Bumps in the Road

The past month has been a doozy! I traveled back to Illinois in early November, visiting sons in Chicago and Springfield, and in between, launching that "Travels with Charlie (and Beto)" tour (see the report of the trip under "Works") in Central Illinois. Unfortunately, my travels with Beto were a bust, as our mission to engage Midwesterners in their responses to the socio-political atmosphere - in the vein of John Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" - didn't work out as we had trouble even finding people in public places we visited! Plus, there was an unusual cold spell. We're revisiting our methods as we had originally intended to continue our travels in the spring.

Just before my trip, I found out that I need a medical test in December, and after returning from my trip, I found out a friend's cat had a medical condition that needed attention. I was then in the middle of doing volunteer final judging for the L.A. Press Club's National Arts & Entertainment Awards followed by copyediting and proofreading of its program book.

And now, I continue researching for a magazine article.

Thus, I was a bit distracted from updating my Web site here.

Then, the Santa Ana winds stirred up six wildfires over the past week surrounding the L.A. basin where I live, and I became glued to the TV that was documenting the firefighting efforts. (I'll soon be adding a new page monitoring fires and arson.) At any moment, I feared that the neighboring Griffith Park would catch fire, which I had seen twice before in years past. So far, that has not happened, but we are not out of the woods yet. (Bad pun.)

There have even been small earthquakes in the area, too, prompting me to wonder if an asteroid was going to hit us next!

And so it goes (with apologies to the late Kurt Vonnegut).

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