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L.A. Affairs: I went to the ER after a fall. But I might have left with a boyfriend

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L.A. Affairs: I went to the ER after a fall. But I might have left with a boyfriend

I am an 81-year-old widow with shaky balance. But friends have told me that I have a face and outlook as those of a younger woman. Not too long ago, after I finished breakfast, a strange feeling came over me. My whole body, mind included, felt numb and spaced out. Seated at my dining room table, I felt my body lean to the right, then to the left.

I struggled to keep my eyes open. Through all of this, I was aware my body was still swerving. Afraid I’d fall to the floor, which I have done before, I stood up, hoping to shake off whatever had taken control of my body.

As I neared the kitchen, my body gave way and I fell. Hard. Twice I tried to get up but couldn’t. I was alone, in shock, with no way to get help.

My first thought was to call 911, but my cell was on the dining table where I always kept it.

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Scooting on my butt, I made it to the counter. Reaching up as far as I could, I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. I remembered I had given a key to my neighbor and friend Rodney, so I gave his number to the firefighter who answered my call.

The ambulance came quickly. It was 9:30 a.m. when I arrived, and Long Beach Memorial Medical Center was eerily quiet. A nurse came into my room and asked me some questions, took my blood pressure, pricked my finger and withdrew a tiny amount of blood, then said the doctor would be in soon. I had nothing to do but lie there and wait. And listen.

I heard a nurse asking questions of her patient in the “room” to my right. It was not difficult to hear since these rooms were divided only by drapes.

“How tall are you?”

“Six-six,” a deep masculine voice responded.

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Six-six? Wow! That got my attention.

“Do you drink?” she asked.

“Every day,” he said jokingly.

“What is your cell number?” I heard the numbers, and for some crazy reason, I wrote them down.

“When was the last time you had a drink?”

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“Last night I went out with my buddies and had a few beers.”

So, he’s single! Great! He seemed so convivial that instead of being repulsed, I was turned on.

I had a strong urge to talk to him, but that would be weird, right? I reminded myself we were in a hospital, not at a social event. Still, my desire to connect with him was more powerful than my good sense.

“Hi, neighbor,” I called out before saying, “You sound so clever and cute that I had to say hi.” Oh, my God, I did it!

“Hi, neighbor,” he replied warmly.

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Excited, heart racing, I anticipated he’d continue the conversation. But he didn’t. So I figured that was that, but I wondered why.

Then I heard a female voice different from his nurse. His wife. He’s married. Damn.

The doctor finally came in to see me. He said my blood pressure was normal, and the blood test was fine.

“I just want to get a CT scan of your head. I’m not expecting to find anything but just in case.”

A tech pushed aside the drapes and entered my tiny space with a gurney. We happened to go in the direction of my neighbor’s room. A strained glance through the small opening in his drapes was all I needed. He was attractive!

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On my way back from the scan, I again peeked into the narrow opening to his room. This time I caught sight of a youngish woman and two gray-haired men I assumed to be his buddies. I was shocked! Gray hair? My neighbor had light red hair from what I could tell.

Back in my room, I waited for the doctor. That my neighbor (I wished I knew his name) was married threw a wrench into the possibilities. Then I heard another female voice, low, kind of sexy, also scratchy and highly annoying.

“You know, guys, if Dad had given me any reason for worry, I would have called you right away.”

Daughter? So not married. Single! Still single. No wonder he didn’t say more.

My doctor finally returned. “Everything is fine. You can go home.”

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After nine hours at the hospital, I got dressed in the only piece of clothing I had with me: my nightgown. A tinge of sadness swept over me.

I stepped out of the room and paused to take one last look toward my neighbor’s room and saw a gurney transporting him somewhere. CT scan? MRI? Surgery? I watched him being wheeled away until the gurney was out of sight. Then I left.

I replayed the experience in my head. I was kind of proud that I had the chutzpah to do it. It was a little adventure and a welcome diversion.

