Today we went up to the Ice Cream Social at 2 PM, and I signed up to play my flute in the jam.
It was very popular today, tons of people signed up, and lots of different instruments, and singers, too. Jam session is 3 PM til 5 PM, and is just before the hamburger dinner.
I played my flute but it/I seemed off today, I hadn't practiced much this week, and you could tell. Or perhaps my flute was disturbed a bit by being held all afternoon in warm sweaty hands.
Hard to tell.
Oh well, we always enjoy the varied music and singing by some many different folks here at Cat Spa. I believe that people come from other neighbouring parks too.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Mata Ortiz pottery at Cabot's Pueblo Museum
Well we went over to the museum that was built by Cabot Yerxa, an early settler in this Desert Hot Springs area. When he came here at first, he had no water on his property, and had to go 14 miles in a return trip to get water. As he only had his mule Merry Christmas as transportation, it must have been quite a trip.
Then the natives told him there was water on his land, so he dug, and first he got scalding hot somewhat smelly water, then he dug again nearby and got pure artesian clean cool water, or so went the story the guide told us.
We toured the weird house that he built with largely reclaimed materials, he was very innovative, but it is still a bit of an unattractive heap. He used adobe bricks, with the refinement of added cement to the mix to make his bricks more waterproof. He was trained at Julienne School of Arts in Paris in the early 1900s. Some of his art was wonderful indeed. He appears to have been a bit of a Renaissance man, very self sufficient. His parents were traders, running trading posts throughout the United States. Most of the doors were very narrow, he must have been about 5 foot 7, but his wife was under 5 feet, so not necessary to have huge doorways.
There were a group of potters there from Mata Ortiz, and one man was painting his pot, and then he fired it by putting it under a big clay pot, and building up the fire around the edges of the bigger pot. Gradually he piled pieces of wood all around the big clay pot, and let it burn for about an hour. Once he took away the burning material, he removed the big pot, and there was his beautifully fired, carved and painted pot. It was just wonderful, luckily some man in the audience bought it. There were hundreds of pots, all different.
There was a lady from Tucson who did a lot of translating for the potters, apparently the village had been potters for hundreds of years, but the tradition was nearly lost, and then it was kind of rediscovered, until now it is again a thriving village full of very skilled artisans, there are about 450 people who now make their living from pottery.
It is very fine work, some of the colors are blacks, reds and off whites, many of the pots are very unusual looking, and very detailed, not crude at all. We really enjoyed seeing their work, and a lot of it was for sale in the museum store. What a wonderful opportunity to see what they were doing.
Apparently a whole new jewellry industry has also been developed as an offshoot of the rejected pots that break. The pottery shards are trimmed down, and enclosed by silver, to make very attractive jewellry. Another ingenious use of the by products of the pottery production.
Then the natives told him there was water on his land, so he dug, and first he got scalding hot somewhat smelly water, then he dug again nearby and got pure artesian clean cool water, or so went the story the guide told us.
We toured the weird house that he built with largely reclaimed materials, he was very innovative, but it is still a bit of an unattractive heap. He used adobe bricks, with the refinement of added cement to the mix to make his bricks more waterproof. He was trained at Julienne School of Arts in Paris in the early 1900s. Some of his art was wonderful indeed. He appears to have been a bit of a Renaissance man, very self sufficient. His parents were traders, running trading posts throughout the United States. Most of the doors were very narrow, he must have been about 5 foot 7, but his wife was under 5 feet, so not necessary to have huge doorways.
There were a group of potters there from Mata Ortiz, and one man was painting his pot, and then he fired it by putting it under a big clay pot, and building up the fire around the edges of the bigger pot. Gradually he piled pieces of wood all around the big clay pot, and let it burn for about an hour. Once he took away the burning material, he removed the big pot, and there was his beautifully fired, carved and painted pot. It was just wonderful, luckily some man in the audience bought it. There were hundreds of pots, all different.
There was a lady from Tucson who did a lot of translating for the potters, apparently the village had been potters for hundreds of years, but the tradition was nearly lost, and then it was kind of rediscovered, until now it is again a thriving village full of very skilled artisans, there are about 450 people who now make their living from pottery.
