Why Outrageous Election Memes Are Actually Good

Science magazine recently published a fascinating article about an enormous battle in the bronze age. It caught my wandering eye of Saruman because we doubt and do the parental “mmhmmm dear” when it comes to what the ancients wrote about themselves (I’m pretty sure Ancient Egypt’s “NFL” was called “WCETB” or “Who Can Exaggerate The Best”) so finding physical evidence to validate such claims is kind of a big deal. But what does this have to do with Trump vs. Hillary? It’s that people have been fighting for a very long time.  

To parents I'm sure this is obvious. This morning I optimistically checked the tide chart and threw everyone in the car for a spontaneous tide pool hike. I error intentionally on the side of not thinking through the ramifications of such actions so that I don’t talk myself out of it, but suffice it to say I was paying the consequences (willingly) when three hours later I ended up back at home with four soggy kids and a vehicle that’s slowly turning into its own ocean eco-system of sand, seaweed and something that smells suspiciously like rotting crab. Give it a few more weeks and our Mazda will be in contention for the world's smallest pacific island. As such, it is hard for me to differentiate one super special, one-of-a-kind, one-rock-to-rule-them-all from another. In the mayhem I misguidedly shut down one of my sweet angel children multiple times thinking he was asking for ice cream when he was really asking for anti-theft protection. His brothers capitalized on my distraction, joined forces and claimed power of the one true rock to rule them all.  

...And that’s how I ended up with my own Bronze Age battle on my back porch. You can’t shut someone down consistently without frustrations building up like a pressure cooker.

There are no perfect sides. Every opinion this side of heaven is a pie graph of partly true and partly flawed. I’m not even sure it’s a bad thing that we usually see the insanity of another person’s political opinions but not our own. Human brains can’t help but try to fix things, build things, and improve on things, so disagreeing is the biological chisel in the toolbox of modern thinking.  

But if it helps... next time you feel your blood pressure rising as you research other countries to move to if either one of the political candidates becomes president… remember that this is how history sorts itself out. Don’t try to shut down, police or parent the rhetoric war going on right now because discourse (even if it’s Nazi/Doltist/Fascist/Marxist/Imbecilic etc) is better than World War II. Ideas have to go through the gauntlet and stand on their own merit.  Embrace it! It’s a good thing and join it if your conscience dictates.  

...at the very least it might give future historians something to do.

 

Comic-Con 2016: The Barmy Details

For those who aren’t familiar with Comic-Con, it has its own magic system, floating staircases (volunteers shutting down and opening pathways everywhere) and hierarchy.

-Hall H is the creme-de-la-creme where all the big stars are.  To enter requires the blood of your firstborn.  

-“The Floor” is a cross between an intergalactic riot and some sort of psychedelic renaissance faire.  Imagine the craziest fantasyland “market day” you have ever read in a book then multiply it by ten and you might have some idea what “The Floor” is like.

-Ballroom 20 is the bishop or rook on the board.  It’s also enormous and prestigious and features a lot of the big names.  Getting into Ballroom 20 comes with major victory points.  

-“The Pavilion” is like some sort of ocean whirlpool room where you get to meet and do signings with your favorite authors/actors/famous people...but you have to sail through without getting caught or yelled at by the Convention Navy who have sworn a blood oath to keep everyone moving.  They have no mercy for fan gushing or blistered feet.  

-“The Panels” are like clusters of symbiotic life forms suctioned to the sides of The Pavilion and Ballroom 20.   A series of small biospheres where you can enter their portals and learn anything from how to write a novel while standing on your head and reciting the alphabet backwards, or learning how to become a famous cartoonist with nothing but a belched piece of charcoal from a coal mine.  

And that’s comic-con from a novice’s perspective...minus the other 120 thousand people roaming around outside the golden-ticket-only convention center.  

