Bill and I are back in the Mile High City, and glad of it.

Our trip home went fine. As usual, we drove the first night to Albuquerque. We did make one change-up, in that we visited the Petrified National Forest. We have driven by it several thousand times, but decided to take an extra hour and drive back into it a bit. It was very pretty. The painted desert was gorgeous, and the petrified wood is astounding.

We then hit the road yesterday early, and made it to Denver by late afternoon. I always hold my breath as we turn the corner onto our street, hoping hoping hoping that the house will still be standing. Silly, because undoubtedly Allen would have thought to mention it to us if it had burned down.

Since I spoke yesterday about the things I will miss about Arizona, I want to tell you about a few things I am happy to be back to here in Denver.

Tap Water

The water in the Phoenix metro area is nasty, plain and simple. It is terrifically hard, full of minerals, and tastes absolutely awful. No one drinks unfiltered tap water in Phoenix. Bottled water, filtered water, or water freshened up via a reverse osmosis method is the norm. I think Denver has good tap water. It is heavenly to me to be able to turn on my faucet and get a glass of water. Now if I could just make myself drink eight of them a day…..

No scorpions

I have never seen a live scorpion. That is very good news. I don’t know why it is the case, but we have had not a single one in our house or our yard in Arizona. Nevertheless, I know they’re out there because our house is in the desert. So I never walk barefoot in my house or outside – never, ever. I never leave dirty clothes on the floor. And I always – every single time – shake out my shoes and slippers before putting them on my feet. Yay! I don’t have to do that in Denver. It will take some getting used to.

300 Days of Sunshine a Year

I was just recently reminded that Denver has 300 days of sunshine a year. I thrive on sunshine. I’m quite serious about that. My doctor has told me I visually change when the days get longer and I can enjoy warmer weather and more sunshine. So now I have the perfect world because Phoenix also enjoys sunshine most days – 296 days of it a year I recently read.

Springtime in the Rockies

We are seriously getting home just in time to enjoy the most beautiful time of the year in Colorado. In May, it isn’t unheard of to have some cold days, even days where the temperature dips below freezing. It only took one time of me planting my flowers early in May only to have a freeze for me to learn that YOU NEVER PLANT YOUR GARDEN BEFORE MOTHERS DAY. NEVER. EVER. Having said that, there are more nice days than cold in May, and it’s fun to see my perennials start pooking out of the ground. Yay. And the really nice part is that the nights are still chilly. Nice sleeping.

My Own Car

We have only one car in Arizona. There is actually a second car that currently isn’t running. We are determined to get it fixed, but one thing becomes the next and before you know it, we are ready to leave and still only have the one car in Arizona. We are seriously able to get by with one car about 90 percent of the time. Still, there are just a few times when I want to do one thing and Bill wants to do another. We made it work.

Here in Denver, I have a Volkswagen Bug. Collectively referred to by all of the grandchildren as “Nana’s Yellow Bug.” They love it, as do I, despite the fact that it only fits four people. Period. But it’s brightly colored so that when I come out of any store, I immediately spot it in the parking lot. It runs like a little top (except when it doesn’t) and I can climb in it anytime I want and go anywhere I want without having to make sure Bill doesn’t need the car. Of course, when I went to start it yesterday afternoon, it was dead as a doornail. More about that tomorrow.

And finally….

My Family

And just as my family was the thing I was going to miss most in Arizona, it is my family that is the best reason for my joy at being back in Denver. My sister Jen, my nephew BJ, all of our kids and a good portion of our grandkids – and most exciting of all – one more baby boy coming along ANY DAY NOW. Stay tuned.

After all, wouldn’t you be happy coming home to this…..

Dagny, Adelaide, and Alastair enjoying a sunny afternoon with an ice cream cone.

And this….

Kaiya and Mylee enjoying ice cream as well!

And this….

Maggie Faith with her Uncle Mike.

Maggie asked me the other day, “Aunt, what will you miss most about Arizona?”

It’s a question I have been asked several times as of late. That, and if I’m sad to be leaving. The truth of the matter is that no matter which direction I’m going – be it to Arizona for winter and spring or Colorado for summer and fall, I feel somewhat sad and know that there are things that I will miss.

