Happy Birthday!

First, I want to say Happy Birthday to Cindy from Victorville. I don't want to blast it out to the world, but at the same time I wanted her to know that I knew and thought about her today.

It just so happens her birthday falls on the same day as someone else I once knew.

As many of my friends and readers know, Pete was a big part of my life for several years. I didn't do anything that didn't somehow relate directly to or about Pete. Well, today is Pete's birthday, and in a moment of clarity and peace, my way of celebrating a wonderful 3 years of my life is to celebrate Pete on his day.

I've not seen or heard from Pete in over a year now. I don't know if he still lives in the old house or drives the same car, and though I wish him well, these are details I care very little about. I don't know if he or his family read my blogs. That's not what this is about. This is about a part of my life that will always be a part of my history, through all the good and bad. This isn't a 'last ditch' effort to get his attention or the attention of his family or friends. This is just simply what it is - remembering Pete and the years we spent together.

The day I had the date with my ex at the Donald Trump Country Club and I wore nothing but lingerie and a trench coat, I took the long way around the Palos Verdes Peninsula. As I pulled up to a stop light, I couldn't help but notice a couple of very nice Harley Davidson motorcycles in front of me a few car lengths ahead. On them sat two fairly young, fairly good looking men from what I could tell under the heavy leathers and black helmets. I knew the two lane road ahead merged into one around the land slide area in about a mile, so if I wanted to get adventurous and flirt with two guys on motorcycles, I had to step on it and get around the cars in front of me. Luckily, one of the guys looked like he hadn't been riding for very long and both were taking it easy.

I dropped the top on my Miata while I sat there waiting for the light to change. As soon as it did I goosed the gas when the cars in front of me moved. Within a half a mile I managed to scoot around the other cars and catch up to the bikes. I had to drive a bit more like a maniac than usual, but I had taken racing classes at Willow Springs the year before. I knew my car very well and could handle it like a pro. When I got next to the bikes, I slowed down. I smiled at the guy in the rear, and then scooted up a bit and smiled at the one in the front. It worked.

(The stretch of road known as the

Portuguese Bend Land Slide area)

I goosed it a bit and shot on past them both before the lanes merged. Driving at least 20 miles an hour over the 35 mph speed limit, I took turns and dips at such a rate of speed my car threatened to leave the road like a car chase scene in a movie filmed on the streets of San Francisco. I had barely cleared the treacherous area when one of the bikes pulled up beside me.

"Don't make us chase you," the lead rider shouted to me through the open top of my car. "Pull over."

I drove about another 100 yards before I found the perfect spot to pull off. It was at the entrance to a gated community, and as I pulled in the security guard in the booth out front looked at me funny. The two motorcycles pulled in beside me.

"Hi," the lead rider said to me. "I'm Bryan."

"Amanda," I replied. "Nice to meet you."

"This is my buddy Pete," he introduced the guy on the other side of him. Pete nodded in my direction. "You'd never know it from the bikes, but we're cops."

Oh great, I thought. Now I'm gonna hear it. I was driving like a maniac.

"Great," I said. My mouth let fly with the words I had been thinking. "Now you're going to give me a ration of $hit for the way I was driving." I grimaced. My eyes have always been my best physical feature, and to ease the coming lecture, I removed my sun glasses at that moment. It worked.

"No," he said, "not at all." he smiled. "Actually we were pretty impressed. Usually girls cant handle cars that well." Somewhere deep inside a part of me burst out laughing at the idiotic comment as I thought about Danika Patrick. "So how about giving me your phone number," he said point blank.

Skip to a scene of me prancing about in lingerie in the middle of the dark night on the cliffs of Palos Verdes... (see previous blogs for the story here - titled Trump This).

(Bryan's bike)

The next day Bryan met me over by my apartment in Gardena. Yes, this is Bryan I'm talking about, not Pete. From my place we hoped on his bike and rode off over the same road on which we first met.

Within the hour he had decided that he was hungry. Bryan and I went back to his house where he cooked two plain chicken breasts on the grill. While he was outside, Pete came in and we struck up a conversation.

Give that a week and a second date with Bryan before the two had a long, sit down conversation about me.

