The Rickman Rule

Los Angeles, California

In 1964 I knew all of the dialog from The Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night. It would have been interesting to have counted our viewings of this film but suffice to say, we saw it constantly, often in double features with films like George Roy Hill's coming-of-age movie, The World of Henry Orient. But this post isn't about either film. Rather about George Harrison's line from AHDN: It looms large in his legend.

You could accurately say that my birthday looms large in my legend. It's not in my experience that everyone's birthday is such a big deal to them, especially as we age. But I am celebratory by nature. I love Christmas. And Valentine's Day. I love holidays that bring people together. And, I love my birthday which is nestled near Halloween.

They haven't always been good. One spent in a hospital waiting room when my father was in intensive care. One spent mourning a beloved dog, Taz. One spent on the floor in an utter marital capsize. But enough about those. This year Joel and I got to travel together. We got to dance. And I got to celebrate with friends.

My friend, Karen, sent me one of the best birthday gifts I have ever received, because it was such a surprise. She sent me the recently published diaries of the late Alan Rickman, entitled Truly, Madly. I love hardcover books. Once, many birthdays ago, my ex-best friend, Cindy, took apart a pyramid of Katharine Hepburn's memoir at a local Barnes and Noble. An employee rushed to help her. Is there a problem? No, Cindy replied. This is for my friend, Deborah. It has to be perfect. I am so crazed about books that I will not lend hardcovers. I used to, until someone returned one with a ring on the jacket showing it had been used as a drink coaster. The end.

Back to Alan Rickman. I first saw him on TV doing a scene from the play La Liaison Dangerous at the Tony Awards. And there was just something. I have to confess that I have never seen Die Hard, his first film. But one of my favorite, top ten favorite, films is Anthony Mingella's Truly, Madly, Deeply in which he played a ghost or a projection opposite the brilliant Juliet Stevenson.

I wasn't even aware the book had been published, so when I unwrapped it, I was stunned and overjoyed. The first night I fell asleep reading it, so I literally slept with the book. And I devoured it afterwards. I don't believe he ever thought it would be published, which makes it interesting in a voyeuristic way. He candidly and sometimes cattily writes about films, plays, directors, actors, Americans, restaurants, parties, dancing, hangovers, et al. And here is the conundrum. He really lived his life. He ate, he drank, he stayed up late. There is a joie de vivre in the life detailed which is something pretty much alien to our current American way of life. And I felt envy at that. But then, he died at 69. Had he lived like an American: Work first; be hypervigilant about everything you eat; don't drink; get to bed early to get up and work first: I wonder, would he have lived longer? And sacrificing that better-lived, that more eventful life, would it have been worth it?

I recently hosted Thanksgiving and ten people came for cocktails before dinner. Out of the ten, three of us had a cocktail. Everyone else made the difficult choice of still or sparkling after asking for "just water." I don't want to be the person encouraging people to vice. But I do wish for a little lightening up. When did Americans get so uptight about so many things? Even some of those of us from the Woodstock generation would seem to give up a glass of wine for more time on the treadmill.

Concurrently, I've been watching Nigella Lawson on Britbox and have had some laugh out loud moments watching her prepare dishes for herself and friends, that my friends would never in a million years eat! How do you gather friends who are pescatarians, gluten-free, allergic and anorexic to a dinner party?

My friend, Joy, recently hosted a dinner party to celebrate an anniversary. She invited friends who had been at her wedding and she prepared eggplant parmigiana. I laughed when she told me. Will everyone eat that? I asked, thinking of the cheese-free and the eggplant-haters and the oil-phobic. I don't care, she responded. I tell people what I'm serving and if they can't eat it they should bring their own. And I like that. I'm calling it The Rickman Rule or an explanation of The Rickman Rule. The Rickman Rule is actually to eat, drink, and be merry. If you can't do that, why do we want you at our dinner party? You're clearly not someone who could eat and drink with Alan Rickman nor Nigella Lawson. And I think what I got from the book and from watching Nigella on TV is that we all need to lighten up a little. Ok, probably not me. I'm already down with the cocktails and the eggplant parmigiana and the dancing. Totally. Bring. It. On. Life isn't just short. It's shorter.

Trifecta

Los Angeles, California

I spent most of my elementary school years in Burbank, California. I attended Henry M. Mingay elementary school, in the Burbank School District. I belonged to Brownies and Girl Scout troop 157. One day when I was wearing my uniform with that number sewn onto my badge sash, I was told by my teacher that my IQ score had coincidentally come in with that very number. They're probably not supposed to tell a kid that, but I hardly knew what it meant. Today we say that age is just a number. So are scores.

And then we moved to Northridge, and I was reeling in the drama of starting a new school and knowing no one. I felt like a stranger in a strange land that first day. And I was desperately missing my friends. Unlike Mingay, this school had an public address system where they piped messages into the classrooms. And it was there, on my first day of school, that it was announced to us that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. At lunchtime, knowing no one, I went to the library which was located near the front of the campus. I saw that the flag had been lowered and understood that the president had been lost.

I had spent close to six months earlier that year living in a community in Maryland which was not far from Washington D.C. We often went to dinner in Washington. My parents liked the Watergate Inn. And one evening we went to see DiVinci's Mona Lisa displayed, which was on loan from the Louvre. My parents were Eisenhower Republicans, who had not voted for Kennedy but even they fell under the allure of the young president with the stylish wife. Everywhere we went we saw people meeting the challenge of the President's fitness program. Holding signs as they ran, walked and hiked. We went to New York and saw a musical, Mr. President, Irving Berlin's last Broadway musical, the book loosely based on the country's admiration for this new, modern administration. It all ended. Just like that.

I share this sense with others that many things in life come in threes. As I have written before, I have seen three no-hitters at Dodgers Stadium. I have been in three adult relationships. I lost the three people closest to me in the span of one year. And, there have been three mega events in my life: The Kennedy assassination; 9/11, and the Pandemic.

I was talking to Joel recently about this and about the changes that each of those things brought into our lives. I think the Kennedy assassination brought to us children a new reality that things like that could happen. We had been innocent, although we had already been through the Cuban Crisis and the duck and cover drills that came along with it. But somehow, even though sensing the adults' tension about this, the danger didn't really register with us kids. But the Kennedy assassination was the first indication that felt real. It came into our living rooms and told us that there was danger, and evil, in the country in which we lived. Other assassinations came afterwards, but didn't feel as shocking as that first one. Those were happening after Pandora's box had been opened. And by then, the war in Viet Nam was also in our living rooms, albeit only for a half an hour each evening on the nightly network news. We should have been grateful that we were spared the 24/7 news cycle that was to come.

9/11 brought inconceivable horror into our lives. We knew about terrorism. But we hadn't really considered that it could happen on our soil on such a large scale. It changed everything. I had been in New York that summer and, enroute to Bermuda, had sailed out past lower Manhattan and the World Trade towers, one of which I had ridden to the top of just three years earlier. The July 2001 sailing was a magical trip. My favorite of all the mother-daughters cruises my mom had generously taken both my sister and me on, each summer for over a score of years.

In late October, 2001 Tom and I flew to Kona on United Airlines. We had upgraded to first class, but the flight attendants didn't serve us cocktails before taking off as they had in the past. I thought they looked uneasy. Maybe I was projecting, but then, why wouldn't they look uneasy? We were eyeing the other passengers on the half-filled plane. When we got to the Kona Village, meeting Sandra and John there, we found it even more empty than normal. Late October was never a busy time at the Village, but that may have been the trip when there were 60 guests at the Village which has a capacity of about 300.

Now, at airports, we were wending through long lines in security and would soon be taking off our shoes before boarding flights. Terrorism continued but became domestic terrorism. School and church shootings, government buildings bombed, and then the conspiracy groups, mostly uneducated men and bimbo women riding in on the coattails of the least-qualified, most amoral and unethical character to ever become president.

And then we got novel coronavirus Covid19. And in that almost-60 year span, I think this is the one that carries the most weight, as it impacts every single aspect of our lives. There is no place to be safe with others. None. It's like a sexually-transmitted disease where you are sleeping with everyone the person you are sleeping with has slept with. Only it is a breathing-transmitted disease. Where do we not breathe when we are with others? No options, other than to not be with others which is an even deadlier choice. Or meet the risk, as we need to, to live our lives. But how to heed while living our lives? Maps of yore used to indicate where you fell off the edge of the flat earth. This way there be dragons. In so many ways, we now live with these dragons (as well as with our own personal elephants in the room!).

