Happy Anticlimactic New Year

Here it comes, the champion of all anticlimactic moments: 12:01 a.m. January 1st. Think about it. How many weeks have you been planning or wondering what you will be doing on New Year’s Eve: a club; a party; which party; should I go out at all; will it snow; it snowed; will they plow? I’m not a big planner so I generally wait until someone makes a suggestion. And those suggestions usually consist of whose house we should all hunker down in, avoiding drunks on the road or, worse, police checkpoints looking for drunks on the road and harassing everybody! Overpriced bars and prix fixe dinners that are only marginally more expensive than the same meal on any other day but include a glass of cheap champagne… My husband has to work so I’ll go to one of several friends’ houses, eat and drink more than I should, and at midnight everyone will yell and hug and kiss then…what? Ever notice how awkward New Years Eve parties get after midnight? No one quite knows what to do, when to leave. It’s as if you went to a play and the curtain came down in scene 2. Is it over? Should I…mosey…up the …aisle now? Because climactic moments in life are not as definitive as those in the movies. Your life doesn’t fade to black, role credits, fade out. It keeps going. Scarlet O’Hara actually gets up the next morning to discover that tomorrow is not another day but is actually today… again. The Terminator; where does he go between saying he’ll be back and actually coming back? This is why I don’t want another dog even though my heart just melted at the new ASPCA commercial that knotted my gut in guilt. But I know that right after we ooh and ahh over the new puppy, the Kodak moment will end and the fight will begin: “You take the dog out.” “No, you take the dog out.” “I took the dog out yesterday.” “We didn’t have a dog yesterday”. “I was practicing.” This is why I think cooking is a waste of time. It doesn’t matter if you have spent six hours basting a turkey or three minutes nuking a pizza: dinner lasts ten to twenty minutes. And what about weddings? You plan those for YEARS and they are over in a few short hours. If I ruled the world there would be a law that an event needs to last at least 1/4th as long as it took to plan it. Clearly New Years Eve will never measure up to this standard. The entire event hinges on one second! That magical moment when we yell “One”! The two or three seconds that follow are filled with hugs and kisses, swills of champagne and then… well, it’s nothing but awkward. Still, I’ve always nursed a mild superstition that how you spend your New Years Eve influences how you will spend your year. Clearly, sitting in my house alone is not how I want this to go. So I will hop into the shower, do something with these nails, and get myself over to our friends’ house. And at a few minutes to midnight I will call my husband at work and thank him for giving up his holiday in favor of his paycheck, hoping that this is the year sacrifices like this no longer need to be made. And I’ll wish him a happy new year because, without optimism, there is no point. Happy New Year, everybody. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six….

Merry Chhhhhristmas

A few years ago, Eric Cartman and the other South Parkers sang “It’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas”. Well apparently, it’s not so hard anymore. The other night, when I asked my son if he’d be joining us at our traditional Christmas Eve Chinese dinner, he hesitated and asked what time we’ll be going. He wanted to be back in new Haven in time for “The Matzo Ball”. I’d never heard of it; the price of being of this now “older” generation. He said it included lots of Jews, a few clubs and lots of drinking. I could see why a 22 year old guy wouldn’t want to miss that and was secretly pleased that all the girls there would be Jewish. (It’s an old habit.)
This morning, my subscription to the NY Times on line delivered this missive explaining all the events for those of us who will not be sitting around trees, opening presents or still waiting for Santa, gorging on seafood (love that Italian feast!) or whatever traditional suppers your denomination indulges in.

Young Jews will be amassing at such parties as “The Matzah Bowl” featuring music from such groups as “Bands of the Tribe”, “Days Like Months” (Are there 40 of them? Did they ‘literally’ create the band in 6 days and rest on the 7th?). There’s “Jewcy” at Jewltide 7 and the “swankier” annual “Matzo Ball” with a pre-dance sushi dinner! Could you imagine my Bubby at a sushi dinner? Boy, have things changed.

When I was a little girl I worried that I would be too old to enjoy New Years Eve at the turn of the century. It seems my worries were prescient after all, only it is Christmas Eve that I’ve missed. I love sushi! We’ll probably have it tonight. But wouldn’t I love to be out there partying with all those young people, dancing to Dan Saks and the Funkadeli All-Stars at Jewltide 7? I’m sure my handsome, ready-to-party son would cringe if I showed up at Matzo Ball New Haven. I’d probably only last an hour. Still, I love that it is happening. Gone are the days when we would hide out in our houses waiting for the inevitable pogrom. Going are the days when you can accidentally run into all the other Jews in town at the one Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood; we have seven now and they are Asian Fusion. We’re here and we are noisy! Merry Chhhhhristmas everybody! (You have to get that “chhhh” in the back of the throat, like a cat coughing up a fur ball.)

Snoring

I awaken in the middle of the night to make one of several trips to the bathroom and find that I am unable to go back to sleep. I was actually tired at bedtime so I figured I wouldn’t need a little helper like Ambien or Lunesta. We have both brands and switch off occasionally, perhaps fooling ourselves that we are not becoming dependent. My husband took his. It is now three a.m. and he is snoring as if he had swallowed a bear. If I take a pill now I will be out until late morning, at least, and that is unacceptable since I want to make a 10 a.m. body sculpting class. I have a sufficient amount of flab now to think I can actually mold it into something, but that’s another story. So I get back into bed and try to incorporate the sounds – the hawks and snorts and gurgles and growls- into a meditation that will lull me to sleep. It doesn’t work.

I am not complaining. My husband has been exhausted lately having spent a month with some cruddy upper respiratory disease; three rounds of different antibiotics, steroids... the works. More often than not lately, it is I who is snoring and my husband is the one escaping the room in search of some quiet corner of the house. My sinuses have been horrible and the sounds I have been producing, well, let’s just say that I saw a moose in the woods outside looking lovingly toward my window. I know my snoring is terrible because, even unconscious, I can sometimes hear it. Have you ever been awakened by your own noise? I have been aware of strange, guttural lowing emanating from my head.

I am concerned because, as I have mentioned, we are going to spend a few days at my Mom’s house with the whole family. Now my Mom is a snorer. She won’t admit it but I have shared her room when visiting on occasion and she can get quite a buzz going. My brother is the champion snorer. The first time I heard him was one night when I was home from college. I heard a horrible crunching, grating as if something was chewing the walls and jumped into the hallway that separated our rooms fully expecting to see some large animal gnawing at his bones. But it was just him. So, with the four of us in one house I’m thinking I’d better alert the neighborhood watch… and bring the Lunesta.

Scapegoats and magic

I just got an email forwarded and it scared the pants off me! It began: “This belongs in the "Email Hall of Fame." How's this for apocalyptic literature. This was written by a pastor's wife in biblical prose as a commentary of current events. It is brilliant.” And then it proceeds to vilify Barak Obama, casting him as a blaspheming maniac who thinks he is God. It blames him for the shit this country is in while the very people who elected him to fix the mess he inherited are doing everything they can to prevent him from getting it done. “This is broken; fix it! Oh wait, we’re going to have to buy glue? Oh, I don’t know.” We are a two-faced nation. We will smile at you while fingering the knife pointed at your throat. We elect our officials to move us forward and they spend every ounce of energy they have to prevent any progress from being made. But a pastor’s wife can cleverly spew her venom and we applaud her backward glance at the last ten years because we are scared. I am offended by the hysterical literature that continually casts Obama as some sort of Godless spawn of Satan. I am sick of insidious, paranoid suggestions about his birth certificate. I am even sicker of being told what is right or wrong by people who believe the world was created in six consecutive twenty-four hour days!
If I have been more an “historic” Jew than a religious one it is because I have always identified with that survivor part of being Jewish more than the part that believes, word for word, in laws and documents that are man-made, have evolved or not evolved willy-nilly over the centuries, have spawned factions and hatred and mass murder and terrorism and fanaticism and the horrible situation the world finds itself in today. Time and again throughout history, people and ideas have risen up to move past these antiquated and superstitious notions. The Greeks, the Communists, Socialists… The problem is that they found such violent, self-serving, horrible ways to deliver their progressive messages; that they were conceived by brilliant minds and executed by less than brilliant PEOPLE! Greedy, arrogant, ignorant PEOPLE! So we fought back. Self- defense I understand. But clinging to a mythology that has two people magically created in a garden somewhere and never explains where their sons mysteriously found wives… did they procreate with the sheep; that turns wine into blood and matzoh into flesh; that pits one man against another in the name of “the One True God”. If there is only one, then what are we all fighting about? His name?
I don’t even know if this is making sense anymore. I’m just so angry at how easily people are distracted from what is really wrong with the world by the creation of a new scapegoat, in this case Barak Obama, the man who dared to step forward at this point in the world’s evolution. This needs to stop!

