1) I had been told by my hosts well before I arrived that on Sunday we would be going to polo with a group of their friends — some of whom I got to meet at Saturday’s pool party. (I am becoming terrible with names and am, of course, adopting the Tallulah Bankhead Approach here. It works splendidly.) Never having been to a polo match, I thought, “Well, that’ll be different!”
1a) I was advised that this wasn’t fancy upper-crust polo but casual clothes and heavy tailgating. So I was not expecting the stereotypical North Shore country club, but something more like the desert polo field seen at the beginning of White Mischief with Charles Dance in the saddle: dust, blazing sun, champagne, and a few laughs, e.g. “Where’s the bloody ball?”
2) The morning was spent in some confusion — I’d say it was a comedy of Mercury retrograde except that that ended on February 3 — but I was certainly seeing parts of Palm Springs I hadn’t yet seen, and the mountain ranges everywhere in the background compelled my attention.
3) Of the two country clubs in Palm Springs, we went first the one that, contrary to expectations, was not open due to a private event. But we were directed to the other, where “family polo” was taking place. There, eventually, we were able to park and to set out our picnic, unprotected from the stronger-than-Palm-Springs-is-used-to-in-February sun.
4) Altogether the assembly spread out an impressive buffet: bagels and lox, fried chicken, potato salad, brownies, lemon squares, something in a crock pot I didn’t get to try, and of course champagne served in plastic flutes. Salut!
Polo!
5) So polo is a lot of horses with men on them carrying long-handled mallets galloping back and forth to get a hard white ball between goal posts at either end of a large grass field the size of nine football fields. This field is surrounded by a low wooden border painted red because, while the ball doesn’t leave the field, often the horses do. A margin of about eight feet stood between this border and the safety line for spectators so that no one watching might, um, make contact with a horse. And we certainly saw the horses cross over quite a few times, and a couple times quite near us.
5a) The six chukkas seemed to go on forever. Suddenly one horseman was actually in the space next to us, with the cameraman filming for the judges — surprise! Apparently he had been fouled, which I was told was quite rare.
I believe this was the start of a chukka, with all the riders gathered with the referee.
5b) Later I saw a riderless horse gallop off the field; it appears that one of the referees somehow came separated from his mount.
5c) Fun fact: the horses of the referees had long flowing tails, but the horses of the players had their tails braided and bound or bobbed.
Chapeau a la Zouave.
6) But really, the sun . . . I had to tuck a bandana in the back of my cap to protect my neck.
7) Once everything was packed up, we had a longish drive back home, where I almost immediately got into the pool. Eventually six of us were drinking champagne in the hot tub and I thought, as another friend has so memorably said, “Well . . . this doesn’t suck!”
8) During this stay I really haven’t seen much of what might be called The Scene, but the dinner decision was for Black Book, a gay bar on a street of gay bars that serverd great burgers. When our party of five arrived they were just shutting down the patio, which would have been lovely. But they had a substantial high top for us in the back of this all-black room, and they did indeed have good burgers.
8a) The one thing: the music was so loud I could barely hear any of the conversation at our table, confining me to responses like “Yes,” “Oh yes!” or “I’m sorry” or “What?” #agingactressyesterdaysglamorqueen
9) Outside, after our bill was paid, the suggestion was made to press on to another bar for another drink. One friend and I had had enough and headed home, where I am now sleepily compiling this entry.
10) This has been quite the California day: sun, sport, swimming pools, champagne, and friends. Now all I need to do is continue to hydrate and moisturize.