Redwoods and Butterflies

The next morning we took surprisingly hot showers at the KOA camp and ate a huge pancake breakfast before hitting the road. Today we hoped to tour the redwood forests that stretch to the Oregon border.

At this point I’d turned off the email feature on my cell phone to avoid the regular messages from my memoir writing group. I’d joined this group the month before  and these people are actually quite talented. We have a former cult member, a woman whose family survived the Holocaust and a former Tibetan nun who just published a self-help book for sex addicts. They are, however, a little obsessive. The leader, who I’ll call Padme, wants consensus on everything, and actually suggested I join a conference call to discuss scheduling while on vacation. Obviously, that couldn’t happen, especially since I’d taken a very hard line about Ron dealing with work during our trip. I was already unhappy because he’d be forced to take three phone calls about an upcoming biotech forum in the first week of the trip. So I had to set some boundaries with the group, but that didn’t stop them from sending out a stream of emails every day, making my phone knock like a tiny woodpecker with each one. I like my writing group, but sometimes it’s a little too Berkeley for me.

Anyway, we drove to the end of Highway 1 and turned onto the Avenue of the Giants, past all the weird sings and giant wooden Big Foots. A sign promising a drive-through redwood tree lured us off the highway for a picnic lunch. The big pond nearby teamed with bullfrogs. It was a big frog family reunion, from the large, croaking males to the smaller females hissing nearby in approval, to baby frogs hidden in reeds and tiny tadpoles wiggling along the edges.

The next day we hiked through redwoods, resting at times to listen to the trees creak in the wind. You could close your eyes and pretend you were on a seafaring galleon, listening to the rigging creak, it was that loud. Ron took his first conference call parked outside a tiny general store in Gasquet near the Smith River, while I sat on a wooden bench and read “Magic of Oz” to Benny.

At this point we’d left the Coast Ranges, created when the Pacific Ocean floor slid under North America, scraping off  sediment and ocean floor and crumpling it into mountains. We’d entered the Klamath block, a complicated series of rock belts and closely resemble the Sierra Nevadas. In fact, geologists think the Klamath block is the northern part of the Sierra Nevadas, moved north about 60 miles. My book promised some basalt pillows near the Smith River but I couldn’t find any at the one path that offered river access. So I took some pictures of butterflies instead.

Benny at the Smith River near the Oregon border.

At Crescent City, we left 101 to head northeast toward Crater Lake. We were mightily tempted by the Oregon Caves just on the other side of the border, but it was getting late, so we stopped for the night in Medford, Oregon.

I checked the road conditions for Crater Lake, and they didn’t look great. The main route to the crater was open, but the drive around the crater’s rim was still closed. Snowplows were still removing the 31 feet of snow that piled up over the winter.

So we held a family council, and decided to head north on I-5, straight to Portland. From there we’d go to Mt. St. Helens, then tour the Columbia River Gorge. Then we’d circle back down to Crater Lake on the off chance the rim drive would be open. Such are the hazards of going to the Cascades in June.

I thought the drive up I-5 would be dull in a sort of I-94-oh-God-we’re-not-even-to-Kalamazoo-yet sort of way. But it was way fun. My repeated attempts to recognize Klamath geology were a dismal failure, but soon we were in the Willamette Valley anyway. At Eugene, we stopped by the Cascades Raptor Center, a nonprofit nature center and wildlife hospital specializing in birds of prey. We visited a couple dozen huge birds, unable to return to the wild due to injuries or birth defects.

It was a little pricey -- $18 for the three of us – but it was for such a good cause I didn’t mind. We never would have found the place, though, if it hadn’t been for our Greta Garmin, who directed us off I-5 and through a residential area and past some sheep and into a forest. We couldn’t help but think of those drivers who blindly follow their GPS into reservoirs and wondered if we’d end up in Montana before we had the wit to turn around.

Well, the place was worth every penny, especially for Benny, who loves big birds with talons. Many of them suffered eye or wing injuries, two physical attributes that raptors especially rely on. We saw a bald eagle from Alaska, some really loud kestrels, an absolutely huge gyrfalcon, a beautiful Hedwig snowy owl and a spooky Great Horned Owl who swiveled his head to watch Benny. Seriously, it was unnerving how it tracked the boy as Benny hopped from cage to cage.  We arrived right at feeding time, too, with volunteers moving between cages like carhops, carrying trays of dead mice. Benny spent some of his money on a big stuffed eagle he named Baldy.

The Loch Ness Monster at the Oregon Garden.

We spent the night just north of Salem near the Oregon Gardens, a spectacular 80-acre botanical garden.  It was warm and sunny the next morning, and Ron and I followed Benny as he scooted up paths and over bridges and around fountains. Benny actually knows the most about gardens in the family, since he’s spent a couple years in Grattan’s garden program. There were giant roses – you could choke on the scent – as well as a pet garden, a 400-year-old oak tree and shrubs shaped like bears. We had lunch at the garden before heading to Portland.

A black petunia at the Oregon Garden.

Beaches and Blueschist

Ron relaxing on the beach.

Ah, a summer day at the beach.  The perfect start to a vacation.

Sunday, May 27, was gorgeous, even at 8 a.m. in San Francisco, but we didn’t notice because we were too busy trying to load the Honda Fit without waking the entire building. Benny and I shuttled bags of all sorts — duffle bags, grocery bags, sleeping bags, tote bags — down the staircase.

The reason we had so many bags with that we hoped to camp on this two-week trip. How could a family drive north through California, Oregon and Washington State and not camp? Well, we could, actually, but we still had hopes even though we were short one sleeping bag and our tent was still in its unopened box. Yeah, I know.

