Aleichem Sholom

Posted on July 17, 2011 by 40andover

A point of clarification on my last blog entry about SOB (sister of blogger) and DOB (dad of blogger) and the documentary they saw on Sholom Aleichem:

Sholom Aleichem was the great Yiddish writer/playwright’s nom de plume. It is a Yiddish variant of the Hebrew “shalom aleichem,” meaning “peace be with you”. The correct response, is “aleichem shalom.”

Shalom Aleichem is also a song for the Sabbath (check out this video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72wDlNi3fJs

(Translation: Peace unto you, ministering angels, messengers of the Most High, of the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. May your coming be in peace angels of peace, messengers of the Most High, of the supreme King of kings, the Holy one, blessed be He. Bless me with peace, angels of peace, messengers of the Most High, of the supreme King of kings, the Holy one, blessed be He. May your departure be in peace, angels of peace, messengers of the Most High, of the supreme King of kings, the Holy one, blessed be He.)

It is relevant, in some miniscule way, to this blog entry.

Today, SOB took TLP (our son, the little prince) to have lunch with DOB and then see the movie, “Cars2.” TLP was telling SOB and DOB about his favorite parts of camp and he mentioned that Shabbat services was a Friday high point. Now, there is a totally irreligious reason for this: TLP gets an extra snack of grape juice and challah. SCORE!!!!

Unfortunately, even though no one even mentioned Sholom Aleichem for almost 7 full days, DOB immediately launched into his off-key rendition of “Shalom Aleichem” in full voice for the, er, um, benefit (?) of all within earshot — other patrons of the diner and assorted vermin hiding to get away from the cacophony.

So, two irreconcilable desires derive from this episode: One, we all agree never to mention anything about Shabbat ever again in DOB’s presence, even the innocent references made by TLP. The other, is to see how quickly we can trigger the song in DOB at any time and all the time. The first option would save our sanity but the second option has a slightly mischievous appeal even though it would be tantamount to mutual assured destruction.

SOB and I are dutiful and loving daughters. Which do you think we chose? The latter of course. And, to make it even crazier, we bet on it. With each other, we only bet in the millions of dollars so we are always going for broke. It seems appropriate since we are betting on our sanity and that of DOB.

DOB is coming for dinner tomorrow night. SOB has to work, so I have the advantage. I might meet him downstairs so that I trigger it even before he crosses the threshold. I am the evil younger sibling.

But, SOB needn’t worry about transferring assets so quickly. There will always be new bets, even more cynical and macabre bets, long before the Final Accounting is due. (And, as I understand, Hell doesn’t take cash or credit cards.)

But until then, hum with me: ♫ Sha-lom a-lei-chem, mal-a-chei ha-sha-reit, mal-a-chei el-yon, mi-me-lech ma-l’chei ha-m’la-chim, ha-ka-dosh ba-ruch hu. . . . ♫

Another Family Dinner

Posted on July 10, 2011 by 40andover

It is always so wonderful when family shares a meal. The family gathers at 6pm for wine and hors-d’oeuvres (chaseri, or pig food, in Yiddish). POB (partner of blogger) made a great lentil dish, roasted tomato soup accompanied by green salad and bread, all served cold for a great summer time meal.

Dad, of course, came early. Not just a little early. 4pm. A reminder to discuss whether the “Early-Bird Special” was an invention or just putting a name to a syndrome of old age. But I digress.

Yesterday, Dad and SOB (sister of blogger) saw the movie about Sholom Aleichem, the great Yiddish writer. So, Dad was waxing philosophic about his mamer loshen (mother tongue), repeating much of the Reform Jewish rationalism for stamping out a “ghetto language”.

My generation thinks very differently about Yiddish. We wish we knew it. Many of us wish we could have spoken to our grandparents in Yiddish. We could have had more than broken, basic conversations with them. We could have learned about our history in one of the most expressive languages of our day.

TLP (our son, the little prince) was excited to learn how to respond to Dad, when he said “vus machster?” [what’s doing?] TLP said, “Ich ikh bin leyenung” [I’m reading]. It was a great moment.

