Month: September 2019

Part of our 3-month vacation this year has been our planned visit of family and friends while we are staying in Oceanside. We call it “The Reunion Tour”.

We are blessed that son Tim and wife Shanon love our dogs and love to visit our RV when it is parked at the beach in Oceanside. So, we have planned for many months for them to babysit the RV and the pooches while we spend one week hopscotching between acquaintances in So Cal, spending a day with each and catching up on the lastest family and life news.

We started the Tour with a nice afternoon of snacks, drinks and chats with Charlie’s brother Fritz and his wife Terri. We were going to do a sleepover at their home in Newhall, but they opted to come down to Oceanside to beat the heat. We had a great visit.

The next day we headed up the freeway(s) to Monterey Park to visit my brother Terry and his wife Kay. They have lived in this suburb of Los Angeles pretty much their entire lives (they’re both in their 70’s now) and in the same house for the past 50 years, I think.

On the way to their house, Charlie and I slowed down and gandered at her old home in Alhambra, my high school (Mark Keppel) nearby, and the three houses in Monterey Park where I grew up many years ago.

The city has really changed; mostly Orientals live there now.

We had a great visit with Terry and Kay and my sister Kellie, who came up from Irvine to join in the get-together. That night my brother treated us to a very expensive meal at the Northwoods Inn near San Marino. I had a Porterhouse steak that was a big as a bicycle seat. Very good.

It was neat to see my brother…still alive, miraculously! He’s had some health issues in the past five years and is severely incapacitated by a bad back. But, other than that, he seemed to be in fine fettle. I am so glad that we had the chance to visit him in Monterey Park, because I doubt that he could travel out to the Nevada desert to our home.

The next day we headed 100 miles southeast to our old stomping grounds in Murrieta, where I had a dental appointment and Charlie had the chance to visit with one of her BFF’s, Jeannette Bosanko. That evening, we had a fine dinner at the Bosanko’s home in Bear Creek, and had a chance to catch up on all of the gossip about everyone in the golf course community where we lived from 1988 through 2018. The next morning, we took them to breakfast at the new Black Bear Diner restaurant in Murrieta, where I had my usual Chicken Fried Steak and Eggs extravaganza. Excellent, as always.

While in Murrieta, we had the chance to visit with some old friends. I had breakfast with some old golfing, poker, and bowling buddies, including Curly Morrison, who is 92 and still going strong. Curly was an All-American football stud at Ohio State, played in the NFL for George Halas’ Chicago Bears and Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns, was the first “color” analyst when pro football became televised on CBS, co-invented the “instant replay” videotape technology, helped found the NFL Alumni charities, and was instrumental in obtaining health benefits for the retired NFL players who helped develop the League as we now know it. Curly is a great character and it’s always fun to be in the same room with him, listening to his stories.

We also had the chance to visit with Brenda Jenkins, whose husband and our great friend, Lonnie, died earlier this year. They are one of the founding property owners in Bear Creek…just wonderful people. Also, we visited with Marilynn Robinson, another of Charlie’s BFF’s from years gone by. She has an 84-year old boyfriend who is helping nurse her through a fractured arm.

Getting old is a bitch.

Our next Tour stop was my sister Claudia’s house in Temecula. What we didn’t know was that her house was EMPTY of furniture and goods; she was in the process of moving to a new house in the Harveston subdivision on the other side of town! So, good relatives that we are, we ended up helping Claudia and her man, Ted, move the last stuff out of her “old” house before escrow closed in three days.

So, our Reunion Tour got modified a bit, as we put in 2 to 4 hours per day over three days, ferrying household possessions five miles down the road in Ted’s pick-up truck. Finally, by Thursday, the deed was done, including moving their 1970 vintage VW Bus/Camper and Isetta 300 vehicles into the new garage.

In between helping them, we spend a nice evening with Randy and Denise Wood at their beautiful home in the Redhawk area of Temecula. Randy cooked up some spectacular Filet Mignon, the best I’ve ever had. We spent the evening talking about his Christmas Tree brokerage business and then watch some mindless U-Tube video of a military exercise at sea. Lots of fun, actually.

Another stop on the Tour included spending a nice evening with Clark and Karin Pace, our former neighbors in Bear Creek. We played cards (which, as usual, Karin won) and Clark made us a wonderful steak dinner. They also caught us up on all of the neighborhood intrigue.

One of our planned visits, to Terry DeArmond and long-term girlfriend Barb Jarvis’ home in Temecula went awry, as Barb got an emergency call from a relative back east and had to fly out. So, Charlie and I opted to stay a night at nearby hotel, have a nice meal, and binge-watch some Netflix movies. It was fun.

Our last Reunion Tour excitement was a sleepover at George and Helen Tsimiklis’ home in Lake Elsinore, where George cooked up some fabulous barbequed salmon, we chatted about everything from soup to nuts, and their young Maltese mix dog attempted, for hours, to surrepticiously impregnate our young Boston Terrier “Baby”. No dice, but I’d give the lad an A for effort!

We’re back in Oceanside now, with another ten days of sun and fun ahead of us before cruising up I-15 to our home in Nevada.

We’re looking forward to a little rest; it’s been hectic.

We are now in Oceanside, California, settling in for a 30-day stay at Paradise By The Sea.

We spent the past couple of weeks hip-hopping from Half Moon Bay to Marin and then to Monterey.

At Half Moon Bay we stayed at Pelican Point RV Park which is located amidst the Ritz Carlton property (adjacent to the hotel and surrounded by the golf course). It is a pretty tight park, originally designed for small RV’s perhaps 40 years ago. We had a nice site there, and it was a easy 5-minute walk down to a very nice beach. The dogs loved it.

