When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.I’ve been in LA for the last nine days. Why do I love that city so much, every crumbling bungalow and broken neon sign. I love the palms and cypress, a shock of bougainvillea crawling over a cement wall. I love the cars, the traffic, the fumes. I love the lot where my sister’s directing a film, the fridge filled with Popo Gigio and Perrier, the golf cart, the white board, the stars (I didn’t actually see any, but I feel I did). Even the biggest cliche of all, the Hollywood Sign, moves me in a kind of Tarantino way in that I’m both in awe of it and want to torch it. I wish I had brought my cape and leather gloves. I love LA because I’ve been living the dream in my own mind since I was seven years old.
What’s your secret dream?
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Betsy Lerner 
I have many – one fits the L.A. paradigm – to see one of my books made into film.
And this post makes me want to come see L.A.
“What’s your secret dream?”
Well, now, if I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a secret, would it? I don’t think I have any secret dreams, anyway. I call them all fiction and write them up, send them around to be reviewed for publication.
Here’s one that’s almost secret (and less secret now), and is not fiction — that someone would make a movie out of Franny & Toby. It would be a sure winner. Think The Fantastic Mr. Fox in the suburbs. With sky-swimmers!
Fancy dress. Long narrow red bathmat. Speech.
Many. One: Actually being a full-fledged geisha for a day. Call it exoticism, call it inappropriate appropriation. I don’t care. It’s my secret dream after all. The preparation, the dressing, padding down streets strewn with falling cherry blossoms toward a destination, removing my shoes, entering in my white-socked feet, demonstrating expert dancing and fan skills, performing, playing a musical instrument. Yes, Memoirs of a Geisha (only the idealized romantic exotic parts) for a day. Done skewer me. It’s a dream.
A cabin in Vermont on fifty wooded acres. And a lake or a river. A big stacked stone fireplace in the kitchen. Lots of birch trees. Hiking trails. A porch for having my morning coffee (or tea) at whatever time I choose to get up. And somewhere on the property, a tree house.