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Sounds Like . . .

3 May

If you grew up bilingual, you know the amusement that comes from words and concepts that get mangled in the language divide. 

Among my favorites:

  • Upon being told a child was gifted–”Your teacher said you were gifted, I wonder when she’ll send the gift.”
  • On explaining to his children that the Mormon temple on Santa Monica Blvd. has a geneological center affiliated with it–”That building there, that’s where they keep the bird records.”
  • On asking to be taken to Bed Bath and Beyond–”Come on, let’s go to the Body de John.”
  • On being told that some buses in Boston run on electricity via wires–”But how do the wires hold up the buses?”
  • On seeing a published legal case list each of the Supreme Court justices by title and name alone (i.e., Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor), a relatively new law student asked–”Why is their first name all Justice?”

© Laura Genao 2007

Lo Que Bien Se Aprende Nunca Se Olvida

17 Apr

Tonight I had occasion to recall things my mom used to do to make sure I studied hard or learned my lessons well.  Among the more memorable:

  • Most parents practice the spelling of words on those weekly vocabulary lists by having their children recite the words’ letters from beginning to end.  On Mondays through Wednesdays, my elementary-educated, Spanish-speaking, single mother tried very hard to play traditional, but on Thursdays she got wild and made me spell the words from end to beginning.  Her theory was that if I’d really mastered spelling the week’s vocabulary list, I should be able to spell its words backwards; and
  • My sister and I not only had to do our elementary school math problems in regular numbers, my mother always gave us an extra set of “enrichment” problems to do, in Roman numerals.  My profound knowledge of Roman numerals serves me well today by giving me an extra edge when doing crossword puzzles that require knowledge of things like “half of DCLIIX” as well as the ability to figure out when a movie was made.

Anyone else lucky enough to have a parent with an offbeat sense of “enrichment” activities?

© Laura Genao 2007

Mother-Daughter Bonding

9 Apr

My mother hasn’t been able to sleep for a week.  The situation was so dire in her eyes that this weekend she asked to be taken to the ER.  “Mom, the ER is for emergencies.  Not sleeping is annoying, not an emergency,” I lectured before declining to play ambulance.

She continued to complain about feeling stressed, about how her acupuncturist had retired, and about how she was scared she wasn’t sleeping.  Then she asked, “tienes acupuncturista?”

I don’t have one, but I told her I thought there was one near my house.  So, we went to the Eastern Center for Complementary Medicine, which is amusingly west of the doughnut shop and laundromat in this particular mini mall. 

From the outside, the office looked neat, clean, professional, and not too busy.  The description of the place in the window promised acupuncture, nutrition, bioenergetic testing, and herbal medicine.  For half a second as we walked in I wondered what kind of herbs they used.

It didn’t take long to find out.  The place reeked of marijuana. 

My mother, a woman who honestly believes everything we do is kept in a permanent record held by the government, gave me the horrified look I’d seen exactly once before–when she and I were held up almost 20 years ago.  “There’s going to be a record now that I was in the presence of marijuana,” I heard her thinking.  No longer would a jaywalking ticket be the worst thing in the permanent record of her life.

I, wanting to be cool and disaffected, tried hard to remember the state of medical marijuana court battles in California, as I asked my mother to sit down while I talked to the receptionist about a rate schedule. 

While the Alanis Morissette look-alike sitting behind the desk recited prices, a mysterious force pushed closed the door from which the smoke emanated.  It was then that I turned to ask my mother if she wanted to set up an appointment, but she had already stood up and gotten herself half way out the door.  However, since the permanent record keeper also seems to keep track of being rude, she politely turned to the receptionist and said, in eerily perfect English, “Thank you for your time, let me think about it.”

We got outside and she concluded that we’d be better off with a recommendation for a good acupuncturist. She also informed me, in her “take note of this voice” that she did not like walking in on pot smoking.

“Uh, ok,” I uttered a little unclear of what she wanted from me or meant by that statement. “Maybe if you’d stayed you would have mellowed out,” I joked.

She did not laugh.

Although we ended our little adventure with a discussion of medical marijuana use in the state, I couldn’t help but wonder why I’m always the daughter who gets to share these kinds of experiences with her mom. Don’t other people just cook or shop or travel or something?

© Laura Genao 2007

Irene Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

7 Mar

sleepylsWhen I was in the first grade, Mrs. Wolf made us each draw outlines around the letters making up our names.  I always thought it was interesting that each of my names, Laura and Irene and Genao, led to an outline that looked like an L that had falled onto its back.  Since the letter L was the first letter of my first name, I sensed a theme and took to wanting the letter L on all of my shirts.  Laverne from ”Laverne & Shirley” had Ls on all her shirts, so I thought all of those blessed with the letter L as the kickoff to their name had them.

But, because my family could barely afford shirts, much less letters on shirts, my fascination with the letter L quickly gave way to an obsession with my last name.  Although my father had left my family when I was young, his last name remained.  It was different, so it was cool.  

