Today's Blind Items--Rules To Live By

I don't have many rules that I live by, but there are some that are inviolate.

#1. Family gatherings are not the best time to hit on a sister-in-law.
#2. If Ryan Seacrest has your cell number, don't tell him you listen to his radio show or he will call you each and every morning to find out how he was.
#3 Don't cheat on someone who collects knives as a hobby.
#4 Espressos and diet pills don't really go well together.
#5 Exercise is a scam.

The most important rule I live by though is that I don't help people move. Oh, I will come watch, or let the movers in. Hell, I'll even unpack a box or two, but there is no way in hell, I'm going to spend a weekend helping you move just because your girlfriend threw you out of the house. This weekend though one of my friend's had to evacuate his house though, and so I broke my rule because I classified under evacuation rather than moving. Next time though I'm just going to stop by a Home Depot and find some movers because this is not something I ever want to repeat.

My friend knew that it better be an emergency to ask me, and I admit it was. His home was being threatened by the wildfires in Malibu and so he called me along with about six other guys to get everything out of his house. The thing is he had just moved in like three months ago and bought brand new, custom made furniture for every room and just didn't want to take the chance of losing it. So being the sucker I am, I agreed.

For those of you who haven't been to Malibu, let me just let you in on the fact that there is no such thing as a one level ranch home with a flat lawn and no stairs. My friend's home has stairs outside, and stairs inside and has managed to create a never ending twist of turns and curves that do not go well with large pieces of furniture.

I avoid stairs like the plague as well as anything that gets any kind of blood pumping through my artery hardened system fast enough to dislodge a piece of fat and kill me. I also dislike breathing in ash and having it coat my body so that I will be digging it out of my various fatty pockets for weeks to come.

Although I'm sure you are interested in my tales of woe and how I complained incessantly for two straight days to anyone who would listen, my biggest shock came when I heard a "hi, how have you been" coming from a house two doors down.

I knew the voice, but it couldn't be her. Could it? OMG, it is her. I thought she had left the state or left the country, but no, there she was. Vixen. She still has that look that made her so famous when she was younger, but with a few more lines of coke, a few more wrinkles from the sun, and a lack of any real expression, courtesy of Botox. She still radiated some of that charm and charisma she always had, but there was also a sense of what she had been through and what she continues to go through. Over the course of the weekend, she must have "accidentally" run into us 20 times, and changed clothes just as often. She did manage to work into the conversation that Surfer Boy came by now and again, but primarily when he needed money or drugs. Seems he hadn't quite given up the habit she introduced him to and he still came to her for her many connections.

It is just amazing to me that someone who had it all like she did, and was so well known could almost become a "who?" where you have to really explain who she was and what she was in before anyone can remember. Even then, you know they are still struggling to put a name with the face, or in this case body.

She seems to feel that she would make a good Mrs. to my friend, but she also seemed totally unconcerned about the fires we could see off in the distance. She evacuated on Sunday just like everyone else, but she didn't take anything from her home except for her dog and cat. Photos, memories, everything else, she said were unimportant to her and what she did now. I couldn't tell if she was being, deep, serious, making a joke or just preaching some kind of meditation, but she literally took nothing but the dog and cat and some clothes. She was headed off to stay with some vague friend or acquaintance and just kind of waved out her window as she drove away.