Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 37

A History of My Life, in Haircuts

Ages 1-17: Long, longer, longest. Between a grandma from Yorkshire whose white braids wrapped around her head like intricate basketry, and my love for all things Little House on the Prairie, I grew my hair long like it was a competitive sport. My goal was to be able to sit on my hair, like Grandma, and failing that, I wanted it to at least brush the top of the waistband of my Levis. Life philosophy: I have all the time in the world, may as well spend it brushing my hair.

Age 17-21: The experimental years. Straight peroxide, shorty longsides, Aquanet at the roots and pink dye on the ends… Life philosophy: Whatever it takes to make my hair scream “LOOKITME! LOOKITME!” while the sneer on my face said, “What are YOU staring at?”

Age 22: Real job, real boyfriend. Grew my hair to a uniform color and length, and paid for actual professionals to cut it. Boyfriend was a fan of conservative clothing and conservative hair. Life philosophy: I’m so grown up, I’m going to act like I’m middle aged already.

Age 23: Boyfriend and I got in a big fight, so I chopped all my hair off without telling him. That’ll show him for having ever expressed admiration for my hair! Life philosophy: I am woman, hear me roar for an exposed nape.

Age 24-31: Met husband, the only man in the world who prefers short hair over long. Every time I toyed with growing it out, he gave it a thumbs down. We shared a hairdresser and styling paste. Life philosophy: What’s his is mine, and vice versa.

Age 31-45: Something about birthin’ two baby girls made me deeply desire long hair again. I also met my hairdresser Dana, when we were both in a Kindergym class at Temple Beth Al and her tiny toddler picked me out of the crowd and settled into my lap for Singalong/Challah time. I’ve trusted my hair decisions to Dana ever since. She sometimes called and said things like, “Come in, you need bangs,” or “No, we’re not going back to that haircut from three years ago because you are never allowed to do the same haircut twice.” Life philosophy: Motherhood has made me too tired to develop one. Whatever Dana wants is probably fine. That, or a ponytail and baseball hat.

Age 45: Life Philosophy: the drive over the bridge to San Francisco is so long, I’m should find a local hairdresser.

Age 45, 90 minutes later: What even was that implement she used to hack at my hair? Why was she ironing my head? Renewed Life philosophy: Whatever Dana wants, as long as she’ll take me back.

Age 46 – now: I have neither time nor will to blow dry or frankly even comb my hair anymore. Dana understands; she once had Frozen Shoulder too. “You are NOT going to use a blowdryer until this is over.” She cut it all off and gave me some product to smush around in there after I wash it, and that’s my hair. Sometimes when it’s been too long since my last visit to Dana I get a Hermie the Elf thing going, but that’s it for variety.

Maybe I’ll grow it out again someday but for now, my life philosophy is: It’s just hair. And it’s bound to change again soon.

Time to get hoppin’ again – blog hopping, that is. One topic, seven bloggers: see what they have to say about Their Life In HairLisa

Ann

Shari

Alexandra

Tarja

Vikki

                  Related StoriesHow To Celebrate Flag Day, Through the YearsThe Songs That Made MeFamily Heirloom 

Freedom From Being Wanted

This summer our girls are out the door on East Coast adventures, one to a five week summer ballet intensive and the other to a two week Engineering program and then a month of work as a camp counselor. This means that my husband and I will be alone in our house for weeks, free from demands to drive, free from requests for snacks, free from all but the fiduciary burden it took to pay for their East Coast adventures. We don’t have big plans (see the end of the previous sentence.) Just us two, home alone for the month of July.

Finally!

Also, please let it be over.

Every parent of young children dreams of the sustained break during which you get a chunk of time to remember what it was like before waking at the crack of dawn to serve someone else’s needs all day long. There’s a reason that, when your kids are small, 15 uninterrupted minutes in a bath tub provides the same kind of rejuvenating benefits that a two week trip to the beach used to, before you became a parent. We get beat down so low, we forget what up looks like. Having a whole house to yourself for a whole month?  those parents think. What bliss!

Here’s the problem. By the time your kids are old enough to leave you alone for that long, mature enough to fly off into the world without you? They’ve pulled an insidious trick and become your favorite people, and you have become the person who whines when they leave. No one makes me laugh harder than our youngest and her off-kilter reactions to life. (Sample: “Here’s a tshirt of mine you can borrow.” Her response: “Great.” Pause. “I’m going to wear it as pants.”) And the older one is so super competent that built me a desk on Wednesday. BUILT ME A DESK. Did I mention the engineering?

In the past two weeks I’ve spent afternoons with moms whose children are under the age of 5. I see how tired you are, Mama. I see that those children aren’t doing anything that doesn’t involve touching you simultaneously. I know you want to finish a sentence without someone sticking a finger in your mouth.

But here’s the thing: I would trade you three days of my freedom for three days of being really needed again. Take my empty hours for reading and napping and looking with wonder at how clean your house has stayed. I’ll take the kids who will sit in my lap so I can hug them for long, long periods of time.  Your kids will definitely want you back at the end of it, if only because you probably don’t cry nostalgic tears when they pull out the Thomas The Tank stuff. (Lest you think I’m getting maudlin here, you’re right, and in case you missed it, I blame Inside Out.)

Luckily, I’ve figured out the one thing that will make the time pass quickly during this unaccustomed period of parental freedom.

I’m going home to stay with my mom and dad for two weeks, and deprive them of theirs.

Two less eggs to fry. And all I do is cry.

                   
CommentsI hope your mom gives you extra snuggle time and offers to loan ... by Liz @ ewmcguireOMG – I'm feeling the same way…and it's making me sooo ... by Anna LeflerFunny you should ask about Achilles…I'm at least as worried ... by Nancy Davis KhoI think your girls know how good they've got it and they'll ... by Nancy Davis KhoMy sister's girls have both been going to a six-week sleep-away ... by EllenI spend more times in a weekend with my daughters than my ... by LanceRelated StoriesAnnouncing the Listen To Your Mother Anthology!Things I Never Thought I’d Have to Say to My KidsPack It In 

Still in Rotation: Jimmy Buffett

Still in Rotation is a guest post feature in which talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power.

Like the right undergarment or an opinionated hairdresser, editors make writers look good. And Jeff Vrabel’s one of the best, the NickMom.com editor who takes my “Howzabout something related to Facebook and college acceptances?” pitches and turns them into actual posts that people will read. Over the time we’ve worked together I’ve figured out that he was a huge Springsteen fan, but until this post I didn’t know why Jimmy Buffet had such a hold on him. Now I get it.

I Have Found Me a Home

By Jeff Vrabel

There aren’t too many ways you can make yourself laugh at funerals, but you try, because you tell yourself that’s what the deceased would have wanted, right? Mom would have rolled her eyes at some somber visitation weighed down by synthetic cathedral music and Kleenex; she’d have much preferred a tropical theme and Jimmy Buffett songs about islands and boats, things she, like the vast majority of Buffett fans, loved but never pursued. (If you’ve never seen a room full of adults burst into tears while researching lyrics by a guy famous for a song about a cheeseburger, I can assure you it makes for a weird afternoon.)

So that’s what we did, mostly. A couple times during her visitation (we called it a “time of sharing,” because no one wanted to say “visitation”), someone would ask to turn the music up, which is a strange request for a visitation/time of sharing. I hope the other two families in the funeral home didn’t mind; I’m sure they were trying to hold a traditional service while the weirdoes in Room C listened to something called “Tryin’ To Reason With Hurricane Season.”

For nearly 20 years, Jimmy Buffett’s shows anchored our family’s summer. We started going in 1994. The Buffett show was the holidays, everyone’s birthday and three months of summer in one 12-hour day. I take that back — it was better than the holidays, because the holidays are stressful and filled with travel and plane rides and latent family issues; Buffett was a massive mobile circus of brightly slurred singalongs, alcoholic squishes and the year’s most reliable collection of family and friends. Everyone came — close family, distant family, cousins, close friends, Mom, Mom’s boyfriend-who’s-like-70-but-we-still-called-him-boyfriend, college roommates, aunts, converts, haters, confused hangers-on, workmates, everyone. It became an annual tradition that overshadowed and destroyed all others; we haven’t had a family Thanksgiving plan in two decades, but by God we knew who was refreshing Ticketmaster when the lawn went on sale.

With Mom at the helm (and driving the van home, thank God) we spent the day in the inflatable gypsy village that sprang up in the parking lots; we formed sloppy, swaying circles and shouted the lyrics to “Come Monday” and “Son of a Son of a Sailor” and “Southern Cross” and “One Particular Harbour” at each other, every summer, for 20 years.

I took my Mom to see him at Wrigley, where we walked on the field and I watched her spin around, taking in the Friendly Confines for the first time in 60 years from the outfield. He threw a towel at us while walking offstage in Detroit, Mom, no joke, had it framed. (FYI, when you walk into Michaels craft stores looking to frame a towel, the people at Michaels look at you funny.) I got her an autograph at Bonnaroo in 2009, a day that found Buffett performing the SAME DAY as Springsteen. I interviewed him in 2013, which didn’t make me remotely nervous or anything, and talked both about Mom and the songs to which my sons had gotten the most attached. (“Ha ha!” he cackled jovially, “I have your children!”) At a 2007 show in Chicago, I ended up next to Mom, arm-in-arm and swaying to “A Pirate Looks at 40” that ended with a little tag of “Redemption Song,” and she was holding on tight for some reason. It wasn’t something she did usually. When she died, long before she was ready, my brother and I recorded a show on Radio Margaritaville, because it was really the only thing we could think of that made sense.

So this year, having now turned into someone who can get actually emotionally unhinged listening to a song called “Fins,” we thought we’d do one last round, one last splash. Bring everybody back, everybody who’d ever gone, for one final blowout Buffett show before finally surrendering to middle age and student loan payments and weekend tournaments. We waited for the announcement, so we could start hitting up Ticketmaster. And waited. And kept waiting. And the announcement never came. After a while I dropped emails to his camp, and the word came back: No Indianapolis show this year. His first local miss in something like three decades. Of all the years, of all the summers.

I’d be lying if I said, in terrible pun form, that the wind didn’t go out of my sails. But it makes sense. We’d have been missing our driver. And I’d have been missing my “Pirate Looks at 40” dance partner.

 ♪♪♪

 Jeff Vrabel has written for GQ, Men’s Health, Time, Billboard and the official Bruce Springsteen site. He’s also seen Jimmy Buffett 34 times, including at Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Bonnaroo, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” and a Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant in Downers Grove, Ill. Find him at the cleverly named http://jeffvrabel.com.

