Double Dancing Day

Today we had another C-2 lesson with Randy. We started with only seven couples, so Randy set up a six-couple rectangle (usually called a hexagon) instead of a four-couple square. It's not the best solution, especially for people learning a new level. Fortunately Sam and Ruth generously agreed to come and help out.

We learned three new calls and reviewed some of the more recently taught calls. Now we finally know how to do a "Zip Code." If we were learning the calls in alphabetical order, we'd be done.

Jan had another laser treatment on one of her eyes today. She had been experiencing some blurry vision in that eye and was told that she had some kind of film on that eye. Of course the appointment took forever, but the procedure itself took less than five minutes. This evening she said that she thought her vision was clearer.

We stopped at the HEB near Pharr South after the lesson and got home just in time to fix a quick supper before leaving for Darryl's evening dance at TVA. We're glad that we have only a few more weeks of this schedule. It's hectic and tiring, but we're glad to be learning C-2 so we can dance with our friends. Read more!

Lovely Day

Today was another beautiful, sunny warm day with a nice breeze--a great day for walking. This evening we picked up Steve and Jan and went to Joe Saltel's C-1 dance. We had seven squares plus two extra couples. Sue and Arnie brought a box of lemons to try to give away. Some of them were happily picked up, but many went home again with them.

We talked with Sue and Arnie about our travel plans for the summer. They also have a son in Portland and may actually be in the area during August when we're there, so we're hoping to plan a get together.

We spent some time today tossing around ideas for a trip this summer. So many choices! Read more!

Success

We finally finished our tax return today and got it in the mail. That feels like a success to us. Steve tore out the floor in their fifth wheel bath today and replaced it with the same composite wood floor he put in the main room last spring.

Tonight we went to David Heffron's C-2 class level workshop. We think the workshop format is much better for our class than the dance format. He worked variations on Cross and Wheel and rotates and offset formations and Truck. Read more!

Sad Day

Ken got a call this morning from his niece, Julie, who told him that his sister Romaine, her mother, had passed away this morning. Romaine has been in hospice since January 4, so this is not unexpected news, but it is still saddening to lose a sibling. Ken's brother, Gordon, passed away in 2012. His parents are both gone, so he is the only one left of his immediate family.

We had a walk thru C-2 practice this morning with Jan and Steve on our patio. Hardy and Judy and Sandy (and later John) were our angels. The chance to walk thru some of the more difficult calls and practice them was very helpful. We focused on the calls Darryl taught last Saturday, when Jan and Steve missed the second half of the lesson because they had company.

This afternoon we went to Darryl's workshop. The conversation turned to parties, and Jean invited everyone over for an impromptu game night.

Steve came over after the dance to check out the problem of our drawer slides. He was able to put one side rail back together, but the other has a broken plastic part, so it will have to wait for warranty work.

The party was a success. We had ten people, so we broke into two tables. Hardy, Jan, Ken, and I played Sequence. The men's team won two rounds, and the women's team won two rounds. The other table (Jean, Steve, Judy, Rosa, Hal, and Dorothy) played a card game, Golf. Afterwards we all joined around the big table to play Farkel. Steve won that game.
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Romaine A. Vanden Berg

VANDEN BERG, ROMAINE A. Allendale Romaine Vanden Berg, age 82, of Allendale, passed away on Monday, February 17, 2014. She was born in Muskegon to the late Albert and Gertrude (Kempker) Marks. Romaine was a secretary at Landman, Latimer, Clink and Robb in Muskegon for 21 years and Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone in Grand Rapids for five years. She was a member of Bible Study Fellowship, devoted herself to Love in the Name of Christ, a past president of the Grandville Ladies Literary Club and an avid basket weaver. She will be lovingly remembered by her daughter, Julie Vanden Berg of Holland; sons, Mark (Tamra) Vanden Berg of Novi, Thomas Vanden Berg (Loretta Ashley) of Spring Lake; grandsons, Matthew, Brent, Scott and Eric Vanden Berg; step grandsons, Brandon (Cassie), Justin (Sharon), Aaron Hall; great-granddaughters, Adelaide and Aberlein Vanden Berg; brother, Kenneth (Lee) Marks of Livingston, TX; eight nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her brother, Gordon Marks in 2012. Funeral services will be held Friday, 11 AM at First Allendale Christian Reformed Church, 5734 Country View, Allendale, with Rev. Tim Howerzyl officiating. Relatives and friends may meet the family Thursday from 3-8 PM at Matthysse-Kuiper-DeGraaf (corner of Avery and Scott) 6651 Scott St., Allendale. Those who wish may make memorial contributions to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Condolences may be sent online at www.mkdfuneralhome.com.



