I always sat beside Uncle Moe, who’d cue me. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” I’d ask. And so began the Four Questions, with me, the youngest child at the Passover Seder, prompting a kind of overview of the Israelite exodus from Egypt.
As the ‘60s gave way to the ‘70s then ‘80s, as all of us cousins started families of our own, the dining room table sprouted massive “wings” of card tables laid end to end, with a “new” youngest child every few years. But with the passing of Uncle Moe, our large extended family splintered, everyone retreating to their own little corner of the northeast corridor, with Mom at her stove until she announced she was handing the baton, or, rather, ladle, to me. For almost two decades, I dutifully prepared a traditional Pesach meal. Except early in that tenure, Mom bullied the matzo balls back from me: “Yours are like golf balls,” she complained. Oh, and to save oven space, I’d sneak off to Boston Chicken and bury the aluminum-lined bags at the bottom of the trash. (Yikes, I guess now the chicken is out of the bag, so to speak.) We don’t keep kosher, but still….
Then two years ago, I moved here to Bucks, further fracturing the family tradition. So these days, my brothers gravitate toward their children and grandchildren, leaving Mom a free agent. But with every ending, there is a beginning.
Last year, with Mom at brother Sam’s house, my family attended an inclusive Seder at the BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Warrington. I’d signed up weeks before to bring a dish. Not cook, bring. To continue a longstanding tradition, I ordered roasted chickens (kosher, just in case) for the more than 50 people who participated, many reading Hebrew phonetically from the Haggadah, the Passover story. As I recall, a blond woman with a Scandinavian accent asked the Four Questions.
So what made that night different from all other nights? For me, when I think back to Uncle Moe’s house, everything. Globally, though, despite our differences in background and ethnicities, we were sitting down to share a meal and a tradition, a coming together that doesn’t occur – or isn’t possible - in most places around the world.
Later this month, we will be attending our second Seder there. We’ve invited Mom, who’s oscillating between here and my brother Keith’s home. But something else will make this night different. While I’m still ordering chicken, I’m also bringing 150 matzo balls. Bringing as in cooking. You could say I’ve begun my own matzo-ball boot camp.
I’m sending Mom this column to lure…and guilt her.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
As Predictable as the Weather
Most everything you read in monthly magazines has been written a couple months earlier; but dtown has a nice, comfortable “closing” date, and I don’t need to get this column in till mid-month. But stuck in the house once again after last night’s ice storm, listening to the sound of my husband chopping away at a trench for the fuel deliveryman – we are dangerously close to being Code Blue due to both of us overlooking the plummeting level in the sight glass – I thought I’d write this one today.
…Which is Groundhog Day. And by now, at 8:19 am, we know that Punxsatawney Phil did not see his shadow, which means that spring will arrive early. I certainly am hoping Phil’s prognosticating acumen is far more accurate than those weather predictors of the human ilk, who warned of 5 to 8 inches the other night - and we woke to 20. My grandmother used to say, “If you want to know the weather, stick your head out the window.”
When I lived in New York City, one of our local stations – and if memory serves, it was NBC Channel 4 with their Live Doppler Radar – ran tickers at the bottom of the screen with moment-by-moment updates as to when a storm would hit your street. The Cloisters – 7:05………..…Broadway and 125th St. – 7:09……………309 East 89th St., 1B (the apartment in the back) – 7:11. To check, I would stick my head out the window.
You probably didn’t realize this, but the weather report is the number-one reason people tune in to the news, and it’s always on at the end. Oh, they may tease you earlier with, “When we come back, more on the Apocalyptic Tsunami heading our way,” but that’s just to keep you on the couch during the commercials for which advertisers are paying lots of money.
Weather forecasting is like furniture delivery: They tell their customers about when they’ll be there, but no one really expects them to keep their word. And still we tip them, further rewarding poor service. I recall the Blizzard of ’96, which dumped more than two feet on Manhattan. One of the local tabloids did a tale-of-the-tape on the city’s top TV celebrity forecasters. Below their glamorous and debonair headshots the paper had printed their way-into-the-six-figure salaries, followed by their percentages of accuracy so far that season. Let me just say that in my next life, I want to be a celebrity TV weathercaster. You get a wardrobe allowance, great seats at posh restaurants without a reservation – and you don’t have to be particularly reliable at your job.
I hear our snowblower gurgling through the slush. May this column find you wearing a nice cotton sweatshirt, nursing a cappuccino outside Saxbys.
