Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

Debate Live Blog!

I'm watching the debate tonight with my sistahs over at MOMocrats, where we are live blogging the event. Join us there here.

What's On My Mind Today

I have 250 messages in my Inbox - and that's AFTER I pared down everything that came in overnight.

Can you say "over-stimulated"?

I'm taking the day to go through my messages, follow up on those that need a response and delete the ones that are no longer relevant.

One reason it's so full is that we had a gymnastics meet over the weekend that required an overnight stay.

Correction: We COULD have driven back home afterwards (in fact, most of the other families did that). But the meet ended around 6:30 and Megan was famished - as she usually is after four hours of physical activity. Actually, the entire family is hungry after these events, and I've learned the hard way that when it's over, we need to have a meal AS SOON AS POSSIBLE - or I'll get battered in the ensuing battle of low blood sugar between my husband and daughter.

We had a nice dinner with one of the other families (who decided to eat before they embarked on their own long drive home) and a good night's sleep in our hotel.

But here's the part that I can't shake. I had been shocked at booking the room that even a two-star hotel in this community was going for over $150 a night. I thought about that yesterday morning, while watching Treasury Secretary Henry Poulson on Meet the Press. Our economic sky is falling, and we shelled out $150+ to stay overnight in a community two hours away; living our lives as if nothing is happening.

And we're doing the same thing next week.

I have very real fears about the future. This is bound to impact the lifestyle of our family and that of everyone we know. It already has impacted us; my husband works for a geotech firm which, until this year, was working on a huge slate of housing developments, all of which have dried up. I am even worried for my wealthier friends; I have no idea what kind of investments are in their portfolios or how leveraged they might be.

I'm afraid to sign the catering contract for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah in April. I'm afraid that after all this hard work to keep her in gymnastics, that in the near future we might have to eliminate it from our budget. I worry that our wonderful new gym might go out of business in the near future; not because of any mistakes the owners make but just as fallout from the mess on Wall Street.

But worrying about every possible bad outcome isn't going to prevent it and all it can really do is make ME crazy. If there is one thing I've learned in my 52 years, it's that it is better and healthier to go through life with a positive attitude.

So I'm going to try to put the storm clouds out of my mind. I'm going to continue to live my life. And I'm going to continue doing what I think I can to make the world a better place.

That's why last night's Emmy broadcast was such a welcome diversion. Even though the five reality hosts bit didn't really work, I think the show was a lot better than last year's disaster-in-the-round. I love the look of the Nokia Theatre LA Live (it seems way nicer than Pasadena Civic, the site of the Emmy telecasts I used to attend, back in the day). I loved the way they evoked the sets from the classic programs of the past. And I even liked Josh Groban's manic medley of classic TV theme songs.

And I agreed with the Academy on many of the winners this year (for a change). I was disappointed that Jeremy Piven won again for "Entourage" - NOT that he doesn't deserve all the awards he's received for his work as Ari Gold - I think he's brilliant. But it would have been nice to see Kevin Dillon win for the same show. Or Rainn Wilson for "The Office." Or Neil Patrick Harris for his legendary work on "How I Met Your Mother." And as much as I dislike "Two and a Half Men," I've always been a fan of Jon Cryer. So they are all winners in my book.

I was pleased to see both "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" honored with Emmys. I swear, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert and their staffs are doing a better job of reporting the news than the news organizations themselves.

I especially enjoyed tributes to some of my favorite programs of my youth: "Laugh In" was a must-see when I was Megan's age, as was "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." I don't think I got what was happening in Viet Nam back then until Tom and Dick Smothers used the war in their edgy comedy bits on that show. They were brilliant, and it really was a big deal when CBS abruptly pulled the plug on them. For years afterwards, there was a billboard across the street from Television City that translated the network's acronym as "Cancelled Brothers Smothers."

I got a little bit teary seeing Tommy accept his delayed award from 40 years ago. He's a funny guy - when I worked at the Tonight Show in the 1980's, I watched him backstage as he did a perfect impression of Johnny doing his monologue.

I got teary again when Mary Tyler Moore introduced Betty White. Again, in my Tonight Show days, the staff would rejoice whenever we booked her for a guest spot (she sometimes participated in sketches, too). Everyone loved her because she was such a delight to work with. She deserves all the recognition of her peers.

Finally, hooray for Tina Fey! I think Alec Baldwin got it right when he compared her with Elaine May. Tina is brilliant and I'm so happy NBC allowed "30 Rock" to stay on the air. Did you notice that most of SNL's nominations were for the episode Fey hosted - which was one of the few really FUNNY ones from last season? Or that nearly all of the guest performance nominations for a comedy were from episodes of "30 Rock"? Baldwin's own Best Actor win was gratifying too - he may have issues in his personal life, but the man is a brilliant actor, in both drama and comedy.

Finally - I'm jazzed that Mad Men was named Best Drama. Although it was a disappointment to discover that last night AMC aired a rerun (I guess they didn't want to compete for Emmy viewers).

All in all, a good night for the TV Academy. And a decent distraction for me, as I'm already feeling better by thinking about something so frivolous. As if nothing has happened.

The Year of The Women

It is being said that our Presidential election will be decided by women. We are 52% of the population and a larger proportion of the population of actual voters. That's why both major political parties are going out of their way to sway undecided women.

But this post is NOT about politics - I prefer to voice those opinions over at the MOMocrats. I only mention it because it's part of a larger picture, where the media-at-large appears to have finally noticed that we women exist, as opinion-shapers and a powerful economic force in our own right.

And I hope you will excuse me while I bask in this.

You see, at 52 years old, I really feel like I have lived the modern women's revolution. I have fairly clear memories of 1963, the year Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. I remember feeling inferior because my mom told me I was too dark skinned to ever dye my hair blonde, which meant that I would never have fun, because that's what Clairol told me on TV. I wanted to be Miss America when I grew up, because she was the national ideal of grown-up womanhood.

Fortunately, my mom never told me that I would likely be too short and ethnic to ever be a candidate. And by the time I was 12, I realized that I was too cool anyway to pursue that particular dream. That was the year the nascent women's liberation movement protested the pageant by throwing "items of female torture" into a garbage can - and earned the colorful label of "bra burners."

To quote another advertisement from my childhood, we've come a long way, baby. OK, so the Equal Rights Amendment got shot down by Phyllis Schlafly and her posse of moral alarmists. But after Hillary Clinton's historic candidacy and the media frenzy surrounding the Republicans' choice for Vice President, women are being actively courted -- and not just by advertisers.

Suddenly, our opinions matter.

I've seen more media requests for women in the last couple of weeks than I have in the entire five years I've been writing this blog: My MOMocrat sistah PunditMom, was interviewed by CBS (along with Lawyer Mama), Fox News and twice by CNN.

They want our opinions. They want our support. They create products they hope will appeal to us.

It's too bad they don't respect us.

Take the new movie, "The Women," opening today. It is based on Claire Booth Luce's 1936 play (and 1939 MGM film) about society women, and was revolutionary at the time for its all-female cast.

Seventy years later, that all-female cast thing is still unique. In fact, it was one of the reasons writer/director Diane English (who created Murphy Brown) spent 14 years getting the thing made: no one wanted to greenlight a project that did not include one male character - because WHO would want to see it?

You see, there is a fallacy among the people who produce motion pictures that the only people who want to go out to movies any longer are men aged 25 and younger.

A few months ago, most of the entertainment media was shocked at how successful the Sex and the City movie was. After all, it was a chick flick.

And this summer, they were surprised again when Mamma Mia surpassed their box office projections.

Neither of these films got very good reviews. News flash: Movies created for women and families are not deemed "cool" by a lot of entertainment critics. A movie appealing to these audiences has to be Oscar quality to get an embrace. The rest are received with little praise, even the ones that fulfill their meager promise to be an entertaining diversion (and I think that's the goal of most films and for most film goers).

I am expecting that The Women won't be treated any better by the critics. (I'll have my own review up at Socal Stuff shortly.)

I also expect that it will do very well at the box office. Because this is, after all, our year.

Reality Television

There's no rest for the weary in the Schwartz-Mills household.

Well, that's not entirely true. My family understood my jet lagged state on Saturday and Sunday after my incredible week at the Democratic National Convention. My intention was to write up a travel post about the joys of downtown Denver.

Did I do it? Nope.

Monday was Labor Day, and we received an urgent email from my brother-in-law in the United Kingdom. A friend of theirs had just finished the first of two weeks visiting a friend in Los Angeles, and as of then, she hadn't really seen anything. Would we mind showing her around?

Of course we didn't mind! Showing off my city (and its environs) to visitors is one of my favorite past times.

Did I write about it? Nope.

Yesterday was the first day of a new school year and the annual re-shifting of gears from summer time "relaxed" to autumn busy. We spent Tuesday doing our last minute back-to-school shopping (to make up for the fact that I'd spent the previous week in Denver) and hit the ground running yesterday. We were late to school, late to car pool, late to gymnastics and late getting home. And the battle to help my kid keep her life in balance begins anew. In the next few days, I will be making myself known to her counselor, her new teachers, and her new principal as I fight for less homework and (a longshot) a waiver from PE class (the child trains in gymnastics 16-20 hours per week and can probably out-perform her teacher. She needs a study hall; not more physical education).

Have I written my annual Back to School post? Nope.

My new virtual employer was very understanding about my time in Denver and has been really patient with me as I put off printing out mailing labels and writing her web copy and newsletter. I managed to eke out a couple of hours' of work for her this week, but not nearly as much as required.

So what have I been doing with my time?

Mostly, reading and writing emails and posts between my fellow MOMocrats. I thought the pace would settle down once we got back from the DNC, but that was before Senator McCain selected his running mate. Holy Moley. The most interesting election of my adult life is better than anything on Bravo.

The MOMocrats have been live blogging the Republican National Convention. Last night, we made the decision to raise funds for Barack Obama during the live blog... visitors to our site donated a total of $700 to the campaign.

As of now, I think we're live blogging again tonight - but alas, I won't be there. To paraphrase Senator McCain, tonight I am taking off my MOMocrats hat and putting on my SoCal Mom hat to attend the kind of event Los Angeles is known for.

Curious? Watch this space - I will be blogging about it.

If I can break away from the drama of the election.

It Was an Amazing Week

Updated August 30th. I've amended this post to reflect the fact that I DID see Hillary's speech - and was very impressed with it (That speech was on Tuesday - not Monday, the night I missed everything). I guess I was so tired yesterday afternoon that I was having trouble remembering my own timeline.

I feel jet lagged – five nights w/just a couple of hours’ sleep will do that to you.

It was AMAZING to be at the Democratic National Convention… but I have to say that I missed more of the event than I got to see! Our press credential allowed just one person to be on the floor plus two on the perimeter at any time and we had to share those passes among ten women.

Our first night there, we got caught in a riot so missed Hillary’s speech that night's speeches. I watched the second night on CSPAN alone in my room.

I finally got my turn at Pepsi Center on Wednesday, but couldn’t find the blogger room until just before Bill Clinton came on and it was full and they wouldn’t let me in and the deal had been that another member of the team would take the floor pass to see Biden, but then I couldn’t find the media tent where the blogger lounge was (there were five tents around the Pepsi Center).  I got there just as Bill finished. I advised her to get her spot in the blogger room asap and told her where it was.

And then, just as Beau Biden started his speech, I started having technical difficulties with the internet connection and was dealing with that and ended up missing the rest of the evening’s speeches. So it was VERY FRUSTRATING.

Last night at Invesco, our press section faced the network news setups, so we couldn’t see the stage and had to watch everything on the JumboTron. But it was very exciting to be there and I think I got some good photos (have not had a chance to look at them yet).

Psst! Wanna Help a MOMocrat?

So here's the deal:

By some crazy twist of fate, I have been welcomed into a group of amazing, caring, smart and funny political moms... and we have managed to obtain a press credential at the Democratic National Convention this month and we will be blogging it as only a group of political mom bloggers can.

It's an incredible honor. But it will also be incredibly expensive. We don't have a big parent company funding us. We are on our own.

That's where you come in! Friends and readers of MOMocrats have donated what they can to help us defray some of our costs via the ChipIn widget you see on my sidebar. And this week, we are taking the fundraising skills we've honed at our churches, scout troops and PTA's: We are holding a sale -- and we're doing it online!

