Carolyn's Sister Diane

Ocala, Florida

Weather: low 73 degrees, high 98 degrees, mostly clear skies

Carolyn's sister Diane and her husband Jim are in Ocala on vacation until the end of July. We hadn't seen them for several years due to our schedules not lining up. We got to visit with Diane today, while Jim was playing cards with some of his friends who live here. Diane has had some health problems in the past couple of years, and is doing better, but still has a problem or two that her doctors are helping her with. My first reaction when I saw Diane was what was wrong with her hair. She grew up with red hair, but it's just about white now. Boy, these people are getting old!

Diane and Jim live in Ohio, but have gotten tired of the cold winters. They bought a winter home here so they can get away from the snow and ice. If we can get our schedules turned around, we should be able to see them more, since we're going to try to visit the area in the winter more often, versus coming down when it's so hot in the summer.

Since we hadn't seen Diane for so long that there was a lot of news to exchange with her. Carolyn's mother Doris seemed to get a kick out of watching and hearing the interaction between Diane and all the people there. I know that we enjoyed the get together, and we made plans to see them again before they leave.

Before we went home, I stopped at Publix to pick up some meat for supper. Carolyn told me to get something that was easy to prepare, yet would be good. Huh? She told a person that has no imagination (me) to do something that is usually fraught with all kinds of chances to do it wrong. Well, I got it right today. I picked up some cubed steak, and she said it was the perfect choice. Well, okay. That wasn't too hard. Maybe I have more imagination than I thought. Of course, I shouldn't have said that because I'll probably blow it tomorrow.

I guess you know what we had for supper, right? And it was the perfect choice. It had been several years since we've had cubed steak, but even with the low sodium cooking style, it was tasty. Carolyn wasn't whining today about cooking, so I guess she got her restaurant fix yesterday. Maybe the doctors will start giving me a little more flexibility by the end of the week.

One of the pastimes that RVers like to do (especially those of us who have been doing it awhile) is watching rookie RVers set their RV up. Today was a classic, as I saw a fellow and his wife setting their RV up for what was obviously one of the few times they had done it. To start with, they put all their slide-outs in the out position while the RV was still hooked up to their truck. Then, they put the rear jacks down before taking the RV off the truck. That meant they tried to raise the RV up off the truck hitch with the rear jacks down on the ground. When I saw what they were doing, I started to go over and suggest they change the sequence of events so that the rear jacks were put down after the RV was off the truck. As I got about 20 feet away, I heard angry words being exchanged, so I veered away. I didn't want to be involved in a spat between the man and woman. Eventually, they realized they couldn't get the RV off the truck unless the rear jacks were raised. After another 20 minutes or so, they finally had the RV set up, but I don't know what kind of damage was done. The school of hard knocks is a hard teacher. I can speak from experience.

The first of three scheduled doctor appointments is set for tomorrow. I'm hopeful that I will get a good report. I can't imagine what else I could do to live a plainer life. No sodium, who would have ever thought it?

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Ocoee, Florida: The Center Of Good Living

Not all who wander are lost.