Our Christmas Eve Tradition

Growing up, my family had a tradition every Christmas Eve – like most of the Jewish community, we’d go to the movies. No matter what time of year we went to the movies, Mom and Dad always warned us that it would be very cold in the theater. We would usually be the only family seeing a movie on a July afternoon wearing sweatshirts and long pants.

My mom had gone to high school with the theatre manager, so if there was a movie we wanted to see (provided it wasn’t opening weekend) all she had to do was put in a call to him and we were set for tickets. We often ended up seeing the biggest family movie of the season, which would have come out around Thanksgiving. By the time a month had passed and there was little to no public interest anymore, then we’d go with our passes.

The most influential Christmas Eve movie of my childhood was not so much for the content, but for my reaction, was My Girl. On our usual movie night in 1991, we headed towards the theater with some friends to take in the new Macaulay Culkin comedic romp. He had earned our trust the year before with Home Alone, so we figured this was another sure fire hit. I was at the same age of the characters in the movie and in the same awkward “friends who are girls” mode in school, so I wanted to sit a few rows in front of the rest of the group. What nobody could have seen coming was the way this movie ended. Culkin’s character, Thomas, was in the woods and he ran into an angry hive full of bees, which he happened to be allergic to. While trying to run, he lost his glasses, tripped and that was it. I was shocked – how could this happen? To pile it on, when they found his body, the mood ring he had received from his girl-friend, it had changed color for the first time. That was the final straw – I started bawling uncontrollably through the end of the movie and into the credits. My mom came to get me because everyone was leaving and she found me with my Starter winter jacket pulled over my head, hiding my tear soaked nine year old face. It was the first time I had ever cried at a movie and I would be relentlessly teased about it for years to come.

The Christmas Eve tradition took a huge hit the following year when the entire family went out and proceeded to dislike the Robin Williams movie Toys. It became a long standing joke in the family that any time the movie’s name would be mentioned, we would react like someone was talking about Voldemort. It was because of that experience that we were almost hesitant to see Toy Story in 1995 because of the shared name. When high school rolled around, my sister and I were usually away for Christmas at a USY convention. Then came college, when I was usually staffing those same conventions. Another problem seemed to be Hollywood releasing all of the really good movies on Christmas Day, meaning that our annual tradition would occur one day early.

When I moved to California I attempted this tradition with my roommate one year and ended up seeing a double feature of Spanglish and Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, effectively putting the bad memory of Toys out of my mind forever.

These days we usually hang out at home and watch Christmas movies or play video games. The past two years we've made our own pizza dough with friends and just stayed in. The one common theme every Christmas Eve, no matter what I'm doing or where I'm going - I'll always put on a sweatshirt just in case.

Mario and Me

This week I got a Nintendo Wii and I’m every bit as excited as my fiancé is nervous that we’ll never have another conversation. It’s the fourth video game system I’ve owned, the first one I've had when it was first out and brand spanking new. In the past when I've gotten a system, the newer upgrade had already come out - always one step behind. But it’s the system I was never allowed to have that will always carry the fondest memories to me.

My parents never got me a Nintendo when I was a kid – I guess I would have been angrier about not having one if it weren’t for the fact that nearly every one of my friends from school and all of the kids in my neighborhood had them. If I was really jonesing for some Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Ducktales (my favorite game at the time), my fix was never so far away. Not having the system myself was never a back and forth struggle with the parents, nor did it become a large argument, it just was what it was. It might have had something to do with us owning two pinball machines. We also had an old Atari and my Dad often had new computer games for us to play. A four-colored computer version of The Price is Right could really incite the Lurie children’s competitive nature.

At my 8th birthday party, my secret love of Nintendo came to the forefront when I had friends come over to watch the Fred Savage movie The Wizard. A very odd choice for someone who didn’t even own the video game system the movie was shamelessly promoting. The movie was a glorified 100 minute commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3 – a new game that single handedly increased my number of play dates during the early 1990’s.