The items 26 bags of quality swag (so THAT'S what we do with all the stuff those PR people send us). Tickets in the Help a Mama-Swag-O-Rama are just $3 each, with a minimum donation of $6. That investment could get YOU a valuable, swaggy prize. Check them out here.

But if you don't see anything you like and still want to help, please consider Chipping In - If you send us a donation of $25, we'll reward you with a nifty MOMocrats bumper sticker.

Thank you for your support!

Send a MOMocrat to Convention

As I mentioned before, the MOMocrats have accomplished something that seemed like a dream just a few short months ago: We managed to get credentialed to blog at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Now we have to figure out how to get there (and stay there for the four days of the event), and we're asking our friends for a little help. If you can spare a few dollars, please click on the link above -- and if you've got other fundraising ideas, please pass them along (I am SO not good at this!)

Thank you!

Dreams of a Mother

Happy Mother's Day to all my readers (and their mothers)!

I'm excited, because this afternoon we're going to go on our annual Mother's Day visit to L.A.'s Farmer's Market, where we will shop, watch the pretty people, and enjoy French food and wine at Monsieur Marcel's lovely little outdoor cafe. And I get to be a surrogate mom to my beautiful 20-year-old niece, who isn't able to spend the day with my sister up in Sacramento.

For those of you who came here looking for something interesting to read, I'm going to have to direct you over to the MOMocrats, where we are celebrating the day with a special meme: Dreams of a Mother:

Each of the MOMocrats is writing about our own dreams as mothers and we encourage all of you to join us over the next week.  In true MOMocrats style, each MOMocrat will be sharing a political or social issue close to her heart.  We'd love it if you did too, but your own special non-political dreams are important as well.  We want the world to hear them.

I'd like to encourage you to blog about your own dreams for the world and your children and then leave a comment with your link on this post. I can't wait to read what you all have to say!

(And after you visit MOMocrats, you can read my latest post over at 50-Something Moms Blog.)

SoCal Mom Goes to Washington

I'm brimming with blog post ideas. Normally, this would be a good thing, as I'm now writing and/or contributing to something like five different blogs. But the website design project reared its ugly head again this week.

I'm not saying that the website is ugly, but the photos I had to work with were, and the client had the whole thing re-shot -- which means I'm doing the update all over again.

It's actually a lot easier this time around, because the new photos are gorgeous and I'm not wasting a lot of time messing with them (as I had to do the first time around). I'm hopeful that I can get the site back up and running by the end of the day tomorrow, and the really good news is that when it's all done, I will have earned a lot more money from the project than I'd expected.

But the bad news is that I'm behind on my blogging. Once again, I will be kind of absent here until the website project is finished.

In the meantime, I am this week's "Mother of Intention" over at PunditMom's political blog. I know -- In nearly five years of writing SoCal Mom, I've rarely indicated that I had any opinions about anything other than how absurd it is to live in the land of swimming pools and movie stars. So how come the sudden interest in politics? Well, it's always been there - but I was afraid to raise my voice; afraid that I would sound stupid or that revealing that side of my personality would alienate the people who come here to read cute stories about kids and school and Hollywood gossip.

The fear of coming across as dumb and uninformed almost paralyzed me when I wrote my first guest post on the MOMocrats and then a second one (after responding to tweets from Stefania looking for posts about health care - a subject I could talk about for an hour or two). And so when MOMocrats co-founder Glennia Campbell invited me to be a permanent member of the group, I thought she was kidding. I ignored her until she asked me a second time! (Honestly, Glennia, I wasn't playing hard to get, because once I understood you were serious, you found out that I'm really kind of easy.)

But once I started receiving the group's emails, I realized I'd really jumped out of the frying pan and into the political fire. I knew these women were SMART. I knew they were PASSONATE. I knew they were amazingly ENERGETIC. It's taken me some time to participate freely in their discussions because I feel like such a lightweight next to Stefania, Glennia, Joanne, Alysin, Beth,  Bitsy, Christine, Cyn, Debbie, Erin, Jaelithe, Jen, Jenn, Joan Garry, Julie, Kady, Kristen, Liz, Melissa, Sarah, Sheila and Stephanie .

