Schedule for The Hollywood Mom

6:30 a.m. Wake up. Think about world peace. Go on Facebook.

7:00 a.m. Wake up kids. Update Twitter status. Think about Linked In.

7:30 a.m. Schedule conference (w/ husband).

7:45 a.m. Personal car - middle school. 

8:15 a.m. Personal car - elementary school.

8:50 a.m. Von's is open; The Hollywood Mom may stop by for cat food and to say hello, and all staff will appear very happy to see her.

9:15 a.m. Return home. Think about world financial markets. Go on Facebook.

9:30 a.m. Play Bejeweled Blitz while reading through other people's tweets and status updates.

10:00 a.m. Do the dishes. Think about filing lots of papers piled up on filing cabinet.

10:15 a.m. Meeting with New Jersey branch (sister) (on phone)

11:00 a.m. High level negotiations with Wells Fargo (on phone)

11:15 a.m. Higher level negotiations with J. Crew (on phone)

11:30 a.m. Receive text message from daughter. Results of history test are in: 90%. Prepare press release for husband.

11:35 a.m. Unscheduled event: Discover son's lunch under bed where dog is trying to open and consume. Personal car to Hollywood for delivery. Son appears simultaneously relieved and nonplussed. Crisis averted.

noon Run into ____________ at school office. Lunch on Larchmont. Published agenda: School Fundraiser coming up next month. Actual topic of meeting: people we know in common and hold wide-ranging opinions of.

1:00 p.m. Monetary Policy meeting with husband, on phone, as in, Did you pay the car insurance? No, I thought you paid the car insurance. And then, but you always pay the car insurance - you have a relationship with them. No, I only pay when you forget. Transcript available through the Freedom of Information Act.

2:50 p.m. Personal car arrives at elementary school. No idea what I've done or where I've been since 1:00 p.m., but I have fewer overdue library books than I did when I left, which feels like an accomplishment.

3:15 p.m. Personal car arrives at middle school. Debriefing commences. Most days it feels like 5 miles is 4 miles too far for this hungry, angry, tired constituency to travel. Possible bailout to Village Pizza or Sam's Bagels.

4:15 p.m. Personal car arrives home. Think about dinner. Go on Facebook.

4:30 p.m. Strategic objectives meeting: how will two children faced with limited electronic resources watch what they want to watch, play the games they want to play, and visit the websites they want to visit without killing each other? Oh, and do homework.

4:40 p.m. Ice cream man!!! (shuttle diplomacy, East Side)

6:15 p.m. Husband/father arrives home. No idea what's been going on all afternoon but dinner is not only not ready, it hasn't even been started. 

6:20 p.m. Personal car to Boot Camp class, accompanied by son, who has been bribed into going with the promise of a grilled cheese sandwich at snack bar. Pressure on the domestic monetary supply relieves pressure on the sibling rivalry quotient. And hunger.

8:30 p.m. Personal car returns home. Sit down to watch something on DVR. 

8:40 p.m.  Schedule change: Emergency communication from daughter. Poster project demonstrating seismic activity of tectonic plates due in morning has not only not been finished, it hasn't even been started. Ten minutes are wasted being mad.

11:00 p.m. All family participants are asleep - except cat who's just beginning his day. Head for bed but first check Facebook. Daughter is online in another room! Want to reprimand her but end up online chatting instead.

11:15 p.m. Now I'm mad. Take away computer. Ignore the unpublishable look on her face. Get in bed. Think about getting a job. Might not have time for it. 'Night.

Freeze Frame: Truly Enjoyable, Unremarkable Day

I want to hang on to the little things - the moments of an unremarkable Sunday. The sounds of the birds chirping in the backyard at the end of an afternoon, louder and closer than the street noise or the freeway.

Seeing a hummingbird just an arm's length away, out the back window.

The punctuation of an impromptu ping pong game in the unfinished attic overhead - Jim taking time out from his work, distracting Cooper from a fight with his sister by challenging him to a match. More than once, the ball escapes down the stairs. It makes that hollow sound, so distinct - a

n echo of church basements, suburban garages, and renovated

 rec rooms across America. 

A black cat and a white dog curled up in different zones on the bed while I read a novel from start to finish in a day. A friend wrote and gave me this book as a gift. (That's actually pretty remarkable - both the fact that I have friends and neighbors who write fantastic books, as well as t

he novel itself: Angels Crest by Leslie Schwartz. I can't wait to call her tomorrow and tell her

 how terrific it was, how much I enjoyed her writing.)

