It is a travel day. Once again, I am off on the departure time. I could have sworn that it was 6, not 6:30. Instead of fifteen minutes late, we are 15 minutes early. A rapid drive down dark highways, making up for lost time that isn’t. This is the 101, past Pierce College, past Sherman Oaks, on through the darkness and into Burbank. Hollywood Way leads us to the airport and to an hour of calm reflection at the gate, listening to 80’s music. Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, Madness . . . It is 2008, isn’t it? Holy crap, it’s Genesis!

At the moment, I am reflecting on the foolishness of my gustatory indiscretions. Raw cauliflower dipped in eggplant hummus. Blued stilton on rosemary garlic crackers. Chili. Three glasses of Merlot. And for dessert, a Trader Joe’s chocolate bundt cake that I am pretty sure was made out of sawdust and ex-lax, with an overindulgent serving of coffee bean ice cream. Add two glasses of champagne that would have been better suited to cleaning battery terminals a short time later in celebration of president-elect Obama, and you have a room-clearing combination of swamp gases. It is going to be an awkward flight.

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