Magic & Mayhem's Wrong Coast Tour -- the meerkat's eye report

[lagilman]

Monday:

Flight out. Worked. Slept. Boring. Met up with kradical at the car rental place and hit the road. The shortest road-hitting of the trip, in fact, as we were just going to Madeleine Robins’ place in San Francisco. We arrived without incident, and vegged for a while with Mad and her darling daughters (the youngest, Becca, is just like me at that age. Mad took this news well, I thought). Did a little touristing in the afternoon, checking out the sights, then back for dinner (spouse Danny having arrived home by then) and several bottles of wine and much silliness. A good start to the week.

Tuesday:

After a slow start because kradical doesn’t do mornings and we had to prevent Danny from waking him in cruel and unusual and yet funny [to us] ways, there was more touristing with Mad, Becca and Julie, and then we went back to the house, packed up the car, and headed out to Borderlands, our first stop. A good turnout for the reading and Q&A, and a nice number of books signed (and, one hopes, bought). One guy asked a lot of really good and interesting questions, seemed really into it… and didn’t get anything signed from either of us. I feel so …used. :-(

Picked up some books I’ll never have time to read, proving that hope is both eternal and stupid, and at 9:30 in the evening we hit the road for the first leg of the trip down to Los Angeles.

I should note here that the plan had been to share the driving responsibilities. But kradical got hold of the steering wheel and refused to let go the entire trip. Since he had also refused to split an upgrade to a convertible, my heart wasn’t too broken. I got control of the cd selection. This leg was the Warren Zevon soundtrack. There’s something…right about blasting Warren Zevon while driving through the California desert darkness of route 5…

The stars were truly lovely, absent the new moon, and I wanted to get out and admire them. But we were authors on a mission. Destination: As close to L.A. as we could manage.

We stopped around 1 in the morning somewhere called Lebec, or something like that, at a Best Western. The beds were comfortable, the showers had good water pressure, and really, what more can you ask?

Wednesday:

Oh. So this is what the landscape looks like! Pretty. Lots of rolling brown hills and cliffs and stuff. The geology geek in me is thrilled. We call our hostess (koimistress) and her assistant (our friend SUe from the Jersey Conspiracy days) and let them know we’re on our way. The soundtrack is Springsteen, in honor of the moment.

(Let me pause here to say that I like Los Angeles. I like going there. I like being there. I LOVE leaving there. But I digress.)

koimistress has a lovely home in the Hollywood Hills. And we do mean hills. I took some photos – will see if they come out. She has also gone totally Hollywood -- even more than having a PA, she has a Porsche. A bright red convertible Porsche. This, from the woman who, when she first moved to LA, made me drive her Toyota because the roads made her nervous. I am vastly amused. I’m also annoyed that we didn’t really have time for me to take her up on her offer to ‘take it for a spin.’

The signing at Dark Delicacies did not go as well as the one at Borderlands, but considering that a) they’re mainly a horror store and b) it was a Wednesday night in August, we didn’t take it personally. A friend from college had sworn she was going to stop by, but since she was flaky in college it’s not all that surprising that she’s flaky a decade later. And Del and his wife (whose name I’m blanking on) didn’t seem to mind – we spent a lot of time gossiping about other horror folk :-) And they invited us to come back for a prime Saturday signing next time we’re out, so that’s good.

Since the Universal Citywalk was halfway between DD and koimistress’s place, we stopped there for a little while, observing the silliness (oh, okay, and partaking of it a little, too. I snagged both an Eeyore and a meerkat Pez dispenser. My life is a little more complete. Then back to koimistress’s place, and koimistress herself. And much catching-up was done between Jersey Conspirators. The years between have been interesting. We’re all pretty much, career-wise, where we’d dreamed we would be.

And thence to bed – I got the guest room, which in addition to a great view has the most comfortable sleigh bed in the world, and I could happily have moved in there, lock, stock and laptop.

Thursday:

We awake at the break of.. okay, I awoke at the break of dawn and got some work done before the others began to stir. SUe arrived, and koimistress headed out for a meeting, and we packed up the car and headed out to Karen Taylor’s place to visit for a while.

Karen also has a lovely place, and we spent a very nice few hours sitting by the koi pond and trying to keep Charlie from knocking us over, either with his enthusiastic tail or his doggie breath. Charlie is a doofus. Sweet, loving, but a doofus. Isis the cat also deigned to come by and scent mark me. Repeatedly.

And then we hit the road for Mysterious Galaxy down in San Diego, ducking buzzards and military coptors overhead (one was practicing landing approaches. I hesitate to contemplate what the other was doing). The soundtrack was a mix of things which I can’t remember right now. We had traded sightseeing time in SD to hang with Karen. San Diego is nice, but I think it was a very good choice.

Mysterious Galaxy is a Good Bookstore. kradical had a slight book delivery malfunction, courtesy of S&S, but they still had stock from ComicCon, so all was well. We gave them the basic Goob-and-meerkat show, tempered by the fact that by now there was half a functional brain between the two of us. People seemed to enjoy themselves anyway. And the Penguin sales rep for the area (Tom Mc) came by, which was really nice. Hadn’t seen him in a while. Sold a bunch of books, signed a bunch of stock (so my friends in the area who didn’t bother to stop by [not that I’m hurt or anything] can pick up signed copies in apology).

And then back on the road again, driving until we reached exhaustion point, and then stopped in a Motel 8 (lousy beds, lousy showers, but $30 cheaper than the Best Western) somewhere in the southern California desert.

Friday:

Back on the road for the last leg. We’ve hit the Blues part of the soundtrack – Stevie Ray Vaughn and the “blues period” from Jethro Tull, among others. We are tired enough to be amused by a series of roadside signs (along an orchard: Oranges. Mandarins. Lemons too. Eat more citrus. It’s good for you.) that left us waiting for a Burma Shave sign at the end. Alas, we were left waiting. Their whimsy only went so far.

At this point, we’re pretty much tired of each other and in dire need of being Elsewhere. Yay the airport! Bye Keith. Hello work that’s been waiting for me…

Total miles: I’ll get back to you on that…
Total books signed: somewhere around 30-35 (I lost track by MG)
Total Exhaustion: Total

Comments

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

And are the rooms Mad keeps complaining about as in need of updating as she claims, or is everything better in CA?

Sounds like a good trip--friends, signings, audience, convertible.

Kewl....

[lagilman]

Sadly, there was no convertible, just me wishing for one...

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm stressed out of my mind here, so thanks for a great fantasy! %^)