Palm Springs Life

The most beautiful time of day in Palm Springs is at dawn...



...as the sun slowly illuminates the San Jacinto mountains to the west of town...



...making the entire place look as if it's being lit for a Terrence Malick movie.



The reason for a visit in August was to look at real estate, a subject that has always bored the heck out of me while obsessing most of my California contemporaries.



This in turn was because my Domestic Partner was being forced by the odd tax laws of this country to invest money in something/anything after the sale of a house in San Francisco's Mission District.



The cause of that sale was the death without a will of his ex-lover three years ago, which plunged my partner into a three-year maze of funeral arrangements, probate court, Michigan in-laws, a tenant with either AIDS dementia or a carefully tended facsimile of same, and a volatile real estate market that was looking ready to crash at any minute.



A couple of weeks ago, everything was finally settled, and since buying anything in San Francisco was prohibitively expensive, we looked elsewhere for a place to put his small stash.



The Central Coast area around San Luis Obispo was considered, but that also turned out to be insanely pricey, and after a week around my parents and siblings there, I remembered once again why I'd fled from family at as early an age as possible.



So, like seemingly every other gay person of a certain age in San Francisco, we decided to check out buying a Palm Springs condo, most of which are fairly depressing.



However, unexpectedly, we scored.



In the fanciest part of "Historic Old Palm Springs," a block from the Palm Springs Tennis Club and the San Jacinto mountains...



...we were taken by a retired San Francisco real estate dude, Forrest Ryon, to a small, beautiful complex with good vibes where there was a listing for a fairly inexpensive one-bedroom place.



The offer was made, accepted, and a question was asked by the sellers.



They had already rented the place out for January, February and March to snowbird tenants who visited every year.



They were charging a monthly rent of [insert outrageous sum here], and wondered if the arrangement could continue.



"Uh, yeah," we replied before jumping up and down in happiness.



In an earlier post, I wrote rude things about San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty and referred to myself as a "non-A-Gay." One of my commenters, Albglinka (click here for his blog), wrote "And I always thought you were an A-Gay!" Gosh, I now may be guilty as charged.