Miguelina

How to suck the air out of a room

Walk into a fancypants restaurant at lunchtime with your double stroller.  When the hostess asks if more people will be joining you say, "oh no, it's just me and the kids."

The last time so many people in business suits stared at me I was presenting a marketing plan.

I have kids but I get tired of "family-friendly" places.  Sometimes I want to pay $9.00 for a cheeseburger, you know what I mean?   

It went miraculously well.  My son even put his cloth napkin across his lap and ate his fancy fries like a champ.  The only disappointment of the afternoon came when I asked for a dessert menu - I was craving some chocolate mousse so I was going to order one "for the kids."  Instead, the waiter gave Sebastian a free Hoodsie cup as a reward for being such a well-behaved gentleman.

I didn't have the heart to upstage my son's well-deserved treat with my frou-frou dessert so I went without.  It was a small price to pay to watch him delight in eating ice cream out of a paper cup.  Motherhood demands many sacrifices- some are big, some are small - but they all come with enormous rewards.

Proof that the housing slump is about to get worse

I just got off the phone with our real estate agent. 

No, we're not selling the house we just bought - I'm done with real estate posts for now.  Then again, maybe not.  You see, she called because she's been trying to get me to become a real estate agent.  She was impressed with my obsessive research (a lot of the times I knew more about the houses we looked at than she did.  I am a world-class Googler!) and my compulsion to improve listing descriptions.  I can't help it - it's the marketer in me. 

Once, I told a seller's agent that while the house she was showing us was not for me, she should mention the attached two-car garage "which is a rarity in a 1930's colonial in this price range.  And I would advise your clients to remove the brown drapes in the living room.  We want light.  Light is good!"

She looked at me like I was crazy.  My agent, on the other hand, started her campaign to get me to work with her. 

"Nah,"  I said.  "I don't need the pressure."

"You can work as much or as little as you like.  The money is good.  Think about it."

I told my husband about it that night and we had a good laugh.  I mean, I'm a suburban stay-at-home mom who is thisclose to buying a minivan because I think I want one.  If I became a part-time real estate agent the logical next step in my Donna Reed transformation would be my purchase of a vacuum cleaner so that I can finally wear my pearls.  You know, while I vacuum.

(The scary part?  I've been eyeing the Dyson website.  Send help.)

Anyways, where was I?  Oh yes, the part where my husband and I laughed about me becoming a realtor, which we did until we saw what she earned for a few hours a week looking at houses with me.  Then it wasn't funny - I could buy 50 Dysons with that kind of money.

When I told her that I wasn't ready to commit any time to this she told me that if I took a real estate class and helped her market some homes she would give me 25% of her commission on any homes we sold together.  That's 12 Dysons right there.  And I wouldn't even have to change out of my pyjamas because she's convinced I can do this from home.

People.  It's starting to sound REALLY good.

Somebody alert the Fed, because this is not a good sign for the housing market.

My timing is awful when it comes to career-related things.  When everybody was making buckets of money for playing foosball (ah, the sweet dot com days!) I decided that THAT was the perfect time to go back to school.  The genius of my strategy became evident when I graduated in 2002, right smack in the middle of the Enron/Tyco/WorldCom/Adelphia business scandals that made putting an MBA on your resume almost as attractive as saying that you have head lice.

So if I enter the real estate field, even half-assedly, I'm afraid I may just throw the country into recession.

I promise to warn you if I ever decide to take one of those weekend real estate courses.

Bloggers Don't Bite

Today I met some of these ladies for lunch and learned a very important lesson:  Bloggers don't bite.   

(Turns out, the people writing blogs?  Are real people!  This is shocking - I know - so take a minute if you need it.) 

I highly recommend meeting the people behind the words.  They're funny, smart, and they get it.

But be careful, because sometimes they may make you laugh so hard that iced tea may or may not come out of your nose.

I'm just saying.

29 is the New Old (except that now I'm 30)

We're huge (HUGE) Trapped in the Closet fans round these parts.  I wrote this after we went to last year's R. Kelly sing-a-long, and I'm sharing it here in honor of today's release of chapters 12-22.  It's a big cultural event - the NY Times says so and so do I.

