For years I've pretty much bought all my clothes in Palm Springs

I even got some things at Marshall's today.  I usually don't have too much luck there.

These are the cropped jeans I got at Steinmart....think I'll buy another pair.

Of course,  I couldn't resist this hummingbird theme sweater at Marshall's today and can a women ever have too many pairs of black pants?

Or black tops,  this from Marshall's today and the other from TJ Maxx.

These from Steinmart.

T

And I usually don't do the thrift store thing but Jim spotted this leather coat at Mizell.  For 10 bucks I don't think I could go wrong.  It's rather funky.

Lest we forget...

This is a post from two years ago.

This is the father of my good friend, Patty. I didn't know about the street being named after him. Wow! I dug up the article. 
http://www.pressreader.com/canada/times-colonist/20061111/281526516556069

My wonderful Canyon Sands Bookclub

It was so much fun seeing people again and we had a good discussion about a memorable character.  I decided to do Alex from A Clockwork Orange since there is at least the DVD of the film in a local library here although not the book.  There wasn't the book or the DVD of the film of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz....not surprising as it's rather old and pretty much known only to Canadians.

As usual,  Kathy had saved all the materials she had handed out at the sessions I missed along with a couple of articles from magazines on Canada and Victoria.  So, this morning it was delightful to read about the Dinesty Dumpling House on Robson which was about a 10 minute walk from where we recently lived. We often walked up on chilly days for their very special hot and sour soup.  And to see Bill Reid’s wonderful Jade Canoe that we enjoy every time we go through the Vancouver Airport.   

Garden treasures

Our sundial arrived yesterday and we are very pleased with it.  We had a sundial in our garden in Victoria so it's fun to have one here.  It fits in perfectly and has a dragonfly motif.  As a kid I was always fascinated by dragon flies.

And these items for the garden wall are arriving tomorrow.  What would we do without Amazon!

This and that....

I was thrilled to find this Boler Trailer Christmas tree ornament at Michel's the other day.

It will go on the Christmas tree but in the meantime it has found a place beside my Paris treasures and San Francisco houses.

We have been absolutely enthralled with these lectures.  Vol I is a series of 12 half hour lectures and the prof is amazing.  We know quite a bit about this stuff but we learned so much more.  There is a Vol II which I am picking up today at Rancho Mirage.  Jim has put his back out so it will be good to have this to view.

Von's has wonderful roses and my favourite time of a cut rose's life is when the flowers aren't fully open.  These are opening very slowly...perfect.  And the colour matches our wonderful painting of Cassis.

Very interesting article

 This link was posted on a Jane Austen blog today.  I really thought it made a lot of good points.

By allowing university humanities courses to slip into decline, society risks losing key tools that could help solve a host of ills — notably including economic ones, notes this op-ed by Gary Saul Morson, the Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University, and Morton Schapiro, a professor of economics and the president of Northwestern University. They are the authors of Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities, Princeton University Press, 2017, from which this essay is based. The authors were also interviewed about their book recently in this Knowledge@Wharton article, “Why Economists Must Go Beyond the Numbers.”

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/could-a-bit-of-tolstoy-and-austen-improve-economic-forecasting/

T.J. Maxx and Steinmart

I enjoy these stores the most and got four tops and one pair of pants so not too bad and even better I got Jim to get a new wallet...well overdue!  And he found a cool little shoe polish kit as well.

It's a Nautica brand so very nice looking and functional.

 

We do love the look of our very minimal  Zen garden....a sundial will be arriving Friday.

We are so glad we got rid of the orange tree...just too much of a worry with the gutters especially when we're not here all the time.  We were pleased with this planter and I always had petunias in my window boxes so fun to have some here.

Paris, je t'aime

We watched this last night and quite enjoyed it.  The focus was very much more on the stories than the city.  The next one in the series is "New York, je t'aims" which doesn't get the greatest reviews but I have a hold on it so we'll give it a try.

Off for a swim in the sunshine,  Bill's Pizza,  Senior's Day at Steinmart,   hit that thrift store where we got that great painting of what looks like Cassis.

Paris, je t'aime (French pronunciation: ​[paʁi ʒə tɛm]; Paris, I love you) is a 2006 anthology film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements. The 22 directors include Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gérard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Nobuhiro Suwa, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles, Yolande Moreau and Gus Van Sant.

Jim cooking spaghetti and scallops and singing Volare...he really must be Italian.

Oh, and I just loved this Boler Trailer decoration at Lowe's.  But at over $100 CDN I had to resist.

Now that's quite a way to celebrate a 50th Wedding Anniversary, old Bean!

My old friend of 66 years is on a cruise with her husband,  Cec, and their daughter,  son-in-law, and granddaughter.  Linda and Cec have probably been on 50 or more cruises so they get treated well!

From Linda's blog:
Day 1
http://linfish69.blogspot.ca/2017/11/day-1.html

Really thrilled with our zero gravity chairs!

I wanted to replace the old yellow web chairs in the back patio and was expecting to pay at least $100 for two chairs since patio furniture is rather expensive.  Our red cushions on the chairs that are in our front patio weren't in great shape and then they got left out in the hot sun and red dye got all over our clothes after sitting on them.  We found some new replacement cushions at Revivals for $8 each and then we thought about getting zero gravity chairs for the front patio since we love the one we have in Vancouver....they are so comfortable and good for your back.   On Amazon we found a two-pack for for $81.95 (we paid $80 for the one in Vancouver and we felt that was a good deal...well,  CDN of course)

Lucky again with books....

We went to the Friends of the College of the Desert Library Book Sale Friday and got quite a haul!  Then to Rancho Mirage Library and Jim got more books in the Book Nook.  I also picked up the DVD of Louise Penny's first novel,  "Still Life".  We watched it last night.  It was certainly interesting to see but it didn't really capture the characters very well.  Perhaps that's why there aren't other film adaptations of her novels.

Jim finding treasures at the College of the Desert Library Bookstall.  Of course he would be looking at the "Classics"...

Then to Rancho Mirage Library.  They are making great progress on the observatory.  It looks like there will be two telescopes.  It should be finished this April.  It's going to be so great having this and I know there will be lots of associated educational programs.

I just love this library!  This is the statue of "The Little Bookworm".

Our treasures.  Of course we have editions of all of Jane Austen and Graham Green and others but Jim liked these editions.  

Jim was really pleased to get "South Wind" by an author who was a friend of Huxley's.  It's in this cool slipcover and has lots of interesting illustrations.

These are my treasures along with "How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci"...had some cool stuff in it.
I can't wait to read McCall Smith's "Corduroy Mansions".  A new series I wasn't familiar with....takes place in London and involves a dog.

What we snowbirds live for....

Parts of Vancouver Island, including Greater Victoria, saw snow flurries on Thursday, and more could be on the way.

Linda and Cec off for a Caribbean cruise for their 50th Wedding Anniversary...good timing!

From Linda's blog today...

Sunday it was 22C.  They predict snow by Friday.  For once we planned a holiday at the right time. 

Got lucky at the Cathedral City Library book nook

We got these and also I think some other things for $4.  Since I'm rereading Jane Austen again I was pleased to get her complete novels that I can keep down here.  We have them all at home,  of course.

The usual book hunt begins....

We've hit two thrift stores and one library.  Jim found one book for my Christmas books so slim pickings at the moment.  The College of the Desert annual book sale begins Friday so we may have more luck there.

Jim pulled down a Graham Green paperback yesterday which has a bookplate of George Cuckor designed by Paul Landacre who was quite famous it seems.  Of course Huxley knew Cuckor and visited him quite a bit.  Jim paid a dollar for the book but I guess it would be worth something since people do collect books with bookplates of known people.

Paul Hambleton Landacre (July 9, 1893, Columbus, Ohio - June 3, 1963, Los Angeles, California) participated in the Southern California artistic Renaissance between the world wars and is regarded as one of the outstanding printmakers of the modern era. His stylistic innovations and technical virtuosity gained wood engraving a foothold as an art form in twentieth-century America. Landacre's linocuts and wood engravings of landscapes, still lifes, nudes, and abstractions are celebrated for their consummate design and mastery of material. He used the finest inks and Japanese papers and, with few exceptions, printed his wood engravings on a nineteenth-century Washington Hand Press, which is now in the collection of the International Printing Museum in Carson, California.

I found this blog post rather interesting and I'm attracted to the bookplate art as my readers would guess since it's usually of a quite simple design.  Cuckoo's bookplate is mentioned.

http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/2008/02/bookplates-from-hollywood-compost-pile.html

Our book and inside bookplate: