The Power of Facebook

OK, so a few days ago I wrote about my introduction to Facebook and said it was silly. It is a little silly, but...in less than a week I have reconnected with almost every best friend I've ever had.

I am particularly giddy about finding a friend I haven't spoken to in nearly 30 years: Regina Lemke. In the early 70's, Regina and I lived across the street from each other on Center Avenue in Libertyville, IL. I don't remember actually meeting her–because I was probably in kindergarten–but some of my earliest childhood memories are the years that followed when we were practically inseparable. And this week all those sweet memories have come flooding back.

Regina was a year older so, of course, was much more grown up than me. Her mom worked outside the home (a foreign concept to me), had perfectly coiffed red hair and always wore lipstick and nail polish. She was my definition of glamour.

Regina was an only child who lost her father at an early age, so it was just her and her mom. Their home was quiet, clean and well-decorated; she had her own room (something I could only dream about) filled with matching white furniture that I coveted.

This was very different from my home, which was in a perpetual state of chaos because it was always filled with small children: three younger siblings and innumerable neighborhood children that my mother cared for during the day. Being at Regina's was like being in another world.

Our family left Center Avenue in the summer of 1975 when my father took a job in New Orleans. Regina and I saw each other exactly twice over the next few years; by the time we both started high school we had lost each other.

For me, reconnecting with Regina is more than just finding an old friend. I have found my first true girlfriend, my original bff. All because of a silly website.

Fun with Facebook

In an effort to take another step into the 21st century, I created a Facebook page. Perhaps "created" is too strong a word, as I have no idea what I'm doing there. It's more accurate to say I signed up with Facebook, just to see what all the fuss is about.

On first glance, it seems to be a silly, guilty pleasure--a way to give into our narcissistic tendencies. We can write whatever we want and "talk" about ourselves endlessly without interruption. And the best part is we don't have to listen to anyone else talk about themselves unless we want to.

The part that freaks me out a little bit (beyond the fact that I don't know what I'm doing) is the popularity aspect. It's all about how many friends you have. I had an intense high school flashback as, upon signing up, there appeared the blaring sentence, "You have no friends." So the race was on to get someone--anyone--to be my friend. Of course, that's what the site is all about--ways to find friends. So now, about 24 hours after setting up my page, I have 9 friends--although five of them are related to me. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, has 381 friends. How is that even possible? I'm sure I haven't spoken to 381 people in my entire life.

So, if you're on Facebook and haven't done so already, will you please be my friend? My self-esteem depends on it.

A Sad Stat

Our little local paper recently reported that six percent of the people in Lee's Summit, MO, recycle. Six percent. That means that 94% of the people in this town find it prohibitively difficult to throw their pop cans and water bottles into a recycling bin instead of the trash can.

Now, I'll admit that I'm not a great environmentalist. My house is too big, and from the looks of my utility bills, not terribly efficient. I get plastic bags at the grocery store (although I do reuse them as trash bags) and when we need or want something, we tend to buy new instead of used. But I find this statistic a bit horrifying. I mean, it's not like we have to actually turn our garbage into new products. We just have to place them in a different container. Is it really that hard?

This pathetic number is particularly disturbing to me because our town has curbside recycling. It costs an extra five bucks a month--a Starbucks. Big deal. I place a bin full of my aluminum, plastic, newspapers and cardboard--I don't even have to separate it--out with the regular trash. Once a month or so I haul my glass and magazines to the local Resource Recovery Center, about five miles away. Not difficult. (And as a side note, I have to say that beer drinkers are excellent recyclers. The brown glass container is always full.)

The most challenging part for me has been training the people I live with to follow my lead. But I know that if I nag, rag and bitch long enough, they'll do what I want just to shut me up. Actually, I've found this to be an excellent strategy for getting just about anything done in my household.

America the Casual, Part 2

I'm not done ranting about people wearing pajama pants in public (see below), but before I continue, here's some related food for thought: Do your clothes influence your behavior?

This is the question that has been raised around here as an upscale entertainment and restaurant district called the Kansas City Power & Light District, imposes what has become a controversial dress code. From their website:

"The dress code prohibits the following: profanity on clothing; sleeveless shirts on men; excessively torn clothing; undershirts; excessively baggy or sagging clothing; work boots; sweat suits or athletic attire (jerseys are permitted in conjunction with Chiefs or Royals games or sporting events in the Sprint Center). Management reserves the right to refuse admission to or eject any person whose conduct is deemed to be disorderly or who fails to comply with the terms of entry. Please note that the dress codes of individual venues may vary."

Now, some people have gotten themselves all worked up about this with comments that range from how stupid it is to believe that you can spot (and then exclude) a troublemaker by his/her clothing to more serious allegations of discrimination and racial profiling.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, the district is privately owned. So really, the owners are within their rights to have a dress code--just like private schools and business offices. And as a suburbanite who rarely leaves the house, going into the city for a night out is a big enough deal to warrant getting all dolled up--so the dress code is not a problem for me.

On the other hand, does it really matter? In a country where people wear pajama pants to the grocery store and jeans and shorts to weddings, can dictating appearance do anything to keep patrons safe?

Our friends on Wall Street have already shown us that you can commit plenty of crimes in a suit and tie. So, one has to wonder if this dress code is just to exclude those that may be perceived as criminals. Hmm...

And back to pajama pants...

My sister-in-law sent me this picture of a woman in pajama pants attending a Sugarland concert--in Germany. Apparently, this is a worldwide epidemic.

America the Casual

In terms of the way we dress, I think it's great that America is a casual society. I love my Levis and t-shirts and am as thrilled as any woman that pantyhose have all but vanished.

But during a quick trip to the library the other night, I was reminded once again of a disturbing trend that may be pushing the casual thing just a bit too far--people wearing their flannel pajama pants out in public.

Now, I love my flannel pajama pants. They are warm and comfy during these long midwestern winters, and since I work at home, there are many times that I wear them all day. But I don't leave the house in them.

Listen--I'm not suggesting that people spend an hour getting dolled up to run to the library or the grocery store or the gas station. I'm talking about five minutes to throw on a pair of jeans. They can even be those dirty ones that are in a pile on the floor. Please. Because seriously, unless I'm sleeping with you, I DON"T WANT TO SEE YOU IN YOUR PAJAMAS.

eBay Virgin

Yes, it's an embarrassing confession: I am an eBay Virgin. I have never bought or sold anything on eBay.

My kids buy stuff on there all the time. But it all seems so time consuming--searching through pages and pages of, um, stuff to find what you want. Placing a bid. Placing another bid. Waiting to see if you win. Waiting to see if you receive what you think you won. And what the hell is PayPal?

I guess I'm just a simple girl. When I need to buy something, I like to get in, get what I need, and get out.

However, we recently had occasion to give eBay a try. When we picked out and ordered our granite (yes, I got the granite) we also had to choose a sink because, as everyone knows, it's way cool to have an undermount sink. And with a new sink, of course, we had to have a new faucet. I'll be ranting about the "domino effect" of home renovation very soon.

Anyway, we got the sink from the same place we bought the granite because their prices were comparable to those at the local home improvement stores. Their faucets, however--not so much. The one I liked was $1,800.

Obviously, this was out of the question. Someone (not me) thought we should try eBay. We typed in "kitchen faucets" and got over 5,700 results. Are you kidding me?

So Chris sorted through them and found one to bid on. We used Josh's account. After messing around with the bidding all evening, we lost. It was stupid. eBay is stupid.

So we went to Lowes, got what we needed--I mean, what we wanted--and got out. Simple.

Crisis Management

Although I worry about it every day, my family has not yet been personally impacted by the economic crisis. We both still have our jobs (for which we are grateful every single day), having made it through several rounds of layoffs. Our 401(k)s look pretty ugly, but since we won't need those for 20 years we've just stopped opening the statements.

But being financially stable is still a big concern. We have become more thoughtful about our day-to-day spending: we don't go out to eat nearly as often as we used to, I'm clipping coupons, and we are trying to pay more attention to the difference between what we need and what we want. Yes, we are making some major home improvements, but we believe (or hope) that we are investing in the value of our home.

So this weekend we ran over to the shopping area of our town. We have a fairly large mall, surrounded by all the big-box department stores. We hadn't been over there since before Christmas, but Chris needed a pair of dress shoes.

As we exited of the highway, the exit ramp was backed up with traffic. We inched down the ramp, thinking there was an accident; but no, there was just a lot of traffic in and around the mall. Everyone was shopping!

Believing the news that consumer spending was down, I thought maybe people were just window shopping, wanting to get out of the house on a sunny Saturday--because shopping has become a form of entertainment, right? But in the store a voice came over the loudspeaker, asking for all available associates to open a cash register because the lines were very long. People were buying stuff.

What does this all mean? Has the crisis not hit our area yet? Were these people, like us, just out to buy something they really needed? Are we all in complete denial about what's happening? Or do we all feel so helpless and out of control that we don't know what else to do except to engage in some "retail therapy"?

I think we (and when I say "we" I mean anyone under the age of 50) just don't know how to stop shopping. The line between need and want has virtually disappeared. We've never been asked (or forced) to sacrifice, to tighten the belt, to save money. I think we simply don't know what to do.

I'd love to know what you think...

Size Matters

When you live in the suburbs, your self-esteem is intimately tied to your home. More specifically, it is tied to the size of your home. And bigger is better, right, Ladies?

So when we were transferred from (a suburb of) Denver to (a suburb of) Kansas City four years ago, we got pretty darn excited when we saw how much house we could get for our money. The homes we were looking at to buy were twice the size of the basic little tract home we were selling. Yippee!

And since we weren't terribly happy about leaving Denver (but you have to follow the job, right?) it was easy for us to justify buying the biggest house we could afford: we're moving away from our family; we work hard and deserve it; if we have to live here we'll live however we want.

But did we stop to think that there were only four of us? Or that our kids were older, had friends and girlfriends in Denver, and would want to escape Missouri (which my oldest son pronounced "Misery") at the earliest opportunity? Not for a second.

We also didn't think about how much maintenance a large house requires. Or how much it costs to heat and cool. Or the time and energy it takes to care for a pool (yeah, we got one of those, too, thinking it might help convince faraway family and friends that Kansas City is a great vacation destination).

So we went for it and bought a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood. It has four bedrooms and five baths (which sounds cool until you spend a Saturday morning cleaning five toilets). It includes a formal living room, a formal dining room, and a designated guest room--three spaces for which we didn't have any furniture.

And so began what has become a real love/hate relationship with my big suburban home...

"Dinner Moments"

So, I was cooking dinner last night, and by cooking I mean I was heating up a Stouffer's frozen lasagna, and on the back of the box was part of their latest media campaign, called Dinner Moments. The message: Families should eat dinner together and parents should talk to their kids. And on the box are "conversation starters," questions you should ask your kids, while you're all sitting around the dinner table, to get them talking.


Well, yes...of course. As parents, we already know this, right? It's a lovely sentiment, in a very Ozzie and Harriet way (although Harriet would NEVER make a Stouffer's dinner).

So why does it bug me that a corporation feels the need to dole out parenting advice? Perhaps because the questions are so dorky:

• If you could star in a movie with a famous actor, who would it be?
• What singer or actor would you want as a babysitter?
• If you could be a foreign exchange student anywhere in the world, where would it be?
• What is your favorite Saturday morning TV show?

These are obviously for younger children. Now I don't know how things are in your house, but when my kids were young I couldn't shut them up...all I had to do look at them and smile and they'd babble on for hours. It wasn't until they were about 14 or 15 that my interest in their lives was met with a series of grunts.

I got online to see what kind of questions they came up with for older kids (yes, they have a website dedicated to getting families talking, which apparently will sell more frozen dinners: dinnermoments.com) but they were all for little kids, too. So I thought I'd suggest some questions to get teenagers talking:

• What's it like to play video games for 12 hours straight?
• When are you going to get a job?
• When are you going to stop asking me for money?
• When are you moving out?

Now these, my friends, are Conversation Starters.

"I hope he fails"

Rush Limbaugh's infamous statement a few weeks ago caused a lot of press (which, of course, was the idea--Limbaugh is nothing if not a master media whore). A shocking statement to be sure, even for someone who makes a living trying to be shocking.

I totally understand that he and his listeners are staunch conservative republicans, and that the focus of his show is to trash democrats. But does he really hope our new President fails?

Let me tell you--you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who dislikes George W. Bush more than me. But I never, ever--either publicly or privately--hoped he failed. In fact, I hoped beyond hope that he would succeed. Because when the President fails, we all fail. As it turns out, the former President did fail...and here we are.

The fact is, it's a luxury to hope someone fails. You have to be in the enviable position of knowing that if someone fails, you a) will be affected in a positive way, and/or b) will not be affected at all. For example, I have the luxury of hoping Limbaugh fails. I a) won't have to hear reports of the crap he spews, and b) since I don't listen to his show, his demise would have absolutely no effect on my life.

Both of these points are true for Mr. Limbaugh in his hope. If President Obama fails, the effect would be positive for Limbaugh in that he can rant about how he was right and perhaps expand his listening base. Obama's failure could, God forbid, make Limbaugh more popular than I can bear to think about. Financially, Limbaugh won't be affected at all. He just signed an 8-year, $400 million contract with Clear Channel. Bravo, Rush!

I suspect that most of us don't have the luxury of hoping our President fails. If he fails, those of us teetering on the brink of job loss, foreclosure or bankruptcy (or in many cases, all three), or who are watching our 401(k)s disappear, will fail right along with him.

For someone who considers himself a great patriot, I find Limbaugh's comment terribly unpatriotic. I'd love to hear what you think. Do you feel the same way, or do you agree with Al Franken (and me) that he is just a "Big Fat Idiot"?