CRIME PREVENTION MEETING
This morning was a meeting up in the Suntan room to discuss crime prevention. A very cordial Casa Grande police officer (Thomas Anderson) came to visit and talked about crime prevention in our resort. Basically, he reiterated all the things Wendell had written in our "Happenings" newsletter. If you missed your copy, I have it posted on this blog. Just scroll down a little farther till you find it. We're ALL basically involved in a neighborhood watch program and he encourages us to reach out and get to know our neighbors. This is even more important when so many houses are currently vacant so we should get to know those of us that remain as summer residents. If we see anything suspicious or out of the ordinary, we should call the gate to report it or if we spot a crime in action, we should immediately call 911. One of the people present asked a question I've often wondered about. (Thank you, Nancy, for bringing it up.) She was curious about dialing 911 from our cell phones since most of us have out of state phone numbers. The officer explained that the 911 goes to the closest tower regardless of where our phone was purchased and programmed. I guess I never really thought about it before so it was nice to hear a direct answer. We are strongly encouraged to program our cell phones so that #1 goes straight to 911. There should also be a number (#2) programmed as "ICE" which stands for "in case of emergency" so if someone finds us unconscious or ill, they can grab the phone and contact a local family member or a local friend for assistance. Guess I'd better drag out my directions and do some reprogramming as his suggestions certainly make sense.While our resort is a gated community with limited access, there will sadly always be the hooligan kids who scale the wall looking for adventure so we really need to be aware and report anything suspicious instead of just waiting for someone else to call it in. I played my usual role of Paparazzi and took a snapshot of the crowd at the meeting.
PALM TREES IN BLOOM
I'm posting a couple photos of some palm trees for you snowbirds who leave us during summer bloom season. The palms are in full bloom now and are loaded with delicate fragrant white flowers. Long stems seem to grow outward and then split open with hundreds of the blossoms. The blossoms draw bees.....lots and lots of bees. Watching the swarms in the tree tops makes me grateful that our palm trees are tall so the bees stay aloft.
LANDSCAPING CHORES
Our landscaping crews have been hard at work in the summer heat. We observed this young man hard at work shoveling the pond sludge from the bottom of the creek that runs through the rose garden. This is another chore that our winter visitors never see. It takes a ton of work to keep this park fresh and beautiful. This is a prime sample of the "behind the scenes" chores that are part of required upkeep. The rocks by the waterfall have been all spruced up as part of spring cleaning. Many of the oleander hedges are getting their annual summer haircut too.
ENTERTAINMENT
Our Tuesday night Bunco game was canceled this week because of "movie night". We were all invited up to the Suntan to watch The Amazing Benjamin Button and enjoy some fresh free popcorn. I stayed home since I've already seen the flick at the Harkins Theater. We'll be back to Bunco again next Tuesday though cause we have a lot of fun.
Don and I have been doing some "remodeling" to our little house so I've missed some days up at the pool for water aerobics in the mornings, but the gals are up at the north pool six days a week. It's really fun and the water feels great. We certainly have some perfect swimming weather here in summer.
Speaking of the weather.....the weatherman has been gloriously kind to us so far this summer. It still cools down to the 60s at night so the nights and mornings are just wonderful. Mid-afternoon gets warm, but we can still sit out in the shade if there's a nice breeze blowing and the temp hovers in the 90s. With such low humidity, 90-95 is still quite pleasant.
Monsoon season is officially upon us as of June 15. The rule of thumb used to be that when the dew point reaches 53 for three days in a row, that was the start of monsoon season...but that changed this year as now they put an actual date on the calendar. Theoretically, we could see some of those powerful monsoon storms sneak up on us at any time. I'll keep you posted.
Sorry for being so long winded today. Hope you're enjoying your summer.
ENTERTAINMENTOur Tuesday night Bunco game was canceled this week because of "movie night". We were all invited up to the Suntan to watch The Amazing Benjamin Button and enjoy some fresh free popcorn. I stayed home since I've already seen the flick at the Harkins Theater. We'll be back to Bunco again next Tuesday though cause we have a lot of fun.
Some of us have started going up to the clubhouse on Friday nights now for what we call "Open Game Night". We don't know what we're going to play till we see how many people show up. It could be Rummy Cubes, Pegs & Jokers, Hand & Foot, Canadian Salad, or any number of crazy card games.
Don and I have been doing some "remodeling" to our little house so I've missed some days up at the pool for water aerobics in the mornings, but the gals are up at the north pool six days a week. It's really fun and the water feels great. We certainly have some perfect swimming weather here in summer.
WEATHER
Speaking of the weather.....the weatherman has been gloriously kind to us so far this summer. It still cools down to the 60s at night so the nights and mornings are just wonderful. Mid-afternoon gets warm, but we can still sit out in the shade if there's a nice breeze blowing and the temp hovers in the 90s. With such low humidity, 90-95 is still quite pleasant.
Monsoon season is officially upon us as of June 15. The rule of thumb used to be that when the dew point reaches 53 for three days in a row, that was the start of monsoon season...but that changed this year as now they put an actual date on the calendar. Theoretically, we could see some of those powerful monsoon storms sneak up on us at any time. I'll keep you posted.
Sorry for being so long winded today. Hope you're enjoying your summer.
