A Lot About Nothing

This has been a pretty strange week, I must say. Since Dick and I came home early from Newport Beach, we have done absolutely nothing. I take that back, as far as Dick is concerned. He has been at the church for various meetings etc. but I have truly done nothing but laze in my chair.

I did manage to stir my stumps enough to get to Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, but had to come straight home as I was dizzy as a loon all through it and could barely make it out to the car. It was a good thing Dick had parked in the pole position for the handicapped. He has to go about 2 1/2 hours early in order to attend the bishopric meetings before church starts, so I always catch a ride with one of my super good friends. It must have rubbed off on them though because Jim had to take Verna home right after Sacrament too. I would have gone with them but Dick wanted to take me home so he could pick up some materials regarding our circle times that Sue instigated with our family when we all get together. He was telling Bishop Benson about our circle times and he was so impressed that he wanted Dick to tell about them to our joint Relief Society/Priesthood session. I wish I could have been there to hear it as I heard it went over very well.

Yes, I have really rested this week. I think it is the absolute first time that I have ever done that. I usually have to go to a doctor or to a lab or something!
I really should have just waited until next Tuesday to post. Maybe something exciting will happen this week. I really don't have anything planned though, so who knows, it may be just like last week. I have been getting in some good reading though, and goodness knows, I love to do that.

We have watched a few of the Olympic events. We used to be such enthusiasts of them, but the past couple I just haven't been able to get excited about them. Maybe it's because we used to know the names of all the U.S. Olympians. It does make a difference I think.

Okay, that's it folks............You don't even have to comment since there is nothing to comment about. I won't even promise to do better next week. I think I am getting blogged out, but I still enjoy reading all of yours.

Celebration

Well, here I am home again after spending only two days with the family at Sue's beach house! I had planned to stay two more days but I got a bladder infection in the middle of the very first night we were there. Fortunately, I had some cypro with me for emergency and took it right away, but even though the initial pain is pretty much gone, I just felt too miserable so we decided we were much better off at home. Plus, I was so darned cold. The sun didn't burn off the clouds until almost mid afternoon and by that time I was so cold that I just couldn't get warm so spent all my time in a chair that we brought from home with blankets all over me. It's really not much fun to spend many days like that. The closer we got to home, the better I felt, so it was a good thing we came home.

I did enjoy seeing ALL of Sue's family in one place again, and also Jayne, who came for a week from Salt Lake. At least we got to see them all for two whole days.

I think I have told you about our tradition whenever we are with Sue's family. We have what Sue named "circle time". Sue writes a story and
then poses a question that we all have to answer one at a time as we go around our rather large circle. It is always wonderful because we get a chance to feel so close to family members as they sometimes relate personal stories, or try to express personal feelings regarding the subject of the question. Lots of times tears are shed, but they are good tears indeed. Last night instead of the story and question, the circle time was all about our 4oth wedding anniversary which is coming up August 12. Sue had everyone in the circle describe how Dick and I affected their lives for good and let me tell you, I was pretty much in tears the whole time. Even Dick teared up a bit. It was so touching. To tell the truth, I had been so depressed that we would very likely be spending our anniversary alone, instead of having the wonderful celebration I had envisioned of being surrounded by all of our children to help us celebrate this very special time in our lives. We will probably not be spending another significant anniversary as I'm not at all sure I will make it to our 45th one, and if I do, I could very well be senile! I knew none of my family would be able to come. Sue must have picked up on those vibes because she orchestrated the whole evening and Heather, our pro photographer, contacted all the family on the sly and got pictures of the two of us from way back when, a lot of which neither of us had ever seen. She made a wonderful slide show depicting a collage of pictures featuring the two of us. Some of them had other family members with us. This was all set to music, and I am thrilled that she is going to send us a copy of our own! All in all, it was a sweet night indeed and one neither of us will EVER FORGET!!! Can you think of a better way to have an anniversary celebrated? The only thing that would have made it better would have been for all the rest of my family to have been present, but two of my kids and their families just couldn't make it.

Right now, I am pretty tired, but wanted to get this posted while it was all so fresh on my mind. It's hard to believe that a whole week has gone by. Time just flies for me these days. 'Til next Tuesday then................

I'm Fine

I’m Fine

There’s nothing whatever the matter with me.
I’m just as healthy as I can be.
I have arthritis in both my knees,
and when I talk, I talk with a wheeze.

My pulse is weak and my blood is thin,
but I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in.
I think my liver is out of whack,
and a terrible pain is in my back.

My hearing is poor, my sight is dim.
Most everything seems to be out of trim,
but I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in.

I have arch supports for both my feet
or I wouldn’t be able to go on the street.
Sleeplessness I have night after night,
and in the morning I’m just a sight.

