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Embracing the joys of laziness

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The Joy of LazinessPreparing to embark on a week of holiday leisure, I inventoried my reading material and came across the book I’ve been waiting for my whole life. It’s called The Joy of Laziness. The early bird may get the worm, but late sleepers live longer, according to this wonderful book by German Scientists Peter Axt and Michaela Axt-Gadermann.

You hear that, mom–and every single boss who has dared to give me the stink eye when I stumbled in a few minutes late because I needed that triple latte more than I needed to be on time–late sleepers live longer!

According to The Joy of Laziness, everybody has a limited amount of life energy at his or her disposal. The speed with which this energy is consumed determines your life span. Every day we encounter countless demands on our energy, such as stress, hurry, frustration, cold, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition and an inappropriate fitness regimen. A lifestyle that uses a lot of energy accelerates the aging process, makes you more susceptible to illness, and can even shorten your life.

In other words, laziness rocks! And I’m not the only one who thinks so. I’ve got German scientists behind me on this.

My theory is that the only reason we don’t embrace our laziness more openly–and less guiltily–is those darn pilgrims. All that nonsense about every hour needing to be spent productively and idle hands being the devil’s workshop is just that: nonsense.

Most men I know already embrace the laziness rocks theory. They don’t even notice the dust bunnies hopping off the sofa as they plop themselves on to it. And it would never occur to them to wash the dishes immediately after a meal, or fold clothes as soon as they come out of the laundry. They may be on to something there.

The women I know, on the other hand, have an almost impossible time relaxing just for the heck of it. They join book clubs, so they’ll have some justification to read for pleasure, and get dogs, so they’ll have an excuse to walk on the beach.

My friend Suzanne, who is a stay at home mom, says that she feels guilty for playing with her kids unless her house is perfectly spotless.

“You’re a stay at home MOM, not a stay at home MAID,” I reminded her. Her perfectly clean house always leaves me with a sense of wonder. That is, I wonder how much happier she would be if she stopped cleaning and took the time to read People Magazine, watch Grey’s Anatomy and play computer games like I do.

Nonessential household duties have no hold on me. I hate to do things like wash dishes and make beds when I know that the next day there’ll just be more dirty dishes and more unmade beds. Doing the same housework over and over again makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel to nowhere. Look, it’s a sink full of dishes. Look, it’s a sink full of dishes again! Ooh, look, the dishes are here again!

Sure it’s wonderful to have a clean house and a home cooked meal, but I would much rather write a few more stories and pay someone else to provide those things for me. Especially since the domestic arts are not exactly where my talents lie.

I’ll confess, the worst grade I ever got in high school, I kid you not, was in home economics.

Admitting I’m not a domestic goddess takes a lot of the pressure off, especially this time of the year. One of the great advantages of not cooking–or not cooking well–is you get to be the one who brings wine and cheese and crackers to Thanksgiving dinner.

In addition to not having to ruin my makeup while slaving over a hot stove, there are actually intellectual advantages to idleness. According to the book How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson, Einstein launched his theory of relativity by wondering what it would be like to ride on a sunbeam; Newton discovered gravity while sitting in an orchard; and the Harry Potter character popped into J.K. Rowling’s mind as she was gazing out a train window.

I’ll be counting my blessings that a few more people have figured out that laziness rocks, and also makes you healthier, smarter and more creative. And by the way, have you read the latest positive news about dark chocolate and red wine? We’ve got a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving–except for those stupid Pilgrims.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

Oops She’s Single Again

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Britney Spears, courtesy Wikipedia.

Britney Spears, courtesy Wikipedia.

Britney Spears and the people of Connecticut both voted Independent this week.

But Britney captured my interest in a way that Senator Joe Lieberman never could, even if he is a nice Jewish boy.

Sure they’ll both have plenty of party invitations, but I’m more concerned for her. A recent study found that if you’re a woman, divorce is bad for your health.

Granted, dumping an unemployed, 28-year-old father of two babies who spends more time changing hairstyles than changing diapers is probably not the biggest “Oops!” in the world for Britney–that would have been hooking up with the loser in the first place. K-Fed? A cross between K-M art and Federated? Classy written all over that guy.

At first glance, both divorce stories made me laugh out loud. “Britney Spears has filed for divorce from her husband Kevin Federline, citing irreconcilable differences, like Britney is the only one with a career.” And “Stand by your man or get sick, study says.”

