Silicon Valley Moms Blog

The tooth fairy dusts off her wand...

My son is over six and a half. A cautious child, he's in no rush to grow up. That's why when his front teeth started getting loose a couple of months ago, he just left them alone.  Oh, he would touch them gingerly now and then, but not much more.

They started to look a little strange.  As I helped him brush his teeth, I could clearly see the new teeth coming in, although the old, baby teeth tried hard to stick around.  By the end they were sticking out at an odd angle, and my husband and I had started to give one another those eyebrows-raised parent looks. 

"When I was a kid," I said, "I knew a kid who tied a string to his tooth and slammed the door to pull it out!"  My husband was shocked.  "Leave him alone," he said.  "It will happen."  And it did.

A thanks to the firefighters

Big Sur is burning.

For those of you who are not Northern Californians, Big Sur is one of the most beautiful spots in Northern California.  It is known as a beautiful place for hiking and nature-loving.  It's also known as a spiritual center of sorts, populated by the Esalen institute and by many people who are seekers: from new-age and traditional to just  offbeat cerebral.  A rich place, in culture and art. The guys at 71miles.com have a great page on Big Sur - check out the video.

Big Sur harbors many stories, as well. The Nepenthe restaurant is located on the site of a house that was purchased by Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.  Many books have been written about the area, and it harbors some of the most lovely hotel experiences in California - and the nicest lunch spot.

Mouse Trauma

I think I'm losing my touch.  You see, I was raised on a farm and in the mountains, and even though I've now been in the Palo Alto area forever, I still (in what feels like my DNA) harbor "country girl" memories.  Stuff like the time that mom shot a rattlesnake by the front porch, or having to help birth a calf, and so forth.  Memories like that, juxtaposed with my raised-in-NY husband's domestic squeamishness (OK, I won't go there), make me feel positively "butch" in the 'burbs.  Well,  most of the time.

But I have been vanquished.  By a common mouse.

Three days ago, I opened our bread drawer to see the unmistakable signs of mousedom.  Someone -- some THING -- had eaten its way through the plastic and nibbled on the heel end of a loaf of bread.  Something had crunched its way through the corner of a pretzel bag.  Horrors!  Nasty little live creatures in my DRAWERS.

Still tied? I finally decided to vote for Obama.

(This was originally posted on Tuesday, February 5th - Super Tuesday)

I didn't decide who to vote for until last night.

Oh, it was on my mind, but like many Democrats, I'm just hoping that the Democrats win, and that we can kick out the dirty thieving, lying, give-our-country-to-big-business sleazy opportunists that have been in control for the past 8 years and oh, excuse me ... was I going off on a rant?

Seriously, I haven't had much to do with politics in the past few years because if I did, I'd have to go on antidepressants.

I'm female.  I'm actually kind of middle-aged now (over 45) although I hear that we count age in something like dog-years here in California so I should still feel young.  But I have been in the silicon valley since 1980, have watched women in business for the last 27 years, and I am familiar with their strides and their struggles.

A Small Silicon Valley Moment

I met her at the park. Her two kids - a boy and a girl - were playing in the park and immediately started talking with and playing with my son.  Although I had started out on a remote bench, I moved over to hers once it was established that the kids loved one another and were having a hilatious time.  And we chatted.

She looked really nice.  Dynamic, fun, intense. She was working on a nonprofit project that is near and dear to my heart.  Or something like that.  I really cannot go into details here. 

...I mean, I REALLY cannot go into details.  Understand that it wasn't a park. I made that up.  If I really want to tell the truth (to the blogosphere), I have to say that "I met this woman, see?" and leave it there.

So why am I telling you this? 

First-Generation Good Parents

Sometimes friends tell you the darndest things.  And the stuff that really matters usually comes months, or perhaps years into a friendship, in the stolen parental talk-moments at the park, on the phone, when the kids are in the other room and you're sitting with a cup of tea, or over dinner with adults.

