The Life and Times of Mona Mildew

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W.H. Auden

My Grammy died last night.  She was such a very important part of my life growing up, she was the one person in my family that got me; we were so alike.  But as what generally happens my life got in the way and I ‘abandoned’ her in her last years. 

She gave me so much and now she needed me. But I did nothing.  She was lonely and I was so absorbed in my own pathetic life that I never even thought to just take that short 10 minute drive and just sit with her for an hour; take dinner up there once a week; just let her spend time with me and the kids. 

I HATE myself and M is going to say “I told you so.”

Life here at the Mildew compound is still very stressful and shitty but it’s not as bad as I was thinking it was going to be.  Typical Mona Mildew Dark Cloud Thinking as usual. 

When I jettisoned my life that Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, I logged myself out of Wordpress, twitter, etc and deleted ALL of my online ‘friends’ out of my favorites.  I have been trying to walk to straight and narrow, get my priorities in order and stop spending so much time that I should be devoting to my marriage, my kids, our household and our business online.  And other than an hour here or there I have been. 

I really can’t go in to details about all that is and has been going on the past month because whenever I talk about possibilities, Murphy and his Law comes by and bites me in the ass and fucks things up.

I can say that I am alive, the kids are doing great, Big Daddy and I are getting along a little better and I am honestly being a better person.

A week ago I wanted to come here and do some maintenance, maybe post an update; but I couldn’t get in, couldn’t get the lost password e-mail function to work either.  Silly me was trying to log in under someone else’s name. 

I may or may not start posting again regularly, I don’t know.  What I do know is that I don’t miss the hours I spent sitting here every day reading about everyone else’s life instead of living my own.

Sorry to do this, I know I really suck.  But bye for a while.  I don’t know for how long or even if I will come back.

My life as I know it will soon be changing and I cannot deal with it right now.

Thanks for stopping by.  For loving me for a little while.

XOXO

On the way home from the grocery store a month or so ago Maisy was drawing in the back seat and asked me how to draw a jumping bean.

“Draw a bean with legs up in the air.”

Which brought up memories from the trip to Ensenada I took with my family when I was 13.

Summer of 1984, the summer of the Olympics in Los Angeles.  While the rest of the world was heading to L.A. we headed out. Some friends of my aunt and uncle’s friends said they had a place in Ensenada that we could use.  So we loaded up our Jeep Cherokee and met my Dad’s oldest brother and his family in the OC to caravan across the border.  My cousin Neener is 9 months older than I and we were really close growing up, so she rode with us to spare her the agony of riding in the car with her 3 brothers.  When we crossed over from San Diego¹ to Tijuana my Dad started fucking with us, pointing out all the shacks houses made of scrap wood and corrugated tin that lined the fence along the highway; saying “There’s where we’re staying!”  Sending Neener and I into teenage angst.

When we pulled up to the little house I was disappointed, it wasn’t a huge hacienda on the beach as my day dreams imagined.  My Aunt and mom opened the door, walked in and were attacked by billions of ravenous Sand Fleas.  They ran out of the house and we drove to a discount variety store to find flea bombs.  It was there I learned that pulga was flea in Spanish.  After setting off the bug bombs we drove around getting the lay of the land.

The house, if you could call it that, was a old Air Stream trailer (those cool silver ones) that had 2 bed rooms, a living room and a bathroom house tacked on to it. The kitchen/dining area, 3rd ‘bedroom’ and 2nd bathroom was the trailer.

Most every night my mom and dad would sit on the roof patio, drink Kaluha and watch the sunset.  Because my Aunt and Uncle were pretty religious and from a congregation that eschews alcohol, one of my cousins made the accusation that my parents were alcoholics.  (Ironically this is the same cousin that is a quadriplegic from a drinking and driving accident.)

Everywhere we would go there would be a TV on, tuned to the Olympic boxing matches where Mexico was doing very well. 

