Lost and Found

When asked if I have kids, I typically respond that I have two fur children, my Shih Tzus Frodo and Chewbaca.  Oh wait, I almost forgot about Neuron, the most recent furry addition to our family.

Speaking of forgetting, I lost Frodo Christmas morning.  It all started with a horoscope.  Early that morning, my mom read it to me over a cup of coffee. 

"Libra", the horoscope said, "everyone has an off day and today will be one such day, but this too shall pass." 

I told my mom she should have lied to me and told me that I was going to have a good day because, for me, prophecies have a way of becoming self-fulfilling.

Later that morning, my mom and I went outside to put the presents in my car.  We were going to Annie's house for a Christmas lunch of enchiladas, tamales and beer.  My mom pointed out that Frodo and Chewie were sitting in the driveway.  We packed the trunk full of presents and went inside. 

About thirty minutes and another cup of coffee later, I looked down at Chewie and something clicked in my mind.  I flash backed to the image of Frodo sitting in the driveway looking at me with his dark black eyes.  

In an echo of "Home Alone", I screamed, "Shit, I forgot Frodo!"

I ran outside and Frodo was nowhere to be seen.  I drove through my neighborhood and screamed out Frodo's name like a crazy wild-haired banshee while I clapped my hands out my car window in the hope Frodo would hear.

As I turned the corner back onto our block, I started crying.  Right then, a woman came into the street waving her hands.  It was our neighbor who lives about six houses down.  She had Frodo in her arms.  As I walked in the house with Frodo, my mom said, "I thought Christmas was going to be cancelled for a minute there.  I can't believe you almost lost him." 

"I know, I am a bad mommie," I replied.  "I hope I don't ever lose my real kids."

"That is, if you ever have kids," my mom said with a shake of her head.  My mom (obviously) wants another grandchild. 

Adrian and I want kids (dare I say desperately?), but it hasn't happened.  For sixteen of our eighteen years together we were very careful, maybe too careful.  It turns out that we could have went wild. 

Life is strange.  We are both professionals, we have a big house and are finally in the position to be "perfect" parents.  But alas, as John Lennon once said, life is what happens when you're making plans. 

I see women with babies everywhere, like someone is purposefully shoving a baby store catalogue in my face.  As I walked around Victoria Gardens last week, I saw women breastfeeding, men with those papoose looking contraptions strapped across their chest with butterball babies inside and strollers with identical twins. 

A little girl with dark curly hair walked by me and I smiled at her.  When she smiled back, I got a tight feeling in my chest and thought, this is what it feels like to want. 

I am not sure when I started wanting kids.  Some of it was seeing my sister Annie with her kids (who are fabulous and that's just a fact).  The other part of it was my realization some years ago that that my parents did the best they could with what they had.

It's scary because I am almost forty.  Forty seems far too old to have kids.  My mom had us when she was in her early thirties and she seemed like an "older" mom to us, especially compared with Mary, my best friend Melinda's mom.

Melinda's mom Mary was in her twenties.  Melinda's younger sister Pam was Annie's age.  We all hung out in their two bedroom apartment.  She made us lunch and we sat around the table telling jokes and laughing.  Mary sometimes let us take a sip of Midori liqueur or a wine cooler.

By the time we hit junior high, Jackie and I brought over stolen beers from my dad's fridge and downed them before we walked to the park with Melinda for the weekly nighttime baseball game.  Shadows followed behind us because Pam and Annie trailed us around with paper and pen taking notes for information to use for their blackmail side business. 

I know what you are thinking.  Why are these kids drinking?  Drinking was only the tip of the iceberg and the rest is a story for another day. 

My mom used to tell me that I would be cursed with monster children because I put her and my dad through so much hell.

I am willing to risk it and pledge to be a cool mom regardless of my age.

A Mantz Christmas Story

It is Christmas Eve and I am thinking of Christmases long, long ago.  Maybe it was because we watched "Disney On Ice" and it reminded me of childhood.  Maybe it's all the Christmas movies. 

Christmas reminds me of waking up early to watch "The Little Rascals" on KTLA Channel Five.  Christmas reminds me of my dad's homemade donuts.  Take Pillsbury biscuit dough from the twist pop can and fry the rounds in Canola oil and then roll them in sugar, must eat hot.  Christmas reminds me of my sisters.

We were not well off, but my mom and dad always loaded the tree with presents.  The Christmas paper flew in the air on Christmas morning like colorful planes.  I asked my mom if she remembered the Barbie Dreamhouse they got us one year.  I must have been about six or seven and my sisters and I wanted it bad, we wanted it almost as much as the little boy in "A Christmas Story" wanted a Red Ryder BB gun ("You'll shoot your eye out!").

The 1970's was still an era of imagination.  The Barbie Dreamhouse had an elevator which was actually a box on a string that you pulled to take Barbie upstairs.  The Dreamhouse must have cost one hundred dollars and my parents tricked us and we thought it wasn't going to happen that year.  When we woke up and saw the building under paper we knew.  We screamed and yelled with joy and I can remember being the first one to pull the string.  "I'm the oldest," I reasoned to my sisters.  Annie was too young to argue and Jackie accepted the fact with resignation.

I wish I could get that excited about anything as an adult.

Not all Christmases were full of surprises.  One Christmas, we decided we would have Christmas a week early.  My sisters and I searched and searched for the Christmas presents and finally found them in the attic, all wrapped up.  My mom was not the neatest wrapper so we knew it would be no problem to open them and rewrap them. 

The fantasy is always better than the reality and our faces fell as we finished opening all our presents.  We knew we had ruined something beautiful.  On Christmas morning, we did our best to act surprised.  I always thought my parents knew, but they didn't. 

Years later, we told my mom about it.  My mom said that she was glad my dad hadn't known because my dad was big on surprises.  My dad would come home from work and say, "Pick a hand".  In one hand would be a Big Hunk taffy bar (preferred by me) and in the other hand a Milky Way (preferred by Jackie).

Christmas time also reminds me of seeing my dad's grey face in the emergency room right before Christmas five years ago.  We didn't know it at the time, but he would be dead less than a month later.

I shopped at the Rite Aid next to the hospital for him that Christmas and bought him a mini DVD player and some movies for him to watch in his bed on the Oncology floor.  

We got the news right around Christmas that my dad could go home on hospice.  I spent the two weeks after Christmas taking care of my father.  I tried to make him eat although he wasn't hungry.  By that time, he had lost almost seventy-five pounds.  I watched him sleep.

I try not to remember the day he died and how awful that day was. I try not to remember how it felt to tell the paramedics to stop their efforts and how hard it was to let him go.

Instead, I remember how my dad decorated the house for Christmas.  Some people are subtle with an all white or blue look.  My dad was the opposite, he went for the gusto with rainbow lights in the largest size bulb he could find.  He placed lights around the windows and on all the shrubs and trees.  Our house resembled a mini Vegas.

I remember how he decorated the Christmas tree with tinsel.  He threw it on the tree with a shout while we all sighed with displeasure.  We wanted garland not tinsel.  I remember the musical bird he hid in the tree that chirped and sang.

I remember our childhood games of Rummy and how my dad slapped his hand down on the table with a thud when one of us girls committed the grievous error of discarding a playable card.

I remember how my dad cooked breakfast: fried bologna and eggs or pancakes with jelly inside.

If I close my eyes and concentrate hard enough, I can remember my dad dressed up in a Santa suit when I was little. 

And my Barbie Dreamhouse.

Girl Fight

I have only been in three fights in my life (not counting family fights).  The first ended badly, the second one was by proxy and the last time I ran for my life.

The reason I bring this up is because we went to see a movie at the AMC in the Ontario Mills Mall (mistake number one) and witnessed a girl fight.  Well truth be told, I didn't witness the fight itself, more the aftermath. 

We had just finished watching "Tron Legacy" and my husband and I waited outside the restroom for my mother-in-law to come out.  We heard people shouting and what sounded like a scuffle.  My mother-in-law walked out (clueless at first) and behind her was a twenty something girl with her hair all askew.  A fortyish woman followed shortly behind swinging her purse and the younger girl said aloud, "That woman hit me with her purse!" 

My mother-in-law and I were transfixed.  This was way better than the Tron sequel.  If only I still had my popcorn.

Adrian pulled me by the arm and said, "C'mon."  His mother and I walked away slowly, our necks craned as the two women continued to argue.

There is something intoxicating about watching women fight.  Although I like to participate vicariously, I personally hate to fight.  It comes down to the fact that I am a big baby, a wuss of the highest order. 

When we were little (and through our teens), my twin sister Jackie and I fought, but I hated to hit her.  I was scared that I would hurt her.  Instead, I usually threw something at her and ran to the bathroom and locked the door.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to avoid fights altogether.

My first girl fight was in elementary school.  I got my butt whipped big time.  The girl I fought was small, but super quick.  I remember standing in the back of Mariposa Elementary's playground with a ring of people circled around us.  She socked me in the face at least three times in rapid succession.  I didn't even try and fight back.  People booed with displeasure.  At some point, the girl must have felt sorry for me and stopped the fight.  I wish I could remember what the fight was over.  It was probably something I said because my mouth has always been way too big for my britches.

The second fight was in high school in ninth or tenth grade.  I was still in my nerdy phase.  Soon, my nose would be pierced and my hair dyed blue black (after which no one messed with me because they thought my friend Tracy and I were witches). 

My opponent was a bad ass heavy set chola who I will call Carla who wore her hair straight up blow dried with Aqua-Net.  Her little sister and I got into an argument and I talked trash to Carla when she confronted me on her little sister's behalf.

Carla told me to meet her in South Quad after school.  Word got around quick and my twin sister Jackie, who could throw down with the best of them, ran up to me at lunch and told me she had heard about the pending fight. 

Jackie looked at me and said, "You can't fight her Jenny.  That girl is tough.  She'll kick your ass."  She was right.  I sighed, "I know." 

Jackie continued to lecture me, "Dammit Jenny, why do you always have to talk shit if you can't back it up?  I didn't say anything.  Jackie hesitated and then shrugged her shoulders, "Fuck it, I'll fight her for you."

Jackie and I walked to South quad after school and I remember my proxy Jackie and that girl going at it, blow after blow, for what seemed like twelve rounds.  Jackie totally held her own.  I closed my eyes at some point and when it was all over, the general consensus was that the fight was a draw.  Jackie's only battle scar was a deep scratch down her face because the girl had raked her nails, nails which she had sharpened to a point, down Jackie's face.   

I don't remember if I hugged Jackie, but I should have because she saved me a serious ass kicking.

The third fight was in my twenties and it was more of a chase.  We were at Flamingo Hills in Pomona and Jackie got kicked out after she threw a drink at some girl who bumped into her.  Jackie took off with our younger sister Annie and I stayed until closing with my friend Gina. 

After last call, Gina and I walked out to her Silver Celica and as we were driving out of the parking lot, a car drove by and a girl hung her head out the window and pointed at me and said, "There's that bitch who threw the drink at me."

"Shit," I thought to myself.  Being a twin can suck at times.  I didn't try to explain to this pissed off girl and her three crazy friends that I was her twin.  They were convinced.  "Get out of the car bitch," one of the girls said as she tried to block us with her Toyota. 

"Drive," I screamed at Gina.  "Fucking drive."  Just two of us and four of them was not good odds.  Gina was tough, but I was a negative in the equation. I could do the math.