 

                   
CommentsI love the image of your extended family summer tradition. If ... by EllenRelated StoriesStill in Rotation: Crossing Muddy Waters (John Hiatt)Concert Review: Rhett MillerConcert Review: Jenny Lewis 

Concert Review: Rhett Miller

The Band: Rhett Miller, June 18 2015. Miller is best known as lead singer for the hard rockin’ alt-country band Old 97s, but has released a string of solo albums and is on tour supporting the latest, The Traveler. If you’re a fan of rock music but not sure you like country, give Rhett and the Old 97’s a try. He’s a super high energy performer, shaking his hair, his ass, and his windmilling right arm over the guitar as he plays. He’s the kind of guy who writes a four minute song and performs it in under two. Last time I saw Miller play he had a full backing band in the form of The Serial Lady Killers, so I assumed a solo show comprising him and his guitar would be mellower, but I was wrong.

Unfortunately, I have a track record of not seeing Miller play a full show. Once because the friend I was with needed to leave early (in her defense, Jakob Dylan had popped up as an admittedly fabulous unannounced second opening act so Miller didn’t even come on until 10:30 or something.) The time after that because my concert companion backed out at the last second and I didn’t feel like going into San Francisco by myself. Third time’s a charm, right?

The Venue: The Chapel, San Francisco. A converted mortuary turned music hall in the Mission district of San Francisco, the Chapel is the place to be if you want to listen to an intimate show while eating really good food and wondering if this is where the caskets were. Eat at the connected restaurant, The Vestry, or order food from the Chapel bar and they’ll bring it to you during the show. We had a delicious squash/tomato dish that was nothing we’d ordered but looked better than what we’d chosen, so the mix-up was a win-win.

The Company: Maria, who was at first very enthusiastic and then slightly panicky once I let her know that the doors were at 8, opener started at 9, and Miller probably wouldn’t come on until 10. She also thought the show was on a Monday night. She emailed me to say, “If you have a younger friend you should take him or her because I can’t stay out that late on a Monday.” Oh, but I had a good laugh over the idea of even my youngest friends being what anyone would term “young.” Once we established that Rhett was playing on a Thursday, Maria was back on board.

The Crowd: Attentive. The Chapel website says the room holds 600+ people but it was not a big crowd, and audience members were so well behaved and quiet that the opening act, Annalisa Tornfelt of Black Prairie, felt compelled to remark on how well behaved and quiet everyone was. Maybe it was because they were eating the flat bread pizza I’d ordered and didn’t want to call attention to themselves, but I have a feeling it had more to do with the fact that we were standing inside a chapel. Or maybe it was Tornfelt’s gorgeous, delicate voice that compelled everyone to hold their breath and listen.

Age Humiliation Factor: To a point.

I read an essay this week about how concerts should stop at 11 pm. I agreed with it to a point; the point at which the author said she couldn’t just walk out of a show at 11 pm, because the friends she attends the shows with might want to stay longer.

She needs new friends.

Just as I left early at the last Rhett Miller show because my friend was ready to go, Maria and I agreed we’d head for the car at 11 pm, regardless of where Miller was in his set. I love watching him perform, I truly do. But if he wants me to stay for the whole show, he needs to start by 9, or even 8:30, so that I can get home by 11:45 with a hope that the ringing in my ears and the leftover excitement of being at the show will wear off and let me fall asleep by, say, 1 am. Or maybe I need to get on board with Maria’s post-concert Lunesta routine. Either way, I’m up five hours later for my workday.

But that’s not Rhett Miller’s problem. I’m a big girl who takes responsibility for my choices.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Shake a leg and do it.

Rhett Miller is my kind of songwriter: smart and very funny, and a little sentimental. One of his biggest hits with the Old 97s is about his cat who ran away from home, and he has an ode to midlife rock stardom that always makes me laugh when he gets to the line, “Twenty good years of about 25.” Fist bump for keeping it real, man.

He’s also a super fun performer to see play live. Miller’s hairography and hip shakin’ are Elvis-level epic, and his stage patter is straight goofy, including as it did this time a long anecdote about writing a song with an old-time country producer, and a riff on STDs before he ripped into this one. (Note: Ripping is how he starts every song. There is no tiptoeing into a Rhett Miller song.)

Which brings me to something else that I appreciate about Miller: he plays songs from the Old 97s catalog. I hate when you go see a lead singer do a solo concert and they refuse to touch the songs that everyone in the audience is just waiting for them to play (cough Brandon Flowers cough.) Dude. We can hold a place in our hearts for your solo work AND your band’s music. It’s ok. Miller gets that.

I just got a Songkick Alert that Miller will come back through the Bay Area on September 17 with the Old 97s to play at the Fillmore – a full band playing at the Fillmore? That show will be rip-roaring. And hallelujah, doors open at SEVEN which means he might be on by NINE  which means I could actually see the end of a Rhett Miller show. See you guys there for the encore?! (Tickets go on sale today)

Next concert on the calendar: Brandi Carlile at The Fox Oakland, September 18. But now maybe Old 97s the night before.

