11 July: Saturday

Indio, California: Another busy day. Oh, wait, did I say that yesterday? Again, we had to be to the house for a delivery window for Dave's office furniture. While waiting, Dave began tackling the job of removing the hardware from the valances he removed yesterday. Each bracket (4-6 for each valance) needed to be removed, the holes patched, and painted. He found a few toggle bolts to remove, which needed serious patches. The little can of paint left by the past owner matched exactly, thank goodness.

Is this the correct time to mention this is the first time we have ever purchased a "used" house? This is our fourth house purchase. Our first place (1983-ish) was a new 1200 square foot (3 bed/2 bath) place we lived in for about 16 months in Portland, between stints in Manila and Taipei. We bought it knowing we wouldn't be in the states for long, and knew it would be a good rental. It was. After we returned to Oregon (from Taipei) in 1988, we bought a 2600 square foot McMansion in a new subdivision. Two stories, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. We lived there 7 years, before building our big (nearly 6000 square feet) house in the country. We lived there for 26 years before selling it in February 2020, to relocate to California.

So moving into this home in La Quinta is a new experience. Two families (we think/don't really know) have lived in this house, mainly as a vacation/winter home. It is 16 years old. People have changed things over the years, and it seems we are removing all the changes and returning the house to its original unadorned state? It is often difficult to decided if a change is an upgrade or a downgrade, isn't it? Surely, the family that lives in this house after us will wonder why we did what we did.

Too bad.

I can't tell you how wonderful the house looks without all the heavy dark valances, and what a great job DT did removing all the upholstery, hardware, patching and painting! He would have removed the hardware yesterday, but our cordless drill battery was DEAD!

Dave's office/den/Duck shrine/man-cave furniture was delivered today. Everything was assembled and put-together in the courtyard, so the crew were only in the house a few minutes (masks/gloves). Unfortunately, the floor in the office is NOT PLUMB and the far right cabinet tilts a bit to the right, away from the center cabinet. Not wanting the crew to remain even one moment longer than needed, we sent them away. They left us with all sorts of braces and brackets... all of which will probably be abandoned in favor of a big fat shim shoved under the cabinet? At a later date. Lisa suggests we solve this issue with a carpet.

I also set up a new printer in the house in five minutes and printed a recipe from my phone to double-check the settings. Geeky Bubbe!

The lamp for Leo and Lucy's room was delivered today. We are now learning (as I said, the house is 16 years old), there is a light-switch in every bedroom that operates a plug-in on a wall somewhere! There are ceiling fans in nearly every room and some operate on remotes and some operate on wall switches... and... wait for it... some work on BOTH. Most ceiling fans are original and quite hideous, but we will wait to replace them once we stop bleeding money.

Master bedroom shoe racks were assembled.

Late in the afternoon, we went to the front gate to finally install the video doorbell. At the same time, a huge wind storm blew through! The sky turned dark. We knew it would be raining in Palm Springs (and it was). Instead of installing the doorbell, we ran into the house, locked-up everything and rushed back to the bus to retract our bus awnings before they became airborne. 

The wind storm lasted less than one hour, and we had no damage, save 1/2-inch of dust covering everything. I started dinner: beef and black bean enchiladas, sauteing the beef with onion and garlic... until the flame on the RV stove kept going out. I kept relighting and relighting, but it just would not light. Finally, the last option was to check the LP level on the bus COMMAND CENTER. Guess what, after filling our tank in February of 2017, we were out of gas! 

Oh, you all know, I am going to say: RAT FARTS!

Everything was moved to the outdoor kitchen, where I finished sauteing. It was 115° today. Fun times!

Meanwhile, My Driver headed out in the golf cart to steal more flowers from our absent neighbors:

He's so romantic.

The enchiladas were very delicious, but I forgot to take a photo. We also enjoyed a tomato and red onion salad.

Another big day today... and tomorrow, we get to assemble my Elfa dresser (similar). More fun times. Maybe we will actually finally get that video doorbell installed?

Until my next update, I remain, your assembled correspondent.