Meli and I just got back from a three-day trip to Palm Springs, the only real vacation I'll have this summer (not counting the many working vacations the old law firms will be foisting upon me). Unlike most Elliott family vacations, this trip was profoundly relaxing. I spent a great deal of time swimming and napping, though not at the same time. And, despite slathering 45 SPF sunblock all over my disgusting pasty Irish skin several times a day, I got just a wee bit burned by the desert sun. A few highlights:
Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson was behind us in line at the Starbucks in LAX. She was both taller and greasier than I would have expected. She was with a guy who looked like one of the guys in Garbage, but I couldn't be sure it was him.
We had dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse the first night there. The way it works is you have an all-you-can/care to-eat salad bar followed by fourteen different offerings of meat. They bring out a different meat every few minutes on a big stick and cut you off a chunk. Then you eat too much and get sick, and the waiter yells at you because he needs to close his till, because everybody in Palm Springs eats dinner at 5:00 in the afternoon.
My brother in law taught me how to swing a golf club, which is one of the most complicated tasks I've ever attempted. I pretended not to notice Mike, who was captain of his high school golf team, Happy-Gilmoreing his balls out past the horizon as I chipped my sad little shots just a few yards onto the driving range.
We had a cat sitter while we were gone, but I kept imagining that we'd come home to find Ruby with blood all over her mouth and Pepe half-eaten in a corner. Fortunately we found both cats alive and well, but extremely hyper.
And tomorrow, I start work as an official fake lawyer.
sounds like a nice trip!
good luck on the "fake lawyering!" sounds like a busy summer ahead!
I would like to thank Matt for not just putting up with my family dramas but actually loving them in spite of it all! He's the best!
i like the relentless skepticism, where even though you know it was shirley manson behind you, you're unwilling to really commit to an assertion that the guy with her was ALSO from garbage.
shirley manson is pretty unmistakable, what with the orange hair and the eyes on the sides of her head. but the guy could have been any of a number of tall, bald, somber-looking men.