I'm going to be on "Meet the Author" on Radio Maria ... in an hour!

I can't believe I forgot to post this. I'm looking forward to talking with Ken Huck about Happy Catholic (the book!).

Radio Maria is very well known around the world with over a thousand stations; however, here in the U.S. it is just getting started with ten stations, smart phone apps, an internet feed, and podcasts.  Radio Maria is a very small operation with mostly volunteers. The studio is in Alexandria, Louisiana where the feed is uplinked to satellite for all ten stations.

Meet the Author is live for 60 minutes on Thursdays at 3 PM ET. The program is rebroadcast the following Sunday at 3 pm eastern.

Flight of the Conchords: Robots

This is for Scott who hasn't had the pleasure of seeing the zaniness contained in The Flight of the Conchords.

For anyone else who hasn't seen the series: Bret and Jermaine try to achieve success as a band in New York City and develop an American fan base. Their songs are woven into the plot of each episode, often as music videos ... truly hilarious and what we're watching before bedtime during weeknights.

Barbara Stanwyck Reads: It's Like Looking in a Mirror

Feel free to imagine this is how I loll around the house when I'm perusing a book.

I myself am going to imagine that very thing the next time I'm lying on the couch reading!

Via Awesome People Reading where there are many wonderful images of readers.

About Time: "Amid abortion debate, Komen cancer charity halting grants to Planned Parenthood"

The nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

Washington Post - get whole story there

Planned Parenthood says it is because Komen is bowing to political pressure. Komen says it is because Planned Parenthood is under investigation.

Either way, I approve.

When Choosing Life ... or Death ... is in the Palm of Your Hand

The nurse told me the antibiotics she'd administered, that we'd need to wait some time for HIV testing, and then handed me a box - Plan B, and told me we had 24 hours to use it.

So there it was. The whole moral conundrum of abortion in a little green box in my hand.

You must go read this story at Kissing the Leper.

It is about letting God work when evil visits you. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil it, but this story deserves to be read by many.

L. A. Diary: Lettuce Love

Part 1: We Begin
Part 2: On the Road
Part 3: We Arrive
Part 4: The Strange Encounter
Part 5: The Best Deal (or Two) in L.A.Part 6: Land of Dreams
Part 7: Meeting New Old Friends

=============================

The produce! Oh the produce in the L. A. grocery stores.

Even the average, nonorganic, run-of-the-mill green leaf lettuce is as fresh and crisp as if you had just picked it yourself.

Never let them tell you that travel time doesn't matter, evidently. Every store we tried had the most wonderful produce although it was rather odd to see the "locally grown" and realize it meant "from California."

Also, it was funny to see that they have the same stores but just call them something else. Let's see if I get this right ... Krogers is Ralph's (yes, really), Safeway is Vonn's, and then there's a store called Gelson's which is fairly high end but like a Simon David-ish store would be here.

Also they have Trader Joe's but after being in one in Chicago I am disenchanted. They are nothing special. Cheap but nothing special.

Chilaquiles

Another of those wonderful recipes Rose made for us when she was the cook of the house ... before flitting off to L.A. to seek her fortune. Get it at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Couch Potato Report

How to Tame Your Dragon
Chosen by our movie night pals, this was a better-than-average Dreamworks animated feature which was quite enjoyable. If the kids were still small, this would have been playing nonstop for a while at our house. Grade: B-

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2
 My personal afternoon viewing while I finish knitting the border on Rose's afghan. I must be about halfway through because (SPOILER!) Angel has just become Angelus. See, girls? This is why we don't do the nasty with a 200+ year old vampire, no matter how true our love is. I already knew this was coming because I watched Angel first. Still quite satisfying and, I must say, Drusilla does crazy almost as well as Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.

I love this Catholic theology tip

The other fun part of 10,000 Gun Questions Night is keeping it strictly Catholic. I often hear a double complaint about the Church:

1. How can we possibly have a firm teaching on anything?
2. And if so, why don’t we have a firm teaching on everything?

As if it were somehow more logical to worship a god who gave out brains and then refused to let you use them. [Catholic moral theology tip: If God gives you something, He's got a plan for how it's supposed to be used. Thy body is not a knick knack.]

