A Weak Week

Has it really been a week already since my last post?  YUP, it has.  And to think, it was just a few days ago I emailed Mary-Pat, writer of Butterflies and Heart Songs blog asking her if she was ok because she had not posted for a week or more.  The difference, of course, is that she travels alone, and she is currently on the road…..so I got a bit worried.  Ask my mom, it is just my nature to worry about stuff like that.  As a young child my questions would be, “Are we going to be late?”, “Are you sure we are going the right way?”, “Where are we going to stay at?”, and, of course, the ever famous questions while our VW Bus is at a red light near the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco around 1967, “Are those hippies over there?”  Of course the list can go on and on and on….  Then Lynn, who write the "Life with Lynnie" blog posted on our blog a remark about not seeing anything for awhile.  I thought, hey, can't a guy have a few days off....and then I looked and say it had been 8 days.  Well, here you go...

Before I talk about the “Weak Week”, how about explaining the picture above first.  That is a WONDERFUL dog park in Tarpon Springs, not far from the sponge docks (which is currently our blog header picture).  The dog park opened less than a year ago, includes two very large fenced in areas, one for small dogs and one for large dogs.  It is around a ten minute drive from the condo, and it is on the way to where Bubba stays.

      

As you can see, the dogs love it…except there is just one slight problem….that is NOT Bubba in the picture above with Skruffy.  Bubba was still over at Mike’s house….this was a four month old Cocker that is a splitting image of Bubba, although slightly smaller for now….just give it another month and it will be Bubba’s size…another month or two and it will be bigger than Bubba. 

As new dogs arrive, there is always the ritual of the “sniff”.  In the far back, other side of the fence, you can see the Bubba look-a-like coming toward the gate.

You can see what a nice park it is for the furry kids.  This was taken on Tuesday, just after a heavy rain that we had on Sunday/Monday.  What a great day to get out…and since Skruffy was stuck inside most of Sunday and all day Monday, well I felt she deserved a quick run over to the park.  Marcia was a good girl, she stayed glued to her computer while we were gone….

….although the washer was running when we got back, and I can sware it was off when we left!
Speaking of “washer”, it has been acting up ever since we moved to the condo, and probably even when we got back from our 2012 trip.  It just was not rinsing right, and some items, dark shirts and pants especially, were coming out blotchy.  Then last Thursday, the dryer just would not turn on…nothing at all except a slight tone and quick flash of lights when it was plugged back into the electrical outlet.  Monday the appliance repair guy came by.  Now I have fixed many a washer and dryer before, but these are Fisher Paykel brand….the dryer being a top loader.  They are made in Australia, and I just did not feel comfortable about opening them up, and Marcia did not feel comfortable about that either.  The bottom line is that the dryer had a loose circuit board…so when you pushed the “on” button, it would not engage the electrical switch.  That was an easy fix.  The washer we (repair guy and I) thought was going to be a control board….which run about $175 just for the board.  The repair guy went out to his van and he was out there for a long time….and then comes in talking on his phone.  He did not feel good about the diagnostics, and called Fisher and Paykel in Australia to talk to a tech person there.  Bottom line, it is such a sophisticated washer that it can be programed to have a deep cycle rinse, which we wanted, or a light spray rinse, which is needed in areas where water is scarce.  So he showed me how to program it, and we are good to go now.

Now don’t get me wrong, it was not a “bad week” or even a “hard week”….it was just a “weak week”.  Did not get as much done as I wanted, didn’t do anything outside of the dog park visit to take pictures of, just not a strong week.  Of course, when my parents see the title of Weak Week, their first thoughts are going to be, “That boy just did not know how to spell the proper “week” to represent a part of a month again.”  Yep, this “X-Librarian” flunked spelling. Never one to read fiction books very much, heck, mom would say I hardly read at all.  But I would devour the Readers Digest when it arrived, and I did enjoy some good non-fiction books, especially if they were about the “Old West” or “World War II”.  And if it was about the American Civil War, well, that was typically a real winner.

But this past week we enjoyed some quiet time, thought about looking at the taxes (and that is as far as it got), had a guy come over to give us an estimate on doing our enclosed patio with real glass (still awaiting the bid figures, but it cannot be done before we left since they are scheduling jobs for May as of now), learned a lot about the washer and dryer…and next time I might just tackle it myself, went to church on Sunday where Marcia’s Granddaughter Alisa dropped in for church and we all went to dinner and came back to the condo for a visit (she actually took the picture of Marcia with my camera), attended church Wednesday night, and had dinner with Marcia’s cousins Polly and Goldie (actually her first husbands cousins).  Polly actually owns a condo here too, lives in Chicago most of the year but gets away from the cold for January-March each year, and Goldie lives here in Florida, but comes over and stays with Polly when Polly is in town.  Well, I guess I “could have” taken some more pictures….but to do that, you have to pick up the darn camera and push a button or two.     And just in case anyone was wondering…no, it was not us that won the Mega Millions Lottery, to win, you have to play, which we don’t do with that lottery (and rarely with others).

I would be remiss if I did not mention RVillage, the new website for RV’ers who want to keep in touch with other people who love to travel in an RV.  I am not a fan of Facebook, but I do like RVillage and feel that it will be a great asset as a fellow traveler.  It is still in beta form, which means all the bugs are not worked out, and they are very open to suggestions on how to make it better.  I know some have worried about putting out there the parks they are currently staying in…but it looks like there will be some privacy options available soon which will deal with those concerns.

  

And finally, every year for the past few years I play a NCAA bracket game with my kids.  This year I have Florida taking it all…and this year we each have a different winner.  Not sure how it will turn out, since the games are just beginning today, but at last check, my daughter Stephanie was leading the “boys” (dad is one of the boys), so I am sure she is on cloud nine, even if it is just for a day.  Oh, and why Florida?  Well, Alisa is from Florida, and of course, my heart is with Arkansas who just missed out of the tournament this year.  On Sunday Alisa showed me a picture she took while at a sports store recently….it was a trash can…with the Arkansas Hog on it.  She said, “I just had to take a picture because it seemed so appropriate.”  So now it is my turn for revenge…I am betting that my picking Florida will jinx them out of the tournament….. not today, because they did win today, but perhaps in the higher rounds when the pressure is really on.