When we moved to southern California we suddenly heard from friends and relatives we hadn’t heard from in decades. It seemed the entire world was planning a trip to Los Angeles and wanted to know if they could, you know, hang out at our house for a few days? Maybe a couple of weeks, tops. We had decided to move from Manhattan to Los Angeles for a trial period of two years. Having found a house high up in Coldwater Canyon for a comparable rent we had been paying in New York we considered it a bargain. Here, the girls could each have their own room, a big yard to play in and a nice, safe neighborhood. We had nearly unpacked when we heard from my husband’s brother about wanting to visit with his wife and two young daughters. When we met them at LAX he whispered that he had brought along their dog Candy as a surprise. You can imagine how happy that made us. (We had a young collie puppy who was "nearly" housebroken.) We put one niece with one daughter in each of their rooms -- brother and sister-in-law would sleep on the convertible double-bed in the den. The logistics would work out well and our nieces could trade off sleeping with our girls. Our nieces seemed more excited to see their own dog Candy than to be visiting. They had been told by their parents they could stay as long as they wanted. How sweet and considerate.
My sister-in-law’s first action was to take an ice cube tray from the freezer and dump several ice cubes on the kitchen floor because she wanted Candy to have a treat. It was quite a treat for me too, sliding over puddles of water while attempting to make Cordon Bleu stuffed chicken breasts for eight people.
It seemed whenever we were relaxing in the yard with a tall, cool drink there would be a blood-curdling scream from one of our nieces who had either fallen off a bike, gotten fingers caught in the screen door or had seen an insect somewhere flying around in close proximity. I won’t even bother enriching you with details about our day at Disneyland -- exhausting and we all came home feeling sick.
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When the parents asked if it would be okay for them to leave their kids with us while they spent a weekend in Las Vegas, how could we say no? It was a weekend like no other. I took all four girls to Marineland, the beach, the zoo, the movies, you-name-it. When the parents returned they announced to their children that they would all be leaving for San Francisco in two days. Sadly, they would need to fly Candy back home to relatives in New York first.
While I was cooking dinner that night my brother called telling me that he was planning a trip to Los Angeles with his wife and three kids. Could they stay with us? "Of course. Will you be bringing your dog Ginger along?" No, Ginger would be staying with neighbors. That would give me three days to clean house, put fresh sheets on all the beds, pull out the cot for my nephew, make sure we had enough beach towels, do some meal-planning, refill all the ice cube trays and prepare for another Disneyland extravaganza. Yes, there are pitfalls to living in Paradise --- the whole world wants to "Go Hollywood".