…Which is Groundhog Day. And by now, at 8:19 am, we know that Punxsatawney Phil did not see his shadow, which means that spring will arrive early. I certainly am hoping Phil’s prognosticating acumen is far more accurate than those weather predictors of the human ilk, who warned of 5 to 8 inches the other night - and we woke to 20. My grandmother used to say, “If you want to know the weather, stick your head out the window.”
When I lived in New York City, one of our local stations – and if memory serves, it was NBC Channel 4 with their Live Doppler Radar – ran tickers at the bottom of the screen with moment-by-moment updates as to when a storm would hit your street. The Cloisters – 7:05………..…Broadway and 125th St. – 7:09……………309 East 89th St., 1B (the apartment in the back) – 7:11. To check, I would stick my head out the window.
You probably didn’t realize this, but the weather report is the number-one reason people tune in to the news, and it’s always on at the end. Oh, they may tease you earlier with, “When we come back, more on the Apocalyptic Tsunami heading our way,” but that’s just to keep you on the couch during the commercials for which advertisers are paying lots of money.
Weather forecasting is like furniture delivery: They tell their customers about when they’ll be there, but no one really expects them to keep their word. And still we tip them, further rewarding poor service. I recall the Blizzard of ’96, which dumped more than two feet on Manhattan. One of the local tabloids did a tale-of-the-tape on the city’s top TV celebrity forecasters. Below their glamorous and debonair headshots the paper had printed their way-into-the-six-figure salaries, followed by their percentages of accuracy so far that season. Let me just say that in my next life, I want to be a celebrity TV weathercaster. You get a wardrobe allowance, great seats at posh restaurants without a reservation – and you don’t have to be particularly reliable at your job.
I hear our snowblower gurgling through the slush. May this column find you wearing a nice cotton sweatshirt, nursing a cappuccino outside Saxbys.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Please Be Mine
The way Mrs. Stevens handled this day was to first ask the boys to put their heads down while the girls skipped around the room, depositing white envelopes on desks. Then it was our turn. I’m pretty sure I made little flowers out of the i’s and l’s on the names of the boys I liked or the girls who were my friends. It was okay for a girl to openly give another girl a card. Because in grammar school, Valentine’s Day was more about friendships. I don’t, however, remember boys giving other boys cards. Historically, and at all ages, we are certainly more enlightened.
Case in point, and the reason I remember Mrs. Stevens’ 4th-grade Valentine’s Day in more detail, is because this is the year I lifted my head to find a card with my name spelled out with little hairs sprouting from each letter. I was, er, particularly hirsute as a child, and one of the boys not only had the audacity to craft this cruel cursive attack, but sign his name as well.
I STILL HATE YOU, MARC TEITELMAN.
I digress. Until last year, those little Valentine’s Day cutout cards had been my only measure of popularity, until Facebook. Listen, this isn’t my first day on earth. I know a lot of friend-ing is about collecting, about self-esteem and self-satisfaction. Most of my Fb friends have more than 500 pals while I remained at a woeful 189, which I was okay with until two weeks ago when I saw my number drop…by one.
I scrolled up and down my list, studying it with the same intensity needed to find a dropped earring back. And then I made the ugly discovery: The woman who’s been dating our best friend was gone. I hadn’t responded with enough sympathy, it seems, when she needed to vent about their relationship. And her response was to cut me off cyberly. I made up that word.
It was worse than not putting a card on my desk; it was as if she’d lain one down, re-evaluated me, then snatched it back. I masked my hurt in incredulity then mockery. “She’s acting like a child,” I complained to my husband the other night. It took a nanosecond to realize the irony.
She and I are always going to be nine years old. I imagine we’re in good company. It was a time when we were discovering how our peers perceived and judged us. Something we still consider – and some of us worry about – day to day. It’s a big suitcase we never unpack. However, I no longer have to figure out creative ways to hide the area between the tops of my knee socks and the bottom of my hem.
Case in point, and the reason I remember Mrs. Stevens’ 4th-grade Valentine’s Day in more detail, is because this is the year I lifted my head to find a card with my name spelled out with little hairs sprouting from each letter. I was, er, particularly hirsute as a child, and one of the boys not only had the audacity to craft this cruel cursive attack, but sign his name as well.
I STILL HATE YOU, MARC TEITELMAN.
I digress. Until last year, those little Valentine’s Day cutout cards had been my only measure of popularity, until Facebook. Listen, this isn’t my first day on earth. I know a lot of friend-ing is about collecting, about self-esteem and self-satisfaction. Most of my Fb friends have more than 500 pals while I remained at a woeful 189, which I was okay with until two weeks ago when I saw my number drop…by one.
