Where Am I? 

Once every eight weeks, if not more often, K and I travel to LA to visit Number One and Number Two Sons and their families. Together, they have bestowed upon us four grandchildren: Francis, the elder and constant thinker, Penny and Fionna, the always rambunctious and ready-for-anything twins, and Willa, my sweet little slice of strawberry shortcake.

I don’t like traveling nearly as much as I did in my 40s and 50s, when I used to – no joke – put colored pins in a world map indicating the cities I’d seen. K and I traveled for pleasure, and I traveled for work. For more than 40 years, I was out of the country at least ten times a year and away from home another two dozen. I’ve been to all the “must-visit” European cities, as well as those of Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Russia… and the list goes on.

Two problems: I remember, at best, only fragmentary images of those hundreds of adventures. And the energy that fueled my excitement in my youth to see the world has been replaced by a low-level dread of airports and day-long plane trips and jet lag.

K experiences none of this. She is as energetic and sprightly as she was when we spent two years living in and traveling around Africa in the mid 1970s. So these days, she does a fair amount of her traveling with girlfriends, while I – no longer obliged to travel for work – limit my travel to extended family gatherings and visiting the grandkids.

And that’s how I found myself at the Fairmount at Century City (LA), a huge, modern building recently refurbished for a billion dollars that sits among dozens of similarly sized, reconstructed glass-and steel towers connected to one another by cement courtyards and walkways, with the occasional bit of greenery here and there.

There is no question. This is a Forbes 4-star hotel that deserves the reputation it has in terms of everything one might want in a great hotel, including handsomely appointed rooms with good views and a beautiful lobby and numerous restaurants and meeting rooms and libraries and all the rest. And the service is great. Really great. A noticeable step above most other first-class American hotels. It is comparable to the service you can get in Asian hotels, which is, by almost any standard, the best in the world.

But it’s missing something that I’m trying to put a name to. I haven’t found the word, but it’s the opposite of “charming.”

Never mind. That’s not why we are here. We are here to spend time with family, especially these kids – all of whom provide me with as much charm and action and laughter as I could ever hope for. And that’s okay with me.