A few years later, something big happened. At an afternoon screening of Batman Returns at the North Haven Showcase Cinemas, I noticed a bunch of teenagers crowded around one of the arcade machines. As I inched closer, I saw the most violent fighting game I had ever laid eyes on - Mortal Kombat. In the days before the Internet, you heard about things from your friends at school. By this time, most of my friends had upgraded to the newest video game console, Super Nintendo (SNES). Not only had they already heard about this fighting game, but according to their subscriptions to Nintendo Power Magazine Mortal Kombat would be available on the SNES in the not too distant future. That settled it – I was shut out of the original Nintendo, but I would not be denied this time around.

Through some miraculous arrangement between my parents, Grandmother and Caldor’s Senior Citizen discounted Wednesdays, I got the Super Nintendo. I got it on a random day in the summer, not on a birthday or even Hanukkah. It came with a game called Mario All-Stars, which contained all three of the original Nintendo Mario games. As far as I was concerned, I was even with all of my friends. The following birthday I received Mortal Kombat II, the highly anticipated sequel to the arcade game I saw. This was a video game that was responsible for creating the video game rating system due to excess gore and violence. Unlike its precursor, Nintendo did not censor the blood in this game. My game collection began to pile up, I got a subscription to Nintendo Power and some extra controllers – I had arrived.

Though I always considered myself a Nintendo kid, when my uncle took a job at a video game company and offered me a free Playstation, I wasn’t going to turn it down. The console had been out for a few years, but it still seemed pretty revolutionary. It came with a bunch of games his company designed – most of them were fun, but a few of them were heavy role playing games that were too clunky for my liking. While I did appreciate the detail, especially with the wrestling games, I always had my SNES plugged in for the sheer fun of its game play.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I took Super Nintendo, not my Playstation, and continued to add to my collection through used game stores and e-bay. Later on, during the height of the Guitar Hero craze I did upgrade to a used Playstation 2 via craigslist and bought the guitar at a charity auction. Now, after about a year of feeling strange that my parents had a Wii and I didn’t, I’ve caught to the in crowd once again.

The first thing I’m going to do is download the original Nintendo version of Ducktales.

What Did You Bring Me?

Sometime in the early 1990’s, my parents took a trip to Orlando which happened to be a couple of weeks before Hanukkah. It was a short trip for my Dad’s work and we had school – so this was a parent’s only trip. Before leaving, my parents asked if there was anything specific we wanted them to bring back. My sister, for whatever reason, absolutely wanted a black Hard Rock Café shirt and I asked for a Ren and Stimpy shirt.

We were excited for their return a few days later, partially because they always brought something for us, but mostly because they were back. Amy and I went into their room and watched them unpack. Regretfully, Mom informed us that she couldn’t find a Ren and Stimpy shirt and the Hard Rock Café did not have the style of shirt Amy wanted. It was disappointing, but the moment passed.

Amy wasn’t so willing to take no for an answer and she began digging into one of the suitcases until she pulled out a receipt from Hard Rock. She called them out on it, asking “Why is there a receipt for a Hard Rock shirt if you said they were out?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise for Hanukkah!” my mom yelled back.

At this moment, you’d think I’d be able to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Maybe if they were hiding Amy’s shirt, mine was in there somewhere as well. Nope. I was happy believing that Mom and Dad couldn’t find my shirt and went on with my life. It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when Hanukkah arrived and I received the exact shirt I hoped for, that I figured it out.

My mom asked “Did you have any idea?” and I was too embarrassed to say that I didn’t know it was coming. I told her once Amy found her receipt, that I thought my shirt might be hidden away somewhere also. The truth was that I hadn’t even thought about the shirt since the day they came back and it was a really good surprise.

The side note to this story is that back in those days, when I was in 6th grade, I was wearing big t-shirts. A lot of the shirts I had back then would still fit me today. Case in point: I still own (and wear) the Ren and Stimpy shirt at least fifteen years later. I’m also convinced that this entry will be a good indicator if my fiancé actually reads my blog – if she does, the shirt is probably going to be a topic of conversation this evening.

Thanksgiving Side Dishes

I didn’t post last week – things became chaotic with the Thanksgiving holiday and working the day after. I never really got the chance to develop the story I wanted into a full fledged entry. Devoted readers might recognize that I tend to use story themes based on the time of year. For last week I was leaning in two different directions as far as Thanksgiving related stories go – one story about the actual Thanksgiving meal and a more recent story about the insanity that occurs during the day after shopping. Neither of these were really main event stories, both constituted more of a side dish feeling.

