Streets of Fire

Dan bought me a bike today. And when I say a bike, I mean a road bike. Not a mountain bike, a touring bike, a cruiser or a hybrid bike. I am now the proud owner of a jet-black Cannondale Synapse Alloy 5, featuring “relaxed geometry and advanced vibration-damping properties.” Also, it cost about as much as my wedding gown.

Bikes have changed a lot since I was 16¹ and rode my 10-speed Schwinn Varsity in a road race in Mason, Ohio and came in second. For one thing, they are made of space-age materials, and the fact that my new bike is made primarily from aluminum and not carbon is, apparently, going to be a major source of humiliation for me. A carbon bike costs about twice as much as my new ride. Dan kept saying, “Here, lift this! Feel how light it is!” and I would lift the expensive bike, but the weight differential (approx. 20 ounces, as far as I could tell) was imperceptible to me. Bike snobs of the world, shun me.

My redemption will be in the “componentry”, as Dan calls it, or the “clicking stuff” as I call it. When I rode my Schwinn, as I recall, the shifter was a little metal thingy that sat on the right handlebar. It had the numbers 1 through 10 on it. Thus, you clicked to the number you wanted, and that was the gear you were in. Something like that. Now, the shifters are little paddles built right into the brake thingies.² The little black paddle does one thing and the bigger one does something else, and the right one goes up and the left one goes down, or vice versa. Anyway that’s how you shift the thing.

And don’t get me started about the damn pedals. Did you know that bikers have to wear special shoes that they clip into special pedals so their feet are actually attached to the bike? Here’s me, falling over. Thud. I think this is written in the same Rulebook that dictates the long tight black padded shorts and the snug zip-up jersey with writing all over it that is supposed to make you look like you’ve been in the Tour de France even though you are riding down Foothill Boulevard past the Toyota dealership. But I digress.

Dan took me to Helen’s Cycles in Santa Monica, where I already know I am not going to be cool enough. I mean, come on, Santa Monica! We saw a dude drive up in a white Beemer convertible, unlit cigar hanging out of his mouth, white polo shirt with the collar flipped up, stacked little female companion by his side. He was like a tv character, seriously. Like maybe the cocky film producer who gets decapitated on CSI.

But Dan bought his bike there and really likes the place. He's become a real expert on bikes since he took up road riding with his sons; he tends to become an expert at everything he gets interested in. He took some cooking classes with Sam: ask him about pasta making sometime.

So we go in to look at this one Cannondale that’s on sale, and after a while I am out on the street test riding bikes. Damon, our sales person, talks technical stuff with Dan – “so this one has 105s, not Tiagras” “the head tube is a little longer, I think it fits her better” – while I pedal up and down a side street and try not to look foolish.

“How do you like this one? How does it feel?”

Dan wants me to get a bike sooo bad. He is already picturing the two of us out on the road, touring wine country perhaps, or cruising down the PCH.³

“It’s good,” I say. I have ridden exactly two Cannondale bikes, up and down the same side street in Santa Monica, and the main thing I am thinking is “wow, this seat is really crushing my lady business”. But I also want a bike. I want to recapture the feeling of complete freedom, riding through the countryside in Mason⁴, the wind in my hair⁵; I also want to be able to climb two flights of stairs without panting, and riding a bike is the only form of exercise that appeals to me whatsoever. So I say, “It’s better than the other one. I like it.”

He tells me it’s an excellent bike. I am completely dependent on him as far as this purchase goes. I look at Damon helplessly and say, “It’s like taking a 12 year old to a car dealership.” And even though it’s a bit more than we wanted to spend, Dan gets it for me. And then he gets me the bike computer. And the bike bag with the spare tire in it. And a pump and two water bottles that attach to the bike frame, and a new helmet, and some lights for the front and back, and some of those obnoxious padded shorts (which my lady business will appreciate, I’m sure).⁶ Oh yeah, and some gloves. Damon magnanimously takes 10 percent off the accessories for him.⁷ We load the bike into the minivan, and all the way home I map out the places I am going to ride. Good thing Dan’s driving.

Now we’re home, and it’s dark out, and I am actually looking forward to getting up early and going for a ride. Which, if you know me, is a miracle. Look for me on Foothill Boulevard; I’ll be the one wearing bike shorts and a Springsteen t-shirt.

