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I woke up and checked. No, Santa had not found us in our new spot. We could only hope he had left our stuff in San Diego.

So I made the coffee and waited till everyone else got up. Chuck got up next and had coffee and then headed home. He had plans for dinner with some other friends.

We spent the day doing a great deal of nothing. We went by to see if Bongo Johnny's was open for breakfast or lunch but no one was around there or at Rainbow so we headed for Ralph's to get bread and mayo for leftover sandwiches. Yippee!

At 6:00 we had reservations at my most favorite restaurant in the desert - La Vallauris on Taquitz Canyon. This place is just class all the way. The waiters wear tuxes and the menu is always sophisticated. The Christmas Dinner menu was no exception.

Steve had King Crab legs with avocado and grapefruit as a starter and the New York steak with a bleu cheese reduction. I tasted it and it was really wonderful.

I had cured duck sliced with arrugula and pears with a vanilla dressing, followed by Lobster Raviolis and crab claws (shelled, of course) in a sauce reminiscent of a light bisque. Really delicate and delicious.

For dessert I had the Grande Marnier souffle and a glass of Port, and Steve had the Java Coffee Christmas Log. Needless to say we were sated when we left. It was a wonderful evening and the food was superb once again.

But the night was not to end. We ran home, changed into a bit more casual clothes and headed for the Rainbow. To our surprise Rudy De La Mor was playing and the room was full of revellers. He puts on a fun show and we enjoyed the shank of the evening with him.

You have to understand that the shank of the evening is no longer 2:00 AM. Our new shank is closer to 10:30 or 11:00 PM. Beauty sleep becomes ever so much more important with age.
Don't it guys!

Good night......

What a nice four days in the desert.

We left San Diego on Saturday night and made it to Palm Springs in time to unload the car, feed and walk Buster, and book it over to Hilde Hall's for dinner.

We were surprised to find not only Chuck and Hilde, but Joey and Bobby, friends of Hilde's that we have met several times. We had a drink and sat down to an amazing King Crab leg dinner. Wow. It was so delicious. Of course it was followed by more cocktails and conversation until I could hardly hold my head up. After all, I had worked a full day and we had driven over to PS and then dinner.

Sunday was very relaxing with just a ride around looking at model homes and mid-century furniture in galleries. Chuck knew some areas to show us that we had never been to before and we found a great open house.

Then we went to dinner at Citron restaurant at the Viceroy Hotel. It was a very wonderful meal and a kicky atmosphere. Everything was white. The service was good and the food was really nice. I would go there again.

Monday was spent on a search for some shoes for Tedd. We had inadvertantly left my dress shoes in San Diego, along with a few other things we needed. Oh well. That's the breaks. I finally found a pair that would do. It's surprising that no one carries size 7 or 71/2 men's shoe. And we went to probably 15 stores looking.

Later Chuck came over and we had Christmas Eve dinner. The entire Turkey dinner had been prepared by one of our La Jolla gourmet markets and brought to me by Mary Haag, one of my clients as my Christmas gift. Very thoughtful. Mary started giving me this present when Steve was recuperating from his heart surgery and it rally took a load of of me for Christmas dinner. the tradition has continued.

There was Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry relish, rolls and yams and apples cooked together. YUM. And a pumpkin pie too!All we had to do was heat it up and serve it. It was easy and delicious.

Chuck stayed the night with his doggie Bentley. A sweet dog, but Buster and Molly have yet to get used to him. It will happen in time.

Between last weekend and this we have managed to decorate the Palm Springs house for the holidays.

We have always had a 12 foot tree in our former house, and filled it to it's capacity with ornaments, so having only 8 foot ceilings made us rethink decorations. So we bought three trees. We have a 7 1/2 foot tree, a 5 1/2 foot tree and a 4 foot tree gathered together in the media living room. Again they are decorated to the the degree that they can support and they look like jewelry. A few other touches around the house, like a lime green tinsel tree with lime green lights and ornaments in the dining room, and we are finished.

Now we go home for the final run to the holidays. This week is a busy one at the salon. Everyone wants to look great, and that means long days and hard work for me. It will also help me pay the bills. Hurray! At the end is a reward - we get Saturday night through Wednesday in Palm Springs.

A nice break.

After work tonight we got cleaned up, put on some hip clothes and headed to Lucky Buck's hamburger joint for a fundraiser for the food bank. Rage magazine, Lucky Bucks and House.Boi were the sponsors.

The kicker was Hot Santa. We all were supposed to have our picture taken sitting on the lap of a 20 something cute guy in jeans and a Santa hat. Well, Okay... I felt like a letch but we were coerced and plopped down on either side of him for a pic.