I didn’t know any other Genaos, except for my sister.  No one else knew any Genaos either.  This gave an air of otherness to my last name.  It also meant that I didn’t quite know how to say the last name in English–and neither did anyone else.  Most of my teachers couldn’t even spell my last name.  I mean, 90% of my elementary school report cards are for Laura Genoa.  ”Gosh, these teachers sure do seem obsessed with Italy,” I often thought. 

But, of the three names with which I entered the world, Irene is the one with which I’ve always had the strangest relationship.  

I have been told that I was middlenamed Irene because it was the name of a doll my mom had when she was young.  I’ve never wanted to be a doll and I couldn’t believe that my mom had ever loved a doll named “Irene.”  She couldn’t love an “Irene,” I thought, “because she only says the name when yelling at me in anger.”

“¡Laura Irene lava los trastes!” 

“¡Laura Irene lavate esa greña!”

“¡Laura Irene te voy a dar con la chancla!” 

When you only hear your name associated with threats of bodily harm for failing to do chores or engage in regular hair shampooing, you learn to ignore that name. 

And so, the name Irene disappeared from my usage for several years.  I didn’t put it on any forms.  I didn’t put it on my driver’s license.  I even tried to encourage the relocation of neighbors who’d heard my mother calling to that bad, bad girl “Laura Irene.” 

But, as with many secrets people hope to bury, Irene periodically attempted a comeback.  When I was in college, someone on the school paper tried to put it into my byline for the story on the “Mealtime Messiah” a.k.a the new head of the dining hall.  The editor thought a middle name, or even a middle initial, gave an air of severity to any story.  Clearly, he was not reading the text of my piece on how roast beef au jus was getting an overhaul.

Then, when I became a lawyer, when I became a real-life professional with my own office and my own phone, someone added the middle initial to my pleadings.  And they kept doing it citing an unwritten policy that seemed to decree “have a middle name, put it on documents.”  Again, the explanation had something to do with gravitas–or the idea that there should be a solemnity or dignity to manner.  Again I argued that if my writing were merely read, there would be no need for a middle name.  Again, my pleas went unheeded.  

Correction, again my pleas go unheeded.  Today as I electronically signed a document for submission to the court in which I currently practice, the computer automatically inserted “Laura I. Genao.”  I wanted to scream in horror and hide from my past and my mother’s strict demands for obedience from Irene. 

But, passive-agressiveness being what it is, I took a purple pen and signed a hard copy of the document—without a middle name or initial or indication that anyone by a name other than Laura Genao had ever existed.

© Laura Genao 2007

Las Gallinas Feroces

27 Jan

My mother and I take evening walks in my neighborhood.  As we walked one night last week, my mother looked toward a wooded area on our route and then announced, “un día me gustaría ver una de esas gallinas feroces.”  My response to her request to see a ferocious chicken must have been a very confused look, because she quickly clarified, “tu sabes, el tipo que dicen que se hechan a los leones.”

I looked at my mother, and then at the hillside, and then back at my mother.  “There are gallinas that attack lions?” I asked.

“Si,” she responded.  Still sensing my confusion she added, “tu sabes, las que salen en ese canal de los animales que te gusta.”

It was only after her reference to the Discovery Channel and my fascination with wild animal documentaries that I recognized she had mistaken the word “hyena” for “gallina.” 

And here I was hoping that an issue in my local city council race would be the ferocious chickens out to terrorize the neighborhood.

© Laura Genao 2007

El Parque de la Yenco

22 Jan

My mother is wonderfully low maintenance when it comes to going out.  This weekend when I asked where I could take her to lunch, after some thought, she came up with “vamos a el Subway y al parque de la Yenco.”  Translated, let’s go grab a sandwich and have it at Wilderness Park in Downey (it used to be near Gemco, off of the 605 Freeway).

Wilderness Park is where we used to go on weekends when she needed, for her own sanity, to take my sister and me away from our 800-square-foot apartment. 

I hadn’t been to the park in a while, so I found myself wandering around the playground intrigued by how safe it has become.

Before, there used to be an eight-foot slide made out of lámina that heated up and caused second-degree burns if you tried to slide down it while wearing shorts (even worse was when one of the strips of lámina came loose and threatened to slice up the backside of our legs).  Now, children play on a four-foot slide molded out of plastic.

Where I used to be able to climb on a giant steel spider web that went about 10-feet into the air, now stood a balance beam about three-feet off the ground.  Gone was the ability to drop off the middle of the spider web into a giant sand hill built by your sister below.

While I waxed nostalgic for the jungle gyms of my youth, I also noticed that a set of five-year-old twins were wonderfully happy with what was there for them.  They giggled as they ran around and into the play fire engine and as they hung off the new-school monkey bars. 

I tried all of the new obstacles, but it just wasn’t the same.  So, I left the safeground and found a nearby tree. I figured that until they outlaw tree climbing, kids of all ages can share one aspect of a trip to the park.

Wilderness Park Mosaic

© Laura Genao 2007

The Devil I Know

20 Jan

While I am thankful for the academic opportunities I’ve been given, for several years now I’ve been most grateful for the comedic elements my educational experiences have provided. One from junior high school ranks among the best.