                   
CommentsYeah, she definitely sounded like an ambivalent fan in the ... by Nancy Davis KhoI could not get behind that essay at all. My first problem with ... by EllenRelated StoriesConcert Review: Lord HuronConcert Review: Jenny LewisMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Replacements 

Oakland Soul Train

Record-breaking amounts of love, peace, and soul in the 5-1-0

When I saw the call for participation for an attempt to break the Guinness World record for the Longest Soul Train Line in Oakland on June 20, I hesitated not one second before clicking through to sign up. In the words of one man interviewed at the event by the San Jose Mercury News, “Funk-related world’s records are not that numerous, frankly,” and for this one, I had trained basically every Saturday afternoon in the 1970s with my older sister on the red shag carpet in the family living room, with Soul Train playing on the tv set. If you didn’t watch it as avidly as I did: the Soul Train line came at the end of the broadcast, when dancers lined up across from each other to shimmy side to side in a dance gauntlet, while the two dancers at the top of the line showboat their way down the center. Sometimes it was a choreographed dance, sometimes it was improv, but as Soul Train host Don Cornelius would say, it was all “Love, peace, and souuuuuuuuullll.”

To participate in the Oakland event you had to be capable of dancing 3+ hours without a break, or as we used to call that in the ‘80s, a Tuesday. The event was a fundraiser for the many children’s programs at De Fremery Park in West Oakland, a day after the Golden State Warriors held their NBA Finals victory parade around nearby Lake Merritt. It was a good weekend to be an Oaklander.

My friends Dawn and Lilah also signed up, and we spent some of last week emailing about outfits and footwear and “can we seriously not take bathroom breaks because if so, I better not have coffee that morning,” the kinds of dance-related worries you have past 40. I bought the most obnoxious leggings I could find at Target to wear with a fringy vest and big 70’s style sunglasses and ginormous orange earrings. And sneakers.

We were supposed to arrive at 6:30 am last Saturday to register; when we got there at 7:30, we only needed about 271 more people to break the record Philly had of 291 dancers.  As people trickled in from all over Oakland for the next few hours, we used scissors to customize our official colored tshirts – Guinness stipulated that everyone had to stick with their color group, and we had a rainbow of ROYGBIV going on – and the DJ started spinning at 8 am so people were already dancing. This group of sisters and nieces started choreographing their moves down the football-field length course by 8:30.

We had plenty of time to chat with other participants while we waited, from Chocolate Platinum who teaches line dancing in Oakland,

to Leslie who was easily the most photographed dancer of the day,

to Amanda the medical marijuana clinic spokesperson who was celebrating her 39th birthday being a bad Mama Jama.

There were a couple of very strict rules: dancers on the sidelines had to keep in constant motion because if you stopped the official Guinness observer would not count you. You couldn’t start your dance down the center aisle until the couple in front of you had reached the end and rejoined the sideline dancers– someone stood at the end of the row with a giant piece of cardboard painted red on one side, green on the other, and you best not start down until you saw green. Finally, you didn’t leave the line for anything. Not bathroom breaks, not the Chicken and Waffles or Italian ices booths that vendors set up as the sparse bystander crowd slowly morphed into a huge neighborhood party, not even if your feet were killing you from dancing on the asphalt surface of the street next to De Fremery park that had been blocked off to traffic.

And then after a Warriors cheerleader who teaches a “Be Happy, Beyoncé” dance class took us through warmups, we were off and running – I mean dancing – at 10:40 am to “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now.” First down the line was Chocolate Platinum and her dance ladies, including Mz. Vee and Mz. Smooth.

Then came some original Soul Train dancers in their satin Soul Train jackets.

Then we settled in for the dance duration. Pretty much every dancer who came through was cheered all the way down the line, at first because we were all so excited, sometimes because of excellent or at least very unique dance moves, sometimes because the dancer looked like someone who needed cheering to make it to the end, by hour 3 because that meant one less person between us and being able to sit down on the grass of De Fremery Park with an Italian ice in hand. Turns out that as much as you enjoy watching the showboating dance moves, it takes A VERY LONG TIME to do the Robot down a football field. And heaven help the people who started backtracking toward the top of the line with their moves. The lady on stage with the mic would yell, “NO NO NO, keep moving, Blue! Keep it moving!”

The best parts of the day for me: the way you get to know people as you shuffle shuffle kick near them for four hours, like my buddy Cecil across the line with the giant afro who occasionally yelled, “How are your feet holding up, Nancy?” or the young women next to us dressed like “After” Sandy in Grease who I made reapply sunscreen every hour or so. The generosity of Dawn’s family who showed up with sunhats and kettle corn at the end of hour 2 when we were starting to wilt. The fact that we all started out with the same boxy “Friends of DeFremery Park” t-shirt but every single person who came down the line had customized it into something unique, including a dapper young dude who fashioned his into a vest complete with buttons. The grim They Shoot Horses, Don’t They survival dance mode under cloudless skies from about 12:45 pm to 1:45 pm when we started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (in the form of the last group of green-shirt-clad dancers finally starting through the line.)

And of course, the 90 seconds Dawn and I took getting down the center line, high fiving fellow dancers and making that vest fringe move. Were they cheering because we were moving so fast, or because our flow was on point? Yes. Best minute and a half of my life.

When they finally rang the bell midafternoon, we’d blown through Philly’s record, with 331 dancers going four hours. We’d raised money for DeFremery and met a bunch of fellow Oaklanders who we wouldn’t have otherwise, in the process showing that some white ladies from the Oakland Hills know from the Whip and the Nae Nae. And we’d gotten to dance to “Word Up” outside on a gorgeous sunshiney day before it was even lunchtime.

In a week where racial hatred resulted in a tragedy in Charleston, I had a crazy thought: what would happen if we held a four hour Soul Train line in every city in this country? Those feel-good endorphins from dancing make it impossible to do a Soul Train line without smiling at the people next to you and across from you, to yell some “Get it, girl!” and “Okay okay!” as others dance past you, whatever color shirt they’re wearing or how they customize it. A national Soul Train Line Day would be a powerful reminder that we’re all on the same big funky team. We’re doing it for the kids.

So go out, wherever you are, and break our Guinness World record. There’s plenty of love, peace, and soul to spread around.

This was at the very end after the record was broken and the volunteers who ran the event got to make their way down the center line…the big man in orange was one of my favorite to watch. He came with his daughter and they gave huge cheers for every single dancer, including Miss Phyllis.

We broke it baby

 

                   
CommentsIt was your vest fringe suggestion that gave me the idea. It ... by Nancy Davis KhoTurns out “Groove Line” at 7:45 am works just as well as a ... by Nancy Davis KhoYou are fantastic! And I can't believe you did all that without ... by Liz @ ewmcguireyou had me at Vest Fringe!! by Mary Allison TierneyYou know when people say something is EVERYTHING? This really ... by AnnPlus 4 more...Related StoriesFatherhood and Good SportsEighth Grade Graduation GroovesCrumbling and Conversation 

Fatherhood and Good Sports

To the extent that I know and love anything about sports, I must thank two dads – my own, and the one who is father of my children.

I grew up at the knee of a Buffalo Bills fan whose idea of a fun winter Sunday, when it was sleeting outside, was to pile us onto the Kodak employee chartered bus for the drive west to Buffalo to watch the game, bundled up in such a way that only our eyes and noses were exposed. The meatball subs consumed on the ride there and back would have made even frostbite worthwhile. When we couldn’t get to a game, we still watched every Sunday, and even if I was sitting on the family room floor half-paying attention, half-writing fan letters to various members of the cast of Little House on the Prairie, a certain awareness of the game sunk in.

Dad also took us to see the minor league franchise in town, the Rochester Red Wings, so my education in baseball was equally solid despite my short-lived Little League career. It helped that my mom’s dad, a Yorkshireman who emigrated to Rochester, was a diehard Red Wings fan whose 90th birthday was announced over the Red Wings’ ballpark PA system. It was probably the closest thing to Grandpa’s beloved cricket that he could hope for, and his name is on a brick in the sidewalk at the stadium downtown. If winters were spent dissecting football, spring and summer were all about baseball at my house.

Dad was also a fan of golf. To that I remained impervious, except for the part where my mom always served really nice hors d’oeuvres when a tournament was on. Sorry, golf. Is that artichoke dip, Mom?

Then I married a man who is a walking encyclopedia of professional cycling, and who took the time to explain everything to me so patiently that he converted me into a spokehead. Not just me: our two daughters knew from toddlerhood the difference between a time trial helmet and regular road helmet, and got stammery and sweaty when they actually met Thor Hushovd during a Tour de California. The youngest almost swept our annual TDF betting pool a couple years back, over a bunch of serious cyclists including her own father.

My husband’s other favorite sport is hoops, so since we moved to Oakland we’ve watched the Warriors lose, for lo these many years. We were there for the Latrell years, the Mark Jackson years, the Monta Ellis years. We flop on the couch, my husband in his Warriors sweatshirt, and he explains to us the strengths and weakness of the opposing teams and the other factoids that will make us sound knowledgeable. “That guy’s a bum.” “He went to Cal.” “Do you know his nickname?” I confess that I sometimes used Warriors games to do some ironing, or write thank you notes, or read a magazine. But I’m mostly paying attention.

Particularly during this magical season, right up to Tuesday night’s game in the NBA Finals where Steph Curry, in the final seconds, just stomped around the floor with a huge grin on his face saying, “WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?” like he was as shocked as the rest of us that a forty year championship drought was ending (at least one drought has.) A team that plays like a team, brings their kids to the news conferences, and eats breakfast at the same diner we do: we feel such a sense of pride and connection.

Now the city of Oakland, perennial civic underdogs, “The Town” to San Francisco’s “The City,” is finally getting our moment to shine. There’s a parade around Lake Merritt today, and the T-shirt vendors are making bank off clothes like this from people like me.

T=Klay Thompson, G=Draymond Green, C= Steph Curry.

I’m still not a huge sports buff, I’m certainly not a knowledgeable one. But if you stick me next to a water cooler the day after a big game, I can hold my own with dudes for at least a couple of minutes before they start talking about triple doubles (or worse, golf) and lose me. Our two daughters may not believe or value it now, but they’ll be equally prepared.

On this Father’s Day weekend, I want to thank the two men who made it possible for my kids and me to speak a passable version of the universal language of sports, the language that makes total strangers hug each other on the street when Iggy Dolla hits a three or Bumgarner throws five scoreless innings.

Hats off to the Warriors, hats off to The Town, and most of all, hats off to the dads.

                   
CommentsJust love this post. As a wife of the most die hard NBA fan of ... by MaureenMy also cycling-devoted husband loves all inspiring sports ... by Karen F.Oh, that picture!! Happy Father's Day to your great dads! by EllenRelated StoriesEighth Grade Graduation GroovesCrumbling and ConversationConcert Review: Jenny Lewis 

How To Celebrate Flag Day, Through the Years

1972: In kindergarten, draw a beautiful Flag Day poster that includes not just a stick figure girl, but also a flag, and birds flying in formation to create a fourteen, as in June 14 (albeit with a backward 4.) Dictate an artist’s statement to your teacher, Miss Strite, who will write it down in perfect kindergarten-teacher-print-font. This is the same Miss Strite who taught both your older sister and brother, so that when you show up for the first day of kindergarten she will say, “I remember you, Nancy! Your sister brought you in for show and tell right after you were born!”

Wonder why your parents, brother, and sister giggle when you bring the poster home a few days later.

1976: Your mother will haul out the poster and display it because it’s the Bicentennial and everything is about America and 1776 and red white and blue that year. You spend 50% of 1976 wearing a poke bonnet. Your siblings bust a gut laughing when they see the poster again, and don’t spare your feelings, because you are now 10 and they believe you can take what they dish out. “Look what you wrote,” they say by way of explanation, after Mom pins the poster in the landing of the basement stairway, where much of the family’s fine art production is showcased.

“She’s looking at the flag because she knows it’s Flag Day and she’s pretty happy about it.”

“Not really happy, just pretty happy. A subdued kind of happy. There are other things she is happier about than Flag Day,” they continue, now on a roll in the way of older siblings that make the youngest sibling enraged. The Bicentennial ends, the poke bonnet is put in storage, but “Pretty happy about it” is now ensconced in the family lexicon, shorthand for “things are fine, but there are other things that are more fine.”

1977-1981-ish: when June 14 rolls around, seethe all day because you, my friend, are hearing your kindergarten prose repeated to you by your family from dawn to dusk, and you’re the only one who won’t think it’s funny. During this era the poster will suffer water stains and tears, but like Old Glory, it will continue to wave.

1982: There is a new framing store in the new mall and your mom will be on a tear, framing the finest selections of every child’s artwork. She must be feeling nostalgic because the older kids are off at college. For Christmas that year, your sister’s elementary school painting of horses grazing in a meadow will be framed and given to her. You, of course, get the framed Flag Day poster.

1992: By now you too have graduated college and grad school and have started your new married life. Your parents will be shipping you boxes of stuff from their house by the metric ton, relieved to make your things your problem. One of the first boxes contains the Flag Day poster. Trying to explain it to your new husband why this particular piece of art was framed and why you can’t just throw it out makes you wonder whether love really is enough to bridge your differences.

1993 – 2010ish: Like clockwork, on June 14, your phone blows up with three calls: one from your parents, one from your sister, and one from your brother. As soon as you say hello, they all recite the line they know by heart: “She’s looking at the flag because she knows it’s Flag Day and she’s pretty happy about it.” You can hear the shrug they make on the word “pretty” across the phone lines. She’s been happier about other things, but it’s June 14, Flag Day, and that is lower-case- ok with her.

2010 – 2014: Your parents and siblings are busy, they’re getting older. Sometimes they forget to make the Flag Day call, and that makes you indignant. If they don’t call you, you call them and recite the forty-year old artist statement to them, then give them a minute to laugh at you. Tradition is tradition.

2015: Invite a couple friends over for a Flag Day barbeque and center the poster on the fireplace mantle. Flag Day may not be a major holiday, but by this point you consider it your own.

And you’re pretty happy about it.

These days the poster rests under a bed of California stars.

                    CommentsFlag Day is my birthday. I used to think people put their flags ... by Charlene RossThis is what makes families great. Traditions borne from ... by EllenRelated StoriesFamily HeirloomHappy Reeses Hoarding Holiday!Things That Will Last Longer Than My New Year’s Resolutions 

Eighth Grade Graduation Grooves

Last month I wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece for NickMom about how 8th grade graduation festivities have changed since I was 14. Back then, your parents pretty much just asked if you knew how to get to the high school (in my case, didn’t even ask since I had older siblings there and it would have been a dumb question.)

But in 2015, 8th Grade Graduation is a religious movement comprising panoramic photographs, class picnics, a dinner dance, outings to amusement parks, and of course a not-graduation-it’s-promotion graduation ceremony. I have to admit to rolling my eyes a little bit at the hoopla: it’s an awful lot of festivities around what is actually a legally-required educational progression.

Then again, every single kid in my middle school moved on to the same public high school, the only one in town. Celebrating the end of middle school would have been like one of those awkward moments when you say your final goodbyes at party, then come back 5 minutes later because you left your purse. We were all going to see each other again in September, and probably 35 times over the summer Bagel Land or Don & Bob’s since the town I lived in wasn’t that big.

But at my daughter’s middle school, some of the class of 300 kids will go to one public high school, another big group to a different public high school, and the remainder will spread out in a diaspora to the private high schools in the area. There’s a real chance these kids won’t see each other again, forever or at least until they run into each other in the aisle of the Safeway in 2022 and think, “Do I know that guy from somewhere?” while diving behind the avocado display. So I understand the impulse to memorialize and celebrate what has been, for many of them, nine years of school together.

And if I’m honest, in the past week I’ve succumbed to the wish to slow it all down. This is my baby who is graduating 8th grade, after all. Next fall we will have two high schoolers, and the year after that we’ll have a college kid. Although I can’t stand it when people say “How is it possible that I have a ten year old?” because I understand how both biology and time work, I admit to being a little shocked that after twelve years of driving up Park Boulevard and turning right to take the kids to school, we will no longer travel that route. Now it’s all to the left. (To the left. Everything they learn from a school to the left.)

So when the organizers of the promotion ceremony asked me to make a mix to play for the hour before the festivities start, I allowed myself to wallow in nostalgia and song lyrics. I wanted something that both reflected the diverse student body that has made our trip through the Oakland Unified Public School system thus far exceptionally valuable, as well as a few songs that marked our specific journey. And threw in a couple of happy, upbeat tunes because that’s what the day should be.

I ended up with a Hawaiian singer (there will be lei’s aplenty at this West Coast graduation,) an Orthodox Jewish rapper, the Beach Boys, Wiz Khalifa, and Paul Simon. There’s some country, some hip hop, and some ‘80s chestnuts. There’s even some Glee because back when these kids started kindergarten, that show rocked and we used to throw a Glee-themed party to raise money for the school.

Check out the full playlist and tell me: what songs say “graduation” to you?

For some reason Spotify is denying me the chance to embed Bruddah Iz in this list, but I assure you he’s in there, right after U2.

                    CommentsMazel tov and pack the tissues. I'm putting mine in my purse ... by Nancy Davis KhoYou'll notice there's nothing from T Swizzle on this list and ... by Nancy Davis KhoMy daughter's 8th grade graduation is two weeks away and the a ... by EllenMy middle daughter is going into the 7th grade. I hope Taylor ... by LanceDude – I just walked L. to the bus stop for the last time, ... by Nancy Davis KhoLOVE. But now I'm gonna have to bring a tissue when I didn't ... by JennTRelated StoriesConcert Review: Jenny LewisConcert Review: Lord HuronMoney Making Mamas 

Crumbling and Conversation

It did not come as a surprise to me that at a certain age, talking about physical ailments would constitute the lion’s share of my conversations. Even if I hadn’t seen all the birthday cards on the topic in the “Just a Laff!” section of the drugstore aisle, I harbor a vivid memory of an older cousin’s wedding shower when I was a little girl. Did the aunts discuss the impending nuptials? No they did not. They discussed, in great detail, one of the uncles and his gallbladder attack, and how he brayed like a donkey from pain, and if you think a nine year old girl didn’t form a mental image of her uncle braying like a donkey that haunts her forty years later, you’d be as wrong as it was to tell that story in front of a nine year old girl.

Ahem. So. I knew the talk of aches and pain was coming. I just didn’t realize how much I’d enjoy it when it arrived.

I had lunch last week with a dear friend who lives about seven miles away, which is obviously way too far to ever drive so we haven’t seen each other in two years. We met for lunch and after we hugged each other, here were the first words out of our mouths:

“So you have to tell me about your Lyme disease! And perimenopause!”

“Ok but then I want to hear all about your frozen shoulder!”

We said these things with huge grins of anticipation, leaning toward one another into the center of the table, just like I remember doing with my high school friends after they’d gone on their first date with a new crush. We were more than interested, we were excited to talk about our failing physical forms.

For the next 90 minutes, anytime the waitress came by to check on us, she heard something like, “I tried acupuncture once, it made me feel like I was high but it definitely helped the mobility,” and “So I hooked up to a Vitamin C drip IV twice a month and that seemed to give me more energy,” and “Cupping was awful. My back was covered it bruises. Yet I couldn’t wait to go back.” After a certain point the waitress no longer returned to refill our water glasses and I don’t think we can blame the California drought.

I think the reason we are genuinely thrilled, in our forties and fifties and beyond, to have these conversations is because we know we could have a need for this information at any time. You hold your neck at a weird angle when blow drying your hair, you crack your knee against a door sill, you lift a suitcase wrong, and you are not shaking it off like you did when you are 20. You are now going to physical therapy. That’s why everyone born before 1980 wants to know how to avoid injury and illness and how, if they do fall prey to it, to recover as quickly as possible.

My lack of medical degree notwithstanding, I am now the go-to person for diagnosing frozen shoulders via FB, Twitter, text, and phone. Everyone who feels a little twinge in their shoulder calls me and asks, “When did it start? How did it feel? What should I do?” And guess what: if I met someone who had two frozen shoulders – my Cupper assures me they exist – you KNOW I would be buying that person a cocktail, raising it gingerly to his or her lips, and saying, “So when did the second one start? How did it feel? What should I do?”

I suppose I should feel embarrassed at this outward sign of aging, this utter loss of care about what people think when I start asking at cocktail parties whether anyone knows if turmeric capsules really help joint pain? But instead I feel strangely empowered and wise. I’m the one you 20-somethings will someday be seeking out, when suddenly you can’t reach your back pocket without a lightening bolt of pain down your bicep. You can’t outrun time and when you figure that out, it’s the people with knowledge of rehab stretches and tinctures and reiki treatments who will be treated like gods.

So to paraphrase Dorothy Parker: If you don’t have anything nice to say (about your health,) come sit by me.

Feeling stressed and overwhelmed? Fist bump. Join me this Sunday, June 7 at 4 pm at the Mill Valley Public Library in Marin where I’ll be interviewing my friend, happiness expert and sociologist Dr. Christine Carter, about her newest book, “The Sweet Spot: How To Find Your Groove at Work and Home” (2015.)  I’ve already adopted her “Minimum Effective Dose” approach for knowing when good enough is good eno

                    CommentsHaha! Heh, um… so do turmeric pills help with joint pain ... by EllenRelated StoriesSeeing Live Music in Your 40s: Hurts So Good6 Easy Spring Decorating Tips From My Recent Emergency Home RepairNeighborhood Listserv Lament 

Concert Review: Jenny Lewis

The Band: Jenny Lewis, May 28 2015. That rare specimen, a former child TV star who actually transcended her past, Lewis co-founded indie rock band Rilo Kiley in 1998. She’s also released three solo albums and, together with boyfriend Jonathan Rice, an album as half of Jenny & Johnny. You’ll hear her crystalline vocals on song backup for a veritable Who’s Who of indie rockers, from Brandon Flowers of the Killers to the Postal Service to Elvis Costello.

The Venue: The Fox Theater, Oakland. Further reasons why my hometown venue is my favorite venue: before we went in to the show, we stopped by the food trucks at the weekly Off the Grid event at the park next door, and we ate some mega-garlicky garlic noodles. Upon presenting my ID to the Fox employee who was checking them, I realized just what kind of garlic cloud we were carrying into the show and said so. “HOLD UP,” the security guard said, then turned to his coworker. “Brother, give me your gum.” The man proffered two sticks of Doublemint, said, “I got your back, girl,” and the crowd around us was spared. Holla, Oakland.

Reason 2: Jenny Lewis stopped mid-show and said, “I’ve never played here before. There’s kind of a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe going on, am I right? Yo ho ho!”

The Company: My eldest daughter, whom I’d sprung from her nearly round-the-clock final project work in the Engineering Academy at Oakland Tech. In the teen years there have been many things about which we disagree, but we are so very much in sync over our love for Miss Jenny.

The Crowd: Feminine and friendly. There were plenty of dudes there too, but Jenny Lewis’ music has such a sense of powerful, supportive, femininity that she draws out all the girls with the pastel ombre hair and the nose rings and the cute vintage dresses. I was completely shamed by two 20-something sisters standing behind me; when my daughter left for the bathroom I took my customary elbows akimbo, spread eagle stance to defend her space in her absence. One of these nice girls tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You can relax, I’m not going to try to push into that space. That’s really not the vibe at a Jenny Lewis show.” Doy. Hi, I’m an asshole.

When it was time for some “crowd participash,” as Jenny called it, dividing the audience singalong between male and female, the women crushed it. Of course, making men sing a falsetto line of “She’s not me” wasn’t really a fair game.

Age Humiliation Factor: Oh, stop! No, go on.

Shortly after she told me I could stop play D on my daughter’s crowd space, I was hugging the young woman. Why? Because she said, “That’s your daughter? No way. I thought you were sisters or friends.” This could have also been because my 17 year old looks grown up, but I’ll hear it the way I want to hear it.

Opening Band: Nikki Lane

Holy heck, I feel badly for the people who were still out at Off The Grid instead of inside listening to Nikki Lane crush the opening act. She calls herself Highclass Hillbilly and has a voice that doesn’t quit, and a healthy sense of humor in her songwriting. “Right Time” was one of the standouts but her whole set was solid.

And she’s delightfully down to earth, inviting the audience to meet her at the Merch table after the show. Which we did, so my daughter could ask where Nikki bought her amazing illusion net dress and I could tell her that as a mom, I would have been more comfortable if she’d worn some boy shorts underneath it so I could have stopped worrying about ride-up. (That last tidbit may belong under Age Humiliation Factor.) We’ll definitely be watching for news of her next Bay Area show.

Cool Factor: Sell Out

Oakland knows what’s what. We sold out the Fox Theater for Jenny Lewis, a fact that she remarked on repeatedly. And in return, she only said “Thank you San Francisco” once – the rest of the time she only name checked Oakland.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Take the sitter with you.

Jenny Lewis is magical. She’s like the love child of Elvis Presley and Jane Siberry, all swagger and showmanship in her pantsuit, and with sharp, intelligent lyrics and heartbreaking harmonies.

There’s one Rilo Kiley song that makes me cry every time I hear it, to the point that my daughter warned me in advance, “If you cry at the show when she sings it I will seriously walk away.” The lyrics, about going to the mountains and how time passes faster during a day by the lake and how you have to tell people you love them because they won’t wait, conjures up every ounce of nostalgia I have about Family Camp. So when she started “With Arms Outstretched” I had to really lock it down. But then when she sang the line, “with your arms outstretched to me” and everyone around me reached out to her, and I could only reach with 1.5 arms due to the frozen shoulder, I ended up laughing instead of crying. (Another Age Humiliation Factor nugget.)

The girl behind me mentioned that Jenny’s music got her through the angsty teenage years. Lewis and her band played an old Rilo Kiley cut, “A Better Son/Daughter,” that absolutely nails it, the feeling of being misunderstood and kind of miserable and how you survive it: “But you’ll fight and you’ll make it through, you’ll fake it if you have to, and you’ll show up for work with a smile.” The crowd roared along with that one, including my kid, and I felt so grateful for those songs that ride along with us through the misery of teenage years and tell us we’re not alone, and we’re capable of surviving them.

There’s a sense of warmth and generosity in her performance that extends both to the audience and her band – for her finale, she had not just her band, but Nikki Lane and her band join her in a scrum while she played acoustic guitar.

The best thing about this show? Realizing how many Rilo Kiley and Jenny & Johnny albums there are left for my daughter and me to discover together.

Another of my favorites. This one’s for my friend Kerryn who got married in May.

Next concert on the calendar: Rhett Miller at The Chapel SF, June 18

                    CommentsI should have told her I was doing one of those TEDx power pose ... by Nancy Davis KhoIt will shock you that I've never heard of her. She's ... by AnnRelated StoriesConcert Review: Lord HuronStill in Rotation: Crossing Muddy Waters (John Hiatt)Still in Rotation: Sea Change (Beck)