Still, Dad has to be at peace with the choices he and Mom made and I need to let him have that peace. But it was a grueling 1:45 hours until SOB and HOSOB (husband of SOB) showed up (they know that Dad comes early). Dad continued to talk about Yiddish and Sholom Aleichem and then started singing “Sholom Aleichem”. SOB shut that down in record time. She came over to tell me that he kept singing that in full voice at lunch after seeing the movie. Somethings should stay in synagogue. That hallel is one of them.

By the time we exhausted ourselves and the topic, Cousin Gentle and CB (Cousin Birder) arrived. The full complement.

As always, the conversation ranged in topics and sentiments. Dad worried that we had chocolate-covered peanuts on the table — AS IF we would have anything on the table to which anyone is allergic, much less have them in the house if OUR SON, TLP, were allergic. (Dad, do you know me?) But I let that roll off me. I counted backwards from ten multiple times. We started talking about politics, always good for the heart rate. Cousin Gentle worried that John Boehner was having a deleterious effect on my health. Actually, I was still gobsmacked that my father would think I would put poison on my table. Cousin Gentle tried to share some of his Buddhist enlightenment. I tried to be receptive, all the while repeating, “Dad is almost 91 years old. At least he still worries about other people, even if his comments suggest that his daughter could be the headline story of New York Post edition.”

Unfortunately, Cousin Gentle thought he might have offended me. He called after dinner to make sure all was ok. It seemed time to reiterate the rules of Sunday night dinner:

Premise:

It is so wonderful when family gathers.

Sacred Rules:

You can say anything at our table if said with a good heart.
No holds barred.
Everyone has to be able to kiss and say I love you at the end of the night.

Corollaries and Commentary:

You can be:

critical (did HOSOB really say something critical about marriage when he married SOB?),
questioning (to wit, Dad’s thinking we would put peanuts on the table if someone were allergic),
fun-loving (CB’s teasing TLP), and/or
torturing (ok, that’s all me)

with impunity.

If you do any three out of four in the same sentence, we’ll give you a door-prize.

To review:

Come with your love, your opinions (except Dad) and your insights. Oh, and your appetite.

POB

Posted on June 30, 2011 by 40andover

I love POB (partner of blogger). She is the better half of my soul. She is extraordinary.

She is also “at liberty” these days, since losing her job in a corporate restructuring. To my mind, she can rest on her laurels and eat bon-bons for the rest of her life. I want her to be happy. But recently, I think she needs to have a job for her sanity and well, frankly, for mine.

A few weeks ago, I learned from POB all about the scam of recycling plastic bottles. The bottles are shipped to China (add to carbon footprint) where the process of recycling those bottles causes noxious gases to be released into the atmosphere (EPA would not allow such recycling in our country) and then the recycled product is shipped back to us (add to carbon footprint). All this, over dinner, after a long day trying to woo clients and bring in business.

Last night, we were at dinner at a restaurant with friends and POB had questions about the fish special. Was it farmed? Was it certified as “happy fish” before it was fooled by bait and impaled on a hook? Where was it fished? (as in, was it fished in a place that is overfished?) I had an extra glass of wine that had a huge carbon footprint. I felt bad but the wine felt good.

But it was really the other week that I decided that POB needs a job, ANY job, with or without pay. POB announced over a gluten-free, nut-free and (dare I say) taste-free dinner that we should get one of those apartment-size composting kits so that we can create fertilizer and then drop it off at compost-receiving stations in Central Park. That way, the parks will be greener and we will be, too. Ok, ok, ok, ok, at age 47, I am composting nicely, thank you. I will disintegrate enough just in time for the worms, etc. to break down the rest of my cells at my death. POB is not mollified by the knowledge that I am in slow-burn compost mode.

What, am I not compost enough for POB???? At long last, has it come to this?

Transformations

Posted on June 1, 2011 by 40andover

Over the last half-year, POB (partner of blogger) started exercising to handle the stress generated by her job. (I wanted her to quit because she was working so hard at making a difficult situation workable that I didn’t think it was worth it.)

POB balances so much — she takes such fabulous care of TLP (our son, the little prince) and me — that I tell her often she can stop anytime and then eat bons bons and rest on her laurels for the rest of our lives.

Recently, POB’s job ended [more on that later].

All of a sudden, she had time to shop (she needed new clothes for the summer and for her slimmed-down body) and do things for her and the family that often went undone because of our schedules.

