We're driving up Interstate 5 today to Sacramento, for our family's traditional 4th of July celebration at my sister's house.
We're making our trip in my husband's 2005 Honda Pilot - but I will be dreaming of the car I just reviewed over at SoCal Stuff: The 2010 Lexus RX 350 (and hybrid 450h).
Life after gymnastics is just plain WEIRD.
If you ask Megan about it, she claims not to miss it AT ALL, which I find kind of strange after devoting so much of herself to it these last six years.
But one huge benefit of this change in our lives is that I now get to spend a lot more quality time with my daughter. I've always known she's a cool kid with a big heart -- but she continually surprises me with her intelligence, insight and sense of humor.
She started tennis camp on Monday and seems to be enjoying it, although her dad and I don't think she's getting as much physical activity as she might need. By evening, she's climbing the walls. It doesn't help that she and my husband think it's a good idea to hit the ball across our crippled living room every night, ignoring my cries of 'NOT IN THE HOUSE.' Yes, I know that our home isn't exactly a home at the moment, but this is a bad habit I'm afraid will continue after we've put everything back in place.
Of course, I blame him more than our kid - he's the adult in that relationship and should be setting the example. In the meantime, I just try to shield my laptop from their game and pray that we get our show back on the road soon.
One of the problems with tennis camp is that it's only three hours a day (instead of five for gymnastics training), so my constructive time is even more limited than usual. I spent Monday working for my VA client, had a Tuesday meeting with our insurance agent (I wanted to review our policy now that we no longer have a wood floor to replace) and a doctor's appointment yesterday... which explains why it's taken me until Thursday to write this post. Obviously, I need to up my time management skills, especially since I'm backlogged on other posts I've started on my other blogs. I'm hopeful that my husband and daughter will be so busy with my sister's family in Sacramento this weekend that I can have a little writing time for myself -- but that's rarely happened in the past. So there's always next week.
After camp yesterday, I took Megan shopping (something we rarely had time for when her gym commitment was 20 hours a week). The original reason was to get a birthday present for her cousin (one of the kids we'll see in Sacto this weekend), but we ended up doing more: we had lunch, we bought her some clothes, and we went in for mother-daughter haircuts!
"Can I dye my hair pink?" she asked.
I think I surprised her by saying she could. After all, you have to pick your fights with your family, and the nice thing about hair is that it grows back. How she chooses to wear it is her business and a form of self-expression. I'd rather she wait until high school to mess with her hair color, but if she really wants to do it now, I have no objections.
I did used to intervene when she went in for a haircut, but only because gymnastics was a hair-intensive sport and if too many layers were put in, it was hard to pull her hair back into the smooth ponytail she needed for competition. Now, she's free to choose any hairstyle she wants.
"I don't want to dye my hair pink - I just wanted to know if I could," she said. "How about a Mohawk?"
Yes. She can get a Mohawk too, if she likes.
I have to admit that I was relieved when she walked out of the salon with a cute shoulder-length bob, which looks really good on her.
I was saddened by Ed McMahon's death earlier this week, and would have written about it -- except that I don't have any great personal anecdotes about Ed, despite the fact that I once worked at the production company that did StarSearch... AND saw him daily when I worked at the Tonight Show. He was the same jovial person you saw every night, offering cheery greetings each afternoon as he passed my desk to go to his office. That's pretty much the extent of my memories of him.
The news of Farrah Fawcett's death was disheartening - but not unexpected. I might have more to say if I'd been a teenage boy in 1976, instead of a 20-year-old feminist college student.
But the news that Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest this afternoon... now, THAT's something I need to talk about. After all, we grew up together. Well, not "together" -- I never met Michael, although the Jackson family lived in a compound here in the Valley -- a friend of my sister went to middle school with him and was his math tutor.
But forty years ago, when the Jackson 5 burst on the scene, I was 13 and Michael was 11 -- and like everyone else in the country, I watched him grow up. It's hard to believe now that the media portrayed the Jackson 5 and that other group of singing brothers - the Osmonds - as equals vying for the hearts of American teenyboppers. I mean, in a battle of the bands, would you pick "One Bad Apple" over "I Want You Back"? (Or "ABC," "The Love You Save," and "I'll Be There"?)
And then, there was Michael's transformation from teen idol to adult superstar. It began with "Off the Wall," his first collaboration with Quincy Jones -- and went into hyperdrive three years later, with the release of "Thriller." That record is understandably considered a classic - but those of you who are not in your 50's may not realize exactly how revolutionary it was.
