Extreme old age (nineties): Now my dad moves from teeth to dentures to a GI tube. Due to the exquisite care of his full-time Filipino nurse Thomas, at the rate of $10,000-ish a month, my dad continues to live on and on and on. He’s currently ninety-seven. Ninety-seven!
I have to say, after the four-alarm fire that my dad used to be, Thomas keeps our dad very tidy. He’s like a neatly typed message in a crisp envelope.
Even with Ensure, there are few calories in, but there are also few calories out. There is much sleeping. When I visit my dad, he’s as inactive as he could possibly be. Yet astonishingly, Thomas sends us all group texts with my dad in action poses—in the Jacuzzi, in a birthday hat, pushing a walker with racing stripes.
As Kaitlin says: “It’s very Weekend with Bernie.”
BUT NO. This funeral is for my Uncle Wang, a truly elegant, artistic, and lovable man. He was a painter who used Chinese watercolor techniques to depict American scenery, like the peach-colored, sunset-dappled canyons of Bryce and Zion.
We first visited Shanghai in the 1970s, when I was fifteen, to meet the Chinese—Uncle Wang’s—wing of the family. We were shocked by how crowded their quarters were. There were four families on one floor sharing one bathroom. I counted more than twenty toothbrushes, more than twenty small towels strung up above the lone shower like fluttering pennants.
When I visited him next, he and my Aunt Xing had moved to a cramped but still more spacious apartment in New York, way on the Upper West Side, like 123rd Street.
He was doing paintings for restaurants. I remember that he ate his dumplings two-by-two, in even numbers, an Aspergarian Chinese habit I’ve since myself never gotten over.
His third and final abode was his and Aunt Xing’s home in West Covina. It was a yellow ranch-style house with a large-screen television, Wells Fargo wall calendar, and Disney princess toys and such for the grandchildren. On the kitchen counter: Lay’s Barbecue Potato Chips, Nilla Wafers, Orange Crush soda.
Uncle Wang and Aunt Xing’s journey: more space, fewer people, more Lay’s. He made it to ninety-four—good health, joyous manner, gardening one day, had a fall, gone in a week. Not a bad run.
UNCLE WANG’S MEMORIAL begins Tuesday, at Forest Lawn, in West Covina (where I didn’t know they had a Forest Lawn), with a viewing of the body.
It’s not far from what I expect.
There’s mournful organ music. Artificial flowers. A lone Buddhist incense stick (I realize I have absolutely no idea what religion they practice).
I look in the coffin. It’s a faintly satanic-looking version of him, to be honest.
While I had decided to spare my tween daughters the viewing, I think the actual burial will be the ritual my overcosseted Western kids can probably handle. But it is I who am thrown for a loop, so unfamiliar am I with the traditions of Forest Lawn. After driving up the customary gently rolling green hills in a convoy, we arrange ourselves in two rows of canvas chairs facing a square predug hole and a box of ashes on a table.
We are joining my cousin Zhe, and his two out-of-town brothers, Zhe’s wife, Zhe’s engineer son, his son’s Latina schoolteacher wife, and their three tumbling Chinese/Latino triplets (we call them either Lachinas or Chitinos).
We are courteously offered Forest Lawn–brand bottled water and Forest Lawn-brand tissues.
We wait.
With an ear-splitting beeping sound, a truck pulls up and two men in Forest Lawn jumpsuits emerge with landscaping tools. As opposed to a speech, the funeral director politely provides us with technical information—how to read the plot numbers, which direction the box will face. He suggests we throw flowers into the hole, which we do. Crying, we take our seats again. We watch as another truck drives up and, for about fifteen minutes, slams the dirt down hard with an incredibly loud hydraulic tamping tool.
It’s literally “Bang! Bang! Bang!”
This is followed by a drive to a Chinese seafood restaurant in a mini-mall that—because I make a few wrong turns—turns into a forty-minute drive away.
There’s an almost too-gaily colored plastic menu that’s all in Chinese, with only blurry color photos of what appear to be pig snouts and earthworms.
Remarkably, Sally is holding it together.
I continue to be haunted by the notion that we are the wrong kind of—possibly downwardly mobile?—Asian.
