Category Archives: Jewish

Sunday School

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My son has a Hebrew tutor on Sunday mornings.  He goes to our synagogue’s bi-monthly Saturday program, but that is more about culture and being part of an LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community.  (Please don’t ask me to explain bi-sexuality or queer-identification.  Those concepts arose after I settled down and became middle-aged.)

He has 4.5 years until his Bar Mitzvah and he needs to be able to read Hebrew.  I would also like him to understand modern Hebrew, as well, which is about as different from biblical Hebrew as English is from Russian.  And I think it would be more fun and interesting for him.  And that means he would squirm less in class and learn more.  You get the picture and, of course, as with many of my blog entries, it all must end in Kumbaya (this time sung in Hebrew).

Today, POB (partner of blogger) and I took turns going to the gym while our son had Hebrew class.  Since my gym is close to West Side Judaica, I took the opportunity to go in and see about kids’ books that have been translated into Hebrew (POB’s great idea for transitioning into modern-day Hebrew).  I was looking for books like Goodnight Moon or the Giving Tree that our son read when he was young.  He would know the story and be able to connect Hebrew words with its English counterpart and . . .  you get the idea.

I walk into West Side Judaica looking, as one might expect, as if I had just come from the gym, complete with ear buds attached to my iPod.   All Hassidic men in this store.  Can you say culture clash?

So, I ask Shloymi (that is really his name) if he had children’s books.

“Do I have children’s books?  Of course!! I have a beautiful section full of beautiful books!! For every child, I have a book.”

The melodic Yiddisha English is comforting to me because it reminds me of my grandparents.  I decided that his last comment wasn’t a dig at the sad nature of my child’s life since he was not being raised in an orthodox home.  I also decided that I would not be passive-aggressive and mention that we were two lesbians raising a Jewish boy.  I think that admirable restraint deserves an honorable mention and, voilá, here it is.

There were indeed many books.  All in English and all about G-d and wonderful Torah stories that will keep children trembling before G-d.  Greeaaaat.

I ask a younger man, Chaim, whether there were English books translated into Hebrew.

“Ach,” he said, “we have Curious George [really, is that what we export?], we have . . . .”

He pointed me in another direction. I found shelves of books.  The problem is that I don’t speak or read modern Hebrew.  So, how do I know what I am buying?  I look at the pictures.  Like any other illiterate.

Then I saw it!!  The distinct pea green color of the “Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein.  And there is the tree on the cover (the back cover because Hebrew is read left to right).  And then, I read, in the only thing that is English transliterated with Hebrew letters:

של סילברסטיין

(SHEL SILVERSTEIN!!)

Hooray!! Reform Judaism’s redemption in front of Chaim and Shloymi.

My son was not as excited as I about the book.  So I have begun reading it, in Hebrew. Why is this book so important to me?

I bought the book years ago, when our nanny, Leta Murray, died (may her memory be for a blessing).  She was my siblings’ and my nanny for 18 years (make no comment).  I read it and cried, because she was the tree and I was the taking child.  I know she knows that I loved her and still do.  So, I will teach my child, in Hebrew and in English, the importance of being the giving tree and not the taking child.  At least, not always.

מדור לדור

(from generation to generation)

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Extreme Family

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On Sunday, just as we and our apartment were recovering from the New Year’s that was, we had two cousins (children of dear cousins Ricky z”l and Judy, and dear, if young, cousins in their own rights). FOB (father of blogger and their great uncle) joined and so it was a multi, collateral-generational event.

It was scheduled for 11am and then re-scheduled for 10:30am by one of my young cousins, so she could catch a train to get upstate for school.  She had lived in New York for a year but in short order we forgot that she is never, ever, ever on time.  If this fact was lost to save another, more necessary fact from slipping out of my memory banks, so be it.  [As a digression (of course), does anyone else fantasize about have one of those 8 GB memory cards inserted in your brain?  Did I just admit that this is the subject of my fantasies?  Ugh, my filter was gone years before I could blame age.]

I didn’t even bother to tell FOB of the earlier start time because, as I have discussed before, as a person gets older, a person arrives earlier and earlier at any event.   So I knew he would be on time, even early, for the rescheduled time.  And FOB did not let me down. I was a little worried that he would be so early as to eat dinner with us on Saturday night, but we aren’t at that stage yet.

POB (partner of blogger) got up early to get provisions.  She is a G-dsend and she reminds me of that daily (the memory thing again).

So while the rest of were all assembled at 10:30am (FOB even earlier and her younger brother exactly on time), my little cousin and her NEW boyfriend arrived at 11am.  We didn’t realize he was ACTUALLY coming — a little mix-up on that score — but we always buy enough lox, bagels and white fish salad.  And we have food on hand if a person is not Jewish — gastronomically or otherwise.

We endured her old boyfriend who was Dutch-Israeli (how did his parents get along long enough to procreate, you might ask, but I really, really can’t go there).  You might be having trouble imagining the effect of a Dutch and Israeli genetic mixture?  Rest easy, I have your answer:  You get someone who tells you his opinions framed as THE TRUTH (there is only one) in a smug and arrogant way.  Really, I am not joking.  But wait, it gets weirder, the old boyfriend works in the hospitality industry. Let’s pause on that point for a moment because you cannot make that stuff up.  There was something undeniably charming about him.  But I digress.  [Sigh] Yes, I digress AGAIN.

So, bottom line, we were prepared for anything. And quite curious.

Also, just some background on her (right) wing of the family.  They are somewhat religious so non-Jewish partners are problematic.

The boyfriend (now, probably, “ex” after meeting us) is not Jewish.  Never letting inappropriate conversation get in the way of a family gathering, my other young cousin reported that his grandparents on the OTHER side of the family have issues with their older brother’s relationship with an older non-Jewish woman who has two kids.  Pause.  I contemplate that both my siblings are happily married to non-Jews and that I, THE LESBIAN, am the only one with a Jewish partner.

Not wanting the new boyfriend to feel toooo bad about this xenophobic-is-it-good-for-the-Jews conversation, I offered helpfully that my cousin’s eggs are Jewish so the family should be ok with a Christian boyfriend (assuming that he wasn’t yet dying to run screaming out the door), but of course we will need some of his blood in order to make wine for Passover.

Did I really mention the blood for Passover wine?  Happily I can say, with little or no guile, that I honestly don’t remember.  Maybe I don’t want that memory chip after all.  [cheesy smile]

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Holding fast to the old and ringing in the new

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Over New Year’s, my worlds collided in the most spectacular way.

We hosted our group of friends who have rung in the New Year together (in various iterations) for the past 8 years.  Our god-daughter (at whose wedding I will officiate this year) joined us this year and made a DELICIOUS confection that made me wonder anew why she is a lawyer and not a baker.  So, our nuclear family was complete (except for her partner who was stuck in THE HEARTLAND).

So, it would seem that it couldn’t get better than this.  And you’re right.  Except people from those dear, sweet (and sometimes naughty) childhood summers also guest starred.

First, a day before New Year’s.  This person is a dear friend (her handle is Janet2) whom I never see and yet to whom I feel bound in this deep abiding way, so much so that if she showed up on my doorstep, penniless, I would take her in, without a question. Maybe because she and her three sisters (one of blessed memory) and my sister and I shared summers — among us all — for maybe 18 years. Maybe also because her father and my uncle served and were scarred in the War together and her parents (now her mother) have been a part of my extended family all my life.  Maybe it is just, that deep down, there is just a connection that doesn’t need to be explained.

So, my friend is now a really big-deal in the music industry (and if she isn’t, I don’t care, because she is to me) and under the guise of a “family that plays music together, stays together” sent us the hugest package I have ever seen, with two Wii guitars, microphone and drum set.  Now I know she thinks I am this really successful lawyer, but it was hell to find a storage space for all of this because we live in a lovely box in New York City — but a box, nevertheless.  (We don’t have a suburban den, Janet2.)  We will discuss this more in depth as the story progresses.  (We do have storage for it, thank G-d.)

Then, because there are only two degrees of separation among Jewish lesbians, a friend called to say that they were coming with one more person for New Year’s and that person knows me from Camp Wingate!!!  Another person from camp in two days?  The circles of life about which we sang around the Saturday night camp fire are now creeping me out.

Of course, I remember this person, who shows up at my door essentially 30 years later and who looks EXACTLY the same (except, sweetie, the gray roots were showing and only someone-who-know-you-when can tell you this).  Almost exactly, except that she wasn’t wearing the Gilligan-like hat that she wore every day one summer as she walked around making wry and far-too-insightful-for-a-ten-year-old comments about the life unfolding before her eyes.  It also turns out we both had strangely close, yet chaste, relationships with the same women.  But that will be for another blog entry.

So we rang in the New Year, with family and old friends and even older friends (I include the box of Wii stuff as a stand-in for Janet2).  But not before I shilled for HOSOB.  He is a painter and we are determined that his fame not be posthumous.  So, I had him prepare cards with his watercolor of SOPOBAB with an indricotherium (sp?) (from the Extreme(ly Ugly) Mammals show at the Natural History Museum) as a sample of what he could do for those of our party with children.  No studio pictures, please.  Instead, watercolors courtesy of HOSOB.  I really put on the hard sell.   I poured it on thick.  My house, my Tupperware party.  So, eat our delicious food (courtesy of POB) and drink our wine but listen to my shpiel.

Happily, we were all of an age where we struggle to stay awake until midnight and everyone wants to get home almost immediately afterward.   We had dear friends and their kids sleep over that night (who can find a sitter on New Year’s Eve?).  One of our friends is very technically adept so when the kids woke up at 7am, she got to work on setting up the Wii extravaganza courtesy of Janet2.  By noon, SOS was mastering the drums, our friends had a guitar each and I was on vocals.

What I didn’t know is that after the song (from the Beatles greatest hits), the Wii grades your performance.  I figured that, not wanting to alienate users, Wii might stop with “Don’t quit your day job.”  But no, my vocals were such that I got “human? If so, an abomination.” Don’t worry, Janet2, if you appear on my doorstep, I will take you in AND I will not sing to you because you don’t need to go even lower emotionally.  But since you seem happy now, I may send you a tape of my performance.  I am way worse than Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello, but their voices also suck.  And, I can do a mean impression of both especially Elvis Costello when he looks like he has to pee and is holding it in.

So, let’s sing together the old camp fire song, “make new friends, but the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”  (http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/makenew.htm).  And those of our childhood are like priceless gems.

Pearl Wolfson, thanks is not enough.

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Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland

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Today was the truest snow day ever.  18 inches of snow in New York City.  Stalled car and buses every where.  Blizzard-scale winds that made me believe in Mary Poppins.  Law firm offices closed.  Let me say that again.  LAW FIRM OFFICES CLOSED EVEN AS THEY TRY TO MAKE BUDGET FOR 2010.  Now, that, THAT, is saying something.  I live in the City and there was no way I was going to make it to the office except by walking, and the blizzard-scale winds would have taken me way off-course.  The Upper West Side of Manhattan is not even plowed 12 hours after the last snowflake fell (don’t they realize that we vote with our ballots and pocketbooks?  Has anyone noticed the UWS demographic has changed????)

POB (partner of blogger) was supposed to go east to the beach with our son (SOPOBAB) and his cousin, our nephew.  Oh, I think Mother Nature is a teeny tiny bit stronger than the sheer will of POB.  Although Mother Nature won, she was bruised and hospitalized.  Anyway, my beautiful prizefighter POB thought that we needed to go sledding.  I thought we needed to drug the boys (just kidding, for all the Child Protective Services personnel who read this).  How else do you keep two rambunctious 8 year-old in check?

So, a-sledding we went.  A winter wonderland.  Sheer, treacherous beauty on West 108th Street.

As I was fretting about the absence of protective gear while trying not to fall down the hill at scary velocity (I remember all too well flying down the hill with SOPOBAB when he was a littler kid.  I also remember buying another life insurance policy the following day, because SOPOBAB would bounce, as children do; I would not have survived another run.)

But, then, life has a way of keeping it all real.  A child, whose family apparently fell on hard times (they must have been slumming by spending year-end at home), stated with disgust, “There isn’t even a hot chocolate shack!” If that were my child, he would be enrolled at military school tomorrow.  Yes, I am passing judgment (and also stating a fact).

Toto, I have a feeling we are not in Aspen anymore. It was so pathetic and sad at the same time that I couldn’t, simply couldn’t, take a picture of the spoiled brat who uttered that line.  Ok, I almost did, but G-d intervened and the battery of my camera failed.  Lucky kid, but karma, as we know, is a boomerang.

