Filed under Facebook …

Mar 21 2012
5 Comments
Elementary School, Facebook, Family, Fashion, Friends, Lemons, Me, Myself and I, My Boys, Our 'Hood, Parenting, Politics, Race

One Million Hoodies

“Have DJ wear his hoodie today,” Scoot whispered as he woke me up to say goodbye this morning.

“Huh?” I replied, still very sleepy.

“It’s the Million Hoodie March today for Trayvon Martin,” he replied.

“Oh, ok. Yeah,” I said.

One more snooze cycle later, I was up and in DJ’s room talking to both boys about getting dressed. “Wear your hoodie today, DJ,” I told him.

“OK. Why?”

And so it began, a weighty conversation to be having with an eight year old at six-something in the morning. I explained to him the story of Trayvon Martin. That he was killed by an adult. That he was Black. That he was wearing a hoodie in a neighborhood where this adult didn’t think he belonged. That it could have been anyone with the wrong colored skin wearing a hoodie that night. I will likely never forget the look on his face when he asked if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. got involved like after Bloody Sunday and I replied, “No, DJ, this didn’t happen back then. This happened just a few weeks ago.”

Just a couple weeks ago, as we pulled out of the parking lot following DJ’s baseball game onto a street in our somewhat diverse suburb, I did a double-take at the green truck ahead of us. “What the f**k?” I said in disbelief to Scoot as I flipped to the camera on my phone. The entire back of the truck was covered with racist, derogatory bumper stickers exactly like the ones you’ve seen reposted on Facebook. (No, that’s not my picture. Frankly, the one I took was even worse.) This didn’t happen in the Deep South. It happened in liberal California. In 2012.

Just a few years ago, Scoot and I were shopping at a mall. A display just before the entrance to a high-end department store caught my eye and I slowed. Not seeing me, Scoot walked into the men’s section of the department store, far enough ahead that no one could know that we were together. As I walked in behind him, I noticed a salesman tailing him. I watched as he, a twenty-something father stopping by the store to check out shirts and ties for his white collar job, was followed suspiciously.

Just a score ago, Black friends and schoolmates who lived in the same uber-liberal town that I grew up in were followed home from school by White administrators who were suspicious of their residency. They couldn’t fathom that these Black kids’ parents could possibly afford a home in this well-off city. In their mind, those kids must live on the other side of the creek, not in our district.

Sometimes it’s hard to do more than shake my head at these occasionally subtle, often overt expressions of suspicion based solely on the color of someone’s skin and the sense they don’t belong. I’ve been amazed by the conversations I’ve had and heard with and between other White people who won’t or don’t believe that these things take place. Still. Today. It confuses me why they walk around in ignorance or defiance, unable or unwilling to raise their voices, even in the safe confines of conversations with people who look like them, and say, “Yeah, I noticed that. It’s messed up.” And when I raise my voice, I get frustrated when other White parents act like I’m some hypersensitive wing-nut for talking to my children about such things, “forcing them to grow up too fast” rather than “protecting their innocence.”

There are seventeen year old kids out there, my nephews (who are Black) included, who walk around with hoodies on. They deserve to have their innocence protected too.

There is much that can and has been said about this atrocity. There will be much more said, I’m sure. Having my kids wear hoodies today won’t change anything. But talking to them about it, being honest with them about the world they live in, teaching them what’s right, and empowering them to do something, anything to keep this kind of tragedy from happening again? Not just today but everyday? Some day, that just might.

Feb 29 2012
1 Comment
Blogging, Facebook, Family, Lemons, Me, Myself and I, My Boys, Parenting

Happy Delete Your Google Web Search History Day!!! (Oh, and Happy Leap Year)

I’m a horribly complacent (and pessimistic) web user. Despite Path doing shady stuff with my iPhone contacts, I downloaded their update and kept on using them. I willingly pin on Pinterest (though to be fair, I have a strong bias against repinning others’ pins if they don’t link to original content). I’ve never threatened to quit Facebook. When Google first announced changes to their privacy policy that would allow them to do something likely sinister with the unthinkable amounts of data they have about me, I hit “Dismiss.” I started seeing posts on Facebook about how to delete your Google web search history. I ignored them. As this week began, they were posted with increased frequency and increased urgency. Oh yeah. That. Maybe I should take a look. And so, yesterday I decided to give it a shot and see what all the brou-ha-ha was about.

