Friday, May 18, 2018

The Bastard Line




While all of you may be excited to watch the Royal Wedding tomorrow, I am quite cross about it.  I'm not sure if I will wake up in the wee hours of the morning to view a wedding that I should be attending, even though as an American I wouldn't be caught dead with one of those bird's nests on my head.  (Sidebar: If you ever go to a wedding in England you can spot a Yank girl, by her garish bareheadedness).  Attending weddings in England has been de rigueur in my life lately.  Little nieces and nephews are taking the plunge in droves.  Even my sis-in-law has decided to get into the action for the third time, this coming autumn.  (Since I missed her first two, I'll be damned if I'll miss the third).  But, back to Harry: shouldn't family members, like me get an invite?  It's just good manners Haz and Megs!  Come on, Megs, we are both California girls with only the Malibu Canyon separating our childhood homes.  

In order to explain, let me introduce you to my late Irish great grandmother, Marguerite Wilson Haymes.  Oh Marguerite,  your Christian name must have been Margaret, don't try to fool us.  I've been researching family history for years and the facts of your life remain stubbornly mysterious.  The branches of your line have been sheared away by many myths and tales of your own making.  Your early life, tough to pin down is an enigma.  To quote your son, (my grandfather) Dick Haymes,

"My mother has that unique ability to tell a story the way she wants to believe it and that eventually becomes fact, so my mind isn't totally clear about my earliest beginnings"

Here's what we know:  You were born in Dublin to an English father and an Irish mother.  You were raised in Santa Barbara...umm, really?  How did you get from Dublin to Santa Barbara in the late 1800's? According to the biography, The Life of Dick Haymes by Ruth Prigozy, you did.  But in the short memoir of Dick's brother, Bob, you went straight from Dublin to London.  

Now I know memoir writing can be subjective, hello...that's what I do.  I'm the Queen of Subjectivity.  Even so, I found Bob's account of you slightly more plausible:  beautiful teenager arrives in London in 1913, gets lucky and lands a spot in the chorus of a West End musical produced by Charles Dillingham.  During the run of the play, Marguerite claims to have: 

"been taken to a very exclusive party to meet Edward, Prince of Wales.  They hit it off immediately and spent many an evening together as well as Sundays in the country.  Among her friends at the time, most believed that Royal Tradition had been uninterrupted".   

So, my great grandmother, Marguerite entertained  Edward the Prince of Wales.  A question remains; just how entertained was he?

Now, I am not one to dig into the (ahem) "primal relations" of my ancestors.  Having said that, I'm grateful to them for their rolls in the hay.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

The fact is that Marguerite was a beautiful woman who was playing the field and had many beaus.  Bob Haymes' memoir says that she met "a quietly handsome gentleman from Argentina, supposedly in London on business who soon made Marguerite his sole occupation".  He was 20 years her senior and he brought her to Argentina where she gave birth to Richard Benjamin Haymes 11 months later.  The cunundrum is that I'm a clone of my mom who is a clone of her dad who is a clone of...you guessed it: Edward Prince of Wales.  


Prince of Wales





The "Haymes" look consists of fair skin, light eyes and a turned up nose.  Slightly, elven in appearance, often freckled, these Haymes genes are like bamboo in a garden.  Something you can cut back, but never entirely eradicate.  The musical talent strain has thinned out through the years although all six of Dick's children can sing.  Exceptionally well.  And all of the grandchildren, heck, even the great grandchildren are purveyors of music.  I don't know if Edward Prince of Wales,  was musical but Marguerite was.  She was a vocal coach in New York City for many years.  And she did prefer to be called Tutti by her grandkids; an Italian musical term which means, "all together, voices and orchestra".

So are we really related to the Prince of Wales/Duke of Windsor?  Who can say?  



Prince of Wales
There is a strong resemblance.  It could be coincidence.  It feels good to think I'm related to someone who would give up the throne for true love.  It also feels good to know that these days, even Royals can marry whom they choose to love: divorcees, commoners and Americans. 

The alternative scenario is that Benjamin Haymes of Argentina is my great grandfather.  In which case, I'm descended from Robert the Bruce of Scotland.  Braveheart?  Not too shabby of a lineage.  Now that is something I can wrap my kilt around.



Ok.  All this talk of lineage and ancestry does inspire my love of family and tradition.  So, out of duty to my future descendants I will get up early, grab a cup of black coffee, put on my Uggs and watch the Royal Wedding.  Fine. Twist my arm about it!  After all, Harry is marrying a Valley Girl.  And OMG, like, who can resist that?



