Let me start by saying that when my dad liked something you did, he would say, “I give you an A!!!”  So, I never got real A’s, I got verbal ones.

One year, when Oliver was in school at SMC, I decided to join him and audit a cinema course.  Stupidly, I walked up to the teacher after the first class to make sure it was okay that I would be auditing.  This woman looked back into my eyes, real serious, sort of stern, and said no, she could not let anyone audit.  I was a little thrown.  I was sorry I walked up to her.  I should have just quietly done it.   Then she said, “Just sign up and take the class.”  Panic set in.  I looked back at her and said, “No, I don’t want to have to take tests or study.”  She said her one test isn’t very difficult and that there would be only one essay.  She acted like it would be easy-breezy.  Still panicking, I said in hushed tones, “I have brain damage.”  I said that to her.  I couldn’t think of anything else.  But, to be perfectly honest, I was suffering from terrible brain fog from toxic mold in my bloodstream.  That’s another story.  Trust me, I was not my normal, sort of sharp, but not-sharp-enough-to-take-a-test self.  The teacher assured me this class would be no pressure.

I signed up, legally enrolling myself in the cinema course.  Sat there each week, in the same class with my son.  I never even asked what he made of it.   Talk about crossing boundaries.  We weren’t even talking about crossing boundaries. See? Brain fog!

Take this celebrity-sighting detour with me.  One night, just before class, Oliver and I stopped at the little Mexican restaurant that we loved.  I miss that place.  Tia Juana.  On Olympic, near Bed, Bath and Beyond, when it was on the north side.  When you walked in the door, two women dressed in old style Mexican costumes would stand over a cast iron stove, hand making fresh tortilla’s brought hot to your table where you would smother them in butter (and salt).    Jackson Browne was eating all alone at another table.  The restaurant was empty except for us and Mister Running-on-Empty.

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As I often do with random people, I started chatting about what we were all eating, and he chatted back.  Then Jackson Browne and I shared our meal.  He gave me some of his, I gave him some of mine.  He told us about a foundation in film that he was launching.  I wanted to introduce him to my friend Doreen, who is the President of another foundation (Mr. Holland Opus) that supplies musical instruments to inner city schools.  But it had been a long enough stop & chat & eat.

Back to class.  We enjoyed sitting there, watching the movies.  Films.  Then the dreaded test day arrived.  I can’t remember it — brain fog and all.  But here is what I do remember.  The essay.  Oy.  I wrote on and on about how I’m not really that into the science fiction/horror genre.  I didn’t use any periods and it was basically just stream-of-consciousness for three pages.  I didn’t own a computer at the time to print anything out, so I wrote it on my husband’s computer.  I left him a little note attached saying that I needed him to print out my essay.  First he perused it.  Then he said, “Let me clean this up.”  I said, “No.”  He pleaded,  “It’s one long run-on sentence, I’ll just put in some periods and capitalize.”  “NO,” I said emphatically,  “Not one period, comma or semi-colon, I told my teacher I’m brain damaged, she will understand.”

And the tag to this story is that she did understand.  For some reason, I was absent the night we were to collect our graded papers.  Oliver, who is a brilliant writer and whose essay was extremely detailed with writing so above my head, I didn’t know what he was talking about, got a B.  He leafed through to find my essay and I got an A.  Crappy writing and all, she gave me a feel-sorry-for-the-brain-damaged-old-lady-A!!!

Food

I feel a little bad for you if you never got to eat at Tia Juana which closed around 2007.  I will however turn you onto our favorite Mexican Restaurant in L.A.  I went with my dad since it opened in 1971 and for years we introduced  this place to many other people who went there and still do.  Gardens of Taxco in West Hollywood.  A delight.  This is the blurb on their site which pretty much tells you all you need to know except that you will really enjoy the dude that comes around to serenade you with any song you might request.  Yes, I’m talking “La Cucaracha.”

 

Tags: best Mexican restaurant in L.A., film class at SMC, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, Gardens of Taxco Mexican Restaurant, getting an A for no apparent reason, homemade tortilla's, old now closed Mexican restaurants like Tia Juana, serenading in spanish

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2012 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.