Palm Desert is the land of many seniors. I grew up next to a place, which back then, was pretty much the same as PD is now. It was hot, kind of barren with localized sudden bursts of green and flowers and manicured lawns amid the homes that all looked like mirrored images of their neighbors, and lots and lots of older people accompanied with the smell of BenGay. And small dogs. Which is all great because what’s not to love. That town I grew up next to has changed somewhat since then. It’s kind of a college town with young families coming in. You know what happens when you get a bunch of young, procreating Mormons in one place….they go to church, organize the year supply room, finish the quilt, bottle the rest of the peaches and plant the garden. And then they make more babies.
The one major difference between the two places that I could see was money. And with that money in PD, many of the lovely, older ladies had chosen to do strange and unusual things to their faces. We had a sort of contest going on for who could take the best photo illustrating the problem but every time I got close to someone who would have for sure made me the winner, my hands and arms stopped working, my mouth got slightly slack and I couldn’t move. So, Aaryn won, although I can’t seem to find the photo that illustrated the Trout Mouth issue in her photostream. Update: I found it.
We were sitting at lunch, eating great Mexican food and everywhere you looked there were these women that don’t look human sitting next to men that actually looked their age. With their collars pimped up on their pastel-colored Polo shirts. But the women. Yikes. It’s like someone smeared all their features slightly with putty, lightened them up with bleach and then inflated their lips four sizes too big. It’s not pretty. It’s not fooling anyone. Stop it! You’re scaring me!
And then Susan took us to see bunny-headed people at the museum that were straight out of Donnie Darko. (Why? Why?? You’re scaring me!)
Katie has young knees. She spent most of the weekend crouching in one contortion or another, really working to get the shot.
Poor Tam was sick for a good portion of the time but her hair always looked great. I just thought she was crying because it was so hot and my breath smelled bad but it turns out that her cold medication wasn’t working very well. She told the funniest stories. Unfortunately, I can’t repeat them because of the blood pact we made to protect our own, but let me just say that thin walls make a great backdrop to a number of punch lines.
Jessica was kind enough to try on some of my hats. Holy crap, is that woman photogenic.
And Aaryn shamed us all with the size of her equipment.
This weekend we laughed our selves silly. Drank too much. Talked. And talked. Took naps(me). Susan made jambalaya which I’d never had before. We took a buttload of photos. Ate chocolate. And soaked our souls in great company. I slept in the same bed as Susan and I thought I must be snoring because when I woke up she had her pillow wrapped around her head. Turns out she just sleeps in a faux-smothering way every night. Or she was lying and my snoring was peeling the new finish off the kitchen cabinets.
We had our final brunch at the country club. (Where Doug managed to buy us our meal even though he wasn’t there. He’s magic like that. Thanks, Doug.) I was (ahem) slightly hung over. At one point, as Susan was taking my photo, I went to stick out my tongue and food, crumbs of dry bread, fell splatty out of my mouth and on to my shirt. Yes, we are not all good at everything.
We took our final, excruciatingly meta and self-absorbed portrait after lunch. Inside, there was a man in a candy-striped suit jacket singing All My Exes Live In Texas with a banjo. That kind of says it all.
Hey LeahPeah! So fun this weekend and you really nailed it with this description. Better than what I was able to do last night. Too, too tired. Anyway, I’ve fixed access to the photo of the duck lips and tighteyes for your viewing pleasure. Jump on over to my stream for the link.
Lovin’ your hat so much that I’m wearing it even tho it’s 80 degrees out. That’s a star fucker, for ya.
and here i thought i was blind. thanks and it’s linked to above….
xo
hey grrrrl. nah—how could you be blind with such awesome glasses. i’m the one who effed up on the uploading. but remember, i ride the short bus when it comes to all this techno-saavy-blog-photo-upload stuff.
i have more i wanna say to you but don’t know how to contact you. since, you know, i’m not supposed to email you and whatnot. i take your admonition to heart. how do i get in touch? i promise not to spam you or send you hate mail. for now. cause…we’re like, friends. right?
Isn’t it so incredibly lovely how a good weekend carries over to monday? So then by monday you aren’t entirely ready to hit someone with a nine iron, you actually smile and are polite. I wish every weekend was a great one.
Glad you had so much fun!
I think you should have titled the set “My Weekend with Katie’s Ass”. But then you’d be showing favoritism and I know how that goes . . . you’d be getting hate mail in no time.
So today I found something for the collage. Are their size restrictions?
You don’t snore. I sleep like that every night.
Thanks for spooning me though. That was sweet.
this was awesome. looks like so much fun!
also, i had to laugh at the neck comment on the trout lip photo – i had a roommate in college from california, and amongst other things she said that i can never, ever forget was that you should always moisturize your neck, because otherwise when you get old that’s the first thing that goes and you start looking like a turkey.
sometimes i can’t wait to see if it works for her.
It’s not heavy, but it’s a little big . . . that is not a line you want to use to start a conversation at a formal dinner party. I’ll send it! But can you e-mail me your address so you know, I can send hate mail and stuff?
“It’s not heavy, but it’s a little big.”
I’m getting that printed on a t-shirt.