Tag Archives: America

Thank you, Bristol

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DANCING WITH THE STARS – “Episode 1110”

Dear Bristol:

I was having a really bad few days.  But your trials and tributions on “Dancing With the Stars” made me realize that I take life and politics too seriously. 
I have never seen the show but popular culture has a way of seeping into my protected sanctuary.
And we learned again that good looks and popularity only get you so far.  And not always to the winner’s circle. 
And, Bristol, dear, no one hates you.  We don’t conflate you and your mom.  We hate HER. 
Most teen moms don’t have the resources you have, so they couldn’t be away from their little ones to go on, let’s say, for example, a television contest show.  Maybe, that will be the focus of your energies — bringing opportunities to young mothers. 
Use your fame for good, not for your mother.
Anyway, thanks for the levity. 
~ Blogger
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Dinner on a Saturday night in the big city.

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It is Saturday night and POB (partner of blogger) and I have a babysitter, so we can have dinner out.

We take a long walk and happen upon a new-ish Italian place.  It is a double store-front sized space, with tables too close together to meet fire safety standards.  We know it will get crowded at prime time which is within the half hour.  But we are in the patch on the West Side that is a restaurant wasteland.

So we squeeze in between two tables and are close enough to share their food and, unfortunately, their conversations.

POB and I focus on each other and our conversation but the random bits and pieces of the surrounding conversations threaten to enthrall me in the way that bad movies are so horrible that they become intriguing.  Just a flavor of the conversations:

The guy at the table to my right, who cannot afford school or dinner (prior soupçon), says to his date, “I am trying to diversify myself,” in trying to explain why he can’t finish any particular course of study.  (I, of course, want to suggest remedial English because using big words in the wrong way is not really a career advancement technique.)  He goes on to talk about how netting $1million after taxes each year is barely enough to cover living expenses and school for your kids.  Hence his self-diversification because he is thinking really, really, really big.  Makes me wonder whether dinner will stay in my tummy.  But enough scatological musings.

A woman to my left is discussing a terrible tragedy about a family.  However, her point is that she is so personally affected by it (and so her friend should soothe her) because her cousin’s best friend’s sister lives in the same town.  Ok, somehow the tragedy is all about her.  I am staring at this woman a little too long with this gobsmacked look on my face, so much so that POB has to say, “Eyes on me.  Bring the focus back.”  In this instance, she is not out of line.

But, I digress . . . .

Back to the freakish restaurant. The food is quite tasty and the service staff is earnestly incompetent.  So earnest, in fact, that you think they are trying to get everything wrong. For comparison purposes, service staff needs more experience to reach the level of practiced, aggressive incompetence that would qualify for a job at Duane Reade, Rite Aid or CVS.

Luckily we are not in a hurry.  In fact we are taking our time because we need to make sure our son is in bed and falling asleep before we come home, or we lose one of the perks of a night out — no bedtime drama, etc. So, the earliest we can get home is 9:30.  If the service were not so head-shakingly bad, we might have stayed for dessert.

When we try to ask for the check, we end up pleading for someone to ring up our bill.  We couldn’t get anyone’s attention for twelve or so minutes.  I am handed someone else’s bill, for about 1/3 of what our bill ought to be.  It takes me another seven or so minutes to get someone’s attention to get me the right bill.  After ten minutes, I am given the right bill.  I pay cash but I need some change.  We wait, and wait and wait and wait — ten minutes.  I cannot imagine that in their earnest incompetence, any of them expected a 25% tip (if I didn’t get change).

I am finally able to flag down someone in this small (did I mention tiny?) restaurant to ask for my change.  The service person nods, and five minutes pass, and — viola! — I am handed the first bill again.  AAAAAaaargh.  The service person tries to dash away.  At this point, I yell in an annoyed, commanding tone, “WAIT!! STOP!! COME BACK!! I want my change.  I do not want another person’s bill AGAIN!!”

Then three people come over, each wanting to handle the problem.  All of sudden, everyone wants to pay attention.  I tell everyone to go away and designate someone to bring the change.  Finally, the change comes.  Another five or so minutes have passed.