What a load of hooey, I thought, thinking of how many women I knew who were far better off once they’d lost a couple hundred pounds of husband. Maybe Britney can get back together with Justin Timberlake. They were so cute on the Mickey Mouse Club.

As I pictured them spawning a whole chorus line of belly-baring, head-popping, break-dancing babies, I couldn’t help wondering about that other story. The one about real women getting divorced, without a record deal and a few hundred servants to keep them warm at night.

Conducted over a ten-year period at Iowa State University, the study found that women who were divorced were not just husband-less, they also had less income, less help around the house, and less–and sometimes no–health insurance.

“What we found was that the act of getting a divorce produced no immediate effects on [physical] health, but it did have effects on mental health,” said co-author Fred Lorenz. “Ten years later, those effects on mental health led to effects in physical health.”

Now granted, these women all lived in Iowa, which has got to be the most depressing, schizophrenic place on earth. How would you like to be wined and dined and complimented and courted like crazy by presidential hopefuls once every four years, and then completely ignored until someone had a craving for potatoes? I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole state eventually developed some mental health issues. Maybe the divorced women are just a bit more precocious.

And it’s not like any of those Hawkeyes–who probably kept the house but lost their season tickets in the divorce settlement–had Britney’s $38 million bucks to help mend their broken hearts. When they were interviewed a decade later, the divorced women reported 37 percent more sickness than the married ones. Do they not have match.com in Iowa? Or are they putting something funny in the Happy Hour Cosmopolitans in Des Moines?

Personally, I think Britney and those women from Iowa ought to get together for a few cocktails. I’ve always found that the best cure for any kind of man trouble is a night out with the girls.

Even us happily married people (gotta throw hubby a bone here) need a girls’ night out every once in a while. And while Lieberman can probably count on plenty of new friends when he returns to the Senate, we’ll still save him a seat at our table.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

Aliens among us

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Captain_Underpants_Talking_ToiletsOnce upon a time I imagined raising my child in an exquisitely gender-neutral environment. None of this pink for girls, blue for boys stuff. I was sure I would raise a boy exactly the same way I would have raised a girl.

Then I actually had a child.

As the epidural wore off, reality kicked in. I had joined the MOB. I was the Mother Of a Boy. Nature, nurture, schmurture. I quickly discovered how little it mattered what I did.

Koss took about five minutes to decide he liked his stuffed football better than his teddy bear and another three to decide that peeing in my face was hysterically funny.

The fart jokes started about ten minutes after that, and seven years later, I’m still holding my breath.

He had his own little alien personality from the very beginning.

I had pictured us cuddled under a bright yellow comforter, sharing my favorite books from childhood. Nancy Drew, Little House on the Prairie, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?…yeah, right. Our bedtime reading was filled with Dinosaur stats and Pokemon facts. His boy-brain was so hungry for straight information, I felt lucky if our story time involved any story narratives at all.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I joined the MOB, it’s that boys are actually alien beings. Their brains work differently than ours do. Apparently anything that moves fast is cool; anything that moves fast and is somehow gross is super cool; and anything that moves fast, is gross, and remotely resembles a snort, a burp, or a fart is super duper cool.

Oh, and there is nothing funnier than laughing until milk spurts out of your nose–and if it’s chocolate milk, it’s even funnier. And if you can somehow turn spurting chocolate milk out of your nose into a competitive sport with Olympic or Guinness Book potential, then half the world’s population would forever be in your debt.

This is not just a MOB observation, it’s scientific fact.

It is actually embedded in our DNA that when we go on vacation, I’m the only one who remembers to pack our suitcases with extra sweatshirts, toilet paper, snacks, books, light bulbs, sunscreen, magazines and the directions to our hotel, while my husband, Zak, is the only one who can figure out how to fit all that stuff in the trunk of our car.

And if for some reason Zak can’t get everything to fit, Koss is right there telling him how to do it.

Just like his father, Koss loves information. And just like his father, if he doesn’t know the right information, he’ll make something up.

We call it “Male Answer Syndrome” in our house.

My mom used to call it “Diarrhea of the Mouth,” which Koss finds hysterically funny.

Now that I’ve had seven years experience in the MOB, I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised to find that Koss would rather read the Encyclopedia of Spiders than Charlotte’s Web. If somebody wrote Captain Underpants and Attack of the Farting, Spitting and Barfing Spiders, Koss would really be in heaven.

So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the potty humor genre has become so popular. Books with titles like The Day My Butt Went Psycho, Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman, and Zombie Butts From Uranus! are somehow more attractive to boys than The Trumpet of the Swan, The Wind and the Willows, and From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

“Well duh, mom, those don’t sound very funny,” MANswers my seven-year-old son.

