Sunday, February 27, 2011

OMG we made our own clay flutes Saturday

Friday Lary was still feeling pretty poorly with his cold.

We went to the charity shop to buy mens shirts to handle our clay (messy) for our flute making workshop on Saturday at Annie's.

Lary ended up finding some very nice looking splashy print shirts, they aren't made for tucking in, but are made to wear outside trousers and still look dressy.
They look a bit weird at home but are so attractive and suitable for down here, and often I think they come from either estates, or overstock in department stores.

The shirts he got didn't seem as if they had been worn, and I found a pair of brand new slacks. Still had the store label on them.

The charity store we patronize, called Angelview, helps challenged adults to find employment, so we enjoy supporting them. And often we pick up small housewears like vases, cups, small bowls and the like there, and books too.

Saturday we went over to Annie's and had coffee before our class, we were 6 people in all, plus Annie our teacher, and Nash the instructor who is a young Mexican man, now living in the States, and a flute maker of some reknown.

He comes from a pottery making village in Oaxaca, quite a remote location we understand, but he has been in the US for many years now. Over lunch he was telling us about his life in his early years, he was a goat herder as a boy, and learned to make pots by watching his parents and the other villagers.

First we rolled out our clay to make a rectangle form, using a dowel as a roller, and some steel rods as measures for the depth of the clay. Then we put vaseline on the dowel, and rolled our piece of clay around the dowel, and used 'slip', a clay bonding cement, to join the clay into a tube formed around the dowel. Then we removed the dowel carefully, and made end caps for both ends of the clay tube.

When you use slip to join parts of a flute you rough up the parts to be joined first with a scorer, then apply the slip liquid, then join the parts and smooth it all out carefully. Rough edges stay pretty rough when the clay is fired, so you want to remove them or make them smooth.

We had already kind of chatted about what key flute we wanted, and 5 people made flutes, another person made a big barrel flute shaped like a drain pipe with an end cover on each end, and another lady made a jaguar ocarina. It was fascinating to see them all take shape. I had decided I wanted a D flute, so mine was a bit longer than the others were. Lary was making an E flute.

After putting the end caps on both ends of the tube using slip, we made mouthpieces, we used kind of a bamboo sliver, tapered at one end, to form the airway for the mouthpiece. We made a rectangular shape first of all, inserted the bamboo sliver, cut clay away for the airway, and joined that piece to the flute tube using more slip.

We shaped the clay by kind of pulling it up to seal the joins, and then Nash cut the airway through, which nobody else dared to do by themself. We were using a hairdryer to speed up the drying process a bit, normally Nash would do some steps then leave the flutes and come back to them later to do the next part.

Then we burnished them to get a nicer smoother finish, using shiny rocks to rub all over the flutes, although they were pretty smooth already, the clay we used was red potters clay, fine grit with no rough bits in it, it came in big blocks inside big plastic bags, and Nash cut us all the piece he felt we needed. The ocarina was made with 2 little hollowed out cups joined together, and the sculpting was incredible to watch as the jaguar head took shape.

The barrel flute was wrapped around a large cardboard shipping tube that had been wrapped in plastic to ease the on and off process.

Nash provided all the tools, Annie had 2 big tables all covered with plastic, and we each had a big board to work on, they weren't made of plywood, they were some kind of dense board as you didn't want the grain of wood showing in your clay flute.

Before Chip put the final touches on his lovely barrel flute, he formed a gecko which wound across the front of the flute, it was wonderful to see how he made that gecko, but then while he was burnishing the flute, in the final stages, the mouthpiece fell off, he was really heartbroken, but Nash very quietly and patiently repaired it for Chip.

It was a very long day, at the end some of the people played all different kinds of wooden flutes together, getting into the Anasazi and Shakahachi flutes, but I was just exhausted, so didn't try that. Neither did Lary though he tried one with no luck. They are very different to play, and take a lot of patience and a steep learning curve.

Once we got home, it was nearly 7 PM, and we had a quick dinner and went over to visit Wendy and Dave, who were very excited as they had just bought a new house, over at Ivy Ranch and Golf Course. We were both pretty tired, but super exhilarated too, after the day of flute making.

We can't wait to try them out, they will dry at Nash's house for about 2 weeks, and then he will fire them, and get them back to us.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

2 nights in Laughlin and wild burros in Oatman

Left awfully early on the bus from Catalina Spa on Monday morning. Off to Laughlin for a couple of overnights, in the small gambling town in Nevada. About 3 and a half hours from our area.

Stayed at Colorado Belle which looks like a riverboat, and the next day we spent the day traveling to Oatman, a gold mining town in the early 1900s which has hokey little shops, and wild burros who wander into town to mooch carrots and alfalfa pellets from the tourists. The burros were left behind when the miners pulled out of the mining area after the mines shut down for good. But an interesting note is that now that gold is so expensive, the mines have reopened again and I think we heard that there were about 150 miners there now.

A fun outing. Back in Laughlin we both lost a bit of money to the "one armed bandits" there, did a bit of shopping at the outlet shops, and enjoyed ourselves for a couple of days away from home. Home on Wednesday, I had very kindly given my cold to Lary who by then was feeling dreadful.

We had spent the weekend over in Dana Point with our aunt Penny and her family, who are all wonderful. She gathers her three daughters and their families together, and we get to visit them all at once. Such fun seeing the next generation growing and developing. It is so nice to have a catchup with them all at one time. Mary and her two boys have moved out, but live nearby, with her fiance a very nice man Dave.

Thursday Di had a flute lesson with Annie, and Lary stayed home with his cold.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Valentine's Day Dinner here

Wendy and Dave joined us for dinner on Valentine's Day, and it was very pleasant to be together.

Tuesday Di started to feel like a head cold was coming on, so that was yucky.

Weds. Di dropped off Lary at carving, his wee owl is really coming along nicely, and then Wendy and Di went for a stroll around CatSpa park, looking at the few things offered for sale at people's sites. Bought a couple of used books, and then started to feel pretty coldy, so I came home, and went to bed. Lary stopped carving near noon, and came home to change his clothes and head off to the CSA meeting over in Indio at Fantasy Springs casino.

Lary went to the Canadian Snowbirds Association annual meeting down here, and he came home with a ballcap and t shirt for himself, and a visor for me. And of course full of information about the latest in crossing the border of the US/Canada. As usual the customs officers actually Homeland Security now, have all the power and we have none, and no recourse if they decide we can't enter the States for some reason.

Thursday Lary headed up to the clubhouse for coffee and the weekly business meeting, and then we got a package of mail from our tenants at home, so we shouldn't have so much when we arrive home.

Our Hawaiian cruise tickets have arrived, hooray, and we're also heading off to Laughlin with the Catalina Spa travel club this Monday, for 2 nights. Should be interesting, we don't really gamble that much, but there is a discount outlet mall across the street from the hotels, and on Tuesday there is also a busride to Oatman to see the wild donkeys there, which we have never seen before. Laughlin hotels seem to be very reasonable in price, like $25 dollars nightly or something. Very good prices.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Lots of stuff happening

Weds I took Lary to carving, he is at the painting stage on his wee Pygmy Owl, and then I went into PS and picked up Georgette. We drove out through PS, then on over along Hwy 111 to El Paseo, the swanky shopping area here. But first we visited the most terrific bead shop off El Paseo, called Hacienda Anura Bead Co.

We shopped happily for a couple of hours, and watched the classes going on, then went to the Gardens shopping area, where we sauntered through the pretty gardens and bronze sculptures of children frolicking. Jet was photographing. Then we had a coffee at Starbucks, and headed up the hill, Hwy 74 the Pines to Palms Hwy to the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Natl. Monument, there is a wonderful interpretive center there, which has many of the local cactus growing there, identified and named, and is a very good overlook of the Coachella Valley. It was wonderfully warm, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Then back to Westfield Shopping Center for a bit of retail therapy, and we shopped finally at Walmart for food for dinner. Harold came over, and we had a yummy dinner feast together at home.

Our new blinds needed a bit of an adjustment, so the tech guy came over on Thursday, then we headed off to Annie's for another flute lesson, and after that we flew into PS and picked up H & G for the Village Fest Street Market in downtown PS. We wandered along browsing the stalls, and munching on the goodies offered. Again it was quite warm til later on that evening, and the town was very pretty, and full of fun with the street entertainment. Had a bit of wine back at their hotel in north PS, the Palm Court Inn.