My childhood had its difficult parts.  Suffice it to say that when I started watching the reality show about Ozzie Osborne, next to my upbringing the family seemed a little Ozzie and Harriet to me. I mean they loved one another, Dad worked (kind of), mom had pets and stayed at home (um, kind of), and they talked.  It was sweet.  (Note that, in retrospect, this observation seems a bit ... off.  My husband thought that I was insane, but it's all a matter of perspective.  (It helps to be an inveterate Pollyanna.)

In conversations with my friends, I have heard of terrible things that parents have done to children:

The God Problem

I have a God problem.  It's like an oily, bitter taste in my mouth -- a fundamentalist hangover, if you will, and I got it from the Bush Administration.  I thought about it because in a nice little talk about Thanksgiving, my consciousness, at the mention of "giving thanks" gave a huge shudder and skittered away -- just like a group of Republicans at a discussion of controlling, say, automatic weapons.

This saddens me.  Although many terrible things have been done in the name of God (and some really good movies too), I know many "people of God."  One of my best friends is a Catholic Priest, for heaven's sake!  And I number several other ministers in my groups of friends.  All are caring, devoted people, and for all, the word of God is a good word, a kind word. A way for people to show that they care for one another in the world, and a conduit by which people can live out their shared values, including charity, caring, and making space for others who are less fortunate.

So what's the problem? 

Kate's Yearly Pillsbury Warning Letter for Peanut Allergics

The baking has started.  We invited a friend over on Saturday to play and I tossed out the casual "we're baking cookies, if you want to."  The kid jumped at it.  It's easy to forget how much little boys like to make cookies.  Correction: how much KIDS like to make cookies.  What fun!

Last year, in the middle of baking cookies, I got tired of using my Yuppie Martha Stewart sugar cookie dough, so I bought some at Safeway. And was shocked to see that some of the Pillsbury cookie dough contains peanuts. Let me repeat: Some of the store-bought sugar cookie dough contains peanuts.  It's not made on machinery that also touches peanuts. It contains genuine peanut flour.  Why?  who one earth knows.

If your child has a peanut allergy, this is a REMINDER. In case you have let down your guard, and in case you let simple logic direct you (e.g. “it’s a sugar cookie. Those contain butter or shortening/sugar/eggs  

Burn her! She has a NANNY!

Right now fur is flying because Pamela wrote a post about firing her nanny.  I'm not sure how it reads if you don't know Pamela at all, but as someone who does know her, the post was about personal growth, about learning to take the reins more in parenting, about weighing the benefits and disadvantages of a breakup, and deciding that you would really miss someone, but that you realized that it was time for you to stand alone.  In short, the post was about life.

Except... Pamela has a nanny.  So (let me get this right), she has GOT to be an entitled be-yatch, who probably steps all over the other mommies in her designer shoes while trying to dash out of her chauffeur-driven car and get some designer cream for the baby.  Or something like that.  Do I have it right?  In short:  Stay at home mom with a nanny = terrible, nasty person who must be badmouthed and shunned by other women.

Boy does our culture suck. 

 

New Gift for your Mother: A Genome Kit!

I am a WASP.  (White Anglo Saxon Protestant.)  At times I have argued in favor of being called a WASA (sub "agnostic" for the Protestant), but the lineage remains the same:  I am descended from hordes of light-skinned, sun-challenged people, many of whom probably have depressive tendencies, lack a predisposition to "let loose" in public, and like to lounge around the sidelines socially, cracking jokes and quaffing alcoholic beverages.  The wildest bunch is the Norwegian relatives, although if you've ever been privy to any of the Lutheran joke websites, you'll just roll your eyes at that one.

I tell you this because, while I am tempted to generalize and say that MANY mothers in their fifties like to work on the family tree and genealogy-type stuff, my husband has admonished me clearly about this.  "In my (Jewish) family," he said, we don't HAVE a family tree.  They were all killed.

Stops me cold, every time.

