Sunday, May 18, 2008

Bey - ta - brakers

My neighbor Pete has a fiend who used to suffer anxiety attacks before giving a speech. She discovered that taking beta-breakers calmed her enough that she could succeed. Ever since, when this particular Saturday in May rolls around, he can't hear about the Bay to Breakers footrace, without hearing "Beta-Breakers" instead.

My neighbor Mike's baby is one and a half, and we talked about whether maybe some of my kids' cast-off toys might be good for his son. I'm in the midst of a big cleanup of the kids' room, with boxes of stuff headed for the basement and storage.

Until now, I've hesitated getting rid of their childhood relics. Experience dictates that something like a collectible, or a set of cards, or a specific game finds its way back into their lives years after they supposedly abandoned it. As any parent knows, these hobbies and obsessions cost a lot of money.

It's easy to drop $50 every weekend just stoking the habit, month after month. Then, just as suddenly as it started, they announce they are no longer into that particular craze. You put the stuff away, and you wait. Eventually, they pull it out and start playing with it again.

Until they hit their teens. Then, of course, new urges govern their choices. They still revert now and then, but by and large, their early childhood is over, and now you can begin to safely (if discreetly) remove the cards and figures and dolls and stuffies and blocks and models and all manner of junk from your house.

It's not the same feeling as an empty nest; it's more like cleaning out the extra stuff so you can accommodate their ever larger forms in your nest.

Tomorrow, my life will change yet again. After one of the most extended periods ever of working from my home -- now this modest flat in The Mission -- I will again join the flow of commuters headed down Highway 101 to Silicon Valley.

I'm excited. And I'm ready.

-30-

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