Ho Ho Ho

Well, twas the week before Christmas, and, for those of us who don't decorate, and wouldn't be caught dead in a mall any time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was business as usual.  Well, almost.  I played bridge five times this week - twice with Art at the Duncan Bridge Center, twice at Mizell Senior Center (two different partners, Tuesday with new acquaintance Dru and Friday with club leader Jane), and once on Thursday at the Heart and Stroke Center with a new partner, Claire.  (really, you could play bridge 24/7 in this town) And, of course, the ever present Santa and his baking elves.....

On Tuesday, I had breakfast at friend Howard's, who was the only one (so far) who considered that a meal made for me might be nice, seeing as I have no kitchen!  He's a good cook, too, and it was nice to see his place all unpacked and organized, and looking like he's been there forever (it's been 3 weeks!).

After bridge on Tuesday, Dru and I tried out a little Italian dive (near Mizell and near my gym as well), known for its cheap prices, huge portions, and humongous glasses of wine.  Another example of "you get what you pay for"; enough said.  However, the company was great.  Dru is a friend of a friend from Vancouver, I am enjoying getting to know her better.

On that note, there seems to be a quantum leap in new acquaintances this year.  I don't know whether it is just that I have been here for long enough, or the plethora of new bridge partners, or the classes; in any event, I like the broadening of my horizons.  Now, when I start to play golf......

Wednesday night was another Metropolitan Opera in the Movies encore night.  This is the Met's first new production of Verdi's Falstaff in almost 50 years, and it is worth the wait!  Admittedly, it is a farce, not my favourite, but the director got it just right, it was hugely funny without being over the top, and all the characters - even (or especially) Falstaff were very human.  The setting was the 50's, so you can just imagine the props (fabulous, as only the Met) can do, the singing and the music were glorious, and noone dies. What could be better?  I went with friend Howard, after dinner at Sherman's Deli (right down the street from the movie theater, and it was wonderful to have an enthusiastic companion to share it all with!

What else can I tell you?  More fauna and flora, of course....

I'm not sure whether this is Fred or Ethel, but he (she) definitely wants food....

The grapefruit and starting to get ripe ....

...and I learned about a new Palm Springs "thing", a drink called the Arnie Palmer, a combination of lemonade and iced tea.  Could that exist any where else but here?

The mornings are cool, and the pool is heated.  It was neat to see the steam rising from the pool on the way to the gym.....

(By the way, the chicken wire, a new addition, is to keep the rabbits from pooping on the pool deck!)

I am still reading trash, in all media.  In actual paperback (hey, I needed something I could take to the pool, which I was also able to do this week, as it was warm enough in the afternoon), one of Robert Crais' LA crime novels, a la Philip Marlow but with more psychology.  This was actually a pleasant surprise, as it is not the type of thing I usually like.  However, friend Art highly recommended this author, and I found 10 of his books on my bookshelf when I went looking. Art trying to encourage me, no doubt.  This is the first I have read, but I finished it in one day, and I will certainly continue the series.

On the Kindle, another Barbara Pym, this one called No Fond Return of Love, which takes her characters from the country vicarage to the university campuses and city of London.  Such gentle books (totally different from the Crais book, I can assure you), but quite charming.  Finally, I found my long lost IPod, charged it, downloaded some new books, and went for a long walk listening to the beginning of Amy Tan's new(ish) book, The Valley of Amazement.  And I did make some progress on Flight of the Eagle, although, admittedly, not much.  So, if you are being kind, you could call my reading habits eclectic; if you are now feeling quite so charitable, you might call it haphazard.  It more or less keeps me out of mischief, though, and it is one of the great joys of retirement to have the time and ability to do it.

What else?  Well, the renovations are proceeding apace.  My contractor is very fastidious, and careful cleans up at the end of each day.  Nonetheless, it is unsettling to come home to a changing landscape every day (what first-world problems we all have!).  I will be happy, I think, to leave for Vancouver for the month of January, and come back on February 1 to see the final result.  (I'm not one of these people who needs to see the sausage being made, so to speak....)

Finally, tis the season to remember friends and family, to remember blessings of same (of which I am hugely aware), and to wish you all a happy non-denominational (or all denominational, if you will) holiday, and all my best wishes for a happy, healthy, prosperous, and loving new year, from my house to yours.

