Fantasy Football Undone

Posted on January 25, 2010 by 40andover

Remember the intro to “ABC’s Wide World of Sports”? The announcer gravely intoned, “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”

Fast-forward 30 years, as I sit with my young son after an awesome first half of the Jets-Colts game. Awesome because the Jets were ahead and it was his team!! He does like Peyton Manning, the Colts QB, but my son IS a New Yorker, after all.

Then came the frustrating second half in which the Colts players showed themselves to be too much for our Jets. Aggravation, disappointment and helplessness in a sports game generally means that older boys (as in 20s and up) drink away their sorrows. Not so for a 7.5 year-old. He has to have a tantrum the old fashion way — whining, being obstreperous, fresh and generally miserable company. At some point, he pushed enough of my buttons — some I didn’t know I had. I maxed out on the tantrum and matched his yelling with my yelling. At this point, POB (partner of blogger) — G-d bless her — ushered our son out of the room and said, “I have to separate you, two.”

So, there it was. POB actually has two children but only one is really able to use age as an excuse (hint: not me). Ok, so my homework is to figure out how to help my son channel his agony of defeat in a way that works better for him (and me) and how to stand tough when my son can’t.

Fantasy Football and Real Life

Posted on January 22, 2010 by 40andover

My son’s best friend is wild about football. So, my son is now, too. This is an awesome event because my son has had trouble connecting to peers in the past.

So, football. Ok, two women raising a boy and he wants to watch football. My son, who learns through reading — books, websites, whatever — said to me, “E-Mom, we need to fire up the iPod with serious football apps!!” Ok, how did he know there were football apps? So now we have THREE football apps on two iPods but because they are not iPhones we cannot play together. Uh-oh. I am feeling an upgrade on the horizon.

When kids want the next new gadget (or at least the gadget they’ve recently discovered) and are feeling extra deprived (as only spoiled children can feel), they no longer make references to the Stone Age or pre-WWII Europe, like we did or our parents did. My parents would quote their parents, as in, “when we were starving in Europe, we only asked for food and water” to which I remember responding, “gee, sorry, can I get Frye boots anyway?”

No, our kids say things like, “we’re being raised like the Aaaa-mishhhhh!!” As I remember, Kelly McGillis was very hot in that movie with Harrison Ford, “Witness,” about an Amish boy who witnessed a murder in Port Authority or Penn Station. Ok, so I am missing the point of the intended scathing analysis of our child-rearing techniques. Never mind.

It is important to listen to kids because they are experts in being children and being childish. If they are happy all of the time, then you are a push-over, the moral equivalent of a chump, and, ultimately, a bad parent. I hear tell of a magical zone where good parenting meets the right level of whining for proper childhood development. This may be a myth (actually, I know it is because I just made it up). But there are books written about errogenous zones that exist only on runway models and elixirs of youth, so maybe I have found my way out of the daily grind by discovery a new theory. Hmmm.

What does this have to do with fantasy football? Work with me here. My son is into football and I have a fantasy that he and I will both survive his childhood and adolescence as high-functioning individuals in environs more luxurious than Amish. Also, part of my fantasy involves my brother-in-law watching the football games with my son. Here the reason why it is a fantasy: he is an artist and in touch with his animus and anima (I think these are Jungian terms) — that is to say, he is too evolved for football and in touch with his feminine side as well as his masculine side. Bottom line — he is not a chest beater or head-butter. Which makes him wonderful in general but useless at football. Maybe he is a closet alpha male. (Don’t tell SOB — sister of blogger — because she will un-alpha him in a NY minute. She IS tough but gentle and uses her powers for good.)