I say to my daughters: “You know that poem, ‘Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die’? I say when you stand at my grave you’d better cry, a lot, because I put a lot of effort into you two. I want a full hour of crazy grief and then you may go to the Cheesecake Factory.” Which we then did.
THE SECOND FUNERAL is for my friend Danielle’s dad Calvin. After a bout with cancer, with a bit of Alzheimer’s thrown in, Calvin finally died. At eighty-four.
“That’s a very humane age,” I say, to Andie, Julia, and Marilyn. We’re driving to the memorial together. “Eighty-four. That’s not young at all, but it’s not super old. Given his illnesses, he skipped those extra ten or fifteen years of sheer family money drain.”
By contrast to Uncle Wang’s memorial, Calvin Cox’s memorial is in gorgeous Santa Barbara. The stunning, soaring-beamed church is set among groves on the glorious airy coast, overlooking the sea.
There are lines and lines of cars. God, there must be a thousand people here!
In the entrance hall are lovingly preserved archival photos of Danielle’s dad in vibrant life: As a kerchiefed Boy Scout, saluting in his Air Force uniform, in his tuxedo on his wedding day, delirious with his beautiful young 1950s bride.
The service begins with a phalanx of Scots guardsmen, in full regalia, marching in, playing bagpipes. The twinkly white-haired pastor is straight from a Merchant-Ivory movie, with brogue. An opera diva (famous?) movingly sings “Ave Maria,” in Latin. Just the right number of friends and family members share stories, both heartwarming and funny. We all laugh and shake our heads in wonderment at such an inspiring life.
Afterward, at the reception, a live pianist plays all of Calvin’s favorite music. As we enjoy champagne and themed passed appetizers like Scotch egg and bubble and squeak, magical melodies float over our glade . . .
“You must remember this—a kiss is just a kiss—”
“This is so nice,” I whisper to my companions. “What’s next? A sunset yacht cruise with dancing? Releasing of balloons, doves, monarch butterflies?”
“By the way,” Marilyn asks. “How’s your stepmom Helen doing?” My dad’s third Chinese wife.
“Oh God,” I say, “she was supposed to nurse him into his old age, but instead she was the one who got senile. At seventy-two! My sister had to put her in a home in Fremont where they speak Mandarin. It’s costing us $4,000 a month.”
“What about her family in China?” Andie asks. “Can’t they take care of her?”
“They don’t want her back,” I say. “Or, if we send her back, they want a fee. I gather either they’re not that wealthy, or they think we are. You know, ugly Americans. With endless cash. We’re squished between the First and Third World,” I suddenly realize. “It’s a very Second World situation.”
A bug flies into my champagne flute. I pull it out. We clink glasses. “Hashtag Second World Problems!”
Please join
LYNDA & STEWART RESNICK
for a cocktail party
in celebration of
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
and the publication of
her dreamiest book yet
THE SLEEP REVOLUTION
Thursday, April 14
6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Sleeping with Arianna Huffington
IT COMES IN the mail. It’s beautiful.
Simple, elegant, magic.
It means I get to put off worrying about my children, house, and money for five minutes because . . .
I’m going to a party for Arianna Huffington’s new book—The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time!
&nb
sp; It has a great cover. In silvery moonlight, Arianna Huffington sits on an elegant tan divan in a white silky luxurious spa kimono, smiling.
It’s like she’s inviting us to curl up next to her. Because she’s so wonderfully well rested.
I CONFESS I’ve always secretly admired Arianna Huffington.
Many years ago, in another lifetime, at the LA Times Festival of Books, I landed on an incredibly odd humor panel. The panelists were Steve Allen, Arianna Huffington, lefty publisher Paul Krassner, and myself (then “Valley” columnist for the late Buzz magazine). The audience—comprising many older white people in sunbrella hats—was hungry for laughs, but our mismatched panel was not well moderated.
For some important geopolitical reason, Arianna Huffington was keen that afternoon on the subject of Katyusha rockets. The increasingly restive audience began to groan. She shot spiritedly back, in her nasal Greek accent: “I didn’t know I was amongst so many Katyusha rocket supporters.” Louder groan. “Where’s the funny!” an elderly man yelled. I think I made a sudden whimsical remark about Arianna and the Katyusha rockets—something which, in my masterful storytelling, I cannot recall. The audience chuckled, temporarily soothed. It was probably at Arianna’s expense. It was a nonpremeditated cheeky sophomoric move.