Friday I got a pedicure, then we had lunch at Bristol Farms grocery store, their cafe, and rolled home to spend time at our pool in the warm sunshine. Bliss.

Saturday we went to College of the Desert, we wanted some stuff for the house, then we came home and sat in the sunshine and swam in our pool here. More bliss.

That brings us to today, Sunday, our pals Nadia and Walter came to visit us, and we sat outside drinking tea, visiting and munching on home made lemon loaf. Yum, it was great to see them both looking so well, they are in El Centro in a rented park model for 2 months, we showed them around our house, that doesn't take long, then strolled around our park to look at our clubhouse, pool and hot tub complex, and wandered back home and said our good byes for now.

They told a very scary tale, their daughter in law was shopping alone in Walmart in Campbell River last weekend, and after she returned to her vehicle and got in, and turned it on, a young man knocked on her window, indicating that she had trouble with her rear tire.

Getting out of the vehicle she went to the rear of the car, and he hopped in and took off with her car, with her wallet, purse, phone, credit cards and all inside. Needless to say she was very shocked at what had taken place. He was wearing a hoodie, isn't everybody, and she thought he was a skateboard type, but she wasn't sure, she was so focussed on the rear tire problem.

The police came to help her, but she was very relieved that she hadn't had her 3 year old daughter with her in the vehicle. Her vehicle was recovered later, minus the wallet, credit cards, vehicle registration and car and house keys.

They of course are having the house locks replaced, but I think that is a very good warning for all of us, don't trust people in shopping center lots necessarily when they approach you. Scary for sure, and I know it happened for sure, almost right in our back yard on Vancouver Island, last weekend.

Be aware everyone.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Nanaimo friends arrive Monday

Monday we had a travel club meeting at CatSpa, and so I dropped Lary off and headed to Westfield Mall for a haircut.

When I came home from that Wendy and Dave had been here for happy hour with Lary after they brought him home, and Harold and Jet had arrived from Nanaimo, they couldn't find a place to stay in DHS so they went over to Palm Springs, and we went in to have a drink with them later, and we all crossed the road from their hotel and ate at Billy Reed's, an old established place in P.S. Yum yum, prime rib for all 4 of us. Their room was really nice, at Palm Court Inn. We were impressed.

Tuesday they came out for soup at the clubhouse, then we participated in the music jam, Dud was here from Rainbow Park with his banjo, Bob G. with his guitar, and Ruth on keyboard, and me and Lary with our flutes, it was enjoyable. I played from sheet music, and we did a fun duet about the hawk and the eagle and the gecko. Yum yum, the hawk ate the gecko.

Then we showed Jet and Harold CatSpa, and then Caliente Springs, they liked Caliente a lot. They don't have their motorhome, they are just hoteling it with travel coupons, and doing quite well that way. Nice clean rooms, nice hotels, and not that much money. We had tea back here, then they left and I'll meet Jet tomorrow for a shopping/look around.

Harold is convinced that Palm Springs is a big city and he's worried about driving there, we can't seem to convince him that it isn't!!!!!! Grrrrr.

Tonight we went to a nice evening thanks to Dave S suggestion, a jazz evening with John Boliver quartet at Pete Carlson's golf store on Hwy 111. Weird venue for jazz, in a golf store, but lovely jazz, John plays a sax, and has a bass player, a drummer and keyboardist accompanying him. He was very well received, and they were selling tons of golf clothing for $5 a piece, so it was flying off the racks, and out of the store. For $10 we had a 2 hour jazz concert session, wine and cheese and lots of munchies. And the money all went to charity.

Harold's chilling tomorrow while we girls head out to mess around, and Lary is carving over at CatSpa. Then we are coming home for dinner here. We girls will buy dinner and bring it home.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sunday's doings here

Eileen and Rick came over here, we met them and showed them around our park, they are trying to sell their home in LA and move back to BC, but of course the economy is very tricky for home sales at the moment.

If they go to Canada to live, they might want to have a small unit here in California's desert, so that they could have a winter burst of sunshine during the wintertime.

They left, then the Superbowl was on TV, Lary was watching, and I went up to the pool for a swim and chatted with some nice folks there, then came home and watched the game. It's a big event here, and Lary has some money invested in a game score pool.

