Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

Desperately Seeking Fun

I'm really getting tired of all the doom and gloom I've been feeling the last couple of weeks. I'm grateful that my husband - the eternal optimist - took a vacation week so he could spend time with his mum as we prep for the Bat Mitzvah.

I need him to talk me down.

So I'm trying to focus my energy (as much as possible) on the positive things going on in my life...

Like the fact that my auto reviews are now being re-posted over at AskPatty.com (the automotive site for women, produced by women). I've been told my take on the Ford Flex is being published there today.

I also got news last week that SoCal Mom has been listed on Nickolodeon's GoCityKids ParentsConnect site and that I'm in the running for "Best Local Blog" in their annual Parents Picks awards!

Nominees are chosen based on reader reviews - but mine's kind of a cheat, since the only person who has reviewed me is the site's Los Angeles editor, Roberta Brown.

"You might want to ask your readers, friends, and family to visit your page on our site to post a rating and review. I've started you out with a five-star rating from me since obviously I liked your blog enough to share it with our readers!"

True confession time: In five and a half years of blogging, I've NEVER been nominated for or won an award. I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but that kind of bugs me. I'm going to be really pathetic right now and ask my readers to please visit this link and vote for me.

I'll be your best friend...

Good Feng Shui

A short time ago, my car began displaying the following disturbing message: "Brake Fluid Low - Service Engine Urgent." The message only seemed to flash sporadically and only when I was entering the 118 freeway going east, so I didn't feel it was all that urgent.

However, the car has been driving kind of funny, which I suspected was due to a bad turn I made into a driveway. I suspected the front end needed realignment, so I made an appointment to get the thing serviced this morning.

As it is a leased car, I'm kind of stuck taking it to a dealer. But if you must do it there, there are worse places to go than Galpin of the Valley. For one thing, they have a full-service Starbucks right there in the customer lounge. And on this visit, I discovered that they had finally put in a free wi-fi hotspot.

The lounge also has a large HDTV and tables and chairs so customers can get their work done.

The one thing it doesn't have is an electrical outlet.

As my front end realignment and new brake pads (aha! the reason for that message) have kept me here for over two hours -- and my laptop battery only lasts about 30 minutes -- this looked to be something of a problem. So I snooped around until I found an outlet I could use... next to the TV in the adjacent children's play area.

So I've spent the last 90 minutes on my knees, hunched over a toddler-sized table in the play area. There weren't any children about when I got here. Now, there are a few, but they are not using the room. I hope it's not because of me.

I'm actually surprised that more people haven't joined me. One woman did come in, looking for an outlet for her laptop, but she concluded that the remaining ones were not "good feng shui."

"Oh you're all right," she said, pointing to the plate glass barrier I am facing as I type this. "But none of these other outlets are positioned correctly." I guess she decided to forego using her computer, because she did not return.

And I'm not certain how great the feng shui actually is here. If it was, don't you think I would have come up with a better post than this one?

The 15-Minute Challenge

Been out of the house all day and for once, left my computer at home.

I have to retrieve my college student niece and nephew tomorrow for a weekend visit, which means I have to do something about the squalor we normally live in. I figure an hour of housework will turn the state of our home into the squalor they are used to seeing when they visit.

This means I have about 15 minutes to hammer out a quick post here. WHY? Because I like you. (I don't know why I'm channeling Jimmy Dodd tonight, it just sounded right).

Megan went back to school today, which means I got my life back. I dropped her off, I went to the weight clinic (have fluctuated just one-half pound since the diet ended last week -- even after taking the program to the limit yesterday). I went to the gym for my first workout since Sunday.

Then, off to Topanga Plaza, where I had a lunch date with Lin, a blogging friend for the last couple of years. We've been trying to get together for a while, and today it finally happened.

Our lunch turned out to be two hours of non-stop conversation, with nary a lull between us (only when the waiter brought us identical Nicoise Salads). We have a lot in common: we are older women with children (she also has grandchildren) who blog, we are both married to engineering geologists from Wales, and we are watching our weight. Plenty to talk about there!

