The Pirates Code

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

In honor of Halloween, I am posting an editorial which has been in draft form for a long, long time. I often do that with posts. It is always good to have a few marinating, and some of them marinate themselves into embalmment. But, it being Halloween, and the post having the reference to pirates, I thought What the hell? Put her up.

Part of my hesitation was rooted in the change that I have brought about here in Sandraland. Perhaps you read here, or have noticed, that at the outset of 2025, I cut politics out of my posts. And I have also tried to play down one of my two deadly sins: complaining. I can bitch to high heaven, and goodness knows there is currently a whole lot of firewood for that blaze. But I have to question whether it is enjoyable or even more importantly, enlightening, to read a complaining diatribe, as reflected in those posts. However, in the case of this post, I'm going to wave my flag and bitch away. By the way, my other deadly sin is procrastination.

In the original film Pirates of the Caribbean, those captured by the pirates call parlay which is defined as A discussion or conference, especially one between enemies over terms of truce or other matters. Ok, so now that we have that definition, you can forget about it. What matters here is that at a pivotal point after capturing Jack and whatever her name is, the pirate portrayed by Geoffrey Rush responds to the request for parlay based on the Pirates Code, by saying (and I paraphrase here): It's not really a code... more of a guideline.

I live in Los Angeles, which could be called The Knee-jerk Capitol of the World. I have long been aware that every single time it is reported in the news that something might be detrimental to our health, people freak out and completely eliminate whatever it is. I could go through the long list: Diet Coke; beef; egg yolks; processed foods; the seasoning packet in instant ramen, and the list goes on. Anyone who reads the comments on any food app like The New York Times Cooking, will find the virtue-signaling, holier-than-though commenter who wants you to know you can eat this if you want, but they have calculated the fat, sodium, and nut oils and in their infinite wisdom, they abstain, utterly.

Don't get me wrong. I do believe that there are things that are bad for us and should be avoided. Things like trans-fats, those black cooking utensils, goat cheese (ok, it's not really that bad for us, I just don't like it). But there is this smugness about toeing the line based on every study that is released, that I find ridiculous. I just don't think those studies should be followed like a code. More of a guideline.

Not to tell you to do what I do, but here is what I do. I eat widely across the spectrum, including the odd Diet Coke and even a little processed foods. It's just that on that end of the spectrum, I indulge only occasionally. A bit of an egg yolk isn't going to kill you, nor probably shorten your life. But that's just my belief. Maybe I just have a different end game. Most of my grandparents lived into old age. My mother made it to 94. Yes, maybe my genetics are predisposed to longevity, or maybe my relatives just didn't suffer from fear of food. My grandfather smoked all his life up until he died at 85. I'm not advising anyone to light up. Just advising to lighten up. Why sacrifice the joy you find in food throughout your life, just to bet on health in later years? And your answer to that may be because it's worth it. But to me, it's not.

Alcohol is the new forbidden planet as we are told that no amount of alcohol is good for us. Maybe that is true, or maybe another study will come along to refute that. Or maybe there is an agenda in putting this information out. I'm not indulging in conspiracy theories here, I'm just saying. A friend asked me recently if I drink alcohol everyday. I almost do. But at least half of the time, my cocktail is less than a standard shot. That's my compromise, as I am not going to give up the tradition of having a glass of wine or an ounce of scotch most evenings while I am cooking. Am I aware that I might be damaging my health? Yeah. Do I care? Not really.

Julia Child once said that she thought worrying about eating butter was less healthy than actually eating butter. Butter... so divine. A friend once remarked that eating oysters was so bad for you. Oysters... heaven on the half-shell. I could go on and on. But suffice to say, I know what is good for me. And I know what is purported to be bad for me. But for me, where this is all concerned, I adhere to the pirate's code. It's not really a code, you know. It's more of a guideline.

Retreat

 Los Angeles, California

It's that time again, when we visit the doctor's office, or drop by Costco to receive our annual vaccinations. Joel just got his Covid vaccine. I got my flu vaccine last week. He comes in contact with hundreds of people each day at his work, so he gets both vaccines. This year, for the first time since the Covid vaccine became available, I am only getting the flu vaccine.

I've had Covid twice (that I know of). I have no idea how I contracted the first bout (which was truly terrible), but clearly know that Joel gave me the second one, which was a very mild case. Joel was sent home from work with instructions not to return without a certificate of a clear test. He had barely any symptoms. We camped out together, watching movies and ordering take-out. It was fun.

My primary care physician, who has been my doctor since 1989 continuing the care provided by his father for over a decade, didn't exactly discourage me from getting the Covid vaccine. But he did share that he and other doctors in that medical community only took the first two-part vaccine and one booster. He never got Covid. I'm not skipping the vaccine solely because of that, but more because of the cognizance that the last bout was mild and at this point in time, I have had a truckload of Covid vaccinations. I'm guessing around six or seven. So I'm thinking that, pending a new variant outbreak, I'm going to get one every other year. At least that is the plan at this juncture.

Can it really be almost six years since Covid and the subsequent lockdown began? I remember the last scene in Ken Burns' The Civil War documentary where the aging veterans asked each other: Was it real? I don't feel that way about one-off events, like the Kennedy Assassination or 9/11. But the unique things that linger as this did, or the aftermath of a major earthquake, those get imprinted, and not always in a completely bad way.

I have had workers in my house for the past month and my mind has drifted back to that time during lockdown. At this point, I want everyone out! I am not someone who enjoys home renovation. I really abhor it. And while there is hammering and drilling in my house, or I have my water turned off for long periods of time, or I am waiting for an electrician and a window treatment installer to get back to me for a house call. It is times like this that I actually long for some aspects of lockdown.

I know my mind plays tricks on me. The memory of isolation and loneliness has become screened-back. There is the faint memory of the FaceTime happy hours and the longing to have a dog; that first trip to the market, wearing a bandana as a mask, and how spooky and panic-filled the entire experience felt. I can conjure up the memory of the anger I felt when people didn't abide by the spacing rule and stood right next to me at the post office. But the other side of all that is what I remember so clearly and fondly: The clean slate of each day with the luxury of filling the minutes and the hours with activities that felt good. I worked out, cooked, wrote, watched The Durrells of Corfu over again. I supported my housecleaner, Ana, but cleaned my own house for ten weeks, and undertook organizing projects. I talked to friends of the phone. People actually talked on the phone, which now seems to be an abandoned art with many of my friends. I got reacquainted and acquainted with two friends who became pen pals: My Brit frother, Russell, and a fairly new friend, Beth, whom I have nicknamed Beth2 (as there is a Beth1).

The truth is that I long for completely free time like that. Historically, this was the time of year when I was needing a vacation and we were preparing for our annual trip to The Kona Village. After I took on the care of my elderly mother, I was often beyond stressed. Tom would say to me: In a week we'll be at The Village. You'll be with Sandra. Then you'll feel better. But the Village doesn't exist as it did. And Sandra is long gone. And, though Joel and I will spend a week in Carmel shortly, it's not really a vacation that I need. I need a space of open, unscheduled time. No workers. No lunch dates. Even, no leaving the house. I need a home retreat. I want to work out, cook, clean closets, talk on the phone with friends who pick up. I want to do whatever I want with a clear conscience and more importantly, a clear calendar.

Who knows? Maybe the past five years have all been about reentry into a world that has changed. And it has changed mightily. And isn't that when we all feel the need to regroup? It's good to have a full life. But when that means you are opening your door to workers each day, or rushing to accomplish errands or, yes, even to meet girlfriends for lunch; sometimes you have to say enough is enough. So here is the question of the day: Does there have to be a pandemic in order to call for a lockdown? Or, what if we had called the lockdown a retreat? We were retreating from the possibility of catching Covid. We were retreating from our normal life of employment, socializing, and gathering. But in a better light, there is nothing wrong with a retreat. In fact, at times it can be a necessity. And for me, this is clearly one of those times.

The End of an Era, Once Again

 Los Angeles, California

Last weekend, a friend cryptically texted me: Another of our beloved, favorite actresses lost. No clue. My brain flashed through possibilities which I won’t list (kinda gruesome). Reminded of pre-internet days when good friends had postulated the usefulness of a toll-free service 1-800-deadyet, I googled: Who died today? And Diane Keaton’s name and photo came up. I texted my friend, Cindy: News is reporting that Diane Keaton has died. She was the first person I thought of when I heard the news. Later, when I pondered this, I remembered the nights w/ Tom, Cindy and Michael at our first home. They were our best and closest friends and we spent many a summer night with them on the patio of that first home, back in the day when we listened to albums on a turntable. And the Gershwin-based soundtrack from Woody Allen’s film Manhattan was a frequent musical backdrop to our evenings.