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Sunday Restaurants

We started our day today at Mi Challitas for breakfast with ten of our friends. After breakfast most of the gang went to the salt lake north of Edinburg, La Sal del Rey. We decided to go to the state park to walk.

On the way we stopped at Retama Village to visit with Stuart and Lynn and get some photos of the mechanism suspending their New Horizons fifth wheel spare tire. We discovered our spare tire dangling low below the fifth wheel, and with part of the mechanism evidently missing, but we were unsure exactly what was missing and how it fit in. Now we know that the rod we knew was missing was attached by a cotter pin, which must have broken or fallen out.

We parked at Bentsen Palm Village and walked through to Retama. I couldn't help noticing that the organic gardens are looking quite lush.





This afternoon we picked up Steve and Jan for dinner at Las Margaritas, a local family owned Mexican restaurant that they like. We felt like we owed them more than just thanks for all the help Steve has given us, especially the massive pruning job on the citrus trees--and just for their friendship. We enjoyed the dinner and the company, and the chocolate fried ice cream (never heard of it before, but the chocolate ice cream was good).

It was great fun "hanging out" with Ed and Julie and Cate and Sam and Jesse. I love to see the kids' smiles. I'm sure they've been smiling a lot about all the time they've had off school. First they had an entire week of snow days in Atlanta. Then this last week they went to school on Monday, but school was closed Tuesday to Thursday for snow, Friday for a teacher work day, and tomorrow for Presidents' Day. Cate went to a birthday party yesterday at a roller skating rink. That reminded me of the year that we had a skating party in January combining all the kids' December and January birthdays. Read more!

More C-2

Today we had another C-2 lesson with Darryl. Steve and Jan brought their visitors, Ernie and Dorothy, to the class for the first hour and a half. Then when we broke for lunch, they all went to Mexico. We had lunch and another hour and a half lesson. We had three squares, thanks to some angels (Harlan and Jean and Roy and Phyllis).

Darryl reviewed the calls Randy taught on Thursday and taught several more calls. Although we all made mistakes and had trouble with some of the calls, I thought that things went pretty smoothly. We're making good progress. At the end, Darryl told us that the pace would pick up next week. He's planning to teach all the C-2 list before people start to head north. We all have our work cut out for us! Read more!

Valentine's Day

The sun shone on South Texas for Valentine's Day--it was a beautiful, warm sunny day. In fact this afternoon it was downright hot!

Not much happening today. We worked on our taxes some more. We got a call on our Qube we've listed for sale, but the caller didn't show up to see it. Better luck next time. We got caught in rush hour traffic. Yes, even in South Texas there's a rush hour, and we made the mistake of being out in it to go to the Trenton and 10th HEB.

Of course we watched more of the Olympics today, especially figure skating. Despite the errors, we saw lots of fabulous skating, especially Jason Brown's Riverdance free skate. Read more!

An Evening With Hal Linden

Most people probably know this actor, singer, musician from his role as Barney Miller in the TV show. Hal Linden (born Harold Lipshitz) has been performing for 65 years and definitely still has a strong, wide ranging voice and lots of energy. We renewed our season tickets for next year. One of the performances a year from now will be the New Shanghai Circus, a Chinese acrobatic troupe, in a performance described as "athletic-theatrical." We're looking forward to that one.

We had another C-2 lesson with Randy today with exactly two squares of students. We reviewed definitions before the class, but didn't quite get to all of them. I drew blanks on a couple of the calls we've supposedly learned. We need to spend more time studying. These lessons are going so quickly that it's really difficult to remember everything.

I talked with my Aunt Iris in Jacksonville tonight. She says that a cold front is moving in, but they haven't had the terrible winter weather that the rest of the south has suffered from. Read more!

YOLO!