From Jennifer Fitz, Riparians at the Gate

L. A. Diary: Meeting an Old Friend, for the First Time

Part 1: We Begin
Part 2: On the Road
Part 3: We Arrive
Part 4: The Strange Encounter
Part 5: The Best Deal (or Two) in L.A.

Part 6: Land of Dreams

=============================

There's always a unique tension in meeting people in person who you've only corresponded with ... or whose blogs you've read for a long time. The impressions you gain those ways can be very different sometimes with the person you meet face to face.

It isn't that you don't eventually work your way to that common ground that you both know each other from, but it can take a while and be awkward.

Then there are the people who have the happy knack of diving right into conversation as if you had lunch with them every day.

So you can imagine my pleasure at finding Will Duquette from The View From the Foothills is the second sort. As is his sweet wife, Jane.

Will and Jane were very kind to Tom and Rose on their initial trip to L.A. and both were looking forward to seeing the Duquettes again. We met up at a Mexican restaurant in their neck of the woods, or should I say foothills? We definitely were in beautiful, hilly terrain.

And we dove right into talk as if we were long-lost family members picking up where we left off. Books, California, the faith (of course) were all grist for the mill and we talked nonstop for at least a couple of hours. It was a real treat and hard to tear ourselves away.

I'm already looking forward to our next trip to L.A. in no little part because we'll get more talking time in with Will and Jane (and I can see their remodeled kitchen).

If you haven't dropped by Will's place lately, do make a point to stop by. He's been writing much more lately (you are all welcome very much), mostly about philosophy and sometimes about coffee. I've been enjoying it all a great deal, even if we did have a friendly debate about the Joe Ledger books and Evil.

Don't miss it ... The View From the Foothills.

Tomorrow, we'll fall in love.

HHS Mandate - some mulling over

In reference to my realization that HHS edict is personal since we are an employer, Class Factotum asked:

Do you exclude contraception now? Back in the late 80s, when I worked for a group health insurance company, the only contract where they didn't cover contraception or abortion was the Catholic hospital.

It's funny that she asks that because right before I read her comment, I realized that it never occurred to me to even check what our healthcare covered along those lines.

That's because we are a really tiny company and our employees haven’t been in the demographic where contraception or abortion ever came up.

Also, we are still mulling all this over, but in talking with Tom about it this morning, I was saying that it wasn’t up to me to mandate contraceptive prohibition to those whose beliefs don’t match mine. Obviously, I don't feel as if it is up to us to pay for those sorts of things either. And I'd feel that way whether I were Catholic or not.

Unlike the politicians trying to push this HHS thing through, I actually feel as if those choices are private and personal ... and I'm willing to let them stay that way.

As to where our insurance gets involved and what that means, we’re still mulling and looking into what is in place.

Other Thoughts
Frank says the petition is picking up steam but we're going to need to hit Mach 1 to achieve the 25,000 needed signatures. Sign up here.

The Anchoress has also been mulling things over and feels that we have been given the gift of clarity. Read it here at First Things.

Here Be Dragons. Literally. : Reviewing "The Dragon Factory" by Jonathan Maberrry

"Detective Ledger?" he said, and held out an ID case. "NSA."

"How do you spell that?"

Joe Ledger's back.

In Patient Zero, (SFFaudio review here) he saved the world from a zombie apocalypse and Muslim terrorists. Almost single handed.

How will he do on the island of Dr. Moreau?

In The Dragon Factory Joe is evading government agents trying to shut down the DMS, is the only man alive to have defeated genetically engineered super warriors, and is romancing his beautiful fellow agent Grace Courtland.

And that's just in the first few chapters.

Once again, Jonathan Maberry weaves a threat we know with a threat from fiction. A mad scientist (Cyrus) is using genetic experiments to mold the world in a way that will have horrific results for the population at large. Did I mention he's German? And enjoys cloning as a light pastime?

