BoulderBlog

Tim Walker shares Spork-related correspondence

2010-02-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

No doubt you have heard about Spork, the dachshund who bit a lab tech in Lafayette, Colorado and whose owners were hit with criminal charges by the bitten lab tech. Here is a post from Tim Walker, Spork's owner, on the SAVE SPORK Facebook group. The "Bensman" that Tim refers to is Lafayette City Council member Terry Bensman.

Tim Walker

Just wanted to let you know that we responded the following to the editor at WestWord today in response to the article to clarify some points.

Hi Michael,

I'm glad that you wrote the story regarding another perspective
regarding our pet Spork. There are a few things you should be aware of
and I'd like the opportunity to set the record straight!

1) "Bensman says he doesn't begrudge Tim and Kelly Walker, Spork's
owners, for spending many thousands of dollars defending their dog,
although he believes the price is so high because of a lawyer change
and various court maneuvers done by their choice"

The truth is we made a mistake. We hired a lawyer that came highly
recommended and paid him $2,500. He fouled up the submissions on our
behalf and it was very frustrating because we kept telling him that
the state law excludes vets for months. He said "that didn't exist".
When I mailed him the physical law (in December!) here is his unedited
response:

"I was unaware of this statute, passed in 2004. Haven’t handled a dog
bite case since 2000 or 2001. We’ll be able to put this statute to
use both in pretrial discussions with City Attorney and at trial, if
necessary. Shows Legislature views vet employees and dog groomers as
having essentially “assumed the risk” of bites. Thanks, [Name
Deleted]"

We could not leave our pet in the hands in someone who hadn't even
done basic research of the law. We sought at that time to find someone
who knew the law so we hired the Animal Law Center and paid them
$3,500 which we have spent. It will probably cost us another $4,000 to
proceed. That makes $10,000 we have spent fighting this charge and
this does not include time, loss of work, and incredible stress. If
Mr. Bensman wants to pay his his son or daughter's house down payment
to prove himself innocent in his home town he is welcome to it. Or if
he knows a better way than hiring a lawyer, I'd like to know it. That
is exactly what we were planning to use this money for and probably a
house in Lafayette. This probably won't happen now until we can save
again and it will not be here. Thank you for calling this "legal
maneuvering" without even a basic clue as to what happened. Trust us,
this is a huge strain financially and we will probably have to finance
our freedom but we will fight this charge. Not just for us but for
Wiggles and other animals suffering from inhumane laws.

2) Bensman says he's checked around, and the folks with whom he's
spoken only one remember one euthanization in the past couple of
years.

I do not know the numbers since 2007 (the law was only one year old at
the time) but everyone must be sensitive to the fact that 25 family's
have MOVED TO AVOID HAVING THEIR DOG EUTHANIZED OR KENNELLED. Can you
imagine the stress of that? It is the decision we have made as well.
We will move, if Lafayette continues to press this. We will not live
in a City that operates like this nor can we be responsible pet owners
with the existing laws and attitudes here. That's too bad, we've been
spending our money in Lafayette for 10 years and we have rescued one
Dachshund and will most likely rescue more in our time. Please know,
that, despite Mr. Bensman's rough homework, when we took Spork to the
Louisville Animal Hospital a week later (who performed what was the
originally scheduled surgery), the Vet told us that "this probably
will not have a good outcome for Spork" and was quite upset. We
inferred that they've had to actually do this unbelievably sad deed in
the past. The law allows euthanasia for the ticket we were holding at
the sole discretion of the judge. Would you leave it solely to that
avenue if it was your animal family member and you saw how this was
headed? I did not sense any compassion or respect for our rights in
Mr. Bensman's words. We are very saddened by them,

3) In it, Dodge says that he'll argue for this particular loophole to
be closed after the current controversy has been resolved.

Isn't that swell? Let's acknowledge that the law is screwing us over
and then wait until after we've all spent more money to do something
about it? This is the most preposterous thing we have ever seen in our
lives. We are flabbergasted that this law was analyzed for 5 months
and this time-bomb was just waiting to happen. Can you imagine the
ramifications if this goes forward? In my estimation, flat out,
ultimately, it would mean people simply could not take the risk to be
animal owners and any dog in a pound that even looks mean will die
there. People should be aware that the law in Lafayette states. "Any
animal which has caused injury to any person or animal or which has
unprovokedly attacked any person or animal or which has approached any
person or animal in a terrorizing manner or apparent attitude of
attack may be seized and impounded". Can you imagine the waste because
of the ambiguity and subjectivity that a dog had an "apparent attitude
of attack"? I want to know why the city spent our money for 5 months
creating a law that was inferior to the law it was replacing and which
has such obvious flaws.

4) His choice for a more appropriate headline for Spork stories? "'Vet
Tech Maimed by Spork the Dachshund,'" he says.

What hasn't been answered is any reasonable explanation for how a Vet
Tech could be bit in the face by a dog with 3 inch legs, in the arms
of its owners? I wonder if Mr. Bensman is aware that neither the
police nor animal control never, ever got Kelly's side of the story
(which shocks us to this day). The news can't show Kelly's police
report because there isn't one.

Thanks for keeping it level.
3 hours ago · Report

LinkedIn, negotiating, & other stuff

2009-10-26T16:42:00.000-06:00

Dear friends,

Here are the upcoming Ask Liz Ryan and Stay Sharp! seminars:

Wednesday evening, October 28, 2009, 6:15 p.m. Teleseminar: Job Search Essentials with Liz Ryan (virtual event). Cost: $10.00 Registration: http://asklizryanjobsearch.eventbrite.com

Thursday, October 29, 2009, 9:00 a.m. Stay Sharp! Seminar, Eggcredible Cafe, 5397 South Boulder Road, Boulder. Liz Ryan presents "Using LinkedIn: What Entrepreneurs, Consultants and
Job-Seekers Need to Know." Cost: $25.00 Registration: http://usinglinkedin.eventbrite.com

Friday, October 30, 2009, 9:00 a.m. Stay Sharp! Seminar, Eggcredible Cafe, 5397 South Boulder Road, Boulder. Attorney Joyce Colson presents "Ten Tips for Negotiating the Sale,
the Job, The Deal." Cost: $25.00 Registration: http://www.asklizryan.com/staysharp.html

Friday, November 6, 2009, 9:00 a.m. Stay Sharp! Seminar, Eggcredible Cafe, 5397 South Boulder Road, Boulder. Liz Ryan presents "Consulting and Contracting for the Rest of Us: Zeroing
in on Your Consulting Value and Brand and Reaching Your Market." Cost: $25.00 Registration: http://www.asklizryan.com/staysharp.html

Friday, November 13, 2009, 9:00 a.m. Stay Sharp! Seminar, Eggcredible Cafe, 5397 South Boulder Road, Boulder. Dave Taylor presents "Getting the Hang of Facebook." Cost: $25.00
Registration: http://www.asklizryan.com/staysharp.html

Friday, November 20, 2009, 9:00 a.m. Stay Sharp! Seminar, Eggcredible Cafe, 5397 South Boulder Road, Boulder. Jeff Finkelstein presents "12 Critical Strategies For Effective Email Communication: How to Make Sure Your Emails Are Read." Cost: $25.00 Registration: http://www.asklizryan.com/staysharp.html

Questions? Please write to Jackie Marrinan at jackie@asklizryan.com

Thanks! Liz

Liz Ryan
www.asklizryan.com

"Building Your Online Soapbox" Friday October 9 in Boulder

2009-10-05T16:52:00.000-06:00

BUILDING YOUR ONLINE SOAPBOX: Personal Branding for Your Business or Your Job Search

Boulder, Colorado, October 5, 2009 -- National career-advice and social-media expert Liz Ryan presents the seminar, "Building Your Online Soapbox: Personal Branding for Your Business or Your Job Search" on Friday, October 9 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
at the Eggcredible Cafe in South Boulder, in the third of a weekly series of business seminars featuring national experts based in Colorado, sharing practical business advice in a casual wisdom-over-breakfast setting.

Liz will help entrepreneurs, service providers, corporate folks and job-seekers wade through the jungle of social-networking sites and tools from LinkedIn and Facebook to Twitter, blogs, podcasts and online communities, understanding which tools are most critical for a business-growth or job-search endeavor and how to leverage social media tools to build visibility, credibility and community online. Liz Ryan is a former Fortune 500 HR executive and a syndicated columnist whose career and social-networking advice reaches 50 million readers per month. She is the author of "Happy About Online Networking The Virtual-ly Simple Way to Build Professional Relationships" and the founder and leader of the 25,000-person Ask Liz Ryan online community.

"Building Your Online Soapbox" will be offered at the Eggcredible Cafe, 5397 South Boulder Road, Boulder, and will cost $25.00 to attend. Register online at http://www.asklizryan.com/staysharp.html or write to Jackie Marrinan, Member Services Manager for Ask Liz Ryan, at jackie@asklizryan.com.

Boulder Burn

2009-09-09T14:19:00.001-06:00

I've been casting my local networking net a bit wider lately. It's been bugging me for awhile that I travel all over the country on a regular basis and yet I don't get past downtown Denver more often than every six months or so (excepting the occasional trip to the Tech Center). I wanted to see what was up outside of my ecosystem northwest of Denver, so I ventured forth. And here's what I found.

It matters a lot where you hail from, around here. Back in Chicago, it was obvious that you weren't poverty-stricken if you lived in Kenilworth and people would assume you were a first-generation immigrant if you lived in Bensenville or in the Belmont-Central neighborhood. But every city has those bits of baggage attached to various neighborhoods. Here in Denver, there's more at stake based on your neighborhood than just your income. There's a lot of zip-code-related judgment going on.

The fun part about networking around Denver is noticing folks' reactions when you say "I live in Boulder." Some people have no reaction at all. Others immediately see you through freak-colored glasses. "Really, what made you choose Boulder?" is a question I get asked a lot. I say, "All the boulders there." I have had people say "I didn't know there were businesspeople in Boulder." Or they assume that your business is in the realm of hash pipes or organic tea towels.

There are plenty of people around who believe that if you live in Boulder you must be an anarchist vegan. You must worship prairie dogs and other creatures and be a Buddhist, and clothe your children in natural fibers. One man asked me "Did you know what Boulder was like before you moved there?" I asked him "In what respect?" It was cat-and-mouse. He didn't want to say "Did you know it was so earthy-crunchy?" because he didn't want to offend me in case I was that way too.

People hate Boulder because it's so lefty, or because it's so yuppified. People hate Boulderites because they dress like they're entering the Tour de France when they go out to get a quart of milk, or because of their $800 strollers, or because they look like they slept in a dumpster. The good thing about living in Boulder is that there are all sorts of people around ready to hate you for a wide variety of reasons. I've never lived in a hateable spot like Boulder before, so it's kind of novel. I enjoy asking people "What exactly bothers you about Boulder?" The answers vary a ton. To me, it seems fear-based. Isn't contempt the flip side of fear?

Here are some of my favorite reasons people give for hating Boulder:

1) People in Boulder would drive past an abortion clinic to save a prairie dog.
2) I hate Boulder because people there think the rest of the people in the state are ignorant.
3) Boulder people built that Green Belt to keep people from other towns out.
4) Boulder is anti-growth and that is anti-Colorado.

My husband says "You should tell people you live in Boulder County." Well, what good is that going to do? For Pete's sake, I live on a city street in Boulder one mile from Pearl Street Mall. Anyway, if you hate Boulder and you'll hate me by extension, I'd rather know it than try to hide behind the county.

Plus, I am not one hundred percent standard-issue Boulder. I get acrylic nails and I have highlights in my hair. I wear makeup more than half the time. And my kids eat junk food from time to time and they get to watch TV. So right away I'm out of the spec.

But I'm proud to be a Boulderite, with all the baggage attached. I could have moved to Highlands Ranch or Greeley or anywhere, but I picked the lefty Republic. If someone's going to judge me on that basis, do I really care to know him or her?

The 25 Douchiest Colleges: CU is Number Ten!

2009-08-25T17:56:00.001-06:00

Here is the article, which cracked me up.

Superintendent King on Classroom Fees

2009-08-20T20:54:00.001-06:00

Yesterday three of my kids started school. Last night came the barrage of forms to be filled out and requests for special fees. I wrote to Superintendent Chris King about the fees issue. Here is my note to him, and his reply (received this morning: fast!).
Cheers,
Liz

----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Superintendent King,

Congratulations on the start of the new school year. I would love to get your thoughts on a start-of-school issue.

I have five kids in BVSD schools and some questions about fees.

I completely understand and am happy to pay fees for my kids' extracurricular activities and special for-credit classes like marching band. I'm concerned, though, about what seem to be mandatory fees for 'regular' classes like art and science. No mention was made when the kids signed up for class last Spring, about these special fees, and some of the classes are required. I'm not comfortable with the slew of requests/demands for fees, ranging from nine to twenty-five dollars, from my children's classroom teachers. I have
a few questions related to these fees:

1) Are they voluntary, or mandatory?

2) Do the individual teachers set the fees?

3) Is there an accounting of the cash and checks that are received, the expenditures that are made and any funds remaining at the end of the term?

4) If a parent (me, for instance) chooses to opt out of the classroom fee, what happens?

Thanks very much in advance for your help. I am very sensitive to budget pressure and all of the other constraints within which our teachers and administrators operate, but I'm also not comfortable spending fifty or more dollars per child in addition to what I've already spent on school supplies, uniforms, semi-voluntary school fundraising donations and other expenses.

yours,

Liz Ryan

SUPERINTENDENT CHRIS KING REPLIES:

Hi Liz:

Fees are voluntary in most cases. Many classes ask for donations, as opposed to fees, and you should know clearly when you are being asked for a donation versus a fee.

Fees can be charged for consumable materials, but you should have the choice of not buying the consumables and still participating fully in the class. These consumables should always be optional.

Fee amounts are set by the Board of Education. Teachers recommend an amount, which needs to be fair market value, and the board approves the amount. For example, a teacher can't decide to charge a flat rate – say $20 – for classroom materials. The materials must be itemized and the amount needs to reflect what the items actually cost.

You should be able to opt out of fees and donations with no consequence. In some cases (like art) you may have fewer materials to work with or materials that are not as nice, but you should still be able to take the class, earn an A, and otherwise participate fully.

Michele Deberry, director of activities, oversees the fee process. If your experience with fees is different than what I have described, please let your principal and Michele know. I am copying her.

Best,

Chris K

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

2009-07-17T18:53:00.002-06:00

Here is me singing "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." :-) Liz

The Ten Most Annoying Things About Boulder, Colorado

2009-04-05T18:07:00.002-06:00

I love my town, I don't want to live anywhere else. But seriously. I was just on Yelp! reviewing restaurants and I mean, the way people gush about the most mediocre places around here, you think, "Have you ever eaten food anywhere else?" Anyway, here are my top ten most irritating things about our town. Leave a comment and tell me which one(s) I forgot.

THEY-WERE-HERE-FIRSTERS

I haven't come across anything in Boulder more annoying than the people who bleat, "They were here first!" whenever the subject turns to mountain lions or bears. Funny, you never hear them talk about how viruses or roaches were here first - seems to me those guys were around even before the mountain lions and bears. Yeah, there were animals here, and now they've had to move because we arrived and we don't want them to eat us. Some say there are more cougars in the U.S. now than there have ever been before. Makes sense - no wolves in Colorado anymore. The TWHF people top my list for the most annoying thing about Boulder. Are people "things?" These people are.

THE DOG PEOPLE

Then you've got the dog people. I don't mean people with dogs. We have dogs. I mean Dog People who can't understand why you don't want Bailey and Denali jumping all over you. Or biting you.

THE ETHNIC FOOD

If you've spent time in a place where people love to eat, you won't be able to eat out at all in Boulder. You definitely won't be able to eat the ethnic food.

THE ARCHITECTURE

We have some fantastic modern buildings here, and two neighborhoods of wonderful old homes. The rest of it is Mountain Modern, just like what the Brady Bunch's dad would build if he had the urge to move to Colorado. Way cool seventies open staircases and huge pieces of dangerous single-pane glass separated by plug-ugly mahogany-stained pine mullions that would choke a horse. Shoot me in the face, please.

THE YUPPITUDE

My Yelp! list "Places That are Too Boulder-y Even for Boulder" lists some of my least favorite fleece-and-spandex emporia, see-and-be-seen coffee spots and other annoying restaurants and retailers. But you don't need my list; you can spot these joints a mile away, and the people who belong in them.

THE AGGRESSIVE CYCLISTS

You know what's an oxymoron? A badass bicyclist. Between the mincey little shoes and the spandex splattered with all the people who'd been your sponsors if you had sponsors, you just don't look tough. That doesn't stop Boulder cyclists from shooting motorists the evil cyclist eye (Oh stop! I'm quaking in my boots) when we don't defer to them blasting through red lights, smashing through an intersection we were just about to turn into (I didn't see that guy in my side mirror! No shiz, he's coming downhill at 50 mph in a 25 mph zone) and generally trying to throw their pathetic macho-biker weight around.

THE CRUNCHERS

"Do you know what's IN that?" says a mom to me at the grocery store while I'm buying organic yogurt. "It's got food coloring and all sorts of bad things. It's basically pudding!" "Oh yes, pudding," I say. "I need some pudding. Do you know where the pudding is?"

BVSD

Love the schools, hate the district. Bad decisions fly out of that place like bats from one of those caves where all the bats live -- you get the idea. Great teachers, great principals, awful, braindead policies and communication from BVSD at every turn.

THE McMANSIONS

We moved out of our last house because someone threw up (wow, that was unintentional but apt) one of those 5000 sf soulless things across the street. I'm not saying I want anyone to legislate taste, I'm just venting. When your house looks like a huge garage with turrets and cupolas, you've lost the taste test.

THE NAMES OF THINGS

The two best names around here are Gunbarrel and Left Hand Canyon. The rest of it is Boulder Canyon, Boulder Creek, Boulder Falls, East Boulder Rec Center, South Boulder Rec Center, North Boulder Rec Center, Boulder Library, the Bolder Boulder (gag me), North Boulder Park, and so on. I like the Hop, Skip and Jump. That's clever.

Buffalo China, Real Estate and Not-So-Big Houses

2009-02-05T23:12:00.002-07:00

When my kids were really small we used plastic plates and bowls. We had every licensed-character bowl and plate known to man. We had the Lion King and Pokemon and Winnie the Pooh. I got sick of the plastic bowls and plates, but I didn't trust the kids with china.

I bought some Buffalo China plates in a thrift shop and I said "These are perfect." They will break, but you almost have to throw them against the wall to break them. They are sturdy. I liked a pattern that is variously called Green Crest, Green Scroll or Green Scallop. Who knows what it was called when the dishes were made, in the fifties and sixties? You have to buy them on eBay now.

One day I bought a bunch of Green Scroll Buffalo China plates on eBay and a few days later they arrived in the mail. When we unpacked them, we threw away the packing material - the seller's local newspaper. But one of the children pulled some of the newspaper sections out of the trash can. I picked them up to throw them out and I saw that I had the real estate section of the paper in my hands. The paper was from Buffalo, New York. That's where the plate-seller lived. I don't know whether Buffalo China was made in Buffalo, New York. One day I will look that up.

So here's the punchline: you can buy a sturdy four-bedroom brick home in Buffalo, New York for peanuts (another packing material, now that I think about it). At the time, I looked at the paper and winced. We pay a premium to live in Boulder. (Well, okay, they get a dividend for living in Buffalo - the real estate is cheap). I thought, "Man, we could get alotta house somewhere like that." But, well - the weather! We know. We lived in Chicago with kids for eight years.

Not long after the Buffalo China/Buffalo newspaper day, some people approached us about buying our house. We said Go for it and sold them the house. We had to make a decision. Where should we move, and what sort of house should we buy? We had only lived in the Buffalo China house for three years. One of the feelings I had was that the house was a bit large for us. That is funny because there are so many of us. It's just how I felt.

I started looking up square-footage-per-family-member data online. There isn't much of it out there. I found something from the Heritage Foundation that made me suspect. I don't trust those guys, and what I read sounded crazy. It came from a whitepaper on poverty. I think the guys at the Heritage Foundation were trying to say that poverty doesn't exist in the United States. The whitepaper said that in the 1950's, the average American dwelling had 350 square feet per person. It said that today, that number is 750 square feet. That sounds like baloney. No way that the average two-child, two-parent household's home is 3000 square feet, as far as the eye can see, across America, in cities and in towns. No way. But, that's the only statistic I could find.

In Chicago we had a huge house. We never quite felt comfortable there. We moved to a much smaller house in Boulder and then the bigger one where the Buffalo China was shipped. So, we had to decide what to do and make a quick house purchase - this is March, 2008, before the big crunch hit - and we grabbed a ranch house in SoBo. We came in and liked it, the neighborhood, the layout, big bedroom for the boys, fenced backyard etc. We bought the house. By Heritage Foundation standards, it's tiny - 400 square feet for each of us. It feels good to us, and who knew in March that buying a smaller house would feel ultra-prudent six months later? The house we sold has lost $175K in Zestimation since we moved out.

Back when we lived in Evanston, I spotted a book in Barnes and Noble called The Not Very Big House or the Not-So-Big House or something like that. I sat in a chair in the bookstore and paged through the book saying OOOH, AAH at the comfortable rooms on every page. I thought "This would be a good way to live if we didn't already have a huge honkin' house." Ten years later we are experiencing that not-so-big thing and I must say it's cool. No intercom. No back stairs, no laundry chute. Well, I could stand to hae a laundry chute.

Lion Eats Dog, I Say Nothing

2008-12-29T15:07:00.003-07:00

Here is the story from the Daily Camera.

Mean People and Cats

2008-12-07T15:30:00.002-07:00

Yahoo!groups has a thing called Yahoo! Answers. You can tack on a miscellaneous Answers forum to your Yahoo!group. I would never do that, but I can understand why Yahoo! likes its Answers feature - drives traffic. I hate stuff like that - it's drive-by conversation, in my book.

Here is a bit of dialogue from Yahoo! Answers. The question was posed by a teenager who has a cat (perhaps more than one cat) and has trouble remembering to clean the cat litter. Here's the question from the teenager and the answers she got, from what must be the meanest group of people in America (or wherever they are). The first responder, the one whose answer was pegged as the Best Answer, gave the issue some thought. The rest of them piled on to criticize the teenager. Do people think that a teenager or anyone else is going to take their advice when they berate her? We don't do this kind of thing on our discussion groups. When I read this list of comments, I'm very, very grateful for the warmth and tact and forbearance of the members of my online community.

Here goes:

Original query:

Is this sorta warped to you too?
So, I'll admit I am not the best at keeping up with cleaning my cats litter box. My mom has to bother me about it then I finally get to it, normal mother-teen stuff. Lately, my mom has been telling me that she is going to throw my cats outside if it doesn't get done when she sees it needs to be done.First off, what have the cats done to her, that doesn;t just affect me but the lives of animals, they are NOT outdoor cats and I know if she did that they wouldn't know to come back and I would never see my cats again.Secondly, there are coyotes and occasionally wolves that go through the neighborhood, this is Colorado afterall. They would so get eaten.I know the solution to my problem. Keep up with the litterbox. I just get so caught up in everything else in my life that I don't remember or if I set reminders on my cell I am not always home at that time or I am really tired and don't want to get up to do so. I can't believe she would actually do that though. To me thats a pretty messed up thing to do. That is not going to go over to well with me and it will probably end up with me moving out and never speaking to her again. I am pretty sure Id hysterically freak out and then spend the rest of the day/night looking for them.I totally wouldnt put this past her, she did something similiar once before. She THREW our female cat out because she accidentally scratched my brother but my brother was scaring the cat. How can I get her to not do this and choose something else? Like block my texts or take my laptop, you know something less sadistic and unforgivable?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
i'm almost positive that if you move the litter box in or near your room that you would remember to clean it out. kitty litter stinks and then your whole house smells like cat piss...not a nice smell.it sounds like your mom is fed up with taking on your responsibility and doesn't know how else to get your attention. just do it and you won't have to worry about it...it only takes a few minutes.

Block User
Then I guess you had better start taking better care of your pets. Neglecting your cats is not normal teen stuff. They're your responsibility, so if you don't want anything to happen to them, clean up after them.I sure wouldn't want my house reeking of animal waste because my daughter was too irresponsible to take care of her cats, either.

you should get that automatic cleaning litter box very low matinence

that nuts clean it up

You are of course being over dramatic. Its not sadistic. Cats are meant to be outside anyways, they will survive. You are making excuses for being irresponsible. She is doing the right thing for making you take responsibility. Sounds like she doesnt want the cats anyways. Isnt it cruel to make the cats use the bathroom in unsanitary conditions???? If you are so concerned, change the litter box! I bet you would remember and make time if you had to keep up maintenance on your cell phone or TV.

If you are incapable of meeting your obligations, she SHOULD toss the cat. It's obvious you are too self centered and lazy to take proper care for it. She should give it away to someone who is mature enough to do the job right and not make lame excuses for why they can't complete a simple task.

It all sounds like a pretty typical mother daughter argument to me and in my opinion your mum is just saying anything she can think of to get you to do your job. If she is anything like my mum she will not throw those cats out but she may make you give them up. Animal cruelty is one thing but finding them a home where they will be looked after is fine.

You know the problem, you know the solution, you just don't want to have to be bothered to do it. If you care that little about your cats, maybe you shouldn't have them. And if you do love them as much as you claim, scoop the stinking litter box already! Forget cell reminders and set a specific schedule for cleaning the box-Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday after dinner, for example. Doesn't matter how tired you are or wrapped up in other things in your life, take care of this responsibility. As far as your mom or brother sharing the responsibility for the animals-who feeds them and makes sure they have fresh drinking water? I wouldn't throw the cats out, but they'd have a new home or go to the shelter.

