OK…My sister sent me this video of her playing her Labrador Retriever as a conga drum to the band “Pink Martini.” She is so funny!Watch about 1 minute & 15 seconds so you can see how elegant she is with her hand gestures and her dog doesn’t even move!!!!

I always wanted to live on the sand. And now I do.

It’s not exactly the lifestyle I envisioned. I was thinking beachfront entertaining, relaxing sunsets dipping behind Catalina, crashing waves lulling me to sleep. That’s not what I got.

I got sand. I guess when I was making my wish for the OC good life, I forgot to attach an ocean to my dream of beachfront paradise. So my wish has come true. I got the beach part—just not the water part.

As I write this column, I’ve got cubic yards of sand under and between my toes. The only problem is I haven’t moved. How is it possible to live on the sand without living on the beach? Easy. Enroll your kids in Junior Lifeguards. Your children will cart home more sand than a pack mule. Although they will appear to be wearing nothing but a rash guard and a whole lot of sunscreen, in reality they will be concealing twenty pounds of sand on their person. Each and every day.

Every afternoon in beach parking lots up and down the coast—from T-Street to Thousand Steps–moms are making every attempt to stop sand from infiltrating their front lines. I think the hypothesis is if it doesn’t get in the SUV, it doesn’t get in the house. These women come armed with towels, talcum powder, leaf blowers, and haz-mat suits. All to no avail.

Sand knows no boundaries. The kids don’t even realize they are smuggling it home to be deposited on the fresh, clean sheets of your king-size Sealy Posture-pedic. Yelling “Who got sand in my bed?” will only bring blank stares. How would they know there are millions of grains clinging stubbornly to their follicles?

Unfortunately no one has yet trained a sand-sniffing dog to roust out that kilo of Salt Creek Fine packed tight in the toes of their surf fins. Nope. You won’t find the contraband until it is ground into your hardwood floor, clogging your drain, or sifting out the lint filter of the dryer.

It’s also in the fridge, so you can be sure it’s going to be in your mouth before too long. It’s in the library books (sorry), and it’s so deep in the back seat I suspect an ancient civilization may be buried under there.

All this sand is making me a little crazy. I’ve been coming up with some good theories, all of them involving conspiracies. My top pick points the finger directly at Junior Lifeguards.

Junior Lifeguard leaders are notorious for their sense of fun. Last year, one assistant allowed himself to be duct-taped to a surfboard and covered with Cheetos for a wild critter buffet. They play jokes on each other, the kids, so why not the parents?

I just bet they sit around thinking of ways to get the maximum amount of sand per square inch stuck to each of their charges. I’m surprised I haven’t seen a backpack shoveled full of sand get dragged up the hundred-and-something steps of “Stairway to Heaven” at Strands and dumped in my trunk like a dead body.

Casually, I asked my kids if they play any sand games in Junior Guards. They looked at each other and shouted, “Corn Dogging!”

As I suspected, those leaders do sit around thinking of ways to laugh at my expense. The object of Corn Dogging is to get wet, then roll in the sand like a hot dog. Whoever has the thickest “batter” wins. Yummy. I’m surprised they haven’t added seaweed and called it a California Roll.

Next comes Sand Crabbing, an army crawl through shallow water, ostensibly to learn the features of the ocean floor but really a highly effective way to sandbag the pockets and linings of board shorts and bathing suits. If they can still float, the kids are encouraged to swim out to buoys Big Bertha, Bob Marley, or Death Star and dive down for more handfuls of sand. The more sand they excavate, the fewer push-ups required. Notice a theme?

And then there is “Ostriching.” Trust me. You don’t want to know. But it is exactly what you are picturing.

There are a lot of summer beach programs out there to choose from. We chose one based on the quality, texture, and color of beach sand. Sure, safety and fun were important factors, and that’s why it’s our third year with US Ocean Safety.

But it’s even better when the sand matches your upholstery.

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud

Whew! Spring break around here doesn’t mean spring cleaning. Spring break means it is time to gear up for the next wave of family events. Birthdays. Check. Anniversary. Check. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Double check.

Only I forgot about the Tooth Fairy.

Tonight at 8:52 PST we had an incident. No emergency crew was needed though I’d rate the gore, blood, and gaping socket PG-13. My youngest was enthralled.

