The internet is a wonderful thing

My father was a school teacher. For most of my childhood, he worked at a specialty school in South San Francisco that taught adult students English as a second language. My Dad was a wonderful teacher, and was undoubtedly part of the reason students came from all over the world to attend the school. Despite its unique nature, however, the school was not a private school but was, in fact, a public school. So, when Prop. 13 passed back in 1978, the school's days were numbered. My Dad, a brilliant ESL teacher ended up teaching dead-end high schoolers in the South San Francisco public school district, one of the worst districts in California (at the time -- I don't know about now). It was such a waste of talent and so embittered his declining years. But that's not the story.

The story is that, as I said, my father was a very beloved teacher. And since these foreign students were adults alone in a strange country, he often ended up befriending them. The students he did take to heart were invariably intelligent, interesting, well-educated people, and he ended up corresponding with many of them for years.

What makes the above my story, rather than my Dad's is that today, in the mail, I received a letter from Germany. I had no idea what that was about, since I have no friends in Germany. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was one of my Dad's students. He last saw us more than thirty years ago, and last corresponded with my Dad about 25 years ago. Then, he was cleaning out some drawers and stumbled across an old letter from my Dad. In it, my Dad mentioned my name and, since I still go by my maiden name, he was able to track me down using the internet.

My Dad's student is coming to visit us in the summer. Although my Dad has since died, my Mom and I are very much looking forward to a reunion that wouldn't have happened but for the wonders of the internet.

Going places

My goodness! I had no idea I last posted here last year, in December. Somehow December and January seemed to slip away entirely, without my following up in writing on all the interesting stuff that's been going on. I've been blogging up a storm politically on my other site, but that's not for this blog. I'm thinking, as this blog slowly takes shape, that what I like to talk about here are consumer issues -- or, to put it more bluntly, things I buy and about which I have strong feelings, either negative or positive. (I may also let my kids do some posting, just to see what they say, but that's another story.) So, today's post is about portable GPS devices.

My husband's car has a very fancy, built-in navigation system. When he first got it, I scoffed, but I ended up borrowing his car whenever I had to go someplace new. It truly makes life so much easier to have that gentle computer voice talking you through things.

Since it's become apparent that I'll be hanging on to the family van a bit longer -- so I won't be getting a new car with built-in navi -- we decided to get one of the portable devices. I put in my vote for the Magellan Maestro, since I got familiar with that software system when I went back to Austin, Texas for my 20 year law school reunion. In the 20 years since I'd last been there, they'd moved the airport, renamed the streets, and built all sorts of new things -- and that was just in the areas that were familiar to me. It was even worse when I tried to visit friends. People no longer lived in shabby student digs near the Law School. Instead, they were in lovely suburbs that didn't even exist when I was in Austin. I truly don't know what I would have done without the navigation system I rented along with my Hertz car -- the same navigation system the Maestro uses.

As it happened, though, I didn't get my Maestro right away. My husband found a bargain on the Garmin Nuvi series and couldn't resist. The Garmin does have a lovely interface: an easy to view, surprisingly large screen for such a little device, and very intuitive buttons. My problem is that it didn't tell me what I needed to know. Despite the large screen, I couldn't see it well when I drove, so I had to listen to the voice, and the voice just didn't say enough. "Right turn in .2 miles," it would say. But it wouldn't tell me what street I should be looking for. And I really don't have a sense of how far two miles is. Also, when there were "Ys" in the road, or freeways split up, it fell silent, and I couldn't tell which way to go. It just didn't communicate the way I think.

So, back to the store I went, and got a Maestro. I love the Maestro software. It's like having a really intelligent, map-reading passenger sitting next to you. "In a quarter mile, make a right turn on Smith Road." And right before you get to Smith road, it bings at you. Or, if you're driving on the freeway, and there's an interchange coming up, it will say "In a quarter mile, stay on 101." Now that's information I can use. It's a little weak on the Points of Interest (restaurants, Trader Joe stores, etc.), but I can live with that.

Despite it's wonders, I'm a little bit miffed at my Maestro right now. Whenever I plug it into the car, it thinks I'm plugged into a computer. So, instead of popping up with a map, it tells me that I'm connected to my USB port and should follow the computer's instructions. The tech people at Magellan think the problem is the car accessory, and are sending me a new one, so that might be the end of it. If it's the Maestro itself that's defective, I'm going to have to dig up all the packing material, pry off the velcro strips (since, in California, I can't use the great little window suction cup, but have to jury-rig an attachment to my dash), and return it to Costco, where I bought it.

Still, no matter how inconvenient all this is, I heartily recommend the product. These navigation systems are just wonderful!

This hardly seems fair....

My fifth grader did a book report a few weeks ago. At the time she was working on it, she was very anxious about the requirement that she include illustrations. Like me, she is no artist, and she is very poor at taking abstract ideas and reducing them to pictures.

While my daughter was working on the report, I spoke to the teachers about her concern, and they assured me -- in front of my daughter -- that they would not hold it against her. I should also add that there is no art training going on in the school, so she's not being taught any technical skills that would help her rise above her natural deficiencies.

Imagine both my daughter's and my chagrin, therefore, when her book report was returned, and the teachers marked marked her down for not drawing pictures that met their high standards. I'd been prepared to like these teachers, but they just went down significantly in my estimation.

My problem now is how to approach them without their getting the bright idea to start a vendetta against me, using my daughter as their pawn -- something I have been assured by other parents that teachers in our school district do with startling regularity.

