I just returned from the harrowing-at moments desperately futile-at the last minute victorious (although signed lease not yet in hand at the moment I write this...) apartment location trip in LA with the husband. We started the scout for our new home by climbing an 80 step precipice to a wonderful yet completely impractical home in the Canyons. I could almost hear sounds of the 60's in the wind, bare feet crunching dry leaves in a hippie excursion to smoke a bowl of peace until I saw it was only the property manager's golden retriever rooting in one of the defunct Italian fountains nestled around the property. "What you got there?" said the owner, the way a dog owner does with pleasure that their animal is completely still instinctual despite dog beds, eye pillows and osso bucco stuffed treats. I backed slightly away, fearing the rooting dog would produce a canyon groundhog still alive and kicking, foaming at its furry little rabid mouth (okay, I don't really know if groundhogs can actually BE rabid but it adds drama). But it was just a bone left over from who knows what? The neighbor's dog? A mysterious unsolved murder? Now that I think about it, it did look femur-ish. Regardless, dog gone it, and no pun intended, that crafty golden found himself a bone. "You ever see the movie Air Buddies?" his proud owner asked me. "Oh yeah, of course Air Bud? Sure." "No, Air Buddies," he corrected me. "This here Golden was in Air Buddies, that was number 6 of the 9 movies." I was still getting over the fact that there were 9 Air Bud movies made to begin with, never mind that my first celebrity sighting of the trip had four legs, when he said.. "Yup, we shot for 3 months in Vancouver." Three months. For Air Buddies. The movie business never ceases to amaze me. I almost asked if Buddy had his own trailer but I couldn't bear the answer. I of course got a picture of the famous Golden for my kid. She was pretty damn impressed.
Later that Saturday in the midst of our apartment appointments, it dawned on my husband and I that we were meeting with a fair amount of middle aged men, who managed properties for "other" wildly successful wealthy men". These elusive property owners were supposedly their "partners" yet how come every property we showed up to, our middle aged male contacts were sweeping? Literally every time, sweeping. Maybe one had a push broom versus a regular broom, but they were sweeping. As they talked to us about the men whom they represent that own the property, they emulated them as so successful we would never meet them or know them because they had maybe one maybe two brain cells available to think about the property we would call home since they are building like 50 Stay the Night chains across Central California. So the manager/friend/partner that we were meeting handled it all for them. I have one word for these men. SERFS. Serfdom is alive and thriving in Los Angeles in the rental marketplace. At first I couldn't believe it, but after I started to really ponder our country's history, it dawned on me that since the beginning of time, there's been white serfs. At least now they have cars and cell phones.
The next recurring incident relates to the title of this post. We were looking at an apartment in Beverly Hills and the landlord was, I don't know, maybe Russian, one of those very thick Eastern European accents, and as we were exiting from viewing the potential rental, she expressed in her final sell tactic, "You know, I see you, you are a nice couple, together, you know what I mean?" She paused for effect. We clearly did not see what she meant. So she pressed on. "You are not like a single woman with children. The single mothers... they can't pay. It makes it very hard on me. So I want a husband and wife that are supporting each other." I was about a half a second shy of telling this woman on behalf of all the unsung hero single mothers in America and beyond, that she was a royal bitch and slap her right in the face. But I knew it wouldn't change her. When I told my broker about the conversation later, before I was even through she hollered into her cell phone, "What a bitch!" Tell me about it. So I'm still smarting from this (and dealing with my husband's inquisition of why I'm so concerned considering I am NOT a single mother... right??) and we're driving through Beverly Hills and I call on another property. New woman, same thick foreign accent. I inquire about the 3 bedroom place. She asks me where I'm moving from. I don't remember how it translated, but somehow she got it in her head that I was possibly a single mom when she said, "And your husband, will he be moving here from Berkeley too, or is it just you and your children." "All of us," I said with pursed lips. "Good. Good," she said and I could hear in her head her thoughts: 'cause those damn single mothers are just bankruptcy for all!' I basically hung up on her. Then I thought back to a tour I had at one of the Beverly Hills schools a few months prior. There was a single mother there. She was fantastic. Smart, witty, successful. A great conscientious mother. She was planning to rent in Beverly Hills. Wow. I wonder if she did have to bitch slap someone???
So like I said in the beginning, we still have no lease officially signed yet, but our hopefully new rental came at the final hour from the Gods of Relocation and it really was a gorgeous miracle. We were one hair away from taking a home on the top of a hill where our driveway would back down onto Benedict Canyon where traffic roars by aggressively and rapidly all day long. Fast forward 3 months from now to a car accident at the intersection at the bottom of my driveway. There is me, with LAPD and some Russian Czar and his wife whose nose is bleeding because I just socked her one for rushing to the conclusion I was an overwrought single mom who should 'find a man'. This would also inadvertently simultaneously squash my million dollar career as a writer because the canyon road would be blocked all morning thwarting zillions of dollars in deals for the agents who couldn't get from their palatial estates into the office that day, and they would make it a point to know who that woman was that cost us. Blacklisted. So that tragedy was thankfully diverted. Then on the way home, at the airport, a message came in the form of a combat veteran of how lucky I am to have these small insignificant problems, alive and fortunate to even have the time and freedom to write this blog. An airport policeman made the announcement at the Southwest gate that in a few minutes a decorated combat vet from Afghanistan would be arriving after a year away. And if when he came off the jetway, could we afford him some applause? The pedestrians waiting for their flights were really moved by this and like me, more than eager and in fact emotional. You really only see this on Channel 5 news and in movies. So we were all eager to participate in the home coming of this brave soldier. "I feel nervous," I told the woman next to me who was texting all her friends what was happening. "Me too," she said. The two Legion troops with flags stood by the gate with the soldier's sister, and as the soldier stepped out of the jetway, we all applauded our hearts out. He looked tired, shell shocked, but I think later when it hits him he's on safe American soil, he will smile at the remembrance of the strangers that appreciated him.
The guy probably has a damn proud single mother.
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