Happiness is Sunshine & a Salt Water Pool

I got my happy on last week in southern California.

Palm Desert. A God-given arid, rocky outcropping that is naturally home to jackrabbits, coyote and roadrunners, decorated with the brazen blooms of cacti. The last 3 decades have transformed it into an irrigated tropical mecca crowded with society's golden-aged, PING-wielding elite. 

My mother and I traveled to see her parents' house in the Toscana golf club. Now, I never actually played any golf, as my driving and putting skills are so pathetic that I am tacitly banned from embarrassing myself and the members on the course. They showed us around their winter home and fed

us some of the most outstanding food. Most notably at their club Toscana's restaurant--Il Forno Trattoria--commanded by head chef Mark, who makes exquisite everything (Also, on food notes, Pacifica and Firecliff, both on El Paseo, make outstanding fish tacos and bread pudding, respectively. Don't miss it). 

As you might imagine, the carbon footprint of the area is vast. The favored method of transportation is, of course, the car. Big or small, convertible or no, they are all flashy and they are everywhere. Bentleys, Rolls-Royce, Cadillacs, Ferraris, and even an Excalibur--which I haven't laid eyes on since the late 80s. There is a greener alternative that is almost as popular: the golf cart. But these aren't your grandpa's golf carts. Royal and Shirley own a candy-apple red, hot-rod (yet eerily silent) golf cart with custom wheels. Signs everywhere admonish motorists to share the road with said carts as well as such mundane modes of transportation as the bicycle (PS: no one in CA wears a bike helmet). 

The thing that struck me as strangest was the speed. Grandpa plays 18 holes in 2 hours. Everyone down there is in a big, damn hurry.  And I don't understand why, since most folks are retired. But there they go, screaming down the arterial at 50 mph as though "their hair's on fire and their ass is catching" (I wish I could claim that phrase as my own, but alas, it belongs to Stephen King). If someone understands this phenomenon, by all means, enlighten the rest of us.

But to get down to the fun: Royal and Shirley have a beautiful (that's the understatement of the century) house. Her kitchen makes me swoon. The view from the pool is of the gorgeous black mountains, contrasting sharply with the blue sky and the perfectly green fairway. Their Airedale, Daisy, likes to "shop", that is, follow you into your room and root through your suitcase when your back is turned. She has a penchant for ladies' shoes--especially those bearing many straps and/or sparkly decor. 

Royal is a master mixologist, making for us what I have dubbed the Royal Margarita. Between the 3 of us, it contained 6 oz. of tequila (a special type that until now has been unknown to me), 3 oz. cointreau, homemade simple syrup and fresh squeezed lime (and you ain't had citrus 'til you had San Bernardino Valley citrus). It was tasty. Mom couldn't read anything after a glass and a half. Grammie started telling a very impassioned story, punctuated with a casual F-bomb here and there. I have never so much as heard her suggest that she even knew what the F-bomb was, and I gasped, "Grammie!" in shocked response. She looked at me and grabbed my arm and said, "Well, Linds! Tonight's my night!" And so it was.

In between meals, we milled about, mostly watching TV or sunning ourselves. Now that "Deadliest Catch" has resumed, we spent plenty of time rooting for the f/v Northwestern, as well as watching "Pitch Men" afterward (did Billy Mays grow up dreaming of being an infomercial star, or did he get fired from all his other jobs because he couldn't stop SHOUTING?), and Bill O'Reilly. "Pitch Men" would inevitably lead us to laugh about the Sham-Wow! And that became our theme for the trip: Whenever we were impressed by something, we added a -wow! to the end. Margarita-wow!, Claremont-wow!, and food-wow! Huh. That looks really dumb in print. 

Hmmm...do I feel a very Palm Desert Thanksgiving coming on?