Bye Bye LA

We have been visiting this house in LA for over 20 years. Harry's dad, and step mom, Doris, lived there after marrying. When Harry's mother died at the young age of 64, Harry's dad waited the perfunctory mourning period and then set about to meet a companion. He carried his notes on index cards in his breast pocket, just as Harry does, and one of those cards had the requirements he had for a second wife. He dated a few women, but Doris, who was also widowed, happened to be working in the gift shop in the Hotel in Los Angeles that Harry's dad had built, and she fit all the requirements. She was Jewish, attractive, did not have a career to interfere with Sidney's schedules and respectably widowed. She also turned out to be loving, kind, caring and a wonderful stepmother wife and stepmother. They lived in an apartment for a while in Encino and moved back and forth between Sidney's apartment in Cleveland and LA, but eventually moved to LA permanently with this house purchase. Doris loves LA. Sidney loved Cleveland. But business was happening in LA so the move fit.

Over those 20 some years, Harry logged over 940,000 miles on Continental Airlines visiting his father and also attending to the business that they had in LA. In fact, soon he will hit the million mile mark and we both will be gifted a permanent elite status. Quite a nice bonus! But well deserved by a son who gave up a weekend almost every month to sit in his father's kitchen, discuss politics, drive him around when macular degeneration took his ability to drive away and tend to whatever need he had. The job jar was always full of little tasks. And the visit always included being driven to their favorite restaurants. In fact, we did the same thing with Doris this weekend. Emilio's for lunch, where for years they went after temple. My favorite, The Bijou. The requisite Brett's deli. Most of these spots know Doris, and Harry also.

Recently, Doris decided that it was time to sell the house. Sidney is gone and she has decided that it would be a better move for her to go into a retirement apartment complex near her sons in the Bay area. We were shocked when it sold in three weeks with a move out date of Sept. 1 so we hustled out to LA last weekend to visit one last time and help out with the moving preparations.

It was sad! I wandered about in Sidney's little backyard filled with his flowers, roses, potted citrus trees, fig trees and the most spectacular grapefruit tree you have ever seen. He loved to garden. As his sight began to fail, he would finally allow me to pull weeds, and pot annuals. Before that, I wouldn't think of touching his garden. It was his pride and joy. You plant a tree when you own a home and its growth parallels the growth of your family, your children, your grandchildren. You watch it grow but often it survives you. Someone else will move into that home and I hope that they enjoy going outside every morning to pluck a grapefruit for their breakfast as much as Sidney did. Some of the garden ornaments are coming to the Keys so that we can place them about our yard and think of Sid and Doris.

I know this is a very difficult stage in Doris's life. Leaving a city she has called home for over 60 years, giving up a car, leaving a house for an apartment and moving into what will most likely be her last home. She is handling the move with the grace and dignity that she handles everything. She asked over and over if we would come to see her in Marin county. Of course, we promised. And plans are already in place for day trips in wine country, new restaurants to become favorites and, hopefully, many new memories.

Gratuity?

Mavis, our housekeeper, found this in the trash yesterday in one of the rooms at the motel that she was cleaning. I debated whether or not to call the guests, which is standard policy if they leave something behind, but considering the nature of the item and that it was in the trash I decided to not get involved. Not that I believe that marijuana should be illegal, but the law is the law and I wanted to stay out of that arena. I imagine it went into the trash by accident. I won't go into details about what I did with the items...

Guests leave a myriad of treasures behind on a regular basis. Food left behind goes to the housekeepers. Beer goes into my "fishing fridge" and later into the boat cooler. Clothes, if we cannot find owners to return them to, or if they went into the general laundry, go into the lost and found and after a few weeks unclaimed, they are washed and taken by staff or end up at Salvation Army. I take a trash bag full about once a month. We have a drawer full of phone chargers, camera chargers, and foreign currency converters which we try to recycle to needy persons. We have shipped clothes, eyeglasses, jewelry and even a purse with money, credit cards and passport to a guest from Czechoslovakia (we intercepted their American travels in North Carolina). The item that gave us the biggest laugh was a vibrator. No one wanted to go near that one, but we did giggle all day. But one item, that continually gets left behind, is pillows. I think guests are often attached to their own pillows and travel with them. As a rule, I throw them out. Bed bugs are a major problem in the hotel industry and I will not chance them being transported on a pillow and living large in my laundry room while I try to locate their owners. The most striking and disturbing thing I have learned is that often, these pillows are disgustingly dirty! Last week two very lovely middle aged women, who drove a nice car, were dressed beautifully and had the appearance of good hygiene, left a pillow that under the case, was about as filthy an item as I have ever seen. I didn't even want to touch it to toss it. Go figure??

I have left one item in a hotel. My very favorite Ralph Lauren classic black blazer in New Orleans after a girlfriend trip to Mardis Gras. I called immediately after discovering my loss, within a couple hours of checking out. I knew exactly where I left it hanging in the room on the back of the closet door. The hotel said that housekeeping had not seen it and it was never found. I still regret that loss, and that event has prompted me to make sure that we make every effort to return all legal substances to their rightful owner.