Finally, we piled into the Fit at 8:09 a.m. and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. We don’t usually start our vacations this early – we always plan to and never do. But we had a strict deadline: Today was the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th Anniversary, and we needed to get out of town before roads started closing at 9 a.m. for the festivities.

 The Fit was stuffed to the rafters: Benny brought three stuffed animals and set them up so they could get a good view of the coast. We planned to drive up Highway 1, along the Pacific cliffs, until 1 ended north of Fort Bragg. We stopped at a gas station before climbing into the Marin headlands, but Ron was so outraged that the Arco would only accept cash or debit cards that he refused to use it.

So we looped through the Coast Range, Benny and I munching crackers to keep from getting carsick, and before long we realized that Ron’s principles could leave us stranded somewhere along Tomales Bay. To keep my mind off the gas gauge I pointed out the long, skinny bay that followed the San Andreas fault and told Benny how the ocean floor on our left was moving north and the land on the right was moving south.

My suggestion to take a detour to Inverness didn’t help the situation. Our Garmin GPS navigator (we called her Greta Garmin, or Greta) claimed there was a gas station there, but that turned out to be a Highland legend. The car was silent as we picked our way back to 1. And just as things were getting really nervewracking, we found a little  gas station at Point Reyes Station. Of course, it was an Arco, and yes, it accepted only cash or debit, and yes, it was 20 cents more a gallon than the first station, and yes, we have all learned a valuable lesson — shall we move on?

Benny at Sonoma Coast State Beach.

We stopped at Sonoma Coast State Beach, just south of Jenner, for lunch, where we joined a long line of cars (it was Memorial Day weekend, after all) to enter. Benny and I played catch on the beach, while Ron watched, swathed in his heavy Giants coat. 

Benny and the blueschist

We stopped again at Shell Beach, where my Roadside Geology book promised blueschist. Blueschist is a rare metamorphic rock that's created when sedimentary rocks get stuffed into an ocean trench. Here's Benny with some blueschist — at least I think it's blueschist — it's blue, anyway, and that's good enough for me.

That’s always how it is with me and geology – I’m extremely interested in rocks, but I have no natural feel for them, so it’s hard for me to identify anything that isn’t painfully obvious. So I try to confine myself to the simple stuff: if it’s thin, red folds, it’s probably ribbon chert; if it’s black and globby, it’s probably pillow basalt; and if it’s a big blue rock, it might just be blueschist. Benny patiently sat on top of some blue rocks for me, but his favorite part hopping through a huge mud puddle that blocked the path down to the beach.

Where's Benny?

Around 3 p.m., I noticed in my guidebook a KOA campsite just north of Point Arena. It sounded like kid heaven, so we nabbed a tiny cabin — one room, with a bunkbed and big bed and and a porch swing and picnic table outside. The whole place was like a 1950s time warp. We grilled hot dogs in the camp kitchen and then Benny and I rode rental bikes around the campsite. Then we went to the ice cream social and sat by the campfire with our cones while some campers fired up the karaoke, starting with Bon Jovi:

“Tommy used to work on the docks
Union's been on strike,
he's down on his luck
It's tough, so tough …”

Benny loved it, singing along with the chorus …

“Whooah, we’re halfway there
Maybe I’m a bear!”

At that point, we had to leave, Ron and I were laughing so hard. It was bedtime anyway, for we hoped to see the redwoods the next day.

Stop Reinforcing My Bad Message

Benny was getting a little restless in church this morning, so Ron got out a slip of paper and pencil and started making a baseball scorecard. I gave him a Look, and Ron reluctantly put it away. Afterwards we had this whispered discussion:

Me: I think we should have a new rule -- no baseball in church.

Ron: Why not?

Me: Because it sends the message that church is boring and Benny should get entertainment.

Ron: Well, I'll have you know that Benny told me he'd heard church was boring, but that he didn't think so.

Me (outraged): Who told him church was boring?

Ron: He said you did.

Legoland

Thursday dawned overcast and gloomy and threatened rain as we emerged from the hotel parking structure. Legoland appears to be part of a larger complex, an office park on steroids, and while the avenue to the park was nearly deserted at 9 a.m. on a March weekday, I couldn’t help but wonder how the other companies liked sharing their slice of Carlsbad with thousands of rabid Lego fans. On any given summer weekend day, you're likely to see as many as 10,000 people enjoying the 128-acre park, according to California Weekend Getaways.




Benny in the Legoland parking lot

I hoped the rain would scare off most of them. I handed over the “2 for 1” coupon we’d won at a Dinosaur Preschool auction, and the ticket lady included a small card with a little rain cloud on it, warning that Legoland gave out no rainchecks, refunds or compensation due to bad weather.

I made a beeline for hot tea and a toasted bagel while Ron and Benny boarded a little water cruise. Benny liked it so much, and the line was so short, that I accompanied him on a second trip. We floated past dinosaurs, animals and national monuments like Mt. Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge, all made out of Legos.

















The clouds were still glooming over us, but Benny was in heaven, just tall enough to go on rides by himself, but young enough to like climbing on play structures and riding on plastic horses. The park was obviously designed for 10 times the crowd, so we easily hopped from ride to ride and Benny rode all his favorite rides twice.













































We made our way to Pirate Shores, which was mostly water rides, and lo, the clouds parted and the sun beamed down, allowing us to try out the water rides. I liked the play structure with a giant swinging bucket on top; when the bucket filled up, it dumped water all over the kids, to much screaming. Then, the minute we finished with the water rides and headed for the Pirate Shores exit, the clouds closed in again.




Ron at Pirate Shores, in a spirited naval battle. Note how blue the sky is in this picture, while gray in the others.









