Shaunna's Soliloquies

Yer Birthday

Today is my sister's birthday.

I was a precocious four-year-old when she was born, and according to our mother upon my first look in the bassinet I said accusingly, "That's a playmate?!!!"

My mother should have shaken some sense into me (metaphorically, not practically), but she couldn't. She was an only child and had absolutely no personal knowledge about the gift they'd given me.  She could only imagine.

I know I've put this picture up on this site before,  but this time it's for my sister. She's the smallest one to the right at the party. Isn't she cute?

Happy happy birthday to my sister... who is not only my sister, but also a beautiful wise woman and a very good friend.

Now... dance!!! (This is the song that usually blasted from the stereo in the morning when my kids woke up on their birthdays. It just seemed to set the right mood; get up and boogie with joy that it's your own special day.) 

Summer of '69

I promised my sis (Pseudo) this, oh, more than a week ago.

As you can probably surmise from the more-than-erratic non-postings on this site, I've been a mite busy.

The funny thing is, the day she called to verify that she had the dates/time confluence of the surreal happenings of the family vacation in the summer of '69 straight in her head, I'd been mentally going back to the very same thing for more than a few days. Strange? Yes. Weird? That too. Some type of mental connection? Probably... but there's no point dwelling on it.

The summer of '69 was huge, a major milestone, a parting of time where I took a definite fork in the road, the path which decided so much my life journey. And I was actually quite young. 

Fifteen, just short of my sixteenth birthday.

In retrospect, I had an extraordinary amount of freedom. As long as I kept my grades up and maintained the status quo of what was expected around the house, my life belonged to me. We'd moved the previous fall to our vacation place, and as an extra added special bonus one of my best friends from L.A. also moved to the beach. This was key... she was two years older, with a brand-new VW beetle, purchased specifically due to the remoteness of Surf & Sand.

I was not confined previously (even in junior high, which happened to go through the 9th grade), and was used to being somewhat out and about around Los Angeles. I'd managed to catch performances of The Seeds, those local bad boys The Doors and Tim Buckley, but it was with the slipshod reliance of caging rides... even from parents.  Once there were ready wheels and an accomplice that freedom became magnified times... oh, times almost infinity.

Of course we spent a lot of time cultivating the local scene in Oxnard that we'd become enmeshed in, while also regularly traveling south down PCH to spend time on the Strip, at the Troubadour, or hanging out in the Canyon.  Whenever I was at home I spent most of my time in my room with the stereo blasting. My favorites that summer were Cheap Thrills and Led Zeppelin.

In the midst of all this heady activity my parents decided to go on a three-week summer vacation road trip. Camping. Never done before. Not even once... and planned with 8-10 hour daily drives while stopping for the night, then hitting the road first thing in the morning.

I was already miffed that I couldn't travel to Woodstock - my parents may have been somewhat permissive but a cross-country trip to attend a rock festival at the age of fifteen was absolutely out of the question.  I couldn't get them to loosen up and permit a drive to San Francisco so I could experience The Fillmore, let alone the big experience that would be Woodstock.

So I settled. In exchange for peaceful acceptance of the family experience I absolutely had to be back in time to catch a concert in Santa Barbara of Blind Faith with Led Zeppelin as the opening act.

My dad promised. He had to be back at work on Monday morning, and wanted to return by that Saturday so he had time to unwind from the trip. 

Off we went... and I saw for the first time so many places that would someday become so much a part of my life. San Francisco... the Sonoma Coast... the Redwoods... the Oregon Coast... Seattle. Whew. Clairvoyant travel. Then onward to Vancouver, Victoria Island... throughout Canada before heading down to Glacier Park, Yellowstone, Lake Tahoe. Really quite the marvelous trip, marred only by the perception of a surly teenager who wished herself at home with her friends.

Then L.A. came to greet us, in the form of the shock of the murders that occurred in a familiar canyon. 

I just wished myself home. (But) the drive through the Mojave took longer that anticipated. By the time we got back, my friends had already left for Santa Barbara.

Searching for the dolphins in the sea...

That title, in case you're wondering, is metaphorical and not literal. (Although I do love to zen out at a couple of my favorite beach spots where the dolphins are usually reliably coasting parallel to shore and never fail to lift my spirits, regretfully I haven't had time lately for such indulgence.)

Nope, life's just a bit too frazzled upon the rodent wheel, and at this point I've mastered a clip where I'm afraid if I falter it'll take too long to establish the pace once again.

