Limited Edition/Limitless Talent

Posted on by
Limited Edition, Limitless Talent. Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine Fall 2010.

Limited Edition, Limitless Talent. Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine Fall 2010.

THE DEDICATED ALLIANCE of artists who form Santa Barbara Printmakers have come up with a clever way to promote the local art scene and support Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative direct-to-artist grants at the same time. Beginning in October, a monthly series of limited edition prints will be available
for purchase, starting with the work of Santa Barbara’s Nicole Strasburg (www.sullivangoss.com/nicole_strasburg), who is known for her minimalist approach to the landscape, weaving naturalistic imagery with abstract sensibilities.

While painting is Strasburg’s primary medium, printmaking is a constant diversion. “Experimenting with other mediums, including printmaking,
is a great tool to explore design and composition with the belief that all paths lead back to a richer understanding of painting,” she says.

November’s featured artist is Pamela Zwehl-Burke (www.pamelazwehlburke.com), who says her work “manifests in a variety of scales, formats and materials, but the intention and subject is for the most part commonplace visual experience re-seen and re-excerpted: animal, vegetable,
mineral and their stories.” Seeing is as much the subject as the seen for this German-educated artist, who makes her home in Santa Ynez.

Other participating artists include Marie Schoeff, Carolyn Hubbs, Nina de Creeft Ward, Teresa Zepeda, Valori Fussell, Dug Uyesaka, Libby Smith, Rafael Perea
de la Cabada, Michael Jameson, Nina Warner and Stephanie Dotson.

This limited edition print series is now available through Santa Barbara Arts
Collaborative (traceyamorris@yahoo.com, www.sbartscollaborative.org), a group of artists and arts supporters committed to sustaining and growing all forms of art in Santa Barbara by providing focused support of individual artists
and arts organizations that contribute to the unique cultural ecology of the community.

Purchase all 13 prints for $550, or one each month for $50, with a bonus print by Carolyn Hubbs available on December 15.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Fall Artfully Back to School

Posted on by
Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Back to School Get Creative!

There’s nothing quite like the creative inspiration found in the inviting smell of a fresh package of crayons or the satisfying sound you get from cracking the spine of a brand new notebook.

Whether you’re going back to school or simply back to work after Labor Day, why not lift your spirits—and expand your vocabulary—with something new, like fair trade messenger bags by Handmade Expressions, available from Folio (4437 Hollister Ave., 805/964-6800). The rules of geometry take on a whole new meaning with this Areaware Strida bike from Imagine (11 W. Canon Perdido St., 805/899-3700) which magically folds down to just the right size to stow, while the lessons of ingenuity are literally right at your fingertips with this bright diary and notebook from Upstairs at Pierre Lafond (516 San Ysidro Rd., Montecito, 805/565-1502).

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

See below for information about the rest of our finds from Folio, Imagine, Upstairs at Pierre Lafond, UCSB (University Center, 805/893-8321), Westmont College (955 La Paz Rd., Montecito, 805/565-6064) and SBCC (721 Cliff Dr., 805/730-4047).

Clockwise from top: hand woven jute and cotton Handmade Expressions messenger bags from Folio; recycled packaging material diary and notebook from Upstairs at Pierre Lafond; foldable Areaware Strida bike from Imagine; Forgotten Shanghai “Desk in a Bag” from Folio; and Cavallini & Co. Can o Clips clothespins and Chipiola curlicue paper clips from Folio.

Bike folds up and fits in knapsack.

PHOTOS: JULIA MEHLER, AREAWARE STRIDA BIKE COURTESY OF IMAGINE/AREAWARE

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

A is for All-Ages Education

BACK-TO-SCHOOL TIME isn’t just for kids. Santa Barbara offers a plethora of educational opportunities for learners of all ages. Do you have a passion for plants? UCCE and Botanic Garden offers a master gardener training program this fall (mgsantab@ucdavis.edu). Participants learn about sustainable landscapes, identifying and managing pests, soil and plant nutrition, plant management practices and diagnosing plant problems, then apply their knowledge to assist schools, parks, retirement communities and Botanic Garden with various garden projects.

