Archive for November, 2012

Jews on Motorcycles

Friday, November 23rd, 2012

My dad, the over-protective Jew, had a couple of mantras.  One was never ride on the back of a motorcycle.  Another, never go for a ride in a small plane.

Uh-oh.  I did both.  Behind his back.

By the way, I can say Jew, because I am one.  You can’t.  I mean, if you’re not.  Just saying.

The girlfriends I made growing up were the ones who went to school on Jewish holidays, along with the other six kids in Beverly Hills who weren’t Jewish.   I don’t know why, but I was drawn to gentiles.  I’ll be making a point in a second.  I often went with these friends and their families to church, and never once, including with my own family, did I enter a temple. I wasn’t a religious churchgoer; I just sort of tagged along on a Sunday morning if it followed a sleepover the night before.  Trust me; even then, I never wanted to wake up before noon.

On many weekends, I was the guest of my best friend Susie at the Gun Club.  Yeah, that’s right, Gun Club.  A Jew at a gun club is an oxymoron.  Susie and I made an odd couple – she, the athletic tomboy, and me, the undersized neurotic Jew.  Here’s how different we were.  For her 13th birthday, Susie’s parents gave her a rifle, a Browning 22, along with deodorant, an ironing board and an iron.  She remembers walking to Kerr’s Sporting Goods, at the corner of Peck & Wilshire, across from Saks Fifth Avenue, with her rifle wrapped in brown paper, so that she could get it fitted to her size.   On my thirteenth birthday, the doorbell rang and a bouquet of red roses was delivered with a note from my dad telling me how beautiful I was.  If you want to see just how beautiful, check out the photo below! (more…)

Foot Faddish

Monday, November 12th, 2012

Remember reaching the tennis ball hanging on a string and you knew you were finally tall enough to go on that ride?  I never reached it.  Not ever.  Really.

But, I don’t want to talk about my short stature.  I do, however, want to talk about my extra-small feet.  They are not very attractive; the toes are all the same length, appearing as if I might have had a run in with a paper cutter in art class.  Turned on yet?  If you have a foot fetish and love that Chinese bound foot look, then I’m your gal.  Oh, and to make matters worse, for most of my life, into my 40’s, I bit my own toenails.  Like a circus contortionist, I could (and did) pull my whole foot up to my mouth to tear away at a nail.  Mmmm, delicious story so far?  You bet. I’m just setting the stage. (more…)

Dress Up

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

 

“I’ll buy you a new outfit if you stop biting your nails,” my dad told me on quite a regular basis.  Like most chicks, I love new clothes.  We were not the richest family, so a new outfit was something to look forward to.  Who was he kidding?    I was not about to stop my nail biting.  But sometimes I got the new outfit anyway.  And, mind you, I never had to do anything for it but be adored by — and adore back — my father.  Secret?  I didn’t only bite my nails, I bit my toenails, but hey, I might post another piece with that story.

I was never the biggest fashion princess of Beverly Hills because we weren’t the wealthy ones who could afford Saks, Bonwit Teller, or other fancy stores.  My mother made me some amazing clothes, sewed by hand, and I wore them to death, long past their fashion shelf life date.  I’m talking mostly about my life before high school, because by the time I was fifteen, I was designing my own clothes and using my babysitting money to shop at vintage stores.  This was up until the 8th grade.  And in my school, there were already some real fashion plates.  But I just wasn’t noticing and didn’t care.  Then suddenly there was a shift.  Mod was in, and I wanted everything pale pink and white – everything Yardley, Courreges, and Twiggy.  I started with the haircut.  And boy, did I think I was the real “Twiggy” deal when I had that cut.  My mother gave it to me, as she had gone to beauty school, and was now a makeup artist and hairstylist. (more…)