Here's to you, Melinda T!

I downloaded a Judy Blume book called "BFF" on my Kindle that contained two stories, "Here's to You, Rachel Robinson! and "As Long as We're Together."  By the first page of "As Long as We're Together", I was drawn in.  The story is about two best friends who get a third best friend when a new girl moves to town.  In the foreward, Judy Blume describes how the book mirrors her experiences in middle school with her two best friends. 

I also had (and still have to this day) two best friends, Melinda and Tracy. 

This story is about Melinda.

As I have told y'all before, I have known Melinda since I was a little girl growing up in Ontario, California.  We rode our bicycles through the surburban streets for most of my childhood.  Our friendship and history together is part of who I am.  We had crazy adventures, too many to count. There was the time we got drunk at a friend's house and walked home in the rain.   Somehow, Melinda came home dripping wet with only one shoe on. 

I wanted to be Melinda.  In junior high, I coveted her straight black spiky hair and her cool jean jacket with concert buttons lined up on the right side. 

In high school, she got even better looking.  She looked like a Mexican version of the lead singer of the Bangles.  I could never compete with her.  She was a total guy magnet. 

Melinda always tried to help me with my makeup and hair, usually to no avail.  She tried to straighten my hair for the junior prom and I ended up looking like a puffy poodle.  To make matters worse, the red dress I had bought looked good in the window, but it's shiny apple color didn't suit my skin.  Melinda looked amazing in a tight, irredescent lavendar dress and purple eyeshadow.

To make matters worse, Melinda had set me up with her boyfriend Todd's friend so we could double date for prom.  I had anticipated being set up with one of his handsome punker friends, but the guy who came with Todd to Melinda's door to pick us up that night was about five foot three with long Jesus like hair and a mustache. 

They took us to Cask and Cleaver and eternal optimist that I am, I tried to make the best of it.  The Jesus lookalike didn't say a word and the less he said, the more I babbled.  When we finally got to the dance, I tried to dance with him, but he kept counting in my ear.

Thankfully, Todd got caught drinking and we all got kicked out of the dance.  I don't remember what happened then.

What's funny is that many of my stories with Melinda are like that, in the sense that they end abruptly.  We had so many crazy times together that they all kind of blend together and trail off suddenly.  When we hang out, we talk about the old times and we have to chime in and correct one another. 

Maybe fiction would be easier.  But, the reality is much more sweet.

Monster-in-Law

I got into another argument with my monster-in-law.  She is the Argentine version of Godzilla to me right now. 

For those of you who don't know my back story, let me get you up to speed. 

My father-in-law Alberto died a little over a year ago.  My mother-in-law was devastated and my husband and I knew at seventy eight years of age that her living alone was not a good option.  She barely speaks English and doesn't drive on the freeway.  So, we cleaned out her house in West Covina and moved her into our newly decorated guest bedroom downstairs.  A couple of months later, masochists that we are, we moved my mom in too.  I suppose we wanted a matching set.

We found a tenant for my mother-in-law's house in West Covina house rather quickly.  Then, for some odd reason (hello, because my husband asked me to) I began managing the rental property.  If the tenant had a problem, I fixed it.  I didn't mind.  I knew my husband and his mom needed my help.  Plus. being a control freak is natural for me and I am convinced that I am the only one who can do things the right way.

It all blew up last week.  The tenant called me to renew the lease and I made an appointment for Saturday to do so.  When I called my mother-in-law from my lunch break to inform her of the appointment she said in her strong Argentine accent, "Why do you make an appointment with her?  That is my house.  I need to be there."  I took a deep breath and counted to three before I said anything, "Orieta," I replied, "Don't worry, of course you can be there."

They say no good deed goes unpunished and that is too true.  That next evening, my mother-in-law told me I was butting in where I was not welcome.  "I should be the one to talk to her.  I don't know why you called her," she said. 

I blew my top.

"I was trying to help you,"  I screamed.  "Do you think I have nothing better to do than call your tenant for you and renew your lease?  I work fifty hours a week and have my own rental property to worry about.  I could go get a massage on Saturday morning rather than drive you to West Covina." 