It was always my stance on this blog not to make it too personal. Huh? Oxymoron?  I mean it simply in the sense of not giving away too much of the lives of those who are closest to me. I have no problem espousing personal opinion on a wide variety of topics and issues.

My kids, (who are actually adults, yet will always be kids as far as I'm concerned), are mentioned casually from time to time while taking care to render them unrecognizable.  I haven't gone to the place where my daughter is once again living with me after finishing college and living on her own and it not working out due to the current economic maelstrom and not liking it one little bit that she's back here and working part-time retail. (I'm rather enjoying that masterful run-on sentence and yes it was on purpose.)

I also refrain from relishing the fact that her brother had the luck to be born more than a decade earlier and hence was enabled to make the most of his career climb since college and has carved out an admirable niche within The Industry (for a laugh-out-loud take from my sister's perspective of said nephew you really should read this).

Or my mother. Sigh. My mother.

Right now it's trying to cope with the fact that she recently suffered a fairly bad fall, yet didn't break anything and somehow escaped the requirement of hospitals or doctors to report such incidents when they happen to elderly people living alone.  She's stalling going into assisted living, and we can't make her do it, it's maddening. At this point I don't want to report her, it needs to be verified that she still has the private extended care policy she's always claimed. 

It is such déjà vu. It brings back all the memory of her suicide attempt when I was in high school, and how she escaped the therapy required after such an incident by charming her doctor. But that's one for the joint memoir.

Meanwhile, time for Timmy to put to song the searching for dolphins in the sea...

$10 Ticket for Time Travel

Pay ten bucks (five for parking, five to get inside) and you travel back in time.

So it goes when you step into the flea market that's held quarterly at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. 

Amidst acres of - let's face it - junk (and keeping in mind the fact that one person's junk is another's treasure) lurks a highly entertaining way to spend a few dollars. I prowl about toting my wheeled cart (on the lookout for books, and they can get heavy), digital camera in hand, browsing and perusing, waiting to see what appeals to me. I was instructed by my daughter that she's on the lookout for baked enamel jewelry, so I keep an eye out for that, too.

The thing is, you never know when the sight of some item will trigger a memory - much the same as hearing a certain song - and zap!  there you go... time travel.

I spotted the Prince Albert tobacco can almost immediately.

One of my mother's many (many, many, many) stories of when she was growing up was the one about "calling numbers." She'd get together with her friends and dial random telephone numbers (this was in the early '40s, mind you) and ask the hapless answerer on the other end of the line:

"Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

When the reply was in the affirmative they'd respond, "Well, you better let him out!"

Oh, the fun prior to Caller ID. I'd never analyzed it before, but perhaps that was the inspiration my friends and I had for our own "calling numbers" sessions. We never used any lame Prince Albert routine, though. Truth to tell, I didn't get it... because I'd never seen a Prince Albert tobacco can.

As I made my way throughout the fairgrounds I rounded a corner and came face to face with direct memory, the metal picnic basket (a metal picnic basket!) that my family used my entire childhood whenever we spent a day at the beach.

Zap! There I was at Zuma.

For in the years before we escaped from LA to our vacation place at the beach in Ventura County (before we had a place at the beach, for that matter) we lived in the San Fernando Valley, and the only beach where we spent the day was Zuma.

I always argued against it, everyone I knew went somewhere closer, and my dad always vetoed.  Zuma wasn't crowded, and there were showers for rinsing off before driving home.

Oh, the anticipation in the morning while my mom loaded that picnic basket with goodies and throughout the long drive. My sisters and I would be slightly carsick from the winding canyon road and Mom's cigarette smoke by the time we finally spotted the ocean. But oh! the thrill of seeing those big block letters on the sign (ZUMA).

We'd stay for hours, riding the waves on our canvas rafts (blue on one side, red on the other with a large palm tree in the center), coming out of the water only for lunch. The iron rule was you had to wait an hour to go back in after eating ("you might get a cramp"), so we'd busy ourselves by digging up sand crabs and putting them on our mother's back as she lay peacefully in the sun. Her horrified reaction never wavered, and never failed to amuse us. 

Once we went back in the water Dad joined us. He disdained the rafts, as he preferred bodysurfing. Born and bred in SoCal he was as awesome as that Hawaiian home boy on the waves who now happens to be our president.

At the end of the long day we'd pack it in, shower off and doze on the long drive home.

Such a deal, entertainment and time travel for the price of a flea market ticket.

Califas Burning

The fires always make me heartsick. It may very well be due to the ingrained memory of the Bel Air fire when I was a child. That awesome inferno happened close on the heels of watching a neighbor's house burn down (I was awakened to witness this spectacle by my mother - at the age of around five - and still don't know why, although it left quite an impression). However, I digress.

Anyway, I remember watching the blaze from the other side of the Valley, a giant glowing red ball that could be seen from miles away, as well as witnessing and absorbing the anxiety of the adults in my life. They were worried that the fire would come over the hill and engulf my paternal grandmother ("Bahquine") and uncle's home in the hills of Sherman Oaks. I also remember "going for a drive" to look at the damage afterward. The dreadful smell, along with the magnificent homes reduced to ashes marked by brick chimneys standing sentinel over the ruins.

Laurel Canyon, Malibu (oh so many times), but particularly in '71 when we lived there and a good friend's father died fighting the fire ... on and on and on. So many, so many. Infinitum.

There have been a lot of fires since I've returned from Northern California, they run into one another like raindrops upon a window pane. This particular photo was shot during the Zaca Fire last year. I had tickets to attend a concert at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, but there was absolutely no way I was going to sit within that structure when the smoke was thick enough to choke on and the probability of the flames roaring down the canyon wasn't inconceivable. No way. I stopped by the mission, shot a few pictures, got back into the car and headed home. Exit, stage south.

Last night I turned on ABC to watch some insipid program and it was pre-empted by the local news. Santa Barbara was burning down. The fire started in Montecito, and the winds were blowing 70  mph. The newscasters reported with controlled panic in their voices, and one in the field broke down into tears. The probability of the fire heading toward town was all-too-sickening-real.

I live 17 miles south of Montecito, and spend a lot of time in Santa Barbara. I've spent time there since I was a child, when we spent summer vacations in Carpinteria. I love it. My half-sister lives above the mission, and as far as I know she's evacuated right now. Her family is in my thoughts and prayers, as well as the untold unfortunate others who've suffered this calamity.

The winds are quieter tonight. Untold damage was already done.

Remembrance

Today, of course, is a day of remembrance. For all the veterans of the armed services we think of you (and remember you, and thank you) for the sacrifice and service you've given your country.

On a more personal note, today once was my maternal grandmother's birthday. She was a beauty, wasn't she? Nowadays I refer to her in jest as my "hubba hubba grannie," but wowsa she really was.

She was born to a time where she always referred to today as "Armistice Day" - she'd forgo the newer term of "Veteran's Day" - and if you reminded her of the change she'd become snappish and say petulantly, "I know! I know!" (In hindsight, I wonder if she did it to annoy my dad, who was a WWII vet. Most probably. No, definitely. She loved to annoy him.) Or maybe she just didn't like to be reminded of all the conflicts in her lifetime. WWI. WWII. The Mushroom Cloud. Korea. The Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam.

Ah, well.

She'd also tell we kids that the reason everyone had the day off was because it was her birthday. She was that important.

Grandma really was something else, when I think about it. This portrait was done when she was in her twenties. She was quite smart, as well as being beautiful.  She was a math genius ("oh, calculus is easy" she'd advise when I'd whine about mere algebra), who worked as a CPA until my mother was born... in her late twenties. Pause for that. And as a young woman, she bobbed her hair, raised her hems, smoked those cigarettes and danced that Charleston when she was done crunching numbers for the day. Oh, I forgot about the gin. Go Grannie go.

(Here's that photo again of her with Grandpa in the glory days following WWII, most likely in the late '40s or early '50s.)

So, this remembrance is for her, as well as my uncles and father who served in WWII, my neighbor Mike who still deals with the horror of Vietnam, my friends who served (either because they volunteered or were drafted), in fact all veterans everywhere across this country who served because they believed it was the right thing to do.

Grandma's also remembered by the generation who lost her before they knew her. One of my GenX son's tattoos is Grannie inspired. I'd like to think she'd be rather proud.

Go Grannie go, indeed.

Rock on, Hubba Hubba.

Peace out.

The Art of Critical Thinking

I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandfather lately. He’s been gone for quite some time – since the early ‘70s (ah yes, that persistent inevitability of death) - but the current political climate puts me in mind of him. Mightily.