My memory is failing, my head’s in a spin.
I’m peacefully living on aspirin,
but I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in
.
The moral is, as this tale we unfold,
that for you and me who are growing old,
it’s better to say "I’m fine" with a grin
than to let them know the shape we’re in.

— Cardinal Cushing



This is a poem sent to me by a very good friend when I was really feeling down. It did pep me up and made me laugh. When you can laugh, you experience good things and lessening of pain is one of them. I have another good poem I'll publish next week, but I'm soliciting more. If any of you have funny things in regard to pain or growing old or so on, I would love for you to send it to me. It really helps me when I am not doing as well as I would like to be doing.

Having said that, I am doing much better today after having a rotten weekend. Maybe it's because we don't do our pool exercises on Saturday and Sunday. It seems that five days a week is enough though.

Take care, dear friends and have a great week.

Darlene

The Coachella Valley

The high mountains are covered with snow with the palm trees in foreground.

One of our absolutely gorgeous sunsets taken in front of our house.

Taken in the street in front of our house. Those mountains are really covered

with snow.........more palm trees and of course our neighbors' garbage cans.

Aren't they lovely?

Another beautiful sunset taken from our front yard.

Today our temperature got to 116 degrees! Would any of you like to come for a visit? I have to say though that even in the heat, we did enjoy doing our exercises in the pool. At least the water was a bit cooler. It was only 90 degrees! It actually felt lots cooler than that because of the air temp being so warm.

I am really surprised how many of our desert visitors are still here. You would think in this weather that they would clear out fast. They seem to stay longer each year. There must be a few of them that enjoy our summer heat??? When I used to live in the desert fifty years ago, you could have shot a cannon down Palm Canyon Blvd. in Palm Springs. Of course it was just a nice little village then where lots of movie stars came to partake of our wonderful warm winter weather. So many of them had homes here. Some of the old timers still do and even a few new timers.

Of course this desert has a big draw in the winter. We have so many people come for the "season" from Canada and other cold places throughout the country. A lot goes on to bring folks here for special occasions too. There are two huge music festivals held each year at the polo grounds. One is Rock and the other is Country. They are held on consecutive weekends. So many big names perform in these concerts. Actually the Coachella Valley Music Festivals are the biggest in the country. It's amazing how the young people, particularly, flood this valley, and each year, these concerts just keep getting bigger and bigger. You can imagine how it helps our economy.

Indian Wells hosts one of the World Class Tennis Tournaments each year in their Tennis Gardens. I think the name of it is Paribus. We were fortunate to have friends that live in Indian Wells get us tickets, so we were able to experience that event, and I must say it was amazing. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures. Crazy, huh?

Another popular thing here is the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. Everyone has to try it at least once. It goes from the valley floor up to the high mountains. I went when I lived here many years ago and was one of the very early ones to go up to the top of those mountains. I have a terrible fear of heights and eveyone was kidding me and trying to rock the tram, successfully, I might add, and I was half way crazy before we got to the top. Of course there is only a return trip down, unless you are a very good hiker, so I knew I had to get on that thing again, and believe me, I sucked it up, because I didn't want anyone rocking that thing again. I was so grateful when we finally got down. I can tell you. I would NEVER do that again, but many people love it. In the winter time, you can be in the deep snow at the top and in the summer, you can hike some of the trails or have a lovely dinner there. The view is quite spectacular from the top.

We also have many museums, huge destination hotels, more golf courses than you can count and along with that are many golf tournaments including the Bob Hope Classic, PGA and Dinah Shore, and I know there are probably more that I am forgetting. Needless to say, it is really a lovely place to spend winters. So many people have second homes here and there are so many beautiful country clubs with their own private golf courses. Oh, I almost forgot, the Living Desert, where there are many different animals too, almost a small zoo. Needless to say, one could be busy every day, truly, going from one fascinating place to another.

The shopping here is memorable too. We have our own version of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It is El Paseo drive, which has all the fancy stores, many art galleries, exclusive boutiques and so many great places to eat, lots of them right out on the sidewalk.

So yes, the desert does have it's charm. If any of you would like to visit, we do have a couple of guest rooms with really good beds. I think I've told you before how much we love company, and we hardly ever get any. So feel free everyone, just let us know and we will hang out the welcome sign.

Love you all, my great blogging friends..................

Darlene

My Great Guy

Here he is....the one and only Richard Dean Robbins, my wonderful husband.

This is the two of us, before I got my hair cut. I'm not sure where we were.

I don't recognize the background here either. I don't know who took it.

This was taken at our oldest granddaughter's wedding.

Isn't it great that I remembered this one at least?

Of course I had to have this Great Guy transfer these pictures. I don't think I will ever be able to do it on my own, but maybe next time. I am determined that I am going to learn how.

