LA Tourist

With a few days free because my son is working in Napa, his wife and I headed to my Mom’s house so I could show her LA and my home town. Usually during the summer it’s pretty cold and foggy by the beach, we’ve hit a heat wave like no other (since there’s no global warming). It’s fine if it’s just to hop in the water, it’s another thing if you’re a tourist in your own ‘hood.

Of course I had to go in the water first off, might do that today before we head back up an incredibly smokey I-5 back to my real home. Most of the time when I come down here, that’s the extent of my visit…a day at the beach. Really, just a few hours to swim then dry off, don’t lay out anymore.

From there, we decided on dinner in Marina Del Rey – a place my DIL from Turkey has never heard of so we wandered up to Venice instead. Venice is not my favorite, it was crowded, hot, smelled like pot and to me is like a poorly run carnival. As soon as my DIL figured it out, we were free to leave.

Instead of MDR for dinner, we then headed up to Gladstones on Sunset & PCH in Malibu, which was surprisingly not very crowded. I’m used to “back in the day” where it was tough to get seated it was so popular. It was a Tuesday night though, not like a weekend.

To be total tourists, we had to go to Hollywood and Universal Studios on the hottest day of the year with what looked like 58% humidity. I brought a water bottle or I would have never made it through the 2+ hour line (90 minutes on the board, which must have meant 90 minutes to get to the indoor line). It was for the Harry Potter ride, which was actually a lot of fun once we got on it without heat stroke.

The other ride was the tram tour I remember as a kid. I’ve only been there once, it was after Jaws came out. My fading memory is the fake shark coming at us, then going from set to set and seeing the “I Love Lucy” & “Bewitched” sets. They weren’t still shows, the Bewitched set was showing us the magic of Hollywood and how they made her disappear to show up somewhere else though the editing. WAY before cell phones!! Now you can do everything on you phone, that’s pretty much magic.

One thing Universal did that was amazing on the rides was the 3D and that Harry Potter ride. Even going to sit down in that Kung Fu Panda theater (not something I’d ever planned to see, I needed a short line and to sit down) puts you right in there. Those rides were amazing, didn’t anticipate that at all.

We stayed until around 9p, I time everything around LA traffic. My usual route here is the 405 S. through West LA and LAX airport. The downtown LA route through the 101 to 105 at night was spectacular, don’t think I’ve done that since my friends were at USC? Even then, I didn’t pay any attention or those buildings weren’t lit up like that. Downtown LA is someplace I never go, thought it was just office buildings with some hospitals and a whole lot of traffic.

Going to be a tough drive back through all the smoke in the central valley. Take my dive in the ocean and head back for the long drive. Thinking about asking the NBA players a few doors down from my mom to help me put my bike back in the car 🙂

Heading “Home”

I haven’t been to Manhattan Beach all summer, not that that’s a big loss or I haven’t been busy with other things. If I don’t get out on the water sailing once a week, it’s twice. MB seems like it’s not “my town” anymore. I see all the FB pictures of people still looking awesome in bikini’s in their 50’s. The one thing I wish I hadn’t missed is the English Beat, that would have been fun! I might have been creepy Heller showing up by myself.

I head down today w/ my new electric folding bike, a Pedego. There are a few hills I avoid or walk my bike up when I’m down there, be nice for that jump start up the hills. When you fold it up, it kinda looks like a wheelchair? The cover of the brochure looks like a senior citizen demographic (which is me?). I’m still fully capable of riding a bike!! I rode it without the battery about half way home from the store and then tried it out when I got to some hills to get used to it.

There are two places I could use the bump start, those beach hills and getting up to the Golden Gate Bridge. When I was a teen I had a moped to park at the beach to avoid parking. Uber has been convenient getting around, the extra traffic is very noticeable now. I have a love/hate with Uber, it’s starting to remind me of the traffic and cab drivers in Ciaro – they drive like crap.