“Captain Underpants is totally funny,” MANswers my 41-year-old husband. “Want to smell something gross?” asks Zak, targeting a gigantic fart in our direction and immediately sending our son into peals of laughter.

Like I said, they’re alien beings.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

Pimp my ride

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Mercury Grand Marquis, courtesy Wikipedia.

Mercury Grand Marquis, courtesy Wikipedia.

In my quest not to become the typical minivan mom, I’ve become my grandfather instead. Somewhere between the two-door, bottom-of-the-line, “I can’t give it up because it still runs” college car and slapping a “my kid’s smarter than your kid” sticker on a station wagon, I skipped a generation and started driving a big, safe, six-passenger, slab of American steel.

Just like my grandpa did.

Just like most grandpas still do.

It wasn’t exactly a planned thing. It’s not like I woke up one day, got tired of zipping into tiny parking spaces and zipping out of the gas station for less than 30 bucks, and decided I wanted to captain a boat. Even in the wildest of my “Thelma and Louise” driving down the highway and not looking back fantasies, I have never really pictured myself driving off into the sunset behind the wheel of a Mercury Grand Marquis.

A green Jag or a red Mustang convertible, maybe, but a Mercury?

It all started when Teena, my 1990 Toyota Tercel, failed her smog check. It was finally time to go shopping for a new car.

Now, I know men complain about women and shopping all the time, but let me make something clear here: I don’t like to shop, I like to BUY. My husband, Zak, he’s the shopper in the family. He’ll think about replacing his golf hat for about year, look around for six months, research hats on the Internet for another month, discuss hats with his friends for another month, low bid for a few hats on EBay and Craig’s List, and then twiddle his thumbs for another couple of months before he finally gets around to buying something.

I, on the other hand, think the best kind of shopping is serendipitous, where you just stumble on something you can’t believe you ever lived without. Those QVC and Amazon reminder emails were made for people like me. And if I happened to spot a golf hat on sale, while cruising to lunch in the mall, I’d buy it in five different colors and two different sizes because I’d vaguely remember some boring conversations about Zak wanting a new hat.

So, given our two different purchasing styles, it’s no big surprise that when we went looking for a new car at a big tent sale at Earl Warren a couple of weeks ago, Zak was going to browse, but I was coming to buy.

My first priority in choosing a car was, of course, color, followed by the important practical considerations such a placement of cup holders, and a light up makeup mirror on the passenger side.

“But what kind of a vehicle are you looking for?” asked the already-exasperated salesman.

“Green,” answered my seven-year-old.

“Affordable,” said my husband.

“Ignore them both,” I instructed the poor man. “I want a convertible.”

We test drove the one convertible that was in our price range and quickly realized that it wasn’t really in our height range–Zak’s tall, skinny neck would be breaking through the canvas once we put the top up, and Koss’s four foot, four inch frame would be bursting out of the back seat in another couple of inches.

Then we drove a few other fun, fast cars that my inner teenager loved and my outer mom reluctantly agreed were completely impractical.

Koss pushed to try out the minivan with the built in DVD player. “But I hate minivans, ” I said. Not that I’d ever driven one.

I decided to give it a try. After all, it couldn’t hurt me too much to dip my toe into the carpool lane, could it?

Stepford Wives nightmares ran through my head as I turned the key in the minivan’s ignition. I tried to imagine myself pulling in and out of school in a minivan twice a day, just like millions of other moms in millions of other minivans. Maybe I could put a big skull tattoo on the side, or paint flames on it. That way at least I’d be able to find it in the parking lot next to all of the other minivans.

I started to feel nauseous. It’s just not right. It’s just not me. And that’s when I spotted the gleam of gold in the corner of the lot. Okay, it was the length of a football field, so it was kind of hard to miss. The leather seats called out to me, along with the six-CD-changer, the lumbar support, the little beep when you’re 50 miles away from needing gas, and the digital compass in the rearview mirror that automatically adjusts to darkness at night.

When I test-drove that baby, not only did she feel solid and smell pretty, but the other drivers got out of my way. Other drivers are the only things that have prevented me from enjoying driving for the past 20-odd years. I was sold.

“It’s not like we have to buy something today,” said my husband, naively. As if I was going to spend another weekend car shopping. I was done and the Mercury won.

We decided to name her Sunny.

Now if they could just make those parking spaces at school as wide as the ones at Bingo, I’d really be cruising.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

Purse-u-ing the perfect purse

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Photo by Linnaea Mallette, publicdomainpictures.net.

