esrosedotblog

I have been reluctant to say what the weather is doing here.

It has seemed much wetter than we are used to in the long term drought.

I am happy to read this morning in the LATimes that I am right. We have had more rain.

After six years of drought, this is the winter weather we're 'supposed to be getting,' meteorologists say

One of the biggest signs here is that the snow is now accumulating on the mountains. For the last few years they have become barren and bleak.

I have not had to water my small patio garden for a while. Natural watering has been enough.

Good for us.

Labels: Palm Springs, snow, weather

The thing about gay marriage is the difference between approving of it and actually doing it.

We were early adopters of all the California gay marriage initiatives and even moved to a place where the percentage of gay marriage is very high.

Up to now there has been no data to support this contention but now there is. Or at least a good stab at the matter through the filing of joint tax returns.

The Most Detailed Map of Gay Marriage in America

That dark orange splotch at the bottom of California is our area of the State. Palm Springs and surrounds. See the chart below the map at the link.

As a percentage we top all but the largest urban enclaves of gay men and women.

We are not running for first prize in this. But we can be proud that we put our actions where are beliefs are.

One of the abiding disappointments of the gay marriage movement is that more couples did not take steps to get married at the time. But that is changing. The momentum is there now and we can expect a lot more matrimony between gay couples.

There was a lot of argument about whether gay marriage was "needed". After all, gay men coupled and stayed with each other for many years.

Many families had its "uncles" who lived with "a friend". Room mates. We were asked at the beginning if we were "room mates".

We have always answered that with a definite "no, we are lovers". Then "partners". Now husbands.

For those who think it doesn't matter, just try it. Or ask any gay couple how it felt to tie the knot. You will get a loud affirmative. It changed everything. In a good way. We were joined and joined society. The whole reason for marriage in the first place. Even the cave men knew it.

Labels: gay marriage, Palm Springs

I suppose this is old news for readers of this blog.

But this article and the photos with it are really really good.

Palm Springs From Above

It is almost as good as the ride itself.

We have a rise of 12,000 feet in the mountains that nudge up against our beautiful city.

A lot of hikers, in the old days, venture up part of the way. Never to the top.

The easier, softer way is the tram. But some do go up the deep valley of Chino Canyon.

They say there is no equivalent to this in the US. You would have to go to Switzerland where the cars were built.

After awhile, like anything else, a trip to the top is something done for visitors more than oneself.

But, this inspires me to give it a try again. In the "winter" there would be snow and that is certainly something worth the trip.

This photo is at night. Maybe that would be a good thing to do if they are open then. I actually doubt it but it is worth a look.

Labels: Palm Springs

Well, it is a dry heat.

121 degrees: Palm Springs breaks record — and it could get hotter

Marcus and I just went out to pee, him not me, and it was hot hot.

The kind of searing hot that actually feels like an oven going down my gullet.

I actually like it. Not on a continuing basis but it is "cleansing" somehow.

Not in the sense of taking a shower. More the opposite.

The humidity is 7% which means that I would not sweat. The cooling is quite immediate.

But dehydration looms just around the corner.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

And don't drive out into the desert at all without gallons of water for the car and the riders. Actually, just don't ride out there.

A breakdown could kill you. Me.

We have had a relatively cool spring and early summer. But if this is to be the norm, all that will fade into memory.

Labels: Palm Springs

We do not get snow very often but we do get sand.

I gave up going to the gym this morning as we had 40-50 mile and hour wind gusts and blowing sand and debris. Branches, other shit.

A front was moving through and nothing was going to stop it from raising hell.

Marcus and I went out in it and he had a combination freak and peak experience. The freak part was the harshness and non-direction of the wind hitting him. The peak was the excitement. He ran in fits and starts testing it all out. And clearly enjoying himself.

By the time I had to go out for a meeting it had settled down. A lot.

Now it is just a breezy beautiful day.

A fringe benefit of it all is that we have snow in the mountains even though we got no rain here. Still a drought.

We are in a rain shadow, hence the desert. All our rain, what little there is for California now, is up there. But it is very pretty.

I don't think it will last very long but for now it is great to look at.

Labels: mountains, Palm Springs, snow, weather

There are snow caps back on the mountains today.

It got cold last night.

And I have a cold, not much, enough to be apparent.

Actually the cooler weather is good for the head cold. Summer colds are the worst.

In any case these are temporary. It is not all that unusual to see snow up there in May.

