Prom night 1984

I had never been to a party, much less on a date, when my second year of high school, I was asked to go to the senior prom. By a gay guy. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, my dad was quite happy, at least he wouldn't have to worry about me and what I was doing. My mom and my aunt made my dress, which looked quite appropriate for a 14 year old.
I'd love to tell you it was a night to remember, but once we got to the dance, I ended up taking pictures with my brother and dancing with my girlfriends. My prom date had used me as a cover to get to the dance, once there he abandoned me for his true love and purpose.
What is it with me and gay guys?? I seem to attract them in troves. I went to prom with one, was best friend with another through college...but the cherry on top is when I was actually engaged to one for a short time.
Dave and I actually broke up for a year back in 1989 and I became really good friends with a French family who lived in El Paso. Their son was my age, one thing led to another and soon our friendship blossomed into more...
Wait,wait, be patient, I haven't gotten to the best part yet! I tried to send all the signals that I really liked him, but after a few months, I just decided the direct approach was much better. I cornered him in his mom's laundry room, pinned him to the wall and laid a big, wet one on him. Keep in mind he was about 6' tall and weighed maybe 110 lbs, so I had a good 20 lbs on him. After that day, it became general knowledge we were dating. By Christmas, he had given me an engagement ring. Well...actually, his parents bought me a ring and he gave it to me. It was now six months after my laundry room attack and we still had not kissed again, much less done anything else. Trust me, I tried everything short of parading in front of him naked. Nothing worked. What an idiot I was!! The poor guy was sending me all the right signs and I was reading them all wrong. Needless to say, when I went back to school that semester, ran into David again and the rest is history...
He did take me to Los Angeles to see Madonna in concert and I kept the ring, so I did get away with something.

Hablo en espanol mas bueno que en ingles!

Learning English should be easy...if you live in New York. Unfortunately, learning English in New Mexico meant I was placed in a "learners" class along with 20 non-English-speaking-Mexican-illegal-aliens. In a month's time, I was fluent in Spanish and could spout every single curse word that existed: pinche cabron, hijo de puta, chinga la verga... but my English was definitely lacking. I hung out after school with all my alien friends, eating tacos al carbon, chimichangas, burritos and sopapillas, totally ignoring the fact I should probably be cruising down main street with the rest of the "cool kids", hanging out at McDonalds and Sonic. I even picked up playing guitar and would perform with the local mariachis. I just could not relate at all with cowboy boots, cowboy hats, hamburgers and milk shakes.
My dad had hired about 50 illegal aliens to work in the vineyards, they all lived in a few houses right down the street from our house. Every Friday, they would all show up to collect their pay, drunk off their asses and eventually fights would ensue, someone would get a bottle of beer broken on their head, then they would call it a day and go home.
One night, while my parents were out in the backyard drinking and I was in bed sleeping, one of these guys broke into our home and stole a bunch of stuff: stereo, camera, jewelry...and my flute, which I kept right next to my pillow. On his way out, he ran into my dad, who was just coming in to use the restroom, pulled out a long knife and stuck it to my dad's belly, threatening to gut him like a fish. My dad stayed real calm, let the guy get out the window and run, then he went for his "really big mother**cking gun" and chased him down. He dropped everything, except for my flute.
I became a supporter of hamburgers and French fries right after that.

My first day of school

One week after we arrived in the US, my dad insisted it was time we start school. I knew two words of English: "yes" and "no", but I wasn't even sure in what context to use them. I thought I would dress in my best clothes, denim mini-skirt, striped red shirt and red patent-leather ballerinas. Oh, yeah, I blended in...like a clown at a wedding! All the other students were wearing western cut jeans, western shirts and cowboy boots. I must have looked like an alien to them. The principal looked at my transcripts, asked my father a few questions and told him I would be a freshman at 13...that's really how far behind American education was at the time. To give you an example, my math assignments in high school were similar to 4th grade math in Switzerland. I was asked to take a few math tests and it was determined I didn't need to take any math courses in high school, my knowledge had already surpassed their high school curriculum...so I was left with English and music, which are basically the only two classes I took in high school.
On my first day, I was taken to the music room and asked what instrument I was interested in playing. I told the teacher I wanted to play violin, to which he replied: "We ain't got none of those fancy instruments, but we do need a flute player!"
Thus started my initiation and infatuation with music, which lasts to this day! I played flute in symphony band, snare drum in marching band...then anytime we received a new instrument, I was the one assigned to learn to play it: oboe, bassoon, saxophone (man, did my dad hate that one!), marimbas...then finally, my junior year, we formed a jazz band and I became the drummer. I had never dreamed I would one day enjoy playing drums as much as I did back then... We won state competition my senior year, I was picked as the best drummer in the state and ended up playing with the honor roll band...
I kept playing drums through my college years, in my brother's various bands, then after college in a band with my friends from El Paso. I really miss those days...

