The Continuing Saga of……. Pickleball Gal!

Saturday, February 22, 2020

I’m sure most of you have either heard or have a bucket list. When life goes smoothly items on that bucket list get checked off as we experience them. Sometimes things don’t go so smoothly, such as our trials and tribulations here in Casa Grande. A traffic accident here, a broken wrist there, and of course our newly adopted mutzo Ollie. The car was fixed, the broken wrist in on the mend and Ollie is a good boy that likes to play- too hard…… way too hard. Anyhow our lives go on and we are thankful for the opportunity to meet nice folks from all over the U.S. and Canada at the Palm Creek Golf and RV Resort.

Well, we’ve had a lotta healin’ goin’ on. Jil’s first followup visit was on the February 18th. She hoped to have the splint removed from her now surgically repaired right hand. Heck, why wouldn’t the Doc give her a removable splint since she’s got more hardware in that wrist than an Ace hardware store. The X-ray image of her wrist was encouraging as it is healing nicely.

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So, says the tech, what color would you like? I have white, black, blue, red and purple? What? I’ve got white, black……. No, no. I understand the colors….. what do you mean? Well, I’m putting a cast on your arm. What? The PA concurs. Even though that arm has 10 pounds of plates and screws holding the bones together a cast will further immobilize the break and enhance healing. The cast will be back far enough on the hand to allow more movement of the fingers and thumb so Jil can actually use her hand. She chose purple of course! Jil is back to knitting sleeping mats using strips made of plastic grocery bags as yarn, or plarn (plastic yarn). She weaves the mats for the homeless as do many ladies in our community.

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Jil also went to the dentist who specializes in crowns “made while you wait” to replace the one that she lost after surgery. No dice on the new crown as the tooth actually had broken off below the gum line. The tooth was extracted with difficulty as the tooth had a root with a knob or ball on the end. The ball wouldn’t let go for nada. The dentist worked up a sweat pulling that tooth! She will have a bridge made and installed rather than undergo more surgery for a dental implant. An appointment was made for early next month to fill the gap, so to speak.

In between doctor and dentist visits we’ve actually been as active as possible. We still walk a minimum of 5 miles a day. We’ve invited our friends Dick and Ellen who live in the Robson Ranch community to join us for lunch here at the park and then a good chin wag back at our coach. We’ve also met with Connie and Jim down at the local IHOP several times for breakfast where we try to solve world problems. We still have a problem or two to solve so we’ll be meeting with Jim and Connie a few more times before we launch towards home the middle of next month.

The park has activities every day of week. We’ve been to two RV shows, the Welcome Back Palm Park food vendor extravaganza, the monthly craft fair, the spaghetti dinner fundraiser for the Casa Grande Fire Dudes, and a dance featuring the Hillbilly Deluxe band (who were quite good). A quilt show and wood show displayed the skills of the many talented folks here in the park.

Our neighbor had a friendly gathering of fellow RVer’s one evening. The food provided at the pot luck was really good. Folks played Jenga, a game of skill and calm nerves that requires one to remove a block from the middle of a high stack of blocks, then place it on the top of the stack. The blocks are placed 3 wide in layers and at times the stack would be almost so high that one couldn’t reach the top to place a block on top. Even saw a 4′ stack of blocks precariously resting on only one block times 5 as the stack grew higher.

The one thing that we signed up for and were not able to participate in was the members pickleball tourney. Jil and I were partners…………maybe next time. Next month the U.S.A. Pickleball Association is putting on an open tourney called The Duel in the Desert. That will be fun to watch. As you may know pickleball is a game of skill and the more skilled the player the softer and shorter they can hit the ball into the opponents court, the intent being the opponent can’t drive the ball down your throat when the ball is low. Less skilled players just tend to overpower their opponent because the soft, short game hasn’t been perfected. So when Jil was playing with 3 other ladies one gal continually just banged the ball, often hitting an opponent, a play frowned on by most players. Her flowery words would make a sailor cringe. When asked if she could tone it down a little she replied “Hey, I was in Roller Derby for 12 years. I play friggin’ hard”. Humph!

We look forward to the first week of March. Jil has a doctor’s visit and maybe will leave the cast behind in favor of a removable splint. Aaand she has another dentists visit where she will get a filler for that gap in her row of teeth.

And now a little wisdom from an old cowboy:

Words that soak into your ears are whispered……… not yelled.