Sepulveda, Sunday afternoon. A blogger we all know is biking to the gym. Up ahead he sees a…potential photo subject…promenading along the sidewalk, a celebration of booty short, thigh tattoo and wedge clogs.
As he reaches for his trusty point and shoot, a utility van cuts to the curb in front of him, interposing between photographer and subject.
The van driver honks at the woman. Two short demanding beeps. Turn your ass around, business is at hand.
She spins on her heel, displeased. She lets him know.
“Yo no soy una puta mierda, mother—–”
The driver is confused. The Woman Presumed To Be a Ho advances angrily on the Man Who Would Be Her John. She slaps the front of his van. He shrugs, looks at her in bewilderment, as though to say, ‘what was I to think?’
Only ten more days of parents…and administrative meetings…and reading papers, then grading them….and reading more and grading still more….those end of the year papers…and dealing with -sip- parents…and correcting tests…and writing letters of recommendation for borderline cases and dealing with parental expectations…and did I mention -sip- the committee assignments I’ve agreed to for next year?
And did I mention Mrs. X and her list of demands?
Oh! You have something you wish to add, Giles?Where was I? How was your day, darling?
Was last weekend it? Will it prove the last fleeting glimpse of Pacific Northwest-like conditions we shall see for some time?
Will it be Thanksgiving before I peer out the kitchen door and say: my goodness, what wet leaves we have today! Thank God it’s over. Mother nature has forgiven us at long last. Let’s put on our boots and walk Fryman in gratitude.
Let’s see….this works out to $3.57 an hour for the 40 weeks one “carries” the rich white lady’s child. This doesn’t include post-birth recovery time.
Nor does it include time spent undergoing three contractually required in vitro fertilization procedures. No pregnancy, no payment.
The “Gestational Carrier” is expected to provide her own insurance and transportation. Hospital delivery costs which would ordinarily be borne by the biological parents will instead be off-loaded on to the policyholders of the surrogate’s insurance.
The surrogate also agrees to submit to any testing or counseling whenever required by the Intended Parents. Also, in the case of multiple embryos, selective reduction. Meaning abortion, on demand.
How do I know this? It says so right on the website.
Wasn’t the first critique of the patriarchy the reduction of women to baby-making machines? Does this mean rich liberal (presumably, in LA) women are the New Patriarchy?
“Our Gestational Surrogates are some of the most loving, dedicated and responsible women you will ever find. They have been thoroughly and thoughtfully screened….” Yes, from a tear sheet flyer on a street corner on Oxnard.
When I took this picture I didn’t notice the other flyer just above it. The quote from Acts 16 is a recitation of Paul the Apostle’s imprisonment by the Romans. Carl Jung would say this is not an accident.
To Mid City did Mr. and Mrs. U kettle in glacial traffic on Saturday, to meet Trixie, who showed us her best sit, which was not very long, but revealed a certain eagerness to please nonetheless.
After striking out at Best Friends last week we were put in touch with a foster organization called Angel City Pit Bulls which pulls dogs from the city shelters and provides them with domestication skills. Trixie was advertised as non-cat chasing, small dog loving and crate-trained. Mrs. U fixated on her after one look at the website and did not relent until we got in the car to see her.
I had my doubts. Picking dogs out of a wish book puts common sense at a disadvantage to the eye, and the wife was already evincing an ominous pre-determination to buy: “Isn’t she adorable? You do think she’s adorable, don’t you? I can’t wait to meet her.” Oh boy.
We were greeted by a flinty woman named Royce who had a very precise choreography for the supplicants who came to meet her rescue dogs. We waited in the front yard. Trixie was brought out to sniff our shoes, circle us a few times and lead us to the back yard, where her leash was removed so she could get down to business, which was cracking open a big can of tail-thumping adorability.
Emotional blackmail in action
Royce didn’t suffer foolishness from dog-indulging adoptees like myself, who unwisely asked her if she had a tennis ball I could throw.
“Never play fetch with a dog. It increases their prey drive.”
I learned other things. Like I was wrong to let dogs on the furniture and never on the bed. I wonder what she would think if she knew Woody not only slept on the bed but on top of me, his head resting on my thigh, queefing contentedly.
Trixie came from the South LA shelter and had the scar tissue to prove it, but the time she had spent at Royce’s house was put to good use. She exhibited none of the zombie-ified, stressed-out behavior we saw at Best Friends. She had obedience skills. Which raised another issue: How different those dogs might be if they had a month in foster care. How many would be charming me into submission at this very moment? Is it fair to assess a dog in those conditions? Need a dog be charming at all? Character is revealed in time. Who’s to say how one will pan out as opposed to another? How do you choose? Do you take the first dog who seems like she doesn’t have problems? Do you take the one with the silky coat or the one with the patch over the eye? Do you keep kicking the tires from shelter to shelter? Should one look a gift dog in the mouth?
Mrs. U was giving me pleading looks. “Darling, she wiggled toward us, and she gets along with cats. A bird in hand…”
I was defenseless. I was a man with no good reason to say no.
We ordered a 42-inch crate and several hundred dollars worth of toys and specialty food the minute we got home. Happy Mother’s Day.
The person who lives in the casita recycles scrap. The person who lives in the trailer works at Wal-Mart. There are six rabbit-warren encampments burrowed within the sunflowers. I have no idea who lives there or where they go during the day.
