Showers of Hypocrisy

The older I’ve gotten, the more deliberately I make choices that are eco-friendly. Part of the reason is because it's easier than ever to know what the right thing to do is; for instance, when the garbage cans at the elementary school are labelled "Compost," "Recycle," and "LANDFILL" (the latter with skull and crossbones and death heads drawn on it) it's a fair bet that you want to reduce your inputs to that bin. 

I also happen to live in a part of the country where large scale systems have been put into place to make it second nature to go easy on the earth. Our curbside recycling takes nearly every kind of paper and plastic in a single stream, the county composts our food scraps, and bins at the local grocery stores collect used batteries and compact fluorescent light bulbs. So it’s an ingrained habit now to carry reusable bags to the grocery store, to store leftover food in reusable containers, and to read by the humming yellow light of a CFL. I have put my arm (gingerly) into the nasty morass that is our green compost bin to fish out a piece of errant aluminum foil for recycling, and I switched to a homemade green cleanser that makes everything in my house smell minty fresh.

I even put a bucket in my shower to collect the water as it warms up, so I can use it later to pour on my (drought-tolerant, native, organic) garden plants.Then I step into the shower and all my good eco-intentions rise up in the steam. 

I love a long, hot shower.

I know the numbers – an average shower uses 5 gallons water per minute. If you're going to stay in for more than 5 minutes, you may as well sink into a claw foot porcelain tub (30-50 gallons of water per bath, on average) and have a servant fan you with a palm frond. Here in Northern California we’ve had drought years where short showers can make a big difference in maintaining enough water for the things we really need, like toilets that flush and water to drink. So it’s particularly virtuous where I live to keep showers as short as possible. 

For those who want to stand in the shower longer, experts recommend stepping in, getting wet, turning off the water while lathering up, and then putting the water back on to rinse off – what my friend Andrea, a native Californian, taught me is called the Sailor’s Shower.

Me? I start off every shower thinking – “just a quick rinse off today.” Things start to go south almost immediately as the shower stall fills up with steam and that kink in my right shoulder blade, the one that tells me I’ve been sitting at the computer too long, starts to unclench. The jets of water against my neck act like a lever to lower my shoulders two inches, and I can feel the pinched wrinkle between my eyes start to smooth out.

I’m nearsighted and have long observed that when my glasses are off I don’t hear as well either, so being in the shower is as close as I’ll ever come to a sensory deprivation tank. Staring at the white wall of tiles, all sorts of ideas form, flit, and take flight. I think, “Ok, one more minute, then I’ll get out.” I think that 15 times or so. When I finally do shut the water off and step out into a bathroom that is like a nice Boca Raton steam room, I am filled with self loathing to the tips of my wrinkled fingers.

A few months ago I bought a shower timer at a store, something that I could just stick to the wall of the shower and watch as 4 minutes and 59 seconds went by. I've used timers before at various campsites, the ones where you have to feed in quarters every few minutes to keep the water flowing, so I know that even a three minute shower is within my capacity.

On the second use, the fancy timer fell to the floor of the shower and broke. I know I could set a kitchen timer. But it seemed as good a sign as any that in return for all my other earth friendly exertions, the universe has decided to give me a pass on the long showers.

I Don't Need No Liberry

I've just heard that the mayor of Oakland is considering closing a passel of local libraries, including the one that my family frequents, in order to close our $58 million deficit. To which I say, Huzzah! Who needs libraries anyways?

I mean, what American taxpayer even reads books anymore? They're outmoded. The Google search bar can find any information that anyone with a computer or a smartphone or an iPad needs - and that's virtually everyone. ( I mean, it's not as though there are huge swaths of people in this country who struggle to pay for rent or food, let alone broadband access, these days.)  Why bother losing yourself for 72 straight hours in "The Josephine Bonaparte Trilogy" by Sandra Gulland when you can just type "Who was Josephine Bonaparte" into a search engine? It's much more efficient, and prevents you from delving into messy and unwanted French and Caribbean history, not to mention spares you from envisioning dead people as living, breathing beings whose lives influenced the course of history.

We all know that every single piece of knowledge in the world has been digitized by now, and if it's on the Internet it's true. So the argument that librarians can help separate the wheat from the information chaff is a false construct, meant to preserve jobs. Did you know that public librarians earn, on average, $350,000 each year and get summers off and get free massages? It's true, I read it on www.utterflamingnonsense.com, which seems like a very credible site. No wonder we're falling into the ocean, public debt-wise. Stop blaming the corporate titans and their wonder-bonuses; it's those fat cat librarians.

Speaking of public debt, how about we start making those giant, cushy, cavernous public libraries finally pay their own way? The American way is about earning money, not about lending things out for free. Ditch the books and put in some retail, that's my advice. A couple of shops, a few fast food restaurants, a nail salon, maybe a gaming arcade where the kids can hang out.

By converting libraries into malls, we'd head off the naysayers who see public libraries as "community centers." Come on. What kid wants to visit at a quiet library to do homework and check out a new novel or how-to book about science, when the alternative is to roam a mall with his friends? For the parents who bring their young kids by for story time and crafts,  I say: check out the kids' channels on cable TV and park your youngsters there. 

And as for the people who come to the library to meet with English language tutors and take citizenship classes so that they can take part in our representative democracy, well, you can probably guess where I think they could go instead. 

Look, if you need any further proof that libraries don't matter, take a look at me. Why, I haven't willingly set foot in a library or cracked a book since Aristonphanes Middle School, and I turned out just fine.

P.S. If this post makes you mad, good. Click on http://saveoaklandlibrary.org/, or look for a similar organization defending the role of public libraries in your neck of the woods, and take action!

Season of the Swan

Our refrigerator is covered in invitations right now, their brightly-colored edges and fancy fonts like a dusting of leaves from a Disney-fied forest. Each one, held up by its own homemade bottle-top magnet, heralds another junior high school student about to make a major transition in the life of their faith: bat mitzvahs, bar mitzvahs, confirmations. These fluttering cards just rub in the visual evidence that I am fastidiously working to ignore:  my 13 year old daughter, and all her friends, are hurtling towards adulthood.

My daughter goes to an all-girls junior high which my husband and I selected because of its academic excellence, not at all because of the reassuring lack of absence of male distraction in the place, no sirree, not us, never crossed our minds. Throughout 6th grade, she rolled out of bed and into whatever clothes happened to be on the floor under the giant stacks of books she loves to read, plopped her glasses on the bridge of her nose, and pronounced herself ready for school. I congratulated myself for keeping the "child " in "childhood" for her.

But the hairline cracks in my plan to keep my daughter forever young appeared at the start of 7th grade, and have been widening ever since. A co-ed dance here, a co-ed birthday party there, the realization that months of ballet study have given our daughter the long, strong figure of a dancer and the graceful carriage to boot. Who could have seen that coming?

This spring it's just picked up momentum. We sent out our own invitation a few weeks ago, inviting a small circle of friends to witness the culmination of our daughter's confirmation process. Then began a series of changes that could broadly categorized as "Getting Ready for Confirmation," and subtitled "Freaking Out Mom and Dad."

First, there was a haircut that took my daughter's long, straight locks from simple to sophisticated. Then we shopped for confirmation dresses (all her dresses had inexplicably shrunk) and the ones that fit her were in the women's, not children's, department. We found two that were sufficiently cute for her, and sufficiently modest for me, at least if I threw a sweater on her and buttoned it from neck to hip. Months of her surreptitious study of fashion magazines, which I have long pretended were just a kicky way to find collage materials for craft projects, meant that my daughter knew exactly what jewelry and hairstyles would complement each dress to best effect.

We'd agreed that she could wear her first pair of heels, but I insisted on buying the lowest ones available in the department store. Who would have guessed they'd also be the most flattering, nude patent leather slingbacks with little flowers on each toe? They managed to make her long legs look even longer. Backfire.