Story 1: Turkey Day sans Turkey

When I was a kid, I was a picky eater. I realize now that I might still be considered in the picky range, but thanks to some new found food bravery and constant encouragement (and the occasional forcing) by my fiancé, I’ve tried many new things of late. If you invented a time machine for the sole purpose of going back to tell the child version of me that in the future I would be eating tomatoes, mushrooms and eggplant, I probably would have vomited uncontrollably just from hearing about it.

One of the things I didn’t eat was turkey. I love it now, but back when I was a kid, I could not fathom eating it. My mom would be in the kitchen all day, preparing this amazing meal, and I would stand next to her in the early stages of a tantrum just thinking about what was going to be served. Mom did what any person who was too busy to deal with my annoyance – she gave me what I wanted for dinner that night so I would shut up.

Hot Dogs.

That’s right – for about three years in my elementary school days I would sit down to a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner of Hot Dogs. I liked the side dishes, but it was easier to have me not occupying valuable kitchen space pulling on her sweater to complain about the food she was making. Eventually I got over whatever unknown problem I had with turkey and began to love it, but not a year goes by that my mom doesn’t remind me about being thankful for Hot Dogs.

Story 2: Fishing with my Father

My father counted down to the morning after Thanksgiving every year. Not having celebrated Christmas, this was easily the closest he would ever come. The advertisements for the various stores touted their best deals and he would circle his favorite ones. The shopping list would grow as larger as the times the stores opened crept earlier each year. I would awaken from my post tryptophan coma and find the living room and kitchen covered in shopping bags from the local stores (aside from the hidden ones that would be arriving to us later on).

After watching this from the sidelines my whole like, I finally got into the game last year. My father, the experienced veteran, made sure I was in it for real and not going to balk at the early hours. I assured him I wouldn’t let him down and we called it an early night to wake up long before sunrise.

The alarm hit just before 5:00 in the morning and we quickly dressed and headed to the car. Some fathers and sons rise early to go fishing, but that was never our style - unless of course, we were fishing for the best bargain in town.

The first stop was Wal-mart where I reeled in a Marlin (a new desktop computer) for our new apartment. Dad hit got a hooked a Red Snapper (a digital camera) for my still sleeping sister. We then crossed the street to arrive at Staples for some much discounted Bluefish, (bluetooth headsets). After exhausting my hometown’s resources, we traveled to North Haven and ran into the soon to be extinct Circuit City to catch some Minnows (DVD’s). Best Buy was next up where my Dad stocked up his Trout collection (Wii games). Next door to Best Buy was Target where I lost track of what we got. On the way home was a quick stop in at Kohl’s.

If you’ve never been to Kohl’s, it’s similar to a smaller JC Penny’s or Caldor’s, to those who actually remember it. It’s an “everything” store and all of their merchandise is usually between 60 and 70 percent off. On top of that, anyone with a Kohl’s card got an extra 15% off, and there were always coupons. The big deal was an electric griddle for $9.99, and I had to have one. I darted to the kitchenware section and saw the depleted pile of griddles. I made it and picked up the last one on the stack. No sooner than I read the front of the box, a woman pointed right in my face and asked “Are you buying that?” I wasn’t about to throw it back, so I huddled it under my arm and left that section of the store.

Our cooler was full and it was time to head back to the shore. We arrived home at 7:00 am and the house was still quiet. There would be a second trip out to scrounge the stores for left over deals when the rest of the family woke up. In the mean time, my father and I sat at the breakfast table and admired our haul, already thinking about our next fishing trip.

The First Week of October

I apologize for not posting last week. It was the first miss of the year and even though it does make my “post every week” New Years Resolution a failure, I still think I’ve come a long way as a blogger. I did not know when I started this project at the beginning of the year how fun it would be and how much positive feedback I would get from friends and family and people I haven’t talked to in a long time.

