In our Tribe

Posted on November 25, 2009 by 40andover

My hairdresser, a woman raised Catholic, was cutting my hair and we were just chit-chatting about things. She had watched a segment on circumcision and AIDS. She was wondering where the practice originated.

I mentioned that, under Jewish tradition, it is a sign of (and cost to join) the covenant between Abraham and G-d. After I said that, I wondered aloud about a man who believes in an omnipotent G-d, invisible to humans and who, after looking into the Heavens, looks down and sees not his toes but the foreskin on his penis and decides that he should cut that. Imagine how different life would be if he saw his toe or maybe if he just pierced his eyelid. Would Jerry Springer even let Abraham on his show?

Then Abraham hears G-d telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham is willing to do that. Greeeeaaaat. After that episode is over, Isaac nevertheless goes home with him. Oprah would have an intervention. Judge Judy would have a coronary.

Isaac lets Jacob, his second son, steal his birthright from his firstborn, Esau. Corleone?

Jacob sees Rachel in a field, rips his clothes and falls down weeping. She marries him. Whaaaat? Before she can marry him, her sister, the bleary-eyed one (who knows) marries him. Two sisters, same man. Hugh Hefner-esque. EEEEEEEeeeeewwwwwwww.

G-d rewards Jacob and promises that he will give rise to a great and mighty people.

Yep, this is the heritage that the fundamentalist Jews and Christians are trying so hard to inculcate in our children. Some family values.

Thanksgiving 2009 — prologue

Posted on November 25, 2009 by 40andover

We’re having brisket instead of turkey as a way to meld Jewish and American traditions (mostly, I am tired of having three people compete for only two turkey legs). And besides the turkey legs, no one in our family really likes turkey.

Then what, you ask, will we eat for days after? You mean, what will we do without having dried out turkey between two slices of bread to eat for a week? hmmm. A puzzlement. How are we going to honor that post-Thanksgiving tradition? A friend suggested turkey pastrami. Brilliant.

So, the Jewish descendants of pilgrims (the ones that came in through Ellis Island) will celebrate with brisket and turkey pastrami. Culturally and gastronomically sensitive and sensible solution. Some good things do come out of committee.

Lest you think that cooking a brisket is easy, let me share what happened prior to Passover, when POB (partner of blogger) was testing out her brisket recipe on our fathers at our usual Sunday night dinners. SOB (sister of blogger) was unavailable that night, just when we needed her to referee the melee that ensued. POB bought an uber-kosher piece of brisket with just the right “marble” enough fat to keep it from drying out. First, let me say, it was a delicious brisket, notwithstanding what happened next.

Her father started to spit it out because it was too chewy and voiced his displeasure (what ever happened to if you don’t like it, don’t eat it and keep quiet?) and my father, trying to help, said, “[POB] dear, if you slice off the fat . . .. ” as POB’s face was getting red and her eyes are rolling back. I tried to whisper to my dad that he should stop instructing on the finer points of brisket, but so sure was he that he was bridging the gap between POB and her father so that we could share a kumbaya moment that he continued. It was a train crash that I could not stop.

Also, it is important to note that while my father thinks he has perfect hearing, it is only because he can’t hear the doctor tell him to get a hearing aid. So, when I am “whispering to my dad” that is code for screaming at the top of my lungs. Of course there were only the four of us at the table, because our son has excused himself and gone off to play. So, everyone could hear everything.

Each day before that Passover seder, POB’s dad called to see if we had reconsidered the brisket. For Passover, we bought two briskets, one really lean (and tasteless for the Grandpas) and a tender, marbled one for everyone else. Everyone was happy and there were no plagues befalling anyone.

So, while Thanksgiving isn’t like being in Fallujah, we all wear body armor.

Fathers

Posted on November 19, 2009 by 40andover

My dad is 89 years old. He is active and self-sufficient. What a difference a day makes at that age.

Today he had persistent shortness of breath and tightness in his chest. Apparently, this has been going on for some weeks, especially when he walks. These are the same streets and hills he has walked his adult life.

The doctor thinks it is his heart. He is fine now. He sounds fine over the phone. We’ll see. Some tests in the coming days.

I am still under the weather with the flu, so I have to wait to see him until the weekend.

I know I have joked in my blog about my father’s low threshold for discomfort and how much I know about his intestinal fortitude or lack thereof. This is different.

Dad is not panicked or kvetching. And, he plans to think carefully about what, if any, procedures he would undergo.

