Nice day to be out...

Scooting around on South Padre Island.

There was a "tag" on a scooter forum for your scooter in front of a nickname for your town.  No real nickname for the towns on either side of the causeway... unless you count "100,000 screaming drunk college kids here for spring break can't be all wrong."  Doesn't matter - I couldn't find that on the front of a building anywhere.

We had a leisurely lunch at Pier 19, with a nice view of the Laguna Madre.  Scooting around the island, with a stop for a nature walk at the Convention Center...

Beautiful blue sky, temps comfortably in the 70s, and light breeze.  We were entertained by a Reddish Egret looking for chow in the shallows...

Some hermit crabs carting their shells around.  The big white pelicans.  And brown pelicans skimming the water.  Then, back to the scoots...

A shopping run, then back to our island.  Joan stopped to get mail, I visited with Mike and MJ at their motorhome.  Saw their pink flamingo Christmas lights - nothing says Happy Birthday, Jesus, like a lit up flamingo.  ;-)

And now, we're basking in the flickering of our Christmas lights.  'Tis the season.

Redecorating...

No, we haven't done more remodeling on the house.

On string of the new Christmas lights we bought this season had lights out on it when we plugged it in.  After putting them up, of course.  So, I undecorated, we took them back to Wal-Mart, and bought more.  The young lady at Customer Service at Wally World was very nice; she said, "We have gotten a lot of these back.  Sorry you had a problem."

Swell.  I plugged in the replacement lights before rehanging them... they all worked.  Well, for the first night.  We'll see how they hold up.

In the meantime, no more "blank spots" in the light display.

I like 'em!

Merry Christmas!

NFD...

New Fridge Day.

Well, we bought this when we were in the middle of all the work on the house and dock.  And when I say, "bought this," I mean we ordered and paid for one from a local business.  Because we do try to do business locally.  Of course, they didn't have one in stock... they told us we should have it "in 10 days to two weeks, at the latest."  That was over 6 weeks ago.

We could be patient... if they would let us know what is going on.  Which they don't.  When the time for delivery comes and goes, we call or go out there and they say, "I don't know why this is taking so long.  Let me check into it and call you back."  They don't.  We have to call them to find out anything.

Yesterday, we went to the store again to find out why we still don't have a fridge.  Last we were told, it would be "the Wednesday before Thanksgiving... maybe the Friday after... but certainly, no later than Monday."  Yesterday was Tuesday.  No word from them.  Joan was determined: get me a fridge or give me back my money.  They said, "We'll check into it and call you."

Interestingly, they did call us... "Oh, it... um... just arrived on the truck.  Just now.  Really."

We scheduled delivery for today, by noon.  It is 10:00 as I am writing this.  Neither of us are are counting any chickens before they hatch.  With all the "delays," we are anticipating the wrong fridge will show up.

It is going into a place that is VERY size specific.  We are specific with what we want for ice and water in the door.  It narrowed our choices down to about one.

tick, tick, tick...

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About 10:30, there was a knock on the door.  "We have a fridge for you."

"Great.  Someone was supposed to call first so we could have the old one emptied."

"Yeah.  Someone called us.  We need to take the old one out first to make room for this new one," the guy said.

"No, you were supposed to call us.  The old one isn't leaving until we know the new one is in in one piece - plus, my wife needs to swap stuff from the old one after she cleans out the new one."

"Oh... OK."

Two young strong guys.  They weren't particularly careful as they shoved the fridge in through the front door.  We turned off the water to the ice maker and slid the old fridge out... moving other furniture in the process.  They slid the new one into place...

"Is it level," I asked.

"Yeah, they come in that way," one of the guys said.

Joan pushed on the fridge... pretty obvious it wasn't level.  "We'll level it," she said.

"OK."

"You can't haul away the old one 'till she gets the food transferred," I said.

"OK."

They are men of few words.

Joan asked, "Do we have some paperwork on this?  What's the warranty?"

"Um... you'll have to call the store.  I don't know about that stuff."

Joan went to work moving food.  When that was all moved, we gave them a hand getting the old one out the door... not because we needed the workout, but to protect our tile, door, and threshold.  They were going to lean the old one off the top step.  "Nope.  Slide it out towards the step.  Put your two-wheel truck behind it, and ease it down the steps - let's not tear up my new steps on your way out."

"OK."

We pulled the new fridge out to make sure all the water connections were tight.  Yep.  Slid it back into place and leveled it.  Joan took the last of the plastic off of it, and is arranging shelves.

Our old fridge was bisque - that was the color; as a guy, I would call it light tan.  Apparently, bisque isn't popular these days.  This size wasn't available in bisque.  It was this size/color or start tearing out the cabinets (that were custom built).

The old fridge was giving up the ghost.  The freezer worked fine, but the refrigerator side wasn't keeping things as cool as it should.  We had a repair guy come out from where we originally bought it and asked, "Is it worth repairing or should we replace it?"  Being a repair guy, he said, "Let's try repairing it."  Two trips and two replaced pieces made no difference.  We called that company to get a price on a new one.  They never called back.  Business must be really good.

So, we went with a local company to order this one.  That'll teach me.

;-)

Time to renew our vows?

Today is our anniversary.  A blustery day here in the Tropical Tip; reminiscent of the day we married... in Iowa.  Nahhhh - it was WAY colder in Iowa.  ;-)

This comes up from time to time, but almost always on our anniversary: the discussion of the wedding vows.  The Blonde says she doesn't remember saying it, but I am absolutely certain she promised to "love, honor, and obey."  I promised to "love honor, and cherish."  I have been cherishing like crazy all these years...

Today, she said, "We should re-do the vows and this time YOU can do the obeying thing!"

"So, you admit that's what you said all those years ago?"

