Second Half – “a bright spot in a grim world”

Second Half is a running commentary on everyday life for Baby Boomers and those who love them.

It has been hailed as “hysterical, sophisticated, biting, thought-provoking, and just plain funny.”

The column explores such things as what to do when your child comes home with a tattoo; how to make orthopedic shoes sexy; and the key to a happy marriage (low expectations).

Published in six Bay Area newspapers from 2004-2009, the column is now exclusively available online.

Give me a call, Steve

It’s just a fact. Whatever your professional expertise, you can’t help using it to judge others’ efforts. If you’re a chef, a restaurant meal has you doing a critique in your head. If you’re an interior designer, you’re mentally re-arranging your friends’ furniture and accessories. If you’re a writer, you edit as you read anything at all, even letters from your mother.

So when Apple CEO Steve Jobs faced the nation to announce what he was going to do for unhappy iPhone 4 customers, my 20 years of public relations experience kicked in.

The issue, in a nutshell, was that some iPhone 4 users experienced dropped calls when they held the phone in a certain way. The media were outraged, comedians were delighted, and parodists had a field day with this perceived…(Read more)

The Trick is to Ignore the Evidence

Has this ever happened to you? Someone sends you a candid photo they took of you and you get a glimpse of how others see you. The camera doesn’t lie, but you’ve learned to make it fib a little when you pose for photos. You jut out your chin to disguise your wattles, open your eyes wide to hide you droopy lids, suck in your stomach, square your shoulders, and turn your best side to the camera, much as you do to the mirror every morning. We all do it—if we didn’t fool ourselves about how we look we’d never go out of the house.

Then, someone catches you unaware and you see yourself as you appear to the rest of the world. It’s humbling, and sometimes shocking.

I am very good at fooling myself. In fact, I’m a world-class chump when it comes to believing my own lies. Here’s an example…(Read more)

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

I don’t know nothin’ about raisin’ no girls.

I have two sons, three years apart, and my child-raising years were full of adventures like tiptoeing through a minefield of Hot Wheels and Legos in the middle of the night, breaking up wrestling matches, and searching under beds for dirty underwear on laundry day. (If you have to ask why it was hidden under the bed, you’ve never had boys.)

I always suspected that it would have been different with girls. Last weekend I had the chance to find out.

Keeper and I have been wanting to visit the California Academy of Sciences ever since it opened. We’ve followed the rave reviews, read about the four-story rainforest contained therein, and made vague plans for a field trip there sometime in the future, maybe when relatives visit.

Our excuses for putting off our museum visit were threefold: the challenge of parking in Golden Gate Park, fear…(Read more)

Scrambled Scribblings from a Scattered Scribe

Sometimes an idea doesn’t work when trying to pen a 500-word column. It’s like trying to make a skirt when you only have enough material for the front. That doesn’t mean that ideas can’t be stitched together in what George Carlin used to call “brain droppings.”

Here’s what’s dropped out of my brain lately. You might want to put on some rubber gloves.

Why, oh why is it a rule that real estate ads must include a photo of the agent? I don’t care what the agent looked like 15 years ago – show me pictures of the house. There are some agencies that even put the agent’s photo on the “for sale” sign. According to one such sign on my street, there will be an open house next Sunday, hosted by a big-haired lady who will be time-traveling from the ‘80s to earn her commission. Either that,…(Read more)

Avoid a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre – Buy a Gift

Nothing brings out the angst like Valentine’s Day. Singles are desperate to be coupled, couples are anxious to stay out of the dog house, and retailers are frantic to sell us candy, flowers, and trinkets that will ensure a romantic ending to the big day.

Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is fraught with peril.

First, there’s the age-old man-woman problem of unexpressed (and therefore unfulfilled) expectations. You know how this goes – SHE expects a gift, a romantic gesture, a little extra cuddling, and HE walks in the door with new recycling bins he found on sale at Home Depot. Mayhem ensues, ending with his plea from the couch where he’ll be spending the night: “You never told me Valentine’s Day was important to you!”

To which I say, baloney! If she is female, Valentine’s Day is important to her. When she says, “Don’t get me anything this year”…(Read more)

Assumptions Hide the Truth

You’d think we’d be over it. At our age, we should have learned not to judge someone by what they wear, what they do for a living, or where they live. Indeed, there’s a famous best-seller that instructs us not to judge, lest we be judged.

Yet, we still make all sorts of assumptions about people based on little or no information.

Take Keeper, for instance. When we meet all those years ago, I took one look at him and my first thought was, “I’ll bet he teaches social studies.”

Now, the only basis I had for this judgment was the fact that he had a bad haircut and was wearing clothes that were at least 15 years out of date. I don’t know what pegged him as a teacher. With the haircut and the clothes he could have been a felon just released from the penitentiary.

As it…(Read more)

When in doubt, pluck it out

Ladies, this one is for you. Gentlemen, if you wonder what women talk about in locker rooms, feel free to listen in. Be advised, however, that the following may contain Too Much Information.

The after-class conversations of my aqua aerobics buddies sometimes tend toward the subject of aging. Most of us are in our Second Half and are feeling the effects of time and gravity. That’s why we love to be in the pool – we can, for a moment, overcome the laws of physics and once again feel young and graceful. Our saggy parts bounce and our bouncy parts float. It’s enough to make us giddy.

Last week, in the after-glow our of wet workout, a group of us hung out, treading water and discussing our facial hair.

One of us, let’s call her Margaret, had just been to the dermatologist to discover the cause of her thinning eyebrows. Her formerly bushy…(Read more)

Local Woman Narrowly Escapes Death

I should have softened the news. When Keeper walked in the door last night, he barely had his coat off before I blurted out my news: “I got hit by a fire truck today.”

“Wha??” Keeper sputtered, his face full of concern and confusion.

“Well, obviously I’m OK,” I added, “but it kind of shook me up.”

That’s the happy ending. Here’s the beginning and the middle.

I was on my way down El Camino to meet my friend at Café Barrone for a cup of tea and a chat.

About to enter the left turn lane at Ravenswood to swing back north to enter the parking garage, I heard sirens. In my rear-view mirror I saw a fire truck bearing down on me. I did what I was trained to do by Mr. Patacsil in Driver’s Ed class in 1968: I pulled over to the right,…(Read more)

Bite Me, Bluetooth Bully!

Hey, buddy! Yeah, you with the laptop and the cell phone and the headset. I hate to break it to you, but you don’t actually own that table at Starbucks.

Lately I’ve noticed (and a story in this morning’s Chronicle confirms) that people are using coffee shops as their office. These urban squatters move in, buy a single cup of coffee and proceed to occupy a chair for hours while they conduct business.

Shop owners are obviously concerned. Customers, the ones that actually buy stuff for cash, are squeezed out by these guys.

Here’s what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I had arranged to meet a friend at a Starbucks in Burlingame, the one near the train station. I arrived a bit early, ordered a large Earl Grey (“Do you mean a grande?”) and scoped out seating possibilities. There was a Mom that looked…(Read more)