I see an R. Kelly party at our home in the very near future...

I almost forgot to tell you about the Trapped in the Closet Sing-a-Long!  I went!  And it was fun!  It also made me feel old!  But in a good way! 

We were so glad we're "responsible adults" because when we got there, a full half-hour early, there were people standing in line - in the cold - waiting for a chance to be let in to the SOLD OUT show.  I was surprised that a theater would sell out for a midnight-2:00 am show even if was to make fun of R. Kelly.  (See?  I told you I was old.)

Anyways, we were not about to stand in the cold so we went to a bar.  The only bar in Coolidge Corner is a college bar, which was cool - like being 19 all over again - except that I made a tactical mistake.  If you're over the age of 25 and find yourself in a "college bar" and you see that they have a "martini menu," ORDER THE BEER!  Unless you like your martinis to taste like cough syrup.  If that's the case, by all means be my guest and order away.  Also, I have found that the size of the martini is inversely correlated to the amount of alcohol in the drink.  My glass was, I kid you not, the size of my head. 

So, we head back to the theater and I'm disappointingly sober.  Then we saw the people in line, and I had to laugh.  It was full of Emo kids, all ironic and intellectual looking, except that I called them "slackers" because that's what they were called when I was in college back in 1994 (You guys remember Reality Bites, right?). 

But I knew that this night was going to be SO worth the $60 we spent on babysitting when we finally made it inside the theater and the South Park episode on Scientology (watch it here if you've missed it) was playing as the prelude - there's nothing like a quick refresher on Xenu to prepare you for deconstructing an urban opera, I always say.

They started the evening with a "R&B Battle in the style of R. Kelly" between a guy who looked exactly like the kid in Rushmore and a plain vanilla jock.  The Rushmore kid won by a landslide.  In fact, if you closed your eyes he sounded just like R. Kelly (granted, not that it takes that much talent to do it).  The jock was literally booed off the stage - and I was happy.  I'm always glad when the dopey kid wins. 

After some pseudo-intellectual intro that was really funny but I forgot, our emcee explains that they will only show 4 episodes at a time (there are 12 in total) because "the intensity might kill us if we don't take a break."  He was not exaggerating - the level of noise and off-key singing that erupted the second the show started was deafening - it was impossible not to get into it.

Seven o'clock in the morning
And the rays from the sun wakes me
I'm stretchin' and yawnin'
In a bed that don't belong to me-e ...

As you all know the song quickly builds into a crescendo - it was impossible not to scream out the lyrics. 

He looks at the closet!!!
I pull out my Beretta!!

The Husband (along with about 300 people) was really getting into it and we we got to the first cliffhanger we were shouting at the top of our lungs:

He walks up to the closet !!!!
He comes up to the closet!!!!!!!!!!
Now he's at the closet !!!!
Now he's opening the closet...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The kid that was sitting next to The Husband yells in his ear "this is going to be the BEST night of my life!"

OooooKaaay.

He must have been really impressed that my Husband, a man who is probably twice his age, knew all the lyrics as well as he did because he took out his backpack and handed us beer.  He had contraband!  And he gave us two! 

Budweisers.  In the white cans. 

I haven't had one since college (because I'm a snob. I admit it!) but I have to tell you - that Bud was like the Ambrosia of the Greek gods - delicious!  We were young!  Carefree!  And Naughty!  We were drinking with our new best friends! 

My husband, who is impeccably polite, had to reciprocate.  But our group had only one thing to offer.  So my husband takes it and taps the shoulder of our beer benefactor to offer some of our precious contraband.

"Want some?"

The kid's face breaks out into a grin until he looks down; he then looks up at my husband, puzzled.

"It's a Toblerone.  Take all you want."

"Um.  I'm cool."  (Awkward pause.)  "Thanks?"

Yeah, we felt stupid.  But we were soon back in good graces with our buddy.  By the next chapter, he had given us more beer and we were all happily singing along with R. Kelly as one big, happy, inter-generational family:

She says you're the perfect lover!
I said I cant go no futher!
Then I flip back the cover!
Oh my God, a rubber...rubber...

