Tag Archives: South Coasting

Boys Will be Boys

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Ed Hardy Tee ShirtI learned a new word recently: “Dad-olescence,” described by Daily Beast writer Sean Macaulay as the modern, midlife crisis-aged male’s tendency to “act like a sullen teenager … a low-grade regressive style of acting-out that’s now so widespread among midlife males it deserves its own label.”

Unlike the stereotypical midlife crises our parents’ generation had-using the fruits of their success to buy boy toys such as sports cars and hot, young girlfriends-Macaulay says that the double-whammy of delayed parenting and the economic crisis have created an epidemic of Dad-olescents grappling with their own mortality at the same time the credit crunch “nixes any chance of the classic ego-boosting spending spree” and their post-feminist upbringings and subsequent “guilt airbags” keep them faithful to their wives.

No wonder some of these guys are feeling down in the dumps. Party games like “dueling ailments” and “pin the hair on the bald guy” don’t exactly help to lift their 40-something spirits, as evidenced by some of the soirees I’ve attended recently. And piercing your ears and wearing Ed Hardy tee shirts is a lot less fun than driving with the top down on your Porsche.

Yet my husband remains suspiciously chipper, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a Porsche or a hottie. He might be able to keep a Porsche hidden from me, but who has the time or money for a girlfriend? No, I credit this to the fact that he’s so in touch with his inner child. While few women will admit their age, I have found that even fewer men act theirs. I often feel like I have two boys living with me: a ten-year-old and a 12-year-old-in-a-44-year-old-body-who-thinks-he-has-a-34-year-old-body.

For the most part, my two boys play really well together. They both love science fiction/fantasy stories, computer games, Doritos, pretending not to hear what I’m saying, jumping on the furniture and fart jokes. The younger one also likes Pokemon (again!) and watches a lot of sports on TV. But the older one can drive-and buy beer-which is very convenient for me.

The ten-year-old is in that preadolescent, unpredictable tween stage; still young enough to sit on my lap one moment and then greet me with a too cool for school head flip the next. His father’s behavior toward me is equally erratic; depending on what he wants, what he did wrong and who else is around to witness it.

But most of the time, thankfully, they’re both pretty happy guys. I guess I should consider myself lucky there’s not a lot of Dad-olescent behavior going on in our house. Of course there’s always that possibility that they’ll both evolve into moody, uncommunicative teens at some point, but for right now boys will be boys-and so will a lot of middle-aged men.

When Leslie’s not stocking up on Clearasil for her boys she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on December 4, 2009.

How much duck could a turkey chuck?

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Turducken (via wikipedia)

Turducken (via wikipedia)

I giggle every time I hear the word “Turducken.” I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the first four letters, or the “duck” (literally) in the middle, but Turducken references abound this time of year and I can’t help but chuckle every time I hear or read the word.

I’ve never even tasted Turducken, though I have tried Tofurky, and Turducken has got to be better than that. It’s certainly funnier, and not at all self-righteous. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder about the origins of this Thanksgiving delicacy, so I decided to do some research.

Turducken, for those of you that haven’t heard about this, is what you get when you take a chicken and stuff it inside of a duck, then you take that ducken and stuff it inside of a turkey.

In my head, I keep hearing Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof singing “Turducken, Turducken. Turducken!”

According to a 2002 New York Times story by Amanda Hesser, turkey found his inner duck (and chicken), “Once upon a time, possibly at a lodge in Wyoming, possibly at a butcher shop in Maurice, Louisiana, or maybe even at a plantation in South Carolina.” She wrote that “an enterprising cook decided to take a boned chicken, a boned duck and a boned turkey, stuff them one inside the other like Russian dolls, and roast them. He called his masterpiece Turducken.”

I guess chickdurkey and duchicky were already taken.

Of course these scenarios are certainly possible, as are the unsubstantiated claims that Cajun-Creole fusion chef Paul Prudhomme created the Turducken. But here’s the thing: all of these Turducken theories revolve around the idea that a man was the one who created the Turducken. I for one have never, in my 40-something year history of Thanksgiving celebrations, seen a man willingly move more than four feet away from any TV screening football games on Thanksgiving Day.

