![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Trip notes, odds-n-ends
Jun. 3rd, 2009 08:01 pmI'm forgetting details of last week's driving trip, so I'll just write a little on the highlights:
Sunday in Palm Springs we had a hectic party schedule. John is representing art photographers (whose subjects are muscley men, mostly), so he needed to attend several. The first one was at the house of a builder/developer which was huge and modern, though a little too large for gezellig. One thing I did like was the out-front "entertaining" kitchen, with the working (and very utilitarian -- everything on open shelves and racks for easy access) kitchen behind a wall.
I was told (by Paul, through John) that my usual clothes (athletic shorts, sandals) would not be good enough, so I was in plaid shorts (almost to the knee), a recent Paul purchase. As it turned out, all the attendees were muscle guys who immediately stripped down. Since we were leaving soon, we could not join them (and I didn't have a swimsuit anyway), so the rather interesting guys remained mostly a mystery. I did chat up one local trainer who gave me some interesting information on the local gyms and clientele. As usual, the Colt models and muscle guys were easy to talk to, so it was a shame we couldn't stick around.
The second party was in the neighborhood in Cathedral City where John and Mark had been renting, Montage. It was nice seeing Skip and Randy, and the hosts made a most excellent salmon grilled on a plank that I stuffed myself with.
The third party was at a huge house in Rancho Mirage where we'd gone to a Lambda Legal event last year. This was also a pool party, with some nudity. Ran into Paul's ex Mark and his partner Colin, which is always fun.
The rest of our days were more relaxed. We watched Milk on Blu-Ray one night -- since we'd never gotten around to seeing it down at the Castro, alas.
The gym (Golds, where we can go free on a travel pass) was interesting during the holiday, but the local crowd left on Tuesday was pretty tired. One odd event: the hip abductor machine, like many of them, was too wide when closed, leaving little range of motion. So as I usually do in that situation, I leaned down and used my forearms as additional spacers outside my legs. After a set or two I felt something weird in my abdomen -- like I had pulled a muscle. But not so painful; when I leaned back to try to stretch out the area, it became more obvious that I had what amounts to a charley horse (knotted muscle cramp) of an ab muscle next to my navel -- and it looked like a mouse moving under the surface of my skin. Yikes.
Paul helped massage it out a little, and it stopped being a problem in a few minutes, but I didn't try to continue with that machine.
Tuesday night we had a very pleasant candlelight dinner al fresco at Copley's ("located in the historic Cary Grant estate"!) to celebrate John's birthday. Mark and Colin told us about their upcoming Hawaii trip, and I was drunk. Sorry to anyone I may have texted inadvertently. Took a long call from David at the urinal in the bathroom, but oh well, it was important.
I'll continue with our trip to Las Vegas in the next post.
Some links:
The new Lexus HS 250h hybrid sedan.
Obama Aides' Mission to WaPo: FAIL!
Send your parents to India for better nursing home care.
Chrysler bankruptcy appeal - to Supreme Court?
Sunday in Palm Springs we had a hectic party schedule. John is representing art photographers (whose subjects are muscley men, mostly), so he needed to attend several. The first one was at the house of a builder/developer which was huge and modern, though a little too large for gezellig. One thing I did like was the out-front "entertaining" kitchen, with the working (and very utilitarian -- everything on open shelves and racks for easy access) kitchen behind a wall.
I was told (by Paul, through John) that my usual clothes (athletic shorts, sandals) would not be good enough, so I was in plaid shorts (almost to the knee), a recent Paul purchase. As it turned out, all the attendees were muscle guys who immediately stripped down. Since we were leaving soon, we could not join them (and I didn't have a swimsuit anyway), so the rather interesting guys remained mostly a mystery. I did chat up one local trainer who gave me some interesting information on the local gyms and clientele. As usual, the Colt models and muscle guys were easy to talk to, so it was a shame we couldn't stick around.
The second party was in the neighborhood in Cathedral City where John and Mark had been renting, Montage. It was nice seeing Skip and Randy, and the hosts made a most excellent salmon grilled on a plank that I stuffed myself with.
The third party was at a huge house in Rancho Mirage where we'd gone to a Lambda Legal event last year. This was also a pool party, with some nudity. Ran into Paul's ex Mark and his partner Colin, which is always fun.
The rest of our days were more relaxed. We watched Milk on Blu-Ray one night -- since we'd never gotten around to seeing it down at the Castro, alas.
The gym (Golds, where we can go free on a travel pass) was interesting during the holiday, but the local crowd left on Tuesday was pretty tired. One odd event: the hip abductor machine, like many of them, was too wide when closed, leaving little range of motion. So as I usually do in that situation, I leaned down and used my forearms as additional spacers outside my legs. After a set or two I felt something weird in my abdomen -- like I had pulled a muscle. But not so painful; when I leaned back to try to stretch out the area, it became more obvious that I had what amounts to a charley horse (knotted muscle cramp) of an ab muscle next to my navel -- and it looked like a mouse moving under the surface of my skin. Yikes.
Paul helped massage it out a little, and it stopped being a problem in a few minutes, but I didn't try to continue with that machine.
Tuesday night we had a very pleasant candlelight dinner al fresco at Copley's ("located in the historic Cary Grant estate"!) to celebrate John's birthday. Mark and Colin told us about their upcoming Hawaii trip, and I was drunk. Sorry to anyone I may have texted inadvertently. Took a long call from David at the urinal in the bathroom, but oh well, it was important.
I'll continue with our trip to Las Vegas in the next post.
Some links:
The new Lexus HS 250h hybrid sedan.
Obama Aides' Mission to WaPo: FAIL!
Send your parents to India for better nursing home care.
Chrysler bankruptcy appeal - to Supreme Court?
