Good Grief!

(Click on pictures to enlarge)

We took a day trip on Monday to the Charles Schulz museum in Santa Rosa, about 60 miles from San Francisco. We've been reading Benny a lot of "Peanuts" books lately, so we thought he'd like the trip.

It turned out to be a very relaxed, undemanding outing. There were no crowds and the museum felt like somebody's spacious home, complete with a little Video Nook, where people could watch films on beanbag chairs. We ate lunch in the sunshine outside the Warm Puppy Cafe and watched the Zamboni circle around Schulz's ice arena.

The day before we went to Golden Gate Park and listened to a local band play Fourth of July favorites play Gershwin and other old-fashioned favorites. We sat on the grass and ate ice cream bars and listened to John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Little Norman Rockwell outings like these are nice because they remind me that traveling doesn't have to be a Huge Big Deal all the time. Not even in California.

Vacation pictures!

(Click on the pictures to make them larger)


Top: Benny and his cousin Ian.


Bottom: Kris, Jackie and I in South Haven.

So we've returned from a great two weeks in Michigan visiting family. We rented a Kia with a messed-up rear window that made strange flapping sounds whenever we drove on the highway. We flapped all over Michigan, back and forth along I-94.

We started at my brother Andy's in Ann Arbor. Andy bought the house from us in 2008 and heavy rains in early June meant he had water on the side of the basement that didn't have the $4,000 drainage system Ron and I installed three years ago. I spent two days mopping the basement and playing "Civilization" with Benny on Andy's PlayStation 3.


Benny: "You're going to make me eat a pie?"

Then we hit the road to Kalamazoo, where Ron's brother and his family lived. Benny learned to play "Sorry" and beat everybody 10 times in a row.

We stayed at my sister Cindy's for a week. My mother came up from Indianapolis and my two college roommates visited with their families.



On the Friday before we flew back to San Francisco, we drove back along I-94 to Ann Arbor, trying to ourun a huge line of thunderstorms. The radar's yellow, black and red blotches covered Lake Michigan at one point and was heading east at 50 miles an hour. The weather in front of us was blue skies and sunshine. Then we'd look out our Kia's rear window and the sky was completely black.

We barely made it to Ron's brother's house before the deluge hit, where we waited out the worst of the storms. Then it was a long, tense drive home. I'm kinda happy to be home in San Francisco now, with its watercolor weather.

Top: Charlotte and Madeline.
Bottom: Benny and Sophie.

Goodbye Kindergarten

Benny and his teacher Miss Cathy


Benny's last few weeks of kindergarten were a bit — ahem! — lively: Ron and I ran around baking cakes for Funfest, writing checks for summer camps, chopping fruit for picnics, decorating teacher gifts, going to fundraiser parties and attending Miss Cathy's World Tour Slide Show.

On Benny's last day, I stayed at work until 8:30 p.m. to put a major project to press and prepare for vacation. The next day, we flew to Michigan.

I shouldn't have been surprised, because the craziness attending a child's last month of school is well-documented, most hilariously in Judith Warner's 2006 column "My Last Day of School." Moms were showing up at her daughter Emilie’s last-day-of-school party sobbing with stress. (“I hate this [expletive] time of year,” one mother said.)

But still, I was blindsided by the sudden activity. It was like the school took all the events they didn't have time for during the year and stuffed them into the last month. And I have little reason to complain, since I was the slacker mom who rarely helped in the classroom and didn't attend the School Talent Show OR the Parent Assembly (mostly because both events were on a workday morning).

I reason, however, that Benny has five more years at Lucky Elementary and the low standard I set last year should be easy to surpass. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying our summer schedule -- without an ironclad 7:50 a.m. start time, I've been late to work nearly every day.

Biking in Detroit

Here's an awesome article about bicycling in Detroit. The photos of the excited kids watching Critical Mass are my favorite, but there are also bits about Detroit's bicycle history. Nice to read something about Detroit that doesn't mention Kwame.

Weekly Update

This is an idea I'm stealing from a nauseatingly cheery blog. It's a good way to get posting again after a long hiatus.

Outside my window … I'm at work. I can't look out the window. The glass isn't dripping with moisture, so it must be an okay day.
(Cheery blog: "I can see the forest, all sunny and warm ...")

I am thinking … evil thoughts about our office vending machine vendor because all that's left in the machine are jalapeno-flavored potato chips.
(Cheery blog: that I might have been all wrong about what I needed in order to be content.)

I am hearing … Ron conducting a phone interview. Glad one of us is working.

Some highlights from the week … We returned from vacation last weekend, started Benny at summer camp, baked a cake for Father's Day, attended a Dinosaur Preschool festival and saw the visiting Russian battleship from Vladivostok.

I am thankful that … I didn't have to go anywhere in the city on Sunday, because the Gay Pride Parade messed up all the transportation.
(Cheery blog: "A place to live.")

From the kitchen … Ron and I did four sinkloads of dishes apiece and we still have dirty pots on the counter. Grrr.
(Cheery blog: "Had to restart my sourdough starter, and have that working again. Doing water kefir still ...")

I am reading … "War in European History."

I am hoping … that the vending machine vendor comes tomorrow. That Benny will like his summer camp better this week. That I'm not catching a cold, because I feel sniffly.

One of my favorite things … Junior Mints. (Still hungry here.)
(Cheery Blog: "My sweet child.")

A few plans for the rest of the week … I have Friday off and plan to do some writing. We are also making plans for the Fourth of July weekend.

Have a good week

Still Golfing

Here's Benny golfing at the Lucky Elementary Funfest last year ...









... and again this month.



Hole in one!

Yes, We're the Creepy Family

So my husband and son are apparently determined to get us on some List of undesirable people at the local elementary school.

Benny brought home a chunk of wood and a large metal screw from the park on Monday. While I was lying down in the bedroom reading People magazine, he borrowed a rubber band and fashioned this:



He's planning to sell the prototype to the U.S. Army so they don't have to use real guns, "just scare people" instead. I told him that while I'm sure his little friends would love to see this homemade weapon, he was NOT to bring it to school for ANY reason.

