Back in La-La Land

Los Angeles - Here I am at the Biltmore Hotel again, my luxurious home away from home. (As hotels go, it is lovely, but I would prefer my own bed.) There is an interesting piece of furniture in my room this time, a combination TV cabinet / writing desk / bureau with a slanted section where the desk flips down. A hotel employee delivered my dinner just now, with professional courtesy but no friendliness whatsoever. He rolled in a table that, under the white tablecloth, might be identical to the one I used in the hospital when Liam was born. Then he mumbled something like "joroo sabis" and took the cover off my pasta with a flourish. The he arranged my real silver-ware and bowed out.

I have been dreading this trip, my third to Los Angeles in a year's time. I hate LA. But I must admit, the food never disappoints. And I always meet some character that makes it bearable. Last time it was the lady from Mexico City who makes an annual trip here to visit her guru.

Tonight, I rode the Super Shuttle with a great cast.

• The driver, a west African-born man who doggedly circled the airport three times hoping to fill his van. After an hour and a half circling and driving through the city, he decided to stop for gas, with all of us sitting in there, only 5 minutes from the hotels.
• The passenger in the front seat. He didn't say a word, he just clutched his satchel (which looked more like a women's purse than anything, if you want my opinion) like a security blanket.
• A grad student in the back seat who occasionally corrected someone if they didn't have the facts quite accurate. *The other guy in the back seat is about to quit his job as a personal fitness trainer, sell all his possessions, and spend the next 3-4 years attempting to visit 200 third world countries and writing a book about it. Either that, or he is a pathological liar. You can read about it on his web site, www.apebbleinthepond.com.
• A white-haired lady, who lives in Florida and used to teach 3rd grade. She was with her son, and kept saying sweet things like "are you ever going to come see my house before I die?"
• The son, Jim, who is the spitting image of John Allen (except 30 years younger). He is starting a nonprofit for community drumming. And he lived for an entire year in a macrobiotic center where he ate only miso soup and brown rice. I know his name is Jim because he told me three times. And he also shook my hand twice.