BUT, THE BATTERY DID NOT DIE BEFORE I GOT A PICTURE OF A SARTORIAL/PSYCHO-SOCIAL TRAGEDY.  Before I share this vignette, I will note that my own outfit could remind a person of Pippy Longstocking — everything was mismatched in that way that you wear whatever will keep you warm.  In fact, I was wearing a serial-killer hat (depicted in every artist sketch in an all-points bulletin) that made me look particularly deranged and very much like a predicate felon.  But that isn’t what I am talking about.

I am talking about an outfit that could scar a child for life.

A MOTHER IN A SUMMER’S PEASANT SKIRT, WINTER JACKET WITH FUR LINING, CARRYING A BRUSHED COPPER COLORED PURSE, TOTALLY IGNORANT OF THE GRAVE EMBARRASSMENT AND LIFETIME TRAUMA SHE WAS CAUSING HER LITTLE SON:

Later she yelled at her son who is out of control as he sled down the hill, “watch your kepilah [head]!!!” as if summoning G-d to deliver her from this pagan ritual that assimilation has thrust upon them. The only saving Grace is that this the Upper West Side of New York, with a Jewish population larger than the whole of Israel.  So, we understand.  Because was heard these humiliating stories from our parents as part of their own, very personal, Exodus stories.

A bastardized adage still holds true:

One person’s winter’s wonderland is another person’s proof that Hell DOES freeze over.

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Christmas at the Gym

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With apologies to those who know the meter of this song — I only absorb it from pop culture”

T’was the eve of Christmas day,
And all the Jews at the gym
Were either balding or gay.
Here everyone is calm,
Absent the buff and beautiful
Was truly heavenly balm.
On Chaim, On Yonkel,
And Jews galore
We watch as muscles struggle to the fore!
And now we need a shpritz
for at this gym — oy! —
how the Jews did schvitz!
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Ode to Christmas, from a Jew

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T’was the night before Christmas,
all through the homestead,
Every Jew was thrilled! Friday morning in bed!
Hooray for Christmas every Levite rejoiced,
Beat ’em or join ’em that is the choice!
So the Jews, they wassailed,
they caroled and they hailed.
Jesus is born! Jesus is born!
Not a doctor he be, his mother forlorn.
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Rule No. 1: Don’t check me out if you are receiving social security benefits

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I have been wallowing in old and recent pictures of the family.  You know, the end-of-year auld lang syne thing, except without the drunken protestations of undying friendship.

Jews, as a rule, are not innately happy, because if you are happy, then the Evil Eye will visit some horribleness upon you and your loved ones.  Preventing the Evil Eye from coming is hard work when you’re up against all the Yuletide cheer.  It requires devotion to cynicism (which is extremely difficult this time of year — as you may remember, even Ebeneezer Scrooge gave in to the Yuletide cheer), remembering every lost loved one, predicting doom and gloom in the New Year, and staying up nights thinking up disaster plans if your family is suddenly homeless.

While I was protecting my family and the world from imminent disaster (say Keynahora — don’t ask why, just say it) by tearing up while looking through photos of my mother of blessed memory (don’t worry, no bringing in the Joni here), I noticed in the pictures that over time, the muscle tone in my arms went from “awesome” to — er — “pretty good for middle-age”.  I decided that I needed to return to arms — not to “awesome”  but — to “omigod, your arms don’t look like they belong on a middle-aged woman!”   I determined that if I said “keynahora”, the incantation said by my grandmother right after she kissed the mezuzah and put money in the pushke (box for charity) enough times, no harm would come to my family if I indulged in a little narcissism.

Turns out I didn’t need to say “keynahora”, kiss anything or anyone because the Evil Eye got the last laugh.

Background:  I have silvery hair, and have taken to “glamming out” a little (earrings, lipstick, scarves, jewelry) to balance the harshness of “going gray”.

TWICE tonight at the gym, men who are easily 20-25 years older than me were checking me out.  I noticed they tried to meet my gaze and I looked back to see if they needed something.  Seeing that they were holding my gaze, I turned around to see if there was someone else intended for the gaze.  Just my reflection.  Uh oh, I think.  I am gray but I could be your daughter.  Eeeeeewwwwww.  Besides, you are at the gym either because you were too speculative in the last years and need to continue to work (greed is a boomerang) or you are just here to check out the women (shame on you because, statistically speaking, you have a wife at home with sagging arms).  In either case, I don’t date MEN — and therefore men on social security — and I am married (as much as one can be in New York) to woman with whom I have a family.  And does Medicare pay for that Viagra?

