Today we went to Sunnylands, the estate of Walter and Leonore Annenberg.  What a sight!  I mean that in every sense you can imagine – good, bad and ugly.  The views were spectacular, the house is big and open and the artwork must have been amazing.  It is all in the Metropolitan Museum in NYC now, and the photo copies that now hang in their place in the home just make it look cheap.  Imagine a very expensive, expansive motel on a private golf course for the political glitterati and you have it.  Pink tile roof and all, almost like HoJo’s.  During the tour, we heard about the decorator who they relied on to make the place look so, so, so . . . unique, and all I could think was – I want to see a picture of this guy!  I don’t want to run into him in a dark alley, but just a picture would do.  I have a resplendent vision in my head of what he must look like, dogs and all!

The place is just littered with pictures of Ronnie and Nancy, Ike and Mamie, Gerald and Betty, Dick and Pat, George and Barbara.  Not to mention an entire sitting room, the royal sitting room, dedicated to the royal family, mostly Elizabeth, but with a many of the lesser royals as well.  I particularly liked the signed photo of Charles and Camilla, and an entire wall of Christmas greetings from the Queen Mother.  In the two guest rooms that we visited, there was a list of guests, not all of them, but just a selection.  I was surprised that one of the guests was Hilary Clinton in 1995 (I suppose they had to invite her as she was the First Lady at the time), but no mention of Bill, which I thought was odd, but I figured that she must have come alone.  Wrong.  As we were heading out, there were photos of folks with the Annenbergs, and there was Hillary and there was Bill.

Anyway, I highly recommend a visit.  Fortunately, there were a lot of photos of Obama when he hosted the Chinese President this past summer in the visitor’s center, so as we left, I felt slightly cleansed.  I still had to run home to take a shower to rid myself of the stench of conservetism.  David was also very pleased to go and see, and the day was glorious.  It stayed in the mid 80’s all day, and when we got home, I actually opened the windows to let some air in.  This is the time when Palm Springs is a dream.

We did all our other usual stuff, walk, swim, exercise and some speech.  I have to come up with more of these cultural outings for David.  Then we watched the first episode from this season of Breaking Bad and then Project Runway.  I read the blog, but no book tonight.