If you haven't read HELEN OF PASADENA, by Lian Dolan, treat yourself to a sweet truffle of a novel. For many reasons it is a delicious local confection; and one is its reference to a Korean day spa, which echoes our Olympic Spa right here in Koreatown. I just visited the Olympic with two of my daughters to celebrate their December birthdays. Now there is a worthwhile destination.
Olympic Spa caters to LADIES ONLY. This means the only men to be found are the two parking attendants in the locked courtesy lot out back. Prior to your arrival, it is wisest to book reservations and treatments. The online menu displays spa services, including facials, massages, soaks, and assorted combinations. My girls and I opted for PURE BLISS, a 90-minute series of scrubs, masks, massage, and hair treatments. It's reasonable to spend a period of two to three hours at the spa.
My younger girl and I took the Gold and Red Lines to Hollywood & Vine station. Older daughter fetched us from there and we wended our way down Western into K-town. Only the rain and Christmas traffic slowed us, so we didn't quite honor the 30-minutes-early arrival that Olympic suggests. If you haven't been to this spa before, know that once you leave your shoes and belongings in the lockers, it's a concertedly nude place. You are issued a pair of towels and a hospital gown, but for the most part it's jaybird time. Don't fret. It's actually very comfortable, like entering an exclusive club where you never knew you held membership. Shower first: it's required. Then if time permits before your appointment, you can soak in the several large tubs or bask in the saunas.
Each patron is issued a wrist-coil with a number. That number is your ID. When the uniformed employee (in black bra and underpants) calls your number, your treatment begins. Do everything she commands. You will lie on a Burberry-print table like a big baby to be scrubbed, rinsed, manipulated. When she tells you to get up and shower again, go do it. When she tells you to shift or turn, comply quietly. You are an obedient baby filled with the peace that passes all understanding.
After PURE BLISS, the girls and I crossed the room to the heated napping floor. This is a jade-tile stage stocked with cotton coverlets and softer yoga blocks for pillows. It is a murmuring or silence zone where we just stretched out, glowing pinkly in our gowns. We must have rested there for another thirty minutes.
When you feel ready, you dress again for the world, blow dry your hair, and deposit the gowns and towels. Hand the small 15-20% gratuity envelopes to the desk staff as you exit. The parking men retrieve the car, and life as we know it resumes. Birthdays and birthday suits again next year...
Olympic Spa
3915 W. Olympic Blvd. (enter on Norton)
Los Angeles 90019
323-857-0666
9 am to 10 pm
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
How I Met My Mortgage
Where do I start with the saga of my mortgage application? What a lamb I was at the outset; it's a wonder I am not a lambchop today. Last May I began with what we call the pre-approval phase.
Squaring up records and information is one of life's harder tasks for me. I never feel adept at organizing data. Locating and faxing forms mutates into a vast, ever-disturbing moil of dark symbolism for me. But isn't self-scrutiny supposed to be good? Shining that antiseptic light of day onto the shadows of your fiscal behavior? Yet I just HATE collating pay stubs, verifications of employment, bank statements, tax forms, decrees, licenses, credit card trails. And I'm one of those untidy circular people who frets about any ability to reach precise answers and codify the proof. I freak! (I recall the same unease back in middle school when I had to construct an apron and I could see the gobs of remaining creased yardage lurking beyond the waistband. How would so much fabric fit into the confines of a dainty little garment?) More to the point, how could I assemble what I needed for an ongoing mortgage application when my records and I dwelled in different locations? Many locations, over what became a five-month episode.
In July I located a sweet little cottage in Altadena that I wanted to buy. Danny Schmitz, my thorough, realistic, steadfast real estate agent, guided me through the bidding and purchase. Little did we know that the next eight weeks would be dominated by an extremely difficult-to-acquire mortgage. In August I even took a trip to the Florida Panhandle. Instead of studying oil spill effects, I ruminated over the elusive mortgage.
