In 1980 my father took us with him to a client meeting. It wasn’t unusual for him to have brief meetings with clients on a weekend, nor was it unpleasant. We were well behaved children, in public anyhow, and clients were typically dazzled by manners and would buy us things like candies or toys. The criminal clients would send us to the corner market to buy them a pack of menthol cigarettes, and tell us to spend the change on whatever we wanted. The cigarettes would cost a dollar, and they would give us five. The entertainment or business clients would have something on hand. Typically a piece of priceless memorabilia that we would promptly lose or destroy.
When we arrived at the client meeting in 1980, I was just ten years old. It was another opulent office tower in Hollywood looking down on Sunset Boulevard and the Los Angeles basin. Though meant to inspire awe, my brother and I were long since jaded. I remember the views were beautiful, and the sky was blue, but we didn’t feel like being inside. I wasn’t particularly big, I wasn’t particularly small, but the woman who greeted us was the largest woman I’d met in a lifetime. She wore a caftan that was made of all the colors of the sun, and she stood taller than any lady I’d ever seen. In retrospect, she wasn’t that tall, but her personality was. My father introduced my brother and me to “Ms. Simone”, and I extended my right hand for a shake.
Ms. Simone reached down in the swiftest of moves, held me around my waist and said, “I do not shake hands with children, and you can call me Miss Nina, but they may not.” As she released me, she waved with her right hand in a sweeping gesture at the other businessmen, artists and musicians that were waiting on her, and most certainly would not be addressing her by her first name.
There was a grand piano in the room, and later there would be singing and playing, but I never did enjoy it, because it was the most terrifying hug of my life. Oh, and no one had a gift for us.
Yesterday was the first Monday of Summer Vacation. The kids went to camp, and I began to tackle the 800 chores that were neglected for end of school festivities.
In the early evening we were invited to the Microsoft X Box Kinect reveal. The kids and I went with Tiffany and her son downtown to the Galen Center where we would meet up with my husband and family. Tiffany boldly navigated traffic the likes of which I have never seen before, and then we all waited in line. Oh, and then we waited some more.
There was no food, there were no drinks, there were no vendors. There were water fountains inside, but nothing for the wait in line. This was an event where you could RSVP your children. Note to self: do not bring children anywhere free. The cost of free is high.
After we made it in we put on these wacky white ponchos with shoulder pads that channeled Joan Collins circa 1985, and we took our seats. There was a weird screen between the seated audience and the audience on the floor. The audience on the floor was interacting with the Cirque Troupe while the seated audience watched through a mesh screen. Weird. Not good, not bad, weirdly engaging.
The reveal was amazing.
Seriously amazing. I sat there and poked Tiffany about three hundred times saying, “I want that.” and “Oh wait, I want that too.” And she never ever poked me back, nor did she shush me. I’m pretty sure it’s because she was tired. I’m pretty sure everyone knows that Kinect was previously called Project Natal, and it’s an XBox that watches how your body moves with three little cameras. Instead of holding numchuks like on a Wii, you simply stand in front of the machine and move as if you were in the game. There are no controllers. It will be available November 4th, and I’m pretty sure that everyone will want one for the Holiday Season. As the parent of kids who have mostly outgrown the Wii, I see this as the next logical step. Oh, also, I want the yoga program. Like I really really really want it.
Here’s a snippet of a family playing a car racing game:
Now I promised you crazy, and I’m going to give you three crazy things that happened last night. I’ll give them to you in chronological order, though certainly not in order of import or oddity.
At the Kinect reveal event I could not find my brother (who I was really looking forward to spending time with), but I did accidentally sit down right behind my ex-stepbrother, his wife, and their two children. The ex step brother and I have no real contact, it’s always strange when we bump into one another. Every few years there’s an awkward “Jessica? Jessica Wilzig?” and I have to remember that I had a different name once upon a time. Our parents divorced in the late 80′s or perhaps the early 90′s? I was absolutely delighted to see him, and it’s been fun watching his wife’s star rise. I tried to explain to my friends who he is, but one guy just looked at me and said, “How does that even happen?” I don’t really have a good answer for that one. It just does.
When we left the Galen Center my husband was ravenous so we drove through Mc Donalds. In my head I’m screaming, don’t do it. Don’t buy this shit, don’t have a salt lick and dogfood for dinner. But the outside of me smiled, and recognized that I’d asked my family along to an event that delighted only me. The kids got hamburgers at 10PM. I said nothing. Everyone in the car recognized the oddity of my silence.
As we turned our car onto our street I glanced at a neighbor’s house and saw smoke billowing from a window. “Honey, I think the pink house is on fire.” As I said the words I thought, oh I’m overreacting, there’s no possible way that the house is on fire. Indeed I was not overreacting, the house was very much on fire.
