I'm off to Los Angeles for the weekend to see family and friends, most notably my cousin Michelle who's dying from cancer and is making her last trip around the world to see everyone. Michelle has lived at Kibbutz Ketura in Southern Israel since the 70s. I visited her there back in 1999 on my trip around the Eastern Mediterranean. Hanging out with Michelle, who's the strongest woman I have ever met, by far, was absolutely brilliant. I'll get into some stories later.

It's probably going to be a very emotional weekend. I'm not really looking forward to that, nor am I all too thrilled about the drive down, but at least I get to leave early so I don't have fight traffic or arrive in the middle of the night. It's also raining in LA and is supposed to rain all weekend, and you know that means, frequent collions by idiot SoCal drivers who don't know how drive when there's any sort of percipitation around.

Hopefully the cats won't start tearing up shit all over the house when I don't get back on Sunday. They have a tons of food, two large bowls of water and a fresh liter box so they should be fine.