The other great thing about it is it’s a folding bike, it can go in the boat or plane for transportation when I get someplace. The hard part is, I can’t lift it. I did it at the store and felt it for 2 days afterward. That part of getting older is really hard for me, I used to be so strong. When I dock, pull the plane out, now with the bike I always need help. Because I’m older too, it’s not like I’m the hot girl asking for help. Last week I was waiting for someone to walk by to help me getting the boat out and a guy said, “Sorry, I’m in a hurry and can’t help.” Late to sail? There’s really no such thing. I told him I didn’t need help and waited for anyone else helpful to walk by. I got Cap’t Ron with a cig hanging out of his mouth, still better than banging the boat into the side of the dock.

Excited to just dive in the water again, can’t do that here it’s too cold. It’s weird, lately when I do things it really reminds me of being a kid. That fog yesterday while we were sailing with sort of choppy waters always reminds me of going out on boats when I was in grade school. Going in the water in MB reminds me of heading down for a dip after school that was a few blocks from the beach. Nice to relive some good memories, now I can finally ride my bike up that beach hill!!

I used to be Heller

Aging is a humbling experience, you feel the same and yet your body and mind is telling you that’s not the case. When I turned 50, I gained 10 pounds that have never gone away no matter what I do. I’ve rowed, ran, swam, rode my bike, eaten only salads yet it is stuck there. In a way, I finally have a woman’s body instead of the bikini bod I got to have for almost 50 years (you’d think I’d be grateful?). Instead of throwing on a pair of shorts and seeing muscle I used to see, I see elephant knees.

As much as I love the beach and really am grateful I got to grow up in a beach town, moving to NorCal saved my skin. Never one to just sit around and lay out for a tan anyway, my life was the beach. In my teens, I would roller skate that mile to the beach every day to play volleyball and swim. If I laid out, it was to read a book or to dry off. As a kid, I’d ride my bike with $1 for lunch tucked in the corner of my towel for Zeppy’s pizza.

All this was coming to me on my swim yesterday, where a woman was in the lane next to me with her teenage daughter…smoking me in laps. It’s not like I’m fast at anything, there are times I just want to cry at what I used to be. I’m fast and in shape for my age?? I remember going in for my physical at 50 where the nurse said, “You’re 50 years young?” like I was 100.

It’s one thing to have the physical decline, barely able to pull myself out of the pool. Twice my legs have gone out from underneath me, once getting on the boat and another time where my cousin & I were jumping off a small stage while we were dancing. I paid for that for months afterward, it was worth it. That’s excluding the fact I’ve been injured almost all year with broken ribs (from surfing)/bad back knocking me out for 6 mos. Lucky I’m able to even attempt to get back in shape at all.

One of the hardest things is my memory recall. This weekend is the 6-man volleyball tournament in Manhattan Beach I was considering going to. Besides the elephant knees & extra weight, I look similar to how I did growing up and people recognize me. Since I haven’t lived there for a long time, if I see someone I recognize I immediately say, “I’m Heller” to take that awkward moment of scrambling for a name out of the equation.

Obviously, people don’t have the same memory loss I do while I look at a face I haven’t seen for 20 years to try and recall a name. It’s worse when they’re drunk with a hat and sunglasses, I had 2 guys come up to me at the last Hometown Fair I went to and were pissed I couldn’t recall their names. One of them, for the life of me, I don’t remember at all even when he told me what his name was.

My memory used to be spot on, now I might as well be standing in front of someone peeing my pants is how humiliated I feel when put on the spot.

There was a guy at the golf course who had the same car I did. When it was time for a smog, mine wouldn’t pass without going to a rescue smog because of a computer glitch. The next time I saw him, I told him about it and he looked at me totally blank like he had no idea what I was talking about. A few months later, he asked me to look up his handicap and told me he had alzheimers. I watched his decline, finally coming out with a nurse so he could still play until he passed away. His handicap was a 10, even with alzheimers. A woman who guided his alzheimers group came in and wondered about bringing some of the group to play and I told her that he was really good, not your average golfer.

I think about him as I age, not that I’m anywhere near that right now. I do skip a beat from time to time, like if someone asks what I did last weekend I’d really have to think about it instead of automatically recalling. The physical is still automatic, similar to that guy playing golf. Still, it’s declining probably proportional to my age which makes going to my hometown events almost painful. That, and I’m genetically screwed in the memory department.

