said, I have AAA and they will come unlock for us. Naturally, my AAA card was in my purse inside the car, as was my cell phone. Luckily, Tag had his cell phone in his pocket so I put in a call to Wayne to get our AAA card number. Got it, but forgot to get the phone number to call them. Luckily, Engine 3 from the Phoenix Fire Department had just pulled up and parked across the street from us because they were coming to Hamburger Works for supper! Tag asked them if they by any chance had door unlocking equipment with them. Did they? They had an entire tool kit of various "unlockers" and a manual to look up which one to use based on the year and make of the car. They tussled around a bit and finally got the door open, Hurray! Opppps, they couldn't get their tool out of the door. It was hung up in the door works. After carefully taking the door panel loose they managed to free up their tool and we were set to go. After about 45 minutes of diligent work, we could at last get on the road to go home. Poor Bella, she had been put in her car seat as we waited for them to get their tool loose. She was very tired (hadn't had a nap) and she became very worried that they were going to break our car. Tag had to hold her to comfort her.


Yes, the Phoenix Fire Department came to our rescue. The children plan to write them a letter of thanks for their good deed (which, to them, was all in a day's work).

Dad's first blog, "DRIVING ME CRAZY"

First driving mishap.
I recall the time I was driving back from the country. The country was where my Grandparents, the Picklers, lived. We were in our old 1938 Plymouth sedan. I was just learning to drive and had very little experience. I had managed to keep it in the road for about a mile, there were no sharp turns or intersections. Then we came to a tee in the road I slowed as I approached the turn but kept on rolling. In the process of making the turn I just kept turning and ran out of the road across the ditch on the left side of the road, I was turning left, and into a newly plowed field. After running through the ditch, first bounce, and many bounces later the car came to a halt. My little brother Doug was in the back seat and had been thrown back and forth, up and down, and was now screaming like a banshee. Dad in all his wisdom made one memorial comment. " Well you got us in here, now get us out.". After restarting the car I got it into first gear and commenced to lurch and bounce back across the field through the ditch and back onto the road.

Our first new car.
We had always had some old car for family transportation, The '38 Plymouth is the first car I can remember. Later we had a 1946 Plymouth station wagon with wood body parts. Part of the wood had rotted and Dad and my Granddad Pickler, who was a wood worker, made and installed a new part which was a perfect match to the rest of the car. The next car was a black 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook 4 door sedan, our first new car. I had just turned sixteen and had my drivers license. I think at this time we had two cars. A 1949 Plymouth 4 door sedan that had been a taxi cab then a painters work vehicle, and the '53 Plymouth. On one special day I asked to drive the '53 to school. Dad agreed with the stipulation that I drive to school and back and no where else. At lunch time we would often go to a popular downtown eating establishment. Hot dogs all the way cost 10 cents and hamburgers were 15 cents. Both were great, steamed buns and plenty of grease for flavor. The hamburgers where made the way I often make them today, with bread, onions, and egg smushed into the meat and then shaped into patties. but back to the car. loaded with my buddies we left school and headed out to lunch. When we arrived at the grill I had to make a right turn into the parking lot. As luck would have it someone was exiting the lot and I had to stop abruptly and WHAM I was rear ended. That night I was to receive my eagle scout award. the Clerk of Court was presenting the award. His opening comment to me was, "Well I believe we run into each other before." Yes it was the same man who had rear ended me earlier in the day, while I was driving when I was told not to.
My? first car.
The '49 Plymouth was mine to drive most of the time even though it was the family car. It was great to have wheels, all of the guys I associated with were not yet old enough to get their drivers licenses, so I had friends. In high school it was really cool to "get a wheel", squeal the tires while taking off and changing into second gear. Well an old '49 6 cylinder Plymouth doesn't have enough power to spin the tires on wet pavement much less dry. About the only way to squeal the tires was to get up to about 30 mph change into low gear and drop the clutch, resulting in a loud tire squeal and rapid stop. Not really getting a wheel but it did get attention. I had been performing this stunt a number of times one day and never realized what had really happened. That evening I had gone home picked up my Mom and was driving out to the farm that belonged to our preacher. We worked a small portion of it for additional garden space. We were just about a mile from the farm when a rumbling, thumping, grinding sound came from the right rear wheel. My first move was to put on the brakes as I thought it was a flat tire. The brake peddle went all the way to the floor and the car just kept going. When we reached the bottom of the hill and started coasting up the next I was already looking for a rock, just in time I saw the perfect rock to scotch the wheel to prevent the car from rolling backwards down the hill. Upon close examination I found the tire or wheel and tire was only with the car because it was contained by the fender. All that tire squealing from earlier in the day had caused the rear axle to snap and the drive out to farm had caused the wheel to come off and break the brake line. Dad came along and we managed to get the car into someones yard until we could get parts to repair the damage.