Then I start to calm down and feel bad that they are so inexperienced at their incompetence that maybe they need the bigger tip to take some classes to perfect their art.  Really, I feel bad.  I turn to POB and ask, should I leave 20%?  She laughs at me.  She wonders if I have reached the tipping point of dementia.  She reminds me that we have spent more time waiting for and paying the bill than ordering and eating.  I remind her that we couldn’t go home anyway because our son is not yet asleep. So, they did us a favor by forcing us to stay and giving us a bloggable moment.

I still say the bigger tip was in order.

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Captive audience

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We all have experienced the hassles and indignities of air travel these days.  And, of course, the screaming babies, the smelly row mates, the loud talkers and the drunks have also challenged our coping mechanisms.

But on my flight this morning, I think I witnessed a new high in lows.  Two young women friends are seated in the same row (behind me), one on the aisle, and the other by the window.  A stranger is sitting between them.  The two friends are chatting loud enough so they can hear each other, and as a result, as can everyone seated in nearby rows.

The young woman on the aisle said to the stranger, apparently pointing to her friend by the window, “we’re friends, so we’re just going to talk over you.”  STOP THE MUSIC.  Whaaaat?  As if what is good for her is good for a stranger?

The stranger offers to switch seats and the young woman says, “No, I need an aisle seat and my friend needs to be by the window.”  So, what you are really going to talk over this poor woman?  As it turned out, yes, yes, they were.

I thought to say something but then decided that it is not my job (although it is my secret thrill) to correct every display of atrocious manners.  Some wrongs will have to sort themselves out without my uninvited intervention.  The real reason is that I am not sure whether reprimanding another passenger for crimes against civility would cause the TSA to take me forcibly from the plane.  And I really wanted to get to the office, get some things done and get home to my family at a reasonable hour.

So, I put in my ear plugs and fell asleep.

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Veterans Day

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Yesterday was Veteran’s Day.

I was thinking a lot about war and life yesterday.  When I became a mother and god-mother, I understood that if my son (or god-daughters) went to war, I would have to go as well, because anything that is worth my child’s life, is worth my life.  (And the corollary: if you mess with my children, you mess with me.)  Of course, I think it would be hard to take your mom into battle.  But if you know me, you know that the enemy should be really, really, scared.

So, I am grateful to the young men and women who routinely put their lives at risk for the high stakes political chess that our world leaders play with way too much glee and ooky blood lust.

And I am grateful to the veterans of prior wars for their sacrifices.  It is hard to imagine old men and women in their prime, as spies (www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Tragedy-WWII-spy-Eileen-Nearne-escaped-Gestapo-died-alone.html) and soldiers and nurses on the front.  They look so old and enfeebled now.

Today, as I was leaving my office, I saw two old men in wheel chairs.  Using “old” is somewhat euphemistic.  “Ancient” is more appropriate.  Incapacitated and dependent.  When I see random ancient people on the street (as opposed to family), I cannot think of them as once young and vibrant.  I just see strangers with no past and probably not much of a future.

Except the two old men in their wheelchairs with their attendants were wearing war medals and insignias of their military service.  All of a sudden, they were not inconvenient and uncomfortable reminders of my future decrepitude.  I know that when they were young, they were warriors.  Given the number of medals, they were brave warriors.   And they have stories, of war and peace, love and hate, passion and indifference.  Maybe these were good, generous, upright men.  Maybe they weren’t.  Probably, like all of us, they fell somewhere in between.

Two of my uncles were reluctant warriors in WWII.  One was captured and imprisoned.  I know his story, which is powerful (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Shapiro.html).  It was hard to know these things about my uncle.  I know it was hard for my uncle to remember, transcend the evil, and have his story known.

It wasn’t until my other uncle, Uncle Al, died about 9 years ago that I learned he fought in the Pacific in WWII.  He never talked about it (or maybe we just didn’t see enough of him to draw him out).  My father thinks he was at Guadalcanal.  Of course, that generation never talked about the war, even when the effects of the war crippled, or at least altered, the trajectories of their post-war lives.

Truth is that I didn’t know this uncle very well.  He was the third of five sons and got short shrift by three generations of our family.  He was a quiet man with great artist skill.  I wonder if I would have interacted with him differently if, while he was alive, I knew to look at his life through the prism of the bloodshed he must have witnessed and (possibly) perpetrated in some of the most grisly fighting of WWII.

