Category Archives: South Coasting

Cherishing each phrase of my life

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My father always knows how to say it best

“Don’t worry, honey. We’ll buy her pretty clothes and develop her personality.”

This was the first thing my Dad said to my mom when he saw me, his first-born.

Granted, this was 1963, I had a forceps-dented forehead, and the only labor fathers participated in those days was pacing the hospital halls and handing out cigars, so seeing this very un-Gerber-baby-like creature might have been a bit of a shock. Why he repeats the story every birthday is another matter.

Keep this in mind as I begin to tell you about a few of my father’s other favorite phrases. While most people’s Dads offer cliched fatherly wisdom about walking miles to school in the snow, earning just pennies an hour for backbreaking labor, or eating your vegetables because of starving children in faraway countries, my Dad is nothing if not an original.

Pain is Your Friend

Ask any of the 6th graders who helped to taunt, I mean, lead the kindergarteners through an obstacle course for a recent Vieja Valley School fundraiser, and they will tell you that this is my Dad’s favorite phrase. He coached them to use it to goad my 5-year-old son, who’s been the fortunate — or unfortunate — recipient of two generations worth of pent up Dinaberg testosterone. Koss was more impressed that all the 6th graders seemingly knew him.

Growing up with a football coach father, my mom, sister and I would often reflect on how lucky it was that we didn’t have any boys in our family. And surely it’s not coincidental that my sister and I both chose husbands who prefer golf and channel surfing to any sport where they might actually get hit. Luckily for Grandpa Bob, my son Koss, his only male grandchild, loves to wrestle, tackle and play rough, and Grandpa’s edict to “toughen up” doesn’t phase him any more than his bloody noses do.

Developmental Task

Pain was our friend and, according to Dad, if we couldn’t manage to play through it, we could always learn from it. Anything we didn’t want to do — from painting the sundeck to finishing our homework — or wanted to do but couldn’t — like going to that chaperone-less party because “everyone else was allowed to” — became a developmental task for my sister and I to learn from.

I repeated both of these adages to myself as I went through my own labor and delivery, where pain was most certainly NOT my friend, and my developmental task was to realize that I should have demanded an epidural at least two weeks before delivery. I really should stop saying you never taught me anything, Dad.

On Scholarship

My Dad never takes us out to dinner, golfing or to a movie. It must be the former athletic director in him, because we’re always “on scholarship,” and like the coach who is always fighting for more on behalf of his team, my generous-to-a-fault father, gives out many more scholarships than his finance director (mom) would like him to.

I’m Having Fun /Let’s Boogie

Delivered in an infectious singsong voice, I can’t help but smile every time I hear these Dad-isms. He is nothing if not fun to be with, and ready to pursue fun at any opportunity. Not many 41-year-olds still skip through parking lots with their fathers. I probably laugh more with him than anyone else … even, or maybe especially, at the most inopportune moments.

Call Me Sir

Having long given up on me, my sister and our girlfriends to show him the proper respect (Pa, we ain’t southerners!), my Dad has tried, to no avail, to get every male who’s ever come in spitting distance of us to call him Sir. Even his grandchildren stumble over the words. There’s just too much dissonance between the proper “Sir,” and the loveable, affable, completely improper guy that my Dad is.

I wouldn’t want him any other way.

Scoop Bob

Working for a small town newspaper in the same small town that my husband and I both grew up in, you’d think I’d have a pretty good ear to the ground when it comes to news. Certainly better than my father, who sometimes has to be told things a half dozen times before they sink in. But oddly enough, that’s not the case. While my mother often knows about things weeks before they hit the news, and is far too discreet to ever say anything, Scoop Bob works overtime to keep me in the loop about anything remotely newsworthy, including the cat that got stuck in Mrs. Haigh’s tree and the new Wow Cow flavors at McConnell’s.

As I slowly got out of the car on Sunday (“Hurry up mom,” Koss yelled.), I weighed the relative benefits of taking a nap versus checking my email. While my husband put in yet another load of laundry, it occurred to me — for the first time in my life — that I truly am my father’s daughter.

“It’s good to see me,” I said to myself, as I dialed my Dad’s number.

“Happy Father’s Day, Sir. Let’s celebrate by scholarship-ing me to some pretty new clothes at Nordstrom.”

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on June 16, 2005.

The tassle is worth the hassle

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Graduation from College, image by Bluefield Photos.

Graduation from College, image by Bluefield Photos.

Graduation wisdom for the easily amused

Graduation and the accompanying commencement speech frenzy is upon us, and unless the phone rings like, right this second, I won’t be giving the keynote at a prestigious university, trade school, internet college, high school or junior high ceremony this year. I’m shocked, I’m appalled, and I could have used that honorarium for some new shoes, but I won’t let pettiness get in the way of sharing my accumulated wisdom. Lucky you!

Most graduation speeches are soaring invocations meant to raise your spirits and send you joyfully into the next phase of your life. Phooey! How’s that going to help you learn the best way to say, “Do you want fries with that?” Here’s some practical information from someone who’s been there.

