A night out with Friends

First let me digress. Linda had her a Dr. appointment today cause back in December fore the holidays she tore a tendon in her finger and has been on ‘Light Duty’, wearin’ a splint on her finger, for the last six weeks. I was elected by popular vote of ONE to do dishes, help in the kitchen and wash certain areas of her anatomy that couldn’t be reached with her right hand.

Well the Doc says all is lookin’ good and now she just wears the splint at night. So….. I’m breakin’ her back into her duites slow…ly. We haven’t been doin’ too much, just waitin’ on her to mend.

The cold has finally left and we’re runnin’ a little on the warm side now. Just can’t please old retired folks. The grass is still brown but that should change somewhat after the ‘Frog Strangler’ we had this morning, at least I don’t have to get the tractor out and mow.

We stopped to see our neighbors around the corner, Richard and Betty last week, as we’ve been tryin’ to get together for weeks, but ya’ll know with the Holidays and such how that can go. I worked with Richard for a few years before I became retard’ and last year he joined the club. Betty told us about all they had done since our last visit, nearly a year ago and we told ‘our side o’ the story’. We chatted on fer’ hours and they told us they had been goin’ down to the local women's club on Thursday night to listen to some fellers playin’ music and said we should check it out. Some of the fellas’ Richard went to school with and one is an old acquaintance of mine from my workin’ days. This particular fella always seemed to be a wonderful, quiet, laid back kind of guy, kind a like yours truly. I have been thinkin’ about him off and on for the past 5 years since I left my job. He still is in business and I just haven’t taken the time to phone and say, “Lets have coffee and chew the fat”. That’s my fault. But now I get to sneak in while he’s playin’ music and surprise him, too sweet. Turns out one of the other fellas in the band Richard went to school with, I know as he used to be my counterpart at the County School Board and we saw him just prior to Christmas.

So last night we ambled on down to the local women's club to see what they sounded like and see some old acquaintances'. The band sounded great, fer’ a bunch of ‘Old Farts’. They play mostly older country with a little Gospel thrown in. The event is free and they ask if you can donate to support them payin’ the rent for the hall great , if not that’s OK too. They also have some refreshments and cookies to nibble on, again on a donation basis.

Well I kept a waitin’ to see if they were gonna break or if I’d have to wait till the show was over to say my ‘Howdy’ to my friend. When they finally took a break and he came down off the stage he started makin’ the rounds sayin’ Hello and thankin’ folks fer comin’. I got up to say my ‘Hello’ but he was “workin’ the crowd’ until he sat down in my seat to talk to the folks seated next to me. I just had to interrupt now! I said, “Excuse me Sir , but I think your in my seat” boy was he surprised to see me when he turned around. We shook hands, hugged and promised to get together and have some coffee and tell some lies. It was great to see him again. 

After the show we helped pick up and then we moved to the parkin’ lot with Richard & Betty to chat some more. I finally said we need to go, or we’d be standin’ in this parkin’ lot the rest of the night, so we said our goodbyes. And… Richard & Betty, We can walk thru the pasture between us, so let’s get together more often.

Got to remember to call and make a date fer’ Coffee!

Well that’s all fer’ now. Hope to see ya down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

Brrr…….. Baby it’s Cold Outside!!!

Hello, sorry but I haven't posted in a while.  Let’s see if I can get caught up. I've been frozen in my tracks! 

This is supposed to be the ‘Sunny South’, but it feels like the ‘Frozen North’. Our avocado trees look like they're dead, they made it through the summer without care, hope they make it. Our lawn is a combination of grey and brown, Only under the trees is there any hint of green. Overnight temps have been in the mid to high 20’s and daytime highs are racing to top the 40 degree mark for the last 10 days or more. This just doesn’t happen here. We live ‘Where the Tropics Begin’. Maybe we should go to AZ in the winter and points north in the summer? Would be nice to be able to choose but we’re still rooted to the stix & bricks rancho right now.

On to what we been doing since. Linda and I loaded up the Lance, on December 30th, and  headed to Kissimmee for a visit with Rose & Courtney. We were going to spend the New Year with them. Arrived, found Courtney at home, set up and hung out till Rose arrived from work. We had dinner and visited into the evening.

Thursday Rose had to work so we just kind a hung out for the day. We dined on ‘Spicy Chicken Tenders"’, prepared by Linda and prepared for “the fallin’ of the ball” on TV. Us adults partook in some beverages and snacks up to the bringing in of the new decade. Then it was ‘Hugs & Kisses’ and nitey nite fer all. During the evening I was able to sneak out to the camper and make a quick post of “Happy New Years” wishes to all.

Friday we hung around the house in the morning. Rose made up some ‘Chicken Cordon Blue’ so we could have New Years lunch with her Mom & Dad. We traveled to Mom & Dad’s house and put the chicken in the oven to bake while we all visited. Rose’s parents were close friends of Linda’s parents long before Linda came along, so we try to keep in touch & visit whenever we are in the area.  When the chicken was done we all sat down to a scrumptious lunch. Afterward we visited some more said our farewells and returned to Rose’s to sit around like ‘Fat Ticks’. The rest of the day was spent escaping the cold, watchin’ movies and relaxin’.

Saturday dawned cooo..ld and remained that way all day. Rose had decided we would go to Disney and play miniature golf at one of the courses then we’d go to Downtown Disney. Well we arrived at Disney’s Winter Summerland course and waited in line. This course is actually two courses in one, One a summer tropical theme and one a winter Santa Claus theme. When it was our turn to be admitted Rose found out cast members were ‘Blacked Out’ until the following day. Disney has holiday restrictions on admission for employees & pass holders as well I think. We said “No big deal”, we’ll just come back tomorrow.

So it was off to Downtown Disney. It’s amazing what hidden adventures exist on the Disney property. Every time we go with Rose we find out about more & more. Well we parked the car at the Marketplace area and began to browse. The first store we came upon was the ‘Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique’ for wanna-be Princesses. I tried to get Linda a ‘Fairy Godmother’ outfit since she’s a little too big for the Princess thing, but they were out of stock. There must have been a run on outfitting ‘Fairy Godmothers’ for the holidays. I tried to buy her a ‘Magic Wand"’, but she wasn’t settling for anything but the whole enchilada. We wandered from store to store until Linda was accosted by Mr. Potato Head.

We wandered through many more stores, Disney has quite an retail outlet  for their toys and what-not. If it says  ‘Disney’ it’s here in one of these stores. Next stop the ‘Lego’ store.

 

 

 

 

 

Can you believe these are made completely of ‘Lego’s”?

Next was to checkout a few of the restaurants. The Rain Forest Cafe’, as the name implies is a Jungle theme, with elephants, fish & monkeys. Then it was off to the ‘T-Rex’ restaurant. Guess what the theme is here? They got their own animated Tyrannosaurus Rex as well as other prehistoric creatures. The remainder of the day we spent defrosting and watchin’ movies back at Rose’s

Sunday was the coldest day yet and we were not about to go play mini golf in the cold, windy, overcast day so we watched more movies stayin’ warm in the house or the camper. I did do some research trying to find a solution to hook Rose’s new Blu Ray player up to her wireless network so she could download the Netflix movies directly to her TV. They told her where she bought it she would have to buy a box to do that, only $98, yeah right. Well after extensive research, owners manual tells you nothing, I found out you can’t use any USB wireless adapter. The Blu Ray is ‘Proprietary’ and you must by Samsungs product. Can that idea!

Later that night we said our goodbyes cause Rose has to work & Courtney has school tomorrow. We’ll see ya’ again soon!

Monday we ate and got ourselves ready to go home. First we had to make a stop at Central Florida RV, cause someone in our party broke the freezer door on our last outing. Mike at Central Florida RV & his sons do a lot of refrigerator rebuilds and has provided me with parts before. If you need somethin’ for your fridge, try them they are very nice to work with. Turns out he didn’t have the door so We’ll get by with the door I ‘Super glued’ until we can locate one.

Then it was off to home. Boy fuel prices have spiked since we arrived 6 days ago. Diesel was $2.68 when we rolled thru St. Cloud Wednesday and today it’s $2.79 a gallon. I just got a few gallons to make sure we had enough to get us home where we had been payin’ $2.73 with $.10 a gallon rebate, I new it would be cheaper, HA, Mr. Murphy got me again, $2.83 at home, YIKES! Oh well I guess the only way to beat the price increase at the pump is to invest in oil. Well that’s all for now.

We hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.