Dispatches from the City of Angels
I'm a writer and humorist living in and writing about Los Angeles. You can catch my novel LOSING CLEMENTINE out March 6 from William Morrow. In the meantime, feel free to poke around. Over at my website you can find even more blog entries than I could fit here, as well as a few other ramblings. Enjoy and come back often.
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"Taint what a horse looks like, it’s what a horse be." - A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
"Trying to take it easy after you've finished a manuscript is like trying to take it easy when you have a grease fire on a kitchen stove." - Jan Burke
"Put on your big girl panties, and deal with it." - Mom
"How you do anything is how you do everything."
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Lost nowhere near Yonkers
"Shhh..." I said to my dirt-covered husband and pointed. First one deer. Then a baby deer. Then another adult. Mama, baby and the spare wandered along the trail in front of us before bounding away with a sort of boing-boing, freaky kangaroo gait.
I pushed the button on my stop watch and enjoyed the satisfying BEEP. Just over an hour through some pretty gnarly trails, up some quad busting ascents, and still we'd made good time.
L.A. sits in a bowl, more or less surrounded by mountains. And, apparently, that's where we keep our deer - also our rattlesnakes, mountain lions and some deviant little lizards that kept eyeing my bare ankles.
Makes for some mighty fine trail runnin'. And I was feeling pretty smug about my time. Yessiree. Nothing like the smell of Gatorade in the morning. I took a long pull off my sport bottle.
"Okay, so the car's that way?" I asked.
"Uh..."
"What?"
"Huh."
"What?!"
"I think we're on the wrong side of the mountain."
"That's not funny."
"I think we have to go back."
"Back?!"
Back was seven miles up the side of the mountain. The morning cool was burning off, and - we would later discover - it was about to be 102 in the shade. Not that there was much shade.
"How much water do you have left?" he asked.
I hugged my bottles protectively. "Enough."
I put my two fingers to my eyes and moved them back and forth between us. "That's right," I said. "I'm watching you."
(Time passes. Two lonely figures hiking up the side of a blistering, dusty mountain.)
"Hey," my groom says, "remember when went hiking in Yosemite, and you brought that bag of honey roasted peanuts and mixed it up with m&ms?"
My stomach growled. "I don't want to talk about it."
(More time passes.)
"Man those peanuts were good."
"Hush."
Suddenly, the dead weeds were starting to look a wee bit succulent. Positively salad like. My stomach growled again.
"I'm just saying," he went on. "And then, after we climbed Half Dome, 'member? We got that pizza."
And then I did want any sane person would do. I turned around and pummeled him with my empty water bottles....and sicced a lizard on him.
The bites will heal. Eventually.
I pushed the button on my stop watch and enjoyed the satisfying BEEP. Just over an hour through some pretty gnarly trails, up some quad busting ascents, and still we'd made good time.
L.A. sits in a bowl, more or less surrounded by mountains. And, apparently, that's where we keep our deer - also our rattlesnakes, mountain lions and some deviant little lizards that kept eyeing my bare ankles.
Makes for some mighty fine trail runnin'. And I was feeling pretty smug about my time. Yessiree. Nothing like the smell of Gatorade in the morning. I took a long pull off my sport bottle.
"Okay, so the car's that way?" I asked.
"Uh..."
"What?"
"Huh."
"What?!"
"I think we're on the wrong side of the mountain."
"That's not funny."
"I think we have to go back."
"Back?!"
Back was seven miles up the side of the mountain. The morning cool was burning off, and - we would later discover - it was about to be 102 in the shade. Not that there was much shade.
"How much water do you have left?" he asked.
I hugged my bottles protectively. "Enough."
I put my two fingers to my eyes and moved them back and forth between us. "That's right," I said. "I'm watching you."
(Time passes. Two lonely figures hiking up the side of a blistering, dusty mountain.)
"Hey," my groom says, "remember when went hiking in Yosemite, and you brought that bag of honey roasted peanuts and mixed it up with m&ms?"
My stomach growled. "I don't want to talk about it."
(More time passes.)
"Man those peanuts were good."
"Hush."
Suddenly, the dead weeds were starting to look a wee bit succulent. Positively salad like. My stomach growled again.
"I'm just saying," he went on. "And then, after we climbed Half Dome, 'member? We got that pizza."
And then I did want any sane person would do. I turned around and pummeled him with my empty water bottles....and sicced a lizard on him.
The bites will heal. Eventually.
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