Tag Archives: Santa Barbara Daily Sound

A Tale of Two Trips

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Family travel by Traveloscopy, courtesy Flickr.com.

Family travel by Traveloscopy, courtesy Flickr.com.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of childhood, it was the age of parenthood, it was the epoch of excitement, it was the epoch of dullness, it was the season of laughter, it was the season of bickering.

It was August, and it was family vacation time.

It is not often that a 30-12-year-old woman has the opportunity to vacation separately with her family of origin (mom, dad, and 30-10-year-old sister) and her family of record (husband and 7-year-old son)–and certainly not within the course of a week.

There are reasons that these double family vacations haven’t really caught on. Most people have a lot more common sense than I do.

This kind of travel time warp doubleheader is definitely not for the faint of heart, stomach or ear.

Traveling with Zak and Koss (my husband and son, or my “roomies”) is always an adventure into the great unknown. Each new phase of our son’s maturity comes without warning, so we never know how he’s going to behave from vacation to vacation. One summer he was napping through five-hour car trips and the next it was, “Are we there yet?” “I’m hungry,” “Can I get a toy?” and “Are we there yet?” every two seconds.

On the other hand, traveling with my parents and sis (my “homies”) is an adventure into the well-trodden paths of the past. My whole life flashed before me many times during the week, and not just in deja vu over the ultra-competitive card games and battles over the shower schedule. When my dad is behind the wheel, you take your life into your hands. Other people dream of snakes on a plane, but the only scarier thing I can imagine besides dad driving in the rain, in the dark, on unfamiliar Colorado mountain roads, is his reaction to having my sister and mom point out that he just drove over the median strip and wouldn’t he rather let one of them drive instead?

Unlike the rest of my homies, I have no illusions about my driving skills, although I do often wonder whether to attribute them to nature or nurture. My dad deserves credit for teaching me to use the brakes on an empty freeway, and my mom (otherwise known as “GPS Joannie”) gives my dad at least a 33-mile heads up every time he is within a half an hour of the next required turn. With this gene pool to draw on, it’s hard for me to believe that my husband doesn’t appreciate my navigational skills when we travel down unfamiliar highways.

Should I be insulted that on our recent trip up the coast–take Highway One for a million, zillion, windy, narrow miles, then look for the signs to Monterey–Zak trusted the map to our second grader, rather than rely on the Dinaberg sense of direction? Not only did Koss get us to our hotel without a single wrong turn, he managed to avoid all cries of “Are we there yet?” by plugging himself into DVDs, books (“Snakes in a Car,” anyone?), and inexplicably, the soundtrack from “Rent,” while skillfully shunning exposure to any of that pesky scenery that his dad and I find so appealing.

Despite our differing levels of enthrallment with the Pacific Ocean, for the rest of our trip, my roomies and I were in perfect sync on almost everything. This was the first vacation I can remember where we were able to choose our restaurants without the added consideration of what kind of toy came with the kid’s meal. I could lose sight of my son for more than a second without feeling the symptoms of a heart attack, and wishing I had the nerve to use one of those kid leashes. Sure I was still the parent, but my roomies and I could be buddies too, equally sharing in the coolness of the aquarium’s jellyfish and our amusement at the sea lions that “wrestled” right under our noses at one waterfront restaurant.

Traveling with my homies, on the other hand, brought out my inner teenager. I couldn’t help but bristle a little when, for each and every outing (including going downstairs to the hotel gym) my mom made sure I had a sweater and a room key. And while we didn’t have to sneak the champagne at this particular family wedding, mom did hand me my place card, decide when it was time to leave, and remind me to make sure to go pee and say thanks to my host and hostess.

On the other hand, traveling with my homies allowed me to bask in the magic of uninterrupted sleep in the morning and uninterrupted reading time in the afternoon. I had almost forgotten what a pleasure it was to read a single book in the course of a day, and not be responsible for anyone else’s teeth, clothes or bedtime story. While I spend plenty of time with my homies year round, it was nice to be able to have the luxury of long, adult conversations about art, politics, and family. OK, so it was People Magazine versus Us, Hilary Clinton’s hair, and how funny it was to see Grandma Evie dancing to “My Hump,” … but nobody interrupted us to ask for dessert or needing help with the TV remote. Except my dad, that is.

It’s funny how going on vacation with your parents can make you feel both old and young at the same time. Come to think of it, so can spending time with your kids.

