Two Turkey's to Go.......with Two Kitties on the Side

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Always on the move and on the go. I'm homesick for city living so I'm making a swan dive into the set of "Green Acres" for a short while to sort that out. Well maybe. Who knows? But for the time being we have moved into an apartment of a pristine little farm house down in a classic Tennessee hollow - or "holler" as they say around here. Somehow it didn't occur to me with Tennessee's tin can and string version of technology to find out if they had phone or internet lines to the house. As it turns out, they don't. Or better yet, for a mere $3,000 we can pay to run phone lines courtesy AT&T or for $6,000 we can pay to run them via the cable company. So while I sort out the world of wireless technology we will be temporarily off line - maybe for about a month. I would ask for your patience but really I'd rather beg you to pray for mine.

On the upside, my Bonnie Mommie now has a kitchen almost as big as our L.A. loft. We are extatic to have a laundry at home. Especially since living in this little tourist trap it costs 44 quarters, or $11.00, to wash a dry a load of laundry. I won't be missing that! And well, the piece de resistance, my new jacuzzi bathtub. Wish me bubbly bliss in my brief internet departure.

...and who says you can't move a tom cat? My two little tom kitties, Corn Bread and Apple Jack, were happiest of all about the new digs! surprise surprise.

The Etsy, DaWanda, and other internet stores will be temporarily closed. Follow this blog for updates.

Hugs!
Angela Catirina (...and Bonnie too!)

Surviving the Streets of L.A. with Humor and A Little Sex..

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We were coming home from a night of theatre in West L.A. one night about 2:00 am when this picture was taken. I am somewhat of a theatre junkie. We had season passes to most of the theatres in L.A., so this was not an unusual night out. Always dressed for a night out on the town we would leave our downtown loft and take either the Third Street Metro bus west or the Wilshire Rapid west to Beverly Hills or Westwood for supper. Sometimes we would walk three blocks in our stilettos and fur stoles to the subway up to Hollywood. Then onto whichever show we had tickets to that night. On this particular night we had gone west.

We had supper in Beverly Hills and then over to the Freud (pronounced Fruud because the theatre patron for whom it was named was a hostile cousin of Dr. Sigmund Freud. He wasn't a fan and insisted the theatre be pronounced Fruud to distinguish himself from the family member) Theatre to see a "Reprise! Broadway's Best" production of probably something Rodgers and Hammerstein. We had wrangled very good season seats in this exclusive little theatre where the audience is even more star studded than the cast. It was always among the best of nights out; whatever was showing.

On the way home we would catch the Wilshire Rapid, the big red bus, eastbound back to Alvarado where we would hike the three blocks uphill, along MacArthur Park, to our home on Third Street. Or, if we were feeling skittish, we would depart the Rapid in Beverly Hills and walk the three blocks up to Third Street where we would take Bus #16 home - it dropped us just at our front door. The dilemma with the second option was that the #16 only runs about once an hour at that time of night and sitting on a bus bench for an hour this late at night, even in Beverly Hills, isn't always the best choice. My general rule of street smarts says, keep moving.

On this particular night we were headed home straight for Alvarado. We had hiked that three blocks up hill in our high heels after midnight on more nights than I could count. The first time we found ourselves there we were taken aback. We had mistakenly assumed that a gypsy cab would be waiting near the subway & we could pay them $5.00 to take us the rest of the way. A gypsy cab, if you aren't familiar, is an unlicensed taxi. The licensed taxi's didn't brave this neighborhood at all other than just to pass through, and then only if absolutely necessary. Even the gyspy cabs don't brave the MacArthur Park area of Alvarado after midnight. On that first night that we found ourselves in this situation, we must have been obviously afraid. A group of men hollered at us from behind, "ya'll girls are actin' like you afraid. Ain't nobody gonna mess with ya'll in this neighborhood." This was the first time we had a clue that we had the courtesy of the local gang protection. If you read my post, "Home Sweet Home" then you know what I'm talking about.

