West Side Story

Los Angeles is huge geographically. In fact, you can drive for two hours on the freeway from my home before you left Los Angeles and entered other cities south. (I live on the very northern end of the city.) My home is in the San Fernando Valley, also known to Angelenos as simply "The Valley."

From The Valley, we travel "Over the Hill" (aka through the Sepulveda Pass) to get to West Los Angeles, aka the "West Side." It's much more trendy, but expensive to live there. There was a time that I would have given my eye teeth to reside in that area, but that was in my youth. Now I realize that the traffic over there would make me completely nuts, and I'd just rather go over the hill when something is happening that's worth attending. And so it came to be that I traveled over on Saturday (yesterday).

Originally, I thought that I wanted to go to The Creative Castle where there was a class called Elements of Beading that I really wanted to take. But still being sick was a concern. The class was seven hours long and I was pretty sure that I would not hold up under those kind of hours.

Then I realized that on the same day, my Spinning Guild was meeting, there was a very special presentation being given by Stephanie Gaustad that would well be worth attending. I didn't know if my friends from the guild would be there or not... I've been out of touch for quite some time now but it would be really nice if they were. And so I decided that this was the venue for me.

The meeting starts at 9:30 am; I didn't even leave home until around then. Mornings are bad for me (as are nights) and I generally get a slow start. But 40 minutes later, I was entering the doors of St. Andrews Lutheren Church - our lovely meeting location - and immediately saw Janet and Dave and Carol and Ann by the door. (Elena is also in this picture although at the time of my arrival, she was busy at the front of the room running the meeting.)
I would have liked to set up shop right next to them, but it didn't seem like there was enough room, so I started around the very large crowd looking for space. Nancy was lovely and came running over to help, and soon I was situated. The guild has gotten so big that I don't know everyone anymore (I was a member when we only had maybe 12 members and we were a pack), but there is strength in numbers and I love seeing the demographic differences between attendees. And so I spun. Badly, but I spun.

I did not do very well. Unfortunately, my stamina is still lacking and by 11:15 or so, I would have liked to have left, but it was the middle of the lecture and there was no way that I could make a graceful exit with a spinning wheel, a chair, and two baskets, so I suffered through. Didn't absorb much information and that's too bad because I could tell that the subject was interesting, but that's life. If I can get back into the swing of things, I'm sure that my friends will share.

I stuck around for maybe 1/2 hour after the meeting and then with the help of Ann and Chris, I went back to my car and drove home. Carried my basket in but left my wheel in the trunk. It's still there. Took my temperature. As usual, as soon as I try to do anything, it had risen and it measured at 100.3.

I spent the afternoon and night in bed, feeling just awful. But I also felt just a little bit good. I love my friends. I miss them. I wish I was still part of the pack. It was really nice to connect again.

It was also nice to know that my decision to forego the beading class was the right one.

In addition, given how I held up in a situation where all I had to do was sit, it's a gauge as to my readiness for exercise class. I am not ready. That's useful information.

So as usual, life is full of negatives and positives. And I'm positive that I made the best possible choice in activities for me.