At Nimitz Junior High School in the early 80s there were about 3,000 students and 80 or so teachers. Among the students, the most memorable was L.P.; among the teachers, there was Mr. R.

L.P. was in all my honors classes in the sixth grade. Despite the classes we had in common, we never spoke until one afternoon when she cornered me near the bicycle racks and offered me red and blue pills out of a sandwich baggy. Because I “knew” that I couldn’t use drugs and go to college, much less show up at home, I declined with a smile and a shy “No, thank you.” She didn’t hold it against me and walked me part of the way home. From then on, L.P. became a sort of hero. She was the “big kid” who helped protect students in my honors classes from the bullies who were trying to beat us up for no reason other than our grades.

And so, as the pre-teen years rolled on, both L.P. and I worked at our strengths. Our talents brought us both some measure of success and notoriety. I got straight As and became student body president. She got her 5′ 10″ self kicked out of Nimitz in the seventh grade for fighting, only to go to Stevenson Middle School and earn straight As, meaning she could come back to Nimitz for one last year before high school.

That’s how we both ended up in Mr. R’s Honors Science class.

Mr. R was among the odder characters the faculty at Nimitz had to offer. His strangeness seemed rooted somewhere between the black leather pants he wore to class, the Harley-Davidson he rode to school, and his Baptist-preacher-at-a-revival manner of speech.

On good days, he let the students who earned As on their exams have the keys to the chemical closet, with no limit on what they put together. On bad days, he covered the clock with a giant sign reading, “Day Time,” so that students in our class couldn’t watch the passing of each of third period’s 54 minutes.

On really bad days, he filled out almost all the fields of an Official Unsatisfactory Note and proclaimed that “Failure to pay attention in class” was the deficiency that warranted sending the note home to a parent. He left only the “Student Name” field blank and then turned to face the class and begin his version of Unsatisfactory Note Musical Chairs.

“Mr. Say-ha, what is the chemical symbol for Carbon?” he asked Mr. Ceja. “Ms. May-nah where is gold on the periodic chart?” he barked at Ms. Mena.

When a student provided the wrong answer to one of Mr. R’s questions, he moved the Official Unsatisfactory Note to that student’s desk. It remained on that desk until another student provided a wrong answer. Whichever student had the note sitting on his desk at the end of the hour had the honor of getting his name filled into the “Student Name” field.

On one bad, but not especially bad day, Mr. R noticed that L.P. was talking to the boy sitting in front of her and that this distraction caused the boy to turn his head away from Mr. R.

“Mr. Pay-raise, don’t you talk to that devil back there,” Mr. R said.

The room full of 13-year-olds giggled. Mr. Perez blushed and then turned around and faced the chalkboard. Minutes later, a slow murmur could be heard in the back of the room and Mr. Perez could be seen turning around to respond.

Again, came Mr. R’s booming voice, “Mr. Pay-raise, I told you not to talk to that devil back there.”

This time, the response was not the sound of giggling or Mr. Perez’s chair turning to face forward. Instead, all eyes became fixated on the sight of L.P. unfolding herself from her chair, arms raised and yelling, “I am the devil!!!”

The preacher in Mr. R retorted with a raised hand and “Satan, I cast thee hence!”

“AAAAhhhhhhhh!!” came L.P.’s response, before she ran out of the room.

Mr. R chased her down the hall.

The class gathered at the doorway watching.

Mr. R’s boot heel broke off and he stumbled part way down the hall. L.P. kept running and got away.

Minutes later the bell rang and the rest of us ran away, too. When we returned to Mr. R’s class the next day, it was apparent that L.P. was gone. We all sat quietly, too scared to say anything.

As we adjusted to the awkwardness of returning to a classroom that had been the scene of a horrible and traumatizing scene, we noticed that the “Day Time” sign over the clock had been replaced with a new one reading, “Not Yet.”

When a few of us made eye contact with Mr. R, he glanced at the sign, then at us, and he laughed and laughed and laughed. “L.P. might be gone,” he seemed to say, “but lunacy is not.”

For some strange reason, on that particular day, at that point in the universe, we all found his laughter comforting and maybe that’s what has allowed the whole scene to get filed into the “Comedies” section of our collective memories.

© Laura Genao 2007

La Entrevista

10 Jan

When I was a senior in high school, I decided to apply to a couple of East Coast colleges.  Although my mother had no idea where most of these schools were or why I couldn’t just go to college in Los Angeles, she bit her tongue long enough for me to apply wherever I wanted as long as I was able to a) get a fee waiver or b) pay for it myself.  ”Es tu vida, haz lo que quieras,” she said, seemingly wiping her hands of any responsibility for my choices.  

Since she is a mother, her resolve to let me do my own thing lasted only so long, and that’s how she came to help me and what became my alma mater with admissions.

You see, one of the things about the East Coast schools where I applied is that several required in-person alumni interviews as part of their admissions package.  Never having had to interview for anything except my part-time job at K-mart, I thought this was an interesting concept for a school to try, so I dutifully scheduled the first of my interviews, pulled out the giant RTD bus map, and figured out how to get from Bell to Eagle Rock. 

