I May Have Saved Her Life

June 4, 2011 by 3 Comments

Please don’t be dead.

That is the thought that popped into my mind when I saw the driver of the car that had drifted off to the side of the road going up the exit ramp from 101 N to Reyes Adobe a few weeks ago.  She was unconscious, head thrown back and body sprawled out to the right of the seat.  I couldn’t see her face, just her passed out body.

I can’t handle dead.

My mind instantly imagined emergency vehicles, flashing lights, statements given to authorities, a coroner’s van and a shrouded body.  But my own body acted quickly and without thought.  I yanked open the door, put the car in park and took the keys.  I noticed that the woman had a Blackberry in her hand, and an earpiece in her ear.  I gently shook her shoulder.

She woke up.

She was groggy and spoke very slowly, and softly, with a sheepish smile as if this was all an embarrassment and everything would be fine now.  In fact, if the car’s momentum had not run out, it would have continued down the embankment at the right shoulder of the exit and even flipped over.  Or she could have drifted into the other lane of traffic.  Or she could have done any number of different things to other cars.

Luckily, I was behind her, and when I saw the car roll lazily over the substantial curb I knew something was wrong.  As my car passed hers I glanced over, and saw nobody at the wheel.  There were still construction barriers all over the bridge so I was able to pull over inside the cones, put the car in park and dart out to see what was wrong.

Also luckily, my Aunt Kathy was there with me that day.  My kids were with me too, and if Aunt Kathy hadn’t been visiting I would have been unable to leave them in the car to go attend to the wayward vehicle.  As I ran back to the exit ramp I shouted behind me “Call 911!”  Bless her, she answered “Where ARE WE?!” because she lives in CT and had no idea where on God’s Earth we were.  In fact, the 911 dispatchers confused her so much that another good Samaritan who pulled over had to help her describe to the authorities our exact location.

Meanwhile, I sat with S., the woman who fainted as she drove in broad daylight on the 101 freeway through the valley.  She told me she was going through a divorce and she had just driven back from court, and that her kids would be home by now waiting for her.  “I’ll be okay,” she said, intending to just drive home.  But I refused to leave her, or to give her keys back for that matter, until emergency workers arrived.  In any case, there was no way she’d get her car out of that spot safely on her own.  The embankment is made of soft dirt and gravel, and her tires had sunk deep into the earth.

When the emergency workers did arrive about 10 minutes after I got to her, the woman thanked me and closed her eyes again.  A firefighter put his arm on my shoulder and thanked me too.  “Do I need to give you a statement?” I asked, having done something like this a long time ago, although with a much worse outcome for the party involved.  He said no, that I had done my good deed for the day, and that was that.

Minutes later, Aunt Kathy, the kids, and I arrived at the pool.  I had a margarita.  Life went on.  I count my blessings daily, but S.’s predicament reminded me of how lucky I am and how grateful I should be.

But I still take that exit ramp nearly every day, and I can still see her tire marks.  And there, as the saying goes, but for the Grace of God, go I.

Filed Under: Around Town

Small Town Whining

May 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

If you read my other blog, House of Prince, you may have noticed that over the last few months I have been trying to become a better person.  That is quite a large project.  I suppose I can call it Project:  Become a Better Person, but it’s not something I simply decided to launch.  It’s just an over-arching thing I try to do all the time, and lately I’ve been thinking about it much more and mentioning it in my writing more often.

Anyway.  Part of this project is that I am trying to complain less.  If there is something to complain about, surely there is a way to make that thing better or make it go away, so why not try to fix the situation or make myself at peace with it rather than spend time complaining about it?  After all, there is so little time in the day as it is!

Part of every Monday through Friday, for me, is spent walking along a particular stretch of Reyes Adobe where there are no homes that face the street.  It was once a beautiful, centering experience (at least when I’m walking alone) but for the past few months I have been unable to ignore the growing collection of poo, garbage, and dead weeds piling up all along that stretch.  Just this morning there was a freshly shattered porcelain coffee mug lying in pieces all over the sidewalk where children walk or rides their scooters or bikes.

I finally started actively noticing this mess and wondering when someone was going to clean it up a few weeks ago, and kept meaning to find out whom to alert, but I put it off and forgot about it (every day) until the porcelain mug fragments put me over the edge.  What’s more, I saw a small (and poorly done if you ask me) graffiti tag scrawled low on a retaining wall.  It was tentative, as if it was created by a good kid who was toeing the line between naughty and nice, and didn’t really mean it.  Nevertheless, that kid was stupid.  Nothing makes my blood boil the way graffiti does.

Before we moved out of Los Angeles I would have had to hunt around and be transferred to multiple city agencies before finding someone to address the cleanup.  But here in the Agoura Hills bubble, a few clicks of the mouse and I found an email address and three direct phone lines to city officials.  Certainly their public maintenance schedule can’t be as backed up as the city of LA’s.  Of course, they are all out of the office already, taking early Memorial Day vacations.  You can bet I’ll follow up with them next week.

I read The Acorn’s weekly letters from residents with amusement.  Some of the things people write in to complain about seem so insignificant in the bigger picture.  While here we worry about cars speeding along a road, people in parts of LA worry about drive-by shootings.  As such, the poop along Reyes Adobe really isn’t that bad.  But that is why we moved here.  Less graffiti, more free parking.  And without gang-related violence weighing down my thoughts on a daily basis, I can focus more on doing good outside our bubble.  (If you want to help me do that, please click here to donate money to Help a Mother Out, a diaper donation charity that gets diapers to families who cannot afford them for their babies.  Thank you.)

Filed Under: Local Services, Photographs Tagged With:

Commuter Snob

May 11, 2011 by 1 Comment

In the less than one year since we moved from the San Fernando Valley to Agoura Hills, I’ve become increasingly more reluctant to drive east of Calabasas. Previously, a trip “over the hill” was bad enough, now I have to drive an extra 20 to 30 minutes to even attempt such a feat. That’s why, as my friend mentioned this morning, it has become easier to cross those events that occur in the valley or beyond off the list when I prioritize my schedule.

Tomorrow’s ambitious plan looks like this:

Meeting/luncheon tomorrow in Marina del Rey at 10am.
Pick up kid at 2pm and take him to Westlake Promenade for 1 hour.
Pick up other kid at 3pm and head to the Van Nuys Flyaway to pick up visiting aunt. Return home.
Drive down to Hollywood for networking mixer.

Clearly, this is madness, and I will be cranky and hateful by the end of the day. That’s no way to greet my beloved aunt. If each of these events were on separate days, I could handle them all. Alas, I’ll be sending some regrets and rearranging.

[photo by crosscountryroads.com]

Filed Under: Around Town Tagged With: , ,