November - Finally getting colder !

11/10/10 – (Weds) Saw Ro for a little while yesterday after work. We went to grade school & high school together. It’s always nice getting together with her.

Went to see Jack & Jonella last wk-end.

When I got to work yesterday morning, almost as soon as I first sat down, I snagged my very long necklace on something & it ripped apart, dropping about a billion tiny seed beads all over the floor & down my dress. Yes, down my dress – the front & the back. That was a very weird feeling – like little spiders on my body. Yuck. They kept falling out of my dress all day. I scraped them up off the tile floor with 2 pieces of paper, like a dust pan, & gathered them all together, in the hopes that I can have it re-strung. Probably won’t happen. Even today, I am still stepping on some. I guess the cleaning people don’t sweep under my desk.

I thought this cartoon was really cute.
The real reason dinosaurs aren't with us.

When I got home yesterday, as soon as I walked in the house I noticed a terrible smell. Like plastic burning. If you’re old enough to remember the fun toy of the ‘60s, Vac-U-Form, that’s what it smelled like. Very strong. I ran to the kitchen just as Alex came down the hall & said, “Something’s burning.” As soon as I entered the kitchen I saw the crockpot on the stove just as a flame leaped from the burner onto it. I immediately put the flame out, turned the burner off, unplugged the crockpot, then stood there trying to figure out what was going on. The crockpot was completely black. The knobs were burnt off of it & seared onto the glass cooktop of our new stove. Needless to say, the burner itself was a black mess. Alex said Lewis called him about 5 minutes prior to this & asked him to take the crock part out of the refrigerator, place it in the metal part, & turn it on high. So he did that & turned the burner on high. I feel this is our fault because we never taught him how to cook or how to even use a crockpot.

Opened all the windows, turned all the fans on high, lit candles. Nothing seemed to help for hours. We all 4 sat outside on the back patio for a few hours to avoid breathing the noxious fumes from the burnt plastic & metal. I could feel it in my throat & Lewis felt it in his eyes, even though we weren’t in there that long, just long enough to open everything. When it was time for Sparky’s dinner, I got her meal together & brought that & her water dish outside with us. We thought about staying in a hotel that night, but as time went on, it became bearable in the house. There are a lot of hotels in our area that allow dogs.

But this got me thinking: What if I had not gotten home when I did? What if Alex came out to the kitchen to see the flames jumping up? It was a very scary thought. I asked him this morning what he would have done. He said he would have put the fire out, probably with the fire extinguisher that is just to the left of the stove. Okay, that’s fine, but I asked him, “Do you know how to use it?” You can’t take the time to read the instructions for the first time as the flames leap higher in the kitchen. We will review “Fire Extinguisher 101” when I get home today.

Lewis doesn’t work on Thurs, so we have the washer repair guy coming & hopefully, if they can work us in, the roof repair guy. The last time the roof guy came he uncovered some insulation & the birds have been in there every day pulling out insulation. It’s all over our front entryway. We keep cleaning it up & it’s there again the next day. Finally, Alex saw a bird in there. The next day I saw a bird too. So when the roof guy came a few wks ago, he must have left it exposed. It’s in that same spot. Also, I had to arrange for the stove guy to come next wk to get a new cooktop. That will run anywhere from $600 to $800, depending on the kind we get. More money. It never ends. The stove is still on warranty, but not for this!

If you haven’t seen the pictures from our cruise to Alaska (Ro), just scroll to 1 or 2 blog posts prior to this one & you’ll see them.

11/5/10 (Fri) - Cable guy is coming tomorrow to change us out from cable to Direct TV. I will have to take pictures of all of the remotes again & draw my lines & arrows. Now I will have to incorporate the Blu Ray player into it also & re-write all my instructions. The home theatre & whatever else we have all of those remotes for. Has anyone ever heard of simply ON and OFF ?