Meanwhile, a pair of amoral, super intelligent, albino twins are mixing and matching genetics to create creatures of myth and monsters from your worst nightmares.

Joe's got to find and stop all of them before the "Extinction Wave" doomsday program counts down to zero and releases havoc on the world. With a little help from Top, Bunny, Grace, and the enigmatic Mr. Church, of course.

I enjoy the way that Maberry mashes up several genres, with tongue in cheek, and produces a pulp fiction style, action-packed, roller coaster ride that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

This book tells a good portion of the story from the crazed villains' point of view, to good effect. I really love the dysfunctional family of super-villains where the children have disappointed the father by not having enough "vision" and the kids have giant "daddy" issues.

Maberry also dug just a bit deeper than I expected by contrasting the villainous family with Eighty-Two  the clone who Cyrus loves most but who fails every psych test in being "acceptable" (as his henchman, Otto, puts it). I didn't initially realize what that meant when filtered through the horrific mindsets of Otto and Cyrus, but the result was a surprise that led to some interesting musing about free will versus evil and nature versus nurture.  It isn't terribly deep but I still found its inclusion refreshing in a book of this sort.

As in Patient Zero, Ray Porter’s narration was spot on, voicing Joe Ledger as if he were the man himself, with slight variations applied to other characters to make them come alive equally well. I'd rather hear these books narrated than read them myself just for the sheer enjoyment of Porter's style and emphasis.

Make no mistake, The Dragon Factory is a straight-up thriller without a lot of twists and turns in plot. You read it for the hunt, for the action, for the adventure. You also read it for the twists of humor, the pulp fiction style, and the monsters. Especially for the monsters.

It's a good time at high speed. What more can you ask?

(This review originally ran at SFFaudio, whence came the review copy of the book.)

Note to Readers: the book contains violence and sex ... not as much as it could, to be sure, but not the least amount possible either.

L. A. Diary: It Is the Land of Dreams

Part 1: We Begin

Part 2: On the Road

Part 3: We Arrive

Part 4: The Strange Encounter

Part 5: The Best Deal (or Two) in L.A.

================

A quick observation.

You can buy liquor in the grocery store in California!

This is not new to anyone from, say, Missouri. Where I also was surprised every time I'd visit my parents and find a fully stocked liquor section.

But it never fails to surprise me.

We took advantage of the novelty by making sure that Rose had what she needed to offer us proper cocktails in the evening.

Ah, it can be very good to be Catholic!

Next, we meet an old friend, for the first time!

The HHS Mandate: Now it's personal.

As I was reading our Bishop's letter contained in our church bulletin, strongly urging people to protest the HHS edict which demands that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. No religious exceptions allowed.

It suddenly occurred to me.

We're Catholic employers. Tom and I. In our little company.

Crap.

Here I was taking on the fight for the Church and then I realized that ... duh ... we are the Church. So I've got to go to my insurance agent and talk about this problem. We're a tiny business and although we don't have to provide insurance for our employees we do anyway. It's the whole "treat them like you'd want to be treated" way to live the faith.

Except now maybe we can't without violating our consciences.

Think of the irony. One of our employees is a steadfast Democrat and, I think, an atheist. And he's our best guy and has worked for us for quite a while. If I have to do a work around on his insurance ... it will be the first time that the government has forced us to raise religion in our workplace. Nice going, Mr. O.

Petition
Frank, at Why I Am Catholic, with impeccable timing, has begun a petition at We the People. You have to register but you can leave the zip code part blank if you like. You can view and sign the petition here.

Letters
I also will be writing to President Obama, Kathleen Sebelaius, and my political representatives telling them that I don't appreciate them getting their government all over my religion. The Catholic bishops have info further explaining the HHS mandate, with links for writing.

It's Not Just for Catholics
Remember, this isn't just a Catholic fight. There are other faiths and personal philosophies that don't approve of abortion and certainly don't approve of the government stepping on religious freedom this way.