I was working in the music industry then, and MTV had only just launched as a kind of video radio channel (it truly was MUSIC television then, playing nothing but videos interspersed with music news delivered by cute, mostly young hosts dubbed "vee-jays"). But there were a lot of gripes that they didn't play any music by artists of color... UNTIL Michael Jackson delivered a one-two punch with "Billie Jean" and "Beat It." Never mind how great the songs were -- the accompanying videos were mind-blowing. I don't know if MTV's racial barrier was deliberate or not, but here was something they could not ignore. Michael Jackson became the first African-American on MTV, and the rest is history.
He cemented his standing with the outrageously budgeted video for "Thriller," directed by John Landis at a cost of $1 million. And then - his legendary appearance on the NBC-TV television special commemorating the 25th anniversary of Motown records, when he performed his famous one-gloved moonwalk.
I thought of him as a tragic figure in his later years. Do I believe the allegations of child molestation? Yes. But I also believe what Michael said years ago about being abused himself as a child. His was not a normal childhood. I am more surprised when child stars grow up to be well-adjusted and normal.
I'm looking forward to the inevitable video retrospectives that will air on the news tonight. I want my daughter to see Michael as I saw him years ago, before the weird behavior, the plastic surgery, the aura of creepiness. That is how I want to remember him.
Michael Jackson, R.I.P.
I'm still trying to shake off the vestiges of the last-day-of-school summer cold my daughter gave me - but I know I'm on the way to recovery because I'm starting to feel a little stir-crazy from being home all week.
So you can imagine how my active kid is feeling right now. We're both looking forward to Monday, when she starts five weeks of tennis camp. I'm grateful that this is one budget item we did not have to eliminate this year.
Not everyone is so lucky. There are lots of kids in this country whose families cannot afford to give them a camp experience.
Fortunately, there are organizations out there that help. One of the nation's oldest is the Fresh Air Fund, which has been providing thousands of underprivileged kids memorable summer vacations since 1877.
The fund relies on donations and any amount donated before June 30 will receive matching funds from some of the organization's benefactors.
They are also looking for families to host a child. If you live in the northeastern United States and have the space, you could make a big difference in the life of a child. For more information, check out their website here.
Kids have this bad habit of growing up... and it's not always easy for their parents. That's the subject of my latest post over at 50-Something Moms.
To celebrate the last day of school, one of my daughter's friends hosted a sleepover, where she gave them all a little present: a particularly virulent summer cold.
I'm not sure the hostess gave it to her; Megan tells me that ALL the girls were complaining of sore throats and sniffles that night. But it is definitely the gift that keeps on giving. By Saturday night, I was feeling flu-ish, too.
And so Father's Day saw my husband taking care of us... and we are spending these first days of summer parked in front of the television, with tissues and cold medication at hand.
I have a meeting to attend tomorrow, and am doing all I can to recharge my batteries. I'm at the stage where my voice is starting to take on a sexy, husky quality... I'm praying it stays that way until after my meeting, but with my luck it will be replaced with a painful-sounding raspy cough.
This has been one of those weeks when I've neglected my blog -- not for lack of interest, but because life keeps getting in the way.
My VA client's business is heating up, which is a good thing, because I really need the money -- not least of all because of the home renovations resulting from our poria infestation. My husband has used this as an excuse to take a sledge hammer to all the things that have bugged him about the house these 13 years... beginning with the mirrored facade that was above our fireplace. He has a plan to make it all look pretty... but everything has to be done in steps and we're not up to that one yet.
I don't like being at home these days... the rooms that once resembled the Pottery Barn catalog now look more like our local Pep Boys. The rest of the place is so crammed full of stuff that used to be contained elsewhere that it's hard to find anything and it's hard to move.
I've been out and about, researching various aspects of the renovation project. I worked with a nice kitchen designer at Home Depot, purchased a new range and microwave hood at Lowe's... and stopped short of ordering new cabinets because my husband and I cannot agree on how to finish our floor, which -- thanks to the poria -- was stripped down to its concrete foundation.
The floor has to be done before the kitchen, because we are planning to install the new cabinets ourselves, which won't be done in the course of just one weekend. Until we're ready to go, they'll have to be stored in our dining room, so we need to have the floor done first.
The problem is the foundation itself. Our house was built in 1961 and has endured two major earthquakes and a burst water main, which was repaired in a rather sloppy manner. There are some huge cracks in the slab, which is how the wood-eating fungus got into our home in the first place. These have now been sealed with epoxy to keep the poria from getting back in...
...but the slab can crack again and the house can get re-infected and I don't want to ever again be surprised by the sight of mushrooms growing in my cabinets. So instead of covering the whole thing up with carpet and tile (which would have been the least expensive, easiest thing to do after being forced to remove my beautiful cherry floor), we're considering just dressing up the concrete slab with polish and veneer. This is a very trendy, high-end type of finish these days (go figure!), which is a lot more modern than my 1961 ranch house... but I think with area rugs, we can still make it comfortable and cozy. We can even choose a stain that emulates the cherry wood we lost, so at least we'd have the same colors.