The day of the Kennedy assassination, my mother came to school to pick me up and my grandfather was in the car with her. He told me that he remembered the McKinley assassination. My grandfather lived to see both the Wright brothers first flight as well as the moon landing. He survived injuries from a cyclone as well as the loss of my grandmother after almost sixty years of marriage.  Maybe, if I'm lucky, resiliency runs in my genes, and it will provide the ability to surf the waves of yet another historical upheaval. But after the past two and-a-half years of Covid, and the trifecta of disaster in my lifetime, it is a challenge for me not to ponder with trepidation: What's next?

The Shuckers

 Los Angeles, California

I think it just a bit odd that two of my friends once teased me about my penchant for talking to people I don't know. I don't walk up to strangers on the street. But when I am doing business with someone, or even speaking to someone providing customer service, I often engage in conversation. As I think back, both of my parents did this. My mom didn't so much engage, as talk at people. She liked to talk but wasn't so much interested in what the other person had to say so much as what she wanted to tell them. My dad was more like a raconteur. He was a great storyteller, and I often think my interest in stories and other people's personal stories, came from him. Dad was also the parent who read me bedtime stories. His taste ran more towards Kipling than Seuss, and forget about reading me stories about princesses or young commoners who lived happily ever after with any prince or princess charming. And... maybe that was a good thing?

But back to this story. I find it much odder, that one of my aforementioned friends thought it was weird? Inappropriate? Or at least strange enough to comment on, that I had talked to the bartender when we were having dinner together at the bar in a hotel. Huh. Huh? I guess she never watched Cheers. I often find bartenders interesting. In fact, it was a bartender who introduced us to Sandra and John! And besides serendipitous introductions, if you end up talking about liquor, bartenders have been known to provide teaser tastes from behind the bar. I'm truly not in it for this benefit. I'm in it for the conversation. Interested in the stories. But if that comes with a half-shot of something I've not sampled before, so much the better.

Maybe most people aren't interested, but I am always curious to know where the disembodied voice on the other end of a customer service call is located. I always ask. If they are in the states, and there is a major league baseball team nearby, I often ask them about their team. It is surprising that, while there is a lot of talk about loss of interest, I encounter a lot of MLB fans who support their local or nearby team and work in customer service. 

A few months back, I needed to call the social security office. At the end of the call I asked if, since this was a government agency, the representative was allowed to tell me where she was located. I'm in Louisiana, ma'am. I responded that, in that case, she didn't have a baseball team, right? Oh yes we do, ma'am. We have the Biloxi Shuckers.

Sandra, namesake of this blog (and the best person I have ever known), lived six hours away from me, but we saw each other four or five times during the course of each year. When we saw Sandra and John in the summer, usually at their home in Tahoe, I would always ask about their local baseball team, the Sacramento River Cats. Except, I called them the River Rats. Much to John's dismay, Sandra began calling them The Rats as well.

I feel some regret that I don't have friends who support the Shuckers. It's such a great name for a team. And can you imagine what opposing teams' fans can do with hollering' that name? Most major league teams don't have very clever names. While I sortakinda hate the team, the Padres name is clever. It is also the name the Carmel High School carries for its teams. A while back, somebody got their shorts in a twist over this and the name's association with Saint Serra. History tells us of unconscionableness and even cruelty in our past. But the past of California is indelibly entwined with the California Missions Trail. That's why we studied the Missions, as part of California history, in elementary school, and even made those sugar cube replicas. I would hate to see the historical importance of the Missions diminished. And would hate to hear that the name of that school's team, with its campus walking-distance from the beautiful Carmel Mission Basilica, be changed to the Carmel Guardians.

On the other hand, the Atlanta Braves should consider getting rid of that chant. Not because it's demeaning, though I understand it is, but because it is alarmingly annoying. I do understand the indigenous peoples' complaint about all of this. When you watch old westerns, there is the same cringe factor that you feel at aspects of Gone With the Wind. But, erasure isn't necessarily a good thing. In my ridiculously unimportant opinion, perspective is the better route.

Luckily, I don't think the Shuckers are going to offend anyone. Yeah, not so fast. Maybe they are. There seems to be stirrings in the animal rights population regarding sea creatures. Certainly the Shuckers are disregarding the feelings of those mollusks who are being shucked, right? Oh, good grief, Charlie Brown! I truly hope for a time and place when we are not all so thin-skinned. Otherwise, I might have to go back to calling the Sacto team Cats, after all. And, I think the River Rats is a much better name. At least until someone steps in to defend the rights of rodents to not have their name so frivolously utilized. That wave may very well be coming at us, so be prepared to duck! Oops, not meaning insensitivity to web-footed birds. I find them delicious.

The Power Outage

Los Angeles, California

When a noise woke me up recently, I realized something was not quite right. It took me a minute or so, heart beating wildly from the abrupt awakening, to realize that my house and neighborhood were pitch black. Power outage? My heart started to settle down as I reached for my phone and got onto the local water and power company website. It confirmed what the bleak darkness had already told me. Power outage. My brain whipped around as I landed on the various problems this presented, namely ingress and egress. Garage door and gate both power-operated. Ana would be arriving to do housekeeping at eight. I would be leaving for a medical appointment at 9:00. The website projected a 7:00 AM restoration. I put about 50% of my trust into that.

It was 5:30 in the morning and it was going to be a challenge to get back to sleep. So, as I often do, I turned to a podcast. In this case, Marc Maron's WTF podcast; an episode featuring Christina Ricci. I like Christina Ricci as an actress, particularly in the film The Opposite of Sex. She has a unique voice and as I listened to the interview I began to relax and even hope that I might drift off. And I did. But before my drift, I heard something that resonated and stayed with me the following day and even now, a few weeks later.

After talking about her struggles with anxiety, she mentioned that she tells her seven year-old, when he is grousing/whining about not wanting to go to school (and I am paraphrasing): Sometimes it is time to do, not to feel. You can feel later. I didn't sit bolt upright in bed when I heard this, but it did have an impact. Enough so that I thought about it a lot after I got up at 7:15. Power was still off but it came back on just before 8:00 and Ana arrived shortly after.

I feel a lot, and almost all of the time. I wouldn't say I am dragging all these feelings behind me in a net, but I cannot overstate how much of a feeling person I am. And, of course, this is for good and for not-so-good. That almost-dread which I feel before I venture out of my home has been a challenge since the pandemic eased. It doesn't stop me; I leave my house and it is ok once I do. But the anticipation anxiety has at times felt like a hurdle. A navigable hurdle, but still.

The concept of setting feelings aside to just do what is before you isn't really profound. It is simple. But sometimes it is that simplicity in dealing with feelings and especially in dealing with anxiety, that can get you through.

I talked to Cathy about this during my 'pilates' session (pilates in italics because Cathy's unique approach to her clients presents a hybrid of many things including but not limited to pilates). We agreed that sometimes giving your anxiety too much attention (what I call feeding it) is not good. Burying it? Not so good either. So maybe what Ricci was saying was essentially that you can feel what you feel, but sometimes now is not the time. It's like a good tax plan -- defer, defer, defer.

So I got power restored in a couple of different ways and I shared it with a few friends. I don't know if it had the meaning and impact for them that it had for me. I couched it by saying that an interview like that is a lot like purchasing a cookbook. If you get one good recipe, it was worth the investment. This recipe was: Approach and accomplish task. You can dive into the sensory -- the taste, the feeling, later. Right now, you just need to do it. Sense and sensibility (thank you, Jane Austin). And, thank you, Christina Ricci.

Royal Blush

Los Angeles, California

I don't know whether I'm appalled or perplexed by my friends who continue to work past a reasonable retirement age. I mean, what is a reasonable age at which to stop working? If you like to work, or if you're a guy, you should keep working. The reason I singled out guys is because I've seen men flounder after retirement. On the other hand, so did my mother. But then she had only joined the workforce after her kids had launched. After she retired she seemingly couldn't cope with being once again faced with housework as her mission. So, my dad took her traveling. And traveling. And traveling some more.

Post pandemic, I have even less desire to travel than before. The daunting gauntlet of the 'travel' part of travel is less and less appealing to me. Just the thought of a long flight is aversion therapy. On the other hand, I have spent decades striving to get to the place where I now am. I'm done with business, work, rental properties. I've turned over investments to a good planner. I am following the KISS system (Keep It Simple Stupid). I've landed where I want and need to be, and now I want to enjoy it with Joel, with my friends, and by myself when that feels right.

