I'm back, I was just busy

Well, what a difference a couple of weeks makes.  I am off the Entertainment Committee, it is quite a relief to NOT have the head of our committee arrive at our door wanting something else, done, written or approved.  It was a very interesting time, and indeed somebody else has come up with a new idea for me, a new task in our park, albeit a much easier one, not so ongoing or regular.

I did a class with a girl here in the park making a glass block such as you find in a fancy home's bathroom wall to allow light in, well we used a glass block from Michael's Craft store, filled it with mini lights, then wrapped it like a Christmas present with wired edge ribbon, decorated it with a big bow, and voila, a pretty light that makes a soft glow, and looks like an illuminated present.

I will try to post a photo of it here in the blog at the end of the page.

We had a wonderful jam at the home of our friend Bob G, there were several musicians there, Bob playing guitar and singing, his friend Keith doing the same, us playing the flutes sometimes with Bob strumming his guitar, Jim E playing his trombone, his wife Ruth playing her keyboard, and Terry on her drum, using the metal brushes she has.  It was lots of fun, and we had the most appreciative audience of park members in our outdoor audience.  After that we were invited to eat lasagna at another friend's house, Sandy and Harold.  We were 11, sitting outdoors on their patio under a perfect dark sky, laughing and enjoying the most mellow of moments together.  Magic.

We have had a couple of drum lessons at Annie's, it's called Health Rhythms, and you drum and learn how to drum with others, and express yourself.  There is also a guided meditation.  Right after that we have our flute lesson, which has been wonderful.  One week Annie said she had a surprise in the back garden, and it was our flute maker friend Nash, he was at Annie's making a 6 gourd set of 3 water drums for somebody.  It was fascinating to watch him as he hollowed out the gourds, bought from a place in Temecula, CA.
One gourd is the big bowl , which is processed so that it can hold water, and then another hollow gourd, smaller, is placed inside the bigger water holding gourd, on top of the water.  Then you play on the top gourd, it sounds wonderful.  Nash was planning to paint a design on the top gourd, I can't wait to see the finished product.

Our park held our AGM or Annual Board Meeting for all our owner members, and after that we had coffee and sweet rolls.  That night we held a 30th anniversary of the park dinner, we seated 190 plus folks for a spaghetti and salad bar dinner, with celebratory cake, it was lots of fun, and we as the Entertainment Committee put it on, as hosts, though the Board paid for the food.

Lary and I hosted a coffee morning one Thursday here, we over bought donuts, and had to kind of give them away after coffee finished, but at least we did our bit.  Always hard to know numbers for the coffee attendance.  And you order the donuts the night before coffee, then race into DHS in the morning to pick them up before the coffee meeting happens, usually Lary goes for the donuts in the car, and I make the coffee in the clubhouse.  It's fun, and we take turns signing up for the duty during our season here.

We attended a surprise birthday for our friend Jo Ann, but the only problem was that she and her hubbie were quite ill with flu or something, being good sports they arrived, but quickly left to go home, and the party carried on outside without them.  We had a very merry time, but felt badly that they were ill.

There was also a potluck dinner held outdoors for the Emerg. Preparedness committee, that was very successful, our leader is Linda, and they have a very nice enclosed patio where we all sat, bringing and sharing dishes of both appies and dinner things.  Yum yum and we got to know each other a bit better.

Pretty well the whole park helps with the Friday setup of our Rummage Sale, Thursday night the hall is filled with tables set out in the order that we have found works well, kind of a hollow rectangle, then Friday things are brought out of our sheds and organized and priced to sell.  That day we park members have a chance to buy things for an hour or so, then the hall is locked up til the following day, Saturday, when the Rummage Sale happens.

There is furniture and larger items outside, also live music and food like eggers in the morning and then burgers for workers and the public alike.  Quite a few folks from outside the park stayed and enjoyed the music and the burgers that we had for sale.  We made a couple thousand dollars for our park to use however they want, normally it's put back into kitchen equipment or the like.  It is a large undertaking, but is a quaint form of recycling, as often one unit donates things to the sale, and another unit finds the treasure, buys it, and then keeps it for another year, before donating it back to the sale for yet another year.  Amusing, as often it's "good used junque".  But you know, those quarter and fifty cents purchases all add up in the end.

