The Loh Life | 89.3 KPCC

Lean Sideways, Conclusion: This Ear Bud's For You

The Loh Life — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:03:40 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh's thoughts on the road.

According to The Wisdom of Menopause by Doctor Christiane Northrup, these are exciting times for middle-aged women. 48 million strong, we're not just America's largest demographic group, but possibly the next step in evolution. That's right. Northrup feels our multi-modal female brains - which become hormonally fired-up during menopause - may be better at dealing with our modern world's stresses than... um... the other kind brain.

And it sometimes feels true. In my non-profit, I work with really smart, talented, work-from-home moms. Unlike Marissa Meyer's Yahoo employees who are trading their sweatpants for officewear next month, we remain proud denizens of the flextime world. We continue to fluidly email and conference call and feed and chauffeur our children - sometimes all at the same time.

Indeed, in talking with a consultant the other morning, who in the middle of our discussion of K-12 STEM was narrating her and her son's walk to preschool... it struck me-the degree to which there is a whole underground "flextime" clock in this city.

I find the morning phone conference window is between about 8 and 9, when work-from-home moms are either doing their brisk morning walk, or their slow school commute. In my case, I am in the quote-unquote "office" at 8:03. I've dropped my daughters off, I'm beginning my 26 mile trek from the Valley back to Pasadena, the headphones go in, mind's clear, all is well. All is well that is until approximately 8:53 when I scream up my driveway and abruptly end any conversation, since the giant mug of coffee I've been nursing since 7:10 has left me in serious need of a bathroom break. It can be startling for those being suddenly cut off.

My friend Carol, an editor, has a phone conference window that begins at 2:15, when she goes to pick up her twins. By 2:15, she has been home alone for six hours and is bursting with insights. Because 2:15 coincides with what's sometimes my second driving window, we begin empire building on the 134, but then at 2:55 her twins get into the car, she's unreachable until 9:30 p.m., and no one has taken notes. Until they design a different kind of steering wheel.

And even that depends on the headset - if you remember to drag it off your desk. Even then, no guarantees. I've slammed the car door on my headset, got it twined around my car keys, watched in horror as one of the earbuds fell into my afternoon travel mug of Soda Stream. So while we 48 million middle-aged, multi-tasking women are, as Doctor Northrup suggests, bettering the planet, perhaps our next stage of evolution is not gills but IPhone ear buds. Just thinking out loud. As usual.

Lean Sideways, Part 4: The Stresses of Flex Time

The Loh Life — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:38:55 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh struggles to find the work/home balance.

Pity the poor employees of Yahoo. It's the last month they can telecommute. It's the swan song of that elephant in the room CEO Marissa Meyer supposedly labeled "WFH" - or "Work From Home." Many have attacked Meyer for destroying flex time, the salvation of working parents - But, as someone who has worked from home for decades, I think there... might be something to be said for... working in an actual office.

I mean, the romantic notion about telecommuting is that we can find work/home balance. And - don't tell Marissa Meyer - I find I'm doing neither particularly well.

Part of it is today's yardsticks. Michael Pollan's new book - "Cooked" - says we should cook more from scratch. He bemoans the average family spending "only 27 minutes a day" on food preparation, which I believe does not include dishes or laundry. Never mind that I spend 15 of those minutes just assembling my 11 year-old's lunch. It includes such Costco buys like cereal bars, jerky, vegetable straws, and even seaweed. Because in the exciting Los Angeles Mad Max barter system of fifth grade, you don't eat - you trade.

As for preparing a dinner that takes longer than burning a Costco salmon? The sad fact is, I'm a middle-aged gal with a tire around my waist and sometimes I have only enough time in a day to cook OR exercise. So, what I do is I rush to the gym, and I watch Alton Brown cook salmon five different ways while panting on the treadmill. It FEELS like I've cooked, and I've certainly learned something about kitchen thermometers... none of which I own.

Never mind my domestic skills, of course, my OFFICE chops have foundered also. Recently, there was an unusual instance - my non-profit's board meeting - where I actually had to pull it together. It was a rude awakening. Just as I always wrongly think I look about 35, I always wrongly think I need just 10 minutes to pull myself together as opposed to, say, three hours. This is because, as a working mom friend observed recently, "Sandra, I notice that your home, like mine, does not contain many mirrors."