The only long line was for little two-person train engines on a track high above the ground, but the line curved around a play area where kids could build Legos while they waited. Behind us was a mother with a toddler who was showing his displeasure at the wait in a way that only a toddler can do. The mother must have a degree in Early Childhood or something, because she handled the whining and moaning with amazing aplomb. At one point she said to her son, in a calm and cheery voice as she pointed to the paved ground: “Would you like to pick a clean spot where you can have a fit?”







Benny and a sleeping Lego knight
















The highlight of the day for me, however, were the insanely detailed Lego models of New York City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other cities. The three of us stood agog in front of a mini-San Francisco, complete with the TransAmerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, cable cars, Lombard Street, Fisherman’s Wharf, Victorian homes, Chinatown and the waterfront, right down to little Lego sea lions sunning themselves on Pier 39 and the wormlike Vaillancourt Fountain.

If nothing else, Legoland proved that you can make a model of anything out of Legos: Benny and I wanted to go straight home and try to make a Lego volcano, a Lego Callisto or maybe just a Lego bowl of cereal.

All in all, a successful vacation and a quick retreat from reality. Our landlord found the termite nest in the basement – just a small one, they said – and destroyed it, so we won’t have to move. And with the Honda Fit getting an average 35 miles per gallon on this trip, I’m starting to plan our summer vacation: a two-week road trip in the Pacific Northwest.

California Coast: Morro Bay to Santa Barbara

Ron, Benny and I at Santa Barbara's Old Mission











As we neared Santa Barbara around 7 p.m., I switched on our Garmin navigation system again. My guidebook listed only one Santa Barbara hotel in the cheapskate section, called the Franciscan Inn, so I gave the address to Greta. She guided us unerringly to a small hotel on a quiet residential street, where I nabbed a two-bedroom suite for the price of a double.

We loved the Franciscan Inn – it must be a madhouse in the summer, so close to the beach, but it was pretty and cozy. Ron and Benny made a beeline for the heated pool the next morning, where they met a lady from Portland, Ore., and her 6-year-old son, Evan. Ron, Benny and Evan splashed in the pool while the mother described her son’s difficulties in kindergarten and I told her a few hair-raising stories about San Francisco’s public school lottery system.

By now it was obvious we weren’t going to make it to Legoland until Thursday, but that gave us a whole day to see the mission in Santa Barbara and slog our way through L.A. traffic. Santa Barbara’s mission was gorgeous: we walked through the grounds and chapel, marveling at the landscaping and artwork and reading the tombstones.



In the gardens at Santa Barbara's Old Mission








































Then it was time to face L.A., and Greta came into her own again, keeping us on a straight course through the maze of freeways until we emerged on the east side at San Clemente, which prompted many unnecessary Nixon impersonations. Benny was asleep again, so he couldn’t ask “Who’s Nixon?” and Ron was deprived of the chance to describe Watergate in loving detail.

He was awake as we neared Carlsbad, late and crabby and hungry. Benny craned his neck to look at every freeway exit, asking “are we stopping here? What about here? Are we staying there?” We stopped at two Carlsbad hotels – both full, then got on I-5 again and found a dumpy Holiday Inn Express with a closed door and empty desk. I left the car to find a sign on the door that said: “Clerk away from desk. Do not pull on door, it is locked.” I pulled on the door anyway, then returned to the car to consult Greta, and watch through the front windshield as various people approached the entrance and pulled irritably at the door.

Greta’s lodging suggestions did not sound appealing, so Ron pulled out his iPhone. In seconds he had found the Carlsbad Beach Resort, which had just had a cancellation and could offer two nights at a cheapo rate with a queen bed and room for a roll-away. We checked in and then walked to a Mexican restaurant, where we had tacos on the outside patio lit by strings of lights and tiny bonfires between the tables. Benny brought his baggie of green plastic army men and set up his snipers and arranged his bagpipers, executing high-level military strategy between the water glasses until it became too dark to see.

We went to bed early that night, for the next day: Legoland!

California Coast: San Francisco to Big Sur

Well, the capricious gods who rained termites and unauthorized credit card charges down upon us in mid-March apparently felt we deserved better, for they sent us a wonderful vacation in Southern California.

The plan was to leave at 8 a.m. Monday morning, but I felt moved to clean the whole apartment for the termite people, the building manager and the cat lady, so we didn’t back the Honda Fit out of the garage until noon. As usual, I packed too much: too many clothes, too many beach toys, too many books. The plan was to meander down the coast along Highway 1 South to Los Angeles, where we’d pick up Interstate 5 South to Carlsbad, named after the Czech spa town Karlovy Vary and home of Legoland.

To support us in this quest, we had our Garmin GPS navigator, which I named Greta. Greta was no help in the first day because she hates secondary roads, so we had to trick her by plugging in Pacifica and then Santa Cruz to keep her on Highway 1. Even then she tried to sneak us over to 101 or I-5, insistently demanding we turn off at 152 or 46 until I turned her off. Benny sat in the back and acted out complicated scenarios with a road atlas, two stuffed leopards and a sheep. The weather stayed clear and bright as we twisted and turned through Santa Cruz, Monterey and Carmel. Benny fell asleep and I kept sticking my head out the window to get a better look at the dramatic Big Sur coast, which is mostly state park.

We stayed the night in a cottage-like room at Big Sur Lodge and paid an astonishing amount of money for dinner, served next to its enormous fireplace and carved wooden pelican. The next morning we hiked around Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park, and as we headed back to the Lodge, I saw a boy hiking in the opposite direction say “Hi, Benny!” It was Evan, a third-grader from Benny’s Lucky Elementary in San Francisco.


Benny and I at Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park

Benny also bought another stuffed animal to join Leopard, Leppy and Sheepy: Dragony, who is – you guessed – it a dragon. (Benny was never big on imaginative names except for a stuffed horse a Business Times colleague gave him, named Deadline.) Dragony quickly fell in line with the rest of the pack, and Benny spent the day teaching them all about state capitals from the road atlas.

