Monthly Archives: June 2011

So I’m standing around at the cheese shop waiting for my Duck Confit sandwich to be ready and I’m grumpy as can be because no matter how many times I say please and thank you the folks who work at the cheese shop never say please or thank you. They have the most beautiful food but the most hideous manners, and I want both good food and good manners but I can’t seem to find it anywhere but the Beverly Hills Cheese Store, and I married for love so I don’t live in Beverly Hills.

Had I been anywhere where the help says things like Please and Thank You I never would have answered my phone when it rang, but it rang and it was a 415 number that ended in 00 which can only be someone from San Francisco calling me from their office, which can only mean a paying client.

So I answered the phone with, “This is Jessica.” And an unfamiliar man’s voice said, “Jessica, did you work in a tanning salon in West Hollywood?” As I gasped he said his name was Tony and I might have screeched a little. Tony kept talking but I was busy watching a movie in my mind. In the movie I was 22 or maybe 23 and Tony and I were driving down Sunset Blvd in my little red convertible and we were both probably too tan, wearing too much makeup and not enough clothes. We were both at the height of our beauty and completely surrounded by people who loved us.

Tony was part of my early 20′s and one of the men who taught me how to love. He taught me how to love the people around me, to love my town, to love the moment, to love the opportunities around me and to love myself. When I think of Tony I think of Springtime.

I gathered myself together and asked all the questions you’d ask someone after a long separation. Where are you living? Are you married? Work? Friends? Do you have an above ground pool and drag queen friends? And the answers were San Francisco, happily married, photographer, many friends, yes to the pool, and more yeses to the drag queens. I really have to research this whole Imperial Court thing.

And my heart soared a little more. I gave Tony the Cliff Notes version of my 30′s, husband, two kids, dog, cat, a career that doesn’t really have a name, grad school, love, heartbreak and Steven died. He said, “I know, I heard, but I couldn’t come down for the funeral.” And then I told him that there really wasn’t much of one here, that it was all in Mississippi and it wouldn’t have offered closure anyhow. And I felt that familiar stabbing pain of missing Steven. I told Tony that Steven and Robert loved my kids, and that my kids loved them back. For some reason it was really important to let him know that.

So now I’m poring through photos of Tony and his husband Brian and I’m thinking of making Brian’s Piroshkis, but I’m much more likely to invite myself up there for a weekend and demand beg that he cooks for me.

We’ve connected in all the usual ways that people connect online, except I think it’s unusual because so many of those people we lost and left behind were people we needed to move away from, and Tony wasn’t one of those. I’m excited to have Springtime come back to me.

I love cars. It’s not a secret. I love small cars, big cars, loud trucks and hybrids. I love German cars, Japanese Cars, British Cars and I have a soft spot for Detroit. Recently I was asked what my favorite car was and I gasped, “It’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. I would say that the Acura TL feels a lot like the one that got away.”

I don’t think that loving one car makes me less able to love another.

I’m sad to say that I do not love the Nissan Leaf. This weekend I brought the Jaguar in for service and I drove out to Pasadena. Pasadena is not particularly close to my house and Rusnak isn’t the dealer that I bought the car from, but their service is so superior to the local dealerships that I bring the car in on Saturdays for oil changes and maintenance and I plan to do stuff in and around Pasadena to make the drive worthwhile. If I go to Rusnak on a weekday they have an Enterprise Rent a Car on site that will give you a Jaguar to drive, if you’re there on a Saturday you’ve got to go to Enterprise in South Pasadena.

The shuttle driver took me to South Pass and we chatted about cars. “The XJ is a boat, it’s for athletes and the elderly.” We both agreed. “The Ford Fusion hybrid is an incredible ride, but the lease rates make it too expensive.” More agreement. A classic Corvette passed us on the road and he told me about the muscle cars he once owned. I felt sad that I’d never owned a muscle car, but agreed that the sound of eight cylinders is sweet.

As we pulled up to Enterprise I noticed that there was a Nissan Leaf. “Oh my gawd,” I practically jumped out of the minivan, “it’s a LEAF. I’m renting that car I don’t care how much it costs.” I waved goodbye to my shuttle driver and practically ran to the rental counter.

“I’d like the Leaf please.” I said plunking down my paperwork from Rusnak that said I was entitled to a $33 a day rental.

“It’s $69 a day.” The clerk was apologetic.

“Oh, that’s okay. I just want to drive that car.” I flung my AMEX at him before he could change his mind.

We went through this whole song and dance where they explained to me that the car only has a 100 mile range, they showed me the mobile charger and they told me it would be okay to return it to Rusnak but asked me please to be sure it had enough charge left to get it back to their location.

“So you can add ‘Don’t be an asshole’ to the bottom of the contract if you want. I’ll sign that.” And he smiled and muttered something about adding a line about not being a jerk. If I was a more appropriate woman I’d have been embarassed.

I hopped in the car, adjusted the mirrors and headed home. My house is 20 miles from Enterprise Rent a Car. The Leaf doesn’t have gears that shift in the manner that a combustion engine would. There’s feeling of added acceleration when you’re in a lower gear and there’s no glide when when you take your foot off the accelerator. You know those ride on cars that the kids have, where you sit in the big Cadillac and press the pedal? It drives a lot like that, only faster and smoother. The car is all torque, and it doesn’t accelerate much when you go downhill, you still have to accelerate with the pedal. This is NOT a bad thing, it’s simply a profoundly different way to drive.