 

Craziness abounds and nowhere does the cosplaying get more awesome than the annual Masquerade on Saturday night where a privileged few get to flourish their wares (routines) in a competition in Ballroom 20 (yes THE Ballroom 20!).   I say this of course as someone who gets to play a minor part in the aforementioned promenading, and since I’m also not well versed in the backstage world of theater and productions...I have no stake in playing it cool and chill.  Thus it is with total and utter sincerity (and the desire to let whoever is reading this in on the experience) I tell you performing at Comic-Con is totally 100% eximious.  You could even pretend for a moment, that the security guards, tech people, press photos and backstage passes let you for a second pretend you’re someone fancier than the inconsequential girl who is on stage for a grand 30 seconds.  But hey...I wouldn’t want it any other way.  As Anne would say, I somewhat prefer my castles-in-the air over reality.  

Our “group” this year was called “The Addams Extended Family” and the joke started with the creepy Addams coming out and doing their spooky thing. Then the key changed in the music and the “extended family” came out.  Patch Adams, Amy Adams, Samuel Adams, Grizzly Adams, John & Abigail Adams….etc and then Ansel Adams (the famous b&w photographer) came out and took our picture just as the song said “...it’s spelled with double D or DIE!” at which point we all did our best impression of death and I tried to join Cordelia’s injured knee club by dying on a very sharp piece of my hoopskirt.  As I lay there dead, trying to breath through my bodice stays and not groan or shift, I wasn’t sure if the audience actually got the joke because the 4,000 (Ballroom 20!) crowd was silent for what seemed like an eternity.  But they finally roared with applause and laughter, the lights went out and we all hobbled off the stage to watch the rest of our competition.  So. Much. Fun.  And we won one of the main awards!  Most Humorous...har har. 

I wished I would have gotten pictures of the empty convention as we left at midnight.  There was a rave going on in The Pavilion, but otherwise I felt like Templeton in Charlotte’s web.  Rolling my drunk on life self through a wasteland of spilled food, forgotten pieces of costumes and bits of power puff girl advertisements.

 

I don’t know how people do Comic-Con for the whole four days.  Just the one day took me all of the next day to recover. But my blisters have healed, my knee is only barely black and blue, I have a bag full of swag and free books (Thank you Ashley for being my guiding angel!), and I have the final results in for most popular costume at Comic-Con 2016 (according to me)…..

 

...Rey from StarWars!  


 

Honorable mentions include (i.e. costumes I saw more than anything else):

Deadpool

HarleyQuinn

Ghostbusters (more classic than current)

Captain America

 

Popular Themes this year (and arguably every year) were:

Game Of Thrones

Anything Marvel or DC

Star Wars

Assassins Creed

Pokemon  

And a whole lot of anime/manga stuff I didn’t recognize

...Until next year!

ComiCon Here I Come

Living in the real world is tough cannolis.  Particularly if (like me) you were raised looking longingly at the world through a filter of T.H. White and Orson Scott Card.  While everyone else was out getting first kisses and going to Audio Adrenaline concerts with the youth group, I was changing, diapers, sewing long skirts out of fabric plastered with giant cherries and getting lost in every Star Wars fan book I could get a hold of (no shame!).   

Thus, it was with enormous awe and gravity that I finally procured Willy Wonka’s golden tickets and got to go to ComicCon for the first time last  year.  It would be a fateful homecoming.   I would finally be among the fellow outcasts of society, the type of people who can answer the question “What is Bilbo Baggin’s mother's name” instantly and with a straight face.   Turns out though, ComicCon is so huge and popular that it’s more like specialists in the medical field.   I only speak maybe two, three dialects of nerd, and there are at least seventy-seven...not counting Dr. Who which has at least three separate dialects within the dialect.   Also, the sheer awesomeness is a little overwhelming.  I mean, where else can you go and see Darth Vader and Sherlock Holmes standoff?  Especially when Darth Vader really is 6’ 8” and Sherlock is Benedict Cumberbatch’s doppelganger.  Last year there were zombies everywhere...almost tied with the number of naked Cersei’s with their Septa Unellas and shame bells.  (any bets one what the popular GOT costume will be this year?)  

I go again this Saturday and I can’t wait.  In some ways it's like those 4th of July parades as a kid where they throw out free candy...instead at ComicCon they throw out free books! And comics! ...and pretty much everything in between!  Besides meeting all of my favorite authors, I’m pretty sure nothing can top last year of getting to meet Jamie Fraser and Jonathan Randall right before tap dancing as an X-man in Xavier’s school of dance...but hey, I’m willing to take whatever comes my way.  I’m just thrilled I get to go again. 