My husband pulled the car over, told me to dial 9-1-1 and then he went to the front door of the smoking house, and started banging on the door. We could see lights being turned on, and smoke filled every inch of that home. After a moment a man answered the door, I watched my husband talk to him, and then the strangest thing ever happened.
The man walked back into his smoky house.
At this point in time the LAFD was en route, and I was still on the phone with an incredibly well trained dispatcher giving him details as I had them. The dispatcher didn’t react at all as I told him, “the man is going back into the house.” Nothing, no reaction whatsoever. Good work, LAFD our city needs unflappable. I did have the house confused with another, and I was terribly concerned that there were children inside, so it was only after my husband came back to the car and reassured me that that homeowner was not Indian that I exhaled. You see their immediate neighbor is a young Indian family, and the thought of children being in there was just too much to bear.
After fourteen minutes, 29 firefighters were able to put the flames out. My children huddled with other neighbors and we all looked on with horror as flames licked the sides of the pink house. I looked on with horror as my children ate McDonalds.
The homeowner eventually came to our side of the street to talk with the Battalion Chief. His hair was as wild as his eyes, and there was a trickle of snot coming from his nose. The kids wanted to see what would happen, but I had to take them home and to bed. My neighbor was having the worst moment of his life, and now that we knew he was safe it was time to go.
Every part of the evening conspired to have us drive down our street from the wrong direction and notice a plume of smoke.
School end events mean I’m at the kids’ school more than a parent ought to be.
Mr. G is on his final trip of the season, and I’m pretty sure the kids will get hot dogs for dinner. Before your head starts spinning note they are unsulfured buffalo dogs. I haven’t completely lost my mind.
I’m dragging my Bostonian cousin around LA, it’s fun to look at my city through someone else’s eyes.
Also, I bought something my husband will not like at all. I’ll blog about it later tonight, you know… in a totally passive aggressive maneuver so he won’t be mad when he comes back to town.
This is perfect. I didn’t want to write today because I have a tennis match.
Why do I have a tennis match? Mr. G. is back home after a very intense springtime of travel and, you may recall, we give each other some space for reentry.
Since the kids are still on Spring Break I’m doing the unthinkable. I’m taking my children with me to the grocery store. It’s not unthinkable because they are ill mannered, it’s unthinkable because they are my children, with my tastes.
I have a daughter who will stand next to me in her nightgown dipping a spoon into a small jar of golden caviar, her eyes light up as they pop in her mouth. I have a son who knows that grass fed organic beef is the only sort worth eating, and that buffalo hot dogs have a flavor that cannot be rivaled by the packaged goo in the refrigerated section. Both of my kids like apples, both of my children love mangoes.
Taking my children to the grocery store is, quite simply, unaffordable.
In between guitar and drum lessons we have an hour. During the school year, we three would have quiet time and the kids would be working on homework, but with this being spring break I took them to Gelsons.
As is my habit, we went first to the meat and fish department to see what was fresh. Both kids wanted seafood, but Alexander really wanted mussels. I know that my husband won’t be eating mussels any time soon, so when Jane asked if I could make her salmon I said okay. Most days I make one dinner, there is always a protein, two vegetables and a starch. My thoughts are that if they don’t like one of the four things on the plate, no one will starve.
Thank goodness today was different.
I brought the groceries home and immediately soaked the mussels in icy water so that I could scrub and prepare them for supper. Alexander was standing next to me as I showed him each shell and pointed out the beard. As each shell opened up he would say to me, “that’s okay Mom there are more.” He was so excited to get mussels for supper. Out of two pounds of mussels only five stayed shut. I had approximately two and three quarters of a pound of rotten shellfish, and just 35 minutes to break the news to my son and prepare dinner.
Trying to explain to an eight year old boy that I didn’t want to mince garlic, dice an onion and reduce white wine in order to prepare five mussels was a bit rough. Peanut M&Ms helped keep it in perspective.
Luckily I’d bought salmon for Jane and Mr. G. Alexander and I had a great dinner of reheated chicken.
At nine o’clock I realized we had a problem. Today was an 85 degree day and I had two pounds of rancid seafood. It was also trash day. That means that the mussels would have to sit in the bin for six days in the heat. Ever since an unfortunate lobster incident, I only cook shellfish the day before trash day.
At 9:30 PM I surpassed my mother, and became my grandmother. I collected the mussels, the beards and the babies stuck to them. I put it all in a plastic bag, and then put the plastic bag into a bowl. I got in my car and returned the whole mess to Gelsons.
Yes, I realize that only old ladies return food to the market. It wasn’t about the money. Mussels are about $4 a pound, so it was a $7 investment. It was about the maggots. The maggots that I was unwilling to live with, the cleaning I didn’t want to do. I took my daughter with me to the grocery store, just before it closed, and handed a bag of rancid meat to the store manger.
I’m not sure what my daughter’s takeaway will be. Hopefully she’ll know that Mommy enjoys a clean house so much that she’s unwilling to have a manky trash bin.