On October 1st we drove to Connecticut to start our journey. The late drive was to cut two hours off the much bigger drive we would be taking on the next day. Lindy, my parents and I all got into my fathers car and headed to Cleveland. Lindy and I had done the drive the opposite direction last summer after her sisters wedding, but this was going to be around trip on Friday and leaving Monday.

We left at 7:00 am for what should have been a nine hour drive, but it ballooned up to twelve when every interstate in Pennsylvania decided that this would be the morning they closed to one lane to finish any outstanding construction.

Our stop for lunch was supposed to be the Berkey Creamery at Penn State, but our time was so far off, we had to make a stop around noon to eat our lunches. We still made a separate stop for ice cream - after seeing it on the Travel Channel, it was hard to pass up. Even though we were going 20 minutes out of the way to visit, it was really worth it. Lindy got an amazing pumpkin pie flavor while my Dad and I got a mint-chip-raspberry flavor. Mom, of course, got chocolate.

The drive, though long, was okay. My parents brought their portable DVD player and we took turns in the front and back seat in pairs. We introduced them to a few episodes of This American Life, to mixed reactions of enjoyment and sleeping-through-it-ness. Lindy was the fastest of the drivers, and since she did the home stretch, she seemed to make up some time on the Ohio turnpike.

The weekend was a mix of overwhelming family introductions for my parents and early stage pre-wedding planning for us. We showed off the reception hall and watched Meryl and Benjy’s wedding video to scope out the band and some other details. Thankfully, we were able to take a few hours off to hit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an amazing place to visit, if you’re ever in Cleveland.

It never fails that the drive back is always easier. You have more of an idea what you’re getting into and can better gauge your time. It didn’t hurt that there was barely any construction on the eastbound side of the road, so we actually did make it in the predicted nine hours. After a brief stop for dinner, Lindy and I went all the way back to Boston and got ready for the week ahead.

Putting Her Best Foot Forward

When you’re dating someone long distance every aspect of the relationship gets put into a time warp. Sometimes the only times you’re able to see each other can overlap with other events. Since seeing the other person is already so rare, you’ll take what you can get. I guess that’s how Lindy ended up meeting my parents after only having been dating for five months. Even as I say we had been dating for five months, I have to clarify that during that time we had only been together about five or six times. The whole first year was a whirlwind.

I had already been planning to come home for Rosh Hashanah and I invited her to come home with me. The logic behind it was that a trip from Chicago to Connecticut would be a lot cheaper than going to Los Angeles.

The visit went fine. Everyone loved her. On our last night there, the conversation somehow moved to my high school art projects. I started talking about a couple of them and Lindy wanted to see. My mom told us they were stored up in the attic.

Lindy had been in attics before, but only ones that were furnished. My parent’s attic was far from furnished. It was a glorified storage space, a museum of childhood relics and old clothes. It was arranged so there is a small pathway around perimeter of the floor, with all of the stored items in the center. To get to my artwork, we had to walk the entire pathway to the furthest corner.

Among my work was my six foot Pez dispenser, some paintings and the main portfolio, which was what we were searching for. I showed Lindy a few items, stopping to remember and retell the stories behind them. I turned back to further rummage through the portfolio for one specific painting. After finding it, I turned around and Lindy was gone. I looked left and right, but didn't see her until I looked down.

There she was, sitting down with her left leg stuck through the attic floor. I hadn't noticed whatsoever because she did not make a sound. Even when I grabbed her and pulled her back up to a standing position, she was still in a silent shock. There was a foot wide hole in the floor and we could now peer into my sisters bedroom.

After making sure she was okay, I whispered in her ear "someday, people will tell this story at our wedding," as I laughed outloud. I then turned towards the staircaise and yelled "Daaaaaad!" while still hugging her, unintentionally screaming in her ear. My dad ran upstairs and yelled out as soon as he stepped into my sisters room.Everyone's initial reaction was to find out if she was okay, which she was. One step further to the left and she would have gone through completely, most likely dislodging my sisters ceiling fan and landing on her bed. The events of that night led to Lindy's mom and my mom speaking on the phone for the first time. Lindy's mom offered to pay for the damages, but my mom wouldn't let her because it was just a simple accident.