11/1/10 (Mon) - The day after Halloween. Not an exciting Halloween last night. We only had 2 doorbell rings. The first “group” was 2 little kids with their parents; The 2nd was 3 teenagers. And that is it! So depressing. I love Halloween so much. Lewis & I recorded some Halloween movies that we watched last night. Or tried to. We first watched the original “Halloween” with a very young Jamie Leigh Curtis. We also tried to watch a couple others we recorded but they were just too stupid to continue with. “Evil Dead 2” was 1 of them. Nothing going on in that movie but a lot of screaming & running. I can’t remember the other stupid 1. We ended up watching a very old, black & white movie called “13 Ghosts” which was goofy & campy & kind of fun, starring a very young Martin Milner. “Rocky Horror Picture Show” is always a good Halloween choice. I had the DVD out but we never got a chance to watch it. Not enough movie hours in a day. Can you believe Alex has never seen “Rocky Horror” ? I don’t think he has any interest in it either.

Alex went out with a friend of his, but they didn’t go trick-or-treating, just walked around for a while.

Lewis made jambalaya from scratch yesterday. He worked on it all day & we had it for dinner. Alex & his friend even liked it. It was delicious! My husband is quite a good little cook.

Well, another discouraging fact - - It is now Nov 1, & the weather forecast for today is 86 degrees; The forecast for Weds is 96 degrees! Uuuggghhh! Will it EVER cool down?! No! I don’t believe it will. I’m so tired of this d**n heat!

10/25/10 (Mon) Lewis & I took Sparky to the park yesterday. It was such a gorgeous day! We took a blanket, some water, iPod, & speakers. Sparky really had a good time sniffing everything in site. She even made a new friend. She sure slept well last night.

We spent Sat. with Lewis’s family to celebrate his dad’s birthday, Allan & Candy’s anniversary, & Alex’s birthday. Went to the Bamboo Club again. I do like the food, but this is the 2nd time we’ve been there & everything went wrong. 4 out of 8 of us were served cold food. (It wasn’t supposed to be cold). Other things happened that I won’t bore you with. But Lewis & I decided we aren’t going back.

Alex started the Key Club at Chaparral High School, found a teacher who was willing to be their sponsor, & completed all the forms for the Kiwanis. He felt it would look better on his resume that he initiated the Key Club at the school rather than just belonging to a club.

I’m very sluggish today. I feel like I didn’t sleep well. I’m going to munch on some cashews. That might help. I can take a nap when I get home. I did make an appointment to go back to the sleep doctor this wk.

This wk-end I entered Sparky into another cute dog contest. A catalog called Everything Dog is calling for cute dog pictures. I don’t know if she actually wins anything, but I know that the winner will get his/her picture on the inside cover of their next magazine. And we all know how adorable she is! Sometimes when I enter her into a contest & she doesn’t win, I am totally amazed. My dog really is the cutest, sweetest, prettiest little baby. How could any other dog be cuter than her? It’s just not possible.

Lewis got the new Doobie Brothers CD. It’s very good. They can still bring it! I’ll need to load some of the songs onto my iPod.

Our Sisters’ Dinner is later this wk. We all 3 really look forward to that. We just don’t get to see each other enough.

Wow. I am really tired. My eyes won’t stay open. I don’t know what that’s about.
We discovered the 3rd door of the garage is broken. Lewis & I use the double portion of the garage. That 3rd part is supposed to be for Alex’s car but it’s never uncluttered enough. So now we have to call the garage guy. We just had the roof guy out last wk. It rained & our roof was leaking in the hall by Alex’s bedroom. Now we have to find a drywall guy to fix the inside of it. It never ends.
10/21/10 (Thurs) When I woke up this morning it was pouring rain. It was wonderful! Until I went to Alex’s side of the house & noticed a roof leak & a very wet floor. I got a bucket & put it under the leak – a VERY FAST drip. Then I moved everything around it. It’s in the area of Alex’s desktop computer. He usually uses his laptop. We called the roofing co., told them it’s an emergency. They should be calling me this morning to schedule a time to come out here & fix it. So I’m home today with Sparky. I took her outside this morning & it was actually COLD. Not just cool, but cold. I’m thinking of putting on a long sleeve shirt.