After Cin texted me back, I responded: I’m still not over Redford! And it did seem vastly unfair to lose another icon from our younger days in such rapid fashion after the first. But alas, we have learned that life is like that in its inequities.

So, Diane Keaton. Le sigh. I first saw her in the film Play It Again, Sam. I saw it with David, my college boyfriend, at a long-gone movie theater out at Valley Circle in Calabasas. It is very possible that we had come there to see Harold and Maude and that PIAS was the second feature (the ‘70’s version of ‘binging’). It wasn’t long before we had seen Diane Keaton in The Godfather and another Woody Allen film, Love and Death.

After my relationship with David ended, Annie Hall was one of the early films Tom and I saw together shortly before we married. But my favorite Diane Keaton film is Reds. I saw it at a theater in Westwood with Cindy and Michael on Super Bowl Sunday in 1982. Tom was working that weekend and couldn’t join us. Before leaving to meet them for the movie, my mom called. When I told her I was just leaving to go see that film, she responded (SPOILER ALERT!): He dies in the end. Which, if you knew my mom, you would be inclined to remark in unison with me: That is So Betty…

Reds is a complex and interesting film, with one of the most memorable scenes in over a hundred years of filmmaking. It is the scene where Louise Bryant searches for Jack Reed at the train station in Moscow, her face reflecting the death and destruction she surveys until she and Jack find each other and embrace. Scenes like that, epiphanies in film viewing, are why we watch and study fine films. It doesn’t get a lot better than that. Ok, maybe Rick and Ilsa. Here's looking at you, Kid.

Losing Diane Keaton is shocking. But as Cin and I reflected recently, time is passing. We are no longer the thirtysomethings who worked out at Jane Fonda’s, had breakfast then shopped at the Gap at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Our mothers were right, I remarked. It does go fast.

I watched Annie Hall last week. I actually own a dvd of Reds, so when the time is provided (it’s a very long film), I will watch that too. Hard to believe she is gone. I’m still not over Redford. Le sigh…

The Bracelet

 Los Angeles, California

Lynnette came to visit last weekend. It's what we do. We schedule a time each month for her to come and be what I call my weekend roommate. We schedule this in advance, generally four to six months at a time. The goal is to see each other twelve times during the year, but we're lucky if we hit two/thirds of that. This was a rough year, and her visit last week was the first since May. We now spend three nights instead of our original two. But once we switched to the three-night business, it seemed to go just as fast. I wish she would stay for a week.

I have always loved spending time in the same place with people I love. I loved visiting my favorite cousins in Reno, and the time they spent in LA was even better. We went back and forth a few times each year. Throughout my youth I spent overnights with my friends in both our homes. And girlfriends were always invited to Carmel when I rented the homes up there.

As I have written before, I call my closest friends, Fristers. But, truthfully, Lynnette seems more like a sister. A sister, in a good way, that is. I think because when she is at my house, there is a complete ease. We tend to do more or less of the same things each time, though varying the meals, activities, and games but only slightly. This was a Yahtzee weekend, as Joel and I taught ourselves to play Yahtzee when we were in Santa Fe last month. And we varied our fast food lunch by going to Cupid's hot dogs one day.

I grew up near one of the three Cupid's hot dog stands of the day. It was a walk-up stand, and I don't even recall the three tables that were eventually installed alongside the stand. They served hot dogs with chili, mustard and onions. And sodas. That's it. I recall the hot dogs being 35 cents when I first began meeting my best friend, Debbie Clevenger, there. It was about halfway between our houses. Later, after we bought our first home in that neighborhood, Tom would make a Cupid's run at the mid-point of a full Sunday of gardening. And by full, I mean about ten hours. At the end of the day, I would sit on the front porch writing in my gardening journal and sipping a shot of tequila from a bottle stored in the freezer. I no longer put tequila in the freezer (sacrilege), but remember that ritual well. Our dog, Taz, was always with us, supervising our work.