By Labor Day the mortgage application was floundering. The accommodations of house-sitting and guesting were starting to curdle. My stoic facade was showing stress fractures. By October 1, I started craigslisting apartments for my own nervous recreation. My car had become a mobile Smithsonian, the kind that never had a curator. Here I was again, striding into another school year, sowing my upbeat philosophy to continuation kids. Meanwhile, the exact opposite feeling was furring up my insides like an aging jack-o-lantern's.
Then by serendipity (or was it better business practice?) Danny announced, "You're going to Steven Kim, another mortgage guy." The day of our appointment I gritted my teeth across town, canvas bag crammed with all those odious documents. I realized this office was mid-Wilshire, near the very building where my dad's boss had jumped to his death back when I was a kid. Now I arrived late, hot, crabby about facing more mortgage torture. I met our Mr. Kim. He was a tall, calm man with a kind, heart-shaped face, and when he said, "No worries," I winced, "That's what you think, bub." He also observed, "I know you teachers are very organized," while I was muttering and pitching out forms and folders like so much inventory at Big Lots.
If I hadn't been so absorbed by my own tension, I would have sensed that Steven Kim was going to be my lucky charm. He actually stated it only takes 48 hours to determine whether you are a viable applicant. He got right to work on my case and phoned/texted me frequently to keep me out of that dark bog. Over the next 3.5 weeks, my little army of supporters helped me provide whatever the loan processor needed. Only one time was I about to burst into tears with Steven, but somehow I reined it back.
Fast forward to October 28. Just a few days before, Steven had assured me, "You'll have your house." And I, with a drop of jaundice, replied that I'd believe it when I saw the key. Danny gave me that key. I was able to hand out Halloween candy in my own home. And that simple pleasure was directly due to the efforts of two men who were "just doing the job," bless their hearts.
Danny Schmitz, Keller Williams, 323 691-1307
Steven Kim, Hillside Home Mortgage, 213-591-6300
Squaring up records and information is one of life's harder tasks for me. I never feel adept at organizing data. Locating and faxing forms mutates into a vast, ever-disturbing moil of dark symbolism for me. But isn't self-scrutiny supposed to be good? Shining that antiseptic light of day onto the shadows of your fiscal behavior? Yet I just HATE collating pay stubs, verifications of employment, bank statements, tax forms, decrees, licenses, credit card trails. And I'm one of those untidy circular people who frets about any ability to reach precise answers and codify the proof. I freak! (I recall the same unease back in middle school when I had to construct an apron and I could see the gobs of remaining creased yardage lurking beyond the waistband. How would so much fabric fit into the confines of a dainty little garment?) More to the point, how could I assemble what I needed for an ongoing mortgage application when my records and I dwelled in different locations? Many locations, over what became a five-month episode.
In July I located a sweet little cottage in Altadena that I wanted to buy. Danny Schmitz, my thorough, realistic, steadfast real estate agent, guided me through the bidding and purchase. Little did we know that the next eight weeks would be dominated by an extremely difficult-to-acquire mortgage. In August I even took a trip to the Florida Panhandle. Instead of studying oil spill effects, I ruminated over the elusive mortgage.
By Labor Day the mortgage application was floundering. The accommodations of house-sitting and guesting were starting to curdle. My stoic facade was showing stress fractures. By October 1, I started craigslisting apartments for my own nervous recreation. My car had become a mobile Smithsonian, the kind that never had a curator. Here I was again, striding into another school year, sowing my upbeat philosophy to continuation kids. Meanwhile, the exact opposite feeling was furring up my insides like an aging jack-o-lantern's.
