Lary is feeling just fine once again

Forgot to mention that Lary is feeling just fine once more, thank heavens.

Christmas lunch at Agua Caliente casino buffet

Well the buffet at Agua Caliente casino was good, a long lineup but well managed, and people in good spirits. Great food, we were somewhat restrained thankfully.

It was quite quiet at the timeshare place, but we spent Christmas night with them, in the cocktail lounge, it is lots of fun as several very talented people drop in and sing, or play instruments. One couple sings and plays the piano, there is another couple and she sings, great voice, and he plays a slide trombone. Another fellow plays a terrific clarinet, he's friends with the slide trombone player. There is a regular group trio of entertainers, Grant, a singer, and a lady singer, and Richard Bono the piano/organ player. They invite all their friends and visitors up to sing and play too.

And there was another blonde lady who sang very well, most of them are professionals I believe. There was another elderly man who sang very well too. Being Palm Springs there is a lot of talent and retired talent of a very high level here. You just never know who will walk into the lounge that night to visit, or enjoy the entertainment, camaraderie. They make you feel welcome, and almost part of their extended family. Frank Sinatra used to hang out at this lounge, it's now called Club Trinidad, and is on Hwy 111 at Smoke Tree Commons area.

The following day we went to see the new George Clooney film Up in the Air, it was good, very good. Just when he felt he wanted commitment, the lady he chose wasn't available. His profession was to fire people, and he was pretty bloodthirsty and cold about it, too. Somewhat like his life, his character had very few personal ties, and he spent his career flying all over the US to fire people from their jobs.

We had really enjoyed the movie Avatar, even though we didn't see it on the Imax size screen, or with 3D glasses. We saw it at Mary Pickford theatre, which has many movies showing inside it.

Most nights in the timeshare we joined the singers/group in the lounge as it became like a second family, you were greeted like family, and we really enjoyed their entertainment, it was like a musicians jam session.

One day I played my flutes out sitting by the pool, the acoustics were great as the pool was completely enclosed by the hotel 2 storey room block.

In truth the timeshare being a studio was too small for us, when the wallbed came down out of the wall, there was no floor left. And the TV on the wall was opposite the bed, not the sofa, so you kind of had to crane your neck around to watch TV. However it was a nice change to be right in Palm Springs, and we did some of the special stuff that was oriented to Christmas. Our room was on the second floor, and the sunshine hit our front door, so the light was good.

Lary bought me Julie and Julia, the DVD for Christmas, and once we got our various machines here in the trailer coordinated, we watched that last night. Very good indeed, I was glad we had bought it. Coordinating the sound with the TV and DVD player was a challenge to begin with, but Lary does very well with that. Also here we are using our trailer's TV antenna for the first time, but the TV signals must be pretty strong, and the TV good, as it searches for the channels, and brings them in once you sort out all the darned buttons/cables/knobs/blah blah.

We didn't really do anything for Lary's birthday, we were in the timeshare, but left it that day and returned very happily back to our trailer at Catalina Spa. In fact we did a laundry on Lary's birthday night, and got ready to move over to Indian Waters, Indio the following day. After having Christmas lunch and quite a few meals out, we didn't feel like eating out once more that birthday night of his.

Dec. 28th we moved the trailer about 1/2 hour away, down the Coachella Valley to the opposite end from Desert Hot Springs, to Indio and Indian Waters park. It is a Western Horizons Park. It seems very good, we stay in the newer part where there is no sewer or cable TV, but there is a honey wagon service 3 times a week, and it's free for members which we now are. It is coarse gravel underfoot and concrete pads and parking pads for the vehicles, so that works out just fine for us. The sites are relatively big, and we enjoy them more than the grassy areas, where the sprinklers work every night, and you have to be extra careful not to damage the grass or get wet from the sprinklers. Besides we need the exercise of walking to and from the office/pool/clubhouse areas. It's flat and wide open here in their newer part of the park.

Today a WHR lady arrived and offered to give us a tour of the new enhanced things that are available with our membership, that should be interesting to find out about. They now offer cabins at most of their WHR parks, for family visits.

