Olivia Newton John

It wasn't unexpected that Olivia Newton John passed away recently, but super sad. She was beloved by so many. I had the opportunity to see her when I was a kid, at a casino in Reno. I was there with my parents, at an insurance convention. Pop was the president of the CIA, which I think was the California Insurance Agency. Or was it CAMIA (California Association of Mutual Insurance Agents?) Anyhoo, my parents were broke and we only went on "vacation" when there was an insurance convention and my dad had some reason to go.

Last week, during the move, I inherited his Insurance scrapbooks. Some of his speeches were included in the pages. Took me right back to me coaching him at Tahoe, when he was about to give one of his famous really really monotonous speeches. He literally had a monotone that he'd developed while speaking into a Dictaphone for the benefit of his secretary. I have so many opinions about this, but whatever. What worked for his secretary did not work while speaking to live humans in a ballroom, and he was boring as hell. Super confusing, given that he was a rollicking good laugh when telling stories after dinner, or writing to the local three dot journalist, hoping his quips would be posted, or even writing delicious hate mail to minor local officials. I did my best to remind him not to bore his audience if he wanted to get his ideas across.

Anyway, one of his insurance colleagues had an extra ticket to a show at Reno, and I got to see Olivia Newton John, with Norm Crosby (another of my dark haired celebrity crushes, along with Fred Gwynne, Desi Arnaz and Speed Racer). It was in her Let Me Be There and I Honestly Love You years, and I loved it.

Fast forward many years later to the early 1980s and I was in college and living in a college town and seeing older guys. I brought one of those boyfriends to a dance party / sleepover at a friend's house in my home town and we were up all night raging. The next morning (a Saturday) I had an appointment with a local doctor because I'd previously had an abnormal test. And for some reason I said yes that night to both a then-popular drug starting with a Q, and also a bit of LSD. Pretty sure that that was the last time for both.

The next morning I went to the doctor with said boyfriend and I was apparently still under the effects of this stuff. I remember that my wait at the doctor's was insanely long, and that the wallpaper in the exam room had an orange weeping willow design, and that I was suddenly afraid that my boyfriend would not wait around for me. I asked to change back into clothes and went to the garage where my car was to look for my boyfriend. He was laying on his back, on the hood of my car in the garage, leaning back on the windshield, perfectly happy. I went back up to the exam room, donned the special outfit again, and I distinctly remember hearing Olivia Newton John on the overhead music system singing Have You Never Been Mellow and thinking NO! I am super high and feel like I have never been mellow in my life!! 

The doctor finally came to see me, and it turns out that he was a friend of my family, and part of the same Scandinavian fraternal group that my dad sold insurance for. I managed to have a credible conversation with him about Norway and my concentration on the saga of the 11th Century king Sverri Sigurdsson, and I got out of there without any of us needing to discuss that I was flying high on illegal substances. While having a medical exam. 

Things were different in the 1980s. *I* was different in the 1980s. Take that, Mom!

And RIP Olivia Newton John. Interesting to learn that you also flew high (and more recently) on ayahuasca. Who knew?

Adventures In Podiatry

This week I went to see mrguy play a few songs with his college friend. The club was filled with people my age and older. I took this photo out of jealousy because the guy on the right, who is over 60, is still wearing his Chucks. Not fair. I gave mine up this year and have moved to a post-Chucks world because my toes are killing me.

After I got fitted for my orthotics last year I tried to wear them on our trip to Germany. Not successful. Worked around my foot problems by changing up my choices frequently. Until a month ago when I couldn't ignore the foot thing. So I went to our podiatrist.

She x-rayed my left foot (because between making the appointment and having the appointment I had fallen off my new platform clogs and hurt that foot). When she came to the exam room she asked me if I had irritable bowel syndrome, which is about the last thing you expect your foot doctor to ask. I told her I was good in that regard.

And that's when she sent me to the herbalist. So now I am on a dietary restriction: no corn, dairy or soy, and I'm not allowed to have my laptop on my lap. Between that, fenugreek, calcium, seaweed a an anti-radiation potion, new shoes with stiff forefronts, these weird jelly toe separators and my insoles, I can walk again. Not sure what I do about the bone loss in my toes, but let's get the pain reduction thing going and then we'll deal with the rest.