On one Saturday morning as I left the house for my interview, my mother followed me out.  Not wanting to fight forces of nature on that particular morning, I silently acquiesced and we both left the house at 6 a.m., in order to make a 10 a.m. appointment.

Because weekend bus schedules in the late 80s were pretty bad, it took us about two and a half hours to get to the general vicinity of Eagle Rock.  We spent the next forty minutes walking to the house where my interview was scheduled.  Although we’d been on the road for over three hours, we were still early, so we found a spot on a nearby curb and planned on waiting the 20 or so minutes until it was appropriate to knock on my interviewer’s door.

We’d been at the quiet corner for all of about 10 minutes when a woman came out of the house and “shooed” us—yes, “shooed,” like you “shoo” vermin—off the sidewalk.  When I smiled and explained to her that I was just waiting for a college interview to start, she started screaming at both my mother and me.  She told us we didn’t belong in her neighborhood and that we were leaving her no choice but to call the police.

I was less brazen at 17 than I am now, so instead of really giving the woman something to call the police about, I took my mom on another walk.  We walked around the block–twice–before the interview started.  On our walk we complained bitterly about how easily some people found it to belittle and embarrass others for no apparent reason.   

Despite the day’s rough start, the interview went off without a hitch, I was admitted, and then I didn’t go to that college.  The mystic in me just thought the whole event with the screaming lady didn’t bode well. 

This week marks almost 19 years since I went on that interview, and almost 10 years since I started doing admissions interviews myself.  I do the interviews at my mom’s apartment in the neighborhood where I grew up and where most of the kids I see live.

The high school seniors see me.  Their parents see my mother.  Both groups see the huge, beaming diplomas that fill one wall of the 800 square-foot apartment.

My mother and I also try not to threaten anyone or otherwise do anything to make well-meaning kids, and the parents who raised them, think that they don’t belong anyplace in this world. 

© Laura Genao 2007

Bad Car-ma

22 Dec

A few nights ago, I was awakened by what sounded like a blaring alarm.  It wailed and wailed and echoed through the hills in my Northeast L.A. neighborhood.  I wondered if someone’s house was being broken into.  I wondered if another car in my neighborhood was being vandalized.  I got paranoid, so I woke up to go look out the window.

Upon a quick scan of the street, I saw my second car—a 1991 Mazda Protege–sitting at the curb.  “My car doesn’t have an alarm,” I thought, so I went back to bed.

That pesky alarm kept sounding.

This time, I went outside (yes, I know that’s why people in horror flicks get killed) and realized my Mazda was outperforming what even I thought it was capable of, by blaring its horn more loudly than any SUV I’ve ever seen.

I pulled on the horn pad.  Nothing.  I punched the horn pad.  Nothing.  I fiddled with wires.  Nothing.  I tried to pull out fuses.  Nothing.  I finally just turned on the “Protege” (or in my play off the Spanish, “Protector”) and the horn stopped.

I went back to bed.  An hour and a half later, the car again demanded my attention.  I again performed the crazed pulling, tugging, running around ritual. 

This time when I punched the horn pad, the car stopped and I hated that brute force was the only way to shut my car down.

Being a resourceful woman, I went to my computer and googled ”Mazda” and “horn” and “Protege.”  And, as if a miracle of the modern world, the “Car Talk” guys had done a segment on the problem. 

It seems that this week’s cold snap, where evening temperatures dipped into the 30s and low 40s, made certain parts of my horn contract.  That then causes the horn to blare. 

Click and Clack suggested pulling wires or replacing the horn–but, despite their usefulness in identifying the problem, I still can’t figure out which wires to pull and I don’t have time to get the horn replaced.

So, until the mercury rises, I’ll just be resourceful and pull the fuse when I get out of the car and replace it when I get back in (turns out the horn fuse also controls the brake lights).  The act should amuse my colleagues and unnerve the security guards at work, but hey, when you have to get around, you do what you can.

© Laura Genao 2006

Miracle of the Coca-Cola Cans

21 Dec

My mother is a deal hunter.  She doesn’t really need to save a dollar, but she’ll scour city papers for deals and then drag me along to find cheap gallons of Gatorade or dozens of socks.  This weekend the treasure hunter and I went to a grocery store in Bell in search of a $5.99 case of Coca-Cola. 

Coca ColaDespite our professional-shopper knowledge of where deals are normally found in grocery stores, it took us half an hour to find the cases of soda (they were hidden in a remote back corner, while signs pointing to the more expensive boxes of 12 cans was ubiquitous).  My mom got it into her head that the store was trying to pull some kind of consumer fraud thing on her, so she decided to buy a lot of the cases of soda, as if that would teach the store’s owners a lesson.  That, and she is naturally inclined to prepare for natural disasters by buying soda.

Upon arriving at the checkstand, we found a a tiny 60-something looking woman standing ready to bag our groceries.  She reminded me of my Abuelita Nena because she was only about five feet tall and her face was shriveled  around her eyeglasses. 

