Do you know what to do in an earthquake?

We’ve been living in Southern California (South Bay) for almost a year and a half now. Earthquake preparedness is a buzz word we hear often but somewhere between “triangle of life” or “magic triangle” (which, by the way is supposedly NOT the best method of protection) and “get under the desk and pray” I think I settled on “press panic button”.

Earthquakes happen frequently here and they don’t even phase me anymore. Um, except for the one we had last week.

Most of the quakes sound and feel like someone has run a truck into my garage because they are fast and loud. I usually have to check on Twitter to be sure that what I felt/heard/sensed was in fact an earthquake. Twitter is where it’s at for quake confirmation because peeps on Twitter be all “earthquake!” and then I know I’m not alone.

Last week’s 5.1 quake happened at 9:09 p.m. Pacific time according to the United States Geological Survey. I was laying on my bed and felt like I was rolling on the ocean for a good 10 seconds or so – it was incredibly unnerving and the first quake I’ve experienced where I had time to realize what was happening.

I jumped up and ran through the house yelling “earthquake, eathquake…. earthquake!!” John and I looked at each other and instantly yelled to the kids to get out of the house. RUN.

STOP!  I should tell you that THIS ^^^^^ is exactly what you should NOT do in an earthquake!

We were the goofiest people on the block looking up and down the street from our front step wondering why nobody else was outside.

Here’s why we were alone….

You should NEVER run outside during an earthquake.

What SHOULD you do?

1. Drop

2. Cover

3. Hold on

 

This is basic earthquake preparedness and even although I think both my husband and I thought we knew what to do, in the heat of the moment we panicked and our instinct to run took over.

Our kids have been drilled on this in school but they are so conditioned to listen to us that they didn’t even question us.

I’ve joked about how stupid this all was but we were lucky and the experience was a definite wake-up call. We now have a solid plan in place and our kids have been given permission to duct tape me to the ground if I start to run.

 

For most of my life I have been a type-a strict rule follower. I’ve never been a rebel nor a pot-stirrer so this morning when I read a really great post titled Why I Have No Sympathy For The Mom Of The Child Who Shaved Her Head on a gal friend’s blog I was really surprised by how I reacted to it. I absolutely agree 100% with the argument that this little girl’s mother chose to ignore or be ignorant of a school policy and that what she did broke the rules and there are consequences when you break a rule. Wait a minute, though….

This photo was taken on January 30, 2011. My son was 11 years old and a bunch of his friends got together for a “buzz cut party”. The idea was to show support for their friend, Charlie, who was going through chemotherapy for a rare form of cancer. My kid sat down and told them to shave it all off because Cancer Sucks. He didn’t ask for permission and he certainly didn’t think twice about what his school rules about hair were. At the time, we were living in Denver, Colorado and he attended a private Episcopal School that most likely had a dress code similar to the one at Caprock Academy. Nobody said anything about it to him and our school was so small and close-knit that I’m willing to bet they even knew about the party.

If he had asked for permission I have no doubt in my mind that I would have told him to go for it. I was so proud of him and even had I known about a rule or policy that would have brought on the consequence of suspension I probably would have told him to go for it anyway and we’d deal with the consequences. My message would not be that we should break rules we disagree with but that sometimes when you BELIEVE in something, and what you are doing is a good thing and not hurting anyone, you should be brave and stand up for what you believe in and be a doer, a pot stirrer, and game changer. Even writing those words gives me a boost of anxiety but I want my kids to know that just because a rule exists does not mean that it is right. Follow your heart and listen to your gut. Face consequences but never be afraid to do what you think and feel is right.

I agree that the mother could have asked for permission ahead of time in order to head off this controversy and had I not experienced this very thing with my own son I might have written exactly what Amy wrote on Freaky Perfect but I think I’m changing in my old age because I don’t think “rule breaking” is always a black and white issue. OMG I really just typed that and meant it…

 

If you haven’t been following the story you might be interested to know that the school’s board of directors met and the girl is back in school. “In a Facebook posting Monday evening, Jamie Renfro said she doesn’t blame the school or the board of directors and insists her family’s top priority is to get the school’s policy changed.”

I wish I could bottle the enthusiasm and positive mojo of a second grader and spread it to the world!

I volunteer for an organization that teaches nutrition and wellness in the local public schools. Over the year and a half I have been involved I have seen evidence of the good the program does and in every interactive and mindful lesson we teach I find myself marveling over the great messages we are bringing to these kids. Today’s second grade lesson was about keeping our bodies healthy, why it’s important to keep your body healthy, and all of the things we can do to have a healthy body. One of the factors in keeping a body healthy is having a positive attitude.

We talk a lot about reframing and positive attitude at our house. Some people are more prone to a negative attitude, but we DO have control over how we spin things, how we talk to ourselves, and how we choose to frame a situation. 

I’ve noticed that staying positive is especially challenging at times for our teens and tweens who are juggling adolescent drama and crazy hormone changes. Teens are learning to navigate all the not so positive stuff in life and it occurred to me this morning as I listened to the second graders tell me what it meant to have a positive attitude that teaching and fostering positive attitude skills is incredibly important because once these kids hit puberty they are going to REALLY need positive attitude habits!

Life experience may cancel out the naivety that makes these second graders so exuberant but does it have to kill their positive attitude? I’m learning that part of my job/challenge as a parent is going to be helping my kids tap into those positive attitude habits as they grow older.

My 13 year old had a notebook go missing, most likely stolen during PE, this week and suddenly his life was terrible, school sucked, he was going to fail his class, and he’d never get into college or get a good job. He might as well just sit on the couch and give up.

HOLD UP! WHAT? 

I’m new to this whole teen parenting thing and sometimes I empathize so well with my kid that I want to cry and curl up in a ball with him when bad stuff happens. BUT I wasn’t about to let some jerky jackass who stole my kid’s notebook win and I definitely wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to teach my kid that sometimes bad stuff happens and how you handle yourself can make all the difference in the outcome. Getting him off the negative battlefield was my first plan of action! This really was a crappy situation but once we determined that the world was not actually about to end he was able to focus on how he was going to deal with this unfortunate situation.

I think the most effective way to help a teen (or any person) get to a place where they are emotionally and mentally ready to say, “That’s life, let’s make a plan and move on.” is to coach them through re-framing a situation in order to approach a solution with a positive attitude.

This was my tact:

What is the worst that can happen in this situation?  (Fail the notebook check the next day. Notebook has ALL of his work for the quarter, so far about 2 months of work.)

OK, so if the worst happens what does it mean? (Grade of A drops to a B… honestly, I doubt it would have dropped that much. No Notebook.)

What, if anything, can you do to help/fix/change this? (Take advantage of extra credit “Egg Baby” project to boost grade. Ask Teacher for help: he approached the teacher and was able to download the 2 months worth of work and spent several hours redoing the notebook. It was a lot of work but once he determined what his solution was he went at it with a pretty positive attitude. Shifting the focus FROM how shitty it was that someone probably stole and disposed of his notebook  TO “that’s life” and  how to resolve the situation was crucial to the outcome!)

Some people may naturally tend towards a positive attitude but EVERYONE has conversations with themselves that effect that attitude. There is an effort required in this self conversation and I think part of my job as a parent is to model this effort but also to walk my kid through these self conversations when his world is falling apart around him.

So, what do you think? What would you have done in this situation? What else could I have done?

If you are an opera lover, an opera hater, or if you’ve never been to the opera you absolutely must get yourself to the  Los Angeles Opera production of Billy Budd. I attended (and live-tweeted) the final dress rehearsal for this production last night. The one word I walked away saying and heard repeated later on backstage by Billy Budd, AKA Liam Bonner, himself was this: ACCESSIBLE.

Most people are familiar with Herman Melville’s story of Billy Budd. Folks of my generation most likely read the short story in school and were subjected to watching the 1960’s black and white film. I can’t say I recall being overly stimulated by the movie and I know we made fun of it being black and white. Why has there not been a remake of this movie?

Moving on…

This opera is very easy on the palette. The music is fantastic. The libretto is written in English and there are no lady divas whaling away on the stage so you can sit back and enjoy the testosterone driven debauchery and vulgarity of young sailor men quite comfortably.

Stealing from the latest “list” craze, here are my 5 Reasons You Should See LA Opera’s Production of Billy Budd:

1. The libretto is written in English. Need I say more?  You’ll still be able to read the captions and while they are helpful at times, I think you’ll find the story easy to follow and the diction quite clear. Accessible. 

2. All Men, All the Time. I actually wondered if I’d miss or long for a female voice but Britten writes a fairly diverse score within the all male cast limitation. There are a fairly significant number of meaty roles in this opera and I later went back to count 17 named roles in addition to the full male chorus. Key point: sailor men with fabulous voices, some wearing shirts, many not wearing shirts. It works.

3. The Music. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was an influential 20th century English composer, conductor and pianist. I was familiar with his operas and vocal music but apart from a few orchestral pieces here and there I haven’t spent much time with his music. Last night it occurred to me that the Billy Budd score is quite theatrical. It may seem silly for me to use that word because opera is innately “theatrical” and most composers strive to bring the drama out in their music but it struck me that this particular music and the way it is orchestrated would easily appeal to people who enjoy contemporary movie scores, broadway, etc. Accessible.

4. The Scenery. The story takes place on a ship so of course there are ropes, masts, and wooden decks but this particular set was designed so that the ship’s deck juts out to a point over the orchestra pit. There was a scene where the deck was raised and action took place both on top and below deck. It added scale to the stage and served the story very well. I had a little giggle over the sleeping cocoons but for the most part the design was really quite smart.

 

5. Liam Bonner and Richard Croft. I highlight those two men but you’ll likely read positive critical review for others and in particular two gentlemen making their LA Opera debuts. Greer Grimsley plays a convincingly smarmy and conniving John Claggart and Anthony Michaels-Moore plays a very likable Mr. Redburn.

Liam Bonner is awesome in the role of Billy Budd. He’s young, fresh and energetic in real life and he brings this all to the stage. Oh, and he can act. We tweeted and crushed on Mr. Bonner throughout the night but Richard Croft as Captain Vere definitely deserves some kudos. I had a manic love/hate feel for Captain Vere. He doesn’t just let Billy down but he shows himself to be weak and bit of wuss. For such a great and well-loved Captain he really disappoints. Nonetheless, at the end of the night Richard Croft was able to coerce a little forgiveness from me during the Epilogue.

(Think Brady Bunch – “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha”):

 

 

 

Billy Budd opens this Saturday, February 22nd and runs through March 16th. For tickets and more info see the LA Opera website.

At this moment I am on a flight home after a week of taking care of my mom after a major surgery. I did a lot of reading while I was with mom. I read quite a few really great books and fed a piece of my soul that has been neglected for some time.

I used to be a voracious reader. My bedside table was a veritable buffet of books – you can only imagine what a relief to the clutter of my bedroom the advent of the Kindle was.

Before we moved from Denver to Los Angeles a year and a half ago I was a member of book club that formed in the aftermath of an incredible Indian meal served at one of my sorority sister’s homes. We were a group of Vanderbilt friends that enjoyed discussing and debating. We were young and fancied ourselves intelligent and I think we were a bit panicked that in the chaos of “real life” we might lose this passionate and vocal side of ourselves.

We began right away with a list of books that fulfilled every category imaginable. Books we’d read but thought were worth exploring as a group, books that were recommended by someone outside the group, and mostly we chose books that would challenge us.

Each January we developed a carefully crafted reading list for the year. We came together as a group to discuss and propose what we’d like on the book. Our lists were diverse including classics, contemporary, biography, non-fiction and otherwise challenging literature.  In the early days the focus was to stay away from the trashy mindless summer beach read. (Exactly the type of book that I tend to be drawn to now when I have the time to be numb and indulgent)

This group was pretty amazing. Over the period of 15 years or so that I was a part of the group we evolved in so many ways but the quality of literature we chose remained. In time marriage, children, and career demands changed the frequency, location and depth of our meetings. Three-hour discussions over a meal became a later evening discussion over wine and eventually were reduced to an hour at an eclectic coffee shop on Pearl Street. We went from monthly gatherings to bi-monthly meetings where we were reading and discussion two books at once. We lightened up a little and paired books so that we read one “serious” or more challenging read and one more “Oprah-ish” read but we were still very purposeful in our choices.

I miss my book club and I really miss reading!

We always tell our kids that reading is a gateway to great things. Reading great books fosters imagination and creativity. Reading feeds vocabulary and grammar (if well edited!) and nourishes a part of your soul that is hard to reach by any other means.

I have let the chaos of daily life make me believe that I don’t have time to read the same way that I used to but while it may not be possible for me to curl up for hours on end indulging in a good book or to stay up late devouring words I think I need to make a purposeful effort to allow myself time to read. I may not be a kid anymore but for all of the same reasons I encourage my own kids to read, I will allow myself this necessary indulgence!

Where to start? What great books can you recommend?

A patch test showing severe reactions to nickel, chromium, and gold are a pretty good indication that the crazy swelling, burning, itching, fatigue and general ick you’ve been experiencing are in fact being caused by your braces. Now what?

What happens after you find out you are allergic to braces?

Well, your first reaction is, “THANK GOD, I now have proof that I am not a hypochondriacal freak”.

Your second reaction goes something like this:  “I’m such an asshole for letting this go on so long. When will I feel better? Am I poisoned? What can I eat? Why are my eyes flaking over? Why , Why, Why?”.  Add lots of tears and crying in bathtubs full of Epsom salts and you pretty much have a perfect picture of what the last 2 days have looked like for me.

I’m pretty sure I have toxic levels of nickel in my body. I’ll have a full panel of test; urine, blood, hair. There is talk of a plan for chelation but apparently I am not “stable” enough for that yet. I’m pretty sure that term applies to my mental state as much as it does my physical state.

Apparently, chelation can make you very sick. More sick than I already am? Fun times.

If there are phases of recovery in whatever you call this thing I’m experiencing I imagine the phase I’m in would be called,  Google Overload.

I have read way too much about metal toxicity, chelation, low nickel diets, and allergies in general. I have to stop myself. I’m going on an info black out. I’ll go crazy, like Helen Hunt when she jumps out the window in that really bad 80’s After School Special: Desperate Lives…. (skip to 2:01)

I scream for ICE CREAM! I would say that my family seeks out the best ice cream in whatever neighborhood we find ourselves in but really it is me. I have a legendary sweet tooth and our weekend outings often include a visit to a neighborhood sweet spot.

I’m a huge fan of YELP because I love to go on and read what people say and see the pictures of what they’ve eaten.  Based on what Yelpers had to say, I was pretty sure Milk was going to be good and I was not disappointed.

We had been to the Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits so it was quick shot over to 7290 Beverly Blvd in the Fairfax neighborhood. When we arrived around 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon there was a line out the door but I knew to expect this based on Yelp reviews. We waited about 20 minutes and as the line passed through the front door I was surprised to see that they aslo serve soups and sandwiches. I didn’t see anyone ordering food but they also had a number of tasty looking treats in a bakery case around the side of the front counter.

I ordered a mint chocolate chip macaroon ice cream sandwich ($5). The ice cream was lovely and the macaroon was a surprisingly delicious twist on the cookie I typically experience with an ice cream sandwich.  Katherine ordered a cookies and cream ice cream cone ($3.50 for one scoop) and the boys both ordered milkshakes called The MILKIE Way Malt (vanilla ice cream, malted milk, chocolate chips and caramel-chocolate swirl). At $7 a shake you can expect a miraculous concoction and both boys were in gluttons’ heaven and they had to fight off my husband who was trying to abstain from sweets on that day. I was really happy with my ice cream sandwich but I think it is safe to say that the boys hit the jackpot with their orders. It isn’t surprising to me at all that LA Weekly chose to feature Milk and this particular milkshake in a piece title “10 Best Milkshakes in Los Angeles“. (post published note: not that I’m obsessed with this milkshake or anything, but while searching for photos of this shake to pin I discovered that this milkshake was in fact designated 2013 Best Milkshake in Los Angeles. There ya go!)

Don’t expect to eat inside or to find a place to sit outside if you go when it is busy. People on Yelp also complain about lack of parking but we actually had no trouble parking in a metered spot across the street. We’ll definitely visit again.