My Dog Years: For Every Year I Walk Dogs, I Age 7

Homina, Homina, Homina

"She needs to poop. They have a newborn and probably didn't have time to take her out."

Bonnie speeds through the Wilshire Corridor where there is only concrete and nowhere to stop.

"Hang on, Chelsea."

It isn't until we turn north onto Whittier Drive where the Beverly Hills homes have sprawling green lawns that Bonnie pulls over, puts on her hazard lights and hops of out of the car with Chelsea. Lucas and Fig hop to the back of the SUV and watch Bonnie and Chelsea through the window. After a couple of minutes, Bonnie lifts the back hatch, helps a much more relaxed Chelsea up into the car and tosses a blue plastic Sunday Los Angeles Times delivery bag full of dog poop into the car. The potent odor wafts up to the front of the car.

"Don't worry, we'll get rid of that at our next stop."

By the time we travel the couple of miles to the Beverly Hills Hotel and make our way into Benedict Canyon, I already know there is no topic off limits to Bonnie. I had already heard about her first husband who was too traditional and her second husband who turned out to be gay.

"I should have known. He loved shopping at Barney's with me and was obsessed with David Schwimmer."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"I think he married me just so he could get a promotion at work. The other gay guy at the law firm where he worked was made partner, so I think he decided to try being straight."

As we turn onto one of the most prestigious uphill streets in the canyon, Bonnie explains she is on standby to housesit for a client whose brother is in hospice care. The situation is impacting her cash flow and vacation plans.

"I wish her brother would just hurry up and die."

I don't know how to respond to her outrageous statement so I avert my eyes and randomly spot Jay Leno coming toward us in a vintage roadster. Bonnie points at the late night host through her dirty windshield.

"You can set your clock by Jay. He comes down the hill in a different classic car every morning."

Finally, we pull up to a stately black iron gate with gold spires at the top. Bonnie rolls down her window and presses a button on the intercom.

"Hi, it's Bonnie."

Without any response, the gates draw open and we continue up a red brick paved driveway that is easily a quarter mile long. A Latino man in a golfcart speeding along in the opposite direction waves to Bonnie. She waves back cheerily.

"That's Salvador. He's the house manager."

I peer up through the windshield at the magnificent neo-Georgian mansion that sits atop an impeccably landscaped hillside. Bonnie looks over at me as she blows the dog hair off the lid of her metal coffee cup and takes a sip.

"Ted, my client who lives here, is a movie producer AND he owns an NFL football team. The house was just featured in Town & Country magazine. The whole family was in the photographs. Even the dogs."

We park in the elegant motor court behind his and hers matching Mercedes S-class sedans. A team of uniformed Latino gardeners sit on a low brick wall with a pair of blue-eyed, boy girl twin toddlers alongside a Latina woman who I assume is their nanny. Bonnie places a rough hand on her door handle then pauses. She drops her voice to a whisper.

"Bonzi is the nanny. She raised all of Ted's children from his first two marriages then retired. He asked her to come back when he got married again and had the twins. I don't know all of the gardener's names."