LIke I said, I live for vacation. The in-between periods this year have been pretty darn boring. We get up, we work, we come home at 8, we eat, we watch the tube, we sleep. That's 5 days a week, with weekends for chores. That's life! No, wait, that can't be life. Ok, I gotta change something.

Fortunately, an impromptu vacation is coming up: Japan. Akhil has one more Wall-E premiere to tend to, and it's in Tokyo -- during THANKSGIVING week. Talk about inconvenient. A perfect opportunity and excuse, I suppose, for me to tag along. He flies the week before, on Thursday, and I'll join up with him and crew on Monday. The premiere is Tuesday night. On Wednesday we'll take the train to Kyoto for 3 days. From what I've read this should be an incredible trip! Narita airport, however, is nearly two hours away from Tokyo. Can you believe that? So I need to get myself from Narita to Tokyo, on no sleep (and we all know I'm a sleep wimp), and from wherever that drops me to the Westin Hotel. From there I will relive "Lost in Translation" in its entirety.

This fall is winding down already but we finally, after 10 years here, found the one place within day-trip distance where you can actually pick apples. Yucaipa! There's foliage there. Yes, really, foliage. In L.A. Cider donuts, actual orchards, cider presses too. But they don't really do Macintoshes. That's what I think if when I think of apple-picking, New Englander that I am. We settled for Pink Ladies and WInesaps, and Akhil made an apple pie. He ate most of it. I liked his peach one better. Snowline has the cider donuts, Willowbrook had the Winesaps -- and a pot-bellied pig named Blossom.