It is very fine work, some of the colors are blacks, reds and off whites, many of the pots are very unusual looking, and very detailed, not crude at all. We really enjoyed seeing their work, and a lot of it was for sale in the museum store. What a wonderful opportunity to see what they were doing.
Apparently a whole new jewellry industry has also been developed as an offshoot of the rejected pots that break. The pottery shards are trimmed down, and enclosed by silver, to make very attractive jewellry. Another ingenious use of the by products of the pottery production.
Friday was stormy here-yuck
Friday was stormy here, with lots of wind and finally a few drops of rain during the evening while we were watching the Olympics. We are finding the Olympic coverage this year much better balanced, that is, they seem to feature other countries, at least Canada, much more often than we remember from previous years. We went out and grocery shopped in DHS. Lots of dust and sand kicked up, more in the Palm Springs area than out here, but temps have gone considerably once more.
The Americans seem to be making a wonderful success of these winter Olympics, too. It is so interesting to watch Brian Williams reporting the 5:30 PM news with the beautiful backdrop of Vancouver harbour and the Olympic rings behind him. And there are some beautiful shots of Vancouver at night, a birds eye view. His comments on the fact that Vancouver seems to him to be what the US used to be, very polite!!!!!!!, are very interesting to us here.
Today has dawned sunny and bright, and warmer again, though the forecast is for more yucky weather, this storm and another following it perhaps will bring us more rain. Who knows.
Today over at Cabot Yerxa Museum there is a show of Mexican Mata Ortiz pottery, with some mexican potters there, and we plan to attend that today. They are there for the weekend. It is a centuries long tradition of pottery making, I think that perhaps it is black pottery, but I'll report back once we have seen the show.
The Americans seem to be making a wonderful success of these winter Olympics, too. It is so interesting to watch Brian Williams reporting the 5:30 PM news with the beautiful backdrop of Vancouver harbour and the Olympic rings behind him. And there are some beautiful shots of Vancouver at night, a birds eye view. His comments on the fact that Vancouver seems to him to be what the US used to be, very polite!!!!!!!, are very interesting to us here.
Today has dawned sunny and bright, and warmer again, though the forecast is for more yucky weather, this storm and another following it perhaps will bring us more rain. Who knows.
Today over at Cabot Yerxa Museum there is a show of Mexican Mata Ortiz pottery, with some mexican potters there, and we plan to attend that today. They are there for the weekend. It is a centuries long tradition of pottery making, I think that perhaps it is black pottery, but I'll report back once we have seen the show.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday afternoon at the Riverside County Fair & Date Festival
Wednesday Lary carved his kildeer bird, and started to paint it, very exciting. Also our new neighbor Stan from Almar Acres came over to the carving class, he is a hand carver with knives, but he wants to join the class, as using the knives is causing him pain, and he wants to learn to use a dremel tool, so that was interesting for him and Lary too. He may join the class with his current projects, and then switch over to the dremel tool in the fall when the next project starts.
I went on a hunt for blankets for the new house, we changed the bed to a queen size, and need new bedding, and I couldn't find blankets anywhere. I went over to Ross Dress for Less and found 3 blankets that were suitable, and a few other things. Also some plastic glasses for our patio outside. And I got some nice towels from J.C. Penney, they were on sale. Yes!!! And we hit the pool again, and had fun soaking in the warm water, and chatting with other folks here in the park.
Weds evening we went to a fun show here in the park, a couple of entertainers, Jerome and Jeanne, named Call of the West. They played great guitars, she also played a mandolin and a squeeze box, both played the harmonica. And they sang, both together and separately, she writes great songs, too. And he does Cowboy type poetry, and tells hilarious jokes. Good fun.
Thursday morning we had coffee and donuts over at Almar Acres, then dropped off the new linens at the trailer. They seem to have kind of a business meeting at that time, so it was interesting to listen and be introduced as new owners. The rec center is bright and squeaky clean, and the pool sparkling. The park has soup lunches on Tuesday, and alternate Tuesdays they serve hamburgers.
After that we went to Big K and I found some poly/cotton blouses, and a couple of pairs of capris, the capris were on sale.