Di is enjoying catching up with emails, for our last few timeshare days the computer hookup didn't work, and only being at CatSpa one day we didn't get it there either.

By the way, thanks to everybody who has sent us Christmas cards, christmas newsletters, and birthday cards, that is so appreciated while we are away travelling. Means a lot. And to those who have emailed us faithfully, even when we didn't email back right away. Thanks for it all.

There is also quite a lot to do here at Indian Waters, they offer some meals, more lunches than dinners, and lots of small courses. Di was delighted to find that there is somebody offering watercolor classes on Thursdays.

The weather seems to be marginally warmer, still below seasonal norms, but sunny, Lary cleaned the outside of the trailer with a bucket and a rag today, and he's outside sitting reading under the canopy. This seems to be another one of the parks where you sit outside or walk around, and most people are very friendly, greeting you as you pass them. It makes such a great impression. We don't enjoy the parks where this isn't the case.

Well I have gone on far too long, just wanted to catchup on the latest. I really enjoyed the Julie/Julia video where Julie posted her blog faithfully each day, and talked about the recent recipes that she had made out of Julia child's cook book. Her successes, and failures. It was such fun, I enjoyed the format of that movie, Nora Ephron sure has made a lot of great movies that really appeal to me.

We'll spend New Year's eve here in the park, we signed up for their dinner and dance, so that should be enjoyable to get together with other like minded folks. $20 total, hope they don't turn on the lights at 12:01 like they did over in Desert Pools another year we were there.

Bah humbug, that was brutal, you hadn't even finished toasting the New year in when they flashed on the florescent lights, at about 12:02 AM and announced that they had to set up for breakfast the following day.

Living Desert Outdoor Museum-illuminated tonight

Tonight we went up to the Living Desert, an outdoor wildlife park with native desert animals that live there. As it was night we didn't see them except the ones in a small show they organized, but the whole park was illuminated with 300,000 Christmas lights, there was also a carousel for the children and their parents to ride, and cocoa and other hot drinks.

It was a great site, very pretty, it had huge train sets on tracks that wound up and down small hills, little villages, and various activities for kids to do, such as art projects like makings rubbings of the local animals in the park. Lots of the things illuminated were the desert animals outlined in lights. And many of the bushes and trees were covered with lights. Lovely.

Earlier that day we went to see Avatar the movie, it was really good. We had no idea what to expect, but the story was interesting, and the special effects incredible. Sigourney Weaver was one of the main actors, together with a young man we didn't know. The large blue Navi's were a neat concept. It was very long but the time flew by. Another James Cameron success, block buster.

In the morning Lary and I went back to the RV park and he did his wood carving. His kildeer bird is coming right along.

The day before we had gone back so I could do my watercolor painting class, we did a cactus desert scene.

Forgot to say that a few days before we had gone to Eisenhower Hospital for a 2 hour harp concert, it was lovely. Both harps and flutes are thought to be very therapeutic. The harp players were all past cancer patients. Our class leader Annie Mathias and Fran a student of hers did a duet on their flutes. The concert was held in the lobby of Eisenhower Hospital and it was lovely.

The new computer is up and going, and fast. Staples sold it to us, and loaded everything in it. We now need to dispose of the old one, they wiped it clean.

Our cousin from the coast isn't coming to Palm Springs now, it's too cold for them to swim and sun, so we'll see her another time in the spring.

So many places are lit up here, the Christmas lights are very pretty when you go out at night.

Yesterday there were very high winds, and the sand gets kicked up in the wind, driving in the blowing sand is next to impossible, you can't see a foot ahead of yourself, and today 3 major roads were closed due to sand drifts, but they were opened later on today.

We plan to go out to a botanical garden tomorrow if it's open, and on Christmas Day we will likely go to one of the casinos for a buffet lunch or dinner. Many of the restaurants will be closed for Christmas day.

