Microblog

My walk today took me to three food stores: Kramarczuk’s for Ukrainian sausage for Sausage Saturday, Surdyk’s deli for bread, and Lunds & Byerly’s for supermarket stuff. In Palm Springs we prepared most of our meals, but cooking in our own kitchen is always the best.

Economy, aisle, right behind First, a favorite seat with excess leg room. A lovely flight attendant gave me a rather generous pour of the wine they’re serving up front. This is a treat, I’m grateful, and just mildly numb.

Nightfall after a surprisingly good tip-the-fridge dinner. Tomorrow evening we’ll be home.

While Dwight jogged, I wandered around the Palm Springs “mini financial district” with its listed mid-century bank buildings. This monument to mammon is influenced by Le Corbusier’s UNESCO-World-Heritage-listed chapel at Ronchamp, France.

Watched the sun set over San Jacinto from our balcony. The area in the foreground looks like jungle, but it’s residential. An ordinance prevents buildings from overlooking neighbors’ swimming pools.

Complex Surfaces: Man and Disk; carbon fiber, automotive paint, Dwight; Palm Springs Art Museum. Elsewhere little kids interacted with art, giggling uncontrollably at breasts in a painting. Some adults walked, talked, oblivious to their surroundings.

Paid 50 cents senior fare to ride a city bus to Desert Hot Springs on the other side of Coachella Valley. Walked through a land of strip malls. This honors a childhood tradition: my Aunt and I would ride a bus to the end of the line to see what was there; usually not much.

Crossed the road in the steps of people who bring our community together. Actually crossed many roads, grateful my errant knee felt good after 7,000 steps.

Today I’m reading about the opening up of Japan to the world from 1853 to 1873: Western gunboat diplomacy, the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, the beginning of the Meiji era, a time of rapid change and modernization. This period keeps popping up on my Japan travels, it’s interesting.

With my wings (or, more precisely, a knee) clipped on this year’s snowbird trip, planned next winter’s trip. Reservations opened up today for our outbound travel day: used SkyMiles, Seattle layover (much cheaper than nonstop), exit row aisle seats on an otherwise empty seat map.

Climbed above Palm Springs through a desert that had become a meadow. Sprained a knee, leading to an excruciating descent and a knee brace at Eisenhower Urgent Care. Rest is advised for a week, which is a bit like flying Delta One; Dwight reminded me he’s here for my safety.

We’re both listless couch-dwellers as our colds work their way through. Created a pointless adventure to get me off the couch: did some online research, found an early Liberace house, a 10-minute city bus ride, found the house undergoing a remodel, walked back, returned to the couch.

On my neighborhood walk, found another Liberace house. For some reason this one made me think of a funeral parlor. Over the years he owned four homes in Palm Springs.

On my morning walk past bars open to the sidewalk, people were getting a head start on St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

A stream bed had come to life, cutting short our short walk. Recent rains have made any trail that crosses an arroyo (a normally dry creek) suspect. We backtracked and drove back into town to share a grilled cheese sandwich washed down with IPA.

When you’re staying in a desert, you don’t expect to look out the window and see a rainbow. But there it was this morning.