I was so brave and ate things from places that I would probably shy away from now.  We had fish tacos on the pier, where they would snatch the fish right out of the tank, fillet it, bread and deep fry it and stuff it in a tortilla for you.  We had the most amazing carne asada tacos from roadside shacks.  Ones where the flies would congregate on the old metal cooler lid, then scatter when the lid was opened to retrieve the meat.  We bought fresh made tamales daily, the best being the sweet elote (corn).

One day we went deep sea fishing.  Where after the initial excitement wore off, found Neener and I playing with the bucket of live bait swimming around and running to watch whenever one of the deckhands would yell that a venomous Stonefish had been caught and it would be bludgeoned to death and thrown overboard.  My mom was the only one who caught anything, she caught a Baracuda.  I don’t remember what she did with it because I don’t remember having it for dinner or anything.

Another day trip was to La Bufadora.  I’ll let the link speak for itself, nothing note worthy happened except Neener stayed back at the house with Montezumas Revenge.

One of my best memories was from the only day that we went to the beach.  It was also the only cloudy day.  My dad and Uncle fished from the beach.  My dad caught a Sand Shark that he threw back.  On the beach was a man renting horses.  There was no one else on the beach so he let us ride for a very long time.  Running us up and down the beach.  I am in the yellow t-shirt in the middle.  Funny thing about that t-shirt; it is for Hussong’s Cantina and it features a line of cartoon cats sitting on a fence-line, stoned, smoking joints with the caption “Tequila does a body good.”  I don’t know if my mom actually read the shirt before she let me buy it.  I even wore it to school.  I still have it in my bag of t-shirts I want to make in to a quilt.

We also spent a little bit of each day of the week shopping in whatever town or area we were.  Exchanging our strong American dollars to weak Mexican Pesos.  We bought things you couldn’t buy in the states; ninja stars and switch blades.  We bought typical touristy things like silver jewelry, plastic shoes, t-shirts and net shopping bags. We bought things for less than what they were in the states; my cousin bought a Clash album in the Mercado for a few dollars.

The most surprising thing about the whole week was that Neener and I were allowed to roam the street of whatever town were shopping in unchaperoned.  A 13 and 14 year-old, alone in Mexico.  Some creepy guy came up to us and said “American girls have big chi-chi’s” That was the last time we wandered alone.

One of the strangest and ultimately most fun things we bought were jumping beans.  This one shop had a basket full on the counter.  They were like a nickel each.  In the evenings after dinner when there was nothing for 5 kids aged 10-15 to do and there was only so much American TV on, we would have jumping bean races.  We would take a playing card, a 2 of whatever, and put one bean on each heart, spade whatever and the bean to make his/her way off the card first was the winner.  By the end of the week the boys were making trades, buying new beans to replace the slow ones.  Neeners and I were not as competitive, and being teenage girls we were usually doing some beauty ritual or another.

When we got home my jumping beans were forgotten in the return to normal life, put to the side in a small box.  Some time later I found the box in my closet, inside were the beans.  Cracked open.  Their small larvae now dead moths.

1. we drove past the McDonalds in this article shortly after it happened on our way through San Diego [↩]

Read this question, come up with an answer. This is not a trick question. It is as it reads. 

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing. She believed him to be her dream guy so much, that she fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What is her motive for killing her sister?
[Give this some thought before you answer]

Answer after the cut
Read the rest of this entry »

In the mid to late 70’s, from 1st grade through 4th grade I walked to and from school every day…even when it rained! One day I stayed late to play on the after school playground, I was walking home probably around 3:30 or 4 o’clock. When I rounded a corner there lying face down in the gutter of the storm drain inlet was a ‘man’ wearing a bloody, grey hooded sweatshirt with a hatchet embedded in his back. A boy in his early teens stopped me and said that he couldn’t let me go home now, because I ‘had seen’. I told him I was just a little kid and I promised I wasn’t going to say anything. I don’t remember if I cried, but I have a feeling I was pretty calm about the whole thing, I don’t think I thought it was really real. And true to my word I didn’t tell anyone for years.  Now when I think about it and it HAD to have been a mean joke. Had a kid or anyone been found dead or gone missing in our neighborhood I don’t think I would have been allowed to continue to walk to school.