He was a lifelong Republican, and as I've mentioned before I know he'd be appalled by the current state of his party. My grandparents moved to California in 1964 after retirement (well, a couple years after retirement, due to my mother 's incessant bullying for them to leave the North Woods cabin sans indoor plumbing they'd settled into). They spent their days cultivating and gardening their half acre lot in the glorious California sunshine, and as an inquisitive youngster I spent time with my grandfather grubbing about in the dirt... while sometimes discussing politics.

It wasn't quite as absurd as it sounds. As a child of a mixed marriage (my dad was a Democrat, my mother a Republican) I'd witnessed my parent's spectacular political arguments my entire life. The problem was I could never find substance behind my mother's convictions, so I wanted to find out more.

My grandfather's hero was Teddy Roosevelt, and according to my mother while she was growing up his cousin FDR was the socialist devil incarnate (there's an an excellent article about the two of them in the current Newsweek). 

My grandfather had a brilliant mind. He grew up on the prairie of South Dakota, and was not wealthy. He graduated from high school by the age of fifteen or sixteen, and received his undergraduate degree while still in his teens. He then "rode the rails" to Yellowstone and worked in the park for a couple years before returning to Chicago to go to dental school. He spoke more than one language and read constantly.

By the mid-'60s my grandfather took a more sanguine view of New Deal programs. He enjoyed the Social Security that supplemented his savings. And he absolutely refused to vote in the 1964 election. He viewed Barry Goldwater as a dangerous "kook" who'd high-jacked his party, and he abhorred LBJ. 

That's why I wonder what he'd think of things now.

So many of the "conservative intellectuals" (I find it completely incomprehensible and unbelievable that it's become a negative to practice critical thinking) are now bailing or offering criticisms. The list is really quite long, starting with Colin Powell's endorsement yesterday.  Not to mention Christopher Hitchens, Wick Allison, George Will, Peggy Noonan, Michael Smerconish, and Christopher Buckley.

The count is now 112 - 39 of the major newspapers endorsing Obama.  While many are endorsements you'd expect, the amazing part is that many are from those you wouldn't. Most of the editorials are very thoughtful well-written and researched pieces.

I don't think my grandfather would sit this one out. And I think he'd vote for Obama.

Home Again

I could go into the many reasons why I stopped posting, but I won't. I said at the beginning this wouldn't be a "dear diary" thrown out to cyberspace. I had my reasons. I still have my reasons.

But... but... but... suffice to say I've gone through some changes and they're still evolving.

I'll never stop writing, though. I gave the following piece away, why shouldn't it be on my very own blog? So here it is:

Many years ago in the 1960s when my family left Los Angeles, it was with a gigantic mental sigh of relief. The smog, the sprawl, and the fast pace weren't missed in the slightest. In fact, we pitied those we knew who were caught within its environ. My father was a native who had always yearned to escape, and my sisters and I whole-heartedly embraced his negative view of everything regarding L.A. We joined in his jubilation that we were fortunate to make a getaway, and from that point on we've been united in our quest to live in a better place and in our denunciation of Los Angeles.

Although my father managed his somewhat getaway, he was still trapped Monday through Friday. He had little choice; he was a film editor and the work was either in L.A. or New York. He stuck with the devil he knew and made the commute down the Pacific Coast Highway long before it became fashionable.

My mother, who relocated to Southern California out of choice, missed the city more than the rest of us put together. She was, however, appeased by the fact that we were at the beach.

We moved just fifty miles away, but what a world of difference. We lived on a strip of sand where the Santa Monica Mountains met the sea whose address was North Malibu. It was far from and nothing like the trendy Colony. We had crossed the line from Los Angeles into Ventura County.

After being used to endless homes and businesses on vast city streets, my sisters and I at first could scarcely fathom our new found luck. When we weren't in school we had unlimited freedom in exploring the locale. There were the miles of beach, the coastal craggy rocks, the private pier, and the canyon across the highway that could be hiked for miles. It was before the state acquired it as part of the state park system and was still the farthest reaches of a cattle ranch that stretched throughout the northernmost part of the Santa Monica Mountains. The sycamore trees, the creek that ran to the ocean, the vaquero cabin and the yucca studded hillsides all became our turf and a part of us.

We were bussed alongside the ocean to attend school amidst the agricultural fields in Oxnard. Ventura County was verdant, beautiful. The air was clean and the population low. We listened in disbelief when my father compared it to the San Fernando Valley he grew up in.