I scrolled up and down my list, studying it with the same intensity needed to find a dropped earring back. And then I made the ugly discovery: The woman who’s been dating our best friend was gone. I hadn’t responded with enough sympathy, it seems, when she needed to vent about their relationship. And her response was to cut me off cyberly. I made up that word.
It was worse than not putting a card on my desk; it was as if she’d lain one down, re-evaluated me, then snatched it back. I masked my hurt in incredulity then mockery. “She’s acting like a child,” I complained to my husband the other night. It took a nanosecond to realize the irony.
She and I are always going to be nine years old. I imagine we’re in good company. It was a time when we were discovering how our peers perceived and judged us. Something we still consider – and some of us worry about – day to day. It’s a big suitcase we never unpack. However, I no longer have to figure out creative ways to hide the area between the tops of my knee socks and the bottom of my hem.
Friday, December 10, 2010
O' Christmas Tree
With the forecast calling for another wintery blast, I was surprised to see a crowd of overcoats and hoods oohing and ahhing over the gas-grill display, pressing the orange ignite buttons and turning knobs. They’re like a bunch of little girls in their white plastic pretend-kitchens, I thought, playing in a world yet to come.
“Christmas trees?” I asked an orange-vested woman whose blond curls hid her name tag.
‘”Fake or real?”
“Artificial,” I said.
“Garden Center. Go all the way back to fencing, turn right.”
Seems even “non-real” Christmas trees would garner more respect this time of year, I thought, making my way past the garbage cans, extra-large leaf bags, potting soil, bug repellants and Japanese lanterns.
“Hello…Hal,” I said, nodding at a name tag and pulling a crumpled ad from my pocket. “I’m interested in this five-foot Douglas Fir. Is this the one?” I asked, pointing to the jolly almost-looks-like-the-real-thing-with-fade-in-and-fade-out-white-lights tree.
It wasn’t. It was a 6-foot fake Scotch Pine and $70 more. Three hours later, at the epicenter of an explosion of trinkets, and Calpurnia in full attack mode against the army of yellowing paper that seems to threaten her very cathood, I am ready to decorate what is really a three-foot-green-plastic tree set into a two-foot “Grecian” Styrofoam stand. Every year, my former husband and I delighted in peeling away the newsprint protecting our treasures – Teddy bears popping out of gift boxes, reindeers frozen forever in flight – finding a headline, a dateline on a story: material evidence of a long and successful marriage.
But only in the dictionary does “long marriage” come before “successful.” Christmastime eventually became the War of the Orbs. He began weighing the branches with tiny replicas of handlebars and helmets from Harley-Davidson. I dotted the tree with ornaments set in doilies, lace. He especially abhorred the pink Victorian shoe that sprouted tulle. All of them, he gladly handed over to me in the distribution of assets.
And now I find every one of them too big or heavy to hang on the only size tree I can fit into my new living room without having to crawl over the sofa to get to the kitchen. Except, perhaps, for this one: a small crystal with red and green splashes and itty-bitty snowflakes suspended in its core. I bought it the year we began counseling. It’s not a color I can feel, can scratch off with my fingernail. The color is buried: a jewel in its transparent vault, unreachable unless—and I consider this for a moment – I smash it against something, drop it on the floor, kick it to the wall.
My three-foot Fir is waiting to be dressed. To all a good night.
“Christmas trees?” I asked an orange-vested woman whose blond curls hid her name tag.
‘”Fake or real?”
“Artificial,” I said.
“Garden Center. Go all the way back to fencing, turn right.”
Seems even “non-real” Christmas trees would garner more respect this time of year, I thought, making my way past the garbage cans, extra-large leaf bags, potting soil, bug repellants and Japanese lanterns.
“Hello…Hal,” I said, nodding at a name tag and pulling a crumpled ad from my pocket. “I’m interested in this five-foot Douglas Fir. Is this the one?” I asked, pointing to the jolly almost-looks-like-the-real-thing-with-fade-in-and-fade-out-white-lights tree.
It wasn’t. It was a 6-foot fake Scotch Pine and $70 more. Three hours later, at the epicenter of an explosion of trinkets, and Calpurnia in full attack mode against the army of yellowing paper that seems to threaten her very cathood, I am ready to decorate what is really a three-foot-green-plastic tree set into a two-foot “Grecian” Styrofoam stand. Every year, my former husband and I delighted in peeling away the newsprint protecting our treasures – Teddy bears popping out of gift boxes, reindeers frozen forever in flight – finding a headline, a dateline on a story: material evidence of a long and successful marriage.
But only in the dictionary does “long marriage” come before “successful.” Christmastime eventually became the War of the Orbs. He began weighing the branches with tiny replicas of handlebars and helmets from Harley-Davidson. I dotted the tree with ornaments set in doilies, lace. He especially abhorred the pink Victorian shoe that sprouted tulle. All of them, he gladly handed over to me in the distribution of assets.
And now I find every one of them too big or heavy to hang on the only size tree I can fit into my new living room without having to crawl over the sofa to get to the kitchen. Except, perhaps, for this one: a small crystal with red and green splashes and itty-bitty snowflakes suspended in its core. I bought it the year we began counseling. It’s not a color I can feel, can scratch off with my fingernail. The color is buried: a jewel in its transparent vault, unreachable unless—and I consider this for a moment – I smash it against something, drop it on the floor, kick it to the wall.
My three-foot Fir is waiting to be dressed. To all a good night.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Blue World
In January, the Y’s pool is always more crowded because of "resolutionists." I’m a serious swimmer and even without the influx these few weeks bring, already frustrated with the large number of swimmers who don’t use the lanes (fast, medium, slow, recreational) their abilities warrant. According to a posting on deck, a 50-second lap puts you firmly in the fast lane, and a huge sprint clock helps you figure out where you should be. The Lap Lane Etiquette hanging on the wall also explains what to do when someone swimming faster in any of those lanes wants to pass. However, it appears lifeguards are reluctant to enforce the rules or move slow swimmers, perhaps because they don’t want to offend their fantasy of being the next Michael Phelps. You may notice I didn’t say Michael Phelps or Dara Torres. That’s because most offenders, I’ve noticed, are men. But that’s a topic for another day.
This is why being a serious lap swimmer often warrants declaring anarchy. Case in point:
I joined a lane in which three people (one man and three women) were already swimming. The women were moving at a pretty good clip; the man…was not. We three were able to pass him, as well as one another; but eventually, we had a four-swimmer pile-up at the wall because of him. The women waited, deferring to me, it seemed, so I asked him to please pull over when he could.
“Okay, Sweetie,” he said. “Don’t get your tank in a twist.” Excuse me? “Only my husband and father are allowed to call me ‘Sweetie.’ And on your way back to the locker room,” I said, pointing to the wall, “check numbers five to seven of how to be…polite in the pool.”
I’d been dreading running, or swimming, into Mr. Sweetie again, but there he was the other day, doing a sidestroke in a crowded slow lane even though the fast lane was empty. Mmmmm. He nodded to me as he made his turn, and I graciously waved. An hour later, we found ourselves together in the sauna. “Pool was perfect,” Mr. Sweetie said. “Yes, good temperature and very blue,” I said. “Well, I’m cooked,” he said, rising. “Nice seeing you. Enjoy your day.”
So this is what I’m positing: Because the pool is a finite structure with an inconstant environment - like the world - and its swimmers the varied and complex “citizens,” lap swimming illuminates who are the aggressive and powerful Alpha, who are the yielding Omega, and who are Beta - like the two gals who probably would have said something had I not been there.
Wow, who knew the lap pool is a microcosm of society? Oh, by the way, I swim not only for sport, but for relaxation….
This is why being a serious lap swimmer often warrants declaring anarchy. Case in point:
I joined a lane in which three people (one man and three women) were already swimming. The women were moving at a pretty good clip; the man…was not. We three were able to pass him, as well as one another; but eventually, we had a four-swimmer pile-up at the wall because of him. The women waited, deferring to me, it seemed, so I asked him to please pull over when he could.
“Okay, Sweetie,” he said. “Don’t get your tank in a twist.” Excuse me? “Only my husband and father are allowed to call me ‘Sweetie.’ And on your way back to the locker room,” I said, pointing to the wall, “check numbers five to seven of how to be…polite in the pool.”
I’d been dreading running, or swimming, into Mr. Sweetie again, but there he was the other day, doing a sidestroke in a crowded slow lane even though the fast lane was empty. Mmmmm. He nodded to me as he made his turn, and I graciously waved. An hour later, we found ourselves together in the sauna. “Pool was perfect,” Mr. Sweetie said. “Yes, good temperature and very blue,” I said. “Well, I’m cooked,” he said, rising. “Nice seeing you. Enjoy your day.”