Today, we have veterans who need our support.  Whether or not we agree with the politics, their mere willingness to go to war to protect and defend us is heroic.  We owe it to these young men and women to learn their stories, help them re-acclimate to post-war lives, and protect them from their deepest, darkest memories of combat and, yes, deal with the bad things they did “over there”.

It is hard to imagine that some of our warriors and their families have not yet been granted US citizenship.  It is hard to imagine that some of our warriors and their families are treated like second class citizens because of sexual orientation.  It is hard to believe that anyone thinks our returning veterans don’t deserve the very best in medical care and social services.

I just hope that no one has to wonder, when the veterans of our generation are in wheelchairs with attendants, if they will be remembered and honored.  I hope the next generations remember that they once were warriors, protecting and defending us.

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First, fire the pundits. Second, let’s talk about race.

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Yesterday op-ed by Bob Herbert of the New York Times really got me nuts.  It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  I don’t care which party “gets it” or not.  That is not even a relevant question.

That we have a president named Barack Hussein Obama is in fact a delivery of his campaign promise of change.  The fact that he is decried as not that much different from other presidents is another delivery of his campaign promise of being President of all citizens, not just blue states.

You see, you may not have noticed, but the President of the United States is African-American.  Now, I am a middle-aged, white, Jewish lesbian (MWJL).  And I have no idea what it is to be anything or anyone other than who I am. But from my perspective (for what it is worth):

The President may be post-racial, but the country is not.  (We are making progress and, as we do, sometimes there is backlash that makes us think we are losing ground.)  The fact of his presidency is a challenge to much of the nation.  The fact that he is continuing some of the Bush policies in matters of war means that his opponents (the Grand Old White Man Party) need to frame his domestic policies as so radical as to threaten our very existence as a nation.  Thus, the charged rhetoric.

Because it is, at least in part, about race.  (Please no eye rolls — I am a MWJL, remember?)

Lest we forget that John McCain and Sarah Palin got a lot of votes and stirred up fears of the end of the reign of the Old White Man.

Remember when he let a little of his anger show when Professor Gates was arrested?  You would think that he created an international incident.  All he did was call the actions of white cops stupid.  Imagine George Bush doing that.  Not even a blip on the radar.

Listen to the racist language of the Tea Party.  These people are scared that they will be treated the way they have treated minorities.  They know that karma can be a painful boomerang.  So, now that the Establishment is run by an African-American, they are fighting the Establishment tooth and nail.

I had an epiphany the other day about DADT.  The President is Commander in Chief of a military run by conservative white men.  When he leads, they need to follow.  So, he needs to show he will listen, too.  So, maybe he needs to protect DADT for now as it winds it way through the courts and the Congress.

The President is the embodiment of the American dream, with the picture-perfect American family.  But he is not a reflection of America yet, but an aspiration of what America can be.  We all have some work to do.

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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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Mi Cherie Amour

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On Thursday afternoon, I slipped into the bathroom of my office and transformed into a girlie-girl.  I traded my clogs for pantyhose and heels and my turtleneck and blazer for a sleeveless black number that swirls when I walk, along with some serious bling and a full face of make-up.  POB (partner of blogger) insisted on the serious bling (she wanted anyone who might flirt with me to know I was expensive).  G-d bless her to think that someone at this outrageously hetero event (for which I was dressing up) would even look twice at me.

Of course, I ripped the hose as I put them on and — uh oh — this was not my pair of hose.  POB and I are different sizes, so I felt the sli-i-i-i-ide down below my waist happening almost immediately.  Ripped and sliding.  Dressing up is always epic.

The event was a fundraiser for one of the most worthwhile organizations (outside of refugee relief) — The Hole in the Wall Gang camps for kids with life threatening illnesses.

I left my office to meet a colleague who was flying in for the event.  We were going to the pre-party that started at 5pm.  Nothing like alcohol at 5pm for pickling your brain.  And goyishe hors- d’oeuvres — meat and cheese or pork.  Not even mixed nuts for the Jews.  I realize this is going to be a long night featuring a liquid buffet.  And that is so not my cultural upbringing — run out of booze, ok.  Run out of food? Change your name and leave town because you’ll never live it down.

We attended the main event — a concert at Avery Fisher Hall, featuring Meryl Streep (looking fab without plastic surgery), Emmy Lou Harris, John Cougar Mellencamp, Bill Cosby, Lyle Lovett (I kept thinking, Julia Roberts, really?), Bette Midler (who got middle-aged), Renee Zellwegger (she looked so much better before all the plastic surgery) and Stevie Wonder.