Is Leslie the only one crazy enough to try a roomie/homie doubleheader? Let her know at email

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 1, 2006.

Harvard Schmarvard

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Harvard University, courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Harvard University, courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

I used to think that people who had degrees from Harvard had arrived into the elite upper echelon of higher education. Like most people who have seen Love Story, and Good Will Hunting, I pictured Harvard guys a certain way. Preppy, sophisticated, erudite and of course, rich.

Then I met my husband.

It’s not that the guy isn’t witty or smart–I married him, didn’t I? It’s just that he isn’t exactly any of those other things that I had previously associated with a Harvard education. People have a surprised reaction whenever they find out where Zak went to school. It is probably because he looks like more of a UC Santa Cruz kind of guy, or one of those kids in that new movie, Accepted, who invents their own college when they can’t get in anywhere else. People are either appalled, like my cousin Todd, who coughed up an entire six pack when he found out Zak went to Harvard; or impressed, like my friend Sienna, who immediately suggested she take us out to an expensive dinner so she could start sucking up to get her four-year-old son in.

I was actually impressed by Zak’s Harvard pedigree when we first met. That is until I realized that despite his English degree, he’s better schooled in the works of Stephen King than he is in those of F. Scott Fitzgerald. And that he would never deign to actually use any of those seven figure college connections to, oh say, try to get a frickin’ job.

Needless to say, we’ve developed a friendly collegiate rivalry over the years, though it’s not really much of a competition. My alma mater, UCLA, continues to stack up basketball and football championships while Harvard alumni rule the lesser worlds of politics and Nobel prizes. Clearly I come from the superior school.

Did I mention that with only a minor in English and a major in frat boys, I’ve read more classic literature than my husband, Mr. English Degree from Harvard, ever did? Or that MY college loans have been paid off for more than a decade? And that there’s never been an American president who went to UCLA?

Despite the clear superiority I feel in being a Bruin, I have to admit I took a little bit of pleasure in this week’s Time Magazine cover story, titled “Who Needs Harvard?” Especially when the next day’s news logged a defeat for Harvard in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, which rates Princeton over its Ivy League rival. That UCLA was ranked number 26 didn’t faze me a bit, as my husband gently pointed out. We Bruins know better than to put our faith in things like college rankings, unless they are from the NCAA.

While the U.S. News and World Report rankings take things like endowments into account, there’s more to a great college experience than sitting in a beautiful library. What about sitting in a library full of beautiful people? UCLA’s close proximity to Hollywood and Southern California’s year-round sunshine make for an exceptionally photogenic student body. Score one for UCLA.

Then there’s our superior five squirrel rating. According to the annual rankings published by Academic Squirrels of California and Beyond (www.gottshall.com/squirrels/campsq.htm) which uses the simple algorithm that the quality of an institution is directly related to the number of squirrels on its campus, the size, girth and health of UCLA’s squirrel population is second only to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. And that’s only because those squirrels have had 156 years of federal government protection. And they got extra squirrel points for having Rocky and Bullwinkle as their mascots. Harvard ranks a lowly three on the squirrel-o-meter because squirrels, like everything else, tend to freeze their nuts in those unpleasant east coast winters.

Score two more for UCLA, for furry friends and weather.

Then there’s the school pride factor. While proud Bruin alumni line up alongside busloads of tourists to purchase the latest in bear wear fashions, you’ll never spot a real Harvard grad in a Harvard sweatshirt. It’s like they are too cool to admit it or something. When I went with Zak to his 10-year college reunion, they gave us crimson hats that said “HR class of 1987,” like it was a secret code or something! What could possibly be so great about a school that people don’t want to admit they went to?

Finally, though, it all comes down to mascots. UCLA has the bruin. A bear. How cool is that? Harvard has crimson. A color. A color you have to have a degree from Harvard to identify. Crimson is the color a Harvard student’s nose turns when he’s out in the snow trying to cheer on his sorry excuse for a football team.

Harvard Schmarvard, indeed.

When Leslie’s not out in the sunshine, cheering on the Bruins, she can be reached at email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 25, 2006.

Why Do Men Have Nipples

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Why do Men Have Nipples? BookWhy? Because it’s an awfully catchy title.