The first two pages weren’t all that interesting. I am constantly logged into Google and use it frequently for work. My search history would bore pretty much anyone. So I clicked the little button that said, “Earliest.”

This is what I found:

February 10, 2006. My first Google search (while logged in). I searched for baby names. February 10, 2006. B-Bop was born almost nine months later. This? Was the week I found out I was pregnant with Bop. Maybe even the day. And I turned to Google to ask what I should name him.

That? Is kind of a big deal. At least to me it is. There was one other person in the whole wide world who knew I was pregnant and that was Scoot. (Cat’s out the bag for the rest of y’all now.)

And that’s the thing about privacy. I want to control who I tell what to and when. And I want to “have my cake and eat it too” by being able to use the genius inventions of others to explore and learn and probe and express without having to abdicate my rights to that kind (and other kinds) of privacy. I want it to not be too much to ask.

Google, I love you. I’ve been hanging out with you for a long time. But, please, please, I’m begging you…don’t mess this up. Understand, I’m willing to give you little pieces of information about me so you can sustain your business model. In fact, I frequently click on advertisers’ sponsored links to make you money (even when their links are the first to show up in search) in some form of backwards spite.

But, Google, you were the second person (ok, I know you’re not a person but whatever, you know what I’m saying) that I told I was pregnant. I Googled my way through that pregnancy, through my subsequent job search, through my move across the country and house search, through my miscarriage and doubts and depression and worries and absolute freakouts, through raising my kids and asking if they’re “normal,” through finding soccer leagues and dance studios and places to vacation. Google, I (stupidly? blindly? but willingly) trust you a whole lot. Please, please don’t let me down.

Oct 16 2011
1 Comment
Elementary School, Facebook, Family, Just for Fun, Lemons, Me, Myself and I, My Boys, Our 'Hood, Parenting, Sports

There Is No “I” in Fan

I can’t stand fickle sports fans. Ironically, I frequently have one in DJ. He doesn’t mean to be one, he just doesn’t know any better. He feels emotionally drawn to many geographies so I was super proud of his response when, on the way to the Sacramento Mountain Lions v. Virginia Destroyers game yesterday, I asked him who he’d root for. “Virginia,” he said. “Why, because daddy played with their quarterback and was coached by their coaches when he was in college?” I asked. “No,” he replied, “because that’s where I’m from.”

This conversation about which ‘hood he claims goes back a few weeks when he inquisitively asked which rappers were from Virginia as he failed to connect with 2Pac and Dr. Dre’s “California Love” the way his parents do. He moved from the Commonwealth to California when he was just three and, while he’s as much of a Cali boy and the next kid in my mind, he feels drawn to the place he was born.

It’s a feeling I understand well as I moved away from the state of my birth as a toddler and then, again, moved in the middle of elementary school to California. In the years since I’ve tried to figure out what I consider to be my “hometown.” (Imagine the angst when Facebook asked me to make such a public declaration.)

For me, my “hometown” claim as a sports fan was complicated by the fact that, just two months after I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, the SF Giants met the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. I was raised on Cardinals baseball (and football, by the way…why they’re in Phoenix and the L.A. Rams are in my town still baffles me). My earliest baseball memory was being allowed, at a month shy of four years old, to stay up to watch the Cardinals win the 1982 World Series at our townhouse in the St. Louis suburbs. (It’s also the first time I remember my mom being mad at my dad. Heh.)

In the years between then and our move west, my dad took me to Busch Stadium to see the likes of Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee while teaching me how to score a baseball game and heckle an opponent. My pet mouse was named Whitey Herzog.

When the Cards played the Giants, I wasn’t sure just who to root for as the new kid trying to fit in with a school full of Giants fans. Luckily I had little to do with the fate of either team. Yet somehow, I gave myself the leeway to root for the triumphant Cards as they faced the Twins in that World Series, the Oakland A’s as they faced the Dodgers the following year, and then the Giants as they met the A’s in ’89 in the Bay Bridge Series (a series memorable not only for baseball but the earthquake that literally rocked the local fans to our core).

And so, as it has been since, I rooted for the Giants as they made their way to the World Series last year. Now that they’ve imploded, however, I will admit that I “liked” the breaking news from CNN on my FB News Feed that the Cards, my first baseball love, had made it to the World Series (a “like” I gave despite not being able to name a single player from their team.) How’s that for fickle?

