We're lucky here in Malibu. Our branch of the L.A. County library is open six days a week, has a decent selection of books, a great selection of videos, a pod of computers for public use and every year, courtesy of the local elementary school, displays macaroni-covered renderings of the California missions.

But if you want to browse the card catalog, good luck. (And by card catalog I mean the online data base, which has replaced those birds-eye maple cabinets, the ones with the long and skinny drawers filled with foxed and fuzzy cards. I miss them, miss the typewriting and the thumbprints and the typos, miss the musty scent, the sense of time, but that's a different essay.)

I'm a fan of the online database. You get to see all the books in all the county branches. You can reserve almost anything and get it delivered to your local library within days. Sure, you lose the serendipity of linear browsing but you gain the power of the boolean search. Not a terrible tradeoff.

In the beginning, as with the card catalogs, anyone could peek inside. Wake up the computer with a tap of the space bar and there it was, the online search box. Just enter the author or title or keyword and the hunt was on. Now, however, you have to enter your library card number just to search the catalog.

If you don't have a library card, or simply don't want to leave yet another electronic trail in the world, you have to ask a librarian to stop what they're doing to help you. And in Malibu, since the dedicated data base computers are broken, all three of them, you now have to wait in line for one of the wildly popular public computers to sign on.

We're lucky to have the library here. Consider the deep cuts in operating hours in other libraries and I have to say we in Malibu are extremely lucky. But putting something as simple as a search behind any kind of barrier is contrary to the open source nature of the library.

Bring back the truly free and open card catalog. Put the "public" back into library.

It's cool and still and dark here today, not much traffic, not much surf. Great chunks of cloud float free over the bay trailing raindrops.

Way up high, air currents are made visible by gulls and pelicans who sail by, move at a brisk pace without a single beat of their wings.

Kind of fuzzy since it was shot from afar but here's one of the seals who love to sunbathe on the rocks just off the tip of Point Dume.

A long walk at low tide this afternoon, clear sand all the way to Point Dume. Lots of pools and puddles and eddies where shore birds browsed, where egrets fished for supper.

In case there was any doubt, the MWD wants you to please steer clear.

I was living in Long Beach when I found this nest, which tumbled from a sycamore one windy winter night. Ever since then, the nest gets the place of honor in our living tree, a reminder that spring and warmth and light are on their way.

Happy holidays to everyone!

xo

Perhaps it was rude to take a quick snap of nuns at the cathedral in Guadalajara, but I'm not sure I've ever seen any in Malibu, and by "any" I mean long skirts and sensible shoes.

You could marvel at the size and heft and age of the mastodon bones on display at the museum of archaeology in Guadalajara, or you could sit in a corner and send texts. About the bones.

And that rude tourist taking your picture.

Everywhere we went in Guadalajara, everywhere we looked, in every stadium and street and park, there it was, fútbol.

Meanwhile, Patsy the cat has been sharing on Twitter. (You can follow her me us right here.

Don Waldie and I were wandering through El Centro in Guadalajara, a little lost but quite content, when we stumbled across an archaeological museum tucked into the courtyard of one of the colonial buildings.

And there in a display case, so vivid and contemporary they looked wildly out of place, was a display of hightops used as a canvas.

Stunning and mysterious.

If we could only read a bit of Mixteco, we would have had so many of our questions answered.

The little boy on my holiday list has become a hard-core Dodgers fan, so I've been cruising the sports aisles of the local book stores, both indie (hi Diesel!) and, reluctantly, some chains.

Which is how I came across this display -- customer-generated, no doubt; I don't think the management has quite this sense of humor -- that captures the Tiger Woods melodrama in all its sad and sordid detail.

So it's now officially impossible to ignore the fact we're in the heart of Hanukkah right now, as this driver in Agoura Hills reminds all around him:

And we're on the cusp of Christmas, as the person who decorated this pine tree in the wilds of a Malibu canyon, wants us to know .

It's not the first time I've found a receipt still caught in the ATM when I went to get some cash, and this isn't even the largest balance. Someone, somewhere, is doing OK this year.

Driving through Ventura county the other day, on the way to Satan's lair Home Depot, when suddenly, artichokes, everywhere, as far as the eye can see.

Well, not technically the sunrise. Technically the sunrise was 10 minutes before this shot was shot but for the naked, unclouded eye, this was the moment.

And look, blue sky. And that steely post-storm (mid-storm?) sea.

One of the popular offerings at the Wednesday market we visited in Zapopan, a town outside Guadalajara, was the baby Jesus. Swaddled in plastic, he comes in many convenient sizes, to fit any nacimiento, or nativity scene.

Today, meanwhile, is the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe...

...the Patrona of Mexico, the Queen of the Americas also begins on December 3 and culminates on her special day, December 12, when all Mexico pauses to celebrate the mother of God as she appeared on Tepeyac, the prehispanic site of the temple to Tontanslin , one of the most influential Aztec goddesses, asking that a temple be built to her on that site, as the Mother of Mexico.

The whole text is here -- you have to scroll a bit to find it.

Meanwhile, it's cold and quiet and raining steadily here in Malibu where, seeing as this is winter weather, we're off to buy our living Christmas tree.

Gray today, the light flat and cold, the sea stirred up, the sky too, with great flights of pelicans gliding, silently riding by, not a wing beat among them, held aloft by the storm.

You leave the cat for a few days and even though she's with a cat sitter and even though that cat sitter is crazy about the cat and feeds the cat and tends and pats and praises the cat, that's not enough.

So there's no blogging today as the cat takes over the keyboard. And sends emails. And tweets. And works on her novel, a dark, sexy thriller set in the wilds of the LA River.