For those of you who are proudly graduating from preschool, let me give you this advice: if it’s moving, don’t eat it, clean up your own mess, stand up straight and stop fidgeting, and no tickling unless the other person agrees. It’s time to grow up. Kindergarten’s a blast.

For those of you leaving elementary school, remember: be yourself. And if you can’t be yourself, then be one of the really cool kids that everyone else wants to be. If you’re not a cool kid in junior high, then think about what the 13-year-old Bill Gates must have been like. And please remember, no means no when it comes to tickling.

If you’re in high school and going onto college, this may be the single most important piece of information you’ll ever receive — don’t schedule 8 a.m. classes. Schedule classes that you’ll actually go to. You can always do the reading later on in your life, but you will never have the opportunity to hear these professors again. As George Bush has proved, even C students can go on to be president of the United States …you know what? Do the reading….

If you’re thinking about celebrating your graduation with alcoholic beverages, drink the best ones you can afford to avoid hangovers, and never mix your liquors. Eat something before you go to bed and remember, Jack in the Box is open 24 hours. If you ignore this advice, the whole “hair of the dog” theory only works for alcoholics. Take two Tylenol and remember how sick you feel the next time.

If you’re thinking about celebrating your graduation by having some kind of a symbol tattooed on your person, take a good look at your father’s belly and your mother’s behind before you make that decision.

And while you’re looking carefully at your parents, scan the aisles and memorize your classmates’ faces. If they are your friends and you remain friends, they will look fabulous at your 20th reunion. If you don’t see them again for 20 years, they will age with an unnatural speed that is quite terrifying.

If you’re moving out of your parent’s house and you’re taking a mattress with you, remember to tie it down on the truck. Trust me when I say that it’s embarrassing to have to fetch your mattress from an inside lane of Highway 101.

Here’s something for all you graduates, even the preschoolers — ignore all but one of the 327 credit card offers you will receive in the near future, and use that one only for emergencies. And by the way, a sale at Blue Bee does not constitute an emergency.

Separate your whites from your colors, and if someone offers to teach you how to cook more than Easy Mac and Top Ramen, jump on the opportunity. Your bank account, your significant other, and eventually your children will thank you.

Most new grads fall off the cliff of student life and land with a Wile E. Coyote-like ‘SPLAT!’ on the pavement of the real world. Before you get creamed by dump trucks full of utility bills and falling anvils of student loans, if you can possibly swing it, take that trip to Europe or go work for that nonprofit in Mexico.

And if you’re going to Europe on your parent’s dime, you’re also going to want to take me.

However, if you’re stepping from your cap and gown into the beckoning arms of the working world, remember that boss is not a four-letter word, and if your boss proves worthy of more colorful expletives, keep in mind that who you work for and who you work with is every bit as important as what you do.

On the other hand, there’s always graduate school.

Say yes to any opportunity that sounds interesting, challenging or gets you in the room with people you can learn from — even if you already have too much work to do. You will never have more energy than you have at this stage in your life, so you may as well take advantage of it.

And, seriously, you really have to stop tickling people.

To all my graduating friends, none of whom saw fit to give me even the teensiest honorarium or an honorary degree in applied mathematics, I leave you with this final piece of advice from Oscar Wilde: “The best thing to do with advice is to give it to someone else.”

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on June 9, 2005.

Disneyland never gets old

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Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Resort, Anaheim CA, courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Resort, Anaheim CA, courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Magic Kingdom brings out the kid within

Outrageous prices, long lines, and theme park feet aside, taking a child to Disneyland for the first time is still an E-ticket ride. While my 5-year-old son Koss is a seasoned Disney veteran, his cousin Jordan recently celebrated her fourth birthday with Mickey and friends at what was, for her, truly the happiest place on earth.

Of course my brother-in-law, Brian, would have rather had a root canal — but some people don’t recognize fun even when it’s screaming in their ear.

I, on the other hand, love Disneyland with an almost geek-like passion. My fervor would be more than “almost geek-like” if I were talking about vanilla lattes or Chuck’s Mai Tais, but with mouse-maniacs rivaled only by trekkies in their fanaticism, my enthusiasm is relatively tame.

Sure, I make my family wear the same color shirts when we go there, but it’s not like we have “Dinaberg Family Disneyland Trip” t-shirts printed up like the Densmore family did, and it’s not like we’ve fashioned our old curtains into Butterick Pattern Nos. 1187-1199 like the Von Trapp family. No, that would be ridiculous. At least, not until after I finish my sewing class.

My obsession certainly doesn’t reach the heights of the Krock’s, who created a website about “the happiest potties on earth” (www.mouseplanet.com/potties/). While it’s a truly brilliant site, and would have been useful when Koss was a baby and I gracefully managed to spill an entire strawberry slushie on his tushie and then used the very last diaper in all of Disneyland to clean him off, I’m not that obsessive.

Still, my heart starts thumping a little faster as we pull into the lot, and it’s not just because of the $37 parking fee — I love Disneyland.

I’m probably the only person to have enjoyed visiting Walt Disney World and Epcot Center solo, on more than one occasion. (OK, so I was there on business, but I still bought — and wore — the mouse ears.)

