I'm watching the end of this weekend's delayed golf tournament as I'm finishing my breakfast at eight o'clock. Television in Arizona has been a challenge. We are three hours behind the East Coast during daylight time, since Arizona doesn't go on daylight time, but the television schedule is central time. Of course, anything live such as sports events or presidential addresses happen in real time which is then three hours earlier than Eastern time. The TV in our rental condo is an old-fashioned screen and although there is cable there is no HD nor VCR. Last night we were able to watch both "The Good Wife" and "The Mentalist" without staying up too late. Conversely, there have been numerous times we've been out with friends till nine or so, which means that there is nothing on except the 10 o'clock news at nine, which is not really worth watching. Occasionally we pick up reruns of Rachel Maddow. The result of all this is that we have been watching very little television and to our surprise have not been missing it. I wonder what will happen when we get back to Acton, whether we will feel the need to catch up on the few shows we have missed entirely or whether we will continue watching very selected TV. It has been easy to adapt to watching practically no TV; I suspect it will be just as easy to adapt to our old habits of watching TV most nights.
Bob is out playing golf again, which gives me the time to blog and to work on my current online course on "global poverty". He has really been enjoying the ability to play two or three times a week, at low cost and very close. Yesterday afternoon I went out with him at four o'clock. He was able to get a tee time as a single, so I was able to ride around in the golf cart and enjoy the beautiful scenery and views of the mountains from the course.
With the close of our new house almost upon us (April 16th) we have been busy buying some of the essentials and are pretty much done at this point. Online shopping has really been a big help! We'll be meeting with our contractor a couple of times before we leave to go over the details of changes we want made, and we will likely be back here in October for a week or two to actually move in and get things set up before we come back in January. Our house is small enough that we can get by with a minimal amount of furniture. We do still have to buy a few patio chairs since we intend to spend a great deal of time outside.
We continue to meet people here and there, and everyone is very welcoming, since just about everyone has come from somewhere else. Interestingly, the local phone book has a section listing people by hometown. There are three other people from Acton here, although I don't recognize any of the names. Our time is filled with golf; going to the fitness center; going out to eat; visiting various places of interest as we're still learning the area; "slouching" with friends; playing bridge; going to movies; sitting outside for cocktail hour; reading; the occasional trivia contest; and so on. Next January we will really get into the swing of things and Bob will also join a pickle ball league, while I will probably get involved in a book group or some other club. it's a pretty easy life.
Of course everyone who lives here tends to encourage other people to move here. What I find quite funny ,and gratifying in an odd sort of way, is the reaction when they find out we're from Boston. "Oh, I understand why you only want to spend a couple of months a year here. Why would anybody want to move out of New England, it's such a great place?" Note that there are a preponderance of people here from Washington state (rain) and Minnesota (frigid).
The weather has gotten warmer now and we expect cactus to start blooming in another week or two. We discovered a local garden that sells "almost organic" vegetables on Saturdays and Wednesday mornings. Last Saturday we got some gorgeous chard, some unbelievably tender asparagus, and beautiful green onions. We somehow managed to miss the oyster mushrooms but are hoping to pick up some on Wednesday.
With the warm weather - 75 to 80 during the day, and generally brilliant sunshine - we have to be very careful not to get too much sun although it's so enticing to do so. We've learned that a little bit at a time is okay, and that hats and sunscreen are our friends.
That's it for now. My TV for the day is almost over and it looks like Tiger is going to win.
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