Then by serendipity (or was it better business practice?) Danny announced, "You're going to Steven Kim, another mortgage guy." The day of our appointment I gritted my teeth across town, canvas bag crammed with all those odious documents. I realized this office was mid-Wilshire, near the very building where my dad's boss had jumped to his death back when I was a kid. Now I arrived late, hot, crabby about facing more mortgage torture. I met our Mr. Kim. He was a tall, calm man with a kind, heart-shaped face, and when he said, "No worries," I winced, "That's what you think, bub." He also observed, "I know you teachers are very organized," while I was muttering and pitching out forms and folders like so much inventory at Big Lots.
If I hadn't been so absorbed by my own tension, I would have sensed that Steven Kim was going to be my lucky charm. He actually stated it only takes 48 hours to determine whether you are a viable applicant. He got right to work on my case and phoned/texted me frequently to keep me out of that dark bog. Over the next 3.5 weeks, my little army of supporters helped me provide whatever the loan processor needed. Only one time was I about to burst into tears with Steven, but somehow I reined it back.
Fast forward to October 28. Just a few days before, Steven had assured me, "You'll have your house." And I, with a drop of jaundice, replied that I'd believe it when I saw the key. Danny gave me that key. I was able to hand out Halloween candy in my own home. And that simple pleasure was directly due to the efforts of two men who were "just doing the job," bless their hearts.
Danny Schmitz, Keller Williams, 323 691-1307
Steven Kim, Hillside Home Mortgage, 213-591-6300
Sunday, October 10, 2010
NAMI Walk & Union Station Benefit
Last week I had invitations that both relate to homelessness. Not my temporary, seeking-a-house-to-buy homelessness, but the serious kind, often symptomatic of mental illness, poverty, or addiction. Two vaunted organizations, National Alliance on Mental Illness and Union Station, sponsored their annual fundraisers.
NAMI hosts an October walkathon in Santa Monica. A dear couple I know whose daughter suffers schizophrenia invited me to join the walk. The local NAMI chapter rented a yellow school bus for the trip across town. Riders included "consumers" (who have been patients or those who live in board and care) and "supporters" (who are everyone else). Really, it wasn't that apparent as to who was in which category. But it did cause me to think back to my college job as a "mobility trainer," teaching developmentally disabled adults to ride the public bus system. How confounded I felt back then, trying to navigate the RTD as it was called. How do people cope, I have since wondered, when they are disabled or hallucinatory or ill and need to commute?
The NAMI walk drew 3500 participants this year. I walked with my friends' daughter, and we chatted away about spirits, reincarnation, food, geography, and more random topics threaded by the most delicate of skeins. But this young woman with the blue marble eyes is so much healthier now than she was when psychotic breaks ravaged her and her family. Some credit must go to the tireless support and education offered by NAMI volunteers, as well as her extraordinary family who never falters in trying to provide a high quality of life. Mental illness affects all of us to varying degrees. Depression, addiction, organic brain problems: I saw the placards reminding us THERE IS NO HEALTH WITHOUT MENTAL HEALTH. NAMI's work will never end. But the solace and the information for supporters, consumers, and anyone else will be its legacy. The bus rolls again in October, 2011. All are welcome. Check out nami.org
That same night I was lucky enough to return to our beloved Pasadena Playhouse for Union Station's 11th annual benefit. Hector Elizondo, the USC Thornton Jazz Orchestra, the Yellowjackets and others donated their talents. Entering the Playhouse is its own happy homecoming. But since 1973 Union Station has given succor to those who find themselves in a rough patch or worse. Union Station's services include emergency and transitional shelter, meals, substance and mental illness outreach. The Pasadena Playhouse partnered with Union Station on this twinkly night so that others might not suffer colder nights in times to come. If you ever wish to contribute, there is a range of possibility and participation. See for yourself at info@unionstationhs.org
NAMI hosts an October walkathon in Santa Monica. A dear couple I know whose daughter suffers schizophrenia invited me to join the walk. The local NAMI chapter rented a yellow school bus for the trip across town. Riders included "consumers" (who have been patients or those who live in board and care) and "supporters" (who are everyone else). Really, it wasn't that apparent as to who was in which category. But it did cause me to think back to my college job as a "mobility trainer," teaching developmentally disabled adults to ride the public bus system. How confounded I felt back then, trying to navigate the RTD as it was called. How do people cope, I have since wondered, when they are disabled or hallucinatory or ill and need to commute?
