Yearly Archives: 2008

Grief Book Benefits Hospice and the Temple

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The sun shined on Hospice of Santa Barbara and Congregation B’nai B’r61DjnDCK+3L-1._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_ith Sunday afternoon at a special event honoring the publication of Sissy Taran’s new book, The Sun Will Shine Again: Life Lessons from a Year of Grieving, (www.thesunwillshineagain.com) with all proceeds going to support the two organizations.

“This is the first time in history of Hospice of Santa Barbara that we’ve ever sponsored a book,” said Executive Director Gail Rink, who interviewed Taran and Rabbi Steve Cohen about their experiences working together. Taran and Rabbi Cohen wrote the book–which documents Taran’s first year of grieving the death of her husband Bernie–through a series of conversations. They met once a week for seven months, primarily at the Breakwater Restaurant, to share the journey Sissy went through.

Rabbi Cohen said he viewed the project as a unique opportunity to learn more about the grief process. He was with the Taran family when they learned of Bernie’s cancer diagnosis, and with them shortly afterward when he passed away. “It was a wonderful but very short-lived period of intimacy,” which he welcomed the opportunity to extend through collaboration on the book project.

He initially decided to become a rabbi because it was important to him to be close to people in key moments of their lives, and saw this project as a rare opportunity for that type of closeness.

One of the most important lessons he learned was that there is not a linear progression from devastation to happiness, Rabbi Cohen said.

“We walk it all differently, but it’s our individual walk. So this, somehow, and I don’t know why, this book was burning within me. Somehow. Because I’ve never written and if I had to sit down at a computer I still wouldn’t have written a book,” said Taran, who taped all of her sessions with Rabbi Cohen and pieced together the book from the transcripts, with the help of editor Laurie Deans Medjuck. “We ended up throwing out about 75 percent of it,” said Taran.

Even though she was, and still is grieving, Taran said she doesn’t feel sorry for herself. “How can you have pity for yourself when you have someone who’s there for you with so much love,” she said of her collaboration with Rabbi Cohen.

“I don’t know how I or Sissy or any of us would have faced this journey alone,” said

Congresswoman Lois Capps, who was widowed in 1997. “You’ve created a beautiful thing out of most deep and personal pain. What a lesson and what a gift!”

Through writing this book I found something within me that wanted to help myself and other people, said Taran. “Today’s benefit is my way of giving back to two organizations close to my heart.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 12, 2008.

Valentines Day is Not For Wimps

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lovebirds by smarnad via freedigitalphotos.net

lovebirds by smarnad via freedigitalphotos.net

I know a lot of people feel pressure around the December holidays, what with coming up with the perfect card, trying to buy eight nights worth of Hanukah gifts that make your kids kvell but don’t make your wallet groan, and attempting to make it snow in Santa Barbara. Despite what your friends may have told you, I’ve tried both the disco version and the salsa style and I’m 99.37% sure that doing a snow dance doesn’t work.

But the end of the year holiday pressure is nothing compared to Valentine’s Day. It’s not what you think … so quit trying to picture me in my underwear. Despite the overabundance of Victoria’s Secret ads, I don’t feel the need to get in touch with my inner porn star this month or surprise my honey with a heart tattoo. No, it’s my inner Martha Stewart who’s tugging on my ear this week.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, when my husband and I were young and in love and didn’t know any better, we started a Valentine’s Day tradition of making something for each other.

It all started with a six-pack of wine coolers. I made that first painting on a cardboard box canvas, with nail polish and lipstick–I’d had too many Bartles & Jaymes to go out and buy actual art supplies.

Little did I know what a monster I’d unleashed.

Zak made me a window box the next year, and a tradition was born.

There would be none of that wimpy Hallmark holiday stuff for us. No silly stuffed teddy bears, boxes of candy or overpriced roses for us. No sir. We wouldn’t get sucked into the commercialism of Valentine’s Day like those other saps. Never mind that I like roses and chocolate. I don’t even hate teddy bears. But buying something off the shelf for Valentine’s Day was for people who weren’t creative. Our gifts would come straight from our hands, and our hearts.

Over the years I’ve made books out of doilies and heart stickers, penned poems and plays, glued popsicle sticks into picture frames, and fashioned pink and red plastic wires in boxes. I’ve made candles, soap, ceramics, mosaics, pop-up cards, scrapbooks, and just about anything else you can find in the craft aisle. You name it, I’ve made it, and I’ve inadvertently ingested gallons of glitter and glue along the way, which can’t be good for my few remaining brain cells.

After 18 years of romantic, ah, gestures, I’m beginning to see why those Hallmark people keep resorting to talking teddy bears and puerile poetry. They’ve been coming up with Valentine ideas for a bazillion years now and I’m ready to wimp out after less than two decades.

While Hallmark cranks out hundreds of cards and cheap little dust collectors each year, I struggle to come up with one measly new Valentine idea for my husband every February.

There are only five days left until V-Day and I’ve got a new challenge this time.

See, last year our son, Oedipus, pitched a fit when he found out that mommy made daddy a set of fuzzy heart-shaped golf club covers for Valentine’s Day, while all he got was a new soccer ball that wasn’t even handmade. So now I’m feeling pressure to create not one, but two perfect Valentine’s Day gifts.

Do you think I could get away with putting handmade bows around a puppy and a beer?

If not, does anyone know where I can get a beer making kit? And, no, I don’t want the puppy making kit. The last thing I need around here on V-Day is some bitch in Victoria’s Secret.

I’ve got it! Two birds, one stone. Honey–I wrote this column just for you. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on February 8, 2008.

Behind the Scenes at the Election Office

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If the seventh and eighth grade students from Anacapa School are any kind of a barometer, then, as the national media predicts, young people are engaged in this presidential election with an extraordinary level of interest.

County Clerk, Recorder and Assessor Joe Holland took the students on a behind-the-scenes tour of the election office on Thursday to demonstrate what happens to the 35,000 absentee ballots that had already been received by that day (he expects that 50,000 of the 183,000 Santa Barbara County registered voters will have voted by mail by election day).

With the increasing numbers of people that vote by mail, “election day is actually 29 days long now,” Holland explained to founding headmaster Gordon Sichi’s American History and Society class.