Therefore, it seems completely logical to me that a woman must have invented the Turducken.

Here’s my theory. You probably know the tune.

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turducken (with apologies to anyone who can carry a tune or make a rhyme)

I know an old lady who swallowed a Turducken

I don’t know what kind of booze she was chuckin

She first bought a chicken

It seemed finger licken

But then in walked Chuck

He’d picked up a duck

The old lady sighed

With no room in the freezer

She’d have to cook both, to please the old geezer

She consulted Giada and Martha, her coven

They both told her simply to turn on the oven

She swallowed some wine, then swallowed some beer

What she did at this point isn’t perfectly clear

But then Rita showed up at the door with a turkey

The old lady took it; she didn’t want to be jerky

The oven then beeped it was ready to cook

How could the old lady get off the hook?

There was no way to fit three birds in her range

She had an idea, although it was strange

She’d seen a commercial a time long ago

Where peanut butter and chocolate did a Do-Se-Do

If Reese’s can do it then so can I

She gulped her martini and let out a sigh

Perhaps I’ll try.

And there you have the real explanation for how the Turducken came to be. Happy Thanksgiving!

If you’ve got a better explanation for this culinary oddity, email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on November 20, 2009.

Recess Rage

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Photo by by Naypong freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by by Naypong freedigitalphotos.net

When kids don’t get to run around and play, we all pay the price. This is why I’m absolutely dumbfounded that all educators don’t get this very simple and painfully obvious reality: when they don’t play, we all pay-dearly!

This is also why I get so worked up when I hear about teachers punishing a child for not doing their homework, or misbehaving in class, by keeping them inside during recess. All kids need to run around and let off steam on a regular basis, but kids who have a hard time in class need the break even more.

I’ve got plenty of anecdotal evidence from my own son and his friends, and there’s even scholarly research to back me up. I love when that happens.

* An analysis of nearly 200 studies on the effect of exercise on cognitive functioning suggests that physical activity supports learning (Etnier).

* As overall fitness scores improve, mean achievement scores also improve (Grissom).

* Fourth-graders were more on-task and less fidgety in the classroom on days when they had recess, with hyperactive children among those who benefited the most (Jarrett).

* Although not all children are active during recess, children’s tendency to choose physical activity on the playground when they need it the most is evidenced by their higher levels of activity on the playground after recess was delayed (Pellegrini and Davis; Pellegrini, Huberty, and Jones).

* In studying the link between recess and classroom behavior among about 11,000 children, researchers found that those who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none. (Barros, Silver and Stein).

The bottom line: one of the best ways to improve a kid’s performance in the classroom is to take them out of it for a while.

This is why it just kills me when teachers punish children by taking away recess privileges. That also struck Dr. Romina M. Barros (who researched the link between recess and classroom behavior) as illogical. She told the New York Times, “Recess should be part of the curriculum. You don’t punish a kid by having them miss math class, so kids shouldn’t be punished by not getting recess.”

Yet due to school budget cuts and an increased focus on academic standards, lots of American schoolchildren miss out on unstructured playtime with their peers, so much so that there is a “Right to Recess Movement” building around the country.

While recess doesn’t seem to be a danger here in fitness-conscious Santa Barbara-in fact the Orfalea Foundation is now funding an initiative to put “Recess First” before lunch with the idea that kids will be able to better concentrate on making healthy food choices after they’ve had time to run around-the practice of taking away recess as punishment is still alive and well.

An editorial in “Young Child” compares depriving children of recess to depriving them of a meal. “Just as hungry children cannot concentrate well, children deprived of breaks cannot concentrate well either. Sometimes the most disruptive children need recess the most.”

Most people wouldn’t dream of denying a child lunch to make more time for math, or withhold breakfast if a child misbehaved, but they seem perfectly satisfied to starve a kid out of recess.

With all the moaning about kids turning into couch potatoes, sedentary obese blobs, or video game-playing zombies, I say let’s make some healthy choices about school punishment strategies.

When Leslie’s not raging about recess, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on November 13, 2009.

Is Shouting the New Spanking?