We left Highway 1 south of Big Sur to follow a poorly marked little road to Pfieffer Beach, which my 2010 California guidebook swore was free. (We didn’t consult Greta on this, knowing she would be appalled.) After about two miles, we crossed a large stream flowing across the road and pulled up to a big wooden tollbooth. The National Forestry Service had apparently moved in since 2010, and now wanted an entrance fee. Actually, I didn’t mind after all I’ve read about laid-off forest rangers.

After fording rivers in our Honda Fit and paying $5 to get there, I expected a lot from Pfieffer Beach. Well, it was worth it. The beach has purple sand (a result of manganese garnet particles washing down the hillside) and massive sandstone arches carved by the pounding waves. It was definitely a northern California beach, with giant rocks, high winds and icy-cold water. Benny ran around shouting, thrilled to be liberated from the car, Ron running after him snapping pictures.





Pfeiffer Beach


Finally, chilled through, I left them there and went back to the car, where sat and listened to a World War II podcast (“The Battle of Britain”) and watched a lady haul a large cooler out of her SUV and repack it three times.

Back on Highway 1, Ron and I had a “refreshing little discussion” about whether to stop at Hearst Castle or Pinnacles National Monument, but decided to push on. We drove along Morro Bay (distinguished by that huge rock jutting out of the harbor and its equally huge electrical plant) and steered away from the coast to cross another set of ridges. Finally we emerged into flatter, sandier lands, driving through Pismo Beach and heading due south to Guadalupe.

We resisted visiting Guadalupe’s sand dunes, described by my guidebook as “the biodiverse, coastal dune-lagoon ecosystem on the planet,” thus proving that any place can sound remarkable if you stick enough adjectives in front of it. After all, Ron and I happen to be in possession of “the largest carpeted feline resting system hosting a single Maine Coon-descended female with a moon-inspired name on the planet.” What does the previous sentence describe? Callisto’s kitty condo in our living room.

This is, of course, no reflection on the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Preserve, and I would have loved to learn more, but the interpretive center is only open Thursday-Sunday from 10 to 4, so we missed our chance to see “one of the best examples of coastal dune scrub in the country.”

Instead, we skirted Vandenberg Airforce Base, which was conducted complicated military maneuvers involving a swarm of helicopters. A delighted Benny strained against his seat belt, trying to track all the helicopters rising and landing around us.

Then we found the coast again and turned up in Santa Barbara. We had truly arrived in Southern California.

Pick Your Problems

Well, the honeymoon's over.

I've been drifting along in my dreamy idyll, working 9-10 hours in the newsroom on Tuesday and Wednesday, and puttering at home the other three days. I've been sleeping better and eating better and enjoying in-depth conversations about Benny's Squirrel Wars while walking him to school.

Ah, but obviously I was tempting the gods, or perhaps nature, which abhors a vacuum. So last weekend a swarm of subterranean termites, driven out of their nest underground by the rain and their own base desires, started coming out of the ceiling lamp. Ron and I beat them back with a vacuum cleaner and a roll of packing tape, and we haven't seen them in a over a week. On Monday the landlords (who I must admit have been very responsive and helpful about this) are sending their structural guy on his third or fourth visit, this time with maintenance guys, and they will do a final treatment.

But the whole thing was enough to freak me out, and on Monday I launched an apartment hunt, with two apartment viewings on Tuesday and two on Thursday. I stayed home from work on Tuesday to meet the landlord's structural guy for the first time.

But then, just to make a party of it, on Tuesday I discovered that my credit card information had been stolen. There I was, sitting at the dining room table (which had been moved away from the Buggy Lamp and now was pushed in front of the sofa) staring at two online purchases from DSW I didn't make. Now I love DSW as much as the next woman, but I'd successfully resisted the temptation to snap up a half-dozen pairs of sandals to celebrate Daylight Savings Time and I resented someone doing it for me.

So there I was, facing bug infestation and credit theft -- all I needed was a nice earthquake to finish me off. You know you're having a bad Tuesday when it's a toss-up whether the exterminator or the cop will show up at the apartment first. The cop arrived around 3 (the landlord's termite guy wouldn't be able to come until Wednesday) and took information on the credit card theft for a police report. Our credit union said it didn't need one to fix the unauthorized charges, but I wasn't taking any chances. I'd heard enough bank horror stories -- what's to stop them from saying, "Oh, we only waive the police report on Mondays and Wednesdays and only if you have at least $20,000 in total balances ..." Even credit unions can develop banklike qualities when under strain.

Anyway, so I spent Tuesday on the phone, clicking and calling and pressing pound and sitting on hold and giving the last four digits of my SSN, or Ron's SSN or Callisto's SSN or Benny's maiden name or whatever. I put security alerts on our credit reports and changed the credit card number on our iTunes and Netflix and other sites after looking up all their myriad passwords.

By Thursday night I was collapsed on the sofa, feeling cranky, stressed, overwhelmed and anxious. Sounds familiar, no? Benny was neglected, Ron and I were bickering. Remember those days? Well, they were back again. Only now it was my personal life tying me in knots, not my work life. I didn't think this was much progress.

But then I thought: Hey, pick your poison — assembling judging books or fighting critters? Making groveling phone calls for award nominations or battling identity theft? Looking for lawyers or looking for apartments? All said and done, I think I'd rather face my current problems than manage one more Green Business or Real Deals, or Corporate Counsel or Chief Idiot Officer Awards.