¹1978. Same year I saw Bruce on the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour. Damn good year.

² Give me a couple of weeks, I’ll know the right names for all this stuff.

³ I, on the other hand, expect to be cruising around the Rose Bowl parking lot.

⁴ Which has long since been razed and paved and overdeveloped into “Cincinnati’s Top Suburb”. I’m not lying. I was there recently, and they have banners flying along Tylersville Road, where I used to ride, crowing this great honor recently bestowed by Cincy Magazine.

⁵ You didn’t wear helmets back then unless you were in a race. It was awesome.

⁶ I did not get the Tour de France shirt, or the special shoes and pedals. Yet.

⁷ Which just about covers the 9.75% sales tax in L.A. County.

Life and Flames

"Among the notable things about fire is that it also requires oxygen to burn - exactly like its enemy, life. Thereby are life and flames so often compared." ~Otto Weininger

Monday, August 31st, 2009.

I am standing on a hotel balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It is dark. I can hear the steady soothing crash of the waves, and although it is one of my favorite places to be, tonight in my mind’s eye I can also see the ocean turning into a monster, pounding at the earth that confines it. I look at the ocean and I can see fury, because today I left fury behind: a slow-moving, insidious fury that burned and choked La Crescenta, the town where I live and breathe, the place I call home.

It’s been burning since Wednesday. On the news tonight they said the Station Fire was over 164 square miles, the size of Las Vegas. Every morning we awoke to sick yellow haze and floating ash-flakes, delicate and light as snowflakes, lighting on our clothes and hair and cars but not melting, just sitting there, gray and dirty and toxic and sneering. The ash fell and the air was thick and we coughed and stayed inside. Each day we coped; each night we stood with our neighbors and pointed at the flames up the hill, wondering what would happen next.

Sunday morning, I started to feel like my bronchial tubes were trying to claw through my chest. Sunday night, my friend Becki and her family were on Day Two of mandatory evacuation from their house, a mile up the hill from us. Sunday night another friend told me about the 2 a.m. wake-up robocall telling her to evacuate. Sunday night I stopped watching the flames, turned off the news, took an ativan and surrendered.

Sleep is a wonderful thing, when your body is worn down from an oxygen-starved environment and the effort of keeping things normal for your kids, even though normal surrounded by fire is kind of like birthday cake surrounded by ninjas: things you haven’t had to deal with simultaneously before. Plus you probably haven’t ever personally dealt with ninjas, either.

So Sunday night I was sleeping soundly, as you can imagine, when the phone rang at 2:17 a.m. Before I even checked the caller ID, I knew what it was. LA CO SHERIFF said the phone. This is a mandatory evacuation, said the robovoice.

But it was a mistake. Somebody had pushed the wrong button. Within 25 minutes of our first fumblings with refugee status, we learned that we could stay. Within 5 minutes of that determination, I was asleep again, this time on the couch, because the bedroom smelled like smoke from the trips out to the garage. Dan tells me he got the “oops” robocall after I went back to sleep. Didn’t hear a thing. Yay, ativan.

I was in a peaceful, floaty dream when Dan came out to the living room cradling Alabama, our old cat, and whispering urgently, “Leanne, you need to wake up. Bama’s dying.”

Now, coming out of a deep sleep, it sounded a bit like “Emma’s dying,” and Emma is my 8-year-old daughter, and I was just about to scream when he said “she was under the bed and howling” and I realized it was the cat, who’s been very sick with kidney disease. She was 16 and probably couldn’t take the bad air.

It was 6:30 a.m. on Monday, day six of the fire, and I took one look at her and knew this was it. The vet’s office was not yet open, and the emergency vet was too far away. We wrapped her in a towel and Dan held her and she trembled slightly, her eyes blank. I caressed her sweet black head and whispered in her ear, “I love you Bama, thank you for being the best mama kitty,” and she gasped three little gasps and was still. I nuzzled her anyway and we were silent, and my hand crept over her chest and made sure there was no heartbeat and no breath and Dan said, “I think she’s gone.”

Numb, I made a fresh pot of coffee while Dan dug a deep hole beneath the bougainvillea in the back yard near her favorite sunning spot and we buried her right away, before the kids were awake.