Had some rice pudding for breakfast. That’s 1 of the few foods I was able to eat when I was pregnant. Holds good memories for me.

Picture of Alex on his 17th birthday.

10/20/10 (Weds) Alex turned 17 yesterday. We didn’t hardly see him. At 10am yesterday he went with the DECA club to a conference in downtown Phx. (That’s a business club). Afterwards, they went to dinner & then to the Suns game. He didn’t get home until about 11:00 pm. I then took a picture of him because I always take pictures of him on his birthday & the first & last day of school. I am nuts with pictures of my baby. I also sit down with him every year on his birthday & go through the “baby book.” It is pictures of the night he was born & my baby showers, the first wk home with him, etc. He hates it & thinks I am torturing him. Every yr he says, “Why do we have to look at the baby book every yr on my birthday? My friends’ parents don’t make them do that.” But I don’t care. It’s important to me & I will bet it’s important to him, only he doesn’t know it. His birth, to me, is always reason for celebration since we almost didn’t have him. And I can never forget that. Since he wasn’t home to go through the baby book with me, I did it myself. Lewis popped in the living room once in a while to look at some pictures, but he was watching some sports on tv. I put the book at Alex’s place at the table so he could look at it when he got home last night - - like that was the first thing on his mind! He saw it last night & said, “I’ll look at it tomorrow at breakfast, ok?” Hmmmmmm.. So he actually considered it & was resigned to it. I am doing my job as a mother!
Today (10/20) would have been Jonathan’s 4-yr wedding anniversary. He has been gone 3 yrs now. I miss him every day.

Oct 19, 2010 (Tues) - Alex Kowal’s 17th birthday. My baby is now 17. And we are so proud of him. So proud of the young man he has become.

This is also the first day I was able to drive to work with the windows down in the car & no air conditioning. There was even a point in my journey this morning when I smelled fresh mown grass. Fresh mown grass in Oct. What a wonderful place this is - - as long as I’m not living in the desert.

Speaking of the desert, when I took Sparky out this morning to go potty, I noticed 5 of our purple sage bushes were in full bloom. I did notice it yesterday & the day before, but this morning, they were really FULL. Each bush was a little different shade of purple. One was extremely dark. Just gorgeous. After we came in the house, I got my camera & went outside to take a few pictures. This bloom will only last less for about a wk. They bloom about 3 times a yr but it lasts for such a short time before all the blooms start dropping. By now, these bushes are quite large – taller than me. We’ve got a few of them in the front yard too.

Alex’s Deca Club (business club at school) is going to a convention today at the Phx Convention Center downtown for the whole day. When it’s over they are going to a Phx Suns game. We probably won’t see him until around 10:30 or 11:00 tonight. But it’s a fun way for him to spend his birthday.

10/17/10 - (Sat) Sparky just got back from the beauty shop. She is gorgeous. This is her first time at this particular beauty shop because her regular stylist retired. I like the way this person did her. She is so pretty.

Alex will be 17 yrs old in a couple of days. I just don’t know where 17 yrs went – so quickly! He took the PSATs this morning & then came home with a couple of friends.

I had a restful morning. After I dropped Sparky off I went through some more boxes in the garage. There are still way too many out there & I need to clear out that area for Alex’s car. I figure I’ll have it all cleared out & ready about the time he’s ready to leave for college.

Anyway, I sorted some kids’ books for a guy at my office who has 4 little kids; Also put a few bags of Alex’s clothes in the trunk for another person at my office. It’s nice that someone can make use of these things. It’s nicer to be able to get them out of my garage. There are still a lot of boxes that I have to take to the animal rescue thrift store too. Unfortunately, there are still a lot that we will need to keep.

I found some old photo albums in there too & started flipping through pages. Lots of memories. A couple pictures are of me & an old friend/neighbor of mine from the early 80’s when we went water skiing & snow skiing the same wk-end (New Yr’s Eve). It’s a picture of her & her ex-husband & me & an old boyfriend. That old friend of mine is remarried & has 2 daughters now. One is in Alex’s class & has been since about 5th grade. It’s funny that our kids are in school together. Now I really feel old.

