How do I have time to blog -- with Christmas cards, gift shopping, travel to pack for, people to dine with, dustbunnies to vacuum and prose to write for pay? Super-efficiency, that's right! Or maybe some last-minute procrastination. I have just a few things left to do before we take off next Saturday, and only at Christmas would I be looking forward to cold, snowy weather and a crowded airplane trip with transfers. Kendra and John are here this weekend to shop for homes up in Valencia. We had dinner with them last night and it's surreal and wonderful that they'll be living here again in just 3 weeks. Time has passed so quickly since Kendra left for Boston four years ago -- now they'll be back with Bogart (dog) and Dylan (baby) - as SoCal continues to attract despite the housing/traffic situtation. What is it about this place?

Maybe it's Manhattan Beach, where Leslie had her first-ever MB holiday gathering last Sunday. The fireworks went off at 7 p.m. and all the MB locals had prepared by doing up their beach mansions and cottages in lights. The effect was ethereal and beautiful and I thought to myself, it does not get better than this. Akhil and I agreed that if we hit the windfall one day wherever we are, we'll come back and live there and be smug. That said, we have it pretty good. Happy holidays!

December is turning out to be a rather bustling and festive month after all, with cool "winter" temperatures here in L.A. and snow to look forward to in the east when we take off on Christmas Eve for a ten-day break out there -- marking our third visit to New England this fall. Impressive! If the shopping crowd is any indication, the economy is doing pretty darn well - this year it seems the hoards are out in full force, myself included, but as of this afternoon I think I'll be pretty much done with gift buying -- and two weeks early too. Also impressive! What did we do before the Internet?

We're doing pretty well keeping up with friends too: Julie was here from Houston for a wedding last weekend so I got a long overdue visit with her and Joel at the decked-out Ritz Carlton in Pasadena. Afterwards Akhil and I took Joy and Paul up on an invitation to the annual Castle Green open house tour. She and the other tenants in that building, which is a striking, enormous former hotel built in 1899, are serious about their decor. The place has become somewhat of a house of style, with prices to match, these days. Joy always provides an amazing spread of Japanese food and wine and desserts, that this year included these cream puffs from a place called Beard & Papas in Hollywood. Run, don't walk: you must try these things. They are 100 times dreamier than Krispy Kremes.

That kicked off a week that included our big office move to spacious digs-with-a-view in Encino, dinner at the Huntley Hotel with Tony and Angel last night in Santa Monica, and tonight, holiday fireworks chez Leslie (who's serving chili and beer) in Manhattan Beach. The restaurant at the Huntley is on the top floor (it's called "Toppers") so we got a view of last night's Marina del Rey fireworks during dinner last night, too, which was an unexpected bonus. No time for a tree in our place this year, but we do have stockings, lights and the requisite poinsettia, of course. What I need to do next is get the New Years Resolutions list going. It will be a tome. 2006 will be the year of taking control of our destiny.

I was reading the "Heathervescent" blog mentioned over the weekend in the L.A. Times piece on Los Angeles blogs and took away a real appreciation for what Heather, the blogger does so wonderfully -- she frames everything just right to ensure that life is what it is if you make it that way: a continually exciting and satisfying adventure. Such a great way to look at things! I love the Heathervescent blog. Here are the Thanksgiving Day Seattle participants -- we didn't take much time to appreciate things that day, but you can see we should have.

December starts tomorrow - how frightening. Time is not just flying. It's hurling toward infinity at light-speed these days. Last week, Seattle kindly gave us two sunny days, one with a view of the elusive Mt. Rainier, so my family got to see that it does exist after all. From the Bainbridge ferry to Pike Place Market to multiple museums, the Chittenden Locks, Nordstrom's, Microsoft and the Space Needle, we covered a lot of ground up there. A "Meet the Fockers" situation was avoided and the families together enjoyed a great deal of turkey, salmon and sugary sweets. Nice to be spoiled as always - and then, ah, back to work here in stringy old L.A. I already have the stockings up by the stairs and the holiday CD is playing. All we want for Xmas is -- a housing crash. Yes, Virginia, there really is a bubble.

Happy Turkey to anyone still checking in on this blog from time to time! Akhil and I are packing up this weekend for our east-meets-west Thanksgiving extravaganza in Seattle, departing Tuesday night. My parents, my brother, Akhil's brother and wife, all of us descending on Medina, Wash. for our first-ever blended holiday, Pacific Northwest-style. A momentous event!

