Musings from Wine Hour

LA view south from the hotel

I never write from the moment...and that may be why I write so little.  Always tucking away partial entries, mere ideas, and -- most especially -- massive digital collections of unedited photos, I've shucked all along the concept of blogging as it's normally done.  I've also merely prioritized other activities over the slog of editing and choosing images (trust me, for a perfectionist who takes endless photos, is IS a slog), eventually ending up with...well, nothing.

So rather than intending to write something later when my ducks are more in that proverbial row (who's out there forcing these ducks to line up, anyway?), I'll post these rambles now.  The picture below is exactly what I'm looking at and listening to right now...an acoustic duo playing covers of mostly classic rock hits, and doing a decent job of it, in my Los Angeles hotel.  There are certain moments of my life that seem particularly unreal, and they happen more often on the West Coast than anywhere else -- given my tolerance, it can't be due to a mere two glasses of wine (hey, it's free during Kimpton hotels' daily wine hour) that I'd be so cognizant of that trend. 

Hotel Palomar, 5:55 on a Thursday

Apropos of nothing, I do love that they're playing a Tom Petty tune right now, when I'll be seeing him live in two weeks for the first time.

Opening Day was today...baseball's, of course, the only one that ever mattered to a true American sports fan (in my humbler-than-thou opinion).  And while most of the country has experienced a bizarre and unusually early Spring for who knows how many weeks now, this day always signals a new beginning for so many of us.  I'm going to do my best to ignore the fact that Major League Baseball has cheapened the hell out of this once-proud and once-simple tradition by feeding us an early international series -- in Japan, last week for pete's sake -- and a nighttime opener that no true fan recognizes as Opening Day.  A full slate of games, played mostly during the day...possibly the last bit of nostalgic scheduling left in a sports landscape that refuses to deviate from its revenue-maxing prime-time fixation.  And only left that way because enough people will skip work or leave it early, and let the kids play hooky, in commemoration of the day.  Hope springs eternal, as everyone likes to say on this day -- especially everyone rooting for a team with no chance.  But in our souls, happiness reigns.  By late Summer, or even July if you're a Mets fan, hope will have long evaporated but Summer is there to fill the void.  For now, for this blooming season, we get to believe...and just be comforted by it being back.

April 2011: Petco Park, San Diego