Saturday, October 31, 2015

October 25 - 31, 2015, AZ

Saturday, October 31.  I realized that I hadn't written for a while when my sister in law, Sharon, sent me a message asking if I was all right.  That led to a very nice conversation with her that lasted a while this afternoon.  It was nice chatting with her again.

I have stayed busy this week, gathering items for our upcoming garage sale, getting them priced and ready for the big day.  I also spent some time cleaning up and trimming one of Arlene's trees that had become quite overgrown.  Since she has a hard time seeing, I offered to help her out.  While I was working on it, Tom came back from his walk and helped me with some of the taller branches and with the cleanup.  We still have another tree to trim but have to wait for available trash cans since we filled Arlene's and Betty's to the brims.

On Wednesday, Connie, Kathy, and I headed out to the library to get free culture passes to Arcosanti, an arcology project near Cordes Junction, about 70 miles north of Phoenix.  It is the work of Paolo Soleri who died about 2 years ago.  His dream was to create an urban community that was self sufficient and made a small footprint on the earth, thereby reducing pollutants such as roads, cars, etc.and creating a sense of community.  Some of the housing units looked like honeycombs to me.  Our tour guide, Mary Claire, or MC was very knowledgeable and informative, after fifty years of involvement, who wouldn't be.  The project is funded by the sale of sand cast windbells and has been for many years, since 1970 to be exact.  Its a little odd but kind of cool too. 

This morning was busy.  I checked on Jan and Jim's cat (a few days of cat sitting) and then walked to the clubhouse for Saturday morning coffee.  It was enjoyable, I will try to do it more often.  When I got back home, I emptied my shed and scrubbed all of the shelves and floor and then put everything back together again - a project that took me until 1:00 to complete.  All is good, it no longer smells like the latest dust storm just went through there.

The Halloween party at the clubhouse was lots of fun, as the folks in this place know how to have a good time.  I dressed as Rosie the Riveter, got favorable comments but no prize and no photos either.  There were lots of good costumes; Sonny and Cher, school girl, witch, black widow, pirate, a "pizza is messy", a beer keg, and lots of other originals.  

Here'sy grandkids, all dressed up for Halloween.