Ontario living.....

8:11 am - Sunday - August 25th - Ontario, CA - 73 degrees, 79% humidity, wind - CALM......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 95 degrees.

We sat around talking, and drinking coffee Saturday morning until after 9 am.  We then drove into Riverside, CA to have breakfast at Simple Simon's (breakfast/lunch place).  We began having breakfast there almost 8 years ago when we began our full time adventure, and were living in our Newell at Rancho Jurupa Regional Park, which is just a couple of miles from Simple Simon's.  They are always packed on the weekends, but we always find a table outside next to the Mission Inn......

......we arrived around 9:30 am, and didn't leave until after 11.  It was beginning to get warm by that time, or should I say more humid?  From there TLE and left Tim and Laila, and headed for Claremont so TLE could get her hair styled by Amanda at Maxx Salon.  Almost everytime we are in town she visits Amanda to get her hair tuned up.

 It was after 1 pm by the time we arrived back at Tim and Laila's.  The birthday for Jameson, our great grandson, was scheduled for 5 pm, so we had four hours to rest.  I took a sweet 2 hour nap.  We were off to the party just before 5 pm, and were there until almost 8 pm......

.....all of our kids where there with their kids, as well as my youngest brother Phillip, and is wife Jeannie.  We had a wonderful time catching up with everyone, and before we knew it it was time to sing happy birthday to the birthday boy...

.......he is one year old, but I do no think he totally understands what this celebration was all about, right?

It was a great day with family and friends.  We were home by 8:30 pm bidding good night to Tim and Laila.

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'Back in the saddle again.....'

7:17 am - Saturday - August 24th - Ontario, CA - 67 degrees, 79% humidity wind - CALM.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 94 degrees.

Made me feel good to be back at the pool Friday morning.  As I prepared to sweep the pool for the first time in a week I wondered how my wound would tolerate all of that arm action, but there was nothing about which to be worried.....it felt fine as long as I took my time.  By 9 am the pool was finished......while I was cleaning the skimmers I found a LIVE tarantula......

......kind of creepy, but very cool at the same time!

When I was done with the pool I went up to open the Red Barn, and attended to the horseshoe pits, then down to the mini golf to blow a week's worth of eucalyptus leaves off the holes. 

After that Rich sent me up to Cabin 98 to fix the bannister railing on the upper bunk bed.  It had never been secured, so I cut a piece of 2" X 2" wood to attach the bannister to the frame of the bed at the far end......

.....at some point I will get it stained so it matches the rest of the wood....I love doing stuff like this!

I was off work by 12 pm, went home to shower and pack for our weekend trip up to Ontario, CA to attend the birthday party of our great grandson, Jameson Saturday afternoon.  This time we planned to stay with Tim, his wife Laila and their 7 month old son, Crosby.  TLE was home a little after 1:30 pm, and we were on the road north by 2 pm.

Friday afternoon traffic in SoCal is universally terrible and this Friday was no exception.  It took us 2.5 hours to reach our son's home.  Getting to spend time with our newest grandchild, Crosby, has been something to which I have been looking forward for several weeks.....

.....he has so much energy!

Crosby time

......he is growing so fast!  Tim works for Warmington Homes, a large California developer, as a construction superintendent, and is working out in Van Nuys on a 63 home development, so he gets home on Fridays between 5:30 pm and 6 pm.....it's a long drive through some of the worst traffic SoCal has to offer.

Whenever we visit Tim and Laila it always feels like home to me.  They have a wonderful guest bedroom, a wonderful backyard, and we always feel like we are at a resort.

........we sat by the outdoor firepit after a delicious tri-tip dinner talking until after 8:30 pm before heading in for the evening.  With a young baby Tim and Laila go to bed early, just as we did many years ago.

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Binging........

1:14 pm - Friday - August 23rd - Ramona, CA - 84° F, 37% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the west by northwest......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 85° F.

Thursday was my last day off work before I return to same on Friday.  I spent it much like the other three days, relaxing in my recliner.  Since Monday I have binged watched 2 different Netflix series, each of which has three seasons, and two seasons (respectfully) 'in the can' for your viewing pleasure.  The first series is called 'Glitch', which is about 6 people who return from the dead in a small town called Yoorana.  IMDB says there are three seasons, however, only two are currently available on Netflix, and there are only 6 episodes per season.  It is a very intriguing series, and I highly recommend it.  