I couldn’t help reflect on how well my son and his cousin Lauren would have fit in at Tokyo Disneyland where all sense of personal space is eclipsed by a strange need to fit as many people in as small a space as possible. I know that Disneyland can sometimes feel like the most peopled place on earth, but trust me, anywhere in the U.S. would feel spacious in comparison to Tokyo Disneyland.

I bet Brian’s head would explode if we made him go there.

Jordan’s eyes turned to saucers as she watched the teacups spin. New things come and go in the real world with alarming frequency, but everything in Fantasyland is just where I left it when I was 4. I can almost see my lip print on Dumbo’s ear and my Grandpa Alex’s belly jiggling as he danced along with the birds in the “Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” and just about hear my dad singing “It’s a Small World After All.” Oh — never mind. That really is my dad singing “It’s a Small World After All.” Some things you don’t have to remember, you can just relive them over and over again. Like, “It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world….” I must stop now.

One of the greatest things about being a parent is getting to re-experience magic through the eyes of a child. Watching their responses was often more entertaining than whatever it was they were watching. Lauren wanted to dance with the prince in the “Snow White” stage show, Jordan tried to pick a fight with some of the pirates in the Caribbean, and Koss believed that Buzz Lightyear remembered him from their last hug and photo op.

I guess it is a small world after all. It’s a small world after all. It’s a small, small…No! Stop it!

It certainly feels like a small world when a woman I don’t recognize spots me in line and asks me, “Are we going to read about this in the Beacon?” I’m not sure whether to feel flattered to get recognized or guilty because she busted me for taking my son out of school.

“It’s my sister’s fault,” I want to say. “She didn’t want to fight crowds on a weekend.” And really what I mean, if you’re reading this and you happen to be the principal at Vieja Valley, is that he was very sick that day with a fever of 112. Or, at least a massive stomachache from all the $12 boxes of popcorn that grandma bought him.

Jordan’s chubby little legs bounce along to the Lion King’s “Hakuna Matata,” landing her on her rump every so often. She laughs out loud just because she’s 4 and in her world this is nothing short of nirvana. Even Brian cracks a smile, and I feel grateful to have a glimpse back to feeling that way.

Though my theme park feet are asleep after the long drive home, and I’m too tired to wash the theme park film (saturated fat, sunscreen, sweat and spilled sugar) off my body, laying in my own somewhat lumpy bed next to my own somewhat grumpy husband is actually the happiest place on earth.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on June 2, 2005.

Rediscovering my princess pride

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The New Girl, by JD Hancock, courtesy Flickr.com.

The New Girl, by JD Hancock, courtesy Flickr.com.

Boy, oh boy, it’s great to have a girls day

I have to admit, I was looking forward to doing something girly for a change. It’s not that I don’t love being a “boy mom,” but there’s a distinct void of sparkly shoes, turreted castles and pretend weddings in my life, and quite frankly, I miss it. I enjoy being a girl.

I get “pouffy party dress envy” at Easter time, when my nieces flounce around in their fancy fashions, while my son stuffs his face and dirties his khakis with chocolate. And don’t even get me started on those Nutcracker performances at Christmas.

So when my sister asked me to stand in for her at a Washington School Mommy & Me tea party last weekend, I jumped at the chance to embrace all that is pink, delicate and flowery, and play “girl mom” for a day. I am girl, hear me giggle.

I had my first clue that I was entering an alternate universe when we got in the car.

“Your chariot awaits,” I announced, trying to get into the spirit of princess culture.

“Roll up the windows,” commanded six-year-old Princess Lauren, as I strapped her into the back seat. “I don’t want to mess up my hair.”

“It’s 80 degrees outside,” I said.

“But we’re going to get our picture taken. Doesn’t your air conditioning work?” she said impatiently.

“Not really, your highness. But the hairbrush in my purse does.”

Crisis averted. But I was definitely out of my league. Many of the women at the party were wearing heels, hose and hats. Haven’t they read that pantyhose can give you brain tumors? It’s in print. Right here. At least it wasn’t the 70s, when my mom would dress us in matching outfits. I tried that once with my son. Another dollar in the therapy jar.

Lauren fluffed her hair and checked my lipstick before we posed for our souvenir photo (next to an artfully arranged tea set). At this point, I looked around for the unicorn to escort us down a trail of fairy dust. Instead, one of our hostesses, Eileen Ochsner, offered us the chance to buy raffle tickets.

“It wouldn’t be Washington if we didn’t try to gouge you one more time,” she joked, as I forked over the last of my cash. Lauren drooled over the girly girl treasures we had just bought the chance to win.

When we got to the backyard (unicornless, unfortunately) Lauren disappeared faster than Cinderella’s coach at midnight. I found her in the crafts area, buried in a sea of pink frosting. The girls were surprisingly well behaved, passing the sprinkles and gems back and forth. I had a brief flashback to my son’s boisterous Halloween cookie decorating (“Pass the pumpkin. Thwomp! … To my hand, not my hair…”).