I am rambling because my mind goes to crazy places on Friday nights as the work week winds downs and cartoons cometh in the morning. I feel a good kind of tired — the kind that comes from playing with my son — tackle football, of course, and “keep away” and monkey-in-the-middle with POB. Then as we wind down to bed time, we have pretend adventures — because my son has an incredible imagination — I am a British tourist to Oregon (who would not set foot in the former colonies) and only goes to place that revolted against the French, Spanish and Dutch and my son is my uncle George. Then I am a Kenyan who travels to Jamaica in hurricane season (because the airfare was cheap). Where does he get this stuff?. Soon to be followed in a slightly altered Fred Flintstone voice as I reprise my “Big Tuna” role in an undersea world where I have a talk show and he is my little ramora whom POB, as Secret Agent Swordfish (don’t ask), saved on her nose as he fell off a whale. I am exhausted to my core.

Now, my son who is my joy is in his jammies and reading an encyclopedia of something. Because that is the way he is. And I love him because he is kooky and loving and kind and imaginative. And I can take no credit — I am genetically irrelevant to him. He is like the most fabulous gift that keeps changing and challenging the recipient. Sometimes, like tonight, I max out from his intensity. But no worries, he will come charging at full volume into my bedroom tomorrow to wake me up. Thank G-d POB is following with hot coffee.

I love my family. I am blessed. I am tired.

The greatest generation

Posted on January 21, 2010 by 40andover

I know, I know. I write about death and destruction a lot. But life is like that. And movies and TV depict death and destruction with a certain enthusiasm that seems, well, ooky.

Today, I went to a friend’s father’s funeral. I didn’t know my friend’s father but I knew about his life. I heard him speak once. And his is a life story worth telling again and again, over and over.

He was born in Turkey and raised — before World War II — in France. He was a Jew and fled to the forests in unoccupied France. There he met his wife and together, with others they met in hiding, fought with the Resistance.

I remember his saying at a talk at our synagogue that he never really thought of himself as a survivor in the same way that those who survived the concentration camps were survivors.

At the funeral, the rabbi asked those who hid with him to stand and three very old people slowly, and with assistance, stood, two of them very stooped over. These old people did heroic things in a world gone haywire and they survived in a jungle of sorts where other humans were hunters and they were the game.

This man did the exact opposite of what was done to him. He loved, he gave generously of his time and his resources, he was grateful for life‘s gifts and, as someone at the funeral said, he didn’t blink when adversity hit.

He is truly the epitome of our greatest generation. He saw the worst, endured the worst and gave his best back.

I didn’t know him but I stand on his shoulders and those like him — my own parents and grandparents — and therefore I need to pay my respects to a man who made possible the opportunities in my life. For the debt I cannot repay to those who so willingly gave to me, I promise to pay it forward to the next generation, all the while telling the heroic stories of those who came before me.

Monsieur Henri, your memory is a blessing to all who know you and your family.

The hardest part about having kids? Living through their childhoods.

Posted on January 21, 2010 by 40andover

So this weekend, we went to the birthday party of our son’s betrothed (she turned 8, he is 7.5). He asked her to marry him at summer camp and she said, “sure!” We adore her and her parents so life is good so far. And both children attend the same school (but different classes, thank G-d).

Her parents (machertunim in Yiddish) and we went out recently and, among the stories, there was one in which the husband, a gentle giant (did I mention giant?) went — in his own words — ape-shit on someone. He was justified in his reaction but, still, I thought, I am not sure that I want to tell him about an “oops” that could occur in adolescence if our children are still betrothed. So, I am thinking about a chastity belt for boys. All this going through my mind as we listen to jazz at a club and eat great food and wine. I then start thinking about body armor for my son AND me.

My son is a gentlemen and a hyper-heterosexual young man. Oxymoronic in the truest sense. I guess being raised by lesbians will do that. I am afraid, like any sane parent, about adolescence and what kids can watch on TV and then do in the instant that a parent is not watching. Case in point: we are watching the Jets game on Sunday and a Viagara commercial comes on. Try to explain erectile dysfunction to your 7.5 year-old to whom, at age 3, we had to plead “point it down” (so the pee would go in the overnight diaper) after “exploring”.