Why not indulge your artistic impulses and support the environment with a Saturday morning workshop at Art From Scrap (302 E. Cota St., 805/884-0459, www.artfromscrap.org). Almost every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, local artists like Dug Uyesaka, Holly Mackay and Bill McVicar lead workshops for children and adults to explore their creativity, all at the bargain price of $6, supplies included.

Want to learn more about art? Santa Barbara Museum of Art (1130 State St., 805/963-4364, www.sbmuseart.org) offers docent-led tours of special exhibitions Tuesday through Sunday at noon and an overview of the collection at 1 p.m. (free to members or with paid admission).

Want to learn to dance the tango, shape up with fitness classes, explore your musical side or teach your dog to stay off the couch? Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation (www.sbparksandrecreation.com/) offers low-cost classes in all of these things and more.

Don’t see anything that tickles your fancy here? Check out Santa Barbara City College Adult Education (http://omni.sbcc.edu/adulted/) and UCSB Extension (www.extension.ucsb.edu/), both of which offer hundreds of classes for lifelong learners.

—Leslie Dinaberg

Top–bottom: Covent Garden Newgate alarm clock and Acme Pens Studio Crayon Retractable Ballpoint Pens designed by Adrian Olabuenaga, all from Imagine; Illustrator’s Sketchbook and “The Game” youth hat from UCSB Bookstore; embroidered hat from Westmont College Bookstore; zippered hoodie from SBCC Bookstore; floral laptop case by Pylones will hold up to a 17” laptop, from Imagine; and Toms Shoes in brown plaid—for every pair of shoes purchased, this company gives new pair of shoes to a child in need—from Westmont College Bookstore.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Editor’s Letter Fall 2010 (Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine)

Posted on by
Santa Barbara Seasons Editor's Letter Fall 2010. Photo by Tracy Smith Reed.

Santa Barbara Seasons Editor’s Letter Fall 2010. Photo by Tracy Smith Reed.

 Winter is an etching, Spring is a watercolor, Summer an oil painting and Autumn a mosaic of them all. –Stanley Horowitz

FORGET JANUARY 1. As any parent will tell you, fall is when the New Year really begins. The kids go back to school and their structured autumn schedules, while mom and dad toast their newfound freedom with at least as much as gusto as the days of Auld Lang Syne.

Fall is also a great time for celebrating the beauty of seasonal changes. Our (slightly) cooler weather offers a perfect opportunity for taking long walks and appreciating the remarkable bounty of art and architecture available just about everywhere you look in Santa Barbara.

Even though I’m lucky enough to have been a resident for most of my life, while working on this issue, I was pleased to discover new and interesting details about our town while taking both the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara walking tours through the traditional local landmarks and a Walking Wednesdays with Santa Barbara Walks trek through the impressive variety of architectural styles, not to mention landscaping inspiration, found on the upper eastside (“Get Up Close and Personal with Architecture,” pg. 24).

I also had the pleasure of spending some time in the whimsical world of Ablitt House, and I can’t imagine a better cover subject for our seventh annual art and architecture issue. We provide an intimate peek into this bright symphony of colors, tiles, curves and angles conducted by homegrown architect Jeff Shelton, a true visionary who has refreshed and reinvented the look and feel of Santa Barbara’s architecture while continuing to pay homage to our Mediterranean roots (“Art + Architecture + Ablitt,” pg. 60).

Yet another fascinating and fanciful brick in the architecture of our city can be found in the exuberant mosaic bursts of colors in Dan Chyrnko’s creative art installations. I had the dual pleasure of joining Dan at his creekside studio, where he shared some of the inspirations and stories behind his mosaics, and then sharing some of our conversation with you (“Mosaic Master,” pg. 104).