Gina maneuvered her car around the Toyota and the sped down Kellogg Hill toward the freeway.  Speeding as fast as she could, Gina hopped on the 10 West to the 57 North.  The Toyota followed us the entire way and when we exited in San Dimas, they continued to follow us down Arrow highway.   At one point, the car tried to run us off the road.  I was scared sober.

Finally, after at least an hour of chase, we drove by a police station and parked and just waited.  The girls drove by a couple of times, but finally gave up.

I chalked it up as payback for the fight Jackie fought for me years earlier.






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Puppy Love

I am playing doggie referee tonight.  My three dogs are all in the house together because big bucketfuls of rain are falling from the sky.  There is a lot of tension in the house (not all from the dogs because remember my mother-in-law lives with me). 

Neron weighs approximately 100 pounds and the combined weight of Frodo and Chewie is about twenty-five pounds.  Based on sheer power alone, Neuron should be the alpha dog, but Frodo and Chewie rule the roost with paws of iron.  Frodo is king and Chewie is prince and his second in command. 

One would think King Frodo would stay in costume and wear the royal red cape that I bought him for Christmas, but he refuses to wear clothing.

Frodo is laying on our couch with Chewie cleaning him and each time Neuron moves from his prescribed spot on the tile next to the patio door, Frodo bares his teeth and gives him a Gizmo like growl and then a deep bark if he doesn't listen.  Poor Neuron sits tearing up a towel and wagging his tail.  He just wants to play, but Frodo and Chewie won't play doggie games with this Rudolph like doggie.

Their hatred is escalating.  Last week, I let Frodo and Chewie out in the backyard and before I could say "bad dog", Frodo and Chewie cornered Neuron behind the barbecue and Frodo bit Neuron in his hind leg.  Neuron, silly big dog that he is, responded to Frodo's bite with a yelp and then turned onto his back, feet in the air. 

Now, I know what you are thinking.  Neuron needs to get some balls and this household needs Cesar Milan.  I know I need Cesar Milan. 

My dogs rule my life and I am sublimating my yearning for children with my obsession with Frodo and Chewie.  When I went on vacation to New York for five days, I came home a day early because I missed my dogs and my husband, in that order. 

I love seeing my dogs' furry faces when I walk in the house.  They make me happy even though they gnawed the legs of my dining room table along with all of our baseboards (and I won't go into the carpet issues).

No matter how many times Cesar Milan says that dogs are not human (as you can see, I have read his books), I see a consciousness in Frodo's deep black eyes that is humanish.  Frodo even sucks a blankie like a baby at night.  And sometimes, when Chewie looks at me from the corner of his soft brown eyes, I swear I know what he is thinking (usually it's about food because although Chewie is a ten pound Imperial mini Shih-Tzu, his appetite rivals someone five times his size.  Chewie eats so much that he throws up.). 

The funny thing is, growing up I was always a cat person.  My whole dog experience is a result of the fact that three years ago, right after we moved into our new house, my black cat Leopold Bloom was murdered.  Yes, murdered.  The assassin was either a coyote or a bobcat and was never prosecuted. 

I made the mistake of putting a bell on Leopold and the killer(s) tracked him.  I was at the fair and when I arrived home that evening, Leopold was not on the stoop as usual and I knew something had happened.  Later, we noticed claw marks on the back screen door, like he was trying to scratch his way into the house. 

My husband looked all over the nieghborhood for Leopold, including in all the drains, and I passed out flyers of Leopold in his Superman Halloween costume.  One night, I woke up at two a.m. because I thought heard meowing.  At the time the house next door was empty and I padded over there in my pajamas looking for Leopold, but he was not there.  Finally, I had to acknowledge that Leopold was in kitty heaven (there is a cat heaven and a doggie heaven too).

I went through a depression after Leopold died.  Leopold was with me all through Houston and and San Francisco.  I couldn't snap out of it.  In desperation, my husband took me to a pet store at Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga to cheer me up and I saw a black and white puff ball with polka dots on his tummy.  It was love at first nip and once we got Frodo home, my grief dissapated with the stress and joys of owning a new puppy. 