I saw a French film at the DGA today, Welcome, about Iraqi 

immigrants trying to make their way from France to England. I always thought we Americans were the most intolerant and xenophobic people in the world. Turns out, we might not be. We can be fined for hiring undocumented workers, but in France - if this movie is accurate - people can be arrested for "harboring" or helping them - giving them warm jackets. Wow.

Went to a barbeque on Benton, saw some friends and ate two hot dogs. Delicious. Drank the first pull from Coryander's Diet Coke then handed it back to her. She didn't mind. I knew she wouldn't. 

Got a call from a man who spoke very little English. Said he found a book on a bus stop with my name and number in it. Met him at the library on Alvarado and Sunset moments later. He brought two little kids with him and gave me the book. Thanks, I said. Dana thought he might have wanted a reward. Maybe, but it didn't seem so. While I was waiting for him, I saw Heather get on a bus, heading for the Festival of Books at UCLA. 

Text messages and phone calls: Blaire is back from Chicago, Amanda and I are playing phone tag, Susan slept until 10, Devon is putting her kitchen back together and running off to Tom's play, Jane missed her softball game, Greg is too busy to go to the movies, Ann is also at the Festival of Books, Dana figured out Facebook for her Treo, George is having a long and leisurely breakfast. 

These are the days when I'm in my village, and I know I'm not alone.

Laid-off Lethargy

A lot of people know I lost my job about three weeks ago, and lest I appear to be a particularly well-adjusted or mature person, I want to confess, I watched three movies during the daytime yesterday:

• What We Do is Secret about Darby Crash and The Germs. It's hard to believe I was just down the freeway in college during the rise of LA Punk and never, not once, not ever came up here to see any of the bands that I'm constantly reading about and watching documentaries about now. I guess I was just so busy being a big fish in a mini pond.
  
• I've Loved You So Long. Really good "sister" movie, and I never noticed before how much Kristin Scott Thomas looks like Lauren Hutton. Next time I'm in a car with my sister and I feel like she's not telling me something, I'm going to try and remember to say, "Tell me. I'm not other people." I also think I want to get my haircut like that sister's.
  
• East Side, West Side, which made me long for a New York that never really existed anywhere but on Hollywood backlots. When I got off the Carey Bus in Midtown during spring break 1981, the New York I saw had absolutely nothing in common with the New York I was expecting. It turned out to be amazing in a thousand other ways, but it was nothing like cinematic New York the way Panda Express is nothing like Chinese food. East Side, West Side was all about adultery and nightclubs. Made me miss Mad Men.

I'll let you know what I'm going to watch next.

Et tu, Nintendo? Betrayed by their selection of 'games for girls'

My husband and kids returned from Universal City Walk about 1:30 in the morning on Sunday, exhausted but giddy with excitement after the midnight launch party for the Nintendo DSi. Because they traded in an old DS Lite (which we're pretty sure doesn't actually work anymore) and a handful of old PlayStation 2 games (which also might not work), they bought a new matte black "portable gaming system" for about 1/2 price, including parking. They also got buttons, t-shirts, fist fulls of extra styli (I'm using that term instead of "styluses"), a poster customized and signed by artist Matt Furie, and a cool "all access" pass numbered 108 that now hangs on the edge of our son's bed along with a similar pass from the Star Wars convention and his LA library card.

As tired as they were - especially Dad, right? - it was one of those moments that makes up for some of the inconveniences and challenges of urban living.

Later, when our son demo-ed the DSi features - cameras, customizing, web browsing - I thought, This is like an iPhone for kids, but without a phone, which is fine because this boy hates to talk on the phone.

On Monday, I was still drifting along in a purchase-induced fog that I actually know not to trust. I'm skeptical about feelings of goodwill toward corporations. Except for Apple. I do actually think Apple likes me.

We walked into Blockbuster, and there was this thought buzzing in my brain, "Nintendo is smart." This flew out of my head immediately when I saw the game, My Weight Loss Coach, marketed as a "Game for Girls," complete with requisite pink graphics. Should I bother noting "Blockbuster is dumb"? I believe that's widely acknowledged. If Nintendo is somehow unaware of the way its games are marketed at Blockbuster, that makes them dumber.

How culturally-disconnected can a leading entertainment provider be? About 8 million people in the US suffer from eating disorders. About 90% are female.

The particular Blockbuster where I took this photo is around the corner from one of L.A.'s venerable girls school. Positioning a weight loss "game" so nearby should be taboo - like a booster club selling porn.

Girls don't need this. Nintendo, if you want to extend your market share deeper into female territory, come up with something that's really fun for girls. It's okay to treat girls like girls - I don't take issue with the strategy. Just don't treat them like patients.

Secretly, I agree

...and I understand completely.