musical beds and sleepless kids drive and putt costly parking ticket
Outraged, I turned to my ‘fixer’.
“Look at this, Nazy,” I said. “These scurrilous morons think we owe them money. Can you call the city and fix this?”
Nazy called the Santa Barbara police and, turning on the charm, discovered the cause of the problem…
Flashback December 2018
After dropping Nazy at a store on Haley Street, I stopped the car in a (gasp!) red zone to wait. As I waited (it took longer than expected), I saw a parking warden on the other side of the street.
“Heh, heh,” I thought to myself. “She won’t get me.” I pulled away and drove around the block. Nazy came out just as I returned.
“I outsmarted the parking police, Nazy!” I crowed when she got into the car.
End Flashback
“.. do you remember when you bragged about outsmarting the parking police?” Nazy asked.
“Me? Brag?” I replied innocently.
“She wrote a ticket.”
“We didn’t get a ticket.”
“They mailed it to the old house.”
“I changed our address with the State of California. And I did it before November so that we could have the pleasure of voting against every Republican since they are all a sorry collection of spineless, compassion-starved, reckless jerks.”
“The city says that we —, eh, that you didn’t pay the $40 fine.”
“But the bill is for $160.”
“Yes. Late fees and penalties add up.”
“But..”
“Your ‘smart’ diversion turned a $40 parking ticket into a $160 dollar fiasco.”
“Yes, dear,” I said. “I thought you were on my side,” I thought.
To help us recover from the parking ticket debacle, Melika and Tom gave us great tickets to Miss Saigon which was playing at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. We discussed stopping to see Mitra, who was working in the Westwood part of LA on the way to the show, but realized that it took as long to get to Hollywood from Westwood as it takes to get to Hollywood from Santa Barbara.
Factual Correction: At rush hour, it takes more time to get from the Westwood part of LA to the Hollywood part of LA than it does to get from Santa Barbara to Hollywood.
This weekend, Melika and Tom went to Mel’s 20th High School reunion in Hanover, New Hampshire. Nazy and I spent time with Tiger, Arrow and Azelle. We went zooming down the hill on our scooters at Mesa Park, Tiger had his tennis and golf lessons, all three of them went swimming, we read a lot of books and had lots of fun outings. The first two days, they all slept all night — in their own beds. The last day was a bit more problematic. It began innocently enough.
“I can’t believe it, Nazy,” I said. “11:15PM and they are all asleep.”
It was, of course, a harbinger of doom. It should have generated the queasy feeling - something like the feeling I get whenever the ‘president’ demonstrates his empathy dearth with a nasty tweet.
At 3:30AM, Tiger joined us in our bed.
At 4:00AM, Azelle started crying in her crib. Nazy went upstairs to comfort Azelle.
At 4:30, Nazy placed sleeping Azelle back in the crib. Nazy decided to sleep in Tiger’s bed for the remainder of the night. (What there was of it).
At 4:50, Arrow woke up.
At 4:51 Arrow woke Azelle up.
By 4:55 Nazy was rocking both Arrow and Azelle. Arrow was complaining loud enough for the monitor to alert me.
At 4:57, I came upstairs and began to rock Azelle. Nazy and Arrow retired to Arrow’s bed.
At 5:20, Azelle was asleep. Tiger, meanwhile, had awoken downstairs and alone. He walked into Azelle’s room just as I was lowering her into the crib. I directed him toward his room and endeavored to get Azelle back to sleep.
At 5:40, Azelle was sleeping in the crib. But Tiger had climbed into Arrow’s bed which he was now sharing with Nazy and Arrow. Naturally, Arrow was squashed. I collected Tiger and moved him to his bed — where I joined him.
At 6:30 Arrow woke up. He jumped out of bed and woke Azelle up.
At 6:31 I threw a pillow at Arrow. (Luckily there were no nearby bricks.)
Nazy and I, recovering later that day, discussed the events of the night.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Nazy commented.
“I have,” I responded. “It was in movie — but all the bed jumpers were older.”
“That might have been more fun.”
“I’m scandalized, my dear.”
For last week's letter, please click here
Nazy and the children in Tiger Jammies