California Dreaming

At the end of our trip to California, we took my sister to Joan's on Third in the Fairfax area of LA, it was my birthday brunch. The sign holders here were a little upset with me when I snapped their picture, but it was so nostalgic to see folks like that, so earnest, on the street corner. Other eating adventures were at Fraiche in Culver City and Nicole's in South Pasadena. We walked all over the Arboretum in Arcadia, a whirlwind tour since we only had about 40 minutes--the wind was indeed whirling that day, too.

We started out the trip in San Jose, stopping at La Pastaia for a yummy dinner. Met with different poetry friends, and then my 40th reunion at Stanford started up. Friends from Italy XIV joined us at almost every event, and we wound up eating with them at a special dinner Sat. night in Mountain View at Vaso Azzurro. I met a really nice fellow from the class of '54 who put me in touch with some of his classmates who remembered my brother Bruce. He was interested in researching the houses of Gustav Laumeister in Palo Alto and by some coincidence I shared with him the fact that I had written a paper on Laumeister for Palo Alto Stanford Heritage. I mailed it to him this week.

California seemed a little arid, and how come it was so warm in October? I brought all the wrong clothes again although I did wear my coat once, I think. Nice to come back to beautiful Connecticut, there were even a few leaves on the trees for us to see. And a conference on John Brown to attend at Yale. A full calendar ahead of us.