But a part of me still has a sneaking theory that family-tree research is a type of late-life nesting activity in older women.  Perhaps from the hind brain?  Something uncontrollable, like small animals digging nests

Sticker incompetence

Just the other day on my "core" mother's list (which is virtual, incidentally, and I love it like that), I asked for advice.  My son is starting to argue with me.  He's not done it up until now (I'm lucky, actually), but with his newfound "first grade-front-tooth-lost-reading-boy" power levels, I think that he feels just about equal to mommy, and I'm now getting a flurry of static when I talk with him.

A lot of the stuff he just didn't understant at first.  Like "Oh Yeah" is not a response for mommy.  But I've nicely let him know this (several times), and we're working through it.

Last night, however, the talking back got to me.

Rather than start a new family tradition (e.g. mommy opens a bottle of chianti, pours a glass, and THEN starts helping with homework), I pulled myself back and started to plan.

My Dream Holiday Event: The Dance-Along Nutcracker

The recent (and oddly anonymous) posting on the Nutcracker made me think of our own Nutcracker experiences.  When my son was 1 year old, I drove up to San Francisco and took him to his first Nutcracker performance: a matinee in San Francisco.  We used the standing room only seats, and stayed for a good 1/2 hour.  I was proud of him.  The Nutcracker, after all, was a huge part of my life when I was a little girl, and I was happy to be able to share it with my son.

Time passed, and my son didn't quite develop the same fixation on tutus, tulle, and toe slippers that I had enjoyed as a small child.  Yes, he loved wands.  He did want to be a witch for a while, and I remember defending his choice to a garrulous old sexist outside of Bloomingdales one day when he tried to tell my kid that he couldn't be a witch because he was a boy (hmmph).

Then I heard about an event called "Dance-Along Nutcracker."   Here's a description from past years:

Start your holiday season out right - impeach Cheney!

Hello there, everyone!  Beautiful days we're having, aren't they?  The leaves falling off of the trees, the sound of children's laughter carrying in the wind.  We're starting to get our holiday ornament boxes out of the garage, and I was thrilled to death to get a forwarded email from a friend today, telling me about a new movement.

Have you heard?  There's a story out saying that Nancy Pelosi, in response to a question, said that she would put Cheney's impeachment on the table IF she gets 10,000 hand-written letters.

Hot stuff!  I am going to use my "kitten and doggy" paper and will send my note out today.

Of course one of the readers on Digg said that the rumor isn't even remotely true.  He said that he called Pelosi's office and they denied it.  Darn.

Here's something interesting, though.  Pelosi's website doesn't even mention it.  Daily Kos says it's true, and cites the Freep report. The Freep report contains a letter from Cindy Sheehan, asking that the letters be sent to HER so that she can count them!  Curioser and curioser...

Why aren't more people asking us to donate money for Tabasco Flood Relief?

'This is not just the worst natural catastrophe in the state's history but, I would venture to say, one of the worst in the recent history of the country,' Mexican President Felipe Calderon, talking about the flood in Tabasco, Mexico.

BBC News: More than one million people are believed to be affected, with 300,000 thought to be trapped in their homes and more rain forecast in coming days.

Hi there, people of the silicon valley and web!  Today, I have a question for you.  Do you have a housekeeper, a gardener, a babysitter or nanny, or another house worker who is from Mexico?  Have you ever been waited on, had your food cooked by, or your table bussed by someone from Mexico?  If you're a mom, have you had some of the Mexican people, with their lovely, child-supportive culture, give you kind looks and a helping hand when your WASPy neighbors were ignoring you?  Have you or your children derived benefit from the added dimension that our overlay of Mexican culture in California gives you - in any way?

OK, now tell me this.  Have you reached into your pockets and sent money to the people of Tabasco, currently reeling from one of the biggest catastrophes to happen to Mexico in years?

Me either.

Why is this?