The first step in the envelope’s journey to being counted is the signature on the outside, explained Holland. “There’s a bar code on there that tells us who you are. So when we receive that envelope back, we send it through a machine that’s called an ASR, automatic signature recognition machine. It goes through and compares your signature with the signature that we have on file for you with your voter registration card, and if it matches then it accepts it. If it doesn’t match, like for me, I’m Joseph E. Holland, if I leave out the ‘E’ it won’t match. So then what we do with the ones that don’t match, we’ll actually have a person pull that up, oh look at it’s the same J and the S and the PH, and accept it. But this machine actually accepts about 80 percent of all the envelopes that are returned,” he said.

If someone sends in an envelope without a signature, the elections office tries to contact him or her in order to have him or her sign the ballot so that it can be counted. Once the signatures are verified, the next step is to open the envelopes. The eighth grade students who had taken the elections office tour the year before were impressed to see that a new automated ballot-opening machine had replaced the tables of people with letter openers.

“How much did the new machine cost?” asked a student.

“We’re leasing it right now, but it’ll cost us about $80,000 to buy,” answered Holland.

“Is it worth it?” asked another student.

Holland thinks it is. The machine, which can open about 5,000 envelopes per hour, cuts them open on three sides to make sure that no ballots are stuck inside. Part of the reason for this security measure, he explained, is that in the 1992 primary there was a really close race for county supervisor (between Willy Chamberlin and Bill Wallace, who eventually won the seat). The recount results found that about ten absentee ballots were still in their envelopes and had not been counted. In addition, there are also privacy issues with having the envelopes opened by hand which are avoided by using the machine.

Once the ballots are opened they unfold them and run them through the tallying machines, which are the same machines found in the county’s 215 precincts on Election Day. The results will not be available until 8:05 p.m. on election night. Until then they are then stored on a computer, which is kept under high security. Only two people have access to the machine, and there are cameras all over the office to make sure no one tries to get in the locked room where it is kept, said Holland.

“What about a hacker getting into the results?” asked a student.

That’s a good question, acknowledged Holland, explaining that there is no Internet access allowed in the room, for that very reason. Another new security measure in place for this year is the secretary of state has given a directive to all counties not to modem results over phone lines, as was done in the past. Instead the results will be driven in to the elections office, which in the case of far away precincts like New Cuayama, may delay the tallying of the final results by as much as two and a half hours.

“If the election is really close, we may not know who won in California until all of the absentee ballots are counted,” said Holland. He has up to 29 days to certify the final results of the election.

The students got to vote in a mock election, where Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt vied for president. Roosevelt and Kennedy tied with only four votes each, but there were 11 write-in votes, which weren’t officially counted.

“I wrote in Barak Obama,” said eighth grader Emily Welkowitz, who wore an “Obama ’08” bumper sticker on her back.

“I think it’s totally interesting,” said eighth grader Jessica DiMizio. “I like all the new machines and stuff. Last year we saw them opening the absentee envelopes and it was just a bunch of people sitting around a big table.”

Part of the philosophy of Anacapa School is to bring the students into the community, said Sichi. “I can go anywhere in this town with a little notice and people will open up their businesses to us. People in Santa Barbara are so generous.” He planned to follow up the field trip with a lesson on voting machines and a discussion of the controversies surrounding them.

When asked if they talked a lot about the presidential primary in class, eighth grader Haley Yuhas said: “Oh yeah, that’s all we talk about. It’s great. It’s really, really interesting.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 5, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Sissy Taran

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Author Sissy Taran, courtesy Noozhawk

Author Sissy Taran, courtesy Noozhawk

A combination of laughter and tears helped Sissy Taran survive the sudden death of her husband Bernie, in June 2005. “There aren’t any magical answers to survive the loss of a loved one,” says Sissy, but she hopes to help others by bringing that same bittersweet combination of humor and compassion to her new book.

Leslie Dinaberg: Tell me about The Sun Will Shine Again: Life Lessons from a Year of Grieving? How did you come to write the book?

Sissy Taran: People kept asking me how I was doing, and I had no answer. Usually I’m not shy and I’m not at a loss for words … Finally I came up with, “Well I’ll just write a book.” (laughs) That was my response to “how are you doing” because I didn’t know how to say it any other way.

So (five months after her husband’s death) I’m at the temple…and I see the Rabbi’s door open and I decide I’m going in and I’m going to ask the Rabbi to write a forward for this book that I’m going to write.

Now I have no idea how to write a book. I don’t have the foggiest idea how to write a book. But the door was open, so I went in and I spent an hour with him and when I was through, I said, “Gee, do you want to co-author this book with me?” … Then I went home and I called my neighbor (Laurie Deans Medjuck) to ask her how to write a book. … She ended up being the editor.

…The Rabbi started to interview me, he interviewed me for seven months, an hour and a half, every week, and I spoke, we spoke, 500 pages, 100,000 words. … The whole book came from the transcripts.

LD: Did you feel like in reflecting on what you had said originally that your feelings about some things had changed?

ST: What happened was I didn’t feel like the same person anymore. When we started writing it and making it into the book, it was this person I watched grow. This person I watched from the very beginning of her baby steps. It was almost like taking myself and putting myself over here and being totally removed and watching the growth and how she became empowered and looking at it now, two years later, I still look at her as another human being. It’s fascinating.

LD: How much of how you feel now do you think has to do with the act of writing the book, as opposed to going through the whole grief process?

ST: Well, interesting enough, I didn’t think of the book as being cathartic. It was only after I did it, it was like visiting a therapist, but I didn’t know that.

… We were doing something for somebody else. It wasn’t for me. I was writing this because there was nothing available I felt that people could relate to. So I had a project and I like projects.

LD: One of the things that really struck me was how you always think about someone grieving the big things like holidays, but not how many little day-to-day reminders there are.

ST: I think probably the turning point for me was putting in the new driveway. … when we make a decision we bounce it off of people. … But in the driveway I didn’t do that. In the driveway I shook hands with the person that put in the driveway. I didn’t have a contract, I didn’t bounce it off of anybody and I said, this was it. Now I didn’t know at the time that that was going to be as monumental in my life … when I drive up to the driveway every single day … and I drive up to those rocks. Those are MY rocks. I did that.

… we walk it all differently, but it’s our individual walk. So this, somehow, and I don’t know why, this book was burning within me. Somehow. Because I’ve never written and if I had to sit down at a computer I still wouldn’t have written a book.

LD: But it’s interesting how you came up with a way that worked for you and you were able to do it and it felt comfortable and it reads like you too. And I think there are a lot of levels to relate to it.