Christmas Lights

I use Google's calendaring system because, when I schedule something, the system will send me email reminders. Without those email reminders, I'm completely lost. Sometimes, though, even with the email reminders, I'm lost. The other day, I got a reminder that said, "December 8 -- Christmas Lights." I had no idea what that meant. We never put lights on our house, because we're Jewish. Why, therefore, would I remind myself about Christmas lights?

It turned out I had a very good reason for doing so. The kids and I love to look at other people's Christmas lights. What I did last year was to consolidate all of our favorite addresses and put them in that calendar entry, both to remind me to make the trip around our community (Marin County) and to remind me of where to go.

Since these are wonderful houses to visit in Marin County, I thought I'd pass the list on to you:

CORTE MADERA
-- 33 Ebb Tide Passage, off Golden Hind
-- 38 Echo Ave., near Yolo St.
-- 9 Prince Royal Passage, off Paradise
-- 274 Sausalito St., off Tamalpais Dr.

FAIRFAX
-- 155 Cascade Dr., off Bolinas Rd.
-- 12 Mono Ave., off Bolinas Rd.

LARKSPUR
-- 44 Diane Lane, off William Ave.

MILL VALLEY
-- 122 Belvedere Dr., off Reed Blvd.
-- 31 Egret Way, off Harbor Point
-- 537 Marin Ave., in Tam Valley

NOVATO
-- 39 Aaron Dr., in Ignacio (American Cancer Society fundraiser)
-- 701 Arthur St., off S. Novato Blvd.
-- 34 Devonshire Dr., off Center Rd. ("The Christmas House") -- the absolute best of the bunch
-- 54 Hollyleaf Way, in Ignacio
-- 2 Hune Ct., near Center Rd.
-- 385 San Carlos Way, near San Marin
-- 370 San Luis Way, near San Carlos
-- 65 Stanford Court, near Center Rd.
-- 2095 Vineyard Rd., near Wilson Ave.
-- 97 Washington St., off Rowland Way
-- 3 Williamson Ct., off Vineyard Rd.

SAN ANSELMO
-- 29 Alderney Rd., off San Francisco Blvd. and El Cerrito Ave.
-- 25 Madrone Ave., off Drake Blvd.

SAN RAFAEL
-- 4 Amalfi Place, off Canal St.
-- 417 Blackstone Drive, in Marinwood ("The Mickey Mouse House")
-- 498 Blackstone Drive, in Marinwood
-- 12 Jefferson Ave., off N. San Pedro
-- 1 Locust Ave., off Grand Ave.
-- 383 Quietwood Drive, in Marinwood ("The Bear House")
-- 125 Robinhood Dr., in Peacock Gap
-- 3 Teakwood Ct., in Peacock Gap

For more information about Christmas houses in the Bay Area, focusing on the City, the South Bay and the East Bay, check out this post at Kango.

Raising nice girls

One of the things that worries me as the mother of a young girl is the "mean girl" syndrome. I'm sure you're familiar with it, either as a former girl yourself, in which case you experienced it growing up, or as an information consumer, since the media regularly tells stories about the mean girl phenomenon.

Mean girls are nothing new. When I was young, during high school, girls formed cliques, with the popular girls setting the standards for what was cool and what was not cool. And if you weren't cool, you were fair game for insults, humiliation and social isolation.

Nowadays, there are a couple of new twists on the mean girl trend. The first is the rise of the internet and cell phones, which means that girls can be insulted and humiliated instantly and to the broadest possible audience. The second is the fact that mean girl syndrome is happening at an ever younger age. It is the latter fact that I'm addressing here, because I think the younger age means that parents have more, not less, control over the situation.

My 5th grader is coming into contact with mean girl-itis. There are, apparently, some very mean girls at the school, girls who flaunt their success with boys (a horrifying thought when you're dealing with 5th graders) and who denigrate other girls for being too youthful or too unfashionable. That's bad.

What's good is the fact that my 10 year old is still young enough to confide in me about all this. Unlike a 13 year old who feels I have no comfort or advice to offer, she still comes to me and talks -- and, more importantly, listens. I can help her put the mean girl in perspective and lessen the psychic burden inflicted upon her.

What I can also do is stop my daughter from engaging in mean girl conduct. Yesterday, my daughter came home with a play date delighted with the clever joke she and her friends had set up. They had written a letter to a boy in the class, purportedly from the girl they didn't like, in which that girl professed to love the boy and wanted to meet up with him.

Had my daughter done this as a teenager, she never would have shared it with me, because she would have understood what a mean thing it would be to send this letter. As it is, however, my daughter is so young that she had no understanding of the ramifications of what she and her friends were planning to do. I was therefore able to talk to her -- not scold her, but talk to her -- about what this letter would do to the girl.

I explained that, even when someone is mean, humiliation is never, never an appropriate response. We talked about times when we've been embarrassed and how it's a more awful feeling even than a physical injury. I also talked about the fact that, 35 years after the fact, I still feel guilt about the people I humiliated when I was young. I didn't know then that I was doing something wrong, but I do now, and I still feel bad. And because my daughter is 10, she was receptive to this message -- Thank Goodness.

The other good thing about learning about this plan from my daughter was that I could pick up the phone and call the parents of the other girls. I didn't call them to lambaste them for leading my daughter astray. Instead, I called them to say, "Did you know....?" I made sure that they understood that I appreciated how naive all the girls were, but I explained how I felt about it regarding my daughter, and how I assumed they'd want to pass the same messages on to their daughters.

Not only were the other parents most appreciative of my call, they also shared with me things that they'd heard from their daughters that provided important information for me. Mostly, it's the fact that the girls are talking about sex.