That is why I am writing this at 11 p.m. while I wait for the Tooth Fairy to arrive. I have it on good authority that she often blows off our town for the more lucrative gold-filled baby teeth in the richer city next door.

I’m afraid if I FALL ASLEEP before she gets here, I MAY NOT WAKE UP to let her in. (My “caps lock” button is not stuck, I am speaking in code.) So here we are together, you and I, waiting for the big event. Yawn. Personally, I’d like to yank the teeth out of the idiot who came up with the tooth fairy gig. What an evil means of torturing people whose only mistake was procreating with abandon.

I have enough trouble remembering everyday tasks such as, say, taking vitamins; much less these sporadic and always inconvenient middle-of-the-night exchanges of teeth for cash. If it were up to me, I’d set it up so the kids saved up their teeth until a night when I’m up late anyway, and then trade them in all at once. Let’s make it Dec. 31 st. That’s the only night I can guarantee to drink enough caffeine to make it to midnight.

Even better, forget the cash business. Who carries actual money anyway? How about a gift card for a mani/pedi for the child’s hardworking mother? After all, isn’t a brand spanking new permanent tooth gift enough?

It wouldn’t be like what happened two nights ago, when the tooth fairy stood up my gappy-mouthed, grinning 7-year-old daughter. She had been working that tooth for days. I found blood on the white towels, her white pillowcase, and the sleeve of my white shirt. I don’t know how she managed to dangle it by the root for so long, flinging blood hither and yon. But finally it was out, set free like a small white bird in a big sky. Go forth in the world little tooth and conquer! Somehow it ended up down the drain. I’d explain how that happened except I didn’t quite get all the pertinent details through the sobs. I briefly considered the old bait-and-switch routine. I’ve got an assortment of baby teeth in a very high drawer stuffed with nail polish and crayoned love letters.

I figured I might just be able to pull off the switch. Something like, “Look sweetie! A daddy-long-legs in the bathtub!” As her head swivels I drop the replacement next to the faucet. It probably would have worked if this hadn’t been my middle child, the naturally suspicious one. You know the kid. She’d say, “This can’t be my tooth. It’s not big enough. Why are my teeth always the smallest? It’s not fairrr…” So I had her write a letter of explanation to the tooth fairy – sort of like what the insurance company does when it refuses to pay for the care and maintenance of same said teeth.

She wrote her letter and I felt gratified that I was making her practice her printing and thought how that might please her teacher. She tucked the note under her pillow and promptly fell asleep at 8:55 p.m. I fell into bed and was asleep at 8: 57 p.m., on a Friday night no less. Wouldn’t you know, that stinkin’ Tooth Fairy never bothered to give me a kick in the bum or any other warning that I still had one more to-do on my to-do list. I woke up to sunshine and a 7-year-old face grinning at me, one large hole in her smile. My heart sunk as I remembered what I’d forgotten. But she was smiling? I didn’t get it.

“Did the tooth fairy come?” I asked.

“Nope.” She was laughing, not crying. “I was hoping she wouldn’t come last night.”

Really? I felt relief wash through me.

“Yeah, mama. That means tonight I’ll get double the money.”

So that’s why I’m staying up late tonight. I can’t afford not  to.

There’s something about hot, sweaty, muggy weather that puts me in the mood for love. That’s because I got married on the hottest, most humid day ever experienced in Orange County.

My wedding day in July 1988 broke triple digits. Massive thunderclouds crowded over Saddleback Mountain saddling the area like a fat, warm wet towel. Because it was the 80s, I was wearing about fifty pounds of white satin and beads, sequins and lace. And that was just the mutton chop sleeves.

We got married to the strains of a swamp cooler. Thanks to three cans of Aqua Net and a Mork & Mindy perm, my big hair stayed big. My Cosmo cover make-up got shiny but thankfully didn’t slide down to my cleavage. I was trussed up like a rib roast in order to zip up. I couldn’t breathe, but the upside was how that boning took every speck of back fat and tummy roll and shifted it topside for amazing results.

Everything was shaping up for happily ever after. I had only one personal thundercloud marring the horizon: our honeymoon.

It’s not what you think. It wasn’t the wedding night, or the European vacation, or even the mound of thank you notes and Visa bills awaiting our return. It was the flights.

I was afraid of flying. Looking back, I’m sure I drove him crazy, clutching his hand every time the plane dipped a wing. I’m lucky he didn’t divorce me immediately upon landing at Heathrow.

He would just roll his eyes at me. Fast forward nineteen years and he is still rolling his eyes.

We decided to fly to San Francisco for an anniversary getaway weekend. I still don’t like air travel. Although I have less fear about the plane falling out of the sky, I have more fear about it being shot out. What that means is in almost two decades of marriage, nothing has changed.

My husband flies about as often as I go to Costco. He’s down with the rules & regs, the tricks and shortcuts. But he also likes to mess with me, so I never know if he is joking or not.

We were in the car on the way to the airport when he started in about my underwear. “You aren’t wearing one of those bras with metal in it, are you?” I immediately got defensive. “I’m not taking it off. He stepped up the guilt. “I guess you don’t mind getting pulled into secondary inspection where they strip-search you.”

He didn’t realize he was talking to a woman who had been through childbirth three times and had no dignity or shame left. “Oh, goody. I knew he was just getting warmed up. He asked me if I had checked-in online like I was supposed to. I pulled out the printouts, all proud of myself. I had nice little packets for everything: dinner reservations, hotel directions, show tickets. All he saw was the big letter “B.” I didn’t realize in Southwest Airlines lingo “B” stands for Better Bust your Bum to get a Decent Seat. The only thing worse is “C.” They should change it to “S” which stands for Screwed or Squished which is what you will be in that middle seat.

He got an evil glint in his eye. “This may mean we won’t be able to sit together.” That was a low blow. He knows how I need to clutch his hand during take-offs and landings, and bumpy bits, and through clouds, and when bells rings, and when the engine noises change. Ok, all the time.

He must have seen the sheer panic in my eyes because he relented. “Don’t worry. I’ll try to get us on an earlier flight.” An earlier flight? I didn’t like that idea at all. Isn’t that like playing Russian roulette with destiny? You always hear stories of people changing planes only to be trapped on the Flight of Doom. If only they’d kept their reservation, they’d still be with us today…I calmly explained these ramifications. He shook his head in disgust. It turns out that flying, according to the expert (my husband) is like war. It is all strategy. If you aren’t constantly advancing your position, crushing the less experienced along the way, you will never get to your destination. And don’t even get him started about Chicago O’Hare. We caught the earlier flight and even got to sit together.

I worried aloud about the light fog.My husband squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. It’s only a hazard in the summer.”

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud

Home Sweet Home. Not.

I’ve been holed up here for three days straight with a sick kid. I’m trying to see the bright side, but I’ve only come up with one so far. She is not vomiting.

I hate vomit.  I hate fake vomit too. I hate kid vomit the most.  A big reason I hate kid vomit is because kids never have a clue they are about to ralph all over you. There is no early warning system, no tell-tale signs, just a fleeting bug-eyed look of astonishment before your shoes are covered in muck. What I really need is a Hazmat suit.

The problem with kids is when they are sick, they want to attach to you like leeches. The child who can barely stop for a quick hug is now glued to your side with a 103 degree fever. So I have learned to think in terms of collateral damage.

I no longer allow a sick kid to snuggle in my bed. I might as well stick my finger down the patient’s throat myself, the vomiting is so predictable. Admittedly, I have made some stupid maneuvers. My only defense is most of these decisions were made at three in the morning.

For example, one of my children woke me up with her coughing. As soon as I got within optimal target range, she apologetically opened fire. Of course, there is a law–Jody’s Law–that kid vomit must cover a minimum of five hard-to-clean surfaces simultaneously. It’s physics. Go ask a science teacher to explain it.

So it was three in the morning. The poor child was now bedless, unhappy, and cold. Without thinking, I told her to go jump into my bed while I changed her sheets, blankets, comforter, pillow, and assorted stuffed animals unlucky enough to be within projectile range. But before I had a chance to add bleach to the washer, I heard little hiccup-y sounds coming from my room.

It was only a few steps, but it felt like one of those slow-motion war movies. I was racing and yelling, “Where’s the bucket?” Too late. Vomit, like shrapnel and carnage, was flying everywhere. The horror was unspeakable. My 650-thread count sheets, my down comforter, my kid, all covered in puke. Ugh.

I should have known better. After all, this followed the incident in the minivan where the kid sitting behind me spewed all over the roof liner, the front bucket seat, and the back of my head. We were 500 miles from home. I think both of us–the puker and the pukee–were reduced to tears.

So I am sitting here trying to look on the bright side. I have found that a non-cookie-tossing sick kid who can only lie on the couch and watch cartoons is still able to sort all the loose pictures I’ve been meaning to put into albums. She is all the way through 1998. I’m so excited to be able to close out last century’s photos.

So I’ve changed my mind. Without vomit, this place is Home, Sweet, Home after all.

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud

Elementary school is designed to prepare students for middle school. Middle school is designed to prepare students for high school. High school is…ok, you get the picture.

But after Back-to-School night at the middle school, I am sure only of one thing. Middle school prepares kids for a lifetime of flying Coach. Who knows? That skill could be handier than a college degree.

In case you haven’t stepped foot in a public school recently, these are the two rules for Back-to-School night: Rule #1 is only parents are invited. I assume this is because teachers see enough of our kids and are sick of them. Of course, anyone who spends eight hours a day with 6th,7th, and 8th graders and isn’t sick of them by 3:30 p.m. might want to have a little chat with the school psychologist.

So while we parents try to stay awake as their teachers drone on about how homework counts for 20% of the quarter grade, our children are relaxing at home. While I try to not to herniate a disc in chair that is welded to a desk, my kids are bleeding the color ink cartridges dry, draining the batteries on the cell phone, and decimating any snack in the pantry that has “Trans fat” listed in the top three ingredients.

Meanwhile, my husband is pleased because to him this adults only event qualifies as a “date night” in his book, so now he is off the hook. And he didn’t even have to talk about our relationship.

The second rule of Back-to-School-Night is like something out of Fear Factor: LAX (Los Angeles International Airport). You must follow a micro version of your child’s class schedule. It’s sort of like a mad dash from your car to the gate because your flight is leaving in five minutes. Now imagine your kid navigating the same route carrying a forty-pound backpack and dragging a cello. Life Lesson: nobody in middle school holds the plane for you. Get used to it.

So you see, there are a lot of parallels to modern day air travel. Some comparisons are obvious—good luck trying to find a parking place, and no there is no cell phone lot—but other eerie similarities aren’t so apparent. For example, did you hear about the young woman who was recently blocked from her Southwest flight because her skirt was deemed a bit too short? There isn’t an eighth grade girl out there who isn’t rolling her eyes in sympathy. Every middle school female worth her Maybelline extra-length mascara can tell you that skirt needs to hang at least to her fingertips. She might get bumped for not turning off her cell phone, but never, never, never for a dress code infraction.

So I passed by the school principal as she was smiling and greeting parents. My first instinct was to avoid eye contact. I don’t want to get hauled in for secondary inspection or a PTA position. I just want to find the next classroom before the seats are all filled.

Finally, I find Computer Graphics. It was located in the educational equivalent of the “Z” terminal. I was holding a beverage that I hoped was jacked with caffeine. After I sat down, I remembered the 3-1-1 rule. Or was it the 9-1-1 rule? Anyway, I’m sure my liquid had to be banned in this room. What to do? How embarrassing if it were confiscated. And I’d heard stories about this teacher. He might make me army crawl it to the trash can while he played the theme to “Mission Impossible.” I ended up sneaking it into my carry-on, I mean purse, when he hit the lights.

At least P.E. met in the auditorium. We sat in Row 32 E amp;F deliberately. Less risk of being seen and closer to the lavatory. I needed it after gulping the entire soda from a straw sticking out of my handbag. My daughter has been complaining about the size of her P.E. locker, which is about the size of a shoebox. All I can tell her is welcome to the world of carry-on. If she doesn’t learn now how to cram as much stuff as possible into a tiny suitcase that is–in theory–supposed to fit into an overhead bin, but won’t because the bin is already full of someone else’s overfilled carry-on, when will she?

For most of us, life is living with a garment bag stuffed under the seat in front of us. Life is sitting behind the guy who always has to recline fully. As much as we deserve First Class, most of life is Coach.

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud
www.momslol.com

It is January. I know that because there is postage due on my credit card statement. The envelope weighs so much, the postman may have to go out on disability. There are so many pages of charges, the bank wanted to print a sequel. The Sears catalog is thinner. And it’s all because of Christmas.

I swear I didn’t overspend. There were no “big” gifts around here, but there must have been a lot of little ones if you believe CapitolOne over me. Frankly, it’s all still a haze. I can’t remember any of it. I had to ask my oldest kid what we gave her.

A Snuggie, she answered.

Oh yeah, now it is all coming back. The Snuggie is the infomercial must-have gift of the year–a cheap blanket with sleeves. That’s it. Sleeves. It’s in case you need to use your hands while you are sleeping on the couch. It’s the dumbest idea I never thought of, a very lucrative dumb idea.

Just to be clear, I did not get the Snuggie for her as punishment or in retaliation. She actually wanted it. Though it wasn’t technically on her iTunes wish list, she kept talking wistfully of Snuggies. All the teens wanted Snuggies. The black ones made great Harry Potter capes. The brown ones worked well as Jedi robes. Supposedly, there were zebra prints and leopard prints and who knows what else to choose from.

Santa decided to make the kid’s dreams come true. She’d get her very own Snuggie. The hunt began. The good news was that nobody was sold out of Snuggies. The bad news was nobody was sold out of Snuggies. Why couldn’t she have asked for a tattoo or a belly button ring or something else reasonable?

I started at Rite Aid. Within five minutes I spotted a customer with a Snuggie in her cart. I debated if I should ask her where she found it. What if she had the last one? Then she’d know exactly who boosted it from her when she wasn’t paying attention. I chickened out and decided to ask.

The worst thing that could happen is I’d have to flash a couple of twenties in the parking lot to take the Snuggie off her hands. It wouldn’t be the first time this season. I was sort of getting used to getting fleeced after the Zhu Zhu pet hamster debacle that I do not wish to discuss.

Thankfully, the nice lady directed me to an end cap filled with cotton candy pink Snuggies. I was so excited that they were one-size-fits-all until I noticed the big “CHILD” sticker. My heart sunk. But then I spotted a blue one on the bottom shelf. Size Adult. Ho ho ho!

I couldn’t wait to see my daughter’s face when she opened her gift. She carefully unwrapped the package. Either she was an extraordinarily good actress–the thought of which I find very disturbing–or she was genuinely thrilled and surprised at her Snuggie which was sort of disturbing too. She stuck her arms through the sleeves. “Check it out! A blanket! With arms! It’s blue. Avatar!”

Teenagers are so weird.

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud

Tell me the truth. How are you doing on the Resolution? You know which one I mean. I make it every year when I look in the mirror on New Year’s morning. My face says I partied like it was 1999 when the reality was I fell asleep at nine p.m. Unfortunately, the rest of me matches my face.

It’s time for desperate measures. It’s a New Year in just a few days, and time for fresh starts, for getting serious. It’s time to Get In Shape. At least I have a lifetime membership to the local gym, whether I want it or not. The average new member lasts only thirty-two days before quitting. I promise myself that won’t be me. 2010 is going to be different. 2009 and 2008 were going to be different too, but this time is…uh, different.

Some backstory: I bought my membership for the enormous sum of $300 when I was 21. At the time, I was punching a timeclock and barely making rent. My dad ranted at my financial stupidity. He predicted they’d shortly be out of business and I’d be both gym-less and too broke to pay my phone bill.

He also predicted John Travolta would never make it beyond “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Got any more good advice, Pops? Actually, he was right about the gym. I went a few times, then quit for years on end. That should have been the end of the story. But a big chain bought out my gym.

A couple of years ago, they had the gall to build a fitness center right on the way to my kids’ school. Talk about guilt. Every time I sat at the intersection of Golden Lantern and Del Avion, I felt like sweating. It was almost enough to make me gas it through the yellows, but I’m not eligible for traffic school for another fourteen months. So here I am at the gym.

I am learning there is a reason the words “jungle” and “gym” go together. You may already know this, but I was frankly shocked to discover there are the posted gym rules and then there are the “real” rules—the rules of the jungle. In case you are just starting back like me, here is the lay of the land:

Gym Rule: There is a 20-minute maximum time limit on all cardio equipment if people are waiting.

Jungle Rule: Me Tarzan. Treadmill Mine! Elliptical Mine! Stairmaster Mine!

If you want to fit in, follow jungle rule. It requires strength or stealth. Most gym monkeys use stealth. To stop your cardio LCD clock from booting you to the back of the line and making you late for work, artfully drape your towel to obscure the entire display. Wear headphones to avoid pesky loudspeaker reminders and never make eye contact with the poor slobs who are wishing for you to pull a hamstring so they can get your spot.

Gym Rule: The floor must be free of all personal articles.

Jungle Rule: Me Tarzan. Free weights mine! Exercise ball mine! Space on floor mine!

Again in order to fit in, follow jungle rule. Claim as much territory as possible with your personal possessions. Plop a sweatshirt and a newspaper on an open Precor and go soak in the spa to loosen up for your workout. Your equipment will be waiting for you when you are ready. Or save a spot for your pal with a bottle of water and set of keys. If anyone complains, and almost no one will, simply protest loudly that you or your friend were only going to be a minute.

Gym Rule: Please do not monopolize or linger on equipment.

Jungle Rule: Me Tarzan, King of the Jungle! TV mine! Abs bench mine! Make good bed! Tarzan hot! Tarzan sexy! Tarzan walk around naked in locker room! Tarzan make you not know where to look!

Jungle rule means never having to say you are sorry. If you don’t like what everyone is watching on TV, grab the remote. Take cuts when you can. It’s invigorating. It’s good to start the day with assertiveness. An excellent warm-up for the road rage you’ll encounter on I-5 as you head to the office in just a few more reps. After all, it’s a jungle out there, and you are prepared.

Happy New Year and good luck with the resolutions. Maybe I’ll see you at the gym. If you get there before me, save me a spot on the Lifecycle.

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud

www.momslol.com

I married a geek before geeks were cool. Now suddenly they are hot stuff. I don’t know when exactly the tide turned. Was it the underdog appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, achieving the impossible in The 40 Year Old Virgin, or the childlike appeal of Will Farrell?

The tide has turned into a tidal wave. Geek is hot. And I am married to one. Woo-hoo!

If you are like me, you are thinking the time is ripe to embrace your inner geekness. And yes, girls can be geeks too. Don’t believe me? I have two words for you: Ugly Betty.

So what exactly is a geek? In high school, I would have said a geek is socially a step behind, an outsider who didn’t keep up with the crowd. Now I wonder if geeks weren’t actually a step ahead, not bothering to follow the crowd because it simply held no allure.

The most obvious trait of geekhood is a ferociously passionate interest in something. Whether it’s computers, vintage pac-man games, obscure poetry, or baseball stats, geeks dive in and don’t surface—often for a lifetime. I knew one woman who devoted her entire life to the study of one of Shakespeare’s comedies. Not all of them. Just one. She was an “As You Like It” geek. Presumably, she still is.

My husband, on the other hand, is a car geek. And since geeks are by nature specialists, that means that while my husband enjoys car races, he’s not a Nascar or a Formula 1 geek. He just loves the cars themselves. He subscribes to at least six car magazines. When he dreams, he can’t remember who showed up or what they did but he can tell you what car they were driving. For him, there’s no better fun that driving interesting cars, talking about cars, reading about cars, and best of all—contemplating the next car in the garage.

Another geek quality is a lack of interest in keeping up with the neighbors. Geeks aren’t trendy. Not only do they not care about Paris Hilton; they care even less what bag she is carrying. If the geek in question is wearing a really cool vintage Pink Floyd T-shirt from “The Wall” tour, it is because he has owned it for several decades and it is still in the rotation. So they don’t have a BMW in the driveway to impress you. If they have one, they are a car geek. Then, they may have four.

When I was going to college, I worked at Sav-On in Laguna Beach. Several years ago, an older man would regularly come in to shop. He would buy 3/$1.00 toothbrushes and drive home in his beat-up station wagon that probably hadn’t seen a wax job since 1975. I would not even remember him except for one thing. He was my boss, Sam Skaggs, the founder of retail conglomerate American Stores. You sure wouldn’t know it from the items in his basket. He wasn’t purchasing champagne and tooling down PCH in a Ferrari. Instead he was busy buying salmon on sale and donating $100 million dollars to the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Clearly, Sam definitely qualified as a geek.

Howie Makler, owner of Howie’s Game Shack in Mission Viejo hangs out with gaming geeks all day and long into the night. What he found is that geeks have gone mainstream. “Being a geek is no longer considered geeky,” said Makler. “I’ve got jocks that are geeks.” Makler also notes that video gaming geeks are not nerds with useless, overdeveloped skills but rather consummate problem solvers. “I’d go out of my way to hire gamers because they have the skill sets that I, as an employer, want. Gamers are less frustrated because they know there are a hundred ways to complete a task.” Translated: geeks don’t give up.

The stereotype of the geek living in his parent’s garage is really a myth. Geeks are generally highly skilled and successful in their fields.

Even though my husband was wearing a mom-knitted sweater when I met him, he was driving a vintage Corvette with a 454 engine. I eventually got rid of the sweater and most of the dweeb wardrobe. He sold the car for triple what he paid for it. Sure we have 35 years of Road amp; Track magazines out in the garage, but it’s a small price to pay to keep my geek happy.

Who knows? Maybe our kids will turn out to be geeks.

Signed,

Jody Payne,

Mom Living Out Loud Who LOVES the Geeks in her life!

It comes every year, as constant as death and taxes. And for me, just as dreaded. I’m not talking about 1040s. I’m talking the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge.

The program has lasted far longer than any president, which in my opinion is too bad. I have fond memories of failing it repeatedly as a kid. Now my children are taking the challenge and we shall see if I have passed on the Fitness Challenge Flunk Out gene.

I have one out of three kids who takes this process very seriously. I think she’s been brainwashed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is her nine-year-old intention to gather us into a flock of believers. In exercise, that is.

She cornered me while I was taking a little catnap on the couch and wanted to know how many curl-ups I could do in one minute. I was too foggy to ask her to define “curl-up” so I mumbled one hundred as I rolled over.

She wouldn’t go away, however. Next she wanted to know how many push-ups I could do. That was easy. Zero. Little Miss Fitness announced that zero was not an acceptable goal, so I changed it to one.

Last, she badgered me about how far I could reach past my toes. Well, that all depends what I’m reaching for. I once dropped my sunglasses but I didn’t have to reach past my toes because my shades fell in the toilet instead. Anyway, I told her I could reach past my toes if I had enough incentive, but it had better be really good. She wrote my words down in a little notebook.

That evening she gathered us all together and said we were now going to practice for the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge. What? See this is what happens when you don’t have cable. You sit around staring at the walls and each other until someone comes up with the lamebrained idea of exercise.

I tried to beg off with a “bad back,” but my husband thought it was a great idea. Probably because he can do more than one push-up. And so the P. (for Payne) Residential Physical Fitness Challenge was inaugurated.

Curl-ups were first on the torture agenda. I went last since I didn’t know what they were. Turns out it was just old-fashioned sit-ups. The numbers were coming in at 35-40 when Little Miss Drill Sergeant popped out fifty. I started to rethink my goal of one hundred. My turn. I did my first curl-up. Oh—ouch! It hurt. I’d like to say it was the weight of my massive chest that made it so difficult to lift my upper body, but that would be an exaggeration. I barely churned out ten before collapsing in a heap, making excuses the whole time.

Push-ups were next. Little Miss Purple Belt did twenty ramrod straight. I asked if I could do girl push-ups. I guess that isn’t politically correct anymore since they didn’t know what I was talking about. I assumed the position. My arms were shaking already. Everyone was shouting advice. “You need to go down!” Easy for them to say. Finally, someone put a pillow under my face so I wouldn’t break my nose with the impact and I once again collapsed in a pile.

Last was the V-stretch. This one we did together, sitting on the floor legs stretched out straight in front of us. According to Little Miss Workout Nazi our goal was five inches past our feet. I got to my ankles just fine. If I normally shaved my toes, then I would have reached them easily too. I had an idea. I asked my daughter to find some Hostess Twinkies. My husband made a disparaging remark. That’s when I noticed he could only reach to the top of his dorky dress socks. And his knees looked suspiciously bent. I couldn’t believe it. I was beating him! I took a deep breath, leaned into the exhale, and I was touching my toes. A few more breaths and I was substantially beyond my feet. If the Twinkies had been sitting there, they would have been history.

Little Miss Exercise Guru made up a chart and recorded our progress. Every night that week we hit the floor: timing, counting, holding each other’s feet and oh yeah, exercising. I’d made significant progress. I doubled my push-ups. On Friday, our nine-year-old fitness fanatic came home from school with big news. She had passed the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge with highest honors. Maybe she does takes after me…

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud