Yesterday X and I drove out to the Santa Monica Airport and had an Excellent Adventure.  If either of us was better with names, we'd be dangerous. 

"Oh look," I said, "There's whatshisname, I see him all the time at the gym.  I almost didn't recognize him with a shirt on.  And a sport coat.  And is that an Ascot?  And is that his mother he's shepherding around?"

X was admiring a group of cast iron figures we used to call Lawn Jockeys, their hands out to take the reins of your horse and usually surrounded by geraniums.  "They'd only look this good if you had all seven of them," X muttered.  "That's not his mother," she explained to me, once she'd turned to get a good look.  "That's the wife of whatshisname. You know, the one who was in that movie about being alone for years on an island and falling in love with a soccer ball."

"Are you sure?" I asked.  "I can't put that in the Blog if you're not absolutely --"

"Ohmygod," she gasped, "look over -- no don't look now -- okay now look.  Isn't that whatshername who's in all those French movies you love where they do nothing but sing?  The one about the umbrellas and --"

"-- That is Not Cathy," I corrected her with harsh certainty; then relented.  "Although I admit there's a vague resemblance.  But only because of all that Louis Seize and Paris Flea Market stuff behind her."

It wasn't very long, however, before everyone began looking famous or familiar which inevitably happens in L.A. and we lost interest.  I proceeded to admire a collection of tortoise shell snuff boxes in sizes ranging from tiny to diminutive.  Each was valued at roughly my monthly rent.  And the problem, as X pointed out, is that you really needed to have a dozen or so to make an impact.  One would just get lost.

X meanwhile was coveting a Tramp Art chest of drawers made from Lincoln Logs.  Or so it appeared.  "Cigar boxes," X and the dealer explained disparagingly.  I was on the other hand drawn to the adjoining booth and to a small Josef Hoffman vase that looked like it'd been made from my brother's Erector Set.  "He made a lovely steam shovel from them once," I reminisced with the deeply unimpressed dealer.

And yet we completely ignored the booth of antique children's toys.  Still, I believe we were both relieved if not slightly startled to realize that in spite of all the economic gloom and the world food crisis and the alarming rise in gas prices and the mortgage debacle and the collapse of western civilization as we know it, some people were obviously doing very well.  Looking on the bright side, we reminded ourselves that even in the Depression, the very rich did not exactly starve.

X, who is drawn to rolling stock, was almost happier in the parking lot.  "Oh look there's the new Bentley. God," she said in hushed reverence.

"That?" I asked, pointing at a GMC Exxon Valdez, but she ignored me.

"And get a load of the new Jag," she exclaimed admiringly as we pulled out.

"You mean Tata," I replied.