I wasn't quite planning on talking to my daughter about sex right now, but I think I'll have to. And again, because my daughter is 10 and not 13, I can talk to her about regarding her body as something precious that doesn't just get thrown around, and she will listen.

In other words, the downside of parenting today is that sex is saturating our culture younger and younger. But the upside is that my daughter is getting these messages and opening these conversations when my opinion still matters and, perhaps, my message of self-respect and abstinence can still get through.

Why Wii?

Nine months ago, my husband announced that we should get a Wii.

"A oui?" I was confused.

"No, a Wii."

"A what?"

"A Wii."

"Why would we want to get a wee? A wee what?"

"No, a Wii. It's a computer game you play on your television."

"I don't want another computer game. I have enough struggle detaching the kids from their Nintendos."

"No, we need a Wii."

"Okay, we'll get a wee, or a oui, or whatever."

It turns out that the best prices for Wiis, at least in our neck of the woods, are at Toys R Us, rather than online (something about marketing and tying). But, because they're hot, hot, hot, you have to buy them the moment they ship in, or else they sell out. So it was that, although it was nine months ago that my husband announced our imminent wee . . . er, Wii purchase, I didn't end up bringing one home until three weeks ago when, just by chance, I found myself near a Toys R Us that had them in stock. (By the way, it's not just a local problem. Britain is facing a serious Wii shortage as the holidays draw near.)

Once I actually had the package in hand, I discovered what it is and why Wii is getting rave reviews. The Wii is a computer game that uses your television screen and hand held remotes to manipulate the image on the screen. So far, that makes it sound like any other generic computer game. However, unlike the usual game, where your thumbs are doing all the playing, with the Wii, the remote responds to actual motion. Indeed, when you first power up the game, you can feel the remote buzz and shift like a living thing.

The Wii starter package comes complete with a disc with sports games. Thus, new gamers get a choice of bowling, golfing, playing baseball, playing tennis, or boxing. But as I said, you don't just manipulate your thumbs. To bowl, you stand up, and swing your arm (holding the remote) just as if you're actually throwing a real bowling ball toward the pins you see on the screen. At the moment you release the button on the remote, you watch your bowl roll down the alley and, with luck, you have a strike (I had three in my last game!).

Same for golf. You hold the wee Wii remote in your hands pointing downwards, just as if it's a golf club and you swing, hard swings to cover the yards, soft swings to cover the feet. As you swing the Wii, you swear you can actually feel the friction of a real club in your hands cutting through the air. When you play tennis, you can swear you feel the ball hitting that invisible racket springing upwards from your remote.

The net result of a game like Wii is that the family, instead of sitting in front of the boob tube slack-jawed, is in perpetual motion. Swinging their arms, jumping up and down, twisting around, and laughing -- laughing all the time. It's been years since I've heard my kids laughing so hard. And now that it's winter, with the days drawing in and the kids' physical activity somewhat limited, I'm actually kind of happy that they're bouncing around like contented maniacs, rather than sitting around whining that they have nothing to do.

The only caveat to the game is that you really, really need to make sure that you strap the remote around your wrist. Otherwise, well, there's no telling what will happen. I also recommend making sure you have a large area in which to play, a necessity I discovered when I knocked down a whole side table of family photos. It was sort of like bowling both off screen and on.

So, if you've got a few hundred bucks lying around, and you're willing to make regular trips to Toys R Us, or whatever store has got the goods in your community, I really recommend the Wii. It's every bit as good as its fans say it is.

Totally amazing shoes

I am about to do a product endorsement. Actually, this is the first of two product endorsement posts, both about products I'd never heard of before I got them, and both of which amazed me by their wonderful-ness.

I should preface this post by saying that I haven't watched commercials in years and, to the extent I still read print media, I manage to whisk by the advertisements without any sense of what they say. This explains why, three weeks ago, I found myself in an athletic shoe store, having bought running shoes for my daughter, staring at the most bizarre shoes I'd ever seen. They looked like a cross between geriatric shoes, athletic shoes and those silly shoes that used to be spoofed in old TV shows, when a short actor wanted to appear taller.

I asked the clerk, "What are they?"

"MBTs," he said. "You should try them on, because we have a great sale going on now." (I subsequently discovered that he was, in fact, correct about the sale, because I haven't found these very expensive shoes for a cheaper price anywhere, on land or on the internet.)

I tried the shoes on, feeling somewhat foolish, only to discover myself instantly standing straighter. The shoes have a convex sole, with the thickest part of the sole under the arch of your foot. This means that, when he walk you use your entire foot, rolling from heel to toe (and, incidentally, working both the back and front muscles of your leg). It also means that, when you stand, you have to balance gracefully or tip over backwards.

The clerk assured me that people with joint problems love the shoes. Since I have chronic, low-grade knee and hip problems, which have seemed resistant to exercise or rest, I was willing to take a plunge and at least bring them home.

Once I got the MBTs home, I went to work. First, I checked out the company's website, which explains the philosophy behind the shoes. It seems a bit silly to me, but the engineer who came up with the design wanted to have people mimic the way in which Masai warriors walk. (The full name for the shoe is "Masai Barefoot Technology.")

Although product websites have useful information, I never fully trust them (they are, after all, trying to sell me something), so I next went on a hunt for real people reviews about MBT shoes. That led me into a world of extraordinarily happy MBT users, writing reviews both at their own blogs and at shoe selling websites. Most of them discounted the claims that it makes cellulite vanish, but all acknowledged that, because exercise is less painful, people may simply exercise more when they wear them, with a concurrent decrease in cellulite.

