Fun weekend

So I went up to L.A. on Friday for a friend's book launch. What a lovely event. This was Trish Albright's debut book, Siren's Song. Trish is a Disney Imagineer and travels all over the world for her work. She is always having amazing adventures and when we were in a critique group together there was always an hour of laughter and rapid conversation as we "stay at homes" got swept up and into her latest happenings. It's logical that she would put that same fabulous energy into the written word, and Siren's Song does not disappoint. It's a great pirate adventure set in Morocco in 1787.

The event was held at Big Buddha Baba Productions in L.A. and Trish had a huge number of friends and family come out to support her. It was nice to catch up with a couple of my other writing buddies from LARA as I didn't make the last meeting and won't make the next one either. There was even a man in a pirate costume who read the first chapter of the novel and did a superb job. The food was excellent and plentiful and so was the generous bar. My daughter came with me and we had a fun time. Driving through Hollywood is always a fun time, but with my daughter at the wheel, believe me it's even funner.

We had dinner out, and got sick from eating too much. We had lunch out with my son and his girlfriend and got sick from eating too much. We watched way too much television. We ate way too much chocolate. We drank way too much Pinot Grigio. We laughed way too hard at so many things.

The good thing is my knee survived all of the ordeal, including the two and a bit hours of driving up and back to L.A. Plus I got to wear real clothes and shoes. None of this shorts and tank-tops and flip-flops attire that I live in in the desert during the summer months. It was a dry run for going to the RWA National conference. All I have to say on that topic is I have two weeks in which to (a) further strengthen the knee (b) take off a few pounds (c) buy a few more "real" clothes. The only problem is I have to take off the three pounds I put on with all of the "way too much stuff" before I can go shopping. Guess I'll be doing that the day before leaving. Or not. Do you think flip-flops and tank-tops would work for a national writers conference?