One Monday evening Lary and I invited 3 couples of our friends in nearby parks, Katie and Grant, Georgette and Harold, Wendy and Dave.  We asked each couple to bring a dish, and we ate outside, in the warm afternoon/evening, it was very pleasant.  There isn't really enough space to seat 8 inside at our wee table, so we were lucky with the weather.

I have officially turned over my secretarial duties to Terry now, so I am off the Entertainment Committee.
Feels like a load off, though another park gentleman has asked me to maintain a list of sales and rentals for our park, which I will do.

I attended a gong meditation workshop at Annie's house, it was interesting.  The gong was made in Germany, it's called a symphonic gong, and the man plays it and you relax, and perhaps take a journey in your mind.  The sound was quite loud at times, so I was glad Lary wasn't there with his electronic ears, it might have been painful for him.  I felt as if I was too close to a jet engine, but others seem to have enjoyed it. I found it very relaxing and at the end of about 40 minutes I felt boneless and relaxed.

Our beautiful weather in the high 70s and low 80s has come to a temporary end, with high winds this Thursday and Friday.  Temps are down in the 60s with tons of sand everywhere, we all hope that we'll soar up in temps again, as it has been a very wind free winter to date, and such a pleasure indeed.

Georgette and I went shopping yesterday for more glass blocks, lights and ribbon, we'll both make a light again this coming Monday.

Wendy, Dave, Lary and I went out for dinner Friday night to Red Lobster, we had a 35 minute wait, the place is very popular indeed.  We drove as our car is a bit more comfy than their truck.  Nice meal, and a special for $29.95 per couple, 2 salads, 2 entrees, and 1 appy or dessert included.  $4.99 extra for the dessert if you wished.  Nice portion sizes, not too big.  Good food.

Bye for now, thanks for visiting the blog.

Whew, Film Festival is over for this year in Palm Springs

Wow and more wow, we saw some lovely films at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
However, just arriving one hour ahead, and standing in lineups for that time, didn't guarantee you an easy time always finding a seat once the films were loaded into the theaters.  It depended of course on the size of the theater, and the popularity of the film.

We loved the film Grazing the Sky by a young Mexican film maker who worked in the Cirque de Soleil for 3 years, and then took another 5 years producing the film.  It was just incredible, a very intimate look into the lives of some acrobats that are in the Cirque, and their trials and tribulations.  It was incredibly interesting and the photography was beyond description, just wonderfully super.

Next was Words and Pictures, with Clive Owen and Juliet Binoche, wow and more wow.  They are both teachers at an exclusive private school, he's an alcoholic disillusioned English teacher, and she is a very gifted artist and art teacher.  They have a bit of a battle of wills, that eventually ends with a school wide debate over which is more important, words or pictures.  It is incredibly interesting and very thought provoking, too.  She has rheumatoid arthritis, and is very crippled with it.  She is losing her capacity to paint, slowly but gradually she is losing her ability to do many things in her life.

More importantly it was shot totally in Vancouver, she lives and works in a studio that had to be somewhere along the Fraser River, and another interesting aside is that in fact Juliet Binoche painted every painting attributed to the art teacher herself.  Apparently we found out from the film maker that she also had her knuckes enlarged every day in makeup, prosthetic knuckes, she was very captivating indeed with the most incredible force field of energy, but which was being sapped away by her disease.

The film also touches quite a bit on bullying, as one of the female students is being bullied unmercifully by another male student.

It was truly uplifting, we sure hope it makes it to the main screen world, it was super.

Gloria was a Chilean film about a 40 something divorcee looking for love in bars and nightclubs, in fact, in all the wrong places, and the consequences of her actions due to her loneliness.  It was impressive but kind of sad too.  Well filmed and shot, it has a grand finale that I won't spoil if you are interested in seeing it.  She has 2 grown children and an ex husband who she seems to have been estranged from.

Living is Easy with Eyes Closed was a Spanish film, set in the time of 1966, and the era of the Beatles.  There is an English teacher teaching English using the Beatles songs in a Spanish school who idolizes John Lennon.  When he hears that Lennon is filming in Almeria he goes down there hoping to meet with Lennon.  Along the way he picks up 2 runaway teenagers who he relates to very well, being a teacher and basically a very kind person as well. 