Very impressive! I wondered if these girls had enrolled in the World of Disney princess class I had read about where Cinderella’s beautiful friend, Lady Seraphina, educates starry-eyed pupils in the four Princess Principles — intelligence, grace, thoughtfulness and honesty. I think Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful and Dopey were busy that day.

Feeling like a bad feminist, I whispered to one of my cohorts: “I totally get the princess thing. Look how cute they are.”

And they were, absolutely precious. I could almost see invisible tiaras on their freshly curled hair. They were precious in a way that little boys, well … little boys just aren’t. I adore my son and it’s hard enough to keep him clean, so please don’t ever let on that I actually find him cuter when he’s covered in dirt and grass stains than when he gets dressed up.

I coo a little over the ladybug bracelet Lauren just made, as one of the teachers comes up to admire her dress and tell her how pretty she looks.

She beams.

She is pretty, and enjoys being so, which makes me feel both proud and protective over her, as I remember what teenage boys — and preteen girls — can be like. Right now her dressing up is sweet and it’s innocent and it’s a long way from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, but still, a part of me wants to shout, “and she’s good at math and science too.”

What am I so worried about, I wonder? Lauren is hardly prissy, and she knows she’s smart, as well as pretty. “Princess power,” she jokes with her friends, as they connect the bracelets they just made.

I say a silent prayer that she’ll hold on to her confidence. Studies say that girls’ self esteem peaks at age 9. Another found that 46 percent of high school boys and only 29 percent of high school girls reported being “happy the way I am,” which makes me feel both happy and a little guilty to be happy that I’m a “boy mom.”

“Stay happy little girls,” I want to tell them. You can be anything that you want to be. Hold on to those invisible tiaras.

Lauren and I clink our teacups — with pinky’s out — and say, “cheers to princess power.” Here’s hoping it lasts.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on May 19, 2005.

Taking a vacation from my guilt trips

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Not Guilty by Ged Carroll, courtesy Flickr.com.

Not Guilty by Ged Carroll, courtesy Flickr.com.

I’m doing the right thing. Or am I?

I was raised on a diet of guilt, albeit one well seasoned with plenty of humor (a caveat I added so that I wouldn’t feel too guilty when my mother reads this). Guilt is so deeply embedded into my DNA that I really thought it would be the one aspect of motherhood I would have mastered in advance. After all, I’ve spent most of my life making important decisions based on the avoidance of future guilt (Can the dentist really tell if I skip one night of flossing? I’d rather watch The O.C., but what if Joey gets canceled because I stopped watching?).

I hear a lot of voices in my head, and while my mother’s is one of the loudest, I’m also haunted by Humphrey Bogart’s warning at the end of Casablanca: “If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”

Of course, if I were Ingrid Bergman I would have felt guilty for even having the discussion about leaving my husband, especially outside in the rain, where I could have caught a cold and died, thus ruining my mother’s life.

Yet, despite so many years of guilty woulda coulda shoulda dress rehearsals in my head, I continue to be surprised by how entwined guilt is with motherhood.

I’m still reeling from last week’s doozy.

My husband and I went to Soho to hear a friend sing, a rare night out in adult world, while unbeknownst to us (cell phones only work if you can hear them ring) our son was vomiting — for several hours — all over grandma’s house.

My poor baby! My poor mom! Her poor carpet! My stomach still hurts from feeling guilty over my mistreatment of all three of them. Of course, my overdeveloped gag reflex doesn’t help.

While the part of me that hears voices is convinced that people with clear consciences have bad memories, or are just plain delusional, the more rational part of me has decided that all of this guilt has got to go. Therefore, this Mother’s Day (while part of me was enjoying being with my family and part of me was wishing I could be at a spa, with Sven the masseuse) I resolved that there are certain things I will no longer feel guilty about. The list includes:

1. Working full time. Yeah right, who am I kidding? Even though my husband stays home with our son, I am convinced that I could be doing a better job if I were the one to say home, which of course, I feel terribly guilty for even thinking about when he’s such a great father.

2. Being more lenient with my son than I should be on the weekends, because I want our time together to be fun. (Yeah sure. Want to lay odds on that one?)

3. Gelt guilt: the Jewish version of spending the weekend buying things for your child because you worked all week and you want your time together to be fun.

Clearly I’m aiming a bit too high — or I’m a total failure at guilt alleviation, which makes me feel simultaneously terrible and guilty. Maybe I should ease into this less ambitiously. From here on I resolve to not feel guilty:

4. About lusting after my childless friends’ bank accounts and social calendars.

5. That my son’s favorite song is “Psycho Killer” instead of “Requiem in D Minor.”

6. Taking that first, wonderful sip of my latte and feeling like a terrible mom for enjoying it when I could have stayed home with my son for five minutes longer instead.

7. That we let our son watch TV in the morning so we can sleep “just a little longer.”

8. That I sometimes pretend to be asleep in the hopes that my husband will get up with our child in the middle of the night.

9. That I sometimes pretend to be asleep in the hopes that my husband will not get up with me in the middle of the night.

10. That I pray I’ll be the only one home when I pull into the driveway.

11. … Then am annoyed that I rushed from work and there’s nobody there.

12. Doing a little happy dance when I go to work and my husband has to worry about what to feed our little darling for breakfast.

13. That my husband and I spend the majority of our date nights talking about our son, and not about things like “Requiem in D Minor.”

14. For feeling guilty and then blaming it on my DNA or the voices in my head.

15. Picturing my child telling his analyst about me one day.

16. … Then putting money in a therapy jar every time I do something I know he will tell his analyst about.

There, I actually feel better.

Or at least I will when I get home and put $16 in the therapy jar for writing this column.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on May 12, 2005.

Wisteria Lane Hysteria

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Desperate Housewives? Man I can relate

My name is Leslie, and I am addicted to Desperate Housewives.

The editor of Ms. Magazine, a woman of impeccable priorities, recently left the publication over an argument about Desperate Housewives. If that’s not a sign that the show has morphed into more than a guilty pleasure, I don’t know what is.

So, in honor of “Turn Off Your Television Week” (which I refuse to honor in any other way), I’d like to herald the return of the soap opera.

I’ve always been a fan of the genre, enjoying the eye candy — both the fabulous flesh and the even more fabulous fashions — as much as the outrageous plot lines. Plus, I’ve always longed to slap someone with the Diva-like authority of a soap opera vixen and wondered whether it would really make such a satisfying sound. Unfortunately, the selfish man I married refuses to have an affair, denying me adequate justification. Maybe I could nail him on leaving the toilet seat up…

My infatuation started long before I could follow most of the complicated plot lines. I remember sipping Tab and eating bridge mix while dissecting General Hospital with my Grandma Etta. We tsk-tsked over young Demi Moore getting herself involved with the much older Robert Scorpio (ironic, isn’t it Ashton?) and fretted for the future of Luke and Laura’s union.

In college, All My Children (All My Kids as we affectionately called it) was the big thing at my sorority house. We planned our classes so we could be home at noon, and share in the exhausting adventures of Erica Cane. And it wasn’t just a girl thing: complain though they did, most of our boyfriends were seriously addicted by the end of first semester. Come to think of it, another missed slapping opportunity.

Of course we were college students, who took ourselves oh-so-seriously, so we had to mock our addiction in order to stomach it a little better. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the words “post-modern,” “pre-feminist,” and “evil twin” while all eyes were glued to All My Kids.

Which brings me back to Desperate Housewives, and why I get such a kick out of the fact that people are expending so many precious brain cells dissecting this silly little show.

Don’t get me wrong, my TIVO is working just as hard as the next gal’s every Sunday night, and I couldn’t wait to read that trashy Vanity Fair article where the housewives fight over who gets to be in the middle of the picture. But when culture critics and academics start dissecting the show like it’s a spot of saliva on CSI Pittsburgh, I have to laugh. Haven’t you guys ever seen a soap opera before?

They’ve always been the shows where over-40 actresses drive the drama, get the guys, and pop off the best lines. And incidentally, they look fabulous while doing it.

But like General Hospital, which worked a sensitively written breast cancer storyline into the drama and was one of the first shows to feature an HIV positive character, the best soap operas manage to walk a fine line between melodrama and good old-fashioned storytelling. Desperate Housewives too sticks some real issues (dealing with aging parents, spanking your children) in amongst the lingerie and the murders.

So why is it that both intellectuals and people with G-rated lives — who rarely agree on anything — say I’m not supposed to like Desperate Housewives? It’s either too racy or it’s too retro, pre-feminist or post-feminist.

Do I need more coffee or are those oh-so-serious college conversations coming back to haunt me?

But I’m older and wiser now, and not afraid to admit that I’ve been hooked on housewives since the very first episode.

It wasn’t the over-the top antics of Nicolette Sheridan’s Edie character (which would have tickled me as a kid) or the Twin Peaks-like mysterious narrator (which would have delighted me in college), it was Felicity Huffman’s Lynette character.

“The other ones are fun, but Lynette’s character is the only one I really relate to,” said a friend at a recent Desperate Housewives fundraising cocktail party.

Lynette left a high-powered job to stay home with four rambunctious boys. During a particularly challenging (i.e. typical) day she runs into a former co-worker (perfectly coifed in a spit-free power suit) who asks how she likes her new life. After a pregnant pause, the look on Lynette’s face says volumes more than the cliche on her lips: “This is the best job I ever had.”

In another great Lynette moment, she has a breakdown at a park and when her friends find her, they confess how difficult motherhood has been for them, too, and Lynette questions why mothers can’t be more honest about feeling overwhelmed.

Mothers all over the land cheered, “Somebody finally said it on television.”

And if the housewives can admit that being a mother is hard, then I can make a confession too — Desperate Housewives isn’t a guilty pleasure, it’s simply a pleasure.

My husband doesn’t agree with me. I think I’ll slap him.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on April 28, 2005.

Peanut butter, parties and playdates

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Photo by Tolmacho, courtesy pixabay.

Attention parents: when you go to kindergarten orientation this month, take a good look around at the other parents. These are the people you’re going to spend the next 13 years of your life with.

Those of you who did the co-op preschool thing are better prepared for this than the rest of us. For me, it was quite a shock when my son started kindergarten and began dictating our social life.