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Photo by David Castillo Dominici, freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by David Castillo Dominici, freedigitalphotos.net

Spanking—like fountain pens, hardback Webster’s Dictionaries, and control top panty hose—is one of those things that is still around, but hardly ever used anymore. According to a recent story in the New York Times, shouting has taken its place as the discipline du jour.

“Many in today’s pregnancy-flaunting, soccer-cheering, organic-snack-proffering generation of parents would never spank their children,” writes Hilary Stout. “We congratulate our toddlers for blowing their nose (‘Good job!’), we friend our teenagers (literally and virtually), we spend hours teaching our elementary-school offspring how to understand their feelings. But, incongruously and with regularity, this is a generation that yells.”

Of course I yell from time to time-usually something like “hurry up,” or “I can’t believe you forgot again”-but it’s really not my go-to behavior, as evidenced by the fact that both my husband and I can bring our son to tears by simply changing the tones of our voices.

When I get frustrated I’m more of a “mean-sarcastic-if-you-could-hear-me-you’d-be-crying-hysterically-commenter-under-my-breather” than a yeller. Of course I feel incredibly guilty about this within minutes. Probably even worse than I would have felt if I’d just yelled.

Apparently, I’m in the minority.

A study published in “The Journal of Marriage and Family,” says 88 percent of the families interviewed admitted shouting, yelling or screaming at their children in the previous year and that percentage jumped to 98 percent in families with seven-year-old children.

Wow.

I decided to do a completely unscientific survey of my own and ask my friends what they thought about this shouting as the new spanking theory.

Not surprisingly, the yellers were in the majority.

“At our house it gets really loud. I am talking really loud,” says V. “Three kids (15, 14 and 10), two dogs, two parents in a 1,600 square foot house then add in the TV and doing dishes etc. My kids often say ‘mom stop yelling’ and I don’t even think I am.”

“I yell, I scream, I swear, and mostly I seem to be talking to myself,” says T. “Sometimes I give myself a sore throat from yelling at my kids, but it seems to have no effect on them whatsoever.”

“Dude, I am a total yeller. AWFUL yeller,” admits S. “I yell myself hoarse sometimes and my entire family just ignores me. Which is as it should be.”

But does yelling really yield any results other than working out your lungs?

Some parents say it does if used strategically.

“Sometimes when my toddler is yelling in the car for no reason-and she knows when she’s doing it to push my buttons-I yell back,” says G. “Not at her, I just yell out one loud ‘Ahh!’ and it immediately stops her. She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t sulk, she’s not emotionally scarred, she just looks at me like I’m a little crazy for a second then behaves.”

“Whatever works,” agrees L. “Two of my kids don’t need yelling at. They listen and are sensitive and know the right thing to do. The third is not sensitive and is very, very stubborn with wanting to do want he wants. I’m a different parent with him. I use yelling as a last resort to snap him out of his relentless behavior.”

Never one to mince words, M, the mother of four exceptionally well-behaved children, says, “People who don’t yell or spank are usually the ones with the biggest brats!!!!” This comment touched a few nerves.

“Yelling, like anything, can be abused. I teach two and three year olds and NEVER have to yell at them to get them to listen. I am consistent and loving and firm in my day. Children do not need to be yelled at nor do adults. Yelling solves nothing,” says J.

“I have never yelled at my son and he is nowhere near a brat. I agree with J, being consistent, loving and firm has worked for me. I just think you need to act like you want your children to act,” says L. “If you’re a yeller, I guarantee your child will become a yeller. We have to be an example to our children.”

No kidding.

All of this research and I’m still not sure how to feel about yelling, other than guilty. My extremely scientific conclusion: depending on who you want to listen to, you’re either setting a terrible example for your children by yelling at them or dooming them to a lifetime of brattyness if you don’t yell at them.

I guess the best news is that however you feel about yelling at your kids, and whatever you actually do behind closed doors, you’re definitely not alone.

When Leslie’s not yelling under her breath at her son, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on November 6, 2009.

The Roar of the Cougar

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Cougar TownWatching “Cougar Town” makes me feel dirty-and not in a good way. I really wanted to like this show. Despite the high concept potential for disaster, when I heard about it I had high hopes. The star, Courtney Cox, was my third favorite “Friends” actress and her last series, the short-lived “Dirt,” was delightfully trashy. I figured “Cougar Town” would be more of the same.