The radio was on, and the dire news reports about the fire were more of the same. Raging out of control. Air quality was “borderline hazardous”. The evacuations started 4 blocks north of us. And fire crews were planning to set controlled burns at the top of our street in an attempt to keep the blaze from destroying homes in our area.

I sat listless on the couch, clutching my coffee, tears in my eyes, but I was too tired for even the effort it took to sob. Dan sat down next to me.

“I’ve been thinking. I’m going to take the day off. Let’s go to the beach.”

Alabama died at 7:20. By nine we had booked a room at a lovely hotel in Oxnard, right on the beach. By 11 a.m. the kids and the bags were in the van. I stopped at Baja Fresh for a big iced tea, got some cash, gassed up and drove as fast as I could away from the smoke and fury in my beautiful mountains.

It’s now exactly 12 hours since we hit the freeway. Dan spent the day with us poolside in the cool, clean air, and we all had dinner by the harbor. We had ice cream and watched the sunset. Dan went back to take care of the dogs and the house.

The kids are asleep. My lungs are lighter by small degrees, and I sit on the balcony listening to the waves.

But I’ve watched an out of control fire from my front yard, and I’ve held my kitty as she died, and it’s taking a little more effort for me to feel comforted and not overwhelmed by nature. So I close my eyes and breathe. It’s good to breathe.

The King of Pop

I cried while watching Michael Jackson’s memorial service. This fact surprised me for a moment, and then I just let the tears fall. I know I’m not the only person who has a sort of Anne Frank philosophy and tries to see the good inside everyone. After all, he was a father who loved his kids. As a mom, I will never, under any circumstances, be able to separate myself from that bond; the pain a child must feel at losing a beloved parent is unimaginable.

My 17-year-old stepson did not get it at all. “He was a freak show,” Sam said. “Too weird for me.” And that’s how most young people today will remember Michael Jackson: the accusations of pedophilia, the plastic surgery, the blanket-covered baby dangled over the balcony.

I was 7 years old when the Jackson Five reached their peak. My brothers and I watched their Saturday morning cartoon show; the Osmond Brothers had one too, but the Jacksons were so much funnier. We loved it. We lived in a white-bread suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, and the Jacksons were our first connection with people of color, and we didn’t really care. Yes, they were different but their music was cool and the show was funny and Michael was a kid, just like us.

He was most of all a brilliant artist and performer. Everything that was said at his memorial about his impact on the world of music was true. He was a generous humanitarian as well. But Al Sharpton, though his intentions were good, shouldn’t have said to his children “there wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy.” Because that’s not true. He was strange. He was very strange.

It’s apparent now that Michael Jackson was a tortured soul and carried around a lot of self-loathing. In my opinion, it all points to some kind of terrible abuse suffered as a child. Violence, perhaps, or molestation. His childlike obsessions, substance abuse, and ongoing voluntary disfigurement are clues. How much do you hate yourself if you want to destroy your own face?

It’s sad that he died, when he on the verge of touring and possibly mesmerizing us as a performer once again. But it’s a small comfort to know that we will not have to watch the man descend into any further acts of weirdness, accusations of impropriety, or self-mutilation. No more chimps or blankets (or kids named Blanket) or drugged-out interviews. For me. at least, I can sing “I’ll Be There” and remember the boy who touched my heart and opened my eyes.

Hello, again

If you are reading this blog for the first time, here's a brief explanation. It's pretty simple, actually. My previous blog was on Geocities and they closed up shop. So I've moved over to Blogspot, and have re-posted the incredibly fascinating wanderings that were on the other one. Original dates are noted at the top of each entry.

I would love to hear your comments, and even better, please sign up to follow me. This is strictly an entertainment situation; I'm not going to try to sell anything... at least not until I get a book deal. More about that later. >>grin<<

I'm also going to try to keep politics out of it henceforth. As I said, entertainment, not controversy. (Okay, maybe a little controversy sometimes, thrown in for good measure.) When new stuff will be added, I dunno. As the muse strikes, I guess. It's been a while since I've written anything blog-worthy (working on above-referenced book, mostly), but it's time to practice my Mavis Beacon and get back on it. I hope you find my musings pleasantly diverting. I hope they make you smile, ponder, open your heart, wink at babies in the checkout line, and maybe even hug somebody. That's what I'm shooting for.

