Well, tomorrow is the big day. 
We already cooked the turkey and cut it up.
My mom insisted on doing it that way apparently my oldest bro's wife did it that way last year.
Perplexing, tho, the reason.  My bro's wife was busy with work, she's in retail sales.
We aren't really busy with anything.  Fresh hot turkey out of the oven?
But it's whatever to me, I'm not going to sweat that, I'm going to wonder if my
middle bro shows up and if he does, what is going to happen? 

Anyway, slept quite well last night, like this morning I didn't want to get out of bed.
That was a refreshing change.  Got the turkey prepared, dumped that in the oven and took off.
Caleb had given me the ashes that were left from my dad and I climbed high up on South
Mountain, had a little memorial of my own and let the wind carry his ashes away.

Oh, I stopped at Waffle House before going up there, I wanted a full tummy. Quite the mistake.
Halfway up that mountain the need to relieve myself came sweeping over me. By the time I got
halfway back down after spreading the ashes? No waiting.  Some dude on a ridge about an eighth a mile away looking at my through binoculars?  Give it a rest dude.  When Mother Nature hits like that, it's not like you have any say over it.  It is what it is. 

After I got done, I was hiking out of there and this dude had actually come down off of his mountaintop and was coming over the top of a small hill coming straight at me.  He came straight up to me and...kept walking by like nothing.  Weird.  Just plain weird.  But I have had weird encounters with people out there in the past. 

After that I tried to go to my old church - but they had moved. So I went to the new address some distance away and they weren't there either. I haven't contacted them asking about it, I don't have any more time for visiting I don't think. Well maybe on Friday, maybe. Like morning.  Tomorrow I suppose I could, but I really want to head back to my house and spend some more time with my friends there before coming back and doing Thanksgiving with family. 

Anyway, I said screw it after not finding the church there, even though there were even pics of it on the internet and I was positive I was at the correct address.  I went to a bar/grill, had a couple of drinks.  Nothing fancy and no drunkenness, but I"m on vacation, so why not?  Carb free, lol.  Left there, went to Fry's.  It's a local grocery store, huge local chain, Kroger's bought them out quite a while back but they kept the name.  Got all the fixing for jalapeno poppers, I'm going to make those tomorrow. Easy recipe, not too much prep time, short cooking time as well. 

Got back here well in time to get the turkey out of the oven, slice it up and then take a nap. Mom and I went to Caleb's apartment for dinner, sat and talked for a couple of hours, and came back to her house.  Caleb wants to do Black Friday with me tomorrow - nothing for me really, just wanted to take him and his wife shopping.  She doesn't want to go, I don't really blame here, it can be a mad house.  Well, if I find a nice laptop for a good price I may do that.  As it stands, I just tried to order a 65 inch smart tv from Bestbuy, but they neither deliver it to my area nor would they ship it to the city 30 miles from my house to their store there.  ?????????  My hopes for a 65 inch smart tv are being dashed to pieces. I keep thinking I'm going to give up on it, then I see something online, only to have my hopes dashed.

Oh well. My last resort will be to stop at a Walmart in Dallas before heading home for the hope that maybe there will be still be some of those TV's available. It's a pretty far-fetched idea, those TV's are likely going to sell out quickly on Thursday.  But, you never know! 

On a different note, I terribly miss having a functioning 15 inch screen laptop and I may just switch to that and wash my hands of large screen tv's. 

Oh!!!  My credit score! Transunion! I got my last update from CreditKarma and it said my Equifax had gone up another 38 points but Trans Union had only gone up 5. Very perplexing.  My next update wasn't supposed to be for another 5 days from now, so when I saw a notice in my email that my TransUnion score had been updated, I was quick to find out what kind of update. The score had gone all the way up to 700, from the previous low-side fair range.  It means that my credit score is in the good range with both of those companies, which is a significant improvement.  It may be some time before I see any more upgrades in my score, I dunno.  I had no hope, literally, of ever getting up to good range.  My hope went down the drain once I saw how long it takes for late payments on my mortgage to fall off of there.

The good range will do.  I guess it doesn't matter, I am not in the position yet to buy land anyway. They're still going to want a good down payment and that's going to take probably a couple of years worth of saving for the amount of property I want.  But, there are these other alternatives I have been looking at.  Tax lien auctions, rent to own, owner finance. 

Anyway, it's getting late, time to go to sleep. 