Embarrassing moments...Part VII

His name was Mario Reyes and he was my first crush in the United States. I could barely speak English, but I thought all language barriers could be broken if you spoke the language of love... He didn't even know I existed. No, wait, I'm wrong. He knew me as the new foreign weird girl who had just moved to Deming. He was in band with me and I used to stare at him for hours, daydreaming about our life together...
I finally had the chance to get close to him while preparing a song for the graduating class. We would practice everyday after school, along with 20 other students, singing "We are the World". We were standing on the stadium steps ( you know, those podium stairs you stand on when you perform), Mario was right behind me when, lost in my daydreams about him, I lost my balance, reached back to catch myself, and grabbed his weiner. Or balls. Both. Not sure what ratio weiner/balls it was, but all I know is I was holding on to a handful of something. He screamed in pain and ran out of the room.
I never daydreamed of Mario Reyes again.

Coming to America

How in the hell did I end up here, you say? It all comes down to wine... In June 1982, my father and a few of his Swiss and Italian winemaker friends decided to check out the United States as a potential market. They went to New York, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico, determining the latter had a climate very similar to Switzerland and was best for grape growing. He came back from his trip with the news we would all be moving to Deming, New Mexico, by the end of the year. I had just started 7th grade in Martigny, a new school, new friends, I was riding the train back and forth everyday...but I was ready for the challenge, after all, I had already handled the move from Italy to Switzerland, so I thought this wouldn't be any different. In October, we sold our apartment and purchased a brand new one, the penthouse floor of a just-finished building in the center of Saxon. It was to be our home away from home, where we would come for three months every summer. The closer we got to the date of our departure, the less I wanted to leave. I couldn't imagine being away from the friends I had grown up with, I loved my new school and I was still heartbroken and pining for Mr. X. My father tempted us with stories of New York, the city that never sleeps, with tons of stores, tons of music (for David), and America, a country where anyone could become what they wanted. By the time November came, my brother and I were convinced. We couldn't wait to get to the US and start living our Hollywood life. It was only the third time flying for me and I got sicker than I've ever been in my life. I think I puked for 7 hours straight, from Geneva to New York; I arrived in New York exhausted, dehydrated and sporting the biggest fever blister on my lip you've ever seen. We stayed in NY for a week, visiting stores, going out to all kinds of different restaurants; my brother and I were in love. We thought if the rest of the US was like this, we would be happier than we had ever been. We boarded the plane to El Paso, Texas, in the afternoon and arrived late at night. The city looked huge, lights everywhere, cars everywhere (little did we know most of the lights were actually Juarez, Mexico). Our driver took us to Deming, where we spent our first night at the Ramada Inn. David and I couldn't wait to get up and check out the metropolis. Imagine our surprise when we walked out of our hotel room right into a desert. Compared to 1982, Deming is a big city now, they even have a Walmart and a Burger King! Back then, McDonald's had just moved in and KMart was the only store in town. My father had deceived us and we had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

Tale for a little bird...

