My memorable neighbor Charlie

When I saw the prompt a memorable neighbor from Mama Kat this week I just couldn't resist.

Charlie Sheen is my memorable neighbor.

Now, I'll be honest. We don't live next door to him or even a few doors away. We're not fancy like that. Not that he's fancy, but you know what I mean. However, we do live sort of close to him. We live in a canyon and he lives above us, where other silly Hollywood celebrities reside, on Mulholland Drive.

Here's a picture taken from my canyon.

Do you see where the green meets the sky? That's Mulholland Drive where Charlie(this is LA people, no need for last names) does his thing. And before you go getting ideas that we live in one of those weird houses on the left, we don't.

Charlie has caused me to lose sleep twice in the last year so even though he's not our next door, or our few-doors-down-neighbor, I feel justified saying I'm his neighbor.

No, I didn't lose sleep because I'm obsessed with him and was worried about his erratic behavior. I don't watch his sitcom, or even know what it's about.

I lost sleep because when he drove his car over Mulholland Drive in a drunken stupor and then called the car in as stolen, every network in town had a helicopter over his house which meant every network in town had a helicopter over our house.

And it was three o'clock in the morning.

Here's the thing about canyons. They carry sound. So when coyotes have a party up the canyon it sounds like they're having a party in our backyard. When the people in Warren Beatty's old house on Mulholland have a party, it sounds like my next door neighbors are having a party.

So all those helicopters were LOUD. Really loud. Shutting our 1940s cottage windows did nothing to help keep out the noise.

And the spotlights? Let's just say it's a good thing I've got kids and wear decent pajamas, because our bedroom was lit up like it was a movie set.

Tim gave up on sleep at five o'clock, got out of bed, went downstairs, turned on the TV and then came back up to report it was Charlie before heading out for a morning workout. When I got up at six-thirty there was just one helicopter left.

Charlie repeated the exact same scenario all over again only four months later. The nerve.

Charlie is so manic he doesn't realize us regular people slumming it down in the canyons aren't graced with tiger blood and need sleep. Lots of sleep.

We're getting ready to move. So Charlie, soon I'll be free. Free at last. Of you.

George Clooney, lime green, a purse, and a cat

Have you ever wanted to crawl into a purse and hide?

There have been a few times in my life where I would have liked to do just that. Like the time George Clooney teased me about my funky, lime green, suede shoes. They really were funky. Maybe just a little too funky. But what does George know about style?

For the record, I didn't crawl anywhere and I didn't hide anywhere. No, instead I laughed along and when George apologized later, saying he hoped he hadn't offended me I assured him he had not and laughed it off.

I never wore those shoes to work again.

So I took Cooper to the vet for a check-up last week. He was not happy about this expedition. He suffered through the indignations of being weighed and having his temperature taken by the vet tech and then he was done. He was desperate to get back into his carrier. But it had been a little tricky getting him out and I had wisely locked the carrier door.

We had to wait a few minutes for the vet. Cooper quickly realized no matter how many times he circled the carrier and pulled on the door, it was staying shut. So he looked for something else to crawl into. Something safe. Something stylishly funky.

My favorite purse with the lime green interior was sitting on the chair. Somewhat awkwardly, Cooper maneuvered himself into the purse,  He tangled his legs in the handles in the process, but eventually he got his whole cat-self inside.

Then he hid his head.

This post is participating in Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom

Hollywood: A scene from my life before kids

This is a creative non-fiction account of a day in my former life as a development executive in Hollywood for a well known actor's production company. It's told in the third person. Can you guess "Brian," the Hollywood celebrity's identity?

After guiding his spaceship-like Porsche into his private parking space on the Warner Bros. lot, Peter enters his company's office, in Building 81, just down the hall from Clint Eastwood's production company. A year ago Peter partnered with an A-list actor and acquired these hips digs in this much sought-after building. Peter walks through the lobby, past the framed black and white posters of classic films that he had nothing to do with, past the door leading to the bathroom that contains an orgy-size shower that Steven Seagal had designed when he occupied this space. He doesn't notice the new, overly-smily intern sitting at the reception desk.

Further into the office he nods a good morning to Greg, assistant to Anne, the VP of Development.

"Can I have a cappucino?"Peter asks.

"You got it," Greg answers, jumping up.

Greg beckons the intern to follow him. "This morning," he says to the intern in the kitchen, "you will learn to make the perfect cup of cappuccino."

"Great!" The intern exclaims.

"Making cappucino is a pain in the ass," Greg says, struggling to clean the steamer spout. The intern's broad smile disappears.

"Get me my brother!" Peter shouts out to Hannah, his perky blonde assistant who is attractive but not so attractive as to make the MAW (model, actress, whatever) wife jealous.

