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<\/a>That snow says it all.<\/p><\/div>\n
But for my entire life, my bday celebrations have often been hampered a bit by it occurring on that date. First of all, it falls three weeks after the holidays, so people are often partied-out by then. (And, on a super-shallow note, they don\u2019t have the mind power to come up with any more fabulous gifts at that time.) And, second of all, growing-up in New York winters, some of my friends would get sick in the beginning of the year, and therefore couldn\u2019t make it to my parties, which made me sad for them, so I couldn\u2019t fully enjoy my own day.<\/p>\n
But this year, with the apocalyptic fires all over this city, is like nothing else any of us have ever experienced. If it\u2019s possible, I feel even worse today than I did the year I had just lost my mother on Christmas, because this is truly a tragedy, involving multiple\u00a0deaths and soooo much devastation. (If you\u2019re not aware of what has been going on here in LA for the past week, here\u2019s the link to my article about it from last week: itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/news-the-los-angeles-fires<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The darkness of this missive to myself suits this year better than my usual festive colors.<\/p><\/div>\n So I\u2019m choosing to not be Nero, who is said to have infamously \u201cfiddled while Rome burned,\u201d (even though fiddles weren\u2019t yet in existence, but you know what I mean,) and discuss much about my birthday today that does not pertain to the fires.<\/p>\n For a little while, I had actually been wondering what I was going to write for the occasion this year. Nothing special was coming to me, and then after the night that the LA Fires began exactly a week ago today, I woke up reminiscing about the connection between Pacific Palisades, (the main fire area, which is close to me,) and my birthday.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m paying a little tribute to that adorable town with this tale about that relationship, which I always still feel today.<\/p>\n I actually first saw Pacific Palisades the day after my 20th birthday, on which I literally almost died! For real. I had been in Los Angeles for less than a year, and my life was centered around Westwood, and West LA, with a little bit of knowledge of Santa Monica and, quite surprisingly to everyone, (including me,) Silver Lake. And that’s all I knew of LA.<\/p>\n So early on my 20th birthday, John, a cute guy friend who lived in Topanga Canyon, took me out for a very special LA day. Someone had dropped him off at my West LA abode, so we used my vehicle for our adventure. In the late afternoon, (before my birthday dinner\u00a0date with a different guy!,) I drove him back to his mountain abode, in what was my very first car, which I had owned for only a couple of months at that point.<\/p>\n A view coming down Topanga Canyon, but my birthday accident was much higher up, where it was steeper, and in the dark!<\/p><\/div>\n John had driven it up there, and I went into his geodesic dome to meet his roomies. (These deets aren\u2019t necessary to the story, but I\u2019m trying to paint a complete picture for you.) When I started my car to leave, it would not move! So I ran back to get him, and he showed me that he had put my emergency brake on when he parked it. I had never even heard<\/em> of that brake before! So he decided to follow me down the canyon to make sure I got to the bottom okay.<\/p>\n Thank goodness he did, and had shown me that emergency brake because, as you may have guessed, my brakes failed, and I was headed for the edge of the road! As I hit the guardrail, and my car\u00a0was about to go over the cliff, which would have certainly been curtains for me, I remembered the emergency brake whose existence I had just learned of ten minutes before, and pulled it on, which stopped the car with only the front over the edge!!! So John drove me home, (after a quick bday supper at his place, so I\u2019d still be hungry for my planned<\/em> birthday dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which has been my fave ever since that night.)<\/p>\n The next day, a couple of girlfriends took me back to get my car towed. (Yes, I am<\/em> an idiot who left it on the canyon that night. But it was off to the side, since it was halfway over the edge! And my young sheltered self had no idea what to do about the situation.)<\/p>\n Pacific Palisades in modern times, prior to the fires. It’s not exactly my first view of that area, but somewhat similar.<\/p><\/div>\n And the route they took to get us to Topanga was\u2026through Pacific Palisades, which I had never even heard of before! We drove west on Sunset Blvd. from Buddy Drive, down a normal road of some houses and rusticness, and then, all of a sudden, we came upon this lovely little village! It was like Brigadoon to me! I had zero knowledge that this tiny town was just a few minutes away from my West LA apartment!\u00a0 I was instantly in love with it. I felt that it was actually too magical for me to even get out and explore.<\/p>\n And, I swear, I have never lost that feeling whenever I come upon it, which isn\u2019t often. I think that I never wanted to visit that area on the regular in order to preserve that magic.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s a crazy update on my story: Shockingly, in my very cluttered and disorganized house, I know exactly where my old diaries are! (Priorities, am I right?) And yesterday, within one minute of opening the bag containing them, the one from my twentieth birthday was in my hand. I was happy to see that I wrote all about it, and that it was basically exactly as I remembered, and had just written about here! The weird thing is that I didn\u2019t write in it again for about a month. I guess a twenty-year-old girl has more to do than just archive her day-to-day activities. But just to show you how I reported the \u201cincident\u201d correctly to you, here are the first lines of what I wrote that day, (which I did not read until after I finished writing about it all, above):<\/p>\n The actual diary page from my 20th birthday! Photo by Karen Salkin.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cI had a really nice birthday, except that I was almost killed! I was driving down the mountain from Topanga, & the brakes blew-out! I turned just in time to avoid going off the cliff, but I really f***ed the car up! Now I have to have the transmission, oil pan, brakes, & fender fixed! I\u2019m really unhappy about it, but I\u2019m glad I\u2019m still alive!\u201d [Note: And I\u2019m glad that I knew the proper use of hyphens and commas even back then! And I loved discovering that my current liberal use of exclamation marks has always<\/em> been my practice!]<\/p>\n Exactly.<\/p><\/div>\n And that\u2019s exactly how I feel on my birthday today\u2014grateful to still be alive, perhaps today more than ever after witnessing just how much others around me have tragically lost.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m actually not going to be doing much for my birthday today because I\u2019m so devastated for everyone in my beloved city. Now, exactly a week on from the start of the catastrophic fires, it\u2019s hard to celebrate anything, even my birthday.\u00a0 But I\u2019m lucky enough to have many pals who\u2019ve sent me cards and messages, have already called me, and have made plans to take me out for it. But, because of the dangers and sadness around here, I\u2019ve postponed all bday celebrations until the officials give us the go-ahead to leave our houses safely, and even then, only if all the people involved are still up for it.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s actually something simple I\u2019d love from you<\/em>\u00a0guys, if you\u2019d like to get in on the stay-at-home quasi-celebration. (And no\u2014it\u2019s not like the shocking GoFundMe that gazillionaire actress Mandy Moore set-up to help her family who lost their house in the fire, even though she could have just given them the money herself!) It\u2019s that if you don\u2019t already follow me on my several platforms, I would so love you to do that right now, as\u00a0a mini birthday gift.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>