The NAMI walk drew 3500 participants this year. I walked with my friends' daughter, and we chatted away about spirits, reincarnation, food, geography, and more random topics threaded by the most delicate of skeins. But this young woman with the blue marble eyes is so much healthier now than she was when psychotic breaks ravaged her and her family. Some credit must go to the tireless support and education offered by NAMI volunteers, as well as her extraordinary family who never falters in trying to provide a high quality of life. Mental illness affects all of us to varying degrees. Depression, addiction, organic brain problems: I saw the placards reminding us THERE IS NO HEALTH WITHOUT MENTAL HEALTH. NAMI's work will never end. But the solace and the information for supporters, consumers, and anyone else will be its legacy. The bus rolls again in October, 2011. All are welcome. Check out nami.org
That same night I was lucky enough to return to our beloved Pasadena Playhouse for Union Station's 11th annual benefit. Hector Elizondo, the USC Thornton Jazz Orchestra, the Yellowjackets and others donated their talents. Entering the Playhouse is its own happy homecoming. But since 1973 Union Station has given succor to those who find themselves in a rough patch or worse. Union Station's services include emergency and transitional shelter, meals, substance and mental illness outreach. The Pasadena Playhouse partnered with Union Station on this twinkly night so that others might not suffer colder nights in times to come. If you ever wish to contribute, there is a range of possibility and participation. See for yourself at info@unionstationhs.org
The Glass Menagerie
Dateline: Alhambra, 10/5/10
Twenty-seven students and three teachers headed to the Mark Taper Forum to see a Young Audience Program of "The Glass Menagerie." Beforehand I must confess I sweated out the roll-taking, the body-counting, and the alphabetical lineup to the bus. But hadn't the kids signed my homemade Pledge of Conduct, agreeing to sit for the duration of the play; to carry no gum or contraband; to leave electronics at school? We were ready for our public test of behavior.
Tennessee Williams' play is a family case study, actually more comic than any of us realized despite my enforced classroom reading. Right before the lights dimmed in the theater, I reminded the boy next to me, "If you do fall asleep, that will be me pinching you quietly. Do NOT reflex-punch me because it's just me, your teacher who loves you." "Don't worry, Miss," he replied, "I don't snore," which wasn't the answer I wanted. On to Act I. Thirty minutes into it, two shadowy forms from my class rose and exited left. My shoulders sagged. The Pledge of Conduct was already showing its fault lines! Over the next thirty minutes, two other students stood and headed to the restroom. Now I was breathing hard. Hadn't I hammered theater etiquette properly? I consoled myself until intermission by recalling that only one of the entire class had ever been to live theater. Still...
After intermission I hissed at everyone, "Stay in your seats for the remaining hour!" I have to say, however, that not one of our students hooted or vocalized during any part of the play as other students may have been doing. As one of the girls observed on the way back to the bus, "Miss, making noise was so immature in there!" Thank you, I didn't say aloud. Some remarks are best left with a profound nod.
Field trips are no longer the norm in our fiscally strapped school world. Our principal's resourcefulness pays for the bus and the $50.00 attendance fee. She gilded the day for the students by providing breakfast food at the start and pizza upon our return. Because we are a Title I school (a measure of poverty), transportation and food issues loom over our students all the time. If staff can somehow guarantee some solutions, then we have inducements that make participation all the more logical. These particular kids have to be reassured time and again so that they can become the learners we expect. Teachers have to make every step palpable. We want them to understand that this is their Los Angeles too, that they can enjoy its offerings even moreso if they know how to behave. For any field trip we deliberately assign one teacher to ten students. This time our retired art teacher, current art teacher and I were the ones who watched over the students while they watched the play.
