SUNNY L.A. . . .

I'm here! JetBlue transported me here in beautiful blue style: the plane was blue, the carpeting was blue, the snack packaging was blue, the potato chips were blue, the napkins were blue-trimmed, even the bathroom soap was blue (and smelled lovely, to boot). The best, cheesiest part of the over-plasticized, frozen-smile flight-attended travel experience was the captain's parting greeting: "Local time is 4:26pm; the temperature is approximately 76-degrees. Thank you for flying JetBlue, blah blah blah. And remember, be nice to your neighbor. Being nice to people makes people happy and it's what makes the world go 'round." The disbelieving guffaws of my travelmates made my day. Dorothy, we're not in New York anymore . . .

Dr.Y, Ha, Ha's little bro, Baby and I took a drive to Redondo Beach for some seafood. I now have sheep bloat in a really, REALLY bad way. Thankfully, Ha and Co. are just like family. I expect that we shall be sharing much sheep bloat together over the next six days. It's just like being home.

Ha has immediately put us all to work on favors for Baby's 1st birthday party (a humongous shindig in Korean circles). It's like being back at Wedding Camp, slaving away at JKo's favors, tying ribbons, folding boxes, packaging gifts. After all this, MY wedding and MY baby's first birthday better flow smooth like buttah . . .

UPDATE ON THE LEPROSY: hacking cough is gone. I took THREE spoonfuls of codeine-laden cough syrup before I went to sleep last night, fervently prayed to God to heal me and take the cough from me, and closed my eyes in utter faith (also because the codeine was knocking me out). This morning I woke up -- the usual desperate I've-been-trapped-inside-all-night cough never came. I stepped into the shower -- the hot-steam-has-loosened-the-phlegm cough never came. I sat in the plane for five hours -- the air-is-too-dry-and-my-cilia-are-not-happy cough never came. I walked on a pier on the Pacific coast -- the it's-too-humid-and-the-wind-is-bad-for-me cough never came. Just sheep bloat. Baa. Anyway, I feel great. But for the palm trees, I feel that I haven't even left my house. Dr.Y and Ha are always like my sister and brother. Baby smiles at me and grabs for me hand.

But! No time to dwell on how relaxed and pleased I am. I must get to work on the assembly line. Baby's party favors beckon me . . .

Service Notice: my comments server seems to be down and on the fritz. I'll have to switch over to someone else, but not until I get back to the East Coast. So if you have an urgent comment for me, just email me. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.