Author Archives: 40andover

A Sunday

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FOPOB called in the morning to say that he is coming for dinner.  He was wavering through the weekend.  I guess he didn’t get a better offer than his daughter and grandson.  Pause.  Laugh or be sad if you want.  We negotiated that he would come at 5pm for dinner, even though people come at 6pm.  Recall what I have written about whether the early bird special was just a name for a phenomenon or a proactive marketing technique.

That afternoon, after obligatory cartoons and some wrestling with SOS, POB, SOS and I took a long walk on a wonderful day.  SOS even deigned to throw a football with me.  He throws a good spiral but he needs some attention to his stance and footwork.  He isnot interested.  “Emom, I don’t like competitive sports!!”  “Dude, good form is not competitive.  It is just good form!!”  This went on for a while, as his stance and his consistency got better.  There was one catch that made me so proud that I hugged and lifted him up.  We high-fived rather than a chest-but, since that is both ooky for a boy and his mom as well as painful to the mom.

Back story:  I throw a really good spiral, thanks to BOB.  BOB, needing someone to play with him at our country house and finding no others (we were pioneers in this part of the Berkshires in the early 1970s), determined that if I were his designated play mate, I couldn’t throw any type of ball like a “girl”.

After lunch, SOS and POB went home and I went to the gym to make sure that my arms look ok in my wedding dress.

Sidebar:  I used to believe that only crazy 20-something brides bought ridiculous gowns.  But now I realize that there is a second group — the peri-menopausal bride who buys an unforgiving wedding dress to prove a point about beauty and aging.  But the point gets really obscured when the bride is faced with Super, Double Fudge Chunk Chocolate Ice Cream on a warm day.

When I got home, SOS was having his Hebrew lesson.  It was 3pm and I tried to rest a little but as it was getting close to 4pm, when DOB usually arrives, I couldn’t nap because I am listening for the door bell.  Frustrated, I got up.  I logged on to do some work all the while worrying why DOB was late.  I got an email from SOB, with the subject line, “Don’t Worry” and a message “Dad got to the Upper West Side early, so he is here talking to HOSOB.  Just didn’t want you to start calling the area hospitals.  Love, [SOB].”

Sidebar:  The blessing of SOB is that she knows what I am thinking and when.  She knows that at 4:15pm I would sound the Emergency [Blogger] Family Protocol, because DOB was 15 minutes late for his (too) early arrival.

As soon as I emailed back thanking SOB for the warning, the door bell rang and it was FOPOB.

FOPOB is not what one would call a conversationalist.  It was 5pm.  I thought, “where is DOB?? Where is SOB and HOSOB?”  Not one to hold back, I called SOB.  No introductions, no niceties, just down to the nitty-gritty.

“Hello.”

“When are you coming?”

“We wanted to give you time to relax.  We are ok here.  [DOB] is talking to [HOSOB] and I am safe in another room.”

“FOSOB is over,  so, really, when are you coming?”

“We have to get ready and we have to pick up dessert.”

“We’ll unfreeze something.  So, five minutes?”

“We have to shut things off . . . [SOB is torturing me with her new-found power] . . . ”

“So, you’ll take a cab?”

Pause.

“Look, it’s been 5 minutes and we have run out of things that interest him.  He asked when you all were coming over.   I need you to contribute to global warming and get into a cab!“

Now, you may think me selfish about the global warming thing; but, shalom bait [peace in the house] is held even higher than emet [truth].  And we needed a little more of . . .  take a guess.

SOB, HOSOB and DOB arrive within 20 minutes of my distress signal.

I hug and kiss each and then say to SOB:

“what took you so long?”

Aaahh, the quintessential Jewish greeting that conveys happiness, reproach and aspirations belatedly fulfilled, all at once.

Ok, so the difference between Yiddish and English is that, in Yiddish, words alone convey these sentiments; in English, you have to see the body language and hear the inflections.  The traditions abide, albeit in a less succinct form.

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Memory

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My great aunt Fanny has been dead for almost 40 years but sometimes a minor thing, like the posture of a stranger telling a story on a street corner this morning, can trigger a flood of memories. 