The Leaf has space, the interior is fabulous, we’ve seen quite a few cars with a similar shape and as much as they aren’t sexy or streamlined they are Oh My Gawd This Is Sunshiney spacious inside. It’s a wonderful feeling to have so much headroom, to have stadium seating for the kids in the back and to have a trunk big enough for another two people to sit in it. It’s still a small car though, and parking it is a dream.

I drove the car home without incident. After 20 miles I enjoyed myself. All that torque was a lot of fun on an uncrowded freeway and I liked that it accelerated as quickly at 60 mph as it did at 10. The visibility is fabulous and the car, in many ways, is a joy to drive. The dashboard is intuitive and ergonomic. I enjoyed every part of it.

Until I looked at the battery life on the dashboard.

I almost had a full fledged panic attack when I realized I had to drive downtown, home and then to Pasadena and I had to get it done in 50 miles. Although I had the mobile charger it was going to take 23 hours to charge the battery half way. So I gripped the wheel and white knuckled it through the rest of my afternoon hoping against hope that I’d get everywhere I needed to go in 50 miles or less.

It’s a real bummer that the Leaf didn’t add a generator like the Volt did. I enjoy the spaciousness of the Leaf and it would suit my family’s needs better than the Volt because it seats five not four, but I can’t forsee a the Leaf being a part of my days with such a short battery life and no way to get out of a jam quickly. The pleasure of driving an electric car was quickly eclipsed by the panic of driving an electric car and being stranded for at least a dozen hours.

I love the concept of an electric car, but unless you have a windmill in your garden you’re still plugging into coal power.

I’m waiting for Leaf 2.0 because I want to add this to the list of cars I love.

Hair dye doesn’t last forever. Does it matter if Courtney Cox’s daughter Coco gets purple and blue streaks in her hair when she’s just seven?

Have you let your daughter color her hair? What age is appropriate?

Jane will be 13 this fall, as much as she would like her hair colored, it’s not on the horizon for her.

When Jane was born I wanted a Birkin bag. The two year wait list made me long for it in ways I’d never imagined. When I found out that I could sell it for nearly double the purchase price within 48 hours I no longer wanted to own a Birkin so much as I wanted to buy many of them.

When Alexander was born I was doing a brisk business in couture resale and the Blue Jean and Palladium Birkin was the hottest bag on the market so I decided to carry one. It brought me about two solid weeks of intense pleasure, and then I realized that it was a heavy, boxy handbag that was too masculine for my liking and the sippy cups that I’d placed in it were ThisClose to costing me a cool $8,000. I regained my senses and sold the bag.

My husband and his friends never understood my business, they couldn’t comprehend carrying a purse that looked like a hybrid between a diaper bag and briefcase. I’d patiently explain, “It’s like wearing your paycheck on our arms. It’s how we show people we have value.”

This explanation has never worked particularly well with reasonable men. Exotic car owners nod slowly and knowingly, I would not call these men reasonable.

The women I’m surrounded by now still have their Birkin Bags but the sippy cups were replaced by water bottles and lip gloss a few years ago. Minivans have been traded for high end hybrid trucks and the new competition is school and camp.

Ask an LA kid about their summer plans and you’ll hear about camps with organic farming, adventures, sports, drama and the arts. You’ll hear that they didn’t go to their first choice camp but they are hopeful because they are waitlisted. Kids will tell you about summers spent in Europe or eco tourism in South America.

And mothers will puff up with delight when you ask about summer plans, particularly that one lady, you know who she is. She’s the one who used to have the swank purse, but now she has the swank vacation and the hybrid, because being ostentatious with couture went out of style in the Great Recession, but where Hermes left off, summer camp has filled the void.

At the end of our street is an ice cream parlor. It’s a franchise and it’s one you know, and my kids have always loved it.

I don’t keep dessert in the house but everyone is always welcome to walk to the corner and get themselves an ice cream cone. Up until 2011 the ice cream shop’s owner was a diminutive man with a giant smile. He and his wife ran the shop and employed a teen or two. On more than one occasion the kids or I would be short a dollar or fifty cents, he’d send us off with our cones and we’d return later with the money (plus a generous tip). Even though it was a franchise it was a neighborhood business. It was clean and friendly.

Sometime around the beginning of the year the man stopped coming to work. His wife came out of the back where she’d previously made ice cream cakes to help with the front. New teens were hired, and they were surly and inappropriate. Wholesome was replaced with tattooed and edgy, no one smiled, the store was dirty and closed a half hour earlier than posted.

We’ve started keeping ice cream in the house.

Mr G went to the store the other night and came home detailing all the ways that it’s just not properly maintained. He told me about chairs being put on the tables at 9.30 when there were lines of people waiting and the shop closes at 10. He talked about how rude the teens were that worked there, and that it was just plain dirty. We both talked about how sad we felt about it since our kids had grown up there. We talked a while longer and I realized my husband had a lovesick look on his face.

“You want to buy it don’t you.” I said.

“I think we’d be great owners.”

“It’s not for sale, but she can’t really want to own it anymore. Can she?”

And then we both realized that we didn’t want to be in the ice cream business and there are too many reasons to begin to list them all. We did want to preserve our kids’ memories and our neighborhood. But me, can you imagine me scooping ice cream all day, and being nice to people?

Me neither.