As our cases of Coca-Cola were rung up, this little, stand-in Mexican grandmother, picked up each of our cases and tossed them one by one into the shopping cart.  It was like watching a hammer throw on the World’s Strongest Man competition.  

The cases would fly two feet through the air and land in the cart.  A loud crash would be heard and I would get annoyed because the impact was making the cart jump inches off the ground and a crowd was beginning to gather. 

And that’s when the bagger discovered the miracle of the Christmas Coca-Colas.  On what seemed to be her last attempt to win the gold medal in Coca-Cola case tossing, the bagger put more air under the case and as it crashed into the cart, the box broke open and all of the cans came tumbling into the shopping cart.

The bagger tried to put the cans back into the box, and then found that all but one fit.  “Sobra uno” she announced, wide-eyed and staring intently at the extra can. 

I gave her a look that said this was impossible and she was crazy for implying otherwise.  Increasingly annoyed, I told her to try the repacking again, and again she had an extra can.  She held up the polar bear-decorated miracle can as if it was a precious commodity.   ”Todavía sobra,” she smiled. 

I had watched her pack the cans and knew she had no more room in the box.  In the holiday spirit, for a split second, I too started to believe this grocery store was one of those mysterious miracle spots in the universe written about in great literature and put on television by the WB in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” 

I looked at my grandmother’s Santa-hat-clad stand-in and wanted to believe this story in the way I believed many of those my Abuelita Nena once told me.

Then a long-haired, 18-year-old bagging supervisor walked in and took over.  He repacked the cans, and they all fit nicely into the box.  The elderly bagger and I looked at one another. 

She shook her head, stared at her feet, and dejectedly said, “Oh, I guess I just didn’t know how to pack them.”  It made me sad to see my grandmother’s sadness in this woman’s face, so I smiled at her and said, “Es Navidad, nunca se sabe cuando va suceder un milagro.” 

She perked up a little at the thought of a holiday miracle,  “Es cierto, el milagro de las Coca-Colas.”

© Laura Genao 2006

The Tightrope

15 Dec

WheelchairI recently found myself writhing in agony on a plane trip to South America.  The pain was so bad that I arrived in Rio only to turn around and return three days into my trip.  Upon my return to the U.S., I saw my doctor, chiropractor, and orthopedist.  As you might expect, they all asked “What did you do to your back?” 

I interpreted their question to be “What recent events might have caused the injury to your back?” and answered that there was nothing that came to mind.  There was, in fact, nothing I had done to my back recently that warranted a diagnosis of two herniated disks.  The doctors didn’t look convinced.

Since my appointments, I’ve thought more broadly about the doctors’ question and have come to terms with the reality that my history includes a lot of falling.

In the first grade, I fell on my neck after missing the ground with my feet during an attempt at the Death Drop from the monkey bars.  I did finally master that upside-down hanging flip from eight feet in the air. 

In the fourth grade, I showed off my ability to balance on the hind legs of my classroom chair.  While I mostly hurt myself when the chair shot backward and into the floor, a few times I was holding a cup full of pencils.  As you might guess, those were thrust straight into whatever group of students was sitting behind me.

In the seventh grade, I learned what a great feeling it is to make one of those soccer kicks that’s a combination backflip and kick.  Then I learned that the jubilation that follows such a kick is followed by the eerie silence of people who don’t know how badly the player is hurt.  I scored, but wasn’t allowed to play soccer again.

In the eleventh grade, I fell down a flight of stairs for the first time (the second time came almost ten years later in the law school library). 

MoabAfter college, I learned to mountain bike.  My best friend and I went to Moab, Utah and did the Slick Rock Trail.  My friend walked her bike down a steep part of the trail.  I argued that so long as I lifted the wheels as I approached the ground, I’d ride right off the cliff and onto the continuing path.  Gravity had other plans for me and the bike hit the ground at exactly the same angle at which it left the cliff.  I flew over the handlebars and face first onto bed of sand.  She said, “Wow!  You looked like Superman.”

I’d fly again years later when I bounced myself off of a trampoline, 10 feet into the air and onto a grass lawn.  The five-year-olds watching me were less convinced I was a  superhero.

My back is slowly getting better.  The docs are working me into an exercise routine and have me being careful about every move I make.  I don’t like how planned all my actions have become.  Perhaps that’s why lately I take great comfort in a tiny print that decorates my office.  It reads, “Most people she never tells about the tightrope because she doesn’t want to listen to their helpful comments from the ground.”
© Laura Genao 2006

Santa Leaves Money in My Shorts

13 Dec

I’ll admit, I’m spoiled. 

I am spoiled because I’m fortunate enough to have a mother who still wants to do my laundry.  She takes care of it whenever she stays at my house. 

I told her not to do the laundry.  She refused and my t-shirts were ironed the next day. 

I offered to buy her gifts out of appreciation for her help.  She had none of it and reorganized my closet by color and style.

Finally, I hit upon how to reward her–I started leaving money in the pockets of my clothing. 

It started inadvertenly.  A forgotten five in my jeans.  A few dollars of change in my shorts.