The other thing I noticed is that all young women (gay or straight) have tattoos just above the cracks of their tushies, and they make sure those tattoos are visible to all by wearing revealing gym wear.  (I can look.)  You can tell the non-straight girls because they are doing military pull ups and the really hard kind of push-ups.  And some don’t even have that ooky muscled-up with no breasts look.  But I digress.

The harsh truth that hit me is no girl was even glancing in my direction.  So, what I am saying is that women may gender-bend, but they don’t generation-bend, although I look fabulous for 50 (I am 46-almost 47).

So, I didn’t need protection from the Evil Eye.  I need protection from REALITY.

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Bringing in the Joni [Mitchell]

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It is that time of year again, when the days get darker and the weather colder.  And the despair.  Same despair as every year since 2002 when Mom started down that slippery slope to the end of her life.  The dark days, my sister and I call them.

Dear Mom:

We moved eight times ’round the seasons since you died.  We have rode those stupid, stinking, painted ponies eight times ’round the carousel of time.  And still, tears well up in both your daughters’ eyes just thinking about the fact that you are gone.

We have a lovely party for Dad’s 90th birthday.  We tried to keep the photo montage balanced so it wouldn’t be a shrine to you.  Your eldest (SOB, to my blogging friends) was strong and held me back.  We had to remember (ok, I had to remember) that we needed to be all about Dad that day, even though somehow being all about Dad means being all about you, too.

SOB tries to think that these past years allowed us to get to know Dad and allowed him to shine.  That is true. He is a wonderful, kind and generous man.  (Ok, generous in spirit, and in his gifts to his family, but on a day-to-day basis, a person needs a crowbar to open up his wallet.)  And don’t let those years of his croaking out notes on the saxophone fool you, he is a maestro when it comes to pushing our buttons in a tour de force — a veritable Liberace, but without the candelabra, crazy outfits or the ookiness.  But, he is aging more quickly these days.  And he will forever be lost without you.  As are we all to some extent.

Your grandchildren are fabulous young men.  BOB’s (brother of blogger’s) elder son asked us recently, “what do you remember most about Mamaw?”  I could see SOB’s eyes welling up.  Mine were, too.  I think we were caught off-guard by the question.  We were sitting at the dining room table — your table — and we were so awed by our nephew’s desire to know more about his grandmother.  Sometimes my son asks, “what would grandma say?” in a given situation.  I do my best imitation although I am scared that I can’t summon up your voice as well any more.

We’ve lost a fair amount of family since we lost you — Ricky, Uncle Billy, POB’s (partner of blogger’s) mom, Rudy and Yvette, among others.  Rudy and Yvette needed me and I hope I made you proud by my actions.  We have had some notable additions.  SOB now has HOSOB (husband of SOB) who is fabulous and loves the family (who could have imagined?).  He made latkes for Hanukah.   I think he thinks that there is a special “conversion by cooking” clause in Judaism.  I keep telling him he has to dunk in the dirty water in the mikvah.  He is already practicing his aliyah for SOPOBAB’s (son of POB and blogger’s) Bar Mitzvah.  You would adore him.  He makes SOB laugh and smile in a way that makes me wish you could just come back — for just a moment — and see the smile on her face and the look in her eyes and know that SOB is happy and in love.

Also Cousin Gentle has joined our nuclear family pod.  It is so good to have the New York City contingent around our table on a Sunday night, eating, laughing, reminiscing and creating new memories.  You should have seen all the boys (and I am including Dad and POB’s father) around the train set that SOPOBAB got as a present.  Some moments are priceless and you want to freeze them in time.

Maybe there is a Heaven and you are there and see everything.  I know you never believed in it (“when you’re dead, you’re dead” you often said), but I cannot accept that there is a black hole in the world where your heart and soul once were.  You cannot have dissipated into the air.

Sometimes, your death gives me strength.  If I could get through that, I could get through almost anything that happens in a given day.  The economy has been hard these past years and I worry sometimes (ok, most of the time), but your life and death have given me a perspective that keeps me sane (mostly sane).