But first, we need to find out if we can actually AFFORD this. I've been trying to collect bids from three local contractors, and explaining to them why we're thinking of concrete, why we had to remove our wood floors and why our slab is now covered in the ugly blue-gray epoxy designed for garages. And my husband and I have been driving all over the Valley, looking at stores with floors done by these guys' companies (we've not been able to see their work in residences; I guess it's not surprising that most homeowners aren't willing to let strangers come in and look at their floors).
Regarding the kitchen: The Thomasville cabinets I picked out at Home Depot might not be the best fit with a concrete floor; we may want to go back to the drawing board and select something more modern - with cleaner lines. So this week, I drove out to Ikea to see what they had to offer.
And I liked what I saw -- especially the price tag, which is so cheap that we could let THEM do the install.
Of course, there are some quality trade-offs. The Thomasville cabinets are made of wood, while Ikea's are all MDF, and that didn't sound too appealing to me. But once I saw the cabinets in the store's model kitchens, I had to admit that they looked really nice. And I know of some people who have put in Ikea kitchens and have been very happy with them. So I've got their third-party contractor coming to the house next week to measure us for an Ikea kitchen... just in case.
But there's a third option: I have a REALTOR® friend who has done a lot of home renovations over the years, and he's referred me to a carpenter who does all his custom kitchens ("for not much more than Ikea with an install"). So I'm calling him, too.
So that's just one of the things I've been dealing with this week. I'll save my dealings with my teenage daughter for another post... maybe next week.
It arrived two months ago, and I was so overwhelmed with STUFF that I didn't have my usual reaction of horror at the inconvenience it entails:
SUMMONS FOR JURY DUTY SERVICE
SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
The court system in L.A. has changed a lot since the dark ages of the 1980's, which was the first time I was called upon to serve. Back then, I was kind of excited at the opportunity to perform my civic duty. I faced the Monday morning traffic on the 101 and reported on time to the downtown courthouse...
...and quickly lost my eagerness to be a good citizen. Jurors back then were treated like cattle,corraled into an aged, uncomfortable jury assembly room with no amenities to alleviate the boredom of waiting -- for anything to happen. I sat there for two days before I was selected to go to a courtroom for voir dire questioning...
...and was dismissed the moment I told them that my employer was The Tonight Show, even though I disclosed that I was just a production assistant. I don't know -- did they think their court proceedings would end up in the monologue?
At any rate, I got called a total of three times over the five days of service, and each time I was immediately dismissed. By the third day, I was annoyed at how much time I had been forced to waste there. On the fourth day, I was resentful of the disrespectful way the courtroom staff treated the potential jurors. By Friday, I was pissed. I now knew why people try to get out of jury duty and I vowed that the next time I was called to serve, I would do the same.
Weirdly enough, I didn't get another summons for another 10 years and by then, I was a stay-at-home mom of a toddler... and I was able to use the fact that I was her only caretaker to get out of it (we have no family left in Los Angeles, and I had not yet made friends in our northwest Valley neighborhood). That excuse worked well into her elementary years...
...and then, they changed the system. Lack of childcare is no longer a reason for dismissal. The court doesn't care. You may delay your service if you've been called during an inconvenient week... but you may not get out of it.
However, the system has changed in a lot of positive ways too. For one thing, while there is still a lot of waiting around to be called for a case, you now begin your service "on call": You phone the court over the weekend before you're due to serve and often, you discover you are not needed on Monday. From that point on, you call in every evening after five for your instructions.
MOST IMPORTANT: If you are not selected to serve on a panel by the end of the day, you're dismissed. Your service is done. This is a huge improvement over the bad old days of waiting around.
So even though my summons for service began on Monday, I did not have to come in until today (Thursday), thus wasting a lot less time.
On top of that, I was pleasantly surprised when I set foot in the jury assembly room: not only is there wifi, but there are a number of internet computer stations clearly labeled "FOR JURORS ONLY." (Good, as my laptop battery is next to useless and there are no places to plug in). So I am actually able to put this time to pretty decent use.
Of course, that will come to an end if I actually get selected to serve on a jury. But we'll see... I have a feeling that in the eyes of an attorney, the job title of "blogger" may be even worse than someone who works in late night television.
We shall see...
I'm happy to report that I seem to have emerged from that bout of the blues I was suffering from these last few weeks. Maybe it's that booster I had on Friday... or maybe it's the result of the iron supplements I'm taking for my anemia. Or (more likely) maybe I just needed time to work through all the changed circumstances I'm dealing with right now and get to acceptance.
At any rate, I am feeling more like myself this week.