Do I have a Post Pandemic Bucket List? Not really. Since I started dancing salsa back almost twenty years ago, I have wanted to see Marc Anthony in concert. And, guess what? We saw him last week in Las Vegas. It was a fabulous experience, listening to him sing while we danced in the aisles of the stadium. A lot of people were dancing, and the energy was palpable.

I've never played blackjack at a table in a casino, but we did play electronically and Joel won enough to go home with all of his money plus a bit more. We watched the first game of the World Series at an Irish pub at New York, New York and were thrilled to see the Phillies stage a stellar, extra-inning comeback win. It was a very fun trip. Travel-wise, I am clearly happy to set the bar very low. I enjoy my home, my writing and dancing.

But still, one's reach should exceed its grasp and I am a believer in living in all the rooms in ones house. And additionally believe that stretching outside of our comfort zone can be a good thing. Recently, Joel asked me if I had ever skinny-dipped with anyone besides my two serial significant others at my own home. Yes. In my thirties I traveled to Puerto Vallarta with my husband and three other couples. And one night after a great deal of piña coladas (which I barely believe I ever drank) and wine with dinner, someone suggested we get naked and get into the pool. It was a pretty mild exercise, all of us being married and none of us really venturing out into the center of the pool, if memory serves.

But, as Joel and my conversation continued over a bottle of rosé, hanging out in  my kitchen while we were listening to a salsa playlist, I realized that there was a similarly innocent item on my list; a virtual box which I hadn't checked. I got a deck of cards out of a kitchen drawer. How are your poker skills?

As we were discussing our play, Joel pointed out that I was wearing one more item of clothing than he was. Well, you'll just have to play better poker, I replied. I had him out of his shoes and down to his underwear while I was still fully dressed. I was drawing two pair, a straight, and even two full houses. Eventually he rallied with three-of-a-kind and a pair that beat mine. And I folded a couple of times. Ok, so maybe this is a box-check cheat. After all, it was only the two of us. But I still checked the imaginary box on the imaginary list. And besides, after the Mexican skinny-dipping, I decided that my body was not for the general public, but rather for a select few. These days it is less than that.

The best part was how impressed Joel was by my poker skills (which he called my luck), and the exercise made us look forward to the Vegas trip even more. And while it was fun to win a bit of money last week, it was not quite so rewarding as taking Joel's clothes away from him, shoe by shoe, shirt by shorts. That was what I really call a Jackpot!

Looking Forward and Back

Los Angeles, California

After listening to an interview with the writer, Hua Hsu, I pondered something he had said about life and aging. He observed that when we are young, we are always looking forward. Looking to the future. My friends and I moaned that we couldn't wait to be out of high school so we could have the freedom to do the things we wanted to do which was unthinkable in our parents' home. Parenthetically, my generation grew up to allow their kids to do anything they wanted in their homes. But the parents of boomers generally provided boundaries and consequences.

I refer to college as the best time of my life that I couldn't wait to be over. I took a year off after barely a year of college and worked full-time for Prudential Insurance in the home office mail pay division. After a few months of that I started looking forward to going back to school, which I did. By the middle of my junior year, I considered taking some more time off but opted instead to carry more units to finish faster. I was looking forward to graduating. And the following year, looking forward to starting life with my fiancé who subsequently became my husband for thirty-five years.

After we married, I suggested that we save money by working two jobs and then taking a year to live in the south of France. He said no; that we should save money to buy a home. And we did, and I suppose he was right. But I also believe it was the first indication that I would need to suppress a side of me that wanted a different sort of life.

In early and mid-married life there was a lot of striving. As we looked around us: Buying a home; having kids; getting financially stable and secure were all things to be attained. We didn't hit every point, but maybe all that striving is what took him out. I will never really know for sure, but after three and a half decades, out he was. And I carried on. Eventually retirement loomed ahead. Through all of the looking ahead, there was a gradual shift where I began to look back. Now I look back a lot. Too much. And after the interview, I thought: When is the time when we are in the moment?

In meditation you strive for being present. It's not easy, but it is the beneficial space between past and future. I wonder if this inability to attain that space is partly what is wrong out there. No one is living in their present. People in their cars rush about dangerously. Friends together lament past disasters, both personal and public. We all do it. Is it possible, outside of meditation, to actually live our lives now?

What I love about dance, specifically for me salsa dance, is that it forces you to be present. As a follower, you have to be present, because you don't have any clue as to where you might be led. Playing sports is different. You have to utilize anticipation. But salsa is like good sex. You don't quite know where it's going but what you bring to it is being spontaneous and responsive. Maybe that's why we dance. It is like meditation in that you are in that space, but also like sex, which can be accompanied by music, and sometimes tequila.

There is an aspect to writing that puts you in the moment. When I start a post, I don't really know where I'm going with it. Sometimes I only bring a title to these blogposts. In writing larger works like a novel, I have started with a conclusion. And then, the title has generally come last.

In the larger sense, we are told that being in the moment and not looking forward nor back is a better place to be. A healthier place. But it is also a daunting process to get there and to stay there. But while we might never cease to look forward and back, the effort is worthwhile. After all, you can't live your life on a dance floor (nor in constant sexual activity à la Sex and the City). Then again, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Hesitating a Guess

Los Angeles, California

I am in a relationship with someone whose first language is not English. This both makes our life together interesting, in a sort of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo way. But it also can create pitfalls when discussing things of a serious nature. I am loathe to admit the following, because I think celebrity culture is pretty much bullshit, but I read a small blurb that popped up on my New York Times feed about Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen. It speculated that their language differences are potentially problematic in their troubled marriage, though both speak the other's language to some extent.

If English is not your first language you are to be excused for the occasional malapropism or other verbal gaffe. I tease Joel that he struggles with the TH sound. He comes back with a triumphantly rolled R, a sound which I cannot ever hope to do with my scant Spanish. And trust me, I have tried. But, if English is your first language, how proper should your English be? I am told that with the dumbing down in American education, there is no longer a distinction between may and can. A lot of people use no when they should say any. That particularly strikes a discordant note whenever I hear it. And then there are mispronunciations, which I have previously written about here, buried somewhere in posts of previous years. Flaccid, amphitheater, anesthesia (H's are not silent, people) are good examples. I have a book entitled There is No Zoo in Zoology. Sound it out.

So, last week, when I heard someone doing coverage of Hurricane Ian on CNN, my ears perked up when someone started a sentence with: If I hesitate a guess. You would think when you are dealing with a hurricane you might be able to conjure up the word: Hazard. On the other hand, we have all had those momentary spells of aphasia when the word eludes us, and another one starting with the same letter takes its place, and this isn't bad grammar but rather not hitting the cliché on the head. Under the circumstances, I decided to give this one a pass.

Much more bothersome to me was the blonde reporter on CNN who stated Me and 'Joe Schmoe' have been working on this story. What? And, I know, I probably shouldn't have stated that she is blonde but she is blonde. How does someone get to an on-camera position like that without knowing the distinction between I and me? On the other hand, at least she didn't state This dude and I have been working on the story. I'm afraid that is coming and don't get me started.

My friend, Lynnette, and I were at a local hamburger joint which is in an old railway car and offers up my favorite chili burger. It was on a Sunday and there was an all-boys soccer team there with their coach. I'm pretty hopeless at guessing kids' ages, but I would say they were about ten. Two of them walked past our table, speaking loudly to each other as kids and adults who should know better often do. And, one of them dropped an F-bomb as they walked by. The only problem I have with that word (and I have used it here) is the overuse of it. It should be an über-emphatic adjective (and adverb) and exclamation. Not the most common one. And, aren't kids being taught to respect adults anymore? And, why am I putting rhetorical questions in bold italics? I know the answer to both those preguntas.

There are a lot of things in our zeitgeist right now that can make us loco (maybe, for you, my use of Spanglish could be one of them). We all should be fearful of the way people are driving. Would it be possible to put an end to political comments dropped into the notes after an online recipe? And when will the end come to Trump, Trump, Trump and his dangerous and moronic base? It's all bad. So why do I focus on these stupid little annoyances that I can't do anything about, anyway? I don't know. Me can't even hesitate a guess.

