Monday, June 12, 2006The Glamour of HollywoodSo this morning finds me living out a lifetime dream: after dropping off my wonderful son at his private-yet-socially-conscientious school where he is going to enjoy a day of freedom at the beach celebrating the end of his year in fourth grade, I take off to do a radio show.I have it all. I have two healthy children, a professional job, a house in the 'burbs, a creative career and the opportunity to speak on live radio from a Hollywood studio, doing a two hour show called Unlimited Thinking on www.karmaAir.com. As I pull into the morning traffic, I also see I have something else. I have a thin coating of SpaghettiOs sauce on my rear view mirror. I have the remnants of SpaghettiOs also on the windshield, and the passenger window. I also know, although I've tried to block it out, that I have a blob of the stuff, and a couple of noodles, on the trunk. This was not a part of the Great American Dream. I did not do this myself as some kind of outre performance art piece, flashbacks from my Bennington days gone horribly wrong. No. This downpouring of SpaghettiOs was visited upon me last night at the Altadena Country Club, where I was attending a Cub Scout graduation dinner. I had used the valets to park the car, they had parked on the street as the lot was full, and sometime during the evening someone decided to dump a not-insubstantial quantity of Campbell's Soup SpaghettiOs all over my car. It was FAAARRRR worse last night. We drove home with the noodles all over the place, my son Chris moving the window up and down until the noodles collected in a gooey smush on the side of the door. There were noodles all over the windshield which negated the use of the wipers. (Yuck factor: through the roof.) When I got home I sent the kids off to do their bedtime ablutions and then I rinsed the car off vigorously with the high-powered hose until I was satisfied that I'd gotten all the stuff off. I was wrong. Here's the thing. Five minutes before the valet delivered the car to me last night, a wedding event guy was loading his van after his reception was over. He offered me and another woman each a glorious array of flowers... a centerpiece of roses and lillies, pinks and whites and creams. I was glowing in the benevolence of the universe as I put the gorgeous arrangement in the car. And then I sat in the driver's seat, took off, and noticed the Jackson Pollack smattering of sauce and pasta all over my almost cleanish car. It was really gross. And kind of incomprehensible. As I told the valet guy when I drove back -- not to get pissy, as I assured my kids, but just to let the place know about what happened -- it's not like I have a "fuck you" car. This is not the car that screams "I'm at the country club and you're not, you sorry loser." It's a Honda Civic. Seven years old. Somewhat dinged. Somewhat scratched. Nothing (sad to say) that you would ever look at and say "oooohhh, I'm going to GET the bastard who owns THAT car." It's a tribute to my triumph over perfectionism, this car. The fact that I allow myself to drive such a well-lived-in vehicle is my statement that I can actually relax in the imperfections of my life. (OK, it's also a tribute to the fact that it's really hard to keep everything perfect all the time.) As I'm driving to the Hollywood studio, I'm thinking that really, we've gone too far this time. A spaghettiOs-covered vehicle is not a triumph over anything, except maybe the power of the subhuman hostility of the punkish youth of Altadena over anything faintly resembling common sense and decency. Here's the point of the blog: The night before my appearance on KarmaAir.com radio, I am simultaneously given a sublime bouquet of wedding flowers... and about two cups of vehicular adornment. What does this MEAN?? The radio show went off beautifully. Is this now my perfect equation? Will I become superstitious and demand a ritual smearing of canned goods and a floral arrangement before every public appearance? Or... what? Where's the karma? What's the lesson? Am I just supposed to stay humble here? (OK, I scream inside, JEEZ. Like DUH, OK? I'm humble already.) I don't get it. I want the answer. SpaghettiOs and roses. If anyone has a thought about this, please comment. In the meantime, I think I really should visit a car wash pronto. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 8:26 PM  
Comments: Oh My God! Only you Kathy. Your dog has to be neutured twice in and you're car is baptized in Spaghetti O's. What would you write about it you didn't have all of these fun life experiences? Cheers!! # posted by  LoriAnn's Blog : 7:27 PM
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