We slept in this morning and woke to a bright sunny day with a high of 60°. No mall walking for us today, though we did still wear jackets. We even saw a shirtless guy lying out to catch some rays.

This evening we danced to Joe Saltel. He sure is a proud grandpa; he still has his iPad set up to show a slideshow of this new granddaughter. As usual we had lots of fun and enjoyed dancing and chatting with our friends. Steve spent the morning pruning the Cases' very large grapefruit tree. He's ready to retire his new chainsaw for the season. His knee was complaining about the rough treatment tonight.

We are still watching the Olympics. In addition to the figure skating, we've enjoyed watching snowboarding and slope style skiing. No matter what the event, the athletes are turning in amazing performances. We've learned some new jargon too, like the death spiral in pairs figure skating and the YOLO move in the halfpipe snowboarding event (YOLO: You Only Live Once). We also don't remember hearing the term "discipline" before. It seems to mean a branch of a sport, which I used to think of as events.

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Bone Chilling Cold--Again

We are officially tired of all this cold weather and ready for spring. Fortunately, this is forecast to be a short cold spell, and things will be better soon. Today we went to the mall to walk again and then did some grocery shopping and got fuel. After lunch we spent some time travel planning.

This evening we picked up Jan and Steve to go to Dave Heffron's dance at La Hacienda. We had four squares plus two couples. Thanks to a little help from our friends, we made it through at least some of the C-2 calls, but it's clear that we need to get serious about memorizing the definitions. We are also looking forward to having some time to walk through calls with our GGG square (Spauldings, Pottingers, Walenters, and us). Read more!

C-2 and C-1

That's not code: it's a description of our dancing today. We picked Jan and Steve up to go to La Hacienda for our Darryl C-2 lesson that was rescheduled from last Saturday. That lesson went from 10 to 12, and as usual required a lot of thought.

We got home in time to eat lunch, and before we knew it, Jan and Steve were picking us up for Darryl's C-1 dance. We had even squares (once Marty came over to dance with Jean), so everyone danced every tip after the first two. At the end of that dance, Darryl called a class level C-2 star tip. That adds up to a lot of dancing in a short time period. When we got back to Green Gate Grove, Steve and Jan were heading to the hot tub to soak. Steve was hoping that would calm his knee down.

I biked over to John and Sandy's to give them some of the oranges and tangelos we picked up this morning while we were out walking. Folks in GGG were sharing their bounty, so we scooped some up, since our orange tree and Spauldings' tangelo tree have been stripped.

John showed me some of the work he's doing on buildings for his model railroad layout at home. He has an HO narrow gauge setup that includes DCC controls. Each of his engines has an "address" and can be controlled independently while on the same track and by the same control unit. The technology has clearly moved forward since my old N gauge days. It has been a very long time since I was a model railroad enthusiast.

This evening we watched the rest of a Beatles special we recorded and watched part of yesterday: "The Beatles: The Night That Changed America — A GRAMMY Salute." It aired on the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. We're saving it to watch again. I wasn't very happy with some of the covers of Beatles songs by various current artists, but a few were really good. The best part was performances by Ringo and Paul, separately and together, that capped the evening. Read more!

Drastic Tree Pruning

You know you have a really good friend when he comes over with his tools and says he can't wait to prune your fruit trees. That's Steve for you. He did some preliminary pruning last spring after we bought the lot, but these trees needed a LOT of pruning. They were way too tall and overgrown, especially the grapefruit tree, which was again threatening the shed roof.

Steve brought over his new toy, er tool: an electric chain saw on an extension pole. He went to work taming the overgrowth and shortening the trees. As he pointed out, fruit that is too high to pick isn't doing anyone any good!

Steve got a better angle on the grapefruit tree from the shed roof.

I picked up several five gallon pails of grapefruit.

There were still tons on the ground.

Good neighbor Chuck helping too.

Ken carried heaps of branches out to the curb and raked piles of leaves and small branches.

I filled a large box with grapefruit for Steve and Jan's friends who are visiting next weekend. I filled the picnic table with fruit. We offered fruit to the neighbors behind Chuck's place. They didn't want any, but they suggested that a guy working across the street from them might want some. He spoke no English, and my Spanish is limited, but we managed to communicate. He came over and picked up all the fruit from the ground and put it in his trailer. That saved me a lot of work picking up all that fruit! The tree is still full of fruit.