 

 

 

How To Read More Books When You Have A Million Kids

...or just four kids.  

If there is one thing I think all moms universally long for (besides babies who sleep through the night and a cyberoptic forehead readout that tells you the optimal way to raise your particular child) it’s that we all wish we had more time to read.

My mom used to find me hiding under a giant pile of laundry or stuffed between the beds feverishly trying to consume a book on the down low. After oh so gently fussing at me, she would say something along the lines of, “Just wait until you have your own kids…”.     Well... Cough Cough.  She seriously underestimated my ability to get sucked into a new book.  And since necessity is the mother of invention, consider this a trade secret swap because you can never have too many ways to sneak books into your life.  Here are a few tried and true strategies.  

 

Read in the car

Buckle everyone in and then read 5 min before you pull out of the driveway, and another 5...er...10 min in the grocery store parking lot.  

 

Make Tacos for dinner

Or something else that can be mindlessly done on auto pilot. I have found flipping tortillas is the most mutually beneficial dinner strategy.  You can easily do that and brown ground beef while also flipping pages.  

 

Get an Audible account

This one is boring, but effective.   Everyone has mental “muscles” with some working better than others.  For the sake of evenness I try to exercise the auditory ones because they don’t work as well as my visual processing ones, but it’s difficult.  Still, laundry becomes so much more interesting when you’re listening to Diana Gabaldon's reader say “Sassenach”.  

 

Lay on the floor

Debut as a human jungle gym.  Kids usually just want to be around you, they don’t always need you to follow them around describing things like an interactive preschool app “Yes, ball...roll ball….good roll ball”  (although let's be real, we all sound like therapists these days thanks to Daniel Tiger).  Sometimes the most serviceable solution to buy yourself a chapter is to lay on the floor and let your spine become a deck and your feet a rudder as you’re tossed to and fro on a sea of fishy crackers.  While the wee pirates sail on grand adventures, you can consume a few precious pages.   

 

Spontaneously declare a 15 min “Super Secret Book Club”.  

Solemnly inform your kids they need to clean their rooms, empty the trash and wash the dishes.  Then freeze, cock your head like you’re listening to some invisible messenger and say “I’m getting an incoming order from the Interplanetary Secret Reading Order and they need us to drop everything right now and read for fifteen minutes….hmmm...can we? should we?  Perhaps we have no choice but to put off chores and attend this very important super secret club meeting.”  Reluctantly set the timer for another fifteen minutes afterwards when everyone clamors they’re not quite ready to go clean yet.  

 

Of course all of that assumes you haven’t been banned from your local library and have a healthy relationship with Amazon.   Ahem.  But what say you?  What are you reading and how/where do you read it?  

 

Maybe You Really Are An Extrovert

I hate making phone calls. I know I’m not alone in this, so maybe it’s a manifestation of my generation or gender, but I usually have to pull out some really underdeveloped list making skills and write down...with a giant purple crayon... on an actual scrap of paper that may or may not be a piece of junk mail:

CALL CHARTER SCHOOL

SCHEDULE DR. APPT

CALL YOUR SISTER

And then I don’t let myself do anything fun like wash the dishes or chip mold out of the toilet bowl until it’s done.   

So yesterday, I was on hold with the kid’s charter school after being transferred to four different people, and of course...of course as soon as I heard someone say, “Hello this is Sarah, how can I help you?” my four year old shoved a can of grapefruit La Croix onto my lap and said, “Open another beer for me please!” with a nice belch just in case the meaning wasn’t super clear for the nice ambassador of government education on the other side of the phone. She laughed as I fumbled over a desperate explanation and assurance it was sparkling water my nefarious offspring was referring to, but when I got off the phone I slid down my chair in a puddle of introvertedness.  

Of course if you’ve ever met me, introvert is probably not what you were thinking which begs the question. What is introversion and extroversion?  