My mom doesn't have internet/wifi at her house.  So I"m going through more than I'd like.  I figured I would this week but not this much. 

Anyway, I met up with my son and his wife last night at Texas Roadhouse over in Tempe.  We had a good time for a couple of hours visiting.  Great food too, of course.  I am going over to his new apartment tonight, mom in tow.  He invited her through me to come, you know, spur of the moment?  She had a problem with that, but whatever.  If you want to come, let's go. If not, I'm going over there tonight.  She opted to go. 

After resting quite well last night, I took the remaining ashes from my dad and climbed up a mountain to release them into the great outdoors.  Dad had stated to his then-wife a long time ago that he would rather be dumped out a window while driving up Mount Pleassant, a wish I would have liked to have fulfilled, but the mountains here in Phoenix had to suffice.  The whole point is he was a lover of the outdoors and I think his memory sufficiently served.  I buried the box his ashes came in as well.  I don't need empty boxes with small amounts of human ashes in them hanging around forever.  I feel my dad is in a much better place now and that is enough for me. 

Oh, this morning, I had to do all the leg work to get the turkey out, get all the stuff out of it, stuff it with stuffing and get it in the oven. Mom insisted she wanted to cook the turkey the day before. It's whatever to me, I am here to visit people, eating is secondary.  I"m making my spicy jalapeno poppers tomorrow - and it's purely on a selfish level. They will be so spicy I doubt many are going to like them, but I am not going to be eating coleslaw and potatoes and the like, I want something that really appeases my pallet and those are a sure thing. 

Time is flying here, amazingly. I thought it would just drag on but I"ve been keeping myself busy.

Dilemma.  I wanted that 65inch screen tv.  I can't get it. At least not here. By the time I get to Dallas tomorrow I'm pretty sure they'll all be sold out at all Walmart locations.  And now, too late, Rene offers to go get it for me?  I don't have enough cash at home to cover it. It's $398 plus tax.  I think I have $400 there, I don't have enough to cover the tax on that much money. 

I may stop in Dallas at a Walmart just to see if any are available when I get back but I won't be back to my vehicle probably before 6pm.  I'm likely to find slim pickings, but I"ll probably try.  Unless I can get them to loan Rene the extra cash and I pay them back when I get home.  I'm not really sure how she would get the thing back.  The guy at the house over there has a small SUV, I'm not sure the thing will fit in there.  I've found several 65" online for good price but none of them are smart TV. I want the option to watch stuff through the internet.  I mean, if you're going to do it, do it right, yes? 

Well enough. I'm going to take a nap and then get ready to go to my son's house.

After you haven't been to a place for a while, you kinda lose the feel for navigating around it a bit.  It all came back to my memory quickly tho driving around.  And it took a very short time to remember one of the reasons I love to hate Phoenix: traffic, distracted drivers and jerkioffs intentionally holding up traffic.  The major street running by my neighborhood is also ridiculous now. Worse than I've ever seen it.  Oh, and what cruise around town would be complete if you didn't drive by a crime scene where a body is found in a canal? And everything else about this metro Phoenix area that make it, IMO, a hell hole to live in.

Anyway, I spent several hours at my house today. The fish in my little pond have grown HUGE.  I mean, they are FAR too big for that pond.  I suggested trading them for small fish or selling them and going and buying a slew of little Koi and goldfish to take their place.  There is one Koi in there and it's about 14 inches long and very, very large for such a small pond.  Fish that large just aren't happy in a pond that small.

The house? in exact same condition as when I left it. Which is a good thing, it's immaculate, clean, looking good, lots of vegetation, full of tenants, just a nice thing.  Neighbors on both sides are still living like shit, to put it bluntly. They have their own versions of landfills going. Neighbors behind, same crap. It's ridiculous.  But whatever, I'm letting them make the calls there, only if they have a problem that is usually involved with replacing stuff that usually means money do I get a phone call and get involved.  There are a few issues. The neighbor's tree ruined the wood slat fence in the back when it fell over. It covers maybe 50 feet of the back, the rest is a chain link fence.  Mark said 2 grand to replace it, 'm like what?  Nooo.  No way it's going to cost that much to fix it.

And mattresses.  Apparently people moved into rooms with their own and he got rid of the ones I had bought for those rooms.  He said they were falling apart and junk.  I can agree that likely they probably had seen enough lifespan.  But that's 3 Queen beds down the drain and any time one of the people moves out, I'm going ot have to replace one until it occurs in all 3 of those rooms.