Once things calmed down, we watched Glory Road, but I don't remember anything about the movie. Everyone was too busy making comments about the hole, and Lindy was a tremendous sport about the whole thing.

"Nice of you to drop in," said my sister.

"That's putting your best foot forward," said my father.

"You really made an impact," said my mother.

Looking from the attic to Lindy and my sister, in her bedroom.

The full view under a ladder.

My dad ended up temporarily patching the hole using a piece of wire tied to a ruler. He thread the ruler and then pulled the wire to close the two pieces of sheetrock that were sticking down into the room. After shaking all the dust from my sisters comforter, it was good as new. You can see the handywork in the following photo:

Today is the three year anniversary of when we realized that this whole thing was just crazy enough to work. Sure it was long distance for over two years, but now we're living together. The waiting excruciating but it was also worth it and I could not love her more. If you have doubts about long distance relationships, please know that it can work.

Just stay out of the attic.

A Few More Eggs

Growing up, Passover was always about time with family and food. There were so many great things that we only had once a year, but there were also times when we didn't look forward to it. When I was 3 and my sister was 5, we didn't care for any of the breakfast options provided for us. My Mom tried to create breakfast foods for my sister and I - eggs, Matza Brei , cream cheese on Matza - we wouldn't eat anything. We were used to having cereal every day, or occasionally waffles, pancakes or eggs. How were we supposed to last a whole week without our precious breakfast treats.

This was back before the days of boxed cake mix being plentiful. The cereal options were disgusting and we were finicky matzoh-ed out children. My mom was able to get past all this and figure out a solution. She took my Grandma Betty's beautiful sponge cake, sliced it up and soaked it in egg and turned them into Passover french toast.

What you have to understand about this recipe is that like many items cooked over the week, it already contained twelve eggs. The idea of soaking the cake in more eggs and frying it was delicious, but hardly the healthiest idea. That didn't matter at the time - we were kids and we weren't eating anything, so she did what she had to do. In less than a week the entire cake was gone and everything was fine.

Until my Mom casually mentioned to Grandma what she had done.

"You did WHAT?"

Grandma was not happy that her precious sponge cake had been defiled, no matter how ingenious the idea was. She was shocked that it was used to "make breakfast". These were famous cakes that were baked in mass. My father, aunt and uncle used to come home from school to find dozens of them laid out on their beds. In the end Grandma Betty got over it, probably because my Mom was able to recreate the cake so well on her own. She continued to make the cake for us each year, and we loved it in it's original form as well. To this day my mother makes the cake using Grandma Betty's recipe and her cake pan.

Get Back on Defense

When I was a kid I played games all the time. I tended to succeed most in the unorganized neighborhood games like kickball, whiffleball and freeze tag. I was damn good at freeze tag and in elementary school I ruled at kickball. I was one of only two kids to kick a ball over the fence, bouncing it off the roof of the house next door - but I am about five years ahead of myself. Real sports were just hobbies, but they became more official when I was signed up to play several actual sports in organized leagues. At age seven I joined Greater Hamden Baseball Association (GHBA) and Hamden Soccer.


From the start soccer didn't seem like a good fit. I never watched it on television or talked about it with my friends. For my birthday earlier that year I received a soccer ball and a soccer "activity set," which consisted of some different colored cones to set up as the goal. People assumed I loved soccer because if anything, I was always polite about receiving gifts. Sweaters, belts, things I already had - I reacted like it was the greatest, because it was for me. Maybe I should have opted for honesty with the soccer gifts. It soon became plainly obvious that I was not cut out to be a soccer player for one specific reason: the running.

Baseball was good for me because you could stand around in the field and wait for something to happen. I had a very active imagination and would completely zone out sometimes in left field. I would pick grass, throw my glove in the air and try to catch it, or pretend I was a big league pitcher during the down time.

There was no down time in soccer games. From whistle to whistle, the kids ran after the ball from one end of the field to the next. It was fun at first, but I quickly grew tired of the fruitless pursuit. I wasn't the fastest kid nor was I the best kicker. Somewhere in my head, I was the smartest, and I devised a plan. I would wait on one end of the field, it didn't matter which, and after all of the other players ran to the opposite end and back, I'd be the freshest runner. My aim wasn't to score a lot of goals or play excellent defense. I just wanted to kick the ball as hard as I could. It didn't matter if I kicked it only once per game, I wanted to wail on it and see how far it would go.

