My last entry left off on LAST Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon, we headed to the food pantry to grab a few groceries. We got a lot of good stuff to hold us over until I either made a sale, or Rick’s last check came in.
The pantry we go to allows us to walk through a makeshift market, basically the size of a small bedroom. There are shelves lining the perimeter of the space. Each shelf has food items organized by type, and there are clear signs listing the limits of what you are allowed to take.
I try to choose stuff with intention. My go to is always a box of pasta, a bag of rice, dried beans, and canned veggies and fruit. Canned albacore tuna is my fave. There is a small table in the middle of the room that has produce on it. We are allowed five produce items. Some of the produce is not great, and requires a bit of processing to get it to the point of viability. But I am well versed in giving ugly produce a new life.
After we grab the produce, we are allowed one protein item from the cooler. Both trips we’ve made, there were large bags of frozen chicken, amongst half a dozen eggs, beef that looks worse for wear, and sometimes, there is salad shrimp. I always go for the chicken, because the large bag means more bang for the buck. Each time I have chosen the chicken, the volunteers say, “Watch out, that chicken is spicy!” And I laugh and tell them it really has not proven to be spicy AT ALL. But they can go ahead and keep telling people that, because that means there’s more for me, LOL.
After we bag up everything in that room, we head to the bread room, and are allotted one bread item, a snack like chips or four packs of bakery muffins, and a cold item like sushi, or a salad, before heading outside and grabbing a few items from their miscellaneous tables.
We got a decent haul, and headed home, so I could put everything away.
That night, I got dressed up for the comedy show we were going to in our neighborhood. We arrived about an hour early, and I decided to have a cigarette. As I lit it, I looked across the street and noticed a man standing in the church parking lot, just STARING at me. Like LOCKED on me. I turned to Rick and mentioned what I was seeing, and he turned and said, “Oh, he’s just walking his dog. No biggie.” I told him that I was getting a BAD feeling.
I leaned against our car as I was smoking. I heard a noise and turned to my left, to see the dude was now standing maybe 20 feet to my left. Again, just STARING. I looked at Rick and he gave me this quizzical look. I looked over again after a full minute and a half, and he was STILL staring, all while eating a sandwich or burrito, and holding the leash of a large white Husky looking dog.
Suddenly, he cleared his throat and said, “Here in LA, skinny people stand to smoke. You’re SO FAT that you have to LEAN on the car!” I was taken aback. I turned to Rick and said, “Are you going to say something?!” He said, “I want him to go away!”
He then turned and walked away. Like it was nothing for him to basically stalk me and expend all that energy to tell me something I already know. I felt like Rick did nothing tangible to take up for me and I was PISSED, initially. I will admit that I yelled at him. I lit another cigarette and sat on the curb and cried. It was the first time that I have been fat shamed here in LA.
It took almost half an hour for my hands to stop shaking. When I got over the shock, I analyzed the whole thing and realized it could have gone FAR WORSE. There were too many unknown variables that would have made Rick confronting him a potentially dangerous situation.
About ten minutes later, we were standing in the lobby of the event space, waiting to be let into the show. I still did not know who was appearing that night. Then I saw HIM walk in. I didn’t even see his face, just his posture and what he was wearing, and I KNEW. Joe Pera. MY FAVORITE comedian! I turned to Rick and got teary eyed!
We got front row seats, and the host of the show, Jonah Ray, who is a moderately successful comedian himself, started off the show by giving prizes he had picked up at our local thrift, to select members of the audience sitting in the front row. I made a spectacle of myself in order to get Rick a weird t-shirt for some totally unknown indie artist. Jonah decided to make a bit about it, and asked Rick to name three songs by the artist, and Rick, in his usual witty manner- came up with three totally funny made up song titles, which caused Jonah, and the entire sold out audience to break out in laugher.
