Blue Heron in L.A. an Unlikely Love Story

Today, while walking my dog Frankie, I saw what looked like a crane- but actually was a blue heron fly over my canyon. Over my dusty, dry, litter and graffiti covered canyon. A heron. It’s wings spanning the sky; it’s neck gracing the air around it. I’ve never seen one (or anything like it) near my house before, but there it was landing gracefully in a ratty, half-dead shrub on my fire road (AKA teen sex and drunken disorder road).

            “What is a HERON doing here?”

Was he drawn to the area by the symphonic patter of M-80s constantly going off in tall, dry grass?  Was he searching for the large pile of VCRs that someone dumped off the side of Glenalbyn? Maybe he was feeling romantic and the used condoms on the side of the road were beckoning.

My guess is he was loving life down at the LA River, the traffic and construction not withstanding, spending his days fishing for whatever the river gods sent his way, and his nights cozily sharing his nest with a like minded homeless couple.  When suddenly he caught wind (literally) of a Groupon for one-dollar Zumba classes and headed to York to see what all the fuss was about. 

Or maybe, like so many others in LA, this heron suffers from glaucoma, and was looking for the marijuana dispensary on Fig. Poor eyesight would explain why he landed in my dead shrub.

In any case, I felt like I do whenever I see the wildlife of Los Angeles- awed, wistful and tentatively boastful. Here is this amazing creature living among us! Sure the national parks have the lion’s share of lions. But it’s easy to have wild things in wild places.  A greater challenge is to be wild and free in the middle of the city. Yet here is this heron, wading through our refuse, making small talk with our blight. Is he cool with that? Are we doing right by him? Am I appreciating him enough to make up for all the BS he has to put up with?

Yet maybe, like so many others in LA, this heron is just taking it all in stride. The trash, the noise, the disregard for natural spaces, it’s nothing compared with what he’s getting: the flowers, the sunshine, the unparalleled Mexican food.  There is something in the air that keeps him here, some magic between the smog molecules that makes all the crap he puts up with worth every second.

Frankie’s Footnote

Heron? What’s a heron? I didn’t see a heron. I saw a grey squirrel running up a tree! So I can’t tell you about herons or whatever, but I can tell you that the Chihuahua down the street has been eating strawberry wafer cookies and the coyotes have been drinking out of someone’s pool.  Also, and I don’t say this to just anyone, but I really, really like you! Like - really like. A LOT. I’ve never been happier to meet someone in my entire life! I am using all my will power to not bury my nose in your butt right now.

8 Tips to Keep Your Holidaze From Going Off the Rails

By Robin Reiser

If you’re like me and love the blaze of twinkle lights and seasonal sweaters between Turkey Day and New Year’s Shame & Bloat Day, you may at times let the festivities get the best of your good judgment. Ho-Ho-Hope this helps!

1.    Avoid Hallucinogens Before Aunt Ruth’s Annual Tree Trimming Party

Yes, the tree is much more beautiful when you can smell the colors from the lights and hear the molecular structure of the Frosty ornaments- but no one will remember the brilliant realization you had that the formation of the universe happens every time Bing Cosby sings “White Christmas.” They will only remember that you hurled shrooms in their linen closet.

2.   Keep Your Christmas Tree in Your Pants

Whether you’re an innie or an outie- you gotta be extra careful not to let the Christmas spirit carry you into a flurry of exposing your genitals. This is especially true if the urge hits you in the middle of your kid’s Christmas pageant. Indeed, a chorus of cheery voices singing “Good King Wenceslas” has the power to inspire the best of us to streak. You must keep it together.

3.   Beware of Santa Goggles

Tis’ the season, right? If anyone’s gonna warm your cookies, it’s that jolly ol’ elf, Kris Kringle. But I beg you to look past the rosy cheeks and the belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly (yum!) to the man behind the beard. He has a full workload, he’s exhausted, and let’s be honest, he’s not into your elaborate “naughty reindeer” dry hump. Plus, the line for photos behind you is wrapping around the mall. Let someone else sit on Santa’s lap for now.

4.     No Holiday Shopping During Coke Binges

Of course it seems like a good idea. After all, you’re psyched, your sharp, and you’ve got tinsel running through your veins! Take it from me; you will wind up buying everyone on your list, from your 2-year-old niece to your life coach, the same Brookstone Versatile Massager, because at the point of sale, you convinced the sales guy that you invented it and had to buy them all.

5.     Avoid Underpants with Battery Operated Novelty Lights

I agree, they couldn’t be cuter- seriously, who’s not getting lucky in the Rudolph thong that actually glows! Except, chances are you’re gonna spend a little too much time chugging the festive punch, and too little time watering the poinsettias, then blammo! The next thing you know there’s an electrical fire in your pubes. Happens all the time.