My father’s heart pumps so strong with love, generosity and kindness. Yet, it may also be a weakening muscle.

Just keep it beating, Dad.

Just the G-d-Awful Flu

Posted on November 17, 2009 by 40andover

Since Friday, I have been felled by the flu. I don’t have mad sow flu, or H1N1, as it is supposedly called.

I am now recovering from the usual, seasonal, G-d-awful flu. It happens. The non-designer, non-pandemic one. I even had a flu shot which I have to say probably made it less horrendous than it could have been.

My sister the doctor was concerned that I was dying of the plague because I didn’t blog for days. Yes, I had to have been pretty hard hit not to blog, or, for that matter, to pay a shiva call to my friend whose mother’s funeral I attended last week (see prior blog entry).

The flu, once medicated, is the moral equivalent of a stubbed toe. Yet, I longed to hear my mother say, “my poor tsakele, if I could have it for you I would,” as she looked into my eyes and caressed my cheek in that way that mothers do that make you feel better just by having them there.

POB, partner of blogger, has been in the trenches with our son, getting him from place to place, while I lied in bed doing the least I could do. Really, the least I could do. And she is a trooper (who is now coughing, because I share too much).

I took a walk yesterday because I was becoming self-radicalized watching CNN and MSNBC in between naps over the last few days. I was woozy and thought it would be a great idea to go to the gym. (I need a personal attendant.) I went to the gym and did nothing except watch the people who are able to go to the gym on a Monday at 3:30pm, while I scrubbed with Purell. Luckily the medication dried me out so much that I neither blew my nose or coughed much. One general observation: the beautiful, the buff and the young don’t go to the gym in the afternoon. The older, schleppier and grayer do.

I left the gym having not sweat or done anything to shore up my sagging self and walked south for no reason (ok, no sane reason). I went into PC Richards and Sons and looked at Plasma TVs. I thought maybe if I bought a big plasma TV, I could tell POB that it was the delirium that did it. Even in my delirium I knew that was stupid, yet wishful, thinking.

Friends tried to make me feel better by emailing me stories of the weird and blog-worthy. My old friend started out his email by writing: “My dear son didn’t really do anything wrong (that’s what every parent says).” Followed by, wait for it . . .

“Gotcha!!!”

Walk-weary, I took to my bed and resumed doing the least I could do.

Dr. SOB (Sister of Blogger), are you satisfied that I am on the road to recovery?

Imagine Peace — Part 2

Posted on November 13, 2009 by 40andover

I know my mother sounded a little saintly and we like a family of do-gooders in a prior entry, Imagine Peace, so we need to set the record straight. We have our moments of community service but we are Seinfeldian in the usual ways.

First, the email from a friend of MOB [mother of blogger) and a co-founder of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence from FOBM (friend of blogger’s mom) to SOB (sister of blogger).

“Dear SOB:

Thank you for coming on Tuesday and for helping to make the event a great success. I still miss MOB and would love to have her see how the organization has progressed from its fledgling days when she did so much to nurture it.

Also, would you send me blogger’s email address – she was quite a bidder at the Silent Auction and won a Fire Island week as well as French lessons. Many thanks again for your continued support.

Fondly, FOBM”

Very lovely note, indeed. So glad that Mom is remembered. SOB follows up with this email to me:

“Blogger:

I am forwarding an email from FOBM. That’s great that you won that Fire Island week. (Have you heard there is a recession going on? What else did you bid on? What if you won everything you bid on? Are you CRAZY?)

Actually, I was looking at that myself and considering bidding but then got distracted and didn’t return. When are we going?!! I hope it’s not a dump. You don’t have to invite us.

I feel very good that our family supports this organization – a way to honor Mom and her vision.

Kumbaya, babe.

Love, SOB“

It is important to be honest that we are riding our mother’s coattails.

Yep, Kumbaya, SOB, Kumbaya.

Mothers and Their Daughters and the Perilous Schlepic to New Jersey

Posted on November 11, 2009 by 40andover

Today I went to a funeral in New Jersey for the mother of a friend. After my mother died, my heart always breaks for a daughter losing a mother. And when it is a dear friend, the pain is excruciating. Because daughters and their mothers have bonds that, well, you have to be one to understand.

I arrive at the rental place early this morning and the rental car agent and a customer were comparing menopause symptoms. After enduring about 5 minutes of this (which seemed more like an hour), I ask if I can get a special discount for being peri-menopausal. I cannot. I rent the car anyway.