The screaming titles in the window of Barnes & Noble caught my eye: “Why Do Men Have Nipples?” and its sequel, “Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?” by humorist Mark Leyner and Dr. Billy Goldberg. Sure, “Dr. Billy” sounds like he should be playing with a plastic stethoscope, but I could forgive him his name if the books actually delivered the answers to these mysterious questions. After all, the obstetrician that delivered my son was Dr. Howie Mandel, and I’ve almost gotten over that one.

Did these books really have the answers to these long-pondered questions that had been taking up my valuable brain space for almost as long as, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” I decided to investigate.

Since the books are subtitled, respectively, “Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini” (nipples) and “More Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whiskey Sour” (sleep), I decided to pour myself a glass of wine and ponder the imponderable in my quest for factoid fun.

The merlot seemed like a good choice, given my history of falling asleep after my third glass of just about anything resembling a martini and the fact that we had no whiskey in the house. Does anyone actually know how to make a whiskey sour anymore? It sounds like something Dudley Moore drank in “10.”

Like most college graduates, I had already spent countless drunken hours contemplating the mystery of why men have nipples, and unless I had missed a memo, knew that that answer was an unsatisfying, “nobody really knows.”

Just to be sure, I double-checked. According to the authors, while only females have mammary glands, we all start out in a similar way in the embryo. The embryo follows a female template until about six weeks, when the male sex chromosome kicks in. At that point males have already developed nipples.

It takes men six weeks to develop nipples, but at 40 years old, my husband still has to be reminded how to wipe the sink down properly after shaving and put the seat down after peeing? I’ve got a few ideas for Dr. Billy’s next title, like “Why Are Men Such Babies When They Get Sick?” and “Why Can’t Men Write Down a Phone Message When There are Notepads All Over the House?” and “Why Did You Say You Were Listening to Me When Clearly You Weren’t?”

Actually, Dr. Billy has an answer for that last one. He says it’s not that men listen less than women. Get this, it’s that they listen “differently.” This sounds suspiciously like not keeping score in T- Ball and pretending the kids won’t know the difference. However, according to Dr. Billy, “Men use one side of their brain whereas women use both sides. And when men hear women’s voices they hear those voices in different areas of the brain than women — they hear women’s voices in the same area of the brain they use to process complex musical sounds — so you can extrapolate the women’s voices are more complex. … And more difficult for us to listen to.”

So women use our whole brain to listen and men only use half a brain when they listen to women. And why did that chicken cross the road? Maybe he wasn’t listening when his wife asked for directions.

When she’s not pondering life’s eternal questions, Leslie can be reached at email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 18, 2006.

The Not-So-Newlywed Game

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Courtesy YouTube.com.

Courtesy YouTube.com.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m actually rather competitive. Especially when it comes to stupid things, like knowing the names of one-hit-wonder bands from the 1980s (of course YOU remember when “Der Kommissar” was in town, but I bet you couldn’t tell us that After the Fire was the band that brought him); being able to intuit who is on the phone every time it rings (my mom); and predicting with 99.7% accuracy the words that will come out of my husband’s mouth before he says them. Even if most of those words are, “um,” “well,” and “yeah,” you still have to admit that that is pretty impressive wifely knowledge.

So when my friends Colonel Dan and Lola did a victory lap around the Padaro Beach Grill to celebrate their recent domination of an Alaskan Cruise Ship Not-So-Newlywed Game Tournament, I must admit to feeling a bit envious. I wanted that first place gold-plated bottle of Cold Duck for my mantle.

Sure, their closest competition was a couple from Nantucket who only had one good ear and half a head of hair between the two of them. And sure, the third place bronzed beer can went to a couple that only knew a few words of English. But still, Dan and Lola had won an international Not-So-Newlywed Game competition.

I couldn’t help but wonder how Zak and I would have stacked up. I figured we knew each other at least as well as these hacks. After all, Lola was by herself half the time while Dan was out saving the world on some mission or other. Zak hardly ever left the house without me by his side. Most of the time I knew his thoughts before I let him have them. Surely we could kick their sorry little butts.

Luckily, Colonel Dan was eager to quiz us.

The first question was easy. “If your spouse were lost while driving in a foreign city, he/she would do what?”

“Not ask for directions,” I yelled eagerly, knowing I had aced that one.

“OK,” Dan said. “What if you were the one driving, Leslie?”

Zak and I both laughed. I refer you to my column where I made fun of my dad’s driving. My dad taught me to drive. Me, drive in foreign cities? Not in this lifetime.