It is a nice touch. Before the heat starts.

This photo is actually from Rancho Mirage or Palm Desert. Our house would be right around the corner to the left in the next valley.

Labels: Palm Springs, weather

The city is very peaceful this weekend.

That is because they are all at The Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival in Indio.

Fortunately they are way down there and not anywhere near up here although all our hotels are filled with Coachella guests.

I don't know much about it. It is a world that passed by me. Or I passed by it. I know about or have heard of exactly two of the acts before. And only by reputation.

I am glad they are doing it. It is good for the economy. But I can't help but think that it may not be very good for the desert.

Or, what the hell. The desert is pretty barren. It isn't as though anything was disturbed for the fest to happen. Just wildlife, the ecology and the neighbors.

Curmudgeon.

The desert is still considered a dump by some.

The evidence for that is strewn along the highways and even in the fields.

It was always thus.

Of course, I am doing my part. Grassing over a part of it and using up the water we do not have. I sit on the condo board. We will be turning off the spigots soon.

But I digress.

Let's have some music and keep the hotels going. By all means.

They chose a good time incidentally. This is the prime time of the year. Temperatures and conditions. No rain. No clouds. There will be a lot of sunburns though.

They are considering going to January but I am not sure that is a good idea. It can get cold and there are the winter rains. But they won't ask me, huh?

Labels: coachella valley, desert, music, Palm Springs

The drought in California is a serious problem.

We can see it just around the corner.

Fortunately the condo complex has a minimum of grassy area but it is still enough to use up more than our share of water.

I suspect that the monthly meeting will have more suggestions for action including turning some areas over to sand and gravel. Desert.

It is surprising how much this costs initially.

One would think that a dump truck and a visit to the outer desert for some rocks would do the trick. But the labor to do this is intensive. Of course, the upkeep is pretty simple once the installation is complete.

That is, if you are thorough about layering black poly under the rocks. Surprises lie for those who do not. The heat and the protection provide a great place for weeds to prosper.

This is, of course, no real hardship and must be done.

The real problem here is the over 100 golf courses. They are on their way out with the grass. Some have already converted extensively to desert.

I only mention this because golf is an industry here. A huge one. A year round haven for the compulsive weekly and daily golfer. And then the ancillary businesses. Food, lodging, retail.

Life in the oasis. But it is drying up and that will have to be dealt with first.

Here is an old photo. There was no snow on the mountains this year. None.

Labels: California, drought, Palm Springs

Not much blogging when there are real people really visiting us here in town.

One of my daughters has been here for a week and will go back to colder Massachusetts tomorrow morning.

She has had great weather here and should be warmed up enough to last another month or whatever it takes until there is a New England Spring.

We have been having a good time and will take a little time to settle in to being normal.

Last week a grandson and his partner were here. Palm Springs has a way of attracting folks in the winter time.

That is how we found the desert in the first place.

Florida was fine but humid. The Virgin Islands were paradise but depended on living in a compound to avoid the crime and interracial issues.

Out here, there are sure enough problems to go around but the edges are rounded off by the great weather and the warmth. And that is to say nothing about the scenery, the climbing possibilities and all the rest of it.

It is a long distance for Easterners to travel but we try to make it worth their while.

After tomorrow, there will likely be a long "dry" period as far as visitors are concerned.

I am not planning a back east trip this year. I had a good time last July and I could repeat it but I don't feel moved in that direction. At least not now.

Labels: Palm Springs, visitors

We made the New York Times today.

In Mecca of Modernism, a New Pack of Devotees

Some magical combination of the climate, the beautiful surroundings (a huge mountain with the largest escarpment in the US) and just general "tone" converge on Palm Springs. Our town.

We came here partly for this reason. It is just a pleasure to be in the midst of this.

Even our condos have an architectural name behind them, a local, Don Wexler.

It is fun to drive around and name the names both of the owners and the architects.

I personally do not pay a lot of attention to this but am happy to have a husband who does. I am more in tune with the natural things and get fussed when the buildings interfere. But few of them do. Unlike many other destinations the natural beauty here dominates and the architectural scale enhances rather than detracts.

The photo is one I just took out of dozens in the Google image file for Palm Springs Modernism.

You might want to make your own survey.

Labels: Palm Springs

Marcus and I just returned from a wet afternoon walk.

It has been raining lightly all day.

You may know that the water situation in California is dire. This is a small break in the pattern but we are grateful nonetheless.