I mean, this week's problems are real-life issues. These are problems people can understand. When I cry: "I had to cold-call 100 companies and beg them to nominate their in-house counsel for the diversity category!" the honest response would likely be "What the Fuck?" I cry "I had to call DSW Shoes and tell them I didn't buy gift cards for someone in Loveland, Colo.!" people understand.

People know what a credit report is; they don't know what a nomination spreadsheet is. People know what a bug is; they don't know what a Community Champion is. I was pretty mad this week, but at least I did't feel like a total loser stressing out over the number of solar panel companies in my FileMaker Pro document.

So maybe this was progress after all.

Escaping the Hive

For the last year I’ve looked like your typical newspaper worker bee ... but I’ve been plotting and scheming.

Actually, those who know me well know I’m always plotting and scheming. But my goal in 2011 was quite simple: to leave my newspaper editing job. The deadline was Nov. 28.

My plan was to write freelance articles, get more involved in Benny’s school, pursue my own writing projects and generally make life better for the whole family. To make this possible, Ron and I spent 2011 paying off debt and adding to our savings. I worked a ton of extra hours through a colleague’s maternity leave, which helped. An inheritance from Ron’s father helped took care of the debt and we’ve been socking away every dime we could.

Then in November we decided to extend my departure date to Feb. 3, so I could do one more completely ridiculous work project and we could save a little more. My newspaper asked me to work two days a week until they found a replacement for me and I’m happy to do so.

So we did it! After Feb. 3, I’ve been working two days a week. It sure felt like a long road, though. I kept a little diary to keep my spirits up, counting down the days, tracking our financial progress, drawing up complicated schedules for my time after Feb. 3.

The schedules, alas, went right out the window. But I have accomplished a lot: In the first three weeks I wrote a play, started a short story, cleaned out the closets, rearranged furniture, chaperoned a Benny field trip and hosted a playdate. I spent most of one Friday cleaning out my papers, which took forever. I was shredding bills from 2010, with even a little 2009 mixed in. It's very cathartic, shredding bills from now-closed credit cards and other nasty baggage. Ron, meanwhile, found it easier to work out regularly and focus on his own job.

Monday, Feb. 6, was the first day of my new schedule and it did go mostly as I had imagined. I slept through my alarm and woke up at 7. Ron had already left the house. I put on my workout clothes and walked Benny to school.

Perhaps I was a little too relaxed; we were so involved in talking about the “Wicked” musical “Cupcake Wars” episode I’d watched the night before that he ended up tardy and we had to stop by the office to get a slip. Ooops. Then I came home and watched news channels and cleaned the apartment. Then I went to the grocery store and dry cleaner. Then I taught myself Scrivener for the fourth time (since every time I master the damn software, I end up not touching it for weeks and have to learn it all over again). Then I worked on a new idea for a short play until it was time to pick Benny up.

It wasn't the most organized day off, but it was fun.

'Knock It Out. Duck.'

"You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. You know what to listen for. ... There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck."

— Annie Dillard




How many families can do that in their financial lives? Today's families are often starved for time and energy and buried under mental, emotional, physical — and yes — financial clutter. Bank accounts, investments, policies, subscriptions and credit cards surround them, looking so vital and stable and necessary. But are they? Who has the time to tap on all those financial walls to see which ones are safe and useful, and which are dangerous? And once you identify those cracked beams, who has the time and energy to clear them out?

I'm thinking of this because Ron stuck around the house this morning to untangle some financial snarls. Nothing big, we wanted to cancel a credit card, adjust our 401(k) contribution, close a credit union account and cancel an old life insurance policy. All of these were in Ron's name, so I couldn't do it. None of these were big, but to accomplish them he had to take the whole morning off.

Not all families have this luxury, so is it any wonder that such things are often neglected? If Ron hadn't taken the morning off, nothing big would have happened. No nasty letters or credit dings. We just would have had an inadequate 401(k) plan, an unneeded credit card, a neglected credit union account in Michigan and a tiny, unnecessary policy quietly feeding on $22 a month.

But I've been on a crusade over the last few years to clean up our finances. We've paid off our credit cards, switched to a local credit union, streamlined our bill paying, paid off a personal loan and more. At one point we had money in two banks and two credit unions. Now once we're free of the Michigan credit union, we'll bank only at a credit union here in San Francisco.

Ron completed his tasks and then managed to conduct a conference call with some biotech executives before heading out to City Hall in pursuit of another story. Which left me thinking again how tough it is for many families to clear their financial clutter.

After all, most ordinary people don’t make financial decisions in logical order, coached at every step by accountants and tax planners. We make such decisions haphazardly as problems, transitions and opportunities arise, without any clear plan. People's financial lives are cluttered with old credit cards, bank accounts and insurance policies acquired piecemeal over decades. If a family slides into debt, they take riskier steps just to keep their heads above water, with disastrous results.

But even if a family vows to clean out their financial house, it’s not easy. Financial relationships are so easy to fall into: you click a button or sign a form or mail a postcard to open a card, an account, a policy, a subscription. But getting out – ah, therein lies the rub. Those companies don’t make it easy to leave. Canceling anything often requires repeated phone calls, long hold times, special forms by mail, long conversations with customer retention people begging you to stay. Sometimes you go through all this and the company still doesn’t do it, then sends you to collections for not paying more money.

I think four main factors keep families from ruthlessly stripping down their financial lives and living lighter and healthier:

1. Apathy. Modern life is more hectic and complicated then ever, and a small $5 monthly charge for loan protection that you don’t remember signing up for is easy to miss. If something isn’t annoying you, why fix it? The retirement account, the magazine subscriptions, the insurance policies you set up 10 years ago might not be good for you know, but why rock the boat?