I came home on each of those days and my mom said the Spanish equivalent of “it must be nice to be able to forget about your money.”  She announced my punishment was that she would keep the change.  I poutily obliged.

The next week.  I left a twenty in a sweatshirt.  I did the same with different pieces of clothing over the course of a few weeks.

Finally, she said, “You know, the amount you’re forgetting in your clothes is increasing, and you’re starting to leave it in clothing without pockets.”

I looked at her and smiled, “I know.  Thanks mom.”

She smiled back and said, “Esto se siente bonito.  Como si tuviera yo un Santa Claus.”

(This feels good.  It’s as if I have my own Santa.)

© Laura Genao 2006

Personal Attack

11 Dec

My car was broken into this weekend.  The vandals, thieves, suspects-whatever-you-want-to-call-them, stole about $500 worth of my stuff and my registration materials.  I did the whole police report, insurance company, credit fraud alert, protecting myself thing, and then started thinking about my loss. 

What did my stuff say about me?  What would these vandals, thieves, suspects-whatever-you-want-to-call-them think about me, if in fact they ever did?  What did I want them to know about me, that they might not otherwise know?

Ouch2First, they attacked my car by slicing through the soft top.  I drive a silver, two-seat, BMW convertible.  That car is the the only thing I’ve ever wanted, in a material sense.  I mean, growing up poor in L.A. meant that I never had a car.  I got my first bus pass in the fourth grade.  As I got older, I was drawn to convertibles.  Soft top, Karman Ghias froze me whenever I saw them.  I loved their curves and lines and the feel they exuded.  Ouch!At some point, I consciously said to myself, “I will work hard so that one day I can buy myself a car like that.”  I aced high school, went to a great college, and worked one, two, or three jobs from the time I was 16-years-old so that I could buy that car.  The day after I finally did buy the car, I picked my mom up from her hotel housekeeper job and watched as she quietly got into the car.  When I asked why she was so quiet, she responded “I feel like the President is picking me up and that people are watching me as I drive away in this nice car.”  I loved that. That car, more than anything, showed me how much I could accomplish for myself and my family by working hard.

Second, the guys took a couple of my CDs.  Specifically, they took Kelly Clarkson, the Village People’s Greatest Hits, ABBA Gold, and Pepe and the Bottle Blondes.  Ok, ok, I like to sing in the car.  I sing loud and proud and I don’t care what the driver in the next car has to say about my facial contortions or smooth dance moves.  I am, fortunately, not as bad as my sister, who locks the car doors, rolls up the windows and then subjects people to her sing-along-with-Lucero mariachi moments.  If you get into my car, “Since You’ve Been Gone” or “Dancing Queen” will very likely be on, and I will be dancing to them with moves once choreographed for the Law Revue show.  I suppose I should be happy that the vandals, thieve, suspects-whatever-you-want-to-call-them took CDs that had started to skip, and that now I can buy new ones. 

Moxie 003Third, the men (we know they are men because my neighbor saw them while taking the dog out at 4:15 a.m.–although he didn’t think there was anything wrong with the sight of them in my car) took my Oakley sunglasses and Gucci eyeglasses.  These items are the sole source of vanity in my existence and, as such, perhaps deserved to be stolen.  Those glasses were the accessories I used to look unapproachable.  The square, dark-rimmed eyeglasses and wraparound sunglasses, were supposed to somehow convey my intellectual and physical severity.  I’ll admit it, sometimes I make good use of an “I will beat you down look” to resolve certain situations.  Yes, clearly, that persona is fleeting and imaginary.  In fact, it disappeared into the pocket of some figure clad by the night’s darkness, just outside my bedroom window.

Fourth, I’m not quite sure what to make of the fact that the vandals, thieves, suspects-whatever-you-want-to-call-them left altoids and low dosage aspirin.  Do they think I need breath and health help?  I won’t question it.  For whatever reason, perhaps a poor work ethic (yes, even in thievery), they left those items, as well as a laptop computer containing about a week’s worth of work. 

While I’m not happy that my car and what it represents were attacked, I am a little hopeful that the psychic imprint of my fresh-breathed, sing along, faux hard-ass soul will be passed along to whover picks up the scratched Kelly Clarkson CD and a pair of old Oakleys at the local swap meet.

The Hairy Godmother (Part I)

6 Dec

I am 36-years-old and people pull my hair.  Grown men tug on it at football games.  Proper ladies pluck strands out at church.  Small children grab a handful of my locks as they walk behind me at the movie theater. 

My hair is big and thick and curly and brown and blonde and, increasingly, gray.  When it is down, my hair is about two feet long.  When it is gathered into a pony-tail atop my head, it resembles a lion’s mane.  In a bun, I look like I have a large, hairy grapefruit on the nape of my neck.  In a braid, the rope is almost two inches thick.  As you might guess, my hair has always made me more than a little self-conscious.

In grade school, my mother tried to tame the unruly strands by constantly weaving them into two tight braids.  In addition to stretching my forehead tight and pulling my eyes back, the braids had other, more public consequences.

