Last fall when my friend, the documentary filmmaker and activist Michealene Risley, told me she wanted to run for president, I thought she was joking. We were having breakfast at the Palo alto Creamery talking about the plight of the economy and the deep concern we both have about the ongoing war in Afghanistan among other simmering issues facing this country. “President?” I asked, nearly choking on my eggs benedict. “Of the United States?” If there is a picture of incredulous, I am sure at that moment I looked it.  She nodded. “Yes.” Now Michealene rarely does anything half-baked so when she…

Now that we are past the Hallmark part of the holiday, it’s time for some real talk about motherhood in America. Sure, I love that my three kids still make me breakfast in bed and give me cards that express their undying devotion (until, of course, I tell them they can’t take the car or stay out past their curfew). But let me tell you a few things I don’t love: I don’t love that the United States is one of only four countries in the industrialized world that doesn’t offer paid family leave. The others? Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Lesotho. I don’t love that the United States does not …

Here’s the good news: my son is going to college. Here’s the bad news: it’s going to cost us over $60,000 a year, or actually, $120,000. Yep, you read that right. It will cost us $120,000 pre-tax dollars each and every year for the next four years to send our beloved son off into his glittering future. And by the time he graduates, his sister and younger brother will be in college costing us as much, if not more. In case you needed a little help with the math as I did, we are likely to be in for over $1.5 million pre-tax dollars by the time our children are launched.  So, you can understand …

I must have been seven, maybe eight, when I first saw that now ubiquitous bumper sticker. We were idling in our huge beige station wagon with its ultra-powerful V8 engine at a stop light. In front of us was a well travelled VW bus with a singular message on its backside. The words were written in soft but commanding script and at the end of the letters was a blue and green orb. The bumper sticker said, “Love Your Mother.” It felt like a message from God. You see, I was quite mad at my mother right then. She had let my younger brother sit in the front seat. I felt that seat was reserved in …

  A friend of mine and I were talking the other day. She (a Baby Boomer) complained (not for the first time) that my generation better “wake up and smell the coffee.” She believes we’ve “frittered away” the better part of our adult lives accumulating houses and cars and other “nonsense” all in an effort to distract ourselves from the deeper challenges facing our country. “We Baby Boomers worked too damn hard for you to not move the bar forward,” she grumbles. When I mention the creation of connectivity tools such as Twitter and Facebook (and the resulting social revolutions such as the Arab …

One night not so long ago my husband and I took our dog, Sophie, for her nightly walk. We sauntered along a different route, one that had us meandering past all the poets and writers -  Emerson, Tennyson, Coleridge, Cowper - and then down Bryant to Lowell, and that is where we saw them. Two trees lit up like fire, glowing red with hanging paper dragons and windmills skirting left and right and left again in the wind. An homage to Chinese New Year; a work of art meant to capture and delight.  At first we thought we had the Palo Alto Public Art Commission to thank for the installation. Over the…

In two weeks (or to be specific, fourteen days, five hours and thirty one minutes), my beloved daughter will do what so many recently turned sixteen-year-olds will have done: she’ll march down to the local Department of Motor Vehicles and take her driver’s license test. She can’t wait.  Me? I hope she fails. It’s not that my daughter isn’t responsible. In the months since she has gotten her driver’s permit, she has proven to be a cautious, attentive driver. So much so that we’ve all taken to calling her “grandma” when she gets behind the wheel.  In fact, during one of my more impressive mommy…

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. First, I learned my neighbor’s grandson committed suicide. Then I heard a good friend’s nephew did the same. These dramatic acts all happened a while ago and yet the pain, confusion, and deep sadness was still so evident in the words and on the faces of these two grieving souls; it nearly broke my heart. And then it happened again. I woke on Friday morning to the headlines telling me that someone had been hit and killed by a train in Palo Alto. Of course, my first thought was “No, not another young person from our community.” Then I learned that it was an “…

I had dinner last night with five trailblazers of Silicon Valley. The group included a CEO (multiple times), a senior engineering executive, an expert in manufacturing, a senior vice president of marketing, and an investment whiz turned COO. Around here that might not be saying much, but this group was different: they are all women. Their careers started in the 60’s and 70’s when being a successful woman in business was the exception. Sadly, it still is.  The headlines continue to tell us women are lagging in Silicon Valley. Sure we have Sheryl and Marissa and Meg, but they are not the rule. …

On Wednesday, after Atherton resident, Dan Rudolph, learned the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation had decided to pull its funding out of Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening program, he called Komen’s San Francisco affiliate and told them, “I happily supported you all these years, but I am not sure I can do that anymore.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.” Dan is passionate about women’s health. His mother, Judith, died of breast cancer in 1991. In the years since, Dan Rudolph has done what he could to honor her memory. Year after year he ran in Komen’s Race for the Cure and …

