The Boat and the Cooperative Rat

  At Angus Street we had a large teak picnic table with benches in our upper patio.  My father had laid all the slate and brick and made the backyard quite nice. He built a bar-b-que out of stone—which I never remember us using-- and made seats of wood slats.  This was where we entertained in the summer.  My uncle would come over and churn lemon custard ice cream.

 The picnic table was below a shading arbor and behind it was a bed of fuchsias planted into a stone wall.  When my parents were out of town it was my job to make sure those fuchsias had enough water.  When I was younger, I loved to go up to the patio and pretend that the table was a boat.  I would ride here and there in my imagination.

As summer arrived and friends and family came for bar-b-ques the table reverted to its original use.  My sister and I would go up and clean the table, cart out bowls of pickles, salads and potato chips and await the guests.   One summer, my mother discovered that we had a “wood rat.”  I think she thought that that name sounded a bit better than a regular old rodent rat. My sister and I were under strict orders not mention the rat at our dinner party that evening.  As we sat at the large picnic table, probably eating hamburgers I saw the nose and tail.  It was coming in the midst of our party and would be a nightmare for my mother.  I was seated next to one of my mother’s oldest friends.  I nudged her, gave her a look and then she saw it.  Thankfully, the “wood rat” scurried away and made its retreat.  My mother didn’t know until I told her the next morning.

The Plastic Thingies and the Honest Lobe

I don't know what they are officially called.  Those little clear plastic bits of tube that women--and maybe some men--put on the end of earrings for pierced ears to prevent the earring from falling out.  I had lost one.

I wear four gold—real gold, I might add—earrings.  I shower in them, sleep in them and rarely remove them from my lobes.

With the price of gold rising daily, I was doubtful as to whether or not a lost earring could be replaced without refinancing our home.  So to find a new back thingie became a mission.

I was in Melbourne, Australia when I noticed the loss. I mentioned it to my husband and because he had no interest in mortgaging our house to replace the gold earring that might fall out of my ear in a hotel bed, shower, bath, Malaysian restaurant or taxi in Australia, he eagerly joined in the hunt for the little plastic things of no particular name.

We were walking around the CBD at the time and came upon a Target Store.  I had been explaining that, at home, these little thingies were purchased in malls at CLAIRE’s at great mark-up.  They probably cost less than a cent to produce and are sold in a pack of 10 for $5.95---$6.25 in Canada (as per the back of the pack that I have at home).

But Target seemed a most likely option; better than the bookshops, pubs and office blocks that we’d passed. The “greeter” at the front door was of no help. I have found through life that when you ask someone a question to which they don’t know the answer, they lie, make something up or send you astray—especially if they are male—which was not the case in this instance.

In the girl’s defense (“defence” since it was in Australia) I have several things to say:  1. We were not in a Wal-Mart and I think I may have mistaken a shop girl who worked in a clothing department near the front door as a “greeter.”  2.  She may not have had knowledge outside of her department 3.  Maybe she didn’t understand our accents because there were plenty of times we didn’t quite get theirs. E.g. “Do you want a rhyme?” meaning, “room.”  But I digress.

I consider myself a fairly savvy shopper and instinctually knew that I was on a wild goose chase.  In spite of that we went to the earring section under the slope of the escalator. Each cheap metal set had the little plastic thingie on the back of the hooks.

I looked at my husband and whispered that I could easily remove the plastic thingie and no one would be the wiser. He was appalled—visions of CCTV cameras capturing my crime in grainy black and white, being stopped and shackled by ardent customs agents at Sydney airport then hauled into a little paneled room with no windows surrounded by bearded terrorist suspects, a man who tried to smuggle a snake in his trouser leg, a shuddering woman waiting to evacuate a condom of heroin, AND our professional reputations sullied all for the quick allure of one little plastic thingy. No.

The search continued.  And then we found NINA’s.