PippiFor example, I had to learn to carefully navigate the halls at school the day after any Pippi Longstocking movie marathon weekend on television.  Although two braids were the only thing I had in common with the Swedish girl who was strong enough to lift her horse and whose name if said fast was funny, my classmates thought it was the funniest thing ever to tease on account of the two ropes that hung off the side of my head.

One day, the geniuses I went to school with decided to stick a pencil through my braids.  They then tapped my opposite shoulder, which made me whip my head around, sending the embedded pencil into my face. 

I took about three years of such abuse before demanding a change and, in the third grade, my mom took me in for a real haircut.  Finances being what they were, she took me to LunaticCynthia’s Beauty School for a four dollar haircut.  We should have known there was going to be a problem when the remedial-level student working on me snipped off my left braid in one fell swoop. She didn’t undo the braid or see what the full head of hair looked like without the braids.  She just made sure to miss the ear as she sawed through the thick, woven strand.  The result of the shearing was a mental institution escapee-look.  My little sister, cousin, and I shared that look in good times and bad, and it only cost my mom $12. 

haircuts2

haircuts1

My mother was so devastated by the sight of us and felt so guilty at her role in the affair, that she kept the lifeless braids as a reminder to never again go cheap with the hair.
4th GradeApparently, however, looking like a lunatic entitles you to one good school picture.  In the fourth grade my hair was shoulder length, dark brown, and a perfect complement to my hazel eyes and snazzy JC Penney blouse.  To this day, I feel like my inner child is the smirking girl in that picture.  Unfortunately, the next good hair day wouldn’t come for almost 10 years. 

By the fifth grade, the braids were back and I didn’t have any friends, family members, compassionate souls, or fairy godmothers willing to take pity on me by telling my mother that I was beginning to hit puberty, that my face and body reflected it, and that the continued use of braids through junior high school would only foster a hair-body disconnect that would lead people to whisper that my real hair had been ravaged by disease and that the braids and bangs-starting-at-the-back-of-the-head were just a wig.

Bavarian Bar HussyBy the time I was 12-years-old, braids and a chest had given me a Bavarian bar hussy-look.  Given the choice of anatomical words beginning with the letter “B” which had appeared on my body, I was glad that people decided on “Laura Big Bangs” as my nickname. 

Sometime between the seventh and eighth grade I also decided to break out of the school-geek role I had earned, so I ran for student body president.  I ran against a smart girl with good, wavy (not crazy) hair.  In an upset spurred by the rhyming campaign slogan “Laura Genao the Cow,” my coalition of smart kids, gym rats, and juvenile delinquents thrust me into office and toward another hair-style change.

Richard SimmonsThe traumatic experience of a haircut that left me looking like Richard Simmons, keeps me from remembering much about that salon experience, except for I’m glad we did not do it before the election. 

The hair situation in high school didn’t improve.  I suppose I was just fortunate to have attended high school in the eighties, when hair was generally over blow-dried, over gelled, over moussed, over curled, over crimped, over frizzed, over dyed, and sometimes all of the above at One of a Bad Lotthe same time.  While I was guilty of prepping my hair for the curling iron by  spraying it with Super Extra Hold Aqua Net and then rubbing Dippity Do hair gel in it, there was no damage I could do to my reputation with a bad hair style as that which I did with my choice of fashion. Really, contrary to what anybody might tell you, a shirt with a blue life-size tiger face on it, matched up with a mane of curly hair and braces, is not fashion forward.

(to be continued) 

© Laura Genao 2006

How much is too much?

4 Dec

A couple of items in the New York Times caught my eye today.  They were a blurb on one of the perks in the retirement package of an executive at Anheuser Busch, a story about how investment bankers try to move the timing of certain deals so they can collect two bonuses off of the same deal, and an article that tries to find out the truth of a researcher’s finding that there aren’t more minority partners at large law firms because minority lawyers don’t have good law school grades. These articles caught my attention because of the gluttonous excesses they describe and, moreso, for what they say about what some people will take, what others will do, and what others are unwilling to take, ask for, or live with, in the pursuit of happiness. (more…)

The Tooth Fairy is a Tired Stalker

25 Nov

A few nights ago, my neighbor’s pre-teen daughter, Bri, lost a tooth just before bedtime. Because the kid still believes in the Tooth Fairy, she looked at her mother and said, “Mom, all I hope the Tooth Fairy brings me is a South Dakota quarter.” Impressed by her daughter’s tenacious pursuit of the nation’s quarters and wanting to hold onto her daughter’s innocent belief in benevolent, otherworldy forces a little longer, my neighbor ignored her own fatigue from a long day of work and running her children around to endless seasons of after-work sporting events to go out for “an evening errand.”

She got into her PT Cruiser and zoomed down the hill. Going into the first gas station, which also doubles as a taco stand and bakery, she asked the evening gas attendant if he had any South Dakota quarters to exchange for the bicentennial quarter she held up to show him. He was puzzled by the request for only a half second before he obliged and looked through his change. “No,” he shook his head. (more…)

Turkey Confessions

22 Nov

Several years ago, my extremely practical mother decided to visit me in Philadelphia.  Although she was scared that her inability to understand English might leave her stranded in Phoenix or Washington D.C. as she navigated connecting flights, she made the trek east. 