First Snow

First snow of the season and we go outside to clean off the driveway. We got about four inches so my husband goes for the gas-powered, self-propelled snow-blower that was a hand-me-down from my father-in-law who smartened up and bought a plow. My father-in-law will be 90 in a few weeks; I think this plow was his first toy. My husband hands me the better of two shovels we have in the garage. He revs up the engine, throws the snow-blower into drive and follows the self-propelling monster down the driveway. I start shoveling the steps. The snow-blower cuts a neat footpath down the length of our driveway and stalls at the bottom. My husband tries to fix it. I keep shoveling. Fifteen minutes later I have cleared the steps and have started on the driveway; my husband is still puttering with the dead snow-blower. He gives up, leaves it in the road and TAKES MY SHOVEL! I get the old rickety one and we work side by side for a while. He continually instructs me on the proper way to push the snow. After a few passes across the top of the driveway he goes back to the snow-blower. Instead of giving it to me, he puts the good shovel down like it is on reserve. The snow-blower starts! I put down the rickety shovel and take up the one that can actually lift the snow as he follows after the put-put-putterer. Halfway up the driveway the snow-blower stalls again. The snow is too wet and heavy and it keeps clogging the ancient machine. He TAKES MY SHOVEL AGAIN! We do this routine for a while. Every time the snow-blower stalls he TAKES MY SHOVEL as if he has dibs on it; as if it is beneath him to use anything but the best working equipment we have. I am not surprised by this behavior. He does it in the fall too, or at least he used to do it. Back in the day when leaf removal was a family activity, he & my son would fight over the good leaf-blower and I’d rake while they argued. Now that we have a great leaf-blower neither one of them lifts a finger; they just let me do the whole thing. I didn’t really mind this year. It was a warm autumn and it is a great leaf-blower. I would get into these almost Zen states with the heavy contraption strapped to my back and the vibration coursing through my body that would last for hours after I stopped. But the snow is another matter. That snow-blower scares me, with those powerful blades churning and getting stuck and threatening to cut off your hands if you try to clear out the clogs. I started it by myself once and thought I’d be sucked under its thick, squat wheels. And when it stalls (notice I don’t say “if”) there is no way to move that thing! So it looks like the snow-blower will remain my husband’s vehicle of choice and I will invest in a second “good” shovel. I just hope it doesn’t snow a lot!

'Tis the Season

I’ve never been much for Christmas music but I gotta tell you it’s been making me feel pretty good lately. Not the sappy stuff; that still makes me want to crawl under the table. But the cheery stuff; the stuff that says the year is almost over and a fresh start looms ahead; that stuff has been bringing a smile and a song to my lips. There is something so promising about the prospect of a new year. Never mind that it is really just “the next day”. It has a new title. You have to make a conscious effort to remember how to write out a check. You have to say to yourself, “It is 2010 now.” Anything can happen. Out with the old; in with the new. Nothing could be worse than this year I tell myself. It has to get better. I say that every year! So am I am optimist or an asshole?

I had exciting news today. My whole family is going on vacation together! The trip was on, then off, then on, then off and today it all just fell into place. We all said yes to the dates, the airline agreed, our calendars were clear and I pressed the enter button on the keyboard. Fifteen minutes later I got an offer for work... the day before I’m due to come home! It’s not a total disaster; just a one day overlap of the first vacation I’ve ever taken with my whole family – husband, kids, grandchild, mother, brother – with a little acting job. But still, come on! It’s Murphy’s Law, right? Or that other phrase I so love: “Man plans and God laughs”. Does everything good in life have to come with a sacrifice? I know there are people out there who are able to plan one thing and not have anything else fall apart. Maybe it’s coming. I hope so. And maybe this year. Meanwhile, I’m taking a vacation!

Another Day

Tiger Woods drove his car into a tree sparking lead stories on the news for over a week. Well, my husband once drove into a concrete barrier and I’ll bet this is the first you heard of it. Are we insane? Who cares? “Stop the presses; he’s getting a ticket!” My husband broke his hand! Top that, Tiger! Why is this news? Surely there must be something more important going on in the world? “He cheated on his wife.” Now there’s an original infraction. France’s Mitterand had both his wife and mistress at his funeral. (This tidbit ended up as a question on Trivial Pursuit! At least they acknowledge it is trivial.)

Angelina is having hot screen sex with Johnny Depp! Folks, wake up! This is their job! It shouldn’t be news to anyone that some people have better jobs than other people. This is one of those jobs! But don’t envy them yet. How do you know they don’t have bad breath? They’re both so skinny, surely their bodies are decomposing in some way and maybe they simply taste of decomposing flesh. You don’t know. Perhaps it is the worst job in the world! Perhaps they are secretly envying the guy who flips those burgers and has all-you-can-eat-french-fries-and-milkshake privileges.

And speaking of flip, I would like to flip off Brazil for even contemplating a lawsuit against Robin Williams for a bad joke on Letterman. It was a joke! You don’t like it? Don’t laugh.

Today was our 25th Wedding Anniversary. Now that’s important! We spent most of the day in bed…sleeping. My poor husband is in week three of the bug-that-just-won’t-die. We got wonderful cards and calls from immediate family members; well, all but one, over whose head I will hold this for a while and then let him off the hook as I usually do. Best laugh of the day came from my dear friend Davia who told me she and her husband were going to drink a toast in our honor as soon as they could liquefy the toast. It’s 12:04 a.m. and the big day has past. I’m tired again. (Still?) I check my email and the headlines that let me know the world is still as stupid a place as it was this morning only now it is raining and 60 degrees. Is it really December? I met a man the other day who thought it was silly that the Jewish New Year takes place in the 7th month of the Jewish year. Makes sense to me. I get older in June. My marriage gets older in December. Every day is important. The markers only help us appreciate the passage of time. I have to sleep now which will be difficult as poor husband is next to me hacking up a lung. It’s okay. I have it on good authority that I now snore. I hope he feels better tomorrow. Another day…