Tutti

Dick and Tutti 1940's

















Friday, May 11, 2018

The Futon




Juliet was tired of sleeping on a futon with only a tatami mat separating her from the cold floor.  I can’t say I blame her.  After all, the house she lived in with my son was damp.  Moldy, P.G. damp, and though I never went to the house, its smell wafted toward me every time Ian came over to visit.  The musty, moist smell of an un-insulated house typically graces our Peninsula.  We are lucky to have some of the cleanest air in California with our forest, but there is a trade off.

When Ian and Juliet, after a year after dating, announced they were moving to Portland I nodded my head with a half smile.  My son Ian has always been grandiose about his plans.  His big ideas have ranged from walking the Pacific Crest trail solo, blowing glass art to becoming a dental hygienist   When he was in high school, he told me he was torn about his career: he couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to become a DJ or a Shaman. 

This time, though, he was serious.  He needed to finish his bachelor’s degree and wanted to do it at Portland State University.  He’d been there once, to visit Juliet during the previous summer when she was spending time visiting her aunt.  And so he gave three month’s notice, leaving a technical managerial position in one of our local hotels.  I’d miss him walking through my front door, unannounced, heading straight to the fridge, but I also knew that this was a positive and necessary development.  I believe that young adults should all have an opportunity to live in a city.  Cities can be good teachers and Portland seemed like a reasonable choice. 

The other mitigating factor was housing.  The sponge that Ian lived in came with a roommate and  though Ian and Juliet didn’t mind living with him; they wanted their own place.  Privacy.  Finding a place to rent here with a tiny budget is like finding a shard of sunlight in an underwater sea cave in Antarctica. 

So, being the nurturing co-dependants that we are, my husband and I agreed to drive a moving van full of furniture to Portland.  We were motivated to undertake this task because we like to help, and we wanted to see where they would be living.  We had heard it was a Neighborhood of Transition.  We have lived in more than a few “transitional neighborhoods” which made me nervous.  Plus, I would sleep better knowing I could track Ian on my Iphone along the 13 hour, 740 mile journey.

Ian, Gerard and I left Carmel at 3:00am; Ian, in his little white Miata, and Gerard and I in a large dodge rental van.  Before reaching to Hollister we were separated and with a flurry of tense texts exchanged, Ian was alone, conversing with a homeless man in front of Casa de Fruita while Gerard and I first began suffering through the stench of the furniture.  The musty smell permeated not just the futon, but everything and I told Gerard that we would have to wipe down things before they were brought into the new apartment.

Juliet was already in Portland waiting for us.  She and Ian had wanted to sell the futon, but did not have time and could not leave it at the rental house.  Juliet had been working  eight days a week at a local restaurant and Ian had just survived our Peninsula's Car Week so the futon was loaded up much to everyone’s olfactory distress.

Gerard rigged a nice buffer between and the futon and our nostrils by using bungee cords and some moving blankets.  Gerard is a genius on many levels, and this simple fix was helpful in quelling the distracting smell.

As the sun began to rise we became more alert.  We always have a great time driving together, even when we are bickering and driving together, but all in all, it was a time of laughter, music and podcasts.  We drove through Sacramento with little fanfare.  The I5 is the armpit of California, but the scenery does improve the further north you go.  The best part of the drive was watching the appearance of Mt. Shasta.  It came upon us unexpectedly.  It was majestic and mysterious and I was plummeted into memories of a houseboat trip that our family went on when I was a young child. 

We stopped in Ashland for a late lunch, eating, large deli sandwiches while standing alongside a counter, listening to 80’s music.  Back in the car we watched as the scenery changed.  A curvaceous road emerged with green mountains and low valleys smiling in the afternoon sun.  Everywhere we looked; trees flourished, rivers hugged the van and the air was charged with warmth of an Oregon summer. 

Finally, after dealing with Portland traffic, and a faulty navigation system, which took us in four different directions, we arrived in the Neighborhood of Transition to a bubbly Juliet who jumped up and down in delight.  I forgot to mention that Juliet is a beautiful girl and one of her best features is her laugh that sounds like a small set of chiming bells.  Their reunion was fun to watch, the nectar of a moment, a memory that Gerard captured on his phone.    

The apartment in the Neighborhood of Transition has several requirements for entry: an intercom, a key for the front lobby, a key for each floor in the building, and of course a key to the apartment.  Built in the 1930’s, the place has character.  The kitchen has an old fashioned sink with the faucet attached to the wall, and black and white countertops accented with sea foam green tiles.   In the dining room, cute wooden built in cabinets with Greek key molding.

