Finally, some pool days.....

The new year has been good, but quiet.  I am back to full workout routine at the gym, and have added a zumba class for variety.  But - horrors - it is a zumba class for seniors.  Well, I am 69. I love the music, and the hour goes quickly with the music.  But I never was a jumper, and it is hard on my old joints.  So, seniors it is; even without jumping, it is a good workout, and we have lots if fun.

And, as an added bonus, Thursday at the Mizell Senior Center they give out free fruits and vegetables.  Not just the grapefruits and oranges and mandarins and lemons that are everywhere here, but other mis-shapen but otherwise fine stuff like beets and zucchini and squash and pears.  And who doesn't like free?

What else?  Bridge, of course, four days a week, with four different people, two different locations.  It is addictive, I tell you, addictive.  Oh, well. everyone has to have a hobby....

Movies?  Just one, but a good one.  The Big Short.  I was perfectly prepared to dislike it - I read the book by Michael Lewis (I have read all his books, in fact, and am quite the devoted fan) and could not imagine how they could make a movie out of it.  But they did, and it was fabulous.  A little sad, though, on any number of levels.  First, when Davie and I were working on the Safeway buyout in 1986, he said to me:  This stuff is going to come back and bit them in the ass - noone knows what's in these securities.  He was  right, of course - a little early, but right.  Unfortunately, it bit the wrong people in the ass.  So it was sad that way, and, of course, because I didn't have Davie to talk to about it.  And sad also because it is happening again.  Or should I say still?

Friend Laurel and I went to the Metropolitan Opera in the Movies on Saturday.  They were doing Bizet's Pearl Fishers, the first time it has been put on at the Met for - literally - a hundred years.  They have put it on in relatively recent memory at Santa Fe and - I want to say, Seattle? - but I have needless to say never seen it (although I have heard it, at least the most famous arias).  It was a great production, with great singers (whatever you say about the unrest in Russia and the Ukraine, the result is that New York is awash in great Russian singers).  Anyway, the encore is the day after tomorrow - see it if you can.

Another movie later today, The Danish Girl, about which I will report next time.

Friend (and now neighbor) Mariah arrived in Palm Springs last Monday for her annual two month stay.  I picked her up from the airport and we went for our by now traditional brunch at Sherman's Delicatessen.  (Mariah does like her pastrami - I settle for beet borsht, boiled potato and sourcream on the side)  No extra charge for snarly middle-aged waitresses.

Mariah arrived with her friend Pennie, also from Seattle, and we just "hung out" for four days, including a whirlwind tour of the local thrift shops.  I haven't done that yet this season, and it is always more fun to do that in a gaggle - we enable each other, but at those prices, oh, well, who cares.

Mariah was the one to introduce me to local friends Art and Wally.  Art has been having a tough time in the health department (I won't even begin to tell you, it is too depressing), but thought he would be up for a dinner at John Henry's, a local favourite.

There's Mariah (who never met a camera who didn't like her) and Art, who doesn't look too bad, for an old sick guy..

...and partner Wally (who is a lot better looking than this picture)...

... and yours truly and Penny (no, not the ones on the wall)

We had a great time, but in my opinion, we don't need to go there again.  It was terribly noisy, the food was just mediocre, ditto the service.  Everyone raves about it....oh, well.

And yes, a couple of pool days.  It has been chillier than usual this year.  (I took pictures of the snow covered mountains and the steam coming off the pool, but they didn't turn out for some reason...) But yesterday and today, I braved the elements, blew up my float, and walked the fifty steps to the pool.  Pool and hot tub are both heated (Mariah, Pennie and I have been going to the hot tub every night before bed), but even still, I didn't last too long.  But it is coming, ladies and gentlemen, wait for it....

Finally, the bedside reading pile.  The library produced a mixed bag this time, two new ones by McColl Smith, one from the First Ladies Detective agency series, and one from The Philosphers Club series (The Woman who Walked in Sunshine and The Novel Habits of Happiness respectively), both great.  I also read my first Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowlings of Harry Potter fame), Career of Evil, a good thriller.  Another one I found in my stash at home, The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett.  And am currently reading Pigs in Heaven, an old Barbara Kingsolver offering, also very good if you like her stuff.  I won't bore you with the rejects - that's what's great about the library, you can just give them back, no guilt.