The second series I binged watched is 'The Punisher' which has two seasons so far with 13 episodes each.  It took me a couple of days to watch all 26 episodes, which at an average of 55 minutes per episodes is a lot of relaxing in the recliner!  It's about an ex-marine, Frank Castle, whose family is murdered.  He becomes a vigilante and goes after all of those who were responsible.  I have seen the movie, which came out in 2004, and was kind of a 'B' movie, but the Netflix series is pretty well done, and keeps you on the edge of your proverbial seat.  It is quite 'dark', and very violent, so beware.

I feel good, and my side is healing quickly,  I wont' get the stitches out until August 30th. I now it's healing because it itches like crazy.  I don't really have anything more to share about Thursday, so I will bid you adieu until tomorrow.

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Day 3 of recovery

7:56 am - Thursday - August 22nd - Ramona, CA - 59° F, 93% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the west.....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 91° F.

Third day  of recovery.......the same as the first two.....lots of sitting around....one of my favorite activities....NOT!  But what are you going to do, right?  It is what it is, and sitting around is the prescription for healing quickly.  Intellectually I realize there is no way with this 3 inch incision on my side that I could do any of the work things I normally do without a lot of pain, and possibly pulling too hard on the stitches.  Even though I understand why I must be sit around, I still feel kind of useless......kind of like a slacker.  At any rate I've just one more day of prescribed rest after Wednesday and I should then be able to return to work on Friday for one day, then I'll have two more days off work before Monday, and the beginning of the Labor Day week.....the last major holiday of the summer season.

The wound is actually healing very nicely, and I think less and less about it with each passing hour.  Thank goodness I have always been a quick healer.  TLE changes my dressing once each day and says it looks good.  I can see it, but it's a tough angle for me to get a really good view.  I'm down to a much smaller bandage than the first day, but as you can imagine, it can only get so small with a 3 inch incision to cover.

On the Newell front.....having to sit around all day, mostly inside the Newell, I have really come to appreciate how well insulated this coach is.  When we get up in the morning we close all the windows and leave the Fantastic Fan vent fan on low.  It remains very comfortable until after 2 pm every day, which is when I usually turn on the rear A/C.  I'm sure if we had dual glazed windows it would be even better.  It only gets really hot around 4:30 pm when the sun is shinning directly into the front windows, but that only lasts for about an hour and then the is behind the trees across the street.

In just a few days we will have been here 4 months (August 25th).  The good news is it feels like much less time.....there is no bad news....it's all good.  Sorry for such brief posts the last few days, but when you sit around all day there is not much about which to write, right?

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'Two lovers......'

7:33 am - Wednesday - August 21st - Ramona, CA - 54° F, 80% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 95° F.

Unlike my experience with my biopsy sites oozing for a few days I have had no oozing from the stitches along my 3" long incision, just pain, and even that has diminished quickly.  I went outside briefly Tuesday morning, but spent most the day relaxing in my recliner.  A nurse from my dermatologist's office called early afternoon to advise they had received the lab results from the excision.  You know when the nurse calls it is good news, because the doctor always calls with bad news.  They checked all the margins around, and under the melanoma and found no cancer anywhere, so it was contained to the upper layer of skin as the prior biopsy had indicated.  Well, that makes it all worthwhile, right?

In other RORVR news the electricians have returned and are replacing all the pedestals, and wiring in sites 43-51, which welcome news.  Once those sites are finished the monthly resident next to me (#72) can move back to his site in that row, and then I can move out of my site to get my 60 gallon propane tank refilled, and then into one of those repaired sites temporarily so my site (#71) and the one next to me (#72) can be re-leveled.  Once that is done we can move back into our site for the duration of our stay, and enjoy a more 'level' experience.  You may recall that we leveled site #70 about 5, or 6 weeks ago.  I am down to under 15 gallons of propane so I need to get that taken care of in the next few weeks, or we will have no hot water.

We continue to get temps in the mid to low 50's at night in spite of the daytime temps being in the high 80's to low 90's.  In about 10 days we will enter the final long weekend of the summer....Labor Day weekend, and the season will be over.  It get busy on the weekends, but nothing like the other RV parks at which we have worked the last few years.

That's pretty much it for me about Tuesday.  A couple more days of R&R and I'll be back to work......I'll leave you with this great Mary Wells song.....Two Lovers.....

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'Days like this.....'