Speak up. It's the only way they'll get the message.

Conversation and Observations
In the course of a couple of email conversations with pals about this mandate, I mentioned that President Obama's group didn't think this through very well if it was going to suck in little companies like ours. A friend responded:

Julie, don't kid yourself. it's VERY well thought out. They could have glommed onto an exemption idea such as works in Hawaii, where employers have to notify employees by mail that they won't offer coverage for contraception and the worker can purchase a rider to the insurance on their own. They said they didn't have the AUTHORITY to work that exemption in. But they have the authority to overstep the constitution.

This was deliberately done, and meant to provoke a war.

I mentioned that I didn't think they meant for individual employers (Catholics, Mormons, whatever) to begin opting out. I thought they just went after the big guys ...

Because we will opt out. Although it may be a bloodless martyrdom. My pal's response.

Yes, it's going to force Catholics who offer insurance, like you and Tom, and who do it out of the goodness of your hearts and because you're interested in justice, to stop offering insurance. Which will force people to go on the government rolls, which is what Obama has wanted from the start. It puts believers of all stripes between the rock and the hard place and forces their hands -- he benefits.

Food for thought. And definitely when the rubber meets the road.

Other Responses
The Curt Jester has a round-up of "muscular episcopate statements" and his own thoughts. Some I'd seen, some I hadn't. My favorite is Bishop Zubik of Pittsburgh:

The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, “To Hell with you!” There is no other way to put it.”

L. A. Diary: The Best Deal in L. A. ... Maybe the Best TWO Deals in L. A.

Part 1: We Begin

Part 2: On the Road

Part 3: We Arrive

Part 4: The Strange Encounter

-----------------------

Once we didn't have to worry about accommodating a dog, hotel selection became somewhat easier.

Or did it?

Once Tom began scouting hotels near Los Feliz it became clear that there weren't many national chains nearby. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it forced us to go local.

Normally, we'd have jumped at the "local" option, but we'd experienced enough inconveniences on this trip to make predictable comfort a very desirable thing.

However, we chose wisely.

BrandWood Hotel, a boutique hotel "in the historic and upscale downtown district in city of Glendale" had more good reviews than bad. We figured it couldn't be worse than many of the European hotels we'd stayed at and booked the room. We could always relocate after one night.

For one thing, could any hotel room really be great if it was only $105 per night?

Yes.

Definitely.

We can't praise it highly enough.

Charming decor, comfortable rooms, adequate bathrooms (not luxurious but the hot water never ran out), solicitous and friendly staff ... it was fantastic.

For breakfast it was a hop, skip, and a jump to Portos Bakery down the street, where we quickly became addicted to their rich coffee which was also surprisingly inexpensive ... a large was $1.79. Unheard of!

Likewise, the many fine bakery offerings, which had locals lined up every day, were also quite inexpensive. And delicious. Quite delicious.

Altogether, Glendale turned out to be a felicitous choice!

We were always ready for days of setting up Rose's new digs and dealing with the challenges of setting up Rose's new digs.

Luckily Zoe only needed one night of sleeping in the new place with Rose to decide this was home ... and pick a spot in the nearby park for her very own "safe place." That was the biggest problem off of our minds ... finally!

We were free for other encounters ... of the personal kind. As well as some delightful discoveries. Which we will talk about next week!

L. A. Diary: Happy Catholic and the Strange Encounter

Part 1: We Begin

Part 2: On the Road

Part 3: We Arrive

-----------------------

So, there we were, beat up from 5 hours of driving, 3 hours of steady box moving, several days of jittery Boxer toilet patrol, and showing it, I am sorry to say.

Looking for the nearest hotel that would take a dog, we wound up at the Hollywood Holiday Inn. Which didn't take dogs, as it turns out, but did afford us a glimpse of the hubbub surrounding big doings at Grauman's Chinese Theater with media lights and a huge crowd as we negotiated the insane traffic.