Today on the radio, I heard a statement that  went straight to my heart.  "Please ask the people of the world to turn their eyes onto Tabasco," the man said.  It made me think.  I haven't heard any news of local moms holding bake sales to benefit the people of Tabasco, Mexico, and I haven't seen any mails sent out in my email groups about how to help.  Nobody has made it easy for me to just Paypal dollars, you know?

Cross-cultural reading lessons: "Is Mimi Dead?"

My child goes to a small German immersion school in Palo Alto. We love it.  Since my child started going to this school, my white-hot incendiary posts about nasty school pressures have dropped off.   It's awesome.  The people are normal.  They are pleasant.  And they are sane.

Nothing comes without a price, and our price is the immersion German.  German is one of those contortionist languages.  You can rattle along, throw a whole sentence together, sound just great, and then -- bang! You're at the end of the sentence and you have NO idea which verb to use.  It takes some work.

In the Vorschule (Kindergarten) classroom last year, they very sanely taught no writing or math.  Instead, following the IBO program, they had six units where they did things like set up, decorate, and run a store; learn about Monet, Picasso, and Hundertwasser by painting and making cardboard-box sculptures; plan and put on a play; design, plant, and tend their own garden in groups; and so forth. 

Another Romantic Anniversary

Last night was our anniversary.  We were supposed to go and spend a week at the Puerto Vallarta Four Seasons, but my husband's company is going gangbusters and as founder, it's not a politic time for him to leave, so we stayed home.  Unfortunately, my son had this week off of school, and all of his friends were either traveling or in school, so it was a bit lonely for him.  (And since we'd cancelled the trip at the last minute, I didn't have time to organize any kid events for him, poor thing.)

But we stayed home and did fun, low-key family stuff.  I planned to take the family down to Monterey for a couple of nights this weekend, as kind of a mini-trip, but we couldn't do that either, darn it.

On Friday, I was walking with my son as he scootered through Palo Alto, and as we walked by a restaurant, I got a great idea. Hey! I could actually make a reservation.  And then I could have someone watch my child and we could go to dinner for our anniversary!  Wow.  You know, after seven years, you'd think I would have this down.

The tooth fairy dusts off her wand

My son is over six and a half. A cautious child, he's in no rush to grow up. That's why when his front teeth started getting loose a couple of months ago, he just left them alone.  Oh, he would touch them gingerly now and then, but not much more.

They started to look a little strange.  As I helped him brush his teeth, I could clearly see the new teeth coming in, although the old, baby teeth tried hard to stick around.  By the end they were sticking out at an odd angle, and my husband and I had started to give one another those eyebrows-raised parent looks. 

"When I was a kid," I said, "I knew a kid who tied a string to his tooth and slammed the door to pull it out!"  My husband was shocked. "Leave him alone," he said.  "It will happen."  And it did.

A week ago, the first tooth fell out. With fanfare, the tooth fairy brought a small red glass heart and

Menlo Park Experience #486: The Neighborhood Harridan

Tonight my son and I were over visiting the uber-yupster grocery store in Menlo Park, Draegers.  We stopped upstairs first, so that mommy could look at plates and creamers.  After all, Draegers is where we registered for our wedding! (Honest.)  We looked at the birthday things, checked out the sale rack, and then headed down to get our groceries.

It was a short jaunt. Only around one bag, so probably around what, sixty to a hundred dollars?  (This place amazes me.)

At the very end, I stopped in the vegetable section to get some broccoli.  For all of this time, my son had been right at my cart, playing happily.  (He stops at the plastic bag station, helps himself to about four ties, makes a small toy, and is happy as a clam.)  He was standing about five feet away from me -- standing, mind you (significant for a seven year old) -- playing "rocket."  It went like this:  "shhhhhwwwwwww, rrrrrrrmmmmmmmm, nnnnnneeeeeeeeewwwwww" with a little high pitch at the end.  Nothing wierd.  No yelling, twitching, kicking, rattling, car-riding, throwing, tapping, or crinkling. No raised voices.