During the two days following "The Glass Menagerie," we had our students write thank you notes. They wrote to the principal, to the home-school coordinator, and to Center Theater Group. I told the kids I would act as censor for quality control; I've gotten 48 notes so far. On Monday we will send some emissaries to deliver the on-site notes. I've just mailed the first wave to CTG. Writing thank you notes is a staple of our field-tripping. It wraps up an event; it provides an informal evaluation; and it exercises our civility. I just want every kid to feel equipped to cope in public situations. Father Greg Boyle is fond of saying, "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." I tag along with, "Nothing builds confidence like a guided cultural experience." It's but one day of school, yes. But I hope it becomes a day they will remember.
Twenty-seven students and three teachers headed to the Mark Taper Forum to see a Young Audience Program of "The Glass Menagerie." Beforehand I must confess I sweated out the roll-taking, the body-counting, and the alphabetical lineup to the bus. But hadn't the kids signed my homemade Pledge of Conduct, agreeing to sit for the duration of the play; to carry no gum or contraband; to leave electronics at school? We were ready for our public test of behavior.
Tennessee Williams' play is a family case study, actually more comic than any of us realized despite my enforced classroom reading. Right before the lights dimmed in the theater, I reminded the boy next to me, "If you do fall asleep, that will be me pinching you quietly. Do NOT reflex-punch me because it's just me, your teacher who loves you." "Don't worry, Miss," he replied, "I don't snore," which wasn't the answer I wanted. On to Act I. Thirty minutes into it, two shadowy forms from my class rose and exited left. My shoulders sagged. The Pledge of Conduct was already showing its fault lines! Over the next thirty minutes, two other students stood and headed to the restroom. Now I was breathing hard. Hadn't I hammered theater etiquette properly? I consoled myself until intermission by recalling that only one of the entire class had ever been to live theater. Still...
After intermission I hissed at everyone, "Stay in your seats for the remaining hour!" I have to say, however, that not one of our students hooted or vocalized during any part of the play as other students may have been doing. As one of the girls observed on the way back to the bus, "Miss, making noise was so immature in there!" Thank you, I didn't say aloud. Some remarks are best left with a profound nod.
Field trips are no longer the norm in our fiscally strapped school world. Our principal's resourcefulness pays for the bus and the $50.00 attendance fee. She gilded the day for the students by providing breakfast food at the start and pizza upon our return. Because we are a Title I school (a measure of poverty), transportation and food issues loom over our students all the time. If staff can somehow guarantee some solutions, then we have inducements that make participation all the more logical. These particular kids have to be reassured time and again so that they can become the learners we expect. Teachers have to make every step palpable. We want them to understand that this is their Los Angeles too, that they can enjoy its offerings even moreso if they know how to behave. For any field trip we deliberately assign one teacher to ten students. This time our retired art teacher, current art teacher and I were the ones who watched over the students while they watched the play.
During the two days following "The Glass Menagerie," we had our students write thank you notes. They wrote to the principal, to the home-school coordinator, and to Center Theater Group. I told the kids I would act as censor for quality control; I've gotten 48 notes so far. On Monday we will send some emissaries to deliver the on-site notes. I've just mailed the first wave to CTG. Writing thank you notes is a staple of our field-tripping. It wraps up an event; it provides an informal evaluation; and it exercises our civility. I just want every kid to feel equipped to cope in public situations. Father Greg Boyle is fond of saying, "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." I tag along with, "Nothing builds confidence like a guided cultural experience." It's but one day of school, yes. But I hope it becomes a day they will remember.
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Questions
"Miss, don't you ever get mad?"
"Miss, does a crime record hurt you for college?"
"Miss, you're wearing different shoes! Does that mean you got a place to live?"
Every day students ask me the unexpected. Every day I answer as honestly as I can.