In search of a new coffee place

This whole Peet’s poor customer service fiasco has me in an afternoon latte free fall. At times, I’ve actually had to resort to Starbucks, which is almost like stopping at a rest area for coffee in one of those machines. The odd thing has been different coffee shops attract different customers, I’m just learning all this.

The Peet’s customer used to be serious coffee drinkers, no flavored drinks, PLM (people like me) who need a strong boost and would like to just sit back for a bit to read a book. The first one I had ever been to was when I lived in Oakland, I’d go to the flagship Berkeley store. I even bought stock when it went public, and then a corporation bought it. Now there’s the flavored drinks and K-cups, which should have been the sign of impending doom. I always got my drinks “for here” so I could read and save waste. So far I haven’t found another place that does that.

On the South side of town is Pacific Bay, which is decent coffee without a coffee shop vibe. I’ve been trying to love it, it’s not very crowded and a little out of my way from my normal OCD routine. Sadly, it’s too far out of my way if my routine includes the gym on the way home to swim. It’s a little bit of a location problem more than anything else.

They opened a Philz coffee right by our old office that’s booming. Opening day was free coffee to train the employee’s, our whole office was wired. Philz doesn’t make latte’s or steam milk, they do pour over coffee with cream. The few times I’ve been there I must have gone during the mom groups time with strollers everywhere. When my kids were little I would have loved that, now I just want to read my New Yorker on my Kindle and have a place to sit. The other problem I have with it is I do pour over coffee on my boat, I don’t really need to pay more for that. It’s a good meeting place though, I’m plenty wired when I leave.

The other place I’ve been trying to love is the Coffee Shop for $5 a pop. They have that Square system where they flip the screen around and the suggested tip amounts come up, minimum $1, making it a $6 latte. It’s also just way too hip for me, millennial start up crowd where everyone has their laptop and “working.” Not my vibe at all, it’s a great latte though. They also have a liquor license, to cover everyones addiction. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sold pot soon.

I’m still in search, a caffeine addict without a home. There are 3 options:

Keep searching for the perfect place
Make latte’s at home
Quit my afternoon latte addiction

I’m still royally pissed at Peet’s for jerking me around on every level after being a loyal customer for 20 years. With all the competition around here, it doesn’t seem like I should have to crawl back and suck it up. I’m getting really good at foaming my own latte, which might be my only solution?

Tapering

It’s embarrassing how much Garmin stuff I have, tracking my every move. The newest is a marine watch that supposedly links to my auto pilot on the boat that also has a heart rate monitor. Wow does Garmin have all my info! When Apple came out with the watch, I was convinced the HRM on that would notify Facebook when you died and post a little montage of your life. That still could be true, there’s no doubt they’re collecting data for the future while we’re paying for them to have it.

It’s totally worth it though, I love this stuff! My back has been a lot better, I can still feel it and am trying to be careful. I started swimming and riding my bike again. I’m not a cyclist, I have a gorgeous touring bike I haven’t been able to ride because of my back.

This Garmin is giving me all my swimming stats, for being down for almost a year I’m still in pretty decent shape. My Vo2 (whatever that is) is for a 30 year old. Without training too much, the speed’s not too bad either. Not like I EVER want to compete again, just nice to know.

Every time I think of joining masters swim again I think of my experience in my 40’s when I swam. There were two women in the pool who were faster than me, one who’s daughter now swims for USC. This one woman gave me a birthday card for my 40th saying, “You’re faster than you think you are.” It’s hard for me to tell, Walnut Creek is to swimming as Manhattan Beach is to volleyball (as Marin is to rowing, I rowed there for a few years). A friend of mine has a daughter that played VB in college close by. He was in the olympics for VB when I started rowing and found out Marin was a top rowing club. I said, “I grow up in MB that’s #1 in VB, move to WC and join a masters program where it’s #1 for swimming, then join Marin rowing. Where can I live where I’m #1?” I’m sure he couldn’t relate, it was still fun to complain to a former olympian while watching his daughter’s match.

The incident that ended my swimming hopes and made me feel 12 years old was due to a parent race at one of my kids swim meets when they were little. We had morning masters before the kids practices, I was asked to be on the A team for the parents race. This was a “for fun” race, not going in any record books. It was a 4 person relay, as soon as one person touches the wall the next one goes off the blocks for 25meters. I can make it across a pool taking maybe one breath, top of my game.

