Around the Apartments

     It is the latter part of July and we are getting monsoons that remind me of when I first got here 42 years ago. Yesterday we had a 1/2 hour rain about 1800 hrs (6 PM) and another hard rain (about an hour's worth) around 2000-2200 (8-10 PM) and again a rain about 0300 (3 AM).
    Yesterday (here at the Apartment complex) we had a Luau with food furnished by the managers, et al and some oldies music and Karaoke ... and we all had a pretty good time.


Me and Hilda in our south seas (Hawaiian) attire.
I am in shorts, but they don't show in the picture,
they look like slacks.



Jack (of Jack & Jill) Williamson



Jay (Jose) and Norma Cardenas



Getting some food

     Today we have a going away party for a lady that is moving to Phoenix (WHY Phoenix ??? ... I have no idea!). Before that we may play some Wii bowling with Norma and Jay. Last evening we watched a movie that got really panned by the critics ... 'John Carter of Mars' ... , but we found it very entertaining. we then started watching a movie called 'Chronicle' but had trouble with our old DVD player. It is about 12 years old. Today, I bought a new one ... about $40... (and half the size of the old one). We will continue watching that movie, among others, today. I would imagine that we have run thousands of movies through the old DVD player in the last 12 years or more.

    

A weekend in Tucson

Norma and Jay checking out an old Studebaker Commander

Hilda's hair getting windblown as she checks out the older cars

Hello once again ... things here in the desert are pretty much the same. Norma and Jay Cardenas and the ever lovely Ms Hilda and I went to the Mariachi Festival at the Gaslight the other week and to the Car Show the week before that.

We played WII (bowling) on the 4th of July with Jay and Norma and watched it rain in our beloved desert.

I made a "Independance Day" cake (pics below)

                                                          My Strawberry/Blueberry cake

4th of July Rain

We have been baby sitting 'Gus' the dog from next door ... while Mike and Jini and family are in Hawaii

He is a trip. He never gets enough loving or rubbing.

Rambling on ... and on

    I have a lot of excess time at work and I cannot leave, so I listen to music ... of course I listen to music a lot anyway. But, where was I? Oh yeah ... music ... I was listening to Badlands on my computer and I heard a song that I love ... especially the sentiment. It's called "I Don't Really Like a Lot of the People That I Love". I really understand what he means! One line in the song says ..."I like to see them come, but I love to see them go ". Sounds like something that Kristofferson would have written in his early days, and he was a master of lyrics.
    It is now Monday the 30th and I am working (three days in a row because of a management changeover).
Today is the birthday of Willie Nelson ... who is 79, and Bobby Vee (nee Robert Veline)... who is 69
   Today in history:
1789: George washington was inaugurated as the 1st Prez
1803: We made the Louisiana Purchase for $15 mil that more than doubled the size of the U.S.
1939: FDR became the 1st Prez to be on TV when he was shown on opening day of the New York World's fair
1967: Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title when he refused to be drafted

Didn't get this posted yesterday, lots of work with the management changeover. So, it is Tuesday already (the 1st of May) 4 more days until Cinco de Mayo ... which is a Mexican holiday that was invented in the good old U.S. of A. It celebrates  a battle that the Mexicans won ... in a war that they lost. Go figure!
Anyway ... being the 1st of May [May Day as it were] ... some birthdays for today are:
Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary Burke) in 1852
Army General Mark Clark in 1896 ... the Allied Commander in Italy in WWII
   and singers:
Sonny James (James Hugh Loden) "The Southern Gentleman" in 1929
Judy Collins in 1939 ... one of my all time favorite singers, although (like a lot of singers I like) politically way to the left of me. Her album "In My Life" recorded in 1966 was a favorite of mine while I was in Vietnam in the late 60's.
Rita Coolidge in 1945 ... my age and another favorite of mine. "The Delta Lady" (Leon Russell wrote the song by that name for her). She was also married to Kris Kristofferson for a while.
Tim McGraw in 1967 ... husband of Faith Hill and son of baseball player Tug McGraw

Today in History

Today in History:    After traveling three-quarters of the way around the globe, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan is killed during a tribal skirmish on Mactan Island in the Philippines. Earlier in the month, his ships had dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebu, and Magellan met with the local chief, who after converting to Christianity persuaded the Europeans to assist him in conquering a rival tribe on the neighboring island of Mactan. In the subsequent fighting, Magellan was hit by a poisoned arrow and left to die by his retreating comrades.

    After Magellan's death, the survivors, in two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas and loaded the hulls with spice. One ship attempted, unsuccessfully, to return across the Pacific. The other ship, the Victoria, continued west under the command of the Basque navigator Juan Sebastian de Elcano. The vessel sailed across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Seville on September 9, 1522, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
On this day in 4977 B.C., the universe is created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler. As for Kepler's calculation about the universe's birthday, scientists in the 20th century developed the Big Bang theory, which showed that his calculations were off by about 13.7 billion years.