Later in the afternoon we went over to the Riverside County Fair and Date Festival, and it was fun in the warm afternoon. Things to eat, arts and crafts shows, fancy rides, camels and ponies to ride, small trade fair, an alligator show, young men break dancing, a hypnotist, people having lots and lots of fun outdoors at the annual fair in Indio. We enjoyed ourselves.
I went on a hunt for blankets for the new house, we changed the bed to a queen size, and need new bedding, and I couldn't find blankets anywhere. I went over to Ross Dress for Less and found 3 blankets that were suitable, and a few other things. Also some plastic glasses for our patio outside. And I got some nice towels from J.C. Penney, they were on sale. Yes!!! And we hit the pool again, and had fun soaking in the warm water, and chatting with other folks here in the park.
Weds evening we went to a fun show here in the park, a couple of entertainers, Jerome and Jeanne, named Call of the West. They played great guitars, she also played a mandolin and a squeeze box, both played the harmonica. And they sang, both together and separately, she writes great songs, too. And he does Cowboy type poetry, and tells hilarious jokes. Good fun.
Thursday morning we had coffee and donuts over at Almar Acres, then dropped off the new linens at the trailer. They seem to have kind of a business meeting at that time, so it was interesting to listen and be introduced as new owners. The rec center is bright and squeaky clean, and the pool sparkling. The park has soup lunches on Tuesday, and alternate Tuesdays they serve hamburgers.
After that we went to Big K and I found some poly/cotton blouses, and a couple of pairs of capris, the capris were on sale.
Later in the afternoon we went over to the Riverside County Fair and Date Festival, and it was fun in the warm afternoon. Things to eat, arts and crafts shows, fancy rides, camels and ponies to ride, small trade fair, an alligator show, young men break dancing, a hypnotist, people having lots and lots of fun outdoors at the annual fair in Indio. We enjoyed ourselves.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Beautiful symphony concert Tuesday night
Forgot to say that Tuesday night we went to the Coachella Valley Symphony, the performance was called Viva Espana, and was a classical guitar player Lawrence Spector playing with the symphony, Carmen Suites No. 1 & 2, then Concierto de Aranjuez, which we both love, the Capriccio Espagnol and Danza Ritual Del Fuego.
Rodrigo is the composer of Concierto de Aranjuez, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote Capriccio Espagnol, and de Falla wrote the Danza. Bizet wrote Carmen. Superb music, and a night to savour it all.
The music was so lovely, nearly every note of it was so achingly familiar, we nearly could hum along with the notes of the guitar.
It was held at the Del Webb Sun City Palm Desert, kind of a wonderful housing development, pity that it was dark and we couldn't enjoy it all. Their clubhouse has a full size stage, and it's huge, and beautifully decorated.
We got the CD of Lawrence Spector, called Romantic Evening.
Rodrigo is the composer of Concierto de Aranjuez, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote Capriccio Espagnol, and de Falla wrote the Danza. Bizet wrote Carmen. Superb music, and a night to savour it all.
The music was so lovely, nearly every note of it was so achingly familiar, we nearly could hum along with the notes of the guitar.
It was held at the Del Webb Sun City Palm Desert, kind of a wonderful housing development, pity that it was dark and we couldn't enjoy it all. Their clubhouse has a full size stage, and it's huge, and beautifully decorated.
We got the CD of Lawrence Spector, called Romantic Evening.
We had burgers at the new place Almar Acres Tues
Monday started off pretty warm, and we went over to the new house to await delivery of our new queen size bed. The plan was to have it between 11- 2, but it arrived about 4 PM, the 2 fellows were very helpful. While we waited we went into the Almar Acres pool, it was lovely and crystal clear, they have a pool company maintain it. We chatted with some very nice new neighbours.
Lary cooked cornish game hens for dinner on the bar b q, delicious, and we went up to the Chinese Auction, it was hilarious. For $1 you got 10 tickets, and you could "shop" with the tickets, putting your name on the ticket, and putting it in a brown paper bag near each item.
Many of the items were free, they drew names and you got the item if your name was drawn.
We were also saying that many of the items will likely appear again next year for the auction again. The stuff goes round in circles through all our RVs.
Also there were some silent auction items, and I got a pretty photo of cactus blooms, bright yellow, taken right here in the park, for $3. A big hit was my blue Teapot, and Lary got a nice AARP crossword book.