When we were young, Aunt Fanny would often accompany her sister, my grandmother, on visits to our house.  (I think she desperately wanted grandchildren.)  They would eat cottage cheese with cling peaches in heavy syrup in glass bowls for lunch, because that was the only possible kosher meal my mother could muster.  They would sit at the kitchen table, talking and eating (simultaneously) so I could see the cottage cheese move around in their mouths and creep into the corners and invade the lipstick on their lips.  They wore stockings knotted below the knees, because who needed to do the whole garter thing if it was just family. 

Aunt Fanny used to buy my sister and me matching little girls’ polyester underwear on sale at some discount place somewhere in the bowels of Brooklyn.  She referred to them as panties (eeewww) and danced them around to show everyone.  I felt soooo violated.  I longed for cotton even before I knew what that was.  She would also play a game of smelling our feet and shrieking, “Pewwwww!!” It wasn’t that much fun.  Kinda gross. 

Still, Aunt Fanny would play checkers with us, dance with us and always make Grandma laugh.  And Grandma wasn’t a very happy person, so that was a real, as we say, mitzvah. 

Sometimes Uncle Lou came along.  He blew up balloons (in the days when it wasn’t scary for little babies to play with them) and taught us the finer points of poker (in addition to some card tricks).  

Not long after Uncle Lou died, Aunt Fanny remarried.  We all visited her new apartment with the twin beds in the bedroom.  Someone must have asked, “why twin beds?” because I saw her roll her eyes and heard her respond something like, “he needs the exercise”.   I had no idea what the adults were talking about.  Only now, in this flood of memories, do I think that she was saying, “my new husband is a good companion but he is not much to look at.”

Aunt Fanny was Grandma’s much younger sister and she died young-ish for those days (in her 60s).  I think it might have been the first time I went to a funeral home.  I remember Grandma’s uncontrollable sobbing.  She had lost her sister and her best friend.

Memories of Aunt Fanny come in snippets unbidden, in no apparent order, without story to tell or even a point to prove.

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Seder — a chance to mourn, a chance to laugh, and yes, a chance to sleep, perhaps to dream . . . .

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Passover looms large in POB’s and my life.

For Jewish women, Passover is very complicated.  And writing about it is complicated, so this blog is complicated.   So sit back and pretend it is a Fellini script.

In our house, Passover is all about MOPOB.  Why?

Passover was MOPOB’s self-designated proving ground as a Jew by choice.  I remember the Seder I attended at MOPOB’s house.  MOPOB was stressed, as if the bubbes (grandmothers) of 100 generations of Jews were looking down at her wondering if she was using the right amount of chicken fat in the matzo balls.  That kitchen was way too crowded with all those mavens; a lesser person than MOPOB would have made a run for it.

In 2006, POB and I started having Seder for both of our families.  POB was desperate to have those matzo balls float (MOPOB’s receipe; and they did).  We had a rigorous discussion (MOPOB’s form of exercise) about an aspect of the Exodus story.  Then we all ate POB’s delicious meal together with family and friends.  MOPOB pronounced herself satisfied with POB’s and my hard work and how we melded two families’ traditions.  And shortly thereafter, she died.

Sidebar:  So, really, really, MOPOB, with that as a backdrop, how could Seder NOT be about you?

MOB didn’t really like all the prayers and stuff, but she loved having people around her table eating and talking and eating and having meaningful interaction (no idle chit chat at the Seder table).  And anything that tripped off MOB’s children’s tongues were quite possibly the most brilliant ideas theretofore uttered in the history of humanity.  So, it was all good.  For MOB, the most important thing was that, regardless of how everyone came to the table, everyone left that table as family, hugging and kissing (and there were no outrageous failures of tradition that would be shondahs for (i.e., embarrass us in front of) the neighbors).

Over the years, POB and I have gotten comfortable with our mothers’ looming large on this holiday.  The kitchen, though, gets crowded, especially when POB is making the traditional foods.  Her mother’s spirit hovers and my mother’s takes a magazine and sits at the counter and reads, ready to pitch in, but not really ever knowing her way around even her own kitchen (this for another blog).

And, as the years spin by, the elders have gotten, well, even older and a little more forgetful and a little more eccentric in their actions.

Sidebar:  If truth be told, age earns our quirkiness or idiosyncrazies (no misspelling here) the more refined term, “eccentric”.

I had arranged to pick up an extra table from DOB’s house. on Friday  He also bought some wine for us.

