my dear friend from college, suzanne has been visiting this weekend. we had fun on saturday when we took BC to the mall to just shop and cruise around, much like we did in our younger days. BC really loved hitting the mall with us older ladies; she gave great feedback as i was trying things on. for example:
mom, that dress looks like the one i tried on when we visited colonial williamsburg.
and
mom, this dress is all wrong for you. it makes your butt look bigger.
and
mom, you need to wear your pants lower, like i do.
yep. in one hop, skip, and jump, we will be landing in that scaryland known as puberty.
one of the funniest things suz, BC, and i realized was that the merchants at the mall were all piping in 80’s music. we heard yaz, we heard depeche mode (or that peshy thing, as my mom used to call them). hell, even BC looked up at me, puzzled, when she was spraying her tenth bottle of whatever at bath and body works — mom, they’re playing lips like sugar!?
yes, virginia, i am now the targeted demographic.
now that i’m a targeted demographic, i am feeling just a tad bit maudlin. i am looking back. and little screams 80s more than the collected works of john hughes. in fact, i really still wish i could host a john hughes film festival — at least, of the three or four flicks of his that i can stand to see multiple times.
one of them, of course, is the classic sixteen candles. molly ringwald was hughes’ muse (heh — say hughes’ muse ten times fast!), and this movie is probably the very best of the entire bunch. no movie captures the awkward teen years better than this — or at least, funnier than this one. the writing is top-notch.
and my favorite part, of course, is the end, when jake ryan is helping samantha baker blow out her birthday candles. i’m not entirely sure why hughes chose if you were here for that moment; the lyrics don’t exactly work. but musically, when you hear the swells behind this innocent scene, it just hits you in the gut.
and you can no longer hear this song without getting a little wistful. which is where i am at the moment.
wistful for a time when i was a different sort of demographic.
at least the book illustrations make her look a little jewish. or italian.
recently, an american girl catalog made it’s way into my mailbox. for those of you who do not have a girl between the ages of 7-10 in your home, let me school you.
american girl is the wildly-successful doll/book franchise now owned by mattel. they sell you a doll from a specific period in american history for about $100. then, you’re free to buy the ultra-expensive accessories as well as books that tell the story of said doll. if you’re REALLY insanefanaticalup for spoiling your child beyond the realm of what is okay excited by the series, you can take your child to have a special tea at one of the american girl doll stores, located in a few major US cities. to the tune of several hundred dollars. (that must be one hell of a cup of tea.) for the record, we’ve never bought any of the dolls, but we have read plenty of the books thanks to our local public library. we couldn’t get through the hispanic girl’s saga, but we especially enjoyed spunky kit kittredge‘s tale as well as that of the revolutionary war era doll, felicity merriman.
while rebecca rubin, the newest addition to the american girl family is not actually the first jewish girl doll offered (there was once, for a split second, a jewish girl doll offered as part of some sort of calendar doll thingy about 20 years ago), she is the first here-to-stay jewish girl doll, with a full backstory and tons of expensive props. (i can’t wait to hear about little cornfed midwestern girls begging their moms and dads (and santa) to bring them rebecca’s sideboard and sabbath set, complete with challah and candlesticks. does it come complete with brachot (blessings/prayers for the non-tribal set)?)
anyway, in truth, i have a warm spot in my heart for this little doll and for this effort already. rebecca lives in new york city in 1914, the child of jewish immigrants from russia. i haven’t read the stories (yet), but i suspect they involve the pull jewish immigrants of the time felt between staying true to their cultural roots while immersing themselves in their new american identities. my grandmothers, also NYC dwellers back in that day, would have either been a trifle bit older or a trifle bit younger than rebecca, so i can smile to myself a bit, thinking about what their lives must have been like back then.
i know their families worked their tails off, that’s for sure.