You are ridiculous," I added.  I was on a roll.  "You are the most ungrateful person I have ever met."

"Don't talk to me like that, I live here," she said in a stern voice. 

"Oh yeah, that's right you do live here," I responded with a turn of my head as I walked upstairs to my bedroom. 

Now, what is the moral of the story?  Is it, don't do things for others because you will never be appreciated?  Or is it, don't expect gratitude and just do things out of the goodness of your own heart.  The good deed is it's own reward. 

To tell you the truth, I don't know.  What I do know, however, is that I have to change.  My tendency to do everything is not limited to my personal life.  It is also my modus operandi at work.  Which is fine and good except that I never get the appreciation I think I deserve and get upset about it. 

Maybe the moral is that you can't please everyone, you can only please yourself and you should only go out of your way for those who are appreciative.

Or maybe there is no moral, just one rule.  Don't ever let your Godzilla like mother-in-law move in with you because you will live to regret it.

"But, wait", says the little voice inside my head, "Tell them the rest of the story."

On Saturday morning at eight a.m., my husband and I woke up and drove to Wrightwood for breakfast at a charming coffee shop called The Evergreen Cafe.  The mountains were covered in snow and I was glad I had worn my snow boots.  We waited for my sister-in-law Sally and my nephew Nicolas to arrive.  After an hour of my husband and I sipping on our coffee, my phone rang.  I went outside the cafe and climbing out of the car was Sally and Nicolas along with my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law Gabe.

My mother-in-law gave me a kiss on the cheek as if everything was fine.  I looked at Gabe with a scowl, "Don't you have an appointment with the tenant this morning?" I asked him. 

"Oh, we didn't make it," he said with a shrug. 

"Well, did you call her and cancel?" I asked him in a sharp voice.  "You need to call her and cancel."

As he fumbled with his words and then for his phone to make the call I smiled and thought to myself, amateurs.

date night

My husband Adrian and I have a date night tonight at the Mission Inn.  We have been together almost twenty years, but have only been married for a little less than three years.  It took Adrian almost seventeen years to marry me.  I call myself the patron saint of patience, but, in reality I was not patient at all. 

We had been together twelve years when I moved to San Francisco to join Adrian in his second year of dental school at UCSF.  I left my prestigious six figure law firm job in Houston for him and I didn't let him forget it.  I bugged Adrian every day for two years to marry me.  And, I do mean every day, sometimes twice a day. 

In his third year of dental school, Adrian (finally) asked me to marry him.  He proposed in Sonoma County by the ocean.  His original plan was to ask me in a hot air balloon in Napa, but I nixed that idea quickly.  "Are you fuckin crazy?  I am scared to death of heights," I reminded him in a sharp voice.  "Ummm, I guess I will cancel it," he told me in a sad little voice.  "Damn right you will", I thought to myself. 

And I wonder why it took him so long.

The proposal did not start out auspiciously. We were driving back home to San Francisco from the bed and breakfast that we stayed at in Mendicino and every time we stopped to look at the cliffside ocean views I tensed up thinking Adrian would ask.  But he didn't.

About an hour into the drive, I had to go to the bathroom and we stopped at a beach.  I used the portable restroom and came running out with my pants around my ankles chased by the bees that had reared their ugly heads when I opened up the toilet. 

Shortly after I had pulled up my pants, Adrian decided that was the perfect moment and got down on a knee right there in the sand and told me he loved me and wanted to marry me.  Even though I knew I had forced him to ask me through my persistent entreaties, I said, "yes". 

It took Adrian another three years to marry me.  It wasn't the wedding we had planned, but when I said my vows at the San Bernardino City Hall in front of Adrian's parents and my mom it was as if I was saying the words in a cathedral with vaulted ceilings.  I could feel God's presence and the weight of my vows echoed in my head as I said them.

The only thing missing was my dad.  Right before he died, my dad told Adrian that he knew he didn't have to worry about me because Adrian had always taken good care of me.   On the day of my wedding, I know he was looking down at us from the big casino in the sky smiling. 

After the civil ceremony, Adrian's dad Alberto, who died a little more than a year ago, took us all to lunch at the Mission Inn.  I spilled salsa on my cream wedding suit and I remember Alberto shaking his head and laughing as he said in his Argentine accent, "Juanita, I love you."