It is a lovely slow paced but touching film based on a real ESL teacher who did indeed manage to meet with John Lennon on his filming location.  He convinced Lennon to include the words of his songs on his album inserts, which is fact.  His runaways both have quite different stories to tell, but he helps them both without being obvious about it at all.  It is quite quirky, also deals with bullying in the most amusing manner almost as an aside from the main plot.  We really enjoyed it, as it was once of those films you see, not totally riveting, but just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling after viewing it.

The final film we viewed was Love and Lemons, about a young girl who opens her own restaurant with another pair of chefs, using her parents life savings, and they nearly go bankrupt before she figures a way to change their look and menu, and create nearly an overnight success for them.

Her rivalry with a snotty French chef of much fame in the same city is absolutely hilarious, she worked for him very briefly, and his efforts to sabotage their new undertaking in the restaurant was a scream.  Another feel good faced paced love and culinary feast, tons of fun, and we hope also hits the big screen eventually, as it was so amusing and uplifting.

We're gearing up here for our annual Board Meeting, where pretty much all owners attend once a year, and they have an opportunity to vote and have a say on the management and daily operations of our park.  Then right after the meeting, we're serving coffee, tea, punch and sweet rolls, followed by a 30th anniversary (of the park) dinner open to all owners and renters here in the park.  It will be a spaghetti and meat sauce dinner, with garlic bread, and a large self serve salad bar, with a big cake for dessert afterwards. 

After that meeting I will have finished my 2 year term on the Entertainment Committee, but the following weekend we will have our big annual Rummage sale, park wide, and I will be working pretty well full tilt on making that a success, too.

Lary will start a two year term on the Board of Directors, who basically run and operate the infrastructure/ physical plant of our park, and make all the management decisions.  The physical plant is their area, and I wouldn't want to be involved in that, our park is 30 years old, and facing some natural maintenance and infrastructure issues.  It seems more a "guys department" to me, the only thing I would consider doing is being their secretary but I haven't been asked, so that is a relief to me.

That's it for now, thanks for visiting.

Fun film romp today, a bit more sombre one yesterday

Today we saw a film called Cupcakes, a frothy romp with 6 Israelis who sing a song to their friend and neighbor to cheer her up, then decide to take their simple, spontaneous song all the way to the Euro Song contest in Paris.  They have thrills, chills and spills along the way, reach Paris, and place in the contest.

Along the way the themes seem to be to be true to who you really are, the value of friendship, and to go for what you believe in, don't let yourself be tainted by other folks' impressions of what you should be.

One of the singers is gay, and very amusing, he sings in the contest in a tux jacket and white shirt, complemented by a pink tu tu and white sneakers.  They place, I won't spoil the results, but if you get a chance and it ever hits the main screen, you should see it for a feel good, fun romp, involving friends taking risks and doing what they enjoy, but being true to their own personalities and values.
Great flick indeed.  We both loved it, and the sound track is great too, some wonderful tracks of music.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was a much more serious and somber film, a documentary called the Venice Syndrome, and dealt with the fact that Venice is pretty well emptying out of all its young,
local people, leaving only a few thousand elderly folks living there.  The financial institutions and businesses have mostly departed, leaving kind of a Disneyesque shell of what it used to be.  The fresh food market is even thinking of leaving the area, most of the younger people have left long ago to go and seek their living elsewhere.  You see repeated scenes of folks moving out and leaving their houses.

One of the commentators was an elderly female writer, and another main one was a male architect, the architect spilled the beans that Venice has no sewer system at all, everything just empties out into the canals.  He said that the rents are super exorbitant, the buildings such as they are, are not being maintained, or very poorly maintained, and the people that own them are doing very little to no maintenance on them, in the climate and atmosphere that is very destructive by its nature.  The rents that are charged are in the ridiculous range, for apparently very sub standard accommodation.  The lack of quality maintenance that you see is pretty shocking, indeed.

Another thing is the huge cruise ships that come in and disgorge hordes of tourists, who aren't the empathic type of tourist looking for a quality experience, but the more superficial type of tourist who isn't aware that the shops are selling poor quality merchandise, which doesn't really reflect the older true values that were Venice of the past. It was very impressive, but quite dark in tone and color too.