He also told me "I know more about weapons than any of my friends." My coworker reassured me that little boys probably all say that. But I suspect his little friends went home that day and told their parents "Benny knows more about weapons than anyone else in school."

The following morning, Ron volunteered to drop Benny off at school and meet a Kindergarten mom in the courtyard who has my sunglasses. (I'd left my sunglasses at her house last week during a book swap/wine and cheese thing.)

Ron didn't know the woman — he just had my fuzzy description ("skinny, with glasses and hair that does this ...") So he stood around the school courtyard by himself after dropping off Benny, looking closely at the passersby.

The results were predictable. The principal came over to make sure he wasn't some sicko stalker and was relieved to hear he was Benny's dad. ("You look just like him!") Ron helplessly explained his mission and they walked over to room 101, where a flock of moms were chattering outside the classroom door. One of them handed over the sunglasses, and Ron fled the building.

"I'm not going back to the school for the next five years," Ron declared to me later at work. He's convinced that from now on, whenever he's at the school, people will point and say, "there's that guy who was hanging around the courtyard."

Creepy guy, violent kid and lazy mom — we're the All-American family.

You Don't Know Me

So I did something today for the first time I'm quite proud of: I mailed off an opt-out form from a privacy notice.

Like everybody else, I get these baffling little notices and leaflets describing a company's Privacy Policies: "Weirdo Financial Services will not sell, rent, share, or otherwise disclose personally identifiable information from customers with other companies, unless of course there is an affiliation, such as doing business in the same hemisphere ..."

Opting out is easy, the privacy notices say. All I have to do is call a number and wait on hold forever, get online and click a dozen boxes ("Are you really sure you don't trust us?") or fill out some wretched little form, make a copy, find a stamp and mail it off.

The outcome is predictable. I add the privacy notice to a little stack of similar notices on my desk and there they stay unless I spill Snapple on them or move to a new apartment, whichever comes first.

But not for Comerica. I'm a little cranky about Comerica, and Ron and I are in the arduous process of closing our bank account there. We're in a new relationship with a credit union and have adjusted our direct deposits and automatic bill pays and received our new checks. Now I'm just waiting for PG&E to get its act together and start pulling our monthly bill from the right account. I know, the way PG&E works, it might be Christmas before we can close our Comerica account.

However, I am optimistic. I can't wait to get out of Comerica, which has annoyed me mightily with its minimum balance requirements, piddly ATM network, giant fees, credit card rate hikes and refusal to issue money orders. There are other reasons, but that's enough to go on. "It's not me, it's you," I look forward to telling them.

So I'm happy to inconvenience them in any way, and this morning I checked the boxes that said "NO, don't share my credit info within the Comerica familly or market to me based on my transactions" and "NO, don't share my credit info with any fool company you decide to contract with." AND — this is the important part — I actually dug up a stamp and mailed the thing.

And maybe next time I get a Privacy Policy notice, that one won't get buried on my desk either.

Ron in Chicago

Ron made this cool video while attending the annual BIO national biotech conference in Chicago, showing many shots of the city. Check it out!

Too Busy to Fail?

You find me on the field of defeat, not victory, and yet I feel all right about that. It’s Tuesday, the second day of my week off. Yes, you read that right, I have a week off, a little five-day gift card of time that I still can’t figure out how to spend.

Yesterday was very successful, except for a squabble between Benny and myself as he rejected jacket after jacket in the morning and we were late as hell and I finally snapped, tossing his spurned hoodie into the waste basket and announcing it would NEVER be worn again. Benny looked shocked and I fished it back out again, feeling not guilty (I don’t seem to have the quick-to-flick guilt switch that most mothers have), but pretty damn stupid.

So we finally left, and I sat Benny down on a little stone step and we talked it over a bit so that we’d feel good again and Benny wouldn’t smack some kid with a paintbrush or do something else at school to release his emotions. And while we were late, we weren’t Tardy, so I didn’t have to go to the office and get a Slip.

Not an auspicious start, I know, but things perked up after a round of shocking self-indulgence: a manicure, pedicure and half a bag of Ruffles. Then I talked to my sister for a mind-bending amount of time. Then I slathered on a layer of Hawaiian Tropic and headed out into the sunshine to eat a donut, buy some used books and drop off dry cleaning.

Muni buses being what they are, this took all afternoon and I barely made it to Benny’s aftercare on time and had to feed him hot dogs and tater tots because I’d forgotten to take the stew out of the freezer. Then we played videogames and I put him to bed.

So I felt I was on a roll here today. I woke up to a fairly clean apartment and Benny and I had a serene morning. I just missed a 37 bus heading back home, so I went to Cole’s Hardware with the grand ambition of buying drapery sash rods to install over our bedroom window. Our blinds do a poor job of blocking out the enormous streetlight outside our apartment building. (Longtime readers of this blog might remember our neighbor Big Foot back in Ann Arbor and his 1,000-megawatt light shining right into our bedroom. The Fates just don’t like me sleeping in a dark bedroom.)

I found find some drapery rods and mountings that were fastened with nails, per the rules on our lease. Just to make a party of it, I went next door and picked up a newspaper and pound of ground beef for tonight since I’d forgotten to take the stew out again. As I was paying, I watched the 37 go by again.

The next one wasn’t coming for 25 minutes (according to NextBus), and the day was turning warm, so I asked the meat guy to hold the beef in his fridge for 15 minutes or so. He agreed enthusiastically, sounding very relieved that I was going to be responsible with the ground beef he’d sold me. I think he was happy it was going to a good home.

Then I tried to make the best of it by going to the café across the street and spending Benny’s inheritance on a cup of lemonade. My drapery rods and I took a sunny table outside. I checked NextBus … 17 minutes … read how our Mayor wants to rename Third Street after Willie Brown … 15 minutes … read the funny pages … 10 minutes … pondered if going to see “The Ghost Writer” would mean tacit approval of Roman Polanski’s criminal activities … about time to go and get the beef … and watched the 37 go by again, 7 minutes early.

