V-Day Fiasco, Part 1

My great friend, Dorothy is a widow. I am divorced. As I alluded to in my previous post, Valentine’s Day isn’t a fun holiday for the…um…unattached. (And I’m sure that’s not exactly a news flash to those of you who fall into the same category!)

Well, not ones to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, we decided to meet up with a group doing the Downtown Arts Walk.

The endeavor was doomed from the start. Dorothy doesn’t drive freeways so I was at the helm of her Lexus (a nice change from my lowly PT Cruiser!). She told me she wanted us to take her care because it would be good for it since it never gets driven on anything except surface streets. To blow crud out the engine, so to speak.

We had planned to meet up with everyone at the Edison Hotel where they were offering 35 cent martinis from 5:00-7:00 in honor of the day. Whoo-hoo!

We had planned to leave at 4:30 but that was nixed because my boss had missed his plane and I was helping him get an alternative. So we set off closer to 5:30. First mistake: we decided to take the 405 South to the 10. Bad idea! No accidents (which was good), just too many cars, not enough freeway. When we finally reached the 10 East, it didn’t really improve. But we spent the time chatting so it wasn’t too awful.

Then I noticed the time. It was 6:15. The martinis were officially off. *sigh* But we could still catch the group for the walk. We passed one of those helpful/mocking signs: “Time to Downtown, 40 minutes.” Wait…no we couldn’t.

But, hey, we had all the information we could just do it on our own. Again, wrong choice. We cruised onto the 110 doing a majestic 7 miles an hour. (So much for blowing crud out of the engine!) We got off at 4^th just like Google Maps told us to and promptly found ourselves in an empty downtown. We passed streets with familiar names but couldn’t remember which direction they ran. The Google map had been to get to the Edison, not the start of the walk. (How young and naive we’d been then!)

But, wait! A sign for MOCA! Whoo-hoo! We’ll just go there and catch the Dash bus (which was running in a loop). If we don’t find the group, no problem. We can still see the galleries.

Problem 1: Although we saw intermittent MOCA signs, we couldn’t seem to find the museum itself. The signs were of the “MOCA Nearby – Guess Where!” variety rather than actually giving anything so crass as an exact location. But we figured we MUST be near and cruised into a handy parking lot. There was a lone worker strolling by and we asked where to park for MOCA parking. He confirmed that we were in the right place – we just needed to “Go down there and turn left and follow the arrows……It’s easy!”

Clutching our parking stub, we tried to follow his vague directions. I love it when the implication is that you’ll be able to follow directions easily (“Just follow the arrows”), not allowing for the fact that there are places where the arrows go both ways.

Don’t you love it when the implication is that you’ll be able to follow directions easily, not allowing for things like having to make turning decisions with no signage to guide you?

Amazingly, after a good deal of driving around in the deserted underground parking lot, we managed to find a bank of elevators that promised to take us up to MOCA. We parked (remembering to make a note of where the car was), went up to Plaza Level…and promptly found that MOCA and any signs referring to it were nowhere to be seen.

It was dark, cold and really windy. There were so few people that things had that post-Apocalyptic look – which should have told us something! Spotting a Koo Koo Roo across the street, we headed there for more directions. The lady behind the counter looked at us like we were mad. “It’s right across the street.” Where we’d just come from.

Sighing, we stepped back outside and pushed our way, against the wind this time, back to where we’d started. Turning left we walked half a block and there it was. The man at the ticket booth gave us the good news first: the tickets were free. Whoo-hoo! Then came the bad news: the museum was open for only 23 more minutes. (I swear he said “23 minutes.” Not “less than half an hour” or even “25 minutes”…”23 minutes!”)

Wonderful. We’d just agreed to pay $11 to park for 23 minutes of museum time. Using my trusty calculator, I find that breaks down to just under $.48 per minute.

We sighed (yet again), accepted our free tickets (“Be sure to put the MOCA sticker on your shirt!”) and headed for the entrance. At least there were a few people inside.

Once we entered, we were once again reminded of the importance in putting the stickers on our shirts. Why? To keep people from sneaking in to the FREE museum? As a theft deterent? (“Well, I was going to walk off with that Mondrian, but, see, I was wearing this sticker…”) Or just because they can tell us to do something dumb and we’ll do it?

But at least we were IN!

End Part 1

VALENTINES DAY

Or, as my friend Jenean likes to call it: Singles Awareness Day.

This is a day when all people who are in a loving, healthy relationship feel even more loved…and when those of us who are either in a not-so-loving relationship or no relationship at all, feel crap.

Sadly, I’m more familiar with the latter, having no real personal experience with the former.

Everywhere you go for the weeks leading up to V-Day (which, in our consumer-driven culture, is pretty much from Christmas Day onwards), you’re greeted with hearts and an overabundance of red, pink and white. If you ARE unattached, it’s pretty hard to ignore.

When I was married, Valentine’s Day was the tail-end of the “Deadly Three Weeks.” This unholy triumvirate consisted of our wedding anniversary on January 27th, followed by my birthday on February 8th and ending with V-Day on the 14th. My ex-husband felt it was his divine duty to do as little as possible to commemorate any of them and – despite my efforts to develop a thick skin about it – it always hurt.

