Today marks eight years since my best friend and mom died. I was a big-time momma’s boy. For so many years (thanks to technology), I was in touch with her all day long. We always kept some chat window open and messaged each other about various things no matter where we were in the world. What’s unbelievable is that her house was destroyed by a fire a few months before she died of fucking ovarian cancer. She, my brother and nephew came to live with me immediately after their fire, and then she got the Stage IV diagnosis just a few weeks later. She did not even live long enough for her house to be renovated and died when she was only 73. That’s part of the reason when I had an opportunity to work for City of Hope (which just bought Cancer Treatment Centers of America), I jumped at the chance. As if losing five of my dogs wasn’t enough, it was excruciating that the most sentimental pieces of her furniture that had been professionally cleaned in 2016, were incinerated in MY house fire in January. I can only imagine what she would think of the craziness that has ensued, including one of her sister’s family-destroying exploitation of her estate, effectively disinheriting my siblings and me. The entire family in Italy (which is very large as my mother was the first of nine siblings) has been affected by the internal family feud, which is STILL in litigation. Thankfully my siblings and I have been able to prosper despite the lack of an inheritance of our parents’ sweat equity, but my Nonna (who survived my mother) never spoke to that traitor daughter of hers — or her progeny — ever again. I know Mom would have been proud of my purchasing a home and improving my health (she was always concerned about my weight, sometimes bluntly), but devastated at the deaths and loss of family memories just a few years later. Years after she died she is still an inspiration that encourages me to make her proud.
These father and son dogs (who I named Peanut and Zorro) are with my friend Jeannette. They are technically survivors of the fire as well since they were fosters that she took in just days before the fire, and they were the ones I was helping her with when I was out of the house that morning.
I’m happy to see that there has been major progress on the roof and side paneling for the house. I was passing by to check the mail. This encourages me since I recently felt a little frustrated with what seems like an endless road of roadblocks with the progress.
This is the only piece of furniture that I tried to have professionally cleaned which sort of survived the fire in January at my house AFTER having survived my mother’s fire eight years prior. It still smells like fire, which is sort of triggering for me, so it’s currently in my garage, despite the “professional” attempt to clean it. I don’t know if I can find someone talented or patient enough to ever paint it again, but here is the current 2024 condition and from 2020 between the two fires. My family bought this when we lived in Spain in the mid-1970s and it’s one-of-a-kind based on my research. It has a proletariat message and comes from the Catalonia region where we lived.
After someone broke into the house and stole several things from the garage from the contractor and me I got access once again to assess the damage. Assholes.
Did some gardening at the house under renovation to try to have things somewhat orderly months from now when I return. Even got some lemons from my tree and trimmed a path for walking by. I’m especially thrilled at how well the cacti are doing and gave some loving homes in planters to the new agave that I got from Manny and Wendell.
How amazing is Teena, who gifted me the exact Barbra Streisand doll in a sailor suit that I had inches from where the fire started in my home? Just like the one I had for twenty years, this one was still in the box! We had to guess a number from the waiter and I lost, so she ended up getting our amazing lunch for us at Provisions in Vallejo with her husband, J.D. I had to hold back tears at the perfection of this gift, just a few weeks before my birthday.
You can only imagine the number of sailor suits I made sure that my daughter, Alexandra, wore. Below is a picture of Alex when she is two (thirty years ago) wearing one of those sailor suits in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. I remember her walking in public for one of the first times in this photo and she was such a sight to behold that an entire busload of tourists were fixated on her.