From Half Moon Bay we had to head north about 100 miles to Greenbrae where the Marin RV Park is located. We only stayed there for three days, but Charlie was able to get an appointment at a plastic surgeon for a Juva Derm touch-up. We were also able to replace her I-phone, which was having trouble holding a charge. And, I got a pedicure.

After our stay there, we headed 2-1/2 hours down Hwy 101 to Marina, California (just north of Monterey) where we stayed at the Marina Dunes RV Park. We’ve stayed there before: it’s very nice, lots of stores in the area, and just a short drive down to Fisherman’s Wharf. We enjoyed another great lunch at Scales, overlooking the harbor.

Rather than spend three nights there, we opted to cruise another 4-1/2 hours south on Hwy 101 to the Santa Barbara area, where we stayed at Ocean Mesa RV Resort for one night. It is another very nice park, with big sites, nice landscaping, lots of amenities, etc.

From there it was only about 230 miles down to Oceanside. This is our 7th consecutive year at Paradise By The Sea. We love it here: great RV park, lots of shopping opportunities nearby, and the beach is only a few minute walk from our coach.

Surf was up today: 4-5 foot swells, with lots of surfers taking advantage. The weather is a bit warm and humid for this time of year: it was 83 degrees today with clear skies and a slight breeze. Life is good on the So Cal coast.

Our granddaughter Jessica, who is in her final year of nursing school (Cal Baptist University in Riverside), did a sleepover on Friday night. We were able to catch up on her life, which has changed somewhat. Unfortunately, her two year marriage didn’t work out, and she is going through divorce proceedings. We are sad about this, but happy that she has made the tough decision before having children. She will bounce back and succeed, like she always has.

Tomorrow, we head up the I-15 to Temecula, where I have a dental appointment. Then, on Wednesday, we will take the dogs to Old Town Veterinary Hospital in Murrieta for their annual physicals. Dr. Rebecca Black, the owner, has been a client of Charlie Manning Bookkeeping for many years. We haven’t seen her, face-to-face, for about one year. We will also take the opportunity that afternoon to meet up with George and Helen Tsimiklis, who own Anasa Hair Salon, another CMB client. We’re going to take them out for a nice dinner.

I was in a hotel this morning, waiting for Charlie to finish up some business stuff on the laptop, and I happened to click the TV tuner onto “The American President”, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. It’s a 24 year-old movie that I’ve seen before, but it struck me how relevant it is today.

In the movie, Senator Bob Rumson (played by Richard Dreyfuss) is running for President and is doing his best to make the American people afraid of everything and each other and to blame everyone but himself for society’s ills. His opponent, the actual President, is up to his ears doing the hard work of juggling fifty balls in the air at the same time. He eventually stands up to Rumson with a fiery speech that concludes the movie in a positive way that makes it appear that Democracy is actually going to survive the demagogue Rumson.

Interestingly, we currently have a President who, as a campaigner, tried to scare the Hell out of everyone, acted like managing the Country was child’s play (“only I can solve these problems”), and badmouthed the current and previous Administrations (Democratic and Republican alike) for being inept. The cocky know-it-all sounded just like Senator Rumson.

Unfortunately, that blowhard candidate (Trump) actually won the Presidency and has subsequently proven that he cannot successfully juggle one ball in the air, while continuing to act like a campaigner by blaming everyone in sight, including his own appointees, for the Administration’s policy failures.

Three years into the Trump Presidency and we Americans are still awaiting a new and improved North American Trade deal, a border wall paid for by Mexico, a new and improved Pacific Rim trade agreement, a new and better product than Obamacare, the promised withdrawal of our armed forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, and an economy which benefits the common working man.

Instead, our citizens have seen a rise in the wealth gap between blue collar workers and the richest 1 percent of Americans, a pronounced increase in mass murders by individuals using military-grade assault weapons, a massive increase in military spending, monies stolen from other government programs to build ineffective border walls that Mexico was going to pay for, and pronounced vitriol, hate speech, and partisanship which have rendered our government incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful.

Our current President has pretty much exhausted an array of tricks, obstructions, conniving, and skullduggery designed to render our Democratic form of government non-functional. Not to mention burdening current and future taxpayers with trillions of dollars of debt, and igniting dangerous brinkmanship games with China, Iran, and North Korea.

And, he has made it a matter of personal pride and Administration policy to belittle and ignore the biggest existential threat to mankind… global warming… against the advice of the world’s scientists. In Trump’s mind, this is what leadership is all about.

This is what “Make America Great Again” means?

Welcome to Senator Bob Rumson’s world.

Update: Congress this past week started an Impeachment investigation into some of the most recent Trump shenanigans.

Based upon the account of a “whistleblower” in the Administration, awhile back the President put significant pressure on the newly-elected Ukrainian President to dig up embarrassing “dirt” on Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, even going so far as to offer the assistance of Trump’s personal attorney/attack dog Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s Attorney William Barr, who has done some political dirty work for the President. The “favor” the President was requesting was apparently the quid pro quo for $400 million in military aid that Congress had previously approved for the Ukraine.

It is apparent that our President has no respect for the Constitution, the office that he holds, and the “rule of law” that governs our Nation. As has been apparent for the past three years, he feels that he is above the law and can do anything that he damn well pleases. His actions remind one of a Mafia don, not the elected leader of the world’s greatest democracy.

Using the offices of the President of the United States and taxpayer money to thwart political opposition is a new low for Donald Trump, even though he publicly acknowledged that he had no problem with the Russian government helping him win the Presidency in 2016.

A win is a win, no matter how one accomplishes it…right?

The ruthless narcissist has no shame.