i wonder, in fact, whether there’s any mention of things such as the horrible working conditions these immigrants (and their italian, polish, irish, and other internationally-born brethren) endured back then — i suspect a mention of the triangle shirtwaist factory fire would be something i would want to talk about with my kids. if there is, i’m sure it’s like a whisper that won’t be noticed except by parents like me, who will pounce on it as a teachable moment.
anyway.
mattel took several years to get this one right. and while the actual face of the doll is exactly like every other american girl doll (let’s all join hands and sing we are the world. we all look alike, you know! seriously, don’t you think people would have shrieked if they gave the jewish girl a beak to remember? so i guess i understand that move.), there’s something kind of wonderful to finally be recognized, even in this small way, as american. my ancestors wanted so much to be accepted as american. they were sometimes greeted with signs like this:
even when it seemed that jews were a bit more accepted in american society, there are still holdouts, people who think we can’t be americans if we also have a warm spot in our hearts for israel. i still remember when i, a high school rising senior, was being interviewed as a candidate for new jersey girls’ state. the craggy-faced american legion men asked me a question that infuriates me to this day:
if america went to war with israel, whose side would you be on?
no one asked any of the other interviewees whether they would side with america or ireland, or america or italy, or america or england. people seem to think that you can’t be an american and a jew, which is an idea that is unfathomable to me.
my grandparents and their parents worked incredibly hard to experience the american dream. they had their struggles, and then, my parents probably had their own challenges growing up jewish in america. jews are not the only people who struggle here; but because it is our ethnicity as well as our religious and cultural background, it has been harder to gain acceptance. you can be irish or italian or polish, but you can still share a sausage and a smile. for us, it’s a little more of a difficult proposition. not insurmountable, though.
i am an american jew. being jewish infuses everything there is about my americanism. and being american pervades every aspect of my judaism.
and when i see mattel bringing forth an american girl doll like rebecca rubin, i know that the struggles of my ancestors to be american have not been in vain.
somewhere, my grandmas are kvelling*.
*Kvell:(Yiddish) to take great pride and pleasure; a peculiarly Jewish joy most often associated with the accomplishments of one’s family members
both BC and hellboy have started camp this week. so far, the only casualty involved would be hellboy’s swim trunks and rash guard, which he lost the very first day and which are not present in any of the lost and found bins. i’ll chalk it up to his inexperience and try to not fret, considering he was growing out of that set anyway.
hellboy lucked out. his best girlfriend from kindergarten, M, is in his group at camp. on the first day, i hid behind a tree, stalker-helicopter mom that i am, watching the group get organized. hellboy had a deathgrip on M’s hand, which another little girl didn’t like very much. the other little girl, who i found out later was M’s friend from preschool, was very much interested in tearing this couple asunder. ultimately, though, they’ve all apparently settled their differences. besides, hellboy has made friends with one very nice-sounding little boy and another little boy, who curiously started out their friendship by kicking hellboy in the nuts while in the post-pool shower portion of the day. (i have had friendships start in even odder ways, so i guess i will take a deep breath and see where this one goes.)
madame, as is typical, knew no one in her group when she started. [how wonderful for the moms (and dads!) who get themselves organized enough in january to get their kids together with other children at camp. this was not a year like that in this house.] fortunately, you could drop BC in a crowd of millions and she would make a life-long friend (if not several) by day’s end. (this of course would be thanks to my gene pool contributions.) so i don’t usually worry about BC in new situations. she goes through the same motions i do — she frets that she knows no one, then she just finds someone who looks like they could do with a friend, and voila! instant social scene.
this year, BC has already made her friend for the session. per usual, i asked BC which local school her new friend A is from. mommy, she replied, A is from saudi arabia. we have lots and lots of people from all over the world in these here parts, so i figured, sure, she’s from there, but where does she live now?
she lives in saudi arabia, girlfriend replied, getting irritated. her family is here for the summer and they sent her to camp.
alrighty. well, that’s got to be interesting, huh? has she told you anything about saudi arabia? i asked.
