Tag Archives: WSJ

Six things I miss about swim meets

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My kids at the pool
My kids at the pool posing for a club team pic.

Once upon a time, we were crazy swim parents. Yes, those kind of parents.

I read an article in the WSJ yesterday that brought fond memories of those days.

It was called “A Tribute to the Inane Dramas of Sideline Parents: Who would have thought I’d miss all that groaning, whining and anguish?” by Joe Queenan.

Here’s an excerpt:

One of the worst things about watching your kids grow up is that you no longer get to witness the uniquely idiotic, yet oddly entertaining, behavior of parents at kids’ ballgames. 

When my daughter started playing league soccer at age 6, parents would go out of their way to film every minute of every game. That first year, her team went winless and scoreless until the final game of the season. Decades later, the kids’ aging parents can pull those old videos down off the shelf and regale their progeny with untold hours of lovingly documented footage of utterly unproductive prepubescent athletic activity. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Dad!

I actually miss this inanity. As a connoisseur of boorishness, I miss the anguished complaints about muffed offsides calls, the moaning and groaning about alleged handballs in front of the goal, the conspiratorial suggestions that the referee is blind. 

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/a-tribute-to-the-inane-dramas-of-sideline-parents-126b54ee

Although I don’t miss riding the roller coaster of being a crazy swim parent — or watching parents who were downright abusive — I do miss six things about going to swim meets.

ONE

Spending time together.  When you’re away for a few days with your swimmer, you have a captive audience. There’s no distraction of eight hours at school, followed by three hours of swim practice, or them hanging out with their non-swim friends. Spending lots of time together, unfettered with household, work, and daily school responsibilities is refreshing. I enjoyed our little bubble of time and treated it like a mini-vacation. We played cards, sang songs, hung out at the beach, and had fun!

TWO

Nap time. When our swimmers were older and had meets with prelims and finals, we found ourselves in the hotel — with our kids — for three to four hours in the middle of the day. They needed to be off their feet and resting. So I’d bring in lunch, relax, and enjoyed the best naps!

THREE

Walking. Being at a meet for days on end, without cooking, cleaning, working, etc. allowed plenty of time to walk. I walked during warm-ups and warm-downs. I walked with my husband, with friends, and by myself. I looked forward to checking out the areas by the pools on foot. Walking got rid of my nervous energy and walking for hours and miles had to be good for me!

FOUR

Friendships. I spent lots of hours with team parents under the pop-up tent. Mostly, swim parents are generous, encouraging and have the common interest of their team and kids’ successes at heart. I made great friends with parents from other teams — as well as swim officials. I looked forward to seeing them at meets. I remember conversations with parents when our kids were leaving for college. We shared our excitement plus our anxieties of being empty nesters. We lived in separate towns with kids on separate teams, yet had so much in common.

FIVE

Watching your swimmer race. What is it about watching your child race that is so rewarding and exciting? I’m not sure, but if you have the answer, please let me know. It was so exciting when they did well. I loved that feeling when I watched their hard work pay off and observed their growth as a person and athlete. It crushed me when goals were missed by mere tenths of seconds and our kids were disappointed.

SIX

Sushi. We ate lots of sushi at swim meets. I scouted for the best sushi restaurants near pools throughout Southern California. My daughter liked to eat sushi at meets, too. It’s healthy, light, provides her with the right fuel to race. We didn’t have a sushi restaurant at home that I liked, so sushi was a treat.

Looking back at your kids’ childhood, what do you miss?

Interesting interview with a favorite author

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Ann Patchett is one of my favorite authors. I enjoyed her book “The Dutch House.”

I read an interview of Ann Patchett in the Wall Street Journal by Lane Florsheim called

“Ann Patchett Shares Her Reading Resolutions for 2024“

The author, most recently of ‘Tom Lake,’ talks about her to-be-read pile, running her beloved Nashville bookstore and when she gets her best writing done

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/ann-patchett-tom-lake-nashville-35f2415b?mod=arts-culture_trendingnow_article_pos5

I learned some interesting facts about this author including that she owns a bookstore in Nashville. She writes on a treadmill desk. (I never heard of that before). She also has a tip for writers to work during their most productive time of day. She said it’s different for everyone and we all know when it is. She doesn’t have a set number of words she must write each day or a set schedule.

Of her nine novels, two children’s books and five nonfiction books, I’m not a fan of all the ones I’ve read. I admire how she has such diversity in her writing. Her fiction books take on different tones, styles and subject matters. That’s probably why I absolutely love some — and others not so much. I’ve actually put down one or two and didn’t finish them. On the other hand, her writing speaks to me and I find some of her books are outstanding.

Another one of my favorites by Ann Patchett.