I think that your mother is tired of caring for YOUR pets. They are your cats, correct? Then you should be taking care of them.Litter boxes stink, they make the whole house smell if they aren't cleaned out properly. It's not your house, it's your mom's house and she is probably tired of it stinking. I don't know if I would throw your cats outside, but I would take them to a shelter. If you are old enough to have a pet you are old enough to care for it. Just stop being lazy and do it. Do it every day and it won't be such a hassle.

Yeah, that's pretty messed up. The cats shouldn't be thrown out and eaten by coyotes for something you did. I guess the best thing to do is to make sure the litter box is done before you do anything else. And tell her what you told us that the cats shouldn't be the ones punished and not letting you text or something would be better.

Well if you want the luxury of the cats then you need to keep up with the responsiblity of the cats. It's basically your own doing. Keep up with it. It only takes 2 mintues of a 24 hour day - there's no excuse as to why it should get bad. Letting the litter box go is just nasty. It can spread germs. As the poop breaks down it becomes dust into the air and frankly I wouldn't want to inhale cat poop dust into my lungs. My 7 year old scoops the litter box every 3-4 days when I ask her to. The more frequently it's done, the less time it takes because there's just less stuff in it. Take responsibility for YOUR pets and keep up after them. I don't blame your mom for the threats. She's got to get it in your mind that she means business. Blocking texts, taking the laptop - it's not a good solution to a chronic problem. If you care for your cats and want to keep them - take better care of them. Plain and simple.

I think you're overreacting a little. I do agree that throwing the cats out would be very cruel, but they are your responsibility, and you just have to make time for them. Listen to one less song on your iPod or spend 10 minutes less time texting people, or just clean the cat box instead of posting on Yahoo answers. You didn't say how old you are, but whatever your age, you're growing up. You will be getting more responsibilities each year. Cleaning a litter box in a timely manner is pretty minor compared to keeping track of school assignments, having a job, applying to college, remembering to put gas in the car, and maintaining your own household. All that will happen someday. This is good practice. Still, I don't think your mom should threaten to throw the cats outside. She did give you permission to keep them in her house in the first place. How about agreeing that from now on, if you forget and she reminds you, you will not only do the job immediately but will also pay her in some way, such as doing a chore or giving up part of your allowance?

First Call of the Day

2008-11-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I have an internal meter - I'm sure you have one too - that kicks in
when a person calls you out of the blue and launches into a story,
adding detail and embellishment (but no point) until you start to
wonder, "Where is this conversation going? Who is this person? What
does s/he want from me?" This was my first call of the morning today.
Would love your analysis and insights. Did I goof up? What do you
make of this?

RRRRING!
ME: (croaking, hoarsely) Liz Ryan!
HE: Hi Liz, this is Tom Smith. I saw your story in Colorado Biz
Magazine today, and wanted to give you a call.
ME: Hi, Tom!
HE: Well, I have an executive search firm, and we've been in business
for 28 years. We specialize in X, Y and Z and we have an out-of-the-
box approach. We work with A, B and C candidates and D, E and F
clients, and we really work closely with our clients to rabble
scrabble the frazzle nizzle. We're opening a new office in Fort
Collins and we're launching a new outplacement group, and our
outplacement approach is very much of the foshizzle ma zizzle nizzle
variety, and it's coloring outside the lines, we've been in the
business 28 years, and we have a unique approach to the marketplace
that's really based on a bop biddem skiddem shoo-bop shoo-bop
worldview. We've got a totally new approach to outplacement, and I'll
tell you, it's skiddly beep and bedeedle doodle, and the thing about
our business, is that we're really --
ME: (working hard to sound chipper and pleasant) That is great. Um -
just one question Tom: just to circle back a second, what is the
topic exactly? That is, it's a great story, I'm just wondering what
you were thinking generally, what is the plan or what are you
thinking in terms of where I come in?
HE: (Frosty) The only way to answer your question is for you to
listen to what I'm trying to tell you. You'll listen, and then you'll
know. As I was saying, we've been in business for 28 years --
ME (Are you kidding?):Gosh Tom, can we do the journalistic Inverted
Pyramid thing and get to the part that says I Want You to Write About
Us, or I Want You to Partner with Us Somehow, or give me some other
idea perhaps of what you --
HE: (Frostier than before) Is this a bad time?
ME: It's just that I'd love to start with the point, and then work
backwards. So the point is --
HE: I'm trying to tell you and you won't let me. We're opening an
office in Fort Collins, and if you would just listen to me, you'd
know how we'd like to involve you -
ME: (Are you seriously kidding me?) Gosh Tom, I'm perplexed. You must
sell, in your business. You must call people on the phone all the
time. I don't know you, and I'm happy to hear from you but distressed
that my request for a point on the arrow, a summary of your reason
for calling me, is such a tough request. You have a definite tone in
your voice and it's not working for me. You called me, my friend.
It's appropriate for you to wrap up your pitch in a minute or so,
rather than have an attitude with me for expecting you to be able to
say why you called without the full business spiel. Don't you think
so?
HE: (Frosty like a mofo): I'll call back.
ME: No, please don't. You can send me an email message if you like.
HE: CLICK!

Don't Hate On Boulder

2008-11-02T17:47:00.002-07:00

Here's last week's story from the Daily Camera and the comments that Camera readers left on the site:

Liz Ryan: Don't hate on Boulder

I had no idea there are people who hate our town — and everyone in it — before I moved here. Boulder-loathing was a complete shock to me. I learned about it at the airport, walking down the jetway. A lady said, “Well, he lives in Boulder, so what does that tell you?” and her companion said, “Say no more! Spare me from those people.” My ears perked up. What the heck — people hate us?

Since then, I’ve heard a few dozen repetitions of the same theme: Boulderites are hippies, they’re yuppies, they’re evil. People around the country say “You live in Boulder? I’m jealous.” Some people in Colorado say “Boulder! I hate that place and everyone who lives there.”

Once I glommed onto the anti-Boulder thing, I began using it in my work. I teach a leadership workshop called Inclusive Communication, so I incorporated the Boulder-hating phenomenon into that. We start the session talking about stereotypes and labels. I split the class into two groups. Each group gets a flipchart, and they’re asked to fill the chart with labels — half the room coming up with stereotypical descriptors for people who live in Boulder, and the other half finding labels for people who live in Highlands Ranch. It never takes more than five minutes for each group to fill up the flipchart page. We all know what those labels are!

Still, I never thought of Boulder-hatred as intersecting with the job advice I dispense until recently. Two people wrote to ask me how to handle Boulder-hatin’ situations on the job. One young woman decided to take her Boulder address off her resume because employers outside of Boulder County were commenting on it, unflatteringly. A man had a hiring manager ask him “Boulder, eh? You’ve got something against regular people?” That question alarmed him, naturally. There are ways to handle Boulder-haters encountered on a job search, apart from the obvious option (invite them to take a flying leap at a rolling donut). You can get a P.O. box for a small fee. You can use the P.O. box on your resume if you fear that Boulder-bashers could impede your job search.

You could leave your street address off your resume entirely. Showing a physical address on a resume is a holdover from the days when job-search correspondence took place via the mail. You can leave off the address and replace it with your name, e-mail address, LinkedIn profile Web link and phone number. Most employers won’t blink at that, if your phone number has a 303 or 720 area code.

You could save a few bucks by piggybacking on the snail-mail address of a friend or relative who lives in an undetested part of the state, like Broomfield. (If there are Broomfield-haters, it’s news to me). Or, you could fly your Boulder colors proudly, reasoning that a person with your brains and ability doesn’t need to stoop to hiding his or her hometown from small-minded haters. If you got a job by obscuring your Boulder location, wouldn’t your hippie/yuppie/Communist stripes emerge eventually? No sense going into the closet just to get a job. If people hate Boulderites enough to pass them over in the hiring process, you’re better off working elsewhere — right?

Liz Ryan is the CEO of Ask Liz Ryan, a Boulder human-resources and organizational strategy consulting firm. She can be reached at liz@asklizryan.com.

Comments

Posted by claroofusjones on October 27, 2008 at 7:59 a.m.

This is overblown, concern that employers might hate you because you live in Boulder. If someone looks at a Boulder address and says, "Ewww," it's just their uncomfortable attempt at a joke. You might possess 8 other things the employer notices or cringes at, but they're quiet about those.

On the other hand, if the employer is a god-monger for serious, you will be at odds in the interview naturally, whether Boulder is mentioned or not. You probably never had a shot. Their type can smell our type, and vice versa. That's what this great human melting pot is all about.

Laughing at their lame joke and not saying anything works wonders in those Boulder moments in an interview.

Now if you live in Longmont or something, I'd definitely eschew the physical address on the resume...

Posted by Mucha on October 27, 2008 at 1 p.m.

Hmm. Try living in Nederland. Often hiring managers in Boulder (and surrounding areas) won't even consider hiring individuals from here. No, we're NOT all hippies. Some of us actually have degrees and would like better jobs. I was not born in Nederland, I am from the east coast and I have an excellent employment history. I live here because we love the area, and it is close to all the Metro areas.

Last year, I had an interview in Boulder that was going great until the interviewer learned where I lived. He then proceeded to ask "do you live in a tent?". I felt insulted. I was wearing a suit, I have a degree, I had my portfolio with me, and I was definitely qualified for the position. It's really very sad that a narrow-minded stigma has to cost people employment oppourtunities.

Posted by derbarkasmann on October 27, 2008 at 3:41 p.m.

Just before the Democrats convention in Denver, I was breakfasting at the McDonald's on 28th Street. A gentleman at the next table asked "Are you ready for all the Socialists to descend on Denver next week?" I replied "I'm a Socialist". Ended that conversation quickly. I'm really not a Socialist, but does anybody know where I could get a sweatshirt that says "Boulder Liberal" on it?

Posted by memailme on October 27, 2008 at 3:47 p.m.

DC: In this job market, you gotta do what you gotta to put food on the table and pay the bills.

claroofusjones: The "their type/our type" comment along with the Longmont diss are examples of the kind of attitude (in part) that would start anyone’s eye rolling.

Mucha: Interesting that the company was IN Boulder and the interviewer was taking a swipe AT Boulder. Yea..his comment was NOT appropriate but, if it were me when the interviewer said "do you live in a tent?" I would have played along said "Yes". Who knows - the quip might have worked in your favor!

I work at one of the companies featured on AC 360’s Ten Most Wanted: Cuprites of the Collapse. My former boss, is on that list. Fifteen years ago my interview began with this question: “What’s an old hippie like you doing in a place like this?” I replied: “For starters, I am getting divorced and I need to pay my bills.” -to which he replied “That’s a very good reason”. Half an hour later he said: “Enough of this BS – do you want the job?”

I think most prospective employers really are looking for someone that is a good fit for the job itself and an a person that will fit personally with their group of co-workers regardless of anything else.

Posted by bruce_pfieffer on October 28, 2008 at 8:54 a.m.

I enjoy Liz's column's and read them regularly. I think she has a lot of insight into a number of business-related issues and is a breath of fresh air in a lot of things she writes about. But I think she needs to realize that Boulder (at least some aspects of Boulder culture) has contributed to how others view Boulder. There is often an attitude of smugness and superiority in the way Boulder culture thinks and approaches issues. Just a thought - try bringing up in a casual conversation that you have a good friend who works for Focus on the Family or is an evangelical Christian and see whether that brings a chill to the conversation. I hope it doesn't, but many people have observed that Boulder has its own problems, that others at times see much better than Boulder does about itself.

Posted by SenorBlanco on October 28, 2008 at 3:15 p.m.

Its the pot calling the kettle black, all the Boulderites on this site continually hate any of the surrounding communities (especially Longmont) for various reasons.

I guess Boulder is full of Hippie-crites.

Posted by Jose_the_Plumber on October 28, 2008 at 7:43 p.m.

In general, the people of Boulder deserve this. The liberal groupthink creates a ridiculous cycle where almost everyone thinks the same way. That's what we call lack of diversity. I'm relatively new in my workplace and there are very few that I would confide in that I'm voting for McCain. In most places in the country you'd have a healthy mix of Obama and McCain voters and you could have an intelligent conversation. In Boulder you're dismissed as a moron if you go against the groupthink. For an example of this check out the DC editorial page, their endorsements, and their choice of political cartoons. This elitist attitude and lack of diversity don't go over well with the neighbors.

Posted by abovemypaygrade on October 29, 2008 at 2:58 a.m.

What if you lived in Tucumcari, or Tucson, or El Paso, or Greeley, or East LA? Should you get a P.O. Box in San Fran.?

Posted by claroofusjones on October 29, 2008 at 8:28 a.m.

I was being tongue in cheek with the Longmont comment. *Sigh*

As far as the us/them, I defend that one as a reality of the job market. Employers size you up, you size them up back, and that initial sniff can indicate you are at opposite poles. That's what this column is about, interview situations and mechanics of getting a job.

There is no requirement to respect Focus on the Family. You want to strike up some off-limits conversations at work, you will feel the chill.

I think talking about where someone lives or "that guy has a fish decal on the back of his car!" is too personal for the workplace. It's too personal to talk about. Of course, this type of assessment takes place all the time. We all do it. Good luck suppressing the act of constantly sizing up others.

High School Girl Drama

2008-10-18T17:42:00.002-06:00

Here is the story. Names have been changed. We will call the girls Jane, Lisa and Diane - these names are as popular in today's high schools as Hortense and Eglantine. Anyway, this is what happened.

Jane, Lisa and Diane are great friends. Lisa and Diane have a crush on the same boy. This has happened before. This time, it's a problem, because Diane REALLY likes this boy and the boy REALLY likes Lisa. Lisa likes him too. These are tenth-graders, so the relationships tend to be casual and not to last long. (And nothing much happens, ahem.) There is a dance; the boy (call him Felix) invites Lisa. Lisa says yes, and by the standards of the tenth grade, Felix and Lisa are therefore an item.

Lisa and Diane are locker parters and talk every day. Lisa stays mum about Felix's invitation, and her acceptance; she is afraid Diane will be angry if she learns that Lisa and Felix are a couple. Lisa tells Jane her secret and swears Jane to keep her mouth shut.

Inevitably, Diane finds out about Felix and Lisa. She is furious with Lisa: "I will never speak to her again!" She doesn't communicate with Lisa - she shares this information with Jane. "Did Lisa tell you about her and Felix?" Diane demands an answer. Jane says "I've known for a couple of days. I promised Lisa I wouldn't say anything. She asked me to keep quiet, so how could I tell you?"

"What kind of friend are you then, Jane?" Diane thunders.

Diane is crying. Lisa is crying. Jane wants to stay friends with both of them, but it's not easy. There is a get-together before the dance, and Diane says she's not coming - she never wants to see Lisa (her best friend and locker-partner) again. Jane finds the nerve to say to Diane, "If you told me a secret, I'd keep the secret for you. I did the same thing for Lisa. She should have told you about her and Felix, but she didn't want to because she thought you'd be mad at her, because you like Felix too."

That's a tenth-grade mouthful. Diane is horrified. She says "I deserve to know who Lisa is dating. We're best friends." Jane says "She should have told you - I agree. If you are best friends, doesn't that mean that when Lisa has good news, you're happy for her? That's why she didn't tell you. She thought you'd be angry, rather than happy for her - as a best friend might be expected to be." This message is lost on Diane.

Jane wants my advice, so I say "These are good lessons to learn early in life. You can get people angry with you by doing almost nothing. It's easy. Stuff like this forces us to say what we think, including the message that you delivered to Diane that made her so unhappy with you. Perhaps this sort of drama disappears from your life at some point - there's no telling; I'm 48 and I still hear about stuff like this, although not usually with tears and locker-slamming." Tough being 15, or 48 for that matter.

Trombone Legacy

2008-09-06T20:17:00.002-06:00

Our oldest son plays the trombone in the Jazz Band and the Concert Band at Fairview High. In the Marching Band, they don't use trombones, so he plays the baritone.

Our third son had to choose an instrument this week, and he was torn between the string bass and the trombone. Our older son of course lobbied for the trombone and won out. I picked up the trombone yesterday, just in time for the first instrumental rehearsal. Such excitement! Turns out that the Band teacher at my fifth-grader's elementary school is also the Director of Bands at Fairview High (where the Marching Knights place very high in the state rankings year after year). Mr. Keller, the Band Director, is the son of Fairview's Choir teacher, and the children naturally (if uncharitably) refer to the two music instructors as Old Keller and Young Keller.

In the car last night, picking up the 15-year-old after the Marching Band's first performance of its 2008 show at the season's first football game, the fifth-grader was excited to share his news. "I got my trombone! Mom picked it up. It's brand new! We had our first practice. My teacher is Mr. Keller, the same as yours!"

"Old Keller or Young Keller?"

"Old!" (He might be thirty, and looks younger.) I corrected my son - "No, your band teacher is the young Mr. Keller." His reply:

"REALLY?"

Mr. Keller hasn't learned the fifth-graders' names yet, but as my two sons look like small and large versions of the same kid, the younger one has already been identified as "little Mac." This is comical because when the same kid was in kindergarten and another brother, two years older, was in second grade, the second-graders tagged the kindergartner "Mini-Me." Just wait until Mr. Keller (who'll be really old, perhaps 35!) gets to our youngest, the kid in first grade this year. Another kid! Same face! Will he play the trombone? We'll have to wait and see.

Longmont Man Tries for Free Porn, No Dice

2008-08-11T20:14:00.003-06:00

I clicked on this storyon CNN.com just because the headline was so random - turns out that the guy that posed as a detective and tried three times in nine days to get free porn from an adult bookstore is right here in Longmont, Colorado. We make the national news at least once a week for some goofy thing or other. Which one came just before this - the two guys Tasering one another in the parking lot? I forget.

Well, My Kids Do Say "You're Mean"

2008-08-10T22:19:00.003-06:00

The Daily Camera wrote this story about Boulder County, already a 'blue' county, getting bluer. And they say: The average Democrat is a 48-year-old female living in Boulder.

That's okay - I'm unusual in other ways (I hope).

Abe Lincoln on Gay Marriage, Continued

2008-08-08T18:34:00.002-06:00

Turns out that Shirley Scoville responded to my Letter to the Editor in the Camera on her Abe Lincoln hates gay marriage editorial.

Here's a comment from somebody:

Posted by rcljr1220 on July 7, 2008 at 3:34 p.m.

Liz...and the silent masses all said a collective "Amen". Scoville's opinion should have been relegated to toilet tissue...At least then it would have had a proper "burial".

And here's Shirley's comment on my Letter to the Editor:

Posted by ShirleyScoville on July 16, 2008 at 7:38 p.m.

Dear Liz Ryan,

I quoted from Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” to point out his call for government of, by and for the people, which is in sharp contrast to proponents in California for same-sex marriage. They want to remove “the people” from having a say by attempting to de-certify a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. “The people” should have a say in whether to adopt a new definition of marriage, which would be a sweeping change to society that would unseat thousands of years of precedence. Same-sex marriages is not an equal rights issue but a moral issue and, therefore, should be decided by the people, not by a handful of judges.

Children have a God-given heritage of a father and a mother. If you wish for the debate, change “God-given heritage” to “required by biology” or some such term. Overall, it means the same thing. No matter the term, parents and government can and do mess up that heritage. However, children do have a father and a mother at conception. That’s the “given” part.

And here's the reply I left on the Camera site when I noticed Shirley's comment, earlier today:

Posted by on August 8, 2008 at 6:33 p.m.

Shirley, you must know that judges serve their terms at the will of the people, too. The California judges are doing their jobs, interpreting the Constitution. That's what judges are supposed to do. Don't be so sure about those thousands of years of precedence, either, Shirley; same-sex unions have been allowed in all sorts of societies over human history. Read Gore Vidal's "Sex is Politics" to get a better feel for that. Who are you, Shirley, to declare that same-sex marriages are a moral issue? I mean, who gave you the authority to decide what's a moral issue and what isn't? That isn't an objective fact. That's Shirley Scoville's opinion. A child requires a biological father; no argument there. Biology says nothing about who raises the children. There are plenty of societies where biological dads have less say over their children's lives than mom's brothers do. In some countries, everyone in Mom's family has more to say about the children's upbringing than Dad or anyone in Dad's family does. Your editorial was beneath the standards of the Daily Camera or any legitimate publication; it lacks any shred of logical argument, relying strictly on your own religious beliefs to propose that you and people who believe what you believe should have anything to say about the rights of two adults to marry. That's sad, wrong, and highly immoral in my view. Yours,
Liz Ryan

So I Go Inside, I Grab the Dog, I Leave, Piece of Cake

2008-08-06T23:44:00.003-06:00

Here's a new story about a mountain lion south of Denver who went into a house while the people were sleeping, grabbed the Labrador Retriever, took it outside and ate it.

Traveller Scams in Colorado

2008-08-04T22:15:00.002-06:00

Here is a story about Irish Traveller scams in southern Colorado. There was a fraudulent car-repair scam going on in the parking lot of the Safeway on Baseline Road that made me think of Travellers right away. They have the most robust scams. Read this article for a great example!

Serious Mode

2008-08-02T23:41:00.002-06:00

So, my last show of the summer is tomorrow afternoon, a Sunday matinee. After the show is the cast party. I'm bringing my five-year-old to the cast party the host, our Director, also has a five-year-old.

The good news is that I'll have my life back, and I desperately need it. I am sorry to stop doing the shows, one of them in particular, but I've spent nine weeks submerged in these productions and it's good to broaden my horizons a bit. Still, I am very happy I took the plunge! An excellent experience. Still -- now real life will come roaring back.

My friend Katrina, who also books me and makes various writing and other deals for me, has a ton of marketing ideas for August. I am very excited about those of course. She and I are getting great results working together. But this is the kind of work I'm not great at: updating my web site with the list of topics I speak about, creating marketing materials, getting my databases in order. That last one is sa pain. I have 2000 LinkedIn contacts and 6000 people in ACT! and maybe 600 in my business-card-scanner's db and God knows how many in Outlook etc. Just now on Twitter, setting up a new neighborhood Twitter account, I learned that I've got hundreds or maybe thousands of people in my Yahoo! contact list and I barely even use that Yahoo! account. I've got Aweber and of course my Yahoo!groups and, and, and.

Time to get serious. I don't have an infrastructural brain, let's be honest. I've got ten ideas for articles swimming around in my brain, two book outlines, a podcast and a half-dozen blog posts. I'm a content faucet, for the most part. And a singer, and a mom.

Just Give Me Time

2008-07-29T20:33:00.003-06:00

I came across this freaky website that lets you see how you're going to look in thirty-five years. Here's what I'm going to look like as an old lady. Only thing, I'll wear a Ramones t-shirt instead of the old-lady clothes.

Free Range Chicken

2008-07-28T21:43:00.002-06:00

One week from today my life will change dramatically. I'll be done with the run of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and "A Little Night Music" that's overtaken my life this summer. Our last performance ("Night Music") is this coming Sunday - we've got six performances between Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon, as we had during the weekend just finished.

After the Sunday matinee, it's cast party time. Then -- release.

I'm ambivalent, of course -- it's hugely fun to perform. It's been nice to have audience-members stop me and ask "What are you performing in, next?" (Answer: Rocky Mountain Revels' A PIONEER CHRISTMAS, Boulder Theatre, December 2008.) I don't have any more musical theatre or opera plans lined up. It is fun to do so much performing - 21 performances in four weeks. And, of course, it's exhausting! My hair needs a rest. My laundry room is unspeakable. My kids and husband miss me, not to mention the dogs, cat, rabbit and adorable guinea pigs Chocolate and Dumpling.

What will I do with my afternoons and evenings? I can't wait to find out!

I have missed all of my friends' T & T's "Feet in the Creek" gatherings because I've been onstage. I've missed a gazillion social and business networking events, and countless barbecues. I'm not complaining. It's been a good trade to make. Still - August is mine! School starts mid-month, but won't become deadly serious for a few weeks, if I have anything to say about it.

We don't get to go on vacation this year - no time to get away, between the last "Little Night Music" and the start of Band Camp for my son. Michael took the big boys to Montana and took the three smallest ones to Frontier Days in Cheyenne. Caty and I are planning on an NYC getaway and some Broadway shows. Still, the normal stuff - the Farmer's Market, creek path, a glass of wine on my own patio - beckons.

Howdy Stranger!

2008-07-22T23:10:00.002-06:00

In a few days we will celebrate our seventh anniversary in Boulder. Our youngest child was born here and two others have lived here for more than half their lives - they barely remember Chicago.

At this point I'm working at a level Seven/Three on the Ryan Local Familiarity Scale (RLFS). My score indicates that after seven years, I see someone I know around Boulder approximately once every three days.

That is a pretty high score. In Evanston, with about the same number of people, I'd only see people I knew about once a week on my travels. Why do we run into more of our friends more often here in Boulder? I think it's because there is no massive city like Chicago located a mile away, into which our friends can easily disappear.

Everything is here. We have our own business ecosystem, our own restaurants and parks. So we stick around. So we run into one another.

In Denver, my score plummets to Seven/Eight Gazillion. It is always a shock for me to run into a friend on the streets of Denver. We are both shocked - we touch one another, as though we can't believe it's true. "Is it really you?" we ask one another, gasping for breath, fighting back tears of joy and amazement. "It is me!" "It is me!" we squeal, hugging and rolling into the gutter.

Abe Lincoln on Gay Marriage

2008-07-05T16:32:00.003-06:00

In today's Daily Camera I spotted this content-free hate-o-gram. Below the editorial is my letter to the editor in reply.

Same-sex marriage not

equality issue

When President Abraham Lincoln gave his famous "Gettysburg Address" in 1865, he spoke of "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Same-sex marriage proponents would have us believe their battle today is for equality and fairness.