Dan threw out a few more easy questions. What color are your spouse’s eyes? Boxers or briefs? Leno or Letterman? Dog or cat? Would you like fries with that?

I was starting to feel a little cocky when Lola mentioned that she and Dan had gotten a perfect score. How do you top that?

Lola asked the next question: “If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only be with one person, who wasn’t your spouse, who would it be?”

I weighed the possibilities. Would Einstein or Da Vinci be better able to build us a boat out of palm leaves and coconut shells? And more importantly, which of them was better suited to help me repopulate society? Hmmm…Then Zak piped up with “Brad Pitt” for me. Please. I like man candy just as much as the next girl, but I’m still angry about the whole Jennifer thing.

Dan interrupted my reverie. “Who would Zak want to be trapped with on a desert island?”

C’mon, we’re down a point. Got to regroup, focus. I know he’s moved on from Uma to Scarlett Johanssen, so I go with Scarlett.

He says, “Leonardo Da Vinci.”

Honey, I really didn’t mean to punch your arm so hard. You know how I get in competition.

Zak was still rubbing his bruise when Dan let us have one final bonus question that would allow us to tie the score with them. “Where’s the most unusual place you’ve ever made whoopee?”

I looked at my husband and giggled. We both knew the answer to this one. All we had to do was say the word and the Newlywed Game honors would be ours.

I looked deep into my husband’s eyes (still blue) and nodded, as he said, “Not in this lifetime.”

We’re Not-So-Newlywedded for a reason, after all. It’s all about how well you know your partner.

When she’s not singing “Tainted Love,” by Soft Cell, Leslie can be reached at email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 11, 2006.

Reunion Reflections

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Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Perhaps you too have experienced the nausea brought on by the arrival of an invitation to a high school reunion. The angst-O-meter skyrockets, and your first impulse is to rip the thing into a billion little pieces (or in the case of my low budget reunion, immediately hit the email delete button). Your next instinct is to put yourself through a crash course of Life Improvement 101. Surely two weeks is enough time to get a PhD, lose 50 pounds and get my teeth whitened, right?

Apparently not. Especially when you use the first half of those two weeks to contemplate how different your life is now from when you were a teen, and the second half to go on a crying jag.

But here’s the thing — when you are a columnist, all of those nausea-inducing experiences have an upside: you can write about them, venting your amusement for the entire world to see.

I figured my high school reunion column would practically write itself. Just like high school, everyone would drink too much and stick to their own little social pods. The math nerds in one corner, the basketball team in another. The soc’s flitting from table to table with insincere hellos to one and all, while the theatre geeks pirouetted and flounced through the cafeteria. I figured the football players and cheerleaders would either be fat and puffy, or liposuctioned and botoxed beyond recognizability; and that short little kid making jokes in the back of geometry class would have grown into a six-foot-tall internet gazillionaire.

Like I said, the column would practically write itself. I knew exactly what my high school reunion would be like.

And then I went.

My first shocker was the size of my class. Had there been a nuclear explosion or discount tickets to Hawaii that no one had told me about? Had everyone missed the email? Somehow, out a class of almost 500 kids, fewer than 20 of us showed up. I run into more classmates on a typical Saturday at the Little League fields, so I know you’re out there, you cowards.

“Were you home-schooled, mommy?” asks my son.

Not exactly.

Please tell me that my classmates aren’t old enough to use Alzheimer’s or Senility as an excuse to forget about the reunion. We’re not that old yet.

Now in defense of the San Marcos Class of 1981, I will say that the reunion was originally scheduled for the previous weekend and then cancelled until someone stepped up and reserved a space at Tucker’s Grove. So it was kind of a free form, come if you feel like it, bring your own lunch, kind of event, rather than the cocktail party kind of shindigs we’ve had for the past two decades. The kind of painstakingly planned, overpriced parties that hundreds of people showed up for, like clockwork, every five years.

C’mon guys. We’ve got spirit … not so much.

The fact is, only one cheerleader showed up, and none of the jocks.

So what if you had a high school reunion and none of the usual suspects showed up? What if a bunch of people who weren’t even particularly friends with each other showed up instead? What would you talk about? Rather than dwelling on our pasts, which were only marginally shared, we talked mostly about the present. Instead of who’s dating who or who’s wearing what, the conversations were about global warming and world politics, mixed with talk about Trader Joe’s and the best summer camps, and of course, how expensive it is to live in Santa Barbara now and how much more overprotective we are of our kids these days–to a soundtrack of Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” the Doobie Brother’s “Black Water,” and the obligatory Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration.”

Of course, we all secretly wondered what someone as young as our self was doing surrounded by all these old people.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Surely you must have better reunion stories to share with Leslie at email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 4, 2006.

Take a Memo

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Image courtesy Pixabay.com.

Image courtesy Pixabay.com.

Now that my son can read, his listening skills have deteriorated to the point that verbal instructions are almost useless. I’d like to write this off as a typical male inability to multitask. Or I could give it a positive spin, and claim that he must have so much testosterone running through his veins that he’s developed the ability to focus so completely on the television set that the rest of world disappears. Whatever the cause, I would bet a bag of M & M’s that he gets this genetic mutation from my husband’s side of the family.

No matter what the reason is, I’m sick and tired of repeating the same simple instructions 957 times each morning (brush your teeth, grab your backpack, take your underwear off your head) and having him feign deafness. I’ve already had his hearing tested, and the pediatrician said he’s fine. Though, there may be some latent inner ear damage if I have to keep yelling in his ear every morning till he’s 20.

Rather than turning immediately to my usual parental dilemma solutions of wine and chocolate, I decided to try a method honed by centuries of office workers who needed to get their colleagues’ ears. I decided to write the kid a memo.

To: Son

From: Mom

Subject: Your Room

A recent inspection revealed that all of the floor space in your room was completely obstructed by a variety of dirty clothes, small plastic Legos, coins (mostly pennies), birthday party goodie-bag detritus, art projects, Pokemon Cards, comic books, and other reading materials. You are directed to remove these materials from your room immediately. Please acknowledge your understanding of these instructions via inter-office memo.

To: Mom

From: Son

Subject: Reply-Your Room

What?

To: Son

From: Mom

Subject: I don’t want to have to ask you again

Clean up your room immediately. Not only is this a violation of your employment agreement, wherein you are required to keep your work space clean, it is also a potential worker’s compensation violation, as I tripped on one of those stupid Legos this morning when I came in to wake you up and may have permanently damaged my right heel.

To: Mom

From: Son

Subject: Ask me WHAT again?

Are you talking to me?

To: Son

From: Mom

Subject: You’ve got to be kidding me

Yes, I am addressing you. Please turn off the television and proceed to your room immediately to clean it up.

To: Mom

From: Son

Subject: Correction

I’m actually not watching television. It’s a DVD and there’s only five more minutes to the end.

To: Son

From: Mom

Subject: TV/DVD who cares

I don’t care what you’re watching. Turn it off and get to work.

To: Mom

From: Son

Subject: It’s not fair

I already took out the recycling yesterday and you didn’t ever give me my allowance yet.

To: Son

From: Mom

Subject: Who do you think works to get your allowance money

Get to work. In case you’re blind in addition to deaf, I’m losing my patience. And honey, I put out the recycling yesterday, not you.

To: Mom

From: Son

Subject: So what?

Yeah, but you TOLD me to put away my clean laundry, and that’s not my job.

To: Mr. Debate Team

From: The Logic Queen

Subject: This is not open to debate

I need to get to the door to go to the grocery store. You must clean up your room in order for me to do so.

To: Mom

From: Son

Subject: Yeah, to buy WINE

Don’t be weak, Mom. Just step over all of that stuff. That’s what I do.

To: Son

From: Your Mother, who deserves some respect

Subject: It doesn’t matter why I am going to the store

Stop stalling and clean up your room.

To: Mommy Dearest

From: Your Baby Boy

Subject: Store

Can you pick me up some Pringles and another DVD while you’re out?

To: The boy whose room will be clean soon

From: Don’t forget who’s in charge here

Subject: Reply-Store

Clean up your room.

To: Mommy

From: Son

Subject: Okay

Okay, I’ll clean my room. But I’m hungry and thirsty. I think now would be a good time to drink some milk and eat some broccoli.

To: All Employees

From: L.Dinaberg

Subject: Vacation

Effective immediately, Leslie Dinaberg will be using her 37 weeks of accumulated vacation. She’ll be spending her time in a nice, quiet, clean room.

Send a memo to Leslie at email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 28, 2006.