I was an imaginative (and a little warped) little kid. 

• My mom’s house has a decorative wishing well in the front yard and I used to tell other kids that it used to be a real well but we had to fill it in after a kid from the neighborhood fell in and drowned.
• I told an acquaintance that I was a twin, but my twin was born inside my body.
• In first grade I told EVERYONE that my mom had a baby and his name was James. When she came to school, everyone was asking about the baby.
• For almost a year, when I was like 8 or 9, I told everyone that I was actually Greek, since I had been born in Greece when my parents were on vacation.

There are many more little things I have done to add to my negative Karma points.

• When we were 12 my cousin niners and I made up a song about a girl we knew named Krissy to the tune of Valley Girl. The chorus was “Ok Fine, For sure for sure, For that face there is no cure”. And I thought it would be ‘fun’ to let her hear it. Uh…NOT.
• If I am making sandwiches and the lunch meat or something is possibly off or past the sell by date, I give it to my hubby.
• I buy pints of ice cream, hide them and eat them after Maisy has gone to bed, when Big Daddy is not home so I don’t have to share.
• When we were 14 me and Groupie would go to the mall I would steal little things like stickers or pens.
• I told an ex-boyfriend in high school (Sluggo) that I had been pregnant but had a miscarriage so that he would feel like shit and possibly get back together with me.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

I am not an alcoholic by any means (yet), but I have my own issues. This is my open letter of apology to those I have hurt who I am either not in contact with or don’t want to do so in person.

Bucky: I am sorry I did not come to you before telling DiscoBunny about your infidelities. I still feel that I had a certain obligation to DB as one of my closest friends not to let him get hurt, but it was not my place to tell him. I could not continue to be his friend and yours with what I knew weighing on my conscience.

DiscoBunny: I am sorry I let you guilt trip me into telling you what Bucky was up to when we would go out to the bars. I not only lost Bucky as a friend at that moment, but I ultimately lost you, someone who was a very big part of my life for close to 10 years, as a friend when you guys patched things up.

Black Hole: I am sorry I bailed in your time of need, but I could no longer continue to be in a one sided friendship. I could not continue to be the one to come to your aid and then be shoved aside once the crisis was over. I could not continue to be friends with someone who lied to, used and manipulated their friends.

Punky: I am sorry for everything I put you through. Little did you know that by accepting a date with me you would be signing up for a stalker. I am sorry I was so self-centered that did not take your feelings in to consideration, all I could see was “Poor Mona, Punky doesn’t love me”.

TS: I am sorry I let myself believe that what happened between us was not consensual. I was led to believe that something had happened between you and Black Hole that was violently non-consensual that day we ditched school. And that made me feel dirty.  I began to have doubts about what happened, while I felt pressured into it, I could have said no but I was afraid of looking like a tease. I can’t imagine what you thought of me when I just started ignoring you, is it possible you heard the R word being thrown around? But I never knew how you had even felt about me in the first place. I am sorry I believed BH; belived that you had committed further sexual assaults and had been sent to prison. I spent 18 years thinking you were a horrible person. Only after becoming reacquainted 6 years ago did I realize that it had all been a lie. I have wanted to talk to you, bare my soul and apologize, but I sometimes don’t even know if you remember that we dated a few times, and it would only make ME feel better.

To those who’s confidences and trust I betrayed, secrets I told, weaknesses I exploited in my attempt to be liked and accepted: I’m sorry.

To all the boys who liked me and I never knew it, who I continued to hang-out and pal around with possibly deepening the crush: I’m sorry.