2. Fear. People often feel insecure about their financial judgment. They don’t want to think about this stuff. They’re afraid of messing up. It’s all so complicated! Plus, they keep getting all this conflicting information. A person might hold three credit cards he never uses, each one sending blank checks in the mail every month, but he's nervous about canceling the cards because it might hurt his credit score. No, he's not buying a house or car anytime soon, and yes, those cards leave him open to identity theft, but logic doesn’t matter here. Anyway, what if his family needs those cards someday? What if a $10,000-$20,000 line of credit isn’t enough? Let me tell you from experience. Having more than $20K in available unsecured credit is a recipe for disaster. It guarantees that a sudden financial crisis (a job loss, a hospital bill, an unsold home) will haunt you forever in finance charges at 17 percent APR. And if you make one little mistake, one tiny little error, up it goes to 29.99 percent.

3. Frustration. Even if you find a bank mistake or previously unnoticed monthly debit , fixing it means calling a company up, sitting on hold, explaining the problem. A person might carry an envelope containing the info needed to cancel the protection around for months before calling – if he remembers to call at all. Meanwhile, that charge sucks money every month. Since it’s so painful to change, fix or cancel anything with financial companies, is it any wonder that families just eat the costs?

4. Just plain feeling bad. Personal finance often requires a businesslike approach, but it feels so personal, for obvious reasons. Finally seeing a sneaky monthly debit makes you feel stupid you didn’t notice it before. Calling up the company makes you feel stupid, and usually they’re trying to make you feel in the wrong – you don’t want to get rid of this charge, or you should have done that to avoid that charge, or this is the incredibly convoluted justification for the charge ... you understand, don’t you?

Aaargh! And never mind about canceling an account. When I do this, some part of me is transported back 20 years, telling some guy I don’t want to see him anymore. “Why?” they ask. “Let’s talk this out.” And here’s that nice credit card company saying “I’ll change, I’ll lower my APR, I’ll give you more rewards,” or “How will you do without me?” or, more ominously, “You don’t want to do this. If you leave me, I’ll trash your good name and you’ll lose 100 points off your credit score.”

So for someone to clean up their finances, they’ll often have to fight apathy, fear, frustration and bad feelings every single time. Companies know this, and they’ll play on all these feelings to get what they want.

This is tough for people of all ages, but I’m thinking mostly of families because, well, I have a family and know the challenges. Parents are living busy lives, they have children keeping their emotions in constant flux, they spend so much time trying to Do the Right Thing, and that guilt trigger is never far away.

I recently read a blog by a mother torturing herself because, while she was frantically working to prepare her family for a trip one day — with a to-do list a yard long — her 9-year-old daughter wanted to give her a hug. “I brushed her off. I said I didn’t have time to cuddle right now,” the mother confessed. The girl was upset, “You don’t want to hug me?” she asked. Immediately the mother broke down, confessed to the girl that Mommy made a bad choice, but knew forever that the child would be a broken shadow of her former self.

Mind you, this mother didn’t smack the kid or shout “Get the hell away from me!” She just made it clear she couldn’t stop right now. How in God’s name is this little girl going to learn to think of other people’s feelings and understand that if Mommy doesn’t have time to cuddle right now, it’s nothing personal? And how — how — how in God’s name is this mother going to call up Bank of America and take the polite but firm tone necessary to get that unwarranted $50 fee erased?

She probably won’t. She’ll carry around the little Bank of America envelope in her purse for months until she “accidentally” throws it out. A $50 fee isn’t enough to start her on the long, involved process of getting it erased, not to mention the traumatic job of changing banks, painfully teasing out every tiny string that ties this bank to the rest of her life.

Companies know this and they’ll keep trying to play us.

Just like that blogger’s little girl was probably playing her.

Benny's 8th Birthday Party

Here are some pictures from Benny's 8th birthday party -- only a month late! He had his friends Noe and Fritz over for cake and ice cream and they went to the Randall Museum, which is this awesome natural history museum only a few blocks away.

He's still rocking the whole football thing, so he and his friends dressed in jerseys and helmets and he got a football cake too. (Benny was my expert consultant on this cake and carefully placed the candles so they were players with the football between them.)

White King's Pawn

I just finished writing my first new play since I left Michigan in 2007. The need to write another play must have been growing in me for some time, since it took only a few days into my new, reduced work schedule to churn it out.

I've been working on the play for some time, organizing and preparing my thoughts, writing outlines, setting up a Scrivener template for it. Then today I sat down and started a new Scrivener document and just started writing it. Four hours later — with only a short break — I finished it. It's 17 pages long.

I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's worth working further on. I don't know if it will ever be worth submitting. But it's been growing in me since December and it just burst out somehow.

It's a play about a chess game, called "White Queen's Pawn." I got the idea when I started taking chess up again in December. I bought a book at a used bookstore called "Chess Basics" and started working through the lessons on Benny's new chessboard. Then I bought another book called "Great Short Games of the Chess Masters" and started working through those.

I am definitely not a natural at chess. Most of the time I don't understand the games I'm acting out. But there's something satisfying about re-enacting a chess game played in Ostend in 1906 or Vienna in 1872 or Riga in 1937.

I was particularly struck by the second game in the book, which introduced a game played in Kaschau in 1893. In this game, the White King's Pawn advanced across the entire chessboard and was a key actor in the amazing finish. The game was so dramatic I played it several times, then showed it to Benny, who nodded politely and went back to his Madden Playstation game.

I couldn't stop thinking about the game, however, and found myself wondering what it would be like to see this game from the little pawn's point of view, the same little pawn who miraculously made it across the board through so many perils and was present at the dramatic finish. I played the game once more and took notes as if I were the pawn: who I was threatening, who was threatening me, what pieces were around me, who was protecting me, who I was protecting.

