Phoenix and back home....

We flew out of LA in one of the smallest planes I’ve been in, apart from my adventure into tandem skydiving a number of years ago. It was in the dark of the evening as we banked around from LAX and we could see the whole city lit up, looking really beautiful. It was only a 50-minute plane ride to Phoenix; no sooner had we had one drink we were then arriving. Phoenix looked much bigger than I imagined, much like the sprawled-out LA. Four Seasons Hotel was a taxi ride away and was the same time as the plane journey. Phoenix has much warmer evenings than LA, but the taxi driver said that it was way cooler than the summer. I really couldn’t live there as I can barely cope with LA summers. It was amazingly dark with far less light pollution, so you can see the sky lit up by stars. There were also cacti everywhere lining the whole route.

The hotel had a long driveway with the most wonderful planting and after registering in the beautiful lobby filled with Cacti canvases and a huge 10-foot mosaic cactus, we were taxied to our room in a golf buggy driving at a ridiculous speed.

The first day and actually all of the days, Mark ended up locked in meetings, but luckily Jannet had decided to come to Phoenix too, so we had a relaxing day chatting by the crystal clear pool, with beautiful clear blue skies and a backdrop of cream and red brick coloured buildings and a rocky hill, being brought margaritas at regular intervals by the pool waiters. Heavenly.

The next day Jannet and I got up very early and were met by our tour guide, Landon, for the day who took us to extraordinary Sedona. On the journey there we saw the most beautiful countryside with so much more vegetation than I thought. We travelled to Oak Creek Canyon and Bell Rock looking over the most breath-taking vistas of red rock against the green of the trees and cactus.

Landon took us to the Frank Lloyd Wright Chapel of the Holy Cross perched on top of a hill and as in the FLW style it was built into the rock with a huge window spanning the entire height and width of the building. The walkway to the church was a raised bridge going around in an arch and the views across the valley were spectacular.

Landon told us about how difficult the rocks were to climb and also told us about how they were formed and what the cream and red layers were. He said the sediment showed limestone which appeared at the top of these extremely high rock/mountains and that was the seabed, millions of years ago - Mind-blowing!!! Landon also told us about the Sedona Vortex sites which are supposed to be lines of energy rising from the earth’s surface, where it is thought to be a good place for spiritual inspiration and healing. I have to say I wanted to feel something, but it didn’t happen for me, but I bought some vortex pebbles just in case. We visited two wine tasting vineyards and sampled many delightful wines – hic! It was difficult enough levering myself in and out of the minivan during the day, but after the wine it was almost impossible to do with any dignity.

The following day another wife of one of Mark’s colleagues, Susie arrived and after another dip in the hotel pool, we set off to MIM, the Museum of Musical Instruments. What a fantastic place!!!

It has the most amazing collections of musical memorabilia from stars from Elvis to the Police and Dolly Parton and that was only the ground floor. After chatting to the man looking after a very colourful and entertaining automated musical instrument which had a piano, drums and saxophones, he told us that we’d only looked at ½ the museum in the 2 ½ hours we’d been there and that there was a whole other floor displaying music from around the world. We wore headphones which were activated only when you stood in front of a small sign with the musical symbol, showing you about 6 video clips per country’s music. There was every music imaginable for every country in the world from Tunisia, Mexico, all the African countries and of course Europe and America. Each display also had examples of the instruments and costumes from that country. It was a marvel to see and hear. I did take issue with the tiny size of the English display, which was along side Ireland and Scotland. It had music from George Formby, The Beatles and Rolling Stones as well as Morris Dancing, which whilst I would normally watch in disdain, but actually didn’t look too bad against some of the other folk dancing I’d seen from other countries; I felt very patriotic, which is an emotion one doesn’t normally associate with watching Morris Dancing is it?

We had fun evenings eating too much and drinking to excess – all in all a jolly good time was had by all, even Mark who was working pretty much the entire 4 days! There was a group who went up the very steep hill (rock) next to the hotel each morning at 6.30am. Jannet was up for it, but me – absolutely no way!!! They certainly are into their hiking here.

On the last night we stayed overnight at Mark’s boss’s house in Phoenix, after a party where he had an actual barman and chef cooking Mexican food. His house was like something out of a magazine and although I wondered if the decorations had been designed as it looked perfect, he said it was filled with things he had collected on his travels. Amongst many discussions, we talked about Eric’s collection of guns. He mentioned his AS and it took me a while to realize that he has an assault rifle, amongst other things – scary stuff.

The house backed onto a golf course, so when Jannet and I were sitting having our morning coffee there were buggies going past every few minutes. Not sure I’d like that each morning. Apparently, Huff doesn’t even belong to that golf club.

Back to LA and ‘normal’ life.

At WW the weeks theme was about stress and how we react to it. We of course all said that we eat. Ladies started telling us all about their stressful lives, from husbands’ illness to adult children drug issues amongst many other things. My life seems pretty ordinary, touch wood!

The mantra we are supposed to say in the mirror each morning is ‘I’m good enough. I’m smart enough and god dammit, people like me.’ That’s all well and good if you are slim though.

Ive lost another 1 1/2 lb but its such hard work and it’s not like I’m drinking loads of alcohol and eating doughnuts every day (which of course I’d like to) 😊 At least it’s going down if very slowly.

The following week I put on ½ lb, I think it might have been the meal out…..