Our loaner kid experience

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a girlfriend recently asked us, a single-kid family, to watch her child for a week.  Well, ten days, actually.  And two nights, if you're counting.  And four hours and thirty-two seconds and 12 nanoseconds....  (Ahem. A slight joke there.)

I jumped at the chance.

For one thing, my son stopped people all summer and told them that he was going to have "a little brother" for a week.  Clearly, this was the peak anticipated experience for summer.  And since he sat through four somewhat stultifying weeks at the local language summer school (poor kid), I figured that he deserved a peak experience.

The second reason was that I knew, down to my mommy toes, that it would be an excellent life lesson for my child to actually have another child share his life.  Up until now, we've only had playdates or visits

Palo Alto Money Eccentricity: The Good Kind

Story from a friend, told tonight over tacos at Andale.

My friend was downtown with his son the other day, walking down the street.  He saw one of Palo Alto's street musicians playing at the side of the street, and in between my friend and the street musician was a young man with his bicycle. The young man was bent down, probably tying his shoelaces.

As my friend and his son continued walking, the young man got onto his bike and rocketed off down the street and around the corner.  He threw something as he passed, and my friend saw something white hit the pavement right next to the musician.

Our Loaner Kid

It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that my child is an "only."  And now I'm just too old to even contemplate bringing another kid into the picture.  So here we sit in a neighborhood with VERY few available/ kids, and I contemplate my son, who has to be the most social creature to inhabit my entire branch of the family. Poor kid. 

But we have done some things right.  It's not just college kids who have tribes.  We also have a tribe. We have at least two families with whom we get together at least once a week.  One family has twins, and the other family has three kids -- and my son neatly tucks in between child number one and child number two.  We share parenting approaches with the threesome family, and often, when we're together, it feels like one big group parenting experience.

More on the East Palo Alto Four Seasons. Chapter 4: the freeway exit

Hey there!  How's it going?  Haven't heard from any of you during this summer vacation and I've missed you!  Missed all of the svmoms discussions about  the silicon valley, missed hearing what was happening in the USA (we were out of the country), missed the chatter.   And as I drove home from our vacation, I kind of missed our old comment-wild blog posting about the East Palo Alto Four Seasons hotel.  (Remember Stefania's posting?  Some of those comments had such a warm fuzzy feeling!)

Which brings me to the freeway exit where you leave 101 and turn onto Palo Alto's University Avenue.  Have you seen that exit?  And excuse me, but would it kill someone to landscape it?   Go almost anywhere in California and you'll see beautiful freeway exits (by exit, I mean the land in between the looping drive to and from the freeway, by the way). Trees, freeway noise walls with patterns and ivy all over them, the beautiful sand gardens in Southern California, and then you get to the Palo Alto exit and what do you see?

It looks like a deserted parking lot out there.  All that's missing is a junker or two (up on concrete blocks, please), and about 450 broken beer bottles.  Perhaps an encampment of hobos.  And ... some feral cats, to add spice.

Every time I leave the freeway for University Avenue, I find myself (as a gardener) pondering the implications of huge behemoth businesses purchasing the only finger of East Palo Alto to poke into the opulent greenery of "greater" Palo Alto  (don't even flame me for that one. I have jet lag and I'm kidding.), only to leave the entrance looking like Chernobyl 2: The Empty Lot.

Palo Alto is supposed to be ... oh, I dunno... pretty!  Kind of classic, isn't it?  With it's 1920's bungalows and impeccably-landscaped lots.  With those amazingly expensive houses and classy restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory (wince).  I think that jet lag is getting to me here, but my point is that there's a lot of "house pride" in the Palo Alto area... so why does it look like a pit when you enter it?

Maybe I'm missing something.  Perhaps the Four Seasons really did hire an extremely esoteric and somewhat eccentric landscape artist who has chosen, like Robert Arneson did with his bust of Mayor Moscone in the eighties, to use a form of mocking in his artwork?  An extremely deep (impermeable?) depiction of the silicon valley's juxtaposition of wealth and beauty versus untended, unlandscaped earth?  Maybe a piece that calls attention to the deep chasms within our society?