Besides, clearly this show and I were made for each other. I’m over 40 and I’m married to a hot younger man, so I should be able to relate, right?

Of course being a 40-something woman in real life means juggling work between laundry loads, driving car pool, supervising homework, and putting away groceries. I still go out to bars occasionally, but mainly with girlfriends, and I can’t remember the last time I wore three-inch heels, let alone recall how to walk in them. But on TV the 40-something women-whether judges, detectives, game show contestants or in the case of Cox’s “Cougar Town” character, real estate agents-all have one thing in common: they’re on the prowl for hot, lusty sex with ripped guys only a few years older than their children.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this.

When I see an obviously older woman with a younger guy-and can safely rule out the idea that he’s her son-I usually think “more power to her.” Or, if I’ve had enough cocktails and there’s 80s music playing, “you go girl.”

I also don’t automatically assume the guy’s a himbo, just because he’s young.

Six-pack abs are great, but intelligent conversation is a must, as is a sense of humor, and the second two don’t necessarily fall exclusively in the province of people born before the Reagan administration. Unlike a lot of men, who are happy to be in the company of women who simply look pretty and have absolutely nothing of interest to say, I don’t know a lot of women who aren’t interested in talking, both before and after sex.

According to author Valerie Gibson’s “Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men,” “a cougar is the new breed of single, older woman-confident, sophisticated, desirable, and sexy. She knows exactly what she wants. What she doesn’t want is children, cohabitation, or commitment.”

That I can understand.

I love being married, but if anything ever happened to my husband, getting another one wouldn’t be high on my list of priorities.

I was expecting “Cougar Town” to be a funny, fantasy show about the road not taken. What would it be like to be a woman my age dating a hot younger man? And what would it be like to be living in a “Cougar Town” where this was as commonplace as it is for men to be squiring around much younger women?

Boy was I disappointed.

Instead “Cougar Town” makes turning 40 look like a life sentence at a sadistic day spa where your life is all about nipping, tucking and sucking it in. Rather than simply enjoying being who she is, Cox’s character is constantly commenting on how old she is, how pretty she used to be and how uncomfortable she is in her own skin.

“If aliens learned about our culture by watching our newest television shows, they might assume that planet Earth was terrorized by predatory middle-aged women with hairless, bony bodies and the same blank expression on their overly Botoxed faces, a look of creepy awe at the joys of 20-something tenderloin,” wrote Heather Havrilesky in Salon.

Ick! She’s right.

This is just the opposite of the vast majority of 40-something women that I know.

Getting older is about knowing who you are, and finally, finally, FINALLY being comfortable in your own skin-no matter how wrinkled it may be. Unfortunately the writers of this show-who are mostly middle-aged men-just don’t get that.

When Leslie isn’t trying to find something worth watching on TV, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on October 30, 2009.

Let Lying Liars Lie

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The Invention of LyingI try to teach my son that honesty is the best policy, but truthfully, I don’t always tell the truth.

I’ve got lies on my mind this week because I saw The Invention of Lying, which, despite a great high concept – in a world where people can only tell the truth, one man discovers he can lie – is a wildly uneven mess of a movie. But it did make me think about how many white lies I routinely tell in the course of an average day.

I contemplated the idea of keeping a lying journal, then tracking when I was tempted to lie and whether I would be able to resist the temptation to fib if I was more aware of it. But why lie to myself? That’s way too ambitious and I wouldn’t last a day, let alone a week.

From the time-saving auto-response “I’m fine” after an innocent query of “How are you doing?” (Which I’m sure the grocery store checker and the people in line behind me would much prefer to “I just ate a donut from the display case and killed a man, and I’m not sure which is worse.”), to the “Of course I’m not too busy” response when a friend calls and they desperately need to talk, I’m a scarily skillful liar. Innocent little fibs like this are second nature for me.

Whether it’s the art of the artful dodge – when my son asks what happened to the M & M’s he had left over from the movies, and I remind him that he needs to unload the dishwasher – or the skillful sidestep – when my husband wonders what happened to the $100 cash he just got from the ATM and I tell him how handsome he is – I’ve come to realize that lying is one of the few things I do rather gracefully.

