Author: Rudy

Read a bit in the morning. Sue called just about all the people she knows in the morning. After lunch Sue went to sit at the pool and read. It was only about 20 degrees today — but it felt warm when the sun came out from behind the clouds. I did computer work until around 2:30 when Sue came in. We hopped into the van and drove south down Highway 74 to the foot of the Art Smith Trail. Parked the van and went for a one hour hike. On the way home we stopped at Vons for some bread and picked up a DVD for tonight. Had barbecued bacon-wrapped steak and potatoes for supper. Watched a bit of TV. Then at 8pm we watched our movie, “Your Sister’s Sister”. We both liked it. A bit more TV and Sue went to bed. I watched Jon Stewart and Colbert, and then at around midnight I too went to bed. Here are photos from the hike.

First of all, it wasn’t really dreary. But it was partly cloudy all day. No rain. A bit on the cool side (about 20 degrees).

After sleeping in a bit (I missed most of Fareed Zakaria, which started at 7am) we had our morning coffee and watched our Sunday morning shows. No NFL today — well, there is the Pro Bowl tonight, but other than the fact that Koop and his family are at the game, I really have no interest in that. But Bob Costas was on Reliable Sources, so that was cool. French toast with fruit and peanut butter for breakfast.

After breakfast we got on our bikes and cycled the 2 miles to the big “College of the Desert Flea Market” just around the corner from our country club. Apparently it’s not as busy on Sunday as it is on Saturday. That was okay by us. It looked like it was about the same size as the Mesa market we’d visited a few times the past two winters. And it had mostly the same kind of stuff. Plus fruits and vegetables. Came home with a package of dates. That’s it. But it was a good thing to do — got us out into the fresh air and gave us a good overview of what it was all about.

We came home and had lunch. Then it was time to head out to Palm Springs — our first visit to that end of the valley. We’d booked (GolfNow.com) tee times at the Mesquite Golf Club for just after 1pm. The course is close to the Palm Springs Airport. Nice enough course. Long fairways, small greens, lots of open space, not too much water, not too busy. We got on just about as soon we arrived. Nobody behind us. Three guys ahead played at a good pace.

It was a bit cool, but when the sun peeked through the clouds it was actually very nice. We played for about 4 hours, and finished all 18 holes. When we were done we drove around a bit before heading home. Stopped to pick up some more St Pauli Girl from Albertson’s on the way.

Delicious leftovers for supper. Then we settled into our usual places and watched a bit of TV. The Pro Bowl. An interview with Barack and Hillary on 60Minutes. A bit of reading. A good evening, after a good afternoon, after a good morning.

And THAT’S how you make the most of a dreary day in the valley.

Bonus photos: Here are a few photos from Max’s second photo shoot (David Klassen, photographer).

It was wet outside when we woke up. Coffee. Sun came out. Sue had a call from Ingrid. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Sue called just about all the people she knows while I read the news on my computer. Tim and Alex and Max skyped. Brand new photos of Max — got them on Photostream. Very nice.

After lunch we doddled around a bit more — we’d now missed the big local flea market (it closes at 2). We decided to go for a ride anyway. Filled up gas in the van. Drove to a few of the local thrift stores — Sue was looking for more dishes. We ended up way out at Washington — and found what we needed at a dollar store. Back at home we were going to go for a walk — but decided to go cycling first — had to return my DVD so we cycled out to the Ralph’s on Country Club and back. And THEN we went for our walk. Cloudy again, cooling off. But it seems like it’s staying light outside a bit longer.

Sue made a great spicy shrimp and pasta supper. Then we sat in the living room and read. All night. Each of us with our iPads. TV on mute. LIstened to a couple of early Neil Young albums as I read about them in my Neil Young bio. Finally went to bed at 11:20. Oops! forgot to write my journal. Well, I could do it in the morning. No, I better do it now. Laptop, in bed, typing, typing, typing. Okay, gotta go — the ghost of MLK is visiting Barack on SNL.

It was raining this morning when we woke up. Sue hinted that it would be a good day for a hike. Thankfully, the rain was a bit more substantial today than yesterday, and that hike never materialized. That left the whole rainy day for me to sit at my computer and do some serious wordpress work. Fun for me. And Sue? She finally finished her Leonard Cohen biography. And so her ‘secret love affair’ with Leonard has intensified because of the book. And now she’s on to the next book.

At some point in the afternoon Sue took the van downtown and did a big grocery shop at Von’s. We were out of just about everything. She got home at around 5 and unpacked the groceries. Then we had to think about supper — where would we go on a Friday night? No reservations had been made, so most of the nearby restaurants were probably not an option. Well, why don’t we pick up a pizza and a movie and have a Friday night at home?  I checked the Redbox website for a movie — whoa! each time I found one that I thought might be good, it too was booked! Well, it’s getting late; we’d better get going. Plus, we need to go to ANOTHER grocery store because they have Sue’s favorite wine on sale. So that’s what we did.

