The real world?
The first week of March saw me returning to the mainland. The entire month of February I had the greatest peace there can be – totally disconnected from the insanity in the rest of the world!
Swimming Pool Maintenance
Two of the valves in the pool plumbing are broken making it difficult for Alanah to vacuum the pool. Luckily, in the winter time the pool can go for quite a while without much attention!
When I built the pool, I knew that the valves I used would not last forever, but I thought they would last more than a few years. But yet, everything needs maintenance. We could hire a pool repair company to replace them at a cost of around $1200, or I could buy new valves and replace them myself for around a hundred! Adding a round trip plane ticket cost of four to five hundred dollars still makes it convincing to return and do it myself!
Opera
We also had tickets to go to the opera. We have always enjoyed going to the opera for a little bit of cultural enlightenment. At least until the pandemic when the opera required that you wear a mask and provide proof that not only you were vaccinated, but that you had also been tested for Covid within 14 days of the performance!
Anyway, we have returned to the opera now that the world has admitted that society has all been fooled by our governments, and their owners in the big pharmaceutical companies!
Back in October, we attended the opera named Frankenstein in Phoenix. We were unimpressed! In fact, we were downright disappointed! We had the impression that there were no actual songs written for this opera, but instead, they simply put the standard dialogue to music while the performers pretended that it was opera! With the computer generated scenery, it appeared to be nothing more than an opportunty for some computer technicians to showcase their abilities! While a few times, there was a decent ballet performance, the best acting was at the end, when they all stood on the stage and with hands linked, they all bowed to the audience and acted like it was a good performance!
In March, we attended the performance of Romeo and Juliet in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.
On the way down, we noticed the snow on the mountains north of Tucson.
As we approached the entrance, one of the opera employees was walking past the line of patrons and telling them that only a small, clear bag was allowed to be brought in. Alanah’s hand purse was too large, so we went back to the car and left it in the trunk. Then we had to go through a metal detector and a gauntlet of inspectors. Are they thinking that a terrorist will try to take over the opera? in Tucson?
One of the employees told me that I could not take in my clear tupperware cup with a lid holding about a cup of jelly beans because “Food and drink are not allowed to be brought into the theatre.”
So I stepped out of line and walked out of their sight around the corner. Then I emptied the jellybeans into my suit coat pockets, and got back in line.
As I went through the gauntet again, I was only holding the empty tupperware container . . . and since it was clear, they allowed it inside. Once inside, I took the jelly beans out of my pockets and put them back into the tupperware container! Instead of a metal detector, maybe in the future they will have a sugar detector!
I seem to recall that Romeo and Juliet was a Drama. A Romantic Drama to be exact. This performance was closer to a comedy act. And a poor one at that. I expected the old line of Juliet at the balcony calling out, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though my Romeo” with the response – “I’m in the bushes . . . quick, throw me some toiletpaper!”
They had “adapted” the story to make it more “applicable” to current times by setting it in the 1960’s! The costumes were from this era, but yet they still spoke in the Old English script of the 13th and 14th century! “Why didst though come hither in your lowrider?”
I had a hard time restraining my laughter during the death scene in the crypt! Not many people were placed in an open crypt in the 1960’s! And the acting was so predictable. I expected the actor to say to Juliet’s “dead” body, “Look what evil though hast wrought now, Bitch!”
An elementary school drama teacher would have been highly disappointed in this performance! And I expect that Linda Ronstadt will request that her name be removed from the building!
Oh well. It was a good excuse to get out and go for a Sunday afternoon drive! And like Steve McQueen said in the movie “The Thomas Crown Affair”, . . . “What else are we going to do on a Sunday?“
Gardening
I have planted some vegetables in my small gardens. Even though most of them will not be ready to pick before I return to Hawaii at the end of April, that’s not the point!
In one of the back yard gardens, I have planted summer squash and onions.
In the planter behind this one, there are two rows of turnips, and a row of cauliflower and a row of cabbage.
In the garden planter closer to the pool, I have a row of radishes and some rows of corn behind some onions that have been there for a while.
In the planter next to the driveway where we usually have flowers, I have planted 7 or 8 rows of carrots. The carrots were taking a long time to come up, so I planted radishes in the bottom of the rows.
There are also two large pots on the back patio with tomato plants.
These have flowered and have little small green tomatoes just starting to grow.
Birds
Hawaii is not the only place where I am going to the birds!
Every time I have come out the door to the carport, there has been a hummingbird hanging out there. It would just hang there in the air for about ten seconds, and then fly away. I wondered what it was doing there.
Today, I found out. There were all kinds of bird droppings on top of Alanah’s Mercedes. Not big droppings like from a duck or a goose, but little droppings. They were definitely bird droppings, and there were lots of them. Directly above them is a series of ropes and hooks that I installed to lift the top off the convertible. On the ceiling above the ropes there are more of these droppings. Nestled within these ropes is a very small nest made of grass and leaves and paper shreds, very tightly woven together. It is smaller than a golf ball.
As I looked real close at it, I could see movement at the top of it, two small beaks poking up out of the nest, moving back and forth.
Then after we had gone in the house, I looked through the window in the door, and there was the hummingbird, on top of the nest, feeding the baby chicks.
Golf
My dad used to say that he wished he had the time to play golf. . . not that he would ever play, he just wished he had the time!
When I am here, I like to go to a small 9 hole executive golf course over in Mesa near Alma School Road and US Route 60.
It has a lake that is the center point of the property and the golf course winds around the lake.
In the past, the lake has been only half full, but due to the recent rains, it is now overflowing.
I’ve only been playing golf for the past fifteen years, and then very sporadically.
I like to tell people that I am twice the golfer that Tiger Woods is . . . I get to swing my clubs twice as many times as him, I get to hit the ball twice as many times as he does, so I must be having twice the fun!
If only!
When the first Japanese people saw Americans playing golf, they told their friends that Americans play crazy games. They chase a little white ball around a grassy field trying to hit it with a stick! Game is called, “AAAH Shit!”
A couple of more weeks and I’ll be back in Hawaii!
TTFN
TropicalCastaway 