Back Online- with a new computer, yippee

HI All,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our friends. We got a worm/virus in our computer, so it ate up some of the computer innards, and we had to ditch it, and buy a new one. It was from 2003 or so, quite old.
The new one is faster, way faster, and we bought a wide screen one too, we might even watch DVDs on it.
It was a somewhat slow process to get the new one up and running, but today we got the new one, and hooray, we are now in the timeshare suite, and using it there. Whoopee.

Of course lots of emails and news to catch up, and thanks so much everybody for sending us the super Christmas cards/ birthday cards both at our RV park, and on the computer. It is grand, and means so very much to us while we are away from home.

Speaking of home, I plan to go home to Nanaimo for sister Sue's birthday, she will be 60 on Jan. 14th, so that should be a very happy time for us all together once again.

Sue and Jen are coming down to babysit our trailer while we go off to Costa Rica March 11th til 18th, and then they will stay on for a few more days with us.

Today Lary and I had a private architecture tour of the many different styles of houses built here in the Palm Springs area. Of course we know our way around, but this tour was with the concierge of our hotel, and he was so very knowledgable. We drove all around up and down the hills and the neighbourhoods, and the periods of buildings from the 1920s to the 50s and 60s.

Such differing styles, including some blgs made of steel. There is a lot of vegetation on some of those bigger lots, and we saw homes of the rich and famous of varying eras. Saw estates belonging to Cher and Barry Manilow, as well as a house that was Frank Sinatra's. Many of the houses you can't really see that much from the street, but we would never have found them by ourselves in the truck. The tour was 3 hours, and we learned a lot. Saw hotels, commercial buildings, and many houses that had belonged to movie stars/ industry moguls through the eras.
We actually got into the back yard of the house where Frank Sinatra had lived, it was so pretty with a lovely pool and enclosed back yard area.

So informative, we had been wanting to do that for a long long time, and it was so worthwhile, especially with our tour guide.

For my birthday we went out to eat at Tony Roma's, ribs. Yum yum. And for Lary's birthday we will be meeting my American cousin Jenn from Dana Point, CA. Should be fun as we'll meet in downtown Palm Springs for dinner.

Bye for now, and hope that you have wonderful holidays with your families and loved ones.

Friday night Flute Circle

Friday we got Lary's blood work done, and then in the evening Di went out to the Flute Circle held at Annie's house in Palm Desert.

It was a pot luck dinner, I took a broccoli salad and my flutes. It was interesting driving the truck at night, lucky we had found the house during the daytime, so it was easier when I knew the way. People had tons of their wooden flutes, there was great excitement because a young flute maker called Nash had held a course to make clay flutes, and he was delivering them to the people who had made them, he had fired them. They sounded absolutely beautiful, but of course a bit fragile being clay. They mostly had holes in the sides of them at the top for putting a cord through to put around your neck.

Then Annie burned a sage smudge, and we started to play, and listen to each other. Annie has tons of instruments, big gourd drums, drums made out of old propane Bar-b-que tanks, tons and tons of flutes, and rattles and drums of all sorts too. She was married to a professional musician who she told me didn't enjoy his music. She sure enjoys making and encouraging others to make music too. There was a microphone so the flutes were amplified, and sounded terrific. Susan asked me to jam with her, I led and she followed my notes. Others did similar stuff, and 3 people played didgeridoos, long huge pipes, that resonate kind of. And people played drums, rattles, whatever they wanted or felt like doing. It was kind of magic, we were about 12 or more in all. Often it was 2 or three people playing flutes, and others playing what they felt was needed. One girl had a huge drum, and a couple of girls played it, and sang or vocalized. Some people were couples, some were singles.

Today Saturday we went over to Spotlight Casino 29, and attended the Indian Pow Wow, it had some interesting dancers, fabulous outfits, and interesting sights. I bought 3 pieces of leather thong for my flutes, and Lary bought me a neat little velvet pouch for my lipstick, with a Kokopeli flute player on it. The beading was incredible, and so were the outfits that the dancers, big and small, young and old wore. On the way out we stopped at a radio station booth, and played cards with the DJ to see if we could win some stuff. Lary won a ballcap, and I won a new Jazz CD. The station is 102.3 Smooth Jazz.