After giving it some thought, here is my list, in no particular order.

Martinis on Dave’s patio as I watch the sun set over the city

My brother lives at the foot of Superstition Mountain, and from his backyard you see a panoramic view of Phoenix facing west. Watching a beautiful Arizona sunset with an ice cold martini in my hand certainly ranks as one of my favorite things. You can almost watch the sun move as it sets behind the city. The clouds turn orange and purple, and as it gets dark, you can see the lights go on in the city. And then, of course, there’s that ice cold martini……

Watching the birds on our patio

I was surprised to see just how many birds we have in Arizona, and how many different varieties I can watch from my back patio. In years past, the stars of the show have been the mockingbirds. They are funny birds because their bird call takes on many forms. Recently we watched and listened as a mockingbird sitting on our neighbor’s roof went through his entire repertoire. This year, however, we have been entertained by a multitude of quails. They are the funniest birds. They definitely fly, but they seem to enjoy simply running about. As we walk down our street heading to the grocery market, we watch them — always in a group – run back and forth across the street. Their nest must be on one side and their food source on the other.  In the past few days they have taken to walking across our back fence in a line of three or four birds. They make me laugh. We also watch the hawks as they search for something to eat in the desert area behind our house.

Guido’s, Chicagoland Hot Dogs, Fuddruckers

I hate to have food be something I’ll miss, but alas, it’s true. Chicagoland is very close to our house, and we frequently have our lunch there. The owner is a young man who moved to Phoenix from – you guessed it – Chicago, and along with his father-in-law, opened this very genuine Chicago restaurant. Despite what you might think, all Chicago dogs are not the same, and his are very good. Guido’s is an Italian restaurant and market in Scottsdale. It is too far for us to visit very often, but we try to make our way there at least once in a while. They have the very best Italian sub sandwich I have ever eaten. I am on a quest to find a sandwich like that in Denver, but have been unsuccessful to date. I can’t tell you exactly why it’s so good. The meat is good, the bread is delicious, and as you eat, the dressing literally drips off of sandwich onto your plate (or your lap, depending on where you’re holding it). And it’s an exceptionally good Italian market as well. Finally, Fuddruckers is my favorite hamburger and I’m sad they went away entirely in Colorado. We visited Fuddruckers here often.

Winter Visitors

Yes, I’ve said it. You have heard me complain endlessly about the so-called Snowbirds, but while they can drive a person crazy, they are often kind, friendly, and full of fun. Almost every day this winter I saw a group of men riding their motorcycles towards Saguaro Lake. The motorcycles are very fancy, often with three wheels. I also have enjoyed seeing the plethora of vintage cars ranging from totally refurbished Model Ts to 1960 Ford Fairlanes. Bill always knows what kind of car it is. I of course never know, but I spotted this one parked in front of Subway the other day. I think it’s a Ford Fairlane. So fun…..

1,350 square feet and fake grass

I love my house in Denver. In particular, I love my magnificent back yard. But our Denver house, while not a mansion, is way big for us two simple folks. Bill and I literally use one bedroom, one bath, our family room, our kitchen, and Bill’s office. That leaves a dining room, living room, and three bedrooms virtually untouched. (Well, except for grandkids’ sleepovers.) Here our house is a 1,350 square foot ranch with a small backyard. Last year Bill installed artificial grass, making the upkeep negligible-to-non-existent. I LOVE this little house. It is the perfect size. It makes me realize that we are very close to being ready to sell our big house in Denver and buy something smaller. If it wasn’t for that magnificent back yard…..

Walk to Basha’s

Basha’s is one of those rare commodities – a locally-owned grocery store chain. It is an Arizona chain (though I think there is one in Gallup, NM, and Needles, CA), and is a full-service grocery store. Our nearest grocery store is Basha’s, and it is two blocks from our house. I walk over nearly every day. It makes me feel very European. The checkers have come to know me. Best of all – they sell wine!

Desert

I love the desert. That’s all I’ll say about that. P.S. – I don’t love rattlesnakes or scorpions.