Tonight at the Mission Inn, I will remember us all around the table as I raise my wine glass to the heavens.

Sweet and Tender Hooligans

I turned forty on Friday and as I sat on the cruise ship sipping a Malibu and Diet Coke, I reflected on my life, especially my childhood years. My childhood was scary and difficult in many ways.  Yet,  my teenage years, while also chaotic and scary at times, were amazing in the way only the teenage years can be.

My favorite activity in high school was ditching. When my mom dropped us off at Chaffey High, my twin sister Jackie and I ran and grabbed our best friends Melinda and Tracy and maneuvered ourselves off campus by car or bus. We walked the Montclair Plaza and begged for quarters. “Could we please have a quarter," one of us would say in a sweet voice. "We need to call our mom to pick us up." 

Picture this. Melinda has spiked black hair and is wearing her typical attire of ripped jeans and a tight blouse. Tracy and I have thick black Siouxsie eyeliner on and concert tees with thermals covered by men's boxers and combat boots. Jackie has blond bangs and is probably wearing some type of lace dress. Suffice to say, Jackie and Melinda usually did the asking. I would not have given us a dime, but people did.

We earned a little or a lot of dough depending on how crowded the mall was. Sometimes, we accidentally asked the same people twice and they looked at us with a scowl sensing a scam. With our stash, we shared fast food in the mall's food court. Melinda and Jackie preferred pizza rolls from Sbarro's. Tracy and I usually shared a corn dog.

After eating, we stood out in the front of the mall and chain smoked. We bought our cigarettes at the liquor store next door to Melinda's duplex with a note signed by my mom (aka my handwriting). We smoked Marlboro Lights. I first started smoking in seventh grade when a girl named Christy asked me to come to her house after school. She lived in the Section Eight apartments across the street.  We took a pack of her mom's Virginia Slims from the freezer. Christy taught me how to smoke in the park behind the restrooms. I only coughed a little.

Back to the ditching, one day, Melinda and I ditched without Jackie and Tracy and drove to Hollywood in Melinda's 1964 White Covair.  We had heard a rumor that the new Oingo Boingo album was going on sale at Tower Records.

When we arrived at the record store, we noticed some commotion and realized that the band was there. I shook hands with the lead singer Danny Elfman while Melinda chatted with Johnny Vatos the drummer. We screamed the whole way home.

When we got back late that afternoon, I raved to Jackie about meeting Oingo Boingo and she yelled with tears in her eyes, "Oingo is my favorite band, not yours!"  To this day, Jackie still harbors a grudge.

Our other favorite pastime was crank calling. We flipped through the phone book and picked a random number to call. When someone answered we asked, "Is your refrigerator running? Yes? Then go catch it." The joke was old and stale but it never got old to us. Elderly people's reactions were always the funniest.

Tracy and I also figured out a way to get free food by calling restaurants to complain. For some reason, we always used an English accent. Tracy would call McDonald's and say in her best British voice, "I just bought some food and found a hair in my Big Mac." Typically, the manager would get on the phone and say, "Please accept our apologies and pick up food on us." 

I remember one time, we picked up our food wearing my mom's fake furs, high heels and huge sunglasses. I suppose we thought we were incognito, but the reality was that we just didn't care what people thought.

In the end, I suppose that is what I miss the most as an adult. I worry about everything and am always analyzing my behavior (sometimes admittedly over analyzing). But. as a child and teenager, I never worried about the effect of my actions. I just wanted to have fun.

Maybe I need a little more fun and little less worrying.  Cheers to that.

The Big 40

I turn forty in three weeks.  Forty is supposed to be the new thirty, but it doesn't necessarily feel that way.  There are some days where I feel sixty.  Yet, there are other days where I wake up feeling like I am sixteen and blast the Smiths while driving to work with a smile.

Many would say I have accomplished a lot in the last forty years.  I made it through my childhood for one.  And through my crazy twenties.  I almost self destructed more than once and it was not for lack of trying but instead through sheer grace and luck. 