I've blogged about other members of my family, and realized that I need to let you all know a little bit more about Dick. I am so grateful that our paths crossed in this life as he is absolutely the perfect person for me, or as Sue says, we are joined at the hip. Yep, she is so right. There is no person on earth that I would rather spend time with and that is saying a lot, because I absolutely adore time spent with any of my family members.

But now about Dick: He was born in Monticello, Indiana. Unfortunately, he never had his father around as he left Dick's mother for another woman and so Dick grew up with no father, but having a wonderful role model, his Grandfather Robbins. He truly adored his Grandpa and I am so glad that he modeled his life after this terrific man. Grandpa was a baker and Dick loved to spend time at the bakery and was often treated to breakfast or lunch out, which he loved.

Dick had an older brother, Chuck, who was a few years older. His Mom was their sole support so it wasn't an easy life for her. She used to work at Sears in the customers service department. Dick used to work whenever he could to help his mom with the finances. When he was thirteen he got a summer job riding an ice cream three wheeled bike, two wheels in the front under the ice cream freezer and one wheel in back. I wish I had a picture of that to post. He made really good money that summer, as much as his mom and he always handed over his check to her. Between his mom, his Grandma and Grandpa Robbins, he had a great childhood, even though. He had great friends always, so that helped too.

He went to colllege and got a degree in accounting and after a couple of jobs in Indiana, he ended up working for ITT Gilfillan in Van Nuys California, which is where I met him. We met under strange circumstances. I had just taken a new job at the same plant, only in a different department. My boss sent me over to the accounting dept. on my second day on the job to get some data for a report I was supposed to do monthly. The data was in a book called the BPR (Budget Performance Report) My boss, Sam, asked me to have Robbins explain just what was in the BPR and I was to tell him when I got back to our office. Initially, it went pretty well, as I met Robbins and got my data from this really thick book. Then I told him what my boss had wanted me to find out about this BPR. so that I could tell him. I will never forget his response. He had been sitting on the front of his chair and he rocked way back in it and gave me this hard look and replied, " You tell Sam Carfano if he wants to find out what is in this book, he can darned well come over himself and ask me!" I left in a hurry, I can tell you and I had the task of telling my boss what Robbins had said. From that point on, I was honestly afraid of Robbins and I fortunately met a girl who worked in accounting and from then on, I would get her to get me my data each month. I also would avoid meeting him and every time I would see him in the hall, I would turn and go the other way. After a few months of this, my niece, Nancy (who had been working there a long time and actually got me my job there) and I were invited to a luncheon given for one of the employees who was retiring. We were a little late getting there and found out there were only two places left and one was right next to Dick Robbins. I told Nancy she HAD to sit by Robbins but she insisted she wanted to talk to this other guy, so I had to sit by him!! Well, you just don't sit next to someone and ignore them, so we got into a little conversation and I found out that he loved music and used to sing in a performing choir. I told him of a local one that our symphony did concerts with occaisionally. I offered to arrange for him to audition for it if he would like. To make a long story shorter, he got into the choir and then I used to get comp tickets for him to attend our symphony concerts. (To those of you who might not know, I was a professional violinist.)

After a few months, he asked me out to dinner after one of my concerts. I was glad to go because I never ate before a concert. The problem though was that it was so darned noisy that we really couldn't talk, so after we ate, he suggested that we might go to his apartment, which was near, and talk some more. You know, it didn't even occur to me to think that might not be appropriate, so I went and we talked for hours, way into the morning. The rest, as they say, is history. I maybe should mention that my husband had been long gone as he left me for another woman also. I just didn't want you to get the idea that I would be stepping out on a husband. No, I never did that. I had custody of my three children and Nikki was taking care of them. She was fourteen and very capable.

When he did propose, I said yes, with the understanding that it would have to be okay with the kids. I did make him propose to each one of them and they all agreed that they would like to have him for a stepfather. We were married by my Bishop in the Relief Society Room and after he joined the church, we were sealed in the Temple after a year.

I won't go into the years since, only to say that we have been so happy. This is one "great guy" for sure. He is so patient, so gentle in all his ways and I can honestly say he has never once raised his voice to me. (I wish I could say I have never done the same to him). I could never stay mad at him for very long. On August 12 we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary. I don't suppose we will ever reach 50 years so this is quite a significant one for us, although I am going to try to make it until our 45th one anyway.

I don't think I want to go back and edit this, so please forgive any typos. I am so tired tonight. We are having a couple of friends over for dinner tomorrow and we'll watch the fireworks from our driveway. I have dinner all prepared tonight so will just have to take it out of the refrigerator as we are having a cold dinner, sliced ham, potato salad, corn on the cob (oh yes, that will have to be boiled, but that will be Dick's job) and key lime pie for dessert.

Enough already!