We just got back from doing our regular househunting chores -- and I'm slightly happy to report that it's true, the prices seem to have capped out for the moment, as you've seen the media report for most of the country. BUT, here on the "affordable" east side, they still managed to jump up according to the "six-months-ago-plus-10-percent" formula these slimy agents are using into the $720-750k echelon for 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom homes -- in bad school districts. So, we are seeing a lot of one-bathroom offerings just under the 700k mark (we refer to this as the "pain threshold"), though nothing yet has tempted us to make any offers. The interest rate plus holiday slump would make it seem likely that we'd find something next month SOMEwhere, but we'll see. You'll be sure to hear if we make any headway. And you'll certainly be happy to hear the end of this rather LONG story, for sure! Two years ago this weekend we were just getting into our Round-the-World trip, having landed in Auckland as our first stop. Two years later -- here we are, same old digs! Pushing on.

Post-hunting we had an amazing chicken and mozzarella with sundried tomato spread on ciabatta sandwich at this fairly new gourmet deli, wine and cheese shop in Montrose that I have to recommend. It's called Gouda and Vines, on Honolulu Ave. They've got some tasty-looking stuff in there. We'd love to see the place succeed so give it a shot. That's all from the SoCal trenches for this week. We're Seattle-bound.

Here's a helpful tip, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday: Don't put potato peels down the garbage disposal. I found this out the hard way this week. Lo and behold, there were posts galore all over the Web to this effect as we scrambled to the computer to find out what to do about the glutenous particles spouting out of our sink. What did we do before the Web?

I must express my excitement at the news this week that Kendra and John have announced that they are coming back to the left coast! More details to come later lest I let the cat out of the bag too soon. For now all Akhil and I can say is, Yippee!

My friend Mark's book "Edison and the Electric Chair" came out in paperback this month (hardcover came out last year) and I saw it for the first time today at B&N. Check it out -- good gift idea for those with morbid fascinations, perhaps? We're proud of you, Mark!

Not only is it voting day, it's also Todd's 32nd - happy BDay Toad! That time of year already, is it? Amazing. I'll miss all the calls from John McCain, Dick Reardon, Ahhnold, of course, etc. as we move past another set of props, another ballot. They certainly keep you on your toes out here.

Heather's back in Calif., so last night we took her to a weird French restaurant called "Taix" on Sunset Blvd. The food was good, don't get me wrong, but the decor was that curious, old, art-deco-ey, your great-great-great-aunt-born-in-1897's-parlor-kind of style, dark, with flowery carpet, flowery wallpaper and flowerly sconces, old black and white photographs and renaissance paintings, with long windy hallways. Plus it might be haunted. We liked the roast chicken with burgundy sauce and the steak-frites, but I bet Heather will ask us not to take her there next time.

Sooo, yes, it seems, the housing crash is upon us -- it may be slow moving, but we can smell it coming, in the air underneath the "shady trees" in the "easy-care yards" of the "perfect starter carports" with the "loads of potential." House-gazing was among the weekend's slew of activities, which included two movies with short, yellow-haired, bespectacled, notorious and charismatic title characters: "Chicken Little" and "Capote." Capote is mesmerizing. Philip Seymour Hoffman is superhuman in this movie. It may give you nightmares, but it is a fantastic film -- flaw-free. Chicken Little? Well, kids only. Nice animation and some funny creatures, but the story's not for people under seven.

Fall in L.A. is paradise - beautiful sunny skies and just over 70 degrees. Even the leaves are turning colors, and people are just a little less on edge. Heather was not as happy as she could've been to leave this morning on account of the SNOW, yes snow, that fell all yesterday back home in Boston, but you can't blame her in the least because it's October - now that's just unreasonable!

We didn't get a chance to see her on our short jaunt to the east coast last weekend so she made up for it with a stop here in Los Angeles this week on the way home from business in San Francisco. Here we are at Disneyland yesterday where I finally figured out how to use a fast pass (to go on Indiana Jones) and we saw the Honda Asimo demo in addition to the Haunted Mansion and this Stitch attraction, developed by folks in Akhil's R&D division:



I left the fun, fun office a little early on Friday so we could eat cupcakes at Sprinkles in B.H. and then, the Tut exhibit at LACMA. I recommend the cupcakes, but I don't recommend Tut -- it was over-hyped, over-crowded and unlike the last Tut exhibit that made the rounds about a decade ago or more, this one didn't have much of anything that actually belonged to Tut himself - not even a sarcophagus. I got pretty tired of crushing my body up next to throngs of people to read tiny boards about artifacts that were of course beautiful and interesting but lacking in terms of their relevance to the namesake of the show.

Ah but then there was Disneyland (Heather has been about 35 times to Disney parks here and in Florida). But Laguna Beach, where we strolled and had dinner Sat. night, was the best. The sign in front of one of the little cottages off the main drag down there says it all, I think, and has got it right: "If you're lucky enough to live at the beach, you're lucky enough."

