I just love Thanksgiving don’t you? It’s all just about a great meal with those you love. You don’t have to buy presents, you don’t have to go to church, hell,you don’t even have to get dressed up at all. I hear straight men sit around watching football all day.

I’m getting ready for our annual Thanksgiving “orphans dinner” We have many friends like us who don’t have family in Los Angeles or who (I would say very smartly) choose to not be with their families. I’m buying flowers at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, ironing linens, washing little used serving platters & reminiscing while my house looks like a soundstage.

I was remembering today a Thanksgiving in 1978 with my family in Pennsylvania. I was 15 years old. I think I can pin-point this date as the exact day I realized I was “different”

It was the first year my Mother was cooking and playing hostess. Her Mother; who had always taken care of the Holidays, had died of breast cancer at the age of 60 earlier in the year. My Grandmother was a fantastic cook. She earned her living AND her place in heaven by cooking for the priests in a local seminary. Her only child, my mother …not so much. But by God, she was determined we would have the day exactly as if Gram Mom were still here.

So there we were: the seven Trainer children, my parents & my newly widowed Pop Pop. There was the usual heavy tension that comes from having 10 people crammed into a 3 bedroom suburban house. Maybe a small fistfight or two between the boys & some yelling from the small kitchen as my Mother attempted to recreate her mother’s decades of successful holidays. Soon dinner was about ready & My Mom was calling us to the table.

I had of course arranged the flowers with the mums that were growing in our yard. I had also folded the napkins into this “Prince of Wales Feathers” style I saw in a magazine & had placed all the forks one & a half inches from the rim of the table! As my mother was still yelling: “DINNER’S READY!!” I looked at the table to realize to my horror, something VITAL was missing. “Where are the candles? I asked. “CANDLES??” My incredulous mother queried. “”We have plenty of light…we don’t need candles!” “Candles are not about light…we’re NOT READING at the table….they’re about CHARM & AMBIENCE!” (Both new words for me!) I replied. “I’ll be right back!” I shouted. I had just gotten my learner’s permit to drive. And illegally unaccompanied; my first mission would be to find an open store on Thanksgiving Day; in small town PA, where I could get some candles.

After several false starts I found an open 7/11! Sure enough they had what I thought (then) were some terrific orange tapers with faux wax horns-of -plenty attached…Just the thing. I raced back & when I returned home I could see (and hear) my Mother was still calling everyone to the table (something called OVERTIME!) I placed my new purchase in some old candle sticks & was justifiably proud of my accomplishment.

The dinner was a complete disaster! My Mom, in her Freshman effort, had so overcooked the turkey it fell soupily from the bone and had overcooked the stuffing so that it was mainly burnt.. We ended up having to eat the turkey with a spoon & having to CARVE the stuffing!

As we all sat grumbling & complaining aloud; my Pop Pop looked up at my Mom & said in his most serious voice: “I think it’s DELCIOUS!” at which point he began to cry. And then my Mother started crying, and then we all; my Dad & my six siblings; all started to cry. It was just no good. It wasn’t the ingredients, or the food, or the chef…it was that my Gram Mom wasn’t there & nothing would ever be the same again!

And that was the year I asked myself: ”What’s It All about, Alfie?” When your peers are watching football or trying to smoke some weed while their parents prepare a dinner with their cousins whom they hate…why are you thinking about place settings & CANDLES???

I think we all now KNOW the answer. That’s what I was thinking about today with 2 days left til Thanksgiving.

Third Floor: Ladies' Lingerie

You know why TheGayGardener Wants to just MOVE into the 99 Cents Store ; he loves it so much...because today I was there looking for Christmas Decorations. And the selection just keeps getting better (eg. lots of sequined items... trees, terrific over-sized balls, long glittery ice sycles etc.) I look across the aisle & see a lovely selection of BRAS

Oh not just any bras...but the "New York Elegance Line" In a fabulous HARVEST GOLD Color with a brown braided applique (Hello??? HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Couldn't be more timely!) Seriously you could find multiple sizes & they seemed; with my very limited knowledge, very well constructed

So I bought some Christmas balls, candles, a Thanksgiving flag, some really nice gift tags AND I coulda bought a BRA... all for 99 Cents!! Is this a great country or what?? What WOULD the Pilgrims think????

Roman Crypt

So here we are…HALLOWEEN WEEKEND! And you know what that means…CHRISTMAS EVE is, like tomorrow!!! Oh God!

I’m really more of a jack-o-lantern, black cat, “sheet” ghost kind of a guy. This whole “day of the Dead” thing freaks me out! But because all the latest Halloween decorations are more focused on the “eerie” things I’ve given in.

This table top tableau was fun & easy to do. I used a lot of my (previously mentioned) “Negative” votive candles…AABs (all available BUSTS & Statues) White mini pumpkins & lots of delicately placed spider webbing. One fun thing is to use your computer to print out actual black & white photos of “real” ghosts or monuments & memorials from actual cemeteries. It’s a whole EURO MAUSELEUM LOOK> Put in inexpensive black frames & display. No end to the possibilities.

I’ll probably join the multitudes on Santa Monica Blvd at the Halloween Parade in West Hollywood. The times & the country have changed so much that the actual gay people will be in the minority this year at the festivities!