Here, for example, is a review at About.com, commenting not only on the high price, which is a definite downside, but also about the very real benefits in terms of diminished pain. Here's another blogger who makes exactly the same point. Exercise programs are springing up that revolve around the shoes (see here and here).

People who are on their feet a lot are attracted to the shoe. A nurse wrote a review about the shoe noting that it helped lessen a lot of the pain she experiences at work. Her review is actually pretty funny considering an experience I had recently. I had to pick up a friend from an out-patient surgical ward. My friend was pretty zonked so, instead of just waiting into the lobby, I went into the back area where the nurses work. I was instantly swarmed, with all the nurses wanting to know what kind of shoes I was wearing and if they were comfortable. "MBTs," I answered, "and, yes, they are very comfortable."

While I personally doubt whether the shoe's functionality, on its own, has anything to do with any cellulite decrease, I find myself in the camp of people claiming that they definitely help me tone up. Why? Because I can finally walk again. I'm exercising for the first time in years because I'm not having the negative feedback loop of pain. It's wonderful!

Time for a little music humor

If you have TiVo, or something similar, set your box to catch this wonderful version of Leonard Bernstein's Candide. It's a pitch perfect production, with marvelous singing, acting, and staging. Not only do the grown-ups like it, the kids do too -- so much so that we've had it on TiVo since August simply because the kids like to drop in on it occasionally.

If you're watching Candide, about 25 minutes into the production, Candide and Dr. Pangloss, after surviving a shipwreck, are driven ashore in Lisbon, only to find themselves in the middle of a celebratory execution day sponsored by the Inquisition. A joyous chorus then wanders around the stage singing the jolly "What a Day! What a day for an auto-da-fé." Because it's so cheerful in tone, it's no surprise that today, when she got 100% on all of her school work, my daughter began singing "What a day! What a day!" Turns out, though, she hadn't quite grasped the lyrics. Her version is "What a day! What a day for an auto buffet." Still makes me laugh just to type it.



The other musical joke happened yesterday at my son's chorus practice. I volunteer there, so I'm privy to a lot of the boys' conversations. Yesterday, the name of the boys' former music coach came up. One boy announced "Mrs. X is a witch in Macbeth." The other boys were horrified.

"I like Mrs. X." "Mrs. X was a really good teacher." "That's not nice." (They are sweet little boys.)

"No," said the original boy. "She's a witch. I'm in Macbeth and she stands next to me on stage."

"Oh! Cool."

Let's talk train travel

Even though in my other persona, as a political blogger, I have a fair amount of experience getting articles published in other people's forums, I still get a ridiculous frisson of pleasure when I see my work appear on another site, in toto. This time, that pleasure comes because Kango.com used an article of mine about European train travel at it's travel blog. In the article, I discuss my family's decision to use night train travel during our last trip in Europe, as a way to save both time and money. The bottom line is that it did save us both time and money, and I would definitely do it again, even though I didn't enjoy the experience too much.

The times they are a'changin'

My kids were watching an old show today with referred to a phone booth. "What's a phone booth?" I asked. Dead silence. It was only with a lot of prompting that they were able to understand the concept. Think of that temporal disconnect when you watch this incredibly funny spoof that digs out from the vault the original 24 pilot, shot in 1994.

P.F. Chang's has good food

A P.F. Chang's opened in our neighborhood today, and I did something I've never done before: I was one of the first people at a "buzzing" new restaurant. I was a little bit worried, actually, because I was worried that the kitchen would be rocky and uneven. I needn't have worried -- the food was delicious. We had a kid oriented menu that was nevertheless sophisticated in presentation and taste.

We started with pot stickers in a soy/rice wine vinegar sauce, and they were delicious. They were large, crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside and had a delicate, well-blended flavor.

From there we went to the kid-friendly entrées: chicken chow mien, cashew and almond chicken, and beef with broccoli. Each of the dishes had lots of fresh vegetables thrown in, which was a plus right from the get-go.

What was also nice was that each had a unique sauce. At a lot of Chinese restaurants I suspect that the kitchen, regardless of how it names a dish, uses the same generic sauce for all the food that comes out of the kitchen. Here, the broccoli beef was gingery, the chow mien had a lot of sesame (I think), and the cashew/almond chicken had a nice, but not overwhelming, garlic gloss.

I was especially impressed with the chow mien. I'm not someone who likes noodle dishes, and chow mien is usually the last thing I'll eat. These noodles, however, were delicious and the chicken was perfect -- tender little bites of nicely sautéed white meat.

The service was very attentive, although this was one area where one could see that the restaurant was on its first day. A waiter dropped a greasy fork on my daughter (although, fortunately, her jacket was dirty already, so a little bit dirt more made no difference); another waiter tried to serve us some one else's food; and the servers where a bit too enthusiastic about clearing away plates before we were done eating. Their attitude was friendly, though, and I excused the mistakes, knowing that they were nervous on their first day, and still learning how to work as a team.

So, if you're wondering, I'd give a thumbs up to P.F. Chang's.

Chicken soup recipe

I got a fun chain letter from an old high school classmate with whom I'd recently reconnected thanks to the miracle of the internet. The chain letter aims to place 36 recipes in your inbox. Here's the text of the letter, with suitable redactions to preserve privacy, of course:

Hello, All!

I don't normally do chain letters, but a few extra recipes are always nice and it seemed like a good way to get some old (junior high/high school) folks hooked up by email. So here goes... This came originally from (one of our old classmates) and you'll all recognize a few names on the distribution list as former folks from "the hood."