By the way, I'm going to a wedding today and if there is the right kind of dairy at the reception I am definitely going off the wagon. There will not be soy.

Hawaii 2016 Day 1

Good golly. So pooped. Vacation started out with bigsis and I taking Mom and her best friend of 74 years to the seaside. It was fun but a lot of work. Wheelchairs give an extra dimension to logistics, as does memory loss. Mom has been calling at odd hours recently, and she called me at 3am the day we left, insisting that I had called her. She performed her nightly phone ritual the next night also, with the added dimension that she woke sis and I up to let us know the phone had rung and there was nobody there. Sis earned many gold stars last weekend. Many. We'll leave it at that.

Mrguy and I headed out yesterday morning, on our way to the sweet relief that is Hawaii. Thank you, people of Sensaphonics earplugs, for helping us withstand the rigors of a baby-encrusted airplane.

 

I tried to deaden the effect that unhappy children was having on me by having a bloody mary. Note to makers of Mr. & Mrs. T Bloody Mary Mix: your product tastes like onion powder and suede. I did not drink that beverage after all.

Soon, however, we were in the bosom of our usual first stop, La Mariana Sailing Club. For two months mrguy has been saying "I can taste the tuna sandwich now", which is code for the tuna sandwich at La Mariana. It did not disappoint. Like the Eagles Aerie back home, they hang up bags of water and pennies to repel flying insects.

Our new hotel is totally quiet and on the other end of town. We flopped in our room with some complimentary wine for a bit and then walked up town to see Our friends play at the Royal Hawaiian Center. It was great and always inspiring to see them play. They are fantastic musicians and great people (earnest, thoughtful, funny) and kolohe as well. Their set last night was uncharacteristically sad -- a song about a dead schoolmate, a song about losing someone, a song about the Japanese tsunami of 2011, a song about George Helm (WHO IS DEAD). Even the song Bumbye, which has a jolly melody, is based in sadness (but they didn't tell that story). Today mrguy said "You know when you lose someone, and their pillow still smells like them, and you continue to sleep with that pillow? And you cry and cry and cry and that person is never coming back? This song is about that. It is called 'Tear-Stained Pillow'".  "And you know when your house burns down and all your most priceless possessions are a smoking pile of rubble? We've all experienced that (or we will). This song is about that. It is called Smoking Pile of Rubble".

After (redacted) (again, I tease but they are some of the most inspiring musicians we know) we walked over to the Halekulani and tossed back a few mai tais. 

Then we helped a fellow tourist from Iowa who wanted to walk along the water to get back to her friends (who wanted to walk on the sidewalk) and made some suggestions about things they might want to see when they're in town.

Then to the ABC Store for a few nibbles and to bed.

Famous Insurees For $100

Pop sold insurance. During the 1960s, his agency was underneath / next to / in the vicinity of the Fillmore West. Occasionally he'd come to work on a Monday to find a broken window, so he wasn't so happy about his location.

He didn't hate hippies so much that he wouldn't take their money, though. Apparently he was a go-to insurance guy for musicians traveling from abroad to play at the Fillmore, and my sister says that he also insured Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone. Very cool.

Pop had notions about how to make a mint, and how to identify growth markets. He invested in geothermal energy in the 70s. And he specialized in insuring people who had lost their insurance or were under-25. He advertised his insurance agency during the bullfights on television. He opened an office 200 miles away in an agricultural area (although the mamoo says that was just to have a place to escape to). And he liked to collect interesting names and stories about his clients.

Among them: Empress Lovely, Orange Greene, Hiawatha Crawford (who named his son Haiwatha Crawford Jr.), Lucky Brush, Chesterfield Jones and Edsel Ford Fung. Edsel was the only one of them who was well-known -- the meanest waiter in town, notable for his yelling at the devoted customers of Sam Wo restaurant. Another client was nicknamed "Cy" because his job at San Quentin involved dropping the cyanide pellets into the acid bath that created the gas for the gas chamber. Wow. He came to my pop to insure what he claimed was the world's largest pearl.

My favorite name of all was Abraham Lincoln Canary. That just rolls off the tongue. I love that name so much that during one point in my life all of my friends knew about it. Once, when I needed to page a friend at the airport, I called the White Courtesy Telephone operator using Mr. Canary's name. 

My friend responded to the page pronto.