Most people have heard Introvert/Extrovert commonly defined by the question “Where do you get your energy from?”. Extroverts get their energy from being around people, introverts get their energy from being alone, right?   

I disagree. (otherwise this blog entry would be very short, and where is the fun in that?)

I think it would be more accurate to say extroverts feed off of people-energy. (and apparently have completely different brain patterns) 

...but good luck getting them there in the first place...getting them to stay...or trying to talk to their cranky selves once you get them home.   My husband is a Ron Swanson type introvert, and as such he often drags me kicking and screaming to social gatherings where he throws me in the deep end like it’s a proverbial swimming pool and I have to sink or start talking to people.  Of course he stands over in the corner and surveys the masses while I partake in all of that amazing energy harvesting extroverts are supposed to be receiving.  But when we get home, guess who’s the drained one?  Mr. I-don’t-give-a-**** who feels exactly the same post party as pre party, or his convivial wife who has face planted on the sofa and is replaying every awkward thing she did or said that evening?  Mmmhmmm.  

(tangential note:I know we sound like loads of fun to invite places, but I swear we’re not as weird as I’m making us sound...it’s just the introverted part of me taking over the keyboard).  

A lot of introversion vs extroversion can be explained by an understanding of functions. An INFJ can appear pretty extroverted in public because of their overarching social intuitiveness. And an ENFP (like me) can feel introverted because of their secondary introverted feeling function. But for the sake of argument, let’s hypothesize a lot of other extroverted types feel like introverts these days thanks to social media.   I mean, think about it.  For hundreds of years extroverts have been living in small communities and plowing their field just like everyone else.  So the whole “get your energy from people” thing makes more sense when you’re milking Bessy at 4 a.m. and thinking about how amazing market day is going to be.   If it’s the 21st century though, it’s literally market day twenty-four seven and you’re probably extroverted up to your eyeballs before you even walk out the door.  Extroversion is like a starfish, and if all of the little suction cup thingies are already being filled by instagram, facebook, twitter, your blog subscriptions...drudge… huffpo...cnn etc then eventually you run out of things you can hang onto. Then when you read something called “10 signs you’re a misunderstood introvert” you suddenly realize you related to all of them a little too much!  

Depending on what scientific journal you read.  Extroverts account for anywhere between 50-74% of the population.  However if internet memes, articles and blogs are any indication, the percentage is more like 97% introvert 3% extrovert these days.  Everyone and their mother thinks they’re an introvert.  But statistics don’t lie (har har), so either a lot of people think they’re introverts when they’re really not, or the internet killed off enormous numbers of extroverts.

Not that it really matters in the end.   I personally hold two contradictory positions.  1) If they think they’re an introvert then there is some nugget of truthfulness there that suggests you should listen wisely.  2) If they act like an extrovert but think they’re an introvert, then there is some nugget of truthfulness there that suggests you listen wisely.  

 

And to all of my fellow inwardly-stressed-out extroverts.  I feel ya.






 

6 Things You Can Do When The World Turns Upsidedown

Living in the year 2016 means you’re essentially a foot soldier with the intelligence network of a five star general. It’s not shocking mental illness is on the rise...it would be more shocking if it wasn’t. Since I’m the self titled queen of pet hypotheses, I actually think the skyrocketing number of introverts is more due to globalization exhaustion than true introvertedness i.e.  Modern culture would turn even Pollyanna into a bone sapped Zoloft loving introvert. (but more on that later…)  

One answer is to unplug entirely. And if you’re having problems actually coping with day to day life, then this may be what you need to do. No judgement.  

But if you’re like me and grew up in The Village, or if you just have a more nuanced view in general and don’t feel the need to do a modern incarnation of a benedictine monk, then here are some battle tested survival tips taken from so many random sources this will be scientific credibility at its finest.  


 

1. Take two magnesium and drink 16 oz of water.  

Magnesium helps your brain chemistry and at the very least, the physical act of putting something into your mouth and and guzzling fluids has a placebo effect of letting your mental state rebalance itself.  

 

2.  Take a really hot or really cold shower.  

This suggestion came from a fellow writer who read it from another writer in regards to creativity. I think it’s because it turns on the part of your brain that feels like it’s doing something (slightly) dangerous. And anytime you get a rush of brain chemicals, you have the chance to piggy back other emotions like ambition, creativity and drive onto it.  