Kids today.  They're awesome. 

If I'm not here...

I'm there:

I know a lot of you are from Massachusetts - you may be interested in my post on Dirty Water - or you may want to read from the other contributors from all across the NE.

China-Free Christmas: A Resource List

It won't be easy - but we're going China-Free this Christmas.  I've started to collect resources and I'm happy to share my finds - please let me know if you know of any other online shops or websites that have ideas on how to avoid China-made toys.

Angry Chicken's 'not made in china' post is pretty much perfect.

Sign the petition.

Playmobil - Made in Germany.  I used to love Playmobil when I was little.  Thankfully, they're still around.

Etsy Toys - There's plenty of unique, one-of-a-kind handmade toys - and you buy directly from the artist.  Awesome!

Step2 - It looks like most of their products are made in the US, but check the box - they do have a factory in Korea.

Oompa - Has a "Made in Europe" shop

Kettler - Awesome toys made in Germany, including their famous trykes.

Green Toys - Toys are made from corn plastic (wait...corn?)

American Plastic Toys - If you're getting tired of wood and felt...

www.madeinusa.org

Maple Landmark Woodcraft - Made in Vermont

Maukilo has a great Haba store (HABA makes all its toys in Germany)

Rody - We love our Rody Pony!  Gymnic Rody and bouncy balls are made in Italy and can be found all over the internet.

Go Read...MOMifesto

I love this post from Post Picket Fence - this woman can write!

...This is what I have learned about motherhood, stay-at-home motherhood: it’s a jungle in here.

As it was in the office, so it is behind the picket fence. The geography has changed but the scene is the same. The playground has become the office cooler, the PTO meeting has become the company picnic, and there is jockeying and one-upmanship all over the place. I never knew that when I left the career I built to stay at home with my kids that I would have to contend with another world of professionals. My greatest nemesis is no longer The Man, but The Mom: the Professional Mother.

The Professional Mother has a lot of company. She is one of the millions of women who benefited from every wave of Feminism. She picked a job she wanted, or thought she wanted, and she succeeded. When they told her as a little girl that she could be an astronaut, she believed them. She never got a free pass. She worked her ass off every step of the way and she became whatever her heart desired: a marketing director, a teacher, a filmmaker, a lawyer, a business owner, a nurse, a doctor, a banker, and even sometimes, an astronaut.

Maybe because she could do it all, or because she wanted so badly to do it, she became a mom...

I hope she doesn't mind the extra-long quote, but it just rings so true.  There's a lot more were that came from, so click over and visit her.

MOMifesto

Toxic Toys: A China-Free Christmas

Do you want to know how I spent my morning?  Do you?

A good 20 minutes was spent deciphering Mattel's Fisher-Price recall email.  Then I had to print out a postage-paid label, fill out paperwork and walk to the post office to return an innocent-looking Diego action figure.

I then went on GoodyBlog and read this.

Seriously? Are you kidding?

This is ridiculous and I'm beyond pissed.

That's it.  It's going to be a China-Free Christmas. 

A brand is built on trust, and if toy makers are going to continue to put their brands in the hands of criminally incompetent factories simply because they're the lowest bidder then they've lost my trust. 

No trust = No money

Chinese toy manufacturers?  You can suck it.

(And Fisher-Price?  The Go Diego Go Deep Sea Rescue set (code J0344) that you insist is sold in Canada only?  Newsflash - it's also sold in America.  I know for a fact that the set we received as a gift was purchased at a Target in Miami - which is pretty far from Canada last time I checked.)

I know that it's pretty much impossible to not buy toys made in China.  But it's the only way I know to make a difference.

So what if it's hard to find American and European toys?  That only means that I don't have go spend money in Hell's Armpit this year.  It may be harder to find non-Chinese made toys, but that's why God invented the internet - it took me 2 seconds to find a site that lists American made toys.  Thank you Google!