We also take you inside the homes of contemporary art collectors Jacquelyn Klein-Brown, Geoffrey and Laura Wyatt, and Tim Walsh and Mike Healy to share some of the fascinating artistic treasures—and their hunters and gathers—hiding behind closed doors in the 805 area code (“Contemporary Art Lives Here,” pg. 50). We were impressed and inspired by their collections, and we think you will be too.

Our cultural journey then meanders in a completely different—but still quintessentially local—direction to the historic backcountry’s iconic Cold Spring Tavern, where the acoustic pairing of Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan under the oak trees is a favorite part of the weekend ritual for foodies, bikers and, most of all, local music aficionados (“Roadhouse Blues,” pg. 56).

All of us at Santa Barbara Seasons get a huge kick out of capturing and sharing the unique, quirky, fun, classic and otherwise notable aspects of Santa Barbara life for your enjoyment, and it has a been particular delight for me to fill in as editor for this issue while editor Rebekah Altman has been extremely busy with an amazing production of her own—a precious baby girl. My advice to her (and to all of us, really) is to savor every moment of this season, because in what feels like the blink of an eye, she’ll be right there with the rest of us, toasting fall’s return back to school.

Cheers to a wonderful autumn!

Leslie Dinaberg

EDITOR PRO TEMPORE

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

The Write Stuff

Posted on by
Reply

Rebecca McClanahan "Word Painting"A Conversation With Rebecca McClanahan

When we’re not gobbling up the written word with a gusto that bewilders non-readers as much as whatever it is they do for pleasure baffles us, one of the things we writers like to do most is talk to other writers.

This week I had the pleasure of chatting with Rebecca McClanahan, the 2010 winner of Santa Barbara City College’s Raab Award in Creative Nonfiction, who will give a reading from her work from 7-8 p.m. on Friday, October 8, in the Fe Bland Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Leslie Dinaberg: You’ve published in many different genres. How do you decide that this idea will be an essay rather than a poem or fiction or creative nonfiction?

Rebecca McClanahan: I don’t think particularly about that, though I’m sure you could find little vestigial tails of experience in poems that I have written. … I think I’ve always written about home and loss of home and homesickness. … There are certain things, themes and characters and places that I revisit whether in fiction, poetry or nonfiction. … Certain things that continue to float up, that you revisit in some ways, you gnawed on it, you buried it and then it came up in another shape another form. … At some point you do begin to notice patterns.

LD: You often write about your personal experiences and your own life. When things are happening are you writing about them or do you wait a while?

RM: I think I maybe do a little of both. I have a writer’s notebook and sometimes I’ll jot down things as they are happening to me, events or specific details that I want to retain. But I think especially as an essayist, and that’s sort of the main hat I’ll be wearing in Santa Barbara because of the Raab Award, I really think that nonfiction and the essay is a reflective stance, that’s the genre. With a good essay, I think you really want the sense that you are discovering the meaning, the why of the experience, you’re not just writing down what happened.

… The best essays require reflective distance, especially if you’re a character in them. You’ve got to be the person on the other end of the experience trying to understand it because being in the middle of it, it’s a muddle. … I think there’s a place certainly for blogs and for instant writing and all of that but I don’t want to lose the power of reflection and time. You know that old saying; “we serve no wine before its time.” I tell my young graduate students “we serve no memoir before its time.” Wait a little bit.

LD: I read an interview where you were talking about how much more difficult it is to write sincerely about happy feelings as opposed to darker material. Can you talk a little bit about that?

RM: I hosted a panel called “Joy: The Last Taboo” a couple of years ago. It really is very difficult to not be Hallmarky about it … It’s very, very hard in our culture. I think especially because we really want to go to that sordid troubled dark memoir. I’m just so tired of them I can’t tell you.

LD: My husband and I have a running joke that our childhoods were too happy for us to really be successful writers because we didn’t have enough drama-no alcoholic parents or poverty or any of that great material.