"I can remember when the walnut groves went on forever, and the L.A. River was wild," he'd reminisce. Out of respect we wouldn't challenge his memories. We simply couldn't comprehend that the asphalt sprawl to which we were accustomed had been an agricultural bastion a scant generation before. And it never occurred to us at the time that we might very well witness the same type of change.

After a couple of years the state acquired the canyon. At first it made little difference; it was an opportunity for further exploration. However, it did not take long for the beach side of the highway to fall prey to eminent domain. We enjoyed being there while it lasted, and moving there provided the impetus to flee L.A. Not one of us expected or wanted to ever go back. Our lives settled in Ventura County.

However, I became more of my father's daughter than I cared to admit as I unconsciously emulated some of his negative attitude toward growth and change. Ventura County was becoming too crowded and I yearned for spaces that were cleaner and less populated.

This has led to wanderlust that has taken me to the Pacific Northwest (both Washington and Oregon) as well as Northern California. I leave, but I always come back. 

I've recently returned after a stint in Sonoma County Wine Country. And while it is quite beautiful there, too - an agriculture centered county fifty miles north of a major city - it's too cold and too far from the ocean for me.

So once again I've returned, and it's been my good fortune that the weather this past fall was the sort that's reinforced my belief that this is my place.

And the Oscar (May) Go To...

When I was growing up the night of the Academy Awards was the only time we were allowed to watch TV during dinner.  (We also ate later than most of my peers, as we normally sat down between 7:30 and 8:00.  A different story.)

It was with great excitement that we set the TV trays up in the living room and settled down to watch the show.  The best part was watching the stars arrive and commenting on the dresses the women wore.  This was great fun, as they weren't outfitted in complimentary gowns or assisted by stylists. (What can I say?  We were three girls led by their mother.  My mother - who had and has exquisite taste - could be wonderfully bitchy in her comments.)

Dad would wander in and out of the room.  As he spent his working days in Hollywood, he had little interest in "the awards bullshit."  Unless someone he knew was up for something.

As I said, it was great fun.  Mom (who came to Hollywood after college and worked in The Industry prior to becoming a stay-at-home-you-know-what) always had anecdotes that often segued into first-hand knowledge of outrageous celebrity behavior from her wild and woolly past.

We would pick the winners and be ecstatic if our pick won.

I realize that with horrific things taking place in the world a movie awards show is less than trivial.  Yet, yet... people from all over the globe take an interest in the Academy Awards.

Without further ado here are my predictions for 2006:

Best Picture
Crash

Best Director
Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
George Clooney in Syriana

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener

Original Screenplay
Crash, Screenplay by Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco, Story by Paul Haggis

Adapted Screenplay
Brokeback Mountain, Screenplay by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana

Fade Out

Goodbye Affordable Beach Living

The sun set yesterday on a way of life in coastal California that is rapidly disappearing.  The places where someone without a bundle of loot can enjoy an existence on the sand are... where?

Regardless of the fact that the land where El Morro sat now belongs to "the people," I have a great deal of empathy for those that have been displaced.  They've lost their community, and they're in mourning.

I realize that I have empathy because I lived it myself.  As I've mentioned previously I know all about being eminent domained by the state.  On reflection, someone must have pored over a map of Southern California  and decided to zero in on mobile home parks next to the ocean and make them public land. 

This isn't something the wealthy have to worry about; they're not going to get eminent domained for public usage. They merely waited out the time they had to co-exist with a trailer park. It's amazing the folks in El Morro held on as long as they did.

We had an eclectic little community and didn't bag extended 20 year leases upon learning the state was after our site.  Since this was North Malibu (what a hoot... it's north of the LA County line, yet all the same the address was North Malibu, and the area code and prefix was Malibu's) the majority of the people were from The Industry.  (When you view the spot as it is now from the mountain top, it really wasn't that large of a swatch of sand, was it? To think how we laughed at my grandmother when she fretted that we would be washed out to sea in an earthquake...)

Anyway, there were craft people, stunt people, and actors who you saw regularly on TV or in the movies but didn't know their names.  The biggest celebrity was Sheriff John (who had a widely viewed and loved daytime kiddie show in LA for a number of years).  My personal favorite was Kitty Lou, a woman who was an actress from the '30s that maintained her old-world glamour by wrapping her hair in a turban and smoking from a jeweled holder.

Memories.  Which is all the El Morro people will have now.