December 7th

The day most commonly known as Pearl Harbor day, except in our family it is better known as Kevin's birthday.  This was a bit of a special day for Kevin with turning 55 as he now has his pensionable max formula so is eligible to retire with a full pension.  Speaking with him I don't believe that is his plan just yet, but even the youngest of my siblings is sure getting up there.  Happy birthday Kevin.
  I got out early this morning and played golf with the group from this and the other park.  It's still early in the winter season, so there were only 7 of us, but we still played closest to the pin and longest putt.  No winnings came my day, but with a bit firmer putt, well who knows.  Anyway it was good to get out and see some of those people again.  I played well enough, but as always there is room to improve.  I carded a 47 after taking a penalty stroke and having a 3 putt green, so that's why I say well enough.
  Marg went to water aerobics this morning.  In fact she went there a bit early, so had a very long workout.  The water was a bit of a surprise as it was chilly, only 78F, so mainly the snowbirds going near the pool.  She was getting prune fingers by the time she got back, well her 1 1/2 hour plus dip in the pool was a long one.  She loves her pool time that girl.
  We had a bite of lunch and then some visiting with folks in the park.  We stopped at Wink & Mayva's place to let them use Marg's blood pressure machine because he is having some issues.  We had several people at our place to visit, then a bit of a walk and the afternoon was gone.  Took time to call the manufacturer of our electric stove about a problem with the larger burner.  It heats up to high and stays there regardless of the setting on the control knob.  The service people at the company were very helpful, both diagnosing the problem and selling me the replacement switch and it's enroute.
  We had to pass on happy hour today as it was time to do the prep work for Gary's burgers and this seems to be the kitchen team we are working on now.  I may have mentioned this previously, it seems Marg has made this commitment that I am learning about.  Well that's not entirely right, we did work on the final hamburger night they did last year.  My job was toasting buns & Marg's was serving the customers at the counter.  The process is pretty well established and the response by park residents is as well.  When the serving counter is opened, the line up was pretty much to the end of the rec room & they were all hungry.  LOL  I joked about need someone with a whip to control the hungry hoard.  Anyway it is pretty intense at the start, but usually settles down when the early birds are fed.  The challenge is the grill size and the number of burgers it holds in meeting the demand.  The rest of the crew doing fries and chili, etc. have a lot more flexibility.  It's actually a bit of fun, if you make it that way.  A standing comment became nice buns, when I had them toasted just right; so I embellished on my booty shake when I heard it.  Patti said I would get more comments if I wore tighter pants, LOL.  Anyway we fed about 90 people plus ourselves, receiving lots of compliments - the burgers are really good, Gary does a great job.
  By the time we finished the clean up we were tired.  How tired, well I fell asleep trying to post this last night and that is the reason it is being done the next morning.  When we got back to our place I took an ibuprofen as my back was talking to me and then Marg made us each a dish of ice cream.  After we had a bit of a chance to relax and unwind the body started to feel better.
  Why is this important, well it was poker night and I was debating skipping it.  I ended up being a late arrival and there were already 6 players.  On sitting down I won the first hand and in doing so got lots of ribbing, in fact I started off winning several.  Unfortunately like the old saying win early, lose late, my good fortune went into the tank until close to the end.  As I never really count my win/loss amount, I just have a sense of how things went.  That sense leads me to believe I didn't win and if I did lose it wasn't a great deal.  We had a few new players, well new for this year anyway and that always makes for an entertaining evening.
  When I got back I started on the blog, but when Marg saw I had dozed off, suggested she was turning in early.  It sounded like a good idea, so we were in bed at about 10:30 and I don't believe I even woke up through the night.