One last thing I wish you could help me navigate.  Matzah balls are supposed to sink; POB’s float (whoever heard of such a thing).  I know she cooks the Passover meal and it is her mother’s recipe and Passover is all about her mother (z”l) — as it should be, but when do you think I can start negotiating for the sinkers again?

I love you, Mom.

~  Blogger

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Who am I; What am I?

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For over 46 years, I was an American.  I was one of us — even though I am Jewish, an unrepentant liberal, and gay.  There was room in the tent, even if a few people called me unpatriotic for opposing the Iraqi invasion.

But this year, things are different.  Was my grandmother a citizen when my mother was born?  Yes.  Does it matter?  Maybe I get dispensation because I pay in taxes what most people earn in a decade.  I thought that in this country, one no longer had to buy freedom or the right to be protected from government interference.  But if neo-fascists get their way, birthright citizenship goes away.  If that happens, hell, I am moving because I am not paying my tax dollars into a system that makes me prove my mother’s citizenship.  I bet that America would find that most of their tax dollars comes from second generation Americans and not the Tea Party Express members who fear that their status as descendants of European conquerors doesn’t buy a loaf of bread.

Then there is this talk about the oppressive Atheists who deprive Christians of their right to pray in schools.   News flash:  it isn’t just the Atheists.  It is every mainstream of every minority religion that wants breathing space from fundamentalists — of whatever religion.  As religious as were the founders, they believed, and the case law of our nation’s highest court supports, that there be a separation of church and state, mostly for the protection of the minority against the tyranny of the majority (thank you, Thomas Jefferson).   Chew on that, Christine O’Donnell.

Protest is the hallmark of our nation.  We were founded upon the belief that we had a right to protest the edicts of King Charles of England.  So when video captures a campaign aide stomping on the head of a protester, one has to wonder who has hijacked our nation.  I disagree with the campaign aide’s candidate on more things than I can count but I support his right to campaign on his ideas.   If his staff cannot support the right of the opposition to protest, then they are totalitarian thugs.  They don’t belong in the great experiment in democracy that is America.

Also in this election cycle, we learned that there are those who believe that if this nation were to allow gay marriage, it would be tantamount to allowing a person to marry a piece of furniture.  No joke.  Try telling that to your girlfriend.

Where did the ideals and dreams of America go?  I am a stranger in my own land.

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Tuesday, The Day My Pampered Child Called Me Lazy

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Ok, Ok, Ok, Ok, Ok.  I am not good in the morning.  Mostly, because I have very unrestful sleep.  All day, every day, I am tired to the bone.  That is just life for me.  I yawn even when I work out because even that much adrenaline doesn’t keep me awake.  I would drink coffee all day if that burning sensation in my stomach or esophagus would quit.  You get the point.

POB (partner of blogger) has been away on business and is coming home late tonight.  Our son remarked that “Mommy will be so tired tomorrow she’ll seem as lazy as you, E-Mom.”  Shock.  Disbelief.  Dismay.  My son is calling ME, lazy?  At first I think maybe he understands the concept through comparison with his own exemplary model of laziness.  But then I realize there is neither an introspective aspect nor an attempt to bond with a fellow lazy person.

This is what “we in the Tribe” would call a Jewish compliment — an insult made less stinging by including someone, i.e., POB, with otherwise excellent qualities in your category of degeneracy.  So, since he has never been around Yiddish speakers or members of the immigrant generation, there must be a genetic component to his uncanny ability to deliver a stinging, yet subtly amusing Jewish compliment.

I would have appreciated it more had I not been appalled and yelling.  Yelling is the one throw-back parenting technique that is still grudgingly allowed by the good parenting police.  But it can only be used when you have had another stressful day at the office, working ever harder to mute the effects of a bad economy on your sense of self-worth and your ability to provide for your family.  So, I properly invoked the technique.

But then I know that my son was just expressing things as they appear to him, unencumbered by a social filter.  I know that others his age have some form of social filter.  My son is different that way.  And most times we work through the issue without my resorting to yelling, “how dare you say something like that?”  My son was a little freaked out but not the least bit bowed by the event.  Only now I have to put me in a time-out and have a serious talk with me about my behavior and how to channel my emotions in more socially acceptable ways.

And my son?  He had dinner, shower, books and music before bed.  I told him I love him and nothing changes that even if I was angry at what he said.  And I do love him, and I always will.

But I am NOT lazy.  (Ok, not compared to him.)

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