As always, I hope to see you all in my house (one or the other, or both) in 2014.

Did and Didn't

So, here's what I didn't do this week, for one reason or another.

I didn't go to the Christmas tree decorating party at our club house (just wasn't in the mood).

I didn't go to the Festival of Lights parade in down town Palm Springs (the parade grand marshal was Suzanne Sommers, by the way).  It was too cold to sit for hours waiting for the oh-so-long parade to pass by.  It was lots of fun last year, when I went last year with neighbor Michael.  But he and some of the boys had rented a hotel room on the parade route, women weren't welcome, and, well, it is not really the kind of thing that I like to do alone.

I didn't go to the Tamale Festival in Indio (one of the "other" Desert Cities); wasn't in the mood for all those people and children (Fran Leibowitz:  Children are always sticky.  This is no doubt because they don't smoke enough,).

Finally, I didn't go to the opera in LA today to see Mozart's Magic Flute.  I was going to go on spec to try to get a rush ticket.  They were sold out, but often tickets become available at the last minute, and rush tickets are $30, versus $100 plus at full retail.  Plan B, if I really couldn't get a ticket, was to have a nice lunch in LA, spend the afternoon at the L.A. Country Museum of Art, and drive home.  But I had a sleepless night, and just wasn't up for it.

(And this was just a short list. Who says there is nothing to do in the Desert?)

What did I do, you might ask?  (You are reading this after all; I assume you're interested!)

I did toast Davie at dinner on Monday December 9th,  to celebrate his birthday - he would have been 80 this year!

It didn't come off exactly as planned.  As previously posted, my traditional restaurant for these tet-a-tets was Davie's Hideaway, which has closed, so I went to Shame on the Moon, another favourite.  Lo and behold, they no longer have prime rib on the menu!  Well, we mustn't get fixated, and Davie liked filet mignon too, so filet mignon it was.  The bourbon was Knob Creek, and it went down very nicely, thank you very much.

These evenings remind me how much I wanted to die of a broken heart.  I didn't though (and Davie certainly wouldn't have wanted me to), and I did live to see yet another glorious desert sunrise.

I did continue to stress out over my kitchen reno, but did see a lot of progress

I did add two names to my list to Palm Springs time-warp street names (Ginger Rogers and Fred Waring).

I did get tired of reading Flight of the Eagle; a bit too depressing for my mood this week.  (I'm up to the Civil War and Reconstruction, so you can see why it would be depressing.)  So I switched to Barbara Pym's novel, Jane and Prudence.  For those of you who don't know Barbara Pym, she is Britain's post-war Jane Austin.  It was a lovely change.

I did get an annual physical, the first ever.  All results are not in, but it looks like, barring unforeseeable accidents, I will be around to annoy you all for several years yet!  By the way, the health care system in the States works very well for seniors, I am here to tell you.  They are very much into prevention, and (at least my doctor, who was recommended to me by friend Art and much to my surprise I really like) not pushing pills as much as they used to, and totally free - for seniors!  Anyway, those of you who know me know that I hate dealing with all that stuff, so I'm glad it is done and over with for now.

I did manage to get some photos of the local fauna....

If you look closely at the top picture, you can see our local hawk (who dines on the local rabbits in the wash in front of the house) sitting and washing down dinner at neighbor Don's fountain.  The next picture is one of many road runners who inhabit my "lawn". They are all brazen, but this one is particularly cheeky - he has just hopped off my table where he joined me for lunch!  All that rustling of the Sunday New York Times didn't bother him a bit!

And, finally, I did play bridge six times this week, at the Palm Springs Regional Bridge Tournament, five times with Art and once with friend Robin.

Top left is Jane, the leader of one of our local bridge clubs.  Notice the sign on the (unknown) lady on the right; it says Miss Information!  Well, I thought it was funny.  Below left, Peter (Art's partner when he is not playing with me) and Art himself, having a good time, as always.  We made a few points, although probably not as many as we should have, and did learn a lot, and had a wonderful time.

So, that was the week that was.  As you can see from the "didn't s, I was a bit cranky and not on my game, so to speak.  I'll try for more variety and sparkle next week!

Lists, Existential Angst, and other Stuff.