Instead, their definition of marriage turns brides and grooms into "party A" and "party B" in California. There and in Massachusetts, it denies children their God-given heritage of a father and a mother, and leads to indifference for mothers and fathers of the natural family, the most basic building block of society.

Marriage should be defined nationally as between a man and a woman. Only a man and a woman can start the natural family. And while adults marry, marriage is not just about adults and adult rights. It's about the children to follow (though no couples are required to have children).

After Lincoln eulogized the dead at Gettysburg, one of the great battlefields of the Civil War, he talked to the living. He said they should be dedicated to finishing the work of "the new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Equality California, a same-sex marriage proponent, sees things differently. It filed a lawsuit to have de-certified for November a California constitutional amendment defining marriage traditionally. Obviously, to maintain government of, by and for the people, America must not just celebrate its freedoms. It must battle against those who think "the people" pose too much risk.

-- Shirley Scoville

My Letter to the Editor:

On my first reading of Shirley Scoville's screed against gay marriage, I was certain it was satire. This is tongue-in-cheek for sure, I thought;
no one would seriously invoke Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in an editorial railing against the rights of gay people to marry. Wrong! Scoville
was dead serious. I read the piece a second time, wondering, By what logic might a writer attempt to argue that the Gettysburg address had the
remotest link to today's marriage-rights debate? Here's the answer: by no logic at all, the best kind to use when your position amounts to "God doesn't
want gay people to marry."

Scoville's bizarre editorial goes on and about Gettysburg, without the teensiest effort to make a connection between the war, Abe, or his speech and her strictly because-I-say-so argument that gay marriage is icky.

It's reprehensible of Scoville to argue that the Massachusetts gay-marriage statute "denies children their God-given heritage of a father and mother" when
40 percent of American children, according to a recent story in the Chicago Sun-Times, already grow up without the significant presence of their dads.
Too bad these tots don't know that God by way of Shirley Scoville has granted them the right to a father's involvement in their lives. If two opposite-sex parents in a family is a right granted by God, what shall we make of the fifty-percent divorce rate and the rising incidence of single motherhood? Would the God whose wishes
Scoville feels so free to interpret approve of the fact that 80,000 American children currently await adoption and have no permanent home at all? Or would such a God want to see those kids in loving homes, whatever the gender of the parents?

It must be something to know what God wants. I don't even know what God wants for me half the time, much less what God wants for every child in the country.

Isn't the Letters to the Editor section of the Camera a more suitable spot for a whacked-out religious tirade than the Editorial Advisory Board? Can
Camera readers expect more rigor in argumentation from the Advisory Board than "God told me"?

Liz Ryan

In For a Flood?

2008-06-18T23:20:00.002-06:00

The Daily Camera says Boulder is overdue for a big flood. Where are the floodplains? All over - wherever the Boulder Creek flows, and South Boulder Creek, and the low area near Viele Lake in South Boulder and pretty much anywhere near Baseline Road.

Pearl Street Mall would be underwater if it flooded here, and so would stretches of I-36, and lots of the CU campus, and Boulder High. According to experts, we would have 20 minutes of warning if a big flood came down from the mountains.

This summer would be a likely time for something like this to happen, given the flood activity in other spots. Does the flood warning make me feel differently about Eben Fine Park a/k/a the West Boulder Pond? It does. I make a mental inventory of my kids' friends houses, where they hang out. High, low, low, low, high. One of them is smack in the middle of a gigantic floodplain.

The weird thing this summer is the unexpected rain. Torrents when you least expect it. Good for the soil and the plants, but still. Let's hope that Nederland dam holds.

Second-Glance Boulder

2008-06-02T01:16:00.002-06:00

When I lived in Chicago, there was a local TV show called "Wild Chicago" and the star of the show was a kind of nerdy guy in safari clothes and a pith helmet. He would go around with a camera guy and explore all this wild stuff in Chicago, like strange subculture clubs and people whose entire houses or apartments were filled up with weird stuff and so on.

From time to time my husband and I joke that there could be a TV show like that called "Wild Boulder," but there could only be one episode, max. It's just not that kind of town.

But there is a lot to explore and be grateful for, here. I have been here almost seven years and I'm still finding new stuff. Not punk bars where people drip hot wax on one another or anything like that. But still.

I dropped my son over by Eisenhower School for a sleepover and the mom asked me "Okay if we all ride bikes to the South Side Walnut Cafe for breakfast tomorrow?" I said "That's fine but keep an eye on my son, he's not using to riding in traffic." "No traffic," she said, "It's straight bike path all the way there." I had no idea. The only street they cross is Table Mesa. This is a fantastic thing. Mapquest doesn't show the bike paths but they are everywhere.

I took my two youngest sons to a potluck out on 95th near Valmont at my friend Mary's house. My gosh, it is gorgeous. You can practically see Nebraska from her back deck and the mountains look incredible. The night was divine. We drove out there a crazy circuitous way because I forgot to bring the directions -- South Boulder Road to Public Road to Baseline to 111th to 287 to Outlook over to 95th and down to her house. We came back the easy way, on Valmont. It's a wonderful drive back into town. There is a little lake with an island in it just off 95th, you would never think you are minutes away from the sprawl.

It is a wonderful thing to keep exploring the Boulder area and finding wonderful stuff. My friend Katrina wants to go walking with me to Culler (sic) Mesa - Kohler? anyway it sounds fantastic. She says early in the morning is the best time to go.

I'm Not Obsessed, It's Clever

2008-05-27T05:11:00.003-06:00

From the Boulder Daily Camera's Letters to the Editors section:

The cougar who was just found for a second time sleeping under the porch of a house in west Boulder has filed an adverse possession suit to retain ownership of the porch. I wouldn't be surprised if attorney Kimberly Hult is handling this case. The cougar, who has yet to be named, claims in an injunction filed with Judge James Klein that no human has used the porch during its two weekly nap periods. This is evidenced by the fact that no human bones or remains have been found under or near the porch with said cougar.

The Cougar is also filing a complaint with the city of Boulder's diversity coordinator stating that being shot twice with tranquilizer darts constitutes a blatant case of cougarism as defined by Article 24, Section 8, Paragraph 194 of PETA's General Declaration of Predators' Rights, which will soon be ratified by the UN. The Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center has also weighed in, protesting the Division of Wildlife officer's use of force to sedate the cougar when everyone knows that peaceful negotiation with cougars who have big teeth and sharp claws is the only way to reason with a sleeping cougar non-violently.

ALAN BLOOM

Solidarity of the Bashed

2008-05-24T23:31:00.003-06:00

I have a friend named JJ, and she is super-smart, and she has a talent for getting people excited about things. The last time we had lunch, we met at Flatiron Crossing in Broomfield, and after lunch JJ took me over to see the iPhones and show me what is cool about them and why I need one. I am cheap enough that I waited all this time, but now I know at least that I will get an iPhone when they drop the price again. Thanks to JJ.

This week I went to meet JJ for lunch in Stapleton, where she lives. I'm not from here. I had no sense of what Stapleton is, except for the billboard that hangs over the escalators at DIA. That billboard photo is terrible. It's all rooftops. I don't know what the Stapleton people were trying to accomplish with that photo. It looks anonymous and scary and like something from that 1960's TV show "The Prisoner." It doesn't make the Stapleton area look appealing at all, at least to me.

So I go there. And the first thing that you notice is that you get off 36, which is 270 at that point, and you get on Quebec going south and it's kind of industrial and seedy and sad-looking like all those big streets that cross 270 in that area, and then it suddenly changes. It's green and inviting. People are walking around - all of a sudden. I thought, "What does this remind me of?" and I couldn't come up with anything. There are some big-box stores with parking areas around them, but interspersed with the stores are doctor's offices and dog groomers and lots of non-big-box-type businesses. Hmmm, I think. I find a parking spot and run over to the lunch spot, Udi's, where I'm meeting JJ.

There are a zillion people on the street. A zillion strollers. Dogs. It's like a people oasis a mile or two off huge grey ugly old 270, and the funny thing is, the big cross street that takes you to downtown Denver is Martin Luther King Boulevard. Chris Rock has a bit in his standup routine where he talks about the fact that in every city you can find, Martin Luther King Boulevard is always in the worst part of town. Not here! It's green and wide and new and inviting. There is a public transit center. You can take a train (or you will be able to take one) to DIA. There are townhouses and single-family houses and gyms and pools and fields and coffee shops all over. There is lots of green space. "Some people don't get Stapleton," said JJ. "Some people hate it." What is hate-able? I wondered. The newness. All the new construction. Then I think of the new construction up in my area - I won't mention the names of the subdivisions. You know what they are. There is a huge one not five miles from me. Nothing to walk to. No shops of any kind. No 7-11. In a snowstorm, you'd better hope you've got groceries put away.

Stapleton is the opposite. JJ said when they had storms this winter, she put on her boots and walked to the grocery. She doesn't use her car all weekend, sometimes.

Question: if you are going to build something, what should you build? I like Stapleton. Maybe it is the solidarity of the bashed. People hate Boulder, too. They say it's self-absorbed yuppies here. I am too old and have too many kids to be a yuppie. I like Boulder. I like walking to the grocery store, too. I'd kill to be able to take a train to DIA, or downtown Denver for that matter.

I went looking for Stapleton-related blog posts and found this, and it's hysterical, because it talks about possible food poisoning at the very same Udi's and in the very same couple of days when JJ and I ate there! I didn't get sick.

When Michael and I moved over the border from Chicago to Evanston, we got a lot of flack from people. "For Pete's sake, you want to move to a suburb, move to a real suburb like Naperville," they said. "Who wants to pay high taxes to support homeless people in Evanston?" We are used to location-based flack. I think it is fear-based. People can't understand a decision like that. I hear it from my friends in Cambridge, Mass. People can't understand why people live in Boulder and Stapleton either. That's why I like these places.

Who's Keeping it Real?

2008-05-09T02:26:00.003-06:00

So I started this email group for South Boulder, and a recurring theme (it's only been two weeks, but we've got recurring themes) is how South Boulderites keep it real. I agree with that. I see more regular people on the street here, not exactly bricklayers and city workers, but more regular people than the "my $800 stroller can outrun your $800 stroller on Mt. Sanitas" type people in some other neighborhoods I've lived in.

So we've got a certain level of realness going on, but here's the funny thing. I went for a wonderful long walk with my friend Sharon, who's great fun to walk with, and if it's not off-topic, I'll just add is funny and brilliant on top of that. So anyway, we're walking along South Boulder Creek, and she's telling me about what she's been up to. Now keep in mind that Sharon lives in North Boulder.

"So on May Day my housemate had this Beltane ceremony and they all danced around the fire," said Sharon, "and then there was a deer hit by a car near our house, so my roommate butchered the deer and then he had to take the head up to Fort Collins to get it tested for wasting disease." Fort Collins? I whine if I have to go all the way to SuperTarget. How did the guy have stamina to chop up the deer after all that Beltane dancing?

I say all this just to point out that all the realness is town is not happening south of Baseline Road. Sharon didn't mention anything about $800 strollers in her story. She did say that her housemate works on an oil rig. You can't get any realer than that. Although one time in New York I met a girl who was a jello wrestler - no joke.

Puma Tranquilized in South Boulder

2008-05-05T18:41:00.002-06:00

See? That's all I have to say about it. That's major restraint, coming from me. The Camera story said the cat "wasn't doing anything wrong." An odd and unjournalistic turn of phrase, I'd say. Like any cougars do anything wrong. Let's go anthropomorphic! I took my son to Flesher-Hinton music store in the Highlands part of Denver this afternoon. The guy behind the counter was at Manhattan School of Music with me back in the dizzay. Trumpet player.

Avert Your Eyes

2008-05-03T14:37:00.000-06:00

How are you gonna wake up in the morning and walk to your car and feel good about the day when the first thing you see is this? Here is the house going up across the street from us in our old house, the one we vacated a month ago. Do you blame us?

It's an enormous McMansion. It fills up the entire lot, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the architectural style of the neighborhood, or the terrain. It could be in Barrington, Illinois or Clifton, New Jersey or anywhere at all.

We went south, to the Table Mesa area. We chose a 1961 ranch house in a neighborhood of 1960's ranch houses. One day, when we were still living across the street from the McMansion, one of my neighbors came over to chat. We were looking at the McMansion and talking about how the neighborhood was changing. A woman came out of the McM and said "Would you like to see the inside of the house?" I guess she was the architect, or worked for the architect. My neighbor said "You've seen one McMansion, you've seen 'em all."

SoboTalkin

2008-05-02T18:28:00.003-06:00

I started an email discussion group, because Bill from DC talked me into it. The new group is called SoboTalk. There are fifteen people in the group so far.

Today I posted a message about Zillow. Everyone should know about Zillow. It's nice to buy a house and a month later see a $37,500 uptick in the value. Is it real? No. But it's better than a finger in the wind. Realtor home-sale prices are all over the map. Zillow is highly accurate in Boulder County.

One of the member is going to have a garage sale next Saturday. I was thinking about dropping by with some SoboTalk flyers. What do you think? Good idea, or bad idea?

I am writing up a storm and getting ready for a few speaking engagements coming up, at DU and at SIM, the Society for Information Management. Both in May, both in Denver. I am working on a new-millennium recruiting workshop and a bunch of smaller things. And rehearsals for the Summer Revels start next week. Four more weeks of school, only! Children are excited.

Bill, the Limo, And Me

2008-05-01T00:31:00.000-06:00

I went to Yahoo! You have to write the exclamation point, even if you say it (Ya-hoo) without an inflection. You still have to write it. We went there because we are group owners. I have a bunch of Yahoo!groups. Yahoo! invited us. We all took a limo together from the airport. Bill and Mike were in the limo with me. Bill is an author - successful! His first book is a big seller, and it is called How to Outwit Squirrels. After that he wrote a bunch of other Outwit books. If Mike is an author, we didn't talk about it. Mike is a priest - the Old Catholic Church. Ever heard of it? Me neither, and I grew up as Catholic as you can get, pretty much. I'm going to look into that. So anyway, Mike and Bill have Yahoo!groups t00 - that's what got all of us invited to the Yahoo!group owners' confab in San Jose.

Bill's group is the biggest neighborhood discussion group in the country, over there in Cleveland Park, a neighborhood of Washington, DC. I know that neighborhood. I've been lost in it. It's pretty. So Bill talks me into starting a neighborhood group too, because I don't do enough stuff like this already. I started it - it's called SoBoTalk. Should I have called it SoboTage, instead? There are 15 of us members so far. I got a boost from this story in the Daily Camera. Not such a big boost, but I'll take it - 15 members is better than one.

How will I spread the word about SoBoTalk? We're hoping to have a garage sale, for one thing. My son helpfully counted the boxes in the garage. There are sixty of them. Sixty boxes from now, we'll have a garage sale and I'll hand out SoBoTalk flyers to anyone who shows up.

Chicago Cougar Killing Sort of Surprising

2008-04-22T01:41:00.001-06:00

I would like to describe Roscoe Village to you - it's like Wash Park, only more urban. It's all early-2oth-century houses and wine shops and dry cleaners and hotdog stands and so on. It's busy. It's dense. It's an amazing place for the Chicago PD to track, and kill, a cougar, but that's what happened last week.

I'm seriously going to stop talking about mountain lions for awhile, but I hope this Chicago thing rests my case a bit - I mean, there are a lot of these dang cats. There is another one in Skokie, a northern suburb of Chicago. They are overpopulated. They are hungry, so they figure, why not go for some Polish sausage out of a dumpster, or for that matter, a schnauzer?

You could eat for years out of Chicago dumpsters.

Don't Be Eatin My Goats

2008-04-10T22:38:00.004-06:00

I know you think I have an obsesson with cougars, and maybe I do. I just don't love the idea of 100-lb. predators walking around and people saying "Isn't it magNIFicent!"

Jon knows how I feel, so he wrote to tell me that his brother-in-law in Larimer County shot and killed a cougar that was eating his goats. The goats were disappearing, and the fellow's wife smelled the cougar one night when she couldn't see it. So the fellow waited and when he saw the cougar, Wham. Out there, you call the authorities and they say yeah, whatever, you killed the cougar. Around here, there'd be a grand jury seated in three seconds. I'm just sayin.

Lookin' Good at 150

2008-03-22T09:00:00.003-06:00

2009 will be the year of Boulder's sesquicentennial, which, when you read it, makes you think of Sasquatch, but it has nothing to do with Bigfoot-type creatures at all. It's Boulder's 150th birthday as a town. Turns out, Denver has the same birthdate, so it'll be a big year all over the Front Range.

In December 2008 - not so far away! - the Rocky Mountain Revels will be kicking off the sesquicentennial observation with a new production called "A Pioneer Christmas." It will be tremendous - you should join us. You could sing and dance or build sets or arrange 'sing-outs' for us in area venues where we could get the word out. This will be my fourth year singing with Rocky Mountain Revels, and I can't wait. No, I don't know who the lady in the picture is, but I saw someone at King Sooper the other day who had the same haircut.

Pink Poodle Panic Dogs Downtown Diva

2008-03-10T19:21:00.001-06:00

This lady (at left) is in trouble because she dyes her dog pink. She says it's a Breast Cancer Awareness dog, whereas every time I've seen that dog outside the lady's (ahem) pink salon, I've thought, that's a marketing dog. But still. Give me strength.

Who cares if she dyes the dog? She says she uses beet juice. What's next? You don't like the way I groomed my dog?

We look, I swear, we search for ways to embarrass ourselves here in Boulder. We jump on this sanctimonious high horse and start waving flags around. It's ridiculous.

I mean. We have bigger fish to fry. Or maybe don't - maybe that's our problem. The plaintiff this time is the Humane Society. Why doesn't that surprise me? They're always doing stuff like this.

There is a reason we have no funk in Boulder! No glitter, no glam, can't even have a pink dog for Pete's sake. Birkenstock dogs - we've got 'em in spades. No RuPaul dogs, no George Clinton dogs. Not even a Gap Band dog. We get well-exercised organic well-water dogs. Bring in da funk, pink dog lady.

Oh, Elliot!

2008-03-10T16:36:00.001-06:00

Dude! What is it with these law-and-order people who get busted for the most mundane crimes? Elliot Spitzer is the client of a high-end call-girl ring, evidently. I mean - if he wants to cheat on his wife, he can't find anyone else? That's pathetic.

Granted, this story has nothing to do with Boulder. I'm just sayin.' You have the brains and charisma to become governor of the state of New York, we expect you to be able to find your own on-the-side action. Seriously.

He apologized but did not resign. He's governor! Isn't he supposed to make sure people obey the laws, starting with his own dang self? How stupid do you have to be to not think the girl is going to recognize you apart from the designation Client Number Nine and drop that dime on you for the publicity, to jump-start her stalled modeling or acting or singing career? How many call girls have you known that wouldn't do that in one second? All my call girl friends totally would.

Keeping It Real on South Boulder Creek Path

2008-03-09T20:34:00.002-06:00

I knew I was going to be writing about deer legs tonight and so I did a Google Image search on the term "deer leg," not really expecting to get images of severed deer legs in the search results. Silly me. Of course, there is a page of severed deer leg images - this is the world we live in. I wonder what other severed-body-part images are searchable via Google? I hesitate to even think about it.
I wanted that severed-deer-leg image because that's what Sharon and I saw yesterday on our walk next to South Boulder Creek. Our deer leg wasn't as bloodless and old as this one is. The hoof was on it and there was blood on the ball joint at the knee. I thought "mountain lion" right away, but I wonder whether just the right coyote could get the deer, or maybe a pair of them? I have seen tons of coyotes in that area.

We saw the usual prairie dogs bustling around and deer and of course horses and cows (including brand-new baby ones) but no coyotes this time, nor foxes or skunks or other woodland creatures. The thing about the deer leg is that it reminded me of the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom aspect of life in Boulder. Perhaps some deer die of old age, but I'm not thinking that's the most common cause of death in Deer World.

Our sweet kitty Cinderella got eaten a year ago, as far as we can tell. It is ironic, because we got her from a shelter ten years ago in Chicago and she was a hardened outdoor cat when we got her. We let her go outside and when we'd walk or bike away from the house, she would follow us. Just before she disappeared we thought about it and decided to start keeping her inside. But we had a barbecue at our house and somehow she got out, and never came back. The kind people at the Humane Society, when we went to check for her (dotting every 'i,' because she had a microchip) said "Maybe a nice family took her in." Yup, a nice family that wouldn't check to see if she had a microchip and either wouldn't take her to the vet, ever, or wouldn't tell the vet that they found her somewhere when they did take her in. Not bloody likely, as they say.

That same night, the night of our barbecue, I brought my friend Marcelle into my daughter's room and asked her to look at one of our rabbits, who didn't look so hot. Marcelle grew up with rabbits. "This rabbit does not look great," she said, but there isn't all that much you can do for a rabbit. The next morning, the rabbit died; so we lost two pets that weekend.

I went to our new house this morning to measure the space where the refrigerator will go. The people who moved out, God bless them, took their fridge, for sentimental reasons I guess - it was ancient. So we went to measure the fridge-space and a cat jumped over the fence and into our yard and came over to nose around, but wouldn't let me touch him. Or her. The cat has six toes on his or her front paws. A second later the cat darted up a tree to go after a squirrel. This is one fast cat! Maybe the sixth toes really make a difference. Our new, indoor, shelter kitty Coco will be jealous of that cat when she (Coco) looks out the window. But we're once-cat-eaten, twice shy.

Parenthood is full of decisions like this - independence or safety? - even when no kids are involved.

Where To Hang Out in Boulder (Business Edition)

2008-03-05T21:15:00.002-07:00

The Chili's logo is a joke! You cannot do business networking at the Chili's in Boulder, because it is closing. Yeaaaa! It's about time.

Back to business. Here are some business networking spots in and around Boulder. I throw the occasional networking event myself, under the brand name Ask! in Boulder - that's my everything-Boulder email group. We don't have a regular event schedule, however.

BMG is the Boulder Marketing Group. They have regular get-togethers. You have to be a corporate marketer or job-seeker in order to join BMG, but not to go their events, as far as I know.

There are Boulder Chamber events, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not being disparaging, it's just that Chamber events have a certain business-card-passing-frenzy kind of feel that isn't everyone's cup of tea.

There are Open Coffee events for tech entrepreneurs. And, of course, there are all sorts of MeetUp events for businesspeople as well as rat-terrier enthusiasts, chess players, etc.

Does it feel like a short list! Yes! It is! We're in Boulder, for Pete's sake!

Feel free to leave a comment and add to our list!

Now I Understand Why Hillary Looks That Way

2008-03-05T11:17:00.006-07:00

Here is a cute, normal-looking little girl with pretty eyes.

She looks like any girl who might be selling Girl Scout cookies in front of the supermarket - she looks like a human being.

It would be nice to see what this girl would have looked like as an adult, but we won't get to do that.

The little girl took drastic measures to change the way she looks.

So we get this, instead. Trannyesque. Spooky. Fake nose, strange lips, plastic skin - weird, weird, weird and off-putting. Too bad about that little girl, who might have been a lovely young woman.

Here is another lovely young woman - striking!

She looks real.

You could have a cup of coffee with her.

She looks like she knows what she's talking about and cares about it too.

Strong face.

We could wonder what this young woman would look like, 30 years later.

But this woman also made massive changes to her appearance in the meantime. She looks completely different now.

Now she looks plastic and scary. Where is that strong face? It looks like she dyed her eyebrows.

The blonde hair doesn't match her face and the corporate haircut looks awful. Why does she want to be blonde?

I'm not saying that Hillary should be more glamorous - just the opposite!

She doesn't look like herself anymore. She looks packaged and cyborg-ish and off-putting. I've always wondered why Hillary looked this way and now I know. She morphed herself, and not for the better.

In the Land of New Perspective

2008-02-23T20:49:00.002-07:00

Six months before we moved to Boulder seven years ago, I only knew one person here - that was Nancy. She said "It's kind of a different lifestyle here." I scoffed.

I shouldn't have scoffed, because Nancy is from Westchester County for Pete's sake, and she lived in Boston. Those are hard-boiled people, if you're allowed to generalize. They don't say things like "it's kind of a different lifestyle out here" lightly. Still, I thought Lifestyle, Schmifestyle. Please. It's the United States of America, isn't it? How different can it be?

Okay, so, it's really different - the pace of things is different. Priorities are different. When I first got to Boulder I was seriously horrified by the gag-me 1970's architecture and what I called the "slanted wood" look. Zillions of condos and townhouses with a kind of mountain-y planks-at-an-angle design, yuck! Shoot me now, I thought. Give me my 1907 Arts & Crafts house in Evanston!

So, I got Boulder-ized. I've gotten used to the slanted wood and while I still like architecture and appreciate a spin through an old Denver neighborhood, I don't care about it for myself - it's like "need to live in an architecturally significant house" fell off the Maslow hierarchy for me. Not just housing priorities, but a million other needs-and-wants shifted dramatically for me and my husband - our kids too - here in Colorado. The kids don't register the changes so much - one of 'em wasn't born when we got here and the rest of them were small. But my husband and I talk about it all the time. Weird how you can go along la la la thinking you sort of have your likes and dislikes and views more or less set, and then they shift on ya.

I marvel, still, every day at how much cool stuff is all over the place here and how accessible it is. I talked with Katrina through Green Mountain Cemetery the other day and saw how the trail connects to Chautauqua if you want go to that far, and then down to Eldorado...dang! We didn't come here to get perspective. Did we? I can't remember that far back. We weren't thinking "let's change what we think about" but that's what happened.

Boulder is a really small town, for the most part. Every day you run into people you know, and the people you meet always know the rest of the people you know. Yesterday we sold our house, and the buyers, whom I'd met a couple of times before, know zillions of people that we know. My friend and fellow singer and real-estate lawyer Rick came to the house closing, and he also knew tons of people in common with the folks who bought our house. And then he'd mention someone and I'd say "Rick, I didn't know you knew him!" It's a little, little place. Compared to a city-type city with subways and highrises and Fortune 500 HQs or a TV station.