Nah. 

Nice to be home, BTW.  And never mind about the University Avenue exit.  I can always use Marsh road.  Sorry to mention it.  I'll just focus on the lovely blue Ikea island instead.

Shriek in the Evening

In our household, I'm usually the tough one.  Bugs?  OK.  Dead mice?  Not fond of 'em, but I can cope.  Live mice?  Yup, those too.  Birds?  Yes, yes, I can do it.

Tonight, though, I actually screamed.  In the house.  Ten minutes ago. 

We were sitting in the family room when I noticed some loud chomping coming from the cat food area in the laundry room. 

"I think our cat has worms," said my husband.  I knew what that meant. It meant that I had to go online and figure out what to do with a cat with worms.  Yuck.  So I ignored him.  But he persisted.  For the past week, our cat has been going through cat food at an alarming rate.  And now here she was, eating again.

We heard rustling as the cat apparently attacked the cat food bag, getting more food out by herself. 

"What shall we do about it?" asked my husband.  I was not going to enter into a discussion of cat worms, so as I stood up to go to bed, I said "buy more cat food."  Then I walked into the kitchen on my way to bed.  I turned the corner and ran face to face into the medium-sized raccoon that had been in the laundry room eating the cat food.

The raccoon at first just looked like my cat, but really really scared (so her hair was all fluffed out.) Then I realized that it was a creature and shrieked.  And then, get this:  The raccoon took off through dining room into my house somewhere!  I never saw it leave the house.

Yuck yuck yuck.

For the past fifteen minutes, we have been walking through the house, brooms in hand, looking underneath every piece of furniture to find the ... large hidden raccoon that's somewhere? 

As of tonight, I have officially hung up my "tough mommy" boots. That's it.  Something that weighs 20 lbs, harbors bugs on its body, and has really sharp teeth now feels free to walk through my suburban home.  Oh I will NEVER sleep soundly again.

New Journalism Lows

This morning I picked up the Wall Street Journal while I was having a snack. What I read almost caused me to throw my food at the wall.

Mainstreaming Trend Tests Classroom Goals is another one of those articles that talks about how difficult it is to put children with developmental problems into standard classrooms. We've all seen the articles.  We've all heard the debates.

But there's a difference in this article.  The article talks about the problems that one teacher, Ms. McDermott, has had with one child in particular, in a public first grade in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  The article mentions the child by name, and the article has a PICTURE of the first grader on the first page of the Wall Street Journal. 

Excuse me while I stop typing and breathe heavily for a minute.

The article goes on to describe at great length the travails that Ms. McDermott had this year (her 31st year teaching, although this wasn't mentioned until after 70 column inches.)  It was rough.  Out of 19 kids, five had disabilities, including ADD and delays in reading and math (?).  The article was littered with comments such as "The teacher worried that she was failing all of her students -- especially Andrea."  "It used to be a joy to go to work," she says.  "Now all I want to do is run away."

Well personally, all I want to do is walk right down to the Wall Street Journal and kick someone's butt.  And then go over to the little girl's parents' house and give them a talking to as well. What on earth is going on here?  Let's say that a child has some ailment or problem that is giving them and their teacher a terrible year.  Is the new trend in our culture to profile every wart and terrible thing that happens as our kids grow up?  So that it can be Googled when the kid is older and used to make his or her life a living hell?

In our family, we work hard to keep our kid's information HIS.  I personally cannot imagine putting his face on the front of a national newspaper and letting an obviously hostile teacher talk about how miserable his existence makes her.   Can you? 

How about these quotes: 

"On May 3, Ms. McDermott planned an art project painting flower pots for Mother's day."  "Oh no! Oh no!" [NAME REMOVED IN THE NAME OF COMMON DECENCY] shouted, stamping her feet and waving her arms before being led out of the room.  [NAME] had wanted to spend more time on the computer." 

