the rain in spain

I intend to go home tomorrow morning, but hopefully the weather will cooperate -- it's been raining steadily/torrentially in LA all day, and the Grapevine (the major pass in the mountains which stand between me and the north) is currently closed. If I can't use the Grapevine, I can always go around, thus adding a couple of hours to the trip -- but since I'm having people over for dinner on Tuesday and I need to start plotting Ellie's story *immediately*, I'll have to get home one way or another.

Today was nice despite the rain, though; Terry and I woke up around nine (or rather, Terry woke up around seven and I ignored her until nine), and took our time getting ready while watching some basketball. Then, we met up with her family for lunch at a delicious Chinese place somewhere in the La Canada vicinity (I have no idea where, since I wasn't driving). Originally, they were supposed to come to this side of LA, but for some reason that plan changed, so we met them over there, then ditched them around two p.m. to see a movie in Pasadena. We went with the strategy of seeing the earliest acceptable movie showing after we walked in, and so ended up picking "Limitless" -- the Bradley Cooper movie in which he starts out as a writer suffering from horrendous writers block whose girlfriend dumps him, and with the help of a rather amazing/sinister pill, is able to access his entire brain and becomes an absolute genius. It had all my favorite things -- although when I started to list them here, I realized the only thing on the list was crazy, menacing Russians (of which there were several). Terry spent the entire movie telling me to stop daydreaming about taking a pill to make all my writers block go away, but after having seen the movie, I'm pretty sure I would take it and be damned. So much for the moral of the story, right?

After the movie, we came back here (in an absolute downpour, during which I was glad that I was not the one driving) and vaguely straightened up the apartment before Lisa came over. I haven't mentioned Lisa here in a v. long time, but she's the one who got married in Ojai several years ago, and she lived on my floor when I was the RA of the 'hell' floor my junior year (she was one of the least hellish of the bunch). The three of us went out for Mexican food, which was delicious (although my enchiladas suizas had some weird variation of tomatillo sauce that reminded me too much of tuna noodle casserole -- and while I love tuna noodle casserole, I do not love it when I'm expecting an enchilada). Then, we came back and watched several episodes of "Raising Hope", which is absolutely hysterical and a must-watch for anyone looking for a new sitcom.

Now, I suppose I should go to sleep; I'm going to make a gametime decision about whether to go to the gym with Terry in the morning, and then we're going to have breakfast/lunch before I take off. Wish me luck with the Grapevine -- goodnight!