12-26-99 Su 5:00 PM

Rochelle and I are at the veranda bar at the Hotel Figueroa downtown.  We went to Staples Center to try to get hockey tickets for the family, but there weren’t enough seats left for us to get eight in a row.  So, we just went to the Fox sports bar at the arena and got a beer each.  We are looking out the bar here at the Fig at a lattice-covered patio and pool.  The lattice is iron and woven through with bougainvillea.  It’s dusk, and we look directly into the twilight horizon from where we sit.  Rochelle is studying Fodor’s book on New Orleans in advance of our expedition.  Maybe we can camp a night at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  Maybe we can spend a night in San Antonio.  Maybe we can fish Corpus Christie. 

I read the Second Epistle of Peter today.  More about how screwed you will be if you have heard the word of the Lord and choose to ignore it. 

We might try to go up to Pershing Square from here and watch the ice skaters before we go home.  We’re trying to decide whether or not to go to Orange County tonight.  We might rent a movie or go to one. 

Everything in here is iron and wood. Rochelle reads my volume of Poe by the light of an iron lantern on the wooden table.  I have only about twenty pages more of that ‘til I’m done.  How will I get Jim to the gas station?  I have a short, fast paragraph that does it, but it would be such a sudden departure from the minute psychological detailing of everything else in it so far. 

I ate leftover pasta and salad today that Rochelle had made.

I just read “The Raven” to Rochelle.

What else?  Uncle Terry is coming from northern California tonight.  I wonder what happened to Tim and Sarai last night?  I should give Getoff and Stevo a call.  Maybe I’ll try to take the Woodlocks to Rosarito tomorrow or the next day.  I guess that’s it for now.  I’ll write here again tomorrow.