El Mirage, Arizona

One of the things that has surprised both Rich and me is the fact that most RVers still honor the weekend.

Weekends are treated differently than the rest of the week.

It makes no sense because 99% of us aren’t working but those old habits of Monday through Friday being different than Saturday and Sunday must die hard.

Many wait until the weekend to do their grocery shopping.

Others was their vehicles (including their RVs) only on the weekends.

Bob, a pickleball friend told me that he only plays Monday through Friday. “Do you rest on Saturday and Sunday?” I asked him. “No, weekends are spent with my wife,” he said with a smile.

Apparently playing pickleball is his job… Or maybe he works weekends and has five days off. 🙂

El Mirage, Arizona

The RV resort we are staying at now provides no Internet connectivity other than a slow WiFi hot spot in the club house.

We decided to purchase connectivity from a company recommended by the resort for $30 for the month, but unfortunately it’s worse than dial-up when it actually works. 🙁

So this month I’m going through the delirium trenums of Internet withdrawal.

It’s not pretty.

So I’m counting the days until we’re move back to Gold Canyon because they have fabulous Internet included in our rental fee.

El Mirage, Arizona

I went to a pickleball club meeting yesterday. While we’re not going to be here very long, I wanted to pay my membership dues. And I wanted to volunteer some time to help with training entry level players.

Most meetings are at least a bit counterproductive and at least a bit of a time suck.

This meeting was no exception.

I’ve been to and run a lot of meetings over the years as I’m sure you have, too, Gentle Blog Reader.

The theme for volunteer organizational meetings generally follows the same agenda:

1. Some people are doing all the work.
2. They are getting tired of it.
3. The rest of the people need to step it up.
4. No one in the audience volunteers to help.
5. So the same people keep doing the work…

I was talking with Melissa about it, and she quoted a demotivational poster, “None of us is as dumb as all of us.”

I had never heard that expression before, but it makes perfect sense for office and volunteer organizational meetings…

But according to science, the most important thing to a successful meeting is to have donuts! So I’ll be bringing donuts to the next meeting… 🙂

El Mirage, Arizona

I was driving down the street the other day and noticed a car with a bumper sticker on it.

That was the only bumper sticker on the car, and it was just like that.

One word stating (what I’m guessing is) the most important characteristic of the car owner.

One and only one.

So that got me to wondering…

What word would I use to describe myself.

Limiting to just one is very difficult.

I think that the three things that define me the most are the year I was born, the fact that I’m a female, and the affects of having an identical twin.

If I was born in the 1600’s, I would be a totally different person because life itself would be so different (duh) and so short. 🙂

Had I been born a male, I would have a totally different take on life regardless of the era I was born. Just think how different the counter around my bathroom sink would be. 🙂

Being born and raised as an identical twin greatly altered my life because I didn’t individuate from my parents and siblings as early or as completely as a singleton. Well at least that’s what my therapist told me. 🙂

Knowing those three things and how much each of them affects who I am, I’d have to say that were I to put a bumper sticker with just one word to describe myself to others on my car, I’d choose twin.

So, what would your one word be?

El Mirage, Arizona

The other night we were visiting our good friends Dean and Lil who are renting a house in Phoenix for a while.

While we were there, I used the restroom.

I almost whooped with delight because that was the first time I’ve used real toilet paper in months! It truly was ultra soft. 🙂

RV septic systems are fragile, so we use a special one ply paper that does the job but leaves a lot to be desired.

It could also be called John Wayne Toilet Paper:

John Wayne toilet paper – Military term used to describe the low grade toilet paper found in the MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) accessory packet. Called so because it’s rough, tough and don’t take no shit off of anybody.

El Mirage, Arizona

Played pickleball at our new resort yesterday morning at a round robin competition where we each played with different partners against different opponents for six matches.

It’s always intimidating to play with and against new people. There’s so much to figure out…

Do they have a soft game? How accepting are they of new players? How good are they?

And while all that was going through my head, I’m also trying to play my best and play my game.

I gave myself an A- for facing the intimidating situation and a B for my execution.

Next pickleball session, my goal is an A- for execution. I’d rather be happier with my play than happier with my courage…

El Mirage, Arizona

We moved yesterday from Gold Canyon to El Mirage. Basically we moved from east of Phoenix to west of Phoenix.

There’s a huge cold front throughout most of the USA, and we haven’t escaped it.

There was snow on the Superstition Mountains yesterday morning.

Rich talked with one neighbor who said he hadn’t seen snow that low in over 20 years. Beautiful!

I guess we’ve gotten used to the warmer temperatures because we’re freezing to death.

One of my favorite sayings is appropriate for this weather: “It’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra!”

And here’s where that saying came from:

In the age of sail, on the cannon deck of a warship, next to each cannon, cannonballs were piled up at the ready, in a pyramid, which the sailors called a witches tit.

It was built on a brass plate with holes cut in to hold the cannonballs from rolling off as the ship listed, rolled and pitched. The sailors called the plate a brass bra.

Because brass expands and contracts with temperature at a greater rate than iron, rare extreme cold on the cannon deck would cause the brass plate to shrink to the point that the cannonballs would be released from the pyramid and roll over the deck. “Colder than a witche’s tit in a brass bra” is a saying that evolved from that phenomenon.

And now you know should that question come up in your next game of Trivial Pursuit. 🙂