Here at our park things are picking up as folks arrive back from their Christmas trips home, while others are just arriving for their season in the desert southlands.  We have both a Board of Directors meeting this month, combined with a 30th anniversary of our park dinner and dance, and then the following weekend on Saturday we have a huge Rummage sale that pretty well involves most of the park members.

We collect "good used 'junque'" all through the year, and then sell it in one massive burst of energy on a Saturday in late January, when the rest of the neighborhood is pretty well doing the same thing.

For the rummage sale there is a fury of home baking that happens in order to sell at the sale, some folks love to sell wares in the same department (area) as last year, in all it brings out the fun spirited in most of us, but is one helluva big sweat to put on.

At the rummage sale and even for the volunteers doing setup the day before we have snacks and burgers available, so you can imagine the logistics of getting it all planned, set up, and done the day of the sale.  It's January 25th this year, so if you're in the area, do drop in. 

Starts at 7:30 AM and goes til we have the sales activity drop off significantly, at which time the rest of the goodies are normally given to charity.  Much ado indeed, but a great annual fundraiser for our park.

That's it for today, and thanks for visiting.

Palm Springs International Film Festival has started

Yesterday Friday was our first film at the PSIFF, and we chose one made in Turkey, about a male singer whose career was on the downward slide, and his young female backup singer.  It was a very slow paced film, they went out of town on a longer gig, didn't get paid for it or their hotel stay, he hawked his guitar and car, and she fell in love with a local in the town they were performing in.
The film ends seeming to point to the fact that she would marry, and he would continue being lonely and a bit of an uncommunicative misfit.  Yozgat Blues was its name.

After our film we raced home, collected our flutes, and picked up our pals Katie and Grant from across the street at Caliente, and went to our world flute circle monthly get together, held at our flute teacher Annie's house.  She had invited a super flute maker, Nash, who is Mexican and now lives in the US, and makes lovely and somewhat unusual flutes.  Nash had had an accident and bashed up his face, making him look very startling, but he played many of his flutes, very gamely I thought.  Lary bought a lovely new wood flute from him, and it seems that a bamboo flute with "the whole octave" has come to live at our house also.  Seems that I acquired a new rattle of buffalo hide, with buffalo fur on the handle.  Sounds wonderful.

Today Saturday we went into town this afternoon for our second film, it was called The Grand Seduction, a small Newfoundland harbor village wants to attract a doctor for their tiny town, and then hopes to attract an oil company to build some kind of production plant there too, after they procure a permanent doctor.  The wee town lives solely on welfare, and is very down in spirits at the moment the film opens.

It is a fun spirited romp, with lots of amusing plot developments, along the lines of Waking Ned Devine, or the other movie that was something like "the man who walked up a hill and came down a mountain".  Gordon Pincent was wonderful, as was Mary Walsh, Cathy ..... and pretty nearly the whole cast of This Hour has 60 Minutes.  We enjoyed it thoroughly, though doubt it is Oscar material.

We'll spend most of this coming week seeing one or more films a day, we decided to see 10 in all.  Part of the fun of the PS Film Festival is trading film critiques and plot lines with others waiting in the lineups, it seems to be a very well organized and well mannered festival overall, listening to folks talk about what they have seen or will see is wonderful.  Also fun is to hear where they are from, and how many films they will see in the allotted 10 or 11 day time frame.  Additionally we get an emailed list every day of the films that are highly recommended, but by then we have already chosen our group of films that interest us.

It's very exciting to be here near a city that actually holds a film festival.  Our weather continues warm, dry and with very little wind.  Horray that.

New Year's Eve at the clubhouse

Since Christmas we celebrated Lary's birthday with a Happy Hour outside on our back patio, 2 couples invited over, and we had a bit of a music thing going on out there, which was fun. Flutes, which Carol has expressed an interest in.  I had a bunch of appies we had bought at Trader Joe's so that worked well, I doubt that anyone ate dinner afterwards, no need.

Once it got chilly we put down our windscreen/sunscreen and cranked up the patio heater, the days continue lovely and warm in the mid 70s, but the nights cool off pretty quickly now.