But it’s hard out there for a kid…a kid who, for a third of a century, has felt disconnected from all geographic ties of her own. And it is with that experience that I try to cut my own child, a kid who likes the SF 49ers and the Miami Heat, the Sacramento Kings and the Stanford Cardinal, the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers and…the Virginia Destroyers, a  bit of a break as he tries to figure out his own definition of “hometown” and which hometown team belongs to him.

Aug 15 2011
10 Comments
Blogging, Child Care, Facebook, Friends, Lemons, Me, Myself and I, Vacation, Work

On Friendship: My Failure and Renewed Hope

I’ve not always been the best friend. I’ve hurt. And I’ve been hurt. I’ve moved away. I’ve been deserted. After Scoot and I became serious during my junior year of high school, I – intentionally or not – swore off trying very hard at friendship. What was the point?

The girls who were my age were trying to get as far away from their parents as possible while I was devoting my entire being to keeping alive my long-distance relationship with Scoot, whose mom lives just two miles from my own. They were planning for their post-college travels around the world while I was planning my wedding in our hometown. They were renting apartments with roommates in Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco while I took out a mortgage on a home in the suburbs with room for a nursery for my young son. I had a very hard time relating.

Women who were in a similar life stage to me were planning their weddings while shuffling their meeting schedules at work. They were spending $1600 a month on nannies while I was making grocery shopping lists to include ramen, Hamburger Helper and macaroni and cheese so I could afford the $200 per week I had to spend on daycare. And at work, when I sat down for my annual review, it was they who would evaluate me on my performance throughout the prior year. I had a very hard time relating.

Recently, in large part because of what I discovered when I was introduced to the world of online social networks, I have established friendships. With genuine friends. The kind with whom I can gossip about that girl. The kind with whom I can lament about my day. The kind with whom I can share my frustrations and fears and tears and hopes. The kind with whom I laugh. And laugh. And text. And laugh.

In return, they’ve shared their loves, their losses, their triumphs, their sorrows. I hear about what they ate for breakfast and minutes later, the one thing they want their kids to know about them if they meet their end prematurely. I hear about the guy who tried to talk to them when they’re happily married. I get advice about health matters. I advise them on their resumes. I get drunk texts. With pictures!

I’ve been kept company in the hospital for 48 hours through a small device that meant constant conversation. I’ve watched a minor illness turn into a major health problem. With IVs. And surgeries. And tests. And uncertainty. I’ve seen pregnancy test strips and ultrasounds and newly born babies and crawling toddlers. I’ve celebrated romance and birthdays and New Year’s Eve and just because. I’ve watched them jump out of airplanes, and jump into love. I’ve watched doubt and despair and divorce. I’ve seen them hurt and healed.

I’ve felt. I’ve felt friendship. I’ve felt all that it can be. I’ve felt all that I missed during that decade or so when I just didn’t feel like I could relate to my peers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fears that I’ve deluded myself. Certainly the friend ending her relationship, that was never married, that makes more than I do, that makes less than me, that! has! nothing! but! girls! …certainly we will find something that divides us. And yet, thankfully, they’re still here. I’m still here, a believer in friendship.

I’m about to head out on a weekend away with one of my dearest friends with our four!!! boys all under the age of 9 (unfortunately, Bop can’t make it because of school). I’m looking forward to it for selfish reasons, and not so selfish ones. And when I come back I have another friend coming to visit, one who just moved to the area and who I hope to see much more often. And six weeks from now I’ll be celebrating yet another’s birthday with friends from around the country.  

Ends up, I’m kind of digging this friend thing. And as simple and easy as that sounds, I have a very hard time explaining just how happy it makes me and how sincerely appreciative I am to be able to say it.