Happy Halloween-eve. Clocks back one hour today too -- bonus! We're going to examine another house for sale today but secretly I think we're still waiting for the crash - cuz 700k for a starter home just HAS to be too much.

Sorry, one more thing. Read this L.A. Times essay by Patrick Goldstein that takes the movies out on Truman Capote ("Capote") and Edward R. Murrow "Good Night and Good Luck") as a jumping point to give a sense of the philosophical battle going on in the so-called journalism biz that I work in. The point is summarized well with his ending, at least from my point of view.

Thunderstorms in L.A.? And, a dam in Taunton, Mass., may burst, and so people are apparently evacuating. This after two weeks of heavy rains in New England. Is weather seriously becoming this much more threatening lately or is media hype making it seem so? Or, perhaps, is weather responding to more media coverage? Hmmm... fishy. Akhil and I saw Broken Flowers this weekend and went out to Thai Town for cheap, good noodles on Sunday. Sketchy part of town (sort of part of Hollywood) but it was authentic. I still think Saladang is better but for the prices. I think I'll swear off blogging for a while til something interesting happens - with 80,000 new blogs a day - that's right, 80,000 (that's one a second, pretty much) - people all over the place are surely boring others to death and I am afraid I might be one of 'em.

Sorry.

"Americans are becoming ruder."

Aha, so it's not my imagination. A CNN story today refers to an AP poll that says a lot of people have noticed:

"A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70 percent questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The trend is noticed in large and small places alike, although more urban people -- 74 percent -- report bad manners, then do people in rural areas, 67 percent."

Here's a case in point. I work right next door to a Jewish temple in Encino. Yesterday was Yom Kippur, so it was jammed at temple time mid-morning. As one woman drove up to the entrance to the parking lot, another woman and her children were waiting their turn to drive in as well, and I heard this presumably religious, middle-aged, coifed and primped, ready-to-worship woman scream out her window: "I'm sitting here waiting to get in, you stupid SH-T. Get out of my way, you dumb SH-T."

Not very benevolent. Not very festive.

Meanwhile, we're hoping for much-needed rain this weekend. It's been in the 90s this week and they're warning of an unseasonal power crisis as a result. Our lasagna party last weekend was well-timed and kicked off a decent week, for once! If it wasn't for that unfortunate job I've got to mess it up for me... well, can't have everything.

Red Sox season is over - and I'm surrounded by disgusted fans who thought a team with that good of a season record would've done a little bit better against the White Sox. My poor brother even had a ticket to Game 4 tomorrow. Oh well.

Akhil and I spent the evening cleaning up in anticipation of tomorrow's visitors to our abode, so once again, he's fast asleep with exhaustion already. My early work hours seem to wear on him more than they do me -- one good consequence of starting a job at 7 a.m.: I get by on less sleep. Another good consequence: would you believe I can get from Glendale to Encino in 12 minutes? If I get on the road at the right time that's all it takes - but if you're on the road at 5 p.m. it can be an hour. Who says we don't need mass transit? Don't answer that.

Do try Corner Bakery mini bundt cakes, however. Especially the chocolate one.

More than two weeks since I've been in here? At the moment, it's about 8:30 and the household's already asleep, so, I've got some time to get back into blog action. What have we been up to, well, let's see... there were those fires, which spun a lot of ash around through the valley over the last week or so and made my building in Encino rather smoky. But they've got them all under control now with minimal people-damage. Leslie and I were among about seven people total at Max on Ventura in Sherman Oaks the other night. People weren't terribly interested in dining out that night but inside, you couldn't smell the smoky air. We had trout and filet mignon and french silk pie for dessert. It's been a long time since I've eaten so fancy but we needed a little lift, both of us. The weekdays are a blur, the weekends are too, for the most part. Akhil and I once again dashed all over town this weekend, from Pasadena, to Camarillo, to Manhattan Beach, to Pasadena again. Housing still killing us, or something...

My little mom has become a little bit smaller this week with the extraction of her appendix, which happened unexpectedly on Monday. Quite a scare, quite a scare, to say the least! But she's home and okay now. Should be back on track next week. They did not keep it in a jar even though I asked them to. Oh well.

Fall has kicked us back into "productive mode" (I think) so it was perfect timing for the painters to come last Saturday and buff out the scuffs on the walls -- we're in the midst of reassembling the living room but the new blinds are up and pics are on the walls and it's really quite exciting.

Whenever people get down on L.A. a dose of the Hollywood Bowl seems to pick them up -- me included. Caroline and Mike got us all tickets to Brazilian night last Saturday and we ate picnic dinner beforehand so it was all good even before the orchestra came out -- but man, Pink Martini was fantastic! I had no idea. Vocalist China Forbes puts so many other singers to shame, I can't believe more people don't care about this 12-piece orchestra/band. They played with the L.A. Philharmonic, so you can imagine. Excellent.