Here’s a snippet from the WSJ article:

Reporter: I read that you wrote “Tom Lake,” in its entirety, on a treadmill desk. How was that experience, and what were those hours like? 

Ann Patchett: I loved it. I would go to work around 9 a.m. I would stay on the treadmill anywhere from two to three hours at 1.5 [miles per hour], which is slow. Usually, I would get off when my feet hurt, when I would just start to think, “Oh. I’m tired.” Then I would get off, and I would not go back to the book for the rest of the day. 

I always think about Liz Gilbert. All great advice comes from Elizabeth Gilbert. That’s what I should say. She says in her book “Big Magic” that everybody has two hours a day in which you’re your best, and everybody knows when those hours are. She said, “Don’t spend those hours answering email.” One of the things that makes the treadmill desk so great is the fact that the two things that I want to do in the morning when I get up are write and exercise. I’m like, “Oh. Look. I’ve done them both. That’s great.”

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/ann-patchett-tom-lake-nashville-35f2415b?mod=arts-culture_trendingnow_article_pos5

I also learned that she used to write for Bridal Guide and wrote so many articles for issues that they changed her byline for some so it didn’t look like she wrote the entire magazine. In one article she asked for wedding advice and shared a tip from her stepmother:

“[She] told me that the brain naturally focuses on what is wrong, what it doesn’t like—towels on the floor, or somebody who interrupts, or somebody who’s late,” Patchett, 59, says. “And so then, every time your partner does that, it’s just like hitting a gong.” The good things, by contrast, often go unnoticed or forgotten, her stepmother told her. “She said, ‘It is possible, with practice and discipline, to flip the equation.’” 

Are you an Ann Patchett fan? What are some of her books you like?
Who are your favorite authors?

How not to be boring at 60

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diving off the blocks
That’s me diving off the blocks in my first swim meet.

A headline caught my eye in the Lifestyle sections of the Wall Street Journal: “How to Avoid Being Boring at 60” by Rob LaZebnik.

LaZebnik was a writer and co-executive producer for The Simsons, so I hardly can see how he’d think his life was boring. Nonetheless, he said when he hit 60, he felt a vibe around him that all his stories had been told and friends found him boring.

From the article:

That’s when it hit me: I didn’t have anything new and exciting to tell them. My life had gotten entrenched in routine. Calcified, if you will. I had stopped evolving, and I think we all know what happens then—like the dodo, you stop flying, get fat and Dutch sailors eat you on their voyage home.

I needed to figure out a way to turn this around. I vowed to take that big, upsetting number 60 and remake it into something positive: I decided I would do 60 things I’d never done before. Maybe that would force me to forge new neural pathways in the dog-eared map that was my brain.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/how-to-avoid-being-boring-at-60-1e9d087a?mod=lifestyle_trendingnow_article_pos1

He came up with a list of things he wasn’t interested in doing like sky diving or anything that could cause injury or be too expensive. The list he did come up with was unique and included things like sewing a shirt, going to a gay bar, attending a mega church and going on a police ride-a-long. (I did the police ride-a-long as a journalism student at the UW in Seattle.)

Once we hit middle age and the kids have left the nest, we do have a tendency to slow down. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But if you look at too much routine, life can get boring. We can become boring, too.

The article made me reflect on my day-to-day life. What have I done to keep things interesting past 50 and into the 60s?

I joined a swim team, learned to swim and competed in swim meets (photo above). I learned how to dive off the blocks and could race a 50. I came dead last in my age group — but beat some 80-year-old swimmers.

I took up boogie boarding two years ago after not having ridden the waves since my kids were out there with me. I found it exhilarating and it made me feel young for those few moments riding a wave.

I was a guest on a podcast hosted by Wynne Leon and Dr. Vicki Atkinson on The Heart of the Matter.

I went to Sacramento and gave a talk to a group of swim parents due to my weekly swim parenting column on a website that had millions of readers per month. (Oh yes, I also started writing that column! Plus started a website where I interviewed swimming stars and coaches in Southern California). Public speaking is one of my biggest fears. I practiced and practiced. My son drove me to the meeting and sat in the audience, so I spoke directly to him.

That’s me near Santa Barbara last August, ready to boogie board.

My husband and I began playing ping pong regularly in our backyard after going on two vacations that had ping pong. We have a blast and the laughter keeps us young. Except I’ve fallen a couple times returning shots — which isn’t great.

We hike on desert trails near our house.

I’ve reconnected with friends that I haven’t heard from in decades.

What would I like to do that I haven’t done?

Perhaps take a writing class to help me revise my manuscript (suggested by LA from Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50.)

Travel to places around the world I’ve never been to.

Explore more of our new state.

What’s on your list of things to do to not be boring as you age?

What have you done that you believe keeps you young?

Chit Chat Class

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Red Northern Cardinal
A Cardinal visiting my BirdBuddy AI feeder. He has a beautiful voice.

Have you noticed teens or 20-somethings at restaurants, in a group, but not talking? Instead you may see them looking down at their phones.

I saw an article at the WSJ that talked about boot camps for college students to learn small talk. One professor noticed her students from Caltech weren’t getting interviews or jobs. (Caltech is a school for brilliant kids and very difficult to get into.) Other lecturers from other colleges noticed a similar trend. They decided to get involved and help teach skills that previously were taken for granted.

In the article “We Now Need College Courses to Teach Young Adults How to Make Small Talk” by Tara Weiss, she said:

Professors are teaching elementary chitchat skills to students who are woefully behind in the basics.

Everybody seems to have a theory about why many young adults have trouble with so-called soft skills, which include the art of persuasion and civil conversation. Blame smartphone addiction, Covid cocooning or helicopter parenting. Regardless of cause, a growing number of college professors in various disciplines around the U.S. are trying to keep professional chitchat from becoming a lost language.

Claire Ralph, a Caltech computer-science lecturer, said when she started at the campus in 2016 she was surprised that a fifth of her students had spent five months looking for a job—not even getting interviews. She asked to see copies of their cover letters. One began, “Hey wazzup y’all.” The student explained that “someone said a cover letter should be friendly,” Ralph recalled.

She talked about students’ communication shortcomings with colleagues. Everyone came to the same conclusion: “It was a hole people knew existed,” she said, but “didn’t know how to plug.”

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/colleges-teach-chitchat-to-shy-students-81fe9db1?mod=lifestyle_lead_pos2

I’m glad these professors are working on basic communication skills with their students. I had to go through chit chat training when I worked for a couple years with my husband at Merrill Lynch. They called it speed dating. We had different scenarios or roles to play. We lined up in two lines and had to go down the line having a few seconds to find out as much as we could about the other person across from us. There were a number of other exercises, and although they were nerve wracking, they were useful.

I remember serving on a scholarship committee for three high schools in the Palm Springs area. Along with four or five other women, we’d go through applications and have in-person interviews with our top prospects. The three high schools had different socio-economic demographics, but one stood out. That’s because somebody in the faculty told the girls how to dress, shake our hands firmly and look us in the eye. They had training that put them ahead of the kids who were left on their own. We were impressed.

What are your thoughts about chit chat class? Do you think the art of small talk is getting lost in today’s society? With just our youth or with everyone and why?

When were you picked?

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Me and my brother, back in the day.

There was an article in the Lifestyle section of the Wall Street Journal that captured my interest. It was written by Rich Cohen and called:

We Never Really Escape the Gym-Class Draft

Does the childhood fear of being picked last explain our insecurities later in life?

For some reason, I was always picked last or second to last in PE — whether it was Red Rover, dodgeball, volleyball or anything. How depressing is that? I am somewhat athletic. I started skiing at age two. I could swim. I took ballet. Yet, my school chums saw me as someone they didn’t want on their team. I think it was my thick glasses. I was terribly near-sighted from birth.

From the article:

It’s the sort of alienation you experience in junior high school but feel forever. Being just another number among a pool of available picks, you see yourself, maybe for the first time, through the cold eyes of an appraiser. You are no more than a body in the mind of this person, an object with too many deficiencies to catalog: chubby, knock-kneed, weak-armed, timid, poorly coordinated, scared of the ball, slow.

You will also feel yourself, for the first time, trapped in a body, isolated from even your closest friends, of whom you might think: Oh, dear lord, as bad as it gets, as long as it takes, let me be taken before him.

What’s worse, you know that you’re being judged on all the wrong qualities, in all the wrong ways. Yeah, I’m slow, you think as round three gives way to round four. I can’t throw very hard, and I don’t move too quick. But there’s one thing I know how to do well: kick ass at dodgeball.

Apparently, this picking by your peers is no longer allowed. Of course most things that make kids uncomfortable is no longer allowed.

When were you picked? Do you think they should still allowing choosing teams by peers? Why or why not?

Hey, I’m in fashion!

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Asics sneakers.

I was reading through the Wall Street Journal and saw a fashion trend that made me smile.

Asics are hot. Who knew? I wear my big clunky Asics every day. Despite my lateral move playing ping pong and crashing to the ground last week (I wrote about that HERE) they are seriously the most comfortable shoes I own — well, maybe tied with my Sanuk yoga mat flip flops.

I have a painful arthritic growth on my left foot that I’m surviving with shots of cortisone from time to time. When that no longer helps, the doctor said I’ll need surgery.

In the meantime, I only wear super comfortable shoes. The last time we went out to dinner with friends, I struggled with the dressier shoes in my closet. They are painful! I finally settled on a retro pair of Adidas, which is hardly fancy enough for a fancy restaurant, but it’s that or the Asics or flip flops.

The story I read in the WSJ was by Rebecca Malinsky. Here’s an excerpt:

Why Asics and Salomon Sneakers Are Fashion’s Hottest Shoes

THE LATEST shoe trending among Hollywood It girls and fashion types isn’t a slim stiletto or a sleek, minimalist mule. It’s a sneaker. A chunky, technical running sneaker, to be exact. Mary-Kate Olsen has been seen sporting Salomon Speedcross 3s, high-performance trail-running shoes. Hailey Bieber has lately swapped her Jimmy Choos for a bulky Balenciaga sneaker. And model and author Emily Ratajkowski has frequently been photographed in white Asics sneaks while striding through New York.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/asics-salomon-womens-sneakers-11645640840?mod=life_work_major_1_pos1

I am thinking about donating all my uncomfortable fancy shoes to the local Kiwanis mart. But if I do get surgery, I may be able to wear them again. I’m excited to know I’m in style, rather than just a middle aged frump.

The most comfortable flip flops ever. Yoga mats by Sanuk.

What type of shoes do you usually wear? Are you more interested in looks or comfort? Any suggestions for a dressier shoe that is super comfortable?

Have you heard about the imposter syndrome?

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I notice when phrases and terminology trend or get popular. Can you say overused? These terms jump out at me because I’m interested in words and phrases. I’ve run across “imposter syndrome” several times the past few days. What is the imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome, also called perceived fraudulence, involves feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist despite your education, experience, and accomplishments.

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/imposter-syndrome#signs
young blond boy at the beach
My son at the beach prior to 9/11 and 2008.

Here’s an article about the Imposter Syndrome millennials and how they are insecure about their finances in the Wall Street Journal By Julia Carpenter:

“I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to managing my money.” 

“I just know I’m going to screw this all up eventually anyway.”

“I don’t deserve to be earning/saving/spending as much as I am.”  

These are some of the thoughts that run through my head whenever I open my banking app or check my credit score—me, a personal-finance reporter at The Wall Street Journal. My confidence in my job and my confidence in my own finances are two different things. And I’m not alone in feeling insecure about managing my own money.

As we discuss career trajectories and feelings of social belonging, many in my millennial generation are familiar with “impostor syndrome,” the phenomenon of doubting your own hard-won success and feeling like a fraud in certain spaces. This kind of self-destructive thought pattern can also infiltrate our feelings about our finances—and all too often does for millennials.

One source of many millennials’ insecurity is the scars of the 2008 recession, says Maggie Germano, a financial coach based in Washington, D.C. At that point, millennials were either early in their careers or still in school, so they had little or nothing in the way of reassuring experiences to fall back on. More than a decade—and another recession—later, many are still hesitant to claim their newfound success.  

“They always feel things will fall apart financially,” Ms. Germano says. “I have clients who make really good money but then still worry about losing everything.” 

This fear means you can have a harder time making tough money calls or trusting your own decision making. I feel this in my own life: I often agonize over seemingly simple financial moves and constantly second-guess my own instincts. 

On top of that, the widening gap between those who could sustain their financial stability in the pandemic and those who couldn’t can lead to greater feelings of financial impostor syndrome, Ms. Germano says. Financial survivor’s guilt is a common phenomenon in the coronavirus pandemic and can lead those who have done well to question whether they deserve to be so fortunate.

I’ve talked to my kids and they say 9/11 and the 2008 market crash really marked them for life. I’m not sure if they are suffer from the imposter syndrome but those two events make them very unsure of their financial futures.

Add this crazy 2020 global pandemic and I am frightened for them and their distrust of everything we took for granted as the American Dream. They reject the system that we took for granted growing up.

I believe the insecurity of not only the the major crisis my kids have lived through has shaped their lives and their politics. They don’t believe in the same things i do. They don’t believe in either party.

I wonder If their lives hadn’t been touched by such extreme events would they have different outlooks today?

My husband rejects the notion that our kids have had it rough because of 9/11, 2008 market crash and COVID-19. He pointed out wars like the Civil War, World War I and II, and Vietnam. The 1932 stock market crash. There are all sorts of tough times in our nation’s history. Maybe this feels different because I’ve lived through it. And my kids have too.

baby girl at the beach
My daughter at Laguna Beach before life was traumatic.

Do you experience the Imposter Syndrome? In what situations?

Do you know people who suffer from the Imposter syndrome? Who are they?

Do you think our kids lives have been altered by 9/11 and COVID 19?

What other phrases or terms have you heard lately?