But it wasn't until I sat down today that I felt ready to actually do it. I approached the script in a very systematic way, letting the natural drama of the game be my plot. Suddenly the characters appeared: the brave little pawn, the brooding king, the sweet queen, the pious bishop and glory-seeking knight, the cunning enemy pawns. The little pawn was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, advancing bravely into the dark forest following her own brick road to fulfill her wish. I tried to create a narrative trajectory that began a naive little pawn starting her first game and ending ... well ending in a very different place.

I don't know what I'm trying to say with this play -- I've put it away and I can't bear to look at it right now -- but I think the script talks about courage and persistence and ultimately, forgiveness. The Bishop, who started out as a smug strawman for the other pieces to make fun of, turned out to be a vital figure, providing some moral heft to the play.

Perhaps, in the end, this play was about choice: both the chess players and the pieces. For in this play, the chess pieces can influence the game, there's a special, invisible connection between the player and the pieces. A piece can force the player to move impulsively before the player has a chance to think it through, or it can refuse to move, forcing the player to change his or her mind and find another way, possibly to the ruin of all.

For each step the Pawn takes, she must decide to take it. Sometimes she moves from a dangerous square to a protected one. But sometimes she must leave a protected square and forge ahead all alone. At one point she moves from a safe square to a very dangerous one, but she chooses to do it for the good of her comrades, to find that the square was safe after all.

Pawns, by their very definition, are not supposed to have a choice. Their purpose is to be used and sacrificed. But in my play, the pawn has turned the tables and her choices determined the fate of the game.

Benny's birthday

On Benny's birthday, I delivered 23 animal cupcakes to Benny's classroom yesterday. (I ate the reject 24th cupcake on the way.)

Figure Skating Championships

I took Benny to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships last night in San Jose. His comment: "Mommy, this is a lot better than I thought it would be!" Here are some blurry photos (those skaters move fast).

Rose Parade: "Just Imagine a Better Theme"

Sometimes I get these ideas, and there's no way of knowing how they'll turn out. Fortunately my family is very tolerant and falls in with many of my crazy schemes. Last November I was walking home from work, trying to think of a little trip we could take over the New Year. Someplace warm, someplace new, someplace Benny would like ...

Our coworkers often talk of Tahoe and Hawaii and Disneyland and Legoland and Napa wine-tasting, but I was thinking of something a little more ... Midwest.

Then, 10 feet from our apartment building, it hit me: The Rose Bowl Parade! That would be SO COOL!

On nearly every New Year's morning in my entire life, I've switched the TV to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, most recently over the protests of Ron and Benny. I decided 2012 was the year we would go.

But at 4:40 a.m. on Jan. 2, I was having second thoughts. You see, the parade starts at 8 a.m., and the closest hotel I could find was in Palmdale, a bleak, nearly deserted commercial strip an hour's drive away. We left in pitch darkness, padded stadium seats tucked in the trunk of our little Fit.

We ignored Greta, our new GPS Garmin system, who wanted to take us through the twisting Angeles Forest in pitch darkness, and kept to the main highways, entering Pasedena north of the parade route.

Which was a problem, because our reserved parking space and grandstand seats were south of the parade route along Colorado Street. There was no way to cross Colorado, everything was blocked off. So Ron slid the Fit into a miniscule parking spot on a residential street and we trotted off to the nearest checkpoint, Ron carrying a big white bundle holding the stadium seats.

Of course, we were hell and gone from our grandstand, and the white-suited volunteer at the checkpoint wouldn't let us pass. He recommended a circuitous northern route which might allow us to see the parade's final floats. Ron didn't think much of that, so we just moved away, then snuck back when Mr. White Suit's back was turned. A security guy barely glanced at our tickets, searched our bags, waved us through, then shouted: "That's the last one! The parade's starting! This checkpoint is closed!" Ron, Benny and I bolted for Colorado Street, keeping our heads down as Mr. White Suit watched us with disapproval. A stealth bomber flew overhead -- they were on to us.

Now we had to cross the parade route. We infiltrated the lines of cops in camo-print riot gear and came to a halt at the big Main Grandstand as the second float sailed past. "All right, there's a break!" an official said, and we dashed across after the float, skirting the car carrying the Grand Marshal and ducking into a tunnel to Green Street. Then it was a sprint along Green, parallel to the parade route, Benny leading the way, Ron taking rear guard.

But we couldn't get to the grandstand! Hordes of onlookers were packed in front of the fence dividing ticket-holders and the rabble. Ron was ready to watch the parade where we were, but I noticed some people tugging a bit of fence away from the wall, leaving a little gap.

"You think we can get through that?" I asked the saboteurs. Two people slipped through the fence while I hesitated, so I sent Benny through. I shoved my way through the tiny gap, then someone held Ron's stadium seats while he pushed through, popping out like a cork.

Then it was only a matter of going to the wrong grandstand, going to the wrong side of the right grandstand and finally finding our seats. "You haven't missed much," said the nice lady sitting beside me.

We had a great view — the Wisconsin float and band went by. I took a few pictures, then dropped my camera about 20 feet into the weeds below the bandstand. Oh well.

The parade was very exciting to watch in person. The floats were big, the bands were loud and the crowd cheered wildly. One woman was sitting on the edge of the street in a furry Wisconsin Badger hat, and half the Wisconsin band suddenly broke out and circled her, trumpets blaring.

The theme of the parade, as you can tell by the title, was "Just Imagine," and a more vague, amorphous theme would be difficult to find. The best application was by U.S. Bank's "Idea Factory,"which had some mechanical assembly line turning ideas into real-life objects. We missed the Royal Court (which was fine with me), but here's the flagrantly patriotic "Imagine in America" float, the only float picture I shot before I dropped my camera.

















