The Other Grandmother

You know that dinner with your father's mother, an event you put off for the better part of a year, is not going to go well when your first question, the one you thought was pleasantly innocuous, is answered with "Nothing's new. I sit on my ass all day."

Great. A real conversation starter and ender.

But I had put off visiting with The Other Grandmother, the one that is not fun, about as long as is possible considering that I live less than ten miles away. She's 85 and losing her mind, but she's physically very healthy and will probably outlive the rest of the family. Not that she cares to--as she said, she sits on her ass all day staring at the television in her condo in the Valley. For some kind of structure, she cleans, does a load of laundry, or goes grocery shopping.

If she were someone else, I might feel bad for her. But after decades of total bitchdom, her ability to engender sympathy is pretty much zilch. She has never been a warm woman. My parents' marriage began with my mother threatening to forgo shoes at her own wedding after The Other Grandmother made too many New York Jew demands. (My mother wanted to elope, or alternatively, to keep things very simple. The Other Grandmother, who at the time considered herself something of a success in the Bronx where she and The Other Grandfather owned a deli, wanted a certain display of riches--fancy photographers, florist, venue, etc.--that she had no intention of paying for.) My own personal highlight real is an endless loop of her asking about my weight and commenting that I look like a Spic. For almost 30 years, before every godforsaken visit, I have fantasized about simply calling her a bitch and walking away. Out of some perverted sense of decorum, I never do, but the instinct will not leave me.

So last night The Brother and I tried to eat our obligatory Italian dinner as fast as the waiters served it. We skipped salads or appetizers, went straight to the meal, and said no to dessert without even pretending to look at the menu. The Other Grandmother had about three questions in her repertoire which she rotated and repeated for an hour. Technically, her dementia is to blame for this, but even in her better years, I don't remember her having any more questions than this. Her questions:

How's work?
Do you have a social life?
How often do you two see each other?

To the first question, The Brother and I both said that we had been busy. I tried to offer up a handful of funny and odd details about my work at the courthouse, details which normal people are usually amused by (hello, I am currently making dummy files to thwart TMZ, and just this week had a special sheriff's detail after a litigant in one of my courtrooms killed his wife and then himself; my job is fucking interesting). The Other Grandmother's only show of interest in this subject was her particularly inappropriate follow-up comment to a certain celebrity divorce I'm working on: "So she's white and he's black, huh?"

Then we moved to the dreaded social life question. I said I go out with friends. The Brother said he barely has time to go out because of his job (i.e. enslavement) at a white shoe firm. She turned to The Brother, giving him her beady little eagle eyes, and said, "Why haven't you got a girlfriend? Go get yourself a girlfriend. You're abnormal." I took a big gulp of my wine and fought the urge to tell her that The Brother gets four different cocks a night. Black ones. Big black cocks every night. The Brother tried to change the subject, but with her dementia, The Other Grandmother was right back at the social question two minutes later. This time, I couldn't help myself. I said, "he's got a lot of girlfriends. He sleeps around." Finally, The Other Grandmother said, "Good for him," and shut up for a while as she dug into her scampi.

The third question, for some unknown reason, got repeated more than the others. I must have had to say at least 25 times that The Brother and I see each other about once a week. And each time, she said, "Good. Neither of you has anybody else." Sometimes she got positively chatty and added, "This way you have someone if you want to go out to dinner." Right, because as long as I'm single, I'm really worried about how I'm gonna get dinner. Finding a mate has little to do with love or comfort or sharing a life or feeling whole: it's about getting fucking dinner.

I think the waiters understood our pain and thankfully brought the check quickly once we'd finished eating. The Brother and I dropped off The Other Grandmother at her condo and went for a positively medicinal drink at a dive bar in Sherman Oaks. We had each been to the dive bar years ago for weekday happy hours when we worked in the area. But we had never been there on a Saturday night, and after a single beer we called it quits because it was just too sad and icky feeling to watch the mix of desperate middle-aged singles, yuppies trying to forget their small children at home, two misplaced lesbians, old time alcoholics kissing random people on the lips, and two different men who made Goliath look small. I came home, showered off the Valley germs (The Brother insisted on hand-sanitizer even in the car), and went straight to bed. I figure I don't have to do another dinner with The Other Grandmother until Christmas, and just between you and me, I'm hoping that her dementia will be so bad by then that I'll be able to tell her we went to dinner without actually having to go to dinner.

Terriers

8 a.m. dog fight. The little one once again got raked across the muzzle. The medium one once again was spotted with blood. The big one was of course pissed off because the other two woke him up, on a Sunday morning no less. But the big one has been even more ornery than usual--yesterday at Starbucks he barked at a stranger to demand her whipped cream. This is what you get with three male terriers. Boys will be boys.

Only In LA?

I'm putting together a lunch to bring to one of the homeless guys at the courthouse, the one who makes me laugh every morning when he tells me to Stay focused! It would be easier to just buy him a Subway giftcard, but this is a guy who I suspect will appreciate just the idea of someone cooking for him. He actually thanks me when I stop to say good morning. Though he's a smart hustler, there's an element of profound sincerity in his interactions with the courthouse regulars. Everybody likes this guy.

So I'm making up a bag that will get him through a few meals: a big bottle of juice, a half dozen oranges, a box of granola bars, a pair of ham sandwiches, a bagel with cream cheese, and a big green salad. I tried to keep things simple because I don't know his preferences, but the green salad looked so plain that I sprinkled gorgonzola on top. Then I had a moment of pure panic. Do elderly homeless men know about gorgonzola or is this poor man going to think I'm serving him moldy cheese?

The more I think about it though, the more I'm coming to conclude that he not only knows gorgonzola but at least three other imported blues. This is LA. There's a Patina restaurant across from the courthouse. There's a steakhouse. There are a cluster of yuppie cafes. He's always eating people's leftovers. The last time I brought him my leftovers, it was a half of a proscuitto panini with arugula and a garlic aioli. So I'm taking my chances with the gorgonzola crumbles on the green salad. I'll let you know how they go over.

Justice

I had a motion today for the return of a bowling ball. The moving party described the bowling ball by name, serial number, and predominate color. I'm so glad I can provide this fine service, heavily subsidized by the CA taxpayers, so that this bowling ball might one day be returned to its rightful bowler. What does a bowling ball cost even? One hundred dollars? Two hundred? Surely, the price of a bowling ball pales in comparison to the filing costs, attorney fees, county dollars spent on a research attorney, a court clerk, a judicial clerk, a judge, and a bailiff. Parking alone is $20 by the courthouse. But this, folks, is justice.

Love Me

But LA, I do. I do love you.

This is on Fairfax, just north of Beverly. I'm happy every time I drive by it. The only building-side painting I like more is the pair of oversized chihuahua ears on La Brea, but I haven't been able to stop long enough yet to get a good picture.