7:59 am - Tuesday - August 20th - Ramona, CA - 55° F, 80% humidity, wind - CALM.....bright, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 91° F.  I'm off work today, tomorrow and Thursday.

Monday at 9:30 am was the day and time of my 'excision'.  A couple of weeks ago I met with my dermatologist, Dr. Jou, to get a referral to a 'MOHS' surgeon who will remove the rest of the 'basil cell carcinoma' from the top of my right ear.  "Mohs surgery is a precise surgical technique used to treat skin cancer. During Mohs surgery, thin layers of cancer-containing skin are progressively removed and examined until only cancer-free tissue remains. Mohs surgery is also known as Mohs micrographic surgery."  Fortunately, basil cell carcinoma is easy to treat....you just remove it.  

During our discussion he asked me if he could examine all of my skin surface to be sure there were no other problems, and I agreed....thank God.  He found a couple of areas he was concerned about and took biopsies.  One of the biopsies came back negative (nothing going on there), but the other came back as Stage zero (Ø) melanoma.  Melanoma is the bad one, but stage 'Ø' means it is only in the very top layer of skin, and it is just a matter of removing it.  No further treatment is necessary.  Stage Ø means it was caught in its infancy, and full recovery is like 99.99%.  There is no history of melanoma in my family, so I am the first.  On Monday Dr. Jou excised that area.  The melanoma itself was about the size of a dime, but he excised an area the size of a quarter which meant a lot of stitches because he then had to elongate the incision so he would be able to close it properly.  After all was said and done the excision area was a little larger than the size of an adult eye, and as a result I'll have to avoid working for about 3 more days to allow healing to begin and prevent any post surgical bleeding......that blood thinner (Brillinta) I am taking is working well.

The procedure took about 45 minutes and we were then on our way over to Dr. Ashley Ruben to have my future MOHS surgery consultation.  After the consultation the MOHS surgery was scheduled for next Tuesday (August 27th).  Once that is done I will be, hopefully, done with surgery for a long time.  If it is even possible, it seems our decision not to go to Alaska this summer seems even more momentous now.

After a quick stop at Stater Brothers to pick up a few grocery items we were home a little after 12 pm.  Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I spent the rest of Monday in my recliner doing as little as possible.

After all that has transpired with me physically over the last couple of years I am really beginning to feel my mortality.  So far I have come through all of it just fine, but sometimes in the quiet times of the night I wonder what is coming next, right?  The rest of the time I just keep pushing forward, and looking forward.  It's a beautiful day today, and life continues to be good to TLE and I.

I'll leave you with the great Van Morrison song........

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'Shades of gray.....'

6:40 am - Monday - August 19th - Ramona, CA - 58° F, 97% humidity, wind -CALM.........clear, blue skies.

Sunday was a laid back day for us.  We started off with a couple of laps around RORVR totaling around 2.7 miles.  Then we hung out watching two English Premier soccer matches on the outdoor TV for the rest of the morning.  The weather was perfect, just like it has been the entire weekend.

At some point during the morning after the soccer matches TLE began doing several loads of wash, and I began to watch golf.  We have DirecTV, but we just have the basic channel package.....no HBO, CINEMAX, Showtime, etc., but occasionally DirecTV will give us HBO, or one of the other movie channels free for a weekend, and this weekend we had HBO.  Several years ago before we got rid of the movie channels I watched GOT (Game of Thrones) for one, or two seasons, and have watched a few episodes over the years when we had HBO for free.  I did not see the final season, but HBO was replaying the final season this weekend, so I watched the final three episodes to at least see how it ended.  Pretty much everyone dies except the dwarf and a couple of Starks.

Around 6 pm TLE had me grill some white fish so she could make fish tacos.  She has just begun to experiment with making fish tacos, and this was her best effort to date.....

.....words are not adequate to express how grateful I am we can eat outside this summer as often as we do. We have not been able to do that very much the last two summers (Yellowstone and Southwest Harbor), but this summer the evening weather has most often been quite agreeable.  Back in our South Lake Tahoe days we ate outside a lot, and I have missed that.  It is one of the multitudinous benefits of this lifestyle. 

I wont' be working Monday as I have an appointment down in Poway at my dermatologist to have a mole removed from my side.  It will be outpatient, and all is good.....I'll let it go at that.....no additional treatment required.

I'll leave you with a great Monkees song from the 60's.......Shades of gray......

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