ST: The interesting part was that I thought that it would be much more about Bernie and it ended up not being. It started out where the rabbi and I were co-authors. It didn’t turn out that way, because he’d ask a question and I’d spend an hour talking. And then it turned out that it became a legacy to my mother.

So it changed its direction. Bernie was the vehicle for me to experience all of this, but the lessons that I learned as a child and the things and the sayings that she taught me, that was really the bread and butter of it. … Throughout this book you will find quotations from my mother, Buddie Shrier. Some of these I found after she died, written on lists or pieces of paper and collected in a small wooden box. Others were simply things I heard her saying on an everyday basis. The life lessons they express form the foundation of my life and had an enormous influence on how I coped as I mourned the loss of my husband. … So for me, this is really a tribute to her. So as it started it out, where it was co-authored with the rabbi. Didn’t happen. Where it was about Bernie, didn’t happen. It’s my journey.

LD: It’s interesting too that you say that because that’s something that has struck me about people that I’ve known that have lost a spouse. One of my friends lost her husband when she was pretty young and she’s gone to accomplish things professionally that she would never have done if she were married, because she wouldn’t have had to. It’s definitely an example of one of those one door closes another one opens kind of thing. …

ST: That’s right. And it’s a choice, Leslie. It’s really, really a definite choice and you can watch those who do it and you can watch those who don’t do it and I think we’re born genetically with our certain DNA that we’re positive or we’re negative and then you have a choice after that. And my choice and was to do this, to make a difference.

… I’m just along for the ride and wherever it goes, it goes.

LD: Well it’s a great accomplishment to have written a book and have it sitting in front of us here, even if it never goes anywhere else. The fact that you wrote it and you got everything you got out of writing it. And the product itself is a whole other journey.

ST: I did it and I love it. You know it’s interesting, I look at it, and just like they can’t ever take your education away from you, I am always going to be a published author.

Vital Stats: Sissy Taran

Born: Detroit, Michigan, November 26, 1944.

Family: Three grown daughters, Tiffany, Francine and Nadine; Son-in-laws Scott and Zach; and grandchildren Ethan and Blythe.

Civic Involvement: Mentor to two children in the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse’s Fighting Back program; CALM; Anti-Defamation League; Coalition Against gun Violence; Hadassah; B’nai B’rith Temple.

Professional Accomplishments: Former elementary school teacher who has been honored with outstanding service awards from the Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara PTAs.

Little-Known Fact: “My dad was part of the Kennedy administration and I was raised on a ranch outside of Bakersfield.”

Benefit for Hospice of Santa Barbara and Congregation B’nai B’rith

On Sunday, February 10, from 2 to 4 p.m., Hospice of Santa Barbara’s Executive Director Gail Rink will interview Sissy Taran and Rabbi Steve Cohen about their experiences working on “The Sun Will Shine Again: Life Lessons from a Year of Grieving.” Then refreshments will be served and all book sales from that day will go directly to Hospice and the Temple.

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 3, 2008.

Women’s Heart Health

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courtesy stockimages via freedigitalphotos.net

courtesy stockimages via freedigitalphotos.net

The simple facts are enough to make any woman’s heart skip a beat.

Heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death in American women, claiming more than 460,000 lives each year. That’s more than the next five causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer. According to a 2007 study by the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease causes about one female death per minute.

“The lifetime risk of dying of cardiovascular disease is nearly one in three for women,” said Dr. Lori Mosca, a cardiologist working with the American Heart Association. “This underscores the importance of healthy lifestyles in women of all ages to reduce the long-term risk of heart and blood vessel diseases.”

While heart disease becomes more prevalent as people get older, even children need to take care of their heart health. “From the second you start eating food … you’re really affecting the plaque on the artery walls, so you really need to be conscious of that whether you’re 14 years old, 30 years old or 60 years old,” said Liz Adams, executive director of the Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura County branches of the American Heart Association.

Getting the word out about the importance of early awareness of cardiovascular disease is a passionate cause for Santa Barbara County Supervisor Janet Wolf, who had a heart attack in 2004, at age 50, and has since gone on to train in the Woman-Heart Program at the Mayo Clinic to become a women’s heart health spokeswoman. Wolf testified in Congress on behalf of the Heart Disease Education, Research and Analysis, and Treatment (HEART) for Women Act, co-sponsored by Congresswoman Lois Capps, and is very active in the community as an advocate for greater awareness for women about heart disease. She emphasizes the importance of being aware of your family history (her father had triple bypass surgery in his 50s), as well as maintaining a healthy exercise program and diet.

“We need to work harder about letting people know about the increase of heart disease among women,” says Wolf. “We must be proactive.”

It’s also particularly important for women to be aware of their symptoms and take swift action when needed. “My gut assumption about what happens with women is we’re traditionally the caretakers, we’re the last ones to actually stop and say is there something wrong with me,” said Adams. “Instead we’re worried about our kids, our family, husband, and a lot of times women will start to feel pain in their chest–which for women tends to be more of a grasping anxiety feel than an actual elephant on the chest, which is what a man experiences–and so they think ‘oh it’s just stress, I’ll go to sleep and tomorrow morning I’ll be okay,’ and they don’t get immediate help like their male counterparts are doing.”

Both heart attacks (where a blood clot on the artery walls prevents blood from flowing to the heart) and strokes (where a blood clot prevents oxygen from going to the brain) are life-and-death emergencies where every second counts.

Some heart attacks are sudden and intense, like in the movies, where no one doubts what’s happening. But most heart attacks start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort. Other symptoms are discomfort in other areas of the upper body besides the chest, such as the arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach; shortness of breath; or breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness. Experts advise calling 9-1-1 as almost always the fastest way to get lifesaving treatment.

The American Stroke Association says the warning signs of stroke are sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body; sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding; sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes; sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination; or sudden, severe headache with no known cause. As with heart attacks, don’t delay in calling 9-1–1 if you experience these symptoms. A clot-busting drug can reduce long-term disability for the most common type of stroke if given within three hours of the start of symptoms.

Not all heart related ailments are easily identified.

It was about three years ago, at age 48, when cardiology nurse and Santa Barbara City College Associate Professor RN/MM Evan McCabe began having chest pain and tingling up her left arm while walking up a hill on campus. When she saw her cardiologist her tests were normal, but she continued to have chest pain when she exercised. After a series of tests and visits to a woman’ s health clinic at Cedar’s Sinai Hospital in Los Angles, McCabe was diagnosed with Endothelial Dysfunction, a disease in which the blood vessels function abnormally and constrict rather than dilate when you exercise.

