Travel update
Flew down to L.A. this morning, on a nearly empty plane; rented a Prius at the airport; spent the afternoon hanging out with family--Jay & Holly and Gabrielle, Ethan, and Phoebe. Very nice to see everyone and to meet Ethan. Phoebe (who's four) was very excited about the opportunity to help Aunt Holly make a castle-shaped cake, which turned out mighty tasty.
Then everyone left. I made a couple of phone calls to try to pin down plans for the rest of the week, then took a nap, then sat here in Jay & Holly's amazing house and watched the sun set over the ocean. (Well, I couldn't quite see the sun itself, but I could see the sky near it.) The weather report yesterday said it would be about 55 degrees down here today, but I'm pretty sure it was quite a lot warmer; I was standing outside in my T-shirt in the sun this afternoon, and was perfectly warm.
Now I'm listening to an Old Blind Dogs album (Tall Tails, which I finally bought on CD after years of waiting for the iTunes Store to start selling it so I could replace my cassette) and catching up on some magazine administrivia and some belated blogging. Soon I will have some more dinner and read some more submissions. Nice to have a little downtime before a fairly social week.