When last I left you, I was just settling into Palm Desert, CA at the Marriott Shadow Ridge Resort. Yes, I've been a bad blogger and have left you two weeks without an update. And I am happy to inform you that nothing happened!
Well, the first thing that happened was that I found a new hat. I've stayed at the Marriott Shadow Ridge before and liked it. In fact, my room this time was in the next building and right across from the adults-only quiet pool. The last time I was here, I found this little hat shop in Rancho Mirage and bought a nice little hat for about $15. On my trip to Italy with the family four years ago, I sacrificed the had to the suitcase gods in Milan and have missed it ever since. So the first thing I did was go hunting for the little hat shop. Apparently I got the wrong mall, but I wandered through Macy's and found this hat for just $10. I snapped it up.
Frankly, I spent the rest of the week doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I was in the hot tub at the pool twice or more a day. I read. I slept. I took long hot showers. I grilled dinner. Pretty much, that was it. I was facing some holidays this week and didn't feel like facing them, so until Thursday night when I took the resort up on the offer of a free glass of wine and discount on a lovely dinner at the grill in honor of my 64th birthday. It was very nice.
On Friday morning (actually my birthday), I stored my trailer at a storage place in Palm Springs and headed west and north to Oak View, CA, just south of Ojai. Author Mark Sawyer and his sweetie, Laurie, welcomed me there and took me out for a nice Thai meal for my birthday. I published Mark's book A Nickel's Worth in July and we'd like to see it really catch on. It's a great story of Bob Nickel who spent much of his time in Ojai. That's Ojai seen from the Ojai Retreat Center where Bob gave many a satsang.
While there, Mark and I talked a lot and walked a lot. We also released his newest book, The Shiva Paradox, now available at https://www.createspace.com/4452970. It's a good book--an adventure set in India as a seeker of wisdom attempts to avoid five assassins sent after him by a cult that has gone dark and blames the hero for disabling their leader. It's a great view of India and a great view of a spiritual search going on at the same time as a physical thriller. It could only happen in India!
By the way, the picture above is taken from a viewpoint at another spiritual retreat center in Ojai (the place is full of them) and comes close to the view of Shangri-La in the movie Lost Horizon. Perhaps the filming is what inspired so many religious and spiritual retreats in the area of Ojai.
I spent Sunday taking the long slow approach back to Palm Springs, following the Pacific Coast Highway through Ventura and Malibu. Just having that big beautiful body next to me as I traveled was awe-inspiring!
Back in Palm Springs, I pretty much duplicated the previous week, only this time my routine meant hot tub, then lie by the pool proofreading the next of Mark's books, Married to Islam. We'll be releasing this book, hopefully by the end of the month. Personally, I am fascinated by this book. I wish everyone in America would read it. It's non-fiction, ghost-written by Mark for a woman known only as Dalia Shah for her own and her family's safety. A western convert to Islam, Dalia married an Arab man and records her experiences in this cross-cultural relationship, her understanding of Islam, and her advice to other western women contemplating or involved in a romance with an Arab man. It is fascinating. Watch for it later this month.
I found that overall, Palm Springs (and the other half dozen cities that make up this desert community, was dead. Lots of closed businesses and old people. In fact, on Monday morning when I went grocery shopping, I apparently arrived during Old Men's Hour. I don't think I saw anyone in the store who wasn't male and using a shopping cart as a walker.
Saturday afternoon, though, I happened to wander downtown and the place was jumping. There was even a tour bus stopped so people could get out and take pictures of the 17-ton statue of Marilyn Monroe. Lots of eye-candy, but apparently its only between noon and three on Saturdays and Sundays.
Tomorrow, I'll get the trailer out of hock . . . er, storage . . . and head south along the Salton Sea to El Centro where my grandfather lived. I visited him there twice before he died in 1974 or 75. There's also a scene in The Gutenberg Rubric set near El Centro and I'll try to find that location if I can. Who knows? Superstition Mountain, here I come!
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