It’s just my luck that lying – the one useful skill that comes naturally for me -also comes saddled with an entire storage unit full of guilt and ambivalence.

At least I’m not alone.

Research by Dr. Robert S. Feldman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that in an average 10-minute discussion, 60 percent of people lie approximately three times. Of course, he may have just made that up.

Moms are the worst offenders of all. “We are surprised by how often parenting by lying takes place,” said researcher Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, Canada. “Our findings showed that even the parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty with their children engaged in parenting by lying,” said Lee, who reported her conclusions in a study published in last month’s “Journal of Moral Education.”

Yes, such a journal really exists. And now that I’ve confessed my lying proclivities you probably won’t ever find my name on their masthead, unless I lie about my lying, which I would never do unless I had a really, really, really good story idea that would be perfect for their publication.

I’m even more ambivalent about cultural lies, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I sort of want to be honest about them, but I don’t want my son to be the one to burst some other kid’s bubble, and he’s scrupulously honest enough to enjoy doing just that. Plus, I don’t want to get in trouble from the other parents.

This may be why I floundered a bit when Koss recently tested his suspicions about Tabitha. (Tabitha is his Tooth Fairy, who has been writing him notes and sprinkling pixie dust on his dollar coins for almost a decade. I say if you’re going to perpetuate a lie about a fictional character, you may as well go big.) He told us that he wasn’t going to put a particular tooth under his pillow. For four nights in a row there was no tooth. We checked. Then finally on the fifth night he decided to “test Tabitha” and put his tooth under the pillow. We failed to check. The next morning when Koss said he knew there was no tooth fairy, I mumbled and fumbled for a response, finally settling on: “Are you sure? Maybe she just got stuck in traffic.”

Smoooth. I guess I’m not as good of a liar before I’ve had my coffee. That’s also when I catch myself hastily hiding certain gruesome newspaper headlines underneath the sports page before Koss comes to breakfast, which of course makes him all the more curious about what I’m hiding.

While the socially expedient lies come easily, I get a bit rattled under pressure to prevaricate. A few weeks ago when Koss’s school was on lockdown, I told him everyone was safe before I knew it was true. I hoped it was true.

So maybe there’s a bit of wishful thinking in my lies.

I’m in good company here too. An online survey found that 91 percent of women said that as they get older and more comfortable with themselves they lie less often. If I wasn’t 29, this might apply to me too.

Share the biggest whopper of a lie you’ve ever told with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on October 23, 2009.

Childhood Pre Postmortem

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© Paha_l | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© Paha_l | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

“I guess I’m really a grown-up now” is a thought that has crossed my mind a lot lately.

I think my “kid emeritus” status has less to do with the rings on my trunk — and the wrinkles on my neck — than it has to do with the inescapable passage of time.

This week it was the anticipation of attending the memorial service for the father of a dear old friend that spurred my “I guess I’m really a grown-up” thoughts.

If middle-age has a rite of passage, attending your friends’ parents’ funerals must be it. In our twenties and thirties, our get-togethers were about engagements, weddings and babies. Now they are starting to be about funerals. It’s definitely not as much fun.

Losing a parent may be a common experience once you get to be in your 40s, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult. No matter how much you anticipate the loss – in this case my friend’s father battled cancer for ten years – it’s still a shock.

“My mom was on Hospice care and they told me she had only days to live, but I still didn’t quite believe it when it happened,” said my friend Ron. “It seemed like such a surprise.”

Many people think that once they reach the age of adulthood and get beyond the milestones of marriage and parenthood there are no more surprises. Surprise, surprise — it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“A myth supported by most theories of pre-adult development is that at the end of adolescence you get yourself together and, as a normal, mature adult, you enter into a relatively stable, integrated life pattern that can continue more or less indefinitely,” wrote psychologist Daniel Levinson. “This is a rather cruel illusion since it leads people in early adulthood to believe that they are, or should be, fully adult and settled, and that there are no major crises or developmental changes ahead.”