But is has an effect on you.

Hardscrabblin'

2008-02-20T20:22:00.003-07:00

Oh dear, it's not over -- the couple who lost 34% of their land in South Boulder to another couple last year have counter-sued the land-grabbin' folks, claiming that "Edie's path" (shown at left) was manufactured in order to win the adverse-possession lawsuit. As in, it doesn't show up on satellite photos. Hmmmm....

What I don't get is why a couple of prominent Boulder-ites, one a former mayor of our town, would risk destroying their reputations over this piece of land. Seamy, I call it. Disgraceful!

Michael and I took a drive over by Hardscrabble Drive today, just because we were in that part of town. The weird thing is that the land in question isn't such a big lot. The houses are squished ridiculously close together. As I said to Michael, "If you lived here and you had a party, your friends would have no place to park." But anyway, the land was taken away from the couple who bought it and granted to this other couple because they claimed they'd been using it for years. Without permission. You know, unlawfully. The former mayor and his wife. Hey, I didn't make this up, it's been in all the papers.

Later the land-grabbing two went back to court and asked the judge to give them another nine inches of the land that they were grabbin.' The judge said no - he should have damned them to hell for that request. Can you imagine? They are probably damned anyway.

Goodbye Chili's

2008-02-13T00:12:00.002-07:00

The Boulder Daily Camera reports that the only Chili's in Boulder is going to close. Oh well - like Montel Williams says, SEE YA.

A terrible story about that Chili's. I'd taken my kids to a place that sadly doesn't exist anymore, at least not as a storefront, a place called Bits, Bytes and Bots. This was a place where the kids could build their own computer games and make stop-action-animation movies and Battle Bots and so on. The place still does birthday parties but they gave up their physical location. Anyway, I dropped the kids there and went to the Fairview Track to run five miles. Then I picked the kids and took them all to Chili's.

We get to Chili's and we eat, and it's late - about 9:30 on a Friday night, in the summertime. I look in my purse and realize I don't have my wallet. Holy smokes, I think, and I send my two big kids, thirteen-year-olds, out to the car to get my wallet. They come back into Chili's and say It's Not There. Oh shiz, I think.

My bad, I should have gone out and checked the car myself. But I'm freaking out that I can't pay for our dinner, and so I ask the server if he can send the manager over. When the manager comes over, this is what he says. "What's going on here?" All he knows is that the server has presented us with the check and that I've asked to see the manager. Very sweetly I say "I'm so sorry, it appears I don't have my wallet. I can call my husband, who is at home, and have him read a credit card number over the phone; or maybe you have another idea, a way that you prefer to be paid in situations like this. I have checks right here, and here is my business card, etc."

The manager is livid. "This is unacceptable," he says, like I'm in fourth grade instead of 46 years old with four kids in tow. I'm in running gear, I've been running, not holding up banks or turning chemicals into meth in my car.

"I am sorry," I say, "has this never happened before?" "Here is what we'll do," says the manager, "you call your husband and have him come over with your credit card." "I don't think that will work," I say. He's at home with our four-year-old, who is sleeping. "Can't he bring the four-year-old with him?" the manager wants to know. "Gosh, it is 2007," I say, "surely we can pay the check without dragging my husband over here. "You need to go home and get it then, and bring it back" says the manager. At this point I'm thinking, maybe Yo Momma wants to drive to my house and back to clear up this earth-shattering $27 issue. "I live here in Boulder," I say. "I come here all the time." (That was true, THEN.) "Surely you can take a credit card number over the phone?"

The manager is fit to be tied, and a real jerk at that. I use my phone to call Michael from the table and explain what happened. Here is the bad part of the story. The manager takes the phone and says to Michael, "Sir, I'm so sorry to disturb you." I just about jump up and strangle him. I am treated like a criminal; with my husband, it's Sir, I'm so sorry to disturb you.

Michael paid with his credit card over the phone and we headed out to the car, where my wallet was lying in front of the passenger seat. Way to look for a wallet, kids! Oh well. I never went back to that Chili's again. Plus, the food was horrible. Kids liked it, though.

House! Russians! Croup! Broadway!

2008-02-08T19:45:00.001-07:00

I was standing on the sledding hill behind our house, with my friend Rick, our neighbor. We were watching the kids sled down the hill and talking about the changes in the neighborhood.

"What do you think about all these scrape-off projects?" asked Rick. There is one next door to us, God's own McMansion going up across the street, and another four or five within a one-block radius of our house. Two of these projects have been featured (or reviled) in the pages of the local paper.

"I am mixed," I said. "I guess the real estate values zooming up are good for all of us, but I don't love living in McMansionville. If someone offered us a decent sum for our house, we might move." So, I put it out there. Then we got a letter from a couple who wanted to buy our house. So, we sold the house. We found another house in South Boulder, nearer to the schools where our middle and eldest kids go.

That's one thing. That's taken up a lot of my time over the past few weeks. Then, we hosted these Russian kids who came through town with a song-and-dance troupe. Here's me, thinking our visit with these Russian teenagers will provide a fascinating glimpse into teenage culture in another country. Please! "LEEZ, I NEED PEEEEEZZZA," is more like it. Pizza, yes, and CHEEPS, and YOGRRRRT, and SPRRRAAAEEEET to drink, and M & Ms, and "LEEZ, WE NEED TO SHOP." As in Target. The two kids were supposed to stay one night, but the truck they were touring in broke down. So it was two nights, and on the second night, there were two extra kids. So we are Russian-teenagered out.

Then, my youngest got croup and ended up in the ER. Scary. He's been home sick from school all week. Lastly, I've got to prepare for an audition. Broadway show tunes. Don't you feel sorry for me? This weekend should get us back on track. If a tree doesn't fall on our house.

Cougar Chat

2008-01-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize that when you send a letter to the editor of the Boulder Daily Camera, and if your letter is too long to be printed in the newspaper, it gets posted on the Letters to the Editor blog. I sent a letter to the Camera in October, when that mountain lion was shot near Nederland.

When I realized that the first letter I'd sent to the Camera was too long for the newspaper, I shortened it and sent it back. My short letter (the first two paragraphs of the version below) ended up in the newpaper. The long version is below, with comments from readers of the Letters to the Editor blog.

The commenter named Rob works for Sinapu, the goofy local organization that promotes wild animal rights, or something. I'm all for wildlife, but a rogue mountain lion is not the cause I'd take up, if I were those Sinapu guys. The sad/funny thing is that whenever Rob leaves a comment on the Boulder Daily Camera community pages, he always says the exact same thing. You can read what he says - a not-incisive, not-profound, kind of pathetic thing about maybe we should just pave over all of nature etc etc - below. Rob, dude, get some new words. Seriously.

Liz Ryan: Renegade Mountain Lion
Posted October 18, 2007

It is astounding that Clay Evans, on behalf of the Camera’s editorial board, castigates Jeremy Kocar for leaving a dog chained on his property while a “well-known” cougar’s dog-eating spree is under way. Evans goes so far as to invite Mr. Kocar to take responsibility for the cougar’s death, causing me to wonder: does Clay Evans have a mirror in his house? How could this “well-known” renegade mountain lion with a taste for dogs have been more widely publicized than right here, in the pages of the Camera? Yet the Camera’s archives include only one story about a cougar making off with a Nederland-area dog, on September 29.

Is Mr Kocar’s chief offense not reading the Camera daily? Couldn’t our area’s largest newspaper have done a little more to let residents know about a dog-eating-lion trend that now appears to have been going on for weeks? Further, wouldn’t the Camera, if not the irresponsible microphone-addicted spokesperson for Sinapu, be the first to encourage the destruction of a lion who’s become so acclimated to human society that it had adopted dogs as its principal prey item? Isn’t that exactly the kind of lion we need fewer of?

Since humans are always to blame when a member of the Boulder wildlife community is killed, injured, threatened or made uncomfortable, I’m still wondering about the silence in the humans-must-pay department where the Easter weekend mauling of a small boy on Flagstaff is concerned. Was it the little boy who’s liable somehow -- or his parents, for presuming to walk with him down a trail and across a parking lot? Why has it taken Sinapu and the Camera so long to find and prosecute the guilty human in that case?

Given that newcomers to our area aren’t given materials on cougar etiquette in these parts – not by the Camera, or Sinapu, or the town of Nederland, or anyone else – plenty of us are scratching our heads wondering how Jeremy Kocar was expected to know that he’d landed in what may be the only county on the planet that would consider prosecuting a person for shooting a lion when a dog’s head is in its jaws. The arguments against chaining the dog in the yard are ridiculous. An unchained dog – any dog that had been let outside to go potty, as all dogs must be each and every night – would have been just as tempting to a roving lion, and the dogs that weren’t chained in Nederland over these past weeks and were unfortunate enough to be noticed by that lion – well, they’re dead.

Jeremy Kocar did us a favor, and it’s an embarrassment to our town that he’d be treated like a criminal for doing what any pet owner would do under the same circumstances: sensibly, instinctively, and with a more sturdy grasp of the realities of life in the mountains than far too many local pundits and finger-waggers. At times we have to wonder if the Camera editorial board looks for, pounces on, and delights in the opportunity to trash Boulder’s reputation the same way that lion pounced on all those poor dogs. How can we sink any lower?

Liz Ryan
Boulder

Comments

Posted by davidhustvedt on October 18, 2007 at 6:43 p.m.

Well said, Liz.

Posted by BoulderReader on October 19, 2007 at 12:51 a.m.

RIGHT ON!! Liz Ryan, This letter to the editor is a journalistic home run if ever there was one. Clay Evans and the various other human hating lion loving folks at Sinapuu fed you a fat pitch and you hit it out of the park. Good for you.
I seem to recall Clay Evans using the phrase "common sense" in his castigation of Kocar. In fact it is Mr. Evans who lacks common sense on this issue. Finally, some good writing from someone who actually has common sense, and that is Liz Ryan.

Posted by blacksho89 on October 19, 2007 at 6:22 a.m.

People, don't you realize that a person can make a wrong action and then a right one? No one makes all right or all wrong decisions.
It was wrong and stupid for Mr. Kocar to tether his dogs outside in lion country.It was right for him to shoot the lion.
Clay Evan's editorial said that, but maybe he used too many words and his point got lost.

Posted by rob on October 20, 2007 at 11:52 a.m.

Clearly, the problem is that our forebears were not successful enough in turning America into a pastoral utopia, Ms. Ryan. Clearly, what is best, and right, is for us to finish this noble task, for us to ensure that "wild" is finally relegated to the annals of history. Clearly, we deserve to be safe from everything. For it is we noble humans who have been chosen by God to have dominion over all, and the only way to ensure dominion is to relegate Nature to a jar.

Isn't that that the lamest thing you've ever read? If you wanted to leave a biting, sardonic comment, you could do a lot better than that. I mean, if you were a sixth-grader. Sad.

Puffy

2008-01-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

Last March, for Declan's birthday, we got him a guinea pig. He named the guinea pig Puffy.

On his notebook at school, Dec would write "March 26, 2007." That was the day we brought Puffy home. She was little - the smallest guinea pig in the store. We figure she was a few months old when we got her.

The day we got Puffy, Caty and I went out to do some shopping, and Declan discovered a small fire burning in our boiler room. Michael turned off the boiler and called the fire department. He put out the fire with cat litter. It was a lot of excitement. Caty and I missed all the commotion. Everything was done by the time we got home. Declan says "I wonder if Puffy was scared by the noise." He thought it was cool that Puffy got to see real firemen on her first day in our house.

Every day Declan brought Puffy out of her cage to play and eat grass outside. He fed her green beans right out of our garden, her favorite food. He brought her in the bathtub. At school, he drew pictures of her.

A couple of nights before Christmas Eve, Darrien, our youngest, came running to find me. I was in the tub. "Something is wrong with Puffy!" he said. Oh no, I thought. Michael said Puffy was walking strangely. I got out of the tub and checked her out. Her legs were moving in a funny way and she seemed cold. "We have to take her to the emergency vet," I said. It was after hours for a regular vet. Michael and Caty took Puffy to the doctor. We waited for them to call. After a while, Michael called to say he was coming home. The doctor wanted to keep Puffy overnight. I tried not to dwell on the financial details. The last time the emergency vet had one of our animals overnight - our rabbit, Rosie - the rabbit died in the morning and the bill was over $1000. Well, what are you gonna do? The guinea pig needs medical attention.

The doctor couldn't say what was wrong with Puffy. Maybe nothing is wrong, he said. We'll warm her up and watch her. It is hard to treat a guinea pig. Maybe she'll warm up and be fine, he said. So Michael and Caty came home. Declan went to sleep.

A few hours later the doctor called us back. It was almost midnight. I'm sorry, he said, Puffy is not doing well. She was having seizures. He still didn't know what was wrong. I guess guinea pigs are tough animals to treat. He asked us about extraordinary measures. But he said nothing was likely to help. Guinea pigs are prey animals, and they don't have much in the way of resources. He put Puffy to sleep.

We had to wake Declan and tell him. We didn't want him to wake up the next morning and hear about Puffy from one of the kids. The poor guy was devastated. We stayed up until two a.m. trying to console him. He thought it was his fault Puffy died. He thought he would have her until he went into middle school, at least.

The next day Dec and I had two Revels performances. I was glad, because the shows took his mind off his sadness. The adults in the cast were very kind. They talked to him about how he'd been a good caretaker and friend to Puffy even though he didn't have her for a long time.

Declan will be ten in a few months. He is deciding whether or not to get another guinea pig for his birthday. He still misses Puffy a lot. He talks about her every day. She was a sweet little guinea pig. She had a little burbling sound that let you know when she was happy - for instance when she got a green bean out of our garden.

Typically Boulder, part two

2007-12-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

These are the baritone players in the Fairview Marching Knights marching band. Are they relevant to this post? They are not. My son Mac is in the gang, and I haven't posted this photo before, and it's colorful, so it's heading up this post about a different topic.

I was talking with my friend Susan. I was telling her about my friend Sally and her husband, Archie. "Wait!" said Susan. "I know Archie." "How do you know Archie?" I wanted to know. Susan couldn't remember. Sally and Archie don't live in our little 94,000-person burg. They live near Denver. Still, we're in the same business ecosystem. It's not that big.

You begin to get the feeling that everyone you know around here knows everyone else you know. It's a funny feeling: good, creepy, good again.

You only have to start talking to a person for a little while before you come on these mutual associations. When this happened from time to time back in Chicago, or before that in New York, I'd be shocked. Unless folks worked in the same industry or hung around with the same people, it just didn't happen that often.

One time, I got a catch-up email message from my friend Patrick, in Russia. Patrick had been a grad school classmate of mine. He'd gotten bored at his Chicago bank job and had taken off for a remote part of Russia when the Soviet Union was breaking up, to help start a bank there. He may still be there. Anyway, Pat sends this email update and he leaves all the cc: names visible. I'm surprised to see that one of my workmates at the time, Bill, was on the list. "Geez, Bill, how do you know Pat?" I asked him. "We went to grade school together," he said. Chicago has five or six million folks in it - city and suburbs - so that's a coincidence. I sang at Bill's wedding, as it turned out. Didn't sing a Pat's wedding - it was in Russia.

This kind of thing happens all the time here. In Boulder you only have to say "You know Jane Smith, the realtor?" and the person you're talking with will say, "I don't know her, but she sold my boss her house." It happens with me, even. People say, "Are you Liz Ryan, from the Camera?" and then I say yes, and they say "My next-door neighbor's kids take piano lessons with your kids." Alrighty, then. It's because I made a doodle in my kids' piano teacher's studio and she's got it up on the corkboard - it has my name on it.

Her name is Lisa Harrington, this piano teacher; and she's just gotten her MA in piano performance from CU, so we're preparing some music together (piano and vocal) and perhaps we'll do a concert before long. French art songs, so far.

I often have the feeling standing in the grocery-store line that I've got connections to all the other people in line, if only we knew about them; but we're too busy, as we've got to get dinner on the table. My kids' favorite: chicken (with Shake-n-Bake).

The Grit-Free Life

2007-12-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

The other day my daughter asked me, "Have you felt physically afraid since we've lived in Boulder?"

I had to think about that for a minute.
After a little thought, I said, "Yes, I have, a couple of times."

"Several times, when I've been running on the creek path and it's gotten dark, I've thought, 'This might not be the best place to be running here.'"

"You were afraid of getting mugged or stabbed?" she asked.

"No way!" I said. "That never entered my mind. I was afraid of mountain lions. There's a place on the creek path near Eben Fine Park where you pass one of those educational signs that has a mountain lion on it, and it reminds you that you're in mountain lion territory. and of course, nine out of ten times when I run past it, it's just hitting dusk and there's no one around. Then I feel really stupid, and vulnerable."

"What about fear of humans?" my daughter wants to know.

"Not once, not for one second," I said. "It's just not that crime-y around here."
"It's boring," she said. "Did you ever feel afraid of human beings, in Chicago?"

"Ha!" I told her. "I'd say that in 22 years, I was worried about the person walking behind me about 100 times - let's say four to five times a year. One time, I maced a guy. Lots of times, I hailed a cab when I didn't really want to pay cabfare, just to get away from a sketchy neighborhood at a weird time of day, or night. Oh, yes. I've had a million of those experiences. Everyone in Chicago probably has."

Her questions caused me to think. When we were moving to Colorado from Chicago, our friends were shocked. People who'd spent time in these parts said "You're going to hate it out there! There's no -- no grit!" Now, I see what they mean. Boulder is almost entirely gritless, our grimy 7-Eleven notwithstanding. Denver isn't all that gritty, either. That's fine with me. Denver logs about 50 murders a year, Boulder County about one. Chicago is hovering around the 1000-murder mark. Even on a per-capita basis, they've got us beat by a mile.

I didn't go in search of suburban squeaky-cleanliness or danger-free living, although that's pretty much what you find here. It doesn't bother me. Even our neighborhood in Evanston, on the Chicago border, was plagued by street crime, and a kid got shot and killed not a mile from our house not too long before we came West. A guy got knifed on our street. I don't miss that kind of thing.

I took a cab to DIA one time before I figured out the Super Shuttle thing, and the cabdriver had been raised in New York City, in Stuyvesant Town. He regaled me with stories of playing stickball and hitching rides on the backs of city buses and stealing food from vendors' street carts. He said "My kids were all raised here in Colorado. It's a great place to raise kids. Of course, they wouldn't last a minute on the streets of New York."

Okay, it's a tradeoff. Works pretty well for me.

Well, what the heck. I just found this on MSN. I wasn't looking for it. Good news.

Typically Boulder

2007-12-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Here is the story. I sang in Revels on Sunday, two shows. The first one was sold out and the second one was pretty full too. I was completely wiped afterward - Declan wanted me to take him to the KFC drive-through and I was almost too exhausted to manage it.

Back on work on Monday. I went to see my friend Susan Bateman present an Outlook workshop at the Boulder Chamber. If you ever want to realize how little you know about Outlook, you should go to Susan's class.

There, I met the woman who runs the SBDC in Boulder, Sharon King. She said, "Did you go to the Fairview choir-and-orchestra night, Extravaganza?" I allowed as how I had indeed gone to that. "Were you talking to my mother, who was visiting from New York?" Yup, that was me. Such a small world! That is Boulder.

Then a man came up to me and said "Good job in Revels!" He had been to both shows on Sunday. I was sitting in the back row of the Outlook class minding my own business. Still, it is a small world around here.

It's always a pleasant surprise when we make these connections, but over time it's getting to be just pleasant, not even a surprise any more. One hundred thousand people who all know one another, not a bad thing.

Weather Exists

2007-12-13T12:58:00.001-07:00

I took a long walk with my friend Tamara this morning; it was absolutely gorgeous out, and although we were ready for the 20-something-degree cold in gloves and hats, we were passed every few minutes by runners wearing teeshirts and running tights, and nothing more.

If you like four seasons, you can't beat Boulder's weather. Even when it's cold, it's tremendous.

I grew up in snowy Pittsburgh and then in New Jersey and New York. You forget, when you don't live in New York, how miserable it can be to huddle against the wind on those sub-zero days when the buildings and the sidewalks seem to make everything even colder and less hospitable. I love New York. But I'll never forget the time I took my son Darrien, then about six months old, on a business trip with me to New York, and spent three days pushing a stroller against that wind....and trying to vain to get a cab to stop for us. I'd park the stroller in a doorway, run out to the street to hail a cab, and then, when the cab stopped, open the door so that the driver couldn't dash off. I'd run back to the doorway, grab the stroller and try to get back to the cab and get in before the driver realized it was a mom and a baby he was picking up. Brutal.

I lived in Chicago for twenty-two years. When I got there at age 19, it was August and the weather was glorious. It took about three months for the weather to turn rotten. And boy, did it turn. The second or third winter I spent in Chicago, I was completely overwhelmed by the cold and the grayness. One day, standing up on the L platform at Belmont trying to catch what little heat was emitted by the overhead lamp, I heard a fellow commuter say "it's 82 below, with the wind chill" and I had to fight not to start crying. That is just too cold.

But it's weird what happened. I didn't move away. I love Chicago - always will. I became a weather denier, instead. I decided that weather doesn't matter. I drew a parallel in my mind between people who care about the weather and shallow people who sip lattes and get manicures all day long.

I looked at pictures of people in places like -well, like Colorado - and decided that they must not read books. Look at that skier, Picabo Street! She's healthy. Her cheeks are red. But my kids listen to "The Magic Flute." That was my thought process.

I thought that if you complained about the weather, you were vapid and inconsequential.

My brother Pete had a great job at the University of San Diego. He lived there for ten years. He left San Diego and that great job for the foothills, up in the mountains between Modesto and Tahoe. Two hours from Sacramento, anyway. Way out there. He left what people say is the best-weather city in the county. So that goes to show you. Weather is only one small item on the list of attributes that makes a place livable. Right?

I was a weather denier right up until the time I moved to Colorado in '01. Finally I had to face reality. Weather exists, and it matters. Now that I am here, I can't believe that I survived so long in the gray and the cold.

It would be one thing if horrible weather added years to your life or took inches off your waistline! But there are no hidden benefits to living in an unfortunate climate. None that I can see.

The color of the sky matters. The first thing I notice now when I travel to grayer places is the color of the sky.

This morning I had to beg my kids to wear real jackets to school, not just their Rockies and Nuggets and Buffs and White Sox sweatshirts over their teeshirts. They said "But it's not cold, Mom!" It was 21 on the thermometer, but you know, it really wasn't cold.

Yesterday, Michael and I talked awhile outside our house while I brushed snow off my car. He said, "Man, it's hot!" The thermometer read 35 degrees. It was kind of hot, in the sun. I have a sweatshirt on now, and it's around 30. It's sunny. The sun is blinding. I need to find my prescription sunglasses.

Does this make me shallow?

Bose-Einstein Condensate and Bud's Triumph

2007-12-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

I am singing in this Rocky Mountain Revels production, and one of my fellow singers is Eric Cornell. He is an awesome Mummer. Eric won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2001 for producing the Bose-Einstein condensate, by supercooling rubidium atoms. Every time I supercool rubidium atoms, all I get is a kind of pink slush that I eat with a spoon while I'm watching "America's Next Top Model." Could be the bootleg rubidium atoms I bought online. They smelled a little funny when I opened the box.

Anyway, my friend Jonathan (J-GRIF), who is way on top of things, filled me in on the aftermath of the Boulder High-Fairview High game that I wrote about earlier. Here's what he said:

After that game, there was an announcement made at BHS. The announcement said that if the kids did that chanting thing at another football game, then the game would be cancelled and Boulder High would forfeit.

Whoa!

Good solution, Bud. Direct. Simple. Forceful.

Way to go!

Rocky Mountain Revels!

2007-11-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

It is Revels time again -- nearly! This year our show is called "An Irish Christmas." That is Rick, me and Cole over to the left - a teeny version of us. Good thing, in my case. There's a bigger postcard here.

We are rehearsing like crazy. We sing a few songs in Gaelic, and the rest in English. Our theme is the Irish emigration to the US circa 1890. The show is set on the docks in Cobh, in Ireland - we're all Irish immigrants about to head to Boston, USA on the U.S.S. "Ethiopia."

This is my third Revels, ditto for my son Declan. Last year, my son Eamonn and daughter Caty performed also. Revels came from Cambridge,

Massachusetts and has spread across the U.S. The Rocky Mountain Revels is the youngest Revels group in the nation. This is our seventh year in Boulder.

The show is like a cross between a concert, a pageant and a play - a Solstice celebration. It's a holiday tradition for a lot of people.

The music is fantastic -- we sing, we dance, we have a brass band and a fiddle-and-harp band - and a wonderful Irish piper, Jeff Bain. We do a traditional Mummer's Play - this year it features St. Patrick, of course. And we have the North American Irish Step-Dancing Champ, Alexandra Siega, dancing with us!

The photo at left shows the traditional Sword Dance, another Revels staple. We do an Abbots Bromley dance, as well. That's a traditional English dance. They started performing that dance in the village of Abbots Bromley around 1226. There was no Switzerland at the time - that's an old dance.

There is also a traditional English Morris Dance in the show.

Here is a musical snippet of one of the songs in the show, the Wexford Carol. It sounds better when we sing it in parts, than in this clip - but you can hear that it's a wonderful tune. Here is another of our songs, "St. Patrick's Breastplate."

We'll be performing the Rocky Mountain Revels show "An Irish Christmas" at the Boulder Theater over two weekends in December. More details here. Our Musical Director is Karen Romeo, and our Stage Director is Donna Patton. Our choreographer is Elizabeth Barton.

