Donna has had a number of projects tying her to her computer lately. While she worked on Friday, I attended a fun event. My friend, Leendert Hartoog is retiring from Boeing after 30 years of service next month.

Boeing is downsizing their helicopter division here in Mesa, Arizona. They’ve offered early retirement packages to a number of employees. These retirements will take place in January, February and March of this year. The soon-to-be retirees organized a get-together on Friday afternoon for the guys leaving and a number of previously retired colleagues also attended. Leendert invited me to join them at The Monastery at Falcon Field at 3pm.

The Monastery is a unique place. They have an indoor restaurant/bar and an outdoor one. You can order food off the menu or grill it yourself outdoors! The property includes a large outdoor barbeque area with a sand volleyball court.  While we were there, a group of college-age kids were playing volleyball and enjoying beer in the sun.

Sand volleyball court at The Monastery

We sat at a table with Patrick, another Boeing employee and one of the Red, White and Brew regulars. Patrick didn’t get a retirement package and plans to work for another five years. We enjoyed good local draft beer and I heard stories of “the old days” at Boeing. It sounded a lot like some of the experiences I had in the corporate world at Volkswagen of America.

Leendert on the left with the Boeing group

Friday night, Donna prepared a cast iron pan-seared garlicky flank steak served over bok choy and carrots. I really like bok choy, especially when it retains a bit of crunch after cooking. The flank steak was prepared with a quick marinade and a pan sauce made with the steak drippings, beef broth and soy sauce. Very tasty! We enjoyed leftover steak on a salad the next day.

Garlicky beef with bok choy

We had clear, blue skies and temperatures in the mid to upper 70s on Saturday, but it was windy. The wind was from the northeast at 10-15mph with gusts over 20mph. We scrapped bicycling plans and spent most of the day as homebodies. Donna spent the day catching up on work after taking a few days off this week – she did a 7.4-mile hike with a group of park residents on Tuesday morning and we were out most of the day on Wednesday.

While she worked, I dumped and flushed our tanks and did a little clean-up. I relocated our hummingbird feeder to the bedroom window on the passenger side. It was at the left front of the coach, but I think there was too much activity in that area from our neighbors, keeping the hummingbirds away. We’ll see if they come to the feeder now.

After lunch, we went for a walk around the park and stopped at the pickleball courts. The courts were empty. Donna and I found paddles in the equipment box and a ball and knocked the ball back and forth for a while. We think pickleball might be fun. We signed up for lessons next Friday.

Last night, Donna prepared flax and almond crusted chicken. She pounded the chicken breasts before spreading a thick marinade of almond butter, olive oil, and spices over the breasts. After resting for 30 minutes, she patted the mixture of ground flax seed and almond meal over both sides of the chicken breasts then baked them. Another great recipe – and more leftovers for salad today!

Flax and almond crusted chicken

The weather guessers are calling for fine weather today with a high of 80 degrees. We might head over to the Mesa Marketplace – it’s a big outdoor flea market in east Mesa that’s open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.