With a Hop, Skip and a Ro-sham-bo

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Dodgeball image courtesy SUARTS, Flickr.com.

Dodgeball image courtesy SUARTS, Flickr.com.

They don’t tell you this in Lamaze class, but one of the most fun things about having kids is that you have the best of all reasons to behave like a kid again. As my son will testify to, I get just as excited as he does about dressing up for Halloween, hunting for treasures from the Easter Bunny and finding the M & M’s hidden in the popcorn while watching the latest Disney flick. And when Santa comes to town … don’t even get me started about all of the long-delayed pleasures a certain big bearded guy brings to a Jewish girl who has lusted after Christmas trees her whole life. Oy!

Given how much fun it is to yell “Yahtzee” at the top of my lungs, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that favorite childhood games like Four Square, Dodgeball and Rock Paper Scissors are being reclaimed by adults.

They actually gave away $50,000 at the first annual USA Rock Paper Scissors League Championship held in Las Vegas last month. Bud Light and A & E Network have signed on as league sponsors. I’m telling you, the duel may be all about the hands, but this sport has legs. Reportedly, Rock Paper Scissors is under consideration as an exhibition at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. According to a fake press release on the official USARPS website (www.usarps.com), International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge is a huge Rock Paper Scissors aficionado who sees this competition as a tremendous way for countries to engage in mental battle and clearly determine which nation boasts the sharpest minds and quickest wrists. “The world will finally find out who has the mettle to medal,” Rogge says.

Sure. At least until Rock Scissors Paper gets ruined by steroids.

Hmm … I wonder if that Olympic archery competitor and actress Geena Davis will start training now that Commander and Chief has been canceled? She could always use her excessive height advantage to compete in Dodgeball, yet another childhood “sport” I hear is under Olympic consideration. Thanks in large part to the 2005 Ben Stiller movie, which played the sport for absurd comedy, the International Dodgeball Federation projects that it will have more than 300,000 sanctioned players by the end of 2007. According to the IDBF’s official website (www.dodge-ball.com) adults aged 25-35 are the sport’s largest and hottest growth segment. The Federation recently welcomed new leagues in Pakistan, Australia and Puerto Rico. Even though it’s also known as “war ball;” clearly the UN should be looking into incorporating Dodgeball as a possible peacekeeping measure.

Apparently my old recess favorite, Four Square, is back in vogue for adults as well. It’s one of the most popular sports in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with frequent tournaments and more than a dozen teams competing in an adults-only league. Norfolk, Virginia is a hotbed of adult Kickball, another of my childhood favorites. Stickball never made it to any of my Santa Barbara playgrounds, but apparently it’s big back east, where New Yawkers relive their youth in three different adult Stickball leagues. Kansas City has the Tag Institute, where kids of all ages indulge in variations of the game, Tag. Here in California, where we like a little showbiz with our sport, we have San Francisco’s Double Duchess Jump Rope Troupe, whose adult members do their acrobatic routines dressed in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. My husband is not allowed to go.

“Not last night, but the night before

24 Robbers came knocking at my door…”

My toes immediately start tapping to the familiar rhymes. I’m having a flashback to fourth grade, where schoolwork seemed much easier to face after a few turns of the rope or kicks of the ball.

A little voice says, “Wanna play tag, mom?” brings me back to the present. “You bet,” I say. I may be older and slower, but I can still use my wits to dominate a six-year-old.

“You’re it,” we say simultaneously.

“One, two, three jinx. You owe me a coke.”

Anyone up for a game of Kickball? Email Leslie at email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 21, 2006.

Cheers to Good Friends

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.com.

Photo courtesy Pixabay.com.

Like clockwork, the same thing happens to me every year about this time. That one-two-punch of euphoria and melancholy that comes from hanging out with dear friends, repeating stupid jokes, rehashing old stories, and laughing, eating and drinking a lot. It’s great. It’s invigorating. It makes me believe all that cliched crud about friends being tied together with heartstrings or that they are the chocolate chips in the cookie of life. Good friends are the stuff that Lowenbrau commercials are made of. Tonight is kind of special.

And then they go home to whatever far flung corners of the country that they live in, and I’m stuck feeling sad and depressed and wishing that somehow, some way, all of my cherished friends from all over the place could come and live next door to me in Santa Barbara.