“I felt really lucky because my doctors listened to me and very lucky in that I had the knowledge base to know when something is not right,” said McCabe, who now has her symptoms under control with medication.

Sometimes other cardiovascular diseases will mimic the symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. In 2007, Ada Connor, director of programs for the Alpha Resource Center of Santa Barbara, thought she was having a heart attack. But when she went to the hospital for an angiogram, they found no blockages in her arteries. They later found out that a virus had settled in her heart, creating a condition called Cardiomyopathy, in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and doesn’t work as well as it should. In her case it took about 12 weeks of treatment to get her heart back to normal functioning.

“It was pretty scary,” says Connor, the single mother of two teenagers. “But to have gotten a clean bill of heart health was pretty amazing…this really opened my eyes to how lucky I am. I’m very thankful.”

Heart problems can strike women at any age. Laura Pinner, who grew up in Santa Barbara and is now an 18-year-old student at UCLA, caught a virus that settled in her heart when she was only four weeks old. It caused congestive heart failure, and then Cardiomyopathy, which she still lives with today.

“Heart disease is so unknown. It is a silent killer. It also tends to be a, ‘that cant’ happen to me, I’m not a 60-yearold male’ disease,” said Pinner, who has been a volunteer with the American Heart Association for most of her life. “People, women especially, need to be educated that heart disease can happen to anyone. When people know this, then they will have the drive, and provided with education they need, to take actions to prevent heart disease. You can take steps to save yourself, and loved ones, from heart disease. …It is crucial that attention is drawn to how many women are affected by heart disease, in order to decrease the number of women dying and affected by the disease.”

Ten Ways You Can Help Yourself Prevent Heart Disease From the American Heart Association

1. Schedule a yearly checkup.

Have your blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels checked on an annual basis and ask your doctor to help you reach or maintain a healthy weight.

2. Get physical.

Get a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week.

3. Drink more water.

Take a water bottle with you wherever you go to keep you hydrated.

4. Eat healthy.

5. Control cholesterol.

To help keep your cholesterol levels down, eat foods low in saturated fat and trans fat, such as lean chicken or turkey, fruits and veggies, low-fat or fat-free dairy products and whole grains.

6. Cut down on salt.

To help lower high blood pressure, watch your salt intake.

7. Quit smoking.

8. Maintain a healthy weight.

Excess weight increases your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

9. Stay positive.

If you get off your exercise schedule, have a cigarette, or eat a fattening meal, immediately get back on track toward re-establishing a healthy lifestyle.

10. Give yourself credit

To maintain momentum with exercising, losing weight, or quitting smoking, keep track of your achievements and reward yourself by doing something you enjoy.

Originally published in Coastal Woman

SHEAR GENIUS

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Art Luna, courtesy photo

Art Luna, courtesy photo

Designer Art Luna is planting roots in our local soil

Enhancing nature’s gifts is nothing new for Art Luna. Long before he developed a reputation as a top-notch landscape designer, he was known as a swanky celebrity hair stylist–which he still is. But more and more often these days, he’s trading his scissors for gardening shears. His formally structured, yet free-flowing creations are now gracing landscapes on both coasts, including New York City, Los Olivos, Montecito, Santa Barbara, and Carpinteria.

His passion for gardening began with the creation of an outdoor garden waiting room for his Hollywood salon, then was sparked here during a visit to Lotusland in 2002, with esteemed British gardening book author Anna Pavord. She advised Luna to always remember, “Structure first, flowers second.”

Building the structure first was embedded in his approach as a hair stylist. Suddenly it all clicked for Luna: “Think of it as if you’ve built this beautiful house out of green, and then you furnish it with furniture that is flowers.”

Here, Luna shares his expert take on our local offerings:

Favorite Places

ABE NURSERY3894 Via Real, Carpinteria, 805-684-3335.
Richard Abe has lovely material. He doesn’t let anything leave his nursery that isn’t of good quality. Also, I can buy 70 to 100 of one thing to do mass plantings–that’s really important for me.”

EYE OF THE DAY 4620 Carpinteria Ave., Carpinteria, 805-566-0778, eyeofthedaygdc.com. “They have an amazing eye for pottery and shape. There is always really good statuary, which I think is the dying art of the garden. I think people are a little freaked out about statuary in terms of the garden. … It can be lovely if done right.”

LOTUSLAND GARDEN SHOP 695 Ashley Rd., Montecito, 805-969-3767 ext. 101, lotusland.org/shop.html. “They always have wonderful things there, such as bird feeders for the trees and bird nests for the cages.”

RUE DE LILLIE ANTIQUES 2496 Lillie Ave., Summerland, 805-695-8180, . “I go there for beautiful antique bird cages and unique things like unusual lanterns and mirrors.”

SAN MARCOS GROWERS 125 S. San Marcos Rd., Santa Barbara, 805-683-1561, smgrowers.com. “I try to buy all of my flowers from local vendors. This one is amazing. It’s all good quality, and they usually have anything that you want.”

TURK HESSELLUND NURSERY 1255 Coast Village Rd., Montecito, 805-969-5871. “If I want to buy a pot with a beautiful plant to put it on the steps of a garden, I know I’ll find something very interesting and lovely here.”

Favorite Plants
African Boxwood “I love the red vein, that it has, how small the leaf shape is, the color olive green that it is. Here in Santa Barbara, especially, the greens that are more olive and gray do well in the landscape.”

Agave “The shapes are so magnificent–it’s just mind-blowing how they can survive under the poorest of conditions and then be the focal point of a garden with their dramatic shapes and colors.”

Gardenias “You have to have the most perfect conditions for a successful gardenia–they love food. I love those glossy tropical flowers like gardenia, rhododendron, and philodendron for a border.”

Pittosporum “One of the most underrated plants ever–I love its silvery sheen.”

Salvia Waverly “I love it because it attracts hummingbirds and butterflies, but not bees.”

Originally published in Santa Barbara Magazine, 2008.

Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara Grants $600,000 to Local Nonprofits

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Women's Fund of Santa Barbara“Collaborative efforts are part of the future of philanthropy,” said Natalie Orfalea, addressing the Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara’s annual luncheon on Jan. 28.