While I’m told that most parents decide who their children are friends with – at least until they’re 8 or 9 — our son must be precocious. He’s only 5 and already his activities are filling our calendar.

Luckily he has good taste in friends.

It started out innocently enough. Koss met a few kids, and through them a few more. They played together at school, then after school they started having play dates. So far so good. You meet the other kids’ parents, inspect their house for hidden artillery, quicksand and meth labs, finding none, you’ve got two to three hours of afternoon freedom. (The “you” usually being my husband, since I’m almost always at work.)

Of course reciprocal play dates involve some planning on our part, but for a parent of an only child, having another child over to play can sometimes be the next best thing to an extra hour’s sleep. Not that my husband is asleep while your precious bundle is doing fire science with my child. He’s just resting his eyes a moment, behind the locked door.

Then there are the birthday parties. “Either invite the whole class or mail the invitations” was our teacher’s instruction. Apparently most kindergarten parents dislike the post office the way I do the Laundromat.

We started bulk loading our gift closet in the fall, and now replenish our stock on a regular basis.

Somehow 20 kids in his class have multiplied into 20,000 birthday parties. Is my child the only one who was born in the summer? Was there some secret no one told me about that I could have avoided spending the last months of my pregnancy sweating in the swimming pool?

It’s not that kid’s birthday parties aren’t fun. I’ve developed a certain affection for watching kids whack the piñata, and I’m as much of a sucker for a sugar and lard rose as the next gal, but I can’t help feeling a little envious when my pre-parental colleagues talk about the great parties they went to that weekend, or the R-rated movies they get to see.

Then there are sports. It started out with AYSO soccer. Even though our son had shown no particular inclination for kicking anything other than the furniture, or running anywhere other than into our arms, my husband and I thought it might be fun for him to learn how to play.

It was fun, but not for the reasons I expected. We liked the coach and the other parents.

Koss turned out to be the Mr. Congeniality of peewee soccer.

While he wasn’t always sure which goal was his and which was his opponent’s, he did get to know the other teams’ ins and outs. He knew their favorite ice cream flavors, most beloved Power Rangers and whether they preferred Cartoon Network or Toon Disney. This is because he spent the games chatting, rarely paying attention to the action going on down the field.

While he never scored a goal, he never left a game without a slew of phone numbers. Not many college level soccer players can say that.

As he added new soccer friends to his dance card, we saw our own social life boogie out the door. Brunch? Sorry, we’ve got soccer. Lunch? Can’t do it, birthday party. Dinner? Nope, Koss set up a pizza night for us with one of his new buddies and their family.

No wonder we never see our friends who have four kids! They’ve penciled us in for summer – August of 2007 looks pretty free.

Now it’s T-Ball season, which is the perfect-paced game for a boy who likes to talk more than he likes to play. Waiting for all of the kids to go through the batting line-up bored his friend Jared to tears, but for Koss it’s the perfect time for socializing.

And what do you know; it’s pretty fun for us too.

I guess I should be happy he’s so outgoing. A study at Harvard University found that reserved children are more likely to be violent than their outgoing peers. Hmmm … so far Koss has shown what I consider to be a normal 5-year-old level of violence, he’s as likely to give a hug as a karate chop as a way of greeting a friend … or a stranger who’s about to become one.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on April 21, 2005.

A new view of life in the middle ages

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Image courtesy pixabay.com.

I can hardly believe it, but by the time you read this column, I’ll be married to a middle-aged man.

Zak, my dear husband who was barely legal when we met — and used to be two grades younger (as he likes to remind me) than I am (but only 19 months younger, as I like to remind him) — turned 40 on April 5.

Or “30-ten,” as my sister has recently taken to saying.

While I entered my 40s kicking and screaming and comforting myself with ridiculous made up mantras like “40 is the new 30,” Zak seems to be taking it all in stride … at least so far.

Maybe it’s because he looks pretty young.

It’s a running joke in our house that people who don’t know him usually address him as “Sir,” or more commonly, “Dude.” Perhaps it’s because of his 80s rock star haircut, but the “Dude” dispatch is not infrequently followed by an invitation to either purchase or sell some kind of illegal substance.

When we honeymooned in Bali, a group of village woman started the rumor that he was the then long-locked Michael Bolton, who was appearing that week in Denpasar. Then, at a sushi place in Los Angeles, weird Al Yankovich’s date once mistook the two of them. And once in a while he still inspires chorus’s of Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I Love Your Way.”

Maybe he doesn’t look so young after all (and maybe he should actually learn to play the electric guitar I got him for his 20-tenth birthday).

If it’s not the fact that he looks young, then perhaps Zak’s blase reaction to aging is because he’s so in touch with his inner child.

When our son’s teacher made an offhand comment about his fraternal relationship with his father, I wasn’t sure how to react. Should I be happy that my only child has a close playmate, or annoyed that my oldest son is turning 40 and still living at home?

For the most part, my five-year-old and my 40-year-old boys play really well together. They both love computer games, Foster’s Freeze chocolate dip cones, science fiction/fantasy stories, jumping on the furniture and fart jokes.