After a few months it became clear that Frodo was lonely.  We had Chewie shipped from a breeder in Kansas City, Missouri.  I picked him up from the airport and he looked like a kitten with matted reddish brown fur.  He smelled like pee, but he loved to snuggle and kissed me with the longest puppy tongue I have ever seen (his Gene Simmons tongue still doesn't fit in his mouth).   Once we had him shaved down, his hair grew back a soft caramel color. 

Then came Neuron.  I found Neuron in Banning, California.  At the time I was stationed at the courthouse there and was coming back from lunch with my colleagues.  A puppy ran down the street, we stopped my car and he jumped inside.

Neuron is the dog of many names.  His original name was Chelo, my friend and co-worker Jen named him after a restaurant in Banning.  I changed his name to Jack Shepard after the lead character in Lost.   But, alas it was not to be.  Once I brought him home, Frodo and Chewie attacked him and I had to take him to my in-law's house.  Orieta and Alberto promptly renamed him Nueron which only sounds good if you say it with an Argentine accent. 

When Alberto passed away, my mother-in-law came to live with us, Neuron came too.  We are one big cozy family now. 

At the fair a couple of months ago, a psychic said I would have three kids.  I looked at her like she was crazy and said, "I'm thirty-nine, unless I get pregnant soon and have triplets, that is very unlikely."  She looked at me and smiled.

I think she meant fur children.

This is not a love song

One of my favorite songs is "This Is Not A Love Song" by PIL (and not just because Johnny Rotten/Lydon sings it).  The song's refrain captures the way I feel about love in general.  I am an anti-sentamentalist and have a hard time saying how much I adore my husband without sounding sarcastic.  My sister Roberta is the opposite and I admire how she can say without any trace of irony how dearly she loves her husband.  If I tried to say that, I would add something smart ass to the end.

That is not to say I am not a romantic because I am.  There is a host of evidence to support my assertion. 

Rhett Butler was my first crush.  After reading "Gone with the Wind" at age eight, I vowed to write a sequel in which Rhett came back to Scarlett and they lived happily ever after. 

By the age of ten, I had read at least one hundred (a low estimate) Harlequin romance novels.  My father built a bookcase in our garage to house all of our family's paperback "literature".  My mom read them first and handed them off and I read them over and over until they were dog-eared, their pages crinkled by bathwater.  In grade school, my teachers commented on my mature vocabulary because I used words like ravished and swooned. 

I am a sucker for both a fairy tale and a chick flick.  I've seen "When Harry Met Sally" at least fifteen times and "Sleepless In Seattle" ten times. I heaved with sobs the last time I watched "An Affair to Remember".

My favorite singer is Morrissey (formerly of The Smiths) who is an alternative crooner of sorts.  His most romantic song is "There Is A Light Which Never Goes Out" ("And if a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die").  Two years ago, Adrian and I learned a tango to it and just last week, I sat in my car and listened to the song and imagined us dancing.

It's a given then that I am a hopelessly hopeful Libra romantic. 

My husband and I have been together for eighteen years, but only married for two. 

My nickname should be the patron saint of patience because it took me sixteen years to get Adrian to marry me and only when I gave up did he finally give in (there goes my serpent's tongue again).

We met at a club in Pomona, California called "Flamingo Hills" (now called Coco Cabana) located at the top of Kellogg Hill right where the 57 and the 10 freeways meet. 

The night we met was not one of my highest points fashion wise.  I wore a black pleated skirt with black tights and high boots and a white pirate like blouse with a black vest covered in small mirrors that Adrian later called my "flair". 

I was at the club with my twin sister Jackie and my younger sister Annie.  Although the music was good, my mood was not because my hair had frizzed out and my sisters had hooked up.  I walked around the cavernous club and every so often, I went to the bathroom and tried to fix my hair.