Our friends Katie and Grant have arrived from Oliver, BC and are camped across the road from us at Caliente Springs park, so we also visited them one evening, and had a long happy hour get together, tons of fun to visit together once more.  They have a travel trailer and will stay quite a while, so really looking forward to further visits together, we'll take them to a flute evening with us this Friday.

For New Year's our park held a prime rib dinner, with shrimp cocktails to start, Caesar salad and cheesecake to finish.  Dancing later to the duo of Remember When, perhaps one of their last gigs as they are to retire soon, they are super popular with the dancing crowd.

We decorated the clubhouse with New Years stuff Dec. 30th, then on Dec 31st were involved with quite a lot of the food prep, Lary and I made up 100 shrimp cocktails, and then enjoyed ourselves at the dinner with friends at the table, Carol and Dan, Rita and John, Helen and Russ, Randa and Raymond.  Several couples were waiters at the event, and our dinners were served to us, with our choice of how we wanted the meat cooked, a lovely change from our usual buffet style dinners.

All the waiters and waitresses were in black and white, the ladies had really cute black aprons with lacy trim.

We made it to New Year's Eve midnight, celebrated duly, and then fell into bed, as we had to rise and shine (?.....) at 9 AM for cleanup next morning.  I felt a bit sluggish today, then we realized that Wendy and Dave were cooking their Xmas turkey, and we were invited over there.  Their relatives Ann and Ron were visiting from Victoria, so we were 6 for dinner, Happy Hour was outside on their patio, but it was getting chilly as the sun went behind Mt San Jacinto just around 4 PM.  Yummy turkey and trimmings, thanks a lot Wendy and Dave.  Great to see Ann and Ron and have time to visit with everybody.

We have booked ourselves 10 movies at the Palm Springs International Film Festival starting Jan 3rd, should be very interesting, we have a real mixed bag of things to see.  There are over 450 screenings of 180 films, from over 59 countries, and we'll see "soup to nuts".  What fun to be living right in a film festival town.  Many, many varied categories to choose from, too.

The weather continues to be well above seasonal norms with temps during the daytime in the mid 70s, which is a real treat.  There seems to be no snow apparent on Mt San Jacinto as yet, or on the other local mountains, such a treat as so many other places are shivering in the wintry blasts.  Once that snow arrives on the tops of the local mountains, it gets really chilly down here on the valley floor.

Hamilton, Ontario where Lary's Mom and sister live is very chilly, with a really nasty cold this year for them all.  Even our friends from home are saying they wish they had come south this winter instead of staying home.

Bye for now.  Thanks for visiting our blog.

Merry Christmas, we ate outside on the patio tonight yeah team

Had a delicious dinner of turkey and all the traditional trimmings tonight, out on the patio behind our place, started eating around 4:30 or so, by 6 PM we put down the sunscreen/windscreen, and turned on the patio propane heater, but it was great.  Got very toasty, Lary and I were both wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts.  Wendy and Dave joined us, Wendy brought mashed potatoes ready to eat, which made a huge difference, and also she brought homemade cookies and homemade candy.
For Christmas dinner dessert we ate key lime pie, a nice light choice after turkey.

My birthday night we enjoyed dinner at Trilussa, it was lovely food and wine, great service, and we think great value for money on special occasions.  They are over on Hwy 111 in Cathedral City very close to the IMAX and Mary Pickford Theatre Complex.  Wendy and Dave joined us there, too.

Over the weekend we decided to go over to Mary Pickford Theatres, and see Saving Mr. Banks, with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson.  She was the author of Mary Poppins the book, and he wanted to make it into a movie.  She was British, actually Australian by birth, and was very awkward, in fact it took him 20 years to talk her into letting him make the movie with Dick Van Dyke in it, and we enjoyed the movie a lot.  The author had a lot of personal demons from her childhood and upbringing that coloured her view of life, and as Walt Disney Hanks had to work around them, which was not an easy job.

Another thing we did was search out a newish antique mall in Palm Springs, called Sunny Dunes Antique Mall, at 507 East Sunny Dunes Road, in the Warm Sands area of P.S.  We had a blast, I just couldn't resist a heavy cotton red green and white tablecloth, very Christmassy, and a few other nice finds also managed to come home with me.  Lary bought some things too, then we ate at a small Greek hole in the wall called Pita and Pizza, in a strip mall right over in that area too, we had a Greek appetizer platter for 2, with Tzatziki, hummus, pita, dolmades, spanakopita, cheese in phyllo, etc., it was just yummy, so glad we picked that choice.