Afterward, my journalist friend Cathy and I slunk into a corner, complaining about how our brilliance in Los Angeles was underappreciated. Suddenly, in a mist of rose-petally perfume (is how I remember it), Arianna appears. Instead of berating me for my snark, her perfectly manicured hand extends us a party invitation on good stationery. She’s throwing an elegant soiree that evening for another—much more famous—sulky writer, Christopher Hitchens. (Note: Hitchens had famously written insulting things about Arianna in the past, but she had since breezily forgiven him. Now, because everyone was mad at Hitchens for insulting the Clintons, Arianna is the only person in town who would throw him a party.)
Cathy and I became instant fan girls. We were helpless under Arianna’s conquering charm. We rolled over like puppies, offering our bellies to be scratched. Because, to me, it seems, like the Honey Badger? Arianna really doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of her. And, of course, it was an elegant, warm, perfect party: Arianna’s Greek mother hand-rolled baklava, for God’s sake!
I felt, in the end, that Arianna Huffington had seen something inside of me that was better than how I saw myself. By her empress-like example, she commanded me to behave better. She bequeathed me more class than I deserved. In short, inside, I have a glowing personal Arianna Huffington, and she is magic.
“I THOUGHT I’D FALLEN off this list, I’m glad to still be on it, or perhaps this is a new list,” I’m babbling to Julia, as we troll the racks at Macy’s. “The best part? The back of the invite says you can come dressed in either ‘business casual’ or in pajamas! You can literally come to her Sleep Revolution party in your pajamas!”
“Are you sure they really mean that?” Julia asks.
“Yes! The hostess is Lynda Resnick. I googled her. She’s the POM Wonderful lady—the woman who invented that magical pomegranate juice! How fun is that? If these gals are putting it out there, I don’t want to be the stick-in-the-mud in a navy blazer. Parties are fun, pajamas are fun, and I am fun!” I whirl around to a saleslady. “Where would we find pajamas?”
“But don’t you have pajamas?” Julia asks, as we ride the escalator.
“I sleep in sweatpants and old T-shirts. If I came in my actual bed-wear, I would look like the help.”
“What kind of pajamas are you looking for?”
“I’m picturing, you know, not flowery or boxy pajamas but elegant white silk pajamas reminiscent of Kate Hepburn. In my fantasy, Arianna Huffington welcomes me in her white silk pajamas. We clink crystal flutes of prosecco and she says, in her nasal Greek accent, ‘To the revolution!’ ”
Julia wrinkles her nose as she holds up some slacks. “What I really need is a great skirt for this publishing presentation I’m giving. A black A-line skirt. But of course, I’ve been working so hard, I haven’t been exercising and I’m fat. Sheryl Sandberg—how is she so thin? Doesn’t she night-eat, with all the Facebook stress? I don’t get it. So I went to J. Crew and, indeed, they had the perfect black A-line skirt that forgives all your sins and makes a clean smooth line—”
“Oh great,” I say, still thinking about pajamas.
“But only in sizes 0 and 2! The 12s were either white or lime green! I’m not Oprah. I can’t pull that off. And then the lining presses against your cellulite. So you have to buy pantyhose with that awful name: ‘Cellulite control.’ ”
“See?” I say. “Pajamas!”
“Ach, I’m so tired of this new women’s self-help genre that’s all like ‘the power female next door,’ ” Julia grouses on, paging through the racks. “These books come across my desk all the time. An ultra-high-achieving female gives a TEDx Talk. It centers on an ‘aha’ moment when family and career collide. Typically, New Mom CEO is weeping in a bathroom stall at work, breast milk exploded all over her Tahari suit. Now comes the pivot where the Type AAA female becomes an Everywoman, giving us advice on how to relax. This self-care helps more women to become leaders to further women’s rights, which—next turn—deepens our marriages. Really?”
“That seems like a lot,” I say.
