Ode to L, my personal fixer

In the news business, foreign bureaus traditionally have had a "fixer," a local who speaks the language and knows everyone and gets things done. Often this person is given a title that has nothing to do with his or her actual duties. They're like CIA agents. One fixer, who never had a photograph published in the magazine he worked for, was listed in the masthead as a photographer. When I was writing his obituary, I looked high and low for examples of his work. None existed. But tales of his problem-solving genius and courage under (literal) fire abounded. Often fixers are called office managers. They don't manage just the office though. They manage everything. They are the heart of the news business, consummate matchmakers, human bulletin boards synching symbiotic needs. They finesse visas, find official and anonymous sources, squirrel correspondents out of tight spots, smooth over diplomatic crises, solve every problem known to man or woman.

Well, I have a personal fixer, sort of like a fairy godmother, named L. When I was a fact checker, L tipped off the editors to try me out as a writer. When my animal-loving daughter was looking for a summer internship, L linked her up with an old friend who ran the primo animal hospital in the city. When I was trying to decide whether to have immediate reconstruction after my mastectomy, L hooked me up with a woman who'd had virtually the same procedure I was considering—with the same breast surgeon. When I was emptying out my parents' pied-a-terre and didn't know what to do with all the junk, L arrived with a friend who just loved junk, and they carted it all off in an SUV.

When my mom's troubles began, I flashed on my fixer, but it didn't feel right to call her about my problems since I hadn't had a chance to celebrate her birthday, hadn't even talked to her since she'd gotten back from her last trip abroad. 

Yesterday I ran into L in the Union Square greenmarket, and we made a date for dinner. Lo and behold, turns out L has contacts in the San Francisco Finnish community (there's a Finnish community in San Francisco?!) who supplement their Social Security by doing eldercare—preparing meals, providing transportation, running errands, keeping people company—in my parents' neighborhood. I've already talked to one of the Finns on the phone about helping my 'rents, and she says if she can't do it, she knows who can.

How does she do this? I don't know. I think it's magic.