White Light Black Light

the sister is marrying the woman she's been living with for 9 years...
the cliche "lesbian wedding"...Which I don't even know what the actual
law is about that in this state or jurisdiction..

Anyway...the wedding is being held at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa, CA ...
which is a hotel that for some reason, holds a lot of memories for me...

The first time I went there I was 13.
My friend Gina's parents happen to go there every Summer for one week.
So this time they invited me...I used to "babysit" Gina when she was 12
and I was 13 because she didn't like to be alone in their house at the time
when her parents would go out a lot. So ok, I went...
While there I met some of the other families that would meet there once a year too..
one of them brought a friend named Mark Evans. Well..I had been in love already
(from 12)..but this Mark...I remember sitting by the pool at the Flamingo
and then he kissed me... I'm trying to think of what he said that impressed
me so much during that conversation...Or how the kiss happened but I can't...
The next day or maybe it was that day, we, (Mark, me, Gina and his friends
Bobby and Bob, (yeah I know), went driving around Santa Rosa. The song Lola
by The Kinks was on the radio...

I pushed her away, I walked to the door
I fell to the floor, I got dwn on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me

The song still reminds me of that kiss..

Mark and I exchanged a few letters after that..(I still have them..
yellow lined paper and red pen)...He gave me the "you feel like a sister" thing...

The next time I was at the Flamingo I was maybe, I don't know, 15 years old or 16,
this time..I remember my mum had left my dad and we were with her boyfriend
Gene...(ew)...anyway..my best friend Jenine came with us..
Let's just say we got in trouble for having two guys from the Long's Drugstore next
to the hotel in our rooms...one of us had the person in the room longer than the other one...
(hint hint: it was NOT me ;))...so that was an odd trip...first time two people had sex while
I was in the room...

The when I got my dricer's license, when I was 18, and got my first car, a 1971 Volvo
164, I drove to the Flamingo by myself to stay in a hotel, by myself..now this trip is
mostly a blur...It seems like I invited someone(s) to meet me there, but I can't recall now..

The next to last time I remember being at the Flamingo, was in 1999 when Pierce and
I went to meet my newly found, adopted, half-sister Pamela Orr for the first time. She
asked me to buy hard alcohol for her...she lived on the streets of Santa Rosa. By choice.
Her adoptive family was money rich..But she chose this life..

The last time I was at the Flamingo was when my birth mother and I went to meet Pamela.
We all three spent one night together in a lower floor room in the back side bank of rooms
in the hotel..We literally laughed until we fell asleep.. We woke up and said our goodbyes,
again..

Pamela died in 2001, I believe, from psirrosis of the liver...She passed while I was with her...
(another first, and last, so far, for me)

This is all from memory, no fact checking...

See how music is?! I was just listening to Lola...and realized Pierce was at THAT hotel... :)

Every time I was there, at the Flamingo, the lounge had a piano bar player who would
ALWAYS smile at me... from when I was 13 on..(the first two times I was there it
was the same man...different guys on the other times..but always infectious smiling)

Happy Sunday People.

♥

[I don't think I've ever "talked" on my blog...wonder why now?]

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, October 07, 2007