Photo by Linnaea Mallette, publicdomainpictures.net.

I’ve been searching for the perfect purse for about 30 years and I’ve finally come to a conclusion: there is no such thing. If you’ve ever tried to dance, as I did recently, with your everyday purse hanging from your shoulder because you can’t fit your digital camera and reporter’s notebook into your party purse, you know what I mean.

The perfect purse has got to be able to hold everything you need, yet still look stylish and feel light.

I think I’ve almost mastered the hold everything part.

My friend Ramey used to joke that anything you ever needed could be found in my purse. Can opener? Check. Band-Aid? Check. Sweatshirt? Check. Tire iron? Check. … Just kidding, I got rid of that years ago!

But I do think I’m a shoo-in to dominate on Survivor, the Purse Frontier, where contestants have to live off the contents of their handbags. After all, I am the reigning champion of “The Purse Game,” a baby shower thriller where you score points for matching a list of items with things in your handbag. I’ve got a whole closet full of jelly-bean-filled-baby-bottle-prizes, but I know my big score is coming soon, which is why I keep finding innovative new items to store in my purse, like that glittery pink Swiss army knife keychain that once said “princess” and now says “prin,” or those handy-dandy dissolvable Listerine mouthwash strips.

Since my son was little, he’s thought my purse was like Mary Poppins’ magic bag, filled with toys and treats and things to keep him relatively clean and quiet. Now that Koss is 7, my purse has become the receptacle of choice for his treasures, not just mine. I’m dumbfounded when I hear other moms talking about emptying their son’s pockets before doing laundry. My kid doesn’t want to look “bulky” and besides, I am Koss’s pockets — or at least my purse is — which is one of the reasons why we had to institute the “you can only take one small rock/shell/glass treasure home from the beach” rule.

When my husband tries to hand me his sunglasses, his wallet, or a frog he just found, that’s where I draw the line. My purse is heavy enough already.

I feel a little bit guilty when they make special requests, (“Mom, do you have a purple glitter crayon and some string cheese?” “Honey, do you have our 1992 tax returns and that New Yorker I’ve been wanting to read?”) then are utterly shocked when I’m not packing their little hearts’ desires.

I wish I could carry around the refrigerator and the filing cabinet with me but my purse is getting a little heavy. Besides, where would the shoe rack go?

In fact it’s so heavy that it’s leaving a permanent mark on my right shoulder. I wonder if there’s a way to make that look stylish, like the next hot thing after piercing and tattooing.

Unfortunately, as you can see from a recent inventory — wallet, keys sunglasses, cell phone, Band-aids, Kleenex, lip balm, lipstick, dental floss, floss sticks, paperback book, magic 8-ball, post-its, Tylenol, pens, notebook, camera, water, hair pick, mints and two changes of clothing — there’s absolutely nothing I could do without.

Believe me, I’ve tried. I have a closet full of nearly new (and now woefully out of style) handbags that aren’t big enough to fit all of life’s essentials. I once got stuck overnight in the Newark Airport with nothing to read and a terrible gift shop selection. There are 5,873 squares on the roof of the United Airlines terminal and I will never again leave home without extra reading material. As for the bottle of water, well, I was once stuck in the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas.

With the exception of last weekend, I do try to lighten things up a bit when I go out at night. That’s when the party purses come out. But these can be tricky too. Some of those adorable little Judith Leiber rhinestone numbers won’t even hold a credit card and a lipstick, let alone car keys. If you need to bring sunglasses, you’re really up a creek. I think what I really need is a purse-onal assistant to schlep my bag, like all the movie stars have when they walk the red carpet.

Yes, that’s what’s missing in my life.

But I wouldn’t want an assistant digging through my bag. Who knows what embarrassing things she might find there. There are only so many places to hide a body. As the Illinois State Supreme Court found, “a woman’s purse occupies a peculiar status and is a possession in which a woman expects supreme privacy.”

And in the interest of full disclosure, the handbag inventory I provided here isn’t quite complete.

Now, for the three straight men and my father who made it all the way through this column — you win! I have your prize right here. … Just a sec … I know it’s in here somewhere…

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

Mag on the Rag

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fourweekslogoPunny magazine debuts for the hormonally challenged

There’s nothing like an unexpected visit from “Aunt Flo” to make a woman roar, snarl, growl, and howl. And howl I did–with laughter–when I heard about the new online women’s lifestyle publication, Four Weeks Magazine, which bills itself as “the first magazine tailored to each week of a woman’s monthly cycle.”

