Thanks a Lot / Palms Springs 2021

Monday, November 22: "Holiday Helper" store shift #1 I need to work on my selfie angles. Yeesh. Or at least start trimming my eyebrows. I feel like I'm well on my way to looking like Ernest Borgnine. Anyway! I'm only halfway through my two "holiday helper" shifts this year, for multiple reasons. Somebody decided this year that all office staff would be required to work at least two four-hour shifts at a store, which I do not resent AT ALL, NOPE, NOT ONE BIT. And here I thought I was cleverly weaseling out of this obligation by being on vacation four days of Thanksgiving week—but, nope, they expanded the sign-up days so they start on Monday of Thanksgiving week, and include three days prior to Christmas Day as well. We're asked to do at least one shift per holiday week, and more if we'd like (hahahahaha! *cough* *gag*). So, even though I had only one day to work on Thanksgiving week, that being Monday, I signed up for the 12-4pm shift that day, so I wouldn't be stuck with two shifts Christma week. Someday I'll get over my hangups about this. But not this year! I was just so smugly delighted to have managed to get out of it consistently every year from 2002 through 2018—seventeen years!—I was disappointed for my personal tradition of avoidance to come to a crashing half in 2019. I worked two shifts at the Columbia City store that year, mostly fetching shopping carts from the garage, but by last year the Central District store had finally opened (less than three quarters of a mile from where I live, so it's not like I could come up with any particularly viable excuses anymore) so that's where I went both then and this year. Two four-hour shifts each year in 2019 and 2020; a fifth, so far, in 2021. Counting another time I did a POS shift one time in 2004 at the Fremont store, I have now worked in a store a whopping six times total. Probably a cumulative 25 hours or so. Oh, the horror! It's never horrible, actually. In my experience the staff at every store I have now gone to for this have been such nice people it was almost unsettling. Also? Even though they even did a "Holiday Bagging Bootcamp" before the Harvest Potluck this year, which I volunteered to take part in, I'm happy to report that, to date, I have at least always managed to get out of bagging groceries. Ha! Take that, PCC! Bagging weirdly intimidates me, especially the idea of doing it as an amateur during holiday rushes when I am liable to fuck it up and piss off customers by crushing their bread with a gallon of milk or some such shit. Best to avoid it. Still, I seem to be given something new to do each year, and this year I was tasked with stocking shelves, taking product from the back room from carts labeled by grocery aisle, to said aisle, and filling in where there was shelf space to do so. This being Monday on Thanksgiving week, there was not a lot of empty shelf space yet, so this really amounted to busywork for which I was not particularly needed. That changed about halfway through my shift when Ishmael, the current Store Director at Central District, told me Produce was asking for some help, and then I spent the next two hours restocking plastic containers of salad mixes. Evidently, people buy a lot of that shit.
Tuesday, November 23: Academy of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles This had long intended just as a four-night trip to Palm Springs, our first time back in five years, since Shobhit moved back home from L.A. in 2016—but, Los Angeles wriggled its way into the itinerary when I discovered the Academy Museum, which I had seen under construction and been excited about in 2016, only just opened on September 30! If you know anything about me you know I love movies and I love the Academy Awards, so this was like a Museum Just for Matthew. They're selling timed-entry tickets and I managed to get the last slot available on Tuesday, the day our flight landed at LAX (because flights direct to Palm Springs were double the cost), at 4:00, two hours before they closed at 6. The plan was to land at the airport at 12:05, pick up our rental car, tool around L.A. a bit to kill time, spend a couple of hours at the Academy Museum, then drive the rest of the way to Palm Springs. This plan worked out fairly well for the most part, much of it ahead of schedule, even though the Budget Rent a Car shuttle took what felt like ages to get out of the airport, and then there was a rather long line for the car rental checkin (although it got far longer after we had gotten in it, a bit of a lucky break)—but, at least our flight had been on time. We found a new vegan burger place to have lunch at on Melrose, went to take a quick look at the apartment building in West Hollywood Shobhit had lived in for five years from 2011-2016, and then we got into the museum with my e-tickets about half an hour early. We did kind of rush through the place, or at least I could have spent more time there under other circumstances, but I still felt we got our money's worth out of two $25 tickets. There's a lot of very cool exhibits and we moved through most of them in about ninety minutes. In the shot above, that room goes through a history of Oscar acceptance speeches, the walls lined with footage of them that run seemingly randomly one at a time (seeing the one where the audience booed Michael Moore as he rightfully lambasted Bush for the Iraq War during his acceptance for Best Documentary Feature for Bowling for Columbine in 2003 was fun). The dress seen on the platform was worn by Rita Moreno when she won for West Side Story in 1962, and she wore it again when she returned to present an award in 2018.

