Friday through Sunday, 16-18 May:
travel, party, go to concert, travel

Our flight to Japan would originate in Los Angeles, Sunday morning, 18 May, 11:20 a.m., and fortunately, the Arlington people would be on the same flight. But we decided that it would be fun to get to the LA area Friday night and arrange a Saturday pot-luck party for ourselves in Pasadena so we could see as many as possible of our old friends from Neighborhood Church. Our friends Jeff and Amelia offered their guest house in Pasadena as a place we could stay over in, and by some time in April, our plans for the special weekend before the trip were pretty much firmed up.

I took my camera to the Party, but took very few pictures, not even of Kathryn and Ghassan, with whom Mark and I spent the greatest part of our time chatting. But I did get a picture of one of my favorite people, Carol, who brought a waffle iron and all the makings for the batter, then stood outside in a garden enclosure pre­par­ing waffles, which were, of course snapped up, gobbled up. You see her at the right.

That evening, we had dinner with our hosts Jeff and A­me­li­a at Smitty’s in Pasadena, and got off to a good start to get to a concert of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

The next day, Sunday, we again had a nice break­fast with Amelia and Jeff, and drove our rented car off to LAX. There we dumped the car off, and got through security pleasingly fast, and soon connected with Cindy, Mike, and Mason. Again no pictures.

Even when you’re traveling cattle-car class, a long in­ter­na­tion­al flight has some pleasing amenities. Real meals (of airline quality) are free, not a paid-for extra, and on the return trip, I even got wine gratis, though this was surely a mistake, since Mark had to pay for his.

Somewhere during the flight, we crossed the In­ter­na­tion­al Date Line, and it became May 19, and you’ll have to read about that on the next page.