Finally, after making the wise decision to do a broader computer search for dog-friendly hotels from the Holiday Inn parking lot, we headed for the Marriott near Bob Hope Airport, thinking it would provide a little peace and quiet.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ride by Warner Brothers Studios again, through Burbank which looked quaintly nostalgic for the 1950s (my grandparents went to a pharmacy that looked just like one we passed), and then just a bit further to the Marriott.

The Marriott, however, instead of being that island of peace we imagined, seemed to have a lot going on. As Rose and I waited for Tom to come out, we wondered what event was going on that required so many black ties, limos, and bustling bellboys. Tom emerged, with a bellboy in tow, and dispatched us with Zoe to go to the room while he parked.  We took said bellboy in tow, now pushing a cart laden with our many bags. And Zoe's giant water bowl. (Chic. That's us.)

We got to the lobby well ahead of our escort and paused, nonplussed. There was a huge cocktail party. Everyone was talking just as fast and loud as they could. The noise level was incredible. They were dressed up, some in rather garish clothing. Entering that riot of noise, especially after the day we'd had, was disorienting. We looked down at Zoe who was pressed against Rose's leg, obviously wondering what fresh hell we'd brought her to now. We looked again at that crowd and then the bellboy said, "Straight ahead, ma'am, and then through the bar to the elevators."

What?

We looked again at Zoe, each other, and the gauntlet ahead. I told Rose, "I feel as if we ought to have a greyhound on a fancy leash to take through this crowd." She laughed and we forged ahead.

Everyone turned to look and delightedly gestured, smiled, or cried out, "Look! A Boxer! I love Boxers!"

Zoe pressed harder against Rose's leg, kept her head down, and we all kept going, with everything a blur around us.

(Who builds their elevators behind the bar? Seriously!)

Finally, the gauntlet passed, we were safe in our rooms. I began taking inventory and pulling out the bottles for cocktails. (Yes, we were supplied and never had we been gladder than that evening when every nerve was frayed.)

Tom arrived and we all felt the room service salads crying out to us after all that fast food on the road. Rose left with Zoe to look for the patch of grass the front desk had mentioned. Tom left also (I can't remember why now). I called room service.

"Yes, ma'am, how may we serve you?"

"I'd like to order two Chicken Caesar salads and one Cobb Salad."

"Yes, ma'am. And how many people will be dining?"

Pause. I didn't know what that question meant. Wasn't this fairly straight forward?

Wait. Just how big were those salads?

"I'm sorry. How many people?"

"Yes, ma'am. So we know how many plates and how much cutlery to send up."

"Okaaay. Well, we'd like two Chicken Caesar salads and one Cobb Salad. So that's three salads. One for each of us. So that's three people?"

"Yes, ma'am. Sometimes we might get one person who would order three salads."

Aha.

Had we somehow actually had taken a short jog to Las Vegas? For some reason, I felt a casino vibe in the air now.

Tom came back and I told him about the conversation. His eyes twinkled and he laughed.

"Welcome to Hollywood!"

Rose returned, her eyes twinkling and a grin on her face.

"I found out who all those people are downstairs. It's a convention for the sex industry!"

We gaped at her. And then we all burst out laughing out loud.

"The patch of grass is right next to the convention hall and it has all glass walls. I was just staring into space and then I realized that the exhibit booth I was looking at was for Fleshlight - the number one sex toy for men."

Euwwww. Incredulous laughter from us.

"And then I started looking at the other booths. Trojan. Hustler. That's when I realized what was going on."

Tom got on the computer and we discovered that we'd landed right smack dab in the center of the annual convention for "adult industry" marketers (XBIZ Retail).

Vegas. Definitely a Vegas vibe was what I felt.

Rose got a big Vegas-style dose when waiting for the elevator to return to the room. Her eyes were past twinkling by now. They were gleaming with humor.

"It isn't just marketers here. There must be some of the 'stars' too. The elevator opened and I was eye to eye with a couple of implants that made Pamela Anderson look flat! How can she stand up straight? And who would think that is attractive?"

Zoe continued to be shy about wetting around strangers. We took turns hourly walking her and all had a chance to marvel over the idea of having a marketing convention for the sex industry.