6.     Christmas Parades and Religious Tirades Don’t Mix

I get it; floats with girls waving while advertising real estate insurance are maddening! Whether you’re pissed off because there’s too much consumerism and not enough Baby Jesus, or because Hanukkah is shamefully under represented (again!) this is a bad place to go off your meds, drink a quart of brown booze and bring your favorite fire arm to join you in a passionate lecture about the true meaning of anything. Just saying.

7.    Refrain from Yuletide Electronics Exploitation

No matter how nostalgic you may feel for holidays past, do not text heartfelt messages to everyone in your phone at 3am as you weep uncontrollably from the back of a cab you just puked in. Nuff said.

8.     The Office Holiday Mixer is No Place to put the XXX in XMAS

Yes, jingle bells are sexy. Yes, Pat from HR does look enticing in that Elf hat. But let’s be straight here, Pat’s not straight and this will only end in tragedy. If it suddenly occurs to you to publicly practice fellatio on a candy cane, or go all Fifty Shades of Christmas on the IT personnel, quickly cool your gingerbread latte with the knowledge that all the festivities will soon be over…

*Bonus Tip*

Don’t even bother with New Years resolution- seriously; it’s a conspiracy to make you feel bad about yourself. Obviously.

Focus on This: A Hustler’s Life- Job # 14

 

“Are you the primary grocery shopper in your household?”

“Are you currently in the market for a new dishwasher?”

“Have you ever lied for a living?”

For me the answer to all of the above would be, “Yes.” 

YES, the magic word that will enable you, if you have the know-how and lack of scruples, to rake in the dough as a “Focus Group Participant.”

I started out in this world of swindle and scam after I was unceremoniously fired from my honest job as a front desk receptionist at a gym and was facing destitution. My sympathetic boyfriend gave me a list of numbers to call for extra cash.

“What are they?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“Focus group companies, babe. Just call them up and register. Say you’re into everything they ask you about: clothes, politics, smoking, drinking, blackjack, puppies, you name it.”

I nodded, dumfounded that it could be so easy. It barely made a ripple in my conscience that I would be lying outright for money. I mean who doesn’t lie for money? Most people go to work, smile at their awful boss, exaggerate to their clients and lie everyday of their lives. Lying is selling and “selling” in the wise words of Willy Loman, “is life.”

What I couldn’t have foreseen was the rabbit hole of fraud and deceit I was about to fall into. To even scrape by as a professional Focus Group Participant, one has to become a con artist, a grifter, a flimflam man.

If you’ve never participated in a Focus Group here’s a snap shot of how it works. 

A Research Marketing Company is hired by a large corporation to find people in a particular target group to come in for an hour or two and share their opinions about a product or marketing scheme.  Participants sit in a special conference room equipped with spy worthy hidden cameras and microphones as corporate marketing experts sit behind a glamorous one-way mirror and take notes on every answer, micro-movement and vocal crack. As a participant you are usually paid between $50-$300 for your time, tax-free and totally off the grid. It’s a sweet deal, especially if you are out of work and you can swing a few of these a week.

To totally fleece these companies, I learned to con my way into focus groups I had no business being in. To do that, I had to get through the initial phone call. A perky guy named Steve would call and say, “Hey Robin! We have a Focus Group coming up on the topic of sport sandals, are you interested?”  The answer must not reflect desperation, but must be in the affirmative. “Sure Steve, I have sport sandals.”  And the heist has begun.

There is no way to know what exactly they are looking for, so hedge your answers. The caller wants you to qualify, he wants to meet his quota as fast as possible so he can get to TGI Fridays and pack away the jalapeno poppers. So he will hint at, or even give the answers he wants.

Steve: Do you tend to enjoy your sport sandals, a- daily; b- once a month; or c- only on special occasions?

Me: Um, well not everyday, but definitely more than once a month…

Steve: It sounds like you’re not a daily sport sandal wearer, so lets put you down for b.

See how Steve just helped?

Next, there’s a follow up call to catch you in case you’re lying. First rule of a good liar: remember your lie. These focus group people are crafty and they keep asking the same questions over and over to bust a fraudulent participant.

Finally, once in the conference room begins the swindle. The rule for a good swindle is to have a story, and once you start telling it, feel it, believe it and tell it to the world (or just the people behind the mirror).

Over the years I’ve does hundreds of these. I’ve said that I was in the market for a boob-job and then answered questions about my hopes and fears for the developments in implant materials. I have tasted cheeseburgers, tried cigarettes, chewed gum and chimed in about bank policies. I’ve even said I was a registered republican!