RM: (Laughs) There are so many sad things out there. But here’s a quote by the poet John Ciardi: “You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.”

I definitely have written about a lot of dark things, personal and otherwise, but that’s not a whole life and that doesn’t make it interesting just because your father raped you or something. Even that has to be shaped into a text that is beautiful and meaningful to others. … What I look for in writers is someone who has really, really worked hard and allowed the truth to come through them in a way that’s going to change my life. That’s why I read. I can read the newspaper for the other stuff.

LD: As a writer, how do you know when you’re done?

RM: With briefer pieces, poems and brief lyric essays, I think I have a very firm sense when they’re done. The longer book length essays, it’s much harder to know because it’s such a complicated weaving. … I try to explain to my students, it’s like all the plates are spinning, and you’ve spun one and you’ve spun another and before the first one drops you have to run back to spin it again and finally when all of the plates of the world of the poem or the essay or the novel are in the air spinning as beautifully and blissfully as they can, they’re all alive at the same time, then you know it’s done and you get out right then-before you fall on your head.

Rebecca McClanahan will be reading from her work at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 8, in the Fe Bland Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. For information about her writing visit www.mcclanmuse.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.

Random Acts of Awesomeness

Posted on by
Reply
Courtesy Operation Beautiful

Courtesy Operation Beautiful

For all of the hype about women and their low self esteem, it didn’t really hit home until the other night when I was out with a few of my beautiful and brilliant girlfriends laughing and chatting and having a great time until-dare I say it-one of them challenged the rest of us to say two things that we were good at.

You’d think she had ordered us to rob a bank or step on a crack and break our mother’s back for all of the nervous shudders that greeted the prospect of simply giving ourselves a compliment.

“I think I’m a pretty good cook,” said T, who could easily rival Rachael Ray in the kitchen. “I guess I’m sort of creative,” said M, who has such a beautifully decorated house that it could put Martha Stewart to shame.

You think?

You guess?

You’ve got to be kidding me!

I couldn’t help but contrast these women’s struggles to say something nice about themselves with the way my 11-year-old son’s top three adjectives to describe himself rolled off his tongue: “awesome, awesomer and awesomest.”

Awesome indeed. How can an untested 11-year-old kid have so much more confidence in himself than a group of fully-grown women who have proven their awesomeness time and time again? The answer is complicated, but one antidote is amazingly simple-in fact, it’s as simple as a Post-It note. Just ask Caitlin Boyle, founder of Operation Beautiful, a positive thinking movement so simple that all you need is a pen and some paper to participate.

It all began when Caitlin was having a really bad day and wanted to do something small and simple for someone else to make herself feel better. Tired of watching women criticize themselves while staring into bathroom mirrors, she scribbled, “You are beautiful” on a Post-it and slapped it on one of the mirrors in her Florida office building. Then she posted a picture of the note on her blog, www.HealthyTippingPoint.com. Soon women around the globe began mimicking her random act of kindness.

Notes started showing up on diet books, scales at gyms and on Slim-Fast boxes. Then Caitlin started the operationbeautiful.com blog, with a simple mission to leave positive, body-affirming notes in public spaces and invite others to do the same. The response was so overwhelming that she’s chronicled some of her favorite messages in a new book, Operation Beautiful: Transforming the Way You See Yourself One Post-it Note at a Time.

Since starting the project about a year and a half ago, Caitlin’s left hundreds of Operation Beautiful notes of her own, including her favorite saying of the moment, “Scales Measure Weight, Not Worth.” She also leaves notes around the house to inspire and motivate her, like the recent “You are the creator of your own destiny.”

Talk about a girl after my own heart.

One of my favorite things to do is write myself a message when I order things online, like a recent prescription order that came with a gift card saying, “Leslie, you rock!” And a book I got for my son arrived with the message, “Your mom must be awesome to have such an awesome kid.”