Tuesday was sunny, Lary called our RV fixer in Duncan on the island, and we booked the trailer in for repairs on April 9th. We may well go off to the Okanagan in the car after that, just for visits.
Bought some sheets and a quilt for the new house. We are going back into our pool here at Cat Spa in the afternoons, it is wonderful and warm once more, though we are due for rain and lower temps on the weekend. boo.
Di did a big wash late at night, her prime time for the laundry room.
More later.
Lary cooked cornish game hens for dinner on the bar b q, delicious, and we went up to the Chinese Auction, it was hilarious. For $1 you got 10 tickets, and you could "shop" with the tickets, putting your name on the ticket, and putting it in a brown paper bag near each item.
Many of the items were free, they drew names and you got the item if your name was drawn.
We were also saying that many of the items will likely appear again next year for the auction again. The stuff goes round in circles through all our RVs.
Also there were some silent auction items, and I got a pretty photo of cactus blooms, bright yellow, taken right here in the park, for $3. A big hit was my blue Teapot, and Lary got a nice AARP crossword book.
Tuesday was sunny, Lary called our RV fixer in Duncan on the island, and we booked the trailer in for repairs on April 9th. We may well go off to the Okanagan in the car after that, just for visits.
Bought some sheets and a quilt for the new house. We are going back into our pool here at Cat Spa in the afternoons, it is wonderful and warm once more, though we are due for rain and lower temps on the weekend. boo.
Di did a big wash late at night, her prime time for the laundry room.
More later.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Presidents Day weekend in Desert Hot Springs
Saturday we got up and went in to see the Dr. George's Classic Car show. There were some incredible cars there at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, out in the sunshine on a grassy field.
The colors and ages of the cars were unbelievable, it was magic. We had a bite to eat there, and although we had planned to go on to the Greek Festival, we didn't, opting instead to come back to the RV park, and have a dip in the lovely warm pool.
In fact we were all saying now that the weather has finally changed to quite warm, the pool is so soupy warm that it is almost not refreshing. Everyone is afraid to complain, though, in case it gets cooled down too much.
Before the car show we had dropped in to visit the new park model that we have bought, and we met with the vendors again, and the roofers who are reroofing it for them. Looked good, they are adding some insulation under the new roofing, so that is grand. They finished the roof later on, Joanne and John let us know later that day. Whew, that was a bit close for comfort, as the vendors left early this morning to return to Vancouver WA where they come from.
Now it's ours.
Later in the afternoon we headed back into the El Paseo area of Rancho Mirage to the Gardens, a lovely ritzy shopping area where there are beautiful lawns and gardens surrounding the stores, and there was a Jazz evening there, at 5:15 PM they serve wine with cheese and fruit. You only pay $12, which goes to charity, and a local Jazz DJ called Fitz puts it on, bringing in young musicians to play for an hour, sitting right out on the lawn with pretty bronze sculptures of children playing, all through the lovely gardens.
It's a magic hour or two, they play for an hour, and then sell their CDs after their show. The young musician was a keyboard player called Lao Tizer, and he had a super guitarist with him, Jeff Coleman, and a great drummer, whose name I can't remember. Lao and his group were heading off to Dubai on Monday.
Then we went to a pizza place and had pizza, yum yum.
It's Presidents Day weekend down here, Monday is a holiday.
Today Sunday we didn't do much in the morning, but we went to the pool and had a nice swim around lunchtime, the water was off in the top part of the park, as they'd had a water leak.
Then we went to the Ice Cream Social here in the upper clubhouse, and in the jam session afterwards, I entered to play my flute, and I got 3 chances to play, it was quite interesting, as I don't think that many of those people had ever heard a Native American Flute, so I kind of introduced it to them, and played OK. They asked me if I had more music after the second piece, and of course I said Yes. And played a third time.
Quite a lot of people talked to me after the jam session, so I am happy about that. I played my new F sharp flute, and next time I might even take more than one flute, so that folks get a chance to hear more than one key flute.