The Journals

Los Angeles, California

Once, under a mild threat of a brushfire, I packed up the essentials on the outside possibility that that I might have to evacuate. I packed my laptop, the best of my jewelry, a bottle of scotch, and a box of journals. About forty years worth of journals. I placed it all by the back door near the garage. Sometime later I thought: Clothing. Underwear! I returned to pack the second tier of essentials. But I never had to evacuate.

When I told a friend about my packing, she laughed at my having packed the journals. I thought it was an odd response. Most people will grab the photo albums as they are a chronicle of their life. My journals are the documentation of my thinking, feeling life. I started writing them when I was fourteen, following years of Dear Diary entries in those little books with tiny locks easily breached. They were sweet, with cute covers and filled with the angst of early teenaged years.  We passed notes in class about the boys and the crushes. The diary entries were like those notes. I think I like _____. I hate my teacher Mr. ______. My dad just grounded me!

My journals became spiral bound notebooks through high school and college and reflected my coming of age. High school not happy years. College much better. In my senior year of college I arranged for an independent study which was keeping journals while reading memoirs, epistolary novels, or novels styled as journals. Journals loom large in my legend.

In adult, married life, journals were kept in empty books with lined pages. They needed adequate spacing between the lines, and to open flat. Eventually, I steered away from spiral-bound. And, I rarely went back to read them. But they are there, on their own shelf in my office, a chronicle of my adult life writ small and with no covering of warts.

I have no heirs so what happens to these scores of books is a mystery. I have had people ask me about the ending of books or movies: What do you think happened next? There is no next. When it ends, it ends. Scarlett doesn't win Rhett back. Scout doesn't grow up. No one rebuilds Manderley. Because there is no longer a Scarlett. a Rhett, a Scout, nor a nameless character who marries Rebecca's killer. Turn the last page to find there is no mas. When it ends, it ends. Full stop. And that is what will happen with my story. When I am gone, it will end. The journals will most likely never be read and will end up in a landfill. So it goes.

But should there be another emergency, a box will be filled with my journals and they will be with the few things, including fresh clothing, that will evacuate with me. The photo albums can stay. To the end of my days, I will always value words over pictures. Even if they are only my words, filling all those lines in all those books. I am the odd one who thinks a word, finding that perfect word, is worth a thousand pictures. As James Cagney's character said in The Strawberry Blond: That's just the kind of hairpin I am. And I have the journals to prove it.

Pumpkins

Los Angeles, California

Like a child waiting for Christmas, I always approach October with happy anticipation. Ok, did I just write always? In truth, sometimes the anticipation is more desperate than happy because we are often held hostage by heatwaves and the accompanying brush fires in September (and even later). It has been said that California has four seasons: Fire, flood, earthquake and awards. Regardless of happiness or desperation, I always look forward to the landing of October. It is when pumpkins come out in the markets and farm stands, and their images start appearing around my house, on trays and tea mugs and coffee table coasters. On October 1st I drink my first cup of tea from a mug with a pumpkin or Jack O'Lantern on it. Pumpkins abound. And they are accompanied by a bit of Dia de los Muertos decor which includes a few candles, plates, and tins holding chocolates. I caved to the D de la M after seeing the movie, Coco. Joel and I saw it in a theater the day the film opened, and we were practically alone. I think there was also a father and young daughter in the theater. I tried so hard to hold back tears at the end, and then turned to Joel and saw his tears. No point trying to stay strong. It was such a tender, lovely film.

But, back to pumpkins. I always thought I loved October so much because of my birthday. But when I have asked other people about their favorite months, it never seems to be the one into which they were born. So, maybe it's just that transitioning thing. We don't get much of an autumn in Los Angeles, but we get traces of it. There are some sycamores on my property so I do see leaves change. But let's face it, no one would take a cruise to see the fall colors here. Still, historically, October was a month when we were settled back into school, and the relentless heat was waning. And my birthday was coming. And then, Halloween. We elementary school kids were sent out into the night in our costumes. No adults came with us. No one harmed or hassled us. We didn't live in Mayberry, but compared to the surveillance millennials were under, it was a lot like it. There was so much freedom. We were always being dropped off by parents. At friend's houses, at the park, at the movies. We were little kids, but we knew not to get into anyone's car, to look both ways before we crossed the street, and to be home before dark. If something bad happened to a kid in Wisconsin or Rhode Island, our parents might read about it in the Los Angeles Times, but there was the perspective that not much bad was happening in Burbank, California. The only fears were that we might fall down a well or the Russians might nuke us. There wasn't much to fear in the neighborhood.

My dad called me punkin, from the time I was little. I was a rather round thing when born (though not orange). I never asked him how he came up with this nickname for me. Maybe it was because of my birthday, so close to Halloween. Mom sewed the costumes for our ice skating shows and they did double duty for Halloween. They didn't always hit the mark. Amongst the witches and hobos and ghosts, I would appear as a French maid or a Can-Can dancer. Oh well...

I really jumped the gun, making chicken stock last weekend in anticipation of chicken soup. But it's not too early to have apple cider in the refrigerator which can show up in a rocks glass mixed with dark rum with an even darker rum float on top. A cinnamon stick gets dropped into Irish oats as they cook. And the regular baseball season comes to a close. It's October. It is finally here, and my anticipation settles into the annual bliss of apples and pumpkins and corn mazes. Time for another birthday. Time for another year to begin to wind down. Orange isn't the new black, but rather the herald of another season passing. Summer is gone; fall has dropped. Call me crazy, but I am so ready for this.

The Writing Group

 Los Angeles, California

Cathy, my friend, trainer, and Chinese-medicine guru, belongs to a small writing group. They formed at the very beginning of the pandemic and carried out a weekly meeting throughout the pandemic via Zoom. When I invited Cathy to come to my house for a pool day, something we also did last summer, she suggested that she bring the group, and all of the food, with her. And that we could do some writing from 'prompts.' This sounded like a great idea and turned out to be even better than I expected.

Cathy brought Erica with her, as well as a spread of food, and a bottle of champagne. I provided orange juice for mimosas and the makings for Aperol spritz. And glasses. And that's all! We ate fresh vegetables, fruit, hummus, pita chips, smoked salmon, chips and salsa, and an eggplant dish with olives that Cathy had made, all at the little round teak table in my courtyard. Then we brought tablets to the lounge chairs by the pool and talked about what we wanted to write about. We came up with a question about what changes we wanted to see in our lives. We wrote for twenty minutes, then shared and talked about what each of us had written. The second prompt asked what we would need to do to facilitate this change. Again, we wrote and shared.

I have written this blog for over a decade and I have lost track of all of the subjects I have written about. But I know that I have written this before: I also keep a journal; have two completed novels; two abandoned novels, and two abandoned self-help books (one diet, and one etiquette). Abandoning projects makes me feel like a failure. Or did, until I read an interview with an author recently where she referred to an abundance of discarded or abandoned writing projects. So, I felt somewhat validated in that practice.

My pen pal recently wrote to me about a houseguest who made the bed before they left his home after a visit. What are they thinking? he asked. Was he going to keep it for someone else to sleep in without changing linens? I pulled out an abandoned project, a modern etiquette book I had started writing in 2019, and sent him an excerpt from the chapter entitled How to Be a Good Guest. I hadn't looked at it in awhile. It contained some handy tidbits such as not bringing flowers to a dinner party that need to be arranged. Your host is most likely busy in the kitchen and having to break away to arrange flowers isn't always welcomed. But the part that pertained to his complaint was: Don't dump damp towels on top of the linens you have taken off the bed and bring them to your host. She (and I am referring to myself here) may not have planned to do laundry at that time, and now will have to in order to stave off mildew. Of course a lot of these problems are easily solved when people don't make assumptions and use that little thing between their nose and chin to ask their host for some guidance. Everyone runs their home in their own way. When you stay with someone, you should understand that, if you want to be a good guest, you are required to get with their program as much as possible.

Am I inclined to finish the etiquette book? Not so much. But I do have a writing project in mind that I think could be rewarding. At the start of the pandemic, I took a pretty, empty book and began writing down the recipes that I cooked for myself. I have continued this to this day, and now have only a few pages left before the book is filled. Each recipe is dated and color-coded to the month (don't ask. Ok, ask. I assign colors to months, yes I do). I kept my journal through the same time, as well as the blog posts I wrote here. I am thinking of combining the three into a cohesive whole. It's not a lot of writing. More organizing and editing. But I think it is a viable project. The writing group is invited to come to my home again next month. Maybe I'll run this idea past them. I didn't feel like this in the past, but now appreciate that it is good to commune with other writers. Otherwise, writing can feel like the proverbial tree. Oops! Did you hear that fall? Hello? Anybody there..? Hmmm. See what I mean?

