Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Bakesale for Japan - The San Jose Event 4/2/11

I will be there, selling and buying, buying and buying. I love desserts. I also love knowing that we are all helping in this global relief effort for Japan.

Who else will be there? Many folks.

 

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
can transform the world. -- Howard Zinn

San Jose Japantown is getting in on the national bakesale for Japan. Want to take part? Here's what you need to know:

When: Saturday, April 2nd from 10am-2pm

Where: Roy’s Station (197 Jackson St. in San Jose)

Who: Professional and amateur bakers, cooks, artists, artisans, and musicians coming together around food to make something BIG happen.

How: Want to help? We’ll need bakers, artists, volunteers, and lots and lots of customers. Please send offers of help to sanjosebakesale@gmail.com

Why: So we can donate BIG BUCKS to Peace Winds Japan and help our brothers and sisters over there in the best way we can. Stay tuned for details.

We will be folding 1,000 paper cranes to send to friends in Japan. Do you have origami paper to donate? Can you teach others how to fold cranes on the day of the sale? If so, send me an email.

After the bakesale is over, we'll be continuing our celebration and support of Japan. From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Ukulele Jams and Ukulele Source will be holding a Kanikapila at the Roy's Station to benefit Japanese Red Cross Tsunami and Earthquake Victims.  Smiley and Janet Kai of Ukulele Source will be donating a Ukulele for the raffle.  Baristas will be donating all of their tips for the day, and Roy's Station will be donating 10% of their sales.

Roy's will have some great prizes to raffle off, including a Kala soprano travel 'ukulele (MSRP $225.00). 100% of the raffle proceeds will be donated to the relief fund.  We will be using Jim Beloff's The Daily Ukefor most of the songs for our monthly kanikapilas.  This books is a compilation of 365 songs (one for every day of the year) with a good variety.  If you would like your own copy, you can pick one up at Ukulele Source.  For each book sold between now and April 2nd, Ukulele Source will donate $5.00 to the relief fund. 

For more information see the Facebook Event Page and National Bakesale for Japan website.

 

Please stay tuned to this page as we post updates leading up to the event!
Thank you!

A Little Bit Louder Now: Shout! The Mod Musical

The last time I got into that classic song Shout I was wearing a toga and dancing in a basement with boys at a Sigma Nu fraternity party.

Last week, when the cast at the Retro Dome took to the stage in the final closing moments of the first preview performance of Shout! The Mod Musical, I wasn't wearing a toga, or dancing with with boys in a basement. I was sitting nicely in a row next to 8 of my mom friends and we were all tapping our toes.

Revisiting the past feels different the second time around. On one hand, I want to shed the present and jump back to the past. Pass the Corona! Look at how skinny I am! On the other hand, I can't imagine life without my three boys.

Shout! The Mod Musical takes us back to the swingin' '60s which would have been more my mother's era than my own. Nancy Sinatra notwithstanding, I have never been particularly moved by the music of that era. I was never a big Beatles fan <gasp>. So while I didn't relate to much of the music in the show (except, of course, to the knee grinding Shout), it was fun to peek into the imagined lives of women who came of age during Britain's so-called Mod years. I am drawn to the past, perhaps not living enough in the present. I spend a lot of time imagining what it might have been like to have been living in another time and place. I'm a retro loving girl, drawn to vintage bookstores and black and white films but the music of the 60s is a place I've never yearned to go.

So when 8 of my SV Moms writer friends (including Jill, Nicole and Grace) joined me for a Moms' Night Out (MNO) at the Retro Dome, we stepped out of the present and into a day-glow cast of characters which included the Red Girl, the Blue Girl, the Green Girl, the Orange Girl and the Yellow Girl. Each was a stereotype of  a young woman in 1960s Britain. The era of the birth control pill. I don't think I am or would have been any one of those girls, but it was delicious fun to see these girls stare out above the audience at an Oz like advice columnist whose misguided advice sends the girls off to remedy their lives with new pedicures. 

Twin Moms at the Silicon Valley Moms Chevy Event

When I first became a mom, my world was my twin mom friends. We'd met through our local twins club, Gemini Crickets, and huddled together for warmth and safety, protecting our young, protecting each other. Moms of singletons ventured out and reclaimed their former lives faster than we did. We were slow to get going, encumbered by double the baby gear, double the weight and double the challenges. Slowly, our babies grew up, became preschoolers and now, kindergartners and we, well, we just aged. And we're outgrowing our twins club, the days of sleep training and potty training and Music Together far behind us.

I joined SV Moms just before they launched, back in April of 2006. Linsey and Linda soon followed me over, and then, this year, we were joined by Carla (who photo blogs), Ana Garza and on Deep South Moms, by Lisa G. Recently, we were even followed over by the BFF to twin moms, Mama Speak, who is 6 degrees from every twin mom I know and I love her! Suddenly, it seems as if we've all got our groove back. We'd passed through the twindom and survived the early years. But what next? Then came SV Moms, and there we found a new home. What could be better than going off to college with your closest friends? That's how it feels.

