LA Mom's Blog

I have a new post up at LA Mom's Blog all about how cultural identity is formed. Click here to read all about it.
Sayonara Amigos

Something My Mother Sent Me

Subject: Human Body


It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.
One human hair can support 3 kg (6.6 lb).
The average man's penis is three times the length of his thumb.
Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.
A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.
There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
Women blink twice as often as men.
The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain.
Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.
If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.
Women reading this will be finished now.
Men are still busy checking their thumbs

And In Non Theatre News

I had a great time this past weekend in Palm Springs. I went to the wedding of my oldest friend. She rented out The Hideaway. The Hideaway is a 50's hotel with 9 period decorated room. We had the best time. It's right in downtown Palm Springs so we were able to walk to restaurants and shops. It also had a great pool, that we sat by all day and night. I highly recommend it for a vacation or if you're planning a wedding. In fact I wish I was getting married so we could do the whole thing again.
Due to technical difficulty I am unable to post the pictures of me in my 50's finery. Hopefully, I will soon be able to add those. Check back in a few days.

Ahmanson Season Tickets

Every year for my mother's birthday, my sister and I get her season tickets to The Ahmanson (a theatre here in LA). Over the years we've seen some real stinkers, or things we just didn't care for but there was always a balance of good things too, that made it worth it. But this year I got the subscriber packet and was stunned by the lameness of the season. All but one show is several years if not decades old. Here's the line up, in no particular order. Dream Girls, Spamalot, Mary Poppins, South Pacific, and the only show I want to see August:Osage County.
Now how wise was this in a year where people are looking to eliminate extra spending? All of these shows have been done to death. Anyone who goes to the theatre regularly has seen them all. Just one of these in the season would have been fine, but to make it the whole season is ridiculous. Suffice to say I am forgoing season tickets this year and will just go see the one show I want to see.
I thought we might switch to The Pantages (another theatre in town) but their season is looking pretty dismal too. Is it possible there are no good shows??? Are they trying to save money by getting cheaper shows?? What's going on??? Until they get it sorted I'll be buying tickets for individual shows and I advise you to too.

LA Theatre Works

I had a great time last night at the LA Theatre Works, The Plays The Thing. It is up at the Skirball (here in Los Angeles) and they record performances of plays. I saw a performance of This is Our Youth with Josh Hamilton, Mark Ruffalo, and Missy Yager. It was really fun. the performance will be aired on KPCC 89.3 FM Saturday at 10PM. As I believe all the performances are.
It was like seeing an old radio show with the sound person making all the knocking, phone ringing, and glass breaking noises. It was very entertaining and no retakes like at TV tapings that go on F-O-R-E-V-E-R.
I highly recommend this show that runs through the 22nd. I'm definitely looking forward to going to another production.

Lovin' My iPhone

I can't contain myself any longer. I love my iPhone. I know we've only been together a few weeks, but I can't help it. I can't believe all the things we can do together. We went to the hospital and took pictures of a friends new baby and were able to email it to our friends. We were at my daughters school and googled how to make a volcano with lava and built it with the kids. We can even twitter and check facebook together.
It's like that iPhone just lives to make my life easier and better. Now who else can you say that about. I think I'm going to let it start keeping all my phone numbers and calendar. Something I never thought I could trust out of my hands in hard copy. It must be true. I have found my technology soul mate, and we're gonna last forever.
That's assuming I don't drop it and break the screen. Then it's over.

Secrets

So sorry to have been away so long. It's been kind of a crazy week, or should I say dramatic... I feel like I'm living the life of a spy.
In case you don't know I'm a massage therapist,that's not the dramatic part. My clients, especially the ones who've been coming to me for a long time often tell me "secrets", I sort of double as a sounding board, therapist, confessional. People have told me just about every imaginable tale. I've gotten use to this and have gotten really good at keeping their secrets. If fact, I thought I had mastered the art.
Recently, however, several of my close personal, much loved friends. Have started laying HUGE secrets on me. I can't even tell you what they are, but their HUGE. And I gotta say it's freaking me out. Some of the secrets have just been hard to keep, and others I can't believe are true. All are giving me enormous writers block. All I can think about are all the things I'm not suppose to tell anyone.
So this post is all about what I can't tell you. I think I feel better. Maybe, a little.

Martinis and Magnets

This past Saturday my daughter's preschool had this great fundraiser, called Martinis and Magnets with Sandra Tsing Loh, Christie Mellor, and Tanya Anton all of whom were very funny and very informative about the miriad of choices we have when it comes to the education of our children, within the confines of LAUSD. Also known as the dark over lord.
After listening to the whole presentation I really felt better about putting my daughter in our local public school. Sandra mades some great points about picking the right school, not the school with the fun parents you think it would be cool to hang with. She also talked about the one school in every area that no ones been in, in years, but everyone is sure is terrible. This happens to describe my neighborhood school. It's reputation couldn't be worse if it slept with the entire football team. But after spending the last several months in their pre-k program, I like it. I want to see it thrive, and the only way I see that happening is if the neighborhood families start coming back.
I guess my point is that while I enjoyed their presentation and I loved my Martini, my local public school will be just fine for my future rocket scientist/artist/whatever is a good job in 2029.

I almost forgot to say whose in the picture above from the right Sandra Tsing Loh, Kim Prince (House of Prince), Myself, and Christie Mellor

LA Mom Blog

I can't believe what I learned about the kids who do the door to door magazine sales. Please read my post about it at LA Moms Blog.

Google Referrals

So I was checking where people are finding my blog from. Then I started looking at google searches that have brought traffic and which of my post get the most. I have two post that repeatedly are googled. One is a blog about talking to my daughter about where babies come from. I thought this was funny cause I could see parents being asked where babies come from and saying " Ahh let's google it" Like so much social studies homework. It makes me laugh.
The other, even more popular post, is a video I posted when I was in Hawaii a few month ago. The video is of a whale watching trip that I titled Whale Tail. As I was looking at all the hits I was thinking I should do more videos of animals. Until I looked a bit closer at the searches. They weren't searching for whales they were searching for whale tails,as in, thong underwear showing out the tops of ladies pants. Who knew there was an audience for that sort of thing.
So I guess plausible titles that have a double entendre are a good bet for traffic if you don't mind short visits.

Separate Houses Same Bed

The other night, I was out with a group of married women and over a few beers, a couple margaritas and a little sangria one of them said she and her husband wanted separate bedrooms. I know it sounds wrong, but it also sounds good, especially if you spend your nights sharing your bed with children. Not to mention just having a space of your own. It was right when I got to that thought, that I realized, I don’t want my own bedroom. I want my own house with a bedroom adjoining to my husband’s (AKA Viejo) house.
For one thing, if we each had our own houses we could have our own kitchens. If I had my own kitchen I could cook fish, particularly salmon, without hearing Viejo complain about the smell, to the point of saying, he has to go outside. I’d call him a drama queen, if it weren’t for the fact that, I have the same reaction whenever he cooks up a can of corned beef hash. (I swear it smells like hot dog food) Also, I wouldn’t be subject to the temptation of his ice cream, cookies and ridiculously chocolaty baked goods. It would be a beautiful thing and I might actually have a chance of shedding a few of the many pounds I need to lose.
The other main issue I have with sharing a house with my husband is decorating. I am sooo envious of women whose husbands give no input on the décor of their houses. It wouldn’t be so bad if our tastes were even remotely similar. I would say, I am all about form with a dash of function and he is the exact opposite. He would love to have all reclining couches and chairs, probably accented by neon beer signs. While I would prefer a minimalist look. I won’t even go into our endless conversations about electronic component placement. Trust me you don’t want to know. Subsequently, we spend a lot of time negotiating, and have a house full of beige compromises.
Finally, I would miss sharing a bed with Viejo. Don’t worry I’m not going to launch into a tale of our frequent and fabulous sex life. (Are any of those stories even true.) For me it’s just that I have spent the last 11 years going to bed with Viejo and I like it. There is something innately intimate about sleeping together, even without being “intimate”. Where as, separate refrigerators, has no emotional attachment for me.

No on 8 Rally

I just saw over at the Metblog LA there is going to be a NO on 8 rally on Wednesday March 4th, 5:30-8 PM on Olvera Street between N. Main and N. Alameda (2 blocks for Union Station) in LA. I really encourage people to participate. I wish I could go, but I have my daughter, whose only 4. I don't trust the yes on 8 types to keep it peaceful and respectful, so I will not be there. But I can blog about it and keep my No on 8 sign up forever, if necessary. I hope many of you will attend and if you can't please spread the word.
Thank you

Only in a Woman's World

Here I am at the premiere of the Only in a Woman's World ad campaign for Frito Lay. I know it looks like I snuck in, in the group shot. The pap's kept saying they couldn't see me. So this is the picture where I jumped. Course now I wish I had made more of an effort to be in the shot, cause when this was on The Insider last week all you could see of me was my fluffy hair and a bit of my big nose.
I've included a picture of me in the party (at Coco De Ville in STK) so you know I didn't get booted out. It was very fun and I met some very interesting people, including Brooke Burke(of Dancing with the Stars) and Mel B. (AKA Scary Spice).

They're premiering the ad today. I don't have all the details, but apparently there is a chance to win something if you follow them on Twitter.