Minutes before the race, a few women decided that they wanted to race too, a B team was put together last minute…and I mean last minute. Suddenly, there were 8 of us walking up to the blocks when our heat was called. To my horror, one of my “teammates” switched me up AS WE WERE WALKING TO THE BLOCKS. I guess one of the last minute swimmers was a known triathlete, so I got bumped back. This happened to me once before, in 7th grade when I called a VB game and when it came to our match my partner said she wanted to win and booted me for someone else. I’ve hated both of them ever since.

The A team got 1st (of course), my B team got 2nd. You all remember the City meet of 2003? Yeah, thought so. I do have a few gold medals for rowing, even that was mental torture of who gets what seat and what position was the “best.” I was told my seat was for the lamest rower, I was 4th seat, apparently along for the ride?

At 55, just glad my back is feeling good enough to hop in and out of the pool. Lifting a boat to put in the water hurts just thinking about it, same with golf. I have many o’ competing in golf story as well. My competing days are over, it’s all about getting to my golden years on my own 2 feet. I’m closer to that than being 12, or even 40 now.

Great.

Full House

My son moved back in with his now wife while I was gone. It’s a little bit of an adjustment, I’m used to having the house to myself – if I’m ever even home. The official wedding for us isn’t until October, they got married a few weeks ago on paper to get the green card immigration stuff over with and the clock ticking. She can’t work or leave the country for possibly a year and a half, she’s from Turkey.

The biggest adjustment is the dog! Although I’ve been dog sitting and he loves it here, he’s not quite house trained. He’s a little Yorkie, known to bite, all the way from Turkey. When the boys left home, I envisioned new carpets and furniture after 2 boys/2 dogs. Because of my extreme laziness and/or lack of designer knowledge along with some extremely high bids it just never happened.

The other thing I didn’t anticipate was my in-laws furniture!! When my MIL passed away, my husband took a lot of the furniture from the house to furnish our boys places then brought a lot of it here. The garage is already filled, not sure if his brothers took any of it? Just a heads up, anything you give to your IL’s comes back to you later so choose wisely. My house is now decorated by my IL’s, I’m sure they’re high five’ing each other somewhere with big grins that their DIL, who thought she was going to have some nice things, is now stuck with Levitz clearance items from the ’70’s.

It is my boys childhood home, I don’t ever want them to feel unwelcome. It’s just an adjustment, I do have my boat to go to if I ever need a break. As much as I needed a break when they were little (and never got one) that time went by in lightening speed. I was so busy, it was a total blur. I adore my new DIL!! She’s a girls, girl while I’m a total tom-boy. She’s a good influence on us all, she’s really thoughtful. While I can’t imagine moving in with my IL’s, at all, I’m trying to make it so this is her home too.

The dog has made this his home a long time ago, we have a love fest whenever I come home. I sit in the recliner when I get home and just pet him for about 10 minutes so he feels loved and welcome. He’s probably wondering why he ever had to live in Berkeley to be left alone all day while they worked? Then he has to listen to me play bad piano, I’ll have to find a time to practice when no one is here.

It has to be hard for her, she’s very close to her family. In the meantime, I’m sure the time for me to take care of my mom is closing in on me too. She’s been emailing and calling twice a day, forgetting that she talked to me to say the exact same thing the day before. If I don’t email back, she thinks I didn’t get her email and then calls. The lack of a reply is because I replied to the same email the day before, kinda thought one reply was enough? That’s all for another day, I still need to start this one!

Back from Bisbee….Again

One of the things you never really anticipate when you’re climbing in years is taking care of your aging parents. I’ve wrote this many times, here it goes again, my mom is from Bisbee, Arizona. There are two main events there, the 4th of July and the stair climb where I can count on at least some of my family being there.

My summers with my grandparents there were magical. The mornings were chores and summer school with my grandma until noon, then we had to be home by the time the TV had a message saying, “It’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” That summer school from my grandma’s dining table saved my ass when I had to switch schools again at the end of my summer stay there. I’d head back to Manhattan Beach to a new house and a new school. I went to 7 different schools, but my summers were always in Bisbee.