As smart as my idea was, it made for lousy home videos.

"Go after the ball!" my father would yell as I stood by myself, 20 yards away from anyone else.

"They're just coming back here anyway," I would say back, kicking up some clumps of grass.

I was either the smartest seven year old on the field or too lazy for soccer. You'd think that by conserving my energy so by the time the ball was back on my end I'd be the only one able to run full speed, but of course that never seemed to matter. Seven-year-old kids have insane amounts of energy, and the idea of any of them becoming winded in a twenty minute soccer game was idiotic. I only played soccer for one season.

After soccer ended, I followed in my sisters footsteps to various activities that she had tried and enjoyed. First came ice skating, but I was terrified to let go of the wall. Then came gymnastics, which I only really liked because there was a trampoline involved. I enjoyed baseball, but once went an entire 22 game season without getting a hit. When I hit a growth spurts in the fourth and fifth grades, I became the tallest kid on my JCC basketball team. Unfortunately, these growth spurts came at a time when I had not yet switched to boxer shorts. I also believed that there was some kind of aerodynamic advantage in playing in sweatpants. This resulted in me having to stop every ten seconds to pick my underwear out of my crack and there's plenty of video of that splendor.

What do I play now? Kickball. The same game I loved from the start. The same game I was great at during elementary school. I guess my journey as an athlete was more of a 18 year feeling out process that resulted with my gut instinct being the correct choice. Unless of course an adult recreational freeze tag league opens up anytime soon.

Blind Subletting

As my last semester of college began to wind down, it was becoming pretty obvious that I was going to stay in Los Angeles. Before that could happen, I had to go back east for a several weeks. While it made no sense to get an apartment – I hardly had the money to throw away rent on a place I wouldn’t set foot in until the middle of June - I did need somewhere to live when I got back. A sublet was the answer.

I had been in contact with University of Southern California Hillel about attending services, but that never panned out. However, those contacts led me to a school message board where I found a girl named Katie* who had a room available for July and August. Even though I had lived in L.A. nearly four months, most of that was isolated to the Valley. I had no actual idea where USC was. For now it would have to do. The timing and price was right, so I agreed to take the place without once stepping foot anywhere near it. I’d graduate in May, stick around for a while I packed up and head back west in the middle of June. My cousins had already offered to let me stay with them until the room became available on July 1st.

I flew back to the east coast, drank too much, graduated, and my parents threw a tandem graduation party for my sister and I. Then I packed up and returned to California. I spent the next two weeks at my cousin’s house looking for work, which I found at USH. When the time came to move into the sublet I was thrilled about the idea of not living with two kids under the age of six.

The new place took two highways to get to and was just a couple of exits short of a third. I could describe my location as directly south of central Los Angeles. As I turned on to my new street, it was difficult finding a trendy angle-in parking space. Making one more loop around, I found a parallel spot nearby. The neighborhood seemed nice enough at first, but there was seemingly nobody around, lots of nearby construction and loud music coming from various windows. When I got to my building, I stood out front and this is what I saw**

Most buildings on the street were traditional white, brick or brown. My new building was pink, (coral or salmon, depending on who you ask). Someone was leaving as I was going in, and they held the door open for me. Perhaps this should have viewed this as a sign of friendliness instead of a concern for lack of safety. I made my way up two flights of creaky stairs and knocked on the door - it was opened by a heavy set, dark haired girl. Katie* had mentioned there would be others subletting for May and June, so I guessed this was who I was taking over for. The heavy set girl did not say a word; she just opened the door and went back to their room where she was studying with a friend. I walked along the off-yellow colored living room rug and part of me wondered if that was the planned color or one that been achieved over time.

“Hi,” I said, trying to break the ice, “I’m here to start subletting.”
“We’re not done yet. Come back in a few days,” large girl replied.