yes, she was born in philadelphia, but her family is from saudi arabia. that makes her american because she was born here, right?
i replied, yep. how lovely — you might make a new penpal, i replied, hopefully. where is this going?
she’s muslim. i helped her out today and told her that she shouldn’t eat the pepperoni on the pizza they gave us for lunch. she can’t eat pork, either, but i don’t think she knew what pepperoni was. so i helped her. i remembered DiDi (BC’s beloved friend from daycare, who is really named kareem and who is apparently still the man she wants to marry) can’t eat pork because he’s muslim. so i figured she couldn’t, either.
i scratched my head a little. my parents never had to navigate these sorts of situations. well, that’s a mitzvah that you helped her keep with her beliefs, honey. and besides, her beliefs aren’t that much different than yours are. does she know you’re jewish?
sure, BC replied, i told her.but she doesn’t know what jewish means.
should i chalk it up to youth? should i chalk it up to purposeful omission? i don’t know. but i believe that peace happens, one person at a time. i have to be positive and hopeful and not make assumptions, not jump to any stupid or misguided conclusions. because peace no longer just starts with me.
yeah, i know. i’ve ranted for years about inadequate song covers. and i would be remiss if i didn’t point out that this is a cover of an excellent psychedelic single by a still-extant UK band called status quo. to be sure, camper van’s critically acclaimed album from 1989 key lime pie could stand all on it’s own merits without this cover ((i was born in a) laundromat is classic) — but to me, pictures of matchstick men just puts it over the top. the quivering violin removes the psychedelia from the song, to be sure, but it adds a certain earthy grittiness that was absolutely of its time. i regularly drive BS insane by randomly breaking into that riff — with my voice imitating the violin in what must be the sound equivalent of seinfeld‘s elaine’s dance.
and then, of course, there’s david lowery, who founded camper van and cracker — two bands i’ve adored for a long, long time. (besides the famous teen angst, which smells WAY better thanteen spirit, cracker performed an excellent cover of jerry garcia’s loser (bringing the latter into a doldrom-laden territory where i wondered whether it was recorded in a meth lab.)) there’s something about his voice that seems more approachable and unpolished — in a very good way.
i understand that cracker and camper van play around from time to time. i only saw cracker once (in the early ’90s, pre-kids, of course), which is one more time than i ever saw camper van. it looks like they have a weekend fest in california in some place called pioneertown. gee whiz, i wonder whether we could just bring the kids 😉
now that i’ve pinched myself and woken up from that thought… i can always hope that they come back to our area someday.
in a moment of insanityfit of hysteria second when i was inspired to just do something about my weight and health, i committed myself to an asylum a month-long bootcamp. a bootcamp that i can continue with until the end of september if i so desire. a bootcamp that is both land-based AND amphibious. (as in we run AND we swim, somewhere in between squats and other excruciating moments with our instructor, a triathlete.) a bootcamp for which i must awake at 5 am every morning (and which also means BS must awake at 5 am, causing him much unanticipated happiness, as you might imagine. who loves you, BS? the most wonderful, supportive husband on the planet i have, you know.)
today was day three of the saga that you’ll hear about already in progress; and i’m here to tell you that i am, in fact, the class bottom feeder. because of the bionic knee (and the zillion pounds atop it), i ran/walked a timed mile today (where others did two. yes. there were people who lapped me. they did two miles in less time than i did one.) yesterday, i swam a timed 150 meters where others did 200. (and also lapped me.)
and in between it all are pushups and squats and all sorts of torture designed to make your muscles wake up and realize that they have a purpose other than waving at the french fries as they pass by on their way to the tummy. damn – every time i rolled over in bed last night, i woke up in pain — my stomach muscles are probably in complete and utter shock, having been on vacation since 2003. our instructor is cruel but fair. she’s a late-20s lady who probably does all of these things and more before she comes to our class. but bless her heart, she does the job.
