After blogging intermittently for a few months on this site, I stopped after going through some difficult life experiences.  When I went back recently to pick it up again, I found myself not knowing what to write.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say, but the tone of my previous posts were so … bleak.  I decided that since I was moving to another server, I would also go for a redux on my blog.

There’s only one post that I wanted to transfer over, so why go through the headache of  uploading all of the old blog files.  I will simply start anew … unlike real life where do-overs are unavailable.

Here’s the old post, and I will be back as soon as I finish migrating my other websites over to the new host server.

from late August 2009:

Back in L.A.

A truly enjoyable trip!!!  Well … except for the heat and humidity (hurricanes were churning threats in the Atlantic Ocean),  which together with my ever-present friend, lupus,  were not-so-kind in ‘souveniring’ me with joint swelling.  Learning Moment #1:  Do not travel during summer months.  Even the jet-lag has been much more significant this trip, and as a result, my after-trip blogging will be dispatched in multiple episodes, or until my cognition fully recovers from limited sleep and eastern time.
Speaking of sleep … one of my trip highlights was catching up with my friend, India, the six-year old daughter of some friends from the U.K.  She and I had met one month earlier when her family spent some time visiting with my family in L.A. … we bonded quickly over our mutual love of ‘Hello Kitty’ and the color pink.  So, I met up with them as they concluded their U.S. holiday on the east coast.  We had made previous arrangements to stay at the same hotel in Vienna, Virginia (outside of D.C.) to attend a concert by progressive rock keyboard-violin master, Eddie Jobson.
The afternoon before the gig was spent with India going through my suitcase in order to pull together my outfit for the evening.  She did a splendid job of laying out a pair of cropped jeans with the only ‘sexy’ blouse I had packed, and had completed the ensemble with a flattering collection of accessories.  It all would have been fabulous if I had not had a bra ‘malfunction’ which necessitated my change to less-sexy attire.  This was actually a turn for the better since the night’s venue was a very informal club located in a strip-mall.  India’s own outfit completely illustrated her keen eye for nightclub chic, while also taking into account that she wanted to complement Mr. Jobson’s traditional black stage attire.
Once situated in our seats at the club, India eventually moved onto my lap … for an extra height boost, and to facilitate our concert discussions without having to resort to raising our voices.   She was mesmerized by the performance, and thoroughly enjoyed being able to jump up, yell and applaud at the end of each song.  At one point, she was taken a bit aback when Eddie’s bow hit the violin strings and a cloud of rosin combined with the back-lighting to cast an eerie image that resembled the early stages of a fire.  “Is Eddie on fire?!” she queried with concern, and when I assured her that he was not, she stated with great relief, “I thought he had caught fire from playing the violin so fast.”
About midway through the set, India went completely limp in such a split second that I thought she was attempting to set me up for one of her jokes.  But, she had simply fallen asleep.  She reminded me of a kitten or puppy going from full-speed play to dead-sleep in rapid succession.
I experienced, in the remainder of the concert, what was probably the closest I will ever attain to a perfect point in time. For a brief, ethereal moment, I held a slumbering child against the backdrop of complex classically-tinged rock music …  two seemingly antithetical aspects of life which were now forever fused together in my thoughts and senses.
I hated to put her down, but she didn’t seem to notice that the concert had ended.  After about an hour she was fully awake and chatting with Eddie … she was still determined to solve the night’s earlier mystery smoke, and asked him to expound upon how he was able to play the violin so fast.  His adroit response seemed to satisfy her, at least temporarily.  The next time she sees him, he is probably going to have to remove his shirt to prove that “motor” theory of his.