My violent temper continued through 6th grade, as I could not find anyone to tame my wild ways... Got sent home a couple of times for beating people up, got suspended after a particularly bloody fight with three girls who pissed me off, ( they were all ganging up on the new girl, Caroline, who was from Portugal, using racial slurs....they had to be taken out) until one day, when I met my brother's newest friend, who I'll call Mr. X. He was a couple of years older than me and just as much into music as my brother was, in fact, together they had started a new band. He was from another town and so much cooler than the rest of the boys at school: he dressed in a mix of punk/new wave/classic rock fashion that was just starting to get popular in Switzerland. He liked cool music and smoked cigarettes (he was 14!) and wore patchouli. Talk about an irresistible combination! For once, I found myself flabbergasted, speechless and in total awe. I felt like the biggest dork around him, like a little puppy who would follow him around with a dumb look on my face.
I became aware a couple of weeks later that he felt the same way about me, when my brother handed me a note from Mr. X, where he was telling me he "liked me, and did I feel the same?"... I became so shy around him, I couldn't even look at him, much less talk. He would come pick me up at the train station every day and walk me to school, but I couldn't even hold his hand. I was only 12!!! The only thing I knew about guys was how to beat them up and shut them up...
So to make a long story very short, after a few months of hints (notes with lines: "what's between your nose and your chin?"), he finally lost patience and instead hit on my best friend, who was a lot more mature and knowledgeable...
As John Lennon once said: "Instant Karma's gonna get you"... It didn't last, she got pregnant by another guy at 17, divorced by 19, her family went bankrupt and lost their house...which I now own.
The universe has a funny way of settling things...
Mr. X, here's what you missed.

More tales of Kung Fu ass kickings!

I really feel bad... After my previous post, a little birdie let me know that when my brother entered 7th grade, he was constantly getting beat up by his classmates...and I wasn't there to defend him. In 1980, after 6th grade, boys and girls would get separated in different schools, so I wasn't aware of the daily abuse endured by my bro. I now think the reason is because most of the guys bothering him had been punched or kicked by me at one time or another, they were just using him as payback. I'm too old to fight back now, but maybe if they have kids, I can have Devyn beat them up.
As I told you before, I really did not relate to girls all that much, in fact my best friend growing up was Gilles Burnier, my 6th grade teacher's son. His mom is Italian, so our parents started hanging out together when we moved to Saxon.
It was a love/hate relationship: we had so much fun playing together, but we were so competitive with one another in regards with school grades and piano lessons. He was smaller than me, with a bob haircut and braces. My other friends could not understand how I could hang out with him, he was so pompous and irritating. It was fine by me, 'cause every time he got too irritating, I would beat the crap out of him, make him cry and run to his mom, then he would be really nice for a few days.
My beatings affected his school work, so in 4th grade, our teachers and parents decided to put us in separate classes. One day, we had both just taken an important test, Gilles saw me in the hallway and began gloating that he would get the better grade, that he was smarter than me, etc. I only had a couple of minutes before the teachers would be in the hall, so I quickly punched him in the face, kicked him in the balls and walked away. We had just come back from recess and I was taking my shoes off and putting my slippers on, when I heard a noise behind me, turned around and got punched hard in the right eye. It was Gilles, he had finally grown a pair and decided it was time for payback. I held in my tears ( a bully never cries!) and returned to class, with my hand in front of my eye. My teacher noticed it, asked me to move it and was rewarded with the biggest, bluest black-eye he had ever seen. He called both our parents in for a meeting, to discuss our violent behavior.
While our parents were in the classroom talking, we were asked to wait outside in the hallway. I took advantage of the situation and gave Gilles a beating he can still remember. In fact, I'm amazed he has 3 kids, I thought I might have damaged his chances with the 20 continuous kicks in the nuts he received that day... He never laid a hand on me again.

Don't make me break open a can of Whoop-ass!