Despite my shy, reserved, easily embarrassed exterior I can be very unflappable. When I worked at The Store, the male management staff (which seemed to change quarterly depending on what new store manager was rotated through) would try to embarrass me by making me and some new young male store employee in charge of counting and scanning the porno section during inventory. I would strike back by commenting on the cover art and titles and embarrass THEM.

As one would imagine, there were times when we would need to alphabetize and do shelf maintenance in the video rental department (put titles back in their proper genre, make sure the movies were spaced well, and fix any damaged cases). The most needing in constant help was the children’s. No one LIKED to have to do the job, so it was usually assigned to the new guy to ‘help him become familiar with the titles’ or someone on the managers shit list. The one section no one ever HAD to work on was the porn section since it was rare anyone was actually looking for a particular title so why have strict alphabetizing? I took it upon myself one slow morning to go through and put the section in some semblance of order.

First I separated the gay porn from the main stream, put it in a clearly separate area and LABELED the shelf. (I had a guy come up to rent a movie and profusely thank me for saying “I don’t want to embarrass you, but are you aware that this is an all male film?”) I couldn’t decide if it should be alphabetical, by subject (all girl action, bondage, arty etc..), or by featured actress. After a little thought, I did all three. I separated out all the obvious fetishes and themes put them together; then put the videos by certain starlets (star too, had to give equal time to Mr. Ron Jeremy) all together; the classics (the Debbie does films, Behind the Green Door, Emanuelle, Caligula and Fritz the Cat) together; amateurs; those soft core Playboy and Penthouse videos; and finally the ones that defied categorization were simply just alphabetized. (I even labeled the shelves!) Were my efforts appreciated? Possibly. Did they keep it up? No. No one wanted to be seen in the section, when having to reshelve the returned movies they just stuck them on the shelf closest to the opening. (the section was a group of 4 bookshelves set up in a box with a sign saying you had to be 18 or over to enter at an opening between 2 bookcases)

In the process of re-organizing the section I came across movies that were so dusty, that obviously had not seen a VCR in years. I mentioned it to one of the assistant managers the one that was my drinking buddy and shared my snarky sense of humor and disdain for the man, and he made the executive decision to ‘Blow Out’ (how appropriate huh?) the ones that were just taking up space. We went through and marked for sale the ones no one was really renting. (they sold like hot cakes)

My favorite thing about Adult movies are the titles. When Harry ate Sally, and Edward Penishands are 2 of my faves. I know the joke, why not name them all “Shit that never happens in real life” 1 through a million. It may have been a rumor but, as a joke and a final FUCK YOU on his last night in the store, my manager buddy swapped the ‘real’ video with the adult version of movies with similar titles. (It may have even been a fleeting thought I had in my head of something I wanted to do, such is my sometimes twisted sense of humor.)

*the term buck 8was coined because as employees our rental price was $1.00 and with tax that was $1.08. We had a manager that let a regular customer (was in every night) after a while, and after becoming buddies rent the naughty movies for our price, he said upon hearing the total the first time “wow, Buck 8.” From then on it was the code word for the pornos. Such as “Hey Mark, can you resheve the buck 8.”

Today would have been my Daddy’s 60th Birthday.

Monday (Maisy’s Birthday) marked the 17th anniversary of his death.

Born April 3, 1948 in Salt Lake City, Utah (yes, they were Morm0n). My dad was named Phillip 9 months after his birth, up until then he was called Butch. He did not have a middle name, just a letter B because you have to put something in the box.  I used to make up names, like Buford or Bartholomew.  My Grandma wanted to name him Richard, but there was a hugely popular song in 1947 called Open the Door, Richard and she did not want to associate a small baby with the song. Everyone called him Flip.

When he was a little boy he lived in a Quonset hut in Rodger Young Village, a public housing project, set up to provide temporary housing for veterans returning to Southern California area following the end of World War II.  Seeing pictures of him and his brothers as kids I thought they were the Little Rascals and that he was Spanky.  He and his 2 brothers were very much boys; once they nailed barrel slats to their Keds and skied down the street another time they played in the mud at the junk yard and when my Grandma found them and took them home she made them ride home in the trunk as no to soil the white interior of her Continental.