We left the museum at around 5:00, hoping to make good time on our drive to Palm Springs which, ideally, should take about two hours—but, of course, Los Angeles has traffic. Especially during rush hour. Two days before Thanksgiving. (I shudder to think what it would have been like at the same time the next day.) With no fewer than three accidents along the way further backing up traffic. It was truly nuts and it took us four hours to get to Shobhit's friend Faith's house, which is just to the north of Palm Springs and where we would stay at least once a year between 2013 and 2016 while Shobhit lived in L.A. We were much relieved when we finally arrived. I got this shot from the freeway on the way out of town.
Wednesday, November 24: Dinner In Cathedral City My friend Laney, with whom I have a several-years-long history of monthly Happy Hours which turned largely virtual during the pandemic and then again after she became a full-time camper in retirement as of January of this year, just by coincidence happened also to be in the Coachella Valley, having met up with her sister and brother-in-law Lorrie and Richard, themselves also now full-time camping retirees since June, although apparently they are in a huge RV. Their campground was in Palm Desert, and after getting some recommendations from Faith, we settled on this Italian place in Cathedral City. Outdoor seating, always a high preference of mine and an absolute necessity for Laney? Check. Delicious food? Check. Expectation-exceeding customer service? Check! Fantastic company and friends? Check! I'm going to go on a tangent about what I would call "Metropolitan Palm Springs" now, even though I cannot find anyone online using that specific phrase anywhere. Because this is the thing: even though Palm Springs is easily the most famous city in the Coachella Valley, it is neither the oldest nor the largest city there. Culturally speaking, though, it's still the hub city of the region—the only international airport there is Palm Springs International Airport, after all. (Palm Springs is the largest city there by land area, if that makes any difference.) This is why I still call this a "trip to Palm Springs," even though only one of the many things we did was ever actually in Palm Springs proper—this dinner was in Cathedral City; Faith lives in Desert Hot Springs. Is Coachella Valley part of some larger "metropolitan area," then? Even for this I can only find inconsistent information. Coachella Valley is in Riverside County, and Riverside is the county's largest city—located 54 miles west of Palm Springs (which itself is the westernmost city in the Coachella Valley). There's what people apparently call the "Inland Empire" (not to be confused with Spokane in Eastern Washington and Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, a region I heard called "The Inland Empire" when I was growing up), but I guess some consider that to be Southwestern San Bernadino County and Western Riverside County, and "sometimes" includes Coachella Valley and Victory Valley (which is north of San Bernadino). So does it, or does it not? I want answers! It makes more sense to me to think of Coachella Valley—or "metropolitan Palm Springs"—as its own population center, especially since it's on the other side of mountains from the truly vast Greater Los Angeles (and by truly broad definitions could even be included in that). So far as I can tell, Coachella Valley includes nine contiguous incorporated cities, with a couple of unincorporated "census designated places" thrown in. I looked up all of their populations! These are basically ordered from west to east: Desert Hot Springs (inc. 1963, pop. 32,512)
Palm Springs (inc. 1938, pop. 48,518)
Cathedral City (inc. 1981, pop. 51,493)
Rancho Mirage (inc. 1973, pop. 18,528)
Thousand Palms (census designated place, pop. 7,715)
Palm Desert (inc. 1973, pop. 53,275)
Indian Wells (inc. 1967, pop. 5,470)
Bermuda Dunes (census designated place, pop. 8,244)
La Quinta (inc. 1982, pop. 41,748)
Indio (inc. 1930, pop 91,765)
Coachella (inc. 1946, pop. 41,941) Total among these cities: 401,209. That's comparable to, say, Savannah, Georgia, or Anchorage, Alaska. Also, tracking the populations of these cities is tricky, due to the fluctuation of "snow birds"—people from northern states who live down there only during the cold half of the year. Wikipedia says the valley "luctuates from almost 500,000 in April to around 200,000 in July and around 800,000 by January," although it has no source cited. Whoever wrote that could have pulled it out of their ass. Anyway, evidently back in the late thirties only Palm Springs and Indo were incorporated—they are 24 miles apart, and at the time there was no doubt a lot of nothing in between them. The City of Coachella, which borders Indio, came in the forties; most the rest did not become cities until the sixties and seventies, a couple even into the eighties. So, anyway. Dinner on Tuesday was in Cathedral City. I kept thinking we were in Palm Springs but we weren't!
Thursday, November 25: Thanksgiving I went for a walk in the morning. The closest development you see in the background is Desert Hot Springs; Faith's house is a few blocks back on the wide road you can see to the left. Spending Thanksgiving out at Faith's became a bit of an annual tradition while Shobhit lived in Los Angeles; we spent Thanksgiving Day itself with her in 2012 and 2015, but otherwise went out and had a separate Thanksgiving Dinner with her during Thanksgiving Weekend in 2013 and 2014, so basically, four years in a row—Shobhit actually came to Seattle for Thanksgiving in 2016, our last visit to Palm Springs having been in August of that year, so the last Thanksgiving we spent with faith was in 2015. I took a similar walk in the hills outside the neighborhood that year, belting out along to Adele's then-new album 25; this time I spent an hour walking and listening to her new album 30. I saw this cross up in the hills and decided I would hike up to that before heading back.