Hannah quickly dials the number, one of hundreds she has memorized.

"Tom?" She says. She's very polite, very proper, very efficient. "I've got your brother, Peter, calling for you." She places Tom on hold, swivels around in her chair, gets up and enters Peter's domain, a spacious office modeled after Sylvester Stallone's office, replete with a sink-in, big-enough-for-sex-sofa, German 1970s black leather and metal chairs and a glass desk perfectly organized for the day by the super-assistant.
"Tom's on two," Hanna says and then she closes the door behind her.

A day at Halo Pictures has begun.

The phone buzzes non-stop. The two assistants handle three or four calls at once. Anne doesn't allow the intern to answer the phones after she twice gave the incorrect name of callers. Anne will fire the intern later today when she has time. For now, she scrambles to put together notes for Peter's latest "great" idea: a romantic comedy set in white trash culture.

Greg and the intern reappear with the perfect cup of cappuccino. Hannah knocks on Peter's door, enters and places the cup on top of a napkin in the far right corner of the desk.

And then Brian saunters in to the office. He wears gym shorts, a black T-shirt and sneakers. He's been playing basketball on the set of the hit TV show that put him on the map.

"Hey! I'm Brian," he says casually to the intern. He offers his hand. The intern's jaw drops. She stammers but no sounds come out. "Welcome aboard," Brian says.

Hannah catches her breath as Brian approaches. He defines sexy. Even in his sweaty, post-work-out-mode, or maybe because of it. She stands up as he leans in to kiss her and offers him her mouth. Hannah always kisses him on the lips.

Anne is in her office, on the phone, fighting with an agent who won't give her the spec script that went out that morning. Brian knocks on her door, gives her a big smile and makes a comical gesture about the agent on the phone. He comes around her desk and kisses her firmly on the cheek.

"Brian just walked in," Anne says to the agent. "Should I put him on the phone so you can tell him yourself why you're not letting us have the script?"

Brian puts his hand out to take the phone, but the agent gives in and agrees to send the script. Anne gives Brian a thumbs up. He reciprocates and heads out to the assistant area.

In the assistant area, Brian chit chats with Hannah and Greg. Anne comes out to join them. Brian has a casual ease about him that almost makes those with him forget he's been People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. For a few moments the office is filled with giggles and silly jokes, fun banter and Brian's charm. 

But then Peter emerges from his office. Hannah quickly returns to her desk and Greg turns back to his desk.

"Brian!" Peter says too exuberantly. Next to Brian, Peter seems small and nerdy in his tight black pants, tight black T-shirt and army boots. "How are you?" He laughs giddily.

Anne rolls her eyes and goes back to her office. Just last night Peter had whined to her about not being invited to Brian's party over the weekend.

Inside Peter's office, Brian throws himself onto the oversize sofa. He puts his hand up his T-shirt and plays with it, revealing his taut stomach. Does he notice the picture of Peter's nubile twenty-year old wife in the Demi Moore naked-while-pregnant pose? Or the naked post-baby picture of the perfectly whittled body with just a hint of pubic hair showing? Or the naked-with-two-year-old-child card that went out this past Christmas? If so, he doesn't comment.

Instead, he says, "so I've been thinking. I don't want to do romantic comedies. I want to concentrate on smart thrillers, dark dramas."

Peter's goofy smile fades. He's spent the last year looking for romantic comedies for Brian to headline. He spent all weekend working on his white trash rom-com idea.

"Hannah! Get Anne in here!"

Anne hears the desperate shout before Hannah summons her. In Peter's office she doesn't sit on the sex-sofa with Brian. She sits on one of the very uncomfortable chairs opposite to get a better view. She knows something significant must have happened because neither Brian nor Peter say anything.

"Great shoes," Brian finally says. Anne just bought the leopard skin shoes at the Nordstrom sale that weekend, her only respite from twenty scripts and two five-hundred page manuscripts she had to read.

"Thanks," she says.

"Okay guys, good to see you. Gotta run." And with that Brian is off, but not before kissing Anne and Hannah goodbye.

"Anne, we'll reschedule the white trash meeting," Peter says. "Hannah, cancel my lunch and get me Dr. Rosenbaum on the phone."

Everyone, except the intern, knows that when Peter wants Dr. Rosenbaum, his shrink, their day will be miserable.

After she gets the shrink on the phone, Hannah comes to tell Anne about Brian not wanting to do rom-coms. Anne shrugs.

"We'll make the white trash rom-com a white trash thriller," Anne says.

In Hollywood there are many ways to spin a story.

**All names except for mine, Clint Eastwood's and Steven Seagal's have been changed to protect the guilty.

(I posted a previous version of this before my blog went public.)