We watched four comics and a really cool music act, before Joe Pera finally came out. No one could believe that Jonah had managed to land JOE for this show. The vast majority of the audience was there to see him. But Jonah manages to get really good comics, including legends like Mark Maron to show up. Joe delivered a great performance, and I was just ecstatic to see him standing eight feet in front of me.
I thought with all of his fans there, meeting him and getting a selfie together was going to be impossible, so I resigned to accepting just seeing him live, and we went outside. Rick said he was going to step back in to use the restroom, and give Jonah his business card. I decided to smoke another cigarette while I waited. Rick was gone for over ten minutes, and when he came out, he showed me his phone, he had gotten a selfie with JOE! He told me to hurry and get in there, and I practically ran back inside to find Jonah and Joe standing together, in a mostly empty space.
I politely waited until they were done speaking and took a shot at asking for a picture. Joe was SO GRACIOUS, and we got two pics together. I wanted to tell him what his show meant to me, but I couldn’t get the nerve up to tell him. Rick said that he had had a very thoughtful conversation with him, and Joe seemed genuinely interested in Rick and what HE does. Rick even brought up that his last boss went to school with Joe, and he acknowledged that he had actually visited the marionette theater a few weeks ago. He even asked for Rick’s card, which is CRAZY to me.
Hollywood really is about who you know, and Rick was able to make connections with two important people that night, which is a win. I got to talk to Jonah, as well, and he really is a down to earth dude. I told him about how much I loved his travel show on Netflix, and he seemed tickled.
Rick still was feeling under the weather, so we left. Rick had a rough night, with little sleep, a terrible headache, and a really bad cough. The next morning, he was in even worse shape, so I got him an urgent telephone appointment with a doctor. The call came while I was in therapy, and the doctor instantly diagnosed COVID, and sent prescriptions to the pharmacy. Unfortunately, with Kaiser, you have to go to their medical centers to get your prescriptions. So Rick and I masked up and headed out.
We were there an hour, and by the time we got home, Rick was exhausted. We’ve been staying in, only leaving the house when necessary. He’s now been under the weather for over two weeks. He finished the antibiotics that the doctor prescribed a couple of days ago. He is definitely feeling better.
He is going to a film maker’s meetup group tonight, with his daughter, who is back in LA on a business trip until Friday. I preemptively told him to go without me, because I had a feeling, even I had wanted to go, he would have probably said it was another daddy daughter outing that I wasn’t invited to. So to protect my own feelings, I beat him to the punch, and I am now working on telling myself it was MY choice not to go. I am not doing well in terms of my mobility, and after the screenings they have at the meet up, they all walk a couple of blocks to a bar, where they all hold court and talk about the films they featured. Every time I have gone, I end up sitting alone while Rick hangs out with his friends, standing outside.
I can’t stand for more than a few minutes now, without intense pain, so it’s not doable for me. I told him last night that it is embarrassing to pretend to not be disabled, only for it to become obvious to others when my legs give out, painfully, in front of others. So I said he’d have more fun without his hobbling girlfriend hindering him and his daughter. He got upset and said that he loves hanging out with me.
He’ll likely be gone from about 6 until 11 or midnight. Cool. I am sure I will find something, or maybe absolutely nothing , to do while he’s out. Likely, I will be asleep when he gets home. He just informed me he’s taking her to dinner. I am a little peeved, as yesterday at the grocery store, he told me I couldn’t get much beyond what we absolutely NEEDED. But we have money to go out to dinner.
Our finances confuse me. Because he is the breadwinner, all the money is in his account, and whatever I make is in mine, and we pay for things as needed. I never know how much money we have, or don’t have. I do know that we have over a month of laundry just sitting in the laundry bags.
I had really hoped to go to the Dollar Tree to grab a few things left on my emergency supplies list, because holy hell, I am really afraid something really bad is coming, and I want to be ready, just in case. But who knows if we will even have the money to do that.
I know all of this seems trivial when compared to what is going on in the world, but staying present is the only thing keeping me from having a mental breakdown right now.
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