Then came the contact lenses, something that she convinced me she needed for ballet more than anything else. Until she took them off, I didn't realize how much I'd relied on her old tortoiseshell frames to fix her in my mind as the fourth grader she was when she got them. Without them, her blue eyes pop.

Only one thing to be done: buy more glasses. "The contacts will be uncomfortable when you're reading," I said, scrambling. "Better to have some glasses you like." At the opticians I encouraged her to buy the biggest, most Buddy Holly looking glasses they stocked, almost exact duplicates of David Byrne in the "Once in a Lifetime" video. Did they tamp down her looks? No, they did not. She now looks like a smart girl who has the added sassiness to pull off Geek Chic glasses. 

After her confirmation service last week the older church ladies surrounded me. "She's so grown up!" they said, marveling. "She doesn't even walk; she just glides when she moves!"

I only have one tool left in my arsenal: braces. When I mentioned to her that maybe we should call the orthodontist to see if she needs them, she nodded vigorously. "Because if I get them right now, I'll be done with them before high school," she reasoned. High school. As in the co-ed high school she'll be attending, or gliding through, with actual boys.

Am I crazy for thinking we should bring caftans and poke bonnets back into vogue before next year?

In honor of my daughter and all the girls in her posse who we are about to unleash upon the world (thank or blame us later,) here's the Airborne Toxic Event singing "Changing" from their latest album "All At Once," which I heartily recommend.

Looks like Oakland on a perfect Saturday night.

Concert Crone Report: Chris Robinson Brotherhood

The Concert Crone operates in a musical netherworld: too old for bouncers to ask her for ID, too young to give up the thrill of buying tickets for live performances using the secret presale code. In this first of an occasional series of concert reviews, the Crone braves the Bay Area music scene and answers the question: Worth Hiring the Sitter?

The Band: The Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Thursday May 5 2011. Robinson is best known as the lead singer for the rock band Black Crowes, and for being the ex husband of super peppy actress Kate Hudson. The only song the Concert Crone knows from the Black Crowes is "Hard to Handle," which she likes because the lyrics in the refrain are unintelligible, so you can sing along differently each time, like scat singing.

The Venue: The New Parish in Oakland, a smallish club on the back side of the much more ornate Fox Theater where on the same night, Fleet Foxes was playing. As Robinson pointed out, "There are a whole lot of beards within a five block radius. We're glad you came to see our beards." Interestingly, the Crone watched someone in front of her get busted by the bouncer for lighting up a joint, which was unexpected in a city nicknamed Oaksterdam.

The Company: Erin, who is in the Crone's writing group and is an effervescent thirty something hippie chick who looks a whole lot like Kate Hudson. This will become important later in the review. 

The Crowd: Dear god, is the Crone ever happy that she found her mate before the beard, newsboy cap, and skinny-jeans-on-men fashion triple threat kicked in. She doesn't think she could marry someone who looks like a cast member from "Newsies" stumbled out of the backwoods and then put on the first pair of pants he saw hanging on a backyard clothesline, which unfortunately belonged to the teenage girl in the family.

On the other hand, the two young African American women in halter dresses with Angela Davis hair: the Crone apologizes for staring, but you were magnificent even if your hair blocked her view of the show. 

Also: according to two tourists from Toronto who were in the crowd, Dave Chappelle was there, but the Crone never saw him. Maybe he was hiding in the Angela Davis hair thicket.

Age Humiliation Factor: Medium. On  the one hand, the bouncer did ask for ID, which the Crone eagerly produced from her purse. On the other hand, when Erin pulled out a own battered passport as ID, the bouncer was off to the races in a game of flirty travel one-upmanship. "I'VE been to 27 Asian countries, you? Oh, you've lived in Africa? Where?" The Crone's ID could have been a Costco card for all that the bouncer actually examined it.

Cool Factor: Extremely high. Walking toward the venue, the Crone wondered if they were on the right street. Erin said, "Well, we can ask Chris Robinson" as she pointed across the road. Indeed, there was Chris and his guitar player Neal Casal ambling in the same direction, and they gave the "hail fellow, well met" salute and crossed over. It's always cool when you walk to the door of the venue WITH the band, especially when Chris Robinson said "Well, gotta go, we have to use the back entrance," before parting. 

Then, on his way through the crowd way up to the stage, Robinson tapped Erin on the shoulder and said, "Hey, you made it!" before taking the stage. The Crone believes the Kate Hudson resemblance may have been a factor.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Definitely. Hearing the Brotherhood is like taking a nostalgic visit back to the best '70s rock concert ever - guitars and blues and great classic covers. There was a heavy Grateful Dead vibe, including a "Space"-like jam that gave the Crone plenty of time to use the bathroom, reapply lipgloss, and get another beer without feeling she'd missed anything interesting. Even packing the lunchboxes the next morning on only 5 hours of sleep, the Crone was still glad she went, and humming Sugaree.

The Chris Robinson Brotherhood is touring all over Cali this spring and then on to points east - see their website for details.

Did you see the show? Is there another band you'd like the Crone to review? Are there other factors that you, as a music fan whose former concert t-shirt budget is now spent on things like kids' orthodontia and PTA memberships, might like to know about before hiring the sitter? Email the Crone at contact at normalarkey dot com or post your comment here. When she wakes up from her afternoon nap, she'll get to it.

All About Her

You know those people who hate when anyone makes a fuss over their birthday? They try to let it pass unnoticed, reject any suggestion that something should be done to commemorate their special day, act sheepish if they're found out.

I do not understand those people at all. I believe in the Birthday Month approach, wherein anything you do in the thirty days bracketing the anniversary of your birth can and should be rationalized as a celebration. So you won't be surprised when I publicly declare that tomorrow is my birthday.

You may be surprised when I say that I'm voluntarily not celebrating it. 

My oldest daughter, along with 17 other kids from our church, is being confirmed tomorrow. The program that our church pioneered for confirmation, the sacrament by which a child becomes an adult in the eyes of the church, is called Confirm Not Conform (CnC) and is now nationally syndicated. Starting last September, the kids began meeting 2-3 times/month to talk with clergy and lay leaders about various aspects of Christianity, their own spirituality, and their personal values. Field trips to various area houses of worship were mandatory, as were stints at a soup kitchen and food bank.

Each child was assigned a mentor who took a special interest in their progress, encouraging them and helping them along with what was a significant time commitment. Throughout the experience, the kids are supported in the journey and reminded that it is 100% their choice whether or not they actually choose to get confirmed at the end of it. It is designed to leave them with a lifelong framework for evaluating spiritual and moral choices.

Sounds great, right? But it's been much harder than I anticipated, when I decreed last summer that my daughter would have to do CnC this year. Much as she likes the CnC program and adores her mentor, the schedule has required my daughter to miss her ballet class every other week, for 9 months. You and I, grownups that we are, understand that  in the grand scheme of things fifteen missed ballet classes are not earth-shattering. But you and I are not 13 year old girls who really love ballet. 

Every other Wednesday, same fight. "I'm going, because I HAVE to go. Because you are MAKING me do it." Dueling eye rolls.

"I am MAKING you do it so that you will have something priceless to carry with you, your whole life - an understanding of the values that are important to you." Teeth grinding glare, hands on hips.

"BALLET is what's important to me!" Slam, slam, stomp, stomp. 

Every Wednesday I almost give up. She's got justification; I'm pretty convinced her repeated absences cost her a role or two during  last December's production of The Nutcracker. But having a solid spiritual grounding has been an invaluable help during troubled times in my own life. So I stubbornly hold on to the threat of mothers everywhere: "You'll thank me for this one day!"