Sidebar:  Dad buys wine that is, well, barely usable for cooking.  But it was such a good price that he couldn’t resist.  “And who can tell the difference?” he asks rhetorically.  Dad, I am no connoisseur(se), but you buy rot gut wine.

Sidebar on sidebar:  FOPOB is no better.  He goes for the cheapest Kosher wine he can find.  One year, he told us not to buy wine because he was bringing wine.  He brought ONE bottle and he knew we were having nearly 20 people.  Are you kidding me?  Good thing I always buy non-kosher GOOD wine.  Clearly, we only serve DOB’s and FOPOB’s wine to someone on his or her fourth glass, because that person is too shiker (Yiddish, meaning drunk) to know the difference.

I arrived at DOB’s house around 1pm.  He decided that he will just come over early and hang out with us, while we are trying to put together a sit down dinner for 16.  Oh, goody.  But DOB is such a lovely guy and very lonely, so how could I not bring him along?  I called POB, who primed SOS to read books with Grandpa DOB.  Ok, they went through a survey of American history, and the origins of the Silk Road and it was only 2:30pm.  Time for reinforcements.  I called HOSOB, who is busy working on commissioned pieces of art.  But I know SOB was working hard at the hospital, so she couldn’t stop my asking HOSOB to drop the paint brush, shower and run over to our house to entertain the “boys.”  SOB might have stern words for me later for my having taken HOSOB away from his work, but that day it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

HOSOB, a fabulous member of the clan, came over and took over, leaving POB and me to our preparations.  At one point, DOB was tired and SOS needed a little more exercise so HOSOB took SOS for a walk.  (Some days, I think we really should have a treadmill . . . .)

Meanwhile GDJOB arrived with Kosher for Passover cakes (which were indeed FABULOUS).  As she walked in, she said, “I know you thought I was probably [DOB] . . . Ummmm [as she saw DOB seated]  Oh, hi, [DOB]!!”  Ah, yes, GDJOB, careful when you walk into our house, because as DOB gets older, his sense of appropriate arrival time can make you wonder whether he thought Passover was a lunch or dinner affair.  OOOOOOOOhhhh.  The first of many, many, uncomfortable moments chez nous.  Luckily, GDJOB had to park the car and run some errands.  She exited stage left, post-haste.  And we have a memory for the ages.

Fast forward . . . .   Seder time.

Sidebar:  Elders, children and the sandwich generation. Believers in one thing or another, non-believers and people just having a power nap before dinner.  There was one moment when I looked at my assembled family and remembered when they were the giants of my youth, when they were young and strong and idolized by my sister, my brother and me.  Wasn’t that yesterday?

We all sat to fulfill a commandment that binds the past with the present and the present with the future:

“We will go, young and old; we will go, bored and snoozing; we will go, Jew, non-Jew and Atheists; we will go all together to observe the Passover ritual for we shall tell our children, on that day, G-d freed us from slavery, from the house of bondage.” 

Pretty profound stuff.  That is until I noticed my 80+ year-old uncle was already napping and drooling, and FOPOB had taken the whole bowl of haroset and started eating out of it with his spoon. . . .

Also, there is a personal corollary theme: 

We were not delivered from slavery to eat turkey and drink gross kosher wine.  We were liberated to eat a lovely marbled brisket cooked to perfection and delicious Cabernet that can stand up to a Yiddisha brisket.

We don’t follow the Haggadah religiously (as it were).  I like to make the Exodus story relevant to the modern day.  I pick the passages and copy the relevant pages so we can all read together and discuss.  I find portions of the story disturbing and don’t shy away from that.  There is a reason why Jews “tremble” before G-d.  The G-d of the Hebrew Bible is pretty violent and mercurial.  But we must observe the traditions, from generation to generation, even if one year, my theme was:  Saddam Hussein and G-d, compare and contrast.”  Yep, step away from the computer, lest a lightening bolt destroy you and your family.

Because of Arab Spring, SOS has become very interested in revolution and civil wars that inevitably follow.  So, in my preparation for the Seder, I read the Exodus story to find elements that spoke to heady days of freedom and the subsequent factionalism once the common enemy is vanquished.  There is a lot of turmoil following the Red Sea crossing.  The fluidity of the story is both a strength and a weakness — anyone can find something to support his or her thesis, whether for good or malevolence.