Then, one night, I came home and walked into the kitchen to see this tall, slim, blond woman in heels and form-fitting clothes, cooking dinner.

I was a bit surprised; who WAS this women? Then, I remembered. Before she could turn around, I asked, “Excuse me. Are you the trophy wife I ordered from Amazon?“

POB turned around and said, “Yes, yes, I am. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Ah, all is the same. POB is still POB and she is a gift.

Seder

Posted on April 20, 2011 by 40andover

I am always nervous ahead of our family Seder.

I do some preparation ahead of time, including copying pages of the text (in English and Hebrew) with a theme in mind. This year’s theme was: how is our ancient story relevant to Arab Spring? Dad came up with that. Pretty awesome for a near-91 year-old.

Even though I plan it out and “run it”, I lose control of the Seder almost immediately. Our family’s idea of exercise is a rigorous argument, and it always starts with, “We are told . . . ” and every response starts with a silent “oh, yeah?”.

Almost immediately in the readings (think, “we are told”) G-d says he will stiffen Pharaoh’s heart again and again. (Listen for the “oh, yeah”s.) Ok, let the exercise begin: Don’t Jews believe in free will? If Pharaoh doesn’t have free will, then do any of us? Or does G-d sometimes intercede and constrain free will? And isn’t the concept illusory because how we act in any situation is dictated by our past and learned responses? And can we cast off that prior learning and should we?

I’m telling you, our brains hurt even if our guts were growing from the fantastic meal made by POB (partner of blogger).

(The brisket was delicious. Of course, my Dad couldn’t help criticizing my less-than-uniform carving. But his critique is a necessary part of our family tradition. If he didn’t, I would rush him to the hospital.)

On the Seder table is a Seder plate. The Seder plate contains the symbols of the holiday for all Jews — egg (rebirth and renewal), parsley (springtime), charoset (chopped up apple concoction for the bricks and mortar but sweet because of deliverance), bitter herbs (for the bitterness of slavery), salt water (for the tears of slavery) and the shankbone (representing the blood that was spread over the doorposts of the Israelites so the Angel of death would pass over).

For us, I would add a few more symbols of our family’s festive rejoicing:

זול יין — a bottle of the cheap wine my Dad brings because he can no longer taste the difference (for the record, I wouldn’t even cook with it);

משה בובה–our Moses action figure, complete with staff and detachable Ten Commandments (for the obligatory smashing episode);

שעון עצר — a stop watch because SOB (sister of blogger) gives me exactly one hour and then she shuts down the service, in favor of eating; and

הגדה — the second part of the Haggadah to remind us that we don’t persecute our family by making everyone continue the service after the meal.

Happy holidays to all.

Twas the day before Passover, and all through the house. . .

Posted on April 17, 2011 by 40andover

It is really the day before the eve of the holiday (because we celebrate holidays from sunset to sunset) but every creature was stirring. Heck, 15 people are coming over.

POB (partner of blogger) made a vat of chicken soup. She rendered chicken fat which, if you’ve done it, you know that is a disgusting necessity for light, floating matzo balls. The whole house smells like a barn. And while we are talking about matzo balls, I need to note for the record that the Blogger family tradition is that matzo balls sink, not float. Their intended purpose — so say those in my tribe — is to line your stomach for the coming week of no bread and also give you a reason to complain about intestinal issues, e.g., (in a Yiddish accent) “I ate such a heavy matzo ball that it is cement in my stomach, and boy-oh-boy, have I got troubles getting anything out!!”. However unpleasant, it is my inheritance.

But MOPOB (mother of POB), may she rest in peace, made floating matzo balls. And since Passover is all about MOPOB (my mother’s memory is invoked on Thanksgiving), we “sinkers” just sigh and “boing” the matzo balls with our figures, wondering if, with a little push, they might sink. No such luck these past few years. So part of our Passover narrative (“and you shall tell your children on that day . . . “) also includes the sinker-floater dichotomy, because as surely as there were Israelites on the shore of the Red Sea, they were also arguing about whose matzo was better. So, it is just in keeping with the tradition. So I shall tell my child that “on that day” there were no floaters in the land of Egypt. Ok, that isn’t fair because there weren’t sinkers either. There wasn’t matzo ball soup. But history is written by the conquerors and vanquished loud-mouths. I can live with being in the latter category on the matzo ball issue.