SO, back to the party. The birthday girl’s mother says that the leader of their play group, an experienced child expert in something (vays nischt, as they say in Yiddish), thinks they are like brother-sister and not boyfriend-girlfriend. I am relieved only to the extent that I don’t have to worry about plastic surgery after the gentle giant is finished with me if, G-d forbid, I had to explain about crazy adolescence and hormones (think, military school). The grandmother overhears this and says, “the way they touch each other and interact, it is DEFINITELY boyfriend/girlfriend”. Mothers know these things and I am scared once again and thinking about multi-generational living as a consequence of my son’s future indiscretion. Until POB (partner of blogger) tells me that I am over-reacting. Then I remember that she thought that the “bad girls” in hebrew school (yes, we’ve known each other since age 10) were still virgins. I sink into despair. I check my investments. I move money to a separate account for contingencies. I rest easy while searching the internet for his and her matching chastity belts.

This parent thing could kill a person. I KNOW I was easier on my parents. Or maybe they were not as crazy as I am. Maybe they should have been because I did some crazy things. Ok, I am stopping this loop because only bad things can come of it.

Racism in America

Posted on January 13, 2010 by 40andover

Harry Reid is an ass for saying what he said but, unfortunately, I can’t imagine that he is alone in thinking this way.

And we should talk about it.

President Obama is a transformative figure in so many ways but right now, most minority candidates don’t have a credible chance at national elective office. Not even a wise Latina.

And we should talk about it.

But let’s not confuse Harry Reid with Trent Lott. Trent Lott, when toasting segregationalist and white supremacist Strom Thurmond, told an admiring crowd that life would have been a lot different if Thurmond were elected president in the 40s and 50s when he ran for the office. Harry Reid was talking about Barack Obama’s appeal to the electorate; Trent Lott was talking about the continuation of Jim Crow. The comparison is made only for political gain.

Minister of Senior Activities

Posted on January 3, 2010 by 40andover

There is a reason why No-Where-istan is struggling. Look at our minister of senior activities. This is what happens when your country has NO health care for the elderly. They sit in subway stations with a keyboard and moving dolls dressed in Santa outfits.

The Clan

Posted on December 29, 2009 by 40andover

On Sunday we gathered at my sister’s house for the traditional Jewish post-Christmas brunch, to go over the number of tourists who got in our way and the number of merry people who infected the usual ennui and bad humor that are so quintessentially New York. Because we are open-hearted, if narrow-minded, my sister’s Catholic husband was welcomed to join. We sat down to a traditional meal — high in salt smoked fish oils and low nutrition and low in any nutritive value. Not a vitamin in sight.

But something different happened this Sunday, and I have yet to process the event fully. I saw — or else I would not believe this — my sister cook something. Our cousin can no longer eat the usual fare that is our cultural comfort foods. My sister, who had never before used her stove, made our cousin freshly scrambled eggs.

Last year, she got married to a wonderful man who is kind and always in a good mood.

This year she is cooking nourishing food. I can see a trend, but I can’t yet see the trajectory.

For background, my mother and I had suggested to my sister, when she bought her apartment in 1999, that she just convert the kitchen to a den. All she needed were a phone, a stack of take-out menus and a mini-bar fridge for diet coke. But she insisted that an apartment needed a kitchen. So we suggested that she get the fiberglass demo version of a stove to save some money. A few years after she moved in, my partner finally took out the plastic envelope with the care instructions and warranties and turned on a burner. (I was horrified that she diminished the resale value for no apparent reason.)

I was nervous seeing my sister at the stove, thinking she might hurt herself. Our cousin was so touched at my sister’s domestic effort once he realized that she never cooked anything for anyone, even her husband. Also, our cousin is a life-long bachelor (save for a short-lived marriage a long time ago) living in a tiny studio with a mini-bar fridge, and therefore unaccustomed to home-cooking. He could not stop complimenting my sister on the eggs.

We forgot to kvetch about the tourists or the merriment that interfered with our hardened and mean personalities. Instead, at this brunch, we just all talked and were glad to be together.

Next year, we may be singing folk songs and a bonus round of kumbaya or maybe my sister will have knitted each of us something in seasonal colors. I think I’ll read up on Ebenezer Scrooge, so I know my part and can be the standard bearer against the march of time and humility. I hope Scrooge doesn’t get nice. I don’t “do” nice.

