With the family exhausted from many consecutive late nights of card playing, everyone decided on a restful night in their respective homes. We were happy to have a light bite to eat and lounge, streaming a few series. We hadn’t watched much in the past few weeks since we’ve been playing cards since we arrived almost two weeks ago.
After dinner, we sat on the sofa and the recliner and set up a series to stream, but we were having trouble with the stream. In no time at all, we determined we didn’t have a WiFi connection. Knowing Colleen was streaming her favorite series at home, I texted her to ask if she also had connection problems.
She responded promptly to say she was experiencing the same problem. I asked her for the provider’s name (Mojo) and looked up their number on Google Fi on my phone. No one answered when I left a message about our location, the lack of a signal and my phone number.
Within 20 minutes, I got a call back from Mojo, who told me they had sent a technician to their operations site to fix the problem. Thirty minutes later, it was back on, and we could continue watching our shows until it was time to go to bed. We started a new excellent thriller series, “Pieces of Her,” on Netflix.
Tom always prefers to stop streaming by 9:30, but I can wait longer. He doesn’t go to bed that early, but he prefers to work on his laptop. Since I wasn’t ready for bed, I watched a few episodes of American Idol, which was quite entertaining. When I went to bed, I used the Hulu app on my phone to watch one more episode but fell asleep and awoke to turn it off, finally drifting off for a good night’s sleep.
Since I began my new sleeping regime, I have been sleeping through the night while getting up early each day. It made all the difference in the world; instead of sleeping late when I was awake for two or three hours at night, failing to drift off again until 5:00 am. It feels so much better to be sleeping through the night.
Today, I’m prepping a few ingredients for a dish I’m making to bring to the family for tomorrow’s night dinner. Tom’s sister Rita arrives around 6:30 pm, and we’ll eat shortly after she arrives. Yesterday, Tom and I headed to Fry’s Market to buy the ingredients for Saturday night’s dinner, and we were amazed by the size of the popular grocery store.
We’ve been ordering our groceries from Fry’s but had no idea of the enormous size of this market, which included sections for clothing and household goods. We found all the ingredients easily, although it often required a long walk through the store to locate some of the items.
Without trying, I managed to finish getting all of my daily steps accomplished while shopping. I moved about the store as quickly as possible, Tom following behind, pushing the grocery cart. When we checked out, my membership number provided us with a discount of $29. Wow! That was unexpected.
We’ll only have to shop once or twice more until we depart on May 1. As always, we’ll be striving to use up a few items in the freezer while being creative with the other grocery items we have on hand. It’s hard to believe we’re almost halfway through our time in Apache Junction.
That’s it for today, dear readers. Thank you for all the supportive and warm messages we continue receiving while we wait to hear what’s in store for us shortly.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, April 12, 2014:
Oscar Mayer is looking for someone who would relish the opportunity to get behind the wheel of one of America’s most iconic vehicles.
The processed meat giant has launched a nationwide search for its next crew of Hotdoggers — paid spokespeople who drive the brand’s famous hot dog-shaped Wienermobiles around the country.
The company is hiring 12 drivers to get behind the wheel of the 27-foot-long vehicle, which is equivalent in length to 54 wieners laid end to end.
The Hotdoggers’ main responsibility is to represent Oscar Mayer daily as they drive the 87-year-old Wienermobile around America between June 2024 and June 2025.
“It’s like they’re running a PR firm on wheels,” says Ed Roland, who runs the Wienermobile program. “They’re key content contributors to all of our social media channels. It’s some of the highest performing content for all of [parent company] Kraft Heinz.”
Oscar Mayer has a fleet of six Wienermobiles. Hotdoggers will travel in pairs and be expected to host over 200 pop-up events over the course of the year. They will be responsible for “pitching and appearing on local television, radio or newspaper media,” according to the job listing.
If you want the gig, be ready to present your driving record. The average driver travels 20,000 miles each year, Oscar Mayer says, visiting at least 40 cities.
“It’s a lot like an RV,” Roland says. ”[Applicants] do not need a CDL or any special driver’s license.”
The role will require Hotdoggers to work on major holidays and spend the majority of their year away from home.
The listing says that the one-year assignment will pay a base salary of $35,600, with an additional weekly allowance of $150 for meals and personal travel. Hotdoggers will receive health benefits and 18 days of paid time off, and their hotel expenses will be covered.
In a typical year, the Wienermobile program receives between 1,000 and 1,500 applications for the 12 open slots but has gotten as many as 7,000 in a single year.
Oscar Mayer will accept applications through the end of January and says that bilingual candidates, in particular, are encouraged to apply.
You can apply for the role here.”
This might be a fun experience for retirees who want to supplement their income, although the pay isn’t much, and see the US at the same time. However, it was quite a task to set everything up to cook the hotdogs, prepare the toppings at every stop, and clean up after the event ended, only to get back on the road again to the following location.
Enjoy our Weinermobile photos, which bring back memories from our youth.
Be well.