Today Sunday we had a pretty lazy morning, and then went and had lunch with our friend Yvette from Victoria. She lives in Sun City Palm Desert, a Del Webb development, she rents a room in a house from another lady. Then she showed us around the complex, it is a huge one at over 5,000 homes, and they have the most incredible facilities you can imagine.
It's kind of like a country club for mature folks, quite a high end feeling with 2 - 18 hole courses on site. Their monthly dues aren't very high, about $250 per month, and activity fees are very low. The place has 3 separate clubhouses, which we toured. A lovely development, we toured through some Open Houses, but they were way more than we would like to spend, though very appealing.
Saturday morning I took myself out to a couple of nearby garage sales in the RV parks, it's a nice way of seeing inside the parks themselves. I bought some costume jewellry earrings, and I bought 2 silver plate spoons made into medallions for your neck, they are very unique and attractive in a neckline.
After that Dave, Wendy and I went up to Cabot's Pueblo Museum here in Desert Hot Springs, once again the Mexican potters from Mata Ortiz, a village in Chihuahua are here showing their handmade and exquisitely painted pottery. The pots are totally built by hand, then fired over wood fires, inside a container. 45 minutes to fire a pot, then a bit more time for it to cool down from 1400 degrees of the fire, and the decoration is what is so incredible. The walls of the pots are also very thin. The clay comes from right there near the village.
The painting is done by hand, the brushes are made with hair from a baby's head, very fine soft bristles. As a result the detail is very beautiful and unique. One out of every 5 pots break while being fired. But now the shards are being made into jewellry set in silver too, another clever idea. The pots can be bright black, very highly burnished, or else with lovely colors, it's the intricate fine hand painting, often geometric designs, that is so captivating.
Saturday evening there was a dinner and dance here at our park, it was called a Spaghetti Western, and was lots of fun. It's our second to last dance of the year down here. There was music from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly movie playing on the CD player when we came in to the hall, to set the mood.
The theme was Western and there were lots of Clint Eastwood posters up all around the clubhouse, with ropes, boots, lassoes, etc. hanging on the wall. One of the main chefs Mel was wearing a big Mexican sombrero. Cute decorations, too. Lary was the sheriff who seated everyone, and nobody was able to reserve their seats in advance, so he was busy seating everyone as they arrived. We were seated with Phil and Rita, Joann and Bob, another Jo and Bob, us, Betty, and Raymond. Nice folks.
We had spaghetti with meat sauce and meatballs on it, caesar salad to start, garlic bread, and spumoni ice cream to finish off the meal. Yummy, my favourite is the meat balls part. Not sure if I have ever said so, but our dinners here are only $8 per person, and that usually includes paid entertainment to dance to.
Then we danced to the music of Remember When, they are so good, a man and a woman, they play whatever you request, and are so nice and friendly, everybody danced a lot, the band played non stop from about 7 PM til 10 PM. Nice evening.
Friday night we went to our usual Coachella Valley flute circle. We took our neighbour Terry, and we all had a good time, and got to play quite a bit, too, as it wasn't very crowded that evening. I played my Anasazi flute, though not very well, at least it had a chance to get played. Annie and I played a duet, on 2 DeRuby flutes, which was nice. I was trying out Annie's new electronic moyo drum and Lary played his flute. It was OK. Terry hadn't ever met Annie, so it was great to introduce them to each other.
Thursday Lary and I had our flute lesson with Annie, and it was super, she helped us work on things that are challenging for us, and was teaching us to listen more to each other, and create harmonic sounds. I bought her new Moyo drum book that she has just written, but no moyo drum for me as yet. They have such a pretty soft sound, you play them with rubber mallets, or else your fingers, or soft rag mallets.
They are basically propane bottles, new of course, that have had musical keys cut into their top surface, so that they make pretty soft sounds, not unlike the steel drums of the Caribbean. They come in a variety of keys and colors, too. The electric one is brand new, only 4 in the world so far. Annie is pretty thrilled to have one of them. I find it a bit of a challenge to play them, each key is different, so I don't know which key to choose if I want to buy one for myself.
Wednesday Wendy and Dave came for chili dinner here, the men had carved together that afternoon, and Wendy and I had visited together in her trailer. They are back at Catalina Spa at the moment, til the 12th of March.
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