You see why I am worried.

Transportation Safety Administration

Posted on December 28, 2009 by 40andover

We know that TSA personnel are mean and threatening. They enjoy lording over passengers and looking at each pereson suspiciously. And yet, they still seem to effect that attitude of “I’m doing you a favor, so don’t piss me off.”

We also know that having some one’s smelly shoes in a bin next to your bin (and permeating your coat and blazer) is no way to start or end a trip.

My favorite, though, is the full-body glaucoma test, where you are in a Woody Allen-esque orgasmatron machine as jets of air hit various areas of your body. The point is to find any trace chemicals. I also had someone swab my dirty underwear (I was on my way home) looking for trace chemicals. And, G-d forbid, you wanted to pack some hair gel.

We put up with these and other indignities. Why? Because they are keeping us safe.

Hmmm. Then how does a man previously denied entrance into this country, whose family alerted the authorities that he was dangerous, walk on a plane with a syringe and more liquid than “allowed”?

What have we learned? TSA personnel are mean and threatening AND incompetent. Luckily, the terrorist in this case was more incompetent.

There are a lot of very qualified people out of work. Maybe we should upgrade our TSA personnel (and personality).

Don’t Impinge on My Holiday

Posted on December 23, 2009 by 40andover

On Christmas, Jews go to the movies and, before the 1980s, ordered in Cantonese Chinese food (now we have more choices). It isn’t as if we have a holiday to celebrate although the Federal Government long ago, in a flagrant “fusion” (I don’t want to say violation) of the separation of church and state, declared Christmas a national holiday.

It used to be that if you went to a movie theater you would see all your Jewish friends in the neighborhood. And you knew NOT to talk about synagogue matters even in whispers because even a stone deaf Jew can hear when you talk about synagogue politics or intrigue.

Over the past few years, I have noticed that the movie theaters are crowded and some people are wearing new hats, gloves and jackets and talking about recently received presents. Hmmmmm. Chanukah has usually come and gone by that time. Hmmm.

I thought that the fun and cheer and Norman Rockwell-like frolicking started at sundown on the 24th when, magically, everyone you know has a beautiful voice and all (miraculously, one could say) sing Christmas carols in perfect harmony. Everyone, of course, has a chimney with a fire (why, if Santa is supposed to climb down, would you want to roast him and your presents in the fire) or at least a broken window for the Great White Man from the North Pole to enter. Then, off to Christmas Mass where long-lost friends, lovers, siblings and parents materialize right on the music’s rhythmic beat to surprised and loving looks, but surprisingly little body contact. (In my family, I assure you, the music would stop and the prodigal person would be asked for an explanation of his or her actions and what atoning actions will be undertaken.) Christmas morning, everyone wakes up cheerily despite too much eggnog and other Santa’s helper drinks. Then everyone spends the day on the 25th having meaningful talks, kumbaya moments and epiphanies. So, clearly no time for the movies.

Am I wrong? This wouldn’t be the first time.

But, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t hang mistletoe or go a-wassailing because it is not my holiday. So, don’t squeeze me out of tickets to the movies on December 25th because THAT part IS my holiday.

Good ol’ Rudolph

Posted on December 18, 2009 by 40andover

Ok, so I had a revelation at my son’s school’s winter celebration. He was great and all the kids were adorable but that was not eureka moment.

We were given song sheets so that the audience could participate. Printed were the lyrics to Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. I am Jewish and native Manhattanite and have never attended a Christmas celebration (even though my Christian friends KNOW I am free that eve and day) so I have never heard the carol up close and personal — only in stores.

To be honest, I never understood the Rudolph song. I couldn’t get why the red nose mattered — that is until I read that Santa asks Rudolph to GUIDE his sleigh. As a New Yorker (with a New York accent) I always thought Santa wanted Rudolph to GUARD his sleigh because how could Santa leave a sleigh with presents unattended, especially in New York?

I told you it was a revelation — a pure Eureka moment.

And what’s the difference between a sleigh and a sled, anyway?

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Tag Archives: America