Where the turf meets the surf

[pjthompson]

A very busy weekend and I'm still trying to recover. We had a blast at Del Mar Sunday watching the horsies run. The 2 hour plus train ride wasn't so long going down, but very long coming back. Gorgeous scenery along the coast from San Juan Capistrano south—wetlands and beach. When we got on the bus shuttling passengers from the Solana Beach station to the racetrack it was filled with inebriated oldsters and we got a bit worried. But when we got to the track it was a good mix of people—many families with kids, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings. Actually, not too many oldsters. Maybe they were up in the turf club. We had lunch at the restaurant overlooking the paddock, then spent three races with the groundlings down near the rail, then three more bleacher-adjacent. I came out slightly ahead on my winnings (I've only had a losing day once), but my mojo deserted me in the 6th race, so I didn't bet the 7th, and then we left. Beautiful park and gorgeous horses. You can bet off track, of course, but nothing beats the ambience of being there.


Writingness of the day: Finished the crit-integrating read through of Shivery Bones for a total of 12k words cut—which is somewhat shy of the 20k I'd hoped for. After it's lounged for a week, I'll try again.


Random opinion of the day:

Harlan Ellison = an impotent pipsqueak
His apology ≠ an apology

Quote of the day:

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

—Albert Einstein