Yes, that’s right. I’m not talking bicycle or motorcycle or rinse cycle–I mean “that” cycle. Reading through the press release, my cramps and chocolate cravings began almost immediately. I had to find out more about this new rag (www.fourweeksmag.com).

Is it just another bloody online magazine? I thought Divorce Magazine (www.divorcemag.com) and Modern Drunkard (www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com) were gimmicky, but Four Weeks takes the old “if it bleeds, it leads” adage to a new level. It’s actually four mini magazines for each of the four weeks of a woman’s monthly hormone cycle and “the distinct moods that her hormones have her feeling during those weeks.” Week 1 is “fun and familiar;” week 2, “exciting and exotic;” week 3, “cautious and caring;” and week 4, “indulgent and introspective.”

But what about “pimply-faced and pissed off?” And what happens if you happen to have a 5-week cycle? Would you be stuck without anything to read? Maybe that’s where “bloated and bitchy” kicks in.

Four Week’s founder and editor Gabrielle Lichterman is the former managing editor of Playgirl magazine, the author of “28 Days: What Your Cycle Reveals about Your Love Life, Moods, and Potential” and a member of The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. Who knew? All of the grief that woman get from men for traipsing into public restaurants like we were boarding Noah’s Ark, and we could have just told our guys we were going to a “society meeting.”

Talk about giving Martha and Oprah a run for their money. This chick is also the founder of her own science, Hormonology, “the science of predicting your day and planning your life according to one’s own hormone cycle.” Not to be catty, but does this mean we can blame Condi Rice’s hormones for the situation in the Middle East?

Grrr…

According to Lichterman, “Women can gain an advantage by planning their life around their hormonal influences. For example, it makes sense to plan high-energy activities during the week a woman’s hormones make her energy and endurance peak and to plan mellow activities during the week a woman’s hormones make her feel sedate and tired.”

So all of that hard work that women have done the past century to prove that we’re rational creatures not ruled by hormones goes up in smoke? I asked my husband what he thought about all this, and he said, “Yes, dear. You’re smart and pretty.” Okay, maybe not everything’s gone up in smoke.

Now nobody wants a Rorschach Inkblot on their white organza bridal gown, but Lichterman has taken wedding planning to a whole new level and produced “a hormonal guide to picking the perfect wedding date,” with week 4 flagged as a “Bridezilla warning!” week because “descending hormones produce a rise in noradrenaline, a chemical that triggers anger and irritation. At the same time, decreasing estrogen is making it hard to put a positive spin on anything.”

As if one’s mood swings could be so easily predictable, I snarled.

I’d like to go with the flow, but do you think it’s possible that your hormones could get so out of whack that you begin to feel like you live your whole life in week four? It sure would excuse…I mean, explain, a lot.

And if I, or my evil twin sister, were to be living in a perpetual week 4 hormonal hell, what should I be reading? Certainly not news headlines. Instead, the shopping section of Four Weeks offers a story on “Killer Candy Bowls.” No, not my mom’s childhood tales of Halloween razor blades in the Milky Ways (perhaps she was in week 4 and just really needed the chocolate caramely nougat)–these are actually really cool looking bowls made out of recycled plastic candy wrappers by Nepalese artisans and sold fair trade by a non-profit organization that provides health care services in rural Nepal and Vietnam. Where’s the comedy in that?

This magazine might actually be kind of useful. There’s an article on “How your guy’s hormone cycle can bring you closer,” which features nifty tidbits like: “When a man watches a romantic movie, it raises the level of his progesterone by more than 10 percent, making him mellow and more nurturing.” So it’s not just because he thinks he might get lucky.

The food section has an article on “The surprising ways candy can be good for your health.” Is it just my hormones, or am I actually starting to like this woman? Unlike the typical women’s magazines, which recommend either healthy diets and exercise or plastic surgery and expensive baubles, this article prescribes eating caramels for stress, licorice for bloating, peppermints for coughing and congestion, and my personal favorite, chocolate for cancer.

It’s hard to growl too much about that. Meow.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

MONOPOLY Goes Modern

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Would you like fries with that labradoodle?

Mr. MonopolyIf I were dead, I’d be rolling over in my grave right now. But since I’m not, I’ll have to settle on rolling my eyes along with every kid who ever suffered through a rainy day MONOPOLY marathon, which is basically every kid and ex-kid in America.

Love it or hate it–and I feel a little bit of both whenever I play–MONOPOLY is a sacred part of our culture. Everybody plays. You play because your little sister bugs you till you say yes. You play because you can’t go outside because it’s raining or they’re spraying Naled. You play because it’s Christmas vacation, you’ve already tortured your little sister, and you don’t have anything else to do. You play because you don’t want to play strip poker with grandma. You play because there’s nothing else your family can agree to do together.

And now, it pains me to say this, MONOPOLY–the most popular board game in history, with more than 250 million copies sold–has gone commercial.

I know it seems an ironic complaint to make about a game that glorifies capitalism and has aggressively licensed versions from Armyopoly to X-Menopoly. I think we still have a version of Santa Barbopoly around here somewhere.

But despite these transgressions, one part of the game remained sacred: the tokens. You may abhor the game, or make up your own rules to make it go faster, but everyone has a favorite MONOPOLY token, and it never feels quite right when you’re forced to play with your second favorite.

Parker Brothers, the game’s manufacturer, has even done a nationwide analysis and found that certain personality traits are associated with certain MONOPOLY tokens. You’ve got your wheelbarrows, who are always prepared to take in loads of easily maneuverable money; your canons who are constantly aiming to make a big noise; your race cars, who drive hard deals in their negotiations; your shoes, who trod their way patiently around the board; and your top hats, who simply want to own it all.

Not only do we get attached to our game tokens, they’re also educational. The only iron–and for that matter, the only thimble–my son has ever seen is the one in his MONOPOLY game. And now, or rather “Here & Now” which is the name of the new edition, they’ve gone corporate.

Instead of traveling along the board as a battleship, you can now trudge along as a Motorola RAZR cell phone, McDonald’s fries, Starbucks coffee, a Toyota Prius or a New Balance sneaker. The trendy labradoodle is the least commercial of the new tokens, which also include an unbranded laptop computer and passenger jet.

I could understand the branding better if Parker Brothers was suffering through hard times. Toys aren’t the big sell they once were and board games are in danger of going the way of the Pteranodons. Kids are now electronic game experts in preschool and two-dimensional toys have a tough time competing for attention when there’s a super-surround-sound-mega-amazing Game Boy in the room. Or so I’m told. My poor deprived child, as he constantly reminds me, has to play with books and balls and art supplies most of the time, so he’d probably be glad to play something that actually came with instructions.

But believe it or not, this commercialization of MONOPOLY has nothing to do with sponsor money. McDonald’s, Starbucks, and the others did not pay for product placement fees. Yes, you read that right: they got the brands on there for free. They are simply there to represent a sign of the ubiquitous branding of American life. According to the company, MONOPOLY: Here & Now Edition was designed to answer the question: “What would the most popular board game of all time look like if it were invented today instead of in 1935?”

In addition to giving the old shoe the boot in favor of a New Balance running sneaker and trading in the terrier for a labradoodle, there are new properties with inflated prices (landing on Times Square with a hotel will cost $20 million), larger currency denominations, airports replacing railroads and more modern utilities like internet service replacing the old water works. I guess you can always buy your Evian online.

The Chance and Community Chest cards have also been updated. Instead of winning $10 in a beauty contest, you can now win $100,000 in a reality TV show, and when you go to jail, it’s for identity theft and insider trading. Oh, and when you pass GO, you collect $2 million dollars. Not bad for a few hours work.

 

 

 

Matt Collins, Vice President of Marketing for Parker Brothers, says, “For the past 70 years, millions of Americans have tasted the thrill of ‘owning it all’ by playing MONOPOLY. The new MONOPOLY: Here & Now Edition allows aspiring real estate tycoons to enjoy an elevated game play experience that more closely matches today’s America.”

So $2 million for passing GO matches today’s America? I hope my editor reads this. I’m gonna ask for a raise.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

A Sugarcoated Lesson on Navigating the News

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Image: Jon S, Flickr.com

Image: Jon S, Flickr.com

Certain Santa Barbarians, who shall remain nameless for fear of lawsuits, seem to be having a humongous amount of difficulty understanding what constitutes the difference between a news story, an opinion piece and a column. So, as a public service for the seven of you who don’t have the benefit of high school journalism experience, I offer this column as an attempt to help clarify the differences.

Not to put the seven of you on the spot or anything, but this very morning I explained the difference between fiction and nonfiction to my second grade reading group, and they got it in about three seconds. I also apologize in advance for the complexity and sophistication of my examples, but not every story can be about animals.