Non-Chinese toys too expensive?  Great!  We'll buy less toys - but better made ones.  That way there will be less plastic crap all over the house. 

I don't want to buy toys made in China anymore, and you know what?  I don't have to.  Neither do you.

Remember milk from cows treated with rBST?  It's getting harder and harder to find, because enough people decided they didn't want to buy it anymore.  I can only hope that someday the same will happen with toxic toys.

Quitting (for the day)

Virginia Woolf famously said "...a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write..."

Things have changed so preciously little since 1928.  I have a lot of things I need to write, some are obligations, some are personal, some are for pay, some are emails and letters and some are for just for fun.

But I can't. 

Does anybody else have children that start screaming the second you put your fingers to the keyboard? 

Yeah, me too.

Oh No! Here comes another ethnicity post!

There's been lots of talk around the blogosphere regarding race and ethnicity and whether it matters.  I've been meaning to write about a million other things, but my thoughts keep coming back to this topic. 

First, a confession.  I have an MBA and I had a great career and now I get to stay home with my kids and try my hand at writing.  I'm privileged - I know that - so this isn't a post about how life is so hard because I'm Hispanic.

I like being Hispanic.  I like it a lot.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that I don't meet my share of idiots.

So, back to the MBA.  When you're in business school there's an embarrassment of riches when it comes to career coaching and jobs and just plain old opportunity.  Companies basically wine and dine you for two years and sometimes they hire consultants to pick the "cream of the crop" for them and then they fly them out to a central location where they meet you and offer you jobs, jobs that sometimes come with salaries in the six digits.

It's not a bad deal.  Especially if you're not switching careers, which I wasn't.  I had left a brand management job in a glamorous though not well-paying field with the goal to do the same job in a less-glamorous but better paying company.

Since I already had brand-name experience on my resume and the school had awarded me a full-tuition fellowship my name was always on the invitation lists for marketing jobs.  (I think some of my classmates hated me.  I would have.)

One time, one of these hiring consultants invited 15 of us to come in for practice interviews and resume reviews.  He would pick up to five of us and fly us to Chicago to meet with his clients (Big Brand-Name Consumer Goods Companies). 

I was on the list.

The day of my interview, if you'd just let me brag a little here, I nailed it. 

"I'd like to offer you a spot on the Chicago trip.  You're smart, you know marketing and you present yourself very well.   My clients would love to meet you."

"Thanks!"  I said.  I gave myself a mental high-five.

"There's just one thing that needs to be fixed on your resume."

"OK."  I took out a pen so I could write on the copy of my resume I had put on the table between us.

"I think you should take out the last sentence in the 'Skills' section"

I reread the "Skills" section.

SKILLS

Experience analyzing AC Nielsen data.  Working knowledge of French.  Fluent in Spanish (native speaker).

"I know that 'working knowledge of French' is a bit awkward, but I don't want to misrepresent my skill level..."

"No," he interrupted, "you shouldn't say you're fluent in Spanish."

Now I was confused.  I'd never heard of such a thing - paring down my resume?  If anything, in business school we were taught to brag as loudly and as often as possible. 

"Why?"

"Because you're an excellent candidate and we don't want people to get the wrong impression."  The bastard said this while looking right at me.

What impression would that be?  That I'm Hispanic and therefore couldn't possibly be "smart" or "an excellent candidate"?

I stood up and gathered my things.  "My background is an asset.  I'm Hispanic.  If you or your clients have a problem with that..."  I was so angry I was about to explode.  "This interview is over."

I left the room and marched over to the Career Services Office, where I instantly filed a complaint.  Now that I'm older and wiser I only wish that I had sent an email to the heads of human resources at his client companies so that they could learn what a tremendo comemierda was representing them.

So yes, ethnicity matters.  As long as people ask you to deny the essence of who you are in order to be accepted, it matters.  As long as "Hispanic" is shorthand for "poor" (i.e. Hispanic neighborhood, Hispanic worker, Hispanic mother), it matters.  As long as Lou Dobbs and his friends look like they're going to throw up every time they say "Hispanic" it will continue to matter.