So this is what I’m positing: Because the pool is a finite structure with an inconstant environment - like the world - and its swimmers the varied and complex “citizens,” lap swimming illuminates who are the aggressive and powerful Alpha, who are the yielding Omega, and who are Beta - like the two gals who probably would have said something had I not been there.
Wow, who knew the lap pool is a microcosm of society? Oh, by the way, I swim not only for sport, but for relaxation….
Saturday, November 6, 2010
A Butchya Gotta Have Friends
My very first girl friend was Cathy. She lived two doors down. We baked Creepy Crawlers and ate dirt on a dare. When she moved in the 2nd grade, I moved on to Leslie up the street and then Andrea around the corner. As I was allowed to cross streets on my own, my friend “territory” expanded. And when the two elementary schools emptied into the single middle school, I was in a girl group! But that November, over Thanksgiving weekend, we would be moving three hours away, a galaxy away from my friends. On my last day of school that half-day Wednesday, I emptied my locker into a shopping bag, which broke on the way home in the pouring rain. Through the blur of tears I watched the puddles turn my perfect cursive into an even blurrier mess. Sounds rather Dickensian, no?
My college pals, who’d all settled in the NYC area, and I kept in close touch with our “Soho Saturdays”; the women I swam with in the mornings at the Y created “Swim Girls Suppers,” a once-a-week girls night out so we could chat—something you cannot do with your head submerged in water. During my first marriage, my husband and I socialized with a large group of other marrieds. But in my early divorced days, I rediscovered the joy of having pals all to myself. On Fridays nights, Fran and I met over drinks and appetizers and shared match.com woes; Pat and I alternated Sunday night dinners of never-before-tried recipes; Elaine and I met at the mall every other Tuesday after work, where we each bought one thing under $20. Then, at the age of 50, I reconnected with an old beau, a Bucks County “boy,” and moved 73.7 miles away to be with him. But being with him meant leaving my friends. It snowed the day I packed up my car for the last transit and led the moving van along the interstate, then county roads, all the while my windshield wipers beating steadily.
Making friends as a younger woman was easy: “Hey, would you like to…” I’d say to a girl in one of my college classes, then, as time passed, to a woman I felt comfortable with at work. And living in small neighborhoods inside larger towns, somehow friendships just happened. However, making new friends here hasn’t. Part of this, I know, is because I work at home. Still, while my new husband has lots of friends, I was surprised that few of their significant others made an effort to get to know me, let alone invite me to join them anywhere, my theory being that women of a certain age have certain feelings about uncertain new associations. And while it took a few months of branching out and meeting loads of fabulous women, thanks to the Goddess Group I joined (that’s a story for another day), the Doylestown Y, where I swim, and people I’ve met through my writing – along with dusting off “Hey, would you like to….?” – I want to publicly acknowledge Cindy, Heather and now Kathi as my first friends west of the Delaware.
More are welcome….
My college pals, who’d all settled in the NYC area, and I kept in close touch with our “Soho Saturdays”; the women I swam with in the mornings at the Y created “Swim Girls Suppers,” a once-a-week girls night out so we could chat—something you cannot do with your head submerged in water. During my first marriage, my husband and I socialized with a large group of other marrieds. But in my early divorced days, I rediscovered the joy of having pals all to myself. On Fridays nights, Fran and I met over drinks and appetizers and shared match.com woes; Pat and I alternated Sunday night dinners of never-before-tried recipes; Elaine and I met at the mall every other Tuesday after work, where we each bought one thing under $20. Then, at the age of 50, I reconnected with an old beau, a Bucks County “boy,” and moved 73.7 miles away to be with him. But being with him meant leaving my friends. It snowed the day I packed up my car for the last transit and led the moving van along the interstate, then county roads, all the while my windshield wipers beating steadily.
Making friends as a younger woman was easy: “Hey, would you like to…” I’d say to a girl in one of my college classes, then, as time passed, to a woman I felt comfortable with at work. And living in small neighborhoods inside larger towns, somehow friendships just happened. However, making new friends here hasn’t. Part of this, I know, is because I work at home. Still, while my new husband has lots of friends, I was surprised that few of their significant others made an effort to get to know me, let alone invite me to join them anywhere, my theory being that women of a certain age have certain feelings about uncertain new associations. And while it took a few months of branching out and meeting loads of fabulous women, thanks to the Goddess Group I joined (that’s a story for another day), the Doylestown Y, where I swim, and people I’ve met through my writing – along with dusting off “Hey, would you like to….?” – I want to publicly acknowledge Cindy, Heather and now Kathi as my first friends west of the Delaware.
More are welcome….
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