More important than these luminaries were the campers who helped emcee the show, and the video of Paul Newman, who together with Joanne Woodward, founded these camps.  One of the campers belted out “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.  I think everyone was crying.  Here is a terminally ill tweenager singing THAT song.  A song of the downtrodden, the sad, the defenseless, those with hopes and dreams that seem destined not to be realized.  THAT song.  My heart ached and my mascara ran all over my face.

Paul Newman (may he rest in peace) was so eloquent — in the video made some years ago — about why he started these camps.  (I am paraphrasing, but I recollect it this way:)  “I have been lucky all my life and I wanted to help people who only knew the other side of luck.” He is a good man but I hate his salad dressings.

He looked at luck as a zero-sum game.   And if luck is a zero-sum game, then our luck means someone else has less (or no) luck.  Contrast that with people who say today, “I make my own luck.”  As if to impart that those who are “unlucky” don’t deserve success.  Ok, let’s super-impose this paradigm on children.  Can anyone with a sense of humanity say to a terminally ill child, “you could’ve made your own luck”?

Surely, we can share our good fortune — our luck — with the children.  The children.

Of course the evening got lighter when Stevie started playing Cherie Amour and a few other standards.  My colleague and I were standing and singing in Avery Fisher Hall while everyone else politely sat.  After an evening of ill children with fight in their hearts, it was good to be on our feet and singing.  It was life-affirming.

There was an after-party.  Cheeseburger sliders were served.  Really?  Goyishe v’hetzi (150% non-Jewish).  Still with the vodka drinks.

There was a Motown band and singers who were awesome.  I dragged my colleague out on the dance floor.  I told her, it’s New York, no one cares if two women dance.   We totally rocked out.  Of course, at that point my hose were dangling dangerously low like the pants on some young men and I was scared that they would just drop.  And it was getting late and really I wanted to get home, get in bed and feel the serenity of having my family safe and asleep around me.  We were waiting for Stevie Wonder to show up at the after-party so my colleague could meet her idol.

Finally he showed up and she was star struck and frozen in place.  The batteries in her camera ran out.  I had to elbow my way to spend a few minutes talking to Mr. Wonder while I motioned for her to get next to me.  Mr. Wonder’s bodyguards were concerned that I was doing something dangerous and were ready to drop me.  Finally she got near enough to put her hand on his shoulder and I snapped the photo using my blackberry.  I thanked Mr. Wonder for his patience (and holding on to my hand for what seemed an eternity as my colleague got close) and the conversation and I receded into the crowd.

My colleague is on Cloud Nine.  We have bonded.  I can call her “friend” now.  Without a hard-headed New Yorker, she would not have even gotten close to Mr. Wonder.  As a friend, I tell her, “I have been in heels for seven hours, my pantyhose are almost falling off, and I need to go home now that we have a picture with you and Stevie Wonder.”  I am walking you to your hotel and I am throwing myself in a cab.  The alternative is to put a sign on you that says ‘return after 3 days to . . . .’  I would get to sleep but I would get fired.  So you decide:  How is this evening turning out?”

Having gotten a picture of Stevie Wonder, she didn’t put up a fight.  Thank G-d.  I got her back to her hotel and in 15 minutes I was in my comfy apple-green jammies in my comfy bed and ready to sleep.

I laughed, I cried, I danced, I shook hands with a celebrity, I was moved to help others.  A great day.

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Vote

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Ok, I am going to be self-righteous and over-bearing.  So, sit back and listen.  Then you may comment.  I may not read your comments.

What’s all this about people being too busy or disinterested to vote in an election?

Citizenship has privileges and responsibilities.  One responsibility is to vote in each and every election.  It is also our only protection from tyranny (and I know there are different views these days on what constitutes tyranny).

Not every vote will be momentous.  Sometimes we vote for council members and sometimes we vote for presidents.

And, no one is too busy.  And sick people can vote by absentee ballot.  In 1998, my 99 year-old grandfather shuffled with his walker to the voting booth to cast his ballot.  Why?  Because only in America did he have the right to vote and be counted.  Not when he was a child in czarist Russia or a young man during the Russian Revolution. 