News–Candy Kidnapper Strikes Again

Chief Johnny B. Good addressed a crowd of reporters at a press conference yesterday about the recent rash of candy thefts at local schools. “The good news is that children are eating less candy. Without all that sugar zipping through their brains they are able to concentrate better on their schoolwork, which will ultimately bring in more taxes to increase our salaries. The bad news is that there appears to be a serial candy thief in our community, and we won’t be able to catch him until we have higher salaries.”

According to data presented by Good, since September 1 a total of 103 pounds of candy have been stolen from local schools, including: 19 Abba Zabbas; 13 Big Hunks; 11 Mars Bars; 59 Snickers Bars; 52 Rolo Rolls; 27 bags of plain M & Ms; 11 $100,000 Bars; 39 Oh Henry’s; 17 Butterfingers, and one still-fresh Twinkie which had been stapled to the wall of a 5th grade classroom at Harding School since 1978.

Other schools reporting candy thefts include Montecito Union, Monte Vista, Laguna Blanca and Garfield Elementary School, which has been closed for more than 30 years.

Anti-cavity activist and Dentist Wally Wonka, said, “Whoever the candy thief is, he should not be hunted down by the police, but rather he should be applauded for his valiant efforts to improve the dental health of the children in our community.”

Chief Good said there are no leads or suspects in the case yet, and encourages anyone with information to contact the police at 555.1234.

Opinion–Kudos for Kidnapper

Faster than an eating contest, more powerful than a ten-ton Big Mac, there’s an alarming problem facing our nation’s children and it’s called obesity. We have met the enemy, and then we et the enemy.

Sure we can force kids to take P.E. class instead of running around on a football field with all those silly instruments. And yes, we can also regulate the percentage of fat in the cafeteria’s chicken nuggets that no one ever eats anyway. But there’s a better way to fight this epidemic, and the Candy Kidnapper has found it.

As any parent knows, the only way to control kids these days is through fear. Make them so scared of the notorious Candy Kidnapper that not a single Skittle will ever again pass their lips.

We’ve tried facts–more than 30 percent of American children are considered overweight–and they’ve had absolutely no impact. We’ve tried force, like no dessert until you eat all of your vegetables, and they fed them to the dog when we weren’t looking. Now it’s time to try fear.

Column–A Sweet Confession

It all started with that teensy tiny Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup peeking out of that sweet little kindergartener’s Dora the Explorer lunch box. It was going to melt before lunchtime anyway, and then she would have had chocolate all over her pink polka dotted dress.

We certainly didn’t want that.

So I took it.

It was the best Reese’s I’ve ever had, and believe me; I’ve had a lot of Reese’s. Taking candy from that kid was like taking candy from a baby, only a slightly bigger baby.

That peanut butter cup was my gateway drug; once I got a taste I couldn’t stop myself. But the police got it wrong, I never took a Mars Bar: I hate coconut. And there’s no way it was 103 pounds. It was 97 pounds, at the most.

Nothing tastes better than stolen candy. You know what I mean. It’s Halloween and as a parent you’re forced to “inspect” your child’s loot for the good stuff, leaving them only the sour fruity crud to fight over.

If these kids weren’t so darn gullible they would still have their treats. Kindergarteners will fall for “Look, over there,” and even “share” their candy with you if you ask in a high squeaky voice.

Yeah, it’s a bit sinister, but it sure goes down sweet.

So the next time you read one of those rabble rousing newspaper stories, make sure you get your facts–and your fiction–straight.

Class, are there any questions? You can email Leslie at Email email

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

Science Goddess, Hear me Roar!

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Image courtesy Wikipedia, creative commons.

Image courtesy Wikipedia, creative commons.

An introduction to the Leslie Science System

Quite frankly I’ve been confused about conventional science since elementary school, where I learned in English class that “i” goes before “e” except after “c,” and then it was time to open up our scIEnce textbooks.

I tried to participate in my junior high science fair, with what I thought was a brilliant and much-needed scientific investigation into which jokes are most likely to make my classmates laugh so hard they pee their pants in class or spurt milk out their noses in the cafeteria.

Believe it or not, my teachers quickly killed that line of scientific inquiry.

Darwin, babe, I feel your pain.

From that day on, I became more of a liberal arts kind of girl. Physics, schmysics–the only relationship I had with Newton was through his fig cookies, which in the Leslie Science System actually qualify as health food. Any food that substitutes bowel cleansing fruit filling for chocolate does not qualify as a cookie.