We're in our fourth week of school. The familiarity of routine is established. We're a lucky school in that we don't have fights; the staff is always vigilant for any signs of tension or dispute between students so that we can glide in and intervene before something gets hot. Because of this vigilance, we all cultivate techniques for keeping kids engaged. We give them the space to ask and express what may be bottled up inside, even if it's "off-topic" or seemingly disconnected from classwork. Usually our adult responses involve mild banter. Effective teachers have learned not to use sarcasm or threats. Students don't take to either, and in fact they will drift out of our orbit of influence if we are not mindful.
Bringing a student closer to graduation is much harder than you would think. Right now I am very excited about the turnaround of one young man who used to bedevil me no end. Last year I could not convince him to sit all period; he hovered by the window "Looking out, Miss," so regularly that I nicknamed him VENTANA. He scowled at me for that, but gradually he began to smile a little. He's the one who called our word game "Scramble" despite my puny insistence that it be Scrabble. His pacing, the intractability, the attempts to slip out of class that colored last year have all vanished this fall. What happened? Because even our summer school time remained a struggle of wills. I wanted this student to work through an English text and he was hellbent on tracking the World Cup. I know we met in the middle and he wrote me an armload of soccer essays while I tried to step back from hovering and micromanaging.
In our school lexicon we have a small category called "Superseniors." These are kids who are in the fifth year of high school, so the stakes are high. It is expensive to keep Superseniors in the system until they can graduate, but it's even costlier to cut over-18s loose without doing everything possible to help them earn diplomas. Superseniors can be tough to work with--some drag it out and some just have had such a tortured school history that it's a slog to the final credit. The happy news is that some Superseniors rekindle the spark they may have felt in kindergarten. This is what happened with my soccer fan. It was not my doing. It lay hidden within him, and in some inexplicable way, we've gotten to witness the change. This boy is my right-hand man right now. One of my coworkers got him to organize, photograph, and issue the school ID cards. We entrusted him with necessary school tasks and gave him the freedom to move about campus to accomplish them. We got the blessing of the school principal to put him to work in an unorthodox way. We listened to his concerns and we accepted his suggestions. During these past four weeks I've checked with his other teachers to see how he's doing. Each teacher has marveled over his ability to knuckle down. One teacher remarked, "He told me he just wants to graduate."
Just-wants-to-graduate is a very ambitious concept for students who have skittered along the margins before we meet them in continuation school. The process of coaxing students into scholastic life is freighted with open-ended questions. I never feel I know the answers until I've seen them graduate. But I know I am going to bawl on the day this particular young man finishes, and the principal escorts him to the classrooms as the P.A. system blasts "Pomp and Circumstance," and she throws confetti to mark his passage.
"Miss, does a crime record hurt you for college?"
"Miss, you're wearing different shoes! Does that mean you got a place to live?"
Every day students ask me the unexpected. Every day I answer as honestly as I can.
We're in our fourth week of school. The familiarity of routine is established. We're a lucky school in that we don't have fights; the staff is always vigilant for any signs of tension or dispute between students so that we can glide in and intervene before something gets hot. Because of this vigilance, we all cultivate techniques for keeping kids engaged. We give them the space to ask and express what may be bottled up inside, even if it's "off-topic" or seemingly disconnected from classwork. Usually our adult responses involve mild banter. Effective teachers have learned not to use sarcasm or threats. Students don't take to either, and in fact they will drift out of our orbit of influence if we are not mindful.
Bringing a student closer to graduation is much harder than you would think. Right now I am very excited about the turnaround of one young man who used to bedevil me no end. Last year I could not convince him to sit all period; he hovered by the window "Looking out, Miss," so regularly that I nicknamed him VENTANA. He scowled at me for that, but gradually he began to smile a little. He's the one who called our word game "Scramble" despite my puny insistence that it be Scrabble. His pacing, the intractability, the attempts to slip out of class that colored last year have all vanished this fall. What happened? Because even our summer school time remained a struggle of wills. I wanted this student to work through an English text and he was hellbent on tracking the World Cup. I know we met in the middle and he wrote me an armload of soccer essays while I tried to step back from hovering and micromanaging.