Superstition Mountain

I have lived 40 years in Colorado, and yet (and don’t hate me for this) my favorite mountain is right here in Arizona. I love Superstition Mountain. There is something absolutely glorious about the way it looks in the morning and the evening – all lavender and hazy. I see it from our house, and will miss looking at it every day.

But, while my lists of things I will miss has been in no particular order, the thing I will miss the most is…

My family

After years of living far away from Bec and Dave, it is such a blessing to be so close to them for so many months out of the year. I still can’t believe that I can call Bec on the phone and we can meet for a cup of coffee. Bill and I often visit my brother at whatever Basha’s he’s working at that day for a donut and a quick chat. And how lovely to be able to get to know my great nieces and nephews and spend time with Erik, Maggie, Christopher, Kacy, Jessie, and Brooke and their families. I will miss everyone.

The good news is I’m going home to just as many blessings.

Nana’s Notes: The title of this post comes from the song Arizona by Mark Lindsay. You’d know it if you heard it.

By time you read this post, Bill and I will be on the road to Denver. Our winter visit is over. In the words of that famous philosopher Willie Nelson, we are “On the Road Again.” In tomorrow’s post, I will tell you what we will miss most about Arizona. However, I wanted to offer you the opportunity to see some of the really spectacular flowers we have been enjoying in our yard, our neighborhood, and the surrounding areas as of late. The cactus flowers really are astoundingly beautiful.                                            

We’re getting ready to go back to Colorado, so this will be the last Saturday Smile that involves my great nephew Austin Joseph Jensen, at least for a while. He’s one funny little 3-year-old dude, and I think he will always make me laugh.

The other night I had Bec, Maggie , Austin and Lilly over for fried chicken, Swiss macs, creamed corn and dinner rolls. It was oh-so-yummy.

Throughout the dinner, Maggie tried to talk Austin into eating something.

“Would you like some chicken Austin?” she said.

“No thanks,” was his firm but polite response.

He continued to play on my IPAD. A bit later Maggie said, “Austin, would you like some macaroni and cheese?”

“No,” he replied, again patiently but firmly.

“But you really like Aunt Kris’ macaroni and cheese,” Maggie pleaded.

“NO,” was the even firmer response.

He played some more.

“Austin, would you like some of this creamed corn, or maybe a roll? You LOVE bread,” said Mommy, sounding quite desperate by this time. The child must eat something, after all.

“No thanks Mommy,” he said, not even looking up from the IPAD.

I quietly told Maggie that I had some Greek blueberry yogurt. He loves blueberry yogurt.

“Austin, would you like some blueberry yogurt?” Maggie said.

“Yes,” came his surprising response.

He came to the table, sat in the chair, looked at the yogurt sitting in front of him, and said, “FINALLY!”

Have a good weekend.

I have a friend — roughly my age — who started career number 3 a couple of years ago. (Or at least career number 3 since I have known him.) When we first met, he was in sales. After a number of years, he scratched an itch to own his own business. He owned and operated a print shop in Omaha for a long time. He finally got tired of the hassles involved in owning a business, and he hung in for a long time as it became more and more difficult to find ways to make money as a printer in an age of social media and other high-tech obstacles. 

Professional truck driving was something in which he had had a niggling interest for some time. Why not, he thought. So he went to school and learned to drive an 18-wheeler. Driving a “big rig” across mostly the central and northern Midwest, he delivers goods from one place to another. And he looks at life from high up in his cab. He posts his observations regularly on Facebook, and they always — every single time — make me smile. He has a way of looking at the world that I think is remarkable. He notices things that I take for granted.

With his permission, I am going to occasionally share his observations with you, as a guest blogger.

I have seen some really interesting things in the past couple of weeks in my trips through central Nebraska and Kansas. We had a bad snow that closed about a 20 mile stretch of I-80 but I was lucky to have missed it. Instead, I was off duty for a day and then off down to Liberal, KS on the Oklahoma border once the snow ended and melted off. The 80 degree temps in KS were great. While in Kansas I saw an incredible sign as I approached a small town. It said, “Russell, Kansas – hometown of U.S. Senators Bob Dole and Arlen Specter”. WOW! These 2 heavyweight senators from the same small town! That’s incredible!

