Mom does it again

Up until the summer of 1969 mom had a nice secure job in the advertising department of a newspaper based in Oceanside, California. But early that summer she quit to go to work for a small "lifestyle" magazine based out of Escondido.

I honestly don't know what she was thinking... It wasn't until I started writing this blog that it suddenly became obvious that mom simply couldn't go more than a few months without totally disrupting our lives... She always told us that everything she did was "for us kids" - after all - she had sacrificed her opera career for us. And I think I actually believed it at the time... Yeah - applying logic to anything mom said or did was completely futile. You just learned to "go with the flow" :-)

And - surprise, surprise - two month later the magazine folded and mom was out of work again. I don't think she tried to get her old job back - I suspect she burned her bridges on the way out... Regardless - she was jobless for the rest of time we lived in Escondido.

Aside: During her brief tenure with that magazine mom was supposed to do an interview with Lawrence Welk at his "country club village" outside of Escondido. She arrived there at the scheduled time and Mr. Bubbles made her wait in the restaurant for almost an hour while he chatted with some buddies at the bar. When he finally got up to do the interview she told him that she had better things to do with her time and walked out... Apparently the expression on his face was priceless :-)

Of course, we were already behind on all of our payments before she lost her job. And it went downhill from there. Being late on the rent hadn't been a problem because mom had talked to the apartment complex owner and he had instructed the manager to let us slide a bit. But the old manager moved away that summer and the new one wasn't aware of the deal. So at the end of October 1969 we were asked to leave... At the time I wondered why mom didn't contact the owner about it - but in retrospect I think that she enjoyed the drama and welcomed the change.

OK - here's another one of those stories that's hard to believe:
When we moved into Fountain Estates we needed furniture so mom got a loan from a local bank for $500 (about $3000 adjusted for inflation) to cover it. Around the time we were facing eviction the bank threatened to repo our furniture because we were a month behind on the loan payments. That was a huge mistake on their part because it prompted mom to pay them a visit. Not only did she talk them out of repo-ing the furniture but she came out of there with another $300 unsecured loan.
I swear I'm not making that up! I don't know what story she told them - probably the "poor widow lost her job and being evicted but expecting a large inheritance" bit. Whatever - it must have been a truly amazing performance :-)

We used part of that $300 to move to a different apartment. (That was at the beginning of November). It was in an older complex and a bit run down and I don't remember exactly where it was - only that it was southeast of downtown. We were only there for about a month and a half before leaving Escondido... But I'm getting way ahead of myself.

The new manager of Fountain Estates had this zit-faced asshat of a son who also went to Orange Glen High. And every time that dillhole saw me at school he would announce loudly enough for everyone around to hear that my family was a bunch of deadbeats who had gotten evicted from "their" apartment complex... I suppose it should have bothered me but it was too much like being taunted by a 5 year old. He was just one of those people who are too stupid to realize how stupid they are - a true victim of the "Dunning-Kruger effect" :-)

But - like I said - I'm getting way too far ahead of myself... There's lots more Escondido stories to be told.