Election Day

 Los Angeles, California

It was election day in California and I had not yet completed my ballot. I woke up early with thoughts of my mother, as it would have been her 106th birthday. Betty made it to 94 and up until the last five years, had a wonderful life filled with education, travel, celebratory events, lots of dinners out, and a marriage with a husband who adored her. But the last five years were beyond unpleasant for her. She ended her life non-ambulatory, deaf, blind, and suffering from vascular dementia.

My dad went fast, lingering for ten or so hours after a heart attack. Funny, but their deaths suited them. Dad would never have wanted to make a fuss or cause anyone to care for him. Mom expected her daughters to be her handmaidens and one of us was till the end of her life. I spent that last day with her, leaving to drive home at 10 PM, after the hospice nurse told me it "wasn't going to happen tonight." The call that she was gone came just after I arrived home. Oddly, as needy as she had been in her life, I believe she spared me being a witness to her death. It was as if she was waiting for me to leave. In the final analysis, one parent went fast and the other unbearably slow. Fast is better.

So, I had thoughts of my mom on my mind that morning as I went through my morning rituals of tea-drinking and meditation. I was finally ready to sit down to my ballot. And to my surprise, I found my father's name as a Libertarian candidate for California governor! And to add more coincidence to this coinkydink, my father was a Libertarian. Do you think they were trying to tell me something?

I completed my ballot, did the rest of my morning rounds of breakfast, bed-making and getting dressed, and left the house to place my ballot in a local ballot box. Then went to Costco, did some marketing, and a Trader Joe's run. As I was approaching my home on the long avenue that runs uphill to my street, I noticed an abundance of water and mud running downhill. I made the turn to approach the cul-de-sac on which I live and saw a police car and police tape cordoning off the entry. And again, it's a cut-de-sac. One way in; one way out.

I pulled over to ask one of the LAPD officers if residents were being allowed past the  barrier. He told me I could not enter the street until the department of water and power came to turn off the water. He also told me where the break had occurred which was on a property that was recently purchased and is being rehabbed. The new owners are not living there, and many workers are there each day. And, for whatever reason, they had dug a very deep hole in the front yard. Bingo...

There is a way into the property through a large retreat facility that backs up to our quiet street. The facility itself is pastoral with gathering places, dormitories and a duck pond. I used the winding drive through this facility to get to my house. Items from Trader Joe's still in frozen state. Before I unpacked groceries I went to wash my hands. No water. However, since the pandemic, Purell still sits on my counter next to the hand soap located at my kitchen sink.

After unpacking, I called my neighbor. She confirmed that water was out on the entire street. And shared that it had been a terrible day for her, even before the water issue. Thanks to the duckpond we often find baby ducks in our pools. They can get in to the pool, but because of the pool coping, they can't get out. I mean, theoretically they can. But their little brains can't conceptualize that they have to hop/flutter over the lip of the coping. Instead, they just keep bumping into it and landing back in the pool. The solution to this is to fashion a ramp and engage in the tedious process of directing the chicks to the ramp. Last season, it took me about an hour to get this little renegade to the ramp. When you try to nudge them, they dive. Unfortunately, while my neighbor was in this process, a hawk swooped down and grabbed one of the chicks in front of her and her six year-old twins. She was horrified, but one of the boys turned to her and said: Circle of life, Mom.

I shared with my neighbor that if she had empty one-gallon water bottles, she could fill them from her pool and use them to fill the tanks of toilets so you can flush without running water. She remarked on how ingenious I was. No, not really, I replied. Just experienced. You learn a lot about working around utilities after experiencing earthquakes in California. And I've experienced a few.

The water returned around bedtime and I gratefully took a shower in sputtering water. I did run water the faucets and taps throughout the house. Something I have also learned.

Dad didn't win the election. He got less than 1% so he didn't even show up on leaderboards on national nor even local news sources. I thought about him the next day. He would have made a good statesman. He was honest and steadfast in his beliefs, relentlessly moral and ethical, and had a steadfast sense of civic responsibility. But he felt the military was badly run, and that government screwed up everything in which it got involved. He was a registered Republican, churchgoing Presbyterian, and a 32-degree Mason, belonging to the Al Malaikah Shriners. I married a man who carried the same first name as my dad. Governor/Dad Tommy would have been an asset to California. 