I’ll never forget how devastated and shocked I was the first time my mom got cancer. I was out of college and living on my own, but I could not have been more crushed by the news if I were a little girl and completely dependent on her.

That was my first dress rehearsal for the death of a parent. Thankfully, even though we’ve had a few more rehearsals over the years, we haven’t gotten to the curtain call yet.

“Our parents project an illusion of permanence,” writes Alexander Levy in “The Orphaned Adult: Understanding And Coping With Grief And Change After The Death Of Our Parents.” “Their death forces us to confront our own mortality.”

“Before we have experienced the death of a parent, we may expect that this will be a fairly minor milestone in our adult development. In fact, we may implicitly believe that once we reach adulthood, particularly if we have children of our own, that our development is more or less complete. We do not expect that there will be major changes in the way we experience the world or react to it. The research … demonstrates that the loss of a parent has profound and wide-ranging consequences for most of us,” wrote Debra Umberson in “Death of a Parent: Transition to a New Adult Identity.”

“It still surprises me that the stupidest little things can bring me to tears,” said my friend Carol, whose father passed away last year. “My dad used to love Nutter Butter cookies, and when I saw that flavor of yogurt last week I just lost it.”

I almost lost it myself when she shared this story. Frankly, every time one of my friends’ parents dies, I feel like it’s yet another dress rehearsal for the day my own parents pass away. I know it’s morbid, but I can’t help myself.

The idea that “we are next in line to die,” as Levy wrote, is the very thing that may actually force us to grow up. And yet – just like my son already knows that growing up is going to include more responsibilities than he wants to undertake – I really don’t want to have to grow up.

Share your thoughts with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on October 9, 2009.

Wrapping it up

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Gift Wrapping Paper by Apolonia, freedigitalphotos.net

Gift Wrapping Paper by Apolonia, freedigitalphotos.net

Little did I know that when I enrolled my child in public school I was signing up for a 13-year tour of fundraising duty.

I’ll never forget the first time Koss jumped in the car and delightedly declared how excited he was that he was going to win a squishy pink and yellow stuffed turtle to dangle from his backpack. He sounded like a late night infomercial huckster as he excitedly explained that, “all WE have to do was sell a minimum of 30 rolls of wrapping paper.”

Is that all WE have to do?

Forget the fact that all of his stuffed animals had been relegated to the back of the closet and declared babyish a few months before, he would absolutely die and be the laughing stock of the school if he didn’t win one of those cool turtles.

And that was just the beginning of the all of the fabulous prizes he could win, he explained, shoving a prize incentive catalog at me that looked a thousand times glossier and heavier than the actual wrapping paper they were trying to push.

“If WE sell more than 300 items, WE can get a Wii!” he chirped.

Overlooking the fact that WE already have a Wii, which he mostly ignores, I quickly did the math on this one. If WE sell 300 rolls of wrapping paper at $8.50 each, that’s over $2,500 bucks for an item that sells for about $200 at Best Buy. And that’s not including the value of our time, let alone all the pride I have to swallow every time I ask a friend or neighbor to write another check for the school.

When I was a kid selling candy bars was easy. I just put them in nose-shot of my dad and they all disappeared within a few days. Unfortunately for Koss, his school uses catalogs to sell stuff, so it’s easier to resist.

Besides nowadays, as we all learn the hard way, children are not the real salespeople when it comes to school fundraisers: we are. Sure, they leave the pep rally assembly all fired up about how they’ll rush through the neighborhood and “sell, sell, sell.” But soon afterward the reality of homework, soccer practice, chores and play dates sets in, and the tune changes to “mom, mom, mom … how many rolls of wrapping paper did we sell?”

This year, for once, I had no problem adding up the numbers in my head: Six. That’s right, six. Three to grandma and three to me. “Did you sell any magazines?” Koss asked hopefully. “Even though the prizes aren’t as cool I can still get some.”

No magazines, no candles, no aromatic oils. This year we even skipped out on the “beautifully embossed tins” of popcorn that are large enough to house a family of four. I sold 12 of them at our last garage sale.

“But it helps pay for camp, mom,” Koss pleaded.

I know, but it’s too much work for not enough return on our investment, I explain. This year I’m going to only buy the wrapping paper that I need.

