dribbling out L.A.

[calimac]

1. Airport security was, fortunately, no more onerous than usual. If the TSA has those new bug zappers at either airport - I don't know what all those 8-foot tall boxes are - they weren't using them on me or anybody else in line that I could see. Just the old metal detector for you, sir. (ETA: Here's why: the TSA turned off the scanners for the weekend. Obviously, then, they're not so essential after all.) Differences: the metal detector at LAX doesn't like my belt buckle; the one at SJC couldn't care less. At LAX you're made to lug your checked luggage over to a huge x-ray machine squatting ugily by the side of the ticket counter; at SJC the airline takes it away, and you get it back after the flight with a slip of paper in it from the TSA saying, "Hi! We pawed through all your stuff!"

2. Christmas carols were already ubiquitous even on the airport shuttle bus Friday morning of Thxgvg weekend - I feel for John Scalzi's bitter November - and this year they seem to be mostly dragged-out lugubrious arrangements sung by male crooners. Did I actually hear a lugubrious crooner version of "We Need a Little Christmas", or did I dream it?

3. On a post-con visit to Dr. G., I described our upcoming Hanukkah dinner at home with apparently enough enticement that she wants me to come back down sometime and make it for them! Well, gee, I'm not making latkes in any kitchen but my own - far too messy - but matzo ball soup, maybe. The problem is, what else in my repertoire goes with matzo ball soup?

4. Of my two usual used bookstores in the Wilshire district, one's going out of business, and the other has a sign in front reading, "Save a bookstore, buy a book," so I did. What is still going gangbusters is Amoeba in Hollywood, where I got a few used CDs and snapped up a cheap display DVD of First Among Equals, the miniseries adaptation of Jeffrey Archer's political thriller novel that's one of my guilty pleasures. It has early Tom Wilkinson in it, goody.

5. In memory of Glen GoodKnight, I spent some of my free time on Monday visiting some of the parks that had hosted Mythopoeic Society spring picnics and Bilbo & Frodo's birthday fall picnics in the very early days. I never went to any of these, you understand; they were before my time and a few hundred miles out of my way, but I have fond enough memories of my own Mythopicnic days that I thought I'd soak in other people's memories. I guess I was inspired by sartorias's memorial post in which she describes driving past one of them and delighting to see that the Party Tree was still there. I wonder which tree that was; there were a lot of trees at that park. There was a big shady oak on the slope of a hillock, and a crown of what I guess were California sycamores at the top, and another sycamore with a sturdy trunk nearby, and several others of different species. It was a lovely site, or would be without the traffic noise and petrol fumes from the freeway thundering hard by, but I guess Angelenos don't mind that, as most of the other parks were similarly situated.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It was the huge one with the divided trunk, roughly central to the park (though it's difficult to find anything central in a park so oddly shaped and elongated.) But that was where Glen usually established his blanket, and so that would be the center.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Not knowing your cooking repertory - brisket and roasted chicken are both easy and delish, though brisket can be time-consuming. OR just serve the boiled chicken from the matzoh ball soup as the main course.