And of course, in addition to the usual “emblems of festive rejoicing,” we have our own:  (i) the Moses action figure (with detachable commandments for easy throwing); (ii) a watch symbolizing that we only have one hour before my sister takes the Haggadahs away and declares the ceremony at an end, and (iii) a bottle of the two-buck chuck my Dad will always bring and we will never, ever, drink.

We will fill in this second Seder plate as our tradition continues….

But for now, the matzo balls floated and that is indeed a blessing.

 

A zissin Pesach to all.

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That Little Red Light House under the Great Gray Bridge

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Before there was the George Washington Bridge, there was a small red light house at Jeffrey Point near 177th Street along the Hudson River.  In fact, the Great Gray Bridge and the Little Red Light House are the subject of a classic children’s book you may have read to your kids.

I bet you thought that light house was long gone.  I was sure it was.  But, today, we went with a synagogue group (more on that later) in search of that little red light house that has survived even though it was long ago decommissioned.

On this cold and foggy day, just underneath the Great Gray Bridge,

there is this little light house

tucked away and almost invisible from afar.

But as you get closer to the base of the bridge,

there it is, resplendent in a new coat of paint against the gray sky.

And, although it is small, very small,

it would not be an easy landing.  You must hold tight on the rails against the whipping winds, when you stand outside, on the top near the beacon.

Ranger Jerry, a man who said repeatedly how he hated paperwork so we all must be careful,

told us the history of the light house which was more important for its fog horn than its beacon in the late 1800s and early 1900s when these waters were heavily navigated.

Still, I wondered what did this light house have to do with Jews?  After all we were there with a synagogue group.  Maybe it was a place of hiding for refugees smuggled into this country after Roosevelt closed the borders to fleeing European Jews.  Wow, an Anne Frank-like story right here in New York!!  That must be it!!!

Rabbi Rachel gathered us around to talk about this monument’s relevance to us, as Jews.  Something about Esther and Moses, each of whom was one against the powerful and many, and each of whom at some point felt too weak to lead.  Like the light house when the Great Gray Bridge was built.  Still each carried on and saved the Jewish people.  And still, the light house stands.

A big rousing Kumbaya to Rabbi Rachel for trying to connect all of this, and make it relevant to the kids and allegorical and all that.  What made it relevant to Jews was that a group of Jews schlepped to the light house on a cold, rainy, foggy day because we love our kids and they would have been disappointed if we didn’t go and we would have felt guilty.  So THAT is what is Jewish about the light house.

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My Life in Abbott and Costello World

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It was 6:30pm and I was at a stopping point in my work.  I thought to call Dad and check in.

The phone rang busy.  Hmmmm.  It was 5:30pm BOB’s time, so maybe he was calling Dad.  But there was something about the busy signal that was more like a phone off the hook or a downed telephone line.  Of course, the image of a land line with an actual wire into the house is such a dated one.  Still, in my father’s house, where time has virtually stood still since my mom died in January 2003, it is not entirely outside the realm of reality.

I called compulsively for 10 minutes.  6:40pm.  I called SOB’s line in case she was talking to Dad, although she calls around 4pm.  Like clockwork.  Still, I call SOB’s house.

[SIDEBAR:  We, the kids and the kids-in-law, all have our roles that create the web of Dad oversight that we lovingly refer to as the “[Blogger family name] Protocol”.  Some day it will come out in major motion picture.  Don’t you worry.]

HOSOB answered.  Ok, Dad is not talking to HOSOB or SOB.  Problemmmmmmm.

I called Dad’s cell phone.  Ring.  Ring.  Ring.  Seven more times.  “The subscriber has not yet set up voicemail.”  BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. 

Ok, panic was setting in.  But I knew it could take Dad a few minutes to react to the ring and then realize it is his cell phone.  Also, I know he has Life Alert, so I was much more calm than you would imagine.  (I.e., hysterical, but without the weeping and wailing.)

“Hellooooo?”  Dad answered.  PHEW.

“Hi Dad, it’s [BLOGGER]!” I say loudly.

“Hellooo????”

“Dad, it is [BLOGGER]!”

“[Blogger] darling!! How are you?!!”

“I’m great, Dad.”  I get right to the point.  “Your home phone doesn’t seem to be working, because I tried you a number of times.”