Well. I didn’t have the heart to tell the meat guy the truth, just picked up the beef and glowered at a the bus stop for a solid 18 minutes before the next one came.

Once home, I installed the drapery rods. It was an irritating process, and my God, they looked awful. Obviously I had not treated the thin rods with the delicacy required as I carried them from hardware store to grocery store to café to meat guy to bus top and then on the bus. Both were bent. I tried to straighten one, and made it look worse. Disgusted, I pulled out the mountings and now had little holes around my window, lined up in little pairs, like vampire teeth marks. I didn’t have any spackle, so I busted out my acrylic paints and mixed up a little beige paint to dab on the holes. So now there are spots around my window that look oddly, subtly discolored, like tiny water pipes in the wall had leaked.

And how did I feel, after wasting $15 and two hours of my precious vacation time to end up with weird spots on my bedroom wall? Strangely OK with it, at least after drinking a restorative Snapple and eating the rest of the Ruffles. I’ve realized that in the frenzied activity of most modern families, we don’t have time to fail. Not that we don’t fail – oh boy, do we fail. Late pickups, forgotten lunches, missed deadlines, temper tantrums, really bad hair days, things we shouldn’t have said, emails we shouldn’t have sent … the list goes on.

But we rarely have time to consciously embark on a risky project, knowing it might not turn out, feeling confused, embarrassed or incompetent (or all three). Trying new things takes time and energy. It’s easier not to make the attempt. I realize I’ve been spending my minutes like a little miser, looking for maximum ROI. Looking at things that way, wasting time and failing spectacularly can be very liberating.

Now I’m looking at the kitchen doorway. What if I found a little teeny tension rod to put on it and hung some thin drapes to cordon off the kitchen …

Dancing with the Doofuses

I try not to do this often, because if I were to post all the clueless emails I get from PR folks, I'd have no time for anything else. But it's deadline day and I have no time for anything, so of course I'm posting one today.

My current work project (let's call it The Sustainable Oscars) involves badgering green companies and their PR flacks for nominations. Here's an email I received this morning:

____________________________________

Hi Christina,

Quick ?- can you tell me when winners in the solar category will be
notified? I submitted my client Doofus Solar and I'd like to tell them when we
can expect to hear.

P.s. We no longer represent Weirdo Biofuels for PR. Sorry I could not enter
them!

Thanks!

Ima Nitwit

______

Well, dear readers, you can see three problems here right off the bat. First, my name's not Christina. Secondly, telling me to do something Quick actually slows my response time. And thirdly, I wish Ima had told me earlier that she no longer represented Weirdo Biofuels, like before the deadline for nominations had passed.

In other news, Ron left for Washington, D.C., yesterday to beef up our sister paper's reporting staff. I vowed to go to bed early every night while he was gone to keep my energy level up. So of course I stayed up until 11 last night watching the History Channel's "How the States Got Their Shapes." I knew about the War of Toledo that gave Michigan its Upper Peninsula and how West Virginia split from Virginia. But did you know that Missouri has that weird little notch on the bottom because some big landowner didn't want to be part of Arkansas? Or that there was this little phantom state called Franklin that now only lives on in State of Franklin Insurance signs? Or that the border between Colorado and Kansas was set because Kansas didn't want any gold so they wouldn't have to deal with sex-crazed prospectors? It was a great program.

Happy Birthday to Me ...

Here's Benny singing "Happy Birthday" at his own party. What a ham.

Killer Robots Never Work

... And don't turn into a snake. It never helps.

The first piece of wise advice above is the name of my as-yet-unpublished science fiction novel. I just submitted a synopsis and the first four chapters of "Killer Robots Never Work" to a contest, and the effort inspired me to start a writing blog. There are a lot of writing blogs out there, all of them so earnest, with writing goals and Muses and much fretting about the moral Core of their writing. My writing, of course, doesn't have much of a moral Core. I subscribe to the "This guy's boring, let's give him purple eyebrows and a shovel collection" style of character development.

So now I have a third blog, called "Killer Robots Never Work." There I maintain that every story needs a killer robot. Life is hard enough without taking your writing seriously.

Benny's 6th Birthday Party

Well, we threw a 6th birthday party for Benny at a neighborhood park on Saturday and lived to tell the tale.

The planning was pretty intense, involving multiple trips to Target, repeated phone calls to a nearby Asian bakery emphasizing "DARK green frosting", and online ordering and delivery angst.

In keeping with the football theme, I decorated the cake to look like a football field. Cakes are a lot easier to decorate than cupcakes. Ron's idea to line the edges with colored sprinkles to represent the spectators was pure genius.

The timing of the event was a little tricky — I reserved the park clubhouse from 1-4 PM and set the party time for 1:30. So I packed all the party supplies in labeled plastic bins except for the cake, ice cream, tables and chairs. (One of our friends brought the bunches of balloons, thank heavens.) I fit almost everything in the car, although Benny had to ride to the park with a card table on his head. Then Ron and I carried the first load to the door of the clubhouse and he and Benny stood guard while I went back for the second load. I struck gold with a nearby parking space and arrived with the cake at 1:05. Yay!

After all that, the party itself was a breeze. My ritual goat sacrifices to the weather god at dawn obviously paid off, because after spitting rain on and off all morning, the skies cleared on cue at 1:00 and the sun shone down. Benny and his friends played on the playground, ate cake and ice cream, threw footballs and batted balloons.

We broke with San Francisco tradition and had Benny open his presents at the party. People don't do that here, probably because kids' birthday parties in this town average 20-70 children. But we had a small group, so I told Benny to go for it.

Happy Birthday Benny!

I Can't Wait to be Part of the Problem

I'm thinking of a magic number — can you guess what it is?

The number is 220. It's a very nice number, and not just because it's in my address. 220 is a common voltage in many countries. It's also divisible by the sum of its digits. The Goths invaded Asia Minor and the Balkans in the year 220. It also saw the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in China.