Or how about this one: 

"On Sept. 27, [NAME] who had been moaning quietly, launched into a full-throated scream, which lasted from 1:25 pm until 2:156 pm, according to a journal entry.  Ms. McDermott didn't know why.  [NAME]'s aide moved her into the hall and then to a room in the basement, though the class could still hear muffled cries."

Sounds pretty bad.  Sounds like a problem. Sure.  And I know that my child isn't in this boat at all, but can anybody out there think of a bad school scene or two that they would prefer not be published in the Wall Street Journal about their kid's schooling problems?

I don't have answers for the many pressures on our schools today.  I know that there are fevered debates on both sides of the mainstreaming issue.  Today, though,  I'm not even going to touch that topic.  Today, I am absolutely aghast to see an eight year old's name and face and personal troubles profiled in a national newspaper.  What happened to common decency?   Why is a teacher and a school being allowed to speak about a particular case in such a specific and public way?  And who is next?

I'll be dropping the journal a line on this one.

Boom Notes: Entitlement Driving is Back!

My husband and his friends used to have a game that they'd play over twenty years ago.  This was right after his first company was bought and he moved to the area.  Back when the Apple aesthetic was fresh and sexy - the first time around.

Seems that a lot of people in those days used the term "visionary."  So my husband and his friends agreed that to them, the term "visionary" would actually mean "asshole."  As in: "Bill is such a visionary leader."  I'm sure it reflects on our collective maturity, but we still enjoy the game on occasion.

This last week in Palo Alto I saw two exciting demonstrations of what I can only call visionary driving.  In one, the owner of a tan four-door Mercedes was on University Avenue.  He was right at the corner where the Lavanda restaurant lives (how do you pronounce that damn restaurant, anyway?  Every time I walk by I keep wondering where Lavanda's sisters, KeHona and LaToya live.)  I noticed this fellow when he honked several times to hurry the pedestrians through (note to out of town readers: this is RARE in California.)  Then he sped up, zoomed through the intersection, and careened his car into the exit lane of a parking lot about 40 feet down.  He got out and puffed his chest up, looking important and so very busy, and then had to wait several minutes while Lavanda's valet ignored him.  We chuckled audibly as we walked by.  (It was either that or yell at him.)

The next day I saw a brand new BMW execute a perfect "run over your kid" five point turn on a side street in Palo Alto.  God Forbid that the driver and his friend should actually drive the 40 feet to an intersection and make a legal U-turn.  They were too busy.  Too ... entitled.   I suspect, actually, that they were visionaries in training.

Just like sightings of the scout swallows in Capistrano, these "I'm a big swinging ... you-know-what" driver sightings seem to be multiplying in the Palo Alto area, which can only mean one thing:  Boom Time.

During the last boom, the streets were overrun with entitled people in expensive cars, all showing an almost visionary disregard for any signage, common sense, pedestrians, or rules.  One of the definitions of "pedestrian" after all, is "dull, ordinary, unimaginative, or uninspired."

Does anybody else remember boom traffic and driving?

I did some checking online to see if anyone else was feeling this way and ran into an intensely whiny post by Michael Arrington, titled Silicon Valley Could Use a Downturn Right About Now.  Arrington is feeling Web 2.0 pain when he writes: Silicon Valley is no longer any fun. In fact, it’s turned downright nasty.  Over on the Canadian side, Mark Evans is chiding Arrington for his attitude, saying that It’s like Arrington helped create a huge, wild party - and he’s now trying to hustle people out the door.  And Dave Winer weighs in with a blog post called Silicon Valley Sitcoms where he waxes philosophical about booms and busts, and suggests that Arrington join him in Berkeley until the boom is over.

Yup.  The lights are blinking, blogs are wrangling -- it's official.  Money's back in the valley.  Watch the traffic for more indicators.  And in the meantime, I leave you with a Traffic sign necktie and The Traffic School Song.

