Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

What the World Needs Now is #Love

"Were you a hippie?" my daughter once asked me.

Uh, not really. I was only 11 years old during the Summer of Love, in 1967. But the fashion and music and ideals of the Flower Power movement permeated all of pop culture during that period. And as a curious pre-adolescent girl, I thought of the rebellious teens in the news as role models -- which probably struck a great deal of fear into the hearts of my parents.

Why am I thinking about that now?

You can think the email I received on Friday, from a group called Keywords for Change:

LOS ANGELES, CA: Keywords for Change is facilitating a digital theory experiment and conceptual artistic project that seeks to measure the impact of collective consciousness by creating an incidence of focused thought and communication on the keyword #LOVE. Keywords is asking the public to type the word #LOVE into their blogs, Twitter© feed and Facebook© wall on October 10, 2010 (10.10.10). The 1s and 0s of binary code referenced in the 101010 date makes it a perfect day for an online movement. The experiment plays on our interconnectedness through the World Wide Web and the power words can have with SEO (search engine optimization).

I suppose I'm enough of a hippie to want to give it a try. Forty-three years later, what the world STILL needs now is love, sweet love.

SoCal Mom Has a Twitter List, Too

I'm not a huge fan of magazine sites like Babble.

I guess it's generational: I've been online since 1981, my daughter is a teenager, I prefer a paper magazine, I've rarely found anything there I relate to, I don't have TIME for it.

Or maybe I'm just pissed off that I am not cool enough to write for them.

Yesterday, they reminded me again of how NOT COOL I am, with their publication of the 50 Best Twitter Moms, "whose tweets every mom should follow."

Not surprisingly, I'm not on that list, either. But I had to admit - it's a good list. After all, it includes several women I think of as friends: @PunditMom, @JessicaGottlieb, @Mom101, @MochaMomma ... and just the fact that those people talk to me makes me a little bit cool, right?

The weird thing about any Twitter list is that it's kind of a snapshot in time. I've been using the service for several years now -- and while it started out as just being another fun way to keep in touch with your friends, it has evolved into a powerful marketing tool. Today, I find it kind of a distraction and just another task I NEED to do for business.

I'm not on Twitter as much as I used to be -- and neither are a lot of the people I most enjoy tweeting with. Or maybe it's just tough to wade through all the ads, promotions, and "Twitter parties." If this list had been published one or two years ago, there would likely be a lot of different names (for one thing, I'd bet half the people on the list were not even Twitter users in 2007).

Yeah, I know. I need to get over the feeling that being online first entitles me to some kind of advantage over everyone else.

Anyway... To be fair, @Mamaista, who compiled the list, recognizes the impossibility of choosing just 50 "top" Tweeters: "So many great twitter moms, so many tweets, so many potential tweeps to piss off due to glaring omissions," she says. She wisely concludes her list with an opportunity for readers to nominate and vote for their own choices -- something I started to do.

And then I decided this was a game I could play, too. So I wasted spent yesterday afternoon doing just that.

So I created a new list of SoCal Mom's Top 50 Moms on Twitter -- women whose tweets delight, inform and entertain me; women I have developed relationships with; women who I look forward to reading each day. These include my colleagues at CBS Local Los Angeles, MOMocrats and the much-missed Los Angeles Moms Blog.

For space purposes, I omitted those who were already on the Babble list. And I confess that I may have left out others who should be there -- so I have a feeling this list will grow.

Because we're all a little bit cool.

Stop Me Before I Text Again

I am on vacation. This post originally appeared at Los Angeles Moms Blog.

In the news: One in three teenagers sends over 100 text messages per day; half send and receive over 50 texts daily -- and teenage girls do it the most (80 texts per day versus boys, who average 30).

My response to that headline was a resounding "D-UH."

My teenage daughter and I are forty years apart, and nothing marks the differences between our generations like today's technology.

When I was a young teen, it was a rite of passage to get your own phone line. Now that I think about it, my parents probably had ours installed out of self-defense, as my sister  and I tied up the family line the minute we got home from school until were pried off of it for dinner.

And these were the days before the invention of call waiting, caller ID, voicemail and all those other innovations that have changed the way we communicate.

So I don't feel any nostalgia for the "good old days." It was my idea to get Megan her own phone when she was in 4th grade, because she was spending four hours a day after school training in competitive gymnastics, and it made ME feel better, knowing that we could directly connect if we needed to.

The fact that the phone enabled her to communicate with all of her friends was just icing on the cake.

It took about one billing cycle for me to realize we needed to add unlimited texting to our plan. The surprise is that I was racking up even more of a bill than she was.

As the Pew spokeswoman in the CNN article said, "Texting is so functional and efficient." Who among us hasn't had the need to get a message to someone while we're in the audience of a presentation or meeting? Sending a quick text is silent and unobtrusive... and can give you peace of mind.