“So WE won’t get the Wii?”

Nope. You’ll have to wait till next year – because if there is one thing that’s certain about school fundraisers, there is always another one coming up.

If any of you readers out there need wrapping paper, magazine or Santa Barbara Axxess Books, email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on October 2, 2009.

Rub Some Dirt in it

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Courtesy Freeimages.net by Naypong

Courtesy Freeimages.net by Naypong

The email from the AYSO Region 122 – Infection Control Committee started out innocently enough (aside from the eerie Soviet era name): “In an effort to promote good hygiene and prevent the spread of disease” the board of directors of our local youth soccer group had formed an Infection Control Committee.

Okay, fine. We have a hard time getting enough parents to volunteer to referee and coach, but if they wanted form a committee to promote good hygiene I’m okay with that.

The first few paragraphs advocated what is basically common sense: stay home if you are sick; if you have a fever or other symptoms stay away from other kids until you’ve been well for 24 hours; don’t share water bottles, etc.

Even the suggestion to use “an alcohol-based hand sanitizer before handing out snacks and after a game” (as opposed to washing your hands) was probably a good one, though I wondered if perhaps we were going to be seeing “sponsored by Purell” embroidered on next year’s uniforms.

Our school district superintendent sent out a similar letter, cautioning parents to teach children not to share their personal items, wash their hands and, mostly importantly, keep their sick kids at home. Hallelujah, this is a huge pet peeve of mine.

But there was one key difference between the two letters. AYSO asked us to avoid “pre and post game handshakes and/or high fives.” Followed by the caveat, “we can still promote good sportsmanship with a post game cheer and by respecting our opponents, coaches and referees.”

Seriously, no high fives? No handshakes?

While I realize that cleanliness is next to flu-lessness and can appreciate the good intentions behind this, I wondered if the Infection Control Committee realizes there is a fine line between healthy hygiene and obsessive germophobia. I’m all for keeping our kids healthy, but seriously, no high fives? That last bit of physical contact is more than just tradition. It’s an important sign of good sportsmanship, a visible symbol that we all played our hardest and, win or lose, we can walk away from the field feeling good about the game.

Seriously, no handshakes?

Sure enough, the ban on hand-to-hand contact was enforced after our game on Saturday, when the kids had just spent the last hour rolling around the grass together, chest bumping, wrestling and helping each other up when they fall down.

The kids didn’t know what to do. Were fist bumps okay? One adult suggested shoulder taps, which I was sure, would result in a brawl.

My response was to giggle at the absurdity of it all. I wasn’t the only one. A referee commented on how odd it was that the kids were forbidden to shake each other’s hands, but that didn’t stop them from all coming to politely shake his hand and thank him for officiating their games. “Next time I’m going to hand out wipes,” he joked.

“I suppose latex gloves are always an option, and how about face masks,” said another soccer mom.

“Oh puleeeeeese,” said another friend. “Might as well have your kids just stay home FOREVER!!!”

Some saw the move as an indication of more than just a flu scare. “Ridiculous,” said a dad. “It seems part of the increasing attempt to teach every child to be afraid of everyone and everything… all for the sake of protecting other entities from liability. Invest in some hand sanitizer if the need arises but let the hugging and high fives commence/continue.”

Another said, “Must have been a big disappointment to have to cancel the planned mandatory AYSO feel good group hug. If I was still coaching I’d name the team the Snot Rockets and dominate.”

When asked about the handshake issue, assistant commissioner Eric Sanborn responded, “Please picture what the average six year old looks like after a soccer game. Sweaty and dirty, with a ring of Gatorade, snot and little bits of orange and watermelon all around his mouth. His shirt and hands were used all game to wipe his nose and they are now all covered with “snail trails” of snot. Would you want to slap ten hands like that and then eat a snack and lick your fingers? Especially during this cold season?”

I’ll admit, that’s not a pretty picture.

“We discussed what other sports leagues, including some professional soccer leagues, have done to reduce the spread of germs in a sports setting and we determined that the after game handshake/high fives followed by postgame snacks, was the likely time for kids to share germs with their teammates and opponents,” Sanborn continued. “We decided to take the focus away from handshakes and high fives for this season only and try to promote good sportsmanship in other ways. It was amazing to see how well parents responded last weekend. … The feedback from our families has been overwhelmingly positive, with a ratio close to 20 positive emails for each complaint.”