 NINA’s is the CLAIRE’s of Australia.  The girl behind the counter immediately knew what I wanted, and they were sold out.  BUT they had a sale on.  I bought the cheapest earrings I could find, took off the plastic thingies—my husband keeping the one not required in his wallet for future need.  With the plastic thingy firmly in place behind my ear, and acquired honestly, I gave the earrings to the clerk as a gift.  In actuality, two gifts were given that day. I have honest lobes.

My Bedroom Wall--The Pin Ups

About the time that I was 11 or 12 I started collecting magazine pictures on my bedroom wall.  Most of them were Purina Dog Chow commericials  with photos of Irish setters and labs. My wall had only two humans. 

Richard Chamberlain was the star of Dr. Kildare and I was in love. He was moral and kind and could save your life.  The other human on wall was Warren Beatty.  I can’t say the same for him.

Fast-forward to 1988 and my husband and I moved to Honolulu.  I knew that Richard Chamberlain lived in the city and I told myself, based on the small town feel, that some day I might meet him.

Around 1990 both my husband and I were working at the University of Hawaii and sharing a car.  I wanted to go home and my husband still had unfinished business.  He asked that I go to Safeway and “get in a shop.”

At the time I was reading a novel by Peter Lefcourt.  One of things mentioned in the book were the various classifications of Mercedes.  As I pulled into the Manoa Safeway, I noticed a Mercedes with a very up market number.  Then I looked at the driver.  IT WAS RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN.

Richard and his partner got out of their car.  I got a shopping cart and Richard got the one after me.  I refused—being from L.A.- to acknowledge him.   Though my heart was beating faster than a speeding bullet, I realized that my lifetime crush was gay.  I later saw him at a PBS fundraiser where a colleague took photos of me with him.  By this time, I was over the crush and aware of the plastic surgery.

This year, by a wonderful confluence of things, I attended the Academy Awards.  I was on the wrong side of the velvet rope when Warren Beatty and Annette Benning walked passed me.  I think that I was more excited about seeing her.  But now, in retrospect, I realize that I have fulfilled the dreams of my Angus Street wall. 

I’m pretty proud to say that YES—I have been in the presences of Warren Beatty and Richard Chamberlain.. They were my pin ups.  But I am most proud of being married to a man who was not on my wall.  

School Smells

A simple list of the school smells that I remember.  From elementary, jr. high and high school in no particular odor….oops, I mean order.

Wet paper towels in the bathroom

Algae water in the classroom aquarium

Shepherd's Pie in the cafeteria

Vomit...not as a result of Shepherd's Pie

Right Guard deodorant spray in the locker room

Boiling hot dogs on Hot Dog Day.

Sour milk in the lunchbox thermos that wasn't rinsed

Damp clay in ceramics class

The urine dankness of the underpass

Cinnamon rolls served at "nutrition"

Luden's cherry "cough drops"

High Karate aftershave

Formaldehyde on fetal pigs

TABU cologne by Dana

MarksALot  black pens

The alcohol on the freshly printed purple mimeograph papers

The soap in the bathroom soap dispensers

The blue fabric on the three ring binders

The buff, lined paper in elementary school

Brown paper lunch bags

Teachers wearing Estee Lauder “Youth Dew”on the off chance that they would seem youthful.

Spring Break in Moscow: Part Three

Jeans were a big deal during the Soviet era.  I don’t understand why the Soviets couldn’t make the equivalent to Levis….but they didn’t.  Jeans were a hot item.

So when I went, armed with the knowledge that jeans could easily be sold on the black market, I took a pair of worn demins that I had purchased at Fred Segal in L.A.

I’ve always loved fishing.  And trolling for jeans buyers didn’t take long.  Within minutes I was given rubles and the buyer had my jeans. 

I spent those rubles on a good meal in a restaurant and in a bookshop.  I bought a set of Anton Chekov plays.

A few years later, my soon to be husband took me to see The Cherry Orchard at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre.  I pulled out the Russian book and read up so I wouldn’t seem uneducated about the play.