Well, it’s official; feminism is middle-aged. This year, the pill turns fifty-two, Ms. Magazine turns forty, and Roe v. Wade is a blushing thirty-nine. And how has she aged, this movement of ours?  Some would argue not so well. Women still make up only 16% of Congress, 9% of senior executive positions in the Fortune 1000, 30% of the doctors and only 16% of partners in law firms across the land. Not exactly a resounding set of successful statistics. All of which is leading some to say feminism has failed. Others would argue differently. I went to a luncheon honoring Gloria Steinem and Ms. …

The first time my mother voted she was fifty-four years old. No, she wasn’t lazy or indifferent or simply too busy.  My mother was an immigrant who, after having been in this country since she was nineteen, finally decided it was time to make her voice heard. It might have been the decades she endured listening to my father talk about his beloved Republican Party (this was the party of fiscal conservatives who “stayed out of your wallets AND your private lives” not today’s variation who divorce three times and then talk about family values). At some point my mother decided enough was enough …

I grew up in lily-white Marin County where even today more than 80 percent of the population is Caucasian. My exposure to African-Americans (let alone Asian-Americans, Latinos, etc.) was fairly limited. So you can imagine my wonder and curiosity as I watched a college roommate spending hours on her “black” hair.  Allyson patiently explained how she cared for her hair and the culture around “black” hair. If she was offended by my naïveté, if she considered me racist, I never knew. She treated my curiosity as coming from someone who was uninformed. It took me years to understand that it was a …

Turns out the ‘80s are in (again). Beyond the padded shoulders and spiked hair, even the movies I had happily forgotten are now all the rage. Working Girl, Desperately Seeking Susan, Flashdance, are being watched with enthusiasm by teens across the country. So I wasn’t too surprised to find my own teenagers cracking up as they watched trailers from that old movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The scenes with stoner Jeff Spicoli, eyes red as fire engines, saying, “I’m so wasted” were of particular amusement to my kids.  I thought they were funny too, until I read a recent study saying …

Ah, another stunning day here in Paradise. Hard to believe this is winter. We spent the holidays with my parents up in Marin. Given the sunny weather, we wanted to enjoy ourselves by hiking and biking. Unfortunately we weren’t able to. You see, my daughter has very mild exercise-induced asthma. However, on days like these, even relatively benign activities can require medication.  Why? Because the air quality is so poor, it can cause her asthma to flare up. This winter the pollution in the Bay Area is as bad as it was a few years ago when fires raged in the foothills of the Sierras burning …

On Christmas Eve, after eating too much food and singing way off-key to selected carols, my family and I often take a stroll over to Fulton street to appreciate the decorations of Christmas Tree Lane. Usually we race back to watch It’s A Wonderful Life or to play a competitive game of Trivial Pursuit. Not this year. Now, thanks to a group of community minded neighbors, our evening stroll has extended beyond Fulton to Santa Rita where rows of houses have placed small lighted trees along the road in the highest form of flattery: imitation. “We wanted to spread the cheer,” says Debbie Nichols, …

Breathing has been on my mind lately. It may have been the yoga class I took the other day. “Focus on breath,” said the instructor. And so I did. Or perhaps it was because of a recent phone call with my mother. She spent the entire time coughing, struggling to catch her breath as a result of a terrible bout with bronchitis. “Breathing is so hard,” she said. Or perhaps it was because my teenage daughter was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. No one in my family or my husband’s family has this disease, but our daughter does. She plays year-round club soccer and runs track; she’s outdoors, …

Twenty-seven years ago, when I first visited the boyhood home of my then boyfriend, now husband, the most important thing he wanted to show me was not the wall of sports trophies his mother kept as an homage to her beloved son. Nor was it the ice hockey card collection (“with all the best players!”) that he promised would one day be valuable. No, he was most excited about showing me the speakers he had built in his high school shop class. The two speakers, each standing a full four feet high, were made of unpainted plywood with one large black disk for the base and a smaller one for higher …

It’s your worst nightmare come to fruition. Your son’s on the football team and the season is over. It was a good season and he wants to celebrate with the team (or it’s graduation, or prom, or his sixteenth birthday, or...fill in the blank;  the story is always the same). Reluctantly, you agree to have a party at your house. You try to keep things under control. You’re not serving alcohol - you’d never do that!. But kids are kids and alcohol has made it into the party. Suddenly, the police are at the door. Turns out a neighbor has called to complain. Next thing you know, you’re handcuffed …