The Diva

Detail of photo from USC Digital Collection - Herald Examiner collection, 1951

Last night, when The Man I Love had a business dinner and I was on my own, I decided to go have an after-work drink at a wine-bar near my office.

I parked on the street nearby. I sat at the bar, sipping a glass of Cabernet and reading a novel, people watching and enjoying myself for a half hour; then I paid up, went to the ladies' room and went out to my car.

As I stepped off the curb, I heard a voice call my name.

"Oh my God! How are you?" In a charcoal-grey skirt-suit, sunglasses; her claret-colored hair in curls about her face.

The Diva.

Ten years ago, having moved to L.A. and making a career transition, I'd answered a "help-wanted" ad in our local newspaper. A woman raising funds to start a non-profit organization needed part-time help in her home office - it was in the field I longed to go into, so I responded.

She needed someone with computer skills - I needed a part-time job. We had so much in common. We loved the arts. Our kids were in the same school. Our politics - and it was a troubled time in politics - were the same. It was perfect.

I became devoted to our cause, and to her. She was a smart, charismatic woman who had connections in our field. She charmed people. I helped her set up her fundraising effort - mailing lists, mission statements, events. I drew The Man I Love into her circle - he is in the same field, and she was eager to make alliances with him.

He never seemed to warm to her, oddly.

And as time went by, I became less enchanted with her, myself. I call her a Diva for a reason - it's partly her personality, but it's also actually true in her case, by definition. You can look it up.

There are lots of people who make a living by being charming. And there are a lot of people - especially in Los Angeles - who have the right personality to work for people like that. But I am not one of them.

I began to realize that, while she charmed and talked and spoke to the press, I was the one doing all the scut work. I even wrote a lot of the words that ended up coming out of her mouth - that she claimed as her own. But that wasn't the worst part.

There's much that should be left unsaid. But I will say this - we reported to a non-profit organization that was noted for its work to make opportunities for poor and troubled communities - yet she spent the organization's money on luxuries. The rationale was that it helped court rich donors. But I kept thinking - if they're really interested in our cause, won't they appreciate it even more if our style is modest?

That was ten years ago, and since then I've learned that in fundraising, both tactics work. But I think that sincere philanthropists respond more when the people who lead the organization choose a tactic that matches their organization's mission statement. And the Diva's style was upside down - it clashed with what we were trying to do. In addition, when the Diva entertained, it was difficult to tell whether the luxuries were meant for the donors, or for the Diva herself.

Anyway - my work with her was part-time, and when I left it was to take another job. She understood - congratulated me, even. I was relieved to get away from her. I think, in the long run, she sensed my growing discomfort, and was delighted to hire my replacement. He was a more skilled sycophant.

Over the next ten years we have had an uneasy relationship. We exchange emails. I congratulated her when she finally achieved her goal. She invites me to lunch and then cancels it. I invite her to parties at the last minute, knowing she's got other plans. I praise her work, and then stay the hell away from her.

But anyway - So there she was, the other night, on the street calling my name. We hugged. We exclaimed over how good one another looked. She said she was just coming from an important meeting. She made a comment to show how well she knew my boss's boss's boss. I mentioned something to show the inside scoop I had on something. She dropped a celebrity name. I passed along a (very sincere) compliment from The Man I Love, who saw her at a business meeting a month or so ago. We asked after one another's kids. They were all, of course, doing fabulously.

Her eyes were invisible behind the greyed lenses of her photochromic glasses.

As we stood on the street and chatted, I noted the wrinkles around her mouth. No doubt she was calculating the weight I'd gained since we last saw each other. I was glad I had on my flowered silk skirt, and hoped the stain from dropping gelato on the hem didn't show. Silently, to myself, I admired her fashionable suit, accessorized by green jade jewelry - nice color combo - but noted the creases where it strained across her waist and back, and the way her collar was turned under in disarray.

Turns out her car was parked right in front of mine - it was a celery-colored Prius. So like her. As we waved farewell at one another, I noted that her legs were looking awfully dumpy.

She was probably noticing how grown out my roots were. And wondering when I'd last washed my car.

There goes the neighborhood

The neighborhood within walking distance of my office has been changing afresh these last few months.

But that's nothing new for this part of town.

When I first started spending time here, it had already gone through several cycles of change. A 19th century genteel church community had burgeoned into a honky-tonk amusement attraction, then even that was bulldozed out of existence and transformed into barren high-rise apartment houses. The fringes of the neighborhood became so shabby it was known as Dogtown. Surfers, skateboarders, bodybuilders and garage bands made their homes here. And then, its poverty attracting counter-culture free spirits and artists, another cycle began. By the time I came here, it was the home of architects and actors, yoga instructors and website designers, riding their fat-tired bikes home to the little restored bungalows and angular concrete row-houses lining the side streets.

A whole stretch of Main Street frontage had been demolished, and blocks of residential development were under construction. The buildings are low-storied to fit the neighborhood, with retail at the sidewalk, and done in an inoffensive airy modern style fresh out of "Dwell" magazine. All told, intelligent city planning this time around - better than the sterile and souless sweep of the early '60s.

But I first came here when the housing was under construction, so that's what I got used to. For lunch breaks, I walk down the block to the little natural food store, where I could get containers of tabouli or avocado sandwiches, and where organic vegetables languished dimly in the old-fashioned produce coolers. It's run by a nice Japanese family, and they've come to know me enough to chat. There is a liquor store, too - if you want unnatural food and artificial flavors, a moribund shoe-repair shop, and a surf shop wafting incense out the door.

During the construction phase, I'd walk past the concrete block facades, the scaffolding, the shiny aluminum wall studs, smelling plaster and new paint, but see only construction workers on the street and the occasional homeless person.

But now, the residential developments are open, people are moving in, and the retail spaces at the sidewalk are opening.

The first was a beauty salon. Then a wine and specialty foods store - a lofty space with black-varnished bamboo flooring, and racks of imported dried pasta selling for $14 a pound. You could buy French butter or Italian artesanal charcuterie. You could get a brie and prosciutto panini. The albacore sandwiches cost twice as much as the tuna salad on whole wheat at the little natural food store across the street.

Earlier this spring, we started to see activity in another sidewalk space. Brightly colored signs went up, market umbrellas and furniture appeared in the cafe area, and one day lines of job applicants stretched out to the sidewalk.

This Monday, the place opened. I stopped by for lunch to check it out.

The entrance is lined with galvanized buckets planted with herbs - a pretty idea. You order from a chalkboard menu at the counter, and then take a numbered chit, threading past a narrow aisle in front of a high steel counter where cooks and servers scurry. A large room opens up beyond, with a bar where you claim your beverage and utensils, and find a seat at a table. I placed my numbered chit in the tabletop holder, and soon a cheerful server delivered my lunch - Thai chicken salad.

It was a little pricey, at $12.95, but quite tasty, all the same. A big china plate, and the flatware was heavy and solid. Though my iced tea came in a plastic cup, there were wines by the glass on the bar menu. Even though it was lunch on a weekday, a few people indulged - it was served in generously large stemware.

The room was high-ceilinged and with an industrial feeling, exposed ductwork and track lighting all painted black. The tables and chairs were blonde-colored birchwood, and a soundtrack of hip music played - not too loud, but enough to make it feel bustling. There were lots of seats outside beneath the umbrellas, in an area enclosed by a low wall.

The store logo is a cheerful bright orange and green - very current and trendy - and the space was accented with those colors - napkin dispensers and chits in orange, the staff in orange aprons - one server even wore bright orange Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers. The place was busy but not crowded, with a steady stream of customers.

I was probably the oldest person in the place - the clientele was relentlessly young. Most people were casually dressed, in shorts or tank tops, although some in khakis and shirts looked like they worked at the nearby courthouse or think-tank offices. Good haircuts. Edgy-looking glasses. Lots of tattoos - the cool kind, not the sleazy kind. A laptop or two on a table.

When I left, the counter person called a cheery farewell - here's hoping the pleasant customer care will last. Walking back to work, I went next door to the other trendy new food and wine shop, to see how they were competing with their new neighbor. Not much commerce here, in comparison. I bought a small cup of grapefruit-campari flavored gelato for dessert.

I looked at the shabby little natural food shop across the street, the surf shop and the liquor store. Over there, an old bike was cabled to a signpost marking a bus stop. On this side, the cars at the meters included a Lexus, a Range Rover, and a convertible Alfa Romeo with sleek leather upholstery.

Well, there goes the neighborhood.

Gaia

Mother Earth, I know you're getting older. Maturing. You've been around a long time. You're still a fine looking planet, though, if I do say so myself. But it's obvious you're not as young as you used to be.


Although every planet's mother cautions her daughter to maintain good posture, sometimes it's hard to remember those lessons, and hard to keep that backbone straight - each delicate vertebra.

Sometimes things get out of alignment. When you sigh, your breast heaves and shifts - and sometimes you slump down into the soft chaise of rest. The green and textured fabric that clothes you roils and pleats and creases as you settle, and sometimes - because you haven't been watching your weight - it splits at the seams.

So much fertility and richness - the contours of your body - hips and thighs and shoulders - burgeon and bulge voluptuously.

It's almost TOO intimate. But after all, that's what you're all about.

There's heaviness, fruitfulness. You bear and bear and bear and then go fallow for a time.

Yet when the springtime courses in your veins, you arise again.

When you're 4.6 billion years old, there are sometimes twinges. Bug bites. Scrapes. Scabs and scars and those lumps and dark freckles of age that appear in the grain of your skin - but never fear; sometimes all it takes is a volcanic eruption to help pumice away the roughness.

Still, you haven't lost your allure. You are Mother Earth. There's nothing a trip to a spa, a fasting diet, or a seaside vacation won't cure.

Have a makeover, brush on the mascara. You'll perk up, and with a little gloss and rouge, be good as new again.

For a planet your age, you're remarkably attractive - vigorous, fertile still, vivid and lush.

Spring still gets your blood stirring, puts a blush in your cheek.

And it's always a thrill when the new grandchildren come to visit.

Thematic Photographic - Yellow

For the next week, Carmi's Thematic Photographic will be exploring the theme of YELLOW:

On a walk through Red Rock Canyon, we encountered this Homer Simpson, stuck between the double trunk of an oak.

Which made me wonder - Why is Homer Simpson yellow?

Pigs fly in the spring

This is our flying pig wind vane seen from the garden where the rambling rose "Darlow's Enigma" blooms beneath the shade structure. This is a magnificent rose, with clusters of fragrant white single blossoms that bloom all summer and into the fall. It's a musk rose of unknown origin. When in full bloom, like it is now, the scent fills the entire garden.

"Darlow's Enigma" was introduced by plantsman Michael Darlow in 1993, and is familiar to serious rosarians. It is available from a select group of nurseries - they are all fine mail-order nurseries, so its exclusivity is based only on its lack of publicity, not its price.

I actually met Michael Darlow, around that time. I lived in Seattle, which was a wonderful place to learn to be a gardener. The climate was similar to that of Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West's garden in Kent, England - and so perfect for growing flowers that it had attracted a formidable group of horticulturalists, who joined neighborhood garden clubs. The market for quality plants was so strong that even neighborhood grocery stores displayed flats of perennials endorsed by Gertrude Jekyll, Penelope Hobhouse, or Pamela Harper. It was not unusual for neighbors to trade divisions across the fence of French named varieties of primulas or Himalyan blue poppies.

So, one pleasant spring, I noticed an entry in my King County Yellow Pages of a nursery called "The Old Rose Garden" in Bothell, a small town north of Lake Washington, and drove out there. There was a parking lot, a wood-frame building and a house; rows of plants in pots with staked labels. Beyond was a garden you had to pay to visit. The proprietor was a man a few years older than me, curly dark hair, with a mannered tone of speech and the wildeyed look of an obsessive hobbyist. I browsed the rows of plants, noting with approval the varieties of old roses. Another customer was there, and I overheard her ask whether he carried any roses like "Tiffany" or "Chrysler Imperial."

He drew himself up, and with a contempt that was palpable, informed her that if she wanted Hybrid Tea roses such as those, she should take herself to Molbaks or Home Depot. I hid a smile hearing this. He was such a prig, and his nursery was actually kind of messy, but he had a passion I had to admire.

I ended up introducing myself, talking with him, and buying some plants - I forget which, now. I remember being both intrigued with his expertise, and fearful I wouldn't meet his standards as a serious gardener. I couldn't help but be amused by his priggish ways. He was a difficult person, snobbish and easily offended. A few months later, when I drove out to Bothell again, I found his place deserted and closed. I always wondered what had happened to him.

But now I see this rose named for him in nurseries. And it is a special, wonderful rose. It's trouble-free, it has beautiful flowers, and a heavenly scent. It's a treasure. If you have a rose garden, you should get this rose.

I always remember my encounter with him when it blooms in my garden. I think that people who have a passion - even those who are difficult - should be celebrated for what they give us.

You can find "Darlow's Enigma" at nurseries like Heronswood, Rogue Valley Roses, and Heirloom Roses.

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, motherhood is so sentimentalized we forget the day-in-day-out chores of motherhood. Now that I'm a mother myself, I know how unglamorous it can sometimes be, stuck with a couple of kids - kids who are so absorbed and delighted with scooping sand into buckets that they don't even know you're there.

I love this photo of my mother. Just steps away from her chair, my brother and I were playing in a sandbox, busy busy busy.

I don't know what her thoughts were. Was she bored? Dreaming? Was she wondering why she, a recent college graduate in Chemistry, was now sitting by a sandbox watching two toddlers? Was she simply relaxed, caught in between smiles or words? Was she wishing someone not take her picture?

But there she is. Watching us play. Committed to being our Mom, through all the dull moments and all the sweet ones.

Mom and Brother S., working on a crossword puzzle together.

We're just more fun to play with now.

Swallowtail

Butterfly in the wisteria.

Pink Saturday - Pink Elephant

Pink Saturday - Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!


The Eames Elephant was designed in 1945 and originally made in plywood, the material that designer Charles Eames used to create innovative furniture that curved in organic and pleasing forms to cradle the human body. He and his wife Ray worked as a creative team that made major contributions to American design - art, architecture, graphic design and film.

The Eames were eclectic, visiting other cultures to amass albums of photographs; designing toys made in wood, textiles, and stationery. In 1949, they designed their own home in Santa Monica, as part of the Case Study Program sponsored by Art and Architecture magazine.

Their 1977 film The Powers of Ten explored the relative size of our world, from the tiniest to the largest, starting with an image of a couple picnicking on a blanket on the lawn.

The elephants, intended to be a child's toy, were never produced for mass sale. In 2007, a limited number of reproductions in plywood were made to commemorate the 100th birthday of Charles Eames - but they sold for a whopping $2007.00.

Here's a link to a video produced by grandson Eames Demetrios featuring a Gathering of Elephants.

Now, the elephants are available in durable polypropylene plastic in an assortment of colors - including PINK! You can pick up a piece of famous art for only $290.00 - it's still not cheap, but then, what would you pay for art that your kid can safely play with?

Stunned Stupid

I was sitting at the light, in the south-bound left turn lane, one car in front of me. This is a left turn I make every day. We missed the green turn arrow, so we were waiting for the end of the green cycle, to make the turn on the Universal Los Angeles Left Turn Light - the yellow light.

The usual thing is to pull out into the intersection, straight from your left turn lane, while waiting for oncoming traffic to pass, so that when the light turns yellow you are the unambiguous Owner of the Intersection, and everyone can see you there. Then the east-west bound traffic lets you make your turn before they step on the gas.

Well, I remember feeling a little annoyed that the blue Corolla* in front of me, while pulled past the crosswalk, wasn't out there enough for me to pull past the cross-walk, too - A Universal Los Angeles Left Turn Light is usually good for two cars, if you space it properly. Three, if someone wants to be a jerk and tag onto the second car's bumper.

But the blue Corolla didn't give me room, so when the light turned yellow and it made the turn, I stayed put.

A blur, an impact louder than my radio, a hubcap rolling, a black mini-van crunching to a stop in the nose of a black Lexus waiting at the westbound curbside lane, the blue Corolla improbably now behind my car, facing north on a diagonal. I watched the mini-van door pop open and a young guy in shorts put one bare leg out onto the pavement.

And I am ashamed to tell you what I did. Nothing. I sat there. I didn't move. I don't know how many seconds passed, but it was as if it was nothing to me. I was stunned stupid. How long?

Then, of course, I got out of my car and walked to the window of the blue Corolla, where a man standing on the pavement was talking into his phone, calling 911. He saw me and said, "Someone's injured!" and stepped back as I looked inside the car.

She was tiny, dark haired, slumped against the seat and crying. "Why did he hit me?"

I held her hand. I told her my name. I asked her for her name - it was Kimberly. Where was her phone, she couldn't find her phone, she had to call her mom. She reached across for her purse on the floor, then clutched my hand again. Her nails were painted with colorful stripes. I asked her what hurt; she said her side. Fortunately the car had been hit on the passenger side, so her pain was probably from the indirect force of her own body's impact on her side of the car. I held her hand. I stroked her hair. A woman brought water. The police came. Kimberly found her phone, dialed, and then wept too deeply to talk.

A paramedic truck came. A police officer nudged me away from the window. I stepped back, ceding her to him.

My car stood in the middle of the road like a lump. "Can I move my car?" I asked a motorcycle cop directing traffic around the wrecks.

"Yes, pull it to the side, but stay, we need your statement." The whole intersection was blocked but I pulled around past the firetruck.

I stood on the sidewalk, waiting. There was the rest of the accident. The mini-van and Lexus sat, nose-to-nose, green froth forming a puddle beneath them. An older woman sat on the low retaining wall hand to temple, a paramedic bent to her, his kit open on the pavement.

As I waited I remembered those seconds, as I watched it happen and then sat, stunned and stupid, unmoving. How could I have done that? I felt ashamed.

The police officer was curt at first, asking for my driver's license to record my details, instead of listening to me recite them. Then he asked me what I'd seen, where I had seen it from, and I told him. "I know she was turning on the yellow light," I said, "because I was wondering if there was time for me to turn, too."

I looked at the Corolla, surrounded by medics. "Poor kid," I said "I hope she's OK." I paused. "Her name's Kimberly. I make this turn every morning. I bet she does, too."

As we talked, the officer seemed to thaw a little. "I think she'll be OK," he said slowly. "She's nineteen," - of course, he had seen her driver's license. Then, "She may be pregnant, there were prenatal vitamins all over the floor."

I am not sure why he shared that with me, a total stranger. He probably shouldn't have. But maybe he felt something, seeing how close she came, what could yet be, how narrowly she escaped - if she has. Maybe telling me was the only way he could bear the thought that was in his head - too much for one person to hold alone.

He shared it with me because I had held her hand. I'm grateful to him. It took away some of my own shame at having been stunned stupid.

*Names and car models have been changed for reasons of privacy.