Being single has improved the Deadly Three Weeks tremendously!

But it does get old. I’ve been out of a relationship for 14 years and, although hope-over-experience springs eternal, I’ve got to face the fact that the older I get, it becomes statistically less likely that I’ll find my soul-mate.

It’s not that there aren’t men out there to find, it’s just that I’m not going to settle for a relationship without being totally in love. And that ever-elusive chemistry is a real bear to find.

My wonderful-but-clueless long-married friends tell me, “It will happen when you’re not looking for it.” Although I love them, I swear the next time someone utters that platitude; I’m going to punch them in the nose. It’s like saying you’ll get that dream job by not looking. It takes away my power to do anything about it.

It’s damn easy thing to say when you haven’t spent the past 15 years sleeping alone. (Yes, I know I said 14 previously --- but did you think I slept with my ex-husband right up to our separation??)

*sigh* Sheila here…trying not to sound like a bitter bitch. (Probably a losing battle when I’m on this subject!)

The funny thing is, I have many AMAZING women friends who are in the same boat. And most of us don’t even date. And I don’t doubt for a minute that there are a bunch of amazing men out there somewhere wondering where the great women are…although where these men congregate, I’ve no clue!

I’ve tried the Internet dating thing too many times to count and the results have ranged from general frustration to massive disaster to outright hilarity. I could write a book about men who flake out even before you meet or are so completely boring you wonder how they get by in life or spend your first (and last!) phone call ranting about women or who send you a picture of their penis and then claim that they’re interested in more than sex. It helps to determine you’ll be entertained by the situation no matter what…

Here’s my personal take on the single older adult man/woman divide:

1. Women - in general - are smarter than men.
2. If a man has a good woman in his life, he may decide to try for an upgrade.
3. When a woman has a good man in her life, she usually hangs on to him.
4. This is why there are more good single women out there than good men!

I know there are good single men out there – I HOPE there are good single men out there somewhere! Men who are funny, interesting, smart, caring……etc., etc., etc.

But where the hell are they??

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

BIRTHDAY CAKE!

Last Friday was my 55^th birthday. I’ve said before (ad nauseum…) that I don’t lie about my age but, I must admit, it IS a bit sobering to realize that I now qualify for the Tuesday Senior Discount at Ross…

Normally, I consider having another birthday a blessing, not a curse. It sure beats the alternative! But because I feel like I’ve spent the last year and a half marking time, both personally and professionally, I admit I’m finding this milestone frustrating. I'm at the same old bloody place: under-paid, under-utilized, under-loved, and frustrated (on many levels!).

I've now reached a time in my life where people my age are at least looking at retirement and I've not even got any assets.

Well, except for my genius. Yup, like Oscar Wilde, I’ve got "nothing to declare but my genius." Of course, I admit he had the "genius" thing down a bit better…

Back to Birthday Cake...and, yes, it needs to be capitalized.

Birthday Cake is pretty important to me. Not exactly sure why, but it might have something to do with growing up in a small town in Florida. Port Charlotte had just one bakery and my family only made the pilgrimage if someone was having a birthday.

Going to the bakery to order my Birthday Cake was a glorious occasion. There wasn’t much of a selection, really. There were no theme cakes or plastic princesses for the top or cakes with pictures in icing or even cakes with fruit filling. I’m not even sure if chocolate was an option.

But to my little-girl eyes, the fancy roses and icing swirls on the cakes seemed amazing. To the little-girl who still lives inside me, they still do. So much for growing up and getting all sophisticated!

Now, I have very definite ideas about what actually constitutes a real Birthday Cake (the kind with capital letters). Although I certainly believe that others have the right to have chocolate or carrot or whipped cream with strawberries – and most of the time I like all those cakes just fine - that isn’t a Birthday Cake to me.

MY Birthday Cake must be white cake with white frosting, perhaps flavored with a bit of peppermint. There must be flowers – roses and lots of them – and swags of frosting around the sides. The color is important, although I do like to vary that part from year to year. *sigh*

And there must be some leftovers! So I can put them in the fridge and have cold cake for breakfast afterward. YES!

But the sad truth is that I haven’t had a proper Birthday Cake for a long time. I just didn’t feel right buying one for myself and – because people can’t read my mind - nobody got one for me. To be honest, I didn’t really realize how much having one meant to me until last year when my youngest son and I were spent part of my birthday evening driving from Ralphs to Vons looking for a cake that would fit my ideal. (And – even with all that driving - we didn’t find one: they were all chocolate.)

BUT tonight is my friend Jenean’s birthday and I’m going out celebrating with her and some friends. I have the all-important role of cake-bringer. Luckily, Jenean and I both agree on the importance of Birthday Cake and this one will have both our names on it. (She insisted…this is why she and I are such good friends!)

So….HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENEAN! And thank-you-thank-you-thank-you for letting me share your Birthday Cake!