Celebrate Me Home

Los Angeles, California

I have a lot of family history at The Hollywood Bowl. My mother's high school, Hollywood High, held its commencement ceremony there the year that she graduated. My father, who in college was interested in stage construction, once carried a spear as an extra in a production of Aida. As a child I first went there for a concert production of Madame Butterfly with a family of friends whose father was a musician in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. All of that was way before my husband and I began sharing a season there with my parents each summer. We started in section E alongside the boxes, but joyfully stepped up to a box when one finally became available. I loved going to the Hollywood Bowl with my parents and seeing how much my dad enjoyed being there, champagne glass in hand. As we trudged up the hill carrying coolers containing that champagne and our pre-concert picnic, my mom would chatter about how we should have made a different meal and next time why don't we... Mom never quite got the concept of mindfulness and being in the moment. Still, it was always enjoyable to be there and often provided us with a great concert. We heard Pavarotti sing, watched Baryshnikov dance, and laughed when Randy Newman dropped an F-bomb between songs.

One of my favorite concerts ever was seeing Paul Simon there as part of his Farewell Concert tour. An experience I wrote about in a post somewhere in the volumes contained here. It was a stellar, magical concert on a perfect late-Spring night. Coincidentally, it was Sandra's birthday (although she had passed away almost five years earlier). I was in musical afterglow for weeks, having recreated the entire concert, off of a website entitled setlist, into an iTunes playlist I could listen to over and over again.

When I saw this year's Hollywood Bowl season's offerings, I was surprised to see a weekend concert of Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sitting In. Many years ago, I had seen Loggins and Messina a number of times, mostly at the Universal Amphitheatre up at Universal Studios. That was a relatively small, wonderfully cosy outdoor arena which offered up music and comedy all summer long, and sadly no longer exists. I saw Joni Mitchell, the Kinks, Loggins and Messina and a lot of other popular artists of that time. The concert I missed was The Blues Brothers opening for Steve Martin, back in Steve Martin's white suit and arrow-through-the-head era. We could have gone, and should have gone. But I find audiences can get too trigger-happy at comedy performances and end up annoyingly over-responding to the extent that you can miss the punch lines. So, now rather regretfully, we passed.

The opportunity to see Loggins with Messina again was too good to miss. I asked Joel if he wanted to go. Log Runs and who? he asked. He hadn't known who Paul Simon was either. But he said sure. The concert was scheduled for July 15th, but 48 hours before the concert I got a text and an email that it was canceled due to one of the key members of "the entourage" getting Covid. As far as I know, the finger didn't get pointed at anyone, but clearly whoever it was survived. It was finally rescheduled for September 22nd. On September 20th. I was still pondering putting my tickets up for sale on StubHub. The morning of September 22, my friend, Lisa, texted me to ask if I was excited about seeing the concert that night. And the answer was: No, I wasn't. I was experiencing my Post?-Pandemic Stress Disorder, pre-event dread. But I kept calm and carried on.

That evening, we boarded the shuttle at the Los Angeles Zoo. We had allowed an hour to get from my home to the Zoo which is only about thirteen miles away. We allowed another hour to get on the shuttle and get to the Bowl which is seven miles from the Zoo. Yes, this is Los Angeles. It took the full two hours and some minutes. As we walked into the Bowl, Loggins and Messina were performing their first number, Watching the River Run. It was the song I dreaded hearing.

I was married to my husband, Tom, at my parents' home and my dad escorted me out of my parents' master bedroom to where Tom and the minister were waiting before the fireplace in my parents' living room. And that walk was accompanied by the recorded song: Watching the River Run, by Loggins and Messina. Back at the concert I found myself protected, as the distraction of finding our seats and settling in blessedly mitigated any attention I might have given to hearing them perform the song. After settling in, and as they launched into The House at Pooh Corners, Joel got our bottle of The Prisoner opened and poured into our stemless, plastic glasses with the fingerprint pinch in the sides for ease of holding (more about this later). Soon they took a turn into the 'country' portion of the set. By the time they were doing their retro fifties rock Your Mama Don't Dance, I could see Joel was not enjoying this concert. He didn't know the music, and clearly didn't like it. I had asked, as we drove to the Zoo, if he wanted me to play some of their music so he could acquaint himself with it. He had replied that he would rather experience it fresh at the concert so if he didn't like it, he wouldn't know before it even started. Good call, because now he was frowning. Frankly, I too was having a hard time enjoying the concert because the two women sitting directly behind us were talking through every single song. Loudly, incessantly talking. Have you ever noticed that when these inconsiderate people regale you with their conversation at inappropriate times, that the content of their exchange is always ridiculously inane? The concert continued. Joel kept frowning. They kept talking. Had Joel turned and given them the look, it might have shut them up, at least temporarily. At some point, I decided to take matters into my own hands. As we were sitting on the aisle, and I was one seat in, I handed Joel my wine and scooted out and down the steps to where I found an usher. The women sitting behind us have been loudly talking through the entire concert. Do we have any recourse? I would like to at least enjoy the second half. In the middle of this, L+M launched into Angry Eyes. Oh, I like this song! I had interjected (yes, wine drinking) into the middle of my complaint. This young, very cute Latino usher wrote down the location of both our seats and the seats of the chattering brujas behind us. Through the next song or two I saw him walk up and down the aisle, but evidently they did too, because they stopped talking. But, as he passed they started right back up again. And here is what I question about this increasingly more practiced problem. Why would you spend money for a concert, film, or theater production and talk through it? Why not just go to a restaurant or a bar? And secondly, let's say you do want to do this. How can you not have the sensitivity to know that you are disturbing the people around you who want their attention focused solely on the music and performers? Unfortunately we all know the answer to that question. We could call it one of the largest social issues facing our society in so many areas today: The New Entitlement.

Forty-five minutes into the concert, L+M called out goodnight and thank you! What? Forty-five minutes? They came back and did another two songs, then the lights came up. Is it over? No one left. We were continuing to ponder when the nice, cute usher approached us and asked us to follow him. We got down onto the promenade where he gave us tickets and handed us over to another usher who took us down further towards the stage to a section set up with folding chairs down front, on the side. There were a few people there but most of the chairs were empty. So this is how they deal with this. Instead of getting the offenders to cease and desist, they just move you away from them (elementary school was so different. I really wanted those women sent to the principal's office).

Soon two people joined us in the seats behind us. Are you also refugees? I asked them, who turned out to be a mother and 20- or 30- something son. Their story was that the women sitting behind them were not only being loud and disruptive through the concert but also had dumped a drink on Adam, the son. When he turned around, the spiller said: Relax, it was only water! But it wasn't. It was a wine glass that still had residual red wine in it, which was now clearly on his jacket. He pointed this out and the response he got from this woman was: F*#k you. Other people sitting around them called security off the app on their phone and as Adam and his mother were walked down to our area, a squad of security people surrounded those women. Maybe they got sent to the principal's office.

We talked with Adam and Randy as the intermission continued for a very, long time. They had enjoyed dinner at the Bowl and had been told that the second half would be Kenny Loggins, solo. And so it was. A few more refugees had joined us and it turned out to be such a fun group of people and actually seemed like a totally different second concert. And... Joel loved it. Evidently, everyone who has seen Top Gun and its sequel had come out for this and those songs created a frenzy. We sang along with Celebrate Me Home, all stood and clapped with I'm Alright, and Joel and I danced to Footloose in the space that was in front of our seats. It was a fabulous, fun second half. Ok, except maybe for the fact that while trying to balance that plastic glass of The Prisoner between my knees while I applauded at the end of one of the songs, I spilled it. I spilled it on the seat, on my pants, and on my Toms (fabric) shoes. But I didn't spill it on anyone else, so I didn't care (except that I didn't get to drink that portion).

Reflecting on the whole experience the following day, I thought about my reticence to go. After fighting traffic to the Zoo and standing in the line for the shuttle, fleeting thoughts of Why are we doing this? I'm not doing this anymore. were dropping into my consciousness. We had talked about going to the Dodgers game the following night. I had pulled the plug. Too much. But it wasn't too much. Albert Pujols hit his 700th home run that night, and we could have been there. So, maybe Kenny, and the kind staff at the Hollywood Bowl, gave me a new perspective. GO. It reminds me of that self-help thing about standing on a precipice in fear of stepping off. And when you finally do, you fly. I'm going to try harder. Maybe I can't fly. But thanks to my gratitude for this concert experience, I think I have learned the lesson that I don't have to fly. I don't even want to fly. I can be perfectly happy just being footloose.

