The City

Growing up in the bay area, though each and every city here has it's own unique personality, it's association with San Francisco is always claimed with pride. I grew up in the east bay area, and though that's a good 45 minutes from the city, really we always talked like it was just on the outskirts of SF.

It's an amazing & beautiful place and it's been far too long since I've been there. That's one of the reasons I'm so excited to be sitting on bart to go spend a day in the city.

We all like to have a place we can call ours. Whose culture and history we can claim as our own. I am still proud to call the bay area my home, and all the richness of it a part of me.

Posted with LifeCast

Take Me Out to the Ball Game...

I've always wondered exactly why women's baseball has never really achieved any real attention over the years. Women's basketball, tennis, even women's soccer have all had some decent press over the years, but not women's baseball. Having always been a lover of the game I never understood why women seemed to get the shaft of a game, well quite frankly of a game they we're pretty damn good at.

Now this thought has come even more so for me over the last few months since my son has begun playing T-Ball. Now up until 1973 girls were not allowed to play in Little League. Though it is still dominated by boys I see girls on almost every team in our league here. Which is good because it turns out, my daughter has an arm. I mean a pitching arm. At 4 she can already hit & throw the ball as good (if not better) than the boys on my son's team, and she still has a year before she's old enough to play.

But what happens if it is her calling? She plays baseball her entire childhood, knowing that she doesn't have a shot at ever playing in the majors. Well that plain sucks. We may still be a little ways off from seeing a woman in the White House, but hey at least women like Hilary Clinton are on the field!

With MLB, there might as well be a big sign out front the stadiums that say "No Girls Allowed." Well, they kind of did actually. In 1952 Major League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick decided that women are not to play on major league teams, stating his 'purpose was to prevent teams from using women players as a publicity stunt.' Yea, thanks for the protection. Too bad he couldn't have made a similar rule about fashion magazines, but I digress.

Even the Olympics are getting with the times by adding Women's Baseball to the Bid to reinstate Baseball into the 2016 Olympic games. Women's Professional Baseball is taken pretty seriously in many other countries as well. Just not here.

Even after years of girls playing little league beside the boys and excelling in other ranks of baseball, in fact most people can say they've seen plenty of baseball players that are girls that can play just as good, if not better, then any man on a MLB field today. Yet here in the states, they still run into a brick wall when it comes to stepping out on to that Major League Field.

Well, MLB you better take note, I've got a girl here who can play ball. And in about 15 years her and I are going to be showing up and you damn well better have a uniform that fits.

Catching Butterflies and Lessons in Love

Yesterday my little girl went butterfly catching. She went with a neighbor, her son and of course my son. They went around the corner to the park where there has been a ton of butterflies due to migrating habits lately.

When they returned my daughter was so proud that she had caught one. There was this precious little butterfly in a little butterfly habitat with a few leaves and some flowers. She proudly showed it to everyone she could and we placed it on top of the bookshelf to keep it out of Blossom the cat's grasp.

I asked her if we were going to let it go, and she looked at me with her big blue eyes and said "NO Mommy! She's my butterfly." I figured we'd deal with it in a few days and let it go. This morning the first thing she did was take down the butterfly habitat and laid down on the floor next to it. She quietly whispered to the butterfly, "Hey girl, how was your night?" Needless to say, my daughter was attached.

Later in the day as I tried to round up my daughter for lunch, she refused to answer me. Which is not too out of the ordinary for my little Diva, so I went in search of her. I found her sitting quietly behind the couch downstairs beside our sliding glass door looking out into the backyard. Before I could tell her to come upstairs for lunch I saw the very crushed look she had on her face. AND the empty butterfly habitat beside her.

I asked her what happened and where her butterfly was. With big tears streaming down she pointed outside where I saw the leaves and flowers on the back patio. "I let her go home, and now I miss her!" She said as she ran to me and burst into a hyper cry.

While part of me broke inside seeing her so sad, a bigger part of me swelled with love and pride. My daughter had just learned a life lesson that I could never explain or teach her. When you love something, set it free.

I ached for her, but told her how happy the butterfly was and how happy the butterfly's family was going to be to see her back home. Then we ate lunch, where she got a couple cookies for being so sweet to her butterfly.

4 years old and already she understands something about love that some adults never understand.

I love being a mom.

Old Stereotypes Die Hard

In honor of Women’s History Month a lot of publications and websites have come out with articles about the history of the women’s movement and how far we’ve come. And though in some areas that might be true, many women feel we’ve got a long way to go to truly reach gender equality here in the United States and especially in other parts of the world. The current women’s movement is not just about laws and fair pay but about changing a biased attitude that has been around far too long.

Attitudes like the ones expressed in an article in the Vatican’s newspaper titled, “The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax." The article explains how the washing machine has done more for the women’s movement than any other invention in recent history. Including the birth control pill.

Read the rest of my post at WomenCount...

IOWA'S STAND FOR GENDER EQUALITY

It looks like if you’re a woman who wants to break into politics, Iowa might just be the place to start. Last Wednesday, Iowa made a bold stand against gender bias by requiring "gender equality" on all local boards and commissions appointed by city councils, school boards and county boards of supervisors.

The Iowa House passed the bill in a 71 to 27 vote. If the bill becomes law, "gender equity" will be required on all local boards and commissions starting January 1, 2012. Women make up 51% of the population in Iowa, yet only 18% percent of current members of four key local boards and commissions are women.

Read the rest of my latest post on WomenCount...

A Single Woman

There are so many women that deserve recognition during Women’s History Month (as well as the rest of the year), but Jeanette Rankin’s place in that history is pivotal.

Jeanette Pickering Rankin was the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives and the first female member of the Congress. She was known as the Lady of the House.

Rankin was a pacifist. She voted against both WWI and WWII, the only person to do the latter.

Read the Rest of My Post at WomenCount's Blog

My Hometown

This morning I heard Brue Springsteen’s My Hometown on the radio. It made me stop and get all weepy & nostalgic, which I think many Springsteen songs do for a lot of us. I’ve written a ton about my hometown, this place I grew up in, over at JamsBio. But it's been awhile.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my hometown, maybe because my son turns 6 this weekend. Six years old. Wow. It truly goes by in a blink doesn’t it? This morning as I ran a couple of errands and saw the gray skies blanketing the foothills of my hometown, I felt my heart swell with love. Those foothills have surrounded me my entire life. And for as many of my teenage years that were spent plotting my ultimate escape of this boring little NorCal town, there have been even more years spent trying to stay here. As the economy continues to struggle so do we, but we keep fighting to stay here.

My dad was an air force brat. He was born in Germany and moved around constantly while he was growing up. When he had his own kids he decided that he would not do that to them. He wanted his kids to grow up in one place and one place only. So even when times were tough he and my mom managed to stay here. My dad would always find work even when times were tough and there was no work to be found. He managed to keep us grounded, to keep us in one place. And all these years later, I’m still here. And I can’t imagine raising my kids anywhere else.

Not too long ago my son and I were driving through downtown and he said to me, “Mom, I love our town.” I smiled and said to him, “Me too kiddo, me too.”