Parties. Rock Bands.

We had the kids' birthday party on Saturday. It was raining.

If you live in L.A. for very long you get used to planning outdoor events with no contingencies. It's just not going to rain that day.

So, Friday night found us hastily replanning the party activities. No "jumpy castle?" (De rigeur at birthday parties these days, it seems.) Substitute a craft. No outdoor treasure hunt? Rework it to span the family room, entry hall, and garage. In the end everything worked out great.

I ran out Saturday morning to pick up supplies for the craft. I had no idea you could buy so much felt and glue for ten bucks.

Okay, now to change subjects.

This year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction was on TV this weekend. I Tivo'd it so that I could just skip through the fawning speeches and get to the performances.

The last band inducted this year was The Police. Great band. The three members all gave fairly quick acceptance/thank you speeches - one of them mentioned that they were in a hurry to perform as they hadn't played together in 18 years. (Has it really been that long? Good grief, I'm getting old.)

They got their instruments and started in on - what else - Roxanne. Sting got most of the camera time but I noticed something when they showed Stewart Copeland banging away behind the drums - he was In The Zone.

The look on Copeland's face was one of total concentration combined with Pure Joy. It's hard for me to describe - Sting and Andy Summers seemed to be performing with some calculated sense of what they were doing, but Copeland looked to have transcended the whole thing and Achieved Enlightenment. I'm not doing it justice here but I don't know how else to tell you what I saw without going totally mumbo-jumbo on you.

I was glad for Stewart. Everybody should get to be that happy now and then.