Not surprisingly, when it was my turn to say what I was good at, “amusing myself” was at the top of my list. As for Caitlin, she said, “I can seriously do anything I put my mind to- launch a small business, move across the country, practice yoga, run a marathon. And I have epic calf muscles.”

She’s got some pretty epic ideas too.

Keep an eye out ladies: you might just see a message on a mirror near you.

When Leslie’s not leaving random post-it notes in library books and public bathrooms, or writing cards to herself, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 24, 2010.

I Second That Emotion

Posted on by
Reply
Stockimages, freeimages.net

Stockimages, freeimages.net

I’m not quite sure why I felt like doing a victory lap when I read about the latest round of “Mars versus Venus” differences between men and women research, but I couldn’t help myself. It may have something to do with the fact that when I told my husband about it, he pretended not to hear me.

A recent academic study found that, contrary to popular belief, men are actually more affected by rocky relationships than women are. That’s right, no matter how many stupid movies and TV shows there are that portray women as banshees in the boardroom and dandelions in the bedroom who blow caution to the wind at the mere whiff of romance, thorny relationships actually take a far greater toll on men than they do on women.

“Men are more sensitive than we often think they are,” said Robin Simon of Wake Forest University, in an interview with Courtney Hutchison for ABC News. She then snickered, “Wusses” under her breath. I might have made up that last comment.

I’ve been saying men are sensitive for years, and insensitive as it may sound, I couldn’t help but yell out “gotcha” for every single time I’ve heard a guy tell me to “stop being so sensitive.”

That’s a lot of “gotcha’s.”

I’ve always been sure that somewhere deep inside my husband was a super sensitive side, and that I just needed to chip away at that jokey exterior for a few more decades and that treasure of emotion would be mine, all mine!

Besides, I know that women aren’t the only ones getting all weepy at that Folger’s coffee commercial where Peter comes home for Christmas. And you’d have to have a heart made of stone not get emotional at weddings, graduations and when your kid finally scores a soccer goal, right?

Sure, some of the stereotypes still ring true. When women get together we tend to drink poetically named cocktails and chat about designer footwear and our children’s wisdom beyond their years with the same level of passion and precision in which we dissect our romantic relationships. Guys tend to drink beer, play poker and watch or play sports-which is likely one of the reasons that women fare better when things go sour in the romance department. We have more opportunities to express our emotions because we can discuss our problems with friends.

Guys, at least the ones I’m around, tend to joke and needle each other when the conversations get serious. It takes a while for them to be comfortable enough to express their own emotions, let alone show empathy for each other. Guys are much more likely to identify their wives or girlfriends as their “best friend,” which may also be a factor in making breakups more emotionally difficult.

Of course the study, published earlier this year in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior by Simon and co-author Anne Barrett, associate professor of sociology at Florida State University, drew on mental health and relationship data among college students, and most of my experience, at least recent experience, is with full grown adult men.

But even among “Men of a Certain Age,” there is a large body of research that shows that they are actually more affected by relationships than women-they just don’t like to admit it. For example, married men live longer. And women fare much better on their own than men do, both physically and emotionally, although maybe not so much financially,

I guess the one thing we can count on is that interest in the “Mars versus Venus” differences between men and women conundrum will continue to compel lots of research and cocktail party conversations-where the men will only pretend not to listen.

When Leslie’s not pondering the mysteries of the opposite sex, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 17, 2010.

Working Girl

Posted on by
Reply
I Have A Quick Update To Share by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

I Have A Quick Update To Share by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

“I don’t know what inspiration is, but when it comes I hope it finds me working.” -Pablo Picasso

Just about every college bound kid I know has an impressive record of digging ditches in Cambodia, planning the prom, singing on stage and scoring soccer goals. According to one admissions counselor friend, the extracurriculars are a dime a dozen, “If you want to distinguish yourself as a high school student these days, what you really need to do is get a job.