I stood in the corner and got madder and madder as I watched my sisters on the dance floor.  They could care less that I was alone.  I wanted to leave.

I heard a deep voice ask, "Hello, would you like to dance?"  I retorted with a short, "No".  As I turned around, I caught a glimpse of a tall handsome guy with black hair and striking features.  His two friends laughed and gave him grief as they walked away, "She dissed you, she didn't even turn around."

"Shit", I thought to myself.  A decent guy finally asked me to dance and I rejected him.  I wasn't about to let him get away and when a Depeche Mode song came on, I squared my shoulders and walked right back up to him, frizzy hair and all. 

His friends jostled him as I walked up which didn't intimidate me because his friends were way shorter than him.  I saw that he was even better looking than at first glance.  He had thick black hair, a dimple in his chin and hazel flecked eyes.  I was sure he could see my nervousness, "Do you want to dance?" I stammered.  He looked at me and nodded and held out his hand, "I'm Adrian," he said in a soft voice."

That night he got my number and called me the very next day.  We went out the following weekend. 

He picked me up from my apartment in Upland in a white convertible Mercedes Benz.  "Holy shit, this is a nice car," I said as he opened my door for me.  He smiled. 

We went to Acalpulco in Montclair for dinner and he impressed me when he ordered guacamole that the waiter made right there at the table.  His manners were impeccable, but he was shy and soft spoken which made me nervous.  I blabbed on and on and the more I talked, the more positive I was that he didn't like me.  The poor guy probably said five words during dinner.  Afterward, Adrian walked me to his car and said, "You have the most beautiful eyes." 

That was the beginning of our eighteen plus years together and time has gone by so fast that I cannot believe it.  We have been through everything together.   The good times, the bad times, the ugly fights, the beautiful moments along with the sadness and tragedies that make up life. 

When my dad was dying from pancreatic cancer, he used to tell Adrian that he was glad he didn't have to worry about me because he knew Adrian would.

It took us so long to get married that people had given up.  No one bugged us any more and I no longer hassled Adrian about it.  For the four years he was in dental school, I hounded him every day to get married.  He refused to talk about it.   Finally, enough was enough, if he didn't want to get married that was fine with me.  I was tired and owning a couple of houses and living together was enough for me.  I didn't need a piece of paper. 

That's when Adrian decided that he wanted to get married.

We planned a huge wedding, but decided to elope.  On December 23, 2008 (exactly two years ago this coming Thursday) we went to the San Bernardino courthouse and got married.  As I stood and recited my vows in the courthouse chapel, this avowed anti-sentimentalist got all teary eyed as I recited my vows in front of my mom and Adrian's parents.

That afternoon, Adrian's dad Alberto took us to the Mission Inn for lunch.   I wore a cream suit and hat for the occasion and of course, I spilled bright red salsa down the front of my shirt (damn those Shrimp Fajitas). 

That evening, life was back to normal.  Adrian and I went home to our Shih-Tzus and ordered a pizza for dinner and played video games all night. 

This story is a love song of sorts, but if asked, I will deny it.

The Fun House Mirror Effect

My seat wouldn't buckle on Sunday at Knott's Berry Farm.  Hence, I am now officially a part of the humiliated fat person club along with director Kevin Smith.  Smith was kicked off a Southwest flight for being too fat and is not bad company to be categorized with.  The choice between being skinny or being the genius who made "Clerks" is an obvious one. 

The evil ride at issue was the Joe Cool "skate" ride in Camp Snoopy, a little kid ride that looked like a humongous roller skate with seats attached.  The ride swished back and fourth as it traveled up in the air similar to a Viking ship ride.

As we got ready to board, I thought to myself, "those seats look really small".   I knew I should just forgo it and let my niece and nephew ride together.  I mean why humiliate yourself if it's avoidable?  Masochist that I am, I had to to try.  We waited more than an hour and shoot, I wanted to ride that damn roller skate. 