But my affinity for the number 220 is not so historic. My magic number is actually 220 dollars, as in $220 a month. $220 is the most I'm willing to pay for a monthly bus pass for my family.

Right now, we pay $120 a month for our Muni fast passes, which allow us to ride any Muni bus or light rail in San Francisco as much as we want. We should be buying a youth pass for Benny as well ($15), but so far we've been able to sneak him on the bus for free. (Yes, apparently I am willing to compromise my morals for $15 a month. That's a whole other magic number.)

So the current cost of Muni transportation for a family of three (if they're not thieving cheats) is $135. Which would be completely reasonable, if San Francisco's public transportation system was a well-oiled machine, with consistently reliable, safe and pleasant service.

Ha ha.

Muni is well, pretty bad. The buses are dirty, the schedules are a joke and the drivers hate everybody. (These same drivers are guaranteed the second-best salaries in the country. Seriously, guaranteed. It's in the city charter.)

Still, we have made our peace with Muni, rarely venturing from the No. 6/N Judah cow path we take to work. I take other buses as little as possible, preferring to use City Car Share. Last night I took the 43, and a fellow rider pounded a rear window until it gave way, then leaned out and shouted at pedestrians.

This year, we plan to buy a car. Then we'll use Muni even less, probably only to commute to our jobs downtown.

Unless ... Muni hits the magic number.

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency is proposing cuts to every Muni bus line to close a $16.9 million budget gap. Just a month ago, the SFMTA made a ton of service cuts and raised the price of monthly passes from $55 to $60. The cuts will reduce frequencies on every Muni line and increase fares for historic streetcars, express buses and cable cars. They also want to increase the Youth monthly passes.

When Ron and I arrived in San Francisco in 2007, the cost of a monthly pass was $45. Now it's $60. Obviously Muni is gunning for the passengers and the cost of the passes will keep rising. Quickly.

Hence the magic number. I figure that if adult monthly passes hit $90 each, and the youth pass is $30, the total cost is ... wait for it ... $220. The SFMTA is already talking about raising youth passes to $30.

So what will Ron and I do if monthly passes total $220? The answer is simple: Climb back into a car.

For $250-$300 a month, we can get a nice parking spot downtown near our jobs. Then we can ride into work every day in our car, dropping Benny off at school on the way. A nice, relaxing ride with the family twice a day. If Muni keeps raising its fares, while providing substandard service, why not drive?

Then we will be part of the problem, spewing carbon exhaust every day while adding to traffic congestion in this "Transit First" city.

My essay lives on

An essay I wrote for the SF K Files about Benny's Lucky Elementary has appeared on a San Francisco Chronicle blog. Click here to check it out.

The comments following the last parent essay on this blog are um ... vivid. Check out "crotch fruit," the newest hip phrase for "children." I know I should feel demeaned and offended, but I can't quite stop giggling. I can imagine introducing myself: "Hi, I'm a breeder and this is my crotch fruit." I guess I'm immature.

(giggle)

Benny at the Park

Here's Benny on the swings at the park near our apartment, courtesy of Ron's iPhone.

Christine Takes It to the Streets

The blog "Muni Diaries" posted my experience on a Muni bus this week. Check it out here.

I am outraged that a transit operator would treat customers in this matter. Think of that woman passenger who initially complained. How is she going to feel riding Muni every day, knowing that a whole bus heard her called an awful name? How is she going to feel knowing that if she speaks up about anything or stands up to herself, she's asking for abuse or name calling? Is this what SFMTA wants for their passengers? Is this what San Franciscans want for their city? And worst of all, no other passengers stood up in her defense — in fact, another passenger called her an obscenity. Is this the city we all want?

By the way, the comments are fun, too. One reader is having trouble making the intuitive leap required to connect this example of Muni's unsafe, unreliable and uncivil service and Muni's plan to cut service and increase fares. Why would one driver's behavior lead me to oppose drastic service cuts? Because if Muni can't provide safe, reliable and civil service now, what will the system be like after new layoffs and service cuts?

Annoying Travelers Attempt to Catch Flights

Detroit Metro Airport is reproaching travelers for showing up for flights too early. The nerve!

Poor Verizon, So Misunderstood

A Verizon Wireless patsy (er, vice president) had to write a letter last week to the FCC defending its $350 early termination fee and its little “arrow button” cash cow.

She begins by saying those big early termination fees (ETFs) “promote consumer choice” because that way Verizon can offer smart phones at cheaper prices. Customers can pay through the nose for a month-to-month plan, but most (surprise!) choose to sign up for long-term contracts.

And after all, the executive writes, those smart phones are expensive to provide, so they get higher ETFs. It’s a risky business, the mobile industry, and Verizon needs to protect itself. All that technology and all those customers just spooks them out.

The FCC wanted to know how Verizon told people about the $350-and-up ETF. Well, the morons could look on the web site, answers the Verizon exec. It’s right there in teeny-tiny type. In fact, we put the ETF on ads, telemarketing scripts, sales receipts and letters. We do everything but stick it on billboards on Interestate 80! What is wrong with you people?

The FCC then presses Verizon about the rationale for the high ETF, and the Verizon exec gets upset. Do you have any idea, she asks, what a canceled contract does to Verizon? It messes up all our plans! It turns off a guaranteed revenue stream! We have to provide all that mobile broadband service and that costs money! If a customer cancels a contract, it destroys our entire business model. We can’t eat! We can’t sleep! The entire world economy could collapse! Do you want that, FCC?

The FCC also wants to know the cost difference between what Verizon pays for mobile devices and what it charges customers, but Verizon is too cagey to answer that. They just repeat that the difference is twice as much for smart phones. And remember, the executive says, we have to buy ads and pay salespeople. Who’s gonna pay for that? The company? We got shareholders!

At this point, Verizon feels that the whole ETF issue has been pretty much hashed out and turns to the second problem.

Customers are mad because if someone accidentally presses an arrow key on their device (which has been preprogrammed by Verizon for internet access), the customer is charged $2 even if he cancels the connection immediately. And those buttons are kinda small, guys.