Many kids seem to think J-O-B is a four-letter word, but my parents had an ingenious method of motivating my sister and I to go to work: they refused to buy us all of the things that we wanted.

We had to earn our own cash if we wanted to keep ourselves in Ditto jeans, Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers and John Hughes movies. Thus began my own intricately tailored vocational education program.

I started out babysitting for families in my neighborhood, a surreal experience since we lived on a block of almost identical tract houses. There’s something very disconcerting about snooping through the drawers in a bedroom exactly like your mother’s, only to find compromising pictures of your current employers.

Rule number one in the quest for the perfect job: it can’t be anything that tempts you into embarrassing behavior.

Next I handed out food samples-Gorp, Country Time Lemonade and Pringles were among the products I peddled to shoppers at the old Santa Cruz Market on the Mesa, which has since been yuppified into Lazy Acres. It was fun flirting with the box boys and peeking in people’s carts, but I wasn’t allowed to sit down on this job, not even for a minute.

Rule number two: you don’t come home from the perfect job with aching feet.

My next job was working at Harvey’s Tennis Shop on upper State Street, now the home of BB’s Knits. This was a great gig. I mostly remember giggling, trying on clothes and getting lunch at Petrini’s … until the owners got wise and figured out that they really didn’t need two teenage girls (me and my best friend) working all day Saturdays to service just a handful of customers.

Rule number three: make sure your employer is going to stay in business.

I was now addicted to trying on clothes, so when the tennis shop closed I jumped at the chance to work at Rumor’s in Piccadilly Square (the precursor to Paseo Nuevo). Little did I know that my future husband was toiling away nearby at Hot Biscuits, I was too distracted by my job in fashion heaven. My entire paycheck–and then some–seemed to go back to my employer, but that was definitely my best-dressed year ever.

Rule number four: it’s great to work for love, but you do need to take home some money.

As a waitress at the Lobster House (now that fake lighthouse on Cabrillo Blvd. with a Rusty’s Pizza Parlor) I learned some important lessons from the manager: you balance a tray from the inside out; the customer is always right, even that old lady who tips you in pennies; Frank Sinatra has a song for almost any situation; and most importantly, even when you do get good tips, it’s hard to appreciate them in a clam chowder-stained yellow polyester uniform and white nurses’ shoes.

Rule number five: the perfect job will include the perfect outfit–comfortable and cute.

My next job was working at the snack bar at Cathedral Oaks Tennis Club (now Cathedral Oaks Athletic Club) followed by a stint behind the desk. It was a lot of fun, but I was envious seeing my friends playing tennis, while I supplied their Gatorade and court assignments.

Rule number six: the perfect job should make others jealous, (i.e. “You really get to sit around and write all day?”) but not me!

Speaking of envy-worthy gigs, one of the best ones I had was working security at the County Bowl. That’s right, I was one of those girls in the attractive yellow windbreakers looking through your purse. But unlike the courteous crew they now have–who send you to the office to check in your illegal cans, bottles and alcohol–in those days we confiscated it all for the post-party.

Rule number seven: beer before wine makes you feel fine, but confiscated liquor makes you feel sicker.

Basically all of these pre-college jobs taught me more about what I didn’t want to do than what I did. Looking back at all my jobs, I only wish that when I was applying to colleges they had put more weight on my employment history. With a resume like mine, I definitely would have gotten into Oxford.

When Leslie’s not working for a living-actually even when she is-she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 10, 2010.

Blooming Girls and Blooming Idiots

Posted on by
Reply
Photo by by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

Sixth grade started last week and I was shocked to find my still-squirrelly-not-yet-pimply-but-still-closes-his-eyes-when-people-kiss-in-movies little boy in a class full of young women. Never have I seen such blatant evidence of girls maturing faster than boys as I did in that sixth grade classroom.

