It can't be December already, can it?

Wow, with friends here and tons of things to see and do, the time has surely been flying by.
Monday Di and Sal power shopped, not that successfully, at the Outlet stores up at Cabazon, along I-10 to the west. Due to the fact that we shopped at the Premium Outlet stores, which are largely designer stores and we're not really designer girls, we didn't get that much.
Scored a bit of stuff at Liz Claiborne but the stores are really too high end for us both there.

Came home together and had dinner out together, at a nice restaurant called Trilusa over in Cathedral City. It was quiet, we nearly had the place to ourselves, italian food was yummy.

Tuesday we had soup at the clubhouse, then did some stuff around the house, and mucked about.

Wednesday Lary carved and I shopped over at Desert Center, bought some stuff for the house, in particular a new set of Oneida cutlery, and I picked up Lary when he finished his carving at 4 PM.

Thursday after morning coffee at the clubhouse, Lary changed an outside light that needed fixing, and I ironed a new bedskirt, and we put it on the bed making it look nicer.

There is now a security detail overnight, shifts of 2 vehicles with 2 folks inside each one, and the shifts are 2 hours each, from 9 PM until 5 AM. Since they started no golf carts have been stolen, so guess it is helping, but of course it is exhausting for everybody on the shifts, and there is motion all night in the park from the cars, so there is talk of cutting it down to one car, same shifts though, 2 people, and 2 hour shifts.

The opposite corners of the park have both been covered, this other way will mean that only one corner of the park is covered. We will have to wait and see how it develops, Lary and I have a shift from 3 AM til 5 AM on Friday evening/Saturday early. Some 40 people from the park are all together on a cruise, so fewer folks to work those shifts, the travelers will return this weekend, so that's better, but many people will leave for Christmas/New Years, too. It is pretty creepy that our park has been targeted as an easy mark so far.

This afternoon we met Annie, our flute teacher, and Chip another student over at the Palm Preserve, located not that far from us. About 100 palm trees were burned about a week ago, it is interesting that they say they aren't really dead, even though the top vegetation is all gone and the trunks are blackened, they are amazingly resilient, and will likely come back to life in a year or two. The skirts of the palms aren't trimmed, so they are sitting tinder boxes, I kind of wonder at the wisdom of that, on the ground is huge litter, but of course the skirts are home to all kinds of wild critters too.

The oasis there is formed by the San Andreas fault, and the water for the palms is near the surface, so they survive and there is even a body of water there.

We found a picnic table near where 2 ladies were painting watercolor paintings, and we blew our flutes, and really enjoyed ourselves and the natural setting. It has warmed up quite a lot, during the day we are back into the 70s, still cold at night but not so near freezing now. Annie had brought her microphones, and microphone magic cube, and a wee clip on mike for the flutes themselves, so we all explored that, and playing some duets too. It was fun from 1 - 3 PM in between some towering palm trees, with the birds all round. The flute music overall doesn't seem to disturb the wildlife.

Later we went in to visit Sal and Russ, and went to the Palm Springs street night market, we strolled along browsing, and finally had dinner at Ruby's Diner, and then finished browsing, just as the market was finishing up. Seems as if the vendors stayed open for the late comers.

Had a glass of wine at Sal and Russ's place, then came home.

A youngish man offered to wash our trailer and awning tomorrow, so he's supposed to arrive at 8 AM, groan, and he has said he'll wash the windows too. We will see what develops.