Skeptics in the City of Angels

Business has brought me to LA for a few weeks.

The up-side of going west through eight time zones is that you get up early enough to go for a run. The downside is that by dinnertime, you're slumped with your face in your food.

And speaking of eating: been busy this week, so I just bought a pile of frozen, microwaveable Mexican food. I think it's going to be a while before I can look another chimchanga in the face. Today, I am going to go and buy a vegetable.

Mr Jourdemayne and I once took a very long trip to see a writer. We were too off-schedule to stop for a meal, but had been told there were provisions at the other end. After two hours of greetings and enough rum to launch a Saturn V - all endured without fainting - we were presented with the comestibles.

It was the repast of an eighteenth century central European peasant married to a nail technician from a trailer park in Alabama. There was every kind of salted and preserved meat you can imagine. All seemed to end in 'am': ham, spam ... plus jerky.

And cheese and onion crisps.

And ONE sprig of parsley.

Mr Jourdemayne and I both fixed upon the parsley. Our eyes darted back challengingly to each other, and then that music from 'The Good, The Bad and the Ugly' played in the background.

I might have imagined that last bit.

I was as fast as a cat, but he was a fast as a faster cat. Mr Jourdemayne whipped the parsley away. He took the time to triumphantly roll it around his lips, Ermentrude-like, before sucking it down with a vigorous vacuum that made all our ears pop slightly.

The hostess looked at us resentfully. I think she kept the parsley for dressing. I don't think we were supposed to eat it. The speed with which Mr Jourdemayne ingested the thing, it may actually have been astro-turf parsley. We'll never know.

I like vegetables, and today I'm going to buy one.

But what of last night? I went to see Drinking Skeptically, LA at their usual meetup, and what a friendly bunch of people they are. It's one of the many wonderful things about skepticism, that we can go to so many cities and find friends very easily.

This Brian Hart, assistant organiser and Invesigator with the Independent Investigations Group.

And this is Derek Bartholomaus, who created the Jenny McCarthy Bodycount.


Thanks to everybody for making me feel so welcome. See you all again soon.