Our whirlwind weekend was worth the effort for the perfect weather, QT with the Peavey family, and quick visit with Heather and John -- but I've GOT to find a job with more than 5 allotted vacation days a year. By caffeinating ourselves, we packed a lot into 3 days: Todd took us out into Salem Harbor to the Rockmoor Restaurant, this floating contraption that serves pretty decent seafood, then we drove all over the north shore to ogle beach houses before dinner at Victoria Station near his place up there, right off Salem Common.

Saturday the entire Peavey family (incl. Akhil) paddled out by kayak from Wequetequock (yes, that's spelled right) Cove to Sandy Point, and then we all splurged on a rich and giant dinner at Skipper's Dock in Stonington Borough. It was hard to sleep with pitch black and only the sound of chirping crickets, I'm not kidding, but then it's been a very long time since I've been "home" to Connecticut in the summer. Three years, I think, at least. Amazing! I thought my hometown was kind of lame growing up but now that I've seen some alternatives it doesn't seem all too terribly bad. Here are the intrepid:

Akhil and I zoomed up to Boston to see Heather's funky new condo in Beacon Hill on Monday and then took off to the western burbs to see how the pre-bubble buyers live there, too. The sunny, clear, balmy beautiful weather put the northeast in its best light. Somehow I was still glad to get back to L.A. Sunday night -- at least until the alarm went off at 5:45 Monday morning.

Life has a way of putting things in perspective, and this week has an eerie feel similar to Sept. of 2001. Coverage of the Katrina aftermath seems absolutely unreal -esp. for those who know New Orleans and even for those who don't. My 24-year-old cousin Colin and wife Aimee, a Folsom native, bought a house in Mandeville last year and they drive to New Orleans to teach every day. School was just about to kick off this week but they evacuated to Auburn, AL pre-Katrina and they're fine -- maybe even their house too -- we don't know that much yet. Having spent a couple of memorable Spring Breaks and Mardi Gras there as well (during Colin's wedding weekend), I know why they say it's one of the nation's most glorious cities. I've noticed a lot of people using the word "was," as if they think it's gone for good. Sure looks dire but I just can't imagine there won't be a reconstruction effort. Not much to do but send cash: American Red Cross has our info solidly in their database, that's for sure. Large-scale tragedy has become somewhat of a regular part of our generation's lives. Off to the east coast tomorrow night!

The painters who were supposed to come and shine up our seven-years-faded apartment walls never showed yesterday -- adding another insult to injury in the ever-continuing saga of our borderline-tolerable living situation. Sigh, well, I took Akhil out to Santa Monica in that case so Marivel could give us both haircuts - she's a natural! And doing great in her new career after leaving the world of entertainment PR just under two years ago -- check out Floyd's for yourself: it's just past the Nuart Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd. I think they've got another one in Melrose, but no Marivel at that one.

The two of us are headed -- on different days, different planes -- out of town next weekend to take in the last few days of summer in the place where they do summer best -- New England. It'll be nice to get out of the land of the Fast & the Furious that has become Glendale, CA. I loved L.A. when I worked on the west side and never understood why Akhil didn't feel similarly. Now that we're both confined to this side of the hill every day in the 100-degree heat with nothing to look at but the 134 freeway, I can kind of see his point of view. Major difference.

That said, it's still pretty good -- but good enough to fork out 700k for a place with 2 bathrooms in a sub-par school district? That is the question. A hard, hard question.

Okay, off to cruise the neighborhoods... oh, and Happy August Birthday Regina, Craig and Sabrina Rose!

Tarek Read Anthony, a solid 7 lbs, 11 oz., made it out into the open via C-section very early this morning, at 2:35 a.m. Congratulations Rob and Carolyn! (Tarek = "Morning star" in Lebanese.)

Just this minute I confirmed with Carolyn that she has NOT quite yet given birth. Her due date was Wednesday, so stand by, stand by!

You've got to try La Boheme in Carmel if you find yourself up there. It's a charming French-themed restaurant where just one meal is served each night so you just check the sked and make your reservation. John, Kendra, Akhil and I thought it was great - and no menus means no breaks in conversation - who would've thought of that? We lucked out with filet mignon aux champignons with mashed potatos and broccoli - yum. The wine was Californian.

We finally got to meet Dylan Tomeki, already 3 months old. What a kid! We sorely miss Kendra and John out here.

Ashley Cap, second daughter of Jenner's sister Sam, was born on Friday. And Carolyn is due in days, if not hours! Otherwise Akhil and I are getting our painting gear together to try and polish up some of these seven-year-scruffy apartment walls. Maybe we won't keep living here forever (maybe, just maybe?) but can't hold off painting for eternity.