Yeah......I'M STILL HERE!!!!!

So...a hell of a lot has happened since my last writing.  Impossible for me to delve into all of it.  Christmas is upon us again.  At my age, 77, I don't jump up and down with joy anymore but my beliefs keep me celebrating as much as I can.  The grandkids here in Tucson are growing like weeds! (an overused expression, maybe) Anyway, the oldest one--Enrique (who has his own home) will be 23 this month.  Stefan James is 14. Emmett Van, I think, is 12....hard to keep up.  Hope to get more here later with pictures...I have to start my daily routine of picking the kids up from school and taking them where they need to go for other activities.

Wild and Wet in Tucson, AZ

We had a pretty good thunderstorm this afternoon.  We are about two houses off of Mann Street on Mary Drive and Mann Street always becomes a raging river as it passes by our street.  We get a fair flow of water on Mary Drive that runs off into Mann Street.  It all goes down one more street to the north of Mary Drive where there is a dip in the road and the water makes a sharp left turn and ambles on to who knows where.  Now, that all made sense, right? 

I messed around all day, not getting much done and waited until the thunderstorm started... to start driving to the Costco Warehouse.  It was about a one half hour drive in fantastically heavy traffic and with the windows closed and the windshield wipers going full blast the windows started fogging up real bad.  I turned the heater/defroster on and breathed a lot of hot air for a period of time.  I tried cracking my driver side window open a few inches to offset the temperature on the front window to clear the fog but then a car would zip by on that side and splash a couple of gallons of water through the opening and all over me!  By the time that I arrived at Costco, just a little bit wet, the rain had slowed some.  Getting out of the vehicle and looking around with my wide brimmed sombrero on my head, I wished that I had worn high topped work shoes instead of a dress shoe type.  I swear, I waded through running water 6 inches deep to get into the store.  I was using one of those fold up window shades from my vehicle to use as an umbrella.  As strange as I looked, when I showed my Costco Card----they let me in.  Thank goodness, it was fairly dry on the return trip to home about an hour later.  Have a good day....The Can Man

Over The Hill

I have always wondered what was "over the hill" --- now at my age, I think I am beginning to find out.  So many problems and so few solutions.  Family, city, state, nation and world problems.  You look for solutions but you find only a few.

This July has about 4 and 1/2 weeks and there is about a week and a half left.  We are having nearly daily thunderstorms which help to keep the temperature down a little bit.  I don't know what this has to do with the price of tea in China. (yeh, I get a little rattled sometimes!)

It is a Monday afternoon close to 2 o'clock.  I have dressed after laying down for a period of time and am planning to go outside to the back yard, check on the five dogs well being and pick up all the Poop.  Also, I need to carry the household garbage bags from the carport area out back to the dumpster in the alley.  Then I need to drive down to the corner drugstore (Kolb & Golf Links) where there is a water vending machine and get about 10 gallons of water for the dog's.  Yes, I buy machine water for myself and the dogs.  They don't like the taste of the tap water and neither do I!!  I also need to go to Costco and get two bags of dog food ($60).

Will this all get accomplished?  We will see!!!  Have a good day. The Can Man.

Summer Monsoons 2013

On my last post there was snow in Tucson.  Not now!!  We had over a month of 100 plus degree weather and to cool it off just a little--the monsoon season started.  The grand-kids here have been going to Karate classes a lot along with their parents.  (No, I am a little too stiff and sore to be doing that!)  The kids also spend a lot of time at the YMCA activities.  Keeps them out of trouble.  I don't know what kept me out of trouble when I was that age.  I never spent many daytime hours at home during the summers.  That was in Young, Arizona where there were a lot of options of what to do but none of them included electronics.  I used to go out hiking a lot, sometimes with my brothers and sometimes alone.  I always liked to find out what was "over the hill".  I had to drink water out of mud tanks that were designed for livestock to drink from.  This was only occasionally but I don't ever remember getting sick from it.  I have hiked up to, on and over most of the small mountains surrounding Young (Pleasant Valley) Arizona.  I would guess it is about 6 to 10 miles across Pleasant Valley, from one end to the other.  I walked that a number of times back and forth from my home to visit friends who lived on the other end of the valley.

Looking Back.......

Better late than never....(who said that?)  Betty Gilbert got out of the hospital after they finished a couple of days of test.  I'm not sure what the final diagnosis was but she seems to be a lot better now (after she got over a minor touch of the flu that she probably contracted at the hospital).  I don't know when or if she will have to go into hospice care.

Moving on, we had quite a snowstorm yesterday and last night in the Tucson area. That was a rarity.  I got some good video but I don't seem to have much luck trying to get video posted up here.  I do have some pictures (see above) of the leftover snow at around 10 this morning.

 Sunday, 17 February 2013, my daughter and I and the my two grandchildren (Stefan James and Emmett Van) journeyed to the Tucson Rodeo Grounds to attend La Fiesta De Los Vaqueros Rodeo.  This is an annual event here in Tucson and this year it runs for 6 days plus a Rodeo Parade downtown on one of those days.  Have a good day.  The Can Man

LIFE GOES ON!!!

I was just talking on the phone to Betty Gilbert, a very close friend of mine who lives in Globe, AZ in a trailer court.  She lost her brother two or three weeks ago. He lived in Apache Junction, AZ.  Today she told me that she has to be admitted into the hospital on Monday the 21st of January to spend 3 days (one thing that she said they were going to do was put her on a machine to "clean" the blood supply in her entire body).  She indicated to me that she will probably be put in "long term" care after the hospital visit.  She was packing some things in preparation.  She has 3 dogs that she has had for many years and that she is very close to.  They will be taken to the dog pound and probably put to sleep.  It tears me up that this is happening to her.  Her life has never been that good as she had a husband that mis-treated her most of her adult life.  I am going to try to drive up to Globe tomorrow (about a two and one half hour drive one way) and visit with her for a couple of hours.