But what do I know? You really have to wait until they're 35 or so to see the results of your parenting experiment. Even then - how much of it is because of the way you parented? And how much is due to the self-determining child who pushed back when Mom and Dad went too far? I'm thinking of that eighth year of piano study over which I fought with my parents. They eventually agreed to let me quit, and I went on to other activities like student council and writing for the school paper that felt much more relevant.

At any rate, that's why I am gladly making tomorrow - and today's video -  be all about her.  The video shows the Kirov Ballet dancing the Mazurka from Coppelia, the dance that my daughter and her younger sister will be performing with the Oakland Ballet School in June (and for which she has had to miss three rehearsals this week while practicing for confirmation.)

Giving my birthday over to celebrate her seems like the least I can do in exchange for her perseverance in seeing this through.

SpongeBob's Teachings on Corporate Lies

I am a lousy church school teacher. Having regarded my formative years as an Episcopalian as more of a social event than anything else - some of my best school friends attended the same church, so most of the praying that went on in class was over tests and who would ask who out for Senior Ball. I never read the Bible or anything Jesus-y like that.

Still, it taught me the benefit of taking part of a faith community, and I definitely buy into the whole "love thy neighbor" message. So when the call went out for church school teachers for the 4th,5th, and 6th graders at church recently, I signed on, breathing a sigh of relief when an email told me that our entire curriculum would be based on SpongeBob Square Pants.

It's clever, really. Our church school leader selects a Sponge Bob episode for the kids to watch, and develops with questions that tie it back to key teachings - "How might SpongeBob have been a better neighbor to Squidward? What does Jesus say about the way we treat our neighbors?" type of thing. Lively discussions ensue, often with sidebars on farting and bodily fluids. It's all good - the kids want to come back.

Recently, though, I got to class and the DvD for the week was missing. Faced with a roomful of staring kids who were moments away from stampeding back to Coffee Hour,  I said "I know! We'll pop in a random episode and you'll tell me what the spiritual message is!" In the episode, SpongeBob drew a little squiggle with a magic pencil, which quickly became a Zombie  2-dimensional SpongeBob wreaking havoc all over Bikini Bottom. Horrified at what he's wrought, it become SpongeBob's job to capture and erase the squiggle before it does any permanent damage.

All of which is a very, very long way to say that even SpongeBob, and the kids in my class, know that a lie can careen out of the liar's control and do terrible collateral damage.  Which is why I'm so pissed off to read columnist Kathleen Pender's piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today about how, exactly, U.S. corporations like GE and Cisco avoid paying a penny of tax to the federal government, even when they're raking in billions of dollars in profits. It involves a shell game of hiding profits offshore, using techniques like "the double Irish" and "the Dutch sandwich" (mmm, lunch.)

 In 2004, the government gave major corporations a one-time tax holiday to repatriate their foreign profits at an effective tax rate of 5.25% (which ended up being closer to 3.7% after foreign tax credits.) The idea was that these cut-rate foreign profits would be used by the companies to boost investments in R&D and training in the US and create jobs. But a study from National Bureau of Economic Research found that not only did that NOT happen, but that "a $1 increase in repatriations was associated with an increase of almost $1 in payouts to shareholders." Furthermore, as Pender reports, "A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that companies including Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer, Ford, Merck and Honeywell announced large layoffs shortly after repatriating funds."

In short, these corporations are lying about their obligations, and getting away with it. Love they neighbor (and pay your fair share) be damned.

Guess what? My biggest client is a UK-based publishing company that pays me in British pounds. As such, they are not required to file a W-9 for me; it's up to me alone to report that income to the US government and pay taxes on it. 

It would be easy for me to not do that, and personally lucrative. Instead I track every penny of those payments, report them to the government, and pay taxes on them. You know why? Because I find it exhausting to even contemplate the web of self-delusion it would take to convince myself that doing the wrong thing is right.* I know these corporations may seem faceless, but there are actual human beings running them. 

How they sleep at night is a Holy Mystery, perhaps even beyond SpongeBob's ken.

*Yes, I recently wrote about the white lies I tell my kids. And now they know it's not the cleaning man's fault their things are missing, and I'm paying big time.

School Lunches on Autopilot

Next week is spring break for our kids. We're staying in town and haven't planned much, but I'm as excited as if we were going to Hawaii for the week. Because I have five whole days off from making lunches.

Every morning as I pull out the lunchboxes I am reminded of what Dorothy Parker reportedly said whenever her telephone rang: “What fresh hell is this?” Some weeks I’m on a health kick, making sandwiches on high fiber high protein bread spread with soynut butter accompanied by fresh fruit, low-fat pretzels, and fruit juice. Other weeks it’s the path of least resistance: plain pasta with olive oil in a thermos, gummies (at least it says fruit on the wrapper) and a couple of Girl Scout cookies, alongside some chocolate milk. Whatever. I'll make them eat a banana when they get home.

In the morning I spend a lot of time crossing from refrigerator to pantry to microwave, stopping in the middle of the kitchen to think, sighing, trying to remember which girl likes pretzels and which one likes dried apricots, and then resuming the circuit. As a person who now packs an average of 40 lunches a month, I am awed that my mom found a simple formula and stuck with it, for three kids, for at least ten years.

The school lunches of my childhood were an object of envy, and not because they were gourmet. When you’re nine years old, the last thing in the world you want is a lunch that is different from every else’s, emitting garlicky odors or displaying shiny textures or unusual colors. In short: if you would pay top dollar to eat a particular dish at a top rated restaurant specializing in ethnic cuisine as an adult, it may as well be plutonium when it show up in a lunch box.  That’s why the lunches carried by the Davis kids were so darn right. They didn’t try to be anything but what we were: bland and middle class.

A sandwich, either peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and butter, peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff (catching a trend yet?) or the cheese sandwiches that my siblings and I used to tease my mom about, as she unwrapped the bright orange squares from their individual cellophane wrappers. “Mmmmm, American Processed Cheese Food Product,” we’d say, reading the cheese packaging label aloud and careful to stay just out of swatting distance. “My favorite!”

A single serving size bag of Fritos nestled alongside the wax paper-wrapped sandwiches. My mouth still waters at the memory of their fatty, salty, corn goodness pressing rectangular tracks onto my tongue, as I savored them in the cacophony of the Council Rock Elementary School cafeteria. 

Next into the paper lunch sack went a Hostess Ho-Ho, which is where my siblings and I exerted some individuality. My oldest sister always ate hers like it was corn on the cob, slowing rotating it and nibbling through the hard chocolate exterior then the cakey layer, until she got to the vanilla cream inside. My brother, disconcertingly referred to as "Little Larry" even after he'd topped 6 feet, could put one away in a single gulp. And I liked to break little bits of mine off and pop them in my mouth, examining the strata of the rolled pastry cake as I went.

At the bottom of the lunch sack was the shiny New York state Macintosh apple. That went straight into the garbage.

I don’t recall envying anyone’s lunch, or ever trading parts of mine away. There was no room for improvement as far as I was concerned, and I never complained about monotony. Who’s stupid enough to complain about a Hostess Ho-Ho?

Don't bother telling me that my kids are old enough to make their own lunches; you know it, they know it, and I know it. But it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. The fact is that the mornings they make their own lunches are filled with trauma and tears and they end up packing a 100% starch meal, whereas if I pack the lunch the trauma and tears are at least accompanied by 50% protein and fiber. It's simple math.

Frankly, if I was clever enough to come up with a lunch formula that would last for a decade, as my mother did, I wouldn’t care if resembled the food pyramid or a food pyre. It would be enough to have the whole process on autopilot.

How to Lose Your Cool

When a friend decides to celebrate her 37^th birthday by inveigling a group of girlfriends to take her out to a local hotspot for dinner and then go out dancing afterward, secretly congratulate yourself all week for having a friend who is almost a decade younger. Pretend to be ironic when you call her a whippersnapper, even though calling anyone a whippersnapper, ironically or not, makes you sound like you are one “Clap On, Clap Off” device away from residency at an AgeSong home.

