MLK weekend

Monday is Martin Luther King day and our thoughts always go back to that day, 4.31am 1994 when the Northridge earthquake hit us in North Hollywood. For those who havn't experienced a major earthquake, you don't want to. It really is frightening. We survived. Obviously!!!!!

January has started off really well and we have a full hotel this weekend although you wouldn't know it by the number of cars outside! At least 2 of our guests don't have cars so it seems we have 2 rooms empty. We don't!!! Not the greatest weather but the pool is warm, the spa is hot and the steam room is, well, steaming if you get my drift!!!!!!

Looking forward to the year ahead but not looking forward to doing the taxes, yet again. What a crazy system here in the US.
Jim, if you read this, the aloes are starting to sprout their flower spikes and should be in full bloom when you arrive!!! Aloes AND pomegranate martinis! Yee Haaah

New Year's Eve

Because we're a couple of boring old farts these days, we were in bed by our usual time ie shortly after 10pm!! We opened a bottle of bubbly at 4pm to toast the New Year in London, we watched the ball drop in New York at 9pm and had a toast for the east coast and that was about it. I hope everybody watched the Pasadena Rose Bowl Parade New Years Day? What glorious weather we had for that and are still having!!! Our guests had all made their own arrangements for the evening so you can guess; we didn't see anybody early Monday!

Our usual bevy of lovely guests from all over the place. I was sorry to have missed John and Bill from Fresno. We didn't have our annual Apple Tini this year. Visitors in from California (of course), some regulars, some new. Houston TX, Stanwood WA, Kimberling City MO, Austin TX, NANCY(!) KY, New York NY, Goodyear AZ,Pheonix AZ, Washington DC and how about Bourbonnais, IL not forgetting our friends from Winnipeg, Canada. Wow, the New Year is off to a good start.

We had a visit from Tony and John down from their high desert estate and Gino, Dennis, AJ, Peter and Erich dropped by. We love you all. Looking forward to February and March, our two busiest months and welcoming Jim back to his 2nd home! I'll have the Pom Tini waiting!!!!

Happy New Year

I know, I know, it's been a while and I have been berated from all angles for not keeping up!
December is always a quiet time of year following Gay Pride, Leather Pride and Thanksgiving. That makes it a perfect time to get away, usually Stuart and I get away for at least a night or two, either Vegas, Riverside (!) or we were contemplating LA but decided I needed to go to England and spend the first Christmas for 20 years with my family. I flew out December 17th and arrived back December 29th, just in time for the New Year celebrations!

Whilst I was in England I went with my mum and sister to a fox-hunt meet which is always very colourful. Although it is llegal to hunt and kill foxes, the posh folks on their horses still love to go clattering around the countryside. They now have eagles which are supposed to flush out the rabbits and wildlife for the hounds to tear to pieces and if a fox gets in the way, oh well, too bad!!!

The village where the meet took place is called Stilton and is where Stilton cheese was first sold in the village pub called the Bell

The story goes that the landlady of the Bell was the sister of the manufacturer of Stilton Cheese and sold it in the pub. The pub was an old coaching inn and a regular stop to change horses. The cheese was (and still is) made in a small town called Melton Mowbray, also famous for it's Pork Pies!!! Yes, how interesting I hear you say!

Brrrrrrrrrrr. It's cold in Palm Springs!

Actually, right now at 2.20pm its 54F (12C). Not cold for a lot of people out there in the frozen north/east but definately cold for us more warm bloodied creatures!!! High winds last night, dropped today but more winds promised for overnight tonight. In Los Angeles, last night they had the worst winds for 70 years!!!!! Certainly not weather for lazing around the pool.

Our poor guests!!! This is the kind of day I usually recommend visiting the museum using free tickets given to us by the Chamber of Commerce.

PSSST!!!!

We are hosting our very first PSSST pool party this afternoon, 12-4pm. What is PSSST I hear you ask? Well, if you must know, Palm Springs Social Sun Tanners. A  naked men's club that has been going for years and years. Not a very rowdy group,  Unfortunately the sun disappeared behind the mountain at 3.15 so everyone scattered before 4pm! No pictures!

Thanksgiving comes early!

We decided to have our Thanksgiving last Saturday instead of the traditional last Thursday in November. Most of the people we wanted to invite were either going to be away or working so we had Dennis, AJ, Peter and friend Craig,  Don and Lou (2 recent arrivals from San Francisco), Stuart and myself made eight. We had invited "Paul at the Gate" but he didn't show up. Instead of cooking the traditional turkey, we had two boneless turkey breasts . Delicious. Stuart prepared the turkey and gravy not to mention the oyster dressing and I made the cranberry relish We had shrimp cocktail and calves liver pate as appetisers (I made the shrimp cocktail/sauce), roasted winter vegetables,( carrots, parsnips, fennel and butternut squash) together with pommes anna. For dessert, Ina Gartens Rum Raisin Tiramisu and her recipe for Eaton Mess, all washed down with lashings of wine followed by Port and Stilton!, Yummo! Oh, we had asked our lovely guests from Denver to join us for dessert, which they did. Lovely indeed!!!

I don't know what we will be doing on the day. Too late now to book a restaurant but, hey ho, its an American holiday, not a British one. Wait a minute ...in that case,  why were we doing all the work??? Mmmm. Have to rethink for next year!!!

Leather Pride

It wasn't very good weather over the Leather Pride weekend November 11th-13th. It poured with rain most of Saturday. Even though we were full,  we had nobody sitting around the pool. Having said that, it was a great week/weekend with our visitors from Australia and Canada helping out with the festivities!!! (and from what I saw, helping out with international relations, if you know what I mean, nudge, nudge!!!).

Palm Springs Mr. Leather competion was held at the Palm Springs Convention Center for the second year running. This year it was held in the main entrance which is very big but does nothing for the acoustics. I don't know what the staff (particularly the young girls working the bars) thought of all these queens in leather chaps and jocks. Must've given them quite a shock or at least something to gossip about.

We were given an award and went onto the stage to accept it to a great round of applause and cheers (hopefully not jeers!). A very nice acrylic trophy thanking us for our support over the years (and our financial contributions I might add). Very nice, thank you. Dave Rhodes from the Leather Journal  took our photo. We'll have to wait and see whether it hits the streets this week. Actually Dave stayed with us for 3 nights over the weekend. Hope he gives us a nice plug! Check out the Leather Journal for pictures.

Oh, by the way, Mr. Tool Shed won the competion. Congrats!!!