Los Angeles, CA. Los Feliz haircut. 2009
Kay, the social worker at Jewish Family Services who connected us, told me Ruth was very sick before we ever met. She'd had heart surgery and she wasn't doing well, according to Kay, who made it sound like I'd be lucky to get 6 months out of my new friendship with this little old Jewish lady who lived about 10 blocks from my apartment just south of the slums of Beverly Hills. Luckily for me, Ruth turned out to be a bull, as fragile as she may have seemed, and lived another 10 years or so. For the first few years our visits were mostly once-a-week and we got to hear a LOT of details about each other's life. Then I went off traveling for a couple years, before settling back down for a few years in Temecula—2 hours from L.A. But then I fell in love with a girl who lived not far from Ruth's latest assisted living situation in Los Feliz. Soon, Ruth got to fall hard for Molly too. It was a beautiful thing seeing them together. I'm so grateful I got to hang out and get to know this woman. Here's an excerpt from B.O.B. a blog story (vol. 1 — here & there) about one of my visits with Ruth. Ruth was an old community theater actress, so she was okay with me taking her picture and videotaping some of our conversations. One of these days I'll get around to posting more of that stuff. Until then, here are some of my favorite Ruth pics. We miss you, Ruth!