When LA Shook and My Parents Took A Lover

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Northridge earthquake.

Which means it is also the 30th anniversary of the day Robin found my parents in bed with the neighbor lady.

I really want to end the story here, but you've come all this way to read this, it shouldn't be a wasted trip.

I'm not sure why I decided to tell this story on the blog. As you may have noticed (hah. No one noticed), I've been absent from here. I mostly blame Trump because when he was elected, I lost my will to write, much less be funny, and Dr. Strangemom  died. Where humor once lived in my head, there was now nothing but vitriol and potato chips. All Trump's fault. A little bit Reagan's fault. And Carl Rove. But mostly, Trump.

And in the years I've been gone, it seems as if blogs have lost their place in the communication world. Much like quinoa and skinny jeans, it's not so much that no one is interested in blogs, as much as they are not anyone's first choice these days, what with roasted cabbage and maxi dresses and TikTok enjoying the spotlight.

I thought about dipping my toe into the TikTok video Instagram world (I don't even know what the word is for those things. Wait! Platforms?) but there's the issue of my chins, so, no. Also, there's the issue of what the hell I would talk about. Some people have suggested I talk about parenting issues, but I have no real cred for that. Ditto for Jewish stuff. Plus - and this is key - people can leave comments when you post videos. And frankly, I don't need that kind of aggravation.

So, the earthquake.
January 17, thirty years ago. 

Robin and the kids and I were living in the San Fernando Valley of LA, about five minutes from my parents' house. The quake hit around 4 in the morning, and we grabbed all the kids we could find (one) and got the fuck outta the house. (The other kid showed up soon thereafter). We camped out on the front lawn with all the neighbors while the contents of our house pretty much threw itself on the ground and shattered.

At about six in the morning, Robin said, "I'm gonna try to get to your parents' house to make sure they're okay."

(This is one of the top three reasons I married Robin. Loyalty and devotion to my family. The other two are 1) he was richest person I knew when we met in Santa Cruz in 1977 - he made ten dollars an hour, and 2) I liked that he made ten dollars an hour.

Not to be outdone by my shallowness, Robin said he married me because I have big boobs and I could play "Moonshadow" on the guitar. Had I possessed only one of those attributes, I guess he would have walked on by.)

 

The roads were impassable from our house to my parents' house that earthquake morning, with downed power lines, downed trees and fires springing up. But Robin - intrepid son-in-law that he was - somehow made it there. He was gone for more hours than I had expected he would be gone, and I was getting nervous, imagining the worst, which is my superpower.

While we waited for him to return, my kids were getting hungry so I put on my rubber boots and work gloves and made my way back into our wreck of a house to forage for food for them. The five gallon Sparkletts water bottles had fallen and cracked and created a river of broken glass, ceramic, food and other detritus running through the house, but I spied a few cartons of yogurt making their way down the hallway and I slogged through the muck to grab them.

Feeling quite the hero - I even had a small cut on my hand from reaching into the glass-filled river! - I brought the yogurts out to my kids whereupon one of them (name supplied on request) said in what has to be the best kids-are-so-fucking-self-absorbed quote ever: "CAPPUCCINO yogurt? God, Mom, you know I HATE Cappuccino yogurt!"

I dripped a little blood into his yogurt just for effect.

Presently, Robin returned.

The look on his face made my heart drop."What's wrong? What happened?" I managed to choke out.

"I don't know how to tell you this..." he said.

I waited, imagining the superpowered worst.

"Your parents' front door was wide open, and I called for them but no one answered. I walked around the house, looking under furniture and fallen artwork and I didn't see them.  Then I heard a quiet voice from their bedroom."

"Oh God," I said.

Robin continued.

"The voice - your mom's  - said, 'Robin? We're here in the bedroom'."

"So I walked into the bedroom, and..."

"Just TELL me," I said. "I can handle it."

He paused for a moment and then said very quietly, so the kids wouldn't hear.

"Your mom and dad were in bed. With the neighbor. Your dad and the neighbor were sleeping."

It took me a few seconds to wrap my brain around what he had said. So he repeated that last sentence. This did not help me process what he was telling me. My parents were in bed with (I actually have forgotten her name)? I mean, my mom was...adventurous; she prided herself on being "with it" (probably the first clue of not being "with it" is thinking that anyone says "with it" anymore), I guess I could see her exploring sexual and relationship boundaries. Yeah, I could see it. 

But my DAD? The most UNPRURIENT human being to ever have lived? The man who couldn't even bring himself to answer his young daughters' persistent questions about if Daddies poop out of their penises, and instead told us, "I don't do ANYTHING in the bathroom; I'm there to see a man about a dog." Which, let me tell you, was hugely fabulous news to little Ann and little Karen because every time he went into the bathroom, we'd stand outside the bathroom door, jumping up and down, saying, "YIPEEE, we're gonna get a dog!" And my poor dad, caught in his web of uncomfortable lies about body parts and functions, now also had to accept that his daughters were - albeit adorable (see photo, below) - not very bright.

Back to the story.

As my mom explained to a dumbstruck Robin who was rooted at her bedroom door, paralyzed with confusion, "when the earthquake hit, I told Dad to stay in bed and go back to sleep."

(I have to interject here that Sylvia Brown did not believe in earthquakes, just as she did not believe in fear, danger or refrigeration of meat, choosing instead to live her life as though nothing bad will happen, and that hot chicken straight out of the broiler can sit on a kitchen counter for a couple of days before needing to either be eaten or refrigerated. It goes without saying that she thought I was/am a hopeless hand wringer who says "no" instead of "yes" to life. Also goes without saying that this is true about me. And also that I honestly don't see the problem with it.)

So, Mom tells Dad that it's just an earthquake, no need to go outside, just go back to sleep. And he believes her (or he doesn't. But he wasn't going to fight her about it.)

A few minutes later, there is loud banging on their front door. 

"Sylvia, Murray! Help!"

My mom goes to the door, opens it, and standing there is there next-door-neighbor; a woman who - as my mom had always described her - "worries just for the heck of it. She's scared of everything!"

The neighbor is freaking out about the earthquake and says, "Sylvia, you are a therapist. HELP me, I'm freaking out."

And Mom, in a maverick, bold professional choice as a licensed MFCC, says to her, "C'mon in, you can get in bed with Murray and me because we're going back to sleep."  

And the neighbor did. 
And they all went back to sleep.

Until Robin barged in.

Seriously, I have never seen Robin so pale as when he told me what he had seen. Had the bottles of booze not fallen out of the kitchen cupboard, shattered and dumped in the Sparketts river, I fully believe he would have washed his eyes out with straight vodka. He's really never gotten over it.

In time, of course, the aftershocks stopped, the fires were put out, the power lines restored, the streets cleared, and life when back to whatever normal was at the time. 
When the neighbor lady finally got out of my parents' bed and went home, I don't know. We never asked.  All I know is that when went there two days later, she was gone, but for the lingering scent of her Jean Nate on the bedsheets.

I asked my mom why she didn't change the sheets after having the neighbor lady in bed with them (I would have do that ASAP, for fuck's sake), and all she said was, "Dad likes that Jean Nate."

Some stories, I guess, are just not meant to have all the dots connected.

Stay safe out there.