Incidentally, re: the Puppied Out post: Clementine is now a year old, we have replaced all the flooring, and I love her again. In fact she is curled up next to me right now. Lazy ass dog.

Cheers, and thanks for your support!

Puppied Out, part two

(Originally posted August 11, 2008)

We have a puppy. Her name is Clementine and she is a mutt about 6 months old and she was Dan's idea.

I hate this f**kin' dog.

She barks at everything. EVERYTHING. And we live on a busy street so there's a lot to bark at. And it's not a woof-woof earthy real dog bark either. It's that yappity yap high pitched continuous string of yaps kind of bark. Although, not the toy dog yip-yips, at least. Because those are the worst. And I should add, those are the f**kin' poodles across the street that are outside all the time, and they also bark at EVERYTHING. Those dogs, they bust out of their yard all the time and run out on La Crescenta Avenue, and after about two months of living across the street from them, I started rooting for the cars.

But I digress.

Clem, she barks, and she won't stop pooping on the carpet, and she absolutely destroyed the new doormat I got at Target within 2 hours. (That was about $7.50 an hour for that doormat.) She is irresistible to my daughters, who chase her and torment her no matter how many times I tell them to stop, which makes her run and hide behind me, which makes the girls come after her on the floor at my feet, which makes it impossible for me to fix dinner or even move, which often makes me trip over the lot of them and don't get me started about the screaming mom stuff.

She and Nathan play, of course, which is great and funny, except that she's gnawing on him all the time since he's so much bigger than she is. So she swallows a bunch of Nathan hair and has taken to puking up hairballs like a damn cat.

She gets Dan up at 5 a.m. to go outside. He doesn't seem to mind. (I worry about him.) I sleep through it, usually. And Dan has her trained to respond to "good girl, go potty", which he says in a silly baby talk voice, so now I have to do the same thing when I take her outside. So there I am sing-songing "good girl, go potty, good girl, go potty" in the backyard, and John is next door tending to his heirloom green peppers and laughing at me, and I just want to kill both of them. Dan and the f**kin' dog, I mean.

And you know, I love dogs. I LOVE them. It's just this one, this puppy... I'm just too old and have too small a house and these lousy rotten kids and...

...and she's just curled up next to me on the couch, and her little face is nestled into my leg, and she's asleep, and I love her again.

And oh by the way, the cat just puked up a hairball on the carpet. (Seriously, I'm not making that up for the big close.)

So excuse me, I have cat puke to clean up, and then I have to go watch Top Model. Because those bitches are fierce.

Notes from the puppied out

(Originally posted June 24, 2008)

I'm sitting on my back patio, the one that Dan created in our tiny back yard. It is an oasis on a busy street; the wall fountain splashes merrily as the air conditioner competes for attention.

It's beautiful this evening. About 7:30, the sun is setting, and there's a puppy at my feet. The kids left for an overnight with their dad about an hour ago. Dan's in his scuba gear at the Aquarium, cleaning rocks in the big exhibits. I am eating leftover pasta and enjoying a glass of pinot and waiting for hummingbirds to fly to the new feeder we put up. There was a female out here a few minutes ago, but Clementine scared her off.

We have weathered the recent sweltering heat somehow. On Friday, the kids were home and we had "swaphouse playdates": first, Sabrina (Charlie's classmate) and her sister Daniela (Claire's) came to our house to play. Then they all went to their house. Sabrina and Daniela live 3 blocks down La Crescenta Avenue, and I really like their parents. The dad, Randy, is an old-school rocker who loves Rush and hard rock of that era. The mom, Josie, is a real sweetheart, and we usually end up yakking about our husbands' mutual foibles. The most recent discussion involved how the men bug us about our spending, but suddenly there's room in the budget for these ridiculous expenditures: Randy decided they needed a swimming pool in the back yard. (Which is okay with us, as it'll be done before the summer's over and we're invited as much as we want, yay!) Dan bugs me about my spending, but that Hawaii vacation... well, let's just say we have a different idea about what's essential. "Men... ya can't live with 'em... ya can't shoot 'em".