In our school lexicon we have a small category called "Superseniors." These are kids who are in the fifth year of high school, so the stakes are high. It is expensive to keep Superseniors in the system until they can graduate, but it's even costlier to cut over-18s loose without doing everything possible to help them earn diplomas. Superseniors can be tough to work with--some drag it out and some just have had such a tortured school history that it's a slog to the final credit. The happy news is that some Superseniors rekindle the spark they may have felt in kindergarten. This is what happened with my soccer fan. It was not my doing. It lay hidden within him, and in some inexplicable way, we've gotten to witness the change. This boy is my right-hand man right now. One of my coworkers got him to organize, photograph, and issue the school ID cards. We entrusted him with necessary school tasks and gave him the freedom to move about campus to accomplish them. We got the blessing of the school principal to put him to work in an unorthodox way. We listened to his concerns and we accepted his suggestions. During these past four weeks I've checked with his other teachers to see how he's doing. Each teacher has marveled over his ability to knuckle down. One teacher remarked, "He told me he just wants to graduate."
Just-wants-to-graduate is a very ambitious concept for students who have skittered along the margins before we meet them in continuation school. The process of coaxing students into scholastic life is freighted with open-ended questions. I never feel I know the answers until I've seen them graduate. But I know I am going to bawl on the day this particular young man finishes, and the principal escorts him to the classrooms as the P.A. system blasts "Pomp and Circumstance," and she throws confetti to mark his passage.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Me and Mrs. Jones
"She bore her burden because she did not wish to be a burden." I'm paraphrasing from an Isaac Bashevis Singer short story, "The Washerwoman." It's one of those anthology selections for ninth graders that kids never take to, a story that eventually resounds for those who live long enough to have the stuffing kicked out of us a few times. The titular washwoman is a birdlike Gentile who launders for wealthier Jews in an early 20th century Polish shtetl. Her frail build belies tenacity and pride in her lowly occupation--an occupation both arduous and invisible. I guess I'd call it a story where stature trumps status.
Often I've thought of that very story over the the past ten years since I've known Mrs. Jones. She is a longtime Pasadenan, living in her home since 1951. She's raised a family and worked at the legendary FEDCO on Colorado Blvd. until she retired at about 70. That must be when Mrs. Jones started fueling her next career.
Mrs. Jones takes in ironing. I can say it no other way. She is a word-of-mouth phenomenon who can starch a flaccid shirt into respectability. She transforms a jumbled basket of laundry into prete-a-porter. For as long as I have patronized Mrs. Jones, by gum, my creases have been straight and my cuffs crisp. Mrs. Jones is all business and no play at her ironing board.
Just last week we were chatting about my house hunting trials. Mrs. Jones handed me a xeroxed policy statement written in her elegant hand:
Dear Jean-
I'm going to give myself a 90th birthday present and raise the price of ironing
to $8.00 per hour starting Sept. 1, 2010. I hope you will still let me do your
ironing because I love doing it.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Jones
All I could say was, "90? Mrs. Jones, you don't look a day over 82!" I get such a kick out of her professionalism and her product too. Ninety years old and still keeping Pasadena/Altadena unwrinkled? That to me is stature.
Often I've thought of that very story over the the past ten years since I've known Mrs. Jones. She is a longtime Pasadenan, living in her home since 1951. She's raised a family and worked at the legendary FEDCO on Colorado Blvd. until she retired at about 70. That must be when Mrs. Jones started fueling her next career.
Mrs. Jones takes in ironing. I can say it no other way. She is a word-of-mouth phenomenon who can starch a flaccid shirt into respectability. She transforms a jumbled basket of laundry into prete-a-porter. For as long as I have patronized Mrs. Jones, by gum, my creases have been straight and my cuffs crisp. Mrs. Jones is all business and no play at her ironing board.