“Hellooo????”

“Dad, it is [BLOGGER]!”

“So good to hear your voice!!  Are you home?”

“No Dad, I am at the office, and I want to hear about your day, but, first, your land line is off the hook.”

“My whaaattt?”

“Land line.  Off hook.” (if you speak slowly and loudly, even a nonagenarian can hear you.)

“But, sweetheart, I am talking to you.”

“On YOUR cell phone,” I CELL-YELL.

“Your brother called just a moment ago and your sister called at 4pm and I am talking to you now . . . ”  Now, I was screaming into the phone.  The COB (my law partner) ran into my office to check on me.  I wave him away.

“Dad, since then, something is wrong with your land line.  So please check to make sure the phone isn’t off the hook.”

Of course, there are no “hooks” anymore, but for those of us who remember the days of rotary phones and the handset that needed to be securely in the cradle before the line cleared, you know what I mean.

“Ok, I shall check.”  [One of the only people who conjugates that verb correctly.] “No, nothing is wrong.  Hellooooo????  I hear you fine.”

“Dad, you are holding the cell phone so you hear me.  Dad, go into your office and check but Dad, please DON’T HANG UP.”

Ok, he hung up.  I called back.

“Hellooooo?”

“Hi Dad, it’s [BLOGGER]!” I say loudly.

“Hellooo????”

“Dad, it is [BLOGGER]!”

“[Blogger] darling!! My phone is fine.  I can hear you!!”

“Dad, I am calling on your cell phone.  I will call Time Warner and find out what is wrong with your LAND line.  I will call you back on your cell.”

“Ok.  I shall wait for your call.”

I spoke with Angenette, a lovely, lovely, customer representative at Time Warner.  She could not find my dad’s number or name in the system.  I called Dad back.

“Dad, Time Warner doesn’t have you listed.”  I tried to contain my alarm.

“Of course not.  I am on RCN.”

In my mind, I think:  Who’s on first, What’s on second and SHIT is on third.

“By the way,” he continued, “since you called, I received an automated announcement about a temporary disruption in phone service that has been successfully resolved.”

Before I could respond, Dad’s land line rang and it was SOB from the hospital.  HOSOB had had her paged because there was a potential “episode” requiring the EMERGENCY [BLOGGER FAMILY NAME] PROTOCOL.  This involves ambulances (for all members of the immediate family), a hospital ward (for all members of the immediate family) and sedation (again, for all members of the immediate family).

“Hi, dear!! Oh, yes, everything is fine.  [Blogger] is on the phone.  But I don’t hear her, so she must be disconnected.”

“DAD, I AM HERE!!!! PLEEEEEASE PICK UP THE CELL PHONE!!”

Ok, now COB rushed in from his office in a panic.  I am so loud that the building is shaking.

“Oh, dear!  There you are.  It is so wonderful to speak to all my children.  What a gift.”

What a gift?!  I have grown more gray hairs in this hour than I care to count.  But, he gets to speak to all his kids numerous times within one hour.  We continued to chat about our days and ended with mutual “I love yous,” as always.

I walk into COB’s office and lied on the floor and told him the story.  “Hey,” he said, “it sounds like he had a great time.  At the same time, however, your life? It sucked.”  The Oracle from East Windsor.

Another day in the life.

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Geraldo, I wear a hoodie, too.

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A friend told me recently that he enjoys my blog because I write about things on the micro-scale, even though the world (the macro-scale) is going to hell in a hand basket (sidebar: whence that phrase?).  The truth, I told him, is that our problems are so large, so scary and the politics of them are so venal, that if I wrote about that I fear I will slip irretrievably into the abyss.

But I can’t continue to blog about the wedding without taking time out to meditate on the killing of one unarmed young man by some self-appointed and armed neighborhood watchman.

And the police didn’t even arrest the shooter or bring him in for questioning.  It is a moral outrage.

The final straw was the statement by Geraldo Rivera, that young Trayvon Martin should not have been wearing a hoodie.

(Sidebar:  Geraldo, the man who never quite recovered from finding nothing in Al Capone underground safe.)

Is Geraldo saying that a plausible defense is that “the hoodie did it?” 

Geraldo, I am a white, Jewish, middle-aged, lesbian and I wear a hoodie when I go to the gym.  Of course, you would not suggest that my hoodie would somehow be the reason for an assault on me.

