baby, you can drive my car

If you live in California you are either driving somewhere or coming back and if you actually slow down you are looking for someplace to park. An automobile is a requirement in this state and if you have none you are quietly escorted to the state line.


So, it was no surprise when we spent  my first day in San Diego test driving cars.  Susan was seduced by a  navy VW sedan convertible with tan leather seats and the hard-top creases and shuffles itself into the trunk like a blanket being folded.   Joe, the very gay salesman, thought we should take the car home and see how it looked in the driveway, sneaky devil. Todd, the other  salesman, looked all of twelve years old, but he had a Midwestern personality and his slacks were perfectly creased.   Currently, my friends own a Honda hybrid, God bless them, but they want to feel the California wind in their hair, thus the convertible.

 Susan knows a lot of rich people.  They seem drawn to her because she is classy and dresses well and she understands their predicament, being rich is not always easy. And she has an enfolding tenderness that appeals to those of us who are often misunderstood by the world. We are invited to dinner at the condo of Doug and Barbara, the rich people.  We arrive at the house on the boardwalk and it is the same house we stayed in sixteen years ago when Susan and Jim were married on the beach.  There had been a horrendous hail storm in Dubuque the August before and everybody was collecting from their insurance companies for hail damage.  I had a $400 check in my hand and decided a trip to California was more fun than buying shingles for my roof.  Susan loves a pajama party and there were fourteen of us in that house.  We roller bladed in the hallways, ate fresh fish and fruit and bought four new bottles of liquor each morning. 


Todd and Susan, BFF

 Doug picked up pepperoni pizza and salad, a regular blue collar lunch, from around the corner and we helped them finish off their margarita mix as they will be returning to Oregon this week. They own a flower seed company and their home and gardens were featured in, uh, Home and Gardens magazine.  Barbara is a soft-spoken woman in her mid-70's with shiny platinum hair that hangs loosely around her shoulders.  I love watching her hands when she speaks.  She wears slender gold rings and bracelets and they make tiny tinkling sounds whenever she gracefully gestured.