This evening we had roast chicken dinner up at the upper clubhouse, then went down and played Mexican Trains and Sequence with some very nice new friends. Enjoyable.

Marine Corps Christmas Concert last night

We went to the Marine Corps Band concert last night, it was really good, they have a base nearby at 29 Palms, and it was a free concert, with 3,000 attendees. Wow, all you had to take was a donation for the Food Bank, or a toy.
Their uniforms are different, the tops are black, and the pants are blue, and they mostly had kind of buzzed off haircuts. Music was incredible, and loud too. They did lots of medleys where each song ran into the next one, and were connected, very interesting how they do that.

Before the concert we ate at Spa Resort Casino, a steak and lobster dinner for $19.99 each, with a huge buffet. Yum yum. They cooked the lobster tail/ at least heated it up on the grill/in front of you, great service.

We saw lots of folks from our park, and sat in front of another couple from......Nanaimo. Go figure. They were very nice, full timers, they live in Living Forest when they are in BC during the summer, and are at Sands which is a golf course RV complex, just down the road from us, during the winter. Her name is Barb.

It was a lovely evening.

In the afternoon we went into the RV show at the Fairgrounds in Indio, but there weren't that many rigs to view. We toured a 2005 Southwind 32V gas motorhome coach, it was about $79,000 with about 15,000 miles on it. Hmmmm.

But Di was very taken with a Cameo 5th wheel, it was a 2010 model, 32 feet, it was kind of like going into Jean and Roy's unit, although a bit smaller, one whole side which was the kitchen and bedroom combined, moved out on one slide. And there was one other slide in the living room area. It had a table and chairs, and then there were 2 sofas, one beside the table and chairs, and the other at the end of the trailer. Pretty nice setup, and nice quality finishing.

It was quite a bit heavier than our trailer, but I loved it. When you went up the stairs toward the bedroom, the bathroom was right there on the right side. It was priced about $58,000. Most of the units there were very reduced in price, though most of the coaches were the huge ones, around 40 feet or so, and of course diesels were more expensive than gas. One of the first questions that we got asked is "How much financing is left on your unit?" When we said none, they seemed surprised.

An interesting thing was that we found there is a repair facility near to us here, not that far away, so we may take our trailer and have it repaired. One of the salesmen told us that no matter what unit you have, there are always small repairs needed. Guess that keeps the dealers happy.

A lot of the dealers in the valley have gone out of business, you even see car lots that are closed and empty. It is very sobering down here, and the pain has not ended either, you hear about tons of people still losing their houses, and apparently there are about 1.5 million people unemployed in California alone. And there is some sort of snafu with their social welfare computer system, so many of those folks won't be getting their cheque in time for Xmas.

Cousin Jen from Dana Point is coming into P.S. toward the end of December, so we will get together for dinner with her.

Lary and I are going into Eisenhower Medical Center for him to have a blood test done today, as a followup to his treatment. While we were in the medical clinic we saw that they had both Pneumonia Vaccine and Shingles Vaccine shots available. Very interesting.

Oh oh, Lary not feeling so good yesterday

Last night Tuesday Lary was feeling very poorly, so we went into Eisenhower Urgent Care treatment centre, in Rancho Mirage. They found that he had prostatitis, an enlarged and inflamed prostate, very painful and scary.
He got excellent care, and 2 prescriptions, and we came home a bit lighter in the pocket, and he hit the bed.

Today Wednesday he spent quite a bit of time in bed, he was slowly feeling a bit better, but still grim. Not hungry, either.

I went down to the computer forum this morning, then this afternoon I took my flutes up to the Upper Clubhouse and played outside, there in the sunshine. It's a bit chilly with snow still on the mountains, so sweater weather at least. I was given more Christmas carols by Annie, the leader of the Eisenhower Flute circle, so I played them, and the ones I had already. There is an article in the Desert Sun newspaper saying that the citrus crops may be damaged by this cold snap.

After that I went down into the lower area pool, but about 3:30 PM the sun leaves the pool, so I was there for a while, then into the hot tub for a wee while.

Not much more to report, tomorrow I hope we can attend the Marine Corps band concert in Palm Springs in the evening.

