Archive for May, 2011

15 Minutes

Saturday, May 21st, 2011


I’m famous for much longer than 15 minutes. And, I admit, a bit proud of my fame. What, you might ask am I famous for? For calling the principal a cunt!
Uh huh. It’s a story with legs. Why it was at least fourteen years ago that the incident happened. People are still talking about it today. Gotta love that.

I was taught, by example NOT to fear authority. Taught to stand up for myself. When in life I needed to exercise this skill, I did. When it comes to standing up for my kids? Watch fuckin’ out for me. Seriously, don’t mess with my kids, ever! I will go ghetto on you so fast.

My older son had a run in with the principal from our local grammar school that I barely remember. But he might have been in the wrong. He was pretty out there and I didn’t come to his defense.

My daughter Augie was a different story. The principal was totally in the wrong. There had been these elaborate and sexually explicit drawings on a note to some boy. He was Augie’s “boyfriend” at the time. Augie’s name was signed to the note. But, it was NOT penned by Augie. She is incapable to this day (twenty-five years old) of drawing even a stick figure. I too, cannot draw a thing. The family of the boy were alarmed enough to turn this note into the principal. The principal called Augie in to her office to ask her about it. Augie said she didn’t write it, but the principal insisted she did. So I showed up in the principal’s office when I heard about it to confront her. I yelled at her but not in some ghetto way. I was just forthcoming and standing up for my daughter. Augie was being held accountable for something she didn’t do. Augie didn’t have a big enough voice to fully express how wronged she was, but I do. When I went into the principal’s office that day, she put up her hand in my face and snarled through those braces on her teeth “NOT NOW FREDDE!” then she walked away. Very provocative response. Of course it achieved what she wanted. It silenced me. (more…)

Fear of Bees

Friday, May 13th, 2011

It’s a lifelong fear. If a therapist were to ask what is my level of discomfort when near a bee, I might have to say a hundred, or a gazillion- whatever the highest level might be.

It started when I was less then two, could have even been one and totally pre-verbal. But, I do remember being a witness to the moment. If not the exact moment, then the repurcussions. I was living with my mom and dad in this very glamorous place called the Garden of Allah. It was famous for housing the most intellectual, interesting avant -garde people of the day. People like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and Greta Garbo. It was a hotel with bungalows that some people took permanent residence in. The social center was the pool. The pool where my mother got stung on her back as she swam in it. It’s sort of contradictory that what I love so much, pools….is where the danger often lies.

Bees. I have been known to stay under the water for unsafe periods of time when I see a bee flying overhead. I even switched my swimming time to night to avoid the stress. (more…)

Dina and Me, a Relationship in Spanglish

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

me and Dina, on our way to Catalina Island

She read Kierkegaard and Proust while I read People magazine. I realize opposites attract, but we really weren’t all that opposite … although she was definitely more sophisticated than me. Dina Mendosa, who I have now known for 25 years, is from a third world country, Mexico. I am not.

Here is where our relationship started. I received a thousand dollars as a gift from my ex-husband’s rich aunt and was instructed to use it for “help” after giving birth to my second child. I made it last a very long time and ended up moving Dina in to live with us for a few years, but I’m getting ahead of the story.

When I interviewed people for the live-in nanny/housekeeper job, she was not the one I hired first. Dina was far too beautiful and it appeared that there might even be a hickey on her neck. So, I nixed her and hired another person. That person was a no-show and so I called Hickey Girl back and told her the truth. We hired someone else, they flaked — do you still want the job? She did. She came that very day. Good sign. Good start. And the “hickey” turned out to be a birthmark. She wasn’t the slut that I had judged her to be. Not in the least. (more…)