As chairwoman of the Orfalea Fund and co-founder of the Orfalea Family Foundation, Orfalea is an expert on collaborative giving, and was instrumental in developing her foundation’s partnership with the Women’s Fund. With Orfalea matching all of the money raised by the Women’s Fund, it was able to award $600,000 to support the work of eight local nonprofit organizations: Angels Foster Care of Santa Barbara, Casa Pacifica, Family Service Agency, Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara, Isla Vista Youth Projects, People’s Self-Help Housing, Storyteller Children’s Center and Transition House.

This brings the total amount given to the community by the Women’s Fund to $1,425,000, in just four short years of existence. The grassroots group was founded by a small group of women — chairwoman Carol Palladini and Perri Harcourt, Shirley Ann Hurley, Jean Kaplan, Dale Kern, Joanne Rapp, Elna Scheinfeld, Meredith Scott, Kay Stern, Anne Smith Towbes, Marsha Wayne and Fritzie Yamin — who were interested in contributing to the community without having to sell tickets, make decorations, solicit auction items or spend valuable resources to bring in funding for nonprofit organizations.

It’s a simple, yet powerful, idea that’s growing in the philanthropic community: Why not take the time, energy and money spent on producing and attending elaborate fund-raisers and write a single check once a year to put that money where it’s most needed.

The concept of giving circles — pooling resources with other donors to have a bigger impact — is catching on, too, not just with the Women’s Fund but within the Women’s Fund as well. To become a member of the Women’s Fund, a woman simply writes a tax-deductible check for $2,500 once a year and in return receives one vote to decide where the funds will be distributed. When the group started in 2004, it targeted women who could easily make the $2,500 donation required to participate.

In recent years, the circle of giving has widened to include group members — often younger women in the community who can’t afford the entire $2,500 donation — who pool their money and share one vote. SBParent.com has put together two of these groups, and there are 28 other sets of women who are neighbors, coworkers, friends and acquaintances who also contributed to the fund as group members, with anywhere from two to 12 members pooling their funds to come up with the required $2,500.

The idea of the money donated going directly to help people, rather than being spent on events or fund-raising expenses appealed to SBParent’s Julie Sorenson and Rachael Steidl. Other members said they joined the group to meet like-minded women or to learn more about the nonprofit organizations serving the community. Assisted by the Santa Barbara Foundation, the research committee does all the legwork to identify causes that align with the Women’s Fund goal of giving to meaningful projects affecting women, children and families.

The largest gift awarded by the Women’s Fund this year was a $150,000 leadership grant to Storyteller Children’s Center, for its $2.5 million expansion campaign that will be launched in 2008. Storyteller, which provides high-quality free preschool for homeless and at-risk children, will use the funds to help establish a second center on De la Vina Street. The organization will serve 1,000 homeless and at-risk children and their families in the next decade, said executive director Terri Allison.

“One in every five children in Santa Barbara County lives in poverty,” Allison said. And while these funds will greatly expand the availability of services, “for every child who joins Storyteller, we must place one on our waiting list.”

Family Service Agency’s 211 Human Services Helpline was awarded $95,000, an amount that will provide one-third of the funding needed to carry on the operation of the helpline when government funds expire in 2008.

Angels Foster Care of Santa Barbara was awarded $85,000 to pay for a licensed social worker to recruit, screen, train and support 20 foster families, doubling the number of infants and toddlers that were placed in foster care in 2007.

“These parents risk their own broken hearts,” said executive director Meichelle Arntz, “and this money allows us to provide them with additional support.”

Isla Vista Youth Projects, which lost state funds in 2007, received $60,000 for a family advocate and counselor for one year. This gap funding will restore programs to keep low-income families healthy through regular medical and dental care.

Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara was awarded $55,000 for its Teen Mentoring Program. Thise program expansion will allow girls 13 to 18 years old to participate in Girls Inc. for the first time locally. In the past the agency only served girls up to age 12.

Casa Pacifica received $55,000 to purchase three cars to enable caseworkers and mental health professionals to deliver 24/7 mobile emergency services for youth in immediate psychiatric crisis and to provide assistance for families with youth who are at risk for being placed in foster care.

People’s Self-Help Housing was granted $50,000 to fund a third educator for its year-round specialized mentoring learning program that serves school-aged children in low-income families.

Transition House also received $50,000, which will provide gap funding for the salary of one case manager for a year. Transition House case managers meet one-on-one with at-risk families to craft solutions to help them restore self-sufficiency.

As if helping these worthy organizations weren’t reward enough, oversight committee chairwoman Jo Gifford told the crowd of approximately 150 women that she recently learned that givers are happier than nongivers, less depressed, and full of the hormones that reduce stress.

“So with that in mind, I stand before the happiest, least depressed and least stressed women in Santa Barbara,” she said.

For more information about the Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara visit www.womensfundsb.org or contact Jo Gifford at 805.969.3320 or mjog@cox.net.

Originally published in Noozhawk and SBParent.com on January 30, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Joe Holland

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Joseph E. Holland, courtesy photo

Joseph E. Holland, courtesy photo

With three elections scheduled in Santa Barbara County this year–including the presidential primary on February 5–one would think that the county’s election chief Joseph E. Holland has his hands full. The elections office staff of 12 will ramp up to about 1,200 by Election Day. Luckily, he’s used to multi-tasking. County Clerk, Recorder and Assessor since 2003, Holland manages a $13 million budget and four divisions: Assessor, Elections, Recorder and Information Services.

Leslie Dinaberg: This is a big year for you guys with the early presidential primary, the spring primary and then the presidential election. What does that mean for your office in terms of work?

Joe Holland: …Most people don’t understand how complicated elections really are, which is good, that’s what we strive for. People want to come in, vote their ballot and have their ballot counted…that’s all that they need to worry about or need to think about. But behind the scenes, it starts with voter registration. When you register to vote, you, of course, register by your address and that determines what type of ballot you will have. What jurisdiction you are in. Are you in the city of Santa Barbara, the Goleta Water District, what congressional district are you in? It’s a lot of work just making sure that every one of the 183,000 registered voters gets the proper ballot on election day…that’s where the first level of complexity starts.

Then…you’re designing the ballots…we handle candidate filing. You’re making sure that all the candidates are properly signed up for their office …we have to hire poll workers, we have to calibrate voting machines, we have to deliver polling supplies, and we have to train poll workers…We have 215 precincts at the polling places and so…there’s nine hundred to 1,000 poll workers you have to hire across the county.