If Koss had been aware enough of the opposite sex to look-really look-around, he would have been shocked at the new uh, developments that had perked up among his classmates over the summer. Those giggly little girls were growing into graceful young women, or at least women-in-the-making, while the boys were still, for the most part, goofy little boys. Sure, the boys were microscopically taller than they had been in June and their trash talk was becoming a bit more colorful, but these were basically the same increments of gradual maturation I’d been witnessing since preschool.

The girls, on the hand, seemed to have catapulted into womanhood in the blink of an eye. It was like they’d all been sucked into some kind of puberty-filled time machine and grown three years older in just three months. I know there are lots of theories about genetically modified hormones causing girls to mature sooner, but given the preponderance of glitter nail polish and day glow accessories, I’m starting to think they might be pumping something into the air at Claire’s.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Koss came home from his first day of school and told me about the new rule for the sixth graders: deodorant was mandatory. After all, last year’s sex ed video gave a very basic anatomy lesson, just slightly above the level of the one I gave Koss when he was potty training, and then spent the rest of the video talking about the importance of wearing deodorant. He’s been asking a lot of questions about Old Spice and Right Guard ever since, but sex, body hair, voices changing – all of that stuff – is still way, way off his radar.

I have noticed a few strange and alien tween behaviors, like eye rolls, shoulder shrugs and “yeah, right mom’s,” but not really anything else. Seeing those girls so developed kind of freaked me out. Naturally I went to my friends for advice on dealing with the inevitable onset of, gasp, puberty.

“He’s still a long ways away,” said my friend Audrey, whose three teenage sons give her a lot of street cred in this arena. “But I would advise you to start investing in hair dye pretty soon,” pointing to a new streak of gray in her once auburn tresses.

“At least you have a boy,” piped up Penny, whose daughter, at age 11, is already shaving her legs and buying tampons. To think I used to envy this particular mom when the kids were little and her daughter would swing docilely for hours while I wore myself out running around the park with Koss, feigning endless interest in trucks and dinosaur action figures.

“I’ve got a good idea,” suggested Krista. “We should send the girls to middle school in sixth and seventh grade, and leave the boys in elementary school till they hit puberty.”

Holly laughed, “As soon they tell you they are too old for Superman underwear and watermelon flavored toothpaste, then they have to go to junior high.”

“We could even throw a commencement party and all chip in to buy our boys boxer shorts and sheets that don’t have Bob the Builder on them,” said Nina.

“I’ve got an even better idea,” said Audrey, the only one of us who has been through this multiple times and lived to tell the tale. “Throw mom a puberty party and give her a few years supply of wine and chocolate-and don’t forget the hair dye.” I knew there was a reason why we were friends.

Send your puberty party suggestions-and early donations-to Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 3, 2010.

Float Pray Love

Posted on by
Reply
Image by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

Image by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

There’s nothing like the adrenalin rush of a near miss to make even a heathen like me say her prayers. And there’s nothing like a tragedy to make me vow, for the umpteenth time, to savor every moment and not to sweat the small stuff. I had a horrible reminder of this the other day.

It started in Las Vegas. We had come to the desert in search of sun and an easy way to stretch out the last few remaining days of our summer before Koss went back to school. It was 110 degrees in the shade but refreshingly cool in our hotel’s lazy river, where we spent most of our time nursing adult beverages ($5 bottles of Aquafina for Koss) and floating in endless circles. For a couple of blissful days our biggest cares in the world were remembering to reapply sunscreen and trying not to bump into the clumps of rafts that would form from time to time in the pool.

As the sun rose on the last day of our vacation I had that bittersweet feeling that endings always bring. I wasn’t ready for the carefree days of summer to end but was resigned and even starting to look forward to seeing all of my “school friends” I had missed over the last couple of months.

One more day at the pool and then we’d head back to real life.

Zak answered his phone and his mother told him there had been a terrible accident at home in Santa Barbara. An out of control big rig truck had careened into our old house, killing three of the occupants, including a seven year old kid.