It happens every summer. They flock to our town for the charming little shops, the easy access to the beach, the random parades, and of course, to see us, their fabulously fun and witty friends who happen to live in a beach town. Somehow I don’t think people in Des Moines and Dubuque have out of town friends visit them every summer.

But once or twice a year just isn’t enough. Why can’t all my friends live right here? It would make life so much easier.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have great friends here in town. More than I probably deserve. Plus, contrary to a recent Time Magazine article about reports by a topflight team of sociologists that found Americans to be more socially isolated today then we were barely two decades ago, I meet interesting new people all the time. I could make new friends if I wanted to. Really, I could.

But new people just aren’t the same as the old people. The old people have already endured a complicated vetting process that involves sneaking through bedroom windows in the middle of the night, playing songs on the sink, holding my hair back from the barf, and a long list of quotes that are only hysterically funny if you’ve lived through them. Killing machine, hit list, cartoon eyes, it’s just a phase? See what I mean? You had to be there.

And it’s harder to be there now that we’re getting older. Chances are good that once you have a job that requires you get more than four hours of sleep a night, you just don’t have the same amount of time to spend contemplating your navel alongside your friends. And once you add kids to that mix, you really want to keep that belly button as far out of view as possible.

So you still make friends, but it’s just not the same.

With old friends, we’ve already weathered and survived the eternal “What should we do for dinner debate?” a thousand times. They already know why bike rides are a bad idea and that they’d better keep that pickle juice away from my plate. And, if I were the type who farted, old friends would be the first I’d do it in front of.

Of course, old friends could also tell you about that not-so-pretty bi-level haircut I had in the 80s or the not-so-pretty way I made out with my husband on the dance floor when we first met.

Maybe it’s better that all my old friends don’t live here. I’d probably be tempted to write about them, and the last thing I’d want to do is publicly embarrass all the people who have enough dirt on me to fill a small park.

But it sure would be fun to hang out there.

Old friends, and new readers can lift Leslie’s spirits by dropping a line to email

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 14, 2006.

Feeling Festive on the Fourth

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Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”  —Erma Bombeck

Assuming you’ve all had time to digest and burn off those patriotic helpings of hot dogs and Big Gulp buckets of beer (or cosmopolitans, in my case), and have seen enough fireworks sparkling up the sky to sate that appetite for another year, I’d like to reflect on why July Fourth is such a rockin’ holiday.

1. It makes me proud to be an American.

The Fourth of July is the one day of the year when I’m guaranteed to get a little bit verklempt about being an American. Sure it’s easy to get choked up at the ballot box on Election Day, but the results often make me want to gag. Where else but the Montecito Village Fourth Parade can you see the entire Taran Family dressed up like hot dogs, hamburgers, condiments, and Samuel Adams Beer? It’s not like they can repeat that ensemble for the Solstice Parade. They’d have to reinterpret with a tofu dog and veggie burger.

2. It makes me feel like an American…while I’m actually here.

Whether my sister and I are being stalked for photos like celebrities in Japan–because of our superior height, which is merely “kinda tall” over here–or marveling at the Balinese natives’ familiarity with George Bush–while the average U.S. high school student knows more about Paris Hilton’s latest bikini wax–I never feel more American than when I travel to another country. Maybe its that old adage about absence making the heart grow fonder kicking in, but in general, I feel much more patriotic when I’ve got a little distance between me and the good old U.S. of A.

3. I get to dress up like a dork.

If I had the hot dog outfit, I might actually wear it–that’s how much fun it is to dress up on this particular holiday. Unlike Halloween, where it’s expected, on the Fourth of July you can get big party points just for showing up in a star spangled outfit. Bonus points for a flag painted on your cheek, or a t-shirt that says, “Uncle Sam Wants You … To Have Another Beer.” Don’t get me started on my MLK Day costume plans.

4. I get to play with matches.

Nothing gets you in touch with your inner pyromaniac like the Fourth of July. There’s the inescapable lure of fireworks, both the big booming ones that shoot from the sky, and the cute little sparklers, whistling Pete’s and poppers that even my six-year-old likes to play with. I swear they invented sparklers so kids would have something to do on the Fourth of July while the adults are getting drunk and overeating. It’s like there’s a race to see who’ll lose a finger first: the kids with their firecrackers, or my husband when he doesn’t move his fork out of the chocolate cake fast enough. Personally, I like to reuse the sparklers to roast marshmallows, thus satisfying my needs to feel environmentally superior, play with fire, and replenish my sugar supply every hour on the hour.

