04.11.10

our california trip was just about right, i think; we were able to spend a few days in los angeles with my little sister and her fiancé, we spent quality time at the beach and umpteen mexican restaurants, we snuck in a quick road trip, and we came back just when we were starting to miss the cats and our own bed. on said road trip:

train

day 246: san jacinto from palm springs

chandelier

from a hammock at the parker

ye olde hotel

meat is murder

evening at the ace

we stayed at the interwebs' favorite hotel, the ace in palm springs. buzz was well-deserved: while we forgot to check out the bar and skipped the pool, we had a long, slow, marvelous end of the night on our private patio with room service from the diner, a fireplace, and a turntable (we'd picked up a few records at amoeba when we visited baby jo). earlier that evening, we wandered around the palm springs art museum* and the parker palm springs (where the jonathan adler decor fell just a bit short of justifying the steep drink prices, but the grounds were lovely - i wanted to take photos of our feet as we stargazed in a hammock, but swinging with gusto was too nice). we found five thousand bits of midcentury goodness that would've stopped being bargains if we'd tried to ship them back to new york (bah), had a respectable late breakfast (don't call it brunch), and were back in orange county in time for one last trip to the beach on friday afternoon. also i acquired a big rock. i call her dinah. full photo set here.


imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 did you know thursday was the first night of white party? we sure didn't. (joe: "i feel like meat!")

02 brunch: pro or anti?

03 have you ever been to palm springs? how was it?

04 hipster hotels: pro or anti?


*not so very: the sculpture garden was lousy with chihuly droppings. on the plus side: louise bourgeois upstairs.

11 comments:

jamie said...

the girl who swims in the OCEAN in southern california IN APRIL (the AIR is still cold for crying out loud) skips the pool while in palm springs. pools are 90% of why i go to palm springs. i am doubting us a little here.

01) lordy, how fun for joe. that is how ben feels every day, for years. (he is in customer service in the gay neighborhood of san diego. they like the little men.)

02) it is a fine line between brunch and breakfast, not to be thrown around too losely. past a certain hour, involving a certain number of dishes (& drinks) (& people) it become brunch.

03) my grandparents live there half the year. i love. it. but i spend 90% of the time in a pool. the best is when we rent a whole house.

04) at the ace; we had to wait like 40 minutes for our room, the pool music was so loud we could not take a nap, but god damn i loved to decor, so, a wash.

ps you kill me with your night photos. how do you do it.

pps welcome home. how are the beasties? i look forward to a full report.

kidchamp said...

the ocean has waves, you see, and it's very deep and i don't have to share it with hordes of small children. pools (are water and therefore preferable to land, and yet) aren't nearly as nice, though they're more likely to be next to bars, which is something (i do regret missing the opportunity to try an alcohol-based snow cone at the ace). with a bit more time i'd have been at the pool, but we were afraid the vintage stores would close early (they did, in fact, at like 4 pm, which is crazy), and joe has complicated shark issues (ask him about chlorine sharks sometime), and then we slept in like champions on friday morning.

re: 01, joe sort of made it harder for himself by wearing a tie-dyed tee with corgis on it (thurs) and another that read SUPPORT YOUR RIGHT TO KEEP AND ARM BEARS (fri). i laughed at him like the supportive spouse i am.

re: 02, i had an omelet and an agua fresca and was in and out in half an hour. totally breffus.

re: 04, i think i channeled you the whole time we were out there. i kept bringing joe owls when we were shopping, and i eyed the guitar in the lobby at the ace more than i should have. i think we were the loud music-players in our room block, but my loud is actually fairly quiet, and it was mostly bowie, which everyone should hear anyway.

re: ps supercranked exposure. also the professor is magical.

re: pps they are SO EXCITED to have people in the apartment for more than half an hour at a time. steve kept bringing receipts and knitted mice to me as i washed my face in the bathroom this morning. also he is HUGE now.

Rachel (heart of light) said...

1. Had never heard of the white party. Am now intrigued.
2. PRO, in a big way. breakfast food is pretty much the best thing ever, so I'm all about extending the hours in which you can eat it. Also, brunch tends to include alcohol, whereas people seem to be squeamish about offering it at plain old breakfast.
3. Yes. Relaxing. But we've never stayed in a hotel. D's grandma used to have a house out there and I would venture to say that staying in a residential community is significantly less hip and more retirement like.
4. Fairly pro. The only thing I object to is a substantial population of hipsters who are plainly much cooler than me. I actually prefer the company in the retirement community.

jamie said...

1)i just don't know what to do with the information that joe has a tie die shirt with corgis on it. but that he wore a shirt that said SUPPORT YOUR RIGHT TO KEEP AND ARM BEARS when he KNEW what was going on is about the funniest thing ever. i both applaud him and tell him he deserves whatever he got.
2)TOTALLY breakfast.

and, STEVE.

Milkmaid's dumb friend said...

02: Pro: http://webrunchhard.com/
(Likewise, I hope your finished analogy isn’t Late Breakfast : Respectable :: Brunch : Disreputable.)
04: Anti (by default): I only stay in the this-must-be-where-Wilford-Brimley-was-strangled-by-Bob-Crane grade of hotels.
0?: “DON’T tell your parents you’re a *bear*.”
-John Waters

kidchamp said...

on the white party, our cab driver from the parker to our hotel was on fire about having driven miley cyrus around on dinah shore weekend the previous week. she was very clear, he said, about not being in palm springs for dinah shore weekend. then he whipped out his cab photo album(?!), where miley cyrus was, indeed, smiling lasciviously from his back seat. weird town, that.

jamie, it's sort of a pack of corgis standing on a big pile of skulls at the grim reaper's feet. i...don't know if that clears things up at all.

rachel/MDF, i wish i could get behind brunch. i think a whiff of seediness would help, actually - now i associate it with getting overdressed and queuing with loud strangers for things i could eat at home. i realize it's especially pernicious here, but down with brunch.

Amanda said...

01 No. But I would like a bear shirt.
02 UP WITH BRUNCH. I'm a fan of anything that involves multiple beverages and booze before noon. Also, TRUFFLE TOAST. Dark alley brunch? Used syringes on the table? What dost thou NEED?
03 No. But I wish madly to go.
04 Pro. Well, probably pro until I actually stay at one. Probably.

kidchamp said...

i should note that i reserved our room at the ace through quikbook at a considerable discount; most hipster hotels are beyond our orbit (i'm looking at you and your silly DRUGS lobby art, parker), but this one was like $149. okay for just a night.

Rachel (heart of light) said...

Oh dear. Fancy brunch with lines does not sound good. I guess I wasn't thinking of the traditional brunch served buffet style, one price for all you can eat type affair. Around here, it's mainly an excuse for those of us who drank too much the night before to still be able to get breakfast food the next day. Think, unshowered (sometimes unchanged), lots of coffee + additional alcohol, high protein breakfast, a few hours later than usual.

Also, we generally do brunch at home, with friends. I can see not wanting to pay for it.

kidchamp said...

brunch at your house i can support unequivocally, rachel.

east side bride said...

Squash Dale Chihuly! Squash him!