Managed to earn points while sharing a one bedroom, one bath timeshare with the in-laws for four days in Palm Springs last week. Something about my “unusual patience” and “good humor”.
In-law humor can be kinda delicate, but I have to admit, I was pretty funny. My sense of humor is a barometer of my level of stress and my connection to the peeps I’m with. The greater the inner calm, the deeper the connection, the funnier.
Sunshine and warm temps were a highlight. It was bizzare walking off the plane after 41 straight days of rain into the sun-drenched semi-opened airport. Thought the GalPal was going to pull a Pope, get on all fours, and kiss the ground.
In four days, I worked out for 45 minutes. Went for a run one morning. Ran through the development, down to Dinah Shore, into Patriots Park, around the high school, to Mission Hills, and back. Ran and ran and ran some more. Thought to myself, that had to be a solid 7.5-8 miles. Pulled the GPS out of my shorts pocket, 5.75 miles. Chalk it up to warmer temps and no teammates.
Playing golf with my father-in-law was a highlight. I negative split both rounds, 46-40-86 and 50-38-88. Easy, shortish, 6,100 yard courses rated 69.5. As expected I have no touch, but I somehow finished round one off with two birds for the first time ever. Round two was a par 35-37, so I had a 12 footer to play the back nine in level par as the Brit’s say. Channeled my inner-Schwartzel and hit the hole, but it lipped out. Renting clubs was an interesting experience because they were nicer than my sticks. It has been twenty years or so, so maybe I should upgrade before Senior Tour qualifying school next year.
The California strawberries and Salmon Farfalle at a restaurant whose name I can’t remember were off the hook.
Enjoyed a grande green tea latte non-fat extra hot (that was for my sissy who probably quit reading a few pgraphs ago because of the self indulgent nature of this post) at a swanky hotel with a lake in it. While there, we saw a bikini clad women walk smack dap into the middle of a business attire happy hour. The GalPal declared, “Sex worker.” Who knew she possessed that type of radar? So of course the rest of the afternoon, whenever I spotted a scantily clad woman, I had to ask, “Sex worker?”
Taking the tram up to the top of Mt. San Jacinto was a highlight. The GalPal is injured so instead of hiking we found a big rock in the sun, grooved on the cool temp, meditated on our surroundings, and had a nice talk. We didn’t plan well, only having two apples in one backpack. Make that one after the GalPal watched hers bounce down the side of the mountain. I had to make a tough call, could I rescue the runaway apple without expending more calories than contained within the apple. I rolled the dice, hunted all over the hillside, and finally tracked it down. Bruised, but still edible.
The one lowlight was the 40+mph winds on our final day. Let’s just say our take-off was NOT fun. All I could think was “I’ve probably flown more miles than 90% of the people on this plane, but I’m still more scared than 90% of them.” One would think the more you fly, the more you get used to turbulence. Not me. I sacrificed all of the points I had earned over the four days in about four minutes. Certain my life was about to end, instead of thinking about my lovely wife and wonderful daughters, I thought I may never get a chance to hone my short game and turn my 86 and 88 into 76’s and 78’s. How tragic that would be.
Pressing Pause 