It was fairly late Thursday night before we knew for sure how many people would ultimately be over for Thanksgiving—initially it had sounded as though there could be as many as seven or eight; in the end there was no more than the five seen here. Faith is at far left (bald due to recent chemotherapy treatments, the most recent one three weeks ago so she was otherwise at nearly the same strength and vivaciousness as normal). In center-distance is Maria, Faith's 25-year-old roommate who moved in only a few months ago, originally from Peru but grew up in the Coachella Valley. At the far right is a guy from the neighborhood named Jorge who had been invited. That guy was a little bit cuckoo, to be honest; I never asked his age but he did mention as an aside that he remembered Kennedy as president, and even launched into a very impressive impression of him. He also mentioned "the aliens" no fewer than five or six times in casual conversation, as the reason he has no concern about climate change—because "the aliens," who also had some part in the Moon Landing (I mean, obviously), have been "monitoring us" all along and will save us from ourselves in the end. The man was not joking. He was totally serious, and in a very casual way, as though all of this stuff was common knowledge. All righty then.

For good measure: the Thanksgiving dinner spread. The four dishes along the clos edge of the counter were made by Shobhit, from left to right: Shahi Paneer (my favorite Indian dish); kidney beans; eggplant (my second-favorite Indian dish); potatoes. He also made the rice, and of course the aloo [potato-stuffed] parathas made from scratch at the far right. Faith made the yams seen at upper right (gack); the baked the apple pie; and she also baked a duck that only she and Jorge ate any of, as Shobhit and I are vegetarian and Maria is vegan—which meant she could not have the shahi paneer, unfortunately. Faith also made a potato salad that went forgotten in the refrigerator. Shobhit made food thinking he could be feeding eight, and in characteristic fashion made enough to feed double that. What's seen in these dishes wasn't even all of it; excess was still in the pots and pans on the stove—where they stayed until late the next day, when a whole bunch of it, unfortunately, got thrown out. Faith has a bizarre aversion to eating leftovers, insisting she only likes her food to be "fresh," so she ate no more of it after Thursday night. Also the refrigerator was already packed and so there was no space to chill any of it, which surely contributed to the paneer dish kind of going back on Friday. Maria, at least, loves leftovers and she packed up the rest of the other three dishes into smaller containers she managed to fit into the fridge.
Friday, November 26: Joshua Tree National Park Friday was by far our busiest day, arguably packing more stops into a roundabout day trip than we should have. But, we made the best of the time we had and I had a great time doing it. First was nearby Joshua Tree National Park, which we had gone to once before, in 2013. That year we only went in a little ways and came back out the way we had come in, though, and this time I wanted to drive all the way through: we went in the north, main entrance and drove on through to the south entrance, stopping at a few notable sites along the way. I really love this park. I had forgotten that in addition to its distinctive namesake trees, it is full of huge rock formations. We saw a lot of people rock climbing, on many different rocks, in some cases with pretty elaborate rock climbing equipment. If there were any one thing in this part of California that I would recommend you see if you're ever in the area, this park would be it. I found it uniquely beautiful, fun to walk its many trails and also fun to drive through.