The teenager who worked there wasn't happy with me.  As I squeezed my too womanly butt and hips into the seat and pulled down the large bar, she looked at me with skepticism and said in a robot like voice, "Seatbelt." 

I looked back at her and attempted a charming smile.  Maybe she would let me slide.  It wasn't as if I was going to fall out because I was wedged in there so tight that I wasn't sure I could even get back out.

This girl enforcer wasn't playing.  She picked up one end of the seat belt and said, "It needs to buckle" and motioned to the other side of the belt which sat hopeless in my hand.  At that point, I gave up and tried for honesty as I responded, "It won't".   Then I shrugged and gave her my woeful hound dog look to see if she would take pity on me.  

No dice.  "You can't ride then," she said.  In one last sad attempt I tried to suck in my stomach and buckle the seat belt, but it was a no go and I finally gave up and heaved myself out of the seat.  As I fell onto the landing, I looked at the large Santa-ish man who sat in the seat behind me with his granddaughter and thought, "How the fuck did he fit?" 

Head down, I shuffled over to the waiting area with the parents.  No one said anything so I wasn't sure if they had noticed the incident. 

My family sure did.  My husband and mom stood in the sun with their hands shading their eyes as they shook their heads in unison.  I suspected my husband was trying not to laugh.  My five year old niece Sophia exited the ride and said, "Auntie, maybe you won't fit on any ride!"

For the record, Sophia was wrong because I easily squeezed myself into both the short bus ride and the Tugboat Lucy ride.

By the way, that stupid evil skate ride lasted thirty seconds.  If only I had known.

The whole horrible scenario made me think of a fact that I have known for quite a while.  It's something I have even discussed with my therapist.  I have reverse body image issues.  I think I am skinny, but I am fat. It's as if I see myself in one of those fun house mirrors that stretches you out.  Or maybe I know I am fat. but just forget sometimes.  Selective amnesia.  

I had the opposite problem when I was thin.  When I was thin, I thought I was fat and was always trying to lose weight which made me gain weight.  I look back at thin photos of myself and wonder what the hell was wrong with me.  I was hot.  I just didn't know it yet.

That's not to say I am not hot now because being skinny and being hot are too vastly different things.  Hotness is confidence.  It is about knowing who you are and loving yourself no matter what your weight.  I think that's my problem, my self esteem is simply too high.  I love myself too much and I know I still look hot in a classic black dress and high heels (albiet with Spanks).

My Fair IE girl

They say you can take a girl out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the girl. 

There are numerous cultural interpretations of this saying.  For example, "Pygmalion" (both the Greek myth and George Bernard Shaw's play and film), "My Fair Lady" with Audrey Hepburn (a reiteration of  Pygmalion) and of course, "Pretty Woman" with Julia Roberts.

I tried to reinvent myself and ended up right back where I began.  But, as another saying goes, it's not the destination, but the journey.  This is about my journey.

We didn't grow up in the ghetto.  That's not to say I never lived in the ghetto because I briefly lived in a rundown mobile home in the worst part of Pomona while in community college (for those who don't know, Pomona is at the eastern end of LA County and borders the IE). 

My family lived in a low income, but peaceful, suburban area of Ontario in the 1970's.  My parents worked hard.  My dad moved furniture and my mom waitressed.  Our house was off "D" Street just east of Grove Avenue. 

Most of our friends lived in the section eight apartments around the corner so we (and they) thought we were pretty well off.  Our clothes were new and bought at K-Mart, Zody's or Gemco, our family took periodic road trip vacations across the United States and my parents owned their house for most of our childhood (they only lost it after my dad mortgaged it to buy a bar).

My parents always said they were "bill poor".  A typical dinner was hot dog and potatoes, if mom cooked, or meatloaf if dad cooked.  We never went out to dinner except to Pizza Hut (which used to be a restaurant) and an occasional diner dinner.  Our special treat was when my dad brought home Pioneer Chicken. 

