April 24, 2003

  • Not too much time to write with a test this week, but Easter was such a blast I hate to forget one detail.  Brett and I rendezvoused at Chelle's house, an early nineteen twenties, tres vernacular English Tudor right off the beach, shortly before noon.  We played ping pong with her and her new guy Ned in her post and beam game room, then talked and fooled around up in her attic bedroom a while before heading out to nearby Malibu to see the sites before the holiday meal was ready.   There's a great stable with trails leading out to the beach.   The first time Chelle invited me over for a weekend visit, we rented some horses.  I got so stiff I could hardly move the next day, but it was good fun spotting some of our favorite celebs, many also on horseback.   It was so choppy Sunday, though, we just drove around, parked and watched the coast guard, who must've been out there all day.  Brett's never that impressed with Malibu any more, which he thinks is too crowded and like a circus.  Ordinarily the beach is so packed you can't find one place to sit.  We didn't catch site of any major talents except for one lady who might be a daytime soap star.


    It was a big high school graduation bash held by Melanie, a friend whose father got transferred to Southern California sophomore year, that sold me on L.A. for college.   To find the real, sun and surf, jacuzzi and jerk California out-of-staters hanker for, you have to go down at least as far as Santa Barbara.  Up North, we're too small and overpopulated, not to mention much older demographically, to be very social; peeps are too busy busting their butts trying to find a decent job to afford the over-priced postwar boxes they call upscale homes.  And our beaches are too cold and rough to swim in.  Southern Cali has much more housing, open space, and opportunity.  There may be more cement yardage in the form of freeways, but you never know what adventures lie along the palm-studded way.  I'll never forget how Mel and I cruised Sunset Boulevard the day before her "soiree" and met a whole bunch of fab cute guys stuck in traffic; peepz really do hold up signs with their numbers on them and get out of their cars to round up a hot date, while friends often switch vehicles, laughing as they try to beat the signal.  We parked across the street from a famous hotel and I saw a young actor from a popular sitcom push through the revolving door and swagger around outside.   As he was going back in, a guy who looked and dressed exactly like him exited from the opposite door.  I thought I was "seeing double" watching them go in and out like penny arcade gophers until they eventually ended up on the sidewalk together.   Many celebs are twins, Mel explained later as we dined on sushi and diet Peps out by the pool, the blue water painting dancing lights on the side of her rambling Spanish-style home; they make the best stand-ins.  If you're a twin, you're already miles ahead of most people trying to get into show business.   Twins and midgets; the Powers That Be must reward the little people with money and fame for being short-shrifted in life.  Anyway, had I gone to Berkeley or San Francisco State as my family hoped, I would've had to live at home and commute; no way for a girl to break Mommy's apron strings, I argued, stating that the "fast-paced superficial quality" of Anngeleeze, as Mom described it, would render me more world-wise--just what I needed to make it in liberal arts.


    Sunday the Ketchams served garlicky veal birds and lamb shanks in a mossy parsley sauce, steamed fresh broccoli spears from the garden, boiled pink new potatoes, trimmed with stripes like Easter eggs, fresh spinach timbales, the proverbial marshmallow-studded candied sweet potatoes, and Chelle's Dad's own wine and sherry, which he ages in the basement.  They avoid big greasy holiday spreads ever since her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in her mid-thirties (an easy transition I imagine, since they've always to my knowledge been super calorie-conscious, even subjecting guests to their strict low-fat diet.  I always felt I was starving during over-nights, and resorted to raiding Ms. Ketcham's crisp wafer cookies, which she keeps hidden in a kitchen drawer to savor one at a time during her special moments.)   For dessert was a Tiramisu in cake form, not the homey casserole dessert my Italian relatives dish up, but equally rich and scrumptious.   The general topic was money, particularly the stock market, ubiquitous to this terrain.   I know little about it except that it's basically fancy gambling and a rich man's prerogative; this I offered carefully to Mr. Ketcham, who seemed delighted enough with my private school charm.   But as for the wine, which Ned pronounced "smooth," I stayed politely silent, detecting a slight vinegary edge to the sherry; I'm not really a beer and wine drinker anyway, much less an aficionado of alcoholic beverages, so why upset the apple cart?


    Other than this boisterous gourmet interlude, the older people kept pretty much to themselves, leaving us kids to find amusement elsewhere in the 4,000 square foot, completely renovated and modernized house.  We ended up passing a smoke before a crackling fire in the game room, discussing politics with studied maturity as if it we were enjoying the spoils of our own hard work, in our own proud home, while staving off a middle-aged crisis.   It was interesting.