Another phone bites the dust

Today when I went to turn my car on, I picked my cup out of the cupholder and saw a small grey antenna poking up, dismally. 

Damn.  I drowned another one.

I fished my poor cellphone up and looked at it. The cute little window on the front no longer displayed anything but tea.  It's currently drying on the dishrack, but I know from past experience that it's dead.  Darn it.

This is the second cellphone that I've drowned in tea. I'm not sure what it is about me, but my poor phones, even the nice, well-performing phones, seem to be susceptible to drowning.

According to the folks at lifehack.com, lots of people drop their cellphones in water.  Pools, the ocean, bathtubs, even toilets!  So tea isn't all that bad, compared to some options, I guess.  But I tend to put my cellphone into the tea and leave it there, usually overnight, which is the real kiss of death.  I put milk in my tea, you see, and I guess that IC's aren't really set up to withstand protein.

I really did like the lady at lifehack, though, who said that when she got HER phone wet, she just threw it into the dryer.  "It banged a lot," she wrote, "but it worked again."  Other people suggested alcohol, compressed air, and so forth.  Many people mentioned putting it into the oven, but cautioned that you shouldn't do it over 250 degrees, and you can't do it for a second time, because it will melt.  Sounds like middle America is no longer scared of cellphone technology!

Today I drove to work without my phone. It was oddly ... 1999.  I heard numbers on the radio and realized that I couldn't just call them.  I thought of a doctor's appointment and couldn't check it.  The experience made me realize how much our lives have changed in the past few years with these strange little phones.  It's oddly zen-like without a phone.

Zen or not, I need one to keep in touch with my child's school, so this week I'll get my husband's old phone turned on.  I'll use that for a while.  Or according to this  link, I could make one!  Nah.  I'll stick to baked goods.  If I'm nice and don't drown this phone, maybe I can have one of my own again some day.

Oh dear, I lost my skin elasticity!

As you can probably tell from some of my previous posts, I don't get out all that much.  My life is not full of girlfriend-fests, and fashion remains totally incomprehensible to me. 

If I have a lunch free, I typically spend it with my husband, and I was never a "mom's night out" fan, since those, too, I prefer to spend with my husband.

Yes, I know.  Large, stultifying yawn.

But a few weeks ago I went to a mom's night out.  A friend needed to spend her monthly "food fee" at the local country club, and she took a bunch of friends out.  We were tasked to have a nice meal.  And chat.  I figured I could handle that.  I like to chat.

It was nice, it was fun.  But in the middle of it, the woman to my left began talking about her skin elasticity.  Her what?  I looked at her. She looked fine to me.  Pleasant, not iridescent.  No wattles or anything.  So I asked her what she was talking about.

"Oh," she said.  "One day I looked in the mirror, and realized that "poof" it had happened.  My skin elasticity was gone."  She leaned toward me, waving a wine glass.  "And once it's gone, that's IT."

Gosh, I had never thought about skin elasticity.  I notice other things.  Like the eight pounds I put on when I quit exercising, and the fact that it's never gone away.  Like crow's feet.  Like the fact that I'm really middle-aged now.  (!)  But skin elasticity?

I tried to forget about it but the words just hung around. And the next day in the car I found myself looking intently into the rear view mirror.  What on earth could she mean?  At the stop sign on Willow Road, I saw it.  Mine is gone too!  Apparently skin elasticity means when your skin hangs down on your cheeks a bit - it's actually stretched!  Is that disgusting or what? Oh my goodness.  For an excellent example, look at Mick Jagger.  And then shudder.

Wow. I had totally missed it. There I was, happy in my own world, not realizing that my skin had just given up the big one, until I went on a mom's night out.

I have to tell you that I'm terrified about the next one. Perhaps we can keep the topics to something calming like global warming or athiesm.  There are some things that I just don't want to learn about, you know?