Later we went back into town, and went to the Greek festival, at the church called St. George Greek Orthodox Church of the Desert, near El Paseo again. It was night time when we arrived, and we ate Greek food dinner and visited with some nice folks from Salt Lake City Utah sitting at the table, before wandering around the pretty stalls, and munching on some Greek sweet pastries. Apparently the event is a big fundraiser for the Greek church, and this year they have to replace the dome on their church, some $130,000. so the proceeds go to the church itself this year. In other years the proceeds have gone to local charities. so we bought t-shirts that are colorful and fun, and were very inexpensive.
Tomorrow we'll go over to our new park model trailer in Almar Acres on Dillon Road, as our new bed should be arriving, and likely we will hang out there for a while at least, as we'd like to get their monthly activity schedule, and get to know that park a bit. There is a lovely pool, and 2 hot tubs, and their rec centre is very attractive, they have a soup lunch on Tuesdays that the public can attend. Apparently they did some fundraising, and as a result bought a new refrigerated area that is very good for their kitchen facilities. so that should be fun to get to know our new home.
The colors and ages of the cars were unbelievable, it was magic. We had a bite to eat there, and although we had planned to go on to the Greek Festival, we didn't, opting instead to come back to the RV park, and have a dip in the lovely warm pool.
In fact we were all saying now that the weather has finally changed to quite warm, the pool is so soupy warm that it is almost not refreshing. Everyone is afraid to complain, though, in case it gets cooled down too much.
Before the car show we had dropped in to visit the new park model that we have bought, and we met with the vendors again, and the roofers who are reroofing it for them. Looked good, they are adding some insulation under the new roofing, so that is grand. They finished the roof later on, Joanne and John let us know later that day. Whew, that was a bit close for comfort, as the vendors left early this morning to return to Vancouver WA where they come from.
Now it's ours.
Later in the afternoon we headed back into the El Paseo area of Rancho Mirage to the Gardens, a lovely ritzy shopping area where there are beautiful lawns and gardens surrounding the stores, and there was a Jazz evening there, at 5:15 PM they serve wine with cheese and fruit. You only pay $12, which goes to charity, and a local Jazz DJ called Fitz puts it on, bringing in young musicians to play for an hour, sitting right out on the lawn with pretty bronze sculptures of children playing, all through the lovely gardens.
It's a magic hour or two, they play for an hour, and then sell their CDs after their show. The young musician was a keyboard player called Lao Tizer, and he had a super guitarist with him, Jeff Coleman, and a great drummer, whose name I can't remember. Lao and his group were heading off to Dubai on Monday.
Then we went to a pizza place and had pizza, yum yum.
It's Presidents Day weekend down here, Monday is a holiday.
Today Sunday we didn't do much in the morning, but we went to the pool and had a nice swim around lunchtime, the water was off in the top part of the park, as they'd had a water leak.
Then we went to the Ice Cream Social here in the upper clubhouse, and in the jam session afterwards, I entered to play my flute, and I got 3 chances to play, it was quite interesting, as I don't think that many of those people had ever heard a Native American Flute, so I kind of introduced it to them, and played OK. They asked me if I had more music after the second piece, and of course I said Yes. And played a third time.
Quite a lot of people talked to me after the jam session, so I am happy about that. I played my new F sharp flute, and next time I might even take more than one flute, so that folks get a chance to hear more than one key flute.
Later we went back into town, and went to the Greek festival, at the church called St. George Greek Orthodox Church of the Desert, near El Paseo again. It was night time when we arrived, and we ate Greek food dinner and visited with some nice folks from Salt Lake City Utah sitting at the table, before wandering around the pretty stalls, and munching on some Greek sweet pastries. Apparently the event is a big fundraiser for the Greek church, and this year they have to replace the dome on their church, some $130,000. so the proceeds go to the church itself this year. In other years the proceeds have gone to local charities. so we bought t-shirts that are colorful and fun, and were very inexpensive.
Tomorrow we'll go over to our new park model trailer in Almar Acres on Dillon Road, as our new bed should be arriving, and likely we will hang out there for a while at least, as we'd like to get their monthly activity schedule, and get to know that park a bit. There is a lovely pool, and 2 hot tubs, and their rec centre is very attractive, they have a soup lunch on Tuesdays that the public can attend. Apparently they did some fundraising, and as a result bought a new refrigerated area that is very good for their kitchen facilities. so that should be fun to get to know our new home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