Feb 23 2011
3 Comments
Blogging, Elementary School, Facebook, Family, Food, Friends, Health & Exercise, Lemons, Me, Myself and I, My Boys, Parenting, Vacation, Work

If You’re Happy and You Know It

Hey, remember me? Yeah, I own this here little place of the interwebs. Nice to see you again. I could write a post (ok, I did…and decided not to hit publish…again) about where I’ve been but instead I thought I’d just cut to the chase and post something new. So here you go…

10 Things I Smiled About Today

1. The # I saw on the scale this morning.

2. Achieving my goal of getting up without hitting the snooze button.

3. DJ choosing to do his homework this morning (rather than tomorrow night) without any prompting.

4. Scoot baking cookies for the Mother-Son Dance Friday night.

5. Having enough calories left today to help be a taste tester of the aforementioned cookies.

6. Catching up with an old friend/colleague.

7. Seeing a new friend/colleague achieve well-deserved satisfaction.

8. Getting an email from my friend who seems to make it her life’s work to have me in stitches on a daily basis.

9. Looking at a calendar and realizing I will be seeing a bunch of my friends real soon.

10. Straightening my desk before I left the office for the night.

What made you smile today?

Sep 03 2009
1 Comment
Blogging, Facebook, Friends, RIP

Twelve Nineteen

Eight months ago, my junior high school friend, Beth, went through the horror of having her mother leave this Earth too soon. At the time I knew something was going on because Beth and I had reconnected on Facebook prior to her mom’s death and I watched her status updates with worry and confusion. Not too long thereafter, Beth began posting the story on a blog of her own.

Beth’s words are beautiful. They speak for themselves. I strongly recommend you go over and read them and give her a big virtual hug if you’re so inclined.

In the mean time, I leave you with her last paragraph from a recent post:

Please, after you read this, call your mother and tell her you love her. That you’re thankful for every moment of love she’s given you. And mean it. You don’t even know how lucky you are.

Today is my mom’s birthday. Excuse me while I call her to tell her how glad I am that I get to celebrate it with her.

Aug 20 2009
2 Comments
Child Care, Elementary School, Facebook, Friends, Me, Myself and I, My Boys, Parenting

The Last Battle

Parenting is so often about fighting the last battle. It’s so often about protecting our kids from our heartaches only to give them a whole new set all their own. I know I can’t protect my boys from all heartache. Yet it is that rational understanding that my emotions are trampling all over right now.

My parents have lived in the same house for the past 21 years, more than two-thirds of my life. But before that, in my very early childhood, I went through a lot of moves, both in residence and in schools. I was born in Michigan. I moved to the suburbs of St. Louis when I was 2. It was in that small townhouse that I made my earliest memories. We moved to a suburb further north when I was 4. I started in preschool. I then went to another pre-kindergarten program. Then I moved on to kindergarten in our neighborhood school. I was in that school through second grade. During the following summer we moved to Fremont, California. I entered third grade there, but moved yet again in February to Palo Alto, the city I now call my hometown.

By my 10th birthday I didn’t have a single friend who knew me more than 9 months. Some of my friends went to Kindergarten together, some preschool. Hell two of my friends’ moms were roommates at the hospital when they were born. They literally knew each other since birth.

I know other people have had it worse than me, but in my 9 year old, friendless mind moving was the most horrific thing a parent could do to their child. Sure, I had no problems making new friends, but I had no history with them. I was without a past.

My sister was much more open about the social troubles moving had caused, which seemed to make sense as she was 11, just entering adolescence, when we left St. Louis. I, on the other hand, internalized it and simply swore to myself that I would make sure that my kids stayed settled, have lifelong friends and a history with people outside of their families.

The move from Virginia to California pretty much solidified that that isn’t going to happen for D. We keep in touch with our friends who have a son 3 weeks older than him. They really were friends at birth. They trick-or-treated together on their first (real) Halloween. But D hasn’t seen him since he was two and I’m not sure he remembers him.

When we moved to California, we put D and B in the same daycare center. There have been transitions from room-to-room, and friends have come and gone. We went through an especially rough patch last year when we decided to have D repeat the pre-K program while every other kid in his class went on to kindergarten. Luckily one of his best friends’ brother stayed at the school, and his mom is on Facebook, so we’ve been able to stay in touch that way. I’ve added two other kids’ parents as well, so we can try to get the kids together to play.

The friend I’m most sad about D leaving is his “girlfriend”, M, mostly because she lives in LA. (Her mom had a job that brought her up here so she rented an apartment and brought M along with her. Her dad is in LA, as is her kindergarten.) She writes D love letters. (Her mom told me that M wouldn’t show her the letters. She was too embarrassed). D cuts out and colors hearts and seals them in an envelope for her. I really don’t know where they get this stuff, seriously. But it’s adorable puppy love.

