How do I know that a business man on the subway has a young daughter?
The man is well-dressed except for his hat. It has bear ears, nose and mouth and it ties under his chin. I love a guy who has a daddy’s little girl.
Subway Story
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Author Archives: 40andover
Family Weekend
This weekend was family weekend.
Last night, POB made a huge tenderloin which didn’t seem so aggressively carnivore-centric, until her vegetarian sister (SOPOB) called to say she and her son were coming. POB’s father (FOPOB) also came over, in part, because he liked the menu. (Not only can you not fool all the people all of the time, but you can’t please them either.)
And to round out the alphabet of “OB”-centric initials, sister of blogger (SOB), husband of SOB (HOSOB) and father of blogger (FOB) also came. HOSOB got a really short haircut and looked so adorable in that way that little boys do when they get their hair cut (except he is 54 or so, but still sooooooo adorable). And not the way an older man looks cute and helpless when he puts on a hat with ear flaps (you know, the “look” that cuts one’s IQ in half).
Since having a child, it makes me happy when those whom I love have home-cooked meals. Of course, POB has to do the actual cooking — I just plate everything and set the table, except when I don’t, and then POB is overworked and I don’t deserve her. But last night I wasn’t a slouch or sloth. (Of course, I think I deserve a merit badge for good behavior, but I digress.)
My nephew didn’t like dinner and was honest about in that way that kids can be. Everyone else was polite and HOSOB seemed to enjoy the carnivorous portion of the meal especially. FOB seemed to enjoy the wine. SOB seemed to enjoy leaving (she later reported having a really sound sleep — must have been vicarious dose of triptophan from all of the food HOSOB ate). FOPOB was non-committal. Our son and nephew enjoyed being together.
Today, another generation descended. A cousin from the Catskills who studied and lived in China for 5 years came for brunch, along with her half-Dutch, half-Israeli boyfriend who went to school in Switzerland and whom she met in Shang-hai. He is now in the States, in New England. It is too confusing to figure out which of the many pairings of culture shock he is currently experiencing. He is sweet and gentle notwithstanding his inherent Dutch directness and Israeli hubris.
Also along was a brother of this cousin who traveled the far distance from the Catskills to a suburban hamlet in Massachusetts. He introduced us to his girlfriend. This was big. His girlfriend was polite, sweet and quiet — i.e., not Jewish. Hey, non-Jews have tamed our family, to wit: my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. So, really, we are scared the non-Jews we love won’t marry into our family because we are so loud, and — hmmm, how shall we say — undiscriminating about our dinner/brunch table discussion topics.
So we were loud, especially my cousin (her boyfriend), and she didn’t seem unnerved by it, even when those cousins started talking about importance of sloping leaching fields in the separation of solid waste from non-solid waste. Septic tanks and the related issues of sanitation are not approved topics of conversation at my table (even though these were favorite topics of their father z”l who was a wonderful, if controlling, human). As I was trying to stop the story (we WERE eating), his sister piped in about the variations of “spicy stomach” she and her friends had in China. Ok, ok, ok. All of this after I lectured them (again) about the inappropriateness of pictures they put on Facebook.
My dear cousin (DCOB) — an elder of my generation — also joined us. He is such a gentle soul. He is very involved in eastern traditions, medicine and meditation. He also has a tremendous collection of American folk music. I know that you are thinking Asian monk living in the splendor of secluded monastery that has access to folk music and occasional WiFi. Think again. Think yin-yang. How yang? He is a criminal defense attorney living in a large apartment complex. DCOB’s wide ranging interests and openness to new and different things was evolutionary in our family. The next generations is more free to focus on their inner muses.
Still, after 3 hours, I called SOB, who prescribed M&M — meditation and medication.
Gay Marriage
Someone very dear to me mentioned that something was glaringly missing on my blog — my views of gay marriage and my response to all the current strides and defeats. My response was that I couldn’t be funny or amusing about something that core to me. But, I guess I need to vent. So here goes.
I have had the many privileges of being raised white and upper middle class in this country. Even in my lifetime being Jewish was only an issue at “elite” social levels (and I didn’t like those people anyway).
But I am gay and I have less civil rights than others because of it. If I didn’t live in New York City, being gay could be dangerous. We are well-educated, well-to-do and resourceful so we have created a legal web of “equivalents” so that the inability to marry does not affect our day-to-day lives. Still, it does make me feel like a stranger in my own land.
Those against gay marriage hide behind the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the social fabric arguments.
First, if marriage were so sacred, the self-proclaimed family values politicians wouldn’t be crashing and burning in adultery and gay sex scandals every month or so. Frankly, heterosexuals are destroying the sanctity of marriage. Gays in long-term committed relationships would probably lower the divorce rates.
But all this obscures a central truth: Marriage is not a religious law. Civil law decides the rights of married people in the course of the marriage and its dissolution by divorce or death. Therefore, all married people have civil unions. Some of these are “consecrated” in religious ritual and clergy have the power to officiate pursuant to civil law. Sometimes, a couple gets married in a judge’s chambers. Sometimes, you read about a non-clergy, non-civil servant getting authorization to marry a couple.