The Verizon exec utterly denies that the button takes users anywhere but the Verizon homepage. Those hordes of doofus customers must be recklessly navigating elsewhere on the web, the executive writes. And we’re happy to credit their account if they feel they’ve been unfairly charged.

All in all, I think Verizon is a little bitter about how complicated and expensive providing mobile broadband is. It’s so annoying having to buy the equipment and build a network and hire sales reps and pay for office coffemakers and all. I think Verizon is feeling a little unloved for all their hard work. Verizon is probably wondering why it didn’t go into something easier, like banking.

Poor Verizon.

Very Cold Paws

I'm a little link-happy today. Here's a picture of a cute kitty in the snow that was posted Consumerist.com, one of my favorite sites. Cat pictures and crabby consumers. These are my people.

San Francisco Photo Story

Here is a remarkable collection of pictures of San Francisco from photographers that love the city. Most of them were familiar to me: the redwood grove in Golden Gate Park, the hills of Twin Peaks, the beaches, the bridges, the buildings.

Beautiful pictures like these remind me why we're here and the how much I take for granted every day. This is especially good on days where the sky is gloomy, the car horns are blaring and the price of monthly bus passes are raised (again!).

See San Francisco

I Don't WANT to be Special!

I just wrote this note to BIC USA:

"I just bought a pack of Comfort 3 Pivot razors. They were pink, they had three blades, good enough for me. I didn't realize they would smell like berries. Is this really necessary? Has Bic lost its mind? What makes your company think that American women LIKE their razors to smell like berries? It's nausea-inducing, really. I couldn't wait to wash the smell off my hands. I'm a working mother and now on top of everything else I have to think about, now I have to make sure my razors don't smell?"

Now these razors will join the no-sodium chicken soup, the celery-and-green-pepper diced tomatos and the garlic crescent rolls as yet another stupid special version I've bought this week. I have to check any product's packaging three times before buying it, lest I end up with diet tomato sauce or lime-flavored tortilla chips. Gross!

That's It, No More Sports

I think Benny's been watching too much sports on TV.

At dinner tonight:

ME:
... So It sounds like that poor lady has a real problem ...

BENNY:
Got a problem? Ask your doctor about FLOMAX!

2009 Review

This seems like an appropriate time to review the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 2009. It was a tough year for everybody, but we're still here at the end, reasonably secure and healthy. Compared to the train wrecks of 2007 and 2008, we're doing great.




BOO HOO
- The sale of our house last year resulted in an angst-ridden month working with our tax accountant and a $3,000 tax bill.
- Four credit card companies imposed giant APR hikes on our balances, requiring four letters to “opt out” and close the cards.
- Ron's workload went beyond heavy and passed into frightening,
- Ron and I got a 5 percent pay cut. (However, my hours are not reduced, and that's very good.)
- We still can't get a car. This drives me crazy.
- We can't go to Michigan for Christmas.


CELEBRATE!
- BENNY GOT INTO LUCKY ELEMENTARY! YAY! Logistically, financially and yes,
educationally, this is the best thing that could happen to us..
- Benny leaves the Dinosaur preschool, eliminating a $1,500/month expense. (yeah, I know.)
- I celebrated our improved cash flow for buying new, shockingly expensive glasses.
- First family vacation in three years to Mt. Lassen
- Benny and I read all three books of "The Lord of the Rings."
- I finished a big fat book about the Franco-Prussian War.
- I started sending my science fiction novel to literary agents.
- I started a new novel: "The Fred Code."
- Benny no longer has to meet with the endocrinologist after two years of a good growth curve.
- Ron finished a corporate Wellness Plan and received $500, which he spent on new work clothes and an iPhone. He's crazy about his iPhone. After two weeks, it suddenly went dead and he couldn't figure out why. So I did some Googling and found the answer. So Ron can thank me and some weird online guy named Hoof Arted for fixing his iPhone.
- I bullied AT&T into giving me a new computer modem for free after the old one died in November. They wanted to charge me $80!

How was your year?

A Nice NaNo Moment

Ron and I started today with a nice moment. We're stumbling around the apartment half-awake, and suddenly I have a question.

CHRISTINE
Hey Ron, do Protestant churches allow funerals for suicides?

RON
What?

CHRISTINE
Do Protestant churches allow funerals for suicides. The Catholic Church calls it a mortal sin.

RON
Uh. yes.

CHRISTINE
Good.

(short pause)

RON
... WHY!!!

CHRISTINE
For my mystery novel.

RON
Oh.

Happy Halloween!

Festivities began Friday morning with a school parade down the neighborhood business district. I camped outside a Tully's beforehand and shot some pictures as they passed.

Then I stepped out with Benny Saturday night for some Trick-or-Treating fun. We started with a party hosted by Dinosaur Preschool parents. Then some of us refreshed our wine glasses and hit the streets with our kids. This is a big night for San Francisco and I only regret I didn't take pictures of random pedestrians.

Benny dressed as a ninja and his friend Quinn was a dinosaur. By the end of the night, their pumpkin pails were so full the boys could hardly carry them. Benny refused to let me carry any of his candy. (Probably afraid I'd eat some -- he knows me so well.) I asked him where he would put candy now, since his pail was overflowing.

"I'll stuff the candy in my pockets," he said matter-of-factly. And he did.

National Novel Writing Month 2009

In a fit of insanity, I've decided to write a novel in a month again. I've joined National Novel Writing Month and have begun my first murder mystery. Think "Da Vinci Code" meets "Our Town."

The working title is "The Fred Code" and you can track my progress and read the novel here:

Here's the synopsis:

Local historian and general nutcase Fred Stark has been found dead in his beloved, lovingly restored 18th-century courthouse in the small town of Winslow, Michigan. The suicide note beside his body is packed with obscure historical references, prompting beleaguered police chief Skippy Bronson to call for expert help.