So we're coming home from the theatre that night as happy as two girls having had a fun night on the town could be. We were frolicy with the music still reeling in our heads. The Metro was crowded with the ususal crowd - UCLA students, workers from the west side restaurants and bars headed back downtown, an odd homeless person here and there, and a few gang members. Nothing out of the ordinary. We were out of the ordinary but somehow we always are. We took seats at the back. My preferred seat is the one half way back, next to the back door. It sits up higher than the seats in the first half of the bus and when the door opens to let people exit every few minutes, you get a little fresh oxygen. That seat wasn't available though so we took seats across from one another almost at the very back. We were planted in a cluster of gang members which we had become accustomed to as our neighbors and in some cases, even friends.

We were about 15 minutes into our ride home when we realized these guys weren't from our neighborhood. A rival gang most likely. They were exhibiting behavior that seemed predatory and they had obviously singled us out. This had happened before, but not often. When it did happen, we had always had the protection of a neighbor gang member or undercover L.A.P.D. officer who saw to our safety. On this night, we weren't so lucky. We hadn't passed the Beverly Hills stop yet so that was still an option but it carried a big risk. Beverly Hills was virtually deserted at this hour. If they followed us off the bus we could be in serious trouble. Following us off at Alvarado could be equally risky since our neighborhood gang street patrol wouldn't be out that late and the police wouldn't likely be either.

Humor can be a really worthwhile line of defense. Just as we were nearing the Beverly Hills stop, I tossed my camera to Bonnie (my mom) across the aisle from me. She picked up on my instincts and started shooting pictures as I started clowning a mock strip tease, pullled the cord without anyone realizing I had done it, and pole danced my way off the back of the bus, blowing kisses at the gang that was now rolling on the floor in laughter. They thought she was taking pictures of me, and she was, but another reason we always carried a camera around was because people love to have their pictures taken - even predators. You get them distracted, snap their photo, and then if you do have a problem you might also have a means of identifying them. Lucky for us, we didn't need it.




I miss the Metro. Most of the people I know don't understand that. We Americans are not Metro goers as a rule - New Yorkers being the one true exception. My dad was car obsessed and so was I for much of my life. I had a toy race track when I was little girl and I had picked out the 1939 Mercedes Benz convertible as the car I would have when I grew up. Then came Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields in "Smokey and the Bandit" and my eyes were set on a lamborghini Countach, black with gull wing doors. I would be the girl in the sexy jumpsuit that talked her way out of tickets for driving too fast. Such ambitions for such a young girl. I learned to drive a car by myself when I was 9 years old. I did have ambitions where cars were concerned.

Then I moved to L.A. My car at the time was shot - over a quarter of a million miles and barely ticking. One of the big selling points to my new address was that the Metro bus ran ever 3 minutes and 24 hours a day just outside my building. Three blocks down Alvarado and I had an all access pass to the subway. At the time it was about $50 a month for unlimited rides on either. Busses and subway trains are not late. People may use it as an excuse for being late but they are immensely reliable and you don't have to pay $20 to park. I am a little home sick maybe - maybe just for a girls night out on the town.

A Life Journeyed Through the Magic Box

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Wanda Smith (left) dancer from "The Jimmy Durante Show" was my guest at my first play in Los Angeles with her friend, realtor, Laura Vickery


From my earliest memories, I have always been pretty much television addicted. When I was a toddler I envisioned myself as Buffy from "Family Affair". My mother would fix my hair in curled pig tails so I could look like her. We called them "Buffy Tails".


I still have a thing for Buffy Tails

I remember waking up before dawn when I was in pre-school and kindergarten to catch episodes of Mr. Magoo, Captain Kangaroo, and The New Zoo Revue. I have never been a morning person and my parents would laugh at my gusto to be up in time to tune into my friends before school. They annoyed me, my parents. My mother never really understood my question, when I asked her to buy the Mrs. Butterworth's Pancake Syrup that talked not the doll shaped bottle that was stationary, only a bottle. She never managed to buy the Rice Crispie's Cereal box that had the REAL Snap, Crackle, and Pop guys who jumped out of the box and poured my cereal and milk on a Saturday morning. She was holding out on me? Or she was just a dork? I was never really quite sure.