I was almost busted once when I said I was a cat enthusiast and was the odd girl out among a bunch of women sincerely wearing bedazzled sweatshirts with kitten appliqués. We told each other fun stories of our sweet kitty cats and all their antics. I thought I had this one licked until the moderator brought out plate after plate of cat food. Wet cat food. I almost vomited. I was the only one who didn’t oh and aw at the prospect of cat food cans coming with a shaker of freeze dried liver yum-yums to sprinkle on top.  All eyes were on me, the weirdo without a lifetime subscription to Cat Fancy. The moderator got a beep on her intercom from the people behind the mirror. I was panicked, unless I thought fast, I was done for! I quickly covered by saying I’d had a bad childhood experience involving organ meats. The moderator relaxed and one tenderhearted cat lady took my hand to console me. I was home free.

I’ve never really stopped the focus hustle, just slowed down. Every time I think it’s over and I’m out, they call me back in, “Hi Robin, it’s Steve, we have a group coming up about rose gardening, are you interested?” And before I can stop myself I say, “Yes Steve, I have a rose garden!” And the con is back on.

Job #47 A Cinderella Story

Just beyond the realm of normal everyday life, lurks a grisly cult like fanaticism that fogs the minds and opens the wallets of normally clear thinking adults, leaving them utterly helpless over the powerful pull of the Children’s Birthday Party.
Unwittingly I fell down this bizzaro rabbit-hole when I landed a gig as a character for kid’s parties.

I applied for this job hopeful and naïve. I thought: kids parties, that’ll be fun! I should have known there’d be trouble when I was sent through the interview process used by the FBI. Then I had to audition by parading around a carpeted office, channeling my best Snow White while a starched panel humorlessly took notes on my every move and vocal nuance. Having survived that, I was subjected to an extensive background check and a series of vaccinations.

Somehow I made it through the elimination of 50 or so applicants to the final three. I felt like I’d gotten into Harvard or become a green beret or something. My success probably had to do with English being my first language and white being my primary skin color. Not that these employers are racist, but most of the popular princesses are very Caucasian and speak in full sentences.

There I was, spending my weekends as Cinderella, Bella, Jasmine, Clowns, Power Puff Girls and of course, Snow White. I worked the mental health maximum of four parties a weekend, driving my little pick-up truck to the most obscure parts of Southern California, costume changes and piñatas flapping in the wind.
At first I enjoyed the adventure, it was awesome to show up at a stranger’s house in an elaborate costume and make their day super-duper special. Kids worshipped me, moms tipped me, dads winked and asked if I ever wore my costumes off hours. But the sweet tootsie-roll filled days couldn’t last forever and I began to notice signs that I was spinning out of control, fraying at the pantaloons, losing myself in the world of “make-believe this is a good job.”

The magic lifted one day when, in full clown regalia, including white make-up and rainbow wig, I was driving home from a three-year old’s birthday reception and listening to a very moving piece on NPR about the regrets of fighter pilots in Afghanistan. It was so sad, so haunting; I was brought to tears. Then I was brought to sobs, and finally, uncontrollable hysterics. I was crying my blue painted eyes out and did not get the irony until a van of kids started yelling “Don’t cry Miss Clown, don’t cry!”
“Oh no!” I thought in a panic, “I’m a clown and I’m crying!” I stared in horror at my face in the rear view mirror. What had happened to me, what had I become? A crying clown for god’s sake! I had become the biggest cliché to make it into the cliché hall of fame.

I began to dread my days of jumping castles and cake. Always when dressed in a plushy polyester animal suit it will be over 90 degrees out, but when nearly naked as Ariel the mermaid, the temperature will dip suddenly to 20. After months of screeching in a cartoonish falsetto over the din of ruthless whiners I was developing vocal nodes. I sounded more like Marge Simpson’s sisters then a Bambi eyed princess. But I pushed on. The birthday fantasies of the single digit set resting heavily on my shoulders.

Then it got abusive. I was dressed as a Power Puff Girl: blue mini dress, white tights and a giant bobble head with a huge mesh smile to see through. This particular family decided their kid needed an “authentic piñata experience,” so they blindfolded him, spun him around and armed him with a large stick. The birthday boy, drunk on sugar and ambition, hit the air around him harder and harder with each ninja inspired swing. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh and CRACK! He hit something! The piñata? No the Power Puff Girl’s arm! Magically it appeared as though it didn’t hurt her, because no amount of pain could wipe that giant animated smile from that big head. But behind the mesh grin tears streamed down my very real face. By the next day nasty blue and purple bruises covered my arm. Diligently, like a good tin soldier, I showed up for my gig as Snow White. The family gasped in horror as I walked in, a sweet Snow White with an arm like hardened junky.

