Valentine's Day 2002

 On Valentine’s Day 2002, charity began at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (she of Pretty Woman fame) for lunch. This wasn’t any old chic luncheon, this was the Beverly Hills Old Guard charity luncheon and fashion show sponsored by The Colleagues, a group of very very rich older ladies with nothing to do except ‘host’ charity luncheons, in style. 

As I pulled up, I wasn’t particularly surprised at the number of high voltage cars in the valet area, although I was amused at the valets’ stares when I turned up in my trusty Saturn. They had that “hired help park in the rear” look when I ground to a stop. Undaunted, I was my usual chipper self and twerped “try not to scratch it” as I tossed my keys to whoever.  

Walking through that sea of multi-face lifted, anatomically corrected and hair dyed babes, I was grateful that I was just visiting. I had the same creepy feeling that I might have walking through the Hollywood wax museum; Gloria Swanson stared at me again and again. I thought that some of those smiling cat faces ought not to be allowed out before dark, speaking of scaring the horses. 

Anyway, once inside, I looked for my friends’ table. Colleen, whose mommy is one of the Pasadena OG, had been attending this event with her mom for many years. As time went on, sisters and friends were added to the group and eventually they had a table of their own. Half of the table’s costs were subsidized by mommy’s firm, which made the event only mildly unaffordable. We did appreciate the irony of her being listed in the program as one of the Sponsors (buy a table, be a sponsor), right next to Betsy Bloomingdale and Arlene Sprague; nice table, nice view. I was clearly out of my league here, but having a good time nonetheless. 

And it was Valentine’s Day so the view was a sea of cherry, burgundy, fuchsia, hot pink and shades of red that God did not intend to be part of nature. Of course, God probably didn’t envision a sea of smiling cheshire cats either. I was shocked, though, that a number of those babes were wearing satin and velvet before five o’clock. Maybe I wasn’t out of my league here. Where was the fashion police. 

After we had air kissed, said our hellos and settled in, I had time to peruse my goody bag and was somewhat annoyed to find that it included a bottle of men’s cologne in a velvet bag (what was I supposed to do with that?). Putting our bags back down, we set ourselves to the serious business of determining who was who. We could do so with impunity because we knew that we were nobody (at least I knew that I was nobody in this crowd; I wasn’t even wearing red). There was Nancy Reagan, looking a little chubby; might have been the dress. Betsy Bloomingdale was wearing a dress with a fur collar; what the hell was that about - it was 74 degrees outside. There were a number of famous faces out there, even a few famous men, but when the food arrived, we lost interest in outfits, except for one babe who must have gotten lost on her way to an ice skating event. She was wearing a short skirted red sequin affair with a black bustier and a coordinating black Sonja Henie hat with red flowers that sat up another six inches over the crown. 

After lunch the fashion show began - a retrospective of Pierre Cardin’s career (which explained the men’s cologne). He sat next to Larry King, who later came up to the podium and sang My Funny Valentine to his wife du jour. I was impressed that he could remember her name, never mind the lyrics to the song; that alone was the price of admission. 

And then the event was over and Colleen and I all milled around, standing and waiting for our cars. I knew mine would be one of the last to arrive because it would have been parked the furthest away from the more splendid cars. While we waited, I realized that Ricardo Montalban (he of the genuine Corinthian leather fame) was seated by me. I did my best to ignore him, but he spoke  first by apologizing for not standing and then launched into a long saga about his five hour back operation; can’t say that I was riveted, but listening seemed to be the polite thing to do. Meanwhile, his wife Georgiana was not amused by the attention he was bestowing upon me and quite rudely suggested to Colleen that I was misbehaving. Colleen struck back by calling out “well, he hit on her first”. Fortunately, their car arrived at that very moment. I was, gratefully, left  to wonder about the possible outcome of that little scuffle. 

As I suspected, my car was one of the last to arrive. I looked it over to be sure that it had not been scratched or dinged before tipping the valet and heading back to real life.