okay, okay. so the only reason i didn’t come in dead last today in the run was because a 50-something guy who is a runner had knee surgery, so he has to walk. (his wife is also a triathlete. what is UP with these people. they do this FOR FUN?) but here’s the good part:
i finished.
and i figure, if i keep this up and i watch my food intake, i might lose a few pounds like my pal leifer, who is slimming down, too.
it’s funny — i’ve been working out on ellipticals and treadmills and such, and yet none of that seemed hard, like this is. i think i have a tendency to coast when i am on an exercise machine. (hell, i sing and dance on the elliptical when a great song comes on, much to the laughter of the people at the community center who pass me by. like i care.) so for now, i’m trying exercise the old fashioned way.
yeah, it would be more fun if i were playing a sport. but i figure i’ll do this. i need to think up a reward system: finish a week, do X. finish 2 weeks, do Y. finish a month?
yippee! a song about abbie hoffmann and a few of his pals. seven, to be precise.
the story is a lot more complicated than this, but in short: protesters went to chicago to protest the war during the democratic national convention in 1968. things got violent. hilarity did not ensue. the eight ringleaders of the experience were arrested: one, black panther bobby seale, was bound and gagged and tied up to a chair as nash alluded because he was protesting that his attorney could not represent him (his attorney required gallbladder surgery) and he wanted to wait so that he could be represented by his attorney. the judge was enraged, severed him from the trial, and threw him in jail for four years for contempt (an absurdly long amount of time for that offense, in my humble opinion.)
and then there were seven.
former hollies and CSN/CSNY member graham nash tends to write best when he’s protesting, like the gem immigration man. but chicago is an incredible piece of music. released in 1971, it may very well be the last song that had any ounce of 1960s optimism in it before it was completely beaten out of everyone (and they all gave in to a bummer of a bad trip known as watergate.) in it, nash pleads with wildly-talented (and wildly-egomaniacal) bandmates neil young and stephen stills to join him in chicago just to sing. if the group got together to perform there, magical things could happen:
We can change the world
Re-arrange the world
It’s dying – to get better
unfortunately, i believe they both turned him down. i believe any convictions that the seven had were eventually overturned anyway, sans musical fanfare.
for me, this song brings back an extremely optimistic point in my life. it was 1996, and i was working for a major american online service, helping to develop online content in a variety of areas. i had already helped develop an online astrology site, an online moms site, and a matchmaking site (which was eventually bought out by match.com), and i was truly enjoying a creative work period. it was definitely not one of the easiest parts of my worklife for reasons i’ll keep to myself; but in general, it was an exciting time to be on the bleeding edge of the popularization of the internet.
one of my boss’ secretaries had a boxed set of crosby, stills, nash and young, a box set i still covet to this day. other versions of many classic chesnuts appear in this four disc set — jerry garcia shows up with his slide guitar for a few numbers, for example. this wonderful woman let me borrow this set for what seemed like months; i listened to discs in my car on the way to work for a lot of that summer. and as i drove, thinking about all the novel ways that the internet was revolutionizing the world, the words had a particular resonance.
We can change the world
Re-arrange the world
It’s dying – if you believe in justice
It’s dying – and if you believe in freedom
It’s dying – let a man live his own life
It’s dying – rules and regulations, who needs them
Open up the door
We can change the world
sure, i was being absurdly idealistic; the next year, my job disappeared and only thanks to the deus ex machina known as my original company boss did i get another job in the company.
but for one brief shining moment, i really thought i was a tiny, tiny piece of a revolution.
in truth, i would have featured we may never pass this way again in my brother’s honor; he played the hell out of that song his senior year in high school, and it does make me tear up from time to time when i hear it in some public place like the grocery store. (highly embarrassing, i’m sure.) but in truth, the only videos available for that song include a very rotund man singing it off-key at a karaoke contest (prompting one commenter to point out that the boats in the video are moving quickly away to get the hell out of earshot) and some poor woman who filmed herself singing the song while driving around her parents’ home, waiting for the ambulance to come and pick her mother up and take mom to the nursing home. (i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried.)
(happy birthday, big brother. have an earache.)
so i’ll stick with seals and crofts’ hit summer breeze, a pretty song i’m sure he’d agree is a good one (and also one prone to being heard in places like elevators.) i don’t believe they tour anymore; and even if they did, i would probably skip a show since i read once that the two, both members of the Bahá’� faith, talk about their faith after shows. (i have nothing against anyone’s faith; but i don’t want to get lectured after a show about anything. not judaism, not christianity, not the flying spaghetti monster. nada.)
but this song conjures up powerful images of a hot july evening; of the scent of jasmine floathing in the air; and the arms that reach out to hold me in the evening when the day is through. it is simply beautiful.
so i’ll shut my mouth and say no more. that, in and of itself, is perhaps the best gift i can give to my brother.
somebody apparently forgot to tell people in manhattan and jersey city that the defense department was flying some big-ass birds for a photo op yesterday. two f-16 fighters flew the low circuit around parts of new york and new jersey and scared the bejesus out of thousands, who feared a repeat of 9/11. the birds had flown in the grand canyon for a photo-op; now, some brilliant person wanted them filmed in the famous cavern of hell.
and no, i’m not making this up.
i can identify with these terrified people. see, i live in the flight path of national airport. i also live near both the pentagon AND, for the terrifying trifecta win, arlington national cemetary (our county motto: welcome to arlington: america’s graveyard!) we lived through our own local installment of terror on 9/11; and while we didn’t experience the twin towers’ scope of damage, ye olde pentagon certainly had seen much better days.
(by the way, i write with only a microscopic scintilla of sadly-twinged gest: a friend’s wife was on the plane that hit the pentagon. so yes, it’s real. really, r e a l l y, real.)
and now, whenever some muckety-muck dies and wants to be buried among the gazillion, the proud, the dead military people, arlington cemetary presses the big guns into service. over my neighborhood, we get fighter planes, we get scary planes — hell, one day, a B52 bomber shook my house’s foundations as it flew over to honor some very important soldier. (i wonder sometimes whether the raccoons in the nearby woods have some sort of post traumatic stress disorder because of it.) when we’re lucky, we get notice from the county that there will be some aircraft overhead that aren’t the usual jumbo jets winging to DCA.
and then, there are days like last thursday. i was out on a run (which should probably more accurately be termed as a run-walk, now that i’m the mom with the bionic knee… if only i could get the sound effects that go along with it!) when suddenly, there, in the sky… it’s a bird… it’s a plane… its THREE FIGHTER JETS IN FORMATION OVER MY STREET!
no one sent me the memo. my email, my cell phone, all devoid of info. shit! are we under attack??? well, nothing gets my ass zipping like the thought of the impending apocalypse. (if the four horsemen are going to be riding by, you bet my last moments won’t be spent jogging for my cardio enjoyment.) i flew, speedy-quick, into my house. i didn’t see anything on the computer monitor. so i did the next best thing:
i called BS.
(because, of course, my beloved spouse is the font of all information.)
honey, i cried, sweat pouring into the tiny holes of the cordless phone, i just saw… huff puff… three fighter jets over the neighborhood… puff huff… is there anything on the net about this? :breath breath breath breath: (because, of course, BS is always online; and when the revolution comes, it will be televised, but not after it’s been Facebooked, Tweeted, and probably even Flickr’d as well.)
i was still panting when i heard my beloved spouse’s annoyed tone. you know, if we’re under attack, they won’t be flying in formation.
so i’ve just returned from something called a sleep study. i haven’t been sleeping well for awhile — and not just because there are little people who occasionally wake me up at night over a nightmare or feeling barfy. i don’t quite breathe right, and every morning, i don’t exactly wake up fresh as a daisy, so to speak. my pulmonologist decided i might have sleep apnea and sent me to get a sleep study. in theory, this might be the easiest test you ever take. in reality, perhaps not so much.
our sleep center happens to be located in our local hospital — yes, the same one where i not only had two babies but also spent two weeks searching for my dear departed platelets. jools was soothed enough when i told him that they would send me home by 6 am (the same time he wakes up), but BC was completely wigged out. seems that the girl remembers my history of going to the hospital to check something out and then getting locked up there for awhile. in short, she was afraid.
it’s very difficult to be ill as a parent. it’s hard enough to be ill, of course; but when you’re a parent, there are other people who are younger and more sensitive to think about. it destroys me to know that my daughter will forever be freaked out whenever i go to a hospital, even for the most benign reasons (such as a sleep study.) we had sturm; we had drang; we had a lot of tears. but the time came, and i had to leave my girl, sobbing in her daddy’s arms.
to be honest, i wasn’t exactly enjoying the idea of spending a night in the hospital. i had to check in through the Emergency Room registration, as regular registration is closed at 8:45 pm. i dread ERs simply because i do not want to catch whatever the hell is in there. luckily, then, they speedily send you to sit in the main lobby and wait for the sleep team. as i am friend to the friendless, i ended up talking with a hospital employee who was sitting and waiting for someone. we talked about how his night-shift work was destroying his life and himself. (yeah, i have that affect on people. i have missed my calling as a talk show host.)
eventually, the sleep team came and escorted me and two men up to our expensive hotel rooms our rooms, which had bathrooms with showers. oddly enough, no complimentary soap. i filled out some forms, had electrodes placed all over me, and learned about the cpap machine (in case they needed to use one on me in the night, they didn’t want me to be freaked out by someone putting as mask over my face while i was in a dream state.) who knew that there is a mask simply for women? (i was told that as women age, our heads get bigger but our noses shrink. that’s one for the books.)
and then, nighty-night time. on the bright side, the hospital now has regular TV remotes instead of the huge thingies that don’t let you do anything but move a channel forward. however, i was so tired, i just turned it off after 5 minutes of la grande illusion and tried to sleep.
try would be the operative word. i tossed. i turned. i couldn’t get comfy all wired up. oh, and i was afraid i would have to wake up and hit the loo, which would mean that the lady who helped me would have to actually come in, unwrap me from my cords, and take me to the bathroom. no thanks. i think i slept a tiny bit, but most of my night i recall being awake.
forget all about that macho shit and learn how to play guitar.
sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, and you really want it that way. you get a little weary of having some millionaire preach to you from his or her pulpit of righteousness. (yeah — i’m talking about you, mr. springsteen. i love you, i’ll always love you, and you’re bringing me down as of late with your canned patter and your albums that aren’t really exploring much new territory.) and then, sometimes, you get a guy like john cougar melonhead who simply talks plain and talks true.
hell yeah, i am trying to convince jools that he needs to learn how to play something. sure, learning to read music apparently helps kids mathematically and logically. as a mom, i guess i’m supposed to carry that banner for the little man. sharpen his brain, that sort of thing. and to be truthful, this little dude is truly musical. you should see him play air guitar. hell, you should see him keep time when he drums. he sings in tune, he dances like fire, and in short, he definitely inherited plenty of my artsy-fartsy genes.
but damn, i’m looking toward his future. there are a gazillion women out there who will fall in love with his huge, puddle brown eyes. but a gazillion more will truly go head-over-heels when he plays over the hills and far away just for them, just as i play (air guitar-wise) on his little back as he falls asleep to the baby zeppelin version.
play guitar, dude. just like mr. melonball does. mr. melancholy has always been able to crank out a tune that goes straight to the point, do not pass go, do not collect dust or allegory. and while there are days when i like layers in my lyrics, when i want to cut to the chase, our little pink-housed pal from indiana is the go-to guy.
learn to play guitar, jools. you’ll thank me one day.