A New Normal

Los Angeles, California

In a favorite book, Kathleen and Frank by Christopher Isherwood which combined letters of and commentary about his parents, Frank wrote to his wife from the front during World War One that he could easily tolerate his enemies. It was his friends that gave him trouble and pause. To quote another Christopher, my good friend, Why do we want to fight with our friends? That's why we have families.

I am wondering if one of the mental health issues that we were nonspecifically warned about is in our relationships and friendships. Joel and I made it handily through the two and a half years of lockdown and the uneven emergence after vaccines, boosters, and Omicron variants. We are in an ever-diminishing group who did not, that we know of, contract Covid. My friends fall into both categories of infected and dodged it, by about half and half.

I don't see evidence that any of my friends have pandemic-related mental health issues. Yes, we all admit, the isolation was hard. I went it alone. Others had spouses; still others small pods. In a very small group exhibiting stupidity, a few of my friends acted as if there were no virus whatsoever, or at least not one that they would allow to cramp their style. They're the double-infected group, determined to be afflicted with every or every other variant that comes down the pike. Of the groups who sheltered in place, I'm not sure which of the three situations: alone; with spouse; with pod, would be the hardest. Being on my own, especially not seeing Joel for months, brought isolation and a great deal of longing. But it also was a highly productive time for me. I meditated and worked out daily, wrote a lot, and got quite a bit of home-organizing done. I somehow ended up with two pen pals and we wrote long emails to each other throughout the time. Those provided some laugh out loud moments which were golden in a time of odd uncertainty. I probably watched too much TV, but I was selective about what I chose to entertain me. I remember liking Queen's Gambit. On the other hand, when I wanted the TV off, I didn't have to deal with anyone in my house who wanted it on. Silence was golden.

But coming out of the pandemic and getting back into the swing of seeing friends has been an adjustment. Has there been conflict? Yeah, a little, but mostly there has been movement: Some casual friends have become closer; there has been a disconnect with a couple of friends, and a few old friends have come back into my life. Maybe it's a bit like the Queen's Gambit chessboard. The pieces moved around a bit, and then some of them fell off the board.

This week I saw friends three days in a row. It was fun, but it was exhausting. I try to space these things out. And is the fatigue I feel in the late afternoon related to aging, pandemic, or what? I come home from these days feeling spent. And, truthfully, I have to override my reticence as these plans that I have made approach. In the past, when I had travel plans, I always went through pre-travel angst the night before the trip. Even if I was returning to my beloved Kona Village, as I did each October knowing I would be blissfully happy the entire time I was there, that night before travel would bring regretful blues. Why am I doing this? Why did this ever seem like a good idea? I wish I wasn't going. Luckily these thoughts were so familiar to me, that I let them tool around in my head while I interjected the wisdom that I always feel this way before all trips, and tomorrow when travel is underway, I will be fine. A glass or two of champagne always helped as well.

I have never felt this about social engagements. I have the opposite of social anxiety. I love parties. I love events. I am happy being in groups. Or at least I used to be. These days, even lunch plans with a friend brings up an angst similar to my pre-travel blues. I react as I always have. I keep calm and carry on. But I wonder what this is about. I have an odd yearning back to those productive days of lockdown. Somehow jonesing for a calendar with all days empty. And yet, it was not a happy time and I was painfully missing Joel throughout.

I don't think my pre-engagement angst is about my friends. I met my ex-best friend, Cindy, for lunch on Monday. We have reconnected after fifteen years without contact. It has been a unique experience to be together. I don't know where it will lead and what kind of a friendship we will have going forward, but we both agree that we want to explore this and have spent time catching up on all of the events of the past decade and a half, and gently touching on the conflict that led us out of each other's lives so many years ago.

I spent Tuesday with Lisa who I have known for over thirty years. We shared poke and a Caesar salad lunch and shopped Sephora for new lipsticks. Wednesday I was with my golf coach, Barb. We met another friend for french toast in the late morning, dropped off my watch for repair at Cartier in the afternoon, and then shopped Costco. I feel blessed to have these and other women in my life, even though I have to wade through those feelings of mild dread the night before the plans. I suppose this is just a post?-pandemic effect that will be with me for however long it is with me. And, I guess, that's ok.

Joel and I are planning to return, once again, to salsa dancing at a Columbian venue, which offers the best DJ and a lot of room to dance. We are strangers in this strange land, as there are clearly mostly Columbians who attend. The first time we went, I said to Joel: Not only am I the only white person in this club; but you are the only Mexican. I have been in other clubs where I am the only non-latino. But at this club, they dance differently, Columbian-style and so well! We both miss dancing a whole lot. But there is trepidation before we venture out. At least with us there is. Again, around us are people doing all kinds of the things they used to do and doing it all maskless. But then, how do I put this? There are a lot of idiots around us. So, while I have heard people scoff that Covid is no worse than a cold, we continue to stay safer, even if not completely safe. There is no such thing as a safe salsa club. But then, there are things that are worth risk while being careful in most other areas of our new lives. And for us both, dancing salsa is definitely one of those things.

The Long Hot Summer

Los Angeles, California

And then, we experienced a relentless heatwave with daily temps over 100-degrees. During the ten day ordeal, I blew out a tire which required me to wait for a tow in a parking lot while the late-morning temperature hovered around 108F. All was well that ended well until later that week when I came down with an ailment which sent me to urgent care. But that too passed as these things shall.

Then, the weather got humid. And that change culminated in gathering clouds and a 12-hour rainstorm, compliments of hurricane Kay (or, since said hurricane traveled to us from Mexico, I call it Hurricane Que). It was glorious. Still hot, but glorious to me -- someone who hadn't seen rain since last Spring. I opened up all of the shades covering the french doors leading outside, and watched the rain dancing on the tile and pool in my courtyard. The Dodgers were rain-delayed for their game in San Diego. No one minded.

I thought back to the first day of my last semester of college. We had a rainstorm the day before, Labor Day. There are few things we appreciate more in Southern California than a hopeful preview of the season to come, arriving early in September. September is usually relentless hot. And that makes me think of the first day of school in both junior high and high school. My mom always took us shopping at Bullock's or Robinson's department stores to buy our fall clothes. That first day arrived and we dressed in wool skirts and sweaters. It was usually in the 90s. Thank God I abandoned fashion foolishness decades ago.

Even if Fall isn't exactly commencing, some other things are. I return to Mass tomorrow on 9/11. Fitting, as the first time I attended Mass at this church was on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in 2011. Why have I waited until 9/11 to return? Well, we have been on Covid-watch, but the risk level has finally gone down. And, the choir doesn't return from taking the month of August off until the second Sunday of September. No small thing.

Additionally, Joel and I are returning to dancing shortly. Maybe even this week. I can no longer track when we last danced, but it has been months. We are amongst the only two people I know who haven't caught Covid. We are both relatively healthy, though through age and previous maladies, we are considered to be in a higher risk category. Friends who have gotten Covid report that it is no worse than a bad cold. But my doctor reminds me that we never know what new viruses might cause, down the line, once we allow them into our bodies. Polio rebounded on survivors; Epstein-Barre is known to cause MS and cancer; chicken pox begets shingles. I wouldn't freak out if I got Covid. But, simply put, better to avoid it if possible.

So, two good things will return to my life. Three, if you count the arrival of Fall later this month. I see pumpkins in our future. I'm happy.

The Voice of Summer

Los Angeles, California

My father was known in the family for many things. We called him The Shell Answer Man, after an oft-run commercial. What Dad didn't know, he would research. When we pondered a variety of topics at the dinner table, and invariable a question arose, he usually had the explanation handy. When he couldn't pull up the information out of the vast store of information he had in his head, he would get up from the table and pad downstairs in his socks to retrieve the almanac from a guest room lined with bookshelves. Back up he went to read to us and settle the question. Dad was a voracious reader of non-fiction. And, while we had them in the house, he rarely watched television. It would have taken away from reading time. Though it was said he ran track in high school and college, he was definitively not a sports guy, neither playing nor watching.

