Fall Comes To Pahrump, the Heat Reluctantly Subsides

Hi, welcome back.  Our last chapter concluded on September 30^th, with us just chilling in Pahrump.  Tuesday, October 1^st, I had an appointment with my dermatologist at 10:00 to discuss how to proceed with a small skin cancer on the side of my neck.  I had gone for a regular appointment at the end of August and the doc had done a shave biopsy on a spot on my neck.  While we were on the cruise last month they called and told me that it came back as a very early squamous cell cancer and I needed to have it removed.  The appointment today was quick, I just said let’s get it out and they set me up for a MOHS procedure on Thursday.  I have had MOHS procedures several times in the past.  They basically very thin layers of tissue where the cancer is, have it analyzed right away by means of a portable lab they set up in the office.  Once they get a layer that has no cancer cells they stich you up and send you on your way.  Only once have they had to go beyond the first slice, and then it was OK on the second.  While I was gone the cleaning lady came and cleaned the house.  After I got home we just did some chores around the house.  We went to happy hour and then came home for dinner and TV for the remainder of the evening.

Wednesday, October 2^nd, We went to the clubhouse at 11:00 for a MASA presentation.  Regular readers know that MASA is basically insurance for any emergency medical transport, whether by ground or air.  We have had MASA since 2007, but they encourage members to come to the presentations and, since they always provide lunch, most members attend.  We had Panda Express takeout after the presentation.  After lunch I went to guitar practice with my group of friends, and Jackie went to Pokeno with her friends.  At 5:00, right after happy hour, some of the younger members of the park put on a Cake Walk event.  Everyone who wanted to participate brought some kind of snack food and then we played a modified game of musical chairs, except that once everyone sat they would call a number and the person in that numbered chair would have to complete a “task” of some sort.  Silly stuff, but we had a good time.  After that we went home, had dinner and then spent the rest of the night with the TV.

Thursday, October 3^rd, I was up, showered and in the dermatologists office at 7:00 for my MOHS procedure.  Luckily my first cut was clear of cancer cells, so I was stitched up and out of the office by 10:00 with a big bandage on the side of my neck.  We spent the rest of the day just doing stuff around the house.  We didn’t go to happy hour, so we had dinner and spent the rest of the evening with the TV.  Friday, I was up early again for a 9:00 appointment with the Peace Officers Advisory Review Board.  The POARB is a volunteer board for Nye County that is charged with reviewing internal affairs investigations from the Nye County Sheriff's Office.  I have been on the Board for a couple of years and this is only my third Board.  They have 12 members on the Board and for each review they randomly select three people to be the review board.  It was a pretty cut and dried case that was unfounded, meaning the alleged wrong didn’t occur, so the deputy was cleared.  After looking at the paperwork and watching the body cam footage we agreed with the findings.  I was done by lunch time.  We went out to lunch and ran some errands after I got home.  We went to happy hour and then had dinner.  We then watched TV until bedtime.

Saturday, October 5^th, Jackie had a 10:00 haircut.  I stayed home and did some chores.  We spent most of the day at home doing the usual stuff.  Sunday was also a stay at home day.  We went to the ice cream social at 2:00 then did stuff around the house for the rest of the day.  Monday I had guitar practice with my group.  We changed from Wednesday because I was not able to be there on Wednesday.  After I got home we went to happy hour, had dinner and watched TV until bedtime.

Tuesday, October 8^th, we had a Silver Seekers workshop meeting at 1:00.  We spent most of the meeting putting together the tentative calendar for November.  After the meeting we went out and ran some errands.  After we got home we had dinner and were going to spend the rest of the night with the TV.  Not too long after dinner Jackie was complaining that she had pains in her stomach area.  She finally went to bed a little early because it hurt.  When I came to bed around 10:00 she was saying that it really hurt and was getting worse.  We decided that she needed to go into the emergency room to get checked out.  By 10:30 or so we were in the emergency room at the Pahrump hospital.  It was not real busy so she got checked out fairly quickly.  By 12:30 or so in the morning, after a CT scan, the doctor told us that Jackie had appendicitis and needed to have her appendix removed.  They also said that they would be calling an ambulance to take her to Summerlin Hospital in Las Vegas for the surgery.  The ambulance came about 1:30 and took Jackie to Summerlin Hospital.  Since I couldn’t do anything for her at this point, I went home and went to bed.  She called me about 4:00 in the morning and told me that she was in a room and would have the surgery sometime today, meaning on Wednesday.