I am sorry to say that our lunch was interrupted several times by the ring of my phone. I don't know why it is that I NEVER get phone calls during the day... UNLESS during those rare occasions when I am enjoying a face-to-face meeting with a friend! Fortunately, Lin is a gracious and understanding person.

I got to the mall early and so engaged in my new favorite hobby: Trying on clothes and marveling that they fit. After 12 years of being badly overweight, this is something I am having a hard time getting used to. But it's a good thing.

OK. Done. I'm off to get the vacuum cleaner.

Tell Me That You Love Me

Come on! Send me a Valentine and get a button for yourself, too.

Get your own valentinr

(I won't receive your Valentine's Day wishes until the 14th.)

Thanks to Lizzie at This Full House and Shannon at PhatMommy for this one.

It's Awfully Quiet Out There

It's 11:00 a.m.

I have not received even ONE personal email today. No comments. No Facebook notifications. Not even the usual onslaught of Twitter tweets that come in overnight. (I Twittered about it myself to see if the thing was working, and it showed up on Facebook, so I guess it is.)

Where IS everybody?

Is it the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday? I know a lot of school districts give their students the entire week off. Not ours, unfortunately. We don't get to drive to Sacto for Thanksgiving until Thanksgiving, and now we have both of my sister's college-age kids in tow with us. It's nice, because it gives Megan that sibling experience, fighting in the backseat with them.

There haven't even been that many posts on my friends' sites today. What I have seen has been disquieting; a lot of health issues. One of my oldest online friends, Leila, recently discovered a recurrence of the breast cancer she had conquered a few years ago. Leila is an Arab-American, and I have always enjoyed reading her blog because she has always been willing to engage in dialogue with peace-seeking people of all religious backgrounds, and could be counted on to write eloquently of what is hopeful in the Middle East.

But last month, she wrote a post that was anything but hopeful:

I have long felt a philosophical problem with this blog. For four years I've been trying to post "signs of hope." In the meantime I have felt great despair about the state of the world. Now I discover that some think there's a connection between repressed anger and illness.

It's time for me to be honest and quit keeping silent in the face of the world's miseries. I am very angry. I am angry at what my government has done in my name; I am angry at the State of Israel; I am angry at right-wing Lebanese who call themselves Christians and yet flout the teachings of Jesus; I am angry at anybody who uses violence: suicide bombers, fighter jet bombers, cluster bombs, suitcase bombs. I am angry at what Republicans and Democrats have done to democracy in this country. I am angry at what we are all doing to the natural world for our own selfish greediness. I am angry that I got cancer and I am angry that many women in my country can't get treated properly for their illnesses because our health care delivery system is so screwed up. I am angry at what happened in Nahr-al-Bared this summer, and I am angry at all the militaristic jingoistic people in America and Lebanon who think that their soldiers do anything to "protect" them.

Since that time, Leila's writing is back to reflecting her inherent optimism. She continues to focus on news that is positive.

A new friend, Jo, is also dealing with the recurrence of an old cancer. Jo is fiercely funny; it is no surprise that she is tackling this bad news with humor. She posted the results of her last scan and then went on to describe the tattoos she is planning on getting when she kicks this thing again.

One of them will depict a phoenix, which is an apt symbol for both of these admirable women.

Just because the annual October pink ribbon breast cancer awareness campaign is over doesn't mean we get to stop thinking about it. This year, more than ever, I am thankful for my health. And I'm giving an extra donation in honor of my sisters who can't say that this November.

Poke Me Now or Poke Me Later

Megan came home from gym Monday night with a mystery fever. No other symptoms (other than a little sniffle), and very low grade -- 100 degrees. She felt pretty good yesterday, but towards evening she started complaining that she was cold (it was 90 degrees at 7:00 last night; the house was comfortable but not cold) and headache-y. Her temp at that time was 99.6, so I dosed her with some Motrin and concluded we'd have to stay home together an additional day (my rule is that she needs to go 24 hours without a fever before I'll let her back into the world).