Speaking of mold, Juliet was not happy to see the futon.  She said,

"Oh let’s not bring that thing upstairs".

Gerard and I exchanged a look and wondered if the valet parkers of our booked hotel would survive.

But, Juliet’s father, (who is employed as baggage handler for a major airline) has razor sharp unloading skills and with the help of him, Gerard, the Aunt, myself and the two small cousins who acted as doormen, the van was unloaded in less than 40 minutes.  Including the large hard bamboo tatami mats for the futon.  Unlucky us, we were stuck with the futon.

Portland is hot in August and it was 86 degrees that evening.  Gerard and I had done our due diligence and left to check in to the downtown Marriott off the Morrison Bridge.

The adorable young blond valet attendants were gracious about the van, which was covered in nutshells, water bottles and brown bags filled with empty wrappers.   We walked into the refreshing air-conditioned lobby and dragging our suitcases upstairs, proceeding to get cleaned up for dinner.  We had been awake for hours and our bodies still hummed with the vibration of a 14 hour car journey.  Deciding to eat downstairs we headed to the hotel restaurant where we ordered burgers from a sweet 20 something covered in tattoos and body piercings. 

We were shocked at how delicious our dinners were.  The burgers, covered in melted Tillamok cheddar, were cooked to perfection.  The side salad was so fresh, its phytochemicals created a symphony of tongue and plant.  Everything about this meal screamed Organic, Farm Raised, Grass Fed and GMO free. 

The next morning, after a refreshing sleep we headed back to the apartment where we encountered a neighbor, Poppy, a wisp of a mom outside of the building smoking a cigarette, or maybe a joint.  She had in tow, two small children.  One was an infant, the other about 3.  The disheveled children danced around her as we conversed and we told her about the futon and the tatami mats.  She told us she had met Ian and Juliet and that they “seemed cool”.

Juliet and Ian were glad to see us, but Juliet did not want the tatami mats in the apartment.  So, we hauled them back downstairs to the van, Poppy, observing us. 

She thought the mats “seemed cool”

"Oh, you don’t want them", I told her.  "They are really green underneath". 

"That’s okay.  I can clean them.  They would be fun for the kids to play on.  I can take the futon off your hands too".

"Poppy, I don’t think that’s a good idea.  It might be hazardous to your children" I said, genuinely concerned.

"How much do you think they want for the mats?" she asked.

"Nothing!" said Gerard.

"That seems cool.  I’ll take them, but I’ll need your help getting them into my place".  Poppy drove a hard bargain.  So, after loading the tatami mats into the van, we unloaded them and brought them into Poppy’s apartment where they would live out their usefulness.

It was then that Ian and Juliet told us that they wanted to go to Ikea to pick up some things.  As I walked into Ikea it started to dawn on me that the demographic of Portland was markedly different than Carmel.  Everyone here, including the employees, looked 12 years old.  People our age were the exception. (And many of them ignorant of hair dye, poor souls.)

After an hour of listening to ruminations of bed frames, mirrors and hand towels, Gerard and I sat down at the Ikea cafĂ© for some caffeinated and chocolate driven reinforcements.  The children were at the registers paying which was in itself, a grand phenomenon to behold.

Sweaty, disheveled, and physically sore, I turned to my husband and said,

"I haven’t seen anyone over the age of 30 in the last 24 hours.  Who is in charge of this place?"

He laughed and said the average age of a Portland citizen is 30.

"I’m serious, Gerard.  How do they manage to get things done?  It’s like being dropped into a college campus.   And there are so many homeless people here, under the bridges.  They all seem to be Ian’s age.  Where are their parents?  What happened to them?" 

He reminded me that eventually we would have a millennial as our president. Before that thought began to percolate in my brain, the kids were back, pushing a giant flat bed cart.  They were ready to go home and build a bed, so could we please back up the van into the loading zone?

That night, Gerard and I had a long think about the futon.  We knew our nostrils could not stand another 13 hours with that thing.  But, we didn’t know what to do with it.  Gerard wanted to drop it under the Morrison Bridge for a homeless person to use.  His brazen plan was to stop abruptly, mid traffic, and have me push the thing out at the first person I saw.  Absolutely not an option, I told him.  The homeless in Portland are aggressive.  It could be dangerous.

In the early morning, our plan was to meet the kids at Voodoo doughnuts and head back to California.  Climbing back into our spore-laden purgatory and glancing at the heavy white futon in the back, I knew that we had to do something.  As we drove through the streets of downtown Portland on a Sunday morning, all seemed calm.  The homeless were not visible, but their things were and as we parked the van I noticed a small collection of belongings near a corner: a blanket, a crate and a canvas bag.  That’s when I had my idea.  Gerard left the van and wandered up the street to look for the Pay and Display machine (yes, even on a Sunday), while I climbed into the back of the van.  I looked around and saw no people.  The shops were closed.  I opened the van door, jumped out and with all of my weight training might, pulled that heavy smelly cumbersome futon out on to the sidewalk.  Quickly I closed the door, resuming my position in the passenger seat.  Gerard walked toward the van: disbelieve, then laughter spreading over his face.

"Come on, let’s go try these famous doughnuts and find out what the fuss is about"  I said, nonchalantly.

And we did.  In front of Voodoo doughnuts we watched, amused, as the homeless ran circles around the cops.  They obviously had the control.  The cops, who again, looked 12, enforced them much like a set of Playmobil or Lego Men would.  They stood, hands on their hips, with vacant smiles, nodding and trying to keep a buffer between the homeless and the tourists.

Just as I was finishing my chocolate old fashioned a young homeless man approached me.

"Got have any money?" he asked. 

"I already donated today," I told him, nicely. Because, technically it was true.

"Well you didn’t donate to me" he said, storming off in a huff.

Our time was up. We said our tearful goodbyes to the kids and wondered just how they would cope.  Neither had a job yet, but while they may have lacked income, they were rich in optimism, the value of which is priceless.  Knowing that the world is an imperfect place, but also knowing that we can’t protect them forever, we walked back to the van arm in arm.  To our delight, the futon was nearby, folded neatly with someone’s belongings.  It had been claimed!  What a perfect start to the day.  Besides, if it made someone on the streets of Portland feel a little more comfortable on a hot summer night then that alone was worth it’s 740 mile delivery service.


















Friday, May 4, 2018

The Magic Maid


In the 70’s my mom and dad had a traditional marriage.  They were not hippies.  They preferred scotch to marijuana, and Nixon over McGovern.  They stayed within the boundaries of their upbringings, rarely questioning the status quo.  In fact, when my mother got pregnant with me while she was in college, my father immediately married her.  Had Roe vs. Wade been established, it’s very possible that I would not be here to write this essay.  In short, they were good people who did the right thing 99.9 percent of the time.  Was their marriage happy?  Not really.  Even so, they both knew how to get what they wanted from one another, even if on the sly.

The house in Malibu my parents purchased in 1971 had cost them 66k, a huge stretch.  They were nervous about such a large mortgage.  It seems laughable now, that people spend more than that on a kitchen remodel.  Inflation is a baffling concept that requires the passage of time before its full effect can be appreciated.

My father commuted to Downtown LA five days per week, working well over the 40 hours his salaried position paid.  He was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever known.  He left for the office early in the morning to beat traffic and arrived home roughly 12 to 14 hours later.  We only had family meals on the weekends.

My mother, so young and restless (come to think of it, that was her favorite Soap Opera), stayed at home.  What she got up to during the day, I’m not sure.  But she was always pulled together, manicured and coiffed to perfection wearing her rhinestone covered T-shirts and her Chemin de Fer jeans.  She has always been hip and beautiful, so this is no great revelation.

My mom’s job was to “keep house”.  Our house was the jewel of the street.  My aunt christened my mom the “Better Homes and Garden Sister” a term bestowed with some envy.  But hey, my mom had style and flair.  She loved to decorate and was always moving furniture around, (still one of her favorite past times).  She created terrariums out of Sparklett’s water bottles and had our entire entry hall covered in cedar shingled paneling.   Any time a guest entered, they would remark that our house smelled like fresh pencils.  It did.

Still, my mom got frustrated at times, having to keep a 3000 square foot house clean.  It had a huge entryway, formal living and dining rooms, a large kitchen with an attached family room, a lower level den with a spare guest room, and three other bedrooms along with three full bathrooms.  The Brady Bunch abode had nothing on our tri level 1970’s beauty in Sunset Mesa.  

I wonder if Mom was fed up, having to follow us kids about, picking up our messes.  You know how it is with children: the minute they see a clear space in a room, like homing pigeons, they gravitate toward it, ready to create a new hurricane.  Board games and blanket cities made alongside the ambient music of the Partridge Family on a portable record player, dragged from the bedroom, and a round of “52 card pick up” flying toward the ceiling, just to finish off the disaster.   In short, my friends and I were always busy, always creative.