Spring Break in Moscow: Part Two

Leningrad was beautiful. The gold of the Peter Paul cathedral glistened in the April light, the art of the Hermitage was overwhelming.  But the NO TOUCH ladies, as I called them, were everywhere; always stout and always in black, They were in every room of the museum and if one dained to go too close to a work of art, there was a scolding that transcended the language barrier. The NO TOUCH ladies also occupied every public bathroom.  Their job was to dispense one lone piece of toilet paper to each user.  The toilet paper was akin to the wax paper bags my mother used to pack my sandwiches in for school lunch.  These were the widows of World War Two.  The Soviet government made every effort to employ them, whether it be passing out toilet paper or sweeping the streets with twig brooms. 

Moscow was altogether different; a huge city with the Soviet era architecture that has also infected the look and landscape of Beijing.  Concrete, bold, stout—like the war widows—and crumbling.  It was when I went to Moscow University that I first came to the realization that all the red scare of my childhood was needless.  If the premier university was in such a state of shambles, what did this say about the Soviet Union? I had a private laugh at the folly of our fear. 

The Soviet Union Part One: Spring Break in Moscow

 Some college students go to Palm Springs, others to Fort Lauderdale, Miami or Cancun.  All for Spring Break.  I went to Moscow at the height of the Soviet era.  And Leningrad too.  But, of course, it’s now back to being called St. Petersburg.

It was 1973 and I was a graduate student at Stockholm’s Universitetet.  I lived on about 10 Kroner a day, which was the equivalent to $2.50-in those days.  My main meal was eaten in the student cafeteria and invariably coincided of torsk—a.k.a. cod.  Torsk with cream sauce, torsk with lemon, torsk fried, torsk in a casserole.  Always with boiled potatoes.

So money was an issue.  All my fellow students purchased the “femtikort” which was a bus pass that cost 50 kroner a month and gave unlimited travel.  Instead, I walked the roughly four kilometers to the university wearing black Swedish clogs and coat purchased in Pasadena, California. My leather-shearing coat, which had been a gift from my boyfriend’s brother-in-law, was stolen out of his car. Those walks gave me time to think and dream.  I sang Carly Simon songs to myself and once I found an Irish coin on the sidewalk.

In the early months of my program most of the students went on a trip to Goteland.  I chose to save my money.  But when spring break neared and the opportunity to go to the Soviet Union arose, I was in. 

As a treat I bought a copy of NEWSWEEK for the trip.  It happened to be the week that 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was in the cover after Leonid Brezhnev had exiled him from the USSR.

First our student group boarded a ferry that took us on an overnight trip through the Swedish archipelago to Helsinki, Finland. I slept on the floor between the seats of people who had booked a touch higher class than the carpet.  Helsinki was an amazing spring fest of market gardens, floral delights and reminded me of my mother’s love of the Marrmekko brand that has now been added to Crate and Barrel.  A touch of spring, cat tails and flowers and we were on the overnight train to Leningrad.

I was raised in a family that showed us the wonders of nature: Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Yosemite.  But the skies I saw from that 1940’s era train were like nothing I had ever seen.   They were the BIGGEST and WIDEST vistas that I hade ever seen. The train chugged across Finland and finally into the Soviet Union.

 And then when we were at the border of the country I had lived in fear of my entire life, I wondered what would happen. I tucked my copy of NEWSWEEK under the cushion of my seat.  My papers were in order.

 The Soviet custom guards entered the train and proceeded through every compartment.  When they came to mine, they lifted the cushion I was sitting on, removed the NEWWEEK with Alexander Solzhenitsyn on the cover and moved to the next compartment.

I found it frightening and wondered if they had bugged the compartment.   Soon waiters with hot tea in high glass containters and sugar cubes arrived to server us.

We were on the way to Leningrad.  Not the stuff of a little Silver Lake kid.