Umm... no.

We had a lovely day.  On our first date, back in December of 1969, we went to a movie, then out for pizza.  We talked about grilling steaks today, but Joan said, "Let's do a movie and a pizza."  Yeah, that seemed right.

For my darling wife: Happy Anniversary... I'd do it all again.  Well, I might get that obeying thing in writing.  ;-)

That was it???

Two posts ago, I mentioned that we decorated our deck so the place would look more festive for the Lighted Golf Cart Parade.  In years past, there has been a lot of participation in the parade - lots of entries and lots of lights.

Not this year.

When I heard the honking as the carts passed by on the main road, I went outside to watch them when they came down our street... there were 7 or 8 carts.  Those that were in were decorated nicely, but none of the fun over-the-top, Clark Griswold kinda stuff...

I was visiting with neighbors after the 1-minute or so parade...  One couple hadn't been here for the parade before, and she thought it was big fun.  When we discussed that there are usually 25 or 30 carts... why so few this year?

This is a week earlier than usual for this parade.  I think there are a lot of folks from the frozen northland who aren't here, yet.

When I was out earlier today, I saw quite a few people decorating their houses... we just barely finished with Thanksgiving.

I'll be looking forward to the boat parade this weekend - there is a new route and a different judging venue.  Hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate and there will be more participation.

But, kudos to the cheery people who got out there tonight with their carts!

A very tough weekend for our Grandcat...

We got a call from Steph yesterday: "My boy needs surgery!"

Her boy is Jake.  He is a good cat.  Well, he has become a good cat - years ago, he is the one who nearly took Joan's thumb off in his attempt to attack Molly (our sweet kitty before Izzy).  But, I digress: Jake has swallowed something stringy and it is twisting up his intestines - if he doesn't have surgery right away, he isn't going to survive... this is very serious.

I did my Daddy duty by allowing Steph to get it all out and reassuring her that Jake was going to be OK.

All we could do was wait to see how the surgery turned out.

Jake came through the surgery alright.  The vet said he is strong and in good shape - he has that on his side.  Steph and Dan were able to take him home last night.

I have seen this on dogs, but never on a cat before...

No, he is not wearing a bonnet - that is a cone.  Cats tend to be more self-aware than dogs (my presumption)... a dog in a cone is sad... a cat in a cone is pathetic.  And undignified.  To go along with that, Jake's belly is shaved...

And, he is one hurtin' kitty.  Doesn't feel like eating - no big surprise.

He had a pretty good mass in his belly that the vet saved a portion of so Steph and Dan could see what he had swallowed.  They couldn't identify it.  Once it made it that far, it was on its way to becoming kitty poop.  Well, before twisting up in his belly.

He needs to get his bowels working, but the poor guy can barely find his way to his food bowl or his litter box with that cone on... and, he needs to wear it for a week (to keep from pulling out his stitches).

Knowing that cats do take pride in their appearance, I told Steph, "Let him know that the belly fur will grow back fast - when "grandpa" had belly surgery years ago, my fur grew right back.  When we get there, he and I can compare scars and belly fur."

It got a small laugh out of her.  Their cats are family, just like Izzy is to us.  We understand.

Decoration Day...

Different meanings.  When I was a kid, Memorial Day was called Decoration Day by my Mother.  It was a day of remembrance, when you put flowers on the grave of a service person in your family who had passed.

Today was Christmas decoration day.  We usually decorate on December 2nd - our anniversary.  But, the Lighted Golf Cart Parade is tonight.  No, we don't have a golf cart... it just makes things look more festive.  Seems like there are way fewer homes decorated around here this year.  Or maybe it is the fact that Thanksgiving was later?  I did see some other people decorating today, though.

We brought several boxes of decorations out of our storage area.  First order of business: see what works...

We went through 2 large bins of lights - most of these saw duty on Wild Blue for the Lighted Boat Parade.  It seems that the weather is always blustery (they canceled the parade last year due to ugly conditions), so any lights on the boat get hammered with salt spray on the crossing between Port Isabel and South Padre Island.  When all was said and done, we decided to toss a bunch of light and go to Wally World to pick up some more.

I hung lights while Joan worked on which-bulb-is-the-culprit on the star that is going to be the centerpiece on the deck.  The Chinese obviously take great joy in frustrating all the Clark Griswolds of the world with their one-light-takes-out-half-of-the-strand.  So, you wind up with 18 strands with varying percentages of lights that don't work.  One of the next boxes of lights had a portion not working right out of the box!!  Bah - humbug!!

Joan got all the lights on the star lit, just as I was finishing up the icicle lights...

We tested two strands of lighted star lights - everything worked... until I hung them, then about 25% decided to take the season off.  Joan plugged in the rest of the lights...

Yes, we had the sunscreens down - it was about 80º on the deck.  Joan asked about putting "something" on the dock.  We have the inflatable lighthouse that we have used on the boat, but it is SO loud (noise from the fan).  I suggested our "Santa Crossing" sign.  I pulled it out of the box... it hadn't aged well; everything that was originally white on it was now yellow...

You might have to look close, but... the background of the triangle - yep, it's yellow.  The "Santa Crossing" lettering - yep, the background is yellow.  And that stuff around the base of the sign... that is supposed to be snow - yep, now it is yellow snow.  Ewwww!  The sign looked pathetic all by itself, so Joan suggested we put some red and green candy canes on the railings.  Yes, those were also on the boat at one time: red on the port side, green on the starboard side, of course.  ;-)

So, it isn't extensive, but we are decorated on the outside.  We'll do the inside tomorrow.  Maybe.

I carted 3 boxes and one large garbage bag of semi-functional lights to the garbage.  Dang - I worked up a sweat today.  ;-)

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After dark...