BOO!

Dah Dah Dah Dumm

Is there an extra week in this month or what? Doesn’t it seem like October is going on forever & that Halloween should have been last weekend? Maybe like Christmas now we start planning for it & looking forward to it too early, say July 4th?

Anyway this Saturday is finally Halloween. And since it falls on a Saturday it’s likely to be a big blowout for many of us. That is if the wind doesn’t sweep the West Coast of the Country away first.

You know I love California; for all its faults. Fires, mudslides, traffic & droughts. It is a land of such extremes. It doesn’t rain for six months then you get six month’s worth of rain in a day! And oohhhh the winds!

It’s easy to forget you live in a desert. Then a scary wind will just pick up with no warning & you swear you’ll be carried along with it. I came home tonight to destruction. Picture frames blown off tabletops, papers from my desk scattered everywhere, vases tipped over, draperies askew. Saddest of all BEETHOVEN died!

He was kitschy & campy but I loved him. I found this old bust at a garage sale & proudly displayed him in my garden! (After I washed off all the gold 70’s paint!) In Spring his head would be crowned with jasmine & potato flowers like some “May King” Yea well all the king’s horses & all the king’s men (nor TheGayGardener) could put Ludwig back together again! Smashed into a million pieces thanks to these godawful winds! On the bright side, the skies will be clear tomorrow what with the smog having been swept away by these same destroyers! I’ll miss you Luddy!

They Say It's Your Birthday...

"Come to the edge!" he said.
"I can't!" I said, "I'm afraid."

"Come to the edge!" he said,
"I can't" I said, "I'll fall off!"

"Come to the edge!" he said.

And so I came to the edge.

AND HE PUSHED ME....

And I FLEW!!!!!

-Anonymous

I wouldn't be here without you & without you I wouldn't want to be here!!!

Happy Birthday Buddy!!!

Sweet 16

From THE SAM DIARIES


I like to say that Sam & I met on the last day of my 29th year & that I stayed that age in his eyes, if no one else’s.
Everyone thinks that their pet is special. Mine was specially neurotic. I wish I knew where he got it! Unlike most dogs I see in Los Angeles he hated riding in the car. He would only sleep in his “doggy bed” if it was placed on top of my bed. He lived the entire last year of his life eating nothing but avocadoes & imported Italian Parmesan Cheese (@ $24 per lb!) And oh…he smoked! Yea I am deeply ashamed to admit it but Sam loved a good cigarette!

He was very beautiful & very vain & I think he thought the Parliament Lights kept his weight in check. He didn’t exactly light up. But as a medically diagnosed “garbage eater” ( I paid some vet a lot of money for that insight!) he’d plow though anything in the trash,: rotten food, empty shampoo bottles; he loved a good used disposable razor (& never a mark in his mouth!) and all the ciggy butts he could find! It took me a while to realize this. But on the rare occasion I would happen to light one up (cough! cough!) Sam would start barking at me loudly & urgently; til one day I realized he was asking to bum a smoke…he was completely addicted. Nicotine gum is NOT an option for pets & they don’t as yet make a “Doggy PATCH” So eventually he had to quit cold turkey! He was pretty miserable & did pack on a few pounds but I never said a word about it!

How do you tell the story of your life with a dog? We played fetch, he slobbered on the guests, barked at the mailman, ate a biscuit etc.??
I’m not a “pet person” really. It was my EX’s idea to get a dog. We had just “lost” a cat to the coyotes in the Hollywood Hills and wanted to improve our odds with a larger animal. With no notion or research, we ended up with an English Springer Spaniel we named: “Charmichael’s Canyonwood Sam” (something fancy for the AKC Papers!) Son of Champion “Reverence” & “Cachet”.

His mother was a bitch (we had that in common) DOB: October 18, 1993.

We actually didn’t pick him up from the breeder until December 18th 1993 just in time for my Birthday.

So after the love of my life (ha!) whom I moved 3,00 miles across the country to be with; decided after more than 6 years, that he couldn’t live without the younger, handsomer, caterer he hired for our Christmas party, this despite the fact that the lad nearly poisoned all of our friends with undercooked turkey, I got custody of Willie the cat & Sam the dog…the kids. Oh & $5,000 out of the $1.8 Million he had made that year. It was the best “Severance Package” I ever got.

Somebody once said that to own a pet is a guaranteed heart ache. The odds are just no good that they will outlive you. And so here sits Sam, now on my desk, in a lovely urn from Smith & Hawken; waiting for me, like always, to come home & take him out for a walk.

Happy 16th Birthday Buddy!

I love & miss you

Bubble, bubble TOILE and Trouble

You know what I just love TOILE!! I know…fussy, fancy, very SISTER PARRISH but it works in any number of styles, hides the dirt & LASTS!!

I really love the black & white print. Classic yes but also works great for a spookier kind of décor. Grab a remnant for a Halloween tablecloth or cut sections & place in cheap black frames & place them all around the house.
This is my Halloween Terrace. I’ve gathered some of my garden busts, lots of various sized pumpkins arranged in groups & all placed on a toile remnant. This is one classy Fright Party (if I do say so myself!)