The car is equipped with NeverLost GPS and, confident in the GPS system, I set out for New Jersey. It is a 21 minute drive with no traffic, but it IS New Jersey and, as a New Yorker, I must allot an extra hour to navigate New Jersey. The GPS voice and I are getting along fine. Smoooooooth.

Then GPS lady tells me I have arrived at my destination and it is a jewelry shop. Ok, this IS a Jewish event but it is not a wedding and this is not the registry, so this is clearly wrong. New Jersey has stumped the NeverLost lady. She is now the NeverLost-but-all-bets-are-off-in-New-Jersey lady. I make a mental note that, at that moment, in that parking lot, in our generation, man triumphed over machine.

I call the funeral home and a man, who must be taught to speak in that Musak voice, gives me directions that a native would understand. But I am not a native. I am a foreigner in a foreign state. It is moving from the State of New Jersey to the State of Agitation. So, I try to follow the instructions and I go round and round and see some lovely sites. In fact, I passed the funeral home once without realizing it, on my way to getting lost for yet another time.

I pull into a shopping center and walk into a Whole Foods and inquire at the help counter. A lovely woman named Sheila googles the address, then calls the funeral home, then tells me some landmarks, walks me out of the store and points to the exact road where I needed to go. I hug Sheila. I think she is surprised and thinks she might be starring in a commercial, but no, it is the explosive gratitude of a person who fears that she may never see her family again even though she is just a few miles from the George Washington Bridge.

I arrive at the funeral just in time. My friend speaks poignantly of her mother and said so many things that resonate for me in my relationship with my mother. I keep thinking about Joni Mitchell and her stupid, stinking, painted ponies going around on the carousel of time.

My friend talks about being grateful for what was and not being resentful of what will not be. Very poignant and resonant. My friend, in her mourning, teaches me a life lesson. My absurd trip that started out as an effort to comfort a friend and turns out inspiring me. I leave the funeral feeling upbeat about the life and legacy of my friend’s mother because of the love and humor that poured out in the eulogies. Only neurotic Jews of a certain generation can use words like “great” to describe a funeral. You’ll have to trust me that it isn’t ghoulish. There is something so life-affirming about love and humor amid the tears and the sea of people taking time out of the usual grind to stand in remembrance of person or in support of those she left behind.

Life is eternal and love immortal and death is only a horizon (Carly Simon).

But it WAS schlepic.

Chicken in so many ways

Posted on November 9, 2009 by 40andover

I can eat cooked chicken, I can cut a cooked chicken and I am not bothered by chicken remains.

But, I cannot buy a raw chicken. It was on the list of groceries and I had to tell POB (partner of blogger) that I could not cope with that. The chicken is well, recognizable as a chicken, although it is headless and dead. And there is always a scare about bacteria with a raw, dead, chicken.

Meat is so much easier, because you don’t see the cow.

Thanksgiving is a nightmare in this regard. Not just some small bird, but a huge beast that is so big it needs a special pan. And then people talk about dressing the turkey. Work with me on this. On the start of Thanksgiving Day, there is a naked, dead, headless turkey with a plastic bag holding the gizzards stapled to it. Loooooooooovely. Does dressing the turkey make us feel better about a roasted dead, headless, naked bird on our dinner table? And what message am I sending to my son and brother-in-law who are bird nerds? That we will eat you one day? (We are tough family, but we only figuratively chew people up and spit them out.)

AND, eating leftovers means reliving this for a week.

So, this year: BRISKET.

Taking Candy from Your Baby

Posted on November 5, 2009 by 40andover

So, here I am at 7:25pm on Thursday after Halloween and I am eating candy that my son gathered on his trick-or-treating extravaganza. I am feeling guilty, but only a little. My son is 7 years old so it isn’t exactly like taking candy from a baby (she writes defiantly).

Halloween was its usual hell-ish experience. As I have written before, I don’t like the holiday because of, among other things, the ghoulish costumes and behaviors, and I didn’t know what to do with the carved pumpkin except put it in the refrigerator where one would normally put ripened or cut fruit. Leave it out for the bugs and the vermin? Now, that’s not a plan for an urban dweller who likes to keep both nature’s jungle and the urban jungle at bay.