It's a warm day, we had a bit of wind howling earlier, but now at 7 PM it is very still, and still warm, though cooling rapidly. We've had both the doors open today, it's been lovely.

We were up in the 70s today temperature wise I imagine, there was an earthquake near Ocotille CA with the intensity of 4. Nice sunny day, but almost nary a person on the roads in our complex, guess everyone is inside watching the close game with the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Blinds installed on Thursday- whooopeeee

Thursday our vertical blinds were installed, they are a warm beige with streaks of white, and they look so perfect with our new paint job. Whoo hoo.

Then off to our flute lesson with Annie, we are having fun being on our own with Annie, Chip's off on a gorgeous cruise to Australia on the Queen Elizabeth doing part of their round the world maiden voyage. And we are working on what we should do if we entertain on our own.

We kind of created some scenarios in words with Annie's help, and then created them on our flutes in music, I didn't know how creative Lary is, but it's so amusing to hear what he comes up with. We created a scenario where we were walking in the desert, saw a hawk flying above us, then spied a wee lizard scurrying along, then the hawk dives, and yum yum, dinner for the hawk.

But then Lary came up with the idea of the eulogy for the lizard, such a laugh, and we tried to recreate it in flute sounds. So creative, challenging and fun too.

We created several scenarios and played them on our flutes, it's interesting because Lary has only 3 flutes, but every one of them co-ordinates with one of mine, so we did that, and then played with Annie's new backing tracks, with flutes, guitar and didge as back up, and us just blowing to accompany that. So neat. Listening and playing along is very interesting, you really need to play very quickly when you hear the backing track, it's very challenging, and exciting to do, matching your music flute playing to the CD track that is playing along.

Annie had her fireplace burning logs, it was that cold. Smelled very good, and was toasty warm too.

Friday we kind of vegged, Lary made a double meat loaf with beef and turkey, and I made a double lemon loaf in a big loaf pan we have. So then we took Annie 1/2 of the lemon loaf, she set it out for the Flute circle folks that were there, it was yummy. She serves coffee at her events, and our lemon loaf seemed to fly off the plate too. Hooray.

Another magic evening with Annie at the helm, it is so interesting what comes out at that evening of flute music together.

Saturday Eileen and Rick friends of ours from L.A. came over to spend the night at Homewood Suites in La Quinta, we went to an art show at a Seniors Centre in La Quinta, then when Eileen phoned us, we went over there, had a beer together on their nice deck, she's a Hilton employee, and brought us a few goodies from Hilton, we saw their nice suite, then we went out to dinner at the Jackalope Restaurant, indoors.

Nice meal, we all ate ribs, and then went back to their place for a bit of a chat, then off home.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Brrrrrr overnight freezing temps

Weds Wendy and I went shopping and had a girl day, Joanne Fabrics, Walmart, a furniture store searching for a floor lamp, and Target and Bed Bath and Beyond.

A nice day together, on the way home we saw a 5 car pileup on Monterey, ouch, the main roads are mostly 50 mph so when you make a mistake at that speed, it's bad.

Then when you need to pull out into the other lane the wonderful drivers won't let you in to their lane. Hmmmm.

Got home after tea at Wendy and Dave's, we ate dinner then went back to Catalina Spa to see the entertainment, it was Rod Erickson, a guitar player/yodeler of some fame/ and good fun singer with a great range of songs. A nice evening, Wendy joined us there.

Temps forecast to be down at the freezing level overnight, brrrrrr for us.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Rummage Sale at Almar Acres Saturday

Saturday we had the annual rummage sale in our park, it was from 8 - 1, and was very busy and successful. Lary and I played a few flute pieces for the entertainment, and overall we enjoyed
the lovely warm sunshine and the perfect day. We bought a bit of stuff from the sale, and towards the end they were handing out big brown grocery bags for a dollar, and you could fill them up with goodies that were left over and would go to charity or the dump. I paid the asking price for stuff up til then.

The park sold baking, served eggers for breakfast, then cooked burgers, and sold sweets and ice creams very cheaply indeed. There was a huge table of baked goods for sale, and sodas and chips to go with the burgers. Tons of stuff got sold.

