Cardinal Rule. Broken.

My skin has been a mess since 5th grade. The only thing that will clear it up for a considerable amount of time is the sun. However, we all know that the sun is not a great friend and being a resident in a county known for the largest number of skin cancer patients each year brought me to make a conscious decision a couple of years ago:

NO MORE SUNBATHING.

I get enough sun exposure by just working outside to keep my skin a reasonable color. There's no need to sunbathe. I use sunscreen everyday, even though my sensitive skin feels like it's burning when I put it on.

But my skin has gotten so incredibly bad these past few months. I look like a teenager with very bad luck. (you know, crows feet around the eyes and acne everywhere else) So I went out and sat in the sun today. I did get a little work done out there; the jacuzzi and pool needed some cleaning and I took care of that. But I admit I did some sitting. I can just feel the skin cancer growing on me right now.

So, while I was out there, I heard a loud noise coming from the house.

I looked up, and a huge swarm of bees was approaching from the South. Right over the top of the house, into the back yard. When I say huge, I mean the whole swarm covered our yard and the neighbor's, which makes about an acre combined. I got near the jacuzzi, ready to jump in and submerge if needed. After about a minute the swarm moved on. What a trip.

The Airport Wars.....May the Force Be With.... Someone...

So, Steve and the crew parked THIS:



In front of their business at the airport.....

Which led to THIS:


From the neighboring business.

When the signage was laughed off, the neighboring business said, "Oh, don't worry, we've got something MORE up our sleeves."
And then a letter from the City arrived, saying the truck was a violation of City Code and had to be removed in 10 days.

So that led to THIS:



The blue golf cart looks just like the neighboring business's courtesy carts.

Steve and his boss waited till everyone was gone from the airport last night to use the crane for this little project.
It was fun to watch....




Then we went inside the restaurant (that's still not open)


to have some home-made carne asada, guacamole (oh yes, home-made as well) beans, jalapeno cheese bread, and some wonderful FLAN for dessert. I can't believe my flan turned out. It is soooo difficult to get it right. It's a custard dish, baked and then turned out onto a plate upside down for serving. People were all around as I flipped it out onto the plate. Thank GAWDS it worked....



Then we settled in for some Blazing Saddles on the big screens:

Vietnam Memorial Wall

The replica of the Vietnam Memorial came to town today, which meant a lot to many people in our area. I actually saw this same memorial 21 years ago in Omaha, when we'd spent a day at Peony Park. For some reason, I was still there after dark by myself and I wandered into an area nearby that had grass and trees, and this long black wall. The memorial was on display there so I had a little time alone to walk around and check it out. This was a month after my dad had died, and from that whole experience it definitely made me appreciate what I was looking at.

Today the Wall was set up right next to the lake, and the wind was HOWLING. Not blowing. It was gusting to about 50 miles per hour.


Here are some more of my pictures from today:







Shay's school bussed the kids down to be at the opening ceremonies, which I was happy about. I met up with Shay and his friends, explaining what the wall was about and the adjacent displays. They were speechless. They couldn't believe that all the names they were looking at were people who'd given their lives.


The Wall was brought to our community in conjunction with a fundraiser that a local group has put together. They are trying to raise money to build what is being called the "Freedom Bridge." They want a permanent memorial built in honor of all veterans, right next to the London Bridge.
They announced today that their official spokesman is Michael Biehn, who is from Lake Havasu as well as his very prominent family. Dad had the first big law firm here, and his brother owns a chain of daycare centers.
If he hadn't been pointed out, I wouldn't have recognized him. He was standing right next to me!!

So we got a photo together.


If you aren't familiar with Michael Biehn, you might want to Google his work. He moved to L.A. from Havasu when he got out of school and starred in the first Terminator movie, Tombstone, Aliens, The Abyss, The Rock; he seemed to be a regular player in James Cameron action flicks. I will always know him as John Connor's father in Terminator. You know, trench coat, shotgun, Linda Hamilton.....

Okay, so he's changed a little in the past 30 years.....