My Dad joined the Navy right out of high school in 1964. From what I gathered from his memory box, he spent most of his time during Vietnam in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Thailand having fun.  He stayed in the Navy as a reservist until the day he died.

When he met my Mom in 1969 they were both working at the phone company.  My Mom was an operator and he had the unfortunate job of shutting off service and repossessing peoples phones (that was when the phone company owned the phone.).  They went on a date in October, by Christmas my Mom was knocked up and they married in February. They would still be together if the cruel hand of fate hadn’t stepped in. He was so excited I was a girl.

My dad was the smartest, funniest guy I knew. He used to jump into the deep end of the pool holding a cinder block and walk out along the bottom. He was into cars, photography and computers. If he had grown up in a different scenario he may have gone to college and been a nuclear physicist.

August 1990 he went to the doctor feeling crappy and with a lump in his neck and was diagnosed with Cancer in his head and neck. He started radiation treatments in October. Thanksgiving that year he was only moments from multi-system organ failure.  Christmas found him starting Chemo. He got better, then it got much worse.  I hated watching his decline; I hated being 20 years old and having to baby-sit my dad.  In late March 1991 dementia set in and when he took a turn for the worse by Mom checked him in to the hospital again.  Subsequent bone scans and tests revealed that his body was riddled with cancer.  The doctor said they would patch him up and send him home to die.  Saturday the 30th I kissed my Daddy goodbye and went night skiing with some friends.  Early the next morning (Easter Sunday) I was awoken by my mom getting ready.  She said that the nurses called and that he was unresponsive and that we should probably come.  I was so tired.  I wanted to sleep so I said I didn’t want to go…but I had this feelingthat my Daddy would be so disappointed if I didn’t.

We went in and were with him when he passed away. He was 3 days shy of being 43. We held his funeral on his birthday.

Happy Birthday to my Daddy.  I Love You and I Miss You something awful.

*this is a re-post of what I wrote last year.

Living in the Los Angeles area it is inevitable that you will see someone in the industry while out living you life; whether it is TV, movies or music.

When it occurs I chose to not to acknowledge their celebrity unless I see them in an official capacity such as a signing or event. (Which truth be told never really happens to me anyways.)  Part of the reason is that they are just people and (most) are trying to lead as normal a life as they can.  Also, I am really not that in to celebrities, but mostly because I am really shy and afraid of looking like a dork.

Most of my sightings have been through retail establishments I worked at.  (Except for one or two, I am choosing not to link to the them for time reasons, but if you are curious search away)

My first was Rick(y) Schroeder at the Rick Springfield concert in 1982.  All the little girlies were going wild for him.  Also at that same concert was when Kin Schriner tried to snake our seats.

My most recent was one of the doctors from Dr 90210, the older one who recently retired.  We saw him at Canter’s in the Fairfax District. Also seen at Canter’s was Rodney Bingenhimer, who very few people outside of L.A. will know.

The person I had the most actual encounters with was Wil Wheaton.  In fact, we grew up in the same town.  The first time was when I was working at a pizza place, it was right after Stand By Me.  He came in with a bunch of the Drama Kids from the high school (one I didn’t go to) after a play and they were all really obnoxious.  He came up to the counter to ask for something and then acted hurt that I didn’t gush over who he was.  I hadn’t even seen the movie and only knew of him through hearsay and rumor.  The next two times were when I worked at The Big Name Music and Movie Rental store (previously mentioned here as The Store). One time he was acting really obnoxious, drawing attention to himself.  The next he acted like a jerk to me.  He had a credit card with a Star Trek theme, I made a comment just as I did whenever someone had a card that wasn’t the standard Visa/ MasterCard, he acted pissed that I acknowledged him and said something to the effect of “keep it up and I will leave”.  I didn’t watch TNG either.  The last time was 1991 when he was no longer in the spotlight, I was working at The Gap and he came in with a girl.  He looked so sad and crestfallen. 