So there it is, the sordid details about how I met Pete.

(Pete's bike with Pete)

I once heard the story that he had asked me out when he pulled me over. He told me that he couldn't ask for my number because it wasn't professional. He then stated clearly and calmly that he just happened to be getting off work in an hour and that he might just happen to go by the Starbucks at Sepulveda and Vermont. If I happened to be there, he might just happen to sit down and talk with me for a minute. But it was a big might. Then, he handed me back my drivers license and walked away. He didn't even give me the ticket for driving 95 on the freeway.

The story goes that he walked into Starbucks, saw me sitting at the table and walked up with a very serious look on his face. Standing before me, he slapped his hand on the table and bellowed "NOW," and he dropped his voice as he sat down with me, "can I have your phone number?"

I ask you - which story is better, the true or the false?

Anyway - Happy Birthday Pete and Cindy.

Many happy returns of the day.

Trump This!

This is one of the stories I've never told another living soul... and here I'm going to share it with the world.

There's a fun story involving the day I met Pete that is a dynamic not even related to or about Pete. It might surprise some of you to know that I was on my way to a date the day I met Pete on the road. It wasn't just a date - it was an ex-boyfriend. He and I had toyed with the idea of getting back together.

We were a little, how do you say, adventurous.
I'll never forget the email I got from him the day before.

"There is a package waiting for you outside of your office. Pick it up and take it home. This is what I want you to wear to dinner."

I drove the 6 miles to work, picked up a package, placed it in the passenger side of my car, and drove back home. Imagine the surprised look on my face when I opened the box and found nothing but a long black trench coat, a pair of 4" stiletto heels, a black teddy with a garter belt and stockings. There was nothing else in the box.

The black teddy fit me like it had been made for me. It slimmed my waist, boosted by chest, lengthened my legs and slipped with a silken sheen over my skin. It didn't cover much though, and it was about 90 degrees outside. There was no way I was going to be able to keep the trench coat on all night! I dug through the closet until I found a lovely crochet dress I'd had for a while and never worn, very similar to the one I had worn in the TV show "Alias" in 2005. It fit perfectly over the lingerie. I tucked the trench coat under my arm and walked to my car.

I was early leaving home and had no other plans, so I decided on a long drive down the coast. The sun was shining, I was in top form, and the lingerie against my skin made me feel more alive and excited than I was used to feeling. My car had just been washed and I had the top down.

I saw a couple of motorcycles riding down the coast in front of me. Something inside of me took over and told me to say hello. I drove up to them, flirted, was asked to pull over, gave out my phone number, then continued on my way. That's the short version of that story. One of the two motorcycle riders happened to be Pete.

I continued on then and went to dinner with my ex. As soon as I sat at the table, he noticed I had carried my trench coat under my arm. My lovely crochet dress was quite flattering on top of the lingerie - but it wasn't what he had wanted to see. Under minimal urging, I went to the bathroom, slipped out of my dress and put on the trench coat. Then I joined my ex at the dinner table at the Trump International Country Club wearing nothing but a jacket, lingerie and 4" stilettos.

I sat there for the rest of the meal, bundled up in a trench coat, sweating like crazy, wishing to high heaven I had kept my crochet dress on instead. When we finished eating, I couldn't wait to go to the ocean cliffs and take a moment to breathe! I was sweltering!

My ex set out a blanket on the ground, poured a couple of drinks from his engraved flask into two Glencarrin glasses, and pulled something out of a backpack just as I unbuttoned my trench. I threw open the coat just as I realized what it was he had in his hands - a camera.

He snapped a shot of me out in the middle of nowhere with a trench coat thrown open revealing a very exposed redhead in very little clothing standing on a cliff not far from the Donald Trump Country Club.

The resulting photos are eventually what ended my pursuit of a career in Law Enforcement. They surfaced each time I went to the backgrounds stage. They ended up being the demise of my relationship with Pete in that way. I've always found that ironic - that the photos taken the day I met him were a core reason he and I split up 3 years later ... and he to this day doesn't know those photos even existed. The relationship ended because I gave up on chasing a career in Law Enforcement. He thought I was a quitter. I knew the truth and never said a word.