I Love Pioneer Woman

I made PW's latest dish, Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce. Steve just happened to come home with a big bag of red bell peppers, (I'll give that reason in a minute) and when I was reading PW I found the wonderful recipe.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/pasta-with-roasted-red-pepper-sauce.pdf

Now. Those peppers. We live down the highway from the California border. And while California is broke (thanks to people like Octo-psycho) they still manage to keep the produce inspection station open. So nobody will sneak fruits or vegetables into the Golden State. They're still convinced after all these years that tiny insects will invade their farms and orchards, and ruin crops. Thus, ruining California's economy.
Oh, okay.
Instead of throwing out the seized goods, it is donated to church groups who have distribution programs for the needy. Well I guess they recently seized a LOT of red bell peppers. And cabbage. Steve's friend picks up the produce from the inspection station, and takes it all to the church. But there was so much extra stuff, the volunteers started calling people to try and get it picked up before it went bad. Steve got a call from his friend and he ran over to get some.
Now we've got a HUGE head of cabbage and lots of peppers. We'll have an Irish extravaganza on Saturday with the cabbage and the corned beef that I picked up on sale yesterday. Turns out, the grocery store ordered WAAAY too much corned beef for St Patrick's day and it didn't sell!! So I got 6 pounds of the meat for a song and a dance. Just which song and dance I did will remain a mystery.

The Twilight Years

Glucosamine, gelatin tabs, vitamin b, calcium. That's what's in my cute little pink pill dispenser.
Steve has pretty much the same but he also has potassium (helps with leg cramps) and an allergy pill in his dispenser. He has TWO, one for the morning supplements, and one for evening. Nice and big, so I can add to it if I need to....haaaaaa....
By the way, I have about 50 of those white pill dispensers--they were a gag gift for guests at Steve's 50th birthday party. I had them personalized with "Huff's Half Century" on the side.

Bad...BAD Behavior

That's Steve's friend Martin, praying that our dinner companions settle down before the restaurant manager throws us out. They were being extremely loud after a day of drinking, and Martin was incredibly hungry. He wanted to at least eat before we were thrown out.

Then the next night, it was Martin who was loud. But we were dining in an empty restaurant owned by a friend, and he let us all stay.

This is Martin, singing some Stevie Wonder:



And right after that, he leaned back in his chair and the legs broke. So he was laying on the floor yelling and we were all laughing.



Thankfully, the restaurant staff was laughing too.

Our chef came out with the food we'd ordered and began cooking it on the grill before us. I've only seen this done once before, but not with this particular chef. I remember Steve commenting at one point that the insurance guys must cringe whenever they think of the liability at this place!





Lucky for us, we were able to eat without worry of being kicked out.

And Martin has a new friend:

Bad Ju Ju

Have you ever been dumped, only to later decide that the boy who dumped you should suffer greatly at the hands of society?
Maybe a bad case of male-pattern baldness, or something like that?

Well I got dumped in 9th grade, and I never heard from the guy again. He dumped me to ask a couple of my friends for a date. I was broken hearted.

He's not on Classmates. He's not on Myspace or Facebook. He's on the Iowa Sex Offender Registry website. He raped someone.

That'll show him.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Is this an oxymoron? I was struggling to get thru SuperWalMart (the Pits of Hell) and I could hear the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun," playing on the loudspeakers above.

Time Alone

You know sometimes we sit around and wine that we haven't had anyone over to the house in a while. We LOVE entertaining at home because we try out new recipes on our guests and we have a great time just sitting in the kitchen catching up with each other.
So we start making plans with people and inviting over friends.
We keep trying until some plans stick. Sometimes it takes WEEKS before anyone will show up to a planned dinner. Yep, we get blown off. By both family and friends. They'll call 20 minutes before dinner is served to tell us they can't make it.

Then we get overwhelmed, because we start getting phone calls from people who want to get together. And we're too smart to turn down an invitation. As Carl Jackson once said, "Keep turning down invitations and pretty soon you'll notice you're not getting invitations anymore."

And soon we can't remember what life was like when we were bored.

That's how it's been for a couple of weeks now. We haven't stopped for two weeks. It's either dinner at our place, dinner at someone else's, or socializing after dinner.

And we're getting kinda tired. So, after this week, we're going to have a self-imposed quiet week. Shhhhhhh....nothing at all. Okay maybe we'll go out and do a little fun stuff. But not that much. We need to re-connect with our cat. And our kids.

View From The Top

Darren and Cathy Craig invited us over for a sample of their life up on top of the hill. What a beautiful view.
They designed their house perfectly, taking advantage of the great view with each and every room. I counted only a couple of rooms that didn't have a door or a big window looking out onto the city...

And they're wonderful hosts!!






This is the house under construction next door.

Darren and Cathy's pool, overlooking the nearby neighborhoods:


Gift alert: I need this knife set.