Marcus is a desert dog so while rain is familiar it is not a regular thing in his life.

He was happy to go one round of the complex and head for home where his other Dad waited with towels and a happy rubdown.

Me?

I just got to take my wet jacket off and hang it up while they were making a game of "come in from the rain".

Some guys have all the fun.

Rain is always welcome in the desert although our first year they overdid it. Very wet. And cold.

It was the year that everyone came out here from the East to see where we had ended up. I remember worrying our way through that. But then as it turns out, there have been many sunny years and the record is clear. Just like the sky.

Labels: Palm Springs, weather

When the Obamas visited the Valley the last time, the rumors began.

Now, a news item. Deemed as "not accurate" by the White House spokesman.

White House Denies Rumors Obama Buying Rancho Mirage Home

Of course it is being denied. No one wants word to go out about buying a new house. Particularly someone as rare and awesome as the Obama family.

It would not be our first President by any means. Eisenhower played golf and had a home here. Gerald Ford.

It is a good place to go because there are so many already famous people here. The "star factor" fades in the desert. Good manners are routine. Gawkers are dispensed with quickly through social disapproval. "Leave them alone".

I would say it is ideal for them for a lot of reasons. Not least of all, the golf. 124 courses. A horrendous drain on the eco system but there they are. Green grass and all. Some are happily "natural" but we know there is no such thing as a natural golf course.

I hope it is true that they will live here. I will not go to see them. I will not gawk. I am like the rest of the people here. Happy to have all kinds of folks and more than happy to leave others alone no matter what their star power.

Labels: Obamas, Palm Springs

It is July and the condo complex is deserted.

Just John and me and a few others. The big horn sheep. And not many of them anymore.

There is a permanent population of about half the normal level. A considerable number of the properties are part time to begin with. People come for a month or two and then lease it out for the rest of the season to "tourists". Well, not actually. In our condos they are limited to thirty day minimum leases. There are violators but not enough to cause a fuss.

Then there are the full timers who, like John and me, take some time away in cooler climes.

We are doing more of this in 2014 than we have before. I would normally go to San Diego for five days and will do that in August. And, I went to London, Boston and Toronto just this past week. John goes to Italy but he is going in September for three weeks. A bit post summer that, but still hot. A get-away.

We decided when we first came here permanently that we would not be two place people. We had tried that with summers in Provincetown and the rest of the year in Boston. Weirdly unmoored. We just gave it up and never did buy a place there which is good as the real estate cycle on the Cape is a horrendous roller coaster.

Now, here. Hot. Dry. A dry heat. Cliche but true. We do not go out at noon and stand in the sun but it is usually good to have the place open in the morning and then close about 11AM. Open again when we go to bed if we are lucky but probably not until morning. My morning. Three AM.

So, we are holding down the fort. There will be no condo board meetings until September but a few of us are here for, at least, moral support of the professional managers. I will review the monthly finances. (We are ahead for the year but not too far ahead to piss people off. By the end of the Fiscal there should be no balance. We are tracking pretty well at this point).

Today and for the next several days, it is below a hundred. Unless the sun comes out. Partly cloudy. Maybe some showers end of day.

And deserted.

It is a desert after all.

Labels: heat, Palm Springs, summer

I know it is boring.

I am home and on the family hearth and all. What the hell.

In this day and age, with everyone else running all around, with the world changing every minute?

Imagine how it feels to have gone thousands of miles and back in just over a week and to have so many fine things to keep in my heart. Then, home.

The big thing for me today was to get up and have my yogurt and fruit and grainy cereal breakfast then go to the super market for the Friday shopping and then lie down for the morning nap. Home, sweet home.

Hey, I did get up at 4 AM but that is a bit late for me on the usual basis. It happens that jet lag helped me drop right into my normal schedule here.

No staying in the house that Mick Jagger lived in, no bedroom window looking down on the Thames, boats, water, joggers. No dining al fresco in the suburbs of Plymouth County, no talking the talk at an out of town Meeting (as here, when you are a visitor, you are red meat to lead and speak, not the same old mashed potatoes warmed over).

No visit with one of my life's best friends with the inevitable walk through Toronto to see new and wonderful sights still left on his list of notable places I should see. I know there are more for next time.

No sitting in a tubular box car with strangers and strained conversation flying at 35,000 feet.

I did have a fine ride back with a woman who loaned me her blanket (I was fucking freezing, so desertized) and we had a nice talk about nothing much. Companionship without a lot of blather. The best kind.

