It started raining yesterday, my birthday, it rained overnight Sunday, and continued very heavily at times today. The local wash is filling up, and traffic is getting snarled. People are once more at the mercy of the wild weather as the desert rejuvenates itself after the scorching temps of summertime. It may well prove to be a colorful spring with desert flowers.
We had a wonderful dinner out Sunday evening for my birthday with Wendy and Dave. Trilussa is an Italian restaurant over in Cathedral City near Mary Pickford Theatres, and Imax. Wendy and Dave gave me 4 neat Margarita glasses, whoo hoo, can't wait to use them, and a beautiful beaded hummingbird, all swarovski crystal beads. Gorgeous, it has a long tail. I would love to attach it to a flute, but it's pretty fragile. The restaurant gave me a complimentary Tiramisu dessert, and after dinner they give all their guests either Sambuca with 3 coffee beans in it, or Amaretto for after dinner drinks. And biscotti. Yum. What a great idea.
During the day we lazed around the house, didn't go to College of the Desert, got a couple of lovely birthday phone calls from Sue and Jen, and finally went over to Mathis Brothers in the afternoon and found some perfect end tables for the trailer, they were pay and pack sort of, when we got them home Lary had to assemble them. They are ideal for the space we have, and have both a drawer, and a lower shelf.
I have to confess, our cell phones don't work inside the trailer, the aluminum trailer we think interferes with the reception, so when they ring, we answer and then run outside to talk. Yesterday found me chatting with sister Sue leaning over our patio gate, in my nightie with my hair all scraggy. Hmmmmm. A vision of birthday loveliness.
Monday we took a flutie friend of ours down to San Diego as she is scheduled for a long series of after burn surgeries, she burned both one hand and the other arm on the oven rack months ago, and has been fighting those deep deep burns for months. She wasn't covered by medical insurance either, but her coverage has just been reinstated. The University of San Diego has a special burn hospital, and she had to be there at 7 AM for surgery just after 9 AM.
We got up at 3 AM, headed out at 3:30 AM, spooked our own park security patrol, woke the neighbours, then picked her up, and drove like fury down through the black night, heavy traffic full of commuters at those hours, through pouring rain, past traffic accidents due to the rain and slippery conditions, and arrived there in the nick of time for her admission at 7 AM.
She will have an especially long haul, as the burns need debridement, then sponges applied to encourage new cell growth, then skin grafts on both hands/arms. Long procedure, and a long stay, so she had lots of luggage with her. And I imagine she was somewhat apprehensive too, she burned herself some months ago and has been waging war on the burns since then. Doctors there called them 4th degree, which none of us had ever heard of before.
We ate breakfast at Brian's a local restaurant in San Diego near the hospital, then drove back home and fell back into bed for a few more hours sleep. It is just pouring heavily now, and has been almost all day, the Whitewater wash that runs the length of the Coachella Valley is full and overflowing already, with all sorts of road blockades, and LA has lots of flooding too.
Never accuse the desert of being boring!!!!!
Lary took back the modem to Time Warner here in DHS, apparently our Windows 7 was the problem, we needed a different cable from the modem out to the computer, once Lary added that to the mix we were in business, with smoking hot internet, all for $30 per month. What a difference it truly makes, now I am replying to birthday emails and newsy Christmas cards, it is wonderful to have cable connection once more.
As we are Canadians Time Warner charged us $50 security deposit for the modem which we get applied to our last month of cable rental when we return it as we leave after the winter/spring.
The weather nationwide and indeed even in Europe and the UK seems gruesome, it's always so much more challenging when so many folks worldwide want to move around over the holiday season.
When we arrived back home from our San Diego drive we discoverd a wee plastic bag with a new pair of pretty crystal Christmas tree earrrings hanging on our gate for my birthday from our neighbour Pat M next door. Unfortunately we had woken our other side neighbour Marlene S when we got up and left this AM early, I feel very sorry about that.
About Me
- Di and Lary
- Di and Lary are both retired, Lary was in the Canadian Armed Forces as an Air Navigator, 32 years, and Di did many things, but the most fulfilling was teaching, for 3 years on an Indian Reserve in Central BC and later 7 years teaching ESL, both in Canada and in Europe, in Spain and later Germany.