Wednesday, October 9^th, I was up and on my way to Las Vegas about 10:00.  Jackie had told me that the surgery was scheduled for 1:00 this afternoon.  I stopped for a quick lunch and was in Jackie’s hospital room about 11:30.  They came and took her down to the pre-op area about 12:30 and I was able to stay with her.  I left about 12:45 to go to Costco to pick up my new hearing aids.  We were going to be coming to Vegas today anyway, it just worked out that Jackie came early.  I figured she would be going into surgery shortly, so I went and picked up my hearing aids.  Because they had to do some more testing, the appointment went until almost 3:00.  I headed back to the hospital and went right up to Jackie’s room, figuring she would be in it already, but she wasn’t.  I went to the nurses station and asked them to check on her.  They finally told me that she was just now (3:15) going into surgery and it would be a while. About two hours later they finally rolled her back into her room and got her in bed.  She was in quite a bit of pain at the incision sites.  They did the laparoscopic surgery where they make several small incisions and use tools to do the surgery.  About 4:30 the doctor came in and said that Jackie was going to spend the night and would be released sometime tomorrow unless something happened.  Jackie was kind of sleepy so we agreed that I would go ahead and drive back home tonight.  I headed back to Pahrump and when I got to the park I went to another event put on by members, this one called PickleFest.  Everyone brought something pickled for everyone to try.  It was basically a social gathering and was a lot of fun.  By 8:00 I was home and I was in bed shortly thereafter because it was a busy, tiring day. 

Thursday, October 10^th, I was supposed to have a couple of meetings today, one at 9:00 and one at 1:00, but I was back on the road again, headed to Vegas about 10:00.  I got to the hospital around 1l:30 and we just sat in the room and waited for her to be discharged.  About 12:30 or so they had her sign the discharge papers and we were headed back home.  We stopped at In and Out for lunch, eating in the car as Jackie was still in the nightshirt she arrived in two nights ago.  We then went back home and spent the rest of the day and evening relaxing.  Jackie was still hurting pretty bad.  Friday I had a Board Meeting at 11:00 regarding the budget, and had to attend since I am on the Budget Committee.  Jackie watched from home on Zoom.  Then at 2:30 we participated in a virtual home health care visit from a nurse at United Healthcare, which is our health insurance company.  After we just relaxed the rest of the evening.  Jackie slept on the couch tonight because getting in and out of bed was aggravating her surgical sites and causing pain.

Saturday, October 12^th, we just had a stay at home day.  Jackie spent the day just resting and taking care of herself.  I did a few chores around the house and ran some errands.  I did go to a 4:00 Celebration of Life for one of the long time members of the Co-op.  Linda Moody passed away a month or so back and her husband wanted to have a memorial in the park for all their friends and family.  Jackie slept on the couch again tonight.  Sunday was much the same, just staying around the house while Jackie relaxed and tried not to do things that hurt.  After dinner I did go to the clubhouse for another member generated activity that was basically music trivia. It was well done and had a good time.  Jackie was on the couch again.

Monday, October 14^th, happy Columbus Day.  Back in the old days this was an official holiday, but Columbus has been beat up on by the younger generations so it is not so big a holiday anymore.  Jackie was feeling a little better and decided that we would go the Lucky Rollers dine-out in Las Vegas.  The Lucky Rollers is the Co-op’s camping club as well as the official Escapees Chapter (#14) for the State of Nevada.  Today we went to the Blueberry Hill restaurant in Las Vegas.  They have excellent food and service and we had a good time.  Most dine-outs are in Pahrump, but because we have several member of the camping club that live in Las Vegas, we try to have one there at least once a year.  After the dine out we went home and relaxed for the rest of the day and evening.  Jackie was hurting a little from being up and around today.  I did my first tour of security duty tonight.  Jackie was finally able to go back to sleeping in our bed tonight.  Yay!

Tuesday, October 15^th, Jackie was feeling OK enough to drive herself to her manicure appointment at 10:30.  She made it back in time to come to the Silver Seekers lunch, which today was burritos, rice and beans.  We had a nice meal and Jackie was able to visit with people for a while.  After lunch we went home and Jackie rested while I did some office work.  We skipped happy hour because Jackie had been up and about all day and was tired.  We had dinner, watched TV and went to bed, although I did have to go out at 8:00 for my second night of security duty.  Wednesday, was a fairly normal Wednesday, with Jackie playing Pokeno at 1:00 and me doing guitar practice.  Today it was just Len and I at our house because our usual hosts were sick.  We went to happy hour, had dinner and spent the night watching Tv.