Please send a recipe to the person whose name is listed in the number 1 position below (even if you don't know him or her) and it should preferably be something quick, easy and without rare ingredients. Actually, the best one is one you know in your head and can type out and send right now.

1. (Insert the name of the person who started the chain, or from whom you received the chain letter)

2. (You)

Then, copy this letter into a new e-mail, move my name to the number 1 position and put your name in the number 2 position. Only your name and mine should show when you send your e-mail.

Send the email to 15 friends.

You should receive 36 recipes if everyone follows through. It's fun to see where they come from!! Seldom does anyone drop out because we can all use new recipes. The turn around is fast because only 2 names are on the list!

This is somewhat out of character, but it’s a fun idea. Enjoy, if you care to.

It sounds like a fun way to reconnect with people, as well as a great way to get practical recipes. Here's the recipe I submitted:

Chicken Soup

The beauty of this recipe isn’t the ingredients, which you can alter as you please, but in the preparation, which requires a little up front work, but results in a clear broth without any effort, followed by easy clean-up.

• One medium sized chicken, rinsed and with the giblets removed
• 1 large turnip, cut into about six pieces
• 1 medium onion, cut into about six pieces
• 1 medium rutabaga, cut into about six pieces
• 1 medium leek, cut into about six pieces
• 3-4 celery stalks, cut into 2 inch long pieces
• ½ pound of carrots, cut into bite size pieces
• Bunch of parsley
• Bunch of dill
• A ¾ inch long piece of ginger, cut into three pieces
• Salt and pepper to taste

Wrap the chicken in cheesecloth, so that it won’t disintegrate into the broth. Place in a large soup pot.

Wrap the cut turnip, onion, rutabaga, and leek in a cheesecloth bundle (or two bundles if you prefer) and add to the soup pot.

Wrap the Celery and carrots in a cheesecloth bundle and add to the soup pot.

Wrap the parsley, dill and ginger in a cheesecloth bundle and add to the soup pot.

Cover the ingredients with water and bring the pot to a boil, stirring occasionally, so that water can flow around the various bundles. Then, simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring the bundles around occasionally.

Once you remove the soup from the flame, allow it to cool a little. Then remove the cheesecloth bundles. You’ll have a perfectly clear broth. I usually throw away the bundles with the turnips, etc., and the parsley, etc. Once it’s cool enough, I shred the chicken and add it to the soup when I serve it, or use the chicken in other recipes, such as tacos. I also like to add the celery and carrots to the soup when I serve it.

I also like to add matzo balls when it’s all over.

Some things work best with an audience

This is one of my all time favorite funny videos, in large part because it's such a wonderful reminder about the way in which kids view their own temper tantrums as part of their larger relationship to you, the parent:

Reading the romances

I live in a professional community, where most of the people in my circle boast at least one, and sometimes as many as two or three graduate and post-graduate degrees. Here, keeping up with the Jones can mean professing an air of intellectualism and professionalism that sometimes eludes me. I like to feed my mind as much as the next person (and, in fact, am right now reading a wonderful biography of Britain's six reigning queens), but I have a secret passion for something that probably would not pass the neighborhood education/intelligence test: romance novels. I love romance novels.

Now, I'm not an indiscriminate romance novel reader. Some put me off entirely, either because they're badly written (there are a lot of those out there), because they're too formulaic, because they flirt with themes that disturb me (such as the rape themed ones, ick), or for whatever other intangible reasons that will turn me off a book.

I've also changed in my tastes over the years. When I first started reading romances, I liked the historics, possibly because I was introduced to romance novels by someone who recommended Georgette Heyer. Heyer is, for me, still the gold standard when it comes to romances. Her writing is crisp and lucid, her characters appealing, and her humor can make me laugh out loud. She's also a remarkable historian -- so much so that she eventually became known as one of the foremost authorities on Regency England. Unfortunately, when it comes to this last point, most recent writers of Regency romances seem to have abandoned independent research, and simply parrot phrases and points in Ms. Heyer's novels. The mimicry is cheap and obvious.

I eventually figured out that the core things I enjoy about Heyer's novels are the fact that her characters have strong value systems, that they're quite independent but nevertheless can still be rescued by a man who is their match intellectually and morally, and that, as I noted above, they're very funny. Those qualities don't show up in many historical romances, which tend to fall into the bodice ripping mode. Instead, they're more easily found in contemporary romances.

Of the contemporary romances that reflect the themes I've identified, my favorite writers are Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jennifer Crusie, Susan Anderson, Linda Howard and Elizabeth Lowell (with the last two writing romantic thrillers, rather than pure romances, so they're stronger on the strong women finding strong men than they are on the humor). I also like many of Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick's books, although I feel she's gotten lazy of late and is just churning.

Each of those writers, when she's on a roll, creates really appealing lead characters, women who are attractive without being off-puttingly beautiful, who are intelligent without being pretentious, and who are competent but still need help. And help is always provided by strong, intelligent men who respect the women, but recognize that they can offer necessary aid without demeaning the object of their affection. It sounds formulaic, but in the hands of these writers, it's not. It's just enjoyable.

If you're interested in reading more about romance novels, whether you're looking for reviews, critiques, debates, information, etc., I'm not the only one blogging romance. Indeed, I'm a tiny voice in a very well-developed chorus of blogs devoted to romance novels. A few of the better ones (I think) are Romancing the Blog, Readers Read : Romance, Ciaralira and the Romance Writers of America website.