Saturday we went to see "Kung Fu Panda" at an afternoon show, always an excellent way to beat the heat. Emma is showing early signs of being the movie buff in the family. She sits transfixed, even through the credits. Charlie still waits out the previews in the lobby (they're too loud). I'm sorry to say that "Kung Fu Panda" did not pass the Claire test: she demanded TWO bathroom trips. We must have one or zero to be Claire approved. (Very few movies have passed the Claire test.)

Sunday was New Shoes Day. We have a New Shoes Day about 3 times a year, it seems. This time, it was for Camp Shoes. I was all set to weather the great drama known as Target With Three Children In Tow on my own, as I know full well what that entails. But hark! Dan wants to join us! All my entreaties to Stay Home, Stay Home fall on deaf ears! And thus I know, this drama will be even more drawn out and painful than usual.

See, I don't mind the drawn-out part. The kids like to look at stuff, and so do I. But I have yet to meet the man who sees a Trip to Target as anything other than a utilitarian exercise: buy your stuff and GET THE HELL OUT.

It just doesn't work like that for me or my kids. And that should be okay. And he insists it will be okay! He understands! Let's all do something together, he says! I fall for his convincing argument. I also think, well, there's a Lowe's right next door, maybe he'll just head over there for "one thing" and end up staring at sprinkler parts for 45 minutes like the last time (when, tragically, I was with him).

Well, it didn't turn out as badly as I'd feared. He did only get one thing at Lowe's, the first time that's happened in recorded history. We had a perfectly dreadful lunch at Wendy's. (I am still bloated from the sodium.) We found very suitable shoes for the girls. And Charlie revealed a new development:

He is too cool for Target shoes.

Yes, it has happened: my soon-to-be-sixth-grader has been influenced by his peers. Target Shoes are Not Cool. He had to have Heelys, or shame and humiliation would rain down upon him like, oh I don't know, rain in January in Southern California. (When it actually rains. For the whole year.)

Dan, for some reason, cannot get this. He wants to make Charlie like the hated Target Shoes. "There's nothing wrong with these shoes! Just try them on!"

"Listen dude," I tell my son privately, "I get it. I do. I think it's okay for you to have opinions about what you wear and how you look." (Did I mention the part about Charlie wanting to put silver streaks in his hair?) "I don't know why Dan doesn't get it. But I do. So let's deal with this later."

Anyway, long shoe story short, I take Charlie out and get him his $60 Heelys at Sport Chalet later. He swears he will wear them every day and love them like he himself carved them from clay.

So today was the first day of summer camp, the temperature has lightened up by 15 degrees or so, and Charlie still has no idea how to skate in Heelys. But it's a beautiful evening, and we have a little bit left in the bottle of Hitching Post 2006 Pinot Noir (yes, that's the place from "Sideways", and the wine is every bit as good as Paul Giamatti's character said it was), and I have a puppy curled up at my feet, and I think that's enough.

Wishing you all the same contentment...

Lean

Random Observations on a Monday...

(Originally posted March 10, 2008)

Why do people avoid the shopping carts that aren’t pushed all the way into the row of carts? You know, like if somebody leaves a cart out of “line”, like a wheeled leper or something? I mean I’ve seen folks literally walk around these orphaned carts as if they’d get cooties or something, and pull one (usually with difficulty, as they are often stuck together) (especially at Target) from the nice neat line of obedient carts. Let’s call it the Shopping Cart Cooties Evasion Tactic.

And then there’s the Toilet Stall Flinch. You go to a stall in a public place, and someone before you has forgotten to flush, and you do the Flinch and “ugh” and go to the next stall? Like it’s somebody else’s job to go around flushing after people? Why not just flush it yourself, seriously? Do you think their pee is somehow toxic, and if you should flush, some of it could get on you and disfigure you for life? And that washing your hands afterwards would somehow not be enough to cleanse you from the act you have just carried out? Seriously, how different is it from flushing your own poo? (My only thought is that the Flinchers have never had kids. Boy, after you have kids, man, there is no bodily excretion in the world you haven’t already dealt with.)

And don’t get me started about the Bluetooth Cyborgs. I can’t tell you how many times someone has been looking directly at me and speaking, and I say, “Excuse me?”, only to realize they have that obnoxious little bug in their ear and are carrying on some terribly important conversation into the air. Like some crazy homeless person in Santa Monica, except better dressed.

I said don’t get me started!