 

3.  Eat some icecream.  

Don’t follow this advice actually...I don’t want to be responsible for diabetes. But research shows that mood patterns are closely related to food patterns. Hangry is really a thing. There’s real biological evidence for the whole binge watching TV while eating junk food, it’s a self preservation instinct...It just so happens that going out and killing a tiger and then passing out in front of the fire is a little better for your pancreas and heart.  

 

.4.  Read the book of Ecclesiastes.  

Seriously. This has been one of my go to anxiety buster since I was a teenager. There is something freeing about the relevancy of something someone wrote thousands of years ago that directly addresses humanity today. It makes you feel both big and small and releases the burden of feeling like you’re the only one who sees the world going to hell in a handbasket.  

 

5. Write poetry and then burn it.  

I’m pretty sure every great composer and painter of the Classical and Romantic era did this. Embrace your angst and pour it out through a real pen with a real piece of paper and then burn it with a real match with that real sulfur smell wafting up through your real nostrils (safely of course, and probably not around children). As a wise friend once said “we’re not gnostics.  We are physical beings with real bodies, so do real things.”  (I’m paraphrasing). The more cyberspacey we get, the more disconnected we get, and as someone whose reading list is ninety percent ebook, I should take my own medicine. There’s also something specific about poetry that engages and turns on particular parts of your brain. Please though, in your poetry burning, don’t actually burn other people’s books literally or figuratively. This isn’t the 15th century.  

 

6. Roll a cask of sour ale through your neighborhood.  

Ok, so maybe this one is a little difficult to do. But the endorphins from the muscle expenditure combined with the mild alcohol and probiotics at the end are a winning combo. In all seriousness, hard physical work and sunshine are part of the reason your grandparents were likely happier and healthier than you so if you find yourself overwhelmed with the sadness and enormity of life, then put on those suspenders and boots and go dig a ditch.  

 

What not to do…

For all of the analytical logical types out there. Don’t give yourself a concussion bashing your head against the table when you see lamenting and bleeding heart syndrome going around like food poisoning at a wedding with bad tacos. By all means use your superior higher reasoning skills to tear apart and discuss what ballistics were used, the credibility of the witnesses and the evidence of various camera angles, but don’t be surprised when you get shamed for that.  

 

For all of the big picture socially intuitive types out there.  I get it.  You can’t turn your brain off.  You see pain, suffering, hunger and injustices and you see all of the connecting threads which just makes it even more difficult to process.  You feel helpless, like the only thing you can do is use a few trending hashtag and plead with people in eloquently written status updates.  The problem is, it often makes me feel more empty and worse and it comes across like mom nagging at anyone who disagrees.  So maybe borrow angst from the other side of the emotional spectrum and try #5.  

Photo by Alesse/iStock / Getty Images

Photo by Alesse/iStock / Getty Images



 

3 Logical Fallacies And Why They're Good

There is literally no one less qualified to talk about this than me, but since that’s actually kind of the point… I’ll carry on and hope Aristotle doesn’t roll over in his grave.

A long time ago someone observed the way humans argue about things (the kind that wasn't entirely comprised of stabbing them or something). This person waxed eloquent with a pen for a very long time and dubbed it "Rhetoric" i.e. "How to convince someone Trump is Hitler by saying "I can't even....<emoticon> <emoticon>" (I kid, I kid, that's obviously only one example). 

There are two sorts of Rhetoric, external and internal.  External is boring, so moving on…

Internal Rhetoric is where it’s at. It’s the Rembrandt of persuasion, the beauty of The Colbert Report and pretty much the gas station that fuels Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (my exact age can probably be deduced Sherlock Holmes style from that sentence). Under this internal rhetoric is a whole bunch of important stuff like charisma and logic but zooming way in there is fallacy (which sounds vaguely dirty and probably has some etymological correlation). Fallacies get a bad rap these days and it’s such a bummer. Instead of thinking of fallacies as bad logic (which it is), think of it as shortcut to winning! Logic is like bringing a knife to a gunfight...you can only use knives if everyone else is.     