A major issue was my son’s costume. He did not want to dress up and wanted a general pass on the occasion (that’s my son!!). POB (partner of blogger) had long ago convinced me that Halloween was important (as were scooters and other toys of potential death and dismemberment) because we should stress social inclusion (but not assimilation or group think).

As you can tell POB is the intellectual in the family because I am still trying to apply these principles to daily life and parenting. Realizing that I was still struggling, she recently restated her position in words I can understand: having two moms will be tough enough when he is a teenager, do you want to add the deficit of Halloween? Because we are two women, our son’s societal acceptance depends on celebrating Halloween. Ok, I get that thinking. Sort of. My straight parents were dismissive of some societal norms and my college friends thought I was a Soviet spy. It was lovingly meant as weird and kooky, I think.

So, Halloween it is. It took some cajoling for our son to agree to a costume: “why can’t I be ME?” he asked. As part of the inclusion model, I did not say that a transitive verb takes a subjective pronoun and the question is “why can’t I be I?” which, while non-sensical, is grammatically correct. But I digress.

He loves the Natural History Museum which was founded by early 20th century President Teddy Roosevelt. So, he decided that he would be Teddy Roosevelt in the age of the Rough Riders. We got a rough rider hat, bandana, round spectacles and I taught him to say, “bully, bully!!” just like Roosevelt. But it was a little — how shall I say — cerebral for a 7 year-old.

Mindful of inclusion model, I tried to get him to think more commercially — work with me on the inclusion part here — and I asked, wouldn’t you like to be a Power Ranger or an X-Man? Nah, not so much. Teddy Roosevelt it was.

My parents would have beamed with pride and joy if I wanted to dress up as Eleanor Roosevelt for Halloween. One generation later, I am begging my son to be an X-Man. There is a PhD thesis in here somewhere but not now.

Needless to say, in No-Where-istan, there is no Halloween.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Posted on November 4, 2009 by 40andover

I saw my sister in the gym tonight. Actually, I bumped into a trainer just outside the gym who told me my sister was working out. I looked shocked; the trainer then looked puzzled. You see, my sister has a stress fracture in her foot and should not be on an elliptical machine (and that is all she does at the gym when I am not around to coach her about weights). I march upstairs in my “street clothes” to confront my sister. I go to the heart of the matter and ask her whether she did, in fact, get her medical degree through a correspondence course with an off-shore medical school. In our family, that is the sum total of trash-talking.

After having laid down the gauntlet, my sister sputters some rationalizations, all of which I reject in an imperious way (after all I am a doctor, too — ok, a juris doctor). I give her THE LOOK (Mom’s look of disappointment). She doesn’t flinch. She is not my sister. My sister would have flinched. I am confronted by the realization that my sister’s body is inhabited by an alien who is not scared of THE LOOK. THE LOOK proves the old adage, “if looks could kill . . . ” Well, not exactly, but THE LOOK with the eyes of my mother can really make a person plead for forgiveness. No sign of recognition by the alien inhabiting my sister.

Still, she knows about “our” Dad’s procedure tomorrow. Clever aliens, these pod people.

So, I test this alien with other facts that my sister should know. I mention some things I had written in my blog. She is a little hazy about some of my latest entries. But she does zero in on some with incredible accuracy. I am not convinced yet but I leave to regroup and give the alien a false sense that she fooled the sister of her host body. I come back up and flash an old picture of my parents and my sister at camp visiting day, circa 1969. The alien looks at the picture, sighs and hugs me.

Maybe my sister is inhabited by an alien, but it is a really endearing alien. Maybe the alien can heal her stress fracture. Maybe the alien can help with my sagging neck. After all, aliens have special powers that can conquer humanity, or at least that is true in the movies.

Blackberries, iPhones and other means of electronic torture

Posted on October 30, 2009 by 40andover

A few years ago, we were always on our blackberries because we were always juggling deals and family, etc.

Sometimes, we would look at our blackberries to be passive-aggressive if we were angry with our spouses. Not with my spouse, however. I tried that for one week and, thereafter, when I came home there was the ceremonial handing over of the blackberry to her and she would throw it somewhere, at least until dinner was over.

Now we are always on our blackberries, fiddling with the battery, checking whether the wifi is on, because we can’t imagine that no one needs to reach us immediately. In fact, I have three different electronic gizmos just in case one doesn’t work.

Blackberries won’t give us business and restart the economy, but looking at it all the time will anger friends and family. Sooooooo, I am starting a 12-step program.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Category Archives: family