Rise And Shine!

Today started out with that most pleasant of circumstances: an alarm going off that you didn't need to set. Yup, Katie and I woke up promptly at 8 AM (that's 11 AM for you folks on the east coast) for her internship that, on Tuesdays, doesn't start until noon. So we dragged ourselves out of bed and went to pick up a check that the nice people of Boston University gave to us to help cover our food expenses while we are stuck in this motel, where our only "kitchen amenities" include a coffee maker and a refrigerator which has the internal volume of a shoe box. A word of advice, speaking of motel refrigerators: don't go out on the first day to buy milk and cereal, thinking you're so clever, and just put the milk in the supplied fridge without first checking to see if it is on. Chances are, it won't be. Anyway, we took our leisure time getting ready, and moseyed over to Paramount so I could drop Katie off.

Upon returning to the motel, I decided that I would be a Conscious Californian, and walk instead of driving to small errands. I have been on a quest for the next Tom Clancy book, Patriot Games and am having vast amounts of difficulty finding it. In any case, I found a used book store about a mile from here, and decided to walk over and check it out. It seemed like a good idea at first. I ended up with funny-shaped tan lines on my feet that look curiously like the straps on my sandals. I also did not find the book I was looking for. But I did walk past the CBS studios, and they had a booth out front offering tickets to tapings of The Price Is Right. I suppose some day I might nip in and see if I can get on the show. I also discovered that there are a lot of Jewish delicatessens and bakeries on Fairfax between 3rd and 1st street. Pretty much the whole block is made up of them, with the exception of, I am not making this up, a bank and a consignment shop called "Out Of The Closet" whose mannequins in the front window sported leather pants and feather boas. LA is just full of unique business ventures. Katie and I rounded out the day on a mad hunt for a Boston Market. We found one, many miles away, that was happily situated right next to a restaurant that had cannolis to go. That made me happy.

One more note about LA traffic: Katie was talking to her friend who was lost while driving. She was complaining that all she could see was a Starbucks and no one would let her turn. Katie said "at least you know you're still in LA!"