By the way, if you feel, as I do, that people might look down on you for reading romances, keep this in mind: one in five Americans read romance novels (and you're more likely to read them if you're female and Southern); even if readership in other areas is declining, romance novels are always hot in the marketplace; they make up more than half of all popular fiction sold in the US; and 63% of romance readers have attended college, with 21% having graduated and a further 10% have gone on to post-graduate education. Not a bad collection of people to align yourself with, right?

Living the Seinfeld life

I was complaining to a friend today that I'm suffering from existential ennui. I am, quite simply, tired of most of the tasks that define my day to day life, whether I'm doing housekeeping, childrearing, work, or volunteering (and let's not even mention the carpooling).

I want to do nothing, but I want to do it in a charming and amusing way. When I told him that, he responded by saying that I wanted to live the Seinfeld life. After a moment's blankness, I realized exactly what he means. The characters in Seinfeld are quirky (yes, that's me); amusing (occasionally); social (most of the time); and, unlike me, they have no responsibilities. At least this week, I could so live that Seinfeld life!

Hundreds of visual jokes

I just got introduced to a quite amazing website called Worth1000.com, which sponsors Photoshop contests. Contributors are challenged to create Photoshop images that are visual puns or that answers strange questions. Here, for example, are the best Photoshop projects for "Marricide 10 : Signs that your spouse is trying to kill you." And here are some quite amazing images showing where babies come from (and it's not what you'd expect). Check it out. You'll be surprised at what other people see!

A sparkling moment from the 1970s

I'm still giggling periodically about the clothes in those old Penney's catalogs, and it put me in mind of the classic music videos from the 1970s. I happen to like this Abba one which, although it has no funky 70s clothes, does have the best, bounciest music, and a naiveté about student/teacher interactions that is hard to imagine considering how constantly we're being bombarded with stories of teachers taking advantage of students.

The best museum in New York

I was in New York several years ago and had opportunity to visit its best museum. And by that, I don't mean the Met, or MOMA, or the Frick, or the Museum of Natural History, or any of the other world class museums New York offers. I've seen bunches of those, at home and abroad, and they've started to blur in my mind. The best museum, I think, is the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which allows visitors to get a look into a genuine, Lower East Side tenement, which was in active use from 1867 until the mid-1930s, when the building was sealed up to become a time capsule.

If you'd like to know more about the museum, I wrote about my visit there for Kango, which posted it on the Kango blog, here. If you're not convinced after reading my review that it's somewhere you should go -- and take the kids with you -- I'm going to have to hang my hat as a writer, because I've clearly done something wrong.

Please donate to Project Valour IT

To the right of this post, you can see a large thermometer which measures how much people have been donating to the Navy team competing in the Project Valour -- IT fund raiser. To remind you, Project Valour -- IT is committed to providing laptop computers to severely injured troops. Computers aren't free however, and it takes public support to make the program happen.

Fund raising this year has been low, so Soldiers' Angels, the marvelous service organization that sponsors the fund raiser, has added an incentive: if you donate more than $25.00 using one of the Make a Donation buttons on this page, you'll get a special Soldiers' Angels gold colored coin with the insignia of the branch of the services that represents your team. (At least, that's what I've been told, although I can't guarantee that.)

So, if you feel that today would be a good day to make a profound difference in someone's life -- and, more specifically, in the life of someone who was willing to put his or her life on the line for you -- please head over to Project Valour and make a donation. If I'm right about the incentive, you'll get a gold coin for your efforts, and if I'm wrong, you'll still have the knowledge that you helped someone in a direct and meaningful way.

The anti-aesthetic era

Usually, when you grow up, you don't say "Gee, the fashions of my youth sure are ugly." The glaring exception to this rule is the mid-1970s. Even as a child, I knew that my own era lacked that certain something when it came to fashion, an awareness that may have contributed to my lifelong obsession with fashion history. I mean, let's be honest: any other decade in 20th Century fashion looked better than the 1970s.

If you don't believe me about the massive hideousness that was the 1970s, you clearly need a refresher course, which you can get by checking out Jancee Dunn's reprint of a few pages from a 1975 J.C. Penney catalog. My favorite is the Superfly trio, a reference you'll understand once you've checked her site out. The same hideous blast from the past shows up at 15 Minute Lunch which, in slighter bluer language than Dunn's, analyzes Penney's 1977 offering. All I can ask is, "What were they thinking (or, do I mean, smoking) in those days?"

Dogs

I happen to be very, very fond of dogs. I'm especially fond of my dog who is, bar none, the nicest dog I've ever had -- and that's saying a lot, because I've had many nice dogs in my life. The joke I always make -- and that my children fully understand since they adore the dog too -- is that the dog is my favorite child, because she's the only one who listens to me. Well, it's a joke that she's my favorite child; it's a fact that she's the only one who listens to me.

I'm waffling on about my dog because I found a website that has the most beautiful header running across the top, with a lovely dog looking as if she's about to get in trouble in a flower bed. The blog is called Daisy, Bella, Jake and Me, and is a very friendly looking place, with posts about remodeling, elementary school and preschool children -- and dogs, lots of dog stuff. It's definitely my kind of blog and, if you're reading this, one that you may like too.

A cookbook that I don't have, but should get

I was waiting at the orthodontist's office yesterday for what turned out to be an hour long visit. I managed to flip my way through every People magazine in the office. Reading people confirmed what I've long suspected: I am slowly turning into my mother, because I had no idea who half the people in the magazine were.