Geraldo, you know that you meant that young black men should know better: if Trayvon Martin don’t want to get killed, he should have dressed like a model straight from the Brooks Brothers catalog.   You seem very comfortable with acknowledging and codifying this undercurrent of deadly racism.

Are you kidding me?  

People don’t carry guns unless they are ready to use them.  So, the shooter is responsible every time that gun is fired.  But, if I follow your logic (I can’t really get my head that far up my rectum), Trayvon practically put the gun in the shooter’s hand and begged him to pull the trigger.

Shame on you and all of the other people on that TV show who let you spew this stupidity and insanity without challenge.

I am a mother and my heart is breaking for Trayvon’s parents and all parents who have lost children to this kind of insanity.

 

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The Undergarment Day

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Today was the day.  It is a ritual in every woman’s life, especially on the occasion of one’s wedding.

At least once in your life, you go to a place where a woman says, “just as the doctor says, naked from the waist up!!” and then leaves for five minutes.  When she comes back, she sizes up your breasts.  All this in the elusive search for undergarments that give us shape, without the need to re-enact post-partum Scarlett O’Hara trying to get into her pre-pregnancy whale-boned corset.

With the wedding looming large, POB and I walked into The Town Shop, a storied place, where the owner (until the day she died) would “cup” each customer.  WITH HER HANDS.  So you stand naked from the waist up and an old lady comes over  (WITHOUT drawing the curtain on your dressing room) and grabs you and yells out the size and model.  First, humiliation and then triumph.

Even though the proprietor died, her family keeps up the place, and there are enough old women who are brutally honest to make the process just as humiliating and then triumphant.

Bessie helped us today.  She had the air of a Southern black woman whose mama taught her well. Except, she started by telling us she just got the cast off her right arm and made me feel the pin that the doctors inserted.

We told her that we needed help getting the right, supportive undergarments for the wedding dresses we brought with us.

“Which one of you is the bride?”

“We both are”.

“Hmmmm,” with some incomprehension.  It never ceases to amaze me how this still happens in New York City.

She turned to me.  “Let me look at you first.”  Ok, Bessie studied my breasts.   She looked at the dress.  “I am going to have to concentrate very hard here.  Come out here where the light is better.”  That meant I had to step outside the dressing room in full view of everyone in the store — man, woman, child and cat.  “I am thinking D cups for all that! And [looking at the bra I had been wearing] you have some ratty old bras, doncha?” she yelled.  I looked at the floor hoping that the earth would open up so that I might crawl in.

“I also need something for the waist down . . . ” I said as force-ably I could muster after she was off for my new bra.

Bessie came back with a bra.  She strapped me in and then said, “Lean over and let them things settle!” I did as bidden.   “I said LEAN, not pray!”  “Now sit down and jiggle.  Hands up!!  Jump up and down!”  I have never been to Club Med, but this is sounding familiar.  “Ok, now PRAY!” Bessie asked for quiet while she concentrated “fiercely”.  “We need to get you something tighter ’cause you all over the place.”

We settled on a bra that lets me shake, rattle and roll without falling out all over the place.  Then we got to the knee to waist issue.  She brought something so tight, I didn’t know how I was getting into this.  “Well, this will cover that pooch,” as Bessie pointed to the area below my two-pack abs.  “Water gain — she has been traveling,” POB said indignantly and in my defense.  (I ♥ POB.)

“How many people are helping you get dressed?”  A question that implied it would take a village to get us ready on the morning of our wedding.  And she hadn’t even started on POB.  I was ready to call off the wedding, until I thought of Elinor Donahue in Father Knows Best winning the basketball game and having her friends crowd around her and get her into her prom dress so she could be crowned queen.  So, I am thinking about a scrum in rugby, except that we will emerge looking FABULOUS in our dresses.

In order not to embarrass POB, I will just say that POB fared only a little better with our straight-talking Bessie.  POB doesn’t have ratty bras because she came from a good home (as she reminds me).  Ok, except when it came to the zipper for POB’s dress.  “Did you try this dress on before you bought it?” Bessie offered “helpfully” as others needed to assist us because of Bessie’s healing arm. REALLY?

After we were finished, I asked POB if she had arranged for us to be Medi-vac’d home.  “No,” she said, “but we could have a snack on our way to the shoe place.”