“Here, look.” Julia reads off her phone. “Sheryl Sandberg quote. ‘Everyone benefits when men work towards equality. Our relationships and our lives are richer when we lean in together.’ What the hell does that even mean? Why must every super-CEO-mom’s memoir now be pretzel-twisted into a self-care manifesto?”
“Well, that’s the beauty,” I say. “We’re not LEANING IN. Arianna says TO SLEEP. Resting. It’s not complicated. It’s human. It’s very pure.”
With a cry of delight, I pull out the perfect white satiny kimono. Or that’s what I think it looks like.
“WOW. This is—?”
Andie, Julia, and I can’t get our minds around how big this property is. We’ve all seen grand houses in Los Angeles, but this is like some Beverly Hills mini-Versailles.
“Lynn and Stuart Resnick own, like, all the water in California,” Andie reports, guiding her dusty Honda toward the entrance. It’s the only regular car here.
All around us, swinging blonde-haired women of no discernible age at all, like vampires, stick stiletto-heeled shoes out of Maseratis.
Upon entering the soaring, crowded entryway of what looks like a museum, or even a museum storehouse—floor to ceiling, there’s so much art, of all different styles and eras—it becomes clear to me that . . .
Out of several hundred guests, not one person is in pajamas—or in anything that suggests pajamas. Unless one sleeps in a skin-tight black possibly snakeskin mini-dress and those six-inch stiletto heels.
It is clear there are no writers or book people we know here. It seems there are only Denizens of The Westside.
The good news is that there’s a tower of shrimp on ice, passed canapés, and—I mouth-breathe—“Is that sushi?”
The three of us start eating and drinking madly.
“Here’s my question,” I say. “If the waiter with the sushi doesn’t come up to you, can you go after him? I feel like that sushi guy is actually running away from me.”
“No, Sandra,” Andie says. “You cannot lumber after waiters like an extra from The Walking Dead, knocking over priceless Louis Quatorze art along the way—”
There’s a hush of wonder. Clinking of glasses. Ripple of excitement.
Arianna Huffington is here!
Seemingly afloat on the gilded staircase, striking in a red and black evening gown (Balenciaga?), Arianna commands the room thrillingly.
By now, I’m a little glazed from the champagne, but here’s the gist of her speech: Americans—stockbrokers! Silicon Valleyites! Uber drivers!—get way less sleep than we should. The Japanese get even less. When traveling the country for her last best seller, Thrive, in all the conversations around he
r, not getting enough sleep was a constant refrain. Everyone was telling Arianna they were getting slammed by work and travel and their devices and sleeping just four hours a night. Arianna herself got a wake-up call when she collapsed in exhaustion and hit her jaw.
She continues, hypnotically, like some Grecian oracle: “Sleep is not downtime. It’s a magical portal where you rebuild brain cells, physically repair, connect with your unconscious.”
Afterward, amid the teeming throng, I get in line to say hello to Arianna. When I get my brief moment, I throw out my arms and say, “See! I wore pajamas!”
Arianna grasps my hand. “Thank you, darling.”
I catch sight of us in a large gilt-framed mirror. She looks like a queen. I look like some sort of puffy-gowned sanatorium patient. I thought it was an elegant kimono. How did this happen?
As we move to the valet station, Julia is excited. “Did you hear that? She said, ‘Thank you, darling.’ ”
“I think you say ‘Thank you, darling’ when you don’t remember someone’s name,” I say wanly.
WE GO FOR A Groupon nightcap at The Fish Shack near Whitsett and Moorpark. This semigrungy part of the Valley features beat-up-looking white waitresses who look like they haven’t slept in eighty years.
Julia narrates aloud from her free Sleep Revolution copy: “Rajiv Joshi is managing director of a global non-profit initiative co-founded by Virgin Airlines’ Richard Branson. Its mission: ‘to help move businesses beyond profit as the only metric of success.’ At a meeting in Bellagio, Italy, at just age 31, a severely sleep-deprived Joshi had a seizure. Upon recovery, Joshi shared his newfound philosophy. To wit: ‘The struggle for a just and more sustainable world is a marathon, not a sprint. It starts at home with personal sustainability.’ ”
The Madwoman and the Roomba Page 7