At the "Cactus Garden," the last stop before a roughly half-hour drive the rest of the way through the park with no major stops of interest—clearly the reason the main entrance is on the north side of the park. There were no more actual Joshua Trees south of this.
Coachella Festival Site Okay so this shot isn't that exciting. I'm just including it because it was one of our four stops on our long drive on Friday. Shobhit wanted to see the site where the famous (notorious?) Coachella Music Festival happens. So, here it is. It's not in the city of Coachella, though. It's in Indio. I guess it's still works since it's all the Coachella Valley. We had reached the north entrance of Joshua Tree National Park at roughly 9:30 a.m., coming out the south end a couple of hours later (a drive of 59 miles through the park itself). It was another half-hour drive from there to this spot.
Salton Sea State Recreation Area Shobhit really wanted to see the Salton Sea, which neither of us had ever been to—I'm not sure I'd ever heard more than a passing reference to it before this visit. Shobhit thought it had high salinity from sea water, but that's not the story at all; it turns out the history with this lake, located south of Joshua Tree and southeast of the Coachella Valley, is rather complicated—and sad, really. Apparently once totally dried up, the lake as it exists today dates back to 1905 when an irrigation canal brought in water from the Colorado River. I have no idea how better to summarize it more briefly, so I'll just quote from Wikipedia:
Beginning in 1900, an irrigation canal was dug from the Colorado River to the old Alamo River channel to provide water to the Imperial Valley for farming. The headgates and canals sustained a buildup of silt, so a series of cuts were made in the bank of the Colorado River to further increase the water flow. Water from spring floods broke through a canal head-gate diverting a portion of the river flow into the Salton Basin for two years before repairs were completed. The water in the formerly dry lake bed created the modern lake, which is about 15 by 35 miles (24 by 56 km). The lake would have dried up, but farmers used generous amounts of Colorado River water and let the excess flow into the lake. In the 1950s and into the '60s, the area became a resort destination, and communities grew with hotels and vacation homes. Birdwatching was also popular as the wetlands were a major resting stop on the Pacific Flyway. In the 1970s, scientists issued warnings that the lake would continue to shrink and become more inhospitable to wildlife. In the 1980s, contamination from farm runoff promoted the outbreak and spread of diseases. Massive die-offs of the avian populations have occurred, especially after the loss of several species of fish on which they depend. Salinity rose so high that large fish kills occurred, often blighting the beaches of the sea with their carcasses. Tourism was drastically reduced. After 1999, the lake began to shrink as local agriculture used the water more efficiently so less runoff flowed into the lake. As the lake bed became exposed, the winds sent clouds of toxic dust into nearby communities. Smaller amounts of dust reached into the Los Angeles area and people there could sometimes smell an odor coming from the lake. The state is mainly responsible for fixing the problems, and California lawmakers pledged to fund air-quality management projects in conjunction with the signing of the 2003 agreement to send more water to coastal cities. Local, state, and federal bodies all had found minimal success dealing with the dust, dying wildlife, and other problems for which warnings had been issued decades before. At the beginning of 2018 local agencies declared an emergency and along with the state funded and developed the Salton Sea Management Program. After a slow start and some small projects, construction started on a $206.5 million project in early 2021 on the delta of the New River, creating ponds and wetlands on the southern shore of the lake. In 2020, Palm Springs Life magazine summarized the ecological situation as "Salton Sea derives its fame as the biggest environmental disaster in California history".
Toxic dust and extinctions, what fun! So, we made it the site of our picnic lunch (of leftover shahi paneer with rice and parathas) on Tuesday, limiting our stay to only about half an hour so we would not be too late to our next stop . . .
Palm Springs Windmill Tours My favorite thing we did this entire trip! I have wanted to take one of these tours for years, but in the past my visits to Palm Springs were much shorter, often only one or two nights in the middle of a three-night, or occasionally four-night, trip to Los Angeles to stay with Shobhit. This made it hard to pack in a lot of activities, but this time all four nights were out at Faith's house itself—and, Shobhit found a Groupon for nearly half off, getting the price to $44. That's for a carload of people, mind you—it's a self-guided driving tour, making it a nicely ideal pandemic activity, although they did have a small visitor center where we went in to check in and watch a brief video. The guy in there who introduced himself to us as the Education Coordinator was also very cool and answered our many questions. Can you find me in this shot? We were told not to get any closer than 50' away from the turbines, but I sort of spaced that when I saw this opportunity. Later on the tour I tried to get a close-up shot looking up from the base, and a lady had to drive out and remind us we weren't supposed to be that close Oh, right. She pointed at the barrier right by where we had parked the car (uhhhh helloooo), although there was no way that was only 50' from the turbine; it was probably between two and three times that distance. But, whatever; we got back into the car and finished the tour without getting into trouble again.

Given my love of skyscrapers, it should come as no surprise that I am deeply fascinated by these wind turbines as engineering marvels—particularly their height, which as this graphic indicates, can reach well over 400 feet with a rotor blade at full height. That's roughly the equivalent of a 30-story office building.

Each wind turbine has large concrete foundations underground to anchor them, but even at 406' (or slightly higher, depending on the type and model), the base of the tower, we were told, is about 15' in diameter—narrowing as it gets closer to its rotor hub. Here I am inside an example of the narrowing section of the tube.

The wind turbines seen in the background here are but a portion of the total seen spread across the high-wind San Gorgonio Pass. We were told that each turbine costs $5 million to build, and with 2,300 turbines just in these turbine farms (there are several, owned and operated by different companies), that must mean there's around $11.5 billion worth of turbines out there. Each one of them can power over 450 homes per month. By the way, this was the one thing we did that was actually in Palm Springs proper.
Saturday, November 27: traveling home View of Palm Springs from Faith's backyard early Saturday morning. The red lights are the tips of wind turbines. This time, thankfully, the drive back to Los Angeles was only about two hours. The flight was on time again. All in all, a successful and eventful trip. Now we're back home, and: bring on the Christmas events!