We reviewed our tactics about stress management from the previous week and decided that we still all overate – at least I’m not alone. More stress stories came out with people saying they were near the fires that were near us in Woodland Hills and Granada Hills. That is a 15 minute drive from us, but we could still smell the smoke and we had a fine layer of ash on our patio. People were much closer and were understandably scared.

One story was told and we were worried as to where it was leading to. The lady recounted how on the night of the fire she had heard a noise downstairs and on finding that her husband was sound asleep she crept out to the top of the stairs and saw the front door open. She rushed back to the bedroom and woke her husband. In her words, he got his gun from the bedside table and was ‘locked and loaded’!! He drew his gun as he walked down the stairs only to find it was his son who had fled from the fires as his house was near to them and had let himself into their house as he had a key. He had texted ahead, but the mum hadn’t checked her phone. That could have turned out so differently couldn’t it? A lady fell faint in class and as she was ill with cancer, they called 911. She was fine, but its odd that the first response was from the fire service, so the class was filled with fireman, I’m told that this is normal practice.

At the Animal Sanctuary, I have been working hard to get to Level 2 Dog walking. Each Friday evening and Tuesday I’ve been walking level 2 dogs in the groups and with Nia, but I think Charla is being extra careful, as I have been bitten before. I am frustrated as there as so many dogs not being walked enough.

Charla has asked that I take the Volunteer First Day training sessions in the centre (which is like the introduction classes), so I am shadowing her for a couple of sessions and taking over some of the classes from November. It is nice to have some responsibilities again.

I took part in another mobile adoption day, this time in Encino, where they closed the street; they do love their street fairs. I suppose it is better now it is a little cooler, although it was still 31 degrees today! I had Rex again, who was lovely and affectionate and then in the afternoon I swapped to Shady, another German Shepherd- both such sweet dogs. My three favourite dogs, Mommas, Basil and Lovely, had actually been adopted earlier that week. All of them are Pitbull Staffy mixes and so loving. Horraayyy. I went to walk the lovely Butterscotch and he had been adopted too. 😍😍😍🐕 The dogs I am focussing on now are Abby and BamBam.

The sad thing is that certain dogs are ‘marked’ if they have been in the kennel for over 2 years and they either try to move them onto other privately run rescue centres or euthanise them. This usually happens if the dog gets move aggressive or stressed due to being in the kennels for too long. It is only the volunteers who walk them. I can’t wait to be passed.

Chorus is going well, but there are so many songs to learn. The choir master Monica, has set it up so that we all come out of the choir into the front row and sing certain songs in a quartet. This means you don’t get to ‘hide’ amongst your fellow leads – it can be quite terrifying.

I have been practicing like mad and managed to get about 8 songs to a reasonable standard and so decided it was time to sign up for a performance with them. What I didn’t realise was that there would only be about 12 of us, so there is no way you can make any mistakes. I got dressed up in my teal top, black trousers and fluffed up hair, with the heaviest makeup Ive ever worn. The choir has a set makeup requirement which is unofficially described as ‘caked on’; red cheeks, blue eyelids and cherry red lipstick – not my normal look. 😊I drove up to Simi Valley to a very posh golf club which looked like a very salubrious country club filled with silver haired ladies and gentlemen. We sang our barbershop songs and they loved it, even singing along. I can feel my confidence growing thank goodness.

So, lots of politics here and in the UK. The impeachment enquiry is hotting up with Trump getting more and more angry and unhinged! Yet still the news is saying that in previous impeachment processes have taken over a year; not like the UK, where a PM can be kicked out by the party in a matter of months. Trump has removed military from Syria, saying the Kurds aren’t angels’ whatever that means and that it’s not our war and the really barmy statement ‘they didn’t help us in the Second World War’ - what the hell? CNN and MSNBC News have been accusing him of having no idea of possible issues to come and they were right of course. Even Fox news was uncertain of what to make of this move by the orange buffoon. He has a resort in turkey of course!🤬

Back to the dentist I went confident that my new regime of teeth cleaning, flossing my teeth within an inch of their lives would make the hygienist pleased with me. Unfortunately, she asked me if I had been using my electric toothbrush and then I knew she wasn’t impressed at all! After another clean and dig around she threatened me with the laser treatment again unless I get it right- yikes!!!!......I may never go again!

Only in LA 1: Halloween is huge here and most houses have their front porches filled with amazing Halloween statues. As I’m going to the Choir double quartet Fall Festival in November a group of us met at Bernie’s in Westlake. I had been there before at Easter, so I remembered the huge Easter display she had. Well, her Halloween display was treble that as it filled not only her front garden and porch, but also her entire ground floor, even with an entire moving Halloween village. Lulu is all set with her werewolf outfit and the chorus are meeting up for a sing song at the thousand Oaks Pizza Place- I have a pirate outfit – wish me luck!

Only in LA 2: We went to see Rocketman for the 2nd time at the outdoor Greek Theatre which is near Griffith Observatory. The audience was living every moment of the film laughing loudly singing along and even booing at appropriate points. The bill showed that Elton John and Taron Edgerton were performing at the end of the film and they were brilliant. Elton John was as good as ever and Taron did his best to keep up. If that wasn’t enough, Bernie Taupin came on and spoke, as did Jamie Bell, Bryce Dallas Howard and Giles Martin. I was hoarse from singing and shouting by the end of the evening. Wonderful!