Monthly Archives: May 2011

Jane was an early walker. She was toddling around my house by nine months, and on first birthday as I prepared food for guests she stood on my dining room table jumping for the chandelier. Jane is an athlete, but she’s not overly competitive, she just wants to play.

Jane was happy in motion, and her motion has always taken her away from me. I’ve stood proud, watching my daughter assert her independence. We’ve given her roots and wings, she prefers the wings.

This summer Jane is going on a ten day canoeing, rock climbing and camping trip with Outward Bound. I remember my own first camping trips and how I felt alive in ways I’d never expected. I remember the smells and the sounds, the heat of the sun and the chill of the water. I remember not caring about anything except what was right in front of me. I’m excited for Jane to have all of that. For four of the days she is gone Alexander, too, will be away at camp. His will be less of an adventure, but to be fair he’s only nine.

Their independence both delights and terrifies me.

This week I had a phone call with Procter and Gamble (P&G) and they gave me a brief overview of their Thank You Mom campaign as it relates to the Special Olympics this summer in Athens. P&G has made a significant donation of $250,000 to the Special Olympics to support it’s local programs and services.

As is their tradition P&G reached out to the Mothers of the Athletes to ask how they could best partner with them. This group of mothers simply wants to ensure that their children are able to compete. This group of moms would like nothing more than to see the games supported.

As a mom I was a little surprised by this so I decided to poke around the internet and see if any of these mothers had written anything.

I should have known that one of my most devoted members of my community would write a post so ordinary about a day so extraordinary that I’d be teary eyed and smiling reading it. Cathy is the mom of Cody, an athlete in the special olympics. She writes:

At some point while waiting for his third and final race of the day, the 1 kilometer walk, he looked at his Dad and said, I want to win. I get a little teary as I write that. It’s so much more than I can express in words. Cody has never cared about winning or being the best at anything, not because he doesn’t give a darn, but because he just wasn’t made that way. In most cases, that’s been a good thing, sometimes it’s a gift that autism gave us rather than taking something away.

I wasn’t sure how to introduce this campaign to y’all, so I thought I’d embark on a campaign of listening. My community is diverse, but we all share a special tenderness. I can’t be the only person who was reading at her computer and silently cheering for Cody to win the whole shebang.

The Olympics has united nations, wars have been paused so that men and women can compete. Just as we honor our Olympic athletes I’m getting excited about our Special Olympics Athletes. Oh, and their moms. You cannot ignore Mom when you look at an athlete of any age. I’m sorry but if I helped you learn to walk that means I helped you learn to run. [okay maybe a little selfish but that's just me projecting]

Procter and Gamble  also went on a campaign of listening and to honor the Moms of the athletes competing in the upcoming Special Olympics World Summer Games another $250,000 will be donated to support Team USA’s travel to Athens, assuming y’all help. In order to get this next quarter of a million dollars we (you and I) are being asked to like the Thank You Mom campaign on facebook. Every time you like, share or leave a comment on the page another dollar is added to the gift.

This post is brought to you from my partnership with P&G.

This morning I was talking to a group of Danish Journalists and I did a great job of making them feel superior. First off I wore a dark brown belt that was frayed along with a shirt that was too pink and too tight. I’d hoped that my jacket would cover the belly fat, but according to Sadistic Sandy (the personal trainer who I will introduce y’all to later) belly fat means that you’re eating too much, not that you’re dressing wrong.

Denmark is supposed to be the happiest country in the world. From this group I’d suspect that’s accurate. Everyone was tall thin, impossibly fashionable, blue eyed and smiley. I’d be happy hanging out with them all day.

Essentially I was there to give them a run down on what Mom Blogging looks like. I gave them an overview of the landscape, and a quick run down of how I started blogging. After a while we got our rhythm and I showed them some of the work I’ve done with Momversation. Naturally the first video on the page is all about Pre School Panic. There was no sound so I had to tell them about how a New York City mom was suing her daughter’s preschool for the $19,000 tuition because she didn’t feel like her daughter had been academically prepared for the right schools.

They snickered.

And then I stood there and I thought about the fact that Americans will pay a year’s salary for school and then turn around and sue. We sue for pretty much everything. I had to giggle too, but I also had to explain to them that New York is a very expensive place to live…. and then someone asked me where I fell in that discussion.

Well, I kind of understand… and then I realized that I sound ridiculous.

And then someone asked me about politics and where my blog might be on the spectrum and I explained to them that everyone hates me because I want marijuana legal and moms to raise their own kids. And then there was a groan from one of the women. So now I’m explaining to them that in America women don’t get a year of maternity leave, that it’s unusual for a man to take more than a few days off of work and that planning a family here requires planning because we don’t support families….  and oh how they turned on me.