When my son finds himself in a new place, he uses a trick to facilitate making new friends. He brings a toy. Then, when the kids flock around him, attracted to the toy and ultimately, to him, he feels secure. It's his way of making friends. Believe it or not, I'm a bit of a shy person inside, always slightly insecure. I rarely like to be the first person to enter the room. No, you go first, I'll follow behind. I think I need to be an event photographer. At my friend's wedding, she assigned a bashful friend the task of taking candid Polaroid shots of wedding guests and it worked, the friend worked the room with her camera, meeting people along the way.

So that's what I need, an excuse to be there, a reason to approach people. I know, I can rely on what my mom says is my incredible wit and adorable personality, yada yada to do the same, but couldn't I just tote around a security blanket once in a while? So barring a fancy camera to bring me comfort, I do love that I have my twin mom friends as my social crutch. And having braved a few social events within the blogging community In Real Life, I am finally branching out and enjoying it. Really, I am. I'm lucky to be able to move amongst the two communities, now interwoven. I've even met more SV Moms bloggers who are moms of twins: Beth, Kirsten, Alix, Bonggamom and Sidney! Not to say that moms of singletons don't rock - they do! - but sharing the experience of parenting twins, especially during the early years, is a special bond.

70s/80s Redux at San Jose's Retro Dome

I recently spent a lazy Sunday revisiting the past. There was sugary cereal (Frosted Flakes), a squirmy little boy (my son) and a cast of characters teaching us about nouns, adjectives and how a bill becomes a law. It was 70s/80s redux at San Jose's new Retro Dome and I was beginning to feel the pull of nostalgia.

C'mon," I'd said to my son, who was born in 2004, "let's do some time traveling."

Of course, this piqued his interest immediately and I'm sure he was thinking, "To infinity...and beyond!" but I yanked him back, back to the brown carpeting of my childhood living room, back to the darkened hour of early dawn, back to the bowls of Frosted Flakes and back to every Saturday morning of my youth spent in front of the tv. It was time for School House Rock, live and on stage!

A few year's ago, my nephew had been in a school production of School House Rock and it was adorably performed and I'd enjoyed the songs, but this production was professional and truly brought the School House Rock characters to life. My son had never experienced live musical theater (I was obsessed as a kid) and he'd never been exposed to School House Rock (my bad) and he'd never felt the sizzle of Pop Rocks on his tongue (from the Retro Dome's snack shack -- I said no) and he loved it through and through. There was a lot of audience participation. Our favorite? Interjections!

Tragedy in West San Jose

Yesterday, around 11am, I was on my way to the Westgate Target when I noticed a couple of police cars and a lane closure up ahead. Usually, I would have pointed out the sirens to my boys in the back seat, but I was kid-free at that moment and thankfully so, for as I pulled closer to the scene, I knew that a terrible crime had recently occurred.

Police cars were all over the place, some in the street, some along the curb, and a few serving as barricades. Red crime scene tape had been pulled half way around the block. Small groups of onlookers had started to gather. I think I saw an ambulance of some sort. Obviously, I did turn my head and look. I'm not usually a rubber necker - I hate when people do that. But there was just so much going on, that it was hard not to look. Was there still a threat? What had happened?

I'm just a newbie blogger and she's the First Lady

The first thing I noticed were the Botticelli curls. Then the megawatt smile. Wow, oh, wow, Maria Shriver is stunning. Yesterday, in the intimate setting of a Palo Alto bookstore, we bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Blog gathered to hear Maria talk about her new book, Just Who Will You Be? I was curious to find out more about this person whose image had flashed across my monitor and television screen for decades. Her life has had numerous incarnations: award winning journalist, bestselling author, mother of four children, First Lady of California, wife of Arnie - to name a few. And we all know that she's a Kennedy. So how, I wondered, did she manage to find her way through all of these transitions?

Although her book (a quick read at just 91 pages) started out as a graduation speech which asked the question, "Just Who Will You Be?", it evolved into a question that Maria set out to answer for herself. During our discussion, Maria was gracious and warm, fielding our questions with ease. We were absorbed in the moment, lingering on her words, not wanting the evening to end. The message I took away from the book and the discussion is this: Be true to yourself. Be genuine. Live your own "wild and precious" life.  In her book, Maria also writes, "I pledge to avoid using the word "just" to describe myself. For example, I won't say, 'I'm just a mother.' " Gosh....that's so me! The old me, I mean. Just is my favorite adverb, especially when it comes to describing myself. The new me is gonna banish the word "just" when describing myself starting....um....now.

Some examples:

Old me: I'm just a bag lady (describing my upcoming role in my multiples club's annual fundraiser auction where my role is to place tickets in bags and draw winners)
New me: I'm a bag handler! Right on!

Old me: I'm just a newbie blogger. Five people read my blog (my mom, my dad, Linda, Linsey and the occasional person who lands here by accident)
New me: I'm a blogger! You know it!

Maria Shriver, I salute you. Thank you for giving me the courage to just be me!

(A full transcript of the meeting is available here. For video footage, click here.)