HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Friday afternoon, July 28, I take the ferry out to Catalina Island from the Queen Mary dock for my birthday weekend with Ann and Cam and old Aramco friend Kim Ayers and her husband Allan. We’ve all booked rooms at the Zane Grey Pueblo, the former home of Western novelist Zane Grey, now a B&B halfway up the mountain from the bay below and comfortably up away from the touristy downtown area – but still within easy walking distance. I had stayed there before in the mid ‘90s with my parents and the Antablin’s, old family friends and retired missionaries from Lebanon, and had remembered it fondly for its amazing views of Avalon Bay its quiet, cozy Western-style common rooms. Several months back, I decided that a small-group weeked at the ZGP would be a truly memorable way to spend perhaps my last birthday in the LA area - and near family and old friends.

The second time around, the charm and views at the Zane Grey were still great, but the rooms were unair-conditioned (on the tail end of a Southern California heat wave) and the breakfast was cheaper than even what economy motels such as Super 8 usually serve. A baggie with two dry slices of bread to toast yourself and a couple of jam packets, plus some instant Maxwell House coffee you dump in lukewarm “hot” water. We agreed the Pueblo couldn’t seem to decide whether it was a Motel 6 or a B&B.

We had plans to be adventurous during the day, but mainly hung around the motel pool or sat on the balcony looking at the view, venturing out mainly for pricey, gluttonous dinners Friday and Saturday nights – and a pricy buffet at the Catalina Country Club Sunday morning before we all headed back to the mainland July 30, my actual birthday. We did manage to rent a golf cart for 6 (we were 5), the normal mode of transportation on the island, and putted around the Avalon hills Saturday afternoon, stopping to enjoy panoramas and reveling in the sweet, cool breezes that had finally begun to return to the seaside parts of the Southland.

The first day on the island before I met up with the others, I made a quick stop at the tiny public library in Avalon to see if they had any local papers dating back to 1915. (More family research!) My dad’s parents had honeymooned on Catalina in August of that year after their wedding in Riverside, and I was curious if they had managed any mention in the tiny local paper. The librarian could only find issues back to the ‘20s, so she put me in touch by phone with the curator of the local history museum, Jeannine Pederson, who took down my information and promised to check the issues immediately following their wedding date for me in the next few weeks. Turns out my grandparents were among the last to see the old Avalon before a catastrophic fire hit in November 1915 and destroyed most of the town and tourist amenities of the day. Selma and Ernst would recognize little of what we saw of Avalon this trip in 2006.

“CASH-FLOW” ISSUES

Businesses complain about “cash-flow issues”, a euphemism for nothing coming in! I’ve been teaching ESL two months now at CSU-Long Beach, and still no first paycheck. They warned us when we first signed our contracts that it might be “4-6 weeks” before we saw our first pay, but this is getting ridiculous! Bills and rent don’t wait till payday, so finances were beginning to get tight. Last week, I discovered I was $14 overdrawn on one bank account, so I thought I’d just top it up with money from another account but found only $34 in that one! I got rid of the overdraft, but ended up with not enough in either account even to get a $20 bill from the ATM! (I do have other resources, but they aren’t very liquid, and I don’t relish taking a CD out before maturity and losing the interest, or digging into my retirement accounts.)

Help was on the way, however. Thursday, Ann finally fedexed a check for my half from the sale of Dad’s lake-front lot up in Crestline, my first true income so far in 2006! I immediately took it to my Bank of America branch Friday to deposit, but they refused to give me any cash immediately even though it was a (nice, fat) teller’s check and practically risk-free. I told them no-deal, and took my check to their rival down the block, Washington Mutual, to open a new checking account there. B of A is notorious for putting holds on deposit checks on any excuse – for weeks sometimes. I'd had other unpleasant experiences with delayed funds with them; this was the last straw. I’m sorry; my finances are too tight at the moment to let you leech off my desiccated financial corpse still further! I hadn’t even had enough cash in my wallet for a cup of Starbucks for the past three days. (Thank God for Visa cards!)