Enter Leda Morris, part-time history teacher, closet organizer and organizing freak. She never could stand Fred, who was her ex-fiance's uncle and a self-described "sixth-generation Winslowite." But the note is intriguing— and almost completely incomprehensible — and she finds herself researching the clues despite herself. Leda and her ex, Jeffrey Stark, attempt to sort out the bizarre riddles and follow a trail of clues hidden in “historic sites” throughout the town.

So welcome to Winslow, Mich., population 4,947, barely limping along economically since the Dodge air-conditioning vent factory closed in '92. Meet Winslow's secret, ruthless Society and learn about this small town's most valuable historic relic.

Wish me luck!

Take an Aspirin

Ron's causing trouble over at Bayer Corp.

Vacation Pictures!

Yes, at last, the long-anticipated vacation pictures from our road trip to Mt. Lassen. Here we are:

Here are some shots of Burney Falls, just north of Mt. Lassen Volcanic Park. Then we have Ron and Benny by Emerald Lake, a glacial lake near Mt. Lassen. The next picture is Mt. Lassen. Ron and Benny are beside King's Creek. Benny and I are next to a glacial erratic (a boulder that was carried a long way by a glacier and has no relation to the rocks beneath). We end with a weird feature near the summit of Mt. Lassen called the Vulcan's Eye.

The Science of Interviewing

You'd think this tough economy would knock the stuffing out of the more obviously psychotic job seekers. I'm reading about job candidates rejected for minor typos and taking 10 minutes to return a call. But apparently some nutcases are still landing job interviews, and a few are using the opportunity to conduct elegant psychology experiments on their prospective bosses.

One of my favorite blogs, Ask a Manager, has this job search tip from a reader. This person likes to call a half hour before a scheduled interview, say he's running late and asks to reschedule. (After reading the post, don't forget to check out the comments.)

Once the rescheduled interview begins, this veteran job candidate will narrowly observe the interviewer's response. The best managers, in his worldview, will immediately gush about his thoughtfulness in calling to reschedule when he realized he was running late. Subpar managers will simply ignore his thoughtfulness, or worse, actually have the nerve to be annoyed that he was late.

Ask a Manager treats this suggestion with the disdain it deserves, and at first glance, I also wondered if this guy also expects a standing ovation for breathing in and out. But perhaps I'm being churlish. This is a whole new job-hunting paradigm, my friends, and the old habits of punctuality may be hopelessly passe.

So I've developed my own set of experiments for the discerning job seeker:

CASE STUDY ONE
- Interview for a job that is strictly on-site and in-office located 3,000 miles from your home.
- Bring a laptop.
- Whenever the interview mentions a duty you must perform, flip open the laptop and cry "Why, I can do that at home! See, I have headline-writing software right here! Look, I'm instant-messaging you right now!"
- A good manager will be instantly impressed and offer a telecommuting job and extra benefits. Subpar managers will insist you actually edit articles in the newsroom.

CASE STUDY TWO
- Arrive 40 minutes early to interview.
- Demand to receptionist that you be seen immediately.
- Deduct points for every minute you must wait for the interviewer to appear.
- Deduct points if there are no interesting magazines in the reception area.
- Deduct points if the receptionist does not offer you a lemon diet Snapple.
- Good managers will arrive instantly and apologize profusely for keeping you waiting. Bad managers will make you wait or worse, be absent from the building entirely 40 minutes before a scheduled interview.

CASE STUDY THREE
- Submit resume and land an interview.
- Arrive on time and professionally dressed.
- As soon as the office door is closed, announce that the resume you submitted is a "decoy." You are only comfortable releasing professional information in person. Hand out a copy of your actual resume.
- Allow interviewer 15 minutes to read resume.
- Eat resume.
- A good manager will value your discretion and prudence in these dangerous times. A bad manager will show you the door and thereafter refer to you as "Secret Squirrel" among his or her colleagues.

This mindset reminds me of a hilarious sales columnist who used to run in the Business Times. His mantra was "Don't sell, make them want to buy!" One of his cold-calling tips was to hang up halfway through leaving a voicemail message to whet their appetite. (Presumably he did this after saying his name and number.)

It's a brave new world. Feel free to suggest your own experiments.

Benny's First Day

Monday was Benny's first day of kindergarten — yay! We hopped on the No. 6 Muni bus and took a 10-minute ride to his Lucky School. He was very cool about the whole thing. All the kids were, really — the only ones crying that morning were the mothers. As you can see there's quite a difference between his freshly scrubbed, buttoned-up look before school and his wacky after-school chipmunk impersonation with his shirtails hanging out. The last picture is Benny telling his Aunt Cindy all about his day.

Moving On

Benny's Dinosaur School held its "Moving On Picnic" on Sunday. Benny has officially "graduated" from preschool and kindergarten is only two weeks away. Each outgoing child received a crown, a certificate, a big sunflower and a plate that he/she designed. It was a great event, mostly because it was so low-key. My hair stylist's niece's preschool had a big cap-and-gown event with printed portraits that looked better than my high school senior pictures. (Actually, I liked my cap-and-gown portrait; the mortarboard covered my big hair.)

Anyway, it's a big transition, and Benny's not the only one leaving a big emotional security blanket behind. I don't know how I'll get through life without chatting with his teachers nearly every day, not just about Benny, but about work and traveling and why parking just a tiny bit on the sidewalk warrants a $100 parking ticket.

I truly don't understand city life at times. On Sunday I boarded a bus with a new magazine and I found a seat near the back in the nearly empty bus. Then I started doing what I always do when I open a new women's magazine, tear out the 4 zillion two-sided advertisements. This reduces the size of an average magazine in half and there's something satisfying about thwarting the advertisers this way. (And I wonder why the media industry is struggling.)

Anyway, this lady a few rows up turns around and starts glaring at me. Repeatedly. I just couldn't believe it. I mean, just in the few weeks I've dealt with fellow Muni passengers scribbling on windows, sticking their legs across the aisle and holding loud conversations with friends sitting in another part of the bus. I've seen drunk people, homeless people, crazy people, people with no shirts, people with no pants (just some strange skirt-thing, do I really need to elaborate?) ... and this lady is offended by me?