Not one delay.

Not one serious encounter with the border police. I was thoroughly rumbled for having a tooth paste tube which was way too big. It is technically liquid. The fucker took it. And something else too just to show me. And a bit of a lecture which one must endure with a smile. Faint.

I am good at the straight face, "yessir" attitude that gets one by these things but the TSA is a formidable group of commissars in the making and I want nothing to do with them anytime soon.

The Brits could show the Americans something about beneficent bureaucratism.

Give a Yank a little power and he is all over himself with what we like to think are Prussian ways.

But that was all coming home.

Going over was lovely.

I had first met with family in Scituate MA where the high point was a cookout with every available kid and some grandkids attending. Even the far flung Australian resident was in town!

Not a lot of time to sit and bobble the grandchildren on my knee but they are all too grown up for that and I am not a knee man.

They are well and I am very proud of each and every one. They all have that look in their eye that tells me they are on the beam.

What have I left out here? A lot probably.

My friend Dennis who is just new to retirement. Only a few months. Boy did I have things to tell him about this life. He is starting well though. I asked what his plan was and he said "to develop a plan" and in the meantime enjoy the freedom of not working in the world of publishing where he spent so many years. Business side which, believe me, ain't arty. Hard as nails those publishing people.

This is a severely disorganized account of my trip. It was glorious. And it is over. And the last words off the plane in Palm Springs with the gorgeous mountains and beautiful plain are "that is the last time I am doing this". I had a great time and I never, ever have to do it again.

Well, no one forced me to do this. I wanted to do it and I loved doing it and I enjoyed every minute of it (really) and I never want to do it again, thank you.

My husband was out front of the airport in the Volvo convertible, lurking just off the premises. When I got to the lobby I called him, he was there in a minute or two and I was away, away back home.

My god, what a wonderful place to live.

And it was hot and it was dry and it was just at sunset.

Home.

Labels: family, Palm Springs, travel

Ant season is upon us.

For most of the year we are insect free. No flies. No mosquitoes, ever. Nothing of the creepy crawly type.

I suppose there would be roaches inside if we were not clean but there are none of those either.

What we have are Argentinian Ants.

They are small and come in multitudes. They invade in a line. Outside you can see ¼ to ½ inch bands of them industriously moving from one place to another. Almost endless.

Inside, they send scouts who find a smudge or spill, any cup or glass not rinsed, any food source at all.

Once the scout reports back, the long black line advances to the target. It is done with pheromones. See the video below.

There is only one remedy. Johnson and Johnson's Raid.

We will use a large can during the summer.

I do not like the idea of bug poison in the kitchen but I don't like ants either. A hard choice.

So I go for the Raid and then wipe it up. The first shot kills the scouts and the line as far as I can spray. Then I wipe it up and let the small residual be a prophylactic against further invasion.

This doesn't work very well because they almost always find an alternative route.

By the end of the season, I will have neutralized every invasion route. But by then it will be the fall and they will retreat to wherever they go for the 6 months of cooler weather.

It is not a big deal but big enough to get vexed every season and a bit surprised when we get attacked.

Labels: condo, nature, Palm Springs, wildlife

I try to avoid weather posts because for at least 6 months out of the year we are so much better than those cold places up north and back east.

It is like gloating. Not pretty.

But it is worth noting that this year, our hot is not as hot as the average. It should be 104 high each day about now. It has not reached that on many days.

If you go outside right now, at 2:48 PM, you will feel heat. But it won't knock you down.

I have to admit that I am leaving the desert to be cool for the first time this summer.

I would be visiting Boston, London and Toronto sometime soon anyway but I chose July. We went to Big Bear last week and it was in the 70s. But we didn't stay there.

I will do my annual stay in San Diego mid August.

Then I am here for the long haul.

John is going to Sicily a week and a half after I return so a lot of the time in the haul will be alone.

Then when he gets back we look into the dog picture.

Labels: Palm Springs, weather

Palm Springs is getting warmer by the year. It pretty much demonstrates what The Sixth Extinction, see below, is talking about.

The average temperature has risen. The area had had average temperatures 3.4 degrees hotter and average nighttime lows 6 degrees warmer in the last 20 years.

Joshua Trees Losing Ground to Global Warming

It seems weird that a desert plant would not like more desert like conditions, but the joshua tree, an almost totally local plant species, is not happy.