It was so amazing to see, and the proceeds go to our park for improvements and special projects.

There was furniture, bikes, appliances, our whole clubhouse was a sale area, clothes, purses and bags, bedding, toys, Xmas decorations, and furniture outside. People came from all over, and our friend Bob Gromling played easy listening Country and Western music on his guitar, and sang lots of tunes.

After the sale finished, we went back to Catalina Spa and had a swim in the pool, it was lovely and warm, as was the air.

That evening we went over to the Gardens shopping area off El Paseo, the swanky shopping area down here that is like Rodeo Drive in L.A., but much smaller. There was a young Brit guy playing a gorgeous saxophone there, we paid $12 and that got us 2 small glasses of wine, and a cheese and fruit plate, and the hour long concert. Wine started at 5:15 PM, concert was from 6 to 7 PM. It was held on the lawn of the shopping area, that lawn area has gardens and breath taking bronze sculptures of children frolicking. It is lovely, but by 7 PM we were well and truly frozen stiff.

We had Wendy and Dave with us, and we went over to IHOP and had dinner, Wendy had a coupon for each of us, then came home to our temporary and pitiful rental park model at Catalina Spa. We have a double size box spring held up by 2 construction bricks and a board, with a queen size mattress on top of it, and Di observed that it was a little like a self dumping log barge, if you got too close to the unsupported edge or end of the mattress, you got flipped out of bed. And we have an invasion of mini ants, they offered us a bottle of windex to help us with that plague!!!!! Nice accommodation indeed, and we paid $65 per night for the palace!!!!!

Sunday it blew quite hard, and some of the roads into and out of Palm Springs were closed due to drifting sand which covers the road, and makes it very hard to see where the road is, and where you are going, too. We loaded up our car, and Lary took a few loads back to our own park model, we had our luggage and clothes from our Mexico cruise with us still.

Our trailer has just been totally painted, ceilings bright white, walls pearly white, and cupboards, drawers, doors, valances all a warm beige, and it looks so nice. We were just thrilled to see it finished, and we moved back in, painty odor or not.

We feel as if we are living in a goldfish bowl though, we gave our 2 layers of drapes and sheers to the charity shop before our paint job, and we ordered vertical blinds to coordinate with our paint, but due to a SNAFU, the original fabric we ordered for the blinds wasn't available, and when we got home from the cruise, we had to choose new fabric, so we set the production of the blinds back considerably, but they should be here at the end of this week.

We won't miss the dreadful dump we were staying in at Catalina Spa, it was truly pathetic.

We stayed home and didn't do much at all for the rest of Sunday, the wind was kind of howling, and it had turned quite chilly, and in the evening we watched the SAG awards.

Today Monday we went to the clubhouse for a meeting to plan the Board meeting agenda for next week's meeting, it got quite unruly over the issue of whether to close our front gates or not during the daytime. Currently they are closed, and it's quite inconvenient for people who come to visit, and for the tradesmen who come to the park.

But then again there has just been another golf cart stolen from the park directly across the street from us again, and on Weds night past, a young fellow jumped over our fence, and was caught in our park by one of the owners. He said he was after his soccer ball, but there wasn't one, and his 2 pals ran off when he was caught.

Then after that meeting we came home, changed into shorts and t shirts, and walked out into the desert across the street, and hiked up to a rocky rise, where despite the wind blowing quite hard, we both played our flutes for a while, and then came down and met a lady from a neighbouring park whose husband sells High Spirits flutes, so we chatted all about flutes and flute heroes, flute players, flute makers and the like, and it was very nice to meet her. They are at Desert Pools, pity they are leaving tomorrow or we would have offered to get together with them. They are full timers from Wisconsin.

Later we went into Desert Hot Springs, our flute pal Chip had given us some grapefruit, lemons and oranges, so I want to make some lemon loaf and use the fruit. And we bought some very nice chairs for our deck, they were $25 each, and have nice arms, and are kind of a meshy vinyl fabric, they seem very nice and should be perfect for Happy Hours if it warms up enough to sit out there.

Our weather is changing, going downhill again, tomorrow it's supposed to go down to nearly freezing overnight, and very chilly during the day, in the 50s or 60s, but by the weekend it should return to the 70s that we have been enjoying recently.