LD: Do you try to get the same people for each of the three elections?

JH: Yes we try to and a lot of them will work for all three elections. You know that’s quite a challenge … with these three major elections in 2008 it means we have to do all this work three times and that’s the first time we’ve ever had to do that…. Three major, statewide elections in one calendar year, I think this is the first time in history that’s ever happened…

LD: That’s a big job.

JH: …Most people don’t understand, but we send out ballots 60 days before the election to overseas voters in the military, so really although everybody knows the election is February 5th, it really started for us December 5th.

LD: Speaking of absentee ballots, how many permanent absentee voters are there?

JH: There are 90,000. …

LD: Are there any cost savings when people vote by mail?

JH: No, because we’re running two elections. We’re actually running a poll-based election and a mail ballot election. As long as we’re doing both, it really isn’t saving us any money because I still have 215 precincts and I still have to hire poll workers for all of those precincts. So it really doesn’t save money, it actually costs more money, but it does lead to a higher voter turnout because it makes voting easier.

LD: What is the rate of return of people that register to vote by mail versus the other registered voters?

JH: …If you look on average over the last 13 countywide elections…75 percent of people who receive a ballot in the mail return their ballot. For those people that vote at the polls, on average, 50 percent return. …The more people I can get to vote by mail the higher turnout I’m going to have…the turnout in Santa Barbara County has been going up.

LD: That’s good. I would assume that the presidential election years are typically a much better turnout than the off years.

JH: Yeah. In November 2004 we had an 80.5 percent turnout in Santa Barbara County. That was the highest turnout since 1976. … For this primary election, here we are as of January 11th, we’ve had the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary and it looks like both the Democratic and Republican contests are still very much undecided, wide open.

In March 2004 we had a 55 percent turnout for the presidential primary, but it was pretty much decided by March 2004 who was going to be the nominee for both major parties.

LD: It will be interesting to see how long it takes to come to a consensus.

JH: This ballot doesn’t have senate, congress, state legislature, all that March 2004 did have. So what going to happen on February 5th? My guess is it’s going to be a very big turnout….I’m going to guess it’s definitely going to be higher than 55 percent. It probably won’t be as high as 80 percent but it might approach 70 percent.

LD: When you’re in your crunch time, do you have deputies in the other areas you’re responsible for, that you can delegate more stuff when there’s an election going on?

JH: Yes. I have excellent staff…they do a great job so I spend my time doing this kind of stuff (interviews). And I sit in meetings and have them report to me and make decisions.

You know what’s fun? On Election Day, I actually drive around to all the various precincts, check on all the poll workers, and that’s a lot of fun.

LD: I would imagine you probably have some poll workers that have been doing it for years.

JH: Oh yeah. It’s great to go see them every Election Day. What I like about elections is they are so positive. People are there because they want to be there. Because they want to vote because they want to make a difference. And even the poll workers, they are there because they want to be part of this making a difference, and it’s pretty exciting.

LD: It’s fun. We always like to take our son, who is 8. He loves to go and get the little sticker.

JH: You know that’s the one thing about vote by mail, you don’t get the sticker. I love those stickers.

LD: I love the efficiency of it and the convenience of voting by mail, but there’s something kind of nice about going in there and casting your vote.

JH: I’m not vote by mail, so I vote at the polls. …That way, I get all the candidates materials mailed to me all the way up to Election Day. If you just vote by mail and you turn in your ballot they stop sending you stuff.

LD: That’s efficient data management. You must have really powerful technology to manage all the data.

JH: It starts with the vote registration database, 180,000 registered voters. We anticipate that we’ll probably get a good amount of people registering to vote before January 22nd, which is the last day to register to vote.

If you look back to 2004, we got 25,000 new registrations right before the November 2004 election. So how do you process 25,000 voter registration applications? It’s quite an undertaking. We had a whole bunch of people working late at night trying to get that done by the deadline. Now we’ve got what’s called ICR, intelligent character recognition, so when you fill out your voter registration card, you’ve hand written all of your data in there. We actually can scan that in and this machine will read your handwriting. … We don’t have to do that data entry. So what we’re hoping is that this presidential year if we get a whole bunch of those in, it’s going to go much quicker because all they’re doing is just verifying what’s right.

LD: Sounds pretty high tech.

JH: When you return your absentee ballot you sign the outside of the envelope, and there’s a bar code on there that tells us who you are. So when we receive that envelope back, we send it through a machine that’s called an ASR, automatic signature recognition machine. It goes through, it tells us that we’ve received Leslie’s ballot on this date at this time, and that it compares your signature with the signature that we have on file for you with your voter registration card, and if it matches, then it accepts it.

…(Before June we’ll have a new technology so that) when your ballot is received you’ll be able to go on the Internet and type in your name and it’ll tell you whether or not your ballot was received and on what day. So if you’re voting by mail you can verify that indeed our ballot made it to our office.

…Another machine that we have for the first time this year is we have an automatic envelope opener. … We get all these ballots that are accepted, ready to go. Now we need to open them. We used to hire a whole bunch of extra people to sit around a big table and just open the envelopes.

LD: Sounds like a lot of carpal tunnel.

JH: Yeah. This year we have a machine that actually can do 5,000 envelopes an hour and will open them on three sides, lay out the envelope, and plop the ballot into a bin. And by opening up three sides of the envelope, … the reason why you need to do that is to make sure that you didn’t leave any ballots inside of an envelope.

… The average voter should not be thinking about these things. They don’t need to, we’re thinking about them, because if there was a close race and two or three ballots were stuck in those envelopes, then that’s not good.

LD: When do they start tabulating the vote by mail ballots?

JH: We can start opening and processing them and tabulating them ten days before the election. We have a secure room that’s behind glass walls, with video cameras in there, with security cameras, and the public is welcome to come watch this process. We’ll actually start running ballots through vote tabulation machines and then in another room we have the computer that has place where those results will go. Now no one can look at the results but then on election night we will…. every ballot that we have in our hands prior to Election Day is tabulated and the results go up on the Internet at 8:05 on election night.

LD: That’s definitely a change with the technology. I can remember when they would be counting absentee ballots for days after an election.

JH: It’s a huge change. …

LD: What is the approximate cost to the county for each of the three elections?

JH: Each one will cost roughly a million and half dollars. The primary election, the special primary election that the state legislature added statewide, that’s probably costing $100 million. The estimates have been up to $100 million.

… The governor did say …that the state intends to reimburse the counties for it…however we’ve been looking through the budget and we can’t find where he put the money in.

But remember the statewide special election in 2005; they did not fund that ahead of time. They waited until all the costs came in and then they funded it. So we’re hoping that this will be reimbursed similarly.

LD: But just the February election?

JH: Right.

LD: Do you still like this job?

JH: Oh yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a little scary because we’re only human and you know people are going to make mistakes and there’s not a whole lot of room for mistakes when you’re running elections. We just knock on wood. We have made mistakes but nothing serious and we’re doing everything we can to see that it doesn’t happen, but you know, we’re human.

LD: Can you tell me a little about the other things you do, besides elections?

JH: As recorder we record all official records, grant deeds, trust deeds, when you buy a house. … Birth and death certificates. … I’m the civil marriage commissioner…we issue passports and we do that in three offices, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Lompoc, which is very unique. I don’t know that there are any other counties that do that.

…Then as assessor, which is my other hat, I describe and assess all taxable property in the county of Santa Barbara.

LD: What are the property taxes looking like?

JH: We have a $57 billion assessment right now for the county and with the current foreclosure situation; the increase in the assessment is not as high as it’s been in the last few years. It’ll still be an increase. We may go to three or four percent increase this year. Last year it was seven percent. Two and three years ago it was ten, eleven percent. It you multiply that by $55 billion that’s a lot of money.

The county right now is facing layoffs because the property tax assessment is not going up as high as it was in the previous years. That plus the fact that they had to make some adjustments in retirement that is causing layoffs.

…I lowered the assessment on 7,000 houses last year because of the economy. These are people that bought at the height of the market and their house is no longer worth what it’s assessed at. So I went out and all my staff went out under my direction, and we identified those 7,000 homes and we lowered their assessment to the fair market value as of January 2007. We’re going to do the same thing this year as of January 1, 2008 and my guess is the number of homes we’re going to lower the assessment on may go up to as much as 15,000. It’s mostly in the north county. Places in the south county such as Hope Ranch and Montecito have not gone down in value, at all, they continue to go up.

LD: That’s another tough job. What do you do when you’re not working?

JH: I’m involved with the Courthouse Legacy Foundation … there are some areas of the courthouse where there really has been some severe degradation of the actual structure where it has fallen into disrepair. It’s too beautiful to ignore and have it fall apart. …This courthouse legacy foundation is hopefully a vehicle that can take private and public and mix the two together and try to come up with solutions.

LD: When you do get the time to relax, what do you like to do for fun?

JH: My daughter Michelle plays water polo for Dos Pueblos. …I like to go watch her play sports. That’s a blast.

Vital Stats: Joe Holland

Born: April 24, 1957 in Los Angeles

Family: Wife Kathy and children Scott (21), Bridget (20) and Michelle (14)

Civic Involvement: Courthouse Legacy Foundation, United Way Board of Directors

Professional Accomplishments: Elected to the Office of the Clerk, Recorder, and Assessor in 2002; former Audit Section Supervisor and Real Property Appraiser for Santa Barbara County

Little-Known Fact: Joe met his wife Kathy when he was a student at UCSB and they were both working at Vons on Turnpike Avenue.

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 28, 2008. Read the original story here.

The Likeability Factor

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courtesy http://www.theworldofhillaryclinton.com/p/memes_10.html#.UeXrPeB3fEM

courtesy http://www.theworldofhillaryclinton.com/p/memes_10.html#.UeXrPeB3fEM

I’m not running for president, so why do I care if you like me?

I’ve spent an inordinate part of my adult life–not to mention my childhood and teenage years–worrying about whether people like me. And I’m not talking about my family and my friends, I know they like me, otherwise they’d never put up with my shameless mining of our relationships for column material.

I worry more about complete strangers liking me than the people who really matter. Did I cut that guy off when I pulled out of the driveway, or was he going way too fast in a 25 mile per hour zone? Either way, he honked at me, with an irritated honk, which means he–gasp, sputter, take a deep consoling breath–doesn’t like me. This kind of thing drives me crazy: both the fact that some stranger doesn’t like me and the fact that I actually care.

And yet I do care, I can’t help myself.

This kind of thing happens to me all the time. I’ll be incredibly annoyed at the woman in front of me at the grocery store who insists on subtotaling her order, then paying for half with cash and half with a credit card that takes forever to authorize. I’m always in a hurry and for those five minutes when I stand in that line that takes an extra five minutes more than I thought it would, l loathe that woman in front of me in line with a level of hatred that I usually reserve for Nazi war criminals and people who made my child cry. But still, I give her a friendly smile when she glances over at me to make sure I’m not mad at her.

I get it, I totally get it.

If you’re a guy, you probably don’t get it. “Why on earth would you care if some stranger in the grocery store likes you?” asks my husband. And I have to admit, when you put it that way, it does sound kinda nuts.

And it’s not just strangers whose opinions I care about. I have a few acquaintances that I really can’t stand, you couldn’t pay me enough money to voluntarily spend an evening with them–but I still care if they like me. (No, I’m not talking about you, silly reader. I really do like you.)

I know, it’s completely crazy, I just can’t help myself.

But here’s the thing, I’m not the only one who does this. As women, we are conditioned to want people to like us. I queried a bunch of my best girlfriends about this (the ones I really do like) and all of us agreed, we don’t like it when people don’t like us, regardless of whether or not we like them.

I refuse to believe this is just a Groucho Marxism: “I sent the club a wire stating, ‘Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.'” Or Woody Allenish: “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.”

I don’t think it’s just ego at work here either. Likeability, at least in women, is connected to success. Even when it has nothing to do with their ability to do the job.

It’s a double standard that women in high places have been dealing with for, well, pretty much forever. If you don’t stand tough, it undercuts all the respect that you’ve worked so hard to achieve. At the same time, if you seem too tough, people don’t like you, which again, undercuts your ability to be effective in your job. No wonder I’m so flummoxed by that woman in the grocery line.

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton.

If she were running for Homecoming Queen, or nominated for an academy award, then this focus on her “likeability” might make sense. But the last thing we need is for our president to be likeable. Our current president is likeable, and look where that got us. We don’t need likeable for president. We need tough and determined and courageous and principled. Why are we letting this most important election become a popularity contest? It’s a test of leadership.

More than ever, we need a leader for our leader. Whether we like her or not.

Leslie only really knows for sure that you like her if you send emails to email. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on January 25, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Laura Inks

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Laura Inks (courtesy photo)

Laura Inks (courtesy photo)

New years are all about reflecting on the past, the present and the future, and Laura Inks was in a particularly reflective mode when we caught up with her this week. With the ink barely dry on her divorce papers, Inks had also just ended another era as she completed the sale of her “baby,” ARTS ALIVE! Creativity Center, to its new owners Anthony Parisi and Laura Eliseo.

Leslie Dinaberg: So are the new owners planning to keep ARTS ALIVE relatively intact?

Laura Inks: Yes. They are both artists. … They’re building an art center in Kaui and so their plan is to have some synergy between Kaui and Santa Barbara and kind of live in both places and even have artists maybe go back and forth as like an artist exchange program or something, which would be really cool.

LD: What a great gig that would be.

LI: I know…she’s a dancer and … he is a glass artist … they’ve hired Jeanine Richards, her son was J.R. Richards of Santa Barbara High, he passed away a couple years ago. And she had Camp Lorr in Montecito for like 25 years. … She’s going to be running the ARTS ALIVE camps. Her husband just died, like last week, and so she’s thrilled to have a project to sink her teeth into.

LD: Wow, so you’re not going to be part of the new team?

LI: No. You know it’s so hard to create something and then raise it. It’s like a child, and then to turn it over to somebody. But I feel really good about this couple. They believe in my whole dream. The mission is to have a space where people can come and create and express themselves and especially for children and adults too. So they are going to continue to that. And Jeanine I’m just thrilled that she’s going to continue that.

LD: Well congratulations for you. I know you were concerned about the future of ARTS ALIVE!

LI: Well I didn’t know what was going to happen; I just knew that financially I couldn’t do it anymore. I was married for 17 years and that kind of helped cushion my starting a new business while I still had food and shelter and then with the separation that changed.

LD: Do you know what you’re going to do now?

LI: I don’t know. I’m really excited. I’ve had some really good job interviews and nothing’s panned out quite yet.

LD: Are you trying to stay in the arts field?

LI: Well I don’t know. I consider myself to be an art educator/social activist. One of my strongest skills is networking and getting the word out and meeting people and connecting people, so it could be with a nonprofit, helping them get the word out about programs and projects. I’m still the president of the Arts Mentorship Program, which is a nonprofit that’s under the umbrella of Community School Inc. … The project I’ve been working on is the Graffiti Project.

LD: What is that?

LI: It’s taking teens and young adults who do graffiti and giving them a controlled environment to create in … then to find venues for exhibiting their work. We’ll have a show in the gallery at ARTS ALIVE! of the kids graffiti artwork (through January 31st).

The idea is that first of all, the people that come here and paint on the boards and canvases that we give them are not painting on the street. We’ve had four events so far where we have music and a barbecue and a big event where they can come and spray paint. We provide them with paints and boards and everything … kids from about 14 to about 26 and some amazing artists.

Kids have already gotten jobs from them being here and doing their work and people coming up and saying, “Wow I’d like something like this on the inside of my dojo,” or, “I’d really like this on the side of my building.”

LD: That’s exciting.

LI: Yeah, it is. Also I want to expose them to other types of street art where they can move into some type of field where they can make a living…We just got a $5,000 grant from the fund for Santa Barbara to cover the cost of what we’re calling the junior organizers. I’m kind of like the head organizer but I can’t do it alone.

…Every time we have an event we have between 100-150 people show up to paint or support the kids who are painting. And we also, this is really cool, the last time we had an event, the kids from the teen center who have been making music, who have been singing over at Chapala, like they are rappers and what they call DJs … they came and performed.

…I’m trying to just give them a space to be creative and an outlet for their art form, which I think is very valid. A lot of people don’t think that graffiti art is art but that’s because it’s vandalism and they are out there on the streets doing it. So I’m trying to direct their energy into something that’s more positive and is more community-based.

We have had kids here from all different gangs…but it’s been so peaceful. It’s like the kids that are the artists, they really get what I’m doing and they’re respectful of it, which is amazing and it’s really cool.

LD: And I’m sure it’s in part because you are showing them respect for what they’re doing.

LI: Exactly. It’s a two-way street.

LD: Does it seem like the kids think of themselves as artists?

LI: Oh yes. They absolutely do. They are very serious. They have color palettes, they have sketchbooks, they’re not just coming here tagging, these are artists that need a big venue to work in and unfortunately they take to the streets because they don’t have opportunities like what it is I’m trying to create, I am creating. It’s pretty cool. And I especially like being around all the young people because it keeps me young, it keeps me hip. Even though my teenage kids don’t think I’m hip (laughs).

LD: There’d be something wrong if they did.

LI: Absolutely that would be abnormal. But their friends think I’m cool. It takes a village. Like I’m taking somebody else’s kids and getting them in some positive direction and hopefully someone will do that with my kids.

LD: That’s a really cool project. How do people contact you now if they want to contribute or get involved?

LI: Just email LauraInks@cox.net.

LD: You talked about applying for jobs now. Have you lost the urge to run your own business?

LI: Yeah. I kind of just want a paycheck. I don’t want to have sleepless nights anymore. When you have your own business there’s really no down time. … I’m at the age now, I’m going to be 50 this coming year, where I feel like I really don’t want to do something I’m not passionate about. I don’t want to just go punch a clock somewhere…I’m just going to not stress it and be open to receive the direction of the universe. Not to sound airy-fairy but I think everything happens for a reason and there’s good energy out there and the right thing is going to come along.

Vital Stats: Laura Inks

Born: : Pittsburgh, PA, November 20, 1958

Family: : Children Camdon (14), Olivia (16), Amanda (25), and Shawn (31) and two granddaughters, Alonnah and Ashlee.

Professional Accomplishments: : Founded ARTS ALIVE! Creativity Center; Award winning art teacher; Real Estate salesperson and Rookie of the Year; Women’s Economic Ventures Entrepreneur of the Year

Civic Involvement: : Community School Inc, Arts Mentorship Program; Santa Barbara Education Foundation, Keep the Beat

Little-Known Fact: : “Probably that I have so many kids and that I adopted my two older kids.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 21. 2008. Click here to read the article on Noozhawk’s site.