We finally got back at quarter to nine, pizza and a case of wine and a DVD rental. After pizza we watched “Sherlock Holmes, something something”. All style, no plot. I fell asleep a couple of times. Sue played Scrabble on her ipad. Had ice cream for dessert just before midnight.

Cloudy morning. Showers, even. Sue couldn’t sit outside, although the rain didn’t really deter the golfers. Read a bit. Computed a bit. After lunch we went to the Palme d’Or theater for another in our list of Oscar-nominated movies. “Les Miserable”. It was LONG. And it brought tears to our eyes — because it was a sad movie. Emotionally sad for Sue, just awful sad for Rudy. I’d worked my way through the ALLCAPS of Film Crit Hulk‘s anti-Tom Hooper rant a while back and watching the movie I just couldn’t get over the bad cinematography. So, besides the fact that the two-and-a-half hour story was sung to us by actors in close-up, I also hated the music. Oh well, strike that off our list.

We returned our DVD rental and went home. Sue made (another) fantastic supper — my favorite, spaghetti and meat sauce. Then we watched Colbert and Daily Show reruns. Then we started tonight’s DVD feature, “Pitch Perfect”. We expected a ‘sappy’ movie, and that’s what we got. We interrupted the movie after an hour and watched a documentary about Costco. Then continued with the movie. Schlock. Dumb. Seriously? Elementary school humour. A complete insult — to grade twos. Maybe late night TV will restore my faith in the medium.

After breakfast we went to the clubhouse and got driving range passes for the day. Then off to the driving range at around 11. Hit a lot of balls — and made some progress with my iron shots.

After lunch we thought we might go back to the range a bit later. Sue read, I computed. Ended up NOT going back to the driving range. Skyped with Ed Peters a bit. Then at around 4:30 Sue and I went for a walk around the golf course cart path. While Sue made supper I returned our DVD rental and picked up a new one at Albertsons.

After supper we watched the Daily Show and Colbert. Then our movie, “To Rome with Love”, directed by and starring Woody Allen. It was terrible, but we managed to stay awake for the whole thing. Sue went to bed after the movie. I worked on a website until 1.

Not much to say about today. Just another average beautiful day in Palm Desert. Had breakfast out on the patio. Sue did more laundry. I worked on two new websites. Sue sat outside (on the golf course) reading her big Leonard Cohen book. She visited with the neighbour lady a bit.

After lunch Sue went to the pool. Shortly after 3 we got on our bikes and went for a ride. It got cloudy and it cooled off a bit (still t-shirt weather though). Sue brought her sweatpants to Lulu Lemon down on El Paseo to get them hemmed. We cycled around the area, looking for a fruit and vegetable market. Found a few, though none that Sue really liked.

Then we cycled up Monterey to our Albertsons to pick up the movie I had booked. Got back home at around 5. Sue started supper. I barbecued chicken. We had our usual spectacularly lovely meal. Although we dragged our camera along on our bike ride today, we didn’t take any photos — so this will have to do for the ‘photo of the day’.

After watching the Daily Show and Colbert, we watched our movie, “The Paperboy”, for which Nicole Kidman was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe. The movie was not great. Sue thought it was scary, and blamed it for keeping her up most of the night. After the movie we watched Frontline — which was great, except I kept falling asleep. Finally went to bed, turned on the bedroom TV to see who was on Charlie Rose — and it was James Taylor! (I had just been trying some of his online guitar lessons a couple of days ago.) It was a great interview and I had no trouble staying awake for that. He talked a lot about writing songs, including where he was when he wrote some of his most well-known tunes. And he talked about how America is about its people, and not about its corporations. It made me like JT even more than I already did.

And then, after such a busy day! it was off to la-la land, at least for Rudy

Today’s a big holiday in the states. Martin Luther King Day. You’d think that a special holiday like that would warrant a special breakfast. Bacon and eggs. French toast. A warmed up Egg-McMuffin. Nope. Half a slice of toast with peanut butter and jam spread RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE so there’s NO PLACE to hold it. And coffee. And a bit of fruit. And ‘C’mon Rudy, let’s eat it out on the patio — it’s SO nice outside’. So that was how this auspicious day began.

Sue did a load or two of laundry. I worked on some new projects on the computer. A few phone calls. Then lunch.

After lunch we drove out across the I-10 to Indio — we’d booked a tee time for 1:12. Small municipal course. Long par 3s. Walking. Hot outside. Course wasn’t great. Sue rates our chances of going back there at 4 out of 10. But we finished 18 holes, and we got in our walk.

After golf we drove back to our house. Time for a cool libation. Sue gave me a haircut. We showered and Sue barbecued hotdogs while I talke to my parents on the phone.

After supper we drove to Cathedral City, to the ‘cheap theatre’, for ‘Senior’s Monday’. All shows $1.25. We saw “Hitchcock”, and we both liked it. Helen Mirren was nominated for a Golden Globe. Anthony Hopkins was also very good in it, and Scarlett Johansson was her gorgeous usual self.