The Revels cast members are a diverse group -- software engineers and real estate mavens and pianists and lawyers and green-housing consultants and entrepreneurs and biologists and ultracold-matter physicists - you know, your usual community-theatre crew. Got to keep that corpus callosum humming!

All Seventies Classic Hits, All the Time

2007-10-24T10:44:00.000-06:00

Man! I need to find my digital camera. I need to shoot some pictures of my neighborhood. You won't believe the house construction going on all around us. One complete tear-down across the street, one 100% gut job next door and The Alamo around the corner, with the original early-20th-century cabin, the one the city required the owners to keep intact, stuck on the front of it like an afterthought. The cabin is going to be the entryway. The rest of the house is the Alamo.

Next door, the construction guys have the hits of the Seventies blasting, and I mean "Green Eyed Lady, Passion Lady" and "Seasons of the Sun" and I'm not even making that up. I can't podcast. I can hardly talk on the phone. "Liz, what's wrong, are you in a quarry where they're blasting today?" Yes, basically I am. I planted bulbs yesterday - the poor things are likely to die from the jackhammer shocks. I had to get away this morning, so I went with my friend Tamara to walk on the South Boulder Creek Trail. It was glorious. We want to get ten friends together and buy ten acres out near Cherryvale Road and sign a covenant that says do whatever you want except no McMansions. Are you in?

No Halloween Celebration at Broomfield's Kohl Elementary

2007-10-05T08:38:00.000-06:00

Oh man, come on, are you seriously kidding me? Broomfield's Kohl Elementary has banned Halloween celebrating and costume-wearing at school, over the protests of parents. They say that some kids feel left out if they can't afford costumes or if their families don't celebrate Halloween.

Here you go: free consulting. You have families donate gently worn Halloween costumes and accessories and have them in the classroom for kids to borrow - either to add sizzle to the costume they wore to school, or to use if they don't have costumes of their own. Every school has extra jackets, shirts and pants for the kids to borrow. I know when my kindergartener had a little accident at school, because he arrives home in strange pants. I wash 'em and send 'em back. No big.

The "some families don't celebrate Halloween" is a horrible argument to stop celebrating a fun thing for kids, at school. Lookit. My husband and I make decisions that have effects on our kids, all the time. For instance, we don't ski. There are maybe seven of us in Boulder who don't ski. It's expensive and we're not into it. So our kids suffer ill effects, because all their friends ski. We say to them, "Whaddya gonna do, we just don't ski." Some families are not into Thanksgiving and Columbus Day because of the politico-historical baggage. I get that. Should all kids stop doing Thanksgiving and Columbus day stuff at school, as a result?

Here's the story in the Camera.

This is the goofiest decision ever. Some kids aren't into Valentines, so let's kill that little rite, and then move on to birthday cupcakes, because some kids don't celebrate birthdays. It would be one thing if Halloween were a [current] religious holiday. But it's not. One of the best books I ever read was A Sideways Look at Time, which talks at length about cultural traditions and folk rituals and the importance of celebration and tradition. Halloween at school is one of the few we have left. Let the kids do it, for Pete's sake.

Now, here's a hypothetical situation. Here in Boulder we are pretty loose about schoolday attire. Kids show up to school in all kinds of wild outfits. What would happen if some of those Kohl Elementary kids came to school as fairies and whatnot on Halloween? Would they be sent home? Sad and ill-advised, my view, this Broomfield principal's decision.

Bud's Overwhelmed

2007-10-03T17:32:00.001-06:00

I took my kids to the Boulder-Fairview football game, the first game of the season. These are two rival high schools in Boulder. Why are they rivals? Beats me. My son plays for the Fairview Marching Knights, the marching band. That's why we went to the game.

I remember football games in high school. Granted, it was thirty years ago. They were fun. This Boulder-Fairview game was bad news. Right from the get, the Boulder side started chanting "F*ck You Fairview" and didn't let up for the entire game. How do you explain that chant to a five-year-old?

There was a burning shirt thrown into the crowd, that burned someone. The Boulder PD were called when a few people reported a guy in the bushes with a gun. It was really a mess. I took our small kids home at halftime. There was no crowd control of any kind, no folks with flashlights or fluorescent vests, none o' that stuff you expect when 6000 rowdy people are in one place together.

So the next day I wrote to Bud Jenkins, the Principal of Boulder High.

Dear Mr. Jenkins,

I took my five young kids to the first football game of the season last night. The colors and the dancers and the lights were all exciting for them. But when the Boulder High side of the stadium began chanting, “F*ck you, Fairview” I didn’t know what to tell my kids.

I figured that the adults in the Boulder stands would get the profane chanting to stop, but it continued throughout the whole game. How do I explain that? Here is a high-school sporting event, and hundreds of people are chanting a curse word at the opposing team and fans. Where is the adult supervision? I could see Band leadership, Cheer and Poms leaders, plenty of adults in attendance. Even at a Rockies game, you are told that cursing will get you thrown out of the game. Why didn’t the announcer last night deliver the same warning to the Boulder students? I can’t really understand why that level of unsportsmanlike behavior would be tolerated. Can you please share your thoughts? I would love to be able to help my kids understand why that kind of thing would be tolerated at a school event.

Thanks so much,

Liz Ryan

Here's what Bud wrote back:

Because it happen does not mean that it is tolerated.

That's his reply to me, verbatim (no "Dear Liz" or "Sincerely, Bud" or "s" on the end of "happen")

Here's what I wrote him back:

Bud, what is the evidence that it’s not tolerated? It sure looks like it was tolerated. How could one take away the impression that it’s not tolerated when it continues throughout the game? Three easy interventions that certainly wouldn’t have hurt:

1) Make an announcement on the PA system that profanity won’t be tolerated.
2) BHS-associated adults in the audience could have let the kids under their supervision know that they don’t approve and tell them to stop.
3) Eject kids who use profanity.

Come on! That is really the weakest response I could have imagined!
Yours,

Liz Ryan

And here's what Bud wrote to me:

Did you come over to the visitor’s stands? We had 2 police officers and 3 assistant principals trying to contain 1400 students in a tight and confined area. We stopped the cheers several times –then it becomes a contest between adults and kids. There were bigger issues to deal with than just what the kids were cheering and we did eject students from the game.

Bigger issues to deal with? Why am I not gaining confidence in the adult supervision, the more I read?

So then I wrote:

Dear Bud, thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. It's alarming that there would be security issues at all at a high school football game - isn't that the purpose of crowd control and security planning? How could any parent take comfort in sending a kid to the game when the principal of the high school says that it isn't possible to control the kids? I mean, it's alarming. I wish you the best of luck in getting the situation under control.

Yours, Liz

And here's Bud's reply:

The real issue is we are dealing with an out-dated facility that cannot handle 6,000 people. It is the reality that we live with. We continue to address these issues, work with kids, and hope to provide a safe environment for everyone.
Bud Jenkins
Principal
Boulder High School
303-447-5324

Now, maybe it's just me, but I couldn't help but wonder: if the facility can't handle 6000 people, why are you letting 6000 people in? Only people with tickets were admitted. Why not sell fewer tickets? If chanting F*ck You people are the least of your worries, maybe you need a bit more control of the facility. Clearly the two uniformed BPD officers weren't preventing burning shirt-throws and dudes with guns. How do other high schools avoid football-game chaos? Surely there's a way.

Here's what the Boulder Weekly had to say about the game:

Fast times at Boulder High

It’s bigger than Boulder Creek Festival, and way sexier. It draws more attention than Frozen Dead Guy Days and the county fair combined. It’s faster than Bolder Boulder. It’s the annual football match between Boulder High and Fairview — our community’s most sacred rite.This year, Boulder High won big. But football isn’t the essence of this event. It’s about hundreds of high school girls wearing darn near nothing. It’s about high school boys wearing nothing at all, except for blue paint. It’s about streakers, burning apparel and quite possibly a gunman.

In all, Boulder police responded to more than eight complaints during the Sept. 20 game. One 911 complaint told of an armed suspect, dressed in black, hiding in the bushes. No suspect was found. Police arrested a buck-naked streaker as he climbed a fence to gain access to the field. Another nude blue boy got away. An 18-year-old was rushed to the hospital after a fan lit a T-shirt on fire and flung it into the crowd. The burning shirt landed on the victim’s arm, severely burning it.All this fun, and more, occurred on the Boulder High side of the field.

The Fairview section, comprised of clean-cut students in clothes, resembled a tea and crumpets party. So why do readers vote Boulder High as the city’s best high school in our Best of Boulder poll each year? Puh-leeze!Only one response seems appropriate to this Boulder High hedonism: Bring in a panel of middle-aged experts and have them advise students to “masturbate, please masturbate.” At least if they’re busy masturbating they won’t be lighting their classmates on fire.In the meantime, let’s hear it for Fairview! The Knights may have lost the game, but they’ve won our respect.

Here Kitty Kitty

2007-09-11T13:59:00.000-06:00

Here's a story from the Boulder Daily Camera, last week:

Wildlife officials set a trap to catch a mountain lion in Boulder Canyon on Tuesday after a cat killed a miniature horse over the weekend and then showed up at the owner's house both Monday and Tuesday.

Owner Otsie Stowell found the remains of "Bodacious," a 15-year-old pet miniature horse, Sunday morning at his home seven miles up Magnolia Road near Nederland.

"It was pretty sad," said Stowell, who has lived in the area for 27 years and has interacted with mountain lions, bobcats and bears. "But this is part of the urban interface with wildlife. I hate when it happens, but that's the reality of living in the mountains."

"We're concerned the animal could become more aggressive," said Jennifer Churchill, spokeswoman for the northeastern Colorado region of the state Division of Wildlife.

Here is the rest of the story. The photo above is Mr. Stowell, whose horse got eaten.

Okay, where do we start on this? Jennifer from the DOW is afraid that the animal might get more aggressive. Eating the 400-lb. horse isn't too aggressive? How much does your kid weigh? I don't have any kids that weigh 400 lbs. My biggest kid might weigh 130 lbs. because he's in high school. I know for sure that my little one weighs 36 lbs. How aggressive does the mountain lion have to be to eat my 36-lb. kid? The kid doesn't even have hooves to fend off the mountain lion, like Bodacious did.

Here are the comments from the Daily Camera comment page. I agree with Rocsi: if it's wrong to kill the mountain lion who was only doing what he does naturally, why not let the tsetse fly alone, too? Why eradicate mosquitoes who carry West Nile virus? Come to think of it, the virus is a living thing too! Leave it alone! You know, the animals were here first. I let rats run through my house all the time, because they were here first. I let mice make nests in my hair. Sometimes when I get uppity and think that I'm a species too, and I read thick natural history books that say that all species compete for space, then I remember and slap myself for thinking that. Mountain lions rule. People suck. Just say that to yourself over and over.

Posted by just_ice on September 5, 2007 at 6:22 a.m.
so we just kill it? what about the next one?

Posted by mepeet on September 5, 2007 at 7:10 a.m.
The next one will be small and cuddly.

Posted by boulderhippie on September 5, 2007 at 7:30 a.m.
would we euthanize the horse had it killed the lion?

Posted by biill on September 5, 2007 at 7:34 a.m.
Otsie Stowell why don’t you keep animals like that in at night? It is a toy animal they don’t do well with bears and mountain lions. Maybe you should move to Westminster where they already killed all the wildlife and you and you toy animals don’t have to be afraid.

Posted by sitongia on September 5, 2007 at 7:42 a.m.
Very sad. Otsie seems to understand the risk of living with wildlife. The lion will be killed because it watched him? How often to lions watch us when we don't see them? Don't kill the lion, relocate it.

Posted by just_ice on September 5, 2007 at 8:21 a.m.
PLEASE don't kill the lion.

Posted by wscguy on September 5, 2007 at 8:22 a.m.
toy horses have no business being near wilderness land and I don't want to see this mountain lion killed. People just either need to adapt and accept that there are wild animals in the mountains or move to the city and deal with drug pushers and gangs.

Posted by gsegiet on September 5, 2007 at 8:25 a.m.
Maybe we should just kill all the mountain lions and then we can have herds of wild miniature horses galloping around the front range. It'll be just like the old west, when we had herds of wild horses - just smaller...

Posted by Xenu on September 5, 2007 at 8:30 a.m.

Toy horse = lion entree

Posted by jpmorganwsod on September 5, 2007 at 8:32 a.m.

JERRY: I didn't know she had a pony. How was I to know she had a pony? Who figures an immigrant's going to have a pony? Do you know what the odds are onthat? I mean, in all the pictures I saw of immigrants on boats coming into New York harbor, I never saw one of them sitting on a pony. Why would anybody come here if they had a pony? Who leaves a country packed with ponies to come to a non-pony country? It doesn't make sense... am I wrong?

Posted by john_cocktosin on September 5, 2007 at 8:43 a.m.
Not a surprise. An NFL players' pittbull killed a miniature horse last year.

Posted by biill on September 5, 2007 at 8:46 a.m.
Was the lion really watching Otsie Stowell or did he just say that so the lion would be killed?Forest Service policy is simple and easy to manipulate.

Posted by barney on September 5, 2007 at 8:56 a.m.
Stupid horse!

Posted by Xenu on September 5, 2007 at 8:57 a.m.
Let's stock the forests with toy horses so the mountain lions have enough to eat.

Posted by wscguy on September 5, 2007 at 9:23 a.m.
The mountain lion was watching Otis because he was hoping the human would get out of the way so he, the lion, could go finish eating the rest of that tasty little mini horse. Now if you really want to have some fun, let's build a dog park right next to the foothills. I think the mountain lions would love us and leave mini horse alone. But in reality, the only reason that the mtn lions are coming close to homeowners and their pets is because people keep on building homes in the mountain lion's territory. I would be pissed off too and go eat some of your stupid pets if I were one of them.

Posted by cmaninco on September 5, 2007 at 10:12 a.m.
Relocate the Lion Please! Why Kill it? It was just doing what it normally does. It's not responsible for an easy meal. Relocate the dumb owner back to the city if he doesn't want wildlife in the mountains.

Posted by mermaidisland on September 5, 2007 at 10:27 a.m.
This reminds me of a meeting with the DOW at the library a couple of years ago...there was a guy there who was incensed that the foxes and lions were eating the FREE RANGE CHICKENS he had on his property. I was in stitches when my young son said, "what is the matter with this guy?! Isn't he listening to what the lady is saying??" Even though Mr Stowell seems to understand the risks of having domestic animals in big cat territory, he continues to do so (and leave them outside!), so I figure that it's HIS problem, not the cat's. He has just provided a convenient food source for them. Tough news for the cat, though, who obviously knows a good thing when he sees it. Very sad that we don't recognize the REAL danger when it's right in front of us...if there were no pretty little horses sitting in mountain fields, the cats would be forced to go look for deer like they always used to do!

Posted by mikeyeatsurf on September 5, 2007 at 10:37 a.m.
How dare that mountain lion live in the mountains! Stupid Lion!
If I were the mountain lion I would have eaten the horse too. Dont kill the poor thing for just obeying its instincts. Relocate the lion deeper into the mountains and relocate the owner back to Denver where he wont have to worry about any wildlife at all!

Posted by weshock on September 5, 2007 at 10:48 a.m.

Kill, kill, kill. That's all we seem to know lately. This kind of stupidity is what nearly wiped out the mountain lion, wolves, bob cats, and coyottes in the days of the wild west. I am disgusted by this answer to an animal doing what is natural. I'm sorry for the horse, that it had such a stupid owner. I live near open space with coyottes prowling around at night. I also have three cats and two dogs which I realize to be potential food for the coyottes. Do you think for one minute I would be such a fool as to let my animals out without supervision so that they would be eaten???? And if I did I certainly would not expect the coyottes to be killed for my stupidity. Let's start a petition - DO NOT KILL THAT LION. There is a huge stretch of land on the western slope - relocate the lion!!!!!

Posted by rob on September 5, 2007 at 11:29 a.m.

Sinapu strongly encourages the DOW to let this lion live. See posting at:
http://www.sinapu.org/
Wendy Keefover-RingDirector, Carnivore Protection ProgramSinapuwendy@sinapu.org303.447.8655, Ext. 1#

Posted by JustSayin on September 5, 2007 at 11:58 a.m.
A known predator is in your yard, its killed a domestic animal that relied on you for its safety and well-being. You see it the next day feeding on said dead animal and don't do anything. After three days you think "Duh, maybe I should call someone?" Hey there, good neighbor! Thanks for thinking about the children down the street!
Please, all you predator huggers, please, please, please go up to the Stowell property, sit down in the grass, and peacefully protest what you see as injustice (injust_ice?). Do so at dawn or dusk. Ignore that tingling feeling you might feel as if you're being watched - or stalked. It's natural. Be sure not to fight back when the fangs sink in..........

Posted by Pearl on September 5, 2007 at 12:14 p.m."predator huggers" (JustSayin)
It's that sort of ignorant comment that makes people tune out everything else you have to say.

Posted by wscguy on September 5, 2007 at 12:16 p.m.
JustSayin, please go back to the city with your type of thinking and disillusionment.

Posted by mermaidisland on September 5, 2007 at 12:22 p.m.
Scary how eager the DOW is to placate the ignorants amongst us. Killing this mountain lion simply allows for another to take its place in the territory. So does relocation, which means that people like Mr Stowell need to make a choice: live with 'em (i.e., take precautions and keep your beloved pets inside!) or move.

Posted by Xenu on September 5, 2007 at 12:22 p.m.
Wildlife is scary. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Posted by yamar73 on September 5, 2007 at 12:23 p.m.
These stories seem to prompt people to say we are living in the lion's territory(or bear's, wolf's,etc). Where exactly is human territory? Anywhere a human lives will be in some other species' territory. I don't want this animal killed, and would not report such an incident so as to save the animal, but I don't necessarily believe that the lion owns this territory. I think when humans live in an area with predators such as lions, those humans need to consider the risks and deal with them without destroying the lion. Like maybe not having vulnerable livestock/pets roaming their property. Cohabitation.

Posted by sierra5701 on September 5, 2007 at 12:25 p.m.
Big Red, a 2-yr old deep red lion, didn't know better either and CDOW shot him last November for killing a few miniature goat after he missed some Mule deer. Why? It was cheaper than trapping. There are two types of livestock owners - responsible and irresponsible. In lion country responsible owners lock up colts and calves at night until they can run fast to AVOID WILDLIFE CONFLICTS. Is it too hard to understand in this case that avoidance of this lion-horse conflict could have been avoided? Otsie, you live in Mtn. lion habitat! If this cat is killed be ready because the next lion might be the "cat from Hell" and then - maybe - you will stop being so, as Mike Vick calls it, immature.

Posted by dixonddesign on September 5, 2007 at 12:28 p.m.
Of course the lion is going to return to the site of his cache - and prey on easy to catch food. The domesticated horse doesn't have the instinct of wild game to freakin evade becoming dinner - don't kill the cat.

Posted by Sea_Bass on September 5, 2007 at 12:32 p.m.
Cougars can be pretty scary. Especially the ones at Elway's restaurant and the Cool River Steakhouse after they've had a few shots.

Posted by Brewstro on September 5, 2007 at 12:33 p.m.
Thanks for all the help Sinapu. If it were up to your organization this would be a much more frequent occurrence. Yeah right poor horse! It was just another chance to whore out your website.
"Sinapu is dedicated to the restoration and protection of native carnivores and their wild habitat in the Southern Rockies, and connected high plains and deserts""We aim to restore grizzly bears, wolves, wolverine, and lynx to the Southern Rocky Mountains."
QUALIFICATIONS
Wendy---"Prior to joining Sinapu’s staff, Previously, she worked at The Land and Water Fund of the Rockies and as a paralegal.She holds an M.A in history"Billie---"She holds a B.A in Anthropology as well as a B.A. in Art History from the University of Colorado"Rob---"Rob has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Boston"Kimberly---Kim worked as the development director for Environmental Volunteers, a leading environmental education organization in the San Francisco Bay Area Kim holds a professional certificate in Nonprofit Management from San Jose State University and an M.S. in Political Science.
WOW!!!!!!!! These seem like some highly qualified people to manage our wildlife. A paralegal an art history major and 2 political scientists. How vast their knowledge must be of wildlife management in Colorado including but not limited to predators and "lazy elk". Yes deer populations and elk populations need to be managed and so do predators. Let the people who are actually knowledgeable and qualified handle it. http://wildlife.state.co.us

Posted by nunemaj on September 5, 2007 at 1:08 p.m.
Most mountain folk, especially long-timers like Mr. Stowell, know that sometimes your dog (or horse) will get eaten by a predator. He admits that. I think most of you missed the point. The animal is not going to be euthanized because it ate the horse. It is because the cat appeared to be too comfortable staying that close to people for such a length of time. Personally, I would rather like to see relocation of such animals, but I'm not familiar with how well such tactics work, so I'm not in a position to criticize. That being said, I'm kind of surprised that the remains of the horse were left out for the cat to return to for several days. Seems like the remains ought to have been cleaned up as soon as it was safe to do so.

Posted by Xenu on September 5, 2007 at 1:16 p.m.

Wildlife killings must be decided by people with the most letters after their name. And graduates of Yale are allowed to kill pretty much anything and anybody they want, especially Iraqis.

Posted by mallardx on September 5, 2007 at 1:21 p.m.

Well done Brewstro, I know I always consult Art History majors about wildlife management whenever an issue arises. Oh wait, I mean I consult them when I want to order a latte at Starbucks.

Posted by sierra5701 on September 5, 2007 at 1:24 p.m.
Okay, Brewstro, I posted my comment as Sierra5701, and I have an MS and PhD in wildlife fields. I have killed about everything that walks or craws when necessary. I sure am sorry that you didn't use your time to educate folks that the Division of Wildlife, in all 50 states, mainly depend on persons that buy licenses per federal and state laws to fund their wildlife management programs. Looking at wildlife does not pay the bills of managing wildlife. Not you, Brewstro - but others - I must ask you if you have any idea what over-population by wildlife species will cause? None of these animals have inoculations against disease. On the other hand, Huggers, will you be happy when the local evening news reports that "23 wolves, 3 mountain lions, and 7 grizzly bear were killed today to protect humans that built homes on privately owned property in the City of Boulder? We need to put our money where our mouth is.

Posted by jvermin on September 5, 2007 at 1:27 p.m. Hell Yeah Sea Bass,
"Why must I chase the Cat. it's just the dog in me."
Save a horsie eat a Puma

Posted by dragon on September 5, 2007 at 2:02 p.m.

the only reason the lion ate the horse is because he loves oats, and I see why, oats are really good for people and lions too, my cat at home loves to eat oatmeal with me, especially if it has bananas and yogurt in it.

Posted by tehtinycheeseminion on September 5, 2007 at 2:07 p.m
Don't kill the lion for needing to eat. Make the human put the little horse away or get a bigger horse.

Posted by RSTEVE on September 5, 2007 at 2:22 p.m.
Dragon - you are most certainly a boulder hippie. Probably some foolish mountain biker.....

Posted by dragon on September 5, 2007 at 2:25 p.m.
I do not ride those things for fear of the unknown, around every corner is something that I can not forsee, that is why I sit in the dark(except for my computer screen) and just stay safe. I love to pet my cats though and that is very safe for everyone

Posted by wiliauk on September 5, 2007 at 2:30 p.m.
I blame the oil companies for any mountain lions being killed in Boulder. If the price of gas was not so high, the DOW could afford to relocate this wild animal someplace where it would not interfere with anyone else. In the DOW's eyes, a bullet is a lot cheaper than a tank of gas.

Posted by barney on September 5, 2007 at 3:41 p.m.
It's just a stupid mt lion people...jeesh, lighten up...Would you be whining and crying yourselves into a fit of huggable cutsie animal love if the thing were allowed to live and then ate a person? From the tone of some of your comments you probably would love to see a person getting eaten for "Being in the mt lions home"That's the most self - riteous, ignorant argument out there...Guess what people...Humans live here. This is our home too!

Posted by jhollow on September 5, 2007 at 3:58 p.m.
Live in Boulder County, and you are living with mountain lions, black bears, deer, prairie dogs and skunks that spray your porch coyotes in the face now and then. What of it? More people are attacked and on occasion killed by fellow apes in Boulder County every year. Should we harvest some alpha males each year to control our population?

Posted by JustSayin on September 5, 2007 at 4:33 p.m.
^ don't just target the alpha males! Practice equality and harvest female breeders, also. Any good biologist knows that controlling the population of fecund females is the key to controlling population.

Posted by shusheez on September 5, 2007 at 8:41 p.m.
Here KITTY,KITTY,KITTY

Posted by ndb on September 5, 2007 at 9:18 p.m.
Killing this mountain lion is an act of cowardness. It has done nothing wrong. It simply wants to eat and survive...much like us. Accusing the animal of being "too comfortable" around the situation is subjective and not an indicator of future aggressiveness toward humans. No need to kill it.

Posted by karenm on September 5, 2007 at 9:18 p.m.
Maybe people who want to have mini horses in the mountains should keep them in a barn at night.

Posted by rocsci on September 6, 2007 at 9:24 a.m.
"Killing this mountain lion is an act of cowardness. It has done nothing wrong. It simply wants to eat and survive...much like us. "
...and if it killed a kid waiting for a school bus along Magnolia Rd.? It simply wants to eat and survive, right?

Posted by rocsci on September 6, 2007 at 10:57 a.m.

"Killing this mountain lion is an act of cowardness. It has done nothing wrong. It simply wants to eat and survive...much like us. "
...and why stop at mountain lions? Surely all god's creatures deserve to eat and survive. Let's not take steps to kill the pine beetles or, for that matter, any bacteria or virus that might result in our sickness or death. Surely they simply want to eat and survive too. Where does it stop?