Dad came home after the war trained in radar and electronics and became an electronics engineer, and later an aerospace engineer. There were a lot of gadgets around our house. He built his own stereo system which was an exposed array of tubes behind a cabinet door and connected to our turntable where we listened to original cast recordings of broadway shows, borrowed from the Burbank Public Library. And in the garage, where he did a lot of building and tinkering, he wired a radio to the lights. When you walked into the dark garage and flipped the switch, both the lights and the radio would spring to life.

When I was quite young and my parents were working on some outdoor project at our home on summer nights, they would set up one of the cots which we used when we went camping in Yosemite Valley each year. I would be put to bed on the cot in the driveway, while my parents puttered around the garage and yard and my older sister played at some game or another. It was summer in Los Angeles, Burbank to be exact, and the nights were comfortable. I would lie on my back, looking at the stars and the moon and hearing the chatter of my parents. Our cat, Penny, would wander amongst us with characteristic curiosity. Those were perfect summer nights and the soundtrack was Vin Scully's voice coming from my dad's radio in the garage.

I think Dad liked baseball. I never heard him listen to football or basketball. I discovered UCLA basketball on TV when I was about twelve years old and had begun playing it at school. Other than that, there were no televised sports in our home except figure skating during the Olympics, as my sister and I both trained in that sport. No other sporting events around, except for Vin Scully and the Dodgers living in our garage.

My first professional baseball game was at Chavez Ravine, but was an Angels game. Who are these Angels -- Los Angeles? California? Los Angeles at Anaheim? Before they had a stadium, they shared Dodgers Stadium. Not sure how that schedule was worked out, but my uncle and his partner bought season tickets on the first base line. Great seats, though on the wrong side! Their seats were field box on the aisle with two seats and two directly behind, within the first five rows off the field. The peanuts were in small paper bags, this being years before the travesty of supersizing. We ate Dodger Dogs. Again, it was a perfectly warm summer night. And that night, Bo Belinsky, pitching for the Angels, pitched a no-hitter.

Did this make me an Angels fan? Not a chance. I went on to see two more (so far) no-hitters at Dodgers Stadium, both pitched by Dodgers pitchers including Fernando Valenzuela's. By then I was a fan, indoctrinated by my college boyfriend, David, and today even more so. And through those years of college, married life, and after, there was always, always the voice of Vin Scully in my life.

With his passing this week, I have listened to local radio coverage and texted with some of my friends. And this is the thing. Los Angeles is a city of transplants. The influx of Gen X and Milleninals who swarmed in to work in the goo of the film and media industry greatly changed our community and I accept that. But native Angelenos share the unique and special memories of having grown up here and thus remembering So Cal the way it was then. I know this is not unique to Los Angeles. But Angeleno nostalgia combines the visuals of freeway cloverleafs that actually moved traffic, with beaches still dotted with bungalows on the sand, and the music of The Beach Boys and that voice of summer, Vin Scully. It was a magical time and place to grow up and if you weren't lucky enough to have spent your youth here, you simply can't appreciate what it once was. Now it is just a city. Then it was a uniquely magical place.

As I have written before, I spent two of the summers of my adolescence in Waikiki and the Waikiki of that era had its own magic. But in spite of my family's history in the Islands, I was a summer import and couldn't appropriate the experiences of having grown up there. And that is what those of us who grew up in LA always feel. If you weren't here then, you'll never truly be an Angeleno.

The passing of Vin Scully reminds those of us who remember his voice from our childhoods, of the bliss of growing up here. Memories flood me -- at thirteen, daringly and quietly skinny dipping with my best friend after attending a party and coming home to her house where her parents were sleeping. Hundreds of drives through the canyons to the beach. Riding with boys in convertibles. The Rolling Stones on the radio on a warm summer night between movies at the drive-in. And Vin Scully's voice everywhere, all summer long.

I have spent time lamenting the ills of my upbringing, but through it all, there was always the golden memory of the spell of those summers. And along with the boys remembered from those summers, there was also, always, the boys in blue. The Dodgers will stay with us. But Vin Scully is gone. And we true Angelenos are missing him for all that he was and all that he meant to us. And feeling this final loss of that Los Angeles that once was.

Timba Girl

Los Angeles, California

Joel learned to dance cumbia when he was young. The oldest son and nephew in a large family, he was drafted into the party by his mother and aunts, and learned to dance and lead at a young age. He once told me a story about being with his younger cousins, playing in the street, when his mother called him back up to the adults' party to dance. Too many aunts.

He tells me that when he was older and out at nights, DJs in Mexico City would bring huge amplifiers out into the downtown streets and that was where the dancing happened. He learned to dance disco. And then, one night, someone came to the event and demonstrated salsa. And the DJ played salsa music. And the rest is history.

Joel's father worked in the US. And Joel, the middle of five children, was the only one who was born in the US, at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles. But at the age of five they returned to Mexico City where all of their family lived. At twenty-one, Joel boarded a bus to the US, with his papers showing his US citizenship. He spoke only two words of English: Coffee and doughnuts. By the time I met him, about twenty-five years later, he was a stellar salsa dancer.

My friend, Todd, once remarked that he thought salsa dance was an opportunity for ugly men to dance with beautiful women. Much later, when I told Joel about this, he said: He's right. Joel is by no means an ugly man. He has the most soulful dark brown eyes. And he is a really, really good dancer. But he didn't have me at hello. We hung out together in a large group at the club, The Borderline, where many years later a shooting and many deaths would occur. But before that tragedy, Joel danced around the floor with multiple partners, as did I. But once, when neither of us were dancing, and we were standing in the same vicinity, the DJ played a timba, and I excitedly turned to him and exclaimed: I have to dance to this! He took me out on the dance floor, and I rather sheepishly said that I didn't usually make demands like that. It's good to know what you want, was his reply.

Timba. A music from Cuba that has a distinctive sound and rhythm. Joel can always identify the song styles the DJs play. He will tell me It's rumba. It's bachata, cumbia... salsa. I recognize timba. Perhaps the origins of this is when I learned to dance rueda which is salsa danced in a pattern and called, like square dancing. I loved dancing rueda. It was danced similarly to salsa, but Cuban style is rather pushed out instead of in. I know that won't make any sense to anyone who doesn't do latin dancing, so let me just say that there is a nuance that differs from salsa dancing.

Depending on the DJs when we go to dance, we hear salsa, rumba, bachata, cumbia, occasionally a cha cha with a small dose of timba in the mix. Again, depending on the DJ, we may sit out some songs, the songs we don't like. And then comes a timba. I have to dance to this.

I don't know a lot about Cuba, but I know that timba is joyful, energetic and infinitely danceable. Simply put, I am a timba girl. It is as simple as that. I love timba. Here is a late summer gift. Be happy and joyful. But most importantly. Just dance...  Click here: Timbamania

Over and Next

Los Angeles, California

I have been working on a post entitled Pro-Choice. The text is specifically about how those of us who are liberals sometimes want to dictate choices to our likewise liberal friends. I am stating the obvious here when I write that some liberals enjoy using non-essential paper products. Some liberals eat meat. Some liberals enjoy a good old-fashioned wood-burning fire in their home fireplaces. Choosing to do any or all of these things don't disallow you from carrying the card. But it does set you up for some finger-pointing.

The post, which I probably will still put up eventually, went on in that vein and that vein is my now-usual pandemic rant. In spite of almost-daily meditation, I still find anger, frustration and their partner, sadness, accompanying me through most of my days. And if you don't, then you're probably not paying attention to what is going on around us and how it impacts our emotions. Or worse, you are one of those relentlessly black-is-white purveyors of positivity. And what are you doing here on my blog..?

The Pro-Choice post got backburnered because two things happened this week. The first was seeing the film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. A little, wondrous jewel of an upbeat message about community with a sly denigration of social media selfie-culture. And the other was when I heard that it was Norman Lear's one-hundredth birthday.

I keep a lengthly memo page in my phone which is entitled Writing. Whenever I hear or read something that I would like to write about, I jot it down on this list. Some are long quotations, others are simple, potential blogpost titles. In the list was something I had heard Norman Lear say in an interview about a year or so back. When asked what his secret was for longevity, he said it was: Over and Next. He doesn't belabor the problems and issues that have dropped into his life, rather once he has dealt with them the best he could, he is done to deal with what is next coming. He doesn't second-guess. He doesn't even look in the rear-view mirror. Maybe because I have always written since I first learned to string words together on paper, I feel as if my life's experiences are contained in an ever-growing, existential library. As if I can pull an edition off the shelves and there is an incident that once happened to me. Some are happy, like a great many of the posts here on my blog. But some volumes, the fat ones, can be devastating to revisit, and to remember that, yes, that happened to me. I can still feel residual pain. And I have stored it here. Obviously, the over part of Mr. Lear's philosophical duo is challenging. For me, nothing is ever really over. The emotions attached diminish, but it still lives on right there in my life's library.

