Karen Sandler

Tag: los angeles

  • SCBWILA11 – Day 0

    Or is that Day -1? Not much of import to report. On Twitter, I’ve seen much exclaiming over luminaries at the faculty dinner, but since I’m not faculty and not yet a luminary, I’ve only met the regular folk so far. Many delightful people and a quite swanky hotel (the Century Plaza/Hyatt Regency). Met my roommate, Meredith, and we walked over to have dinner at BJ’s (where I indulged in their triple chocolate dessert involving a melty warm chocolate cookie, a scoop of chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream and a square of dark chocolate).

    Here’s the daytime view from our room on the 17th floor:

     

     

     

     

     

    Complete with renowned L.A. smog.

     

    And here’s a shot of the fountain in the median of Avenue of the Stars, as well as a pic of the hotel lobby with many attendees confabbing:

     

     

     

     

     

    I’ll report more tomorrow when I’ve attended workshops and actually have something worthy of reporting. Very much looking forward to all the excitement!

  • Rent-a-Cat

    I’m heading down to L.A. tomorrow to attend the international summer conference of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators). Although I’ve been to three regionals since I joined the organization last October, this is my first time attending the big SCBWI conference. I’m really looking forward to it.

    As a former member of Romance Writers of America, I’ve been to several of their big annual conferences, so I have some idea of what to expect. There will be too many workshops to choose from (although this time I have a spiffy app to help with that), over-air-conditioned rooms, rubber chicken lunches, and bleary-eyed mornings spent groping for coffee.

    Although I’ve pubbed plenty of romance novels, my book Tankborn, due out in September, is my very first young adult. I still feel green-as-grass, wet-behind-the-ears about the children’s market. So I plan to do the sponge thing at SCBWI LA and soak up as much wisdom as I can.

    To save on expenses, I’ve entered into an “arranged marriage” (sounds like one of my romance novels) to share a room with a fellow SCBWI member from Kentucky. I’ve done that in the past at RWA conferences and it’s both weird and fun to spend a few days with a total stranger. (Of course, there was that one conference where I roomed with three other women and ended up going home with someone else’s panties in my laundry. Eew.) I’m thinking I’m really going to enjoy my time with Meredith in L.A..

    The hotel looks like a nice one and it’s in Century City, a very vibrant part of L.A. But like any hotel, it has one drawback–no kitties. I’m used to having three of them snoozing in bed with me, snuggled up beside me or maybe draped across my head or curled up at my feet. But I will be catless for the three days of the conference.

    Here’s what I think all hotels should provide–a rent-a-cat. They should have a collection of some nice, mellow orange tabbies, or couch potato torties. Hotel guests could reserve their kitty when they reserve their room. There could be pictures posted on the hotel website with profiles of each cat. The cat of choice would be waiting for the guest in their room when they arrive, ready for belly rubs and scritches behind the ears, more than happy to curl up in a lap.

    Yeah, yeah, I can hear your objections. Some people are allergic to cats. Won’t that be traumatic for the cat? And what about that catbox?

    Minor issues all to be worked out. Just as some hotels provide smoking rooms, they can provide “cat rooms” for the non-allergic. Kitties would be chosen for their laid-back temperament and would enjoy the attention of one and all. The hotel guest can clean the cat box since they likely have plenty of practice at home.

    Yeah, not ever gonna happen. But I still think it’s a lovely idea. My toes kept toasty by a cat. The sound of purring in my ear as the hotel cat uses my pillow as his bed. And then there’s that familiar cat hair in my morning coffee.

    Just like home.

  • Mystery of Spring

    When I lived in Los Angeles, I never really experienced spring. It was generally cool in winter and warm in summer, but there wasn’t that explosion of newness in April like there is here in Northern California. In L.A., there were peculiarities like 100 degrees in January that confused the heck out of my peach tree and the annual June gloom (day after day of overcast) before summer really kicked into gear. But no definitive seasons.

    But other than the false spring in February that tends to fool us every year, we do have real seasons here in the foothills. Plenty of rain, hail, frost and the occasional snowfall in winter, blistering hot dry days in summer and wonderful green springs and red-gold autumns.

    The coolest part of spring is seeing my garden come to life.In particular, I am utterly enamored of tulips. I’ve never had tulips growing in my very own garden. When we pulled out our lawn and replaced it with gravel pathways that meander through flowerbeds filled with hardy water-stingy plants, tulips were included in the design. The colors are just so amazing and the flowers are so long-lasting, seeing them outside my window lifts my spirits. They are such a wonderful messenger of spring.

    Another delight this spring was the appearance of a mystery flower in my front yard. I’m used to volunteers popping up. Red pyracantha berries are a favorite of birds and their droppings sprout those prickly shrubs all over the yard. I even have a 25+ foot tall valley oak tree in the back yard that wasn’t here when we moved in. According to the local Master Gardeners mystery plant is a Harlequin flower from a sparaxis bulb.

    In addition to tulips, it’s always exciting to see the redbud bloom. A native shrub around here, it’s often the first color I see, its magenta flower a beautiful contrast to the dull green surrounding it. Then there’s the massive wall of wisteria that covers my backyard pergola. Our wisteria is monstrously large, its whip-like runners sometimes reaching twenty feet or more up into our redwoods. I sometimes wonder if that wisteria will be knocking on the door someday, demanding entrance.

    A few more pretty photos: