Category: Travel

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Beginnings Being a girl cars Friends Games Humor Memoir Sentiment Technology Travel

Back in my day

In high school, I sucked at sports but my friends didn’t. So in order to hang out with them, I kept stats for the softball and girls’ basketball teams. Kind of dorky, but it was fun, and I was good at it, and I have a lot of good memories of away games (and home games too, for that matter).

But things would be very different if I were doing this in 2013. For example, two vanfuls of girls used to drive back from an away game in Ukiah or Willits or Fort Bragg or Colusa or wherever. When we got back to the high school parking lot, the one coach (a father of one of the girls) who had a portable phone would unpack this briefcase so we could all call our parents to come get us. The reception was terrible (likely the fault of the isolated county, and not the briefcase phone).

GCScover

 

Oh, the good old days.

An even better example – but one that it’s possible I’m slightly misremembering – is the time we were headed up to Hoopa for a big annual softball tournament. (I think it was softball.)

hoopamap

This was a very exciting event for us, not least because it was so far away, and we would have to spend the night, and we could probably also fit in a trip to the big mall in Eureka. (No mall in our hometown!)

(I loved the Bayshore Mall growing up, but now Yelp gives it 2.5 stars and calls it a “small town mall.” Ouch.)

The way I remember it, we drove all night long, but now that I’m looking at the the driving time and everything…we probably just left early in the morning. I was in a car with our chemistry/physics teacher, beloved by everyone, his wife, and his daughter, who was on the team. Side note: I love everyone in their family. They were and still are awesome all around.

I remember sitting in the backseat in a pile of blanket and pillows, and driving through the dark. Marilyn was asleep in the far backseat. (Like I said, it was like 2am…right?) There was some weird station on the radio and they were playing Dr. Demento and some other similar song, and the only part of it I remember is an increasingly insane “Poppies poppies poppies poppies!”

When the internet first became the thing that it is today, I searched for that song a little bit, but now I think I prefer not to ever find it and know what it is.

It was pouring rain and I guess it eventually got light outside but I don’t really remember that part. I do remember arriving in Hoopa to find out that the fields had been completely flooded and the tournament was canceled.

I guess there was just someone hanging out at the school, telling everyone that it was canceled. And probably, they made some phone calls in the morning when they had to cancel the tourney. But if the only number they had was the school, and no one was at the school…and none of us had cell phones that the calls could have been relayed to anyway. So we made the entire probably 5-hour drive for no reason.

Well…not NO reason. We did go to the mall and go shopping and get lunch or whatever.

And then…we drove back home. I guess.

We were in Lakeport this weekend and so I’m being sweetly sentimental about a lot of late-90s/early-2000s things. But, I’m also very happy to have internet and a smartphone and all the improvements technology has brought into our lives. I’ll even take the complications.

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Awesome Baby Being a girl Fashion Humor Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Travel

Ode to a purple purse

Carrying a diaper bag suits me.

I’ve always been the kind of person to have too much stuff on me. Occasionally it pays off – like when I’m stuck in line somewhere  and need something to read, or when someone says, “Does anyone have contact solution?” or when someone needs to borrow a pen and I can offer them a choice between 7 different pens and 1 mechanical pencil.

(I like mechanical pencils way more than regular pencils: you don’t have to sharpen them and I just feel like they write really nicely. One of my favorite things in high school used to be sitting down to do math homework on a nice piece of fresh graph paper with a nice 0.7 mechanical pencil…NOT a 0.5!)

Often, of course, I’m just the person with a way-too-full purse, and people with good intentions will tell me that it’s too heavy and that it’s bad for me or something. I remember, right when we moved back to California in 2009, I finally decided to stop carrying around a messenger bag, and I went to Macy’s and bought my purse, the same one I’ve carried since then. It was purple and hobo style, not super huge, but big enough to fit a book and my planner and a granola bar and a bunch of papers I don’t need and of course, up to 10 writing implements.

I carried that purse for over 3 years, probably never matching it to my “outfits,” and I loved it no matter how worn out it got and how dirty it was. But then at church on Christmas Eve, I tried to zip it shut and I guess it was just too full, and the zipper broke clean off. A couple days after Christmas, I remembered about the zipper busting, and so I sat down, ceremoniously emptied everything out, threw away all the old gum wrappers and receipts, sorted the papers into three piles (“shred,” “do something,” “file”), and then, without further ado, stuffed the purse into our kitchen trash can. Not the most illustrious send-off for an accessory that has served me well, but rest assured, purple Nine West purse, I will never forget you.

So now I’ve busted out my cross-body bag that has the NY Public Library lions on the front. Drew’s mom gave it to me for Christmas in 2008. I love it, and it’s got more room, so now I can have all my regular stuff, plus my Nalgene and even an extra granola bar. But probably my favorite thing about it is, since it’s a cross-body, it doesn’t require extra work to keep it on my shoulder, and it doesn’t fall down my arm when I lean over to pick up the carseat, grocery bags, baby toys, etc. (Women will probably understand what I mean.)

But a diaper bag opens up even more possibilities than just a medium-sized purse. I love having an excuse to take an even bigger bag with me. I love that I can just pack up everything I could possibly need: extra clothes (and they’re so tiny, you can fit so many!), bib(s), diapers, almost empty package of wipes, brand new package of wipes, burp cloths, disposable burp cloths, toys, nursing pads, travel lotion, more toys, extra pacifier, pacifier leash(es), other nursing pads, extra plastic fork (just in case?), large hook (for the stroller push bar to hang your plastic shopping bags on), pacifier wipes, diaper disposal bags (scented in case you have throw away a dirty diaper in your office)… and I might be forgetting something.

All this stuff fits in one regular-sized diaper bag…and means that we’re prepared for almost any occasion. I just love that. I love being prepared. I think that’s one of the things I really liked about stage managing – having a kit full of office supplies. (Well, being prepared, and, I just love office supplies.)

The funny thing is, we don’t really need this stuff that often. We do leave the diaper bag at home, or in the car, and go out without it. I’m sure a day will come when we’ll regret that.

In the meantime, we’ll make sure the diaper bag is well stocked for all contingencies. I’ll continue my quest to fit more and more things in my NY Library lions bag. And maybe one day, when all this baby stuff has calmed down, I’ll get myself a new, ladylike purse. One that would make the ladies of Sex and the City proud. Maybe.

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Baby Books Children Drew Friends Nonfiction Technology Travel Writing

Google Me, Part 2: iPhone search terms

Back in the day, I wrote a post called Google Me about all my iPhone search terms, and I reminisced about why in the world I needed to look up these things. Well, it’s been awhile and I noticed the other day that my search history has been getting kind of eclectic again. So I thought I would share.

skyfall Lincoln – I was looking for this image.

mary reilly imdb – My parents were here the other day and we were naming Julia Roberts movies, and then Drew mentioned this one and it sounded interesting so I looked it up. (Julia Roberts plays Dr. Jekyll’s maid, and she falls in love with both him AND Mr. Hyde!)

healthy horizons burlingame – A breastfeeding center that we went to the other day to weigh the baby

goose goslin – A baseball player with a funny name

peninsula library catalog – I wanted to look up the book Insurgent and see if it was at the library. It is…but I shouldn’t go check it out because I’m already in the middle of 3 books (4 if you count Harry Potter) and I should try to focus a little bit.

obama birthday – When is Obama’s birthday? Answer: August 4th, 1961.

aspirated w – I was checking if this is really the term used when you do that funny/annoying pronunciation of the wh in words like “white” and “wheelhouse.” (It is.)

kellan lutz – He appeared on an episode of 30 Rock, and we had no idea who he played in the Twilight movies.

fontanelle – I needed more info about babies’ “soft spots,” like, Am I going to injure my baby via his fontanelle? And, when will his head get hard so I don’t have to stress out about his fontanelle?

edd – edd.ca.gov, just looking up claim status information.

giants game – My lazy way of just tracking the scores of the World Series’ games on my phone, for the games we weren’t home to watch.

third rock from the sun cast – We were trying to remember the name of French Stewart. (We were thinking Stewart French.)

1 month old baby eyesight – I wanted to know how far he could see at 1 month, and what kind of tracking/focusing skills he “should” have. (To be honest, there were a lot of baby-related searches, but I wanted to show a range here. Just know I google a lot of questions I have about babies.)

robert louis stevenson – We were looking up when he died, because I was thinking his story “The Bottle Imp” was set in the 1940s, but I was way way off – he died in 1894.

walgreens pacifica – My pharmacy. I am constantly googling this to get the phone number.

giants schedule – Self-explanatory.

plutos locations – We were in Lodi, craving Plutos, and wondering if there was one nearby. But Sacramento/Davis seemed too far out of the way. So we just went home.

…Seriously, what did we ever do before smartphones?

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"Other people" Drew Friends Memoir Nonfiction Pregnancy Travel

Childbirth preparation – ALL DAY

On Saturday, Drew and I got up at 6:30am and headed to Stockton for a childbirth preparation class. Reasons for going all the way to Stockton?
1. We could attend the class with Liz and Bill, which was a kind of fun thing to do for two couples who never do anything together as couples, and
2. This hospital offers all their classes free of charge, whereas it would have been something like $125 to take the class at our hospital.

We found some good seats and went through the massive amount of available paper resources while we waited for the class to start.

The class consisted of a slideshow presentation, interspersed with videos and some real-life practicing. The woman leading the class was amusing but also over the top, and laughed at all of her own jokes, but I liked her. About an hour into the class we had our first break, and afterwards we got to get down on the floor and practice things like relaxing breathing and massage and using a focal point. I liked this because I got to lie in a pile of pillows, pretending to focus on a “lovely sensation” blowing over me, while Drew rubbed my back. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

But a true thing is that two people on the floor in a pile of pillows takes up a lot more space than two people sitting in two chairs, so it got a little crowded. There was a guy sitting directly in front of me, and I became a lot more acquainted with his bare back (his shirt kept riding up, like, majorly) and his extremely dirty socks than I ever wanted to be. Liz said after her relaxing floor massage, she opened her eyes to see that the couple right behind her was kind of looming over her watching them. That’s pretty awful. And not relaxing. And not the delivery experience you want to have.

We did some other exercises, like swaying and vocalizing and stuff, which was all interesting, but also kind of intimate. When we started doing the swaying stuff, Susie (our teacher) put on some music, which happened to be “The Way You Look Tonight,” and one girl who looked like this pregnancy might be sort of accidental (and who was there with her mom) blurted out “This is the song I got pregnant to!” How are you not supposed to laugh at that? (She and her mom were also cracking up.) (After lunch her husband showed up and the four of us were all happy for them.)

But it was kind of strange to sit in a room full of couples, and practice things like massage and speaking quietly and encouragingly to each other. And know that everyone did something intimate to get into that room, and now we’re all practicing doing something else that’s very intimate (in a different way) with our partner, with whom we’re going to go through yet another experience that’s incredibly personal and (to me at least) somewhat private. It’s kind of like, I had to just block out that there were other people there who might be looking at me or listening to me, and focus on what I needed to learn to get through (what I’ve been told can be) a harrowing experience.

After lunch, we talked about epidurals and analgesics, and c-sections and all the fun medical stuff. Sitting on the floor started to get kind of uncomfortable. Then we did some more practice vocalizing to get through the pain, and she told us how to push without holding your breath. (Something I’ve never really thought about before, but it totally makes sense, and I will definitely keep that in mind.) She went over postpartum depression and how it’s really important to watch for it and treat it. We ended up getting out early, which was definitely nice since we had the entire drive back home.

Overall, I liked the class and I’m glad we went. It was definitely nice to get all the info laid out for us, and to see some videos of different people’s birth experiences. Also I do feel like I learned about some techniques of getting through this things sans epidural. There wasn’t any information in the class that was brand new (thanks to the internet and the last 8 months of one-track thinking), but it was still nice to hear it all in order. I am glad we didn’t pay full price for that same class here, though.

Last night I ordered a second car seat base from Target. The weird thing is, that’s kind of the last thing we “need.” Which means that, I guess we’re ready at this point. I mean, “ready.” Whatever that means…

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Awesome Being a girl Family Food Friends Travel

Tea Weekend

I had a lot of tea this weekend.

On Saturday morning Erin, Sam, Lysandra, Robert, and I had our monthly book club at Lovejoy’s in San Francisco. Lovejoy’s is Erin’s happy place, and if you give her a chance to choose a “special occasion” place, this will be it.

I had some delicous vanilla rooibos, and a sandwich plate. Half cucumber and dill, half tomato and cheese. They were both good, but now I can’t stop making tomato and cheese sandwiches at home.

The book club conversation was sparkling as usual. It wasn’t all about the book (it never is), but it covered all kinds of topics about women’s rights and parenting. (It was more fun than I just made it sound.)

Then for Mother’s Day I drove up to Lakeport and took my mom out for a “high tea.” I use the quotes because I know technically high tea isn’t the right word for the spread we had.

“High tea” is traditionally served after 5 pm to the working class, and made up of meat dishes and other heavy foods. It was more of a family meal. The ladies’ social occasion that Americans think of is called “afternoon tea” or “low tea” (it is traditionally served on low tables). The more you know!

So, a Mother’s Day afternoon tea, then. We had several types of sandwiches, and several types of sweets, and by the end of the meal I was several types of stuffed, which is silly, since everything is so tiny. But I mean, you’re also drinking pots of tea, which probably fills you up.

Both teas were fun and cute (is cute the wrong word?), although the Mother’s Day tea was slightly classier, since at Lovejoy’s we were having an intense conversation about all types of things that we had to come up with acronyms for so that the fancy ladies around us weren’t shocked. A good weekend!

I was going to say I probably don’t need any tea for awhile, but then I realized I’m drinking iced tea right now.

Oh also – I hope the color change of sychela.com (if you noticed it) didn’t freak you out. It’s something I’ve been debating for awhile, and finally took the plunge.

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Being a girl Drew Memoir Travel Work

“Will Work In Seattle”

As I mentioned, this weekend I was at an arts marketing conference with NAMT (National Alliance for Musical Theatre) in beautiful Seattle, Washington. It was gray when we arrived, and yet within 2 hours of being there, 3 separate native Seattlites (that must be what they’re called, right?) had commented about how great the weather was. On Friday and Saturday it was actually pretty clear and nice, for which I say to you, Seattle, YOU’RE WELCOME for bringing up the California weather, and leaving the Bay Area in rain.

I thought I would make some lists about this weekend, since I love making lists.

Things I learned at the conference

  • Doing post-show audience surveys (every show, every audience member) is very useful
  • Lots of theatres in NAMT are not non-profit (we are)
  • We should allow patrons to take their drinks into the theatre
  • People are greatly divided on “tweet seats” (I’m on the “opposed” side)
  • Lots of people get around discounting by raising the ticket price, and then cutting it in half, but really it ends up being about the same cost that it was originally – tricky!
  • Some people think you should give your patrons special treatment, not if they’ve been just a long-time subscriber, but you should use a more “What have you done for me lately?” approach

Awesome shows I saw

  • First Date – a new one-act musical, a co-production between ACT and 5th Avenue Theatre (loved it!)
  • It Shoulda Been You – a musical comedy at the Village Theatre, with a major twist right before intermission

How much I overpacked

  • Two tank tops (even though I used four, or something…that is definitely classic overpacking)
  • One work top
  • One long-sleeved non-work top
  • Two pair of socks
  • One pair of underwear (that’s technically not overpacking, that’s just good planning)
  • One book (I finished The Night Circus, read about 100 pages of The White Castle, but didn’t crack open Bright Lights, Big City yet)

What I missed about California

  • My own bed (well…sort of my own bed)
  • My own toiletries (the hotel stuff was all lemon-sage-scented, which is fine, but isn’t really my style…and there’s never enough conditioner, am I right?)
  • Wireless internet (the hotel wifi was all over the place, and impossible to get on in some places)
  • Free time
  • (And most of all) Drew!