Written January 16th, 5 AM
about January 15th

Dear Mom and family,

It's 5:00 AM, another chilly morning, and I'm pretty sore from my six mile walk yesterday. It took me an entire half-hour to get the fire built, the coffee made, and to find my planner and laptop, which were both still in the Jan-Sport backpack. The fire is already wanting another log, but my back and legs don't want to get out of the recliner!

Yesterday morning I did some housework and some raking and watering in the back yard.  For a long time the fiber-glass shade cloth has been drooping off of the shade structure by the big smoker, and I got that down and bundled up the strings of lights which have been hanging half off of it ever since a big wind storm we had two months ago. 

As you know, a huge oleander hedge runs almost the entire  length of the eastern border of our lot. I've talked briefly to the wife and the kids, but never actually seen the father of the family, though I've heard him for two years now, singing snatches of semi-in-tune Mexican song, greeting his kids with a rush of affectionate words when he gets home, etc.

Yesterday I happened to be watering the orange tree back there,just as he was looking under the hood of his truck, right where there is a gap between oleander branches. He waved and smiled, and I gave a warm hello. A small, wiry man with a friendly face.

For so many years we had problematic alcoholics living there, a string of different couples whose late-night fights would be the sound track of our evenings (although they always seemed to shut up when we had company). I'm so happy that the family that lives there now is there.

Dale Sr. told me that he and John Ducette, after looking at the book which Madelyn gave us about wood-burning pizza and bread ovens in order to decide what they wanted, went to bookstores looking for more exact plans.

I called Dale Jr., who has been spending days at the new house working to get it move-in ready, and asked him to see what he could find on-line. He said that he had already been looking but that all the plans he found had to be ordered and would take a couple of days to get here.

It was two in the afternoon before I started my weekly walk. On the way I took the little bit of perishable, non compostable garbage accumulated during the week, in a Safeway bag and stopped at the house on 5th Ave. to put it in the garbage there.

The desert trees and plants in the front of the little house we own on 5th Ave. were planted by Brian when he lived there.

Dale Sr. was in the back, in front of the free-standing garage which is his "man-cave. He was working on a shelf I'd asked him to make, a narrow shelf to go above the dining room window, just wide enough for me to display all of the coffee-cups I've brought back from different countries.

He was working on the supports for the shelf, using a template to cut half-circles.

 

He said that John Ducette was spending the evening at his brother's house, as his brother had found some plans for the oven on-line which could be printed out.

Here are some views of the inside of his "man-cave". He has his fishing-poles stored on the ceiling.

I took this photo of Black River on the Apache Reservation, one of their favorite fishing spots. I walked up the road which goes up the steep side of the canyon in the early morning, to get the shot. I had it enlarged and framed and gave it to him as a gift.

Ziggy was in the fenced yard in the back of the house there.

We have preferred not to rent that house out, because he likes to have it available for people to stay in. John Ducette is staying there now.

I walked on down to Signal Butte, about three miles, paid my phone bill, and walked back. I was shocked that my bill was thirty dollars higher than usual. I asked the young guy (they are all Hispanic because they have quite a few customers who are more comfortable buying a phone in their native language) if it could  have been that time I clicked on something by mistake when I was trying to take photos with the phone, and left it on video. He said that it could.

I stopped at Carneceria-Panaderia El Rancho, a (combination butcher and bakery) which I'd never been in, and got some beef stew and refried beans in containers, about a pound of each.

I was quite sore by the time I got home. My goal is to walk about eight miles, once a week, but I guess I'll have to work up to that. The hike I'm planning to take in May is from 6 to 10 miles a day, for a solid week. That's what I'm training for.

After a short rest, I drove up to Starbuck's and copied yesterday's blog in the on-line format. I hurried to get a few things at Safeway because I wanted to get home in time for the PBS program honoring the singer-songwriter Willie Nelson for getting the Gershwin prize for songwriting.

The program affected me very much. It included other musicians doing his songs (not just the ones he'd written, but songs which he'd had had hits with) and filmed black and white interviews with people who had known him well, and which included films and photos from childhood and through his career.

The last of the few songs he performed himself at the end of the program (he's in his eighties now) was "The Promised Land" which has lines about welcoming foreign immigrants into this country. He said that it was especially appropriate "the way things have been recently in this country". Tears came to my eyes. Strike one against xenophobia!

I went to sleep without taking my meds again....aaaagh! I did take them Thursday, though, took them with me to the restaurant where the travel club met.

Love, Lennie