While not everyone buys into it yet–hey, relativity wasn’t an easy sell for Einstein either–the Leslie Science System has served me well over the years. Particularly when it comes to dealing with my husband, who is one of those oddball people who believes in using logic to win arguments. I say there’s nothing wrong with choosing the cutest doctor to deliver your baby, since you’ll be spending so much time together. Or voting for a particular political candidate because you think that Jon Stewart will have a lot of fun mocking him for the next four years.

The Leslie Science System is also great for procedural explanations. I’ve used it to explain to my husband the proper way to light a birthday cake’s candles (Leslie math: your age plus “one to grow on”) or to clarify why it costs $500 every time I go to Costco (Leslie’s law: for every item you put on your Costco list, you will stumble on seven other items you can’t live without).

It’s the same kind of highly evolved logic that comes into play when you buy new sheets for your bed, and then have to replace the carpet and the dressers and the curtains and the husband because the new sheets made them look shabby.

It is also the same kind of advanced thinking required to understand the intricacies of preparing to go on a diet (eat a lot for at least two weeks before, so that the first few pounds will come off easily and encourage you to stay on your diet).

It’s really quite simple once you understand the system. It’s science, Leslie style.

Still, man, given the slow speed in which the world embraces new scientific methods such as the Leslie Science System, I was quite surprised when I was recently asked to write two children’s science books. Perhaps this would be my opportunity to revolutionize the world of children’s books. Perhaps people were finally coming around to my way of thinking.

Imagine my surprise when my editor told me I had to do actual research on spiders and volcanoes and include actual facts in my stories.

“You mean I can’t just make stuff up, I mean use the Leslie Science System, like I do in my column? I really think it’s catching on,” I told him.

“Sure you can,” said my editor. “But I won’t pay for it.”

So I bit the bullet, wrote the books, and cashed the checks. Now you can buy the books at www.lesliedinaberg.com. Just click on “read” for more information. After all, as my fellow unappreciated-during-his-lifetime scientist Einstein said, “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine…” and strange as it may seem, Leslie really did publish two science books this summer. . Email email

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 15. 2006.

Happy Birthday to Me

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Photo courtesy George Hodan, PublicDomainPictures.net.

Photo courtesy George Hodan, PublicDomainPictures.net.

When I was born they had to use forceps, which screwed up my face. Family lore has it that dad’s first words upon seeing his firstborn were (to my mom): “It’s okay honey, we’ll buy her pretty clothes and develop her personality.”

My husband gets a big kick out of that one. Until I remind him that now it’s his turn to buy me pretty clothes, and maybe a diamond trinket or two.

Like that’s ever going to happen.

He has lowered the bar on my expectations down so low that I’m thrilled if he remembers to make dinner reservations, and positively orgasmic if he deigns to call a babysitter. So maybe he learned something at Harvard.

The one thing he doesn’t have to be subtly reminded about is the all-important cake. The chocolate cake. We settled that issue early on in our relationship.

I was young and naïve and googly-eyed in love at the time, and tickled to death when my future husband took me out for a lovely birthday dinner. My favorite friends were all there, the food was great, the drinks were plentiful, and he had even bought me the perfect pair of earrings I had slyly hinted might flatter my lobes.

After a rough, first year start—“not every girl dreams of a boyfriend who will give her a $3.99 birthday gift from K-Bee Toys,” I explained, gently—it seemed like Zak was finally starting to “get” me.

It was that night that I started to think our relationship might not just be a phase (which my sister still thinks), that he might actually be “the one.”

Then he took me home, and the trouble began. There was no cake. No cake! Not just no chocolate cake, which would have been a near-fatal error in itself, not an ill-advised angel food concoction or an unfortunate cheesecake. Not even a pineapple upside down cake!

I was about ready to turn Zak upside down when he offered the pitiful excuse, “But we just had crème brulee at the restaurant. With a candle.”  And what on earth did that have to do with my missing birthday cake?

He truly didn’t get it.

In my family, birthdays are a big deal. They last at least a month, with both family and friend versions of the celebration. In recent years we’ve widened the spectrum a bit to include the family with and without kids celebrations, and the friends with and without kids celebrations, which should pretty much fill my calendar until Thanksgiving.

Cake is mandatory, but candles are optional. However, as my husband learned the hard way (“it’s just a flesh wound, darling”), the proper way to count out birthday candles is your age plus “one to grow on.” This is science, and his family is clearly medieval.

And by the way, I saw a really cute purse on sale downtown. I think it would look great with my personality.

Leslie will be accepting birthday wishes—and cake—for the next several months at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 8, 2006.