Monday back at Cat Spa - hooray

Thursday night Judy and Gary, and their friends Laurie and Mo came over for dinner, it was lots of fun. Lary cooked chile, delicious, Judy brought a veggie plate, and Laurie brought apple crumble pie and ice cream. Had lots of fun together, we are all in WHR at Indian Waters.

I had a flute lesson for an hour at Annie's in the afternoon. Wonderful, I enjoyed it.

Friday Lary and I went into town and went to the Follies, it was fun. We ate lunch first at Ruby's diner in downtown Palm Springs, and the performance was a matinee. It was enjoyable, 10 women and 6 men, kind of a music and dance revue. The guest performer was Rita Coolidge, a great singer.

All dancers are between 55 and 86 years of age. The costumes were terrific, lots of feathers, and beads, long legs and lovely bodies. Most of the dancers have been dancers all their lives. Huge feather costumes, they must weigh a lot. They talked a bit about themselves.

The show was 3 hours long, we were surprised at that. Historic old theater, and the show has been going for 19 years. The impresario I think renovated the building for the show, from a derelict condition.

Apparently being a historic building with a preservation order has its drawbacks in that things can't be changed substantially, or modified for modern needs. Narrow staircases, and very limited washroom facilities are 2 of the challenges.

After that we raced home, changed, and flew over to the Coachella Valley Flute Circle at Annie's house, for pot luck dinner at 6 and then the music jam. Warm enough to eat outside at tables in Annie's backyard. Flute circle was grand, flutes, rattles, the Mother drum which seems about 2 feet across, some good singing and wonderful music playing. And didgeridoos, lots of them. One of the girls has a bowl that she plays, by tapping the edges of it. It has a beautiful sound. Everyone had at least 2 turns playing, and there were some group things happening.

Later some of us stayed, and Al Hollinger did some great flute playing, and he does some very interesting voice things. Throat singing, and he talks about circular breathing, too.

Saturday we went over to the Coachella Valley Watercolor Society members show and sale, in the Palm Desert Community Center, on San Pablo. It was quite close to College of the Desert, and there were some lovely paintings there, on display, and tons of them unframed, for sale. We didn't buy anything, but we met my painting teacher, Sue Honnell.

We had lunch at Manhattan of the Desert restaurant, on Hwy 111, looked through a few consignment shops, and visited the Backstreet Art District, off Hwy 111. Some nice art there, and some weird stuff, too.

Later we headed into town again, to Palm Springs High School as the newspaper had said the Canadian Tenors were there, and the show was $20 to get in. On arrival after having a terrible time finding parking, we found out that it's a series of season Concerts, and all tickets had been sold out 4 weeks previously. There was a waiting list but we left.

Tried to see the Young Victoria movie, but it had finished for the day. Ended up going to Crazy Heart at the Mary Pickford Theatres, Jeff Bridges was a dissolute country singer, a great song writer, an alcoholic, travelling and singing in rotten scuzzy places, and his love interest was played by Maggie Gyllenhall, but she couldn't accept him as she had a 4 year old son, and Bridges as Bad Blake was a very bad influence on the boy. Great acting from both of them.

Sunday we stayed in, it had rained a lot, so we read and putzed about. Judy and Gary came over and invited us over for 3 PM, so we went over to their motorhome, and they fed us margaritas, we munched on yummy natchos, and then Judy made dinner for us 6, Mo and Laurie had arrived, and we all watched the Oscars, and had yummy crabcakes, salad, rice, and hedgehogs for dessert, with tea and coffee. Yum yum, we had such a nice time.

Monday we moved over to Cat Spa once more, and Dave and Wendy had arrived on Sunday around 3 PM, and are staying in a park model here before we all go to Costa Rica.

I went into Eisenhower for flute class today, then home. After Happy Hour at Dave and Wendy's we had hot dogs, and I did lots of laundry. If you get to the laundry room late, it's dandy, as there is rarely anyone there. Getting ready for the trip, and Sue and Jen coming down into the trailer here.