And when a work-from-home mom finally looks into one - Oh my gosh, there are eyebrows like forests, nails that are chipped and half-painted, calves with stubble... every blouse has toothpaste on it! I make an emergency visit to the hair salon and am pelted with questions: How do you usually wear your hair? Where do you part it? What products do you use? I started screaming at the stylist in panic. "There's some bottle with a pump in the shower! Are my Crocs and fanny pack a clue that I'm lost? Just help me out here!"

Next week: The Broken Headset Brigade.

Lean Sideways, Part 3: Gummy Bear Suicide

The Loh Life — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:02:08 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh's take on food preparation.

I've been parboiling mad over Michael Pollan's new book "Cooked." He's basically suggesting more home cooking will cure ills from childhood obesity to the evil reign of fast food merchants like McDonald's.

I would be for this if it weren't for the added pressure and blame it puts on mothers. I mean, there was a time in America when phoning in one's cooking was not a sin! My Midwestern ex-mother-in-law once showed me a favorite South Dakotan cookbook from the 1950's. It featured such recipes as "Wash Day Soup" - hamburger meat flung into boiling water, "Lazy Woman's Pickles," and, of course, that undying American classic: "Five Can Casserole." My elderly neighbor recently recalled how in the 1970's, buckets of fried chicken were marketed with the giddy slogan: "Female Liberation!" Sure!

Pollan is quick to reassure that, in 2013, it's not just women who should cook from scratch more, but men, too. After all, nowadays, men cook just as well as women, perhaps even better, they've got mad skills, blah blah blah!

But, here is the problem: women and men do not get along in the kitchen. They disagree over knives up or knives down in the dishwasher, Tupperware versus Ziplocs, and general basic technique. I've sliced apples toward my wrist for years, and while it can look dangerous to an outside person, I've never opened a vein, I DON'T need to be corrected by my partner, for PETE'S sake - I'm 51. Note on Alton Brown's shows: while cooking, he appears to be blissfully alone.

And then there are the children. Recently, my younger daughter had her 11th birthday party and she wanted to make her own cake. "Which you should never do," I informed her. "Never make your own birthday cake... the morning of your party... that's for 25 children 30 minutes away in a mini-golf park." But she was determined, there was a kamikaze run to the store, and then, well-? As someone who goes to Subway and combines six flavors of soda, her cake was one layer vanilla and one layer chocolate, covered with "cupcake" flavored frosting, peppermint icing, and - I regret to say - a group suicide pile of gummy bears. The cake practically had toxic fumes coming off it.

You've heard of the book "French Kids Eat Everything"? Well, everything except that. But, my daughters' friends seemed to enjoy it, along with gross Velveeta chili fries and arcade games that all seemed to feature machine guns.

So, who are my kids to complain when some of the hasty meals I cook include: Festival of Toast, Open Your Own Can, and Quesadilla Surprise? Five can casserole, though? Too many steps.

Next week: Perhaps Marissa Meyer Was Right!

Lean Sideways, Part 2: Parboiling Mad

The Loh Life — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:32:02 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh's unique take on preparing meals.

Great! Have you heard? Now we have to cook everything from scratch! Or so declared food writer Mark Bittman in the New York Times recently, in his review of food writer Michael Pollan's new book called Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. Because cooking is so transformative, did you know? Apparently, according to these two male food writers, mindful home-cooking is now the answer to everything... from curing obesity to loosening the evil clutch of industrial agribusiness.

So, that's another thing to add to the pile. Seems just last week, Sheryl Sandberg was telling us women to "Lean In" more to our work! This week, we're supposed to tend organic vegetable gardens for our families, and meditatively toss radicchio with sea salt and balsamic vinegar. As a working mom of two who can spend as many as four hours a day chauffeuring, to pull it all off, I'm going to have to have both Skype technology and hydroponics farm... in my car!

If I'm over-reacting, maybe it's because my cooking is quite the sore spot. It's one of my homemaking shortcomings, along with doing laundry— and I can't wait for a male New York Times op-ed columnist to wax on about the transformative Buddhist practice of laundry— Maybe he can get a grant to research how they did laundry in the 18th century— Perhaps do an investigative series on PBS— What I would argue is that there's no connection between these coffee table book approaches and the realities of being a frantically multi-tasking parent. When my girls were little, their dad went on the road for months at a time. Lacking a nanny, I wrote full-time on a laptop on my bed and, full disclosure, my children watched as much television as people in the hospital in full body casts. But they got bored even with that, so I had to invent now-infamous games for them, games like Tear A Roll of Bounty Paper Towels Into Pieces, Let's Wash Mommy's Change, or Put on a Disney Princess Dress and Run on the Treadmill.

