Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Semi-Annual Visit to the Dentist in Beverly Hills



So, yes, I stood across the street from that black sports car and took this photo while my boys went inside the building behind me for their semi-annual dental check-up. It's a Lamborghini, Mom, Henry said, dismissively, and it might cost $1,000, 000. I think he was serious, but don't quote me as you know I tend toward hyperbole, and certain apples actually don't fall far from the tree.

Anyhoo.

The fact that I'd just given him a hard time for wearing his gray, polyester gym shorts to the dentist that he picked out at Target despite my protestations (I despise athletic shorts when they're worn as clothes and not for athletics), made his dismissal of the million dollar car and the subsequent posturing of the various large men positioned everywhere, cameras hanging from their necks, seem even more jarring to me, still a bit of a star f**ker when it comes to celebrities. I might be reading War and Peace, but when it comes to star sightings, I'm as excited as the next moderately overweight middle-aged woman to perhaps glimpse Johnny Depp or, if lucky, Javier Bardem. Just the other night, I walked in front of Annette Bening at a local restaurant as she waited for her car, and I admit to a frisson of pleasure that I'd come full circle. It was just a few years back that I stood on the steps of Royce Hall during an intermission of King Lear, looked to my right and noticed that it was Warren Beatty standing right next to me. I nearly jumped into his pocket.

Reader, I imagine you're wondering whether a moon, worns as if it had been a shell  has lost its devotion to all things disability related and might be morphing into a gossip rag?

So be it.

After fifteen years in Los Angeles, a city that I never thought of as anywhere in particular other than the cover of an Eagles album when I was my sons' ages, I'm still a bit freaked out that I have two boys who are Angelenos. We're from LA, they say when we go back east, and I startle like I did when I took my first husband's last name and whenever I uttered Elizabeth Supercalifragilistic, saw the words in a cartoon bubble coming from my mouth. Being born in Los Angeles doesn't mean that you have blonde hair and skateboard in empty pools or even surf in Malibu before school, but it does lend a certain insouciance to the sighting of million dollar cars and people, and I guess that's a good thing.

I waited a bit outside the dental office and tried not to crane my middle-aged neck too far to notice who the paparazzi were waiting on, and after a few minutes someone came out from across the street, there was a bit of shouting and jockeying, the other big guys with the even bigger camera lenses pulled them up to their faces,  and some very large men pulled up right in front of the million dollar car and blocked it with their Exxon Valdeez cars so I really didn't see anyone or anything. For all I know, it was Beyonce getting a hair extension or buttock implants. I pretended to be a native, turned away and walked into the dentist's office to retrieve my sons who both got a good report -- no cavities, sparkly clean, and when Oliver asked why his teeth were sort of yellow despite brushing them all the time, the dentist told him that only million dollar teeth are that white. As reward for no cavities, I bought them each a cupcake from the fancy cupcake machine up the street, and then we walked up the stairs of the parking garage, got into our sexy white Mazda  and sped off.

14 comments:

  1. I love that you nearly jumped into Warren Beatty's pocket. And I'd take your white Mazda over the black Lamborghini anyday.

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  2. I hope you easily made your escape in that flashy mazda. I am dying to know whose care that was :)

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  3. I very much enjoyed waiting at the dentist's with you!

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  4. One thing I learned living in New York is that I am TERRIBLE at recognizing celebrities. I'd sometimes be out with a friend and they'd point across the room and say, "Oh, look, that's so-and-so." And even then half the time I couldn't tell who they were talking about. So I bet in this case that person would have climbed into their car and I still would have been clueless. Especially if it's one of the younger celebrities -- Amanda Bynes? Lindsay Lohan? Even Beyonce might have caused me some confusion.

    How fun that you can have a brush with fame when you go to the dentist, though! :)

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  5. Oooooo....Johnny Depp. If I saw him anywhere he would have to watch his pocket...I mean pockets.

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  6. There is such a thing as a cupcake machine?

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  7. Oooh, so you had the pleasure of spotting both Mr. and Mrs. Beatty. Do tell: what were they like? They both look - much - older than their ages in pictures, so how do they look in reality? Is Annette really that slim? Is Warren really that short? Is his head really that big? Can't wait to read your first hand account.

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  8. as for warren beaty i'd have jumped into his pants, not his pocket. i know that's what you were REALLY thinking.

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  9. Waiting for your dentist is a lot more fun than waiting for mine (LOL).

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  10. And I thought IIIIIIIIIII was an incompetent parallel parker.

    So the young man in the far left part of the shot is just a Celebrity Meter Feeder, I guess.

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  11. As much as I'd like to believe I am outside the influence of the star machine, I, too, have had celebrity moments that wow me. Living in Carmel, CA where the 'stars' vacationed and/or lived, I've interacted with quite a few. But we were always on guard and remained "cool."

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  12. Ok so the Lamborghini is Weston's absolute favorite vehicle in the entire world. In fact, he has a miniature version of that exact car (same color too) Of course, I had to show him your photo of it parked just outside your dentist's office....He asked if we could move there. I asked him how much "said" vehicle costs and he told me without hesitation, and a hint of annoyance at his clueless mother's ignorance.....$1,000,000!!!

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  13. Johnny Depp was supposedly in Snohomish a few weeks ago filming a B-movie slasher horror type thing. The high school girls were all a t w i t t e r ! It's fun - but even more fun is a cupcake machine after a dentist appt. What a cool Mom :)

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  14. I think you should have a cake machine for your cakes. Movie stars would stand in line to deposit 100 dollar bills for a cake.

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