I've been a tomboy most of my life. Don't get me wrong, I love dressing up and wearing make-up and I don't like to play rough sports, but I've always enjoyed the company of men much more than women. Through the years, I've found there are two distinct groups of women who wanted to be friends with me: the ones who are using me to get to my brother and the ones that find me so entertainingly brusque, they hang out just to see what I will do next.
Until I moved to Switzerland, I really liked playing with Barbies and playing house. The fact I had a brother instead of a sister never stopped me; I would make David dress up in my clothes, curl his hair and make him have tea with me and my stuffed animals...all this done under the threat of severe bodily harm. Once I was in the land of chocolate and Ricola, things changed drastically. All I wanted to do was hang out outside, run, ride my bike...and beat up boys. It was like a sport for me, a drug that would keep me going for the whole day. When other girls were flirting with boys and writing notes, if I found out a guy liked me, my response was to beat the living hell out of him. I even liked some of them, but the only way I knew how to show affection was with a nice punch in the face or a well placed kick in the groin. Soon, I became an equal opportunity ass-kicker, not only limiting my fists of fury to encounters with boys, but also including girls in the mix.
One of my most memorable tussles was with my brother's wife, Dorothy. They were both in 4th grade, even back then my brother had the hots for her, but he was really, really shy. My brother had just passed an exam with flying colors and their teacher had complimented him in front of the whole class. Dorothy started calling him "teacher's pet", then got the rest of her girlfriends to join in endlessly taunting my brother. This went on for days, before school, after school and during recess. Finally one day, I had enough. I saw my brother almost crying in a corner and decided to confront Dorothy. It was during recess, she was holding hands with three or four friends and I nicely asked her to stop bothering my brother. She obviously thought it was funny, that this little girl a year younger than her would dare speak to her, much less threaten her. She brushed me off and began making fun of me, when I decided to bring out the guns. She didn't even have time to flinch, I was on top of her, fists flying and feet kicking, like a furious ass-kicking storm. A teacher saw what was happening and quickly separated us. Needless to say, she never bothered my brother again...but he was really pissed at me, because now there was no chance she would like him, either.
I made lots of enemies behaving this way; one of them was Dominique Blanc. He was about 2 years older than me and about 50lbs heavier. Looking back, I think he was also mildly retarded, but that didn't stop him from beating up kids just for fun. He lived right by my house and everyday, he would wait for my brother and I to walk home from school, hiding in bushes, to beat us up. We would run home as fast as we could to avoid him. One day, I told David the two of us could certainly take him on, if we combined forces. Dominique jumped out of the bushes and I faced him, fists up, jumping around like Ali, ready for my brother and I to take him down. "Come on, dude, bring it on, we're going to whoop your ass!" He looks at me and says: "Oh, yeah? You and what army?" I turned around just in time to notice my brother had ran away and was screaming at Dominique: "Beat her up! Take her out!" Yeah, that's right, my brother the wimp was actually telling my archenemy to beat me up. I took advantage of his confusion by throwing one hard punch right at his nose, then ran like hell, looking back to make sure he wasn't chasing me....and ran face first into a huge pile of cow dung.
It worked though, 'cause Dominique Blanc never bothered us again... but my brother got the beating of a lifetime. From me.

Okay, that's just nasty!...Part Deux

My years spent working at Dillards brought me such a treasure trove of memories, most of them involving bodily excretions and tales of robberies gone wrong.
Within the same year, three really disgusting things happened to me in a Dillards fitting room.
It was my first assistant manager position and one of my duties was to periodically check the fitting rooms, to ensure all clothing had been removed and fitting rooms cleaned for the next customer. On this occasion, as I was removing clothes left in a pile on the floor, I noticed two little perfectly round plastic bags, filled with a liquid. My friend Brenda happened to walk by as I was doing so and saw me with the two little bags in my hands. I told her I thought it was the weirdest shaped bottle of apple juice I had ever seen, when she informed me the bags were actually bags full of urine, discarded by a customer with a catheter. Fortunately, I wasn't thirsty.
A few months later, I got called to the junior department by an associate, completely freaked out. When I got there, she was babbling incoherently about "someone pooping in the fitting room". I thought this time I would get some back-up. I called my fellow manager Jim and together we entered the scene of the crime. What we found was disturbing: a single, long, black turd was sitting dead in the center of the fitting room floor. I screamed in disgust, while my friend Jim got some tissue paper to pick it up. He gathered it in the tissue and suddenly, without warning, was bringing it to his nose to smell it! I thought I was going to vomit, until we both realized it actually wasn't poop, but a chocolate/chocolate chip cookie someone had cleverly shaped into a turd.
A smell actually led me to my third case. I was walking by the mens denim area, when the most horrible scent assaulted my senses. It was pure, unadulterated s***. My associates noticed me sniffing and a couple of them joined me on the hunt.
What we found was inexplicable. A customer, who obviously could not hold it in, had thrown some clothes on the floor of the fitting room, taken an indescribable huge crap on them, then covered it up with more clothing. Needless to say, Dillards booked a huge loss that day, as about $800 of brand new clothing was mercifully thrown directly into the trash compactor.