Well, today is M’s last day. Tomorrow is D and B’s last day. And I’m sitting here crying as I type this. I’m not totally sure what I’m crying about.

It’s not M that I’m crying about, though she is a sweet, adorable, loyal friend to D. He ran to his room last night crying. He didn’t want to talk about it but I heard him up there, and heard B asking, “What’s wrong?” He was sad that he wasn’t going to be going to school with her and his other friends. He wants to stay at his old school. We told him that none of his friends were staying (which he rationally totally understands), but leaving M, knowing that she’s going back to LA (what can I say, my kid knows geography) is breaking his little heart.

I’m not really crying about D getting older and going to kindergarten. Growing up is something that should be celebrated, not mourned. And though I make jokes asking where has the time gone, I know that he’s ready for this next step in his life. I’m proud of him. He’s going to do great.

I’m not crying, yet, about B. See, in all of this B doesn’t have a clue. He doesn’t know that next week he’s going to have to go to a new school in a new building with a new schedule taught by new teachers in a new class with new friends. Sure we drive by the school and wave and say “Hi new school!” but he doesn’t really understand. I suspect next Tuesday is going to be extremely unpleasant for him and for me. I’ll be crying then too.

I’m not crying about new schools. I know that going through these changes is going to be hard on them, but I know they can handle it. I know that moving from preschool to kindergarten or from one preschool to another is not the most difficult thing either of them will go through. I know they’re both awesome and will make new friends quickly.

I think I’m crying because every time we make one of these transitions, we lose a friend. Sometimes it’s two. Sometimes it’s an entire class. We lose a person who connects us with our past, a person with whom we share an experience and a history that only they and we can understand. I’m crying because I really wish there was a way that I could protect my kids from the heartache that comes from losing a little piece of them when they go through these changes. I’m crying because I miss those little pieces of me that I’ve left behind on my own journey through life. And I’m crying because I know that I’m fighting the last battle and it’s one that I already lost.

Apr 23 2009
3 Comments
Business, Facebook, Fashion, Friends, Me, Myself and I

Can We Have Take Your Classmate to Work Day?

I’ve heard a lot of people complaining about Facebook, questioning why in the world they’d want to be in touch with their entire high school class and I understand why some folks would say that. But I see it differently.

Facebook has allowed me to not only reminesce with the people I grew up with but to see what interesting people they’ve become as adults. I have to say, I’m pretty proud to have known so many awesome people. Many of them are doing really cool things. Below, I highlight three women I grew up with who have started their own businesses following their passions.

Live in San Francisco and own a dog? Then you should get to know Fetch in the City. FITC is run by my best friend from junior high, Jessey. She offers play groups for dogs as well as customized pet sitting. Her playgroups, which have a maximum of eight dogs each, get their fitcexercise off-leash at Fort Funston. Anyone who knows Jessey knows she has a passion for animals. She nearly got me killed riding a horse once (ok, not killed…we were in a ring and the horse was barely trotting but it scared the snot out of me anyway), but I still love her.

sweet-buds-floralJessey and I both were soccer players throughout high school and a teammate of ours, Naomi, is also running her own business in San Francisco. Sweet Buds Floral designs beautiful bouquets of flowers and delivers anywhere in San Francisco for $13. They also deliver for weddings and events throughout the Bay Area and into wine country. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill carnations, these designs are breathtaking. Order your Mother’s Day bouquet today!

In addition to beautiful flowers, what better gift for mom than a way to stay fashionable while smocksshe’s serving as the hostess at her dinner party? Look no further than Smocks Design. When having company over, no one wants to ruin their good clothes while preparing dinner, but aprons can be so blah. Kelley, who I went to elementary, junior high and high school with, and her mom have you covered…literally. When Page Six Magazine decided to cut back to publishing quarterly, Kelley, who served as the mag’s fashion editor, went to work on creating her own company which promotes “the art of entertaining” by bringing high fashion to the apron-wearing set. They purchase remnant fabric from designers, so not only is the cut stylish and flattering, the fabric is too. While Kelley’s not kicking off new business ventures, she and her mom also search for style and substance together on their blog, Cuts on the Bias. It’s a daily read on my netvibes page.

I admire all three of these women for taking risks and following their passions. Go check out what they have to offer and I’m sure you will come to admire them too.

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