I've been known to text my husband a short grocery list when I know he's on his way from work. I text my sister just to say hi. My friends text me to ask if I can get their kids for school pick up.

And before I got my Blackberry, I was texting up a storm on Twitter.

My daughter's middle school allows the students to carry their cell phones, as long as they are turned off. Most of the kids just keep them on silent, which explains all the texts I get from my daughter, with messages that range from "I forgot my lunch" to "I'm staying late for geometry tutoring" to "Can I go to Maggie's after school?"

And it goes both ways. There are times when I'm running late for school pick up, and I can stop breaking the speeding laws once I've sent my daughter a short text. (Yes, I pull over before I do this! I don't text and drive.)

I'm curious to know if Pew has statistics on texting by adult women of teenage kids. I'd be willing to bet we're right up there with our daughters.

Packing "Light"

While planning this trip, I was determined that THIS was the year I would finally manage to pack light.

Fat chance of that.

This is similar to my many New Year's resolutions to live more simply. I start out with good intentions... but some cool gadget catches my eye and it all goes downhill from there.

Part of the problem is the unpredictability of the British weather. I'm told that London is lovely right now... but that could change by the time we land tomorrow. And we've been advised to plan for all kinds of weather emergencies during our stay in the Lake District.

"Waterproof clothing is vital as the Lake District is one of the wettest places in the UK and what starts out as a nice day can quickly change. It can get windy and old on ridges and fell summits so bringing many layers of clothing is a good idea."

We will be spending an entire week in the cottage my brother-in-law rented for us up there. So in addition to my usual summer t-shirts, I've packed every cold-weather sweater I own. And my UGGS.

But before we go to the Lake District, we'll be in London... and Megan and I might want to take in a high tea. And I still remember being forcibly ejected from the lobby of the Ritz because my jeans and t-shirt did not conform to the hotel's dress code (which only doesn't apply when you are a guest). So my suitcase also contains a little summer dress... which likely still won't pass muster with the bouncers at London's highest class hotels, but should be adequate for tea in our price range.

And then, there's the plethora of grooming items I need to keep from looking like the crypt keeper at my advanced age. The budget hotel we are using in London does not provide basic amenities like soap and shampoo, so I've stocked up on tiny bottles of Pantene and shower gel. Some of the reviews at TripAdvisor mentioned extremely thin pillows on the beds... so I'm bringing my comfy down one from home.

So it's turning into a challenge to get everything I'll need for the next two weeks into my 24" bag.

Ah, but most of that stuff could go in my carry-on, right?

That's what I used to do when I first started making this trip. But these days, I don't go anywhere without a ton of electronics. A computer, phone, flash drives, two digital cameras, pocket camcorder, iPod, chargers and cables for all of those devices, extra rechargeable AA batteries, and battery charger.

The fact that we're traveling to another country on the edge of Europe adds another level of complication to our stash of electronics. Standard electrical frequencies in Britain are different from the US: Our appliances run on 120 volts/60 Hertz... theirs are 230 volts/50 Hertz. I'm not sure what that means... except for the fact that you will end up frying your device if it cannot handle the voltage.

In the old days (like a decade ago), we might have had to purchase a converter in order to use our electronics. But most modern electronic devices are manufactured for the global market and automatically convert (exceptions tend to be personal grooming tools like hair dryers and shavers).

I checked the voltage on all of the items I'm bringing and was relieved to see that all will work in the UK (including the battery charger, which was worrying me). We even purchased a special surge protector that not only converts, but will accommodate US plugs (oh yeah. Even though we don't need a converter, we had to purchase some adapters so we can plug our stuff in at all).

So a simple thing like packing isn't as simple as one would like.

On that note, I'd better get back to it.

Social Media Teenagers

The Los Angeles Times yesterday ran an article on how young teenagers use social media like Facebook and MySpace and came to an interesting conclusion:

"Kids most likely to spend a lot of time texting and on Facebook, among other networking sites, may be more well-adjusted, studies suggest."

One of the other interesting things about this piece is that I was one of the moms reporter Melissa Healey interviewed for the article. I told her the truth - that my 14-year-old daughter spends a lot of her spare time with Facebook, but I don't really see that as a problem. It's merely how today's kids communicate with one another.

But I was a little bit nervous about talking to a reporter on this subject, because the time both Megan and I spend on the web sometimes scares my husband -- especially when I write about our lives on this blog. And I'm never quite sure what he'll find objectionable. 

I was thankful to see that the article was a positive one and accurately reflects my views on the subject (as well as offered support for them). I'm pleased with how Melissa portrayed me and my family in the Times.

Megan, however, was a little less than thrilled that I'd revealed she had cut her social media teeth over at Club Penguin -- as if she had never been a 10-year-old.

This just proves my point that today's kids aren't all that different from when I was growing up. And that's a relief, too.