As you get ready for the big night, apply almost all of your makeup before putting your contact lenses in, because now you are farsighted and once they’re in you can no longer focus on fine details, like where your lips end and your cheeks begin as you apply lipstick. Ask your preteen daughter to fix any rogue makeup situations before you leave, and trust her technique even though she is known to put lipstick on the dog.

Pull on the leopard print platform stilettos that you know would be sexy, even if worn by a corpse. Then worry if wearing them will exacerbate your plantar fasciitis.

At the hip nightclub where you will be eating dinner, eagerly follow your group of friends and the waiter to the corner table in the upstairs loft, where a curtain mostly obliterates you from view. Assume that he is seating you there out of recognition of your innate coolness, and not because he wants to shield the rest of the diners from seeing you raise the average age in the restaurant by 16 years.

Throughout the dinner, pepper the young waiter with the question, “What clubs are ‘happening’ now? [Note: someone at the table should use air quotes.] Where should we go dancing?”  He will laugh and fill your water glasses, but he will not answer your questions. When everyone pulls out their smartphones to start researching options online, become momentarily distracted by your friend’s app that calculates, to the penny, what each person at a group dinner should pay, including tip. Discuss how much time THAT could have saved in your life, not to mention the ruinous financial debacle of Helena’s 42^nd birthday dinner. 

Once a destination is finally selected and revealed triumphantly to the young waiter for his approval, which is strange because the only thing you know about him is that he is stingy with the bread, finish up your fried olives and broccoli salad, commenting loudly on how both do a number on your digestive tract. 

On the one block walk to the club with your friends, complain about how your sexy shoes hurt. When one of your party, wearing a pair of low-heeled grey suede pumps, refers to them as her “safety shoes for dancing,” join your friends in an impromptu but surprisingly well-choreographed version of the Safety Dance along the sidewalk. Stop only when you spell "safety" wrong and can't breathe because you're laughing too hard.

When you straighten up and realize that you are standing in front of an open door from which jazz is seeping out, guarded by a handsome young man in a sleek suit and fedora tilted carefully over his eye, do not jump to the obvious conclusion that this is the destination for which you were looking. Instead have someone in the group say to the bouncer, “What IS this place? Is this a nightclub?”

After the bouncer ushers you in, wonder why. Then remember that it is only 9 pm and that the place won’t start filling up for at least another hour. Make your way to the attractively upholstered leather banquette only to be stopped by a cold-voiced waitress who tells you it’s reserved for some VIPs. Make for the circular staircase that leads to a second story overlooking the dance floor only to be foiled again by the same waitress: “VIPs only.” When she tells you that the last set of cushioned chairs in the nearly empty club is reserved for VIPs and has a three bottle minimum, snap, “Really? I’m so shocked.”

Push past your friends to dive onto one of the (free, no minimum charge) metal barstools and yell, “I have to sit, my dogs are barking!” and then slide your sexy shoes to the floor so you can wiggle some feeling back into your toes. As the DJ begins to set up, sit with purse on lap and arms and legs crossed, like you are being audited. Keep staring at the DJ, willing him to hurry up and put on some old school hip hop instead of hugging every damn employee who walks past the wheels of steel. At one point make eye contact with the fedora-wearing bouncer, jerk your chin towards the DJ, tap your watch, and shake your head dramatically. Wonder why he continues looking just past your left ear.

As more and more people enter the club, try not to notice that they are all coming through a door marked VIP Entrance. In fact, you are the only people in the club who did NOT come through that entrance. They sit on upholstered banquettes and head upstairs with insouciance, while you begin to droop on your uncomfortable barstool.

Brighten up when a gaggle of young women gather in front of the DJ on the dance floor, hoping they know something that you don’t about when this guy is ever going to play a record. Realize that one of them who is shaped like Santa Claus is wearing only tights and a shirt, and the shirt is made of shiny black Spandex straps. It’s as though she’s wearing the top 5/8ths of a racing swimsuit and left her pants at the dry cleaners.

To point out the young woman’s unusual pool-inspired attire to your friends would be mean. To turn to the friend next to you and say, “Speaking of swimming, what time is your son’s meet tomorrow? Is he still swimming backstroke?” would be downright pathetic. Begin to calculate how many hours of sleep you might get before the dog wakes you up tomorrow morning, if you went home right now. When the birthday girl takes another sip of her vat of Gin and Tonic and says “No one is leaving until we dance!” smile weakly at her. Whippersnapper.

When finally, lord have mercy, the DJ starts playing some music, be very disappointed that you don’t know it. Be even more disappointed when you realize that you do know some of it, because his shtick is to mix bad ‘70s music that you didn’t even like in the seventies into 21^st century beats. Be so desperate to dance to anything so that you can wrap up this evening and go home to your flannel jammies that when “Africa” by Toto comes on, you and your girlfriends actually shriek and jump to the dance floor.

Make it through three songs before someone in your party yawns the kind of yawn that is accompanied by sound. Leave the dance floor to the bathing-suit-shirted girl and her friends, as you and yours slink out the non-VIP entrance.

As you brush your teeth with your daughters' bubble gum flavored pink toothpaste in the glow of a nightlight, the sound of your husband’s snore beckoning like a fog beacon from down the hall, realize that your club-going days may indeed be behind you. Search your face in the mirror for signs of sadness and regret. Finding none, climb happily into bed.

Clutter? No, my childhood.

When I first walked through the house we've lived in for eight years now, the owners had taped handmade arrow signs throughout the rambling downstairs. Past the peach-colored room with French doors and the biggest entertainment console I'd ever seen, down a dark hall past a laundry room and bathroom, signs said "Keep Going! Don't Give Up Yet!" I finally crossed through a barren storage room with rough concrete floors to see a door in the corner with an arrow beckoning and behind that: another narrow shelved storage area, and a wholly unnecessary second kitchen.

My dad's first reaction, when he saw the embarrassment of storage space in the new house compared to the snug bungalow from which we were moving, was to shake his head and say, "If you've got it, you'll fill it up."

I think of that response each spring when I enter the narrow storage space, determined to pare down its contents, and see my box of troll dolls sitting on the shelf. 

Constant companions through my elementary school years in the '70s, the five trolls - Herbert and Pinky were the parents, Hubert, Buttercup, and Daisy were their three same-sized kids - are still packed into a tissue box-turned-camper and surrounded by little cough drop tins containing their homemade wardrobes. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Blumberg, had a strict no-dolls rule for her class. But because we were suck-up good girls and she must have had too few of those, my best friend Kitty and I were allowed to bring in our respective troll families and line them up on the edge of the desk every day, their googly eyes bearing witness to the blatant favoritism. 

For two girls who were singled out as class leaders, Kitty and I sure fought a lot. We had a major argument nearly every day of third grade; by fifth grade we were no longer speaking. (No worries: that troll foundation proved enduring - even though she lives on the other side of the globe now, Kitty's still one of my dearest friends.) 

Trolls enjoying view of scenic Bar Harbor

Even if we fought, we at least agreed on our trolls. We spent afternoon stretched out on our respective bedroom floors, cutting scraps of fabric into tiny shirts and dresses and sewing clumsy single button closures on the back. That summer her family took me along on an epic road trip to Maine, and most of my souvenir pictures are close ups of the trolls, with lighthouses or lobsters or starfish fuzzy in the background.

At some point - probably around the first time a boy asked me to sit with him for the haunted house ride at Roseland Park -  I boxed them up, sealed the box with duct tape, wrote TROLLS on it and threw it into my parent's attic. Eventually they slapped a mailing label on the box and sent it out to California where my husband and I are raising two daughters. When the oldest one entered third grade, I pulled out the box, surprised to see that Herbert and Pinky were still nestled in the chaste matrimonial embrace in which I entombed them.

"Girls, here. I want you to have these. They were extremely special to me. Here, see all the cute little clothes I made?"

Within about an hour of surreptitiously watching the girls while pretending to cook dinner, I swooped in to rescue them. The trolls, not the daughters. Herbert NEVER wore the argyle vest made from the top of my dad's work socks, and anyone could see that Buttercup looked terrible in mauve. I packed up the box; the fact that the kids didn't protest was probably a sign that the relationship was never going to work out anyway.

Did I throw them out when I started this year's spring cleaning? Of course not. The box is back in the storage area. And I await the arrival of my grandchildren in twenty years with hope eternal.

The pull of going home

I'm going home this weekend - to see my mom and dad, catch up with my sister and brother, and see neighbors and friends in the town where I spent my first 18 years. I'll eat some bagels, visit the the local tavern with my brother, take my aunt out for a belated birthday lunch, and go to a big Family Camp reunion. I can't wait.

I'm leaving home this weekend - leaving Andrew and the girls, my own bed, my spazzy dog, and some  overdue warm California weather after a long winter. I'm missing a dinner party, neglecting my poor drowned garden again, worrying about leaving the kids who have been sniffling and coughing for a week straight. I'm dreading leaving.

Here's something about being a grown up that no one ever told me. As much as I adore being with my husband and children in the home we've made: it's pretty much the same amount that I miss being with my parents and siblings 3,000 miles away. It's not a deficit but a surfeit of love and longing. Maybe it's different if you live in the same area code as your parents, but maybe not; for people like me who were blessed to grow up in a close and loving family, there is always a pull to return, no matter how happy our adult lives are.

So my song for this week is a melancholy Teddy Thompson ballad called "Home" in which he has the whole situation nailed. As he explains in his lyrics, you go home to see your parents who will feed you, do your laundry, and fuss over you, and you love it. Right up until the minute when you're ready to go home again. I'll be heartsick missing my family while I'm home visiting my family this weekend, and just as soon as I'm back in Cali, I'll be wishing I could spend more time in New York.

Here's hoping that you feel at home wherever you are in the world this weekend, friends -

The Price of Silence

My daughter and her friend from elementary school attend different middle schools, but they’ve sustained a close friendship in part, I think, due to our Monday homework club. Every Monday, Rachel rides the city bus to our house so that the two girls can spend 90 minutes complaining to each other about their school workload, wheedling me for sweets, and talking in voices low enough so I can’t hear even if I place a cup against the wall to listen, not that I would ever stoop to that. Loud giggling is their regular soundtrack.

And every Monday, without fail, I greet Rachel at the door with, “I am so sorry I look like this. I intended to shower today before you came, really I did.”

“Like this” means: black sweatpants spattered in mud, a shapeless grey sweatshirt with either Penn (my alma mater) or Wisconsin (husband’s) printed on the front, my hair puffy where it should be flat and flat where it should be puffy. The only trace of makeup on my face is some sparkly pink mango flavored lip gloss from a cupcake-shaped container that I excavated from the well of the car while waiting to pick the kids up from school.

Mondays are hard.

I’m not going to insult you by pretending that I bound out of bed Monday mornings and head to the shower to get ready for my day. I stay in bed until the last possible second that will still leave me time to read my beloved print newspaper from front to back before it’s time to wake up the kids. Besides, my husband actually leaves the house to go to work in an office, where other people are. He gets priority access to the bathroom.

So I pull on the black sweats and sweatshirt and make a mental note to walk the dog at 10, giving me plenty of time to shower before I have to pick the kids up at 3:00.

At 10, the dog is snoring contentedly so I figure I’ll just keep plowing away on my to-do list, answering emails, researching stories, calling sources. I can still fit in a shower if I leave by 11.

At noon I realize the dog is holding his legs together and groaning, so we head off for the hills for a hike. It’s been raining non-stop all winter, and Achilles’ default gait is “hurtle.” So as soon as we step off the street and onto the trail head, he zigs this way and zags that way through muddy glop until I have spots of mud all over my legs, on my glasses, and sometimes my hair. Inevitably we meet a dog named Sierra or Bailey or Lucy whose owner says, “Sorry! My dog jumps!” just as the pooch leaps up and lays two muddy paws on my midsection, right under the “P” and the first “N” or the “W” and “S.”

Coming through the front door I think, ok, do NOT go check email before you get in the shower, you’re never going to have time to…oh hey! That guy I wanted to quote in the feature I’m writing finally got back to me, better respond right away. And I meant to send a query letter to another publication and they’re on the East Coast, so I should probably get that taken care of before they leave for the day. The phone rings, and it’s my friend who is adopting a baby. A metallic buzz from the laundry room startles me; I have to get the ballet clothes into the wash if they’re going to be clean for the kids’ rehearsal this week.

It’s 2:49 and I still have mudprints on my midsection. I jump into the car and race to pick up my youngest child, remembering that I need to drop off copies of the yearbook order form for the teachers to jam into backpacks. I will have to walk through school looking like Dawn of the Dead, but it’s not like they haven’t seen that in the halls of suburban education before. Once that’s done, I have only enough time to pick up the other child and race home to await Rachel’s arrival for homework club, and ponder why once again, Monday has gotten away from me.

I make my apologies to Rachel in the front hall as she unhoists her giant backpack. I make a silent pledge that I'll at least get a shower in before Andrew gets home from work, maybe just as soon as I finish up the 15 work emails that came in while I was out driving carpool.(After 19 years together, is it naive to hope that the sight of me wearing his mud-stained college sweatshirt and what looks like a fright wig is still a turn-on?)

“It’s ok, Nancy,” she says, a wry smile on her freckled face. "Can I have a Jolly Rancher?"

I think this is why Homework Club has always worked so well; for the price of a piece of hard candy, Rachel always keeps her opinion to herself.

Auntie Liar

My niece and her college roommate are coming out to the Bay Area this week for a visit, and we are all excited to show her around. I can only hope that Shannon will be a little less skeptical of her aunt this time than she was the first time she came to stay with me.

That was in 1995 or so, when she was four and Andrew and I were still childless and fancy-free, living in Washington, DC. My brother drove his family down for a visit, during which we ran them from the National Mall to the National Zoo and stopped at every museum in between, proud to play tour guide in our adopted city.

Shannon's older brother Zach, age 9 at the time, was totally on board with whatever Aunt Nancy and Uncle Andrew suggested. That's probably because the time he visited before, sans parents, Andrew let him drive our car. Only around the circular driveway of our apartment building, true, but still he was actually operating our Acura before he was legally allowed to sit in its front seat. Zach was ready to follow us anywhere. (The family had yet to be joined by its baseball-announcer-in-residence, my nephew Tristan.)

Huh. Mom, why is Uncle Andrew holding my braids?

Shannon, on the other hand, was at that stage of childhood where there is one authority and one authority only: Mom. Throughout the visit, as she sashayed and skipped alongside us with her Pippi Longstocking braids and purple dresses, she'd see something unfamiliar and ask, "What's that?" or "Why is that?" For instance, "Why are there so many pigeons here?"

I'd take her soft little hand in mine and motion to the sparkling white federal buildings and the food carts along the street, and say, "Well, Shanny, pigeons like to live in cities where they can find lots of food and places to build nests. They're city birds."

To which she would smile politely and say "Huh!" while fixing me with the same wary look you'd give someone wearing scrubs imprinted with the name of a psychiatric hospital: maybe staff, maybe not.

Then she would turn to my sister-in-law and say, "Mom, why are there so many pigeons here?"

My sister-in-law is indeed awesome, but the fact remains that she never lived in DC. Nonetheless, Shannon only wanted her answers from her mother. "What's that building with the white dome?" "It's the Capital, honey, it's where the senators work." "Huh. Mom, what's that building with the white dome?"

It drove me crazy, but how can you be mad at a kid whose parting words, as she departed in the family car, were, "I will come see you again to visit the baboooooooons!" an animal which we had neither seen nor discussed at any point during her visit.

Anyway. Now she's a grown-up college girl studying creative writing, and I am determined to show her the best the Bay Area has to offer: Union Square, Alcatraz, Dave Eggers' Pirate Store, a visit to the ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Oakland hills, City Lights Bookstore, North Beach…the question is whether she'll believe anything I tell her, given that her mom isn't going to be here this time. 

So today's cheery Music Moment, from Philly hip-hop duo Chiddy Bang and called "Truth," is dedicated to Shannon and Sarah. (How can you not love a rap that includes the line "Periodically, I’m in my element, phosphorus," that isn't even by Flight of the Conchords?)  I swear, girls, if you have questions about the Bay Area, like why Happy Meal toys are banned in San Francisco or why Berkeley is a nuclear free zone, I am not making the answers up. The crazy here is for real.

Ready for a Glee-ful Weekend

The big weekend is here, the one that we've been anticipating since last fall's school auction: we're co-hosting the annual neighborhood Cocktail Crawl. Since straightforward would be way too easy for an event as manic as our public school auction, there's another layer of complexity on top: each of the four stops on the tour has a TV show theme, and victims - I mean, auction bid winners - will face a challenge peculiar, and I do mean peculiar, to that show.

Since  some of our twenty-two high rollers are Normalarkey readers, I don't want to give too much away. But things will kick off at Survivor Island, hosted by our friends Jenn and Tom who, conveniently, have an extremely long, extremely steep driveway. (Whenever I drive our kids up it to pick up or drop off a child, my daughter shields her eyes with a forearm until I set the parking brake.) Have fun getting through whatever obstacles the faux Probst and his Aussie medic sidekick set up for you along the slope, winners.

After refreshments that carry on the Survivor theme (someone always feasts, and someone is always famished on that show, right?) the Crawlers will be off to the Mad Men house, hosted by Andrea and Neil. This year's party planning was a challenge for them, what with Don and Betty splitting up on the last season of the show. However, appearances are appearances and Betty will once again be greeting her visitors at the front door with a freshly ironed hostess apron and crispy beehive, while Don mixes martinis and grimaces in the background. The challenge revolves around advertising copy. Can you finish this jingle?  "Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a bit of that…" And no, it isn't "football cream."

Third stop on the route is Top Chef, where minivan-driving Dawn and her husband Patrick will be fulfilling hair follicle fantasies in a long black wig (for Padma) and bald cap (for Tom) respectively. The sous chef relay challenge will undoubtedly be made more interesting by the fact that the cheftestants will be at least two cocktails in at that point, hence the "no knives" rule.

Finally, the weary crawlers clomp on over to our house, which will be transformed for the evening into William McKinley High School, home of Glee. I'm not saying much about what we plan to put the revelers through, because my alter-ego Coach Sylvester will do it for me tomorrow night. With a bullhorn. And venomous wit. And sticks. Andrew will be appearing in a sweater vest for the second time in his life (last year's Crawl being the first.)

Why do I bore you with all these party details? Because this week, pink slips went out to one fifth of Oakland public school teachers - including two teachers out of 11 at our elementary school - in order to prepare for an anticipated loss of $30 million from state coffers, a loss of $900 in state funding per student. Given that California already ranked 43rd in the nation on per-pupil spending, we seem to be locked in a race to the bottom. Eat our dust, Arizona!

While there's a chance that teachers could be rescinded if a more favorable budget agreement is reached by May 15, there's no guarantee. And even if teachers are spared (and let's do all we can to make it so,) funding for other programs like art, PE, and computers are sure to be cut. Once again, parents are going to have to fill the gaps to fund quality public education in our city.

So take this Cocktail Crawl idea, run with it, improve upon it, make it your own (we've considered choosing shows from the '70s for next year's party. I am SO going to be Maude.) Turn it into a moneymaker for a local school - not a bad outcome on a night that is so absurdly fun.

And in gratitude to our Crawlers for opening their wallets so generously to bid last fall, I am leaving you a musical hint. This is the one Journey song that is guaranteed NOT to figure into your Glee challenge. Enjoy it, and the fact that while air guitar lives on, the mullet/sideburn combo worn by Steve Perry has mostly fallen out of favor. Except maybe in Arizona.

Not so mighty mascots

It’s almost time for March Madness, the brackets full of college men’s basketball teams with rough and tough names like Bulldogs, Badgers, and Demons. Proud names, powerful names, names that really beg to be chanted by rapturous fans. Names that imbue the teams who bear them with a sense of import, and perhaps render their opponents a wee bit intimidated.

Experiences with which I’m unfamiliar, having gone through high school and college cheering for teams named after wealthy English nobles and pacifist Christians, respectively.

It can be hard to get charged up at high school pep rallies when the team mascot, the Brighton Baron, wears a top hat and a monocle; frankly he looks like he is asking for an ass-kicking from the cheerleaders. On the other hand, any success our athletes achieved came from sheer blood and guts and effort.  I seem to remember the Lady Barons (not the Baronesses, too Sound of Music I guess) winning a field hockey championship one year, and we had some good ice hockey talent too. The jocks could be confident that no one had been psyched out by our posters of the Baron, scowling as though his tea was too hot.

When it was came time to pick a college I should have paid more attention. While I knew that Ben Franklin had founded my university, it never occurred to me that he'd name its athletes after his religious convictions. It's not like we were the Snake Handlers or the Holy Rollers either, which at least sounds like you could put some creepy religious juju on your opponents once they started beating you. No, to be on a team named "The Quakers" is to live in receptive mode, like Buddy the Elf testing Jack-in-the-Boxes at Santa's workshop. How do you exhort your athletes to battle when one of your mascot's main convictions is non-violence? “Go, preferably do not get in a Fight, Win if you can do so in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone!!”

Now I live in California and have tried to go native by remembering the names, if not the mascots, of all the schools in the UC and Cal State systems. This is a challenge for someone who has been heard to say, more than once, "You lost me at San. Are you talking about the San town that's down near the airport or the one up near the grapes?" But there is one school whose mascot I learned right away, probably through some sort of conditioned response.

And I can say with confidence that had I been educated in California, I'd surely be a UC Santa Cruz Banana Slug.

WTF is the issue?

After skipping the television broadcast of the Academy Awards for years, on the grounds it was both a snooze- and narcissism- fest, I succumbed to my children's requests and watched last Sunday. They were excited because they'd actually seen one of the movies up for best picture. An R-rated one, no less.

We didn't take them to see "The King's Speech" without a little homework first. I skipped over to my Bible for parental movie decision making, Commonsensemedia.org. This site is a gift for parents trying to figure out what exactly their darlings will be exposed to in the course of a 90 minute film. (Full disclosure: I was a reviewer for CSM for awhile, specializing in straight-to-DvD sequels with the numbers VI, VII, and VIII in their titles. You ain't lived until you've sat all the way through Buddies 6: Buddies in Space.)

According to the review, The King dropped a number of F-bombs, but other than that nothing seemed beyond the ken of our 10 and 13 year old girls. In fact, in the UK it was approved for audiences 12 and up. Prior to the movie we gave our caveat: you are going to hear language that you should never repeat. Even if you hear your parents use it on a weekly (Mom) or daily (Dad) basis.

Sure enough, the girls loved the movie - LOVED it - and we all cracked up during the one swearing scene. Nobody's ears withered and the children are not referring to each other or us by four letter words. Instead we've had some interesting discussions about WWII, about stuttering, about the rules for royal succession. That scene made a point, but it didn't overshadow the whole movie.