We have been here for 16 of those 20 years and I can't say I have noticed this.

Hot is hot and relatively hotter temperatures would have to be hotly hotter to be on my radar.

Right now, I welcome the heat. We knew what we were getting into when we moved here. We had come out to stay here for several weeks at a time in the torrid summer.

One nice thing about the heat is that, oddly, a lot of people here don't like it. This is particularly true, of course, with the snowbirds who flee at the first hit on the 90 degree scale.

But it is also true of many "locals" who are here more or less for the full year.

Many people get a small place up on the mountain at Idyllwild to sit out the heat. That is a considerable hardship in my view. There are limited amenities there and so they all have to trek down the windy roads to get here. 35 miles per hour max.

There is also Big Bear, across the 10 and up the mountain. We are going there for a visit at the end of the month to check it out. There is a lake, Big Bear. The only nearby water.

Then I will be going back east in July and return to San Diego in August. So I shouldn't be too dismissive of those who make a more explicit escape.

The heat, when it is on, cooks. It gets inside me. It is visceral, literally. A nice feeling in many ways but one that I can only take for an hour or two. Then into the air.

It beats hurricane season in Florida or humidity in the same place. Our humid days are laughably mild compared to locations in other parts of the country. Mostly because it is so hot, the comfort index is pretty hard to smash in the desert. But you have to take it hot to realize it.

Labels: desert, global warming, Palm Springs

OUR POPULATION

While talking about the crowd at the mall, ours is going away.

This morning, back from the store, some neighbors packing up to go back to Oregon.

The snowbirds are on the run.

The weather is just getting good but there are 90 degree days here and there and they freak at that.

It is OK.

There will be more shade trees to park under, easier traffic and just plain less goofy driving.

They say that, each year, more of them stay through the summer.

More businesses are staying open.

But there are some who just shut their doors until the birds come back.

In our condo complex, silence reins. It is already pretty quiet.

Labels: Palm Springs

COLDER NICER

Beautiful weather here and cold.

Near freezing every night for quite some time. A new storm due tonight and tomorrow with a lot of snow on the mountains. "Must have chains".

But the days are glorious. We open up at about 10AM as the sun warms the courtyard then button up again by 3-ish.

There has been frost here and there. Dead leaves.

This is where people who are in Florida scoff and cavil about the weather here as opposed to there.

Yep. Where they have rain many days in the winter and summer. We wait until their humid hot summer to scoff back.

Most people visiting the city are not here for the weather.

The Palm Springs Film Festival is going on. Oh, International. Gotta put that in.p>Hollywood stars and a red carpet.

I used to be a regular and then gave it up when it got heavily promotional and went all Hollywood.

The "international" part is still there but you won't find a lot of breaking films. That would be for Sundance which happens only a few weeks from now.

The crowds are now a lot like cattle drives all going back and forth in shuttle buses. Most of the local theaters are devoted to the Fest and seats are hard to come by.

And so on.

It is good for the city though. A lotta bucks being spent. Some of the Festival is right up the street from us and there will be cars parked out on the street when we go for a walk. That is about the most we will see of it. They disappear into the hotels most of the time otherwise.

Labels: films, Palm Springs, weather

FIFTEEN

We arrived in Palm Springs this day in 1997.

It was hot. It is hot. We came on this date purposely to start hot and it was a great decision as we acclimated to the hot first and foremost. We had done the same when we scouted the city out 4 or 5 years before. We came in late May and stayed in a small resort. Pretended that we lived here. I did work. We ran around and did shopping and stuff. Stayed two weeks.

Hot.

We took over a week to get here. Planned to arrive the 9th but we got a call from the moving company (a small company run by Israelis--they were great) that they were ahead of schedule so we cancelled Yellowstone and dropped down to PS through Ogden UT, Salt Lake City UT and didn't stop for tourism at all.

The house had been bought 9 months earlier and we continued the lease of the people who were renting.

We evicted them in May and we made a trip to buy essential furniture which we did not move. A living room suite, the bed. Shelving. Some other stuff. So we didn't have to do it all the first day.

Everything worked perfectly.

And to get the house ready.

In many ways it seems like yesterday. In others, like a century ago.

We love that house until we didn't and then moved where we are now, a condo two years ago.

We have never considered moving on from PS and it is hard to imagine leaving this condo. Feet first. But I said that about the house.

As for the city, the mountains, the wild desert. Perfect.

Labels: Palm Springs