It’s the night of Evelyn’s 4th birthday and we’re sitting on the couch watching Paw Patrol on the projector. She’s sitting nearby with Paw Patrol pajamas, and socks, and one of the pups just said, “Do your best and leave the rest.” And I smiled. I need reminders like that.
Having not heard from my friend Peter for a while, a text quickly led to a call. And here are parts of the no-filter conversation with him:
“I’ve been a landlord for 40 years and I’ve seen it all.” As he often does he rants about the disrespect of money, of home ownership in Venice Beach. Having bought his house in the 80’s for $110,000 he says “There no houses on my block for less than $2 million. Even 100-year-old houses, they’ll come in and bulldoze it gone. In two days! They have huge trucks. Two loads in two trucks and then it’s completely gone. They will crunch it up with the jaws, all of it.”
He’s then onto landlordship, story after story, here’s one: “There was this Brazillian striptease dancer, who didn’t pay me rent for two months. I turned the power and water off, and I told her, ‘I’m making an appointment for the cleaning service’. My friend pretended to be the cleaner guy. She told me she could call a lawyer, I told her my wife works for immigration. Within 24 minutes she had vacated the house. You know what I mean?! The best advice I can give is to remove the pins off the front door, and take the door! See what they’re going to do about that!”
“Corruption, fraud, and the thievery!” He’s onto the government and corporations. “I got sued by a handicapped guy, I told you about that. That cost me a few thousand dollars. When you play Monopoly don’t end up on Park Avenue, unless you have a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
He continues, “Down in the desert, there was the guy that grew dates. He got stopped at immigration, and they pulled him over for no reason. He said, ‘My name is Jamie Jones and that’s all I’m going to say.’ They told him to go inside the building, and he was sitting there. He thought a bit and remembered he had a get-out-of-jail card. So he was pulling it out and waving it in at the window. The immigration stepped in, “What do you want, what is it?” “Here, it looks like I’m in jail.” The man took the card into the other room, and the supervisor started laughing, ‘Give him the card back and tell him to go home.'”
Do you mean, he had an actual card? I asked. “Yes! From the game. I have one in my wallet. Laminated. Hell ya! You need to have one, get it out and tell them.”
And then we’re hanging up, “So that’s all how the world turns. Give Evelyn a squeeze for me.”
“I have one piece of advice for you, my dear,” he told me somewhere in the middle of it all, “Live your life, do it well. Waiting until you get old, is too late.”
I don’t know if I agree.
Love, Jaclynn (and Peter)
Going On 40 
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