Phil & Debby Spend Christmas in Idaho

Sunday December 20, 1992

We have a nice breakfast and I watch "Hour of Power" with Dr. Schuller. Debby comes about 12:00 with Sara. Frank puts a car carrier on her Trooper. I make lunch for all of us. Gary and Maria arrive to take Frank bike riding in Moorpark. I spend the afternoon reading.

Phil and Deb and kids will leave tomorrow for Twin Falls, Idaho to spend Christmas week with Jean and Al Gritz, Deb's folks. They plan to ski, ice skate and play in the snow. They should have a great time. Phil is working today.

Frank and gang return. They had a good ride. Later we go out for Mexican dinner. I talk to Joan Larson this evening. Her tumor did not shrink this month. That's OK. It will again.

Nothing like the encouragement from someone who's going through the same trial to lift Joan's spirits. I think that's why cancer support groups and grief support groups are so helpful. No matter how difficult her own trial, Mom always wanted to encourage others.

Mom's last entry about Frank's son Philip and his wife Debby was on February 18, 1992, 10 months earlier, when they were leaving on a weekend getaway to try to rekindle their marriage. Apparently it worked, because nothing is said here about them separating. The previous Christmas was spent apart.

Board Games

Saturday December 19, 1992

We sleep in and have a nice breakfast. I feel so good. I call Gary for them to come to dinner and we will play games. I clean house and dust. We dig out a bunch of adult games from the garage attic. Gary and Maria arrive about 5:30. We eat at 6 p.m., a prime rib dinner. It's great. We spend the evening playing Clue, Concentration, and Yahtzee We have a really good time. We are all exhausted by 11 p.m.

What a great idea. I remember playing Yahtzee, Clue, Monopoly and Life with my friends as a girl. When I was very young it was Chutes & Ladders and Candyland. It was great fun. Today our family owns a Monopoly game, a Scrabble game, and a Battleship game, but they are rarely played. Our boys would much rather sit for hours playing video games with their friends on-line. Although it is still a social game, their friends are in their own bedrooms at home and they talk to each other through a microphone and headset, so it lacks the face-to-face interaction. I encourage our boys to get together with friends in person as much as possible so as not to lose the fine art of communication and body language, but most teens would rather communicate with their friends by texting on their cellphones. Even calling friends on the phone is old fashioned. I have one absurd image in my mind of Derek's high school graduation party. 10 of his friends sat in a circle in our living room. Do you think they were talking to each other? No, they were all texting away on their cellphones!

Ventura Marina Cruise

Friday December 18, 1992

One week until Christmas. We sleep in until 9 a.m. after making love. We have a nice breakfast, call Kathy Murphy and arrange to meet for dinner here in Simi before the boat ride in Ventura Marina. Later I call Karen and Lew. We will all meet at Marie Callendar's.

Marty and Kathy ride with us. We have a great dinner. We arrive at Ventura Marina about 7:30. The boat leaves at 8 p.m. It's a fun cruise--pretty lights. After snacks on the boat and drinks we are cold so decide to go to a coffee shop for coffee and pie. Brenda and Denny make it 8 of us.

I feel great! We get home about 12:00. Marty and Kathy stay awhile looking at pictures.

How nice to be able to take a cruise in the middle of December at night! It does sound like everyone got a little cold though. What a nice way to celebrate the holidays with friends. I checked back in her journal to 1991 and their square dancing friends took this cruise the previous year as well.

Prime Rib

Thursday December 17, 1992

Up and feeling good. Frank leaves early to meet a painter at the Newbury Park house. I go shopping in the morning and eat lunch at Taco Bell. I rest alot in the afternoon.

At 7:00 we go to Shirley & Jim Turner's house for dinner with Dowds, Coopermans and Robinsons. It's a great dinner of prime rib. The house is decorated so nicely. We have a real good time. I do real well. My bowels are still acting more normal today.

Yum! Prime rib! What an upgrade from Taco Bell. Taco Bell used to be one of our favorite spots for fine cuisine until a few years ago when the newspapers published the fact that the meat in their tacos was mostly filler.

In N Out Burger

Wednesday December 16, 1992

Up at 7:00 to get ready to go to the doctor at 8:30. We just get new medication and come home. We stop at Costco and have lunch in Simi at In N Out Burger.

My bowels continue to act more normal today.

At home I put pictures in photo albums. Another lazy day.

It was years after In N Out Burger became very popular that I tried it for the first time. I expected it to be expensive, but as you can see by the menu on their drive-through sign, the prices are reasonable. They do a tremendous volume of business day and night, but they are fast because they only make burgers, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes. The menu is simple but the food is good.

I have not mentioned this for several years, but now that Mom is talking about putting photos in her photo albums, probably the ones from their trip to see us in Windsor at Thanksgiving, I feel another twinge of regret that Frank threw away all her meticulously kept albums after she passed away. She had taken thousands of photos over the years, many of which I would have used in this blog, and all of which I would have kept for sentimental reasons. So sad.