After the movie we came home and watched a bit of TV and had chocolate and diet sodas for night snack. And that was MLK Day 2013.

Okay, that title is a bit misleading. The weather here today was absolutely gorgeous. Again. But after skyping with Tim and Alex and talking to Ed and Val for a bit we learned that it is frighteningly cold at home. And just because the weather here is fantastic doesn’t mean I spent any time at all outside today. Nope. There was Playoff Football on TV today. And another very fine Sunday of football it was.
So, after quite a few pleas from my faithful readers, I’m back on the blog. It’s been a week since my last confession. I’m not sure I can list all my sins, but I may just mention a few highlights.

On Monday last we went for a hike in the Santa Rosa Mountains — about 3 miles, relatively easy hike. Cool weather but not too bad in the sunshine.

We also went to see a few movies. We’ve now seen almost all the major category nominees for the Oscars — still have “Les Mis” and “Django” and “Amour” to see. Maybe in the coming week.
We also went golfing a couple more times.

We had a lovely time at Shadow Mountain — not far from our place. It’s an older course just a block or two off El Paseo Drive, right in the heart of Palm Desert. We had fun (code for ‘we played crappy but we had a good time’).

On Friday we went for another bike ride. Slowly we’re getting a sense of what is where. It really is beautiful here, although it seems a bit artificial: every block is just another beautiful country club, with lots of plantings and palm trees and sprinklers and golf courses and shiny cars parked next to walled-in gated communities.

Then a little after 4pm we went down to El Paseo Drive and walked along the street watching the parade of cool old restored show cars cruising up and down the street. Lots of very nice cars, and a fun way to spend the end of a very warm day, watching people, watching old rich guys take their pride and joy out of the garage for a couple of hours and show off a bit.

Then yesterday we went golfing again. Again, it was a course not far from us, and we found it on the ‘golfnow’ website — a pretty good deal for the two of us. And again we had a very enjoyable afternoon. The course was like a postcard. Our game was still not that good, but it’s hard to get too upset when you consider that you are spending an afternoon riding around some incredible scenery in the warm sunshine while people at home are shovelling snow. Anyway, we got the pictures to prove it.

And finally, that brings me to today. Got up at 7 to watch Fareed — but he’s not on! All CNN is going to show today is a bunch of talking heads going on about Obama’s inauguration — which isn’t ‘officially’ happening until tomorrow! Oh well, we watched CBS Sunday Morning and only paused a bit for crepes with yogurt and blueberries and mangoes — made for us by Miss Crepe Suzette. Skyped with Tim and Alex for a bit. Then I settled in for my afternoon of football. Two games. First one saw the 49ers upset the Atlanta Falcons. Yes! In the second game the Ravens surprised the Patriots. YES YES! So it will be the two teams coached by the Harbaugh brothers in the Superbowl two weeks from today.

And I took the opportunity to practice a bit of guitar during the commercial breaks. Just like at home. Sue spent the afternoon lounging at the pool — reading her Leonard Cohen biography. We had leftover Chinese for supper. Tried to Skype with Ed and Val a bit but had a bad connection. Sue called her brother Al (in Phoenix) to ask about Scott’s engagement announcement, but only left a message. Then got an email from Al to confirm the news. We watched our movie rental after supper (“The Words”, it was okay). And then a little more TV before bedtime. Tomorrow is MLK Day here, a holiday. YES! Finally a ‘day off’!

Another cool day. Well, actually by mid-morning there were golfers on the course just outside our kitchen window — in shirt sleeves, looking like they were enjoying another day in paradise. And no wind either. So maybe 14 degrees is cold for Californians, but it sure beats the -20 they got back home.
Watched Fareed and Reliable Sources on CNN in the morning. Then french toast with mangos and bananas and fresh coffee for breakfast. At 10am the first of 2 divisional NFL games began. I was cheering for Seattle, and they ‘almost’ won, but not quite. So in the end the Atlanta Falcons won. Oh well, the next game was a foregone conclusion. Patriots are just too good.
And all during the games Sue was busy phoning and skyping and emailing, but not reading. And I was working on a bunch of pretty good photos of Baby Max which are in my PhotoStream. Here’s a sample:

When the last game of the weekend finally came to an end, and quickly before it got dark here (which it does at around 5:30), we bundled up and went for a walk — the usual route, around the course, in reverse. And yes, it was pretty cold outside. But the view was good. See, here’s how it looked:

So you can see how nice the sunset looks over the Santa Rosa mountains. And you can see how nice and green the fairways look. And you can see how quickly it gets dark here.
When we got back home I fired up the barbecue and Sue zapped some bacon, and we had whistle dogs for supper while we watched the Golden Globes on TV. They were over at 8pm. “Argo” won the Best Picture award (Surprise!). We followed that up with “60 Minutes”, and a second glass of wine. Another fine Sunday. Can’t wait for the next one!