We watched more of the Olympics today, mainly skating.
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Better

Ken is definitely feeling better today, but he's still congested and such. At least he's on the mend. We went for a walk this afternoon around the park. The sun actually came out and warmed things up a bit. Judy joined us for part of our hour's walk. It's great to have company.

We've been devoting ourselves to travel planning. Today we called Sandy Riverfront and changed our reservation to the month of August to match Anara's schedule better. We adjusted some of our other travels to accommodate that.

We watched some of the Olympics figure skating today. Such incredible athleticism and grace! We're trying to keep up with our recordings this year. During the last Olympics we ran out of space on the TIVO, and some of our other programs got deleted.

This evening we watched a Pete Seeger: the Power of Song. It was originally broadcast on American Masters on PBS in 2008 and encored in 2011. This broadcast ended with additional footage in memoriam, including the song "To My Old Brown Earth." Pete wrote it in 1958, and his family and friends sung it at his bedside when he died. It brought me to tears.

TO MY OLD BROWN EARTH

To my old brown earth
And to my old blue sky
I'll now give these last few molecules of "I."

And you who sing,
And you who stand nearby,
I do charge you not to cry.

Guard well our human chain,
Watch well you keep it strong,
As long as sun will shine.

And this our home,
Keep pure and sweet and green,
For now I'm yours
And you are also mine.

Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1958)
(c) 1964 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

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2014 Olympics Opening Ceremonies

Tonight we watched the opening ceremonies in Sochi, rebroadcast at a time more convenient for North American viewing and then captured on our DVR. We fast forwarded through the arrival of some of the athletes, but focused on the American and Russian teams. The ceremonies were really awe inspiring in their scope and imagination and technical virtuosity. They portrayed Russian history as a series of dream sequences. We were struck by the sense of the depth of Russian history compared to the less than 300 years of U.S. history.

We woke to another cold, drizzly, overcast day. The first thing we did was put one of our 40 lb. propane tanks out to be refilled by Pony Express. It was quite late before the propane truck arrived. Our payment envelope was returned with a note indicating that the price of filling a 40 lb. tank is now $31. It was $26 when we arrived this season and had quickly gone up to $28.

We went to the mall to walk again. It's the best indoor walking opportunity for us, especially before the stores open.

Ken has been feeling pretty miserable with his cold and sinus symptoms. The medicine helps for a while, but once they start to wear off, he's worse for a while. We had already decided not to go to Progreso, Mexico, for a bon voyage party for G.W. and David, who are leaving on an extended cruise on February 14. We ended up staying home instead of going to the Ballet Folklorico tonight as we had planned with our friends. We're figuring that staying in and resting will speed Ken's recovery. Read more!

Chilly!

It's been one of those chilly, damp, overcast days. Ken has the sniffles and doesn't feel well, but we went to our C-2 class this afternoon and to Darryl's dance tonight. Good thing we got the exercise, because we didn't walk. Tomorrow morning we'll head to the mall to walk. Read more!

Oil Change

It was overcast and chilly this morning, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and do our walking indoors while waiting for an oil change. The truck has been insisting for the last couple of days "Oil Change Required." We don't know what it will do if we don't obey its commands, so we figured we better see to it.

This afternoon Ken gave up on waiting for a nice warm sunny day to work on trimming our trees. He made a good start on the lemon tree. We carried a fairly large pile of leafy branches to the curb. Fortunately Green Gate Grove has a yard waste trailer that comes around to pick up the piles.

We finally picked up Ken's new prescription at CVS today. Third time's a charm. Twice before when we went to pick it up, we found that it had been filled with the wrong dosage. It's hard to tell where the error crept in, but it seems likely that Dr. George's assistant wrote down the wrong info. This isn't the first time we've had problems with prescription mix-ups with that office.

Tonight we went to Joe Saltel's C-1 dance. We had nine squares. Jan and Steve decided to come at the last minute, but we missed Hardy and Judy. It was as usual a good dance and lots of fun. Joe's mom was manning the check-in table. Joe had his iPad running a slide show of his new granddaughter on the stage, with a few new pictures this week. What a cutie!