Just last week we were chatting about my house hunting trials. Mrs. Jones handed me a xeroxed policy statement written in her elegant hand:
Dear Jean-
I'm going to give myself a 90th birthday present and raise the price of ironing
to $8.00 per hour starting Sept. 1, 2010. I hope you will still let me do your
ironing because I love doing it.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Jones
All I could say was, "90? Mrs. Jones, you don't look a day over 82!" I get such a kick out of her professionalism and her product too. Ninety years old and still keeping Pasadena/Altadena unwrinkled? That to me is stature.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Homeowner Once Removed
I've lain dormant for the last eight weeks since my Pasadena house sold. More accurately, I've laid my head in a number of different homes because I've become a housesitter. I didn't foresee this lifestyle. Somehow it sought me.
I had to vacate my home by May 18. Once the sale fell into place, the sorting, discarding, and packing demands punctured my reverie and pricked me until I finished. Do-it-yourself storage! Pink Transfer! Annual city bulky item pickup! These agencies and the kindness of friends emptied a big old house of 24 years of stuff.
The devil lurking in the details was where would I go next? Luckily I was so fatigued from the pack-out that my usual over-planning tendencies were blunted. I can say that a dear couple was heading out on a trip May 18 into June and I slid right over to their commodious Altadena home. Another friend then introduced me to a family from southwest Pasadena who were vacationing for ten days. From there it was a night at my sister's. Then back to the first homestay. In another week I will head to a new family's poolhouse. It's a daisy chain of accommodations--all of them lovely, summer-y, imbued with a tensile strength of unexpected generosity to me. The serendipity of all these people offering ME places to stay while I complete summer school and sort out my future is the gift.
You learn things about yourself when you are itinerant. Every now and then you'll reach for something familiar, only to realize it's packed in storage or a friend has it at her home for safe-keeping. My computer, for instance, lives in a private home in Monrovia. My potted plants moved to El Monte. My favorite dictionary is in, er, uh, word limbo somewhere. But certainly I am enjoying the chance to see how homes reflect the organization of our lives. It's an education in itself to see an efficient cook's kitchen or where it's best to store the pet food or how to set up a discreet laundry system. Maybe once I find my own new home I can remember to emulate some of these principles. In fact, later today I am looking at houses in Altadena.
I had to vacate my home by May 18. Once the sale fell into place, the sorting, discarding, and packing demands punctured my reverie and pricked me until I finished. Do-it-yourself storage! Pink Transfer! Annual city bulky item pickup! These agencies and the kindness of friends emptied a big old house of 24 years of stuff.
The devil lurking in the details was where would I go next? Luckily I was so fatigued from the pack-out that my usual over-planning tendencies were blunted. I can say that a dear couple was heading out on a trip May 18 into June and I slid right over to their commodious Altadena home. Another friend then introduced me to a family from southwest Pasadena who were vacationing for ten days. From there it was a night at my sister's. Then back to the first homestay. In another week I will head to a new family's poolhouse. It's a daisy chain of accommodations--all of them lovely, summer-y, imbued with a tensile strength of unexpected generosity to me. The serendipity of all these people offering ME places to stay while I complete summer school and sort out my future is the gift.
You learn things about yourself when you are itinerant. Every now and then you'll reach for something familiar, only to realize it's packed in storage or a friend has it at her home for safe-keeping. My computer, for instance, lives in a private home in Monrovia. My potted plants moved to El Monte. My favorite dictionary is in, er, uh, word limbo somewhere. But certainly I am enjoying the chance to see how homes reflect the organization of our lives. It's an education in itself to see an efficient cook's kitchen or where it's best to store the pet food or how to set up a discreet laundry system. Maybe once I find my own new home I can remember to emulate some of these principles. In fact, later today I am looking at houses in Altadena.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