We lived in that place for almost ten years-the first ten years of Koss’s life. My heart was pounding as I pictured the truck slamming into the porch where we had stored his stroller, drawn chalk paintings and played hopscotch. I still can’t believe that the bright sunny yellow living room and the sky blue child’s bedrooms I carefully sponge painted were transformed into a place of unspeakable death and destruction.

As I write this, the adrenalin kicks in once again. That could easily have been us. In fact, it would have been us if our landlord hadn’t told us he planned to demolish the building about a year and a half ago.

I take back every evil epithet I threw in his direction when I struggled to find us a new place to live over the Christmas holidays. If he hadn’t kicked us out we would probably still be living there. And if we were still living there we would almost certainly have been asleep when the truck crashed into the house. We’d be dead instead of that poor other family.

I said a small prayer of gratitude for our first landlords (and friends) who sold the building to the guy who forced us out and an even bigger prayer for the family that replaced us, hoping they were at least asleep and truly didn’t know what hit them.

That poor sweet little boy. I know his face will be haunting me for a long, long time.

Within an hour of the accident the phone calls, emails and text messages started pouring in from far-flung friends, some of whom weren’t sure whether or not we still lived there. Even some acquaintances that had never been to our house took the time to call and make sure we were okay.

We weren’t okay, but we sure were lucky. The whole thing was so surreal. It was nice to know there were so many people who cared about us. I wondered if I would have made the effort to reach out if I were in their shoes, and vowed that if something like that ever hit the news again I wouldn’t hesitate to express my concern.

“When something tragic like this happens, the only thing you can really do is hug your loved ones close and treasure every moment you have with them,” said a text from a friend in the Bay Area who had heard the news. “What a perfect reminder for all of us to savor every moment and not to sweat the small stuff.”

Good advice. I think I’ll take it.

When Leslie’s not mulling over her near miss epiphanies, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 27, 2010.

Back to school daze

Posted on by
Reply
Photo by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

It doesn’t seem possible that summer is almost over. We’ve only had three decent beach days and we haven’t dusted off the barbecue or the blender in weeks. Summer’s barely started. How can it possibly be time for school to start again?

There is something fundamentally wrong with going back to school in August, especially this year when the entire summer was engulfed in June gloom.

There should be a law enacted that school can’t start until we’ve had at least a week in Santa Barbara where the weather’s hot enough for wimps like me to go in the ocean above my ankles. There should also be a law that school can’t start until I’ve once again mastered the fine art of carting towels, beach chairs, boogie boards, soccer balls, sunscreen, hats, clothing changes, reading material, snacks and assorted children from the parking lot to the beach in a single trip.

And there should, without a doubt, certainly be a law that school can’t start until after Labor Day. How can you possibly start school before the official end of summer? It doesn’t make sense.

I know a lot of parents jump for joy when summer is over and they can finally escape from their kids, but I’ve never really understood that. How can they be so ready for summer to end when it has barely even begun? Do they really enjoy worrying about bedtime and balanced meals and soccer schedules? Do they really enjoy stressing about how they’ll get any actual work done when there’s so much volunteer work to do?

And seriously, is there a parent alive who really likes “helping” their kid with homework? I’m fairly certain that I forgot everything I learned in sixth grade math before I got to high school, but I’ve retained enough logic that I don’t need to point that out to my 11-year-old. And if you value our relationship, then please don’t mention it to him.

Give a mom a break-I’m trying to maintain some semblance of authority here and don’t ask me how it happened, but the kid has a lot of respect for math. He’s been calculating various ways he’s going to rule the school in sixth grade since he was nine. As much fun as his summer has been, I think he’s actually looking forward to school starting. Crazy kid. Doesn’t he know that summer doesn’t end until AFTER Labor Day?

Can’t we just press the snooze button on summer a few more weeks? Sigh. It is still August, after all. No matter what the school says, MY summer doesn’t officially end till next month.

When Leslie’s not soaking up those last rays of summer every chance she gets, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 20, 2010.