After I got home, I called a close girlfriend, Beverly, to tell her about my fun fantasy and that I wrote his phone number down, but that I would never contact him.

She said, “I think you should.”

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“I’m not going to do it. He’d think I was a stalker.”

We had several back-and-forths about this. The last thing I said to her was, “Why should I?”

“Because you never know.”

“Not doing it,” I said loudly, hoping the subject would finally be dropped. But what she said stuck in my head.

A few days later, throwing caution to the wind, I texted him. He texted me back: “Hi, neighbor.” Several texts and pictures later, he said, “I want to meet you.” Oh, my God.

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“What do you have in mind?”

“I’m a spontaneous guy. How about today? 5? El Torito in Long Beach.”

“I can be spontaneous. El Torito is perfect. See you at 5.”

My fantasy was becoming a reality!

Then Beverly called me. “How are things going?”

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“I can’t talk. I’m meeting him in an hour.”

“Good luck! And don’t forget …”

“I remember.” We said it together, “You never know!”

I hung up and finished getting dressed, my heart racing — in a good way — at what I was about to do.

The author is a freelance writer who wrote a memoir, “My Sexual Awakening at 70,” published on Amazon. She also has written three psychological suspense novels, which are available for representation.

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L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

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‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

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‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer

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‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

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‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Neve Campbell in Scream 7.

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The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.

Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture

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Smoke a joint and get deep with flowers at this guided floral design workshop in DTLA

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Smoke a joint and get deep with flowers at this guided floral design workshop in DTLA

Abriana Vicioso is the host of the Flower Hour, which takes place monthly.

(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Each flower carries a personal history. For Abriana Vicioso, the calla lily was her parents’ wedding flower — a symbol of her mother’s beauty. “She had this big, beautiful white calla lily in her hair,” Vicioso says. “I love my parents. They’re the reason I’m here. I’ll never forget where I came from.”

The Flower Hour begins with Vicioso announcing, with a warm smile: “Today is about touching grass.” The florist-by-trade gestures behind her to hundreds of flowers contained in buckets — blue thistles, ivory anemones and calla lilies painted silver — all twisted and unfurling into the air. “Tonight is going to be so sweet and intimate,” Vicioso says, eyeing the beautiful chaos at her feet. A grin buds across her face.

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Moments before the workshop, participants sit at candlelit tables exchanging horoscopes and comparing their favorite flowers. A mention of the illustrious bird-of-paradise flower elicits coos and awe from the women. Izamar Vazquez, who is from Jalisco, Mexico, reveals her fondness for roses, which make her feel connected to her Mexican roots.

Vicioso hosts her flower-themed wellness workshop near the iconic Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown L.A. In January, the first Flower Hour event sold out, prompting her to make it a monthly series. Vicioso describes the event as a “three-part journey” where participants are invited to drink herbal tea, smoke rose-petal-rolled cannabis joints and create a floral arrangement. “The guide is to connect with the medicine of flowers,” Vicioso says.

Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event's offerings.
Herbal tea is part of the event's offerings.
Floral arranging is the main activity.

Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event’s offerings.

The event is hosted at the Art Club, a membership-based co-working space. “The Flower Hour is really beautiful. Everyone gets to explore their creativity while meeting new people,” says Lindsay Williams, the co-owner of the Art Club.

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The idea for Flower Hour came to Vicioso during a conversation with her mother. “We joke all the time that flowers were destined to make their way into my life,” she says. She works as a florist and models on the side, even appearing in the pages of Vogue. Vicioso grew up in a Caribbean household, where flowers and offerings were part of daily life. “In my culture and religion, a lot of my family practices — an Afro-Caribbean religion — we build altars.”

Like many cultures, flowers carry sentimental value in her religion. “I’m Caribbean, so a lot of my family practices a Yoruba religion, which comes from Africa. In the Caribbean, it’s well known as Santería.”