When my brother and I would get there, the first thing my grandpa would do would give us the coins he collected throughout the year for us to march down to Browder’s toy store. Mrs. Browder was in her 80’s when I was a kid, she was so sweet to us. This trip, I went into the museum there and met her grand-daughter who’s a volunteer there. It never occurred to me that she was a woman business owner? Her husband had passed away when the kids were little, making her sole provider. Learn something new every time I go there.

The last time I went to that museum, which is now run my the Smithsonian, the volunteer was the mailman’s wife. It turned out he had around 10 kids!! Sylvester was my grandparents mailman my whole childhood, I’d actually write notes on the envelope to him saying, “Hi.” She was thrilled I remembered him.

For those reasons, I love still going back and bringing back the childhood memories. I should call Bisbee my Bittersweet Bisbee, because those are all just fond memories now. When my grandmother died I had just had my 2nd son the day after the funeral and couldn’t go. I went months later, the house was exactly the same and we were all sitting there as if she was still in the room. I took a picture I always loved off the wall, then everyone started crying. She was gone, so were the family memories in that house, taking that picture down was the beginning of everyone realizing that an era was over.

An era of 4th of July’s with all my cousins in one place, lemon meringue pies, a full house at all times, sitting on the porch, huge dinners, baseball games in the backyard, hide and go seek where there was a secret passageway from the bedroom to the laundry room, big (haunted?) walk in closets, thunderstorms that lit up the whole house, buckets of rain water we collected to wash hair because the water was so hard there, a tortoise that lived under the porch my whole life and found a new home when she died. Mostly, that home was where we all felt loved and secure. My grandma and her sisters would spend all day cooking “supper.” Both sets of my mom’s grandparents lived in Bisbee, she went to school with all her 1st cousins.

We spent this 4th of July in front of once was once my great-grandparents house, next door to my grandparents house. My cousin, Grant, passed away last year and the house went to his wife and her daughter, not his own kids. They had been married over 25 years, she deserves it and I have no attachment to the house besides saying it being in the family. I certainly don’t want it. Still, she works in a different state now and banned us from setting foot on the property. People grieve in different ways I guess? She owes us nothing, I just thought the whole time she liked us? We still got together on the public part of the property.

My grandparents house next door is now rented to a couple who had invited their whole family over for the 4th of July for a party. These houses are primo for the parade and the fireworks, they’re perfect party houses. That took me aback, then I thought that house was meant for parties on the porch and it’s been more of a shame no one’s used it for that the past 20-some years my grandma has been gone.

Letting go of my childhood is interesting. My uncle still lives there and would like my grandparents house to go to his son. He and my mother are still co-owners and rent it, meaning her portion would go to my brother & I one day. I’ve forfeited my part of the house to my brother and cousin, I have no claims to that house. My uncle has been there his whole life, my cousin grew up there and spent a lot of time in that house too. He might have been 10 when she passed away? I was 12 when my grandpa passed away, I still remember him vividly with great memories. In letting go of the houses, it’s like taking that picture off the wall. My mom said she may never get a chance to go back, we might have both said good-bye to Bisbee? I don’t know.

My mom’s generation is almost gone now too, each time we say goodbye to another one of her 1st cousins. For my mom, it seems like going back there is going back to ghosts. She’s 81, she does really well but there’s hardly anything left there for her besides her brother and a few remaining 1st cousins. We took one to the parade, Margie, who is in a group home now with her brother gone…she is a 12 year old trapped in a 75 year old body. Then there’s Fred, who I see every time I go. Fred is my “save the day” cousin. We went to breakfast yesterday, I gave him a big hug and he said, “I will see you again.” I loved that. He and my mom are a year apart, they went all through school together.

Spent the morning writing, time to move on with my real life which is while I was gone my son and his wife just moved back to his childhood home.

The featured image is the last of the Elk’s club, country club pool sign. If we did all our chores and homework, we’d head out with my cousins for a day in the pool. I still remember my move from the baby pool over to the “big pool” to play with my older cousins. This is now just a sign, the pools are long gone. To anyone else, this probably looks like the road to a Stephen King novel. To me, it still looks full of life near the last few decades of mine.