Driving to town to pick up library books. After a day of rain, the sky clears.

Sun skims under the clouds, ricochets through raindrops and a thick slab of rainbow slams into the bay.

It's 10:00 on a Wednesday night at the book festival in Guadalajara and the Jonathan Gold-led culinary outings have developed quite a following. There was that visit to the regional delights and surprises of Lonche-rita. There was a dinner in El Parian, a historic square in heart of Tlaquepaque, where a dozen small restaurants share a central mariachi-infused courtyard.

Tonight though, Pilar Perez, an organizer of the L.A. portion of the book fest, sets the agenda. First our group, which has grown to require three and sometimes four taxis, heads to a small bar in El Centro, the old colonial center of Guadalajara.

The streets are narrow and the buildings' plaster walls, pierced by balconies, rim the sidewalk in an unbroken facade.

We follow Pilar through a stone-lined doorway and we're in a local cantina, a pair of yellow-painted rooms with tall arches and a high, scalloped ceiling.

We walk by the old-fashioned bar, squeeze past tables filled with men, with a few women, and into another long room where contemporary photos, large and stunning, line the ancient walls.

Waiters push tables together and we settle in, order drinks. The room adjusts to our presence. Conversations resume, discussions progress, the guy on a date at the table across from us gets to first base.

A plate of pickled pigs feet appears at Jonathan Gold's elbow.

Tequila is passed, and so are little bowls filled with piles of salt and halves of fragrant lime.

We eat eat fried crunchy things. We order more beer. Our waiter leans against the wall beneath a hand-made sign, smoking a cigarette and smiling.

A trumpet player climbs a small platform,

...is quickly joined by few more musicians and they play, play so well we're entranced. He pauses, trickles out a few notes which the crowd instantly recognizes and then the whole bar, every person there, is singing.

Then it's time for la cuenta

...and the total is shockingly small. And we're following Pilar again, back into the brick-lined streets where it's midnight now and for us, like for much of Guadalajara, the evening is just beginning.

We follow Pilar through a stone-lined doorway and we're in a local cantina, a pair of yellow-painted rooms with tall arches and a high, scalloped ceiling.

We walk by the old-fashioned bar, squeeze past tables filled with men, with a few women, and into another long room where contemporary photos, large and stunning, line the ancient walls.

Waiters push tables together and we settle in, order drinks. The room adjusts to our presence. Conversations resume, discussions progress, the guy on a date at the table across from us gets to first base.

A plate of pickled pigs feet appears at Jonathan Gold's elbow.

Tequila is passed, and so are little bowls filled with piles of salt and halves of fragrant lime.

We eat eat fried crunchy things. We order more beer. Our waiter leans against the wall beneath a hand-made sign, smoking a cigarette and smiling.

A trumpet player climbs a small platform,

...is quickly joined by few more musicians and they play, play so well we're entranced. He pauses, trickles out a few notes which the crowd instantly recognizes and then the whole bar, every person there, is singing.

Then it's time for la cuenta

...and the total is shockingly small. And we're following Pilar again, back into the brick-lined streets where it's midnight now and for us, like for much of Guadalajara, the evening is just beginning.

It´s lunch time in Guadalajara and we´re in a taxi with Jonathan Gold and his wife, Laurie Ochoa, rocketing our way across town. Jonathan has a slip of paper in his hand, which he and the taxi driver periodically consult and discuss.

It´s the address to Lonche-rita:

...a tiny restaurant with a handful of tables, whose owner had met Jonathan at the book fair the day before.

She and her husband (names to come later, I can´t find the business card) are on an Alice Waters-like quest to showcase regionally grown food and wine and liquors. First thing to the table, a lovely guacamole topped with...

...fried grasshoppers.

They´re all crunch and smoke and quite delicious and, I confess, mildly alarming as the sensitive nerve endings of your tongue send your brain the signal that yes, that´s definitely a thorax.

We also had sandwiches with pork, duck, tongue and marlin

...followed by a rustic enchilada.

The food was great and the array of artisinal beers and wines and tequilas and liquers we tasted was eye-opening. But my favorite part came at the start of the meal, when we were seated at the table and waiting for the waitress to bring our menus. She walked over to the table, right to the guy with the long hair and said "Good afternoon -- you are Jonathan Gold?"

Arrived in Guadalajara on Tuesday:

...for the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara which...

...after 23 years of celebrating different nations, chose Los Angeles as its guest of honor:

The daytime portion of the festival, which takes up a space the size of the LA Convention Center (think BEA), is for the trade. By 5 p.m., when the doors open to everyone else, the people are lining up by the hundreds and, by the end of the night, thousands.

They broswe the aisles and attend the panels and treat LA writers, whose names have been turned into a tag cloud and are projected on a huge screen in the heart of the convention center, like rock stars.

Here´s Raymond Chandler:

and a few more here and here and here.

They love LA:

Yes, I´m taking pictures here and yes, I´ll post a few, but right now the wifi in my room is snarled enough that I can´t upload new pix and mi español, while adequate to not leave the good people here rotflol, is not up to the task of discussing bandwidth.

So meanwhile, here´s a nice snap of a new-ish rockslide in the Cove, above a spot much beloved by sunbathers.

PS:

This conversation behind me, in few words but with a stunning breadth of inflection, has been electifying:

He: Menos. (Minus, less)
She: ¿No...menos?
He: Si, menos.
She: ¿Menos? (pause.) ¿¿¿Menos???
He: ¡Menos!
She: (very soft.) Menos.
He: Si.
She: Ahhh.
He: Si.

Nothing says the holidays in Paradise Cove like a decorated Airstream flanked by twinkling flamingos.