May 09

One of our favorite people died, Aunt Alma Ivy (nee Palmer) died on 23 April. We drove up to her funeral in Farmington, New Mexico. There was a big turnout of family and friends. Of course if you had 20 siblings, many of whom are still living there is bound to be a big turnout. Aunt Alma was Rose's father's sister. Our little Toyota Matrix still amazes us at how comfortable it is for long trips. We played hits from the 1950s as we traveled. It was a fun trip.

We manage to keep busy with our garden, home, and church activities. Bob is still working on getting his real estate consulting business started. He now has registered his LLC with the state of Arizona and obtained a business license from the town of Gilbert. His web site is: www.phxrecon.com. So far he has learned much about how to set up a business and the bureaucratic hurdles one encounters but not attracted any paying customers.

Our swimming pool has a rock feature and a water slide. The surface of the slide was so rough it was like sliding on sandpaper. Bob painted the slide with epoxy garage floor paint. Now the slide is super slippery. We spend time in the pool almost every day. The pool water temperature is about 82F (28C) and the air temperature has been as high as 104F (40C).

Some friends from the garden club were taking out a cactus patch to permit them to put in a rose garden. We helped by taking many cacti to put in front of our guest house where there is not much vegetation. We got ourselves thoroughly stuck by many thorns in this exercise. People who know cacti, handle them with tongs. We learned that putting Elmer's wood glue on the thorns in your skin, letting it dry and then pealing off the glue will get rid of the microscopic thorns you cannot see.

Sergio, our son-in-law's birthday is 17 May. We had dinner with the Beltran's last night at a very nice restaurant in Chandler, Arizona. We had not been in the Old Town part of Chandler in the evening before. There is quite a bit of night-life and all the palm trees are lit up with Christmas lights. It is very festive. We took Eve with us to the restaurant because she was staying overnight with us. She enjoyed dancing to the live music but was not interested in the excellent food.

Both of us picked up some food poisoning on 3 May. It really cleaned out our digestive systems. We are completely over it now and only have the memory to remind us of a very unpleasant few days. Rose lost 10 pounds during her ordeal. Note to selves: Don't eat chicken salad that has not been continuously refrigerated.

Rose has been going through the hassle of educating herself about health care options before signing up for Medicare. Dealing with the insurance salesmen who want to sell us supplemental insurance has been tedious. Bob now plans to cancel his Medicare Part B which he signed up for last October but which will not take effect until 1 July because he signed up too late. We plan to just stick with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

All in all, life has continued to be very good to us here on the Triangle Ranch. We anticipate some visitors in the next few weeks so we need to get some better air conditioning in the guest house. We have A/C from a window unit in the main room but the bed room has no A/C and may get a little warm unless we fix that potential problem. We probably will buy a portable A/C unit that will keep the bedroom cool when the heat it intolerable outside. Let us know if you plan to come for a visit so we can coordinate our calendars.