It was also interesting flipping through months and months of the magazine in one fell swoop. Every month has a confession from some star or starlet about substance abuse or eating disorders, every month has worried friends emoting about a star's or starlet's substance abuse or eating disorders, every month has a glowing report about a star's or starlet's incredible parenting skills, and there are lots of fashion pages for clothes that really don't look very nice. (Have I mentioned that I'm turning into my mother?)

Scattered amongst these kinds of articles, which hold no interest for me, are some stories about things people have accomplished, whether they're famous or not. One of the accomplishees profiled in a recent article is Jerry Seinfeld's wife. Now, much as I admire Jerry as a comedian -- and I think he's one of the most gifted comic minds around -- I'm really not interested in his wife. But I am interested in what she's done. She's created a cookbook with recipes that appeal to kids, but that have healthy ingredients hidden within them.

Jessica Seinfeld's book, called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, has already gotten some negative publicity, although I suspect it's not deserved. The author of a similar book has cried foul, but Jerry has defended his wife against charges of vegetable plagiarism:

Jerry Seinfeld says his wife isn't guilty of "vegetable plagiarism." Jessica Seinfield's "Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food," published this month by HarperCollins, explains how to hide nutritious vegetables in traditional recipes so children will eat them.

The couple have three children.

"So there's another woman who had another cookbook — and it was a similar kind of thing, with the food and the vegetables in the food — and my wife never saw the book, read the book, used the book," the 53-year-old comedian said Monday on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman."

"But the books came out at the same time. So this woman says, `I sense this could be my wacko moment.' So she comes out ... and she accuses my wife. She says, `You stole my mushed-up carrots. You can't put mushed-up carrots in a casserole. I put mushed-up carrots in a casserole. It's vegetable plagiarism,'" Seinfeld joked.

"I love the term `plagiarism' for this little event," he said. "Because it used to be you had to really take a theme from a major novel, some sort of literary narrative. Now, you're in your kitchen making brownies, you sneak a little spinach in there, your name's dragged through the mud."

Since I just got an Amazon gift certificate, this book may well be the thing I buy with it.

Talking travel to a wider audience

Here's something kind of fun for me to boast about. A few posts below, I told you about a new travel website that's hoping to become (and shows every sign of becoming) an internet destination
for families planning their vacations. It's called Kango, and is definitely worth a look.

And today, speaking entirely without humility, it's more worth a look than ever. Yup, I got stuff published there. In addition to its search engine abilities and eating and lodging recommendations, Kango also has a blog in which guest bloggers who have stories about traveling with kids and pets get to pass on useful information. Today, Kango published a post I did about traveling in Paris in the winter with elementary school aged children. It's an interesting time of year to be in Paris and, despite the cold, the wet, and the short days, there's still so much to do.

I hope to have more travel reports up at Kango's blog because, while my family doesn't travel as much as some families I know, we still manage to get around and see some interesting stuff.

A cookbook I recommend

Those who know me, know that I'm a totally mediocre cook, something I think goes along with my lack of any artistic skills. What saves my life in the kitchen, and ensures that my family periodically eats well, is a cookbook I stumbled across at Costco called America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, a name that is really off-putting. Don't let yourself be put off, though. It's one of the best cookbooks . . . no, strike that. It is the best cookbook I've ever seen.

The book's shtick is that, back at the America's Test Kitchen headquarters, the staff experiments with every recipe 20, 30 or 40 times, trying various ways to cook it, until the results are foolproof. For example, they'll try a recipe with whole milk, low fat milk, fat free milk, condensed milk and powdered milk, over and over, until they determine which ingredient yields the best results every time.

For someone like me, with absolutely no natural instincts when it comes to cooking, and very little acquired skill, this book is the way to go. I've had it for almost a year now and cook out of it probably 3-5 nights a week (with the other nights being a hodge podge of left overs, high quality frozen food, and cold cereal, depending on their needs and my fatigue). It's gotten to the point where the kids have almost forgotten what a lousy cook I used to be!

So, if you're in the market for a truly excellent cookbook, let me recommend this one. You'll love some of the recipes, like others, and learn a heck of a lot about reliable, delicious food preparation.

Why in the world would anyone do this?

I certainly understand the desire to excel, and there is no doubt that humans crave recognition for their achievements. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me to figure out why someone would want to achieve at this activity, with the only recognition coming from normal people asking "what the heck is wrong with him?"

Another day, another bizarre world record for Jackie Bibby, the "Texas Snake Man." Bibby spent about 45 minutes in a see-through bathtub with 87 rattlesnakes Monday, fully clothed, shattering his own record by 12 snakes just in time for Guinness World Records Day, which is Thursday. A Guinness official certified the record.

The snakes crawled under his arms, between his legs and anywhere else they could slither, Bibby said. None bit him.

"They can go wherever they want as long as they don't start biting," Bibby said. "The key to not biting is for me to stay still. Rapid movement scares a rattlesnake. If you move real slow and gentle, that doesn't seem to bother them."

Bibby sat in the dry tub with a pillow behind him, wearing regular clothing. The snakes were not defanged and still contained their venom, he said.

Someone definitely did not get enough attention as a child.

Soccer season has finally ended!

Soccer season has finally ended, and I have to say that I'm grateful. My kids have been part of the soccer circuit for the last five years, but this season somehow just wiped me out. Their practice schedules didn't mesh well, so that his practice ended at field X at 5:00, while hers started at 5:00 on field Y, on the other side of town. The games were also a problem, with my trying to race from field to field to be there for both of them. (Daddy, sadly, was out of town for several game weekends.)