So last week, when Joanne asked me (ME!) if I would be a guest on PunditMom, I had kind of the same reaction that I did when Glennia invited me to join MOMocrats. She had to be kidding, right?

Only this time, I didn't play hard to get. I immediately responded that I would be honored.

And I am.

Conventional Wisdom

The drive up to San Jose was amazingly easy. We left just 30 minutes later than we’d hoped and made good time, thanks to light traffic and clear skies. We hit Silicon Valley around 11:30, dropped in on our family friends (who are graciously allowing us to use their home as our base), and got to the Convention Center in time to grab some lunch with two MOMocrats extraordinaire: CityMama Stephania Pomponi Butler and Sheila Bernus Dowd (Xiaolin Mama).

One big surprise for my daughter was the news that USA Gymnastics is hosting an international meet here in San Jose, concurrent with the state Democratic convention. In fact, we followed half the likely women’s Olympic team as we looked for a café to eat (and discovered where they are staying).

Megan jumped out of her seat at the sight of Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson (her favorites!) and ran out to snap their photo… but was too late.

She spent the rest of the lunch nagging me about getting tickets to see the meet (which is not the reason we came here). I finally relented (somewhat) by telling her that if she finished her project early rather than later – and the tickets don’t cost too much – maybe we would take some time out to go. (Guess you can tell that the material she dreamed didn’t pan out so well.)

We later discovered that the San Jose Convention Center is the site to see the women's and men's rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline events... but the artistic gymnastic team events are over at San Jose State (not far, but not in the same building).

Coming to an event like this one with your family is not the same as when you are alone. I was very much more of a MOM than a blogging Democrat. I knew that would be the case when I decided to bring my daughter. I spent much of the afternoon helping her with her project (which still isn't done, despite those wild dreams of hers).

When she wasn't writing about te life of Cleopatra, Megan was collecting campaign buttons and autographs of Super Delegates (this will be the subject of a post on the MOMocrats, but as it's past midnight now, I'm afraid I don't have the brainpower to do it justice). I left the convention feeling frustrated with technology:

For one thing, the press room in the Convention Center has no wi-fi. Delegates and media can, however, log on from the meeting rooms and ballrooms on the second floor.

Except  for me.

The internet connection in the Exhibit Hall (where Nancy Pelosi gave a rousing speech) didn't like my computer -- or maybe that was the other way around. I would get on and then lose it, only to receive an error message that indicated that the signal was too low, or I was too far away from the router. Stefania and Glennia (one of the other rockin' founding MOMocrats) were live blogging away on their Mac books. I felt like John Hodgman in one of those Apple commercials; stymied by the inadequacies of the Windows system while the Mac users were sailing high.

After such an early start, I was feeling tired. I begged off a planned MOMocrats dinner at Sheila's house, thinking Megan and I could grab a quick bite and return home to my friends' house (where I might be able to steal a little Internet access for the first time all day). This was a HUGE miscalculation, because the quick bite did not happen.

The plan was thwarted, first by the crowd of delegates waiting to dine at the hotel restaurants, then by a parking fee machine that refused to accept my credit card... and finally, by the GPS unit I'd brought with me for this trip, which suddenly stopped giving me directions.

I ended up horribly out of my way - somewhere past the 880 and nowhere near the 101, which is the route I needed to take to get back home. Eventually, we found a shopping center where I felt safe to park, and Megan (of course) showed me how to get the GPS unit talking to me again.

She ended up with a nutritious (ha!) Happy Meal for dinner. I ate two diet protein bars on the drive home.

The one good thing to come out of my technical and social incompetence is that we got back to our friends' house in time to actually socialize with them a little (instead of just using their place as our hotel). I had a little wine... and ended up talking to their youngest son for about 90 minutes, all about the wonders of blogging and social networking.

And so here I am... past midnight... bleary-eyed... ready to go to bed. And still without a convention related post appropriate for the MOMocrats.

There's always tomorrow. And while I couldn't get a table at the restaurant in the Marriott, it looked like they have good, working wi-fi in the lobby.