This wedding stuff is NOT for the weak. (As for Bessie, I am going next Saturday for some new bras.)

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What? Where?

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Today, instead of Sunday night dinner, we planned Sunday brunch at 12:30pm at Edgar’s, a cafe on Amsterdam Avenue between 91st and 92nd Street.  SOB and HOSOB live around the corner.

It is well established old people always arrive early and then get impatient.  Dad is always 30-45 minutes early (“Dad time”).  And then, operating on Dad time, Dad gets impatient to move onto the next activity at the very moment we were scheduled to gather in real world time.  So, if you arrive on time in real world time (and not on Dad time), you might as well take your food to go.  Generally, we all arrive on Dad time because it is really unpleasant if Dad is asking for the check before we’ve ordered.

We arrive late for Dad time, at 12:15pm.  No one was there.  Dad is NEVER late (no, Daylight Savings Time is NEVER a factor).  So, he is either dead or in an ER.  And SOB wasn’t there, either.  Clearly, she was rushing to the scene of my father’s demise.  You think I am being histrionic.   I am, but this is how blogger family views the world.

I called SOB from my cell phone.  I am so used to calling from anywhere and having people answer a call from anywhere, that I don’t think about where a person might be when I call.  I usually ask, “are you in the midst?” just like my mother would ask, to give the person a graceful way to put off a phone conversation if necessary.  But not today.  Dad was missing and presumed terminal.

I reached SOB.

“Where are you? Where is Dad?”

“We’re here.  Dad arrived early.  We are just sitting.”

“I don’t see you,” as I look furtively around the small cafe.  “Where are you?”

“[Blogger], you called me at home.  I am here at home.  We’ll be over in 5 minutes.”

 

Ooooops.  In my stressed state, my fingers automatically dialed her home number (as in,  a land line), rather than her cell.

Who remembered there was such a thing?

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The Checklist

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In my professional life, I always having a closing checklist for each transaction.  Every piece of paper, every action, every issue goes on a centralized list, with responsible parties, deadlines and status.  Good practice (or malpractice) starts with organization.

As for my personal life, well, not always.  I try to maintain some type of order amid chaos, but let’s face it:  without POB, my life would be a compost.  Even POB was surprised, initially, at what lurked under the veneer of successful urban professional: my bespoke blazers and trousers held together with staples and scotch-tape (but never spit).  Indeed a metaphor for my life then.  The saving grace:  I did have someone come in to clean, do laundry and re-stock toilet paper and other essentials.

So, I wasn’t joking 10.5 years ago when, during a discussion about whether to have a child, I asked POB, “am I not baby enough for you?”  And now we have SOS and I have matured beyond my post-adolescent years.  I am now a somewhat disciplined person in my personal life.

Still, a wedding.  That is a huge undertaking and our mothers are not alive (and even if alive would not be young enough) to take over the process, make it their own, and forget about the two main characters.  How I long for that.  Yes, I said it.  If I could outsource this to our mothers, I would in a heartbeat.   I would get endless blog material.  So, clearly, outsourcing to a professional wedding planner is, well, no fun.

So, here is where we stand (using lavender, as the official color of gay weddings):

  • Dresses:   √
  • Undergarments: next weekend (stay tuned)
  • Shoes: next weekend (stay tuned)
  • Flat tummy and chiseled arms:  works in progress
  • SOS’s suit, shirt and tie: next weekend
  • Rabbi:  √
  • Venue:  √
  • Caterer:  tasting √; final menu:  open
  • Photographer: √
  • Band: √
  • Centerpieces:  in process
  • Wedding cake:  √
  • Invitations: in process (proofed; waiting for printer to send)
  • Ketubah: in process (actually waiting for feedback from rabbi)
  • Chupah: in process (poles reserved; cloth to be determined)
  • Ceremony:  needs work
  • Vows:  oy, don’t ask
  • Our song: still need to tell the band
  • Get:  get what? 

A get.  Let’s just say that one of us needed a religious separation from a long-ago prior commitment.  Traditionally, a get is something that a man gives a woman.  But a man can say no and still, he can remarry (I think).  If a woman doesn’t get a get, she is in limbo; she cannot remarry and her community will shun her.  Forever.  And there are horror stories even today about women in this very circumstance.  It is a terrible rule that confirms a woman’s second class status in traditional Judaism.