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After a difficult year and a breakup, Vicioso wanted to marry her love of flowers with community building. Because Vicioso uses cannabis medicinally, the workshop naturally includes a smoking component. “My family has smoked cannabis for a lot of reasons for a long time. It’s a really healing plant,” she explains.

In the workshop, even the cannabis gets the floral treatment. Vicioso presents her rose-petal-wrapped joints on a silver platter at each table. She rolled each by hand. “If you’ve never smoked a rose-petal-rolled joint, the difference with this is it’s going to have roses that have a slight tobacco effect,” she announces.

During the workshop, Vicioso stresses the importance of buying cannabis from local vendors. The cannabis provided was purchased from a Northern Californian vendor. The wellness workshop aims to reclaim the healing ritual of smoking cannabis. “This is a plant that has been commercialized,” Vicioso says. “There’s a lot of Black and Brown people who are in jail for this plant.”

The resulting workshop is what Vicioso describes as “an immersive wellness experience that is the intersection of wellness, creativity, community and an appreciation of flowers.” The workshop serves as a reminder to enjoy Earth’s innate beauty in the form of flowers — including cannabis. “It’s this gift that the universe gave us for free and that I have this deep connection with,” Vicioso says.

Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (left). The workshop serves as a "third space" for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: Participants smoke marijuana during The Flower Hour, a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: The Flower Hour is a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (top, letf). The workshop serves as a “third space” for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.

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After enjoying lavender chamomile tea and smoking a joint, Vicioso introduces the flowers to the group before inviting them to pick their own. She emphasizes each flower’s personality traits, describing green dianthus as a “Dr. Seuss” plant. Then, there are calla lilies with their “main character moment.” It gets personal. “Start thinking of a flower in your life that you can discover,” she says. “If you’re feeling like you need inspiration, you can always remember that these flowers have stories.”

Vicioso infuses wisdom into her instruction on floral arrangements: There are no mistakes. Let the flowers tell you where they want to go, she urges. Intuition will be your guide — the wilder, the better.

“Hecho in Mexico” reads a sticker on a bunch of green stems. “Like me,” says Vazquez with a laugh. “They’re all doing their own thing. Like a family,” she says later, arranging stems.

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The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements.

The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements at the sold-out event.

Two participants — Vazquez and Rebeca Alvarado — are friends who run a floral design company together called Izza Rose. Like Vicioso, the friends have a connection to flowers through their Latin American culture. They met Vicioso in the floral industry and were overjoyed to discover her workshop.

“This is a great way to connect with other people,” says Vazquez.

Alvarado agrees, adding: “You’re getting to know people outside of going to bars. You can connect in different ways when there’s an activity.”

Vazquez uses flowers to stay connected to her Mexican heritage, adding that she prefers to support Mexican vendors. In recent months, the downtown L.A. flower market has struggled to recover from ongoing ICE raids. “Some are scared to come back,” says Vazquez.

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Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: The Flower Hour is a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
LOS ANGELES, CA -- FEBRUARY 22, 2026: The Flower Hour is a floral design workshop + floral smoke sesh at The ArtClub in downtown. Photographed on Sunday, February 22, 2026. (Jennifer McCord / For The Times)

Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.

Another participant, Barbara Rios, was attracted to the workshop for stress relief. “You can hang out with your friends, but it’s nice to do things with your hands,” she says. “I work a stressful job, and it’s nice to have that third space that we’re all craving.”

On this February night, the participants were predominantly women, save for one man. In the future, Vicioso hopes that more men learn to engage with flowers. “There’s a statistic about men receiving flowers for the first time at their funerals, and I think we have changed that,” she says.

To conclude the workshop, Vicioso encourages participants to build lasting friendships and incorporate flower arranging into their daily practice — even if it’s just with a small, inexpensive bouquet.

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“Get some flowers together, go to the park, hang out with each other and hang out with me,” she says. Participants leave with flower arrangements in hand. In the darkness of the night air, it briefly looks as though the women carry silver calla lilies that are blooming from their palms.

A finished floral arrangement.

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