In the kitchen we painted, sometimes by numbers and sometimes just on rocks.  We did wood burning with pyrography pens, making peace signs and daisies on pieces of pinewood.  We crocheted yarn into long chains for no purposes, beyond tying our younger siblings to chairs.   And we’d steal away into our parent’s walk in closets for darkness, to use a Ouja board, or a Lite Brite. Naturally, we never put things away unless threatened with death or no dessert.

We lived with typical American excess, game boards crashing on our heads as we tried on tippy toe to retrieve things off tall shelves in our bedroom closets.  And, when my friends and I got bored, we’d just move to another house and create mountains of destruction in a different setting.

We were not a dirty family, just messy.  Some houses were a lot worse, but still, my mom was drowning in housework and childrearing.

My dad, the progeny of people reared during the Great Depression, was a chronic worrier, especially about money.  Thus, he had placed my mom on a strict budget.  It pissed her off.

So when she asked my dad if she could hire a cleaning lady once a week he said,

“Absolutely not.  We cannot afford that”

A few weeks later my dad asked my mom to pick up his custom made suits from the Wilger Company in Westwood.  The total for three suits was over $900.  It was a revelation; the life vest she needed in her drowned sea of toys. 

And, I can’t afford help, she thought.  Hmmm

So, she hired Leticia. 

Leticia came to clean with her long glossy black hair tied into a ponytail, her small shy smile revealing white teeth.  She was eager and sweet, her brown doe eyes shining as she gloved up, ready to attack our large house.

Coming home after school on a Wednesday, my nose would fill with the scent of bleach and Pine Sol.  I’d enter the house and feel the calm and order of her visit.  Charging up to my room I’d see that she’d made my bed perfectly, aligning my stuffed animals into a little semi circle around the pillows, like they were having a weekly Stuffed Animal Convention.

Post Leticia: no wet towels on the bathroom floors, no slimy dishes in the sink and the piles of our shag carpeting standing with military precision.

My dad would come home from work and would admire what he thought was my mom’s homemaking genius.

Once, he peered into my three-year -old brother’s closet and noticed all of his little shoes: Keds, sandals, slippers and Stride Rites, lined up along the doorjamb, their heels equally spaced. 

“Wow, Jason – your shoes look so orderly”

“My maid did it” my brother replied.

Jason’s lack of elaboration must have reinforced my father’s admiration for my mother’s housekeeping.  He left the house in spiffy suits; and she (with the help of Leticia), left the linoleum floor spiffy. 

Leticia was with us for a long time and my dad didn’t have a clue.

I see my mom now, cooking at the Gaffers and Satler mustard yellow electric stove, phone crooked at the side of her neck as she stirred beef stroganoff and gossiped with her friends.  She’d flit about the kitchen, always with that long phone cord stretching from the cupboard, to the fridge, to the dishwasher and the dryer.  That cord was a part of her, chronically wrapped around her body and she did a clever choreographed dance to untangle herself multiple times in one conversation.  The cord was long enough so that she could reach just beyond the kitchen to the hall and holler our names for dinner.

Was it the phone with the long cord that betrayed her secret, or her gift of gab?

There was no call waiting feature in the 70’s and unless one wanted to conduct an “emergency breakthrough” with a live operator, all one would get was a busy dial tone.  In hindsight, the only people that I knew who utilized emergency breakthroughs were teenagers.  After all, isn’t everything an emergency to a teenager?  I hardly think that my Dad would have wanted to talk to my mom that much though.  Still, Dad, frustrated by the constant busy signal, had a second line installed.

One day, when she was upstairs gabbing yet again to another friend, the second line rang and rang and rang and rang.

Leticia, who happened to be mopping, couldn’t take it.  She picked up the phone

“Bueno”

“Hello, I am looking for my wife, did I dial the wrong number?”

“Momento”

Mom got on the phone with Dad.

“Who was that?” he asked

“That was Leticia, our maid”

“We can’t afford a maid!”

“I think we can.  She’s been with us for three years”

The gig was up. Leticia stayed.  My mom came clean, and the house remained clean too. 

As for us children, we never learned how to pick up after ourselves.  We relied on Leticia to pull us together, if only once a week.  I wonder where she is now?  I’m hoping that today that she is resting in a lazy boy chair somewhere gloves off, margarita in hand, and that her kids and grandkids staunchly refuse let her lift a finger.