On the same trip I saw a cloud formation I have never seen before and was unable to find a picture of in hundreds of internet cloud pictures. I was driving west on I-70, the day was warm and sunny – partly cloudy. The unusual thing about the clouds was that they were low cumulus type in wide parallel, evenly spaced blue & white stripes that stretched from horizon to horizon in all directions. It was as if I were driving under a huge Greek national flag. I wish I had been able to take a picture as I have never ever seen clouds arranged like that.

Then, there was the rainbow just north of I-80 near Cozad, NE. This is corn country, flat and wide open. The corn fields this time of year are mostly cut stubble left from last fall’s harvest. It was about 5pm and I was driving east approaching the back side of a rain front that had just passed through. With the sun at my back, a rainbow was created that was long and low that appeared to me to grow out of the highway ahead of me and stretch to the north horizon to my left. As I got closer to the rain front the rainbow increased in color intensity and grew into a full double rainbow, still seemingly to originate directly ahead of me. Getting closer to it and as wide open as the terrain was, I realized I might be able to see the end of the rainbow. Pretty soon it was evident that the rainbow generated not out of the highway ahead but just off it to my left in the cut stubble cornfield about 200 yards from the road. WOW! I did see the end of the rainbow as I passed it into the rain front! At the same time I saw 4 large men wearing black jumpsuits load an object resembling a large black pot into a black van lettered “United States of America Internal Revenue Service”. Even a pot of gold isn’t safe from those guys!

There was the Delorean car customized to look just like the “Back to the Future” time travel car going west on I-80. Cool. And the suicidal squirrel that ran out into the road, stood up on its hind legs, and stared wide-eyed as my big, red truck sped toward him. He did what he set out to do. Who knows why?

Boy, those parallel clouds were awesome! Keep your eyes open and drive safe. — Bob B.

 

I wrote my first Nana’s Whimsies post on August 14, 2013. Today I am posting my 200^th entry. And I still don’t really understand the whole notion of blogging.

I’m always a bit behind the curve when it comes to technology. There’s a somewhat funny commercial I’ve seen recently where a dad, mom, and child are going across the street to visit the neighbors. The father cautions the child to be kind to the neighbors because they are still in the dark ages, i.e. no cell phones. It concludes by the dad saying, “See those smoke signals? That’s email.”

That’s just about the extent of it folks. About the time I finally understand something, it’s become antiquated technology. Guess it’s about time I shut down my My Space account.

I began Nana’s Whimsies because I missed writing. I have degrees in journalism and applied communication, and I wrote extensively as part of my job.  I love to write. Call me crazy. In fact, I never dread sitting down and writing my blog post for the next day. Now coming up with topics about which to write – that’s a different story. My life simply isn’t that interesting.

My sister Jen, who is the one most responsible for getting me off my frufra and blogging again, says my life is as interesting as the next guy’s. It’s all about the writing. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Still, Seinfeld – a show about nothing – was one of the most successful on television. Don’t get me wrong; I am not comparing my blog to any Seinfeld episode ever. I don’t have a Kramer in my life. Bill comes close, but he’s not quite there.

Though there is this…..

I suspect the bulk of my readers are people I know. Every once in a while I’ll get a comment from someone I didn’t know was reading my blog and it makes me very happy. I have a number of folks following my blog with whom I am unfamiliar. That’s kind of cool too.

I would like to build my readership. That’s why I have started posting it on Facebook every day, and it has resulted in more hits. Occasionally one of my Facebook friends will share the link, and that gets me even more hits.

Readership is important if I ever want to become rich and famous. I’m just kidding about being rich and famous, but it would be nice to earn a few dollars from my efforts. Still, every blogger with whom I’ve spoken has said if you get into blogging for the money, you are wasting your time. You should blog to communicate with others through your pictures and your words. But mostly you should blog because you love it.

I promise that is the biggest reason I blog. When my nephew Christopher tells me he reads my blog every single day, that makes me extremely happy. When I get a comment from a cousin I almost never see, I am overjoyed.

