Tag Archives: humor

Another year, another synagogue retreat

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This year’s synagogue retreat didn’t provide as much blogging material as last year’s.  But I have a gift of missing the whole point of a spiritual retreat.  But someone said that G-d is in the details.  That can’t be correct; see below.

The retreat started the same as last year, with the welcome sign that dared me to wreak such havoc that the sign would be revised to read “Maybe we are blessed by your arrival”.

Next year, I hope to report back that my efforts were successful.

The theme of the retreat was “transitions”.  Actually, throughout the retreat, there were some really poignant and insightful observations as to certain life cycle and relationship transitions.  Even I have to admit (grudgingly) that the discussions and religious services did strike chords in me.

There was a specific emphasis on inclusion of members of the transgender community and their stories and issues.  Accordingly, our name tags listed our preferred pronouns, such as “she/her” “ze/hir” “he/his” “they/their”.   My selections were so ordinary:

We got an upgrade from our accommodations last year.  As you may remember, we stayed in a bungalow that the forest was in process of reclaiming.  Apparently, nature correctly recognized it as a compost before the retreat management did.  This year, our accommodations ranked a few levels above girl scout camp:

Ok, maybe just one level above girl scout camp.  But we did have a mini-fridge.

The camp keeps the Sabbath and maintains a kosher kitchen.  So, no coffee on the Sabbath.  A riot almost breaks out each year.  I heard someone offer anyone $1,000 for a latte.  That night, the same person was offering even more for a shot of tequila, right after everyone found out there was no wine with dinner.  Ok, the camp maybe “shomer shabbos” (Sabbath observant) but us visitors, well, not so much.

Also, the food was not so kid-friendly (cholent, quinoa with fruit and string beans, etc.), so one family broke the Sabbath and drove their kids to McDonald’s because the kids could find nothing to eat.  Hey, living by Torah means that you can’t let your kids starve.  (We packed enough snacks, yogurt and fruit so that TLP (our son, the little prince) would have enough to eat.  We also had to rely on this stash.)

But there are helpful reminders to everyone about religiosity, especially in one’s most private moments:

(Same sign as last year, but good material is good material.)

The camp is also a working farm, so we saw Hasidic Jews tending to the goats.  There was goatyurt for sale, “blessed” goat cheese, and other kumbaya stuff. In fact, the gift shop offered bottles of essence of peace of mind and women’s cycles.

Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya. Oh, Lord, kumbaya.

I don’t know if POB (partner of blogger) can convince me to go for a third time.

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

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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.

 

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Tuesday, the Rabbi ate nothing — almost

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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.

 

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The Test, Day 2

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COB (colleague of blogger) came into my office to test my resolve to be hopeful and content for the next 29 days.

He came in and talked about his commute from hell, and a deal we lost to a firm that undercut our very modest pricing.  Then he told me about his friend’s blog that has way more followers than mine and provides a day-by-day  exercise and eating regimen to an awesome body in one year.  She is 23 years younger than I am and I don’t think our realities of “awesome body” achievement can be the same.

But I feel hopeful and happy.  I put on moisturizer this morning so my wrinkles are muted.  I brought in make-up in case I am so moved to spruce up my look.  And I haven’t yet spilled my coffee all over my tan slacks.

Is this an awesome start to the day or what?

Click to hear the Seeker’s rendition of Kumbaya:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9AH4vG2wA

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Why I love the gym

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I was feeling blue and out-of-sorts these past days.  I know that a work-out, even a short one, lifts my mood, so I made sure to pack the necessaries and dash there right after work.

I saw SOB (sister of blogger) there, which is always a treat.

So, there we are — SOB is reading and I am sweating on elliptical machines next to each other.  Very companionable but not necessarily chatty.  I see SOB wipe her face with a towel, but she is just seeing if I am paying attention. SOB does the least she can do at the gym and therefore not enough to work up anything resembling perspiration.

A man comes up to our machines and starts sniffing.  I think, uh oh, there’s a blog entry coming. . . .

I am watching him and I start to sniff, too.  Does someone or something stink?  Do I stink?  He starts talking to me.  OF COURSE, he starts talking to me, because of the S-shaped magnet (S for schmuck) embedded in my forehead that always draws these people to me.

He says that he is allergic to perfume and is relieved that we don’t wear perfume.  In fact, he says, he could tell before he came over because we didn’t look like people who would wear perfume.  I think, is that good or bad?  Is that a compliment or a swipe?  Do SOB and I look too low-maintenance to wear perfume?  Do we look like we don’t take care of our appearance?  Could it be our effortlessly dorky gym attire?

Then the Sniffer tells me that there are men in the locker room who put on cologne before working out.  He believes they read some propaganda about how our natural odors are not good for us.  Now, he is talking crazy talk but I think he is trying to strike up an acquaintance.   Oy.

In deference to SOB, I do not encourage further conversation because he could have been scary crazy (rather than slightly off and socially incompetent) and I want to protect my sister.  Had I been alone, I would have NEEDED to probe more deeply to make a diagnosis.

I have a feeling there will be other opportunities at the gym to talk to the Sniffer.

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Extreme Family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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iFamily

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For my 40th birthday (just about 7 years ago), POB (partner of blogger) gave me an iPod.  There is new, souped of version of this dinosaur called “iPod Classic”.  Just like those “classic” Chryslers with all the conveniences of modern technology but with the fins and the chrome edges.  It was amazing in its time and, just seven years later, its limitations are quaint — in that way that a lop-sided homemade cake is really so, so, so, “homey”.

Then, it wore out  as iThings are designed to do after 360 charges. So, it stays planted in its iPlayer for music when we are in the house.

Then, we got something for the gym.

And this doesn’t really hold a charge anymore.  And so I get iRate at the gym when the battery idies on me and all I have to watch is the 24-hour-news-recycle to pass the tortuous 30 minutes on a constant-sweat machine of choice that day.

Ok, so then we got one that had more “juice” for the family.  But we didn’t know about the iDeath that happens after 360 charges (don’t leave an iPod in a charger or re-charge willy-nilly).  So this iDevice splits its time between two places: the kitchen, and, after hours, in SOPOBAB’s (son of POB and blogger’s) room so he can listen to audio books and then go to sleep to the music of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (yes, SOPOBAB is an old soul).  This requires TWO iBose systems for its two iHomes.

Ok, that was not enough, so we got two, TWO, iTouches.  Two iTouches. SOPOBAB has dinosaur, bird, football, baseball and hockey apps so he can play, too. (Our child cannot conceive of a world with typewriters, dial-up connections, Basic 8 computer languages.  Thank G-d, he loves real, honest-to-goodness books.)

The batteries are draining too quickly.  So we are probably going to get another one.  Oy.

Then we got an iMac.  [picture not included because of iMalfunction] [imagine iPicture here].

THEN, a MacBook Pro.

Now, an iPhone.  Not for me.  For POB.  Cool and groovy.

But I am a little iParanoid that our dependence on Steve Jobs is getting addictive.  But I really hate PCs since Microsoft Vista came out and ground our PC to a halt even for simple tasks, like say, logging on.

There was a time when there was no “I” in “team” (but there IS an I in family, which stinks for the metaphor).  Apple will get rid of that problem by creating the iTeam (who knows if that is true, but one has to believe that something like that has to come out in order to continue the mind control and advance the global domination).

In life, you pick your battles.  Steve Jobs, you win. iLove you and so does this iFamily.

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um, I guess I wasn’t what you expected

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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

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Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bastardized adage still holds true:

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

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Christmas at the Gym

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

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