The silence is thundering in my ears. I wake at 4 a.m. and really miss the light breathing next to me. Emily has returned home after a whirlwind week's visit.
Deb has been doing a fantastic job of distracting me with pickle ball. I have to admit, I missed playing it a lot and it brings back happy memories with LeeAnne.
Onto the real reason for writing to you: yet again, I have been a sloth and have not sent out any Christmas nor Hanukkah cards. This, however, is my wishing you happy holidays and Merry Christmas. I hope you all know that these blogs are my way of having a conversation with you. In fact, I am delighted when someone writes back!
Yes, it's that time of year. Emily and I are very thankful that Robert drove his parents (Lorne and Elaine) and us to see the Wild Lights at the Living Desert last Friday night.
We were delighted to see that this year they had lit the front of the giraffes' area so we could see them very well. In the past, we could only see shadows. Two of the youngsters got frisky and were playing tag for a bit. It's fun to watch them run. They are so graceful and you have to wonder how it is that they do not stumble.
Robert took his job of herding us in the right direction very seriously. I guess that's when he figured out how distracted I become with colored lights and animals.
The train setup just keeps growning and growing! It's maintained by volunteers; you can see one on the top right with a Santa hat. People are encouraged to buy a billboard (sorry, there's not one in the picture) so there were some that said "Happy Birthday to So and So" and others were from a Grandma naming the grandchildren. Of course, local businesses made it a 'real' billboard advertising their optometry shop and others.
It's all in your perspective, isn't it? This is standing at the trains looking at the tunnel of lights, which is really big! If you look at the people in the far right, you can see what I mean. The Santa at the top right was larger than life and animated. He swung at the golf ball.
This is at the beginning before I put my fuzzy hat on. It was quite chilly in the 50s. Elaine is Canadian so no hat was necessary for her.
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And now we come to my favorite -- the Christmas Red Picture. Every year I like to get a picture with us wearing red. I was thrilled that Paul decided to join us! Of course, as photographer, that made it doubly difficult for him since his phone had only a 10 second timer.
He had a couple of shots with him in mid run to the couch (I kind of liked the action shots) which he discarded.
The PLAID photo was next and it tooks a couple of tries to get us all together and smiling after putting on the pj's. At this point, Mom is REALLY laughing because once he was invited onto the couch, Pork Chop lunged at Mom and was covering her face with kisses. (Grammy is his favorite person.) Emily is holding him still as you can see. The look on his face is, "What the heck are we doing now?"
This is our Christmas card to you.
It's fun having Pork Chop around, but he can be exhausting because he's SO enthusiastic. His personality is akin to Will Ferrell playing Elf when he yells, 'Saaaanta!!!'
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We went to Mom's WOW (Widows or Widowers) Christmas party.
Thank You, Eric, for taking the picture!
That design is all "diamonds" and I have a stripe of those on each pant leg. It's my new Palm Springs Bling. The background is opposite Mom's front door. The previous owners had commissioned a wonderful trompe l'oeil artist. (I had to look up how to spell trompe l'oeil and I had only forgotten two e's. Now I'm wondering if that apostrophe is correct. Sigh.)
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Speaking of new, I just found out somebody has hacked my credit card. Grrrr ... I had a half dozen of unauthorized charges all with made up company names from "Vancouver CA." I'm awaiting a new card with a new number. It's a rotten feeling knowing someone has willfully stolen from you.
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Here's my obligatory 'making you jealous' shot. We still haven't been allowed to eat any of these oranges. The owner likes to make sure he doles them out. The tangelos across the way are delish and the lemons are great. It's amazing to live in Paradise.
Below are the tangelos. I have no idea why they have an outie belly button.
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Pork Chop took us to Boozehounds (where dogs bring their people). We knew there was going to be a (first time) holiday market with local vendors, but the Drag Queen performances were a surprise.
All of the women 'sang' rousing holiday songs, giving quite a vigorous performance.
Look at those high heels!!
Deb hesitated in putting the dollar into her bra.
This Lady was the most athletic, doing splits while leaping into the air and forward rolls.
She was the MC
In the Atrium
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The other night, Deb made us a wonderful concoction called an egg nog martini. She used nog flavored almond milk, amoretto, and vanilla vodka. I think that was it. It was delicious!
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As they say, that's all I got. I'm wishing you health, peace, and happiness. Ciao!
