the object of my rage: cycling gangs

The upside of living in del Rey is being walking distance to the beach. The down side are the self-righteous jerks who like to put on shiny outfits, wrap-around shades and peddle their bikes with a contigency of 2,000 other self-righteous jerks in the designated car lane near the beach. At least once a week I fantasize about smashing into them as I am forced to slow down and change lanes.

Don't get me wrong. Bicyclists are perfectly entitled to their space on the road. I mean just that: their space. I don't support drivers who deliberately anatagonize them or try to poke them with their side mirrors or even run them over (as a physician did in Northern California, ostensibly to "teach them a lesson"). But you gots no business clogging up my drive. Stay in your lane. You ain't Lance Armstrong, going for your twentieth Tour de France honor. Hopefully you realize that.

Today a smaller group of bikers cut across the street as several of us car folks were traveling 55 miles+/hour. Thanks for ensuring my brakes can slam to a halt, you a-holes. One of the dorks actually laughed out loud as we passed. Think that's funny? Next time you may not be so lucky. Next time you and your Lycra may end up like a pretzel under my tires.

Oh, fantasy is so sweet.

the c word

I'm afraid to even type it, lest I become associated with it. And I don't mean the vulgar reference to the female hoo-ha. I mean the dreaded c word: cancer.

In the spate of just two months, five people I know have been diagnosed with cancer. One of them is in hospice care with just a few weeks left to live. He is 54 and will be saying good bye to his wife and his two kids. My colleague and friend who bought a special dress to attend my wedding will soon undergo treatment for invasive breast cancer. She is 46 years old. My good friend's stepfather is battling brain cancer. He is 58. My cousin's dearest friend is getting treatment for invasive breast cancer. 42.

What the hell, life? Why are you striking down so many young, loving, decent people? In two weeks I will undergo my annual pap smear and I'm petrified that I will be the next name on the c-word list. Okay, probably not likely, but the fear is real. I have to undergo a mammogram and I'm wondering if they will find something I missed. I am busting J's balls about getting his regular prostate exam and feeding him extra tomatoes to protect his health.

Damn you c-word, and all the chaos you create.

had a baby, lost my mind

One of the things people don't tell you when you're having a baby (in addition to the fact that your male infant can sport an erection) is that with the birth of a child comes the unraveling of logic. Not a temporary situation, either. You pop out a kid and you can kiss good sense goodbye.

Here's what I mean. Last week we took a trip to the park. Magnus is feeling more confident about his physical abilities and decided to try his hand at the large slide. We called it the big boy slide. Who was I kidding? It was The Slide that Kills Kids. As he scaled the steps to the very top, grinning and giving us a little wave, I pictured him hurtling off the side and falling flat on his face. I was able to shake this terrible vision in time to see him sail down the slide and land safely on his feet. But this was just one in a series of incidents where I feel impending doom is lurking around the corner, waiting to harm my precious firstborn.

Take his baby tub. A month ago he was splashing away, happy as a clam. I stepped away for 14 seconds (I counted) to toss some laundry in his room. The splashing suddenly halted and my heart dropped to my ankles. I rushed back into the kitchen, convinced that he had slid underwater and was fighting for his life. (Never mind that he's actually too big to lie down and be submerged in water). Not so much. The child was momentarily distracted by his plastic car and had put the brakes on the splashing. What was wrong with me?

The latest episode of my utter insanity happened this morning. Magnus went to bed later than normal last night. When he hadn't roused by his normal 6:30 a.m., I rose to my feet and slowly made my way to his room. I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting to find, but "coma" came to mind. I almost collapsed with relief when I found him sitting in his crib, tugging on his blanket.

I am sure all moms have moments of dread or paranoia when it comes to the safety of their children. I'm just wondering if I'm one of those extreme cases that require medical supervision. Sometimes at work, I'll fret that Magnus managed to unlock my parents' front door and is running unsupervised in the street. Perhaps my guilt at being a working mom is kicking in and overriding the stability control function, rendering me a delusional psychopath. Sadly, I think these bouts of maternal kookiness are going to be around for a while.

Wait - do you hear that screaming? My bad, it's just the lawn mower across the street...

Me and the Wong

We have a new intern at work. While getting her settled into her cramped cubicle, I found myself thinking about one of my very first jobs. I was 20 and landed a summer position as the administrative assistant for Dr. Alfred Wong, an esteemed scientist who headed the experimental and plasma physics lab at UCLA.

What a jackass he was.

Most of the time I didn't see him save for Fridays, when he descended upon our office to confirm that people were working. He would walk methodically down the hallway and call out each postdoc by their last name before entering their lab. "Chu? Smith? Anderson?" You felt like the Supreme Court denied clemency and an execution was imminent. Sometimes there were debates that sounded like a foreign language film. "Electron diffraction?" "Mais no. Optical interactions of coherent radiation? Oui." But mostly the postdocs would say, "Yes, Dr. Wong. Yes," and run around like crazy people for the remainder of the day.

One day Dr. Wong emailed me about a special project. I was floored that he bypassed his main assistant and singled me out. Clearly he was taken with my organizational skills and can-do attitude. I went to his office with my UCLA-issued notebook and pen, ready for action.

Wong looked at me through his thick lenses, the way you would regard an ant at your picnic table. "There is my bag," he commanded, motioning to a gym bag in the middle of his office. "Can you please tidy it up."

I was momentarily confused. Tidy it up? Reshuffle his important papers and books, perhaps? I knelt down before the bag and was overcome by a mouldy odor. I unzipped the top and was met with a pile of tennis socks, a moist headband and a foul-smelling pair of shorts.

Tidy up your freaking tennis bag?

I thought for a moment. "Dr. Wong," I said, "Shouldn't we just put the bag in your car to take home?"

He didn't look up from his book. "But make it neat," he said.

Did he even know my name? My father was a chemist, I was going to UCLA to study history. I wasn't a physics buff and I was never going to get into Harvard, but I was definitely not a lowly serf who was going to clean up this a-hole's mess.

I hovered over the bag for a moment and then zipped it up. "All done. Is there anything else?"

He didn't answer, completely consumed by his book on energy conduction. I worked at the lab for another month and then left to start classes. He never said thank you or good bye. I actually passed him on campus two months later and he looked right through me. It wasn't as if he'd forgotten me. He just never knew I existed.

Ten years later I read a story that his funding had dried up and the university was longer interested in supporting his research. Karma? I'm not sure. People on staff said he was demanding and unkind. Perhaps he was so focused on outer space that he couldn't relate to people on this planet. Whatever the case, he taught me a lot about the kind of boss you shouldn't be.

However, if the intern agrees to pick up my dry cleaning, I'm not going to admonish her...

I'm officially old

Who the hell is Justin Bieber (sp)??

are we back in 1986?

What's with the sudden influx of t-shirts with kooky sayings? "World's Coolest Dad," " 'Don't Make Me Come Down There' - God," and my favorite, "With a shirt this awesome, who needs pants?"