Then we recovered witha cocktail and visited with Ari and Alex of House.boi and their friend Mike, and the former owner of Bongo Johnny's in Palm Springs. We met many other folks there and visited with House.Boi's model that we met at another event last week. Nice guy. Wears clothes well too.

We had a burger and another drink and headed home. Saturday is another big day and then on to Palm Springs.

Things have been busy but a finally slowing down a bit. We had to get the house ready for Mom's birthday weekend and that was last week. Man what a marathon.

Most of the current work has been done by Fidel and Chuck. Thank you boys. Because of them the house has gone through some major changes including the new bathroom, the remodeled bedroom and a color change throughout the whole house.

Few surfaces have not been changed.

We are now ready to pick the floor tile for the whole house. That will be a challenge to find something we like and at the same time something that we can afford. The catch!
We looked today. Hmmmm.

Back to Mom's birthday weekend.

On early Saturday we picked up Mom at her house and drove to Palm Springs. My sister Pam came over and brought my brother Rusty, down from Sacramento. With Mom there and Steve and I we had a full house. But - down to the wire - all the bathrooms were functional. (The last week we found out that the new water heater was not functioning right. Fidel got it working enough to get us through the weekend. We also found out that the long overdue part for the maroon toilet was not going to be here in time for the weekend. Well....I told Virgil, our realtor, to have the toilet ripped out and a new one put in at the seller's expense. It needed to be done NOW. .....and it was! Go figure. Thank you Virgil, Fidel and Chuck. They all played a part.)

After everyone got settled in, we headed for a late breakfast, and then to the Spa casino in town. It cost me $60 to win $59 but we all had a bit of fun.

Then we came back to get tready for cocktails at the house before dinner. Chuck joined us for a drink and a knosh and then we headed for the Tennis Club and Spencer's Restaurant.

Dinner was wonderful, from lobster soup and Chilean Sea Bass for me, salads, Pork Chops for at least four others and I think Rusty had a steak. Desserts were had, and coffees.

The piano player at Spencer's was wonderful, playing standards at a level you could hear but didn't overwhelm conversation. The service was wonderful. We enjoyed the experience.

After dinner we all went to Rainbow Cactus for the piano bar. Whoever was playing that night (I remember, but I didn't know him) was really wonderful and played a lot of Gershwin for Mom. At one point he handed her the microphone so she could sing to his music. She loved it!!!

Then home to rest for Sunday.

Sunday morning we got up, cleaned up and headed for breakfast early (9:00) as Pam and Rusty had to leave. Rus had to get back to Sacramento for work and he had ridden with Pam. We ended up at Bongo Johnny's with a table outside for a great breakfast. It's a comfortable place on Arena's in the heart of the gay neighborhood (and 6 blocks from our house!)

After breakfast and goodby to Pam and Rus, Steve and I took Mom for her first outing at College of the Desert Flea Market. For those of you who haven't been, it's a fun few hours going through booths and booths of new stuff. Clothes, jewelry, kitchen and gourmet stuff, junk, junk and more junk, some good art, some bad art, but all fun. Mom had a ball and found an estate jewelry piece that she couldn't resist. Happy birthday to her.

Then back to rest for the evening.

For dinner we went to Wang's In The Desert for chinese. The food was great. We had Walnut Shrimp and Mandarin Pork and Potstickers and some soup special that was delicious.

Then on to the Streetbar for Miss Fern!

Most of you have never heard of Miss Fern, but her real name is Mona Caywood and she is a wonderful chanteusse. But on Sunday ----Her alter ego comes out as Miss Fern! She has hair to the ceiling and leopard print and gold lamme and all mixed into an outfit that defies good taste. But she still sings great. She does songs like "The Spam Song" to the tune of "I Am What I Am, and "The Pussy Cat Song"' don't ask...But she is a lot of fun and a great finale for Mom's birthday weekend. I think we ran her ragged but she enjoyed herself.

But that was last weekend. This week we had no work to do. Just had to go look at tile.

That was odd.

But we got to have a few friends over for dinner. Mitch and Dave from Iowa and Palm Springs came over with friends of their Gus and Bob from Carson City and Palm Desert. Chuck came over too.

We found out that we have to have the oven calibrated as the lasagna was not as hot as I would have liked after twice as long as it was supposed to be in the oven, but the salad was wonderful and the lasagna was delicious even just warm.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening and we were glad to finally entertain in our new home.

Ahh. Palm Springs.