Why is this important? Because clergy are not necessary to create a “marriage” under civil law. So, let’s fix the nomenclature and call everything a civil union — whether it is a heterosexual or gay couple. Let religions call their rituals “marriage”.
The social fabric argument really riles me: my life with my partner and our son is destroying the social fabric of our country. We pay more in taxes in any year than the average American family earns in a lifetime, we give to charity, we support universal health care, we help the elderly and the needy and we host all family holidays — civil and religious. Nevertheless, the fact of our lives is why Bubba and Jolene — who live in a rented trailer in some trailer park in Mississippi, who don’t have health care, whose children work at WalMart, run a meth lab or fight on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan — can’t get ahead. It isn’t because we have a broken public education system, non-existent health care, faltering manufacturing industries and young men and women who come back from (at least one unnecessary) war broken inside and out. Clearly, Bubba and Jolene and their children won’t have a future if the states recognize our lives as a family.
Ok, I vented.
Synagogue
Religion is like opera — it loses something in translation.
Today, we went to the Liberal minyan at our synagogue while our son was in a kid’s session. One of the verses of the Torah portion provided that if a man “seduces” a virgin, he must still pay the bride price to her father as if they were married. Ok, in ancient times, a “virgin” — likely, a young girl — would not be in the company of a man unless coerced, because girls were not free to come and go unattended.
So, the girl gets hurt and the father is made whole. Grrrreat. There is one Hasidic interpretation that says this passage means that ideas are like virgins and must be put into action or something like that. Ok, I suppose the rabbi who wrote that interpretation meant that only good ideas should be put into action and not bad ideas like men seducing virgins.
Like I said, it sounded fine when it was being chanted in Hebrew. The translation, however, made my head hurt.
Another gym story
Yesterday, after a long day being charming at a conference on how to survive a bad economy (I think “pray” was the most viable strategy), I went to a nearby branch of my gym to work away the blues. This branch is located in a very expensive and fancy hotel and shopping complex. It is definitely a “flagship” branch with all of the bells and whistles and expensive amenities.
One notable amenity is the modesty areas, where one can dress and undress in private. A premium in a city where every square foot costs a fortune. Yet, it did seem unnecessary in a place where only the beautiful, the buff and the European work out and parade around. What is naked hair drying about? Naked nose-blowing? Naked blackberrying? Ok, the truth is that if I receive a message on my blackberry, I want the sender to be fully clothed. I don’t need any other image clouding my brain and destroying cells. If someone were to email me that he or she was in the gym locker room (because, like bloggers, people will write just about anything in an email), I would stop reading and wait for about a half hour until I thought the person was dressed and then continue reading.
The worst? Naked blackberrying while standing in front of the mirror.
Me? I like just being regular weird and not doing any of that eccentric stuff.
Aging.
Ok, so a friend told me, in a meaningful and affirmative way, that my new picture on my new company’s website is not horrible. She said, “it looks like you.” Excuse me while I have a body lift. Don’t think that I wasn’t being self-affirming in that statement. My first thought was: excuse me while I put my head in the oven.
After 45 years, I have got to come to terms with what I look like. I have to stop hoping that a glamorous woman is going to stare back at me in the mirror one morning. Years ago, I had an apartment mate who believed she would wake up one morning transformed into a six-foot tall blonde. Ok, the blonde part could be done. But growing 12 inches when you are 22? Nah. This is a long winded way (who, me?) of saying, I used to laugh about that until I realized that I have the same insane delusions.
Too things about aging really annoy me:
(1) puffy eyes. I have those now from doing the client/prospective client blitz now that I changed jobs. And I spent the last two days at a conference schmoozing people I never met before.
(2) sagging neck skin. If only my neck skin wasn’t starting to do the chicken dance.
One part is getting easier with age. People (mis)take my gray hair for experience and knowledge. Would I be less smart if I got my hair colored?
Why is Sarah still in my life?
How does a woman deride hope and faith in our democracy and receive standing ovations?
I am going out on a limb here, but not everyone can be president of the United States. Neither Joe Six Pack nor Joe the Plumber can run a nuclear superpower. Also, not every opinion is worth as much as any other. To think otherwise is ridiculous. One may have a right to one’s opinion, but if it is illogical or ill-informed, it should be ignored. Remember how much flack then-President Carter got when he said he asked his daughter Amy what she thought of nuclear disarmament? Because we knew that a 13 year-old is not an expert (to be fair, he was making a point about that younger generation’s desire to live nuclear bomb-free). The GOP lambasted him.
Now, the GOP thinks that every stupid idea based on half-truths and discredited sources should be held as on par with those of the President of the United States and his cabinet and advisers. That is just mean-spirited, corrupt and disrespectful. [Now, I didn’t think much of the ideas of GWB, his cabinet and his advisers, but I certainly agree that they knew more than most people and that the relevant opinions were those of experts who thought the Bush doctrine and the Cheney secret police were ill-conceived and ignorant.]