Thursday, October 17^th, I was over I the clubhouse by 9:00 for the regular open Board Meeting.  This is the last Board Meeting for the current Board because November 2^nd is the Annual Membership Meeting and three new Board members will be elected.  There will actually be five new members going on the Board as two have left the Board, one resigned and one recalled.  So next year five of the nine members will be new.  After the Board meeting I set up in the clubhouse for the big Jam session that I keep trying to do here in the park.  At 3:00 we had the jam and actually had most of the group I have been practicing with, which gave us five people.  Unfortunately, I was the only one who was a member of the park.  The jam was fun and we were done by 4:00.  I cleaned up my stuff and went to the last half of happy hour.  We then went home, had dinner and relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.

Friday, October 18^th, I had to go the dermatologist at 10:45 to get my stiches taken out.  That took about 10 minutes.  Jackie went with me because we had some errands to run afterwards.  We went to the bank so she could so some Silver Seekers stuff as she is the acting Treasurer.  We then went to the French Bakery for lunch and then did a Walmart run.  We went to happy hour and spent the rest of the night relaxing with the TV.  Saturday Jackie was supposed to go to a ladies luncheon, but she decided to cancel because she was still hurting a little.  We spent the day doing chores around the house.  We did go to happy hour and then came home for dinner.  We spent the rest of the night with the TV.

Saturday, October 19^th, we had a stay at home day.  Jackie was still hurting quite a bit.  We did a little office work but mostly relaxed for the day.  Sunday was also a stay at home day.  We did a little bit of packing for our trip on Monday to Laughlin.  We went to the ice cream social after which we did some chores and shopping.  We spent the rest of the evening with the TV.

Monday, October 21^st, we were all packed up and headed south to Laughlin, Nevada, about 11:00 or so.  We are going there for the Fall Lucky Rollers campout.  This is the camping club here at the Co-op.  We don’t have a movable RV anymore, so we stay in the hotel.  On the way we stopped at Angie’s Lobster House in Las Vegas for a lobster roll.  This is a really good and affordable place to get great seafood.  After that we just drove to Laughlin, getting in around 2:30 or so.  We checked into the Riverside Hotel and Casino, put our stuff in the room, and then drove up to the campground were the Lucky Rollers were staying.  The campground is part of the Riverside Resort complex and is just across the street from the hotel.  We can see it from our room.  We stayed and visited for happy hour, then went back to the hotel.  We gambled for a while, then went into the café for dinner.  After dinner we gamed some more.  Jackie had really good luck, hit four deuces on a poker machine three times on the same machine.  I didn’t do so well, but we had fun.  About 10:00 we went up to the room, watched a little TV and went to bed.  Tuesday we had coffee in the room and relaxed in the morning.  We then left and drove across the river to Bullhead City, Arizona.  We had lunch in the IHOP restaurant, then went to Sam’s Club for some recreational shopping.  After Sam’s club we went back across the river and stopped at the Aquarius Casino for some gaming.  That was a bust. At 4:00 we went to the campground for happy hour.  After happy hour we went over to the Golden Nugget Casino for dinner with Sue and Dale Vice, some friends from the Co-op who are on the campout.  We had a very nice dinner at Bubba Gumps seafood house.  After dinner we gamed at the Nugget for a while, then went back to the Riverside for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, October 23^rd, we relaxed in the hotel room in the morning.  We gamed a little, then went over the campground around noon.  Our friend Max and his wife Nancy were cooking ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch.  We had lunch and visited for a while.  We then left and went to the Tropicana Casino to game for a while.  Didn’t have much luck there, so we went back to the Riverside.  About 3:30 we went to the Prime Rib room at the Riverside for dinner with the group.  Jackie had won two free tickets for the Prime Rib room on her players card, so we ate for free.  It was a great dinner with friends and good food.  After dinner we played for a while, then went up to the room for some TV and bed.

Thursday, October 24^th, we spent the morning in the room, then went down to the casino.  Jackie had also gotten two free buffet tickets from her players club account, so we went and had breakfast in the Riverside buffet.  After that we gamed for a while.  About noon we went over to the campground for the meeting of the Lucky Rollers.  We had the meeting, then drew for the various prizes, goodie bags, 50/50, and door prizes.  We won a couple things.  We then played Pokeno for a while.  At 4:00 we had happy hour and I played guitar and sang for the group, and we did some sing-a-longs.  About 6:00 we were done there so we packed up our stuff and went back to the hotel.  Most of the campers are staying in the campground until Sunday, but we are leaving tomorrow.  We went back and gamed for a while.  Tonight was my lucky night, I hit a natural Royal Flush on a nickel poker machine for $250.  That pretty much made me whole for the trip.  Yea!  We went to bed about 10:30.