By first grade I was all about "Wonder Woman". The show would come on and I would be ready to watch. Linda Carter would twirl as the show began as her wardrobe changed. I would wrap a blanket around me for a cape and twirl with her - revealing my Wonder Woman Underoos just in time for the episode to begin. When the show ended, I would run and find a wire coat hanger from the closet and hold it like a bow and arrow, sachet through the house and arabesque on the couch singing "Dun da da dun! I AM WONDER WOMAN.......in my Wonder Woman Underoos. The underwear that's fun to wear! (launch by imaginary arrow from my coat hanger bow).....dun da da dun!"

My dad worked out of town alot and back then we had the old console televisions that had tubes in the back that had to be replaced from time to time. He taught me all about them when I was 5 or 6. One day the television went out while he was away and I nagged my mother into taking me to the place to buy the color tubes. Her saying all the way, "we have to wait until your Rusty Daddy gets home to put them in." A patient man at the counter listened carefully and helped me find what I was looking for. When we got home I removed the back panel from the television my mother saying "you're going to break it and then there wont be any tv at all." Oh pish! I coaxed her into watching the screen while I performed a tube transplant in back. She was shocked I fixed it and more shocked that I didn't electrocute myself. I wasn't. I couldn't miss an episode.

In first grade I was also fixated on "Gilligan's Island". I dreamed of living in a hut, on a beautiful beach, and having a family of kooky and colorful friends. I would be Ginger. I practiced her walk relentlessly and much to my parent embarrassment. She was gorgeous. That's what I wanted to be. In a cocktail dress and stilettos on a beach. Made perfect sense to my six year old diva self.

By third grade I was watching "The Love Boat" and Charro was my idol. "Coochie coochie".....I copied all of her moves. I was her biggest fan. I knew her from a show on the Mexican channel that I also used to watch but never could understand. This was followed by "The Muppet Show" and "The Muppet Movie". I was experiencing an awkward stage around this time. My mother politely referred to it as "baby fat". Kids at school were less subtle.


Miss Piggy's Legacy - the goddess within and without still reside in me

I related to Miss Piggy - both her weight & her inner diva. For Halloween that year my Bonnie Mommie made me pig ears and a snout and a red satin strapless short set. She loaned me her clear high heels, mesh stockings, full length faux mink coat, and all of her best costume jewelry to go trick-or-treating in. The only nine year old trick-or-treating in high heels, I was a fashionista & an absolute hit. Every house invited me in to model. This was probably my first and best lesson in learning to work the awkward moments in life to my advantage.

Then came "Happy Days" and I had my first sense of what I had to look forward to as a teenager and also my first sense of the lives my parents talked about having when they were kids. Idealized, no doubt; but I didn't know enough to know that. I had my first tv crush on Fonzie that I projected onto a boy at school named Frankie. I called him Frankie Fonzerelli. He had blonde hair, wore a black leather jacket, ate his crayons, and once stapled his fingers together to prove how tough he was. I was in love. I was his Pinky Tuscadero but he didn't know it. Oh my!

I still dress to impress my first crush

"Happy Days" morphed into the film "Grease" with Olivia Newton John and John Travolta, and "Joanie Loves Chachi". This was the promise that I would have fun, friend filled, dance filled, teenage years. That I would dance and go to parties, fall in love and get married - that life would be a never ending happy ending. Thanks to the advent of cable television and 24/7 movie channels, at one count I had seen the film nearly 100 times and I wasn't even in junior high yet. Dressing for the part, my newest favorite outfit was a pair of silver lame shorts that were hand me downs from an older cousin's dance costume and a bright orange "Mork & Mindy" T-shirt. Oh, I loved Mork too but he had nothing on Danny Zucko. And I had the off-set, pony tail hair do's of Chrissy Snow from "Three's Company". I loved Jack Tripper too but he reminded me of my 4th grade teacher so he was never a crush, just Chrissy's good friend.

By seventh grade, my parents had divorced and my mom and I had moved to a tiny little, nothing, nothing town in the middle of nowhere but where she had been raised. She worked three jobs and I came home every day and every weekend to an empty apartment with only a cranky, aging poodle for company. I absorbed myself in Nick At Night re-runs of "Leave it to Beaver", "Father Knows Best", "Dobie Gillis", "The Andy Griffith Show", and the like. I came to know the idealized era my parents had spoken of in their childhoods and the curious musings of Maynard G. Krebs. These years would migrate to re-runs of "Hogan's Heroes", "Mash", "Gomer Pyle", "The Beverly Hill Billies", "The Adams Family", and "The Patty Duke Show".