As we would brace ourselves for the elevators to open to the noise of the bar and lobby party, two things became clear.

One: the Boxer just may be America's favorite dog. Every trip had cries wafting after us of, "Look! A Boxer. I love Boxers!" As the evening went on, the numbers did not decrease but they did grow increasingly drunk. My last trip at 11:00 was to shrill whistles and treats being tossed to Zoe as she slid by, ears back.

Tom finally set the alarm and got up at 2:00 a.m. The lobby party was still going strong, but there was finally a lack of outdoor traffic and Zoe gratefully used her toilet privileges in private.

Two: the second thing was that every time I looked at these very normal seeming people, I was filled with pity for them. They had managed to fool themselves into thinking that their marketing jobs were just like any others. Of course, in the sheer mechanics, they are. But in the sheer misery of soul that their industry generates to people ... well, that is hard to measure but it is no less real for being invisible. I began praying for them. And I still do so whenever I think of that evening, which has been fairly often as we have told this story.

The Marriott was a luxurious treat, beyond our budget, but for one evening it was just what we needed. And I'd have never seen "Vegas in Hollywood" without it.

We knew we'd have to find cheaper digs the next day. And, out of the blue we found what just may be the best deal in Los Angeles.

Which I will tell you about ... tomorrow!

Julie marvels at the end of the series, and Scott can't believe he didn't mention Luna Lovegood.

It's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (plus the whole series) under discussion as Scott Danielson and I begin Season 2 at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

ObamaCare and Religious Freedom - Timothy Dolan at the WSJ

You know, opening my paper in the morning just gets more interesting all the time.

A few days ago, I was bemused to see Bad Catholic quoted, whose blog I enjoy, in the regular Friday op-ed section where there was a thoughtful piece about the viral video Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus. I haven't commented on that video because many others have done so quite effectively ... suffice it to say that it is a shallow bit of thinking representative of the age we live in.

Then this morning I was surprised to see an editorial ObamaCare and Religious Freedom. By none other than Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, whose writing I much enjoy. He roundly takes the Obama administration for insisting on pushing the government into religion.

Scarcely two weeks ago, in its Hosanna-Tabor decision upholding the right of churches to make ministerial hiring decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically reaffirmed these longstanding and foundational principles of religious freedom. The court made clear that they include the right of religious institutions to control their internal affairs.

Yet the Obama administration has veered in the opposite direction. It has refused to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good—including Catholic schools, charities and hospitals—from its sweeping new health-care mandate that requires employers to purchase contraception, including abortion-producing drugs, and sterilization coverage for their employees.

[...]

The Catholic Church defends religious liberty, including freedom of conscience, for everyone. The Amish do not carry health insurance. The government respects their principles. Christian Scientists want to heal by prayer alone, and the new health-care reform law respects that. Quakers and others object to killing even in wartime, and the government respects that principle for conscientious objectors. By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.

Do go read it all.

I remember rolling my eyes when the Obama administration announced a few days ago, with an air of paternal well meaning, that they would give religious groups an extra year to come into line with their mandate. How kind of them ... to push it away from the president's reelection campaign timing and pretend they are doing religious institutions a favor.

This inevitably brought to mind President Obama's statement on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, where he fell back on affirming it at the most basic level because, and I quote:

... but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

Of course, he was being disingenuous. Killing someone is the most basic sort of intrusion of government into rights and abortion is killing. But above that, he shows that intruding into personal privacy is the sort of thing that is only honored when he cares to do so.

Again, I am reminded. I must pray for President Obama and his staff. We are not only under grave attack for our religious rights, but their souls are at grave risk.

L. A. Diary: We Arrive and I Discover that I Love L.A.

Part 1: We Begin

Part 2: On the Road

-----------------------

Once we got to the other side of those mountains, which actually look like foothills to anyone who grew up visiting Colorado on a regular basis, we hit Los Angeles.

What a surprise it was.

The movies made me think of it as flat.