Let's start with the lists.  When I left you, I was reading Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III.  I do love reading beautiful stories.  Also just completed, or still on my nightstand in progress, or just waiting to be read are:

1. Martin Cruz Smith's newest Renko mystery Tatiana (those of you of a certain age will remember Gorky Park);
2. From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell's first Inspector Wexford mystery (written in 1964, can you believe?);
3. and No Man's Nightingale, her most recent, written this year;
4. Telegraph Avenue, the (reasonably) new book by Michael Chabon, who wrote Cavelier and Klay, and the Yiddish Policeman's Union;
5. Flight of the Eagle, Conrad Black's history of America (yes, I'm still reading it, it is another doorstopper, it will take me a while!);
6. Jung Chang's new book on the Empress Dowager Cixi (she also wrote Wild Swans, which I have not yet read - I'll wait to see if I like her writing style before I order it - I swear Amazon is like crack cocaine!);
7. The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prize winning book about Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, and "the Bully Years of Journalism".  She's the one who wrote Team of Rivals, about Lincoln's cabinet, on which the recent movie Lincoln was based (great book too!);
8. A new biography of the composer Benjamin Britten;
9. Oh, and there's a biography of Bruce Springsteen kicking around here somewhere, waiting to be read.

It's one of the greatest thing about technology; you can see a book review, or get a recommendation from a friend, or just find an author you like and want to read more, or develop an interest in one topic or another, and presto, it can be instantly downloaded to your Kindle to read, or IPod to listen to, or arrive via Amazon in your mailbox in one or two days.  I love it.

Okay, next list.  This one is a vocabulary list.  How many of these words do you know the meaning of?

1. hecatomb;
2. exiguous;
3. perfervidly;
4. asceverating;
5. fissiporous;
6. contumely;
7. jejune;
8. condign;
9. coruscation;
10. febrile;
11. revenant;
12. pelagic;
13. acidulous;
14. redomontade

Okay, I confess.  I had to look them all up.  They all came from Conrad Black's biography of Nixon.  It is certainly true that Black never uses a $5 word when there is a $10 one available, but the writing is certainly memorable.

Okay, this one is more fun, and is one of the reasons I love Palm Springs:

1. East Buddy Holly
2. West Buddy Holly
3. Dinah Shore
4. Bob Hope
5. Frank Sinatra
6. Kirk Douglas
7. Gerald Ford

What do these things have in common?  They are all the names of streets in my every day drives from here to there, and it is not an exhaustive list either.  No wonder I feel as though I were in a time warp!

All right, enough of that.  What else is going on, I hear you ask.  Well, aside from the usual bridge, and the last of the classes for this quarter (see previous post), I did help friend Howard unpack from his second move in two months, courtesy of a break-up (after a 28 year relationship) and some bad decisions.  I like doing those kinds of things, partially because it brings you closer to people (an explanation of where that chatchka came from often leads to further relevations), and, let's be honest here, because I may have to cash in some of these "good will" chips some where down the road.  (Some of you know my Lucy Pschological Quote #37: cast your bread upon the water, and they shall return as sandwiches!) Anyway, it really was a lovely day, and let no-one say that I never do any physical labour.  It is rare, but not unheard of.

I also had a lovely lunch on Wednesday with friend Laurel.  She has been mentioned in these pages most recently on the death of her husband and resulting memorial service in Vancouver.  She lives close to me here in Palm Springs, at a lovely resort, where she invites me (and others) for the occasional lovely and classy lunch.

(from left to right, the above-mentioned Howard, yours truly, Laurel's daughter Erica, visiting from Vancouver, hostess Laurel, and mutual friend Terry).

It really was very "ladies (and one gentleman) who lunch" kind of an affair, with good food, good service, and good conversation; I loved it!

Today, I just got home from the movies, where neighbor Michael and I saw Philomena (at a local, independently owned theater, I might add, where you can get beer and wine to go with your popcorn!).  It is a splendid movie.  Of course, Judi Dench is generally splendid, but this was smart and funny and sad and thought-provoking, and, I am betting, Oscar-worthy.  No spoiler here; see it for yourself!

So, what has caused the existential angst, you might ask?  Well, I am having my kitchen redone.  (I guess this is the time for the "before" photos....)

and although I am thrilled and excited, it is also a lot of money, and a lot of decision making.  I can make decisions, all right (it is what I get paid to do, after all), but it is still anxious-making, even for me.

And it reminds me that I am by myself and have no one to help me with those decisions.  I read recently, in a book review in the New York Times I think, that self-pity has no shame.  I think it's a great line.  She has enough money re-do her kitchen, in her second home no less, and she's feeling sorry for herself because she is on her own with noone to challenge her decisions.  Get real!

Which brings me to what is probably the real reason for the existential angst.  It is Davie's birthday tomorrow (and the anniversary of his death on February 6).  I always get anxious now, and miss him, and remember what it was like to make decisions together!

I'll celebrate his birthday tomorrow night with the usual dinner out for prime rib and bourbon, his two favourite food groups.  (Although Davie's Hideway, the preferred restaurant for this ritual, has closed, so another had to be carefully chosen).    So, those of you who knew Davie, lift a glass for him tomorrow, and remember......

Happy (American) Thanksgiving!!!

As always, I have lots to be thankful for!

On Sunday, November 24, we had a planning session at brunch, at Ruby's, a retro breakfast joint in Palm Springs.

We managed to get everything organized, have fun, and have a great breakfast too.  And, unusually for a group made up solely of type A's, there wasn't a disagreement to be had!

Sunday afternoon continued with, what else, more bridge, this time Swiss Teams at the bridge club, with Art as my partner...

We didn't have a team, so one was arranged, nice folks, as you can see (that's Art, looking better than ever in the center, as I'm sure you will all remember).  Swiss teams is a bit too much "fuss and feathers" for me - I don't think I need to do it again - but we didn't do too badly, and did manage to score some points out of the afternoon, so all was well.

No more rain, and I continue to travel in style....

My neighbors, Deb and Arlene (otherwise known as "the girls" are here all week (they are still working, and are generally only here on weekends), and is good to have them!  The whole gang came over to my house on Tuesday afternoon for drinks and appy's, and they have managed to plan the redesign of my kitchen (the work is due to start in January).

And, soon enough, the Thursday of Thanksgiving is here.  We have decided to do it in the clubhouse this year - it has gotten too big to be manageable at someone's house - and go down early in the day to set up.

(Okay, you guys will just have to turn your heads to the right.  It has just taken me half an hour to get this from my email to here.  It defeats me as to how to rotate it to the right, and there aren't so many good pictures of me that I want to let it go!)

Anyway, I was charged with the turkey - the electric turkey roaster has been a big hit since I bought it too years ago - and it came out beautifully, all 22 pounds of it.

Yours truly, waiting for the guests to arrive

Deb, Arlene & Bob

Arlene

...and many, many more - 26 in all.  Aside from the turkey, there was a ham, and of course all the fixings.  It was a grand feast, and most important, was not loaded with the dysfunction usual in family gatherings.  (Or so they tell me.  My parents were from Eastern Europe, and neither they nor any of their friends ever really participated in American Thanksgiving).  I loved it.  This year in particular, which was loaded with dying and death and friends' parents with Alzheimers and friends with various and sundry ailments and marital woes and separations and wayward children - well, I'm thankful for health, and financial stability, and the blessings of friends.

Hopefully, with all the fuss, you remembered to be thankful too!

It Feels Like Home

You know, when I get back here every year, everyone says "Welcome Home"!  And it does feel like home.  I'm content here, even with the day to day.

I left you last Sunday, in my usual chair, about to pick up the Sunday New York Times.  Later in the afternoon, I met friend Laurel for a walk.  She was a neighbor in Salt Spring Island, some of you may recall, and is a neighbor here in Palm Springs.  She has just arrived from Canada, having lost her husband of long standing, Murray, to the last of a series of strokes in the spring.  As you can imagine, I empathize.

As you can see, she has a new companion, an apricot poodle named Chloe, the excuse for a brisk walk around Laurel's complex, literally six blocks from mine, followed by a cold drink on Laurel's patio.  She is always busy with their (now her) business, family and friends, but we'll try to get together regularly.  Nothing like a little death to remind you about the dearness of friends.

The week was, as usual, filled with bridge, including 2nd place overall at the Duncan Bridge Club on Monday, and, for a change of pace, friends over on Tuesday for bridge at my place.

....followed by yet another lovely sunset....

And here's something novel - for Palm Springs, anyway!  It rained the end of the week.

The opera class on Thursday was about Werther, by Massenet, based on the novel which made Goethe famous and caused a series of copycat suicides all over Europe!  It really is a gloomy opera, which I did not much like when I first heard it 20-odd years ago.  I like it much better now, although lord knows, it is still very dark.  The question is what will the Met's new production be like.  I will report back.

On Friday, I did my daily stint at the gym early to squeeze in a coffee with new acquaintance Nan, a fellow student at Friday's art classes.  We have been sneaking in the odd sentence before class, but felt that a coffee and a chat might be nice.  And it was.  Nan is an interesting character, with a checkered career, very different from mine.  She is very sympatish, and we seem to understand one another.  It is harder to make new friends, I think, at my (advanced) age, and I am grateful to have the opportunity.

The class was interesting too.  We talked about (and saw slides of) installation art.  I was most impressed with the Serra installation at the Getty in Bilbao, but we also saw representative works by Baptiste Debombourg, Urs Fischer, Tara Donovan, Walter de Maria, the ubiquitous Christo, and many more, and discussed questions such as should the materials determine the vision, or should the artist's vision determine the materials.  The professor is of the opinion that it doesn't matter what the artist intended, it is what you bring to the piece that matters.    Our professor is in the process of doing an installation in Coventry in England.  Again, news at 11.

What else is happening?  Well, I finally finished Conrad Black's biography of Richard Nixon (all 1,059 pages), and not a minute too soon.  Black really is a wonderful writer, and although he in no way whitewashed Nixon's flaws, the book was a good reminder of his breakthroughs in foreign policy, and his benign and often farsighted ideas on social policy as well.    I have Black's book called Flight of the Eagle, which he calls a strategic history of the US, but I can't jump right into that.  Instead, I went on a buying spree on Amazon (yes, Bill, I got free shipping), and am starting with something a bit light, a book of short stories/novellas by Andre Dubus IIIcalled "Dirty Love"!  Well, I wanted a change!

Feeling poopy today - or maybe just tired - so have readyand napped the whole day, and will be ready to start the rounds again tomorrow.  Meanwhile, back to my wine and my book.....

Day to day life in Paradise

So, a little maintenance by Zach, my computer guy (better known as TechnoGod), and all problems have been solved.  I rely on the blog to clarify my thoughts, and would have hated to give it up due to technical difficulties.  (Married people don't, I think, have these problems.  They clarify their thought by bouncing them off one another!)

Well, where were we?  In anticipation of Mariah's going back home to Seattle (otherwise known as the Frozen North), we indulged in a few nights of watching the Borgias on the DVD.  It was that fabulous production they had on PBS a number of years back.  What a piece of work they were, those Borgias.  I couldn't wait till Alexander died, at the end.   I learned how to use my DVD player, and Mariah and I had some lovely girl nights, something we don't often get the chance to do in The Frozen North.

Before she left, Mariah wanted to take her friends out to dinner.  We now have our own local sports bar, called The Smokey Burger, where happy hour is from 3 to 6 every day; well drinks and appys are all $5, and there is more conversation than television (my kind of "sports" bar!).

Art, and Soo's sun Jeff

Mariah and Wally (looking good after recent heart attack)

Soo and Jake

And, on Thursday, Mariah was off.  It was so nice having her here (her house is just five doors down), coffee on her patio or mine, even grocery shopping together.  "Hanging out" is not something I do a lot of in Vancouver, and I guess that is what makes Palm Springs so nice for me.

Sunday afternoon was actually overcast - no rain, of course, just lots of high clouds - so it seemed like a movie kind of afternoon to me.  I went to see Blue is the Warmest Colour, a French film about, to put it bluntly, lesbian love (with some straight and homosexual sex thrown in for contrast).  It was French, of course, so everyone was beautiful, and the directly was definitely an ass man (a man after my own heart!), but in the end, I found it boring.  And maybe too realistic - the heroine ended up alone!

I had a friend in from Vancouver, and spent some quality time with him this week (albeit his main objective was his golf game), which was very nice.  On Wednesday, though, Robin and Grant and I went to see Tosca, from the Met, the encore performance.  It was dreadful.  Oh, the music was glorious, as always, and the singing was good (although I found the soprano not to my liking, and she certainly did not get a rousing ovation for her big aria in the second act), but the staging!  My lord, the staging!  It was booed at the Met two years ago - why they would bring it back defies logic!  Oh, well, as I said, the music was glorious, Robin had packed a picnic dinner, and a good time was had by all.  (Sometimes it is as much fun to "dis" something as it is to praise it!)

Classes continue to do well.  The opera classes in the two weeks since I last wrote were on Rusalka and Prince Igor, neither of which I had ever seen or heard before.  Apparently, New York is awash in Russian singers, hence the push to perform Russian operas.  Rusalka is by Dvorak, Prince Igor by Borodin, very different composers, but both heavily in to Russian folk music.  Again, the music is the thing.  To illustrate the Rusalka, the teacher (John Nyberg, have I said?) used a modern Russian production, which was the kind of thing that I would normally hate.  However, it included interviews with the director and the singers, explaining their "take" on the opera, and it became totally gripping.  I can't wait to see what the Met does with it next winter.  For Prince Igor, we had a movie made in 1965 in Soviet Russia in full cultural mode, with horses riding across the steppes, great costumes, etc.  Again, the music was wonderful (I love Russian music!), but it is amazing how far cinematography has come in the 50 years since that movie was made!  Again, it will be interesting to see what the Met does with it.

The art class (given by Patrick Blyth, a sculptor in his own right) discussed the new Diebenkorn exhibit at the Palm Springs Art Museum (which I had seen a year ago in San Francisco at the de Yonge).  It was very apt, and providential, in a way, as Diebenkorn had gone from non-representational to representational in the Berkeley years shown in this exhibit.  We walked through the exhibit discussing the paintings, after an hour discussing the influences on Diebenkorn such as Motherwel, Hassell Smith, Cliforn Still and Rothko.  Thanks to friend Peter, I was not totally ignorant about those painters (and had indeed, seen a great deal of them, including, most recently Rothko's Chapel in Houston).  I may even be starting to "get" this!

For those of you who don't remember from last year, and for those of you who have recently tuned in, I thought I would do a few "Home and Garden" pictures:

Patio, #1

Patio, #2

"My" pool!

My garden - note grapefruit and lemons!

The front of my house

My baby!

The second baby, a working juke box!  How Palm Springs!

Dining Room

Living Room

Family Room

And more Palm Springs views....

(Aren't you guys going to be sorry that my computer is fixed!  And wait till I get a better camera!)

Friday night, neighbor (and, of course, friend) Michael and I went out to dinner at - wait for it - a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet, called Hibachi City Buffet.  Yes, I know, I swore I would never do it - what we won't do for friends.  However, as these things go, it was pretty good.  The food was quite exceptional, lots of fresh crab and shrimp and other seafood, plus an assortment of dim sum, soups, and meat and chicken dishes, not to mention desserts (admittedly not Chinese).  And all for $12.95.  (Michael is a big believer in cheap.  Good thing, too, he keeps me in line!).  So, we sat, and talked and ate, and laughed at our fellow diners, and altogether had a good time.

And, finally, last night, I went over to Marion and Peter's place for dinner.  I met Marion several years ago at the gym, and have been to their lovely apartment before.  As always, great wine, great food, and great conversation.  It is especially interesting to me to get the German viewpoint about things.  They were children in the war, and left shortly thereafter, but have totally different views as to the situation in Germany.  Marion, who was younger at the time, of course, is adamant that noone really knew what was happening to the Jews at the time (although, when pressed, she acknowledged that she knew of two who had "disappeared").  Peter, on the other hand, was equally adamant that everyone knew (the country was dotted with "labour" camps), and knew that people were disappearing, but by that time, it was too late to do anything.

Any thoughts?

Speaking of which, a friend recently sent me a picture of the main synagogue in Berlin destroyed in the Kristalnacht, now 50 years ago.  It has been totally restored (although now, apparently with armed guards), and is glorious.  Try U-Tube, I bet you'll find it.  And yes, my next task is to try to learn to upload links to share with you.

That's enough for now, except to say I would love to see you guys in Palm Springs.  More anon.