I told her that I had my stuff with me. Large countered by saying she had finals tomorrow and they needed to study. I agreed to give them extra time, partly because she was scary and partly because I wasn't exactly thrilled with the apartment. She handed me some keys and showed me the door. Taken aback by the situation, I went back to my cousin’s house and e-mail to Katie, who agreed to credit me for time I was not there.

I came back later that week and the girls were nowhere to be found. The apartment looked like it had been abandoned in the middle of a daily routine. Dishes piled in the sink, garbage overflowing and the fridge was a disaster. There was an uncovered large metal bowl filled with a lumpy brown batter-like substance with a spoon sticking out of it. It appeared as if someone tried to make cookies, took a bite, realized it stunk and fled the scene. The smell itself crossed so many levels of foul there were practically stink lines coming off it. I quickly pitched the contents and soaked the bowl in the sink.

The mystery of which bedroom was mine was quickly answered. I tried to open one of the doors and it barely budged. I got it open enough to fit inside – but that’s as far as I got. It seemed the three girls who had lived in the apartment designated this room to hold all of their belongings. Boxes upon boxes were piled up on the floor, on the bed, taking every inch of space. Of the other two rooms, one had a lot more space – because there was no bed. That left me with the smallest room and a metal framed bunk bed. The closet in my room was still mostly full and the plastic dresser drawers were taped shut, so I was forced to lived out of my suitcase.

I didn’t know anyone in my building or in my neighborhood. I would spend all of my free time closer to work and near my family. There was nothing in the apartment for me to do. No television, a terrible air conditioner and faulty Internet that I borrowed from the neighbors - it only worked in the storage bedroom or bathroom. I bought a paper plates, bowls and plastic utensils – nothing was permanent about this place. I had become a traveling salesman, coming home to a shady motel only to sleep, shower and leave.

Independence Day was the loneliest time. No fireworks, no barbecue, no friends. The sole redeeming aspect was that the neighborhood seemed very patriotic. Loud booms were heard throughout the night as I lay in bed. For days following the holiday, I heard the same noises echo throughout the night. In order to actually sleep, I convinced myself that all of the sounds were fireworks.

In those days I was working late shifts at USH that were saved for the newest employees. By the time I clocked out, changed and got home, it was after ten. I tried to put off being home for as long as possible, sometimes by doing unnecessary errands. On a specific night, I juggled three full bags of groceries up the stairs in one trip, not wanting to leave any of my refrigerated goods in the car.

I managed to get the key into the lock, opened the door, immediately dropped all my bags and reached for the light switch. Nothing happened. Like a waiting horror movie victim, I frantically tried it several more times, each yielding the same result. Walking to the kitchen, I soon discovered that none of the lights were working – the power had apparently been shut off. The agreement with the apartment leaser was that the first two month sub-letters would pay utilities for May and June and I would do the same for July and August. This was seemingly dismissed by the large study buddies and now I was suffering. I opened the refrigerator to find my food was as cold as one would expect from a non-air conditioned Los Angeles apartment in July – and it smelled just as fresh.

The refrigerator proved to be the final straw. In a rush, I threw away all of my ruined food, packed up everything I had there, including tonight’s groceries and some hangers that didn’t necessarily belong to me. My cousin reacted surprisingly calm to the late night call asking if I could come back and stay with them until I found a more permanent place.

The next morning I sent off an e-mail Katie, demanding a refund for my rent. She wrote back and agreed, while mentioning the girls who lived there before me had changed their numbers and not returned any of her messages. Giving the key back to her that September was nothing short of painful. It was the first time I was anywhere near USC since that disastrous summer. Katie was no longer in the apartment, having moved into a large, gaudy Sorority House. We exchanged only the simplest of conversation, I handed her the keys and drove off. (I actually ran into her later on in my Los Angeles adventures. She didn’t remember me, but I knew it was her. I'll save that for another entry due out this April.) In the end I got an apartment in a neighborhood that didn’t constantly sound like 4th of July and only was two blocks away from my cousins.

* I can’t remember the girls name for the life of me, and even if I could, I doubt she would want me to mention her in this context. Let’s just call her Katie so I don’t have to keep writing out “the girl who I sublet the apartment from”.
** Image courtesy of Google Maps and its street address stalking ability. I didn't actually take a picture of the building.