Ten thousand thanks

So much.

I am eating leftover seafood paella. Piping hot from the microwave. I have spent thirty minutes in a bath filled with eucalyptus oil in order to dislodge this cold which has set in. Hello? July 25? Not okay.

I have watched my child hang out by the pool with friends and guitars and I'm sent back to the Laurel Canyon of the seventies, where Jim and Joni et al hung out. I have tried to sleep but I cannot because of butterflies in my stomach, and the cold.

I have sat back and marvelled at the fact that the sun is shining in my face and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Two years have gone by and the bad things are gone and that's that. This is new. This is good and this, quite frankly, is not going to be messed up.

Then there is the teenage factor.

Thanks to Espanolita Foods for this and this. Carmen is the Queen of Paella. Seriously. There is nowhere else you should look if you are in Los Angeles.

Here's the teenage factor. I am behaving like one. Giddy with butterflies, quite ridiculous with what-could-be, full of pre-liminal limbic pentameter, whatever that might be. It's a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me, and I'm feeling good.

I may be wrong. But I have to believe in my animal compass, don't I?

Ten thousand thanks to my friends and family who made my birthday week great. I am rich with friends.