So, much to my surprise, today I posted NUMBER 200! It’s a milestone of sorts. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to be disciplined enough to write every day, but I have. I’m proud of myself.

Thanks for reading Nana’s Whimsies, and I appreciate all feedback and suggestions.

Well, sinners though we are, Jesus again rose from the dead on Easter Sunday to save our pitiful selves. My gratitude knows no bounds.

Still, I feel compelled to say that it is a good thing that Jesus didn’t have me managing his schedule those 2,000+ years ago, for if it had been so, we might all still be flailing around in the throes of sin.

Our Mesa church has three Sunday Masses: a 7 o’clock, a 9 o’clock, and an 11 o’clock. Bill and I always go to 9 o’clock Mass. Since we moved here, on one occasion we went to the Saturday evening Mass at 4 o’clock, but other than that, it has always been the 9 o’clock Mass on Sunday morning.

That is the Mass I intended to go to yesterday as well. But since we were hosting an Easter extravaganza, suddenly Saturday morning it occurred to me that we perhaps should go to the 7 o’clock Mass so that I could be home early and begin preparing the meal. Bill agreed.

We set our alarm for 5:30, giving us enough time to have a cup of coffee before we began dressing for church. I didn’t think that the 7 o’clock Mass would be that busy, as WHO IN THE WORLD GETS UP THAT EARLY FOR CHURCH? If we left our house at 6:30, we would be there in plenty of time I said with confidence.

We arrived at church at 6:40, and saw that the parking lot was full. Hmmm. Of course, lots of people go to Mass on Easter that don’t otherwise go, so perhaps that’s the reason for all of these cars 20 minutes before Mass, I thought. Still, there were no people milling around their cars or walking towards the church. That troubled me.

We walked up to the church expecting to be greeted by the ushers, but the doors were firmly closed with no ushers in sight. We peeked in, and saw that the entire congregation was kneeling and Mass was clearly in session. At 6:40.

I don’t get it, I said to Bill. Even if Mass started at 6:30 (which, why would it?), it should just barely be started. It looks like they are over halfway through Mass.

We snuck in the back door to find that Mass was, indeed, half over. In fact, we arrived just in time for the Consecration of the host. Whaaaaat?

I was in a bit of a quandary, because at this point there was really no other Mass option. I had told company they could come any time after 9:30, so I needed to be there, and more importantly, have food prepared.

We snuck in and quietly celebrated the last half of the Mass. The saddest thing is that Bill didn’t get to hear what is clearly his very favorite hymn – Jesus Christ is Risen Today A-A-A-A-A-le-e-lu-u-ya! He had been humming it for two days in preparation.

As we drove home, I felt wholly dissatisfied with my worship experience, and said so. Bill reminded me that we had certainly had the best of intentions.

There was a moment of silence.

“Of course, my mom always said the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he concluded.

So there you have it.

I got home in plenty of time to bake my wonderful French Toast Casserole that was sinfully good, my egg casserole that I thought was sinfully bad but everyone told me was good, and – most important – got my ham in the oven.

People came and went all day long, just as I had anticipated, as my nieces and nephews made their way to and from visits with the other side of the family. We nibbled all day long, watched the kids hide, seek, re-hide and re-seek the plastic Easter eggs I had bought at the dollar store. How much? One dollah! Got my money’s worth out of those babies.

All in all, though I could end up in hell, I don’t think it will because I miscalculated the time of Mass. By the way, when we got home, we checked online only to learn that on Easter Sunday, the 7 o’clock Mass becomes a 6 o’clock sunrise Mass. Who knew?

Nevertheless, despite my not being there to hear the Gospel read, Peter and the “disciple Jesus loved” did indeed run to the tomb only to find it empty.  He had risen.

With the hit-and-miss weather that Colorado has been experiencing this spring, it is no surprise that the grandkids take advantage of one of the “hit” days when the weather is warm.

This photo of Kaiya and Mylee sitting in front of their house enjoying a popsicle made me laugh.Enjoy the weather while you have it!

Have a good weekend, and enjoy Easter.

He is not here, but is risen  Luke 24: 6