For your perusal, here are the three best ones to use during this election season. All sides, including my own bastardized side use it, so I’ll try to be fair. 

Ad Hominem

The two presidential candidates aren’t even the guiltiest of this and you see it mostly in comment threads when things get heated. I think the reason is actually biological. When someone encounters views they consider dangerous the first instinct is to do the philosophical version of curling up in the fetal position and yelling “LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS!”. If you feel your chest start to tighten up and your blood start to pound in your ears as you can’t believe the rubbish someone is posting this is a warning sign you might be about to launch an ad hominem attack.  

 

Correlation does not imply causation

This is a personal favorite and I find myself using it all of the time. In my defense I think humans are infinitely suspicious creatures and it’s second nature to see connecting strands. Often times those connecting strands might even be correct! I vote everyone puts their correlative/causation opinions in a big jar and bury them in a time capsule. In twenty years take them all out and see which ones Father Time has fulfilled with missing pieces and see if there is a pattern on who had the more right correlations. I think this is what Solomon would do.  

 

Strawman

Straw man fallacies are more of a team sport. It typically happens when you’ve split a concept into two sides (Vaccines are bad/good...public school is bad/good…immigration is bad/good). This sets the stage for the strawman catapult which is a projectile you launch into the enemy camp with the word “seems” loaded on it. Anytime you see someone say “it seems like…” you can rest soothingly in the knowledge you’re about to get taken out by a strawman attack. Related to this is calling a position “hate” or arguing for “love”. Both are abstract concepts with a multitude of interpretations, but they carry strong emotional weight so it’s an easy way to take the opposing side down.  And it’s understandable, humans like to win. If we didn’t, we would have died out a long time ago. No one wants to be on the losing side, and no one wants to look foolish so we all hope we’ve picked, if not the winning side, then at least the righteous side.  

 

Of course the number of fallacies are like stars in the sky, and this list barely scratches the surface, but knowledge is power and all that. My rule of thumb is this: If the person is waving the white flag of reason, then by all means bench the fallacies and discourse accordingly. But if the battle lines are drawn and everyone has shown up with rhetoric, then it’s not only a waste, it’s counterproductive to use anything dialectic, so let it go and let your fallacies fly.  

 

 

A Mom's Minimalist Guide To The Beach

Frankly I knew it was inevitable. Life is always a Faustian trade of evils (or joys...depending on how rose colored your glasses are). When the two older kids left for their very Parisian-esque rural outsourcing of summer (see Bringing Up Bebe), I w…

Frankly I knew it was inevitable. Life is always a Faustian trade of evils (or joys...depending on how rose colored your glasses are). When the two older kids left for their very Parisian-esque rural outsourcing of summer (see Bringing Up Bebe), I was tempted to think of all the amazing things I was going to accomplish. It’s hard to get anything done when you’re doing your best impression of zookeeper/professor/therapist twentyfour-seven for nine months of the year and I was much looking forward to the break.  

Well I got it. Truly. From everything. No violin, no sports, no therapy, no school meetings, no staying up until midnight trying to grow rock crystals on a toothpick. I traded the busy life of four kids where I couldn't keep the house clean, but did accomplish important things (like how to take a booger out with tissue), to a the slower easier life of two kids where the house stays clean but not accomplish anything big. Mainly because you belatedly realize the younger two are stuck to you like glue without their built in entertainers and playmates. But going backwards in family size (temporarily) does have its fair list of perks. The laundry stays only one or two loads behind, the kitchen is almost always in a mildly presentable state (the fruit flies are suing for breach of contract), and the house actually gets vacuumed regularly.    But I was kidding myself to think I could get any big mind-blowing projects accomplished. Thus it was with great difficulty I let go of my pipe dreams and resigned myself to sleeping in every morning, putzing around the house teaching my preschooler how to fold washcloths before finally going to the beach or pool.

I would like to say that I’m so organized that going to the beach is a painless affair, but instead it’s the opposite, I’m so unorganized going to the beach is a (mostly) painless affair. Of course I’ve got “science” to back up all of my justifications for this, and I thought I’d share them in case someone else is looking for a way to spend more time having fun and less time trying to get out the door. 