Added to the fatigue of the logistics was the fact that it was a spectacularly losing season for both kids. For the past two years, my daughter was on the winning-est teams in the league (in her age group). This year, she was on a team that had only one win, with the rest being losses.

Now, I'm not a bad loser, so I don't want you to think that merely losing was the problem. The problem was that, for the first 2/3 of the season, the team was losing because most of the girls weren't trying. Halfway through the game, some of the girls would just stop playing and walk around the field chit-chatting. Because my daughter really throws herself into the game, it was depressing to see her dragged down by this kind of disrespect from her fellow team members.

Fortunately, at that 2/3 point in the season, something changed, and all of the girls really began to commit to the game. They still couldn't hang onto more than that one victory, but they were suddenly trying hard and losing by ever smaller margins. Of course, for me, it was too late. The fatigue had already set in and I couldn't shake the feeling of ennui every time a game began.

My son's season was also uninspiring. Although younger than my daughter is, he was on a training team aimed at cultivating the better players for the competitive leagues. For this reason, the coach decided to try a new approach this year -- no regular games.

For most of the season, the 24 boys on the skirmish team simply trained against each other. I went and watched, but it was just like watching practice, so I really couldn't get a head of steam up.

Then, for two major competition weekends, the coach divided the boys into the "A" team and the "B" team and sent them off to play. The "A" boys had a game maturity and aggression that enabled them to play well at these competitions despite the fact that they'd never practiced as a team. The "B" team boys, however, while much more skilled than your ordinary 8 year old, simply lacked the savvy that would enable them to play what amounted to a high quality pick-up game. All four games saw them being absolutely trounced, which is incredibly demoralizing for little boys -- and for little Mommies.

So, now that the days are finally drawing in with Daylight Savings Time, I'm glad to see the last of soccer, and just hope that next year's season will be a little more fun for all of us.

An excellent organization for people with military mad sons

My son has always been crazy about the military. Although we live in Marin, which is not a community that's very friendly to the military, when he was five he spent the entire year wearing only camo. Even now, at least 20% of his clothes are camo, and he likes to show up at his grandmother's retirement community so attired (much to the delight of the residents, many of whom are World War II veterans).

Because of his passion for all things military, one of the organizations to which we belong is the Navy League. The Navy League's mission statement explains a lot about it:

The Navy League of the United States is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating our citizens about the importance of sea power to U.S. national security and supporting the men and women of the sea services and their families.

That's all well and good, but it sounds about as exciting as a high school civics class. The real excitement of the Navy League lies in the fact that, if you live in a coastal community where Navy ships dock, you get ship tours. And not just tours were you tromp on board with a thousand other people and shuffle through popular sites on the deck. No. These are the real deal, where one of the ship's officers takes you on a private tour of the entire, leaving out only the crew's quarters out of respect for their privacy. My son was in hog heaven, my husband and I were fascinated, and my daughter couldn't wait to leave after our last in-depth tour.

So, if you or someone you love is interested in things military, I highly recommend the Navy League as a way to get a really good look at, and amazing knowledge about, the United States Navy.

The trouble with rich people

I met a rich person, a really, really rich person, a few days ago. This was not a good thing, because thinking about his wealth made me feel discontented.

Thinking about my envy over the last few days, I've realized that I'm not feeling greed in the way one would assume, which is a desire to increase my material goods. I'm actually a person of very simple tastes and there aren't many material things that I desire. Nope. What I wanted was the time his money could buy.

His money could buy me freedom from a job that, lately, leaves me more tired than mentally satisfied; freedom from mountains of laundry, both dirty and clean; freedom from shopping and cooking and cleaning up; freedom from driving carpools all over the place; and freedom from the dragging, exhausting chains of day to day living.

If there's money to be had, you can have it for your fancy cars, pretty jewelry and designer clothes. All I want is a little time to myself.

Travel info

Kango, which is mentioned in a comment to one of my posts, is an interesting website. It's aim is to provide easily accessible travel information:

Our mission is to help people plan travel that fits their lives perfectly, whether that life is about window-shopping for gems in Beverly Hills, or simply finding hidden gems like a secret bathing pool uncovered by the tide in Kauai. Leave cookie-cutter vacations behind - Kango shows you creative options for romance, nature, glamour, or family fun.

The mission statement makes it sound as if the goal is to help all travelers, but the pictures and category headings make it look as if the website is really focusing on family travel. Thus, in addition to myriad pictures of children frolicking, there are category headlines such as "family friendly things to do in Hawaii," and "family friendly things to do in California."

I think this is a great idea. For years, I've been searching for family vacation plans by plugging phrases such as "family friendly _______" into Google, and hoping for the best. This website, though, looks as if it's already figured out what's family friendly and then consolidated all that information in one place.

Masters in Mom Management

My neighbors are getting tired of my hoary old joke that there ought to be an MMM -- a Masters in Mom Management. But really, there should be.

Every Thursday afternoon, I do three hours of volunteer work with a group in which my son is involved. And every Thursday, I have to make sure that my daughter has someplace to be. Right now, she's involved in a one hour long sports activity on Thursday afternoons.

Today, after an hour on the phone and eleven phone calls, I was finally able to arrange it so that one person takes her to the activity, and then another one picks her up for a play date. In between she gets the spare cell phone and detailed directions about where to wait for the ride home, so that she stays safe and in contact at all times.

Phew! I'm exhausted. If I got paid for this type of management work -- heck, if any Mom got paid for this type of management work -- Mom would be one of the best paying white collar jobs in America.