My very first year in Switzerland

I've always led a very eventful life. When I was 6 years old and living in Italy, my father got a job in Switzerland. He moved there three months ahead of the rest of us and settled in a small apartment. My brother and I had 3 months of french lessons before we started school in Granois, an invisible village way, way up in the mountains, with a population of about 500. My dad had found this really charming typical-swiss chalet, complete with geraniums on the balcony, but only comprising of 5 rooms: a master, an invisible room for my brother and I with bunk beds, a bathroom, kitchen and invisible living room.
My first day of school, I didn't speak a single word of French: those lessons only taught me things like lit (bed), chambre (room) and bonjour (hello). Since I wasn't looking for a hotel room, it made things a little difficult... On top of the language barrier, Granois was so small the school was actually old military barracks from the '40s, each with a working fire place and flagstone floors. We did not use paper notebooks, but instead all our homework was done on individual small chalkboards we would use in class and take home.
Winter of 1976 was one of the snowiest on record; so much snow, in fact, that my brother and I skied to school. Yes, you read that right, we would get up in the morning, put on our snowsuits, put our ski boots on, tie our skis on (back then, bindings were actually rubber bands) and ski down the mountain all the way to our school! My dad would come pick us up at the end of the day, load up all our gear and take us home. It was fantastic! Looking back, I was constantly expecting Maria from "the Sound of Music", to come strolling into my house, over the background of "the hills are alive..." blah,blah,blah.
I only attended the first grade in Granois, by the following year, my father had moved us down in the valley, to Sion.
....But that's another story.

Embarrassing moments...Part VI

Is it actually possible to remember a blunder way back when you were 5 years old? If you are like me, yes, absolutely.
The year is 1974. The place: Galliate, Italy, about 30 miles outside of Milan. My family was living on the top floor of an apartment building. One floor below lived my best friend, Cristina, and her family. Our mothers were friends, so we would hang out together every day after school and every weekend.
On this day, my mother and her friend were having afternoon tea and cookies, Cristina and I decided to play in the living room. We were both really into Barbies back then, as most little girls are. We would spend hours playing dress up, inventing little stories and play-acting. We had already played "Barbie is a model", "Barbie is a princess", "Barbie is an actress", "Barbie is a bride" and others, when we decided our Barbies were decidedly more serious and therefore needed to have a better job. After talking about different positions, we determined "doctor" was probably the best.
We had been playing for an hour or so, when I suggested it would be fun to play doctor with ourselves. Cristina had a toy stethoscope, so we took turns listening to each other's heartbeats. One thing led to another and soon we both had our pants down, inspecting our nether areas. My mother walked in just in time to catch Cristina lying face down on the couch while I was inserting a pen up where the sun don't shine, trying to take her temperature.
My mom let out a high-pitched scream, ran towards me, pulled the aforementioned pen out of Cristina's behind and dragged me out of the room by my arm. She told me: "Just wait 'til your father gets home, you are in so much trouble!"
I had no idea what the heck she was talking about, I was just 5 years old...but I knew how to play the game.
I got in my pajamas and waited for my father on the stairs; as soon as I saw him, I immediately began crying and apologizing, knowing it would be impossible for him to spank me, since I was already crying.
When my mother told him what I had done, he laughed.
Once again, I had escaped unscathed.

Hollywood, here I come!