The job ended the way they usually do for me, very badly. I was exhausted, I felt a flu coming on and I needed a day off. I tried to call in sick but my work ethic was immediately called into question and I was instructed to get a note from my doctor. “My DOCTOR?” I yelled, “How could I possibly go to a doctor? With my imaginary insurance or with the buckets of gold at the end of the rainbow?” No, no doctor and no note. With that I shoved away from the candy coated poison world of children’s entertainment. Left to drift again in a sea of career choices.

Babies, the Epidemic

There is a an epidemic of baby-making among my friends and I'm terrified.
Here's the thing, my friends used to be cool.
We were post neo-feminist-anarchists. Joanie had a green mohawk, Astrid was a lesbian, Lori couldn't fall in love unless she was on ecstasy.
None of us were gonna have babies! We thought: there are enough people on this planet, we're crowding each other out, were killing ourselves off.
It wasn't even like we planed to be independent career women, we were just rebellious and angry and idealistic. The world was fucked and we'd be damned if we were going to buy into all it's backwards fascist systems. We'd read the “Feminist Mystique” and “Backlash”. We'd been date raped, we knew what the world was like.
Now it's all wedding this and baby that. Now its picking colors and matching names.
It's boring and depressing and awful.
Not dangerous, not defiant.
“You guys should totally have kids.” Joanie suggests.
Me and Greg? Kids?
I don't know.
“Well,” she says “decide soon, you'll avoid a lot of tests.”

Soon I'm gonna be the age where it's called a geriatric pregnancy. I'm fine: healthy, strong. My uterus on the other hand is like, “has anyone seen my hearing aide”.
Okay if I get too old we can adopt. Lots of fun: adoption. We can get a cute little baby girl from Cambodia, and when she grows up Greg can run away with her and marry her like Woody Allen did.

“Tell Greg you want to have a baby.” Joanie commands.

When either of us brings up having kids the other pretends to get diarrhea. What if he stays undecided and my now in limbo uterus withers away and dies an old crusty uteral death while his energetic little gents can just go popping around looking for some fresh young ovaries to call home.

I can't have a child, I can't even clean up after myself, I can't even clean myself. I leave the house without deodorant almost everyday! What's that gonna be like for some poor kid, “Oh sorry mommy left without you again today, I know it's hard cause you're still breast-feeding...”
I might be awful after I have a baby, all stretched out and pissed off.
And sex? With a baby in the house?
Brad and Angelina don't even do it anymore, and they're the sexiest people on the planet, how could average sexy people like Greg and me survive that?

And can I really trust him with a baby? He has worse ADD then me, he might leave it on the top of the car and drive off or something. And he can be rude, what if he's rude to the baby? If that mother fucker is rude to my baby I will kick him in the balls.

My career is a pregnancy. I am pregnant with ideas, I am pregnant with opportunities, I am pregnant with hopes and dreams. I am pregnant with a baby elephant, that's what I am. A giant one ton baby elephant that feels ready to come out, but wait, not yet, another month, another year another couple of years...never. I am pregnant with a colossal baby elephant and it never comes out. I just carry this thing around in pain until I die. I keep thinking it's coming, I get contractions, I do the breathing, the water breaks. Oh my god, how am I going to deliver an elephant, I'm a human, a very small human. Contractions, pain, nothing comes out.

What if nothing ever happens, no real baby, no real elephant. I grow old and penniless with my cats who get old and incontinent.
I could be the weird old aunt to all these kids. I could wear funny hats and bake ugly cookies for Christmas presents. People would point at me in the grocery store, “that crazy old lady, she was really going somewhere, but no where came too fast and she lost it.”

It's just more feasible to be a total loser then to have it all. They warned us girls not to want it all. Career, husband and baby; one, two, three. It should be easy. Like a shopping spree, “There's the career aisle, the husband aisle is there and the babies are available at the check out next to the candy and magazines, you have 20 minutes... go!”
Then I can say I've taken care of that! And sit down with a book without feeling like I'm wasting my life away.

I've had glimpses of motherhood. Recently I transported my cat on my lap in the car as I drove (very Brittany). He was so scared he peed all over me. Then he shit on me. I still love him, that's mother-like.
And the tomato seeds I planted are starting to burst through the soil, that's like making babies.
Except you can eat them.

I know one day it's just gonna happen. One day I'm gonna look at a baby and the baby will look at me and it'll cast it's spell on me like Medusa. Suddenly there'll be a dull ache in my fallopian tubes and it'll travel up to my heart which will swell with some sort of mystical mothering type of love and that will spread to my brain and my eyes will blur with a rosy fog and I'll turn to whatever man is around and use him in a way I have never used a man before.
And then I'll have a kid and I'll be someone's mom and someone's baby's mama. And if all goes well everyone will grow-up and I'll grow up too and no one will be an elephant.