This weekend we hung out in Hesperia at my mother-in-law's house. The house that my late father-in-law Alberto built.  People often put down the high desert, but I am beginning to see why my husband loves it so much out there.  Please don't tell him though because I am loathe to move over the Cajon pass (...over the Cajon pass and through the desert to my mother-in-law's house we go...).

We hung out, swam, went hiking, ate Pozole, drank margaritas and played Mexican Train Dominos.  Life should not be about being always on the go.  It should be about relaxing and spending time with family.

In my twenties life was about the party.  In my thirties, life was about accomplishments.  Now that my forties are almost here, I need to figure out what life is about.  Maybe it should be about reinvention?  Or maybe it should be about challenging myself?  The truth is, I am not sure.  I will just have to wait and see.



 

girl time

Tonight, watching a rerun of "Sex and the City".  I am struck by the accurate way it portrays female friendship.  As the four women sit around a breakfast table at a posh Manhattan restaurant, they talk about life, their loves and the lack thereof.  Earlier tonight, I had sat at TGI Friday's and engaged in a similar deep conversation with two girlfriends of mine.  Life was mirroring art although my girl talk was a less hip suburban version of Carrie's experience.

When women get together we talk.  We really talk.

And, there is a difference on this issue between men and women.  Men (at least straight men) do not bond with their friends the way women do.  Men do activities together like watching sports and going to bars, but if you ask what they talked about the answer is usually something superficial about a car or the newest weapon on Black Ops. 

I have always pitied women who give up their friends when they get into a relationship.  We have all known these women although they probably don't know themselves.  They are the women who go to a bar with friends for a girls night and hook up within five minutes and stay with the same guy all night.  That kind of girl has always annoyed me to no end.  If it is a girls night out, the point is to hang out the with girls and the guys are irrelevant.  Fortunately, I do not have girls like this for close friends.

I have two best friends.  I have known my best friend Tracy since I was sixteen.  I admired her from afar in high school.  She was a cool punk rock chick and I was a nerd with glasses.  When we got a class together we hit it off instantly.  She was the yin to my yang and still is.  I talk to her every day and we talk about everything.  And, I mean everything.

Melinda is my "other" best friend.  We call each other cousins.  She is like part of my family and although we sometimes lose touch and get caught up in the chaos of ordinary life, it doesn't matter.  When we see each other, it is like we are kids again.  We have known each other since we were in elementary school and grew up blocks away from one another in Ontario.  Her mom watched us most afternoons after school.  My twin sister Jackie and I would ride our bikes for hours with Melinda.  When I think back to my childhood, Melinda is always right there beside me.  In my mind's eye, Melinda and I are usually sitting behind the liquor store smoking a cigarette. 

That is what friendship is about after all.  It is about having adventures with someone.  Being the Lucy to someone's Ethyl.  Or about being Carrie's Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte.

Food Wise II

On July 5th, I had my weight loss surgery and now, some seven weeks later, I am down forty pounds.  Forty pounds.  That is the weight of a small child.  And, damn it, I feel good.  Yesterday morning, I went running with my dogs and as my feet pounded the pavement to the sounds of Amy Winehouse, I felt almost weightless.

Not that everything has been easy.  I cannot eat much at any one sitting.  It is hard to eat enough and I struggle to get the required calories in.  On Saturday, we barbequed in Hesperia and when I sat down to dinner, I had two forkfuls of salad and was done.

My husband has definitely noticed the difference and squeezed my butt on Sunday.  It felt delicious.  Like when we were dating.

And, I don't mean to be graphic but the sex has been awesome.  Niagra Falls kinda awesome. 

So despite my intial regret at having the surgery, I am glad I did it.  I am happy I took the plunge to get to a better me.  When I sit down to think about it, I don't think I would have ever lost the weight naturally.  I would have hemmed and hawed and maybe lost twenty pounds and then put back on thirty.  A year later, I would have been at three hundred pounds having to do the surgery with more risk factors.

Obviously, my story does not end here.  I still have a long way to go.  My short term goal is to be down fifty pounds by my fortieth birthday on October 7th.  My long term goal is to have lost one hundred pounds by the end of February. 

And then, watch out world, this skinny bitch will be lighting the world on fire.