Sarah Palin has some great one-liners but a stand-up comic is not good training for president. Also, other than one-liners, she cannot put together a string of words to make a coherent sentence.
Ok, I am going to pretend I am a GOP operative and Sarah is a Democrat (G-d forbid). Here is my theory:
No matter how many times she makes mistakes or shares her baseless views and ideas, there is this invisible machine that rehabilitates and spins the mistakes and idiotic policy statements into victories for the true America. Any ordinary candidate — especially a female candidate — would be left to tend the embers of her political career after the various Sarah fiascoes. But there is an invisible force that will not let her fail. Why are people so invested? Well, I just keep thinking of that cold war movie about a sleeper mole who is in line for the presidency . . . . maybe . . . naw . . . yes? . . . Is Sarah Palin the real Manchurian Candidate?
Hey, according to the GOP, my opinion is as important and valid as that of any politician or commentator. So, my opinion is that Sarah Palin is the Manchurian Candidate and she was sent to the US to ruin us. In your face, lady in the McCain town hall who believed that President Obama is Arab (and so what if he was).
But Sarah was right about one thing: “President Palin” breeds fear in my heart AND, I hope, all those who love their children and want the world to survive for a few more generations.
Snow Day
It isn’t even snowing in NY yet and the public schools are shutting down for TOMORROW. My son doesn’t go to public school but his school is nevertheless following the Board of Education’s lead. Ok, why anyone would follow the Bd of Ed’s lead is beyond me. In fact, he is in private school precisely because the Bd of Ed has no business running schools.
Since parents who are urban dwellers don’t get snow days (the subway always works), tomorrow will be a problem for child care. POB (partner of blogger) and I have to figure this out. Actually, all I want to do is stay in my jammies and watch cartoons with our son and eat ice cream and laze around, until about 4pm and THEN hand him off to a sports coach to tire him out. Of course, we do have the trampoline that is now a fixture in his room until our downstairs neighbor complains. Luckily, the guy is a midlevel associate at a huge law firm that probably makes him work around the clock. Thank Goodness for modern-day, high-paying, low quality-of-life sweat shops.
The generations of progress
Sunday night is family dinner night. SOB (sister of blogger), HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) and FOB (father of blogger) come over. From time to time, COB (cousin of blogger) and COROBs (cousins once-removed of blogger) also come over [there is one COROB whom I miss very much — she knows who she is — I would love for her to come, too, when she is ready].
So, on Sunday night, we had the usual gang plus a COB and COROB. COB is the de facto family historian, so sometimes we discern breakthroughs of understanding and gentility invading our otherwise harsh and unforgiving gene pool. COROB’s brother is coming in with his girlfriend in a few weeks. COB asked COROB if “we” liked the girlfriend — one person’s opinion can shape a multi-generational disposition towards an interloper in — I mean new person to — the family.
COROB answered, “I don’t know, I haven’t met her.” And the generations of the family fell quiet. This was indeed momentous. Any member of a prior generation would say something like, “How could we possibly like her? He would have brought her around before if she was a keeper.” In other words, unworthy unless proved otherwise through hazing rituals only known among the clan. Here was an opening to be level-headed about the matter. The profundity cannot be overstated. We older cousins could not grasp this “perestroika” of a sort at first.
Luckily, just when the world as we knew it was teetering on the edge of kindness and generosity, we had a disagreement over whether kashrut is important as a sign of belief in G-d or because it was sound eating practices. Were the rules codified because of hygiene or because they set the tribes of Israel apart from other regional tribes? The COROB and COB disagreed with me somewhat assertively but something had changed in the dynamic of the family just from that little openness shown by COROB earlier towards her brother’s girlfriend.
I heard myself say, “you’re wrong AND you can still come back for dinner next time.” Wow. Now, that’s progress.
Hmmmmm.
The Slug in Winter
Our son has no interest in going outside in cold weather. He would much rather watch movies and read books. I don’t blame him, but POB (partner of blogger) and I get cabin fever. Also, reading and watching movies is great until our son starts bouncing off the walls from lack of activity. Boys need to run around. Think golden retriever. Lots of running, for running’s sake.
Last winter I bought one of those tiny exercise-trampolines — the kind that slides under our bed when not in use (and it is often not in use). Realizing that our son is as strong-willed as she is (genetic code cannot be denied), POB brought out the trampoline and made our son jump up and down as he told us stories and whatever else came to his head. POB and I took turns taking walks outside. It wasn’t exactly “family” time, but it was the best we were going to get on a frigid winter day. (I hope Groundhog Phil was wrong and we will have an early Spring.)
It reminded me about the commercial with the parents running the kids up and down hills and then putting them on treadmills just to get them tired out. Life imitates art or art imitates life.