Sandra's Birthday

Los Angeles, California

Sandra's birthday was a week ago and I thought about her all day. I even re-read some emails she had sent to me back about fifteen years ago. I didn't feel sad. Well, a little sad. Mostly, I just missed her.

I love my friends, for all that they bring to my life. Yes, sometimes they make me nuts. And sometimes, I am certain, I make them nuts. But knowing them, even with the nuttiness, is part of the flavor of my life. I feel exceedingly fortunate that I make friends easily and conversely, can let them go when necessary. And sometimes it is necessary, albeit not always without some pain of loss.

Of course not all of our friends are our BFFs. I think of friendships in concentric circles with inner- and outer-layer friends. I had the same best friend, Debbie, through elementary school. And a very close friend through junior high school, my friend, Dayle. Dayle and I danced constantly. We also spent long summer days in our families' pools. But we were not able to go to the same high school so in time we parted. My high school friend was another Debbie, who like elementary school Debbie, lived walking distance from my home. She stayed my friend through college and into both of our marriages, though we have since drifted and lost touch.

Just before I married, I took a job at California State University, Northridge and met my friend, Cindy. I recently wrote about this friendship in The Trio (available here, for free!). Cin and I have had an extraordinary friendship with some ups and downs. But the sustaining element of our friendship is how much we are alike. Uncannily alike. We have a shorthand of understanding that is once-in-a-lifetime unique. And we have similar views of the world, and especially of the ironic comedy contained therein. I recently made a comment to Cin and she laughed heartily. That was good, I thought, so I repeated it a few days later to another friend, and it landed like the proverbial lead balloon. It's not imperative to friendship that you have similar senses of humor. But it does add a sweet enhancement. I recall once having a friend who laughed at everything. So when the conversation transitioned to something serious, or even sad, she still laughed. That was weird.

Lynnette and I have so much in common that after twenty years in a professional relationship, we easily transitioned to close friends. We first bonded over baseball and classic films. She is the friend who feels like family. Something I have none of, and she has a whole lot of. Since she moved away, we try to see each other once a month, not always successfully, but we try. I look forward to those three days together and the routine we have easily established. Her friendship is a gift that came to me at a very bleak time in my life. I once called her late in the evening when I was in distress. It was at the very start of our friendship and she asked no questions. She drove right over.

And then there was Sandra who was in my thoughts recently as she would have celebrated a birthday. Meeting Sandra was serendipitous. She and John were having a drink at the Bora Bora Bar at the Kona Village when we arrived. At the time, my drink was a vodka martini with a twist. Sandra was drinking a vodka martini with an olive. The bartender, who we all knew well, introduced us. For more than twelve years, Sandra was like a mom/sister/best friend all wrapped into one. Even though we lived a distance from each other, we saw each other about four times a year in Kona, Carmel, Tahoe, and at both of our homes. We traveled together or met in Tahiti, Panama, Las Vegas, Napa, Rancho Santa Fe, and Ojai. We celebrated birthdays, holidays, and just plain friendship. We exchanged book recommendations, and family stories. She reintroduced me to Catholic Mass, something for which I will always be grateful.

We attended a week-long Intensive Spanish Summer Institute together twice. We had our faces painted, wore temporary tattoos, birthday crowns, and even dressed as waitresses at the Kona Village, wearing old uniforms that had been retired. One of the waitresses laughed so hard when she saw us, she sat down on the ground. We got to know other Kona Village vacationers who came at the same time of each year as we did, including Wendy and Barry-the-dentist and Arte Johnson and his lovely wife. Friendship with Sandra was charmed.

On the last day I spent with Sandra before she died, we looked through her old photo albums of the Kona Village. She was very frail at this point, less than three months before she was gone. She turned to me and remarked: We were so lucky to have done this. I knew what she meant. The Kona Village had been a magical place back then. And we had enjoyed it year after year. But, for me, the special magic was in becoming Sandra's friend. And how special it felt just to know her. She herself was magic, in her sunny, accepting approach to her life and the world around her. She was quietly yet unwaveringly devout in her faith. She was kind, greatly fun-loving, and always, always a joy to be around.

I think it was Reader's Digest who I recall having an ongoing article entitled something like The Most Interesting Person I've Ever Met. If it had been called The Best Person I've Ever Met, I would have no doubt in my mind that Sandra will always be that person for me. I miss her.