Cuss words in music can be the same way. Though I download the clean version of explicit songs if I think the kids are going to be listening, I'm not particularly bothered by the swearing if it's there for good reason, and I trust that my kids are not idiots who are going to sing the actual words out loud in mixed company. I've told them my view - that people who swear constantly are missing out on a whole wide world of more precise adjectives, nouns, and verbs. And no word has as much impact as a curse uttered by someone who usually takes pains to avoid them.

Please, a simple f-bomb would be a nice problem to have. What bothers me much more is lyrics that are sexually explicit and /or misogynistic, or as Flight of the Conchords put it in their rap Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros, "Some people say our lyrics are sexist, but you lovely bitches and 'hos should know I'm trying to correct this."  I flip the radio channel to something else when the singer talks about Shorty on the pole, or backing it up so he can milk the cow, or boys trying to touch her junk (that she's probably doused with the same bottle of Jack she uses to brush her teeth.)

Rihanna never swears, but she drives me INSANE. Here is an extremely talented singer who was herself a victim of domestic violence, and every song she has sung since that experience glorifies violence in the relationship - "Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, that's all right because I love the way it hurts." Each time that song comes on, I turn off the radio and give the kids yet another lecture on how violence has zero place in a romantic relationship.

The worst part is how some of those awful, demeaning lyrics are encased in songs that I am powerless to hate. We listen to a lot of hip hop and rap in this house, so pretty much everything by the Beastie Boys and Kanye falls into this category. "Carry Out" by Timbaland and Justin Timberlake - I cannot help but shrug my shoulders to the beat of those opening chimes. Yet when Justin asks "Is it full of myself to want you full of me?" I wince. Then I keep dancing.

Movies, song lyrics, books - is it rationalization to say that I treat the ones with questionable content as "teaching moments?" Maybe without the music of 50 Cent and Nelly I wouldn't constantly be telling my daughters that no one should ever get away with objectifying or talking down to them.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. In that spirit, I bring you Bruce Springsteen singing "Long Time Coming." When he gets to the line at 3:39 about his intentions to do a better job raising his unborn third child than he has with the first two, "I ain't gonna f* it up this time" is about the only phrase that can capture the power of his sentiment. It's also the parenting pledge I make, every morning.

Here's to a weekend of getting it right, friends -

When Winter Equals Summer

It’s winter in Northern California; though we don’t have the bitter cold and snow that seems to be attacking the rest of the country like an alien horde, we do have buckets of rain, intermittent hail, and the worst weather-related torture of all: meteorologists who summarize every Five Day Forecast by saying, “Of course, all that rain is probably still not enough to save the state from drought.” With all these signs of a prolonged winter around me, it’s obvious what’s on my mind:

Summer Camp. 

The bane of the working parent in the 21^st century, Summer Camp is where you send your kid when schools close their doors for two point five months. The brochures start arriving in the mail around the time that I’m taking the holiday wreath off the door. Sarah’s Science Camp! Roughing It Day Camp! Junior Center for Arts and Sciences Camp! Touch the Earth Day Camp (referred to by mothers of sons as Touch the Dirt)!

Each colorful handout offers compelling reasons to enroll your child, designed to make the youngsters in the house do the selling. “Pllleeeeeeease, Mom, please let me go to Ice Cream Camp in July! I get to make ice cream every day!” Well, that is something that has been sorely missing from your life. You’re right, you should go there.

But the truth is, they do have to go somewhere during the day so that you can continue to do your job, which stubbornly refuses to give you two point five months off, even when you’re self-employed. So it may as well be ice cream camp, and then a three week drama camp that starts the week after which the kid is actually not that excited about but it fills the schedule, plus you have a neighbor who will carpool with you.

Ah yes, the all important carpool. It's all well and good when your child has a friend attending the same camp, but as a wise parent you see the real benefit – the more friends who attend the same camp, the higher the likelihood that you can split the drop offs and pickups and even manage an occasional “is it okay if your daughter comes home with us after camp to hang out with Junior for awhile?” The emails start flying – which camps is your child attending, and when? Parents study complicated shared spreadsheets like runes. How can I minimize my driving and maximize the after-camp playdate potential?

Because the camps don’t believe in keeping your child one minute longer than they have to. It’s summer! They should be outside exploring and doing summery things! At least, I assume that’s the justification for having day camps that close at 11:30 a.m. That is not a day camp, by the way, that is a pre-brunch camp. I have barely scratched the surface of work email by 11:15, and now the kid needs to be picked up and fed lunch. What is this, 1956?

If you have more than one kid, good luck finding a camp that appeals to both children at the same time. You either force the issue and deal with the complaints of the kid who hates the water but has to attend swim camp with his older brother, or try to make everyone happy and go through more gas than a Hummer limo.  I have a friend whose family is taking a six week sabbatical in Europe this summer, and I think she's more excited about getting out of planning camp than she is about traveling abroad.

By March 1 the months of July and August on my family calendar look like a Mondrian painting: blue blocks for the oldest daughter’s camps, yellow for the youngest, and the rare and wonderful green blocks when they are in the same place at the same time. The checkbook coughs out its last deposit and collapses, empty. I enter Reese's Peanut Butter Egg season (some call it Easter) feeling like perhaps I have it all sorted out, and I relax for a few weeks.

Then in early June, someone mentions that ice cream camp only meets four days a week, plus since it's 4th of July that week they don't have camp on Tuesday, or that the ballet intensive camp that the kids must attend to progress to the next level has finally been announced, and conflicts with another camp you've already paid for. 

It's about that time when I start researching policy makers who are leading the charge for 12 months of school so I can contribute to their campaigns. Sure, it'll make Jack a dull boy. But isn't that preferable to sparing Jack the sight of his mother curled into the fetal position?

A Musical Nod to Himself

This weekend some friends are visiting us from the East Coast. Brett's work transferred them to the Bay Area for two years - the corporate equivalent of a semester abroad - before calling them back last spring. Our daughters became fast friends while they lived here, but it wasn't until Year 2 of their stay that I really got to know Jen and Brett. And frankly, I'm still kind of pissed that they left just when it was getting good.

First of all, it turns out that Brett lived in Germany the same years that I did, which we discovered when we did a rendition of "99 Luftballoons" auf Deutsch at a school-sponsored karaoke party. Think of all the Falco singalongs I'm missing out on, now that he lives 3,000 miles away.

Second, every time I have mentioned a concert I wished I'd seen, but didn't have anyone to go with (my husband still abiding by his firm no-concert rule,) Jen says, "Oh! We were at that show. It was awesome!" They have excellent taste in music, in that they like everything I do, plus they've clued me in to a few new bands. I could have been the third wheel on so many of their romantic concert dates, it makes me weep. 

Finally, I'm a little mad because they are full of funny stories that now get told to an East Coast audience. At a dinner party held in their honor last week, for instance, Brett told us that when he went to Italy to visit his wife's family, no one could pronounce his name. So, he said, "I heard them referring to me as Louie. I thought, 'that's cool, they've given me a nickname. They must like me.'" It wasn't until later that his Italian speaking wife clued him in that "lui" means "him." As in, let's just refer to this guy as a pronoun, we're not convinced it's worth learning his first name.

Perhaps inevitably, one of Brett's favorite bands is She & Him, which he assures his wife and me has nothing to do with lead singer Zooey Deschanel's fragile good looks but is truly about the music. Na sicher. So for Brett and Jen, here's "In the Sun" (which is where they'd be 11 months a year if they'd stayed on the West Coast) by She & Lui. Can't figure out if this video was more influenced by Rachel Berry and Glee, or Britney Spears and Baby One More Time.

Enjoy every precious minute with your friends and family this weekend -

Nicknames and Mashups

Overheard at a Chinese New Year's party last weekend: "I feel sorry for her. She only has one culture: Malaysian. She's not even mixed." (4th grader to friend.)

Such is the ubiquity of mixed race kids around here that the poor single race kids are objects of pity - what could they possibly have to talk about on "My Heritage" day at school?