Disclaimer:  (If you are one of those uber prepared types that has a ziploc baggie for your ziploc baggie, then please close your eyes and don’t read this.  The world needs more of you and less of me.  In a Darwinian experiment I’m the first to die out i.e. I’m more than grateful for the times I’ve been helped by the preparers)

Don't bring sunblock or snacks and only bring a limited amount of water (or none if you know there's a drinking fountain)

I say this somewhat tongue in cheek because I do actually have a thing of sunblock that stays in my beach bag, but it usually takes us the whole summer to get through it. And the logic is this. Your body is an amazing machine that knows when it's hungry, tired, and had too much sun. Things like pretzels, doritos and sunblock override this built in safety mechanism which means you end up at home exhausted bloated, overly slathered with chemicals and cranky from the combination of artificial cheese flavor and that sunburned spot behind your knees you missed. Trust the human body to go “ugh, I’m really hot and hungry and I swear I can feel cancer cells forming on my body right now.” That’s when you know it’s time to load up the kids and head home. On the plus side, this usually means everyone gets their naps (or have gotten their naps), and you have time to plan dinner, paint your toes and eat bon bons.  ( here is a harvard medical publication advocating the health benefits of moderate sun exposure).

 

Don't bring a picnic blanket, chairs or umbrella

In the book “Blue Mind” Wallace Nichols talks about the science behind going to the beach or even just being in water. Dopaminergic pathways, neuro plasticity, auditory cortex physiology, textural and vestibular input are all scientific ways to say the ocean is really good for you. The chemical makeup of the salt water, the minerals, the ebb and flow of the waves, and the sand are all incredibly soothing and healthy for your brain and body. I like to think of a little beach trip being like a soft reboot. Between all of that and the vitamin D, I also try to take my kids to a deserted beach when they’re under the weather. But back to the packing list… most of those things don’t work if you’re sitting on a chair, on a blanket, under an umbrella, with water shoes, rash guard and sun hat on. If you have kids who are low threshold on the sensory spectrum then they likely won’t want to budge out of the little fortress of protection against the dread elements and will take any suggestions to the contrary as torture of the highest degree with you as the grand inquisitor. It may take awhile, but they'll be happier in the long run. (note: ignore this if you have kids with severe processing disorders)

 

Don't load and unload the car

There’s no scientific theory behind this one, unless it’s Newton’s first law of motion (An object at rest remains at rest until mommy decides the towels are starting to smell). I use a big green plastic container from IKEA and that’s where the sand toys, floaties and towels live in the back of the car. The baby carrier also lives in the car so literally all that needs to be done to go to the beach or pool is getting in the car and leaving. (which if you have kids, you know is a feat in and of itself)

 

Do pack a magic sand eraser

There’s only one gimmicky item that’s made it into my super lazy...er minimalist beach container and that’s a bamboo swaddle blanket. I discovered this black magic entirely by accident last summer.  West coast sand has these gold flakes in it that stick to skin like glitter (which isn’t nearly as pretty as it sounds). Anyone who has tried to get four kids rinsed and sand free before they get in the car, knows it’s on the same level as completing a triathlon (one armed with a wet cat zip tied to your leg). Once, in desperation I yanked the blanket off the weakest member of the tribe in an assuredly futile attempt to get at least some of the caked wet sand off…. and Lo and behold it worked! So the swaddle blanket earned itself a permanent spot in the beach bag. I have considered getting myself a booth at the county fair “Step right up and let me show you the one and only MAGIC SAND ERASER for a low low price of $49.99 today only!!”. If however you decide to get yourself three for that price on Amazon, it does have to be the bamboo one. The cotton ones don’t work as well for some reason.  

And that’s it. Simple! Easy! (I’m kidding, we all know it’s never easy). And sometimes I do pack all of the foods and huddle under my friends umbrella and lust after all of the cool beach stuff everyone else has. But hey do whatever you gotta do. (and if you’re a preparer and you’ve made it to the end of this, then here’s a Valium and some wine, thank you for loving me).