So here we are. I was going to get some work done before she got out of bed, but I made the mistake of logging in to Facebook, the biggest time suck I've encountered since -- well, since I discovered blogging. I curse Grace Davis for inviting me to join. (Not really. I love Grace. She is one of my blogging heroes, and I hope I sincerely flatter her by following her every tech-y footstep.)

"What are you doing there?" my sister asked me indignantly. "That's just for students." Yeah, I know. Both of her college kids have friended me, as have a couple of their friends. I haven't asked them if they resent me being there. I don't think they do, because they message me there and "write on my wall."

I know from my friend Karoli that there are a number of young Facebook users who DO resent the fact that the social networking site has been opened up to the general population. Oh well. The current Newsweek cover story reports that Facebook expects its student users to number just 30% by the end of the year.

A lot of people are using the Facebook application as a business tool, and there are certainly lots of business-related special interest groups to join there, allowing you easy networking with all kinds of like-minded people. I belong to a few of these, but don't check them all that often. No, aside from BlogHer and the Mommybloggers group, the areas that are sucking most of my time are the silly ones, like Michelle's group, titled Shallow and Tacky Like You (hey, she made me an officer, so I have a duty to fulfill there!) -- and a group of critics of the British newspaper, The Daily Mail (with a profanity laced title, so I'm not going say what it is, but click here and you'll see).

And then there are the Applications -- hundreds of useful, but mostly silly, add-ons that can make your time on Facebook endless. I don't spend a lot of time seeking them out, but as my home page shows a daily news feed of everything my friends have been up to, when I see that they've added an app that looks interesting, I'll check it out, too. So this morning, when I saw that another friend had added something called Interests +, I followed suit...

...and spent the next hour merrily selecting musical artists and TV shows I enjoy. An hour. An hour I could have spent doing something constructive, like balancing the checkbook.

It's a good thing Megan is doing so much better today (no fever so far - YEA!) because tomorrow, I'll be able to get out of the house again and do things. And tear myself away from this lovely Internet.

Gym Drama

I've spent the week stressing over stuff happening at Megan's gym. I drafted three quite lengthy posts about it before deleting them; after all, the problem is pretty simple: Her favorite coaches are all leaving

I am surprised by how much of my emotional energy this situation has consumed. I have not been able to focus on much else. I think maybe I've invested too much of myself in my daughter's activities, which isn't healthy.

I contacted another gym -- one that is owned by one of the coaches from the 2004 US Women's Olympic team (and is currently a coach at UCLA) -- and the captain of the 2004 team is another coach there.

I know other people who tried out there and were told there was a waiting list, so they ended up elsewhere. But I also have a friend who has been there a while and told me that there might be a window of opportunity RIGHT NOW. So I arranged for Megan to try out there on Wednesday (missing her usual practice at her current gym, which has freaked out her current head coach, who has no problem putting two and two together and knows we must be looking around).

The owner of the other gym was very nice. He said Megan had what it takes to "go all the way" in gymnastics and said he thought she would be a nice fit on his team. And he told us that he trains his kids with an eye towards getting recruited by college teams. This was music to my ears.

But Megan doesn't want to make the change. She's loyal (which is a good quality). She doesn't want to leave the place that's been a second home to her these last three years, nor does she want to leave her teammates (although one of them has already defected to another gym).

She's the one who has to spend all the time there, so I feel it has to be her decision. But I am also afraid that when the coaches are gone (at the end of the month), she won't be so happy where we are.

On the other hand, she has pretty good instincts. And all the things I've stressed about in the past (regarding Megan) have proved to be just minor things. So I am trying to tell myself that we are not making a huge mistake by remaining where we are (at the same time, trying to figure out how to keep the door open at gym #2, just in case).

In the meantime, I need to step away and just be supportive.