The children of the hosts were Japanese-Chinese-American. There were also two Whapa kids - Whapa is a term I learned from my older daughter, meaning kids with one white parent and one Asian parent (Hapa being the Hawaiian blanket term for part Asian.) My kids were the token Quapas, a word Andrew read somewhere meaning quarter Asian. Elsewhere, my friend's new baby nephew, Alejandro Sol, is Jexican - Jewish Mexican. My oldest daughter's best friends call themselves Blasian - African American mom, Whapa dad.

Even many of the same-race married couples I know have a mixed component, with Jewish-Christian unions outnumbering the more homogeneous pairing about 2:1 in my unscientific survey. (Is there a term for that besides Jew-ish?)

All these mashups raise up some interesting questions about racial identity. Last Saturday night the girls who call themselves Blasian were over for dinner and relayed tales of their Asian friends at school who call their parents FOBs (Fresh off the Boats.) I took offense, and so did their father who is half Japanese. "That is totally inappropriate," we told them. "What if someone of another race called their parents FOB - it would start a fight."

My husband, on the other hand, thought it was perfectly fine since the kids using the term are Asian. His own dad, who indeed sailed on a boat from Asia to America by way of Europe, often referred to people as FOBs. In our marriage, the appropriate deployment of terms like these tops the list of "Topics About Which We Agree to Disagree," followed closely by how to make perfect bacon.

Our youngest daughter, the blue-eyed Quapa, asked whether people would think she was Chinese if she ever went to visit China. "No," I told her, "and I better never hear you use the term FOB around anyone either." Later that night while our family played the word game "You've Been Sentenced" she used her randomly assigned cards to construct a sentence that went something along the lines of "Hand me some strawberries, whitey," which I didn't find offensive at all, merely hilarious.

Does appropriating racial nicknames for self-referential usage deflate the negativity associated with them, or does it perpetuate stereotypes? And what if the person using the term isn't easily identifiable as a member of the race to which they can claim heritage? I don't really know the answer to those questions.

All I know is that more and more people are going to have to wrestle with it over time. When I was searching online for a baby present for Alejandro Sol, I came across a onesie that said "Jew-Pino," the wearer of which is bound to grow up feeling conflicted about Pork Adobo. Just this week a far-flung relative of mine was featured on Good Morning America as a "real-life counterpart" to the TV comedy Modern Family, specifically to the May December reunion of Jay and Gloria. Her husband is 30 years older than her, but the fact that he is Asian and she is white barely rated a mention.

Another thing I know is that a mashup can be more powerful than the sum of its individual parts - like this genius bit combining the Glee version of "Teenage Dream" with Swedish singer Robyn's "Dancing on My Own" (thanks to Judith Powell for the find.) I know, Katy Perry two weeks in a row, annoying, but anytime I can share more Robyn, I will.

Here's to a weekend full of acceptance and mutual respect, friends -

The Roots of Community

Last Sunday I helped chaperone a group of 18 teens from my church on a visit to another church in Oakland, part of the nine-month long confirmation program. The program's name, "Confirm Not Conform," sort of says it all - it's designed to let the kids sort out what's important to them and to make confirmation a choice, not an obligation. It's the kind of groovy, inclusive program that always makes me happy to be a member of my church.

True Vine Church meets at the Grand Lake movie theater in Oakland on Sunday morning, a massive Art Deco jewel of a movie house at the edge of Lake Merritt. The kids perhaps felt a bit sorry when they heard we'd be visiting a church that doesn't even have a building big enough to house its members. What they - and I - figured out on Sunday is that even the massive space that is the Grand Lake's main auditorium was barely big enough to accommodate all the joy that the True Vine congregation stirs up when they get together.

The first hint that it was slightly different from our quiet, snug Episcopal sanctuary in the Oakland hills was the sight of the five piece band up front, complete with bass, lead guitar, 2 drum sets and electric keyboard. When the Praise Choir rolled out I was a bit surprised - only six or seven people, when I'd envisioned a full gospel choir. Turns out we in the movie seats-turned-church pews were the rest of the choir, and we spent the first 40 minutes "resting on our feet" and singing along, clapping, and dancing.

I am trying to think of the last time I got that sweaty and winded in my forty plus years of attending Episcopal church services, and I'm coming up blank. We're better known for our expert mixing of gin and tonics.

Throughout the service the predominantly African-American congregants hugged us, patted us on the back, asked us if we needed anything, welcomed us and welcomed us again. Then Pastor Zachary Carey stood up to talk, reminding us that we are more like the redwood groves than the solitary oaks, our roots interconnected and our survival dependent on our community. 

At True Vine, the community is accustomed to being denigrated in the news, reminded about the drug problems and poverty and crime and substandard education that plague Oakland. The church tackles those issues head on, through work with prisons, clothing and food pantry outreach, mentoring for younger members of the church.

But, the pastor reminded us, there is also so much to praise. 

He called down a congregant, a 24 year old woman who is all-but-dissertation for her PhD, and had us give her a "hand praise" (that's clapping, for you Episcopal readers.)  Another woman, a pediatric surgeon, was recognized, as well as young men who are going to school and working in the church. 

And, as Pastor Zach pointed out with a laugh, we were all meeting on a Sunday in January - and it was 65 degrees outside. If you can't feel grateful for anything else in Oakland, there's always the weather. 

I looked up and down the rows at our kids who were smiling, bobbing, genuinely touched by the friendship they were offered and hopefully taking a broader view of what constitutes spiritual practice - and the boundaries of their Oakland community - out into the world with them.

In the middle of his song "Walking in Memphis"  Marc Cohn gets asked "Tell me, are you a Christian, child?"and he sings back, "Ma'am, I am tonight!" Spend a morning at True Vine and whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist or none of the above, you'll say you're a True Viner too.

You're either going to love or hate this Cher cover of the Cohn song. Let me know. And remember to cherish your wide spreading redwood roots this weekend -

An Open Letter to the Lady on My Street With The Doberman

Hi! I’m your neighbor from a few blocks down the street, but I don’t think you know me by name. I’m the one who flees into my house whenever you and your large black Doberman Pinscher with the improbably feminine name of Clarice are trotting by on your thrice daily walk, accompanied by your Segway-riding husband. Of course, the fleeing routine is standard procedure for most of the neighborhood residents you must see, so let me be a bit more specific: I’m about 5’8”, have shoulder-length hair, and am usually pushing two children and a dog into the house ahead of me while screaming, “run, for the love of god RUN, Clarice is coming!” as you pass by.

Look, it was really noble of you to bring Clarice home when you found her roaming free on the ridge trail in the Oakland hills a few years ago, I totally get it. And I know you've worked hard to socialize her, because every time I see you in the grocery store you start a conversation with "I'm so sorry about Clarice, I've hired another trainer…" You, in fact, may be personally responsible for the buoyant employment statistics for the dog training industry in our neck of the woods. And like you, I am hopeful that one of these days, one of these trainers will know what he or she is doing.

But at some point, perhaps when Clarice tried to break the safety glass in the back of your car to pounce at my dog and I as you drove past us, or when she lunged two city blocks towards us with you dangling from the end of the leash with about as much utility as a cell phone charm, has it not occurred to you that perhaps she would be happier in another environment? Say, protecting a Russian oligarch’s property, where she could really let loose with the homicidal tendencies? Everyone deserves a chance to reach her true potential.

At any rate, I noticed that Christmas must have come early to your house this year, since Clarice has been sporting a trim new coat since November. Its black stripes match the muscular black of her haunches, and the orange complements the yellow undertones of her bared teeth.

But you know what? Like a streetwalker wearing stilettos AND a miniskirt AND a tube top on a winter's day, the tiger print on Clarice is overkill. Lose the coat. We'll still be scared of your dog.

Respectfully,
Nancy Kho