Sunday, October 13, 2013 Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

In preparation for our five week trip to Italy, France, England and Michigan, I packed weekly. Rehearsal packing. We will carry all our stuff onboard: one wheeled suitcase apiece and a second smaller bag, in my case, a viola. Will I use the viola? Who knows. Does Linus use his security blanket? No, but it has to always be there.

We and our bags made our way to the Tom Bradley International Terminal (T-Bit) at LAX. It has recently reopened after expansion and renovation. It is quite a production. After passing through security you enter a gleaming white atrium, four stories tall. An elevator column rises the full length from floor to ceiling. It's four sides consist of television screen material. On the screens, moving images, custom made, transform the elevator shaft into droplets of water that drip from ropes in slo-mo, a forty foot tall pile of teetering antique luggage. Then it is a bell tower with windows from which lively people wave pull aside the curtains and wave.

We are seated on a third floor terrace in the United Business Class Lounge. The elevator tower movies are amusing, but in another direction is a twenty five foot tall movie screen broken into irregular sized

rectangles. Playing on that kooky assemblage of screens is a twenty foot tall parrot flapping it's colorful plumage in slow motion, then a Flamenco dancer a-twirl in a red dress with arms akimbo, then a surfer riding a wave and keystone cops doing their old-timed jerky walk. Down below, on the main floor are the "coming soon" eateries. High end. Petrossian, Chaya, Border Grill. Bravo to the new terminal.

Time to go to the plane. We are excited to cross paths with the great maestro, Gustavo Dudamel. I noticed him, from behind, by his hair, that wavy shiny black parted in the middle mop. I am impressed by his humility, traveling alone, with no one to carry his bags or to drive him to the gate. He appears very approachable, though no one approaches.

And we are on the plane. In the nose. In row four. In huge laz-e-boy recliners. Pampered. And ready for the ten hours till touchdown in Frankfurt, where we'll hop a plane to Turin (Torino), where we'll drive a rented car to La Morra on a hilltop in The Langhe.

See you there.......

Marlow and Wes, on the road again.

Sunday, October 13, 2013
Los Angeles, California