Another week has flown by since I last posted. I wrote that post on a wet and dreary day. It’s been the opposite of that since then. Glorious, sunny days with blue skies and cool evenings. It’s hard to believe the first month of 2020 is coming to a close already. I have a theory about the perception of time accelerating as we grow older.

When we were 12 years old, our lifetime experience could be broken down into 12 increments, each spanning one year (this isn’t exactly true – most of us have little or no recollection of the first few years of our life). So, our internal perception of time revolves around a year being 1/12th of everything we know.

When we reach the age of 60, our lifetime experience can be broken into 60 equal intervals, each spanning one year. These intervals are now 1/5th of the perceived interval when we were 12 years old. A year represents a much smaller portion of our life experience, thus we perceive a year as a much shorter span of time. Therefore, for us old people, time really flies.

After the rain cleared up, Scott started working on our coach on Wednesday. A painter’s work revolves around prep. The quality of the work is a reflection of the preparation. I’ve had car painters tell me that actually shooting the paint is the easy part. Getting the surface prepared and the final cut and buff are what make the job come out great. Scott spent three days preparing the surface for paint. He had to remove the clear coat from the areas where it was failing. To get the new finish to adhere, the old clear coat had to be cut back to provide a good, solid margin. He did this with a razor blade and sand paper. It looked like tedious work.

To match the paint color, he had to remove one of the basement compartment doors that had all four colors on it. He took it to a paint shop where they could color match with a special camera and computer program. He was ready to start applying paint on Friday.

Saturday afternoon he was ready to start the finish work. He had to block-sand the clear coat, then buff it with a polishing wheel. He ran out of daylight and had to finish up Sunday morning. The finished job looks great.

Meanwhile, we went about our business. Donna started practicing new music on her clarinet. The next Viewpoint Concert Band performance is February 16th and they have a whole new repertoire to learn for that performance.

I learned something new about UPS deliveries. Apparently, they have a new protocol where they only make one attempt to deliver a package in some areas. If you aren’t home, they take the package to a UPS Access Point. I had a package come on Thursday while we were out. There was a note left on our door. After I deciphered the driver’s chicken scratch note, I figured out that I had to wait until the next day to pick up my package at a nearby CVS pharmacy. Seems a little crazy to me, but I suppose the agreement to accept packages at CVS will bring customers into the store to potentially shop while they’re there.

On Saturday morning, Donna and I drove Midget-San to Gilbert where we were meeting our friends, Sara and Howard Graff, for the farmers’ market. They actually pulled up next to us at a stoplight on Gilbert Road at Baseline on the way there. What timing!

Gilbert used to be little more than a crossroads in the desert. Urban sprawl has made it part of metro Phoenix today. Everything from Glendale to Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler is one big area of development. It’s hard to tell when you cross into another city limit. Gilbert has gone from being a one-horse cowboy town to a trendy place to shop and eat. There are numerous restaurants along the old Main Street.

We strolled and shopped at the farmers’ market. They had a fairly large number of vendors there with plenty of fresh produce.

There was a separate market place on the north side of the old town for arts and crafts. After walking through all of the markets, we checked out a few places to eat and settled on OHSO Brewery and Distillery. We had a short wait, then were seated out on the covered patio. Their food was excellent – we were all very happy with the meals we ordered. On the weekends, brunch from 10am to 2pm includes a 10-ounce beer or a mimosa when specific menu entrees are ordered. My entree included a drink, but Donna commandeered my mimosa when I ordered a Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary was made with half jalapeno vodka and half horseradish vodka. It was spicy and it included a stick of house-made beef jerky.

Speaking of beef jerky, on Friday, I trimmed and cut beef top-round steaks across the grain into strips. I had them marinating in the refrigerator overnight. Saturday afternoon I set up the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker-grill and set it to 180 degrees. I started with two pounds of beef. Four and a half hours later, I had one pound of beef jerky after the meat had smoked and dehydrated. It’s pretty good. I’ll make an adjustment or two to the recipe and reduce the smoke time to four hours when I make it again.

On Sunday evening, my middle daughter, Jamie, and her man, Francisco came over from the west side to go to dinner. Francisco’s birthday is today, but we celebrated early with dinner at the Black Angus. I worked at Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus back in the ’70s in San Diego. That’s where I met my first wife – Jamie’s mother. The Black Angus isn’t what it used to be, but we enjoyed the meal and had a good time together.

Here are a few other good meals we enjoyed over the last week courtesy of Donna’s culinary skills. First up is coconut curry wild Alaskan sockeye salmon with bok choy served with forbidden rice. A favorite for sure.

Another seafood dish was served up Thursday night. Donna grilled shrimp with pesto served with grilled mushrooms, onions, peppers and zucchini with cauliflower risotto on the side.

Last night, she kept it simple with a chicken stir-fry.

Yesterday, I prepped chicken leg quarters. Later today, I’ll put them on the Traeger. I’m trying something new to me – smoked paprika chicken legs with spicy herb chimichurri. I’ll let you how that works out.

Although a cooler day with clouds are in the forecast for tomorrow, we can expect the favorable weather to continue with highs in the 70s through the weekend. We’re getting plenty of exercise – one day last week I had almost 18,00 steps on the pickleball court!

*Just so you know, if you use this  link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!