And the tall one can drive. How cool is that?

Unlike most people over 30, my husband still clings to the notion that listening to KJEE and wearing shorts year-round still gives him some modicum of coolness.

Could Zak’s enviable boatloads of self-esteem be the reason behind his good humor this week?

I’ve got a theory about men, women and self-esteem. While a woman’s self-esteem can ebb and flow depending on what their hair does, what their scale reads and how guilty they feel about what they did or didn’t eat for breakfast, a man can look in the mirror once or twice during high school and if they liked what they saw, that image is permanently embedded in their psyches, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Apparently Zak thought he was pretty cool in high school, and has seen no reason to change that opinion in the past two decades.

Good for him.

The fact that he still has the same group of friends — and they actually all still like each other — probably helps. Maybe 16 and 40 aren’t so far apart after all.

If being cool at 16 meant doing a mock-strip tease in your campaign for student body president, then being cool at 40 means doing a mock-strip tease to get your son in the shower.

If being cool at 16 meant cracking up your friends by quoting Jeff Spicoli lines from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, then being cool at 40 means doing a spot-on Spongebob Squarepants impression.

If being cool at 16 meant constantly carrying around a package of condoms that you hope to someday use, then being cool at 40 means constantly carrying around a package of Band-aids that you hope you never have to use.

If being cool at 16 meant goofing around in the bleachers at the football games, then being cool at 40 means goofing around in the bleachers at T-Ball games, and not forgetting the snacks.

And if being cool at 16 meant pretending not to notice when your girlfriend had a few zits, then being cool at 40 means pretending not to notice when your wife has a few wrinkles. It’s also refraining from comment when she gains a few pounds, is in a bad mood, wants to go out with her girlfriends, burns your dinner or puts tampons, chocolate and Diet Coke on your grocery shopping list.

I can hardly believe I’m married to such a cool guy.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on April 7, 2005.

Chick-flick checklist a chemistry lesson

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How does your co-star rate on romance?

The Ultimate Guide to Chick FlicksHere’s a big fat clue for men everywhere — women like chick flicks. They make us happy. We get all mushy and soft lipped and prone to romantic suggestions — or, as my husband likes to put it, “easy”– when the girl ends up with the right guy on screen.

So why is it that we have to drag men kicking and screaming to go see a chick flick? My friend Kim Adelman, who recently authored The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks, theorizes that it starts when they’re teenagers.

“Male teenagers, in particular, seem to have an infallible radar detector warning them away from a film that their mother might enjoy, while female teenagers, (who we all know are smarter, more mature, and have much better taste in movies) innately sense that anything with ‘wedding’ or ‘princess’ in the title is worthy of their patronage.”

Then there are real life romances, which of course, are destined to be compared to the movies. Since Kim took the trouble to outline the ten basic steps in a movie romance, I decided to see how they stack up against my real life.

Step One: Create a Sympathetic Heroine

I’m a sympathetic heroine, right? I mean I know I get a bit cranky sometimes, but I think I’m pretty likeable. And I wear glasses, which help hide some of my movie star glamour and make me look smarter, and uh, help me see.

Step Two: Offer up a Love-Worthy Hero

Like many movie heart throbs, my husband was deeply flawed when we met, and has only improved slightly over the past 16 years. But I’m a glutton for funny — even if it’s sometimes an inappropriate kind of funny — and he still makes me laugh.

Plus, I still have faith that he’s a cad truly worthy of redemption.

Step Three: Don’t Forget the Best Friend

Zak and I met at a wedding, and along with the white lace and promises, there was a whole lot of vodka consumed. Like all romantic heroines, I woke up the next morning still wearing my perfect makeup … and immediately hashed over my hangover with my best friend, Jacqueline. I was sure that this thing with Zak would just be a fling.

My sister still thinks it is.

Step Four: Something’s Wrong with the Heroine’s Life

Like many a chick flick chick, I felt incomplete because I had not yet achieved my destiny. I had just broken up with my college boyfriend and hadn’t yet figured out what I wanted to do with my career. I was, in the words of the trailer, “at a crossroads in my life when our paths crossed.”

Step Five: They Meet

See step three.

Step Six: Toss in Impediments to the Romance

This is the tricky part in contemporary romances. Those huge impediments that used to keep people apart — arranged marriages, class issues, religious wars — don’t really exist for the most part, so there have to be some other challenges. Zak and I had geography to battle. He lived in LA and I lived in Santa Barbara. I’d like to see Romeo and Juliet overcome that.

Step Seven: They Dance

We tangoed, we waltzed, we shook our cabooses and we did the Watoosee. While most guys merely tolerate dancing to appease the women in their lives (kind of like going to chick flicks), Zak actually likes to dance and does a good, albeit silly, job of it.

Plus, a lot of our friends were getting married that summer, so we had many opportunities to drink too much and then partake in what Kim calls, “a cinematic illustration that the heroine and hero are destined for each other.”

Step Eight: Pack in as Many Memorable Moments as Possible

Stolen flowers from my landlady’s yard, Pustafix Bubble O’s and poetry for my birthday, battling Friday night LA traffic to come see me, and Monday morning sleepiness to get back to work — these are the things that true romance is made of.

