Friday, Dec 9th

Getting a little concerned, here it is the 9th and still have not written our Christmas letter.  This is a bit unusual for us, but we have been so busy and it almost seems poorly motivated.  Not sure but I think the letter this year will be an electronic one, although I will probably have to print a few.  Marg has some cards, so will have to try and get my act together this weekend.  Honestly us snowbirds do get too busy sometimes and this seems to be one of them.  LOL
  Out of necessity we got out and about early this morning.  I had the best of intentions to go riding with Larry, but my rear tire was flat. I tried inflating it, but nothing, so I knew it was a significant problem.  Larry went out on his own this morning while I took off my back wheel and pulled the tube.  It had a rip about 4 or 5 inches long on the side that faces the rim, so nothing was poking it through the tire and the tube was garbage.  It was the original tube that came with the bike, probably made in China as cheaply as possible.  Fortunately I still had the leak proof tube with the hole in it.  This is where you say, is that right or did I mis-read that.  I patched the leak and put it all back together, so we'll see how that works out.
  Then we went out to Costco.  Happy hour tonight was at our place, so we needed to get a few things as it was bring snacks, something we had kind of got away from.  Marg picked up some: spring rolls, chicken wings, salsa, a 6 layer dip for it and then we had a slice of pizza for lunch.  The place was sure busy, but not to bad at the cash registers.  There are a lot of seniors who go there on Friday because of the food samples and the traffic gets congested around them.  Not too certain whether this is about free food or nothing better to spend their time on, but it seems much the same at home.
  When we got back Marg went to Walmart to round out the things she needed while I went to play pool.  I played with 4 guys who are pretty good and we had a few laughs in the process.  There was only one other table with two guys, but they are kind of the grumpy old men in the pool room, so people tend to avoid them if there is another game where they can play.  Geez maybe I am becoming one of the grumpy old men.  LOL
  When I got back, Marg had picked up the rest of what she needed and started arranging the furniture in the breezeway.  We only had chairs for 12, but knew that a few people would bring chairs.  Happy was at 4, so she had to get the hot stuff heated up in the oven and then transferred into the slow cooker.  By the time everyone got here, she had her contribution to snacks all laid out and the blenders with the margarita ingredients all laid out.  I say blenders, as Doris brought hers over so they could have two kinds of margaritas on the go: lime & mango.  There was lots of other stuff brought by the other gals & the patio table was full to the edges.  In fact I would be surprised if any of them had to go out for supper after.  I think we had about 2 dozen here at the peak and rather than an hour, it was 3 hours long.  It was fun and a couple people said they thought it should be at our place more often.  I'm not sure how much people had to drink as they bring their own, but Marg went through a lot of tequila, a bottle and a half I think and I fed them some beer and whiskey after they drank what they brought, so they were well lubricated.  It was funny, the guys were hesitant about having something else, but the gals held out their margarita glass readily when refills came around.
  Another positive aspect of doing this was that one of Marg's very good friends who lost her sister yesterday was here and it was good for her to be around other people at such a difficult time.
  It was a nice day in the valley even though it started out cool, the mid-day highs were in the low 70's and we were back in shorts and hanging up our jackets.