I E-mailed Wil right after discovering his (original WWdN) blog and told him the stories.  He replied and said he KNEW from the subject of the e-mail (something like ‘my encounters with a young Wil’) what I was going to say and he acknowledged that he was a douchebag back then, he didn’t handle the fame well.  We still live in the same general area, I still am a regular reader of his blog and follow him on twitter.

It was also at that Store location that the lead Singer of Great White tried to convince me and one of the assistant managers to give him some of their CDs.  She asked him “Can’t you get them from your label?”

A majority of my encounters were when I worked for The Store the second time in the mid 90’s.  The Store was in close proximity to both the Warner Brothers and Disney Studios.  People would come in to rent movies or buy CD’s while on lunch or after shooting. 

• The younger part of the cast on Days of our Lives came in together during lunch quite often. 
• I helped Scott Backula find a CD he was looking for.
• I sold a walkman and some cassette tapes to Diane Keaton.
• The night after seeing The Dickies the lead singer came in to buy some CDs.  And honestly I wouldn’t have even known who he was had I not seen them the night before.
• Ray Liotta came in to rent some movies.  We made him a secret rental account.
• Pretty much the whole cast of Fresh Prince (minus Will Smith) came in together one afternoon. 

When I lived in Hollywood I saw both Ron Jeremy and Don Dokken at The Rainbow.  Ron was eating pizza with a girl at a neighboring table.  And Dokken, either wearing a really bad wig or he had really bad hair, was waiting for a table out on the patio at the same time we were; and pulling that “Don’t you know who I am?” crap.

They filmed a few movies and shows at my high school while I was there.  The Rivers Edge (in which Keanu starred) and a made for TV movie with Raquel Welch were the only 2 of any note.  They also filmed one of the early episodes of the remake of Dragnet down the street from my house I am writing this in right now so I watched Ethan Embry run after a bad guy driving a Jeep Cherokee right past my house.

At the one and only Laker game I have been to I saw Jack Nicholson, but then really who hasn’t?  I also had better seats than Jimmy Connors (the tennis guy).

When Gooch got us passes to the after ‘party’ of the second night we saw George Michael in concert. No one was really there except us, the opening band, Jose Eber (the hairdresser) and Cory Feldman (of The Cory’s).  And Alan Thicke was sitting a few rows away from me.

Marrion Ross was having breakfast at the restaurant where my whole new family met for breakfast the day after our wedding.

While at a billiards club in Pasadena I saw the Irish and Surfer boy guys from The Real World Los Angeles.

My dad has (had?) a ‘56 Corvette, and when I was in Jr High he was contacted to use the car in a movie.  He took me with him to the local bowling alley where they were filming a movie called “Teen Wolf”.  I sat off to the side on one of the coffee shop tables and watched them film.  I held some kleenexes the make-up lady used to dab the nose of the star “Michael” who was in full wolf make-up.  Only later did I find out that it was Michael J. Fox.  They never got around to using the Vette.

I worked as a receptionist in high school for a Heating and A/C company.  I talked extensively on the phone for days with a Michael Gross during the replacement of his heater, only to realize later that it was Mr. Keaton.

Out of all the celebrity sightings I have had I only have 3 autographs.  Keanu, as I told you about yesterday and The Edge and Larry Mullen from U2 (I have Bono’s too, but I never met him Groupie did).

While to some, none of these sightings/encounters have the same awe of sitting next to Brangelina on a plane; I am admittedly a little jaded by the whole L.A. scene.  So when I tell these stories to my sisters-in-law or nieces and nephews or friends who live in the Midwest I am always humbled by the excitement in their voices when they ask “Who else did you see?”