So I did what any self-respecting Muni passenger would do. I ripped each page even more loudly. Sometimes twice. So there.

AnnArbor.com: Managing Expectations

(Image of gluten-free acorn muffins from the Book of Yum.)

So what if I came to you one morning and said:

“I’ve got a great homemade muffin for you. I’m not going to tell you what’s in it or how big it is or whether it comes in a little paper muffin cup, but you’re gonna love it. Just love it. It’s like no muffin you’ve seen before. We’re throwing out the book on muffins. The old muffin paradigm is dead. What’s more, this muffin is going to be about you, you and the ingredients you care about, you and the ingredients your entire community cares about. Everyone, just everyone, will love this muffin.”

Well. I imagine your first response would be “Who are you and what have you done with Christine?” because I never talk that much in the morning, not until I’ve had two Snapples and three cereal bars.

But besides that, you’ll be drooling, right? You can’t wait. On the Morning of the Muffin, you skip breakfast and show up with your special Muffin plate, ready to be amazed. The result, of course, is predictable. The Muffin will never be as good as the glittering Muffin of Your Mind. You stalk off, disgusted, and eat a 6-month-old granola bar out of your desk.

AnnArbor.com has a Muffin problem. Touted as a “local news service and social networking site,” it replaces the daily Ann Arbor News, which closed in July. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I’m familiar with the Ann Arbor News. My husband was involved in launching business weeklies with this bunch and we know many of the players. So we’ve taken a lively interest in AnnArbor.com from out here in California.

Bless their hearts, they haven’t changed a bit. They still think you can generate excitement through breathless announcements: “We are pleased/proud/thrilled/practically hysterical to announce our fresh/revolutionary/molecule-changing way to present news/dialogue/rambling blog posts ...”

Look at us, they say. We promote ourselves relentlessly in the name of “transparency,” posting long, laudatory biographies of the lucky Ann Arbor News alumni we decided to hire at (presumably) fire-sale prices. We bury the city in an explosion of paper flyers. We draw kicky graphics on sidewalks. We are nothing you’ve ever seen before!

Maybe you can generate excitement that way if you’re the Cartoon Network. (Remember their little ad gizmos in Boston that looked like bombs on bridges?) But you can’t with something as vital as local news which depends on credibility above all else. It’s like going on a first date and raving the whole time how great you are. Actually, it’s like calling your date every day beforehand and raving about how great the evening will be. If your date has any judgment, he or she will run like blazes.

So there you go. AnnArbor.com hyped itself up to the nines leading up to its July 20 launch date. Then postponed the launch date. Then it launched July 24 and the whining began. Admittedly much of the whining was from the readers, who couldn’t give the site a full 20-minute read before blasting it about layout and comment moderation. But there were some serious concerns, prompting much whiny self-defensiveness from AnnArbor.com staffers.

Oh, you thought that was a real launch? AnnArbor.com asked. No, no, it’s just a beta launch. Wait a few weeks, let the reporters really know their beats, then you’ll really see something. Then the site went down.

I could list AnnArbor.com’s journalistic weaknesses all day (hey, why don’t you shorten the headlines and actually edit these stories?) but what’s the point. AnnArbor.com is trying to create something brand-new with the same tired old crowd they had before and that can’t be easy. They have to appeal to a readership still reeling from the loss of their daily newspaper and they had only four months to put the whole thing together. So why not admit it from the beginning?

So what if I came to you one morning and said:

“I’ve got a homemade muffin for you. It’s just a practice muffin before I make the good ones for Benny’s preschool. It’s a pumpkin-and-chocolate-chip muffin, but there aren’t many chocolate chips because I ate half the bag while mixing the other ingredients. My oven doesn’t heat evenly, so the muffin’s kind of lopsided as if it was trying to escape its pan. Oh, and I burned it a little too.”

With all those caveats in mind you might like the muffin. You might have some suggestions for a better muffin. You sure as hell will trust me to give you the straight dope about my baking prowess.

I wish we could say the same for AnnArbor.com.

Don't Skip Breakfast

So this wasn't the greatest morning I ever had. I woke up late, which meant I couldn't work out or eat breakfast if I wanted to get to work on time. And what happened then?

Well, I had trouble with my contacts, trouble with my hair dryer, trouble with my peanut butter sandwich, trouble with my earrings and as a a final note, trouble with the !@#$% computer when I tried to load my iPod. As you may already guess, it was a computer that finally sent me into a string of expletives.

Which got me in trouble with Ron, since Benny was right there.

So there I am at the bus stop, steaming. A fine drizzle falls on my badly blow-dried hair. I blame my contacts, my sandwich, my new earrings and the !@#$% computer. But then I identify the real culprit: I skipped breakfast.

When oh when will I realize that a bowl of cereal or two waffles improves the quality of life for myself and anyone around me? Why does it take my poor husband dragging me away from a computer at 8 a.m. to remind me that being hungry and hurried is Bad Bad Bad?

It took three cereal bars and two Snapples consumed at my desk to put me in the proper frame of mind to edit stories and answer emails. By 10 a.m. I was able to field a phone call about our upcoming Most Pompous Executives publication (not its real name, but should be) with some poise. This lady calls every two days for information about Most Pompous Executives, and my repeated answers that I know zero details, my editor knows zero details and our publisher has made no decision about the breadth and scope of Most Pompous Executives fails to satisfy her. She's convinced that we're hiding vital Most Pompous Executive nomination guidelines from her. This lady works for an accounting firm, which is apparently lousy with pompous executives eager to be honored. Sigh.

Anyway, the moral of today's post is Eat Breakfast, especially if you expect a phone call from a rabid CPA marketer.. Maybe an All Powerful Cereal Bowl of Light (above) would help.

Arrival Day 2009

Today is July 22. That's a big day for our family, and not just because it shares a month with Independence Day, Bastille Day and the Moon Landing. July 22 is the day this blog stopped being Lost in BabySpace and became California Dreamin'. Because this was the day that myself, Ron, Benny and Callisto the cat arrived in San Francisco.