As a result, there were just some things I never experienced.  I never learned which fork to use.  I never went on a plane until the second summer of law school for job interviews.  I never traveled out of the country except to Tijuana and Rosarito.  I never even lived outside of California unless you count the first nine months of my life as an infant in Montana.

 All this changed when I took a job at the largest law firm in Texas and moved to Houston.

When I got the job offer at the Texas firm, I didn't even think about what it would be like to move by myself to another state.  I didn't consider what it would be like to leave Adrian and my family and friends.  Instead, I just packed up my apartment and left the week after my USC Law School graduation.  There was no time to waste because I had to start studying for the summer 2002 Texas bar exam (which I passed thank goodness).

The summer prior, I had worked at the firm and it was like something out of a movie.  The partners and associates took us to overpriced lunches, fancy dinners, and theater productions.   Basically, I was wined and dined right out of my mind.  When I was asked why Houston (and they always asked), I said it was a job offer I couldn't refuse. 

So there I was in Houston all by myself for the first time in my life at thirty years old.  I was scared shitless although as usual, I played it off well. 

I rented a small one bedroom apartment in the West University area of Houston.  My rent was $700 and my take home pay was more than ten times that amount.

In Houston, I reinvented myself.  In many ways, I became an adult there.  Before, I would never do anything alone, but in Houston I spent a significant amount of time alone.  I went to movies alone, I ate alone (with a book of course) and even went to the theater alone once (not recommended, but I couldn't resist "The Dead" by Joyce). 

I wasn't always alone.  I made some close friends.  My Latina twin friends Celia and Cecilia (confusing I know) lived in my apartment complex and we came from similar blue collar backgrounds.  Celia was a lawyer at another big firm in town and Cecilia was a writer in grad school at Rice.  We sat out on the balcony between our apartments in the humid Houston air and drank orange flavored margaritas.  We laughed and told stories and some of my homesickness subsided a bit.

It was hard sometimes.  I identified more with the people who served me at dinner than the people I worked with.  When I told my peers that my mom was a waitress and my dad moved furniture, they looked at me with open mouths. What would they have said if I told them I was a high school dropout?  I kept it to myself. 

That's not to say that everyone I worked with was hopeless and there were some surprises.  There was Nancy, an associate a year above me, who had graduated at the top of her class at U of H.  We became fast friends.  She had a wry, sarcastic way of speaking that I admired.  And there was an older white partner who mentored me and taught me that it wasn't about making partner, but about learning as much as you could.

I bought my first three hundred dollar purse.  Then I bought my second three hundred dollar purse.  We hung out at Four Seasons after work, used our American Express cards for drinks and appetizers and dropped a hundred on dinner without any thought.  I bought more and more stuff: nice clothes, a new Mercedes, a beautiful two story house (which needed a maid), and furniture.  Soon, I was a perfectly coiffed, brand name purse carrying version of my former self. 

Of course, and you had to know this was coming, eventually the sheen wore off.  After three years in Houston enough was enough.  I was miserable and sick of being alone.  Adrian had been accepted into UCSF Dental School so there was no chance he would move to Houston in the near future. I hated practicing civil law and my seventy hour work week and was severely depressed.   I even missed my crazy family.

So I took the summer off and took the California bar exam.

I found out that I passed the bar exam the night of the law firm "prom".  The law firm's prom was legendary and thousands of people attended every year.  It was a who's who of Houston society in attendance.  Men were in black tie and all the women were dressed in long gowns.  There were ice sculptures and oysters on the half shell.  It was one classy shindig.

My friends had bought me drinks beforehand to celebrate my passing and I stumbled through the party drunk on Martinis and the knowledge that I was free. 

Toward the end of the night, I approached some partners and their wives.  One of the partners congratulated me on passing the bar and before I could stop myself, I responded in a loud voice, "I am blowing this taco stand!" 

And I did.