Those of you who aren’t Jewish may not appreciate that importance of this. This is a divide that can splinter families. We are talking about our grandmothers’ and great grandmothers’ recipes. We are talking about the overbearing, tyrannical beings that, upon death, miraculously turned into angels in everyone’s memories. We are talking about tradition. [Start singing from Fiddler on the Roof.] This is big.

But MOPOB’s traditions must prevail. She was terminally ill at our first Seder in our home in 2006. She pronounced herself satisfied with the celebration — a high compliment and tantamount to a blessing on our home and us — and then, within 36 hours was hospitalized and soon died. You can’t mess with that heavy trip.

I needed chairs and an extra table from my Dad. We had lunch and then went down to the storage bins in his apartment building. Dad is looking great these days, although slower since his fall two weeks ago. Still he grabbed the hand truck at the entrance to this scary storage room in the bowels of his apartment building. Only one light worked. He and I were feeling around in the dark for his folding table and chairs. We found them and managed not to fall or otherwise hurt either of us. Every year we go through this ritual and I make a note to self to remind the doorman about the lighting. Every year, Dad and I forget. Every year, we grope in the dark until we find what we need. So far, it has worked for us. Tradition.

Tradition.

Tradition.

Tuesday, the Rabbi ate nothing — almost

Posted on March 22, 2011 by 40andover

A rabbi is coming our house for a visit tonight.

I hadn’t focused on the fact that she might be hungry at 7:30pm, until I got home at 7:15pm.

I have Kosher wine on hand as a general rule. One thing I learned is that if you have kosher liquor, even religious people’s dietary restriction loosen up some.

I scrounge up un-opened Kosher (and Pareve) hummus, kosher tortilla chips, carrots and grapes (what’s not to be kosher about carrots and grapes?).

Ok, now what to put them in? The RULE: Glass plates and bowls because one doesn’t have to worry about whether they are dairy or meat dishes because glass doesn’t absorb molecules of food.

And grapes are self contained fruits so we don’t have to worry about a kosher knife. Phew. Bonus (pronounced “bo-NUS” in a high pitched voice).

But we don’t really have glass plates handy (I do think my Dad gave us a set of 12 that he had lying around but we stored them) and I hate paper plates, so the kosher crackers are ruined by being put on a regular plate. I have bowls for most things, but POB (partner of blogger) already put crackers on an un-kosher (but lovely) plate. I look at her and she looks at me with a “Really?” expression. I say, “we can at least try.” I quickly become Zen about this (because what is done can’t be undone) . . . until . . . the rabbi rings the doorbell.

The minute the rabbi arrives, I offer the Kosher wine. She responds that she looks forward to having cocktails again once she stops breastfeeding her twins. Darn. I ask if she wants anything. “Water is just great, thanks.”

“Water is just great, thanks.”??????

Kill me with a thousand knife cuts. She must see the kosher crackers on the non-kosher plate.

Ok, if a rabbi came to my grandmother’s house and only had water, my grandmother would sit in sackcloth and ashes. There would be wailing and swooning of biblic proportion. If this happened to my mother, she would be too embarrassed to go to synagogue and make us promise not to tell her mother (the wailer and swooner) of this blemish on our good name.

I am not a wailer and swooner and we don’t go to synagogue all that often, so I am left without tribal guidance on the matter. And, of course, I can’t ask anyone how to atone and un-besmirch our good name, because then people would know and talk about it and it would be a SHONDAH (embarrassment) for us in our community.

Even Cyrano had a grape. One lousy grape.

Oh, WAIT!!! She is having a grape!!! The rabbi is eating in our house. Phew.

We averted a disgrace on generations by a margin of a grape.

Now, that’s stress.

Holding fast to the old and ringing in the new

Posted on January 2, 2011 by 40andover

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.

um, I guess I wasn’t what you expected

Posted on December 27, 2010 by 40andover

When you have a blog, you can see the searches that people do that get them to your site. Well, one person searched “what do i need for a vaginal steam bath” and got my blog. Whoever you are, I am really sorry, but I DID post the article.

I hope the putrid concoction of herbs works for you.

~ Blogger

Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland

Posted on December 27, 2010 by 40andover

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:

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

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