I'm heading off to Vancouver in a few days, but will be busy busy busy.  Will write when I get back..

Happy 2016

I am getting better at this computer thing.  Or, scary thought, I am just beginning to think like a programmer.  In short, on this first day of the new year, I managed to download the missing pictures from the last two posts - check them out!  I also managed to figure out how to download and file pictures so I can use my laptop (as opposed to the ole, tired notebook that I have been using) for these posts.  Not quite there on editing the pictures - luckily, there was only one.  Maybe I will have it down by the next time.

In any event, as a token of my resolve to stay in better touch with everyone, here we are.

Friend Peter came to visit from San Francisco on December 22.  He is an easy guest, and, in fact, we lazed about most of the time.  Contrary to my resolve (the 74 cent Canadian is now 70 cents), we did go out to eat a lot, some old friends (Sherman's Deli, Las Tablitas, The Parker), and one new one, 849.

It is the newest hot (and expensive) restaurant, but this time the reputation is well deserved.  Food, atmosphere and service were all excellent.  And it is fun to share those kinds of outings with Peter, who knows - and likes - his food.

Christmas was a quiet affair.  Neighbor Michael brought me bunches and bunches of flowers, neighbors circulated with cards and gifts, and my (limited) Christmas decorations - some greenery and candles, cards (yes, live cards, that came in the mail - or were at the very least, delivered to my mailbox) - made the place look festive.  Peter cooked the very (un) traditional osso bucco and risotto, and we toasted the season with a nice bottle of wine.  Perfect.

Otherwise, our outings were to Costco (a place where Peter, generally speaking, never goes), Jenson''s (a more upscale grocery store where I don't usually shop, but which is a lovely shopping experience), a self-guided tour of the modernism houses for which Palm Springs is so famous), and a walk on El Paseo, Palm Springs' answer to Rodeo Drive, where, surprisingly enough, I had never taken Peter before.

We left the Annenberg Estate (couldn't get reservations), the guided Modernism Tour (ditto), and the tram (Peter was willing to overcome his height issues, but only if there was snow on the ground, and there wasn't) for next year.

Otherwise, it has been quiet.  Peter left on the 28th, and I am back to bridge three or four times a week.  Only two books to report:  Jonathan Franzen's Purity (thumbs down - I know I don't like his stuff, and I don't know why I keep reading it), and an Ian Ranking mystery I hadn't yet read.  I am a fan of Rankin's, but this is the second book in recent memory based on random violence, mayhem and murder by young men, and I don't mean Arab men either.  It is too depressing.  Oh, and Peter brought me an armful of old New Yorkers, which I am enjoying plowing through.

Some things to look forward to - Bruce Springsteen concert in March, with Hank; opera in Houston (part of the ongoing Ring cycle) with Peter; a new Ring with Peter in Washington, D.C. in May; and Adele (yes, we scored tickets, but I would have had to mortgage my first born, if I had a first born, to get them) in Vancouver in July, with Hank.  Not to mention all that National Theater Live and Metropolitan Opera Live in HD.  No classes in the winter (I am going back to Vancouver to work in late January for three weeks, so the timing was off), but I will be back to learning stuff in the spring.

Some people clean their houses in anticipation of the new year.  Those of you who know me know that would not be my style.  I do do a few things, though.  All outstanding bills get paid, old "systems" (phone, internet, etc.) reviewed and changed (to save money if possible), and, generally, the organization of my life set so there are no unhappy surprises, at least to the extent that I am in control of same.  I feel that is the least I can do in honour of Davie, that is, take care of myself.

And one resolution this year.  I am trying to develop the milk of human kindness.  It doesn't run naturally in my veins, so I will try to remind myself that everyone has a back story, that it is not all about me, and that all I have to offer is the ability, on occasion, to make life a little nicer for people whose lives touch mine.  So that is what I will try to do.

For you all, I wish a healthy, happy and prosperous new year, and may all your drama be on the stage.

Talk to you again soon.