In our case, the prior commitment was with a woman, so no need to get a get, right??  Pretty good argument, eh?

Well, since marrying two women under religious law isn’t exactly, let’s say, kosher, our rabbi considers that the getting of a get should also be gender neutral.  Especially since, according to our rabbi, in its best sense, a get is a mutual release from the past.   Really, rabbi?  Sometimes, the past should just hang out there in the ether.  No one ever got bit from a sleeping dog.

Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok.  Service of papers at last known addresses, summons to appear before a Beth Din, a religious court of three rabbis.  Pretty serious business.  The religious court convened on Friday, in the West Village.  The three rabbis, two lesbians and one transgendering person, conducted the proceedings and finalized the releases.  (To show our diversity, the rabbi officiating our wedding is straight.)

The ancients and the current, living orthodox would have keeled over.  But they would have keeled over at the thought of the wedding.  So, I say, let ’em roll, let ’em roll, let ’em roll.

So, to update our checklist:

  • Get:  GOT

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The Gym

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It is a cruel truth of quantum physics that if there are five people in an otherwise empty gym locker room, all five will have lockers in the exact same corner.

And, two of the five will be half-naked and bent over shaking out their wet hair, another two will be full-on naked about to get into the shower and there will be one (me, in this case) who contorts herself in such a way as to avoid being with in a hair’s breath of someone’s sweaty or writhing body while she tries to open the lock on her locker.

I don’t use my lock that often, although I carry it around in my bag. The other night, I just couldn’t get the combination to work, even after many of the women left so I could stand straight up in front of the locker. After many unsuccessful attempts, I decided that I needed to ask the manager to cut the lock. It was late and I was meeting POB and Cousin California for dinner.

The only person at the front desk was a young man with Justin Bieber hair (or is it the other tweenage idol?). Without looking up, he said, “you’ll have to wait” while he attended to certain meaningless tasks.  I was tired so while I was irritated, I simply waited a few minutes. 

As I waited, I noted various serious looking managerial types (i.e., the adults) going into a “closed door” meeting (except there are glass walls so nothing is ever secret). When the young man finally listened to my predicament, he told me that the manager went into a closed door meeting and I would have to wait until the meeting ended.  How did I know that would be his response?

“When will it be over?”

“I don’t know. It could be long.  And, I can’t interrupt.” Customer service at its best.

“Well, I can interrupt!”

He saw that I was serious and he ran around to beat me to the door. It is amazing how quickly “can’t” becomes “can” when a lazy person realizes that his bad service could be detrimental to his continued employment.

The manager came out immediately. He was very cordial, although he did ask if I was sure it was my lock and locker. As I was about to get angry, I realized that he had a point — locks and lockers look alike and I am sure people make mistakes. I was quite sure because I bought my lock for its unusual design.

A young woman accompanied me with jaws-of-life size clippers – the kind that TV police use on locks when they don’t shoot at them.  As she 0was about to engage the jaws of life, she said, “I’ve never done this before and I am a little scared!” At that, everyone ducked and I yelled, “Cover your heads, we are in foul ball territory!”

Luckily, I was right about it being my locker and no one got hurt by the flying debris.  The young woman pivoted and started to walk out.  I had to stop the young girl so I could show her some identification but she waved me off saying, “I trust you.”

“You don’t know me. You need to ask for identification.”

The young woman left, still not comprehending why she ought to ask for some corroboration of my story.  She would hold the door open for a man in a ski mask and machine gun.

After all started to calm down in the locker room, a half-naked woman started telling me about the time her locker was mistakenly cut by a confused gym user.  And then she showed another woman and me that her combo is on the back of her lock, so she doesn’t worry about remembering it.  A little like telling a stranger at the bar how to disable your home alarm system.

The other woman was then looking at the first woman’s stuff,  “to see if I like any of it enough to steal.”  REALLY??? 

Ok, neither is a fashion plate.  And the second woman, whom I see a lot, could use a wardrobe refresher, but now I was thinking that the young ingenue who trusted me had already let in the thief.  I reminded both woman that, in women’s locker room, everyone looks fabulous and has fabulous stuff but we don’t burgle.

Exhausted, I crawled out of there so ready to be welcomed into the bosom of my family.

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