Ye gads, yesterday Monday brought torrential rains and wind

Monday afternoon it was raining buckets, and blowing too. Lary bravely drove me in to attend the Flute Circle, they practiced kind of jamming with each other, playing the same few notes, right after the other person, and generally catching up with each other's news. New folks were there, and some of the ones from the week before. One man Adolph makes flutes, and he is very innovative, he had one flute with the mouthpiece made of hand formed clay, the rest seemed semi normal, and there was a big gold nugget he had found on top of it. He and his wife kind of noodled around, another couple Larry and his wife had just been on an Italian cruise and we heard all about that.

Some of the people have exquisite flutes, all inlaid woods on them, and with turquoise inlaid in them along the top, but some of the most simple flutes sound equally wonderful, so that is very exciting to learn, too.

Lary did some shopping for a toolkit for his woodworking, and we puttered around in the dreadful rain and howling wind. Ate at IHOP, one of our sinful locations, then came over to DHS and home.

All evening the wind was howling, and tossing the trailer about, because we have canvas canopies over all slides, the wind comes in under them, and lifts up the canvas, and slaps about very noisily, shaking the trailer. About 1 AM we got up, moved the furniture out of the way, and pulled in all slides, as neither of us was getting a wink of sleep.

There was an inch of rain I believe, and the roads get very scary as there aren't a lot of drains, so the water tends to form huge pools, and where it is running along the road or across it, it can be deep, or carrying a lot of gravel and soil. Entering a flooded part of a road, especially when it's dark, you don't know the depth of the pool. The cities all post 'flooded' signs, it kind of feels as if there is one on every main road. We woke this morning to see a dump of snow on the mountains nearby, it's funny how it's a clear line where it ends, but of course today, Tuesday, the air is very chilly, and there is still the windy aftermath.

One of our swimming pool noodles flew away in the wind, and we haven't found it as yet. Lary went for his usual walk today, but now isn't feeling too well, I hope that it's just that he's tired as we had a crazy night last night with the wind and rain. And he was wet during the afternoon so he may have a bit of a chill, or a chill from the parade on Saturday evening.

I went to the first watercolor class of the year today, we did a winter scene with pine trees, and a river and distant trees, with some snow on the ground, we used a sponge to paint the trees, and tried a few techniques, we were only 3 students, so got a lot of attention, still one painting in 3 hours is quite a bit to accomplish.
I think I'll end up being the class bozo.

I went up to a travel club meeting, we signed up for a 2 night trip to Laughlin by bus, good price, in late January. Talked to a nice couple Rose and Ron, they are fulltimers, he's legally blind, so she drives their coach. They are trying to decide where they want to settle down, it's a challenge for people to choose a place to live.

Then I went for a bike ride around the park, it's grand not to have to wear a helmet but I just have to watch for all the loose gravel from yesterday's rain. I bought a helmet to wear outside the park, on the roads. The bike has pretty skinny tires, and doesn't do that well in deep sand, I discovered, but packed sand is OK.

Some of the big coaches in the park are decorated for Xmas, and look very cute, also some people even decorate their lot nicely for the holidays. Those coaches have quite a lot of storage, whereas the trailers don't have so much.

Saturday was a busy one

Saturday we went to a couple of craft sales in parks, Sky Valley and Indian Waters. Didn't find anything that made us part with $, so on to the Tamale Festival in Indio. Yum yum, it's a very popular event with the Latinos here, and we mixed right in. Lary had tamales, I had other things, and we enjoyed the music of some good mariachi bands too.

Later that day we went over to Palm Springs and attended the Festival of Lights, there were over 80 entries of various styles, from illuminated floats to illuminated historic fire trucks from several different cities, ambulances lit up, riders and horses, horses pulling carts, even a horse drawn fire wagon, it was spectacular as 3 horses pulled it, and they were a matched team, lovely, and very well handled too. There was a Corvette club with all their cars heavily lit up, there were of course marching bands with majorettes, everyone wore those LED lights, some of the floats towed their own generators in little red wagons, that was really cute to see. Politicians, civic officials, princesses of all sorts, charity kitchens, but the main theme was lights, and there were thousands of them on nearly every float, and every person who marched or rode. Very pretty indeed.