The next part is also a bit problematic, as we have really been stalled due to the pandemic. There really wasn't much of a next for a full year. There was only a wait. And I wonder how that is impacting us now. After the film I commented to my friend, Barb, that I thought I was suffering from post-pandemic stress syndrome. She replied: Are we post-?

So how do you incorporate Lear's philosophy into a life with emotional flypaper? How do you let go? How and when should you close and lock the library, or even burn it down? And afterwards, how would the next be perceived differently? This is my Marcel the Shell-Norman Lear pondering on this overcast, late July morning. And perhaps a better content here than had I ranted on about my liberal friends who seem to not want to allow others a choice in all things. Many of us on the liberal side came through the sixties with its sense of freedom. And yet, to me, while the current conservative culture is as scary as all get-out, I increasingly find liberals, especially the ecorexic ones, to be über-critical and controlling. How can the challenge of that be met with Lear's over and next, as opposed to posting a good cleansing rant? Today, I am pondering that question. Meanwhile, this post is now over. Next...

Love Hurts

Los Angeles, California

Several years back, Joel and I were dancing at Hacienda Hotel in El Segundo. He turned me and as my arm came up and over his head, ostensibly to land on his shoulder, I smacked him hard on the side of his head. This very occasionally happens to all of us in salsa dancing. We're not trying to get even with the guys (though maybe a few hits are in order). But this was an accident. We were dancing next to a salsero friend who saw it and remarked, laughing: Love hurts.

I think the hardest thing one will ever do is to watch someone we love lose someone they love. I was with Joel when he put down his beloved best buddy, Buster, this week. Buster would have been fifteen years old in December. He was a rescue Bassett Hound and had survived several surgeries including a $10k disc surgery back when he was about ten. That was a financial stretch for Joel, but he was not about to lose Buster when there was another option. To say that Joel and Buster were bonded is an understatement beyond all proportion.

The vet, who was exceedingly, quietly gentle, came to Joel's condo with a veterinary assistant and the three of us watched Joel say goodbye to his best buddy while the sedation was taking effect. My challenge, and that word sounds so utilitarian, was to stay focused on how this was not about me in any way. This was about Joel, a man who strives to do the right thing, always. A man who has changed my life by bringing trust into it. I have known few men as honest and forthright as him (besides my dad). And this was killing him. My thoughts went sideways for a moment as Joel kept talking and soothing Buster who was lying in his arms on Joel's bed. I thought: If nothing else good ever happens in my life, I hope I can die in Joel's arms in the same way. I pulled my thoughts back upright, as shortly after we left Joel to pass those first, heartbreaking moments of grief, as Buster had now passed.

This kind, compassionate vet had taken Buster away. But before he left, he hugged us both. Minutes later, Joel looked at me and said: Will you drive me to the beach? Joel lives about fifteen minutes from Malibu, and though I hadn't driven Malibu Canyon since high school, we took off in my car for the beach. Joel said nothing on the drive nor as we walked up to the end of Broad Beach in Malibu. The fog and high waves were rolling in as the sun was setting. It was cold, but infinitely beautiful. Afterwards he told me he felt better for having been by the ocean. Astrologically, we are both water signs. The crab and the scorpion. When the going gets rough we head for the water.

Joel and Buster were a lot like Mr. Peabody and Sherman, the Jay Ward-created characters who were a part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon family. In reruns, the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was a cult thing we watched in college. Mr. Peabody was the intellectual, professorial Beagle who had a pet, a geeky kid named Sherman. When my friend, Connie, and her son stopped by the house a few months ago and we were all visiting at the bottom of my sloping driveway, Buster came down the driveway to get Joel. Time to go. Joel dutifully left us, walking up the driveway to lift Buster into his car and drive him home. Buster was the boss. Connie and Patrick thought this was hilarious.

People who haven't lost a beloved pet won't get this. I have lost two beloved dogs, a Shetland Sheepdog and a goofy, wonderful Australian Shepherd whose photo is here on my blog. I loved them both dearly, and the absence of the sound of their paw steps throughout my home left an empty trail in my heart. If you have shared your home with a dog, you get this. They have huge hearts, but they don't last long. If you're lucky, you get fifteen years with them. And fifteen years passes fast these days.

Our losses are always complicated by other losses, and that makes it harder. I grieve outwardly. Joel does not. When overwhelmed by emotion, he needs to let it go and move on. So, while hard for me, I need to honor that and utilize my ability to filter my thoughts before verbalizing; setting aside what won't work in this case, and, ultimately, to offer him my support and love. Yes, love hurts. But if I do nothing else in the remaining lifetime before me, I will be a better person for offering him love that doesn't hurt. That's what Buster and Joel provided for each other. My mission now is to try hard to follow their example. A tough act to follow.

Strawberries with Sugar

Los Angeles, California

When I was twelve years old, my family moved from the city of Burbank out to the suburbs of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley near the campus of San Fernando Valley State College which my sister would be attending the following year.  It later became California State University, Northridge, where I eventually graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English. Back when we moved there, the college was small on a big property with rolling, grassy hills. Once I made friends, we rode our bikes, played, and wandered around the campus and through the orange and eucalyptus groves which would eventually become parking lots as the college grew into a university. When the trees were cut down, my parents bought the remains as firewood to burn in our home's fireplace.

It was the suburbs, but it was also ranch country. There were no curbs and on many streets no sidewalks. Friends I made at the local junior high school had ranches and horses. Most had family swimming pools, as did we. Summers were hot and languid and summer nights were comfortably warm enough to wear shorts to the drive-in movie theaters. I'm not sure we appreciated how lovely that time and era was, and how it would slowly disappear as cheap and cheerful housing tracts, shopping centers and eventually strip malls moved in. Little by little the ranches were subdivided and the horses were moved farther out in the Valley.

On the college property there was a corn stand called Paggi's. My childhood nickname was Page and I was always too intimidated to ask if Paggi's was pronounced Pageys or with the short A. There, we bought corn, shucked it at home, and my dad grilled it on his Weber charcoal barbecue. It was mere hours from picked to eaten. We also bought fresh strawberries there, and my mom would hull them (yes, hull them. Have you ever seen people just lop the tops off and leave the unappetizing white hull?!?). Mom would load the berries into a basket and put it in the middle of our patio table which was covered all summer by an oilcloth table covering. We would shake sugar into little candlewick dishes and dip the strawberries in the sugar. Did they need the sugar? Nope. But it was what we did. Probably odder was our ritual of eating peach and plum dumplings which were boiled, then cut up and eaten with cottage cheese, sugar and cinnamon. And even odder than that, it was a dinner meal for us. My maternal great-grandparents emigrated from Prague, Czechoslovakia, and this summer culinary treat endured.

I have lately been dealing with a health issue that has been taking up too much of my thinking. Today I took off early to buy lunch and dinner. I bought a tray of dungeness crab at Costco, and threw it and a bottle of french chablis into the refrigerator when I returned home. I bought three ears of yellow corn (which I prefer to the white and the opposite with peaches), a basket of strawberries and bunches of watercress and radishes at my local corn stand, Tapia Brothers. I stopped at my local market for a baguette of sourdough, a pound of Irish butter, and an artichoke. I don't generally eat much lunch, but I heated up a chunk of the baguette and ate slices with the butter, sliced radishes and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt. I had a double-handful of strawberries, no sugar. But the strawberries reminded me of those summers of my past. Solstice is in three days. I don't look forward to summer as much as I once did. The heat gets to me. While we always had these heat waves, there were less homes, less cars, less people. All this packing in makes it seem hotter. And of course, we are told that weather is our enemy. That doesn't help. But eating those fresh radishes on fresh sourdough and chasing them down with the sweetest of strawberries makes summer quite welcome.

I will have the crab, corn, chablis and more sourdough at dinnertime tonight. With these summer repasts, the only thing that was missing is my first red bandana bikini and the soundtrack of The Beach Boys. We've been having fun all summer long. Living just a short trek away to Malibu reminds me of the bliss of growing up here. Summer always brings so many memories triggered by sounds and scents and flavors. The fresh fruits and vegetables helped me remember those days filled with those treats, and, of course, all the boys of summer.