Posted by iguana on September 6, 2007 at 8:35 p.m.
This is a problem, but killing the animal is not a good idea. it is a predator and they eat other animals. we should stop this from happining again by either giving them something to eat (introducing a new spiecies) or moving them to where they have natural prey. we are also hunters and we kill animals for meat. some would say that is wrong, but it is the natural way of life. preditors eat herbavors, herbavors eat plants, plants dont eat.

Posted by PeaksnFreaks on September 7, 2007 at 5:06 p.m.
Relocate, don't kill. The lion deserves at least one chance to dis-engage from people IMO. At this moment it is one person's account that the lion was watching him that has brought the death sentence down. So move the lion to a more remote area. If he comes back to eat domestic animals that's the end. And as others have said, Otsie do your part and put your smallish/vulnerable animals in the barn at night.

Posted by Lyons on September 9, 2007 at 8:52 a.m.
Guardian noun - a defender, protector, or keeper : a person who looks after and is legally responsible for someone who is unable to manage their own affairs. - Recently Boulder adopted a new definition for all those that accept the responsibility of pet ownership. It doesn't matter whether you are the guardian for a cat or dog or llama or minuture horse, it is your responsibility to care for that animal. Otsie was the legal guardian for his pet horse. I would like to know why he wasn't cited by Boulder County Animal Control for leaving his pet unprotected at night. This should be a wake up call to all who live in the mountains. We moved to Lyons 9 years ago after living in Boulder for 25 years. We moved to mountains for all the reasons everyone else does, but we realized that it was our responsibility to protect our family from the ever present dangers of coyotes, fox, bear and mountain lions. Consequently, our animals are only allowed out during daylight hours and are secured at night. We have watched numerous of our neighbors move to town and immediately lose a pet, even after being warned. They always say their pet likes being able to go outside. I'm sure they do, but it's our responsibility as guardians to make the tough decisions for them and protect them from a potentially hostile environment.

Posted by Alex12 on September 9, 2007 at 1:04 p.m.
We choose to live somewhere because we profess to love the wildlife and then when we become afraid or inconvenienced we kill, pave over, or otherwise destroy what it is that supposedly brought us to live there in the first place. Mr. Stowell, why are you aware of the dangers to your animals and then not providing them with a safe place? Unbelievable...then, after your horse is killed, you leave it for the cat to come back to? It is because of you that this beautiful wild animal is going to die. Congratulations.

Back 2 School Night

2007-09-01T08:26:00.001-06:00

Man! I can withstand almost anything, but looking ahead to the prospect of Back to School Nights for the the next twelve years just about does me in. When my kids were at Sacred Heart of Jesus School, the back to school night was excruciating because of the way the school-people spoke to the parents. There were a lot of reasons why we left that school, but that was one of them. (Others: the holiday concert, where even the eighth-graders sang in unison, or more accurately, screamed in unison, along with a tape of recorded accompaniment; the shockingly regressive themes in the annual school plays, the hateful philosophies of the Assistant Principal, the anti-abortion essays on the walls -- a buncha things.)

"Each teacher has rules and policies in their classroom, and they have them for a reason, so learn them and follow them." That was the principal's opening line at the Sacred Heart back-to-school night one year. I wrote that one down in my little notebook because it was so insulting.

In the BVSD schools where my kids go now, the problem with Back to School Night is not the teachers, or the administrators. They might be a little long-winded at times, but hey, who isn't? No, the problem is the parents. The things they say! The questions they ask, like they think maybe the teacher is really dim --- and worse, the attitude "my kid comes first."

Every year, guaranteed, as we sit in the tiny chairs in the kindergarten classroom or sit behind our kids' wooden-top desks in the fourth grade classroom - those are my elementary-school grades this year - some parent, and usually more than one, jumps in with the what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you question or remark. Here are a few from this year's festivities:

Kindergarten:

When the kids have lunch, do you leave them in the lunchroom by themselves or is there an adult with them? (Oh, there are always adults with them.) But do you leave them by themselves?

My kid worked hard to learn his personal six-digit code to punch into the machine when he has hot lunch. Why won't you let him punch it in? (Our priority is getting the kindergarteners fed. We get them their trays and their utensils, get them seated, help them choose their healthy items to eat first, answer their questions and help them put away their trays after eating. All of that takes a lot of time. If we had each child punching his or her code into the machine, they would never have a chance to eat. Already, we work hard to get kids through the cafeteria line and into their seats to begin eating. You know, very often they pick at their food and they get into conversation, so our priority is around having them eat. Their lunch period is only 25 minutes long. So the teachers punch the codes into the machine, to speed things along. (Yeah, but my kid memorized his code, why can't you let him punch it in?)

In the fourth grade:

My kid brought home a list of spelling words that were really easy, too easy for fourth grade - I want my kid to be working on harder spelling words (Don't worry, he will, that list you saw is the District's "No Excuses Words" list and it's a county-wide requirement. Of course, we'll give the children more challenging words as they conquer the easier ones - we always encourage the children to push themselves) But I don't want my kid learning these easy spelling words!

How am I supposed to know how to help my kid do homework if the note in her Planner only says 'Math'? (Yes, we're spending a lot of time with the children on writing careful notes in the Planners, and you can reinforce that at home. If her notes only say 'Math,' you won't know what she needs to do for Math. But you can always write to me by email if you have a question. I can't check the Planners for all 30 kids, every day, so this is something that you and I can together can help her do a better job with) Well what's the point of the Planner if all it says is 'Math'?

Ay carumba! I am really trying hard, but I've already missed two school-related events this year, because so many school-type things are scheduled on the same evenings at different schools. But the trial is almost done. And it's a good thing, because having a kid in the Fairview Marching Band is sort of like joining a religious order - it's a big commitment. Not complaining. It's a great thing. All-consuming. Expensive. But good. Four-hour band parents' meeting, first week of school - maybe even the night of the first day of school, actually I think it was. In case you don't have other kids at home who might need a little support after the first day of school. Yup, four hours. Like half a work day. But I'm just ranting now.

Aggravation and Solace

2007-08-23T20:07:00.001-06:00

It was two-forty-five in the afternoon when I remembered I'd promised my Fairview Marching Knight that I would bring him something to eat at three p.m. sharp. We had agreed to meet at the band-room door. The deal is, they finish school at three and then have a two-and-a-half hour break before band practice starts, so I wanted him to eat. So I race down to the high school and bring him some Quizno's, but when I get to school and park the car it's pouring. Like an idjit I stand outside the band-room door under sheets of rain, trying to reach my band member on his cell phone, no avail.

Finally he shows up and I hand over the sub, but when I get back to my car, it's blocked in. I've unknowingly parked where I'm completely blocked by the endless parent pick-up line, Subarus and Odyssey vans and Volvo station wagons as far as the I can C. Grumbling like Walter Matthau in "that one movie with Jack Lemmon" I head home. And behold! The rain has made my garden like, I mean, shimmer. I pick a couple dozen tomatoes and bring 'em over to my neighbor Karen's house. It worked out.

Yesterday I went over to CU, the Leeds School of Business in their great new building and did a planning session for the new arrivals. Every class is webbier and Facebook-ier than the one before. Love those MBA students. Then I went to the BMG meeting at the Culinary School of the Rockies, but my luck, I ran into my own family enjoying a slice at Abo's Pizza on the way there (the CSR and Abo's are steps away from one another in the same strip mall) and ended up with a kindergartner on my lap and pizza grease on my silk tank top. I went to the event anyway - if you are desperate for apparel at the Table Mesa shopping area you might be able to find a Buffs teeshirt at Play It Again Sports, and maybe not even that.

I have a new Twitter account called AskLizRyan. I did a job-search tip podcast. I made curry rice, I wrote some columns, I moderated a hot issue (Amazon supports dogfighting?) and I couldn't help but notice that dear Lindsay Lohan got one day in jail. Poor bunny.

that's not how I want to be read about

2007-08-22T00:10:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you stumble into stories, and I'm not sayin' I'm Woodward and Bernstein or anything, but nonetheless I found myself quoted in a Page One story in the Boulder Daily Camera today (lose that smirk! They got 100,000 subscribers!). The story is about a music school that closed down, the same one I wrote about in the previous post. I took my daughter to sign up for piano lessons and the piano teacher told me, "The school went bankrupt." That's okay, but when I checked the school's website there wasn't a peep about it. Turns out there was all kinds of money lost and lots of questions. The website is still silent on the bankruptcy that the paper has already reported. Here is the story in the Camera.

Boulder Arts Academy

2007-08-17T14:15:00.000-06:00

When I met my husband in 1984 one of the first conversations we had was about timing. I said "Life is short" and he said "Life is long." Things come around.

When we moved to Boulder in the late summer of 2001, I wasn't working much, and I got pregnant almost as soon as I got here. I booked the kids into all kinds of kid activities. That school year, our oldest guys were in third grade at Mapleton School, which is closed now and will be offices or condos any day now. The younger ones were at Sacred Heart of Jesus - but that's a whole 'nother Oprah.

I had them in 22 activities. Four in swimming, four in ice skating, three in piano; we had soccer, Brownies, three in acting class, one in violin - it adds up. And all the activities were great. That was my job - I took them to all these things when I wasn't moderating my email groups.

And the teachers were fun and the other kids and their parents were tremendous and we had a blast. Only one activity was unfortunate - Ballet at the Peak Arts Academy. It was squirrelly from the get. The people were not nice. The ballet teacher was snobby with nothing to be snobby about. I mean, the class was too big, they used taped music instead of a piano - and one tape, over and over, all term, maybe three different selections - and worst of all, no mirror. You're going to teach little girls ballet with no mirror? The school itself was disorganized. One time, class was moved at the last minute from the Dairy Center to some dance space on Walnut east of 30th. I forget what the space was called, but let's say it was Acorn, something like that. I get my daughter to class at ten of four in the afternoon and there's a taped-up piece of paper on the door that says "Acorn," scrawled in Sharpie. Way to run a professional dance training program.

I never liked that place, and I never liked the moms. The moms would sit during the class and compare the girls! These are eight-year-olds, who should be having fun. It was grotesque. One of the moms asked me "What are your daughter's plans?" (She meant, ballet-wise.) I said "I'll bring her here as long as she has fun." People, we're in Boulder flippin' Colorado! This is not the training school for the Bolshoi Ballet. Can you spell "provincial?" Let's not take ourselves too seriously!

So anyway, the ballet didn't last too long. Years pass. I make friends and one of them is Karen, who is the musical director and head honcho for Revels. Little by little I learn that there's a backstory. Peak Arts Academy wasn't always too arch for its own good. It started out as a community music school, full of good cheer and community feeling. Karen started it. She grew it to 38 teachers and a wide range of programs.

Then the Boulder Philharmonic decided they wanted to use the school as a training institute. They wanted to have the kids audition to take lessons. Pleeeeeeeease. What about kids enjoying music? Karen left. The school languished. They changed names and physical locations a few times. When I got to town in 2001, they had just gone through a big re-branding and re-invention.

So now, just last week, I took my daughter (now 14) to meet a new piano teacher. We love her old piano teacher, but she's going into high school, it's time for a new approach. So off we go to meet Keiko, and she's fantastic, and we plan to start taking lessons with her. She says "You have to go through the Arts Academy," and my brain goes 'yuck,' but it's worth it, I will suck it up. So I pick up a brochure from the plastic brochure-holder in the hallway.

This is absolutely true. I look at the brochure and I say to my daughter, "Caty, look at this. Fifty pages of four-color glossy brochure with photographs, this cost a fortune. They can't stay in business like this. Here is the brochure of summer programs, and look, there are 50 of 'em here. No one picked them up, or they made far too many. This isn't sustainable. There's no way they're going to survive this way."

Keiko calls me up the next day. "The school went bankrupt," she said. We still get to take lessons with her, but the school is history. What did Michael say? Life is long. Things come around. Don't be who you're not. All sorts of lessons in there.

The Church of Self-Improvement

2007-08-15T22:59:00.001-06:00

I was on the phone with my friend Sue, talking about Boulder parents. She is fairly newly single mom and so social stuff is a pretty big topic for her. The people here are friendly, for sure, but it can be hard to meet folks you share interests with and find time to get together. A lot, a lot of people in Boulder are into cycling and hiking and running, and that's great if you are well matched in those areas. It's not like people who like opera - you don't call up your opera-loving friends and ask, "Say, you want to go see 'La Traviata'?" and have them ask in return, "Where were you thinking of sitting? Are you planning on a matinee or an evening performance?" They say "Yes" or they say "No." But with this outdoorsy stuff, not everyone can run, cycle or hike together. Just the will to do it is not always enough. It's like when people ask me to play golf with them. I would go for the anthropology, but I can't play golf. So that's out. If they want to cycle up Flagstaff Mountain, I'm not going. Luckily, no one ever asks me to do that.

Anyway we started talking about the way people are around here and I told Sue my theory of hyper-intentionalism. This is where people plan their lives so carefully, so painstakingly, that they can't tolerate any element of their lives that doesn't meet their criteria. We have a lot of those folks here. Why should they be gathered here? Why, it's because we are a Lifestyle Destination City. People come to Boulder because Boulder represents a certain kind of [green, crunchy, fit, meditative, whatever] lifestyle to them. That's fine. Shouldn't people live the kinds of lives they want to live? Of course they should. But in normal places like Cincinnati and New Haven and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, you don't find huge segments of the population that believe they get to design their lives from the ground up. They sort of take what they get. So they just might not freak out when the local hardware store doesn't have the kind of stone cleaner they are used to buying. See what I'm sayin'?

So I ran down my theory of hyper-intentionalism for Sue. I allowed as how it's hard to be surrounded by people who need everything to be Just So. And as we were talking, I thought of something else that I notice about Boulder people.

They are, of course, into self-improvement. It's practically the town motto: Come to Boulder and Improve. Improve your fitness, your spirituality, your connection with nature, your lefty credentials, you name it. Here, it's not a casual pursuit. Self-improvement is an obsession. Here, we worship at the Church of Self-Improvement. You ask someone to meet you for coffee, they might do it, but if they don't do it they're not embarrassed to say "I'm trying to get in a bunch of miles before the weekend." Are they training for a marathon? No, but you know, you gotta get in those miles.

Self-improvement is great. But it can become an addiction, like so many other things. Same thing with fun and indulging one's passions. A good friend of mine has a friend who is recently divorced. We'll call this recently-divorced woman Alex. So Alex meets a guy, he's divorced and available and very smooth. His thing is skiing. He counts the days he gets to ski. He skied over 200 days last year - I think he was shooting for 250. He counts them! He has some money so he doesn't have to worry about his finances. He worries about days on the slopes, instead. He flies around the world following snow. Now, he loves to talk about his skiing. But I say: get rid of this loser. Date absolutely anyone else before you date this self-obsessed creep. You count your ski days, I will count the blessings of warmth and friendship I get from my actual human friends who treasure their relationships with living people and not the notches on their skiboots representing the number of days they spent skiing last year.

Like I was sayin' -- it's not good to get too far away from reality. If self-improvement is way up at the tippy top of Maslow's hierarchy, what rung does Helping Other People occupy?

Last Lap Before La Rentree

2007-08-10T20:56:00.000-06:00

In France it's a big deal, La Rentree, the time when kids go back to school and people who've taken the month of August as vacation get back to work in earnest. I like the concept. Fall is great time to start projects and set goals. Only problem, this year in Boulder they've decided to start school early -- August 16th! It was 98 degrees F today, whaddya s'pose it will be next Thursday? Not a heck of a lot cooler, I wouldn't think, and those schools aren't air-conditioned. So it'll be a hot homecoming.

I hate the school-year schedule change but the teachers wanted to be done with the first half of the school year when they leave for Christmas break. This year, four out of our five kids are starting new schools. Our big kids (twins) are starting high school. Our oldest son has been sweltering in Band Camp for a week already, the back of his legs burning up like lobster tails below the knees where his shorts stop. The poor guy had to switch instrument -- the Fairview Marching Knights don't use trombones in their marching band, Seventy-Six Trombones notwithstanding -- so they've given him a thing called a baritone, which weighs a million lbs. and uses keys, like a trumpet, instead of a slide. So he's got to learn to play this thing while learning how to march around on the field, and the Marching Knights don't mess around when it comes to marching - they were fourth in the state last year.

My daughter Caty's preoccupation is finding her way to all those different classes when ninth grade starts next week - that and the social scene, naturally. My son Eamonn starts middle school, and he's unruffled by it. Our small guy Declan will stay put at Flatirons Elementary, heading for fourth grade; and our youngest, Darrien, heads off to kindergarten. Last night, I posted a message on a local email group for moms, to say that I'd be happy to donate Darrien's little toddler bed to anyone who wanted it. A mom showed up today to fetch the bed, with a 16-month-old on her hip, and Darrien was all over him: "Look, you can have my bed, I'm big, I don't need it anymore." He gave the little guy a bunch of his stuffed animals, too. Darrien turned five yesterday, so, you know, he's way past stuffed animals. Except sometimes.

I did an interview on NPR earlier this week on the topic of moms opting out of the workplace. Got lots of good feedback on that and lots of new members in the Ask Liz Ryan yahoo!group. Now back on the school thing for a minute: the new racket is that the schools take their required-supplies lists, and give them to the supermarkets, and the supermarkets bundle up these required supplies and sell them in a package. Sounds okay, but the markup is crazy - you might spend $15 on the supplies a la carte but the package costs $30. So, okay, I was looking at the bundled supplies for my kindergartener, thinking I might pop for the package rather than find each item by myself, and here's what I noticed (this is at the King Soopers on Table Mesa): the supplies for a kindergartener at Creekside Elementary cost $18, bundled. The supplies for a kindergartener at Mesa Elementary cost $56, bundled. What the heck! What does a kindergartener need, a scientific calculator and a Treo? Give me a break. Send the kid to school with a pack of crayons and a box of tissues. Maybe a sponge. Geez.

I don't love that they're headed back to school so early but I will enjoy being able to get a lot more work done. I have a bunch of work to do. I just started a new blog and I'm writing seven columns a week, consulting, speaking and doing radio stuff. You can just imagine what my laundry room looks like. During the summer, I turn a blind eye to the kid wearing the same outfit (sleep, wake, sleep, wake) three days in a row. During the school year, you can't get away with that.

Trying to Dredge Up Some Sympathy...

2007-07-26T23:58:00.001-06:00

Did you think I was going to write "trying to dredge up some sympathy for Ward Churchill?" No way! Dude made his bed.

I'm trying to dredge up some sympathy for the mountain lions. It's absolutely true that it's not their fault that all these humans moved into town. There's no question about it. It's just that we are here now and a little kid got mauled on Easter Day (maybe the day before Easter) like a half-mile from my house, while he was holding his dad's hand. A three-year-old was killed in Fort Collins. It's not a great situation. Granted, the risk of mountain lion attack is rare. But as they say, that doesn't help you if you're the one being attacked.

Here is an article on the site New West about cougar-hunting in Oregon. I read the whole article and I'm still not feeling it. Guy says it's immoral to hunt animals you don't eat. I agree with that, if you're talking about sport hunting - I totally agree. But this is not sport hunting, it's lowering the predator population - different deal. The writer is unhappy because they're going to use dogs. I mean, it's Medieval, I grant you, but if your objective is to find the mountain lion, you can't just walk around the woods all day and hope you find one. You could do what they did in "Jurassic Park" and use a goat for bait. But then what about the poor goat?

I don't buy the argument "they were here first" that people always use when they talk about wildlife around here. Yo, skunks were also here first but we don't let them run through our houses. That "here first" deal is ridiculous - people use it so selectively.

Nice Bruise Ya Got There

2007-07-22T14:02:00.001-06:00

here is a photo of Jennifer DeDomenici and I in the current Colorado Light Opera production of "Man of La Mancha." There are four more performances before we're done. It's a good show! Jen is sensational as Aldonza and Patrick Mason, our Don Quixote, is nominated for a Grammy this year. The shows are at CU's Music Building and the performances are on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday the 25th, 26th, 28th and 29th of August.

Whole Foods: Rotten on the Inside

2007-07-18T21:31:00.000-06:00

Man I hate to say "I told you so" to everyone who has adored Whole Foods for the last decade, but I have always thought that company was bad news. Even before we moved to Boulder, I steered clear of that joint. Whole Foods is the store for people who want to be seen buying groceries. It's Roman, in the sense of "the reason the Goths were able to kick their ass." Whole Foods is the store that says "If you can afford eight bucks for a piece of quiche, and feel good about saving the planet at the same time, why deny yourself?"

I know, there's no firm logical connection between a store that creeps you out and unethical management. But still. It's karma. Here's what Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Business Week had to say on the subject. An excerpt:

Groucho Marx once said, "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made." Groucho's sarcastic advice seems to have been Mackey's leadership mantra. In fact, one major accounting firm leader told me, "I am going back to buying foods with additives and artificial preservatives." He was joking, but his distaste for the mess at Whole Foods was real.

Talking Head
Mackey's anonymous efforts to undermine competitors and enhance his own company's image are as disturbing as they are entertaining. This conduct was not at a scandalized competitor like grocer Royal Ahold (AHO). Rather, it was at a company—like Starbucks (SBUX), Ben & Jerry's, The Body Shop, or Patagonia—where a total brand campaign was created and marketed to enhance trust and integrity in both product and business conduct.

In endless magazine profiles, public pronouncements, and personal TV appearances, Mackey made honest dealing and fair open conduct part of the Whole Foods brand image. In a CNBC (GE) interview last year, when Mackey explained how he can be both socially responsible and commercially triumphant, he stated: "A lot of people think corporations are the bad guys. There is sort of a disbelief that they can have high integrity, do well, and be successful." He made a similar point on his blog, complaining about a journalist who wrote a 2004 New York Times (NYT) profile on Whole Foods: "It seems hard for him to believe that a business can be both profit seeking and socially responsible at the same time."

This Mackey slimebag should get thrown out, but you're still left with the age-old question: who was paying attention to the rogue CEO's behavior, while profits were climbing? Exactly no one. Interesting how that works. Watch out for corporate leaders who trumpet their own fabulousness, especially where social responsibility is concerned.

Friday

2007-07-13T12:02:00.000-06:00

It is Friday! I am elated, on the one hand, because I've moved my office setup out of my basement and into what used to be our sunroom. I'm looking at one of the Flatirons right now - whichever one you can see from Mariposa Street. I'm looking at the Flatiron towering over my garden - haven't had to water the garden all week, thanks to timely and dramatic thunderstorms. This is what life in Colorado is supposed to be.

That being said - the neighborhood is coming down around me! The Daily Camera had a front-page (Local section) story about one of our neighborhood's new houses, the modular one where they bring in huge room-shaped pieces on a truck bed, at three o'clock in the morning, and crazy-glue them together or something. If that's not bad enough, they've taken what looks like a one-room, original stone house on the next block and moved it to the front of the lot where it will be the entryway (I'm not joking) for a gygundo new house that will push up to maybe one inch of the property line - sitting between two perfectly sweet 50's ranch houses - but be preserved, by hook or by crook, so the historical preservation guys will go along with it. Give me strength.

So last week, I pull out of the driveway to do some errands, and I stayed away for a few hours. When I came home, the house across the street was gone. Leveled, not a brick, not a timber remaining. Only black dirt, some bushes and my kids' basketball that must have rolled across the street. God knows what they will build here. Some folks bought the house next door to us, and they came over to say Hi, which was nice. They said "We're going to upgrade some bathrooms before we move in." Why do they always say they're going to upgrade the bathrooms? The house is gutted, it's a shell, they're starting over. The contractors are there at all hours playing music with lyrics that aren't appropriate for my younger kids. Well, what are you gonna do?

My neighbor Jon Hatch is a real estate guy and he wrote on our neighborhood list-serv that when everybody starts building these huge houses, it's called PROGRESSION. Supposedly the property values go up, because the comparables have to be from the neighborhood. Is it worth it? I like the old ranch houses with the old people in them, pruning their rose bushes. I stopped my car to talk to one of the new-house-building ladies, and I said hi and introduced myself, and here's what she said: "I already know tons of people in the neighborhood." I swear to God, that's what she said to my face. Like 'screw you lady, I don't want to know you.' Ha ha! I never worry about blatant disses like that because they mean that the person who disses you has ISSUES.

City Council Reflects Citizenry?

2007-06-21T23:43:00.000-06:00

Give me strength! The Boulder Daily Camera reports that six of the City Council candidates (out of 14 in the race) have had run-ins with the law, and they're not parking tickets. A bunch of them had DUIs, and one poor woman (who needs one of those Media Training coaches, pronto) said "I'm not a poster child for drinking and not driving." Shut up! How could she say something so inane? How can we vote for her now?

Another one of the candidates had animal problems. She lived in a townhouse, and she had 70 mice and a bunch of other animals living there. Supposedly she was rescuing them from a fate worse than death in a research lab. Um -- riiiiiight. Like living in her townhouse in a cage with 69 other mice is mouse nirvana. The neighbors complained about the smell. Eeeewwwwww. I'm sorry, but that little anecdote has weirdo written all over it. Is this representative of our citizenry? Maybe it is. One friend of mine says that the people who sit on the Architecture and other oversight committees for Home Owners Associations are the busybodies with too much time on their hands. Could it be the same deal with the City Council? God forbid. But how can a normal person run? It wouldn't take much digging to find a person who could say "Yo, I got high with him in '82" or to uncover some other kind of dirt. Still - six out of fourteen. That's bad.

The theme for this summer is backing up

2007-06-20T10:22:00.000-06:00

I want to start with a shout out to my good friend Ellen who is going through a bunch of health issues. It is the most ironic thing because she is as healthy as can be. This is the way it works now - you are healthy, then the doctor says you're not healthy and you need to have all this stuff done. Luckily Ellen is a genius and incredibly practical and she is working through everything with her usual logic and pluck. But it's stressful, and she has summer plans like we all do -- so it's a big bump in the road, but we are thinking about her and wishing her a speedy back-to-health journey.

It is embarrassing for me to think about last summer, and maybe the one before, because when I look back, I was barely conscious that summer was even happening. I said to my husband "We'll go to the outdoor cinema, and we'll take a bunch of weekend trips, and we'll hike all the time" and we didn't do any of that. I was buried in my work, but there was something wrong or badly focused about it, I wasn't doing the right stuff, as in right for me, and so after a lot of confusion and angst (I am not logical like Ellen) I made a bunch of changes in my work, and now I'm doing different work -- working by myself, from home, under a brand name which is my own name (sounds like a spam name, but it's not). Right now I'm looking at my garden.

So the theme for this summer, for me, is doing important things that you won't get to do when it's not summer, when the kids are not out of school and when I'm older than I am right now. If you want to feel old, by the way, then I encourage you to sing in one of the Colorado Light Opera productions -- they're a ton of fun and the shows are marvelous, but ain't no one in the place anywhere near 47, except me. Maybe, maybe the baritone, the lead, Patrick Mason, who plays Don Quixote/Cervantes in our "Man of La Mancha," maybe he's 47. Hard to tell, with guys. Everyone else is under thirty, and they are the greatest cast members ever, but you sort of feel that sand slipping through the hourglass really fast when you talk with them.

Not that I am complaining. It's just perfect that in the this summer with the theme of doing what's important, I am face to face every day with these young folks who are doing what they love, and wondering how to pay bills and so forth, but pursuing their operatic/musical theatre dreams nonetheless. One of them is going to sing with the Fort Worth Opera in the fall; another one is moving to New York to try her hand at the Broadway/opera scene there. One has been to Europe already and sang here and there and is back to get her master's degree.

So I'm going to rehearsals in the afternoons, working in the mornings, watching the garden grow, and realizing what's been in the yard all along (we've lived here for two years) that I never noticed before, like a big patch of rhubarb that I discovered on Sunday night while I was getting a Father's Day barbecue together. I hacked off the rhubarb and made a Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcake that was out of this world - I think I disguised the rhubarb well enough in the strawberries that the kids didn't have a chance to ask "Eewww, what is this?" Can you even buy rhubarb in the grocery store?

Next Sunday I am going to sing "Hear Ye, Israel" from "Elijah" at church - no choir in the summer, only soloists here and there. Naturally looking at the music reminds me of when I last sang this aria in church, my friend Shaelyn's church in Chicago -- that was in 2001, before we moved here to Boulder. Six years - that's a really long time, and Shaelyn lives in Portland now and has a baby, and we live here and even the baby that we had after moving here is heading off to kindergarten in September. So you should sing, and plant a garden, the minute you have a chance to -- not to mention that outdoor cinema. Another six years will fly by in like ten minutes.

Brush Up Your Bumper Sticker

2007-06-18T14:36:00.000-06:00

From the Boulder Daily Camera:

Boulder is a big bumper sticker town.

You can’t drive a block here without seeing a half-dozen bumper stickers on the vehicles around you, promoting environmental or political causes, alerting drivers to the fact that someone’s child is an honor-roll student, or sharing a bit of wisdom from some great thinker of the past.

Bumper stickers are effective because they’re short: Their messages are brief and pithy, and stick with us long after the driver ahead has turned the corner and headed off to another part of town.

Who could forget “Cheney/Satan in ’08” or “If God Didn’t Want Us to Eat Animals, Why Did He Make Them Out of Meat?”?

Whatever your views, bumper stickers make an impression. That’s their purpose.

Businesspeople spend hours working on their professional bios and their Elevator Speeches, when what they really need is a quick and punchy Bumper Sticker. A Bumper Sticker is way cooler than an Elevator Speech, in three ways:

To read the rest of the story, click here. (Requires registration, hope you find it worthwhile -- it only takes a minute)

Oh No, I Must be Getting Boulder-ized

2007-06-14T23:52:00.000-06:00

I nitpick about Boulder foibles but I do like it here - I love it. When I visit Chicago (where I lived for 20+ years) and New York (where I grew up) I have that feeling of Great Place, Love to Visit, Hope to Come Back Often. I don't want to live in those places, or the places we take the kids on vacation, or anywhere else. If I had a zillion dollars and could have multiple homes, my number one spot would still be here.

I hiked up the Flagstaff Trail from Eben Fine Park today and thought again, Dang, this is a nice place. Next time I will go farther and figure out how to hike from Eben Fine to Chautauqua Park - if you know how to do it, please fill me in! The weather was just incredible today and the vegetables are coming up in my garden and it's hard to find fault with this place, even though at a meeting earlier this week a woman heard about a mountain lion hanging out in someone's yard in North Boulder (I think it ate a cat or something) and immediately cried, "They didn't hurt it, did they?" For Pete's sake. I mean, I have nothing against mountain lions, but they can kill you, and I have a 37-lb. kid, which would be like an appetizer to a mountain lion. So go ahead and mess with its head a little bit, is my view. It would be great if the mountain lion that visited the North Boulder neighborhood got a bad enough taste in its mouth that it went back to its den and told the other mountain lions, These people are CRAZY.

So anyway, I must be turning into a true blue Boulderite because I was in Denver earlier this week and a woman was saying, Man, those people in Boulder, they act all lefty and green and crunchy and whatnot, and what are there, like six Black people in Boulder?

It's true - it's not diverse here. If I weren't in "Man of La Mancha" I would have met maybe three gay men total in six years of living here, and that's only because of where I get my hair cut.

It's just not diverse. That's true. But I draw a big distinction between the diversity of a place and the values of the place. Like, with six percent Black population in Denver and four percent in the state, how many Black people do you want Boulder to have? If I were Black, I wouldn't live in Boulder either, but then again I wouldn't live in Colorado.

When I hear this comment about lily-white Boulder, I always think "What would you suggest as a remedy for that?" Can you imagine the fun the national right-wing press and talk show hosts would have with a Boulder minority-recruiting campaign? Oh man. I do wish Boulder had more racial and ethnic diversity. I just don't draw any logical link between the racial and ethnic makeup of the population and some kind of lefty hypocrisy that certain folks impute to us. I can't see it.

Maybe it's me.

Blackout for Tony

2007-06-11T21:47:00.000-06:00

No way David Chase! A blackout and no sound for the ending of seven seasons of "The Sopranos!" Michael says that Tony was hit -- his brother-in-law Bobby Bacala said earlier in the season, "You never hear the one that gets you." Here is the thing:

We started watching The Sopranos when we lived in Evanston. We had a TV room right off our bedroom. We'd hole up on Sunday nights and enjoy the Sopranos, one hour of private grown-up time a week. Our kids were tiny. I grew up in North Jersey so the terrain, the accent, the roads, all of that is familiar territory for me. I worked at The Manor, where Tony and Paulie used to take their respective moms for lunch.

Then, Tony survived an attempted hit on Midland Avenue in Montclair, my home town. And last night, the final episode, where does AJ pick up his girlfriend but Montclair High School, my alma mater....and then the final scene is shot in Holstein's in Bloomfield, on Broad Street, on the Montclair/Bloomfield border. The place is an ice cream shop, not a diner....but it still made me miss North Jersey ice cream shops -- even Friendly's, a chain whose quality has plummeted in recent years. Tom Carvel's ice cream shops! Bonds, on Valley Road in Upper Montclair. We've got nothing like that here. DQ? Please. We have ice cream -- Glacier's is great -- but no booths, no table service, no sit-down ice-cream-sundae spots like Gruning's on Bloomfield Avenue, or any of a million other NJ soda shops. Not to mention diners - Pilgrim Diner, Primrose Diner, Tick Tock Diner, fuhgeddaboudit. And delis!! Don't talk to me about delis in Boulder. We don't have them. You shouldn't be allowed to say the word DELI in Boulder.

No more Satriale's. No more "Woke Up This Moring, Got Myself a Gun. Shame-abody...."
I get my Sunday nights back. But at what cost?

Skin of the Teeth Juggling

2007-06-07T19:21:00.000-06:00

Oh man! Tonight I have seven 13-year-old girls in the house for my daughter's birthday/end-of-8th-grade sleepover. They are watching the vampire movie "Van Helsing" right now. I thought I'd stay home with the girls and our four-year-old and let my husband make himself scarce along with the three other boys, but at the last minute the stage manager from Man of La Mancha announced an all-hands rehearsal tonight. So I have to dash over to CU, and all the boys and the sleepover girls somehow have to be together in the house for the next few hours. The girls don't mind the four-year-old, and they don't seem to mind the 13-year-old boy either, but it's hard on the other boys.

This kind of skin-of-the-teeth juggling is never more than an inch away, but it's especially acute at this time of year. We've had three graduation ceremonies this Spring, a band concert, an orchestra concert, two choir concerts, an awards ceremony, a Colorado History concert, a piano recital....and we're not done yet. That's all the kid stuff - not counting my music stuff.

It was unbelievably windy last night and our power went out. We always lose power when it's windy. According to the Banjo Billy Bus Tour we took, the highest recorded winds in Boulder were recorded at Chautauqua Park, just a couple of blocks from us. I fear for my garden veggies. I haven't had the nerve to check on them yet.

I told Eamonn the eleven-year-old that we would take him to Borders Books and let him pick out a book for his graduation from fifth grade. Last night he thought that was okay, but today he discovered that his classmates are getting Wiis and iPod Nanos and PS3s for their fifth grade graduations. For Pete's sake! That's the problem with Flatirons School. Great school, but the kids have too many possessions.

Next week should be Easy Street with the kids out of school, but no dice, there's Mini-Band camp starting first thing in the morning, Music camp for another child and Renaissance Adventures Camp for a different one. Juggle juggle juggle....

Also this month, my dad's 81st birthday, my brother's birthday, my husband's birthday, my twins' birthday and Father's Day. Michael doesn't like any of the traditional guy-stuff like golfing gear or barbecue supplies or tools or camping stuff or car-related items --- the children and I are at our wits' end trying to shop for him. We made him some homemade things when he was in SF last weekend getting a new tattoo. The first gift I ever got him, when we were dating, was a copy of Thucydides. Can't remember why I picked that out but he loved it.

Interview with "Mint"

2007-06-05T21:04:00.000-06:00

"Mint" is a fifth-grader. This week he will graduate from elementary school, as the public schools here in Boulder (most of 'em) end at the fifth grade. Here are Mint's thoughts on school, town, friends, GameCube, basketball, Naruto, and life.

ME: Mint, what will you do this summer?
MINT: Play basketball, watch Naruto videos on YouTube, go to Renaissance Adventures Camp and music Fun-damentals camp, ride my bike, and find all my friends who are within walking distance. I'm taking a trip with my dad to Arkansas and New Mexico.
ME: What are your goals?
MINT: I want to be a basketball player, like Allen Iverson. I want to major in physics. It's awesome. I like gravity. And sub-atomic particles.
ME: What's your favorite restaurant?
MINT: Olive Garden, by far. I like the toasted ravioli and fried cheese.
ME: Is that the fanciest restaurant you've ever been to?
MINT: No, I went to the Boulder Chop House after my first communion.
ME: What kind of music do you like?
MINT: I am going to see The Fray at Red Rocks on August eighth. I like rock and jazz. I loathe rap. I like Johnny Cash.
ME: Do you have a pet?
MINT: You should know that, Mom. I have two dogs. I have a rabbit named Gilbert.
And a cat named Coco. And sea monkeys. My brother has a guinea pig.
ME: What advice would you give President Bush?
MINT: Resign, as soon as possible.
ME: Anything else you are thinking about?
MINT: I made a basketball shot with my eyes closed. And I'm going to the Naruto movie tomorrow night.
ME: And, graduating tomorrow --
MINT: Oh yeah, that too.

Integrating Man of La Mancha

2007-06-02T15:45:00.000-06:00

This week we started reheasals for "Man of La Mancha" at Colorado Light Opera, which used to be called CU Opera in the Summer or something like that - evidently years ago it was a Gilbert and Sullivan troupe. Today we blocked the first few scenes -- tremendous -- lots of great things happening on stage and all of the singers are good. Patrick Mason as Cervantes/Don Quixote rocks the rafters. It is fun to be around these young people - most of my time is spent with single-digit-aged people or very young teenagers, or other middle-aged parents like me.

So I am figuring out how to integrate these rehearsals into the rest of my schedule, and the key so far seems to be planning like a maniac. Next week, the kids get out of school and start a variety of summer camps: Caty at the Boulder Dinner Theatre; Eamonn, Declan and Mac at Renaissance Adventures; Eamonn and Declan at Lisa Harrington's music camp; Mac at two different Band camps in preparation for entering Fairview in the fall; and the little guy Darrien in some camp that I haven't figured out yet. Plus, piano lessons, basketball camp and a bit of Sunflower Preschool. And then, I am working; speaking and writing and consulting and writing a new book proposal. In celebration of me working from home for the first summer since 2001, we also planted a vegetable garden.

I saw "Man of La Mancha" in Provincetown when I was little. The music is tremendous. The themes are kind of adult but we will probably bring Declan, the nine-year-old, to see the show notwithstanding the fact that we won't follow it all. Right now, I am between an afternoon rehearsal and another one this evening - when I finish writing this I will dash off to try to get four or five errands done.

The other big change in our house this year is that the children are so mobile -- they are zipping here and there on playdates and biking with their friends and taking the bus - Michael and I have to keep checking with one another to say "Where is Eamonn? Are we picking him up? When is Declan coming home? Is Caty sleeping over somewhere?" Is it a bit nerve-wracking. One of us adults always has to be at home in case someone decides to drop off one of the kids early. And we are always doing headcounts, like we used to do at the pool or the beach when they were little.

When I see them play on the basketball team or play violin in a concert or sing onstage I am proud of them growing up and accomplishing things. The rest of the time, I'm not so sure. Thank goodness I still have one bratty four-year-old to chase around and read stories to.

Off to errands -- avoiding Arapahoe and Baseline, Broadway and 27th, and all other construction zones. Wheeee!

The Boulder-iest Day

2007-05-31T14:57:00.000-06:00

I saw Cathy Brandt at the Southern Hills Middle School choir concert last night and she reminded me to post something here. I have no excuse for being silent except that I ruptured my eardrum and it hurts like hell. I hate to take Vicodin but I've had to do that the last two or three nights because it kills when you pop your eardrum. I don't recommend it.

We started rehearsing for Man of La Mancha at the Colorado Light Opera this week and it's cool - you should hear Patrick Mason, the baritone who plays Don Quixote - man! The room vibrates when he sings, I swear. I think I am the only civilian in the cast. So far, so good.

Husband Michael was in SF over the long weekend getting a tattoo on his arm, one of maybe three square inches of untattooed skin that he still has on either arm. This one is black and white, and it's a Sacred Heart, but he told the tattoo guy to skip the blood. He kept the thorns around the heart. So I was alone with the five kids and they were crazy because of the Creekfest.

The Creekfest, plus the Boulder Bolder, make Memorial Day the Boulder-iest day of the year, in my opinion. Truly, if you go to the Creekfest on Monday, you can tell you're not in Kansas. The people are chillin', even if they haven't been running. The dogs are chillin'. The weather was warm, but I've been to warmer Creekfests so I couldn't complain. My three smallest boys all wanted little automatic rifles that make a ton of noise - that's not very Boulder-y, but I promised them one Creekfest toy and that's what they wanted, so I bought them each one for five bucks. My oldest son was walking around with his eighth-grade friends, avoiding me and the kids.

I wanted to run the Boulder Bolder --- even though I think that's the most idiotic, uncreative name for a race EVER --- but I couldn't because I had no one to watch the four-year-old while I'd be running -- on top of that I must say I hate the new campaign "run less than your age!" which tries to get you to shoot to run the race in fewer minutes that you are years old. That is OUT. No way I am running six point two miles in 46 minutes. Maybe 67 minutes. Lookit, if people are willing to get out there, who the hell cares how fast they run? Why make it a blinkin' test? I love Boulder, but this is the kind of thing I hate about Boulder. HATE IT. Ironically, my running coach Ric Rojas, who won the first Boulder Bolder himself, he doesn't subscribe to any of that run-this-or-that-fast junk. I almost joined a training group for the BB but the slowest training group was the one that was shooting for 50 minutes. Like, it's not possible to run the race any slower, if you train. I like runners but I hate the running mindset. Kind of like my husband Michael's take on Boulder dog people in a previous post.

Michael Talk About Dogs

2007-05-09T18:50:00.000-06:00

Tonight I am interviewing Michael about his views on dogs and people in Boulder.

ME: So, what is it that bothers you about 'dog people' in Boulder?
MICHAEL: It's the assumption, just because someone owns a dog, that I'm going to like the dog too. There seems to be an assumption or a belief that if a strange dog comes up to me and starts sniffing me, I should be okay with that. There's almost an assumption that I should be, if not eager, at least willing to pet the dog, and smile, and say "Hi there buddy" or whatever.
ME: And you're not.
MICHAEL: People that own birds don't do that. If you go to somebody's house that has a bird, they don't automatically assume that you want to pet the bird. I don't necessarily dislike dogs, I'm probably ambivalent about them, but I don't like it when any animal just comes up to you and starts sniffing you. If you're walking the trail in Boulder, you see dogs off the leash, the owner is 30 yards away, and here comes the dog running towards you. Maybe the owner will yell to the dog, maybe they won't. So how how long do I wait to see, Is this a friendly dog, or an unfriendly dog? And God forbid, if the dog runs up to you and you make a motion to ward the dog off or if you yell at the dog, then you're the Antichrist.
And every dog owner says the same stupid thing: "Don't worry, he won't bite. He's friendly." Sorry. I don't know that. And I've seen people get bitten by so-called friendly dogs before.
ME: Tell me what happened in that case.
MICHAEL: When I was living in Chicago, I was sitting in a cafe having a cup of coffee, I saw a guy at a street corner waiting for a bus, a lady walked up to him with a dog on a leash. The guy was just standing there, and all of a sudden the dog jumped up and took a chunk out of his arm. The guy jerked his arm back and it was a bloody mess. And the woman was like "I'm sorry I'm sorry," but the damage was done. Virtually every dog owner in America, and especially in Boulder, thinks that he or she is a responsible, upstanding dog owner. But there is a segment of society who don't want to go into a store, or walk down a street in Boulder, and have somebody's dog walk past me sniffing my pants. It might not bother you if you have dog hair all over your pants and your shirt. I don't want it on mine.
ME: What would you like to tell Boulder dog owners?
MICHAEL: Keep your stupid dog away from me.
ME: You sound kind of anti-dog.
MICHAEL: I'm not anti-dog. I own two dogs. But when people come over, I don't allow the dogs to jump on people. I put the dogs away because I understand that some people don't like dogs jumping on them and sniffing them. People assume that when you're sitting outside Lolita's drinking a Coke and their dog comes up to you and sniffs your hands and your knees, it's fine with you. They don't even look at you. They just say "C'mon, Pepper." It's an issue of common courtesy and being polite. Dogs are not people. But dog owners act as though their personal dog is more important than any human being they come in contact with.
ME: Thanks, Michael.

The Nicest Drive in Boulder

2007-05-06T18:28:00.000-06:00

If you are coming back to Boulder from the Super Target in Superior, you might never notice the turnoff to the right called Cherryvale Road. But you should take it - it's the prettiest drive you can imagine. You go up over the hill and see old barns on both sides, lots of open field, and you cross over 36 on a little two-lane bridge. There's a sign that says Cattle Crossing, the only sign of its kind I've seen in Boulder. You go past the little lake south of Baseline Road out past Platt Middle School. You don't see any billboards or ugly buildings or strip malls.

Somewhere I heard that Cherryvale was its own town, but I can't find anything about in on Google, so - no telling.

There are only four more episodes of "The Sopranos" left and you have to start to get concerned. My friend Alice says the writers are going to drop us off a cliff. She says the last episode is going to be a bigger disappointment than the last episode of "Seinfeld," which was wretched, an insult. I'm counting major story lines that have to be resolved somehow - unless David Chase has just decided that nothing matters, there is not going to be resolution, just more things happening for no apparent reason. Here are the five plot lines that will bug me for years if they're left hanging:

1) Christopher vs. Paulie
2) Tony vs. Phil Leotardo
3) The Arab guys -- why bring them back into it, why have Tony snitch to the FBI, if there's no
larger reason for it --
4) AJ's meltdown
5) Junior -- are we done with him? Why make such a big deal earlier this season if Junior has no more role to play in the series?
and, of course
6) Adrianna.

Christopher told two people about Adrianna in tonight's show - the writer he whacked and the guy in the stairwell that he didn't whack. So - Adrianna's memory lives on. What I really want to see is the look on Carmela's face when she realizes, or is told, that Tony pulled the plug on Adrianna. But I have to keep Alice's words in mind....and that godawful last episode of "Seinfeld."

Ragtime

2007-05-02T00:36:00.000-06:00

I took two of my older kids to see "Ragtime" at the Dinner Theatre tonight, and it was tremendous - that Dinner Theatre is a real jewel, way better productions than you'd expect from a town our size. Two kids from my daughter's school are in the production. The schedule is pretty tough on a kid. Now, interestingly, the little girl in the show told my daughter that only nine kids showed up to the "Ragtime" auditions. Over two hundred kids, by contrast, came out for the recent "Sound of Music" auditions. I guess the combo of Rogers & Hammerstein, Julie Andrews, and thirty years of "Do, a Deer" makes a difference.

Hope you're doing something fun for Cinco de Mayo. I'm going to a party, and I've never been to a Cinco de Mayo party before -- is that pathetic? Tomorrow is my husband's and my fifteenth anniversary. Astounding!

Had breakfast at Q's in the Boulderado this morning, and I have to say that the Best of Boulder (from the Boulder Weekly) got it way wrong in the best-of-breakfast category: no offense, but Q's blows Lucile's away. People love Lucile's, my husband included, but its charm is lost one me. When I think of Lucile's I think of incredibly slow service, too-huge-to-eat biscuits, people crowding past you in the too-full dining room and tiny rag napkins. That could be just me.

On the way to the theatre it was raining so I instructed my kids what do in a flood, in case I'm not around for some reason when it starts flooding. We are up on a hill, but their elementary school is not. There was a special on TV last year, something like When Disaster Strikes and it was all about the huge flood that's supposedly inevitable in BOULDER COLORADO. If the Ned dam breaks, we've got half an hour to clear out of downtown, so they say. If you work on Pearl Street, take note.

LeftyTown Regulars

2007-04-27T20:11:00.000-06:00

My son turned nine and had a birthday party at our house. Moms and dads were thronging our front door at eleven a.m., dropping off kids, but one of them had a New York-ish accent so I said "From the East Coast?" and she allowed that she was, and I told her I am too, and in two minutes we figured out that her husband is the brother of my best friend from sixth, seventh and eighth grade.

There are a few people from my hometown (Montclair, NJ) around here, and I hear about more of them all the time. One girl (I say girl, but she's 46 or 47 now) was in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" with me in eighth grade, but we haven't run into each other yet -- or if we have, we didn't know it. One fellow graduated high school with me, and another one graduated with my sister.

After Montclair I went to conservatory in New York City and then moved to Chicago, and then, after the kids came, to Evanston. Another lefty-town, and sure enough, I keep meeting Boulderites from Evanston as well. Who can be surprised?

All of these towns are leafy, liberal college towns. Evanston and Montclair are racially diverse; Boulder, not as much. All of these towns are homes to the same kinds of hot-tub progressives. Boulder probably has the most SUVs, but Montclair can't be too far behind. John Krakauer lives in Boulder. Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" lives in Montclair. All sorts of interesting people live in Evanston.

My brother a year younger than me lives in Jackson, Wyoming. Lefty! He is a combination software engineer/rock climbing guide. Lefties unite!

Deluge

2007-04-24T16:41:00.000-06:00

Now that we've made it through the harshest winter in ages, the heavens have opened up and delivered Chicago-type rain and cold to Boulder, not to mention wind. I took my four-year-old to the dentist today and there were no cars on the streets. Anyone who could take the day off work must have figured "Forget it, I'm not driving in this." My friend Christa said it was starting to turn into snow but then it didn't -- consolation prize, the pitiful brown grass in my garden might grow now.

I am looking into getting a booth at the CreekFest for the Rocky Mountain Revels. We can take turns sitting at the booth or walking around in our costumes, singing a few Revels songs if there are enough of us to cover the parts, and signing people up for our mailing list. This year, the Revels will be set in turn-of-the-century Ireland. But before that, I have a Man of La Mancha to do this summer.

When I make my next list of the yuppiest spots in Boulder, I will include one that I forgot last time: Breadworks. Man oh man! I had lunch there last week, and it was packed, and let me tell you, when you eat in there, you know you're in North Boulder. This is actual dialogue from the bread counter:

LADY: Can I have a loaf of the [some obscure bread] please, and can you cut it?
COUNTER GUY: Sure. (He cuts the bread) Do you want that in a plastic bag?
LADY: No, no bag! (horrified)
COUNTER GUY: Well --- how do you want the bread - do you want a paper bag?
LADY: NO bag.

I couldn't stand to stay at the counter and watch the guy try to hand over a sliced loaf of artisan bread without a bag. I had to go. I wanted to say "Why don't you stick a big toothpick through the center of the loaf? That will make it easier to carry." How about, if you're so violently anti-bag, you SLICE YOUR OWN BREAD AT HOME?

Tips for using Profnet

2007-04-24T16:31:00.000-06:00

Everyone is asking me how to get media exposure. You can do it, absolutely, but it takes time. You have to focus on it, and I understand how as a busy businessperson it may be hard to find the time to allocate to that.

There is a way to jump-start your media exposure, but it costs a bit of money, about $100 a month. It is called Profnet, and it's a service of PRNewswire. You join Profnet and it delivers a daily email digest (sometimes several in one day) of journalists looking for sources. Let's say you are an expert on pets. Several times a week, most likely, journalists will be looking to talk to experts on pet-related stories, and if you answer the queries quickly and your answer is on point, you may be included in a story (in some tiny paper, or in the Wall Street Journal; no telling).

I have a few tips for using Profnet:

1) Stay on it! Check the digest as soon as it comes out, and respond to any topics that relate to your business, or forget it - unless the topic is incredibly obscure, the journalist will quickly be deluged and ignore responses that dribble in later.

2) Don't write to the journalist and say "I can help you with your story." Say how! Include some thoughts on the topic, or some tips, or something substantive to give the reporter a feel for your take on the subject.

3) Copy the original Profnet query into the body of your reply, to remind the journalist exactly what s/he asked for (or in case the journalist has more than one query outstanding).

4) Don't bug the reporter with follow-up messages. If they want to talk to you, they will write or call. It might take awhile - some stories have deadlines far in the future.

5) Above all, if the Profnet query says No Phone Calls, don't call!

Kindergarten is for Really Big Kids

2007-04-18T14:18:00.000-06:00

This is Darrien - the date on the photo is wrong. I never figured out how to get the date and time working correctly on that camera. Darrien is talking a lot about kindergarten as he finishes his last year at preschool. I remember that age, and the power of that word: kindergarten. It is a big deal. I remember being petrified when my mom took me to visit the kindergarten for the first time. Back then, everyone didn't go to kindergarten. We went to kindergarten in a lady's house - Mrs. Sarber. The kindergarten was in her basement. A whole new world for me - she had eight million toys and a huge Gene Kelly obsession. She got me to be a Gene Kelly fan, too. The thing was, if something really bad happened and you started crying, she took you upstairs to her kitchen and made you a snack. That happened to me once or twice.

Now Darrien is looking kindergarten in the eye. We went to visit the principal at Flatirons Elementary. It had to be a little scary for Darrien: he isn't even in school yet, and he's in the principal's office. The principal asked him "Do you know what my job is?" and Darrien said "To keep people safe." Good answer.

Shop Like a Magi/Puma Down

2007-04-13T19:19:00.000-06:00

My husband Michael gave me his timeworn, grimy old camera to take to Mike's Camera to be fixed. He is going to take our three biggest boys for a roadtrip and wanted a working camera. I went into Mike's and I couldn't bear to ask them about fixing that old camera. You know how it is with inexpensive cameras - if it's not working, you pretty much need to replace it.

So I bought Michael a new digital camera for his trip. When I got home tonight, I said "I got you a present!" He turned red. He had been to Mike's Camera also, and bought a camera for himself - half an hour after I'd left the store. We compared the time-stamps on our receipts. Oh well - he bought an analog camera. He doesn't trust digital. We will find a use for the other one.

Meanwhile the Boulder Daily Camera says that a puma -- they must take turns rotating among the terms puma, cougar and mountain lion -- was shot with a dart gun and removed from a Kalmia Street backyard after killing a deer there. What did one of the neighbors say again? - something like "He's one of us." Shoot me with a dart gun, that is idiotic. They have alligators in Florida, and what no one says is "The alligator in the pond is one of us." They discourage alligators there. They do it because alligators can eat you. Pumas/cougars/mountain lions, ditto.

Kurt Vonnegut is Dead?

2007-04-12T10:34:00.000-06:00

Kurt Vonnegut is the kind of person that you can't imagine being dead. One time my husband Michael and I were walking in New York, and Michael said "Kurt Vonnegut is having a cup of coffee on his stoop" and there he was, in his bathrobe and slippers, sitting reading the paper on his stoop with his little white fluffy dog and a cup of coffee. We met him, not on his stoop but at a performance of "Happy Birthday Wanda June" in Chicago, and spoke with him there - but that's like fifteen years ago. He always looked the same.

When I read "Cat's Cradle" at age 13 I couldn't believe the book was written ten years before. It was hard to imagine then that there were people writing stuff like that in the early sixties, which always seemed so pristine and toe-the-line and Stepford-ish, culturally, but of course, what did I know? I was a little kid.

Let the Neighborhood Speak!

2007-04-10T18:34:00.000-06:00

Jon Hatch is a real estate guy here in Boulder - I just found out he used to be a photographer for the Boulder Daily Camera, too. He started an email group for the neighborhood he and I live in, called Lower Chautauqua. I wrote about it yesterday in the Daily Camera and that got us one new member. Hurrah!

It would be good to know some of these people walking dogs around this neighborhood. The zealots are the ones you see running uphill toward the trail early in the morning. One thing - there are big dogs around here like everywhere else in town, but you see small dogs in this part of town. I have small dogs - not very Boulderish. I wouldn't take them to the dog park - a big dog would eat them.

Martin Acres has a list-serv, but it doesn't get much traffic. I have high aspirations for our Lower Chautauqua group - if only people knew about it! We have 14 members, so we have a ways to go. I've been stopping neighbors at random to tell about it - God knows what kind of reputation I'm getting in the neighborhood.

The Older Boulder?

2007-04-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

Oh no - Give me strength, again. The Boulder Daily Camera reports that Boulder will be facing an "iceberg" - some kind of weird analogy for a drop in tax revenues as the population ages and young families don't move in. Well, now. Is that surprising, given that BOTH of the elementary schools in downtown/west Boulder (Mapleton and Washington) were closed in the past three years? What the heck would you expect the message to young families to be, except "Move to East County like everyone else"?

It is already expensive for families to live in Boulder. In my neighborhood, known as Lower Chautauqua (and we have the Yahoo!group to prove it) the neighbors are mostly upwards of eighty years -- no exaggeration. I love my neighbors - they tolerate the kid-noise and have great stories to tell and are delightful. But towns and neighborhoods do need all generations. What will bring families back to Boulder, when you can't buy Pull-ups west of 28th Street (unless you go all the way down to the King Soopers at Table Mesa) and there aren't any blasted elementary schools in the center of town?

A Boulderite's Top Ten Obsessions, April 2007

2007-04-05T16:11:00.000-06:00

1.Resting heart rate
2.Finding parking downtown/finding parking in NOBO
3.Farmer's Market re-appearance
4.Avoiding Arapahoe and Foothills Parkway
5.Maintaining absolute confidence that no new extreme sport has emerged that I have not tried and mastered
6.Getting to eat at Radda before it closes in accordance with the short-restaurant-lifespan Boulder paradigm
7.Dog guardian rights
8.Getting my wave of choice in the Bolder Boulder
9.Locally grown produce, except citrus
10.Value of Crocs stock my brother-in-law bought me for Christmas two years ago

Plugging into Boulder

2007-04-04T22:42:00.000-06:00

I started singing in the choir at St. Andrews' Church. I sang in a Celtic concert there a few weeks ago and the choir director asked me to sing in the choir. It is only a mile from my house and there is no weeknight rehearsal, just Sunday morning, so it's easy and the music director is terrific. I will try to get my daughter to come and sing with me on Easter Sunday.

Moving to town as a just-past-40-year-old made me notice how important it is to plug into activities here. You can just live in a place and not know anyone, or maybe just a few neighbors, but in that case, why not just live close to your job or in the place with the best view? I am glad I joined the Rocky Mountain Revels a couple of years ago and glad to be moderating the neighborhood email group (for the Lower Chautauqua neighborhood, south of Baseline and Chautauqua) now.

One of the neighbors on my block is ninety-plus years old and remembers moving to Boulder in 1920. Two young guys renting the house across the street are working on that Einstein-Bose condensate and another guy, from what I've heard, used to be Mayor of Boulder.

I wish I had time for more local community stuff. I thought about joining the Recorder Society but there's no way I could swing that on top of "Man of La Mancha" at CU this summer and all those kids of mine.

In other breaking news, my nine-year-old got a guinea pig: Puffy. That makes five kids, five animals. Not very Boulder-ish on either count, but who's counting?

Losers Gather!

2007-03-31T15:41:00.000-06:00

It is astonishing how many people come to Boulder in the middle of their lives. My experience since I arrived here in 2001 has been that five to ten percent of people you meet, were born in Boulder. Another ten percent or so were born elsewhere in Colorado. Let's say twenty percent of people here are natives, more or less.

Then there are the people who came here to go to CU, or less often, Naropa, and stuck around. That group might represent another fifteen percent of the people you meet - so now we're up to thirty-five percent. That leaves sixty-five percent of the gang who came here in their thirties or forties. They liked Boulder more than wherever they were living before. The big states that funnel people to Boulder are California, Texas, Massachusetts, New York and Illinois - which makes sense because those are all populous states to begin with. It's more surprising when you run into someone who came to Boulder from Mississippi, or Oklahoma, or Vermont.

So here's the thing: when you look around at your life at age 35 or 42 and decide to make a big change, to start fresh in a new spot with new friends, does that mean things aren't working for you as well as they should be, in the place you're moving from? This was the big worry for me when we moved out here from Chicago. I was 41 in 2001, with four kids (we added one more after we arrived). And I wondered, "Am I a big loser, because I don't have the glue that would keep me stuck to Evanston, Illinois - the world's greatest friends and living situation and job and social events and and and?" I wondered about that. Then Nancy, the only person I knew living in Boulder at that time, said to me "Well, if you are a loser, you're in good company. Everyone I know in Boulder did the same thing, uprooted in mid-career and made the switch."

So what's worse - to be a loser who isn't SuperGlued to another place and another network at age 35 or 40, or a person who's change-averse and would never dream of pulling up stakes? I asked my husband this question the other night: is our whole "deal" - our friends, our various entanglements, our happiness, the way we spend our time - better now than it was when we left Illinois? Yes, he said, our deal is better. It's way better. It wasn't bad before! But moving here was a great thing to do.

We had to say goodbye to our beloved nanny Ania after eight years. I had to leave my amazing musical connections, the kind where directors would call me and say "Can you sing for me next Fall?" because they knew me. Don't have that here, not only the connections but the musical activies that would enable them. We loved our kids' preschool and we loved our friends. Still, net-net-net as our real estate friends say, coming here was a great move. So I'm a loser - no big thing! This is what my kids tell me, in any case.

Okay Boulder, All is Forgiven

2007-03-20T21:09:00.000-06:00

It was a glorious day today, and I had to put aside my bad feelings about the godawful winter weather we had this year, the eight million colds my children, my husband and I withstood, and even the fact that I totalled my trusty Volvo. All is forgiven, Boulder - the rest of the country is shivering (my parents in North Carolina had 40-degree weather over the weekend) and it is incredibly perfect here.

That being sad, they're predicting rain and who knows what else for the rest of this week. I have big stuff happening at my job this week, but nonetheless I had to go to the doctor today not only for my own ear infection but also for my four-year-old's tonsilitis. And my thirteen-year-old son broke his toe.

On the positive side, my daughter Caty (also 13) 'went up' at the regional National History Day competition, so she'll be at the statewide event next. Her project is Brown v. Board of Ed. She knows more about that topic than anyone under the age of sixty, I'm telling you.

I ended up getting a Honda Pilot, and the recommendations were right on the money, that car is fun to drive. Literally dozens of people recommended that car to me, not enough to overcome my husband's Buy American protestations but once he got in the vehicle, he was fine with it. Still, he says, for highway trips we're taking the Expedition. Like, somehow, the eight-person-capacity Pilot would be too confining. Whatever!

I am singing in the Colorado Light Opera production of "Man of La Mancha" this summer. I sang a concert Friday night at St. Andrew's church, just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Next time, I guess I should write about things like that in advance.

Not Buying It

2007-02-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

I was so glad to hear that Ted Haggard from Colorado Springs isn't gay after all. Those ministers must have some strong medicine - I would love to see what they could do for Elton John, for instance.

The weather was warmed this weekend but the whole household is sick with the flu. Caty and I had a singing rehearsal and so we had to leave Michael, who is sick himself, home with the four sick boys. The littlest ones have the worst cases of the flu, poor things. Each one has had turns being delirious.

Next weekend is Declan's ninth birthday party. I am behind the eight ball with sending out invitations so I've been calling people. Came to find out Declan's friend Luke is really Lucas, a Polish kid from Chicago - I called his house and could tell in three seconds that his dad was Polish, and maybe surprised the dad by asking him "Are you Polish?" in Polish, and then telling him about the birthday party in Polish.

I am not Polish. But I lived in Chicago for 20+ years, the world's best place outside of Warsaw to learn Polish; and we had a Polish nanny, Ania, for eight years.

I read the copy of the Skeptic magazine that Michael brought home and had to allow that their report pretty much shoots down everything I've seen about that 911 Was An Inside Job stuff. Oh well - another conspiracy theory version of Easy Come, Easy go.

Still, if you are looking for things not to buy, they're abundant: troop surge in Irag, rationale for war against Iran, Rudy G. as a Republican presidential candidate that Democrats could vote for. Not buying any of it. Not buying this hint-of-Spring weather, not buying Britney's new bald-headed look (black roots showing through her scalp like wouldn't believe), not buying that flu shots keep you from getting the flu, because they don't.

Not buying St. Joseph's aspirin for children anymore, after I was so happy to see it resurface after being absent from the drugstore shelves for maybe twenty years....turns out that it's for ADULTS, and right on the package says "not to be given to children under 12 except under a doctor's supervision." What the hell! The whole point of orange-flavored, chewable aspirin is that kids will take it. Fie on you, St. Joseph's aspirin people. Hoodwinkers. Bushwhackers. I bought popsicles instead, to bribe the children to drink children's Motrin, which tastes vile.

Not buying this insulting baloney about downtown Boulder parking kiosks being an incentive to shop there. Give me strength. We have to raise the parking rates to pay for the machine that will collect the higher parking fees, which people will really like, because....wait, it'll come to us.....it's right on the tip of my tongue.......spare me. Idiotic. I'd been really clinging to the delusion that it was only BVSD, the truly evil and short-sighted School Board that was staffed by incompetent cynics, but I'm having to face up to more and more evidence that the City of Boulder is on the same path. I'm not buying it - not when the nearest stores selling stuff that you actually need (paper towels, underwear, e.g.) are on 28th street. Pearl Street will suffer, and the town fathers will say "Hmmmm."

Cycling in the Snow

2007-02-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

More snow yesterday - I abandoned the little Chevy Cobalt on Pennsylvania, just off Ninth. I didn't think that car would make it up the hill on Ninth to Baseline. Michael picked me up in the Expedition - hope the car is still there when I go back for it.

Have you ever heard of a Chevy Cobalt? Of course not. It replaced the Cavalier, evidently. It's the cheapest thing you ever saw. Edmunds.com gave it a terrible review. The reason I'm driving this car is that I totalled the Volvo and I can't find the title, and I'm waiting for the title to get a check from State Farm. I'm not complaining - I just can't believe how many snowstorms we've had this year.

Meanwhile, it's hardly driveable out there, and idiots are bicycling in the snow and ice. You cycle over a patch of ice, you go under the wheels, you're dead. Some poor driver on Ninth or Broadway or the Diagonal lives with that the rest of his life, if your family doesn't sue. How can it be legal to cycle over ice and snow? It's sick. That should be worth a $10,000 fine.

Don't our buses in Boulder get you anywhere you want to go? Can't you put away the bike for a few weeks? You can even take your bike on the bus, in case the snow melts during the day. How self-centered can you get?

Things Looking Up/What School Teaches Parents

2007-02-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, it is time to stop feeling sorry for myself - I'm still without a car (except for this rental, a model you've never heard of called the Chevy Cobalt, which drives about like a tunafish can on wheels would be expected to drive) but the weather was nicer today, and tomorrow I am off for New York, and each of the children has made tremendous progress on his or her National History Day (or Science Fair) project.

Cormac, the 13-year-old, did a great job on the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Caty is about done with her project on Brown v. Board of Ed (she's also 13). Eamonn, 11, is right in the middle of his project on the Curvature of Spacetime. Declan, who is eight, is nearly done with his research on raccoons. Only the preschooler is project-free.

I am taping a PBS segment on Tuesday on the topic of breastfeeding at work. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about how I need to Let Go when it comes to micro-managing my kids' school lives....if they have great teachers, we're lucky. If they have wretched, horribly-underqualified-for-their-jobs, utterly-lacking-in-communication-skills teachers, that's the way the cookie crumbles. This year as every year, we have some of each.

One teacher went on a rant in the classroom about his views on the Iraq war ("YOU THINK THESE DEMOCRATS HAVE A PLAN? THEY DON'T HAVE SQUAT!!") and another one is so self-obsessed that she wrote lines into the middle school play talking (apropos of nothing) about her wedding last summer.

One teacher heard that our little guy lost his black-speckled composition notebook and demanded that he find it. When I explained that we'd moved into a new house, were surrounded with boxes, and would find it more convenient to go to Target and buy a new notebook, she exploded. "So you just want throw money at the problem!!" Well, yeah, about eighty-five cents, is what I was thinking.

Having kids in school teaches parents that they can't control everything. It teaches them that when they say to kids "You will have to face adversity in life, and I won't always be able to help you" it's not just rhetoric. School teaches parents that kids learn early that not all adults are wise or, for that matter, competent. It teaches parents to back off and take a deep breath. If you have any life at all, you can't always be charging off to complain to the principal - and if you did, would it make any difference?

My two eighth-graders went to the high school orientation, and the high schoolers who shepherded them around were full of advice. "If you bring drugs to school, here's how you hide them," they said, and "If you ditch class, don't stick around campus, but go down to the King Sooper and hide out." And so on. Nice vetting process for tour leaders, that! Heck, it took me until the end of tenth grade to figure out (BY MYSELF, thank you) how to successfully cut class without getting caught.

SAD Aren't We?

2007-01-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

The gal who writes in the Friday magazine (of the Boulder Daily Camera) mentioned SAD in her column last weekend - Seasonal Affective Disorder. She was kidding, only bringing up SAD to say that some of Boulder's "winter brews" could likely improve our moods - but I must say, this year is the most SAD-inducing winter I've seen in Boulder yet.

When we had the first snowfall of the season, even though we were all snowed in, it was sweet and quaint and Ellen wrote about snow-shoeing to the grocery store in Niwot. Right now, no one is talking about anything like that. We are pretty much sick of it, if you ask me.

We've had six snowstorms and a bunch of freezing cold days. Today the high was maybe thirty degrees F. We had a major windstorm that knocked out power for our family and about 5000 other houses, according to Excel Energy. Last Sunday, a week ago yesterday, I got cabin fever and took two of the kids out to Superior and ended up going off the road on 36, and totalling the Volvo.

I didn't know it was totalled, but I guess it was, because State Farm is sending us a check. I asked the WorldWIT members what kind of mom-car to get and they recommended two kinds of Hondas - Odyssey and Pilot. Can't see me as the minivan driver but I will be responsible and drive them both.

Anyway I must confess that the euphoria of moving here from Chicago and basking in the balmy never-put-away-the-Danskos Boulder winters is over. It has ended. Where is this global warming Al Gore is talking about? It is not around here. I have lost my appetite for snow and ice. Everyone in the family has bruises and bumps from falling on the ice. The stores are out of windshield-wiper fluid.

Do I have SAD? Would I know it if I did? How could I live in Chicago for 20 years if I had SAD? But I don't feel great, that is for sure. What about you?

Feed Us

2007-01-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

There was an article in the Daily Camera about green restaurants - maybe it was the Rocky Mountain News. Anyway, yea, great for these restaurants - knowing they are green will not affect my decision whether or not to eat there, but the green activities are praiseworthy nonetheless. One of the green restaurants listed hires illegal aliens - I know that from a friend's wife who used to be a chef there. So you can be green and not follow the law.

I was in North Jersey my old stomping grounds last weekend. I was there for the one-year observance of my friend Liz's death last January. We wrote on white balloons at her gravesite and let them go. Then we went out for Cuban food and sangria. My friend Alice and I got to hang around a lot. We went to the Pilgrim Diner in Cedar Grove, where we used to go for Manhattan clam chowder and french fries in high school, or else omelets and potato latkes with applesauce and sour cream. They have those pies in the glass case with five inches of meringue on top. I'm not saying it's healthy food. Forget about it, it's the least healthy food in the universe.

Still, we need that kind of thing here in Boulder, badly. Deli food and diner food. I went into Dot's Diner with my two youngest sons - it was an insult. I didn't look at the menu, I was busy fishing my toddler out from under the table, so when the waiter came around I said "two kid burgers and fries, a hot tea for me." He said in a surly voice, "We don't serve that - it's a diner." What the hell, young man? Don't you take that tone with me. I'm from Northern New Jersey, the global epicenter of diners, and diners serve burgers, you pissant.

Our population grows in Boulder but the culinary scene doesn't change. We get high-end joints like Frasca and more, more, more chains but nothing else. Where is the great middle? Maybe it's an unsolvable problem because places like the Pilgrim Diner and the Tick Tock Diner and the Claremont Diner and the great delis of New York aren't starting up fresh, not even in places like New York and Philadelphia where they originated. You have to have opened your doors in the 1950's or 1960's. No chain deli is going to duplicate the true deli essence. I understand that the government of Japan is now certifying sushi joints - a great idea. If there were a NY-NJ Deli and Diner Certification Authority, not one restaurant in Boulder County would make the cut. Do you doubt it?

Snowed Under

2007-01-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

We were snowed in twice, once before Christmas and once after. For us, it was tremendous. No pressure, no appointments to keep, and plenty of staples (Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, instant oatmeal, etc.) on hand. We played board games and did Sudoku puzzles, and the kids played GameCube games. It got a little hairy there right before Christmas, on account of I hadn't finished my shopping, but we pulled it together just in time.

I went to the Pearl Street Mall to get some last little items on the Saturday before Christmas, and it was spooky how deserted it was there. The stores and restaurants were empty - people got in the mode of staying indoors, I guess, or else they went to Flatirons Mall for some power shopping and skipped Pearl Street entirely.

The plowing of streets after each of the big snowstorms was unimpressive. In Chicago, where we came from, they understand snow, and how to get rid of it. No matter how small the street is, they'll plow it within a day or two. I lived there for 22 years and never saw the Islands of Snow that sit in the middle of my street in Boulder right now.

One of my singing-mates suggested that we get a bunch of carolers together and sing carols for the stranded people at DIA. Nice idea, but if I were stranded at DIA, I wouldn't want people caroling in my face. That's the last thing I would want.

But, on Friday night (Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve, as my kids would say) we did carol around the neighborhood, about 15 of us - we wanted to do it on Pearl Street Mall, but we didn't get our act together in time. So we trudged over the snowhumps here in lower Chatauqua, which worked out very well because the residents here tend to be older and appreciate songs like "Angels We Have Heard on High" sung in four parts. Next year: the Mall! Bad on me, I suggested "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" because I like the melody, but once we started singing it, I realized that I don't know the words, except the final "When half-spent was the night" so I sang mostly "Oooh" and "aaah."

The happy ending is that one of the carolers, Jonathan, a tenor, had seen my story in the Boulder Daily Camera praising the nerds in our town (and hey! just a day or two after that story came out, didn't Forbes magazine just name Boulder the Smartest City in the U.S.?? Ha ha!) and offering to join my proposed Gilbert & Sullivan troupe. So that makes two of us. What about you? Are you game? JOIN US - IT'S PAINLESS....

Time to Revel

2006-12-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow and Sunday we will be revelling, that is me, and three of my kids and about fifty other people. It's a Solstice thing, a song-and-dance-and-poems production at the Boulder Theatre. This year we are Scottish - last year the Revels was Medieval. It is fun to be onstage with Caty, Declan and Eamonn, not to mention all the other kids and adults in kilts and plaid and bonnets and so on.

On the drive home from rehearsals they quiz me. "What is haggis?" "What is a lavrock?" I know what haggis is - still trying to figure out the lavrock thing.

There is no community theatre company in Boulder, so the Revels takes its place. Four of us singers did a little Town and Gown Revels preview on Monday night, and it was a blast. We were at the Outlook Hotel, really a funky place near 28th and Baseline. We make a wicked good quartet if I may say so! If you are around, come and see us at the Boulder Theatre this weekend.

Live and Let Li---Hey, Cut That Out!

2006-12-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

It was ironic that my husband was in the bathtub when the doorbell rang, because the inspector at the door had come to check out our hottub. A neighbor had complained about it, so the guy had to see what was what. "What's to complain about?" asked my husband. He couldn't figure out what could be out of bounds about a hottub in our back yard. Neither could the inspector. The two of them went outside and checked out the hottub, which isn't even plugged in, and finally the inspector determined that it was out of code in one respect. The hottub has to be 36 inches from the fence, and ours was only about a foot away. So we started wondering: who in the heck complained? There is six-foot fence all the way around our yard. The houses all around are ranch houses - you can't see over the fence from any of them. Weird.

Oh well, it's not a big thing to move the unplugged-in hottub a couple of feet away from the fence. But I mean...who would care? My husband said to the inspector, "Funny, I thought moving out West would mean that people would have a Live and Let Live attitude." "Ho ho!" said the guy. "Not around here."

My friend EJ says the emblem on the city flag of Boulder should have a pot leaf on one side and a swastika on the other. I've never lived in a place before where people are so into how other people conduct their lives. It's kind of strange.

When I wrote an article for the Daily Camera about some problems we had with bears when we lived in Sunshine Canyon, a lady wrote to say "It's THEIR territory!" I love that. You know what lady, the whole earth is some animal's territory. Why not let the mice run around in your house? They were there first. Why haven't we brought the buffaloes back to roam downtown Boulder? They beat us here by maybe a thousand years. It's their territory, for Pete's sake.

When we first moved into the neighborhood a neighbor, an older lady, came over to introduce herself and commented to my husband about the kids running around. "How many do you have?" she asked. "Five," he said. "Young man!" she scolded, "Don't you know how many problems are caused by overpopulation?" Guess he didn't, seein' as how he had all those kids. I wished that I were there, so I could have said "We're so sorry, and especially regret having had twins! Our bad."