By eighth grade I had taken a volunteer job at the local hospital which led to a full time job after school and on weekends; my T.V. watching hours diminished. My tastes had evolved to "Dallas" which would lead to a series of prime time soap operas - an emerging trend of 80's television. Just a year in this tiny little, nowhere town and I began to become aware of the influence television had on the people in my environment. The woman I knew as my grandmother and a particular aunt, both rivaled one another for the role Susan Lucci played on a day time soap opera. They competed not just in her style - clothes and hair, but also in her character's antics on the show. If Susan's character was having an affair you can bet the town was talking about one of them. When "Dynasty" began, they both took on the character of Alexis - not necessarily pleasant. My mother was a fan of "Dynasty" too. She identified with the character Crystal Carrington.

Bonnie Mommie 1980 - the Crystal Carrington look

She bought the sewing patterns for the clothes from the show when they came out. She also identified with "Melanie" in "Gone with the Wind". He'll flame when I say it but I think my dad identified with J.R. Ewing from Dallas - wanting enough money to control everyone around him. He also had a penchant for Burt Reynold and "Smokey and the Bandit", maybe a little "Jack Tripper" thrown in for laughs. When I heard the news that John Ritter died I was in downtown Los Angeles waiting on a bus. I was so distraught that I hailed a gypsy cab home to escape my grief. I was grieving more for the abandoned humor & personality of the dad I had once known as a little girl. He had not been that person to me in decades but that part of him was missed.


I probably wanted to be Lucy Ewing - cute, blonde, fun. I was a brunette back then...sigh.

When I was older I identified with Nicolette Sheridan's character on "Knott's Landing". I made all of her clothes, lost a lot of weight, did my best to take on her persona for a couple of years. I was just barely 20 then.

For a while in my early twenties I fell into the "Beverly Hills 90210" storyline. I wanted to move to Los Angeles even then but didn't and really, I think 30 is young enough to new in L.A.

Then we had some years where life just fell apart. There was no family. I was too lost to face old friends. We wandered aimlessly through life for a few years sorting out the tougher past and here I grounded myself to daily, re-run episodes of "The Walton's". They became my extended family. I flew with Olivia Walton on her first flight, listened to John Boy's story's, watched Jim Bob build a car from scraps he saved up for and traded for for years until he got it done, sat with the family by the radio as they took in the news of the day. Grandpa Walton's soothing voice and sensible wisdom carried me through life's trials. Their family took me in for several years as one of their own. I saw John Boy through college, the beginning of a writing and publishing career. Watched them all survive the trials of depression era West Virginia with remarkable wisdom and grace.



Angela Catirina & Sheldon Epps: director of television series "Frasier"

It is no wonder that at one point I packed up and moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a career that would offer me a life in the imaginary reality that had been such an influence on me all of my life. I was too much "The Walton's" and not enough "Playboy" to pursue it to success but even that experience opened my world to a wider world around me. Wider possibilities than I had know, which led me to theatre, plays, and music I had not before known. Elegant and maybe untouchable, certainly not unreachable.


from one of my first film shoots. An independent children's film about a crazy circus.

Then came Netflix and my television viewing turned to foreign films and documentaries - "Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion", "Fahrenheit 9/11", and all things Bollywood. Suddenly my world became wider and my cultural and political interests broader.

I look back on technology: from Jim Bob Walton stringing wires over the mountain and across town to hook up the television he built from scratch, to the tube televisions of my childhood. Stories my mother told of her grandfather bragging about his 1950's color television that was actually a clear plastic film he purchased to put over the screen. It had green at the bottom for grass and blue at the top for sky. Perfect when watching those wide shot scenes of "Bonanza" and "Wagon Train" but giving close up shots of people a green and blue face. I remember the years before cable when Reynold's Wrap was the aluminum foil of choice to wad up on the ends of the antennae's, a.k.a. "rabbit ears". How frustrating is was when I was the person picked to hold the foil bobs and antennae in place to tune the picture in and just as I sat to watch it would all turn to snow once again. The beautiful color and reception of cable television. Ted Turner's gift to the salvation of old film footage by colorizing the old movies. Controversial to many but opening up the original art of cinema to a generation spoiled by color. Netflix, YouTube, iPhone.... and now the Digital Conversion. What will it bring? Hopefully a wider world to even the remotest of places.

