EARTHQUAKE!!!!

So I guess you heard about the disaster. Here I am all the way across the country, without any real support system and a natural disaster, an act of God's frustration with the really high gay population of the area (if you follow the nut cases) and we have a major earthquake. It was horrific . Traffic snarled for miles and miles on the freeways. Somewhere in town a guy in a Toyota Green Car Hybrid was watching the traffic lights sway to the point he accidentally drove through a huge store window. I am pretty sure there were blood curdling screams and mothers grabbed their children to their warm comforting bosoms.

I never saw any of that, and while it probably did happen, I am not aware that it ever happened around here in Palm Springs. No, in fact I was in a conference class that was DAMN interesting about neurobiology when my cell phone went crazy and I got like a half dozen urgent text messages from the home office. I go to my room, take care of business and go back downstairs towards the end of the conference, just before noon. Evidently, in the time it took for me to walk the rat's maze of hallways to get the elevator and thus to the conference room, we hadda whole lotta shakin going on! I am standing around, actually braced against a pillar as I start to bend and stretch out my back, even a small walk gets me hurting, but I feel I am getting better. (Thanks for asking) When the hotel staff come in and are staring at the crystal chandeliers. That's when they tell us we just had an earthquake. A pretty big one. And I freakin missed it!!

They point out the shaking glass on the chandeliers and mention how the building is built on rollers so it will sway when the Earth shakes. Soon all kinds of conference skippers file in the hallways and start their tales of survival. Some say the window shutters shook, some say the whole floor swayed under their feet, some even claimed stuff was rattled off tables. Again, I was clueless. Not even a hint of Spidey sense to enable my survival. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. I mean I was as flat lined as if watching gay porn. (with dudes... chicks are different) So, there I am waiting for Y2Kette to emerge from the session with the new co-worker so I can tell them how they survived the horrifying ordeal they probably never knew happened, like I had no clue, right? Only they ran out of the room laughing and glowing with the joy of having escaped with their lives, or enjoyed a good carnival ride. THEY KNEW!!

"So, did you know we had an Earthquake?" I ask them.

"Yeah!" Y2Kette beamed at me. "We were talking about brain physiology and the room shook and we heard this loud roar and New Co-worker yelled 'It's a Bomb!' and started to dive under the table. But then somebody from California said it was just an Earthquake. That was a good class. Where did you go?"

So as the dust slowly settles and we find some type of refuge in the still standing parts of the Palm Springs Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa, we will find the courage to carry on, to rebuild and maybe, one day, with the grace of God, we will be able to put this terrible day behind us. But I suspect it will take A LOT of flex time from the office and maybe a few days sailing. On good old solid Oklahoma lakes.

The Gayest Place on Earth

So a couple of weeks ago I was told I need to go to Palm Springs for a training. OK, who doesn't want to visit Death Valley in July, right? Then I am told we have a surplus in a grant that needs to be spent or we lose it. I suggest taking Y2Kette to Palm Spring with me. The school would pay her way, pay her Per Diem (like $150 a day!) and pay her registration for the training.

Can you believe I got resistance on this suggestion?!! Can you believe some people in the college took issue with me wanting to take MY daughter on an all expense paid trip to Hollywood's Playground? Some thought it was me being greedy and trying to bilk the school and even a tax supported grant by slipping her into a trip.

But here are the facts. Y2Kette has been a part of every youth activity my office has participated in for the past 6 years. She has been in all the youth groups, gone to state conventions, giving up time with friends, and performed almost every tobacco vendor check we have done in the last two years. Plus she is just now finishing a two month summer internship where she was doing the work of a much higher paid professional and doing it damn well. In fact, we would not have had most of our youth participation if it was not for Y2Kette dragging her friends and classmates to the meetings with her. So yeah, as far as youth leadership goes, she is the best we have.

So we leave next week. It will be her first airplane ride. We are going to try to get her a private room, if the hotel is not already full. The room will have to be close to mine... not gunna allow any drunken sex parties with those darn kids and their rock and roll music, you understand. She will participate in the youth leadership track and the new girl and I will do the more boring professional line of classes. We agree her classes look way more interesting than ours. Some kids have all the luck, great trips, her own car, the coolest dad ever, and now Palm Springs. And do you know the main claim to fame of today's Desert Resort?

Let's just say it ain't your father's Palm Springs any more. Check out the LGBT stats. Yes, Palm Springs, once famed party town for horny drunken chicks is now the gayest place on Earth.