This was enhanced when Tom told me many years ago that L.A. was like a huge version of Houston. Hmmm. Houston is flat as a pancake, full of clogged highways, and, frankly, not my cup of tea.

This city though was not like the descriptions or movies. It was clumps of hills with houses clinging to the sides and grouped around the base, highways weaving around them. The houses were brightly colored or Spanish-style architecture or just exotic looking.

I feasted my eyes.

This was anything but flat and boring!

As we laboriously made our way through town to Rose's new neighborhood of Los Feliz, my enchantment grew. For some reason Brazil came to mind. Yes, that is just how exotic it felt. I loved it! And that enchantment lasted the entire time we were there.

Rose's apartments, which back up to a huge hill and face a city park, continued my pleasure. Much larger than we expected, with hardwood floors and open courtyards, it was a lovely place to think of Rose and Zoe spending their time.

We crammed the car and U-Haul into Rose's parking place and hurriedly began hauling boxes to and fro. We wanted to unload that darned trailer and only had a couple of hours before the U-Haul office closed. We made the deadline and felt as light as a feather continuing without it behind us in the L.A. traffic. Why, we could even back up! No more determining destinations based on pull-through parking. Woohoo!

Rose and Zoe would spend one more night with us in a hotel. There was no way we were going to abandon them with the bed not even put together and the entire place full of boxes.

But where would take a dog?

Not many places, as it turned out.

However, both the Marriott and the Holiday Inn near the Bob Hope Airport would do so. And they weren't too far away. Based on the photos, Tom thought the Marriott looked quieter and more relaxing.

Thus did we learn that you really cannot judge a hotel by its picture.

Little did we know that we were embarking upon the strangest encounter we would have the entire time. And, now that I think of it, I'm not sure our family has ever had an evening like the one we had at the Marriott.

Once again, that's a story for another day.

L. A. Diary: On the Road

Part 1: We Begin

-----------------------

Adventure or inconvenience ... this one is easy.

Driving is worth it. The scenery is simply fantastic.

As Tom said, it is like that first scene from Silverado. Scott Glenn has been inside a tiny, dark cabin evading shotgun blasts from an unknown assassin on the outside. He prevails and swings open the door and ...

... there taking up the entire screen is a glorious panorama that you can hardly believe is real.

Those filmmakers must have driven through the west.

Not that there weren't inconveniences. We had plenty to make sure we appreciated the boons we were granted (such as that scenery).

The half hour of waiting in traffic just outside of Fort Worth after we'd been driving only about 20 minutes from home. Some genius in the local Transportation department had detoured four lanes through an access road.

Zoe's continual nervousness at the traffic. Every time a big truck roared by she jumped to her feet and whirled to look out the window. This was just for the first day, but she was so nervous that we all had to sit in the car with her so that she'd take a drink of water. And after she did ... she vomited. Luckily, your eagle-eyed Happy Catholic was in the back seat, noticed the gulping (and seconds later, the heaving sides) and grabbed the giant water bowl to hold under her mouth. And my instinct to cover the back seat and environs with old towels gave us a nice mouth-wipe for after.

The food. Dear Lord, the endless outlets for fast food of every sort. This wasn't helped by the fact that the U-Haul dictated our choice of restaurants. If we couldn't pull through, then we didn't dine there. (I use the word "dine" loosely, but you get the idea.)

But without those inconveniences we wouldn't have been able to revel in this glorious Western scenery. Not for the first few hours. West Texas is no treat for the eyes, except possibly in high summer. But as soon as we hit New Mexico the mesas made me remember not only Silverado, but every Western movie I'd ever seen.

It was sunset and the rich golden glow from the west put everything in sharp silhouette. The mesas stood black against the light. It was almost too much for the eyes but we couldn't quit staring.

The next two days saw more mesas, mountains, glorious rolling desert ... and then for a couple of hours before hitting the California mountains, we were back in nondescript landscape. And then we rolled through those hills and saw L.A.

But that's a story for another day. Tomorrow,  in fact.