That location closed last year and there is only one remaining in the Valley. I had never eaten at that one! When we ordered our hot dogs the woman working asked me about the bracelet I was wearing. I have several of these, from a company called Little Words Project and have given some as gifts. You choose the wording which is strung together with colored beads, the words spelled out with small alphabet blocks. The one I was wearing said: Frister. This woman, taking our orders for chili dogs, asked if the word was a portmanteau. I'm sure I gave her my best imitation of Gen Z facial vacuity. Yes, I had heard the word. No, I have no idea what it meant. And, I was an English major! She gave us a definition and example: Frenemies. Yes, I replied. That's what it is. Closer than friends, better than sisters. Of course I have the luxury that many of my friends don't have sisters so I can just slide in there. But truly, fristerhood is special. And that's why I wear the bracelet. My other ones say: Kindness; Salsera, and my first one: Cafe Con Leche which has a special meaning for me Joel and me.

So I told the Cupid's woman Lynnette's and my story: That we have been friends for ten years after she was my dentist for twenty. I like that story. And I like her being my weekend roommate. Maybe in 2026 we'll get closer to our twelve-month goal. Or, eleven months to be exact, as we spend a weekend in Phoenix, usually in March, when we attend MLB Cactus League Spring Training. Lots to look forward to as this season marches towards the fall and winter holidays. And we already have our frister weekends booked for November and December, all things willing.

End of an Era

Los Angeles, California

I woke up on a Friday morning and uncharacteristically reached for my phone to search the news. My text feed from NYTimes read: Film Icon Robert... Hmmm, wonder who this is about, I thought, as I clicked on it. And thus the news was delivered to me that Robert Redford had passed away. Oh my God, I exclaimed out loud to no one. Sure he was old, but it felt so unexpected to me. And I immediately recalled the same feeling when I had sat down at my old Dell computer one morning in 2008 and learned that Paul Newman had died.

I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the fall of 1969, after I had returned from a summer in Hawaii. The best summer of my life. My sister and I went to see the film at Grauman's Chinese Theater, in Hollywood, walking over the hand- and footprints of the stars of yesteryear before entering the theater.

But I was already familiar with Robert Redford. When I was in elementary school, I was diagnosed with anxiety. Yes, this malady didn't only just crop up with millennials. For an entire school year I underwent medical tests and was put on a shortened schedule at school. What followed that first, unbelievably frightening panic attack that seemingly came from nowhere, was a yearlong bout with agoraphobia. Anywhere I went out in public, I was fearful that another panic attack would occur. I now know this to be anticipatory anxiety. But no such knowledge was available to me at that time. Epilepsy was mentioned. Also, a heart murmur. But overall, my medical tests came back clean. After our family physician mentioned psychological counseling, my mother stopped taking me for appointments with him except when necessary to fill the prescription for librium.

During that time I couldn't go to markets, theaters, nor anywhere else where my anxiety might peak. Just thinking about being in those places, amidst crowds of people, could cause a surge of anxiety. So for a good part of the year, my older sister would take me to drive-in movies on the weekend. And it was on one of those nights that we saw Inside Daisy Clover, and I was introduced to Robert Redford.

Since that time I have dealt with anxiety to some degree throughout my life. But I finally committed to the counseling that my mother had shunned, and through it I received the tools to deal with the life-altering issue of chronic anxiety. I once heard Rob Reiner say that he spent decades in therapy, his presenting issue being depression. When he finally left therapy after many years, it was with the knowledge that sometimes he was going to be depressed. Sometimes I am anxious. I meditate. I breathe. I utilize the tools I worked hard to acquire. And, a greatest of those is acceptance.

I always hoped I might meet Robert Redford. I wanted to tell him that my uncle had worked for his grandfather, a land developer. And I also wanted to ask him a question: Was he naturally left- or right-handed? If you are observant watching movies like Butch Cassidy, All the President''s Men, The Natural, you will see him go back and forth between his left and right hands. After learning that he had celebrated his 70th birthday at The Kona Village, I asked some of the employees, who had become our friends, if they noticed which hand he was using. They looked at me like I was crazy. So, no resolution on that mystery.

I live in LA, so it's not uncommon to run across celebrities. I've seen Barbra Streisand twice, once at a nursery and then at a theater in Costa Mesa. I saw Steve Martin at a California Pizza Kitchen in Studio City. Once, on my birthday, we followed Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner into a restaurant in Beverly Hills. But I never saw Redford, nor Paul Newman. Nor Cary Grant. Still, I can see them whenever I want, thanks to a large DVD library. I can even watch Inside Daisy Clover. And remember a different and more difficult time in my life. That era ended. And so does this one, with the loss of this Icon of film, Robert... Redford.