View the rest of this post here.
The headlines are enough to make you want to pack up and move your family to an isolated cabin in the mountains:
For those unfamiliar with the term, "sexting" refers to the act of using your cell phone camera to send a naked photo of yourself ... and the media would like you to believe (in the words of CBS News), that it's "shockingly common" among our teenage children.
I remember a few years ago when nude photos of High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens surfaced; they were meant to be a private, sexy surprise for boyfriend Zac Ephron (or Nickelodeon star Drake Bell, depending on the news report). To me, it seemed like just another dumb thing teen celebrities do, because those kids have money and jobs and grow up too fast.
Who knew that ordinary teens would think this is a good idea?
My first reaction upon learning of this trend was horror. I have a newly minted teenager and she's just purchased a new cellphone made for texting with her friends... and it has an excellent built-in camera.
My second thought was denial: This is not something MY daughter or her friends would engage in.
And then I reverted back to horror: Since she turned 13, she's been surprising us regularly with actions and decisions that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago. She's growing up... and all bets are off. While I was fairly certain that this isn't something she's doing now, I figured now was a good time to have another talk about cyber-safety.
I also wanted to know if this was an activity her friends or acquaintances had experienced.
"So I'm writing a blog post about 'sexting,'" I told her. "Is that something you've heard of?" I explained to her what it is and was relieved to see that she was as horrified by the idea as I was.
I told her that some insecure girls send naked photos of themselves to prove that they are "grown up"... or to impress boys. But that sending anything by cellphone (or posting to the web) can result in unintended consequences. I told her the tale of the girl who sent a photo to one boy and was shamed when he, in turn, sent it out to others -- until it had been seen by everyone in the school. I told her of the case where the kids who sent nude cameraphone photos had been arrested for distributing child pornography.
We ended up having a good discussion about safe texting and some ground rules for using that new phone of hers: No texting during school hours, and no access to the phone in her bedroom at night. That's a good time for her to charge it -- out in our living room.
I was reminded of another news report that also horrified parents around the country (and, incidentally sold a lot of newspapers and gave news networks a surge in ratings): That one indicated that an alarming number of middle school kids were engaging in oral sex... in school bathrooms, at parties and even at Bar Mitzvahs.
Once this report was published in the Washington Post, all the other news outlets jumped on it, and it became accepted wisdom -- even into this decade. When my daughter was in 5th grade, we attended a "Birds and the Bees" seminar, and the parents' orientation was kicked off with a video of an ABC News report on the subject.
That phenomenon has since been debunked in a nationwide study by the Guttmacher Institute, which found that today's teens are not more sexually active than they were in 1991.
From Newsweek: "Why is society constantly speculating about the most salacious stories about our children? Possibly because they confirm our worst fears about the values of the next generation and our growing sense that we really have no idea what's going on with our kids."
I have a feeling that the "sexting" news is a similar symptom of that, and I am not alone.
York University professor Peter Cummings describes it as "a modern variation of playing doctor or spin-the-bottle."
"Technology does change things, and there can be very serious consequences" Cumming said."A distinction has to be made between nudity and child porn."
Sexting was also discussed at a recent meeting of the Family Online Safety Institute, which concluded that parents need to stop worrying about it and focus on problem solving.
I want to believe that's what I was doing when I brought the subject up with my daughter. And I consider that talk to be just one part of a long conversation we'll be having for a long, long time.
Disclosure: I recently became a member of the Yahoo! Mother Board, and will be writing themed posts at their request each month. I am not being paid any monetary compensation for my participation. I did, however, receive a nice bouquet of flowers from Yahoo! for Mother's Day -- which I very much enjoyed.
The folks at Yahoo! have created a "Top 10" List for Cyber-Safety:
1. Yahoo!
Safely
- a complete resource for all things cyber correct.
2. Create a family pledge for Online Safety.
3. Applying a filter to
your child’s Yahoo! Mail account is simple by creating a family account to monitor your child’s
use of Yahoo! and edit and maintain their account settings.
4. Talk to the hand, Mr.
Spammer. Yahoo! Mail uses the latest technology
to combat spam and to help protect you from phishing and viruses. Yahoo!’s spam
guard will filter out 97% of all things bad.
5. You can flag photos
on Flickr for abuse via the “Report
Abuse” link that’s available in the footer of every page.
6. 4 things to know before your child goes online: http://info.yahoo.com/safely/us/yahoo/.
7. Report abuse on any
Yahoo! property at http://abuse.yahoo.com.
8. Keep private things
private. Manage your online profile.
9. Yahoo!'s SafeSearch feature is designed to filter
out explicit, adult-oriented content from Yahoo! Search results.
10. Keep up to date with our safety experts blogs.
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