It has gotten quite cold, down in the 60s during the day time and 40s at night, with wind that has come up, so watching the parade last night after dark got quite chilly indeed when the wind came flying over the mountains behind Palm Springs, and whistled along the roadway.

When the parade ended, maybe about 7:45 PM or so, we went into a nearby Chinese Restaurant, got warm again, and had a yummy Chinese dinner with jasmine tea. Most of the day was overcast, and dull. Later on in the afternoon the sun broke through a bit.

Today Sunday we just vegged, Lary went for his usual walk, then bought a Desert Sun newspaper, and we both read it, and lazed around the trailer. It was thankfully sunny, I went for a bike ride after lunch, we had ice cream at the clubhouse, then I stayed for the jam session, somewhat heavy on the religious themes again, but fun to listen to, some poetry, a lady playing the harmonica, a mellow group.

Didn't stay for hamburgers tonight at the clubhouse, ate in the trailer. A very chilly wind is blowing, making it pretty cold.

I watched a very moving movie at the Upper Clubhouse, called My Sister's Keeper, with Cameron Diaz, about a family dealing with cancer of one of their children. Bring out the kleenex, it was very touching and not too Hollywood.

Lary came home- now he's under the weather

Picked Lary up at P.S. airport Tuesday, the plane was delayed 1/2 hour, but as he only had carry on luggage he was off pretty soon after they landed. He was very pale, and super insistent that I not ever spend an overnight in any airport, so that was interesting. Seems as if he hadn't slept much either of his 2 airport nights.

He had lunch at home, then crashed into bed, and later we had a nice swim, and spent a pretty quiet day Tuesday.

Wednesday we went to the weekly computer seminar, the leader Brian seems very knowledgeable, and has a wicked sense of humour. He's from Montreal, and manages the WiFi network here in the park. One of the flute ladies from Quail Valley, a neighbouring park, said she knew him too, as she managed their WiFi network.

Then Lary had his first go at wood carving, his kildeer bird will be looking over its shoulder, and he came home happy and covered with sawdust. They have changed the class to be all day on Wednesdays.

This morning Thursday he went out for his early morning walk, but cut it short and came home and crawled back into bed, he was freezing. That doesn't seem too good at all, but perhaps not that surprising after the quick trip home, back and forth into very different climates and temps.

I didn't go into Rancho Mirage to the beginner flute lesson, the instructor said that they have just barely managed to play the scales without a squeak, so I thought I might stay with the Monday one and have a bit of a stretch, but a good one.

I practiced yesterday, the Happy Trails song has some half hole notes to play, which is a first for me, you put your finger only half over the hole, and sound it that way, makes a different tone or note.

I am really enjoying playing the Christmas carols, they are so familiar, you know when you have made a mistake. When I read an unfamiliar piece of music, it sounds strange to say that I don't know what it should sound like, but I don't, so that's why the carols are such good practice for me. I want to get to where I am feeling the music, and able to generate it myself, from the heart, but I sense that that is a bit farther along the road from where I am at the moment.

This afternoon at the upper Clubhouse there is an RV casuals fashion show at 3 PM, so I'll go to that. We were thinking of going into Palm Spirngs to the Mizell Center, to attend a lecture about the Agua Caliente native traditions at 1 PM, but I don't think I'll do that since Lary isn't feeling that good. Hope this isn't the flu for him, yoicks.

Rain is forecast over the weekend, along with cooling temps, it is December after all, more is the pity as there is the Festival of Lights parade on Saturday evening. Dearie me. Not sure if I'll go into the P.S. street fair this evening, I doubt that. I would like to find a music stand, one that goes on a table, and one for standing up, Lary sensibly suggested a second hand or pawn shop.

I am enjoying riding my bike around our park, if you do all the roads, up and down it's quite a distance. And just to do the perimeter of the park is quite a way, too. Good exercise I feel. That's it for now.