Step Nine: The Hero Employs the Three Magic Words

“Chick flicks serve up on a beautifully garnished platter another thing we desperately wish real men would do as willingly as their fictional counterparts: say ‘I love you,’ said Kim. Of course movie heroes have the benefit of screenwriters to help them out, but my husband actually is a screenwriter, so you’d think he’d have come up with something incredibly memorable.

Not so much.

Zak’s three magic words, which were long overdue by the time he got around to them, turned into about 13, with all of the “um, um, um’s, uh, uh and urghs.

It’s the thought that counts, right?

Step Ten: Achieve the Ultimate Happy Ending

In movies it’s usually the wedding scene that symbolizes that the courtship story line has concluded satisfactorily, but those of us who’ve been married for a while know that tying the knot is just the beginning.

True love is really all about letting your wife pick the movie.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on March 31, 2005.

A room of my own

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Photo courtesy Cinders in the Dark on Vimeo.

Photo courtesy Cinders in the Dark on Vimeo.

Last week I finally got the answer to the age-old mystery pondered by mothers everywhere: My son has been potty-trained for three years, when do I finally get to use the bathroom by myself?

The answer: When you go on a trip without him.

Last week I tagged along with my friend Cheryl Crabtree, a travel writer (and mom of two boys) who was updating the Central Coast section for Fodor’s Travel Guides. I was ostensibly working on a few travel stories for the Beacon, but mostly I was enjoying having someone else cook my meals (in restaurants with cloth napkins and no kids menus), make my bed (with 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets) and drive me around (OK, so Cheryl’s Camry is only slightly more glamorous than my Tercel, but at least she was behind the wheel). Most of all, I was luxuriating in my personal bathroom space.

Guilty thoughts flitted by as I lay soaking in a lavender-scented spa tub at the Ventana Inn & Spa in Big Sur, which is surely one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

I took a sip of my wine and a bite of a perfect strawberry, and watched the stars twinkle over the Pacific Ocean and thought: Here I am, starring in one of the most romantic scenes of my entire life, and my husband is hundreds of miles away, probably eating a Big Mac.

I should feel guilty he’s not here to enjoy this. No really, I should. Guilty. Wracked with it. Hmm.

But what were the odds of my husband being able to relax and enjoy an $800 hotel room?

Even though it was free, I knew he’d be stressing out about Koss breaking something. And if our son weren’t with us, we’d both be stressing out about whether he was okay without us.

All in all I’m much better equipped to enjoy this luxurious bathtub all by myself, I rationalized. He doesn’t even like massages, the rubber-boned freak. This would be wasted on him. Really, I’m doing him a favor.

Oh! Does that strawberry have chocolate on it!

After my bath I tried out the Jacuzzi on my own private patio. Again, it was heaven. Once upon another life, I had a Jacuzzi in my backyard, but it was hard to keep the leaves out, and with the ambient lights of the city, I could never see stars like the ones in Big Sur.

I spotted the Big Dipper, and thought about how excited Koss would be to see it. Santa brought him a telescope, but it’s hard to see stars from our backyard when it’s raining all the time.

Cheryl and I worked hard the next day, and I was exhausted when we finally arrived at the brand new Carlton Hotel, in downtown Atascadero of all places. When you walk in the door you feel like you’re in a first class Boston hotel, or maybe Washington, D.C. Very posiphisticated.

I couldn’t wait to take a bath.

At home, not a week goes by when I don’t come home from work, kick off my shoes and fantasize about a long, hot bath.

We barely have a shower in our teeny tiny rental house, and besides, I can’t even get through the first chorus of “Walking on Sunshine” without Koss having something incredibly important to tell me about his Pokemon cards.

The Carlton has another incredible, oversized spa tub. Between that and the chocolate strawberries, I was in heaven.

“This is the life,” Cheryl and I sigh, as we clink wine glasses and relax, uninterrupted by our real lives.

If I could just freeze time for that first hour of the day when I get home from work, I thought, not for the first time. Just to have an hour a day all to myself, preferably in a spa tub with my masseuse, Juan, no Brad. That would be perfect.

It’s not that I don’t love my son … and I really love that he still wants to be with me all of the time. But who knew when we finally potty-trained him that wouldn’t be the end of it. We’ve been working on privacy training ever since.

My third spa tub — at the Avila Village Inn in Avila Beach — was also heavenly, but the novelty was starting to wear thin. It was awfully quiet in my hotel room, and it sounded like I missed a really fun “attack of the Leprechauns” on Koss’s kindergarten classroom.

It’s hard for me to believe that for all the times I’d craved this peace and quiet and solitude, it only took a few days for me to crave the chaos of home and family. I laughed at what a wimp I’d turned into!

Then I thought about what a kick Koss would get out of the fireplace that goes on with just a flick of a switch and how much fun he would have ordering room service. I call him one more time, just to say goodnight.

I vow to remember his sweet little voice on the phone, the next time he bursts into my shower, seemingly just to annoy me.

I can hardly wait.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on March 24, 2005.