Dick Hurzeler turned 79 today. We hope he had a good birthday. The weather in Tyler hasn't been great recently. The high today was just barely above freezing, with wind chill values as low as 12°F. Read more!

Dancing with Dave

This evening we attended our very first C-2 dance, called by Dave Heffron. We danced with Dave and Heidi in Southern California, when w were all members of the Trailblazers Advanced & Challenge Square Dance Club. At that point we were advanced dancers. Dave and Heidi came up to the dances from San Diego. Later Dave took a job in Austin. Now he travels weekly from Austin to the RGV for his work. He takes advantage of the opportunity to dance C-2 on Monday nights with Darryl. Now Darryl has asked him to call a class level C-2 dance for our class on Tuesday evenings.

It was exciting to hear a different caller and be at an actual dance, but it was also rather frustrating. Dave started with the calls we have learned most recently. It turns out that I haven't exactly learned all of those calls well enough to dance them. With a little help from my friends, I got through most of the "deer in the headlights" moments.

This morning I had my first appointment with a retinal specialist, Dr. Vincent Vann. It was a fascinating experience seeing scans of my retinas. It was also very reassuring to hear that most of the macular degeneration I have is in my left eye, which is the eye I don't use for central vision anyway. Dr. Vann says that I have only 1/10 as much AMD in my right eye. Now if it just stays that way for a long time.... He told me that since I have only one good eye, even though the problem is not as severe in my right eye I should see a retinal specialist every six months. Fortunately, this year in six months we will be in Portland, where the Casey Eye Institute is located. It's at the Oregon Health & Science University, where Chris is the University Librarian. How lucky is that? Read more!

Quiet Day

Not much happened today. We picked up Steve and Jan to go to Darryl's dance this afternoon. We had ten squares and three couples sitting out. After the dance he called a class level C-2 tip. We did pretty well. I was glad to have Chuck for my corner to help me out.

We did some laundry. We walked (but only for half an hour--forgot to do our afternoon walk). We remembered to pick up our mail, an oil filter I ordered from Amazon.

Tonight we watched yesterday's Downton Place episode.

Yesterday when I was making dips for the apple slices we were taking to the party, I had a strange experience. The chocolate dip came out just inedible. I wondered if there could possibly be something wrong with the cocoa powder I used, though I'd never heard of such a thing. I just tossed it out and made something else. Tonight I picked up the plastic bag of cocoa powder. Oops! It wasn't cocoa powder at all. It was garam masala! No wonder the dip was strange tasting! That's something that would be unlikely to happen to me if we weren't in an RV with limited pantry space. I often move items from their original containers into plastic bags or smaller containers to save space, which is why the cocoa powder and the garam masala were both in folded over plastic bags..... Read more!

Happy Groundhog Day! (and Oh, Yeah, Super Bowl Sunday Too)

We started our Sunday as usual at Mi Challitas, breakfasting with friends. Then on to the state park for a three-mile hike with Jean and Judy. We didn't see any groundhogs, but if we had, they wouldn't have seen their shadows. The sky was a leaden overcast all day, unusual for the RGV.

This evening was the annual Super Bowl party, graciously hosted again by G.W. and David. They have such a lovely home and plenty of room for lots of party goers.

Everyone had a great time, despite the disappointing game. How sad for Payton Manning and the Denver Broncos--all hail the Seattle Seahawks! For most of the game it seemed as if one team had just failed to show up.

One of David and G.W.'s friends from Reynosa, Julio, won the board. Who would have thought that the final score would be 36 to 8? The good news is that we won't be having the party in Reynosa next year. David and G.W. will host again. Thanks, guys!

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C-2 and Bill Cosby: Far from Finished!

We had our C-2 lesson with Darryl today. There were three squares of students. As usual, we learned a lot, experienced a fair share of confusion, and had plenty of fun. Darryl announced that Dave Heffron has agreed to hold class level C-2 dances on Tuesday evenings. Yay!

This evening Steve and Jan came over to watch a recording of a Bill Cosby special we have on our DVR. He had all of us in stitches. His comedic timing is perfect, and he can convey volumes with a twitch of an eyebrow! What a talented performer. Read more!