What's Life Without a Little Spice?

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I vowed to turn over a new leaf and quit talking about my hoo ha this year but this latest revelation was just too (ahem)..."satisfying" to pass up.

I found a study recently regarding the effects of cinnamon and klebsiella pneumonia. If you've been following you know that I got klebsiella pneumonia along with staph infection and e-coli up my hoo ha from douching with tap water and silver to cure an infection left over from a burst ovarian cyst. Before you go haywire on me, read the old post, it's my biggest regret ever. I've been to the doctor, real doctor, M.D., numerous times since and all is now well. Well, almost. I haven't been entirely convinced that the klebsiella is totally gone and I was reading and found a study showing that cinnamon has been proven to be very beneficial in the treatment of klebsiella. hmmm.... So yes, I went out and bought some cinnamon supplement. We'll know how it worked with the klebsiella after the next labs come in but WOW!!.......ya gotta love the side effects.

After three days I was just feeling insanely horny. Wouldn't ya know I just moved to hill billy holler. Where's a hot, straight single guy when you need one? I didn't really connect this with the cinnamon right away though. It took some research but it is an aphrodisiac - and a very effective one. Which makes ya wonder if all those old guys taking Viagra have ever considered alternative options.

Okay, I do promise after this to do my very best not to embarrass you further with any of me and my hoo ha stories. You have to admit though, cinnamon: it's useful information.

Well, It's Official

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I've finally decided! If I ever have a little girl I've picked out a name. I want her to be able to respond when some guy says, "Hey baby! What's yo name?"

"Nacho Beezness". "Nacho Beezness Jones" that is.

Now if I could just figure out the conception part. Somehow I think it's going to take more than a tampon wandering aimlessly up my hoo ha to work that out.

Ha ha.... okay. Well. That's my short, quick, laugh of a blog today. Scroll to the next post for the roadshow review....

2008.....What a Year it Was

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I'm horoscope addicted, probably because I seem to live with one foot hanging off of a cliff all of the time. That doesn't mean I don't have faith. It just means I've always got one eye in a telescope toward where that faith may lead. So while I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the 2009 horoscopes. 2008....what a year it was!

After eight fun and frantic years (longer than I've ever lived anywhere), we packed up and moved 3,000 miles east. Actually, we packed, re-packed, un-packed, downsized, packed again, unpacked, called in the recruits(neighbors and strangers) to carry off anything and everything that wouldn't fit into 8 boxes, then threw the rest in two overheaped dumpsters outside our building where it was all scavenged some more. On the way out, one neighbor called in her boyfriend to do some additional dumpster diving for her. And on our last trip to the trash at 4 a.m. we met the SWAT Team coming in our building door. Wrong address! Thank heavens!

Our Arab landlord, in the country courtesy of a 20 year, no questions asked work visa via Beliz, drove us to the Downtown Los Angeles Greyhound Bus Terminal blasting some "I hate America" radio station courtesy satellite radio. Minus my thoughts on his choice of radio stations, he was a very nice man to take us where licensed Taxi cabs wont travel and carry our bags in and see us off like an old friend. We had just barely met.

A sweet and sympathetic ticket agent at Greyhound kindly fixed our bags with handicapped stickers. Probably more out of sympathy for the the other Greyhound employees than for us. Adept at carting big, heavy luggage through crowded bus terminals we are not. Graceless and a potentially catastrophic hazard we are.

Starting out with 3,000 miles ahead of us and $21 to our names we landed in Lubbock, TX with $6 and four suitcases "WITH WHEELS", filled with hair barrettes and chenille teddy bears that we had made to sell for money to get us the rest of the way. In Lubbock, my long lost Rusty Daddy was waiting with a car that got us the rest of the way and then some. Lucky for us the suit case wheels weren't necessary afterall.



Our first night in Tennessee began at 4 a.m. searching for our new address, "The key is in the mail box.

When you get there you can't see the driveway so just drive through the trees across from the box." She failed to mention it was potentially off of a mountain. That took some doing. And after navigating that, we arrive to a strange man following us in on our front door - drill in one hand, hammer in the other. Bonnie demanded that he leave and he refused. Demanded the key, he refused. Demanded his name, he refused. We locked ourselves in the car, called the cops in this little tiny town of less than 6,000. More Mayberry than L.A.P.D. He saw them coming and got in his van and lead footed it out of the house. The local Barney Fife chased him down and sent him back to our house the following afternoon to introduce himself and apologize for squatting on our property. Oh, I just love the South! Thankfully, he was harmless and very polite when ordered by the police to be so.

A week later, we ran into our local WalMart (in this tiny, conservative, Christian town of only 6,000) when passing the jewelry counter I see us passing a very tall man in spandex biker shorts with a very big erection. WOW? I wasn't expecting THAT in small town Tennessee. Only to exit the store and finding the same man crouched down behind a van in the parking lot, butt naked and at full salute. I called the police from my cell phone. Awe.... that poor, unsuspecting 911 lady. In spite of the small townness of it, there is video surveillance in the WalMart parking lot that the police department could access while I was on the telephone with them. Note to self: Don't let your guard down just because you're not walking around alone in Downtown Los Angeles.

First day of summer was also first day of river tubing for us. Freezing cold water and a beautiful ride until we found ourselves, along with all of the other tubers, in unnavigable rapids. I only lost my glasses and shoes. A sweet 7 year old recovered my tube from downstream. Bonnie broke a few ribs and dislocated a shoulder. It was still a really fun ride! We did take our tubing to Splash Country after that though. Good thinking. 2008 was a record year for river accidents and deaths in this part of Tennessee because of the higher than normal water levels. Did I mention that I can't swim?

California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia....... no grass growing under our feet this year. That's for sure! Certainly an exhausting one.

Gas went to $5.49 a gallon. OUCH! And just when we thought we had eaten the icing on the cake, $5.49 a gallon gas dried up all the pumps and we were, for a while, immobile. Oh fun times. NOT!

Have you ever lost a tampon up your hoo ha? I did. And I didn't even know you could. String came out - tampon didn't. Thankfully it found it's way out but don't make the mistake of thinking those things are defect proof! Lucky for me I didn't have to explain THAT to my gynecologist after the silver nitrate up my hoo ha incident.

Well, maybe a ghost has been haunting me or maybe not. The jury is still out on that, but that Saturn cycle that began in 2006 and was suppose to bring me health problems for many months sure came through. Staph infection, e-coli, and klebsiella pneumonia all in one. Good bye Saturn - I hope.

CornBread and AppleJack came to live with us!

Such cute little boy kitty cats! AppleJack is a cross between George Hamilton and Pepe le Pew. Cornbread is more of a real estate tycoon. He found a new condo in the kitchen. Nice choice! He picked the cabinet just under is food drawer, across from his treat door, and next to the water dish. We were all in the living room when we heard clanking sounds coming from the kitchen. Apple Jack looked at me. I looked at Bonnie. Bonnie looked at Jack and then we all headed for the noise. At the end of the kitchen cans were flying out of the cabinet and into the center of the floor. Little 2-and-a-half-pound Corn Bread was chucking 16-ounce cans out to make room for his new digs. It took Bonnie about 5 seconds to evict him. Now he's eyeing the dishwasher. Somehow I don't think waterfront property is what he really has in mind. Applejack is more of an architect. He moved the 4-foot step ladder across the living room and next to their kitty condo. I guess it was an expansion project. Now if only I could teach them to knit!

I had a crazy downstairs neighbor that broke her lease. As her excuse she told the landlord that, "her boyfriend can't screw her because we work too much and the scissor sounds are distracting to him."

WHAT?!

Oh yes she did. And she came upstairs on her way out to tell us the same thing. I replied, "And so, how do you figure the Hooter's waitress with the big butt in the blue car that comes over every night when you are gone figures into this?" She had no response but they all moved the next day. hmmm....

2008.....what a year it was!

Bah Hum Bug....but, Merry christmas Anyway!

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This is never the time of the year to confess this but, Christmas is my least favorite holiday. Oh!, don't get me wrong; I believe in the spirit of it; the meaning of it. I just think it is a holiday that brings out the worst in us. The crazy driver rushing across the store parking lot but not paying attention and flipping off the innocent driver that was nearly crushed. The woman checking out ahead of me at the self check out today and pounding every item in her overloaded cart on the scanner and cursing it for not beeping while her granddaughter watched helplessly and ashamed. And most of all, the drama with gifts, both giving and receiving.

My loathing of all of this began in my pre-teen years. Our little family had evaporated in divorce and Christmases became a fractured nightmare of a Circus with no ringmaster and far too many side show antics. There was the lunatic aunt with the same list every year, 40 or so items repeated year after year: black boots, brown boots, gray boots, black gloves, brown gloves, gray gloves, 12 pair pantie hose, coat, etc... All of Sears. All the same. Every year. All opened one, by one, by one for hours and hours and hours while the audience, not captivated, was held captive. The uncle who showed up with his check book and wrote checks out while gifts were being passed around based on his idea of how much he liked each individual that particular year. It might have been funny if it had been in jest. He was serious, and I grew up to understand that his Christmas spirit had probably gone by the way side of this family farce many years before. There are dozens of characters in this annual tragedy but you get the idea. After a few years I quit going. I think I was 16 when I first had the courage to stay home alone rather than subject myself to the gluttony of a mutinous excuse for a family that wasn't really mine anyway. My other options weren't so great either. Divorces and holidays are a bad mix.

What I have come to understand over the years though is that, what most people want for Christmas, or for anything really, is to be included, thought of, not forgotten. While many seem to need the spotlight and even a stage, most people would just love to be included in some small way.

While we still lived in California, I had a string of thankless and forgettable jobs. One year I was working for a telemarketing company - a boiler room actually.

300 people on the floor each shift. Clock in, take all the calls you can take, clock out. Speak and get fired. I never really knew people there in spite of the fact that I worked there for nearly two years. I would hear snippets in the ladies room and coming to and fro. Baby daddys, single moms, fractured sentences of incomprehendable lives. It was a miserable place and I honestly didn't really want to know anyone there. The pay was hideous and the bits of holiday conversation were beyond sad - women turning tricks to buy inexpensive toys for their children for Christmas dotted holiday conversation every year, others facing jail time for writing hot checks or stealing toys. At Christmas, the bosses (4 young, rude men who owned the place) hung 3 foot tall, cardboard dollar bills from the ceiling rafters for Christmas decorations and nothing else. I protested loudly about the sacrilege of that - "Bloody, money grubbing, BASTARDS!" and the next year they did actually put up a cheap, plastic tree. It's a wonder they didn't fire me but it was a testament to their gluttony. I was good at sales.

I found better options after that but I returned for a short time the next Christmas with my Bonnie Mommie in tow to deliver 300 tiny, wrapped Christmas presents and 300 bags of home made cookies: rum cookie trees, pepermint candy cane cookies, coconut snowmen, and iced santa cookies. 300 bags with four cookies in each bag. We had spent a couple of weeks making and wrapping all of them. The gifts were mostly inexpensive jewelry, purchased wholesale in the Fashion District, near where we lived. It was just a gesture really but it turned out to be one of the greatest gifts we ever gave ourselves. People I had worked with for two years wrote me notes and stopped to speak to me at the risk of their jobs to tell me that, they had grown up in foster care and had NEVER in their entire lives had a wrapped present or a home made cookie. Most of them took them home to save for Christmas day or share with family. It is among the best Christmases I ever had because just thinking of their joy, their joy is still with me.

Los Angeles will always be with me. I was surrounded by so much poverty there. Poverty I had never known. Poverty I would have turned my eyes, not to mention my nose, away from in my life before it. But there is the poverty we know, financial poverty. And there is the poverty we also know but turn our heads from, poverty of spirit. I know now for a fact, I would rather be poor that have an impoverished spirit.

My favorite Christmases in Los Angeles (the past eight years) were spent donning our goofy holiday hats



and carting baskets of cookies all over my downtown neighborhood to the homeless friends we had come to know, the street vendors who sold us our daily food, the bus drivers that got us to and from safe and on time, the Asian family that owned the liquor store, my dentist and orthodontist, and the mish mash of gang members that served as neighborhood security and took it upon themselves to watch over us as well. For eight years, Mr. Roger's song, "Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?" rang in my head. They were people of little money and immeasurable spirit.

My first Christmas in Los Angeles, I had a great new job for a theatre but it was only a 6 week gig.

We had just finally secured our apartment after living for months in a hideous motel. Dead broke, we were out over $3,000 in deposits and rent. So happy to have a place to live we didn't care or even think a thing about it. We moved in on the 23rd of December and hung a string of Christmas lights on the wall in the shape of a Christmas tree.

On our last day of work before the holiday a woman we worked with brought tiny wrapped presents for everyone. They were little bars of imported soap; inexpensively purchased from an import store but the sweetest gesture. Several people in the office snarked but I will forever remember it being one of the most enjoyable baths I ever had - scented like exotic Indian spice and in my very own tub!

Looking back on Christmas stories, I knew a woman briefly when I was in my twenties. She was in her fifties and on the losing end of liver transplant list. Her health was failing. Bonnie and I helped her wrap her gifts that year. Her husband brought them to our apartment by the car load every couple of hours for several days and nights. She had 3 grown children and a grandchild but literally hundreds of gifts. About half way through wrapping them all she chuckled and asked what we thought of the gifts. We hadn't looked. They arrived in plain boxes with sticky notes to identify who they were for but we hadn't looked inside any of them. She was stunned, then she explained that none of them cost over a couple of dollars, some just pennies, but they were all useful things. She said that they had lived through both financially flush and financially slim times and with her illness she had learned that the Christmases her family remembered the most were the ones that were just an all day party. It had nothing to do with the big, expensive gifts. Most people forgot what they got after a year or two whether it was something big or something small. What they remembered was the event, being included, having fun. When she came to realize this they changed the rules. Christmas would be cheap - period. They purchased things throughout the year that were useful and novelty and inexpensive. The focus of their Christmas was the party and everyone was included whether they had expensive gifts to give or not.

Until then, we had been guilty of overdoing Christmas. Or, well, maybe putting more into it than we should have. I think it's what you do when something is missing but you don't know what it is. You reach for every spice in the cabinet and double it. Christmases with us have always been hand made. My mother always thought she could give a better gift with her money if she made it than if she bought it. She hoped the recipients would feel doubly rewarded. As I grew up, it became a tradition with both of us. Then one day a relative said, "I know what you sell this stuff for. I would rather you just sell it and give me the money." It was a crushing sentiment and a waking moment. We turned our efforts elsewhere.

These stories ring in my head all of the time, throughout the year. And this year, as we have moved 3,000 miles we are finding our way in continuing old traditions in new places with new and unsuspecting neighbors and friends. With this year's economy, most people are struggling. Not just in the states, not just in a particular state but people and businesses are struggling globally. I am conscious of this but in my head I just keep hearing John Wayne, "Don't let the bastards getcha down."


I know the spirit of my old Los Angeles neighborhood is not lost without me. Although I don't keep up with anyone there I do see them in my heart every day. I am still donning my kooky Christmas hats and sending Merry Christmas wishes to my Feliz Navidad neighbors of old. I know in their hearts, they are doing the same.

I remember my childhood aunt who sent packages every year with a handmade Christmas ornaments instead of a bow because I could save it and remember her every year. Her packages were always packed with chocolate jingle bell candies. Yummy packing as I recall. The ornaments were lost in a fire but I still remember each and every one of them as if they were here. Her holiday spirit is contagious through the ages.

So no, it's still not my favorite holiday, but like all of these people, I aspire to be infectious and contagious too. Whether or not your pockets be empty, may your spirit be wealthy!

Merry Christmas,
Angela Catirina