Shows to go ya' that you ain't always right ... no matter how smart you think you are. And the Magellan thingy shows that you oughta' keep on keeping on ... way to go Juan Sebastian de Elcano!

Two days in a row

Jill (in shock) and Hilda pose beside Jack and Jill's flowers

One of the flowers from yesterday

Jack and some of their flowers

the lady at Little Anthony's Diner taking reservations ... poodle skirt and all

The 'outside' dining area at Little Anthony's

Ms Hilda waiting for her dinner to arrive

Notice the eyelashes over the headlights

I ... like most people who are not famous ... never know if my words reach anyone. But, at times it is enough to put them down and let them go. I imagine that it is a lot like the Journals that people in bygone days kept. It is a repository of words that need to come out of your head, whether or not anyone else ever reads them. I am going to tell some people that I am again on the blog and if they care to look in, they can. Hilda and I went to the monthly/bi-weekly car show at Little Anthony's Diner. It is a great retro 50's Diner and is part of the Gaslight Theater complex. they put on some great Musical melodramas  there ... year round. It is always fun, and the diner has great food. Jack and Jill are our friends and neighbors here at Wilmot North.

The Return of the Desert Dude

    It has been many months since I put anything on my Blog and decided to get fully involved once again. I need to write and I need to take pictures and I have to have a place to put them ... if just for my own edification. As they say in Latin ... furor scribendi (a rage to write). Whether anyone reads them or not is not as important as putting thoughts into words and words onto paper. Actually we don't put them onto paper anymore ... just into computer memory. There are so many phrases that people use that are no longer meaningful in reality I guess.

examples: Typing (keyboarding/texting)
                      Putting words to paper (yeah ... right)
                      Like a broken record (does anyone know what a
                           record is anymore?)
                      Dial a phone (Say what?)
                      Disc Jockey (there are still DJ's but no discs ... maybe
                          they're CDJ's?)
                      And many more ... send me your list!

   Seriously, Dick Clark is dead and no one knows who he was and what he did ... we are all dinosaurs and are facing the same extinction that they did. Our fossils will be sealed in caskets though and not scattered in silt and mud. We missed our chance to become fossil fuel. But me ... cremation. Too much land already holds the remnants of people long gone, I won't take any more room up.
   Anyway ... there have been many changes in my life and my situation in these past many months. However ... the one constant and anchoring facet of my existence (the ever lovely Ms Hilda) is still around and I love her more now than anytime in our 10+ years of being an "us".
   We have some new close friends ... Jack and Jill (for real) Williamson who live in Apt 339 [2 doors down ... we are in 337] and Jini and Mike Burke who live next door in 336. Lawyers are working on Hilda's SSI Disability claim. Everyone ... except for the Social Security Administration ... agrees that she is unable to work because of her hypoglycemia unawareness. So, we shall let that take it's course, and get on with our getting on.
    I found out 19 hours ago ... on Facebook, how weird is that? ... that my cousin Jean Reynolds, in North Carolina, died.  My and Hilda's prayers go out to her husband, daughter and grandkids. Also to her sister Robyn Richardson and her/my many cousins, et al.
    I am working part time (isn't existence a bitch?) at U-STOR Self Storage in Tucson. I work one day at a facility on Miracle Mile and two days for a facility on Ruthrauff Road (at la Cholla). It is not strenuous and it puts more shekels in the coffers, so it is a good thing.
   I am writing this at work, but will add some pictures to the post when I am at home (probably in the early AM manana ... the first n should have a ~ above it, but I have not figured out how to add Spanish lettering in my posts ... and I lapse into Spanish(or more correctly Spanglish) from time to time. That is a product of my 40+ years in Arizona and my addiction to Mexican women (only Ms Hilda now!) as it were. Seriously though ... my four children are Hispanic, as are my 9 nietos (grand children), as is my ex-wife ... and my current (and future) love Ms Hilda Riesgo Reiser.
    I am going to attempt to stay away from my dread of the political future of our country and our headlong rush into Communism. I am pushing 67 (albeit a fairly healthy 67) and time is too short to be pushing my political and religious views upon an unsuspecting populace. I was thinking of re-naming my blog "Arizona Caught My Eye" ... which is going to be the name of my photographs if they appear in book form. But on thinking about it, the current title sums up what the blog is about. It came about because that is the way that I signed (and still sign) all of my e-mails for years to folks outside of my adopted state.
   So, ... if anyone anywhere cares ... the Desert Dude is back.