Friday, October 25^th, we were packed up and out of the room at 11:00.  We stopped for lunch at the In and Out in Laughlin, then head North for home.  We got home about 2:30, unpacked and did some laundry.  We went to happy hour at 4:00, came home and had leftover prime rib for dinner, then spent the rest of the evening with the TV.  Saturday, we spent most of the day doing chores and catching up on office work.  We did go out and do a Walmart run for supplies in the afternoon.  We went to happy hour at 4:00, then spent the rest of the night watching TV.

Sunday, October 27^th, we had another stay at home day.  We did some office work and a few chores around the house.  We went to the ice cream social at 2:00, then came back and did a little more work.  We had dinner about 6:00, some country ribs that had been cooking all day, then watched TV until bedtime.  Monday the housecleaner came about 10:00.  I did a few office jobs in the shed while she cleaned.  At 12:30 we had a Silver Seekers lunch in the clubhouse with hamburgers and various sides.  After lunch we just hung around the house and did some chores.  We went to happy hour and then came home for dinner.  We spent the rest of the night with the TV.

Tuesday, October 29^th, we had the first real Fall day, windy and cold.  Yesterday was the beginning of what we call “Homecoming Week” which is the week before the Co-op’s annual Membership Meeting.  We were supposed to have a “meet your neighbor” event this morning, where people just walk around the park and visit, but with the winds and the cool temps no one went out.  We went out about 1:30 to get some taco salads for lunch and then to look at golf carts to replace our cart which quit working six months ago and has resisted all efforts to fix it.  I finally gave up and decided we would just replace it.  We looked at several new carts, which were in the $6,500 to $9,500 range, as well as a couple of late model used carts.  One was a three year old cart that was pretty much what we were looking for for $5,000.  We decided to think on it and went back home.  We went to happy hour at 4:00, then came home and spent the night with the TV.

Wednesday, October 30^th, I had a meeting of the Nye County Police Officers Advisory Review Board (POARB) at 9:00.  Another citizen complaint against a Nye County Sheriff’s Deputy that we had to review.  We finished with that around 11:00 or so.  Since I was close I then went by the golf cart place and did a closer inspection of the three year old cart we were interested in to make sure I didn’t miss anything the other day.  I then talked to Garry, the owner, and offered him $4,500 and our old cart.  He accepted the offer, but to avoid additional expenses I needed to pay in cash.  I went home and did some funds transfers, then went to the bank and got the money.  I paid for the cart and he said it would be delivered tomorrow.  Yea!  I then stopped at what used to the Pour House, but is soon to be something else, I don’t recall what.  I ordered a pizza for dinner since we have to be in the clubhouse at 6:00 for the trivia night I am putting on.  The pizza was just shy of $25 and while I was waiting I sat at the bar and played the poker machine.  When the pizza came out I cashed out and I had won $25 over what I started with.  Basically, FREE PIZZA!  Yea!  I then went home and relaxed for a little while.  We went to happy hour and I got everything set up and working for the trivia session.  We started at 6:00 with four teams, a total of about 25 players.  We went until a little after 7:30 and it seems everyone had a good time, although the scores were not very high.  I use pretty tough questions.  After we finished I cleaned up and we went back home and watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday, October 31^st, Happy Halloween.  After a relaxed morning I went over to the clubhouse after lunch and set up my sound equipment for tonight’s Halloween Party.  At 4:00 we went over for the Halloween pot luck dinner at the clubhouse.  We had about 35 people there and some pretty good food.  A lot of people were already in costume for the party.  After the pot luck we cleaned up and then at 6:00 we started the party.  We had about 30 people there.  I was expecting more, but the younger crowd, what we call the Xers, (for GenX) didn’t come.  They had their own thing going on I guess.  We still had a great time.  We played dance music, did some karaoke, did some lip sync and just had a great time.  I know people were having fun because most of the crowd was still there when I shut down at 8:00, which is late for a crowd in this park.  I got everything torn down and cleaned up and we went home and watched TV until bedtime.

Well, that is the end of another month here in Paradise.  Until next time, stay calm and carry on.  Bye.