Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Lessons Learned from Eight Belles

It's been 30 years since I saw "The Run for the Roses" for the first time in person. Affirmed was the winner and went on to win The Triple Crown, an honor no other horse has earned since then. A college friend (and fellow SV Mom blogger -- you know who your are...) hopped a ride with two random guys what had advertised for riders in the student center via one of those posters where you tear off the phone number at the bottom of the page. We'd met some boys from Louisville in Daytona Beach during spring break and went off on a road trip adventure to see them again. As it turns out I'd see one of them again a lot as I eventually married him.

Anyway, I digress. Marrying the boy from Louisville meant moving there and more than a decade of Derby Days. It's a great time. The playing of "My Old Kentucky Home" still makes me verklempt. I have many fond memories and saw dozens of thoroughbreds run for the roses, including two fillies -- Genuine Risk and Winning Colors.

Where has All the Pubic Hair Gone?

I read a disturbing article in a magazine the other day. It described a horrifying trend -- spa visits that include pedicures, facials and bikini waxes for ... eight-year-old girls.

Yes, you read that right -- 8 YEAR OLDS! These over zealous moms have run out of things to tweak on their own bodies so they're taking their pre-pubescent girls to spas to do things like get their eyebrows and bikini lines waxed, insisting on it even if there's nothing down there to wax. Think about that. What were you worried about in the third grade? I don't think I was concerned about pubic hair because I'm thinking I didn't fully realize I'd sprout some in the 6th grade. OK, so girls might be a bit more sophisticated these days but gimme a break.

I can see enlisting the help of a skin care professional for a daughter who has a bad complexion or needs

 

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore"

To borrow a line from The Wizard of Oz -- "The wind began to swish / The house, to pitch / And suddenly the hinges started to unhitch." That was the scene last night when around 10 pm a tornado tore through downtown Atlanta and ripped off a section of the Georgia Dome roof. It's March Madness time and  Alabama was playing Mississippi State in a semi-final game in The Dome when the twister hit.

It was a horrifying moment for the fans and players inside and it was horrifying for me too because my daughter was one of them. She passed on a trip to Florida to spend her spring break at the tournament working for the Southeastern Conference (SEC) press department and had been at the games all day.

My husband and I (big NCAA basketball fans that we are) were watching basketball but not the 'Bama/MSU game when the announcers broke in to say that SEC game had been stopped because of the tornado and then went back to their regular programming.

Scenes We'd Like to See

As I see yet another dutiful wife standing next to her slimeball politician hubby I can't help thinking about Mad Magazine and the recurring feature they used to have called "Scenes We'd Like to See." The cartoon would take something in popular culture and show what would happen if people reacted with brutal honesty like a parody of a Marlboro Cigarette ad with The Marlboro Man riding his horse with an oxygen tank strapped to his back. Don't you wish we could see those wives in those kind of pictures and video clips instead of the ones published?

What would you give to see Silda Spitzer grab the mic and say "Hope your hottie whore has a nice apartment, because I just changed the locks on ours," or "Was part of that money spent on Viagra, because God knows you need it."?

Dina Matos McGreevey had an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times today --  "Stand by Yourself." She claims that she didn't know what her soon-to-be-publicly-outed-cheating-lying-husband was going to say at the press conference and stood in a fog while he made a mockery of their marriage. She said if she had it to do over she'd do it again for her daughter's sake but here's the scene I'd like to see: Another press conference where Dina tells her daughter that  even though her father turned out to only be a sperm donor with a checkbook, she loves her very much and that she should never let anyone make her stand in public humiliation.

Let's Talk About Vaginas

It's that time again. It's the Tenth Anniversary of V-Day -- a "global movement to stop violence against women and girls." It was started on Valentine's Day by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues to raise money for anti-violence groups. Every year her play is performed in February at venues around the world with famous women like Jane Fonda, Oprah Winfrey, Glen Close, Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Hudson performing the monologues. Some are happy tales, some are sad, funny and controversial.

OK, so maybe you don't want to talk about yours, but feel my pain and pride as my daughter decided to talk about hers...in public...on stage...

Yikes! I think it's hard enough to say "vagina." (I don't know why, do you?) Most of us have nicknames for it like "lady garden," "tootie," "muff," "poontang" and "va-jay-jay." One very proper southern belle friend of mine calls hers "Mary Frances."

Anyway, I know lots of you have theater kids. My daughter was involved in theater in high school but always behind the scenes -- costumes, directing, set-building. The only time I saw her on stage was the tech crew curtain calls so you can imagine my surprise when she called during her freshman year in college to tell me that she had landed a part in The Vagina Monologues.

C: None of the Above

I have decided that I am suffering from "Electile Dysfunction" -- the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year.

I've taken those on-line quizzes to see which candidate best embodies my ideals and have come up with answers like "you're a Centrist -- in the middle." It seems I'm not Red or Blue, I'm Purple!

I'm not alone either. For one thing, there are five registered voters in our household (you know you've hit a milestone when all your kids can vote too). None of us have a candidate we feel passionate about or one who we feel represents our views and values. I can count on one hand, OK, one finger, the friends I have who can wholeheartedly endorse a candidate, oh wait, I forgot about that kid my stepson goes to school with and who supports his fellow Mormon Mitt Romney, so make that two people.

A Holiday Wish List for Single Moms

I've seen the post and all the comments on being raised by a single mom but how many of you have ever been a single mom? I was -- for 15 years (divorced when my daughter was 2, re-married when she was 17). It was a tough but gratifying experience. I raised a kind and witty daughter who's well-mannered, stable and poised.

It wasn't easy. I didn't take naps. I didn’t take yoga classes. There wasn't a nanny (or grandmother). My daughter was in daycare from 6 weeks old until she was old enough to ride the bus and let herself in the house after school. She had to forgo a lot of after school activities because I couldn't pick her up. My career choices were impacted by putting my child first. I couldn't go jetting off on sales calls without paying big bucks for a babysitter or begging a favor from a friend. Sometimes I paid more for a babysitter than I made. I couldn't volunteer at school during school hours. I didn't buy that stupid frozen food for her fundraisers because you had to pick it up at 2 pm on a Tuesday afternoon so that SAHMs didn't miss their tennis matches.

A Public Apology

I confess. You’ve disgusted me. I’ve hated you. I’ve criticized and nick-picked. I despised you. But now the time has come to make amends.

In honor of turning 50 I want to make a public apology to you me.

To my hair: I’m really sorry about all those perms in the 80s. I don’t know what I was thinking. I took you from silky and shiny to kinky and fried. I promise to never get another perm again, even if big hair makes a comeback.

To my skin: You’re looking pretty good in spite of all that baby oil and iodine and scheduling college classes around prime sun time. Pale is finally back in style and so are you… And face: thanks for not betraying my age by developing frown lines or wrinkles. Laugh lines: I’ve earned you and embrace you. Thanks for the memories.

Boobs: What can I say?

Connected by DNA, bonded by Vinyl

When it came to music, I never had much in common with my mom. She would sip her gimlets while sitting on the back patio listening to “Moon River” while I sat in my bedroom listening to “Come Together” (backward and forward) searching for clues in the “Is Paul McCartney dead?” mystery. Admittedly, mom’s only groovy/hip music experience was dancing to “Rollin’ on the River” with my dad at Christmas parties.

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My daughter and I have a different music bond. She “just” discovered a really awesome singer name Van Morrison on iTunes and has an appreciation for The Bee Gees and James Taylor. On the other hand, she creates mix CDs for me featuring songs with lyrics that I’m sure has my mother spinning in her grave but helps me have street-cred at neighborhood dance parties because I know all the words to “My Humps” and “Gold Digger.”

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Besides cross generation music sharing, some things have really changed over the years. Her music collection is stored in a device called a “Mini.” My music collection is stored in a device called a "Milk Crate.” Even though I haven’t listened to my Tony Orlando and Dawn or Bad Company albums for decades, I’ve kept them all these years. I couldn’t figure out a proper resting place – they aren’t worth much money but it didn’t seem right to just trash them, so I’ve schlepped them through multiple moves.

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Now it looks like I’m not a packrat, I’m a visionary. Score one for me: Vinyl is in! Seems Gen Now is fascinated by the ol’ Licorice Pizzas and are snatching up records at record pace. My daughter wanted in on the action, so I packed my crates in the car and took a road trip to visit her at college.

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We found a high tech portable turntable at a vintage shop that doesn’t require all the cumbersome equipment we used and you can even use iPod earphones. We set it up in her apartment and sang along with Steve Miller. We did the “Thriller” dance in our pajamas. She asked me where Kathmandu is and why Hall and Oats wore makeup. I explained the ploy of borrowing albums from cute boys as an excuse to see them again (and why I still had albums with those cute boys' names written on them).

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For a couple of hours I was back in college – listening to entire sides of albums (no fast forward or selective downloads, thank you), doing the John Travolta point move, dancing with wild abandon (not too close to the turntable as not to make the needle jump) and looking at great covers like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. You just can’t get that on iTunes.

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I've decided that next time I'm taking her the vintage version of an iPod – my 45s in their mod carrying case, numbered, logged and alphabetized so she can discover the joy and meaning of “the flip side.”

The OCD of M&Ms

There's a big M&M debate at my house and I need to know whether I'm the weird one or not.

Since I'm surrounded by quirky people  I need some outside input. My husband is a self-proclaimed "propeller-head." He's a Nuclear Engineer. He likes numbers and formulas and well, you can just imagine. My stepson has OCD. Besides having to twirl when he walks, twist his drinking straw three times after every pull and look at each bite of food three times before eating it, he likes to count things.

Both of them have specific patterns when they eat M&Ms and they insist everyone else does too. I don't, except when I was little I and used to take the red ones first (before they were yanked from the bag because they contained the alleged carcinogen Red Dye #3) lick 'em and create my first lipstick. Now I grab a few, eat them. That's my pattern. Grab and eat.

My husband will take a handful, hoard the green ones to feed me later, then eat around the color wheel (a brown one, an orange one, a yellow one....) and repeat until he only has one of each color left in his palm (remember, they won't melt there). Then he eats them in the same order as he did in the elimination round.

My stepson has to eat them in threes (oh what a surprise that one is!). He says he polled the kids in his calc class and they have certain numbers they have to eat at a time too.

So I'm conducting a very important, scientific survey:

How do you eat M&Ms?