Because she is practical, my mom decided to pack the 15-pound holiday turkey she’d been given as a morale boost earlier in the week by the hotel where she worked as a housekeeper.  She figured that since the turkey was too big for her to eat on her own, and I wouldn’t have one in Philadelphia (I don’t normally like turkey, but I’ll eat some of it if with others), an eight-hour long flight was justified for the bird.

But, baggage handling being what it is, my mother did not want the bird to get lost.  So, she packed the frozen bird into her bowling bag-style carry-on purse.  Because my mother doesn’t ever travel without packing and repacking often, she packed and repacked the turkey to determine how to best carry it onto the plane.  However, because she is a little clueless about the reaction of those around her to her oh-so-practical ideas, she gave remarkably little thought to the reaction an airport screener might have to the sight of a skeleton appearing on the baggage x-ray machine.   (more…)

Welcome Back, Mom

21 Nov

My mother has been visiting her small town of Buenaventura, Chihuahua in Mexico for the past two weeks.  I’ve missed her and some of the daily rituals in which we engage.  These rituals are, on occasion, annoying (i.e., the twice daily phone calls at times certain, the weekend manicure sessions, the early morning weekend walks, and the constant advice she feels the need to give), but I admit that I have missed the time they allow us to share.  In thinking about the fun times I have with my mom, I remembered a funny one, too. 

So, my mother is a limited English-speaker.  She can understand on occasion, but if things get too complicated, she doesn’t really get it.  This means that if you speak to her too quickly, or if you give her instructions, she doesn’t catch them.  Additionally, if the situation is a pressing one, as in you’re asking her to hurry her comprehension or make a quick decision, she reacts by going blind or deaf (I think she makes the latter up to mask her embarrassment at not being able to help, but I’ll let her believe she’s gone blind or deaf).

In any event, one of the things my mother has problems with is catching the callback numbers people leave on her answering machine.  Before she had a machine that could have its messages checked remotely, I had to go to her house to help her.  Then we got the machine.  Our first experiment in remote answering went like this:

Mom:  Me recoges el mensaje, por favor.

Me:  Sure.  I’ll just call and while the message is playing, punch in the code. 

Mom: Ok. 

Me: (I call my mom’s house). 

Mom:  Hello? 

Me:  Mom, you’re not supposed to answer. 

Mom:  Ok, ok. 

Me: (I call my mom’s house again). 

Mom:  Hello? 

Me:  MOM!! Don’t answer the phone! 

Mom:  Ok, but call me back.

Finally, on the third try we got it and haven’t had any issues since.  I think of this exchange often because it provides me with some insight into the difficulty of getting used to new things provided by the opportunity to live a long life, in a country with opportunities different than those you thought you would have. 

(more…)

Got Vapoh Roob?

17 Nov

untitled2.jpgI’ve been thinking about wellness and how people try to cure illnesses ever since that lecture a few nights ago.  Mostly, I’ve been thinking about it because of the various home remedies associated with stories I’ve heard.  Here’s a brief list:

1)      Vapo Rub—I don’t know if it’s the case in all communities, but in the heavily Latino community where I was raised Vapoh Roob (as it is pronounced) is the ointment of the gods.  While it is often used in the ways recommended by the distinctive blue container (i.e., for relief of muscles aches and coughing by either direct application and inhalation), in my neighborhood, Vapoh Roob is also believed be an effective treatment for chapped lips, eye sties, and for those who don’t really have asthma, but whose parents think they should just generally have clearer nasal passages.  My poor friend William says of his excessive exposure to Vapoh Roob, “I’m the only 36-year-old Cuban I know who doesn’t have chest hair.  My mom must’ve burnt off the follicles with the Vapoh Roob.”

2)      Roasted Tomatoes—Apparently, the way to a person’s lungs is through their feet.  Several friends have had large slices of freshly roasted tomato placed on the soles of their bare feet.  The remedy is said to cure sore throats and respiratory illnesses. 

3)      Cow Manure—When she was a girl, a woman I know had her hair cut short by her mother, in an attempt to spite her father (who loved his daughter’s long hair) for some unknown (more…)

The Felipaic Hand-Kissing Request

14 Nov

When I was a little girl, my mother used to force me to talk to my paternal grandmother–Felipa.  I didn’t know this particular grandmother, because my father didn’t live with my family, but my mother used to make me talk to her twice a year anyway. 

I always found the exchanges a little odd.  I would greet my grandmother, “Hola abuela” (a cardinal sin was to greet her “abuelita,” not sure why, but it became confusing as my maternal grandmother only wanted to be “abuelita”).  My Abuela Felipa would respond with “Besame la mano.”  At the time (and quite frankly now), I didn’t understand what exactly she meant for me to do when she made that request. 

Did she demand obeisance?  A kissing of the ring, perhaps?  (more…)

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