loud and smoking
You just can't imagine how cool it is to back fire the exhaust system. The ideal method is to get the car up to about 55 mph while heading downhill, turn off the ignition switch while leaving the car in gear, and coast as far as the hill will allow. This lets a lot of unburned gas build up in the exhaust system primarily the muffler, so that when you restart the engine you get a very loud explosion from all that unburned gas and excess pressure in the muffler. Usually a big bang is all you get. however on a really long hill you can get a really big bang. So big in fact that you can split the muffler from one end to the other. A lot of heat escapes from a split muffler and when you are driving a retired taxi cab which had also been a painters work vehicle you can more than you bargained for. Loud noise from a busted muffler in cool. Exhaust gases from a busted muffler are not cool. As a matter of fact they can be hot enough to ignite layers of paint spilled on the floorboard of a painters work vehicle, leading to fire in the back seat. After putting out the fire we attempted to repair the muffler with oil cans and wire, not possible when the muffler is split from one end to the other. Trying to sneak into a driveway which goes uphill, in the middle of the night, will wake even the most sound sleeper. Dad did not confront me that night but when he needed to leave for work the jig was up. I did have to put a new muffler on and it was not the cherry bomb that I wanted, but a stock muffler that was quite enough to navigate the driveway without waking anyone.

Reflections

Ahhhh, I see the sun trying to peep through the clouds on this foggy morning. It is warm on top of this mountain but the fog hasn't yet "burned" itself off so visibility is still very limited.

Our flowers are at last shooting forth from their hidden bulbs and giving us color unlike any we have seen on our land. Tokens of much more to come to be sure.
Our new perennials look small but they should perpetuate and fill in by next year.
We have no ending piles of rocks. We are filling in on hillsides to prevent erosion and beautifying the landscape with picturesque rock placements.
This has been our first winter in our new home and we are looking forward to our first spring and summer. Spring is being slow to manifest itself at our altitude of 4260 feet.....
We are waiting on leaves to take us away from the deadness of winter to the vibrant new growth of spring.

New Haircut

This is more for the AZ Eurys' benefit because they haven't been able to see me since I got my hair cut recently. I did not want to look like a stranger to my AZ grandchildren. I did a self photo on one of them. Can you tell which one?

Found something

I received a wonderful book some time ago from one of my children called "I Love You, Mom." There is no note in the book stating who gave it and I cannot remember which child did. It could have been from any or even all of my children because they are all thoughtful enough to have shared such a sweet bunch of poems with their mom. One in particular, written by Barbara Cage, spoke right to the point of our most recent discussions within our family. It expresses in poetic words my feelings about my children., I am going to copy it (just like it appears in my book) to this blog:

The Love Between a Mother and Child is Forever

The love we share
as mother and child
is a bond of the strongest kind.
It is a love of the present,
interwoven with memories
of the past
and dreams of the future.
It is strengthened by overcoming
obstacles
and facing fears and challenges
together.
It is having pride in each other
and knowing that our love
can withstand anything.
It is sacrifice and tears,
laughter and hugs.
It is understanding, patience,
and believing in each other.
It is wanting only the best
for each other
and wanting to help any time
there is a need.
It is respect, a hug,
and unexpected kindness.
It is making time to be together
and knowing just what to do and say.
It is an unconditional,
forever kind of love.

What a Day!

My Honey and I celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary today. We got a very pleasant mixture of congrats from our 4 children and one from an old friend we sang with in Chicago at the House of Worship years ago. I am in a reminiscing mood right now so I am going to tell you a story. Every morning I wake up and thank God I am still alive, that God has brought me forth from my disappearance again another day. Reminds me of the prayer I used to say as a child: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord my soul to take. If I should live in other days, I pray Thee Lord to guide my ways." Pretty neat, huh? One does not have to be a child to feel good about that prayer.
When I awake I can see the sunrise almost every day from our bedroom sliding door. When it is overcast the sun does not manifest itself so I miss the sunrise on those days. The sunrise is just beautiful from our room. It comes up over a mountain and in the winter one can see it through the leafless trees. I guess I won't be able to see it when the leaves all come as there is no visibility of the mountain in late Spring and all summer. We'll see (or won't see..).
Guess I will end with that so this does not get to be too long and boring a blog. Love to you all.