If you don’t vote, you have let others make decisions for you and your opinion doesn’t matter anymore.  Because you didn’t do the least you could do to justify having an opinion — vote.

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Play dates

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Yesterday, my son had a friend over in the afternoon.  The ground rules were no electronics — no computer, no video, no TV.  His parents are rather concerned about the amount of time he spends on Wii and on the computer generally.  So, low-tech play date.  No problem, right?  Now, remember it is 2010 and we are taking about an 8 year-old and a 10 year-old.  BOYS.

First my son refused to stop what he was doing when his friend arrived.  His friend was kneeling in front of the Wii remotes.  Ok, ok, ok.  POB (partner of blogger) took out all of this cool building sets, some even have circuitry (electric ok, but electronic, no).  No one tried anything.  Variably mournful and angry eyes were watching us.  I started helping the friend put some circuit boards together and we made lights flash on and alarms ring.  Just like those awesome kits that you could do at camp if you brought an extra $5 dollars which in 1972, was a lot for an 8 year-old.  We were having an awesome time although my son was still pouting by reading train books, hoping that I would cave and let them watch a train video.  Nooooo. Then his friend got up and knelt by the Wii again.  I said no, and we had a tense moment when he kicked something over angrily.  We walked back into my son’s room.  At that point, the friend tried to make conversation with my son, but my son, who figured he was punishing me by being rude to his friend, was unresponsive.  So I sat down with this friend and played scrabble and asked my son to help me.  Finally, finally, my son decided that fun was a good thing to have and they started to play together.  Phew.  All is good, right?  Ten minutes later, “we’re booooored.”  Really?  Really?  With all of the toys in this house, you kids can be bored?

Then I remember what withdrawal was like when I quit cigarettes.  And, I realized that neither of them bargained for a non-electronic play date, although we did tell our son the ground rules.  So, in a lapse of parental judgment, I started a pillow fight in the living room with the couch pillows — some cushions, some just decorative.  All fair game.  POB looked on in horror and amusement as there were many near-misses with the lamps, etc.  But the humans were each in one piece.

They were able to amuse themselves for a little while.  But the electronic-free play date was running a little too long for anyone’s patience, let alone those of pre-tween boys.  Recently, I bought a Star Wars light saber to match our son’s (Mom, please forgive me, for buying something that is a weapon, but your grandson is a boy.)  My son didn’t want to play but his friend did.  So, I handed him a pair a protective glasses (see, Mom, you did raise me right) because I cannot live in a world where a child is blinded while playing while fencing with light sabers in my house.  Ok, I never, ever, imagined that I would be condoning, much less partaking, this behavior, but, sometimes, one has to stand less on principle in order to survive your child’s play date.  Then the boy’s father came to pick him up just as he was striking me in the gut with his light saber.  Score one for Luke Skywalker.

Luckily, POB and I had a dinner date with our machertunim (the parents of the girl that our son is intent on marrying).  Machertunim is the Yiddish word that describes the parents’ relationship when your children are married to each other.  This play date also did not have electronics.  We coped very well with these parameters, since we have great fun talking and laughing, and there was wine and great food.  Did I mention the wine?

Both play dates were fun.  But I suspect that they won’t need my facilitating non-electronic play dates after a while.  And to tell you the truth, the second play date was awesome.

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Gays in the Military

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Does anyone really believe that, with the lifting of the ban, gays will start wearing rainbow flags and singing Judy Garland songs instead of the national anthem? 

Military is a macho place where gays will be harassed for decades to come.  I doubt gays will start coming out of the closet in droves tomorrow. 

The point on the injunction is that no one can get forced from the military for being gay, so gay service members don’t have to live in fear of discovery while they serve our nation on the battlefields.  Our nation should be grateful to those who love this country so much that they will risk their lives even though they face senseless discrimination. 

Let’s get at the fear, which is sex:  Some people think that gay service members will start propositioning heterosexuals and start having sex in public. 

First, straight people over-estimate their attractiveness. 

Second, these people are trained military personnel who abide by a code of conduct. 

If a gay or straight service member acts in a way unbecoming an officer or enlisted person (use any example you want) then that service member can still be, and should be, discharged. 

And, President Obama, don’t fight this injunction.  We are here, we are queer and we are tired of waiting.

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