Okay, I get it. I wouldn’t want to be the one who gives all the kids in Santa Barbara the swine flu either. No hard feelings. High five!

When Leslie’s not trying to avoid an off-sides penalty, 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 25, 2009.

Punctuate This

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Auburn Elementary School students on National Punctuation Day (courtesy nationalpunctuationday.com)

Auburn Elementary School students on National Punctuation Day (courtesy nationalpunctuationday.com)

It’s not often I get to interview someone on the phone and have them burst into song, but that’s how excited Jeff Rubin gets about punctuation.

As the founder of National Punctuation Day (which is September 24), Rubin will go to great lengths – including singing a chorus of “Punctuation, punctuation. What is that? What is that?” to the tune of Frere Jacques – to get people to pay more attention to dashes, commas and semicolons.

He has also written a rap song (“An EXCLAMATION POINT is so like ‘wow,’ If you’re writin’ so excitin’ then put me in now!”) and performs “Punctuation Playtime” with his wife Norma in school assemblies all over California.

This is a guy who really likes his parenthesis and question marks. )And; Since this is the kind of Column that is fateD to have at least one punctuation’ error, no matter how hard I try, I figure that, I should; just own it?!(

A former journalist, Rubin says that “a proliferation of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors in newspapers that has since spread to magazines and books” motivated him to start the holiday in 2004. He wanted to bring attention to punctuation errors and the importance of punctuation in literacy.

“Lack of attention to punctuation really is a problem,” says a copyeditor I know, who has been in the business for more than 15 years.

“My students’ command of the English language is getting worse and worse,” says a Community College English teacher.

It is feedback like this that keeps Rubin motivated to spread the word about how critical proper punctuation is to communication. Every year he tries to do something to engage the public and get them to respond to National Punctuation Day. “Last year I endorsed the serial comma and that was quite a firestorm of emails and hate mail. But it got people engaged and it got people talking about punctuation. That’s what I want,” he says.

As a writer who works with several different editors in any given week, I’ve spent a fair amount of time wondering about whether I really care enough about the importance of serial commas, since every publication seems to have a different style.

Rubin certainly got a response last year from the Angry Grammarian, a.k.a. Philadelphia Weekly columnist Jeffrey Barg, who wrote, “Punctuation Man’s got a lotta damn gall. I was having a perfectly pleasant National Grammar Day last week … when his treasonous press release arrived: ‘Punctuation Man breaks with Associated Press, endorses serial comma.'”

Slap fight!

Of course this is from another guy who makes his bread and butter on brackets and apostrophes. What about people who aren’t writers? Do they care about punctuation?

Not surprisingly, teachers have been among the first to embrace the holiday. Rubin told me about a law school teacher at Kent State University who has her class do a punctuation play in honor of the holiday and a teacher in Michigan who designed a punctuation football game.

For this year’s holiday Rubin is sponsoring a baking contest where entrants must send a recipe and a sample of their cookie, cake, pastry, doughnut, or bread baked in the shape of a punctuation mark to win prizes.

If you don’t feel up to baking – or can’t stomach giving away your cookies – Rubin offers another game plan to celebrate National Punctuation Day.

* Sleep late.

* Take a long shower or bath.

* Go out for coffee and a bagel (or two).

* Read a newspaper and circle all of the punctuation errors you find (or think you find, but aren’t sure) with a red pen.

* Take a leisurely stroll, paying close attention to store signs with incorrectly punctuated words.

* Stop in those stores to correct the owners.

* If the owners are not there, leave notes.

* Visit a bookstore and purchase a copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.

* Look up all the words you circled.

* Congratulate yourself on becoming a better written communicator.

* Go home.

* Sit down.

* Write an error-free letter to a friend.

* Take a nap. It has been a long day.

I think I’ll do the list backwards and start with a nap.

For more information about National Punctuation Day visit www. nationalpunctuationday.com. When Leslie’s not playing grammar police 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 18, 2009.