We cheered the Wisconsin and Oregon people, and then came Paramount's Hollywood float with the huge Starship Enterprise on top. (The rest of these pictures and videos were taken with Ron's iPhone.)




Benny loved the tiny ponies pulling costumed people in carts and the China Airline's huge dragon with the smoke puffing out of its nostrils. He also liked the cowboys performing rope tricks on horseback.

After all the horses came sweepers in white jumpsuits, who had to work fast to keep from being run over by a fast-moving float. The City of Alhambra's train float was appropriately named "Bearing Down the Track," because it was gaining threateningly on the Cowgirl's horse sweepers. They barely got out the way.

Ron liked the bands the best. The biggest band came from Texas and seemed miles long.
My favorite favorite band featured these amazing musicians from Kyoto Tachibana High School:




Here are some other floats:













Most people in reserved parking had to clear out right after the parade, but since we'd parked on a residential street, we could hang around. First I hunted down a Sharp Seating employee, and he took me under the grandstand and hunted around the weeds with me until we found my digital camera.

Then Ron, Benny and I had lunch at a cafe and wandered down Colorado Street buying souveniers. One pedestrian walking behind us, obviously from the Midwest, had a little trouble crossing streets. First the lady and her friends wandered vaguely out into the intersection against the light, then when that was prevented by the cars, milled around on the corner. The light turned, and Ron, Benny and I crossed. "Look!" the lady cried. "They're crossing diagonally! You can do that? I've never seen that before!"

We drove back to Palmdale, and Ron and Benny played in the outdoor pool. After dinner, we sat on the bed and watched the parts of the parade we missed. And sure enough, on local station 5, we saw Ron scuttling across the parade route, carrying a big white bundle of stadium seats, behind Bayer's "Garden of Imagination" float. And there I was on the corner for an instant in a pink shirt, holding Benny's hand, before crossing.

Benny said: "I want to go to the Parade every year!" And I'm thinking, the city lets you reserve RV parking spaces along the parade route, so we could rent an RV next year and load it with people and watch the Rose Bowl Parade from our RV. That would be SO COOL!

Skating at the Embarcadero

Ron, Benny, Andy and I went ice skating at the Embarcadero ice rink.

Christmas with Benny

A happy Christmas with two presents, stockings, two leopards and one kitty.

The Balancing Act in America

Feeling a little off-balance lately (have I ever been balanced?), I've been following a new blog called CW that's all about work-life balance.

And Chrysula — neat name — referred me to an intriguing column by NYT's Maureen Dowd, "Blue is the New Black."

But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.

It makes sense to me and generally, this can be traced back to one fact: Women put up with a lot.

A whole lot. They sigh and sign on and somehow feel that whether they actually want to do something is entirely beside the point. They constantly feel obligated, and guilty if they say no. Doing something just because they want to, or not doing something because they don't, is nearly unheard of.

Perhaps it comes down to control of your own life. So many women have utterly ceded control of their own lives to their husbands, kids, bosses and family. If you feel you have power and can make your own decisions, you're happier. If you feel yanked about by powers greater than you, even if you choose to be yanked, then you're not happy.

So maybe it's not so much a shock that men grow happier as they age and women grow less happy. As they get older, many men feel they have more control over their own lives -- their careers offer them more autonomy, they get more respect, they remain attractive. Whereas women get deeper into the childraising trenches, juggling jobs and family, which would be fine -- men are doing it too, after all -- except women don't make themselves a priority.

So women feel less powerful. They're spending their days on stuff that is important to others, not to them. (Experts don't think it's because women do most of the housework, by the way, men are working toward more parity.)

I agree with Dowd that it's because of this:

When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands — and stress — on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties — and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.

Yikes! No wonder we're miserable! Plus we have to look good doing it all too!

The key word here is, of course, judged. Women judge themselves -- hell, I judge myself -- under a powerful microscope. Every imperfection is highlighted. Do men live this way? I don't think so. They approach everything from an entirely different baseline. Let's say a school event comes up. I'd guess the first question an average guy would ask himself is: "Do I want to go?" The first question a woman would ask herself is: "Should I go?" See, totally different approaches here. Now maybe this guy and gal should go to the event, perhaps the end result is the same -- they go. And they go for the same reasons. But see how that first question makes a difference:

GUY: Hmmm, Back to School Night. A chance to see the kid's classroom and meet the teacher. Do I want to do that? Yeah, sort of. Might be interesting. Nothing else going on. (writes it down) Oh wait, there's a game that night. Well, I should go to this thing -- I'll tivo the game.

GAL: Oh, Back to School Night. A chance to see the kid's classroom and meet the teacher. I should really do this. It will be important to Kid, he'd be embarrassed if he was the only student there without a parent. Plus I'll look like a bad mother if I don't go. (writes it down) Oh wait, there's my book club that night. Well, I just don't have a choice, I'll just have to miss it.

So which one is happier about Back to School Night? The Guy, who has determined he wants to go and has made an independent choice to forgo the game because he feels it's important and he should be there? Or the Gal, who is crushed by the weight of Kid's expectations and other people's expectations? Deep down, she wants to go just as much as the Guy, but is it any wonder that she feels less happy about it?

In the end, this is rather abstract, because people don't fit into such tidy categories. And I think there is a very clear reason why I'm more content today than I was two or four years ago -- I feel more in control. I don't have to prove myself to anyone -- to the other parents or to my colleagues. I don't have to prove anymore that I can be a good editor after four years out of the newsroom. I don't have a toddler or preschooler any more. And now that our finances are more on an even keel, I feel less trapped.

So in the end, I think many women are feeling blue because they often feel powerless and trapped. But I also think that, in many cases, those women voluntarily give up their power and trap themselves.