But they were beautiful and they were happy and Denmark doesn’t have personal bloggers yet but I suspect that they will soon. I did my part. I made sure those journos know the facts. Americans like to sue people,Americans like to get involved with other people’s parenting, and Americans like pot, but not enough to make it legal.

I’m like an Ambassador.

If we’re connected on Facebook you’ve likely noticed that I have been enjoying Empire Avenue. Empire Avenue is a fantasy stock market for social media. It offers me an opportunity to turn work into a game. Since I’ve added Empire Avenue activities to my feed quite a few of you have asked me for more details about it.

I went ahead and bought some stock in their COO and CFO Robert Kallir and asked him if he’d grant me an interview. Taking into account the explosive growth of Empire Avenue I sent over ten questions, hoping he’d answer three. Being a mensch Kallir went ahead and answered them all.

ME:  I discovered Empire Avenue about three weeks ago. When did it launch?

ROBERT KALLIR: Empire Avenue launched in February 2010 as a friends and family beta and was opened to the public at the end of July 2010

ME:  Empire Avenue is modeled after the stock markets, do you envision a time where there are margins and short sales?

ROBERT KALLIR: Not at this time, we used a Stock Market system that is no longer in use called the Market Maker system. We think the real stock market is fairly complex and hard to understand. In our system, every night we give you a share price based on your social media activity, engagement and interaction as well as your share sales. Further buys the next day increases, sells conversely decrease. Pretty simple, mass market system!

ME: Have you seen some of the emails that social media thought leaders are sending to their shareholders? What do you think of them?

ROBERT KALLIR: We love seeing the system being used. We know that there is a game quality to it and that people will use it in all sorts of different ways. We have seen some incredibly high quality messages and communications. This kind of use makes us feel pretty good when the quality is high and makes people consider the online networks they create and the deep value inside of them!

ME: Is there an EA user that’s particularly entertaining?

ROBERT KALLIR: What? I’m not enough? Seriously we try not to promote any one individual as a company.

ME: What does the average person gain from participating at EA?

ROBERT KALLIR: We think the platform is actually ideally suited to the average person. Let’s look at it in three ways:

a. It’s a game: Have a bit of fun in doing what you already do online everywhere just now we give you achievements, luxury items, virtual currency…

b. If you play the game and try to raise your share price, you will become better at Social Networks. Play with the advisors, get engagement, get interaction on your networks and try to “game” the system because if you do it you will create a valuable network and learn about social media networking.

c. If you play the game to increase wealth you will actually invest and connect with some new and wonderful people across 150 countries. That’s kind of cool!

The rest of the interview is at Teh User and if y’all wanted to buy some stock in me, my ticker symbol is JESSG.

My back yard has a trumpet vine that threatens to take over the carport. It blooms madly in the early summer and again in August. There are bursts of red, pink and orange that remind me of Carmen Miranda and a tangle of greenery that is home to at least two songbird nests. When Pedro (my gardener) shows up I remind him to not trim the vines as they are home to these birds. Then I plead with him to put away the leaf blower as he’s stripping me of my top soil. We’ve been together a dozen years, every week it’s a fight to put away the leaf blower.

We’ve been in this house a half dozen years and for a half dozen years I’ve woken to the sound of songbirds early every spring morning. By summertime they abandon their nests, and near December they return to rebuild. I don’t know what sort of birds they are, but I know that the male has a red breast and they’ve not small, their bodies are the size of my fist. I assume their brains are smaller than a grape. Still, I like their songs.

Friday morning I went for run, had breakfast with a friend and then popped into the grocery store. I arrived home and was unloading the car when my housekeeper came to help with the bags. This is unusual, unloading groceries is not a two woman job.

“Yessica, el gato es drinking de beer.” She said, as she pointed to the sky.

“That’s weird,” I said, “how did she get beer?”

“Not beer the beerrrd.” She repeated and gestured to the sky.

I made my way through the living room, the dining room and the family room. As I approached the kitchen I got tunnel vision and all I could see was Sparky and her songbird. Since the chest cavity was torn open it was impossible for me to discern if it was the male or female bird.

I took the grocery bags off my shoulder and stood frozen staring at my cat. Slowly, arrogantly her head turned up at me and she began licking her paws.

“Mayra, este no es drinking ella es EATING. It’s a BIRD.”

Smirking, Mayra replied, “Si, es un beerrd. Yo se.”

I gave her two plastic bags and an extra $25.