Our back patio looks kind of nice, we have lots of small Christmas tins out there, some green garland, some candles, and lots of small metal sculptures of quail and an owl, one of my finds at the antique place was the word NOEL spelled out in brass letters that are meant to hold Christmas stockings.  Very cute.  And I got a clump of red Christmas bells that should sound festive hanging on a door handle.

Had a quick Christmas drink with Jo Ann and Bob here in the park today, it was a lovely warm day, well above their average temps for this time of year.  Hooray that.

I called my niece Gill in Vancouver tonight and spoke with her, Tristan, Sue, Heather.  It was great to chat a bit with each of them.

Thanks for visiting.

Coffee and donuts tomorrow

Had a nice dinner at Wendy and Dave's Sunday evening.  Wendy fed us a yummy chicken casserole, their house looks so pretty decorated for Christmas, although they didn't have their tree up yet.

Monday I helped cut up vegetables for Soup on Tuesday, I had to be there in the clubhouse at 8 AM, ouch.  But it went smoothly and quickly, as everyone knew what they had to do.  At 9:30 there was a Board Meeting for owners here in our park, Lary was introduced because he has decided to stand for the board, it will be a 2 year appointment for him.  My term on the Entertainment Committee is up at the same time as he starts, so that's good.  As I am fighting a cold, the rest of the day passed in a blur.

Tuesday I had to be back at the clubhouse at 10:30 AM to prepare for the soup luncheon that we were serving at noon, we set up the tables, cut up the fresh Costco bread, the soups were all on the boil, turkey, chicken and a seafood chowder.  We also set out dishes of butter, but the crew knows what to do, so we were through by 11ish, and I returned to the house.  I begged off serving the soups to our members starting at 11:45 so we could go to Chip's for a visit and lunch there. 

Lary had a present he had made for Chip, a wood burning plaque of a road runner, as there is one that visits Chip fairly regularly.  It even comes into his house at times, weird.  Chip has picked it up in a towel to take it outside, which is amazing, they have razor sharp beaks and can kill rattlers, they are so strong.  Chip has never been hurt by the big birds yet.

Our friend Chip had invited us over to his house for soup, so I had begged off serving soup at our clubhouse, and we raced off to Chip's place.  Apparently we were waaaaaay too early, but I had forgotten that he'd changed his mind a couple times about the exact time, and we arrived there much to his horror- very early. 

He was polite, we stayed and had a bit of a visit before Annie arrived.  We had yummy Mexican albondigas (meatball) soup with chips and cheddar cheese on it, plus heated tortillas with avocado salsa.  Then Chip announced that as it was my birthday soon, he'd made me something special, he arrived with a plate with a candle in a holder the middle of it, surrounded by Rocky Road and nut brittle candy.  Nice surprise for me, Chip makes tons of candy for presents for his friends, and it's so good.

Today Wednesday a friend of ours here in the park is building us some hand railings on our porch, so he did that this morning, and this afternoon we went over to a neighboring park to the cast party after the Renaissance play that we had performed 10 days or so ago.  We returned our costumes to the lady and said that we'd enjoyed ourselves, but didn't want to do a repeat performance next year, she seemed disappointed, but we have our own commitments, and the play rehearsals take up quite a bit of precious time.  We each took a silly present, and had an exchange, and then we could steal each other's presents, which was kind of fun.  We all took some kind of appie, and she gave us hot apple cider.

She wants to have a core of dedicated folks down here who want to do the play each year, and call themselves the Desert Edge players, but although we had fun, that's enough for us just this one year.

Tomorrow is coffee and donuts here in the morning, and in the evening we have asked Wendy and Dave to meet us and go out for dinner at a nice restaurant over on Hwy 111 by the Mary Pickford Theatre complex.  The restaurant is called Trilusa.  Looking forward to that; it was cloudy today and overcast a bit, with temps in the mid 70s, but we think it is cooling off, with cooler temps and wind in the immediate forecast, drat it.  Oh well, it's winter even in the desert.