Road Rage (For Warrior Parents)

I'm pretty sure 90% of people drive like assholes and it isn't just in L.A. I have never been anywhere where people drove like humans. Nope. It's pretty much an international problem. Anyone can drive a car these days. Hell! Anyone can drive a Mack truck or a Winnebago.

I have never been a passive driver. I balance my kindness for strangers with pure unabashed hate for people who:

A. Cut me off.
B. Drive below 70 in the fast lane.
C. Drive like a 145 year-old i.e. so slow you want to kill yourself and when you pass them you see that they can barely see over the steering wheel and look like they might just die any minute.
D. Blast Tom Lichis whilst driving a neon-blue VW Jetta with Vanity Plates that say: "#1 Ninja" (I swear I JUST saw that someone on my way home from TJ's.)
E. Break really hard without break-lights
F. Forget to turn their blinker off.
G. Do not use a blinker.
H. Throw trash out the window, especially when it's a McDonald's Happy Meal. Thanks for the milkshake on the windshield, asshole.
I. Crash into me. (This used to happen to me once every couple months and only once did a rear-ending driver carry insurance. Not cool.)

I could probably sit here all day and list things that drive me nuts about my fellow drivers but I'll stop now. (Feel free to add to the list, by all means.)

Road rage used to be my specialty. I had mastered the art of flipping off the person that most likely didn't have a gun. I was pro at cutting off the asshole who cut me off by switching lanes, pulling back and POW, how do you like me now, buster! My honking instincts were spot-on to the point I was literally honking before anyone could antagonize me to do so and my mouth? I could out-curse a trucker in El Paso Texas (and did once.)

But with a baby in the backseat? Dude. DUUUUUUDE. It's a whole new ballgame. Raging with a child/baby in the car must be handled gingerly, like a delicate flower.

First of all there's no more flipping off random people, even when you're 90% sure they won't have a gun. Second, cutting off the "#1 Ninja" is just plain dumb. He is after all the "#1 Ninja" and may have some Nunchucks or those star-things or something and I'm not going to fuck with that. Speaking of fuck there's no cursing at perverts or dickheads on the road, no matter how many times they stall in their rented Porsche on La Cienega and accidentally front-end you repeatedly until you have to get out of the car and offer nicely to drive for them, because obviously they cannot drive a stick-shift and are trying to impress some chick who appears to have died from an overdose and is foaming at the mouth in the front seat.

Yeah, no cursing. Instead its:

"Effing H!"

"What the H are you Effing Q-ing, you H-ing Y!?"

"I swear to G, I'm going to Eff your face off for being such a sexing Poop!"

"Poop on your Ass-hat!"

"Eff your goose, you Jack-butt, piece of A-dilly!"

"Carping Eff. Watch where you're going you Dumb Donkey!"

Intimidating? Maybe not but as long as you keep the window up and shake your fist several times, your enemy will think you're a real badass. Your road-warrior status will hover in the top 8 percentile of road-warrior badasses and your child's first word will be "Eff-wheels" instead of "Fuck-nut", which for me is well worth it.

GGC

The Garden of Weeden

When we moved into our humble abode we were very excited that it had a yard. A small little yard with a persimmon tree and beautiful vines. I added a wooden bench and although the grass was a bit dead, it was very charming and Archer and the dogs and I spent many an afternoon playing in the dirt.


We had been talking about fixing it up, making it really nice, getting a rod-iron table and maybe some lanterns or a grill and a sand-box. A sand-box would be really family of us.

My parents must have read my mind because for Archer's 1st birthday, he received a beautiful new shiny boat-shaped sand-box with a steering wheel and a veranda. High class. I couldn't wait to get it all set up back there.

We decided to make the yard really nice, a haven for Archer's boat, somewhere to enjoy, a little oasis! We dug up the dead grass and the top layers of dirt, getting our hands dirty and shit, but unfortunately our yard-makeover-project was abandoned when the next morning it was 641 degrees. Far too hot to work the yard. The days passed and pretty soon the weeks and finally the months. Two months...


And then the "beautiful" vines took over. They grew over everything, the dirt and the grass and the bench and even started growing inside Archer's room. They grew over the sand-box-box and into my soul.

Poor sand-box, all alone under all of that foliage. Poor me, brown-thumbed and depressed at our mess of a yard.


I come from a family of gardening professionals. My mother and aunt both being impressive gardeners featured in magazines and my Nana, well, the woman is queen of all things green, an author and gardening pro who travels the world talking shop and knowing everything.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to contact my Nana because she has been spending the summer on the family island off the coast of Maine. Sounds fancy but really it's like camping with little shelter, no electricity and/or plumbing but at least it's a family island. I'm not going to complain.

(Nana Backstory: When my grandfather passed away, my Nana decided to take all of her grandchildren (five of us) anywhere we wanted to go in the world. She took my cousin, Erica to Africa, my brother to Turkey and Greece and me to Italy, Spain and France. She was in a wheel-chair at the time (she has bad knees) so we traveled with a chauffeur and I pushed her along cobblestone streets, many a mile, her pointing her cane at horny Italians as to keep them away from her eighteen-year-old granddaughter. "Shoo! Shoo!," she said.

Because she was in a wheelchair we never waited in a single line. Not at the Sistine Chapel or the Pompidou or The Louvre. We even bypassed the six hour wait at the Uffizi. Lesson learned: the only way to travel during high season is with a Nana in a wheelchair.)*

So meanwhile as we struggle with our gardening crisis, Archer's Na-nana is rough'n it on ze island de familia. SO now what? This is the very question we have been asking ourselves.


After weeks of wringing our hands and pacing and trying to figure out what the hell we are going to do with our mess of a yard so we can set up the damn sand-box sometime before Archer's Bar Mitzvah, we have done what any respectable local would do in our desperate situation. We called TLC, HGTV and DIY and filled out online applications for a makeover. Please pray our backyard gets a call-back.



The most important lesson I have learned living in the H-wood is that if you can't do it yourself, find a TV show that can do it for you.

And so we wait...

GGC

*I just realized that this is a blog post in itself. Coming soon...

GGC'S Top Five Weekend Recommendations

1. Weeds, Season One on DVD. (Once you get past the first three episodes, it's really good.)

2. Trader Joe's Frozen Strawberries dipped in white chocolate. (Holy, shityum)

3. People of Paper By: Salvador Plascencia (Some genius at McSweeney's decided to stop printing one of the finest novels of the past 50 years. It's fucking perfect and now it's out of print. Buy your copy before the used copies disappear.)

4. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Sooooooo funny. Gooooooooo see it.

5. Gerber's Sweet Potato Veggie Puffs. (Is anyone else addicted? I think I've finished three canisters this weekend alone. Oy to Mutha-vey.)

Happy Weekending.

GGC