That's it for now. Keep in touch.

Hugs,

Candace

Too Hot in the Desert

It is now Oct 1, 2010. I have had no entries for a very long time. So let’s start with a not-so-pleasant story about living in this god-forsaken desert.

It was a Monday morning a couple wks ago. Lewis was leaving the house at 4:45 a.m., as usual. Yes, he leaves that early every day. He got as far as the garage, opened the garage door, then came back in the house, woke me to tell me there was a HUGE rattle snake in the driveway next to Alex’s car. Probably about 5-6 ft . long & very thick. Tail was up & it was hissing at Lewis, facing him. Lewis saw it & put the garage door down & came in the house to tell me, but in putting the double garage door down, he accidentally hit the button for the single garage door, so that 1 door went up. That is the third of the garage where we have too many boxes, where Alex’s car doesn’t fit yet until I take all of those boxes of stuff to the animal shelter thrift store. Then his car will fit in there with ours. Lewis went out to look at it again, but it was gone. He thought it may have crawled up under Alex’s car & was concerned. I said I would take Alex to school & that he should call the animal control people to come look for it & take it back out to the desert.

So Lewis called animal control, they told him to call the fire dept. The fire dept. came out within minutes. They looked around & didn’t find the snake. They checked under Alex’s car & up in the motor. No snake. But they also noticed the single garage door was open & wondered whether said snake had made its way into that area. I am thinking & hoping NO. Once Lewis put the double garage door down, the motor would have scared it away, not towards the single opened door. Hopefully. Lewis gave me the report & went to work. I was not happy that the snake might be in the garage. But what could I do then?

Still in bed and trying to get back to sleep, I kept hearing a beeping coming from the living room. What in the heck was that? Everything in our house beeps. The washer beeps when it’s finished, the drier beeps, the microwaves beep, the oven beeps, the refrigerator beeps if the doors are open too long, all doors to the house beep when they are opened or closed because of the security system. But this was a weird beep. It beeped just once. I ignored it & looked at the clock. Then I heard it again. I looked at the clock. It had been a few seconds since the last beep. I ignored it again hoping it would go away without me having to get out of bed & disturb Sparky who was soundly sleeping on the pillow next to my head. Then it beeped again. I looked at the clock. Almost a minute had passed. Okay, I was mildly curious. I got up, walked out to the hallway towards the living room only to see - - WHAT? The living room door was wide open! Not just unlocked, but OPEN. I ran to it & shut it & locked it. Then the alarm went off. The security company called to make sure we hadn’t been broken into. I told her it was fine, the door just blew open. But why wasn’t it locked? And why wasn’t it latched?

Then more beeping, this time from the kitchen. It seems Lewis must have set the timer on the stove in case he fell asleep while waiting for the fire dept. He left without shutting it off. I had to run back in the bedroom to get my glasses so I could figure out how to turn off that timer beep. Since our stove is only a few months old, I am not familiar with all of the buttons without my glasses on. I finally figured it out & shut off those beeps. Then I started hunting through the house with my baseball bat for a rattlesnake. The door was wide open – with a snake on the loose in my driveway! This morning was just getting worse. After I had combed through the entire house, backs of closets & under everything, with my baseball bat in one hand, carrying Sparky in my other arm, I finally went into the computer room, sat on the recliner section of the couch with Sparky next to me & a blanket on us. I was not going back to bed. And I certainly didn’t go back to sleep. I waited for Alex’s alarm to go off. When he came out I told him I would take him to school if he didn’t feel comfortable getting in his car, but since the fire dept guys looked all over he felt safe, so he drove himself.

Did I ever mention I hate living in the desert?

It was 108 degrees on Sept 30. That is the hottest recorded Sept temp. I remember 1 year when it was 122 in June. But 108 in Sept ? Absurd. I've come to the conclusion that summer is never going to end - - never again.

Sorry, no pictures this time. I've been taking more videos of Sparky though. I'll try to include them next time.

I read something weird a few days ago. It was regarding the situation with Somali pirates hijacking ships off the coast of East Africa.
The first few words are all you need to understand the oddity of the phrase. You will see why this is something you have probably never read or heard in your life.
“The attorney for the pirates….”
Attorney for the pirates? Whhatttt? Please tell me if that phrase doesn’t strike anyone as odd.
See, you have lived this long & never heard that phrase uttered in your entire life. (I’m guessing). Just shows - - you’re never too old to learn (or hear) new things.

Speaking of weird phrases, yesterday I head on the news that there was an accident on the 101. Something about a 4-car pile up (please use an alternate route). And I thought, What a great name for a band! 4-Car Pile Up. Tell me that’s not a good name for a rock group. Is it worse than Stone Temple Pilots? Or Def Leppard or Lynard Skynyrd or Nickelback or Red Hot Chili Peppers? Personally, I love Red Hot Chili Peppers - - the band & the band name. It’s got some color to it.

Right now I am sitting here with my iPod playing my 2,000 favorite songs. Earbuds in. I am also eating popcorn. I have to keep turning up the iPod because chomping on the popcorn is too loud inside my head. I don’t want to turn it up too much & ruin my rock-concert eardrums any further. Sometimes I put a handful of popcorn in my mouth as soon as a song ends, hoping to finish chewing it before the next song starts. That hasn’t happened. There is not much time between songs. Maybe I should just put the popcorn away. Nahhh.

My niece, Adriane is pregnant with a little boy. She & our nephew, Chad live in Texas so we probably won’t get to see the little one too often. It would be great if they lived here & we could all be together. As it is, my family gets together once a month to celebrate the birthdays of that month, & my 2 sisters & I get together once a month for dinner. Adriane & Chad are the only ones missing. I wish Dennis & Cath could convince them to move here. But I know Chad LOVES Texas. And Adriane’s twin sister is there too.

Sorry, ears, but this is a great Pet Shop Boys song (West End Girls). Have to turn it up. I will stop eating popcorn for this song. I may even sing, but I am not alone right now, so I might have to reconsider that.

Next song is “Bang your Head” by Quiet Riot. I will definitely have to turn it down, now that the Pet Shop Boys song is over. “Bang your head. Wake the dead...” Remember that song? There were sure some good songs in the 80's. When I look back on music, I think the 80s was probably my favorite music decade. The 70's had me out at the disco every night. But I was in my 20's so I was able to do that. But the music just got better in the 80's.

“Ridin’ the Storm Out” by REO Speedwagon just came on. What a great song! I never understood why so many people made fun of REO. They had some incredible songs. A little trivia for you . . . REO actually got their name from Ransom Eli Olds who was a pioneer of the American auto industry. Oldsmobile was named for him (natch). Why they chose that particular industry to name themselves after is still a mystery.

Okay, don’t make fun of me, but the Rob Thomas song “Streetcorner Symphany” is such an up, bouncy, fun song. I’m listening to it right now. It’s what I call a spring song. There are certain songs that remind me of the wonders of spring, the smell of spring. Before I got married I had a Welcome Spring party every year around the first or second wk of spring. Think of spring – of orange blossoms, of star jasmine blossoms. Yummm. I have been trying to find orange blossom candles for years. Every time I think I’ve found one, I buy it, & it turns out to be that fake orange smell. Real orange blossom, not just orange, is incredible. Finally, I found a company online that has orange blossom candles. I thought I’d order a few to see if they got it right. They did. I keep all of my scented candles in one of the kitchen cabinets above the phone. Not with any food or dishes. Every time I walk by that area of the kitchen I smell orange blossoms. Now that is ideal! And when we cook something that does not smell very nice, I just open that cabinet for a while. Don’t even have to light the candles. When Alex was younger & he drank out of plastic glasses, I kept those plastic glasses in the candle cabinet until he told me the glasses tasted funny. So I smelled them & they smelled like my candles. Even after I put them in the dishwasher, that smell stayed. Those candles can certainly permeate things.

Spring also reminds me Legend City, the old amusement park that used to be down near the zoo in Scottsdale. Legend City was such a fun place to go in the spring & summer, & it always smelled good there. This was in 1969 & the early 70's. As you wandered around Legend City you could smell everything from orange blossoms to incense from the gift shop. They also sold 45 RPM records in that store. I remember getting “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show” by Neil Diamond & “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James & the Shondells.

More unnecessary trivia - - One of Tommy James & the Shondells’ album covers was the first professional photo shoot for then-photographer Linda Eastman McCartney. By now you’re probably asking yourself, “Just what the heck is a shondell?” I know you won’t be able to sleep tonight unless you know that. Well, Tommy James named his group after Troy Shondell, a one-hit-wonder vocalist in the early 60's. Supposedly, Troy Shondell was his idol. A one-hit-wonder as an idol? This guy needs to raise the bar a little.

This is just me boring you with my wealth of worthless trivia. Gotta love that worthless trivia. Speaking of trivia, tomorrow night is trivia game night at Peggy & Al’s house. They are our across-the-street neighbors. That means we can drink to our heart’s content since no one has to drive home.

Sometimes Lewis & I read music trivia cards to each other before we go to sleep. These are the music trivia cards that no one in our game groups seems to care for. So we have decided not to take this particular set to any of the game nights & keep them for ourselves.

Anyone catch the season premier of “The Good Wife” ? What a great season opener. That is a very good show.

I found a new lipstick that I love. It is one of those all-day lasting ones. And the color is very nice & soft. The color is called 709. 709? Isn’t that a nice name for a lipstick? Nothing like Moonlight Romance or anything like that. Just 709. Kind of like having a hair color called “dirty blond.” I think I will go back & see what other lipstick colors I should have. I may stock up on the entire 700 series.

Lewis went to poker last night so Alex & I watched “Halloween 2” – the Rob Zombie version. I have seen 1 & 2 of the original ones with Jamie Leigh Curtis, but not the Rob Zombie ones. So we want to get the Rob Zombie first one. I thought we could watch 3 of them this wk-end. Kind of a gross-out marathon. It IS October, & Halloween is my favorite holiday. Alex is excited. Lewis probably won’t be. I’ll have to stop at Blockbuster to pick up those 3 (Alex owns the 1 we watched last night. He has quite a collection now – over 200 DVDs).

I will pull all of my Halloween decorations out of the garage this wk-end & do my decorating on Sun. I have tons of ghosts to put in the front tree. I need to use the really tall ladder & the shorter one too. It’s quite a project. I’ve got tons of new decorations I bought last yr, the day after Halloween. Lots of pumpkin lights this time. And a really cool giant black spider. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The sad thing is, we are the last house in the cul-de-sac & our house is kind of pushed back off the street, so if you’re just walking down the street at the end of the cul-de-sac, you may not see our house. But once the kids are in the cul-de-sac, they see it. I love it when the little ones come to the door. They are so cute.

Oct 2 (Sat) Just picked up a chocolate cake for game night.
Lewis took one of the cars in for an oil change, & Alex is still at work. At least he's working inside now & not at the pool any longer. He loves working there.

Alex will be 17 in a couple wks. I can't believe how fast this 17 yrs have gone. And I don't like it.

Just noticed I didn't say much about Sparky in this entry. Well, you know she's just as cute as ever. I'll make sure to add pictures of her next time.

Okay, that's about it for now. I'll put some pictures in next time. I really don't have anything new yet.

Hugs,
Candace

Vacation 2010

July 11, 2010 (Sun)
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog. By now, you’ve probably forgotten all about me & my boring little adventures. But we can’t have that, can we ?!

I don’t remember if I told you about Sparky’s surgery. She had to have her ACL replaced. She was in a doggie cast for a while & was not too happy about that. Aside from keeping her from hopping & jumping, she went through it pretty well. And now she is back to normal, prancing & jumping all over the place.

We returned from our 7-day Alaskan cruise this past Friday night. That picture of the 3 of us was taken on the whale watching boat.

Here's some pretty cool scenery of when we were out whale watching.

Couldn’t wait to get home & see our little Sparky. Eric picked her up at her hotel & brought her home for us so we wouldn’t have to wait another day to see her. It was so nice sleeping in my own bed with my own dog.

The cruise was nice. We flew into Seattle a day earlier than necessary because no one likes to rush. The entire Kowal family went on this trip - - 12 of us in all, ranging in age from 10 yrs to 84 yrs old. Yes, Lewis’s parents were there too.

We went on a whale watching excursion. It was pouring rain & very cold, but there I was standing on the front deck of a whale watching boat in the middle of the ocean somewhere in Alaska & it was just incredible. And we DID see some whales jumping & spouting. So many incredible feelings on this trip - - like the morning we cruised through a fjord, staring at a mile-long glacier. There were chunks of blue ice in the water. It was beautiful. That whole glacier thing may have been the most breathtaking sight of my life.

The next day was river rafting in Skagway. Two rafts for all 12 of us. The water was sort of an opaque grey. Sounds ugly doesn’t it? It wasn’t. It was actually shimmery. Quite beautiful. It was run-off water from the glacier & was 36 degrees. My boots didn’t show up on the tour so I was the only one on this wet raft wearing tennis shoes. Surprisingly, I wasn’t cold, even though my shoes were soaked. It was never really as cold as we expected it to be anyplace we went. We all packed tons of warm clothes that we didn’t need to use. So I ended up wearing the same things over & over because I did not expect it to be so warm there. Maybe it was because the sun stayed up for 20-21 hours a day. The only other clothes I packed were for the formal nights. And lots of shoes. I don’t know why I took so many shoes. This was not my best packing effort. But I did fine with Alex’s clothes. He had more shirts & pants & shorts than he could wear.

Alex ended up playing basketball on the top deck most days. Sometimes his cousins would join him. I think they may have played a few games of ping pong too.

This is a picture of Lewis & Alex at Bouchard Gardens in Victoria, Canada.

The best part of the cruise (just kidding) was winning the “Name That Tune” trivia contest & being awarded the coveted Celebrity Cruise Lines t-shirts. I don’t wear t-shirts. Lewis & Alex got them. We came in second place twice & first place once. The only time I got killed in trivia challenges was when they were of the general nature, such as geography, history, etc. But give me music trivia & everything comes together. Lewis & I both love music trivia. Too bad it was only 3 times. Well, only 3 times that we could play because we were off the ship on excursions during some of the games.

We met some nice people too. Too bad we didn’t exchange information. We had a lot of fun with them.

There was also a 70’s / Disco night one night. First there was a show in the theatre comprised of 70’s music & dancing. Then we went to the lounge after the show was over to hear more of that wonderful disco music that everyone I know besides Rosalie hates. Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, Boz Skaggs. Just really great dance music. But Lewis & I only danced to a few songs when all of our body parts started aching. I just laughed & said, “Can we possibly be this old?” We went back to the room & put Ben-Gay on each other.

This is the second time I actually got on the ship on my birthday. For my 50th birthday, we boarded the Disney ship. On my 55th birthday, we boarded the Celebrity Infinity. Usually we are out of town on my birthday because it’s a convenient time when Alex is out of school. I think I’ve been home (in Scottsdale) about 2-3 times in the past 15 years on the actual date of my birthday.

My family is going to celebrate the July birthdays on the 18th. That will be Cath, Aunt Bertha, & me.

Lewis & I went to lunch today at Flo’s Asian Bistro. Seems we haven’t eaten enough lately. Only 6 times a day !

Candy (Allan’s wife) & I went to this detox seminar & had our metabolism & body mass measured. All that creepy stuff. Mine is horrible. But I knew it would be. We have some information & the title of a book to get working on. Apparently, I have a lot of toxins in my body that need to be removed before I will be able to lose any weight. I’m just so sick of being fat.

I still haven’t been able to find my REAL glasses. I keep using the readers, but my real glasses are tri-focals. It would be nice to have them back.

That's as much of an update I can do for now. My part-time job gives me a lot of time to take naps.

Hugs,

Candace