Did I ever tell you I almost went into the movie business? In 1987, I was going to school in Las Cruces, New Mexico, my parents lived in Deming. A crew from Italy came to Deming to film "Sonny Boy", a dark/horror flick starring David Carradine (Kung Fu) and Paul Smith (the big guy from Dune). My parents were invited on the set one day, got to be friendly with the all Italian crew, including the director, the producer and the big money guy, Ovidio Assonitis, owner of Cannon films at the time.
They all came to my parents' house for dinners and for parties and before the month was up, my parents had formed friendships that last to this day.
The following year, the whole crew came back, this time to Las Cruces, to film "The Curse II: The Bite", a horror flick starring J. Eddie Peck (soap star) and Jill Schoelen, who was the "it" scream queen at the time, having just starred in "The Stepfather". Also starring in the movie, an actually kinda big star, Jamie Farr, of MASH fame. My parents took me to the set on the first day of filming and told me that since I didn't have anything better to do that summer, I would be working on the movie set, doing whatever they needed me to do. AWESOME!!!
I started out by helping the costume designer with all the outfits for the different scenes and taking Polaroid pictures for continuity. Soon after, they had me in a black wig and dark sunglasses, driving a Jeep all over New Mexico, standing in for Jill Schoelen on second-unit shots. The picture above is of me and key-grip Dante Cardone in White Sands Ntl. Park, on a day we were filming there.(sweet guy, really good looking too, but his girlfriend Camille worked as a make-up artist on the shoot, sooo...) I must have driven that Jeep for a good two weeks, all over the place, in 100 degree heat, without A/C.
After those two weeks in hell, the director asked me if I wanted to be Jill's stunt double...to which I answered "Hell, yes!"
Should have thought about it...and remembered that this picture was about a guy who gets bitten by a snake and turns into one...found myself knee-deep in a mud pit, barefooted, with about 200 snakes around me! Live snakes! All kind of snakes! Rattle snakes! Forget "Snakes on a Plane", this was "Snakes in the Mud"! I was armed with a wooden pole and was supposed to pretend I was killing the snakes (no animals were hurt on this movie). This scene was filmed behind a restaurant in Las Cruces, with about 100 people milling around, watching me in awe. I did get bit by one of the rattle snakes, fortunately they did not have any venom...did hurt like a bitch, though.
In another scene, they had me jump from a sewage tunnel onto a mattress about 50 times to get it right, all this surrounded, of course, by more mud and more snakes. I also got to do a scene on the roadway with hundreds of tarantulas; ended up taking one home as a pet, naming her Penelope and letting her roam freely around the house. She finally committed suicide, leaping to her death from my fourth floor balcony (to this day, my brother is terrified of spiders and of anyone named Penelope).
The director loved my work so much he asked me to come with the crew to California, where they were doing a movie with Molly Ringwald called (I think) "Fresh Horses". I was a sophomore in college, my parents had a hissy fit when I told them I was considering the offer, told me to finish school, then I could go "Hollywood".
Just in case, I prepared a portfolio showing all my assets, including the picture above, taken by my brother, in his room. (how artsy!)
Obviously, I never made it to Hollywood, but that summer remains the best summer of my life. I really enjoyed myself... No sex...but lots and lots of making out... with Matt Clark (second-unit director)....with Bruce Marciano (actor)... with Jamie Farr's son (total doofus).... Mom, I'm sorry you had to find out this way.

Okay, that's just nasty!

About 8 years ago, when I first became a manager with Dillards, I was placed at the absolutely scummiest store in Phoenix as a men's area manager. I had 30 associates working for me, 20 of which were young guys, who cracked me up with their jokes and their gross sense of humor.
One of my associates, Mike, was particularly deranged. He always found the perfect occasion to demean his fellow employees and make everyone laugh at their expense.
One day, Mike walked into my office carrying what appeared to be a wet t-shirt. "Lara," he says, "I found this wet shirt on the floor in the fitting room, it still has tags on it, but it's wet. I don't know why." He hands it to me so I can try to figure out if it's just water, so we can let it dry and put it back on the selling floor. I stick my nose really close to it and start sniffing it.
After three or four sniffs, I say "it smells weird, I don't know kind of like chlorine or bleach...." Mike just looks at me and starts busting out laughing, his face turning all red, having a hard time catching his breath.
I just cannot figure out why he is laughing so hard. He finally calms down and tells me: "well, you know what smells like bleach..." and does an obscene hand gesture, closed fist moving up and down... Yes, it's exactly what you think. I stuck my nose in some guys' bodily excretions.
From that day on, everytime my associates found clothes with stains on them, they would put them on my desk with a note:
"Lara, can you please smell this and let us know what it is."