Sun., Feb. 28

Seems that Palm Springs is not really too far from here. Only 45 minutes without much traffic. A guy by the name of Richard, that lives in the same complex as I do and is here from Minnesota, and I decided to go there yesterday. It had been raining all night but was turning out to be a nice day here. On the way over we saw about 500 working wind turbines on the hillsides and in the valley. We drove through downtown Palm Springs and one thing I can say about it, is that it’s devoid of tall buildings. That’s a good thing.

The temp was actually pretty pleasant, about 70 degrees. I heard that during the summer time the temp is about 120 degrees, so this was a good time to visit.

We tried to take some streets to go toward the mountains that are to the west of the city but every street had a guarded gate. They all appeared to be gated communities. I guess to keep out vermin like Richard and myself. I was going to say that we were there to visit the Open House that was going on, but I figured that would be too much effort to just get some free food.

He’s evidently not too much of a hiker so I didn’t suggest we go bushwhacking or anything, besides it rained pretty hard on the way back. I think that next weekend I’ll go up towards Lake Arrowhead and see if I can find some good hiking trails. On second thought, maybe it’s better to go up there during the week. There very well may be less people there than on the weekends.

Today when I went out the lines were horrendous, and this was a Sunday morning. On the way there I could smell the wafting aromas of breakfasts cooking. I was getting hungry, but around every corner were lines and lines of people waiting to eat. I think everyone in Loma Linda must go out to breakfast on Sunday mornings and go to the same place. In fact, the longer I waited the more that I thought that people must come from miles around to eat breakfast here. I hate lines, and especially if I’m in one, but with my weakened state and hunger pangs and the aromas of food cooking made me get in one, and besides breakfast was just $5.99. I just hoped the line I was in led to food and not the bathroom. When I actually got into the restaurant it was even worse.

Ahead of me were two guys about 25 years old keeping up an endless conversation of meaningless drivel. One guy would always stop talking about every other sentence and ask his buddy, “know what I mean?” and then continue with his rant before the other guy had a chance to answer. I wanted to tap the guy on the shoulder and say, “Hey, Jethro, let me give you some advice; stay in school so you don’t have to ask your friends, ‘know what I mean?’ all the time. It makes you sound like the village idiot. In school you’ll gain a much larger vocabulary, especially if you read the books, and you won’t have to ask that stupid sounding question all the time.“ But of course, I didn’t say this.

I have always wondered if people who get tattoos every regret it. I saw this guy today in the restaurant, and I have to think that he must have questioned some of his sanity when he was younger. Here he is, an old man, about 85 years old, and he has what looks like a blue and purple bandana on his forehead. Upon closer inspection it’s a scenic of tattoos on his forehead from ear to ear and from just above his eyebrows to the crown of his head. Fourteen stray white hairs and a blue forehead. I have to think it never was too much of a ‘chick magnet.‘ It was a somewhat unique place to show his love to whoever’s name was on his forehead. It was made up of what looked like barbed wire and vague symbols of geometric figures or something. It looked like it may have been done by someone who wanted to go to tattoo school or possibly during an all-night drinking contest. The point is, I wonder if he ever regretted the statement that he was trying to make when he was younger and got the tattoo. I think that there should be breathalyzers at all tattoo parlors and people should be mandated to take the test. In addition to going to the two-week Acme School of Tattooing there should be a law that people cannot get a tattoo if they have a blood alcohol level of anything higher than 0.01. Maybe they could be cut some slack if they were getting a tattoo on a less obvious space, say their bum or something, then they could get a tattoo if the breathalyzer test were as high as 0.02. Don't get me wrong, I have seen great looking tattoos and I've thought about getting one at some point. I just haven't seen the right meaning that I want to have on my body. And I won't get one after drinking anything alcoholic.

I lost my only comb today, and so I had to make a crucial decision. I had to either buy another comb or get a haircut. I have been thinking about getting a haircut since I've been down here. I've been seeing these barber shops advertising the fact that they offer $6 haircuts, and you know me and bargains! I figured that if I had to buy a comb a week for 7 weeks more that would be $7 since the last one I bought cost $1. Based on the fact that I've lost two combs since I've been here it would be cheaper to just get a haircut. So that's what I decided. The only trouble is I could no longer find one of those places that advertised $6 haircuts.

Today I found one that had $8 haircuts. I decided on the spot that a barber on the boulevard is worth two $6 barbers that I can't find, so I went in. I confirmed that it was $8 and sat down in the chair. "Just leave about 1/2" I told the barber," running my hand over my head. After about `10 minutes of buzzing, clipping, snipping, and fussing she handed me the mirror. The sides were even and about 1/2" long, but she had left a perfect 1/2" wide line of hair running from the front of my hair to the back. I looked like some punk rocker 'wanna be. I laughed a somewhat nervous laugh and asked, "You are going to cut the rest of it off aren't you?" She laughed and said somewhat fakey, "Oh, you wanted that cut too?" She cut it and we were all happy. I think I almost could've been a punk rocker!