July 22, 2007 began at 1 a.m. when I finally lay down on an air mattress in our Michigan house to catch a few hours' sleep before our flight to San Francisco. I tried to relax and think about California but the picture was dim and undeveloped. "Who gives up jobs, cars and Mackinaw Island fudge to live in a tiny apartment?" I asked myself. "Who wants to wait at bus stops, wheel granny carts to the grocery, feed quarters into washing machines?"

Well, we did. The next eight months passed in a haze of stress: a mad dash to our airplane flight; tense negotiations for a transfer to an acceptable apartment; a frenzied search for a preschool; my return to full-time work; severe financial problems; no heat over Christmas; and an insane work project called "Real Estate Deals of the Year." The culmination was the months-long process to sell our Michigan house, which we finally managed in March 2008.

But there were many large and small victories. We found a great preschool for Benny and paid shocking amounts of money to keep him there for two years. Ron won a national award for a feature he wrote during that crazy August 2007. I edited some big projects that came off well. We paid our fiendishly complicated California and Michigan taxes. We also guided Benny through important milestones such as toilet training, advanced Lego building and the ability to eat something other than pancakes, corn and Mac&Cheese.

I'd like to thank all the little people who made it possible -- Kathy, our beleaguered realtor, who never did get a commission on the house. And who can forget Ralf, our chronically depressed mover, whose unexpected delay in Kansas allowed us to transfer to another apartment before our stuff arrived. Or my friend Angelic Coworker, who arranged for a $1,000 freelance paycheck before I'd written a word of the story .

Happy Arrival Day!

Moon Landing Anniversary

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing of Apollo 11. Ron, Benny and I headed over to Nasa Ames near Mountain View, Calif., to celebrate on Sunday. I don't think NASA expected such a big crowd; the traffic was backed up to the highway. We parked in an enormous parking lot next to the airplane runways.

We watched model rockets being launched and I took pictures. The first three pictures are of a black-and-white model of the Saturn rocket that carried Apollo 11 to the moon. The last rocket picture is of a yellow model rocket painted like a crayon. Ron put Benny on his shoulders to watch.

We had a great time, but it was ungodly hot. The march from the rocket launch to the parade grounds was like walking on the surface of the sun. We never made it to the displays and activities; instead we collapsed under a tree and ate lunch (see picture). Then I dragged a reluctant Ron across the complex to the gift shop and indoor display center. The center's exhibits included 3-D pictures of Mars and a videotape of the moon landings, plus a moon rock brought back by Apollo 15.

Ron was able to attend a NASA event on Monday morning and got to ask a question of Buzz Aldrin and the other astronauts. (He asked about public-private partnerships to fund space exploration.) Benny's spent the last two days playing with the moon landing Toys his Uncle Greg sent from Florida and building a Saturn model out of Legos. This morning he stranded his little astronaut outside Jupiter with no more oxygen. "He held his breath all the way to Earth," Benny told me.

Random Thoughts

For those of you who'd like to know what I think about all day:

-- It was tough to pick out something to wear to work today. I think science fiction characters are kind of lucky; they can just wear jumpsuits. Of course, jumpsuits only work if you have a good body. That's why middle-aged guest stars in science fiction shows/movies always wear flowing robes.

-- One of Ron's magazines is requesting suggestions for another awful fee from airlines. I suggest: "In the case of an emergency, an oxygen mask will drop from the ceiling above you. If you would like the mask to actually dispense oxygen, please pay a $20 surcharge at the check-in counter. Be sure to pay your own oxygen surcharge before paying others'."

-- Saturday night I had a filet mignon pot pie at a pub with the great name The Monk's Kettle. The pot pie was great, but it still seemed a real waste of filet mignon.

-- This weekend I was riding the bus and saw a young guy scribble on the window with a yellow marker. The writing was unintelligible (Elf runes? Sanskrit?), but he felt the need to underline important points. As I exited the bus, I told the driver "The kid sitting in the back in the plaid shirt just scribbled on the window." The driver looked at me in utter bewilderment. Oh well, I did my bit as a concerned citizen.

-- I'm still reading Benny "The Lord of the Rings." He thinks Gollum is a riot. I drew him a little map so he could keep all the places straight. He wants to know if Saruman could beat Elrond or if Galadriel could take the Balrog. Thoughts?

-- I think I've figured out why I keep getting carded for alcohol in San Francisco. There are a lot of strung-out 21-year-old women around here who look like a 40-year-old sometime drinker. A friend of mine says it's because the city's servers are required to card anyone who looks under 40. I like my theory better.

Paycheck Liberation Day

Today is a day I've been dreaming of for nearly two years, since September 2007 when I wrote my first astonishingly large check to Benny's Dinosaur Preschool.

I am forever grateful to this amazing school. Those teachers have pretty much raised Benny during the week after I returned to newspaper work. This year it received 80 applications for a handful of spots for the 2009-2010 year. But it wasn't cheap. For two years, my first paycheck of each month has been the Dinosaur School paycheck. This year, the amount of that paycheck and the amount of monthly tuition has been eerily similar.

Until today.

Today I received my June 30 paycheck and clutched it to my chest, resisting the impulse to shout "Mine! All mine!" For last month's tuition payment was our last. Our security deposit will pay the July tuition and this August Benny starts attending public school.

I never thought we'd make it. Now I know how parents feel after they put a kid through college. (What I've paid the Dinosaur School would finance two years at a pretty nice college.) I spent $250 we really didn't have on a personalized tile for the school's new mural. The tile will include our names and the dates Benny attended. I wish we could put the total dollar amount there too.

So what will we do with the extra money? My plans are pretty dull. First we'll go on a short vacation in August to Mt. Lassen Volcanic Park. Then I'll buy Benny back to school stuff and go on a (controlled, I hope) spending spree. Then we'll plump up our savings. We also plan to move to a larger apartment next year.

Yay!