It rained for much of the weekend. Folks that have lived here longer than us have told us this amount of rain is not normal. The ground is saturated and several of our saguaros (cacti) behind the house have become water logged and lost an “arm” or two. We have a few leaks that need to be tended to; a call to the roofing company again tomorrow is in order.
Monsoon season!
My husband and I went for a ride and then met the rest of the family at a local restaurant called Serial Grillers. We don’t get out very much, what with pandemics and the like, but it was nice to be able to sit at a bar, have a drink, and just chat with others out in public for a few moments. We miss doing this, but we’re balancing a responsible approach to our health and the health of others with the need for some social interaction.
I have a feeling there may be some attempted lockdowns later this year. COVID infections are starting to spike amongst the unvaccinated population and this is concern for everyone, not just those that are not vaccinated for whatever reason.
Thank god polio didn’t come around in the 21st century.
The blue dot/cross hairs shows our location. We had a very impressive thunderstorm come through last night. The lightning show was wild, the rain was driving, and the wind was rattling all sorts of things. Surprisingly, we never lost power.
However, the house did display its vulnerabilities in this type of storm.
Today we have the roofing company out. They did work for the previous owners of the house and assured us the roof is still under warranty. We had a couple of leaks in the hallway, a leak in Chris’ office, and a leak behind the piano on the upstairs landing. The roofers went through and patched things up and hopefully this will help with the leak situation.
We still love the house very much and we knew it needed some work. So no surprises there. When the roofers were here they pointed out a few things they had recommended to the previous owners, but the owners declined the expense. We’ll probably have these things done soon. While everyone has their own reasons for the decisions they make in life, I’m wired to do what needs to be done to make the investment of a home last a long, long time.
I feel like we’re ready for the next round of storms coming in this weekend.
I have always been an ABBA fan. Even before their resurgence and the “Mamma Mia” productions and the like, I have always enjoyed the music of Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Anna-Frid (Frida). So one can understand that when it was announced back in 2018 that ABBA had gotten together and recorded a few new tracks, there were many folks that were excited to hear the new these new numbers.
It’s 2021 and they still haven’t been released. Apparently, ABBA wants to accompany these new songs with a road show involving a young ABBA (as we remember them) depicted by holograms in concert. The technology is a little wonky at the moment, then of course there was the worldwide pause for COVID-19, and as things start to resemble whatever normal is, still no word on when the tracks will be released.
Let’s hope it’s soon. The world needs to say Thank You for the Music. Soon.
I am very tired. Here’s a photo of the roses growing in our greenhouse/pool room. Chris has the greenest thumb of the family.
After a weekend at the ballpark, my husband realized he wasn’t feeling well on Monday. He said he had a pain above his abdomen. He tried to sleep it off but the pain would not subside, so at 11:00 PM he woke me up and asked him to take him to Urgent Care.
We went to the nearby Urgent Care center where they told us to go to the Emergency Room, since they didn’t have any machines to look at what could be wrong. We went to the Emergency Room. Honestly, the facility was a bit of a mess with chairs and wheelchairs strewn about. It was very cold and they were handing out blankets for soon-to-be-patients to wrap up in to keep warm. The computers were down (apparently it’s a nightly thing), but after a bit we got him registered and the wait began.
We were called in fairly quickly where they asked a bunch of questions and decided to do an ultrasound. I wasn’t allowed up in the ultrasound area; soon my husband was sitting with me in the meat locker like waiting room.
It was at this point that the hospital apparently lost interest in us.
Four hours later we were still sitting in the waiting room. We had checked on the status of where we were in line. Messages arrived via text advising we’d be seen in a few hours. My husband started falling asleep in the waiting room chair. He was seemingly comfortably asleep when we jerked awake and said to me, “I feel better but not great, but if I can sleep here, I can sleep at home”.
We let the check-in desk know we were heading home and that was the end of that ordeal. Later in the day he awoke from a long nap and declared he was feeling fine. I had grabbed a couple of hours of sleep and was making my way through the workday. All is well that ends well.
I have to admit, the folks coming through the Emergency Room were somewhat interesting. A man came in a skateboard and was promptly brought in because he had “broken heart syndrome”. We had the feeling they’d seen him before. Another man moaned really, really loud constantly and he was whisked into the bowels of the hospital. My husband decided that if we go to the ER again he’s going to moan loudly to get attention.
I’m happy he’s feeling better.
YouTube likes to throw retro music videos at me from time to time. Today a video came up of a track I haven’t heard in a while, but being the bit of a retro music nerd, I do listen to it from time to time.
I had completely forgotten that this song is 30 years old. I was *23* when this song came out. What? I know, right?
The group was “The Party”, formed by members of “The All New Mickey Mouse Club”. The track? Well, it’s a pop take on a Dokken rock track from 1985.
As a DJ, I found this track “felt” faster than it actually is. I always labeled this at 122 BPM, which was typical for the time, but it doesn’t quite have the house feel that was prevalent at the time and unless you were coming out of the right track to segue into this, the beat mix could be a little tricky. Or perhaps I had a beer in me by the time I’d get around to mixing this in for the night.
From 1991, here’s the Top 25 song “In My Dreams” by The Party. As an aside, I’ve always found the video effects in the bridge near the end to be quite nifty, especially for its time when Amiga computers were still the rage. And as a further aside, I miss the sideburns on guys in the 1990s (despite Damon’s mop of hair, he has nifty sideburns).
Earl and Jamie are in Phoenix this weekend to watch a couple of Cubs @ Diamondbacks games. They’re expected home this evening. The Cubs won yesterday; hopefully they’ll repeat the feat today.
Chris, Mike, and I went out for Korean BBQ and Sushi last night. I rode in the backseat as we made our way into town. I don’t get to appreciate the scenery surrounding our home when I’m driving, so it was nice to just watch the world go by as we made our way to the restaurant. We’ve lived here in Tucson for several months but I’m still not used to the fact that we have mountains all around, even though we can see them from numerous vantage points on our property.
The food was very good. This was the second time I had been to this restaurant. My husband doesn’t enjoy Asian Cuisine nor does he enjoy sushi, so with him out of town we decided to go take advantage of the situation. It was very good and we had a nice time.
Three out of five of us have nose rings, four out of five of us have tattoos, and one out of five of us is clean-shaven at the moment. Guess who the “one” is in all these scenarios.
They still love me even with these current cosmetic choices.
Truman enjoys sleeping in the middle of the floor these days. I think he likes the cooler tile and such in the warmer weather. He strikes a pose and does his thing. Occasionally he finds something he needs to turn an ear to, but then he’s back at his quasi-catnap, never losing site of maintaining a pose.
This is one of my favorite Abba track of all time, though it was never released as a single.
Here’s “If It Wasn’t For The Nights”.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!