In a similar vein, the "meals" I invented included Festival of Toast, Open Your Own Can, and Quesadilla Surprise. My domestic life was entirely held together with Ketchup and Febreeze. I remember the time I had a booster seat that had been peed on, quite a lot. It happens. That's the age, right? You know you should take the fabric cover off to wash it, but there are just too many snaps and you haven't slept in five years. So, you let the pee dry in the sun and just-mindfully— Febreeze it.

Never mind the New York Times op-ed page, sometimes parenting requires industrial chemicals!

Next week: Family Home-Cooking... with Industrial Chemicals.

Lean Sideways, Part 1: Leaning in, taking a whiff, leaning out

The Loh Life — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:22:01 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh on "leaning in."

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about those two buzzed-about Working Warrioresses— By that, I mean Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, with her new book “Lean In,” and Marissa Meyer, the Yahoo CEO who is sending her telecommuters back to the office. The fact that I am only thinking of them NOW, about two months after everyone else, is a measure of the fact that I am NOT a leading executive of Facebook or Yahoo.

No, my peers are working moms—many of whom are writers or other creative professionals. We are old and established enough to have, well, the best and worst of several worlds. Many of us have fairly heavy workloads, but our schedules are fluid and we work from home, meaning we ALSO have the ability to cram our days full with one-on-one care for our families.

So, let’s say we are leaning sideways. A typical email thread goes, “OMG—we should blog about the whole Lean In controversy!” “I’m just so mad!” “Yes, we should!” “Carolyn would be perfect to start off, due to that thing she wrote on Slate!” “That’s right—Carolyn! Hello?"

Unfortunately, Carolyn doesn’t reappear until a week later, as her son fell off the jungle gym and had to have stitches, at which point all she can rant on and on about is a distinctly non-sexy topic like health insurance.

This is not to say some of my friends don’t TRY to “lean in.” My friend Lori was a hard-charging TV news producer for 14 years before having a son at 40, at which point she happily took time off to bake pies and smell the Mustela Baby Cream. Now her son is eight and she’s going back to work, but to hear her tell it newsrooms have shrunk. “One person is now doing what six people used to!” she says. She’s rewriting everyone’s stuff, at MIDNIGHT, to match the pay she used to have, everything’s going digital now ANYWAY, it’s all about TWENTY-year-olds sitting around like chimpanzees doing Google searches, so she finds what’s she is leaning INTO is just a hideous morass.

“So I’m leaning OUT,” she says. She’s taking a leave to help her grandparents with their dogs and their gardening. But ironically, as they live in Santa Barbara on two acres bought several decades ago, if she keeps them together she’ll inherit more than she could ever make at the jobs currently open to her, so why not? Instead of “lean in,” she can “sleep in.”

Of course, there are advantages to just throwing in the towel and saying you HAVE to be in the office. That’s what I find when a couple of us lean-arounders start trying to actually get a job done—on time.

Next week: Yahoo! Not!

Snow Jobs, Part Two: It's All Down Hill From Here

The Loh Life — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:06:50 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh goes skiing... kind of.

Over Christmas, for the first time in more than 40 years, I skied—or at least, gradually fell down a hill. We think it’s snow sports can be bad in Russia, which is so unregulated people do things like zorbing—rolling in a ball down a hill—with disastrous results.

But me on skis is not great either. Instead of a skill level of five or four, I’m like a minus ten, meaning I need a team of sherpas not just to carry me up the hill, but to push me out of the way of actual skiers.

Even getting to the bottom of the bunny slope seemed impossible. How do you walk up hill in skis? I kept sliding backwards and careening into other people, including some five year olds. Fortunately all five year olds are excellent skiers—a Lilliputian team of them helpfully pushed me towards the rope tow.

The attendant handed the rope to me. I grabbed it, but it jerked forward with surprising strength and I was now being dragged face down, spread eagled, over the snow. It’s amazing how many things can go wrong so quickly. Later, I do a face-splat off a chair lift—They actually have to stop the machine for five minutes—I am a pox on Vermont!

Three months later, I’m at an aerospace conference in Big Sky, Montana. The conference is great, the people interesting, the food fantastic. The breakfast buffet has a make your own omelet station AND pancakes, sausage, bacon, and farm potatoes, PLUS chicken fried steak, biscuits, and white gravy.

Unfortunately, the dining room has giant views of the ski slopes with people shussing down them, a constant reminder that this 1000-calorie breakfast is meant to be sport fuel.

Stuffed full of chicken fried steak and gravy, I decide on the third day that I will at least try snow-shoeing. Slogging through snow in shoes that look like tennis rackets is not at all dangerous. Nor, sadly, is it very much fun. It’s hard to walk on tennis rackets. It only makes sense if you’re a postal carrier delivering the mail by foot to Bozeman.

Meanwhile, all around me people were blissfully skiing! Shuss, shuss, shuss!

How hard can that be?

Back on skis, I realize that not breathing and panicking and holding my body as rigid as possible is not how anyone else is skiing. I accept the fact that if gravity is pulling my body downward, and unlike the Denzel Washington movie "Flight," this is what is supposed to be happening. Skiing is falling!

So, for an hour I stayed on those skis, pretty much. I consider I’ve gotten my exercise for the whole year! Any excuse for more chicken fried steak.

Snow Jobs, Part One: Getting Booted

The Loh Life — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:32:23 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh has some trouble skiing.

Like many of my slightly-over-the-hill peers, I have been spoiled by my yuppie gym. While according to MapQuest, Equinox is just one-point-five miles away, I will typically drive there. I will then drop my things into the eucalyptus-scented locker room and choose from a variety of machines in front of a bank of televisions, half of which are tuned to the Food Channel. I can set these machines on any low level I want, then laconically lift a few hand weights. Now comes the centerpiece of my routine: a long steam and very thorough shower. The most vigorous part of my workout is probably squeeze-pumping all those bottles of Kiehl’s hair and skin products, because at $130 a month I want to get full value.

Because I do visit the gym, I have been under the mistaken assumption that I am in shape and have at least some athletic skill. This idea has been sorely tested recently through experiences with skiing. I mean, ACTUAL skiing, not just the WII version. I mean, actual skiing on actual surprisingly slippery snow.

The first incident came over Christmas break, when extended family invited me to join them on a fun ski day in Vermont. Did I KNOW how to ski—had I skied before? I had last skied when I was eight, which felt recent although in fact—and that is the continual amazement of midlife—that was actually like a hundred years ago. This became clear when I was handed a pair of modern ski boots. A typical ski boot used to have laces—This thing was like a pressurized canister that used gravity to swallow my foot whole, causing hydraulic bolts to snap shut around my chubby calf, making it feel like it was being skil-sawed in two! Upon being handed skis and poles and a helmet, I realized I couldn’t walk. Forty minutes into my ski adventure, like a beached whale, I couldn’t get out of the lodge, let alone get on the slopes.

It was then that I first put on what I call my “ski face.” All around me were pod people behaving as though skiing was a perfectly normal—even fun—activity. I alone knew it was not. The most sensible course of action was to lie down on the carpet next to the hot chocolate machine crying, so a team of Army Engineers could chopper in and unspring me from my painful gear, which felt akin to what Sigourney Weaver did battle with in Aliens 2. But then, I thought maybe the skiers would turn on me if they smelled fear. So, I decided to feign calm and enjoyment, even though I had no idea which way the slopes were, or what on earth I would do when I found them.

Next week: Fear and Loathing on the bunny slope.

Hawaii, Part Two: Hawaiian Vacation, Up All Night!

The Loh Life — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:54:31 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh learns about Hawaii.

My fifth grader got assigned Hawaii as her state project. As opposed to, say, Nebraska, it’s too exciting a state to unleash on a 10 year old. At one point, Suzy was brainstorming around an aquatic board game featuring a small wading pool with the eight Hawaiian islands cut out of Styrofoam. As players advance, the water level and islands rise! The winner gets to set off a volcano made out of Coke and Mentos!

The problem is, when you’re setting out to create something so fantastic, it’s hard to actually get started. And sometimes there are… COORDINATION issues. Which is to say, after five weeks of going back and forth between her mom’s and dad’s homes—we’d both assumed the project was forming, like a volcano, at the OTHER parent’s house—

It’s now one week before it’s due, and Suzy admits she has nothing. Why? Because no one took her to Michaels.

“Michaels?” I say. “Are you kidding? We don’t have the FOCUS for Michaels!” It’s true—You really do get lost at Michaels. Suddenly, you’re asking yourself, “Yarn—can I make a volcano out of yarn? Or modeling clay? And how about bears, little jelly bean bears? What was my project on again?”

No, it’s strictly an emergency Staples run for materials we understand: foam board and Sharpies and tape that still, mysteriously, sets us back 40 dollars. Never mind that the islands are so small and tortured they look like the work of a serial killer—Eight hours later, that board game is DONE.

In the days to follow, I see Suzy grinding out pages about the state flag, state seal, and state bird, the ne ne—So, the day before it’s due, I ask: “How is Hawaii?” and she pleasantly announces: “Good—I’m almost finished with the rough draft!”

ROUGH DRAFT? Sure! She figured finishing it by 6 p.m. was fine, because, and I quote, “Mommy is a very fast typist."

I thought I should let her suffer the consequences, be late, and bomb, but by this point she had written 3000 words (Kamehameha! The hibiscus! Don Ho! Tiny Bubbles!) and hand-copying it would take 90 hours. As opposed to five hours, which is what it took Mommy!!!

Bleary-eyed in the morning, I see a Filipino dad carrying a giant board game for Texas with a neon spin wheel and electronic buzzer and a pack of lifelike longhorns stampeding out the center. “My wife is into scrap-booking!” he announces proudly. So, I feel a little less badly that I helped out.

U.S. state projects—they really do take a village. And duct tape does fix everything.

Hawaii, Part One: Hawaiian Vacation

The Loh Life — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:52:23 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh goes to Hawaii... sort of.

Even the most stable parents will admit, at times, to living vicariously through our children. We marvel at these extraordinary beings who get to have glorious experiences we’ll never know.

For instance, recently my 10 year old gets into the car with amazing news. The state she has been assigned to do her big fifth grade project on? Hawaii.

Hawaii? I feel like I’ve raised an alien. No one in my entire family has ever gotten a cool project like that. Growing up NORMAL in Southern California, my sister and brother and I had to contend with NORMAL states, like Michigan, Rhode Island, Virginia. My sister thought Virginia was special because of all the presidents—that’s how little we had to work with. My neighbor Tom says, growing up in Chicago, they weren’t even assigned states. There was only ONE state—Illinois, land of Lincoln.

The point was, I had never even heard of anyone getting assigned Hawaii. It’s so exotic! It’s not like a real state. It’s like a party state. Or a flaming dessert. It’s like being assigned Las Vegas, or Christmas! Neither of which are states at all. But, I think you see my point.

I already was wowed when her older sister had gotten glamorous New York, but Hawaii!

Jubilantly, Suzy gets on the phone and starts giving the joyous tidings to aunts, uncles, even her god-grandmother, Tutu, who actually grew up in Hawaii. While she’s on the phone, I sagely whisper that she should ask Tutu to send her some stuff from Hawaii. Even though the deadline is a full six weeks away, a FedEx package arrives 48 hours later with guidebooks and antique postcards and colorful pieces of cloth. Slam dunk! Hawaii is essentially in the bag.

I have to do a bit of travel over the next couple of weeks, but I keep tabs on the Hawaii project via phone and email. The excitement only seems to be growing. There is talk now of extra-credit projects including a Hawaii quilt and a board game and a volcano. The volcano will be carved out of a pineapple exploding with Coca-Cola with Mentos, spiked with red food coloring to make it look EXACTLY like lava.

So, now it’s Sunday morning at my house, a week before the due date. Suzy is not working on any Hawaii stuff because I assume all of it is awesome and done and at her dad’s house.

And it’s at this point that my daughter approaches me with a smile and a sassy finger-pistol and says: “Mom—I have a fabulous invitation! I’d like to recruit you to join my motivation army!”

Her Motivation ARMY? Release the dogs of war.

Next week: Hawaii—Up All Night!

Craveables

The Loh Life — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:40:54 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh's few favorite things around the house.

I’m the sort harried working mom who truly BELIEVES my life can be transformed with the right household invention.

A couple of Costco Christmases ago, it was all about Snapware. Do you have Snapware? It’s like Tupperware, but comes in rectangles with four colorful tabs on the lids you SNAP open and shut. Just thinking about it makes me want to go into my kitchen and snap those puppies, in the same horrible way I used to love bulbing out my congested babies’ noses. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the less said, the better. PS: by now many of those snaps have simply fallen off.

I am fascinated by this TV commercial for a motorized device that gently sucks out ear wax, resulting in what appear to be disposable liquid cartridges of your ear wax. The ad cites the old saw that it’s dangerous to clean out your ears with Q-tips. It shows a man in the bathroom recoiling—with a sharp cry—as he pierces his own ear drums! What can I tell you? I’ve seen not just corns and hammertoes, but a businessman gloomily wandering the city carrying a beaker of his own uric acid. Strange medical things are happening on daytime television.

But doesn’t EVERYONE clean out their ears with Q-tips? It’s literally their only function. It’s efficient, and it’s satisfying! This is probably TMI.

Slightly unrelated is the recent upswell I’ve noticed in the use of the word “craveable.” Or, in having a “craveability” factor. A “craveable,” if I may use it as a noun, is a new unnecessary thing you’re suddenly addicted to. It was like when I watched my first Super Bowl recently. In the first half, I became a die-hard Baltimore Ravens fan. In the second, I proceeded to tear my own graying hairs out follicle by follicle. I’m not a dessert person, but I’ve learned if you put a CPK “Butter Cake” in front of me—a toothsome warm, salty, moist pound cake with vanilla ice cream—I will take it into a dark alley and shovel it into my gullet without stopping to breathe.

Which brings us finally, inevitably, to Soda Stream. When I first saw it at Bed, Bath and Beyond, I was unimpressed. This was a gadget that transformed regular H20 into bubbly lukewarm swamp water with a slimy root beer finish. Why? But recently, a girlfriend pointed out that you can skip the dubious “flavors” and just make bubbly water. Fascinated, I got one. It’s powered by a flammable-looking metal canister accompanied with lots of sinister warnings. I love it. Three huge machine farts and you have Pellegrino, or something close to it.

So, it’s good times at home with Soda Stream, Snapware and Q-Tips! All very very CRAVEABLE.

The Miserables

The Loh Life — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 07:42:07 -0700

Sandra Tsing Loh says "Les Miserables" made her family miserable.

For almost 30 years, I’ve been immune. I’ve escaped the epidemic. It’s kind of a miracle. After all, my late mother loved every SORT of musical, from The Sound of Music to Carousel to Thoroughly Modern Millie. The schools I ATTENDED did shows from The Music Man to Oliver to Fiddler on the Roof. Now in midlife, my musical theatre years are formally behind me. I’m trying to expand my cultural horizons by embracing wonderfully FRESH new experiences like Cool Ranch Doritos and the Super Bowl.

But darnit if the strain didn’t LEAP a generation. In the end, it’s my 12-year-old DAUGHTER who got infected. She caught it in performing arts middle school, incubator for so many OTHER afflictions – purple hair, Harry Potter glasses, broad Cockney accents. One day after school, Maddy got into the car, sprawled wistfully in the back seat and crooned: “I dreamed a dream in times gone by, when hope was high, life worth living… Life has killed my dream.”

At first, I wondered if she was REFERRING to seventh GRADE. But no. As of that moment, our home was taken over by the cast of Les Miserables.

Now what I DIDN’T know was that I had ALSO been infected, for many years. Turns out it’s the sort of virus that lays DORMANT until coming into contact with another sufferer. Which is to say, I actually knew songs from Les Miserables I didn’t know I knew. Like “Master of the house, bla bla bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla!” OMG. THAT’S from Les Miserables, too? I thought that was the George Costanza song from Seinfeld!

I thought it would be fun to watch the new MOVIE of Les Miz, but I was wrong. First of all, Maddy’s 10-year-old, Sponge Bob-loving tomboy SISTER screamed in protest – due to a strange cable layout and sloppy parenting, our only TV is in HER bedroom. Second, it turns OUT Les Miserables is not just bombastic and shoutastic, but dark and violent. Every scene is almost ABSURDLY so – it’s like watching a movie made on Jupiter. We watched Anne Hathaway’s TEETH getting knocked out, clown make-up, scary wigs, Helena Bonham Carter being, well, Helena Bonham Carter, death of a new CHARACTER every five minutes – we, of course, couldn’t stop watching for – what – 11 hours? And as the camera finally, smugly pulled back at the ending, my tomboy’s eyes widened, she threw herself on the bed and screamed, “Why has this happened to me? Why would anyone make a movie like this?"

Booya, kid. You’ve just been Miz’ed.

Thank God we’re not into the Twilight movies. Yet.

Forest Lawn

The Loh Life — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 09:48:05 -0800

Sandra Tsing Loh says you better cry at her funeral.

I celebrated my birthday this year with funerals—three in four days. That’s sometimes how birthdays GO in midlife.

I’ve come to believe, being either a YOUNG Baby Boomer or OLD Gen X-er, that my generation is used to a certain type of funeral. I can’t recall when I last saw a coffin, for instance. The memorials I’ve attended as an adult have been in lovely places like churches or homes or overlooking the sea, with wonderfully moving speeches and photo collages and playing of the deceased’s favorite music, “You must remember this—a kiss is just a kiss.”

These are less funerals than affirmations of life.

The rituals would be more traditional, however, in honoring my Chinese grand-uncle, a wonderful man who died peacefully just one month short of his 95^th birthday. These would be at Forest Lawn, in West Covina; Tuesday would be the viewing of the body, Wednesday the burial. I decided to spare my tween daughters the viewing and just take them to the burial, which was the ritual I thought my over-cosseted WESTERN kids could probably handle.

It was I who was thrown for a loop, though, so unfamiliar was I with the traditions of Forest Lawn. After driving up the customary gently rolling green hills in a convoy, we arranged ourselves in two rows of canvas chairs facing a square hole and a box of ashes on a table. We were courteously offered Forest Lawn brand bottled water and Forest Lawn brand tissues. We waited.

With a beeping sound, a truck pulled up and two men in Forest Lawn jumpsuits emerged with landscaping tools. As opposed to a speech, the funeral director politely provided us with technical information—how to read the plot numbers, which direction the box would face. He suggested we throw flowers into the hole, which we did. Crying, we took our seats again and watched as another truck drove up and, for about 15 minutes, slammed the dirt down hard with an incredibly loud hydraulic tamping tool. It was literally bang, bang, bang.

On the one hand, it was fairly jarring. There was no soft-pedaling the grim reality of the moment. On the other hand, it somehow made sense.

“You know that poem, ‘Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die’?” I asked my daughters, when back on L.A.’s congested freeways. “I say when you stand at MY grave you’d better cry, A LOT because I put a lot of effort INTO you guys! I want a full hour of crazy grief, and then you may go to the Cheesecake Factory.” Which we did. And had birthday cake.

So go in peace, Grand-Uncle Zhang. Enjoy the view from lot 6031A, you beautiful man.

A Very Facebook Birthday

The Loh Life — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:02:45 -0800

Sandra Tsing Loh on getting virtual birthday wishes.

My birthday this year was a non-event. It fell on a MONDAY, in the middle of my attending THREE funerals in four days, on a week when my 12-year-old was immersed in an endless middle-school play schedule. It was very sandwich generation, the only treat being the sandwich I allowed myself, with TWO pieces of bread. Not one, per usual. Woohoo.

But there was a bright spot. Birthday morning, Facebook alerts started filling my email in-box. Happy birthday! Happy birthday! I won’t lie. I’d been feeling kind of gloomy and this deluge of simple greetings—however cursory—felt good.

It inspired me to actually VISIT my Facebook page, where I hadn’t been in months. That’s because it takes two hours to review what my 950 friends have posted JUST in the last five minutes. It’s like that commercial where a woman opens a kitchen cabinet and is buried under an avalanche of Tupperware.

But hey, on my page, ANOTHER happy surprise was waiting! My number of SUBSCRIBERS—which used to be 60, had in my absence shot up to 177! That’s how popular I am, even when I’m not around! And I had been wished happy birthday by 153 people!

Feeling the love, I decided to “play it forward” by personally thanking every Facebook friend who’d wished me happy birthday. Never mind that this would include many people I don’t know, as I’m the sort of neighborly person who friends everyone.

For instance, Steve. Who’s Steve? He’s from Boulder. We have mutual friends from the University of Houston, where I’ve never been. They look like pretty fun people though—they hike, they bike, they laugh with their dogs. I gather we’re somehow related by writing. To be safe, what I do is type just two words: “Thanks, Steve!” and for emphasis ILIKE Steve’s Happy Birthday! wish on my timeline.

And I kid you not, the very second I post this two-word comment—“Thanks, Steve!”—something terrifying happens. My number of subscribers plummets like a stone from 177 to 155. Oh my God! It was like people had forgotten they had subscribed to me, and as soon as I broke my silence and actually posted something, they woke up and thought: “Jesus! I have WAY too many friends on Facebook!” De-friend! De-friend!

But I couldn’t stop now—all my well-wishers would be wondering “Why did Sandra thank only Steve”?—so, all I could do was keep grimly thanking my Facebook friends and driving them all away. But it took so long that I only got halfway through. What a smoking mess!

So, I apologize to anyone I may have dissed. Thank God I won’t have another birthday until next year—at which point, I’ll be totally “Linked In.” That’ll go great, I’m sure!

Super Bowl Virgins, Part Two: I'm So Raven

The Loh Life — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 10:19:59 -0800

Sandra Tsing Loh becomes a Baltimore Raven fan.

So, my 10 year old daughter and I decide to watch our first ever Super Bowl, because she felt she needed to be able to talk football in order to negotiate fifth grade.

I was prepared to be bored, but no.

Let me tell you, if you haven’t seen professional football recently, as I haven’t, in my life, like ever? Oh my God! Those guys run FAST! They’re big! And they can throw with laser accuracy—short or long—and leap up like big orcas and SNATCH that ball right out of the air!

Although ONE team was doing it MUCH better than the other one, I cleverly noticed, and within one hour I was a die-hard Baltimore Ravens fan. And here is why.

I don’t need much, when I become a fan of a sports team. All I require is that they win every game, super easily, with a giant lead. This validates my sense that I am an intelligent person who makes correct decisions about my world, that my point of view will always win, and that all—my business, my family, my home—will remain well. When I back a team, I immediately decide I like everything about them—their jersey colors, their names, their hairstyles. If a commentator notes that one of the players was maybe once suspected of a double-murder? Fingers in ears—la la la la.

I see sports fandom as a kind of spa treatment. It’s a place where you go to relax, let down your hair, take a load off. At the half, there Baltimore was leading San Francisco 21-6. Huzzah!

Of course, if you were one of the 110 million Americans who saw the game, you know what happened next. After Beyonce performed at half time—“Shy, that girl is not!”—the Ravens start strong again in the second half and then in a FREAK OCCURRENCE, the stadium power goes out for 34 minutes! Returning cold, the Ravens lose their momentum—they fumble, they drop, they spaz—and they give the other team 17 straight points. 17!

I become so upset, I kid you not, as I pace before the television, the arches of my feet are sweating! I had no idea I had the capacity to freak out over a sports team I had never even heard of in a sport I have never followed. “Oh my God!” I shrieked at my daughters, cowering under their Doritos bowl. “Block them!” I wailed at my Ravens. Grammy’s? Oscars? Who cares! This is FOOTBALL we’re talking about!

Super Bowl Virgins, Part One: The Kickoff

The Loh Life — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:02:18 -0800

Sandra Tsing Loh watches a major American sporting event... for the first time.

I think my life experience is fairly worldly. I have seen the opera Aida performed LIVE in the Roman catacombs, complete with elephants. I have seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Kathleen Turner, and then crashed the after-party to tell her she was fabulous. I once had an intimate dinner with the late Dominick Dunne— It was a scheduling mix-up, a more famous person than me had cancelled last minute, and I was an accidental fallback— I tried to add value by laughing and laughing at his A-plus material and after two hours of anxious gaiety I thought I was going to cough up a lung.

That said, I am the rare American who has never watched the Super Bowl— Nor indeed, any televised baseball event, all the way through— And by baseball I mean football, football! But my 10 year old DAUGHTER was determined to watch the Super Bowl because “On Monday, everyone at school will be talking about it.”

And so I thought, “How wonderfully novel, and American! Sure! Let’s pour some Cool Ranch—or Flamin’ Hot—Doritos in a football-helmet shaped bowl and actually WATCH this thing that more than 100 million Americans watch!”

Even though I think football is really boring—

But of course, THAT is because football is always that thing I’m trying to ignore when it’s playing in the background of TGI Friday’s or Chili’s or even Chili’s at LAX. I have never WATCHED football with the must-rock-fifth-grade attention Suzy and I gave it.

“Oh my God! Is it on! Did it start? Is this actually the Super Bowl or a commercial for the Super Bowl?” we kept exclaiming to each other, holding hands in the sheer terrifying novelty of it. “I wish I knew what was going on!” she wailed, as men kept stopping and starting and running into each other.

“Well THAT was the kickoff and I think this is the first down,” I heard myself suddenly replying, in a surprisingly low manly voice. Oh my God! How did I KNOW that? Well, I kid you not: I had until this moment repressed memories of playing quite a bit of flag football MYSELF as a teen in my hideous PE classes. Bitterly, I must also report that I learned the crawl, the butterfly, and the backstroke— I ran the 50 and 100-yard dash— I played fullback in soccer and even middle-blocker in volleyball, court, grass AND sand— Not very well, but I DID it— Southern California, Title IX, the 1970’s— it was like women in the military!

And so, excellent— How beautiful and how healing that I could now WATCH sports, IN my pajamas, chardonnay in hand, with my daughter, and enjoy. What could go wrong?

Next week: Football-Crazed Mom Goes Insane While Children Watch.