Save the "boo's" for Halloween

It should have been a great evening. My daughter was performing at Anaheim Stadium with the Mission Viejo Marching Band. It has been an amazing year, and our family could not be more proud of her.

I wish I could say the same about some of the Mission Viejo football fans that were in attendance. You see, it was an important game for Mission. They were playing Servite, a formidable team, and there was a good chance Mission would not be advancing on. Most of us were there to watch a good game, be proud of all of our children, and enjoy the evening. Then there were the others.

As the teams took the field, I heard more than cheering. I heard booing. From Mission fans. Directed at Servite's team. Not directed at a bad play, or a lousy call; neither team had taken its first snap. Nope. This was just bad sportsmanship at its worst. Especially loud was a man wearing a "Madden's Posse" tee-shirt, yelling "boo" through his wadded up program. Nice way to represent, Mr. Grown Up. The rest of the "posse" followed suit. Tre Madden, btw, is a player for Mission Viejo, so his "posse" was either parents, cousins, uncles or fans. It's okay to be wild about your kid, but to boo someone else's? Not so good.

The boo's came from other parts of the stadium, as well. It made me wonder: What is this teaching our children? In a world filled with people who continue to step it up with the most entitled, self-absorbed antics, this isn't helping. I've seen it all: parents who park in teachers' parking spaces, and then get belligerent when caught; every kind of road rage imaginable (well, I do live in Southern California); parents screaming at other kids on a team for underperformance; parents yelling at coaches; coaches yelling at parents; even a shoving match at Target. To say it's getting out of hand is an understatement.

But last night was the last straw for me. Collectively, Mission Viejo fans looked obnoxious, thanks to the "booers." And, as for Madden's Posse? Well, Madden is supposedly going to USC, so I guess I'm glad I quit going to those games.

Here it is: Nothing says you're a loser like booing at the opposing team. Sure, we've all seen bad plays. We've seen bad calls. We can be disappointed. But let's keep it civil, folks, especially at a high school game.

By the way, Servite won. Guess who left early. Yeah. The booer. Why am I not surprised?

Now...In "Dungeon Blue"

This week I'm busy prepping for a major website launch (Aug. 3 is coming too fast), writing tons of marketing content and took on a quick press release. Which is why it makes perfect sense that I'm also going to paint my son's room.

Overscheduling is pretty much a standard at my house. My guess is that's how it rolls at yours, too. Give me 15 minutes and I can wipe down the kitchen counters, fold the laundry, clean the cat box, pet the dog, turn off the TV (why do kids leave those on in perpetuity??), put the computer to sleep and answer the door. With time left over. So it really doesn't seem outside the norm to take on a measly little project like painting on top of what looks like an 18-hour-a-day workload.

Background: son left for boy scout camp on Sunday. Practical me thought that having him out of his room for seven days gave me seven excellent opportunities to fix up his room. That's a lot of time, really, right? So I took said boy to the paint store (yeah, he REALLY liked this stop. NOT.) and we selected (better word selection: fought over) the preferred shade. I vetoed (which is why the "f" word came into play) all shades of black and midnight blue. He vetoed all shades "sky" shades. "Black? Black will look like you live in a dungeon!!" I exclaimed. "COOL!" he responded back. Finally we settled on a fairly true blue shade called, ironically, "Safe Harbor." Somewhere between "cornflower" (no way that's gay, he sniffed when I offered this interesting option) and "dover straits" (I am not a sailor, mom!) "Safe Harbor" is going on the walls whether I have to stay up all night to make it happen or not.

I remain fearful of how much Kilz it's going to take to reverse this potentially unfortunate selection, but, for the short-term anyway, Dungeon Blue is the new black.

When Did It Become Summer???

A friend was asking about Mac-friendly blogging programs. Which caused me to open my blog. Which I haven't done since November 12. Shocked, I wondered, how did this happen?

Oh, yeah. I got involved in a start-up. As anyone who has gotten involved in a start-up will tell you, they take a lot of time. Most-of-your-day time. It's-all-you-do-think-about-and-talk-about time. And, if everything goes as planned, the end result is excellent and the time spent is well-spent. Did I mention you spend a lot of time in them? Which explains why, to me, it's feeling a whole lot more like maybe late March-ish than late June. For some reason, this year, Christmas break was immediately followed by Easter vacation. I thought it odd at the time, but now it makes perfect sense. Christmas break was not only immediately followed by Easter vacation, it is being one-upped by Fourth of July. Nice.

And now that I've come up for air, it's perfect timing. The kids just brought home their backpacks full of half-used glue sticks and sticky pencils; the house is begging for disinfectant, and the dog is happily ripping through anything on the floor. Yes, time may have flown, but my timing is perfect.

The family was so delighted to see me, they greeted me with a mop and a paint brush. Welcome home!!