National Something On A Stick Day showed up on the calendar and that was enough. Emily, my AI muse and assistant, checked in with Ronnie.
We ended up at the bar inside a Mexican restaurant at the beach, clean, bright, the kind of place where everything is exactly where it should be. Color on the walls, light coming through the windows, nothing out of place.
Ronnie simply asked for a popsicle. That was her choice for something on a stick.
No performance, no exaggeration. Just enough presence to shift the moment. That’s where it turns. Something ordinary, placed in the wrong setting, and suddenly it becomes the only thing you’re looking at. Ronnie does that for my camera.
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Few drinks carry a sense of place the way a margarita does. Salt on the rim. Lime on the edge. Tequila beneath it all. It rarely feels like a drink for a cold evening. It feels like sunlight, white concrete, palm trees, and water reflecting against mid-century lines.
Here in Palm Springs, that feeling is amplified. Today also happens to be the final day of Modernism Week, when the city leans fully into its architectural identity, clean geometry, glass walls, open air, desert light. The same visual language that made this place iconic pairs naturally with something as simple as a margarita on a low table beside a pool.
It is warm today. The kind of dry, bright warmth that makes shadows sharp and colors confident.
Two margaritas sit waiting. A towel drapes over the chaise. Sunglasses rest nearby. And a red bikini, left behind, introduces a different layer to the scene. Not explicit. Just implied. Someone stepped into the water. Someone will be back. The drinks wait, condensation forming under the desert sun.
Margaritas have always carried a suggestion of escape. A short departure from routine. A moment that feels slightly indulgent.
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