Then there’s the highly amusing, and mostly masculine mania to stare at whatever’s cooking on the barbecue. My father’s newest gas-powered acquisition allowed me to eavesdrop on such conversational ditties as, “How many minutes do saber tooth tiger steaks have to cook on each side? I’m not sure. Let me check my GPS. How do you turn this thing on? I’m not sure. Let me check the Internet.” You go, grill.

5. The Fourth of July is when it really starts to feel like summer.

You can’t go to work that day, it would be un-American. Besides there are fires to be lit and drinks to be drunk. The Fourth is when laziness finally finds respectability, which is what makes a great holiday in my book.

With no holidays in sight, it looks like Leslie will be laboring away till Labor Day. Make her day by dropping a line to email.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

At This Office, It is OK to Show Up Late

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The Office, courtesy Wikipedia.

The Office, courtesy Wikipedia.

You know what I miss most about my day job — besides the paycheck? I miss the water cooler.

It’s not that we don’t have plenty of cold drinks and snacks available here at home. I’m perfectly well sweetened, salted, and hydrated–repeat–repeat again–with a special emphasis on sweets during a certain time of the month. Believe me, I’ve got the literal water cooler covered, except for the whole “free” part.

What I miss is the water cooler chitchat about the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy and The Sopranos. I looked forward to our Monday morning quarterbacking of Tony and Carmela’s latest relationship upheaval or Meredith’s most recent ill-advised conquests.

Our little chats were like standing play dates that lasted 13 weeks, not counting re-runs.

Now that school’s out, I can’t even kibbitz with the PTA moms about the latest episode of Sponge Bob. I’m already feeling withdrawals, and it’s only the first week of summer.

Ironically, now that I no longer have an office to go to, I’ve come to appreciate the pleasures of The Office on TV. I came a little bit late to this delightfully deadpan show, where inappropriate remarks, petty behavior, and zero productivity are all in a day’s work.

And unlike the real offices I’ve worked in, at the Dunder-Mifflin paper company, no one ever has the energy to go out to lunch, let alone talk about important political and social events like TV shows.

The workplace scenarios are oh-so adult and familiar, even though the humor is oh-so wonderfully, and quoteably juvenile. If only I still had a cubicle to toss lines over like, “This is our receptionist, Pam. If you think she’s cute now you should have seen her a couple of years ago!” Or another favorite: “You know what they say about a car wreck, where it’s so awful you can’t look away? This is like a car wreck that you want to look away from but you have to stare at it because your boss is making you.”

My teenage nephews appreciate the show as much as I do, which comes in handy, since I no longer have office-mates to discuss it with.

We can hardly wait for the July 13 “webisodes” to begin. I’m betting they’ll be about Toby, the HR guy, who is, in my humble opinion, a character with a lot of unexplored potential. As Michael (the boss) says, “Toby is in HR, which technically means he works for corporate, so he’s really not a part of our family. Also, he’s divorced, so he’s really not a part of his family.”

His HR-like HR-policies have been the driver behind most of my favorite moments at “The Office.”

For example, when Toby talks with Michael about inappropriate fraternizing with employees, Michael summons the troops to make one of his infamous announcements.

“Attention everyone, hello! Yes, I just want you to know that this is not my decision but from here on out, we can no longer be friends. And when we talk about things here, we must only discuss work-associated things. And uh, you can consider this my retirement from comedy. And in the future if I want to say something funny, or witty, or do an impression I will no longer, ever, do any of those things.”

Jim, who is actually the only character on the show who resembles anyone I’ve ever worked with, then says, “Does that include ‘That’s what she said?'” (See what I mean about the nephews appreciating it?)

Michael replies, “Mmm hmm, yes.”

Jim: “Wow. That is really hard. (My nephews are rolling on the floor at this point, as is my husband.) You really think you can go all day long? (On the show, Michael nearly bursts trying not to say it.) Well, you always left me satisfied and smiling.”

So much for dignity, I am practically peeing my pants by the time Michael finally says, “That’s what she said!”

Did you see that one? Wasn’t it hysterical? OK, you’re drafted. You are now officially my new water cooler buddies. I’m so happy that we can be that kind of friends.

That’s what she said!

Leslie is clearly desperate for some office humor. If you’ve got any to spare, email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. That’s what she said!

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on June 30, 2006.