Wednesday, Jan 17th

A windy day in Apache Junction and even though still a nice day, it was a cool wind.  In fact I wore long pants today.
  It was golf day for the park residents and we had half a dozen foursomes today and Gerry came to play, so I drove to the course from here.  I played much better this week and even with a penalty for an out of bounds shot, scored a 43.  The big difference was I hit the greens on the par 3's and made some nice putts.  We played with a couple of guys who were easy to play with and had a few laughs in the process.  BTW it was a zero turtle day, but one of our group did go in the water anyway.  The road [Ironwood] is under repair and the traffic coming north [against us] was very heavy.  Fortunately by the time we returned it was all gone and not a problem for us.
  When I got back I called for an appointment for an oil change and asked about my tire that has a slow leak.  I called Kal Tire at home and they said bring it in.  When I told them where I was he said, No free tire repair for you.  LOL  I called James Tire, where I have been getting oil changes for the last few years and they said they could do the tire repair at the same time and gave me a 2:30 appointment. 
  While I was gone, Marg did 2 loads of laundry plus steamed everything that needed it and had a few visitors as well.  We had some lunch and then I went and cleaned my golf clubs.  Although it was cool in the breezeway, it was so warm and sunny on the rear patio that I set up out there to do the cleaning.  After a while they get a lot of dirt and stuff sticking in the grooves on club faces, but I usually leave until a day when it is hot so they dry completely after washing them.  By then it was time to go for the oil change.  The deal they offer is incredible, $15.95 plus tax for oil and filter.  To this they added my tire repair, it had a screw in the tread so they took the tire off and patched it from the inside.  The charge for that was $15 plus tax. 
  On my return, I went for the mail and a pleasant surprise is we are finally getting mail from home now.  When I got back Marg had 4 women here for a gab-fest.  One of them was Janice next door and it was nice to see her out and about.  It was pretty funny, as one of them was her buddy Linda.  Well Linda loves Marg's gingerbread cookies, so asked everyone if they would like one.  She didn't bother Marg about it, rather just went in to the cupboard where she knows they are and brought everyone a cookie.  During this get together, Janice told the others how special Marg is and how lucky she is to have her support in this difficult journey she is taking with her cancer treatments.  I think there were some tears involved by both parties.
  We have great neighbours right across the road from us whom we chat with casually.  There are 5, sometimes 6 couples and they have happy hours together most days.  It turns out two of the couples have rented their sites by the year, and bought new trailers to be sure of their spots.  Anyway one of the guys just turned 70 today and his wife asked us to join them, they have actually asked us previously, but we generally had other plans.  We went today and had cake and ice cream with them, they are very nice folks.  Chuck, who had the birthday flies model airplanes, quite large ones.  There are several clubs here doing that.  He crashed his pride and joy owing to a failure of the control unit.  It had about a 5 ft wingspan and he brought it home in a green garbage bag, so kind of a mixed emotion day for him.  A bit of a departure from the norm for us and some of our friends were wondering about us at happy hour.
  Supper was a nice stir fry and rice that Marg made.  Then for me it was off to poker.  We had a good turnout tonight, so had two tables playing.  Really funny because I sat in the same chair as the big winner last week and I was the big winner tonight.  A couple of the guys said they are coming early in the afternoon next week to claim that seat.  LOL  It was a pretty casual atmosphere around the table tonight and we had lots of laughs.  Of course it was easier for me to laugh than it was for some of the other guys.