Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Grace Period?


This school year has barely begun and already I'm worrying about where my ten year old daughter, S,  will be attending middle school. She is my baby, and in my mind, she just isn’t ready for the typical middle school experience, complete with mean girls and acne and periods and bullying, not to mention six different teachers and changing classes and lockers. My older daughter is in seventh grade at the closest middle school, and she comes home almost daily with a story of fist fights or make out sessions in the janitor’s closet or the weird girl getting doused with pig’s blood at the school dance. She has adjusted surprisingly well; she found her niche and is maintaining excellent grades. My younger daughter, however, doesn’t seem to handle change as easily. She still hasn’t made that many friends since she left her private school two years ago, and the one close friend she has made isn’t allowed to come over and play, either because we're white or because we aren’t Christian.
The alternatives to regular public middle school are limited in my town. There’s an excellent Catholic school, but she refuses to learn catechism at the same time she learns Hebrew, so that’s out. There’re also a few magnet schools, but honestly, we bought the house in which we live because the middle and high schools are allegedly so good. And then there’s the charter school.
The charter school is small, focused heavily on leadership, community, and academics, with small single gender classes. They insist on uniforms and eschew lockers. They don’t have arts or music or sports teams or electives or a fucking cafeteria, but they do have excellent test scores and creative teachers. Do I think it’s the perfect school for my daughter? No, but perfect doesn’t exist. It is, however, nice to have options.
I attempted to get my older daughter enrolled in the same charter school two years in a row, but no luck. It’s all based on a “lottery” because the state law provides for equal opportunity for admission to charter schools. That being said, the school still has other requirements for entry, including an application, attendance at a mandatory informational meeting, and after the lottery, a screening with the student, parents, and educators, all designed to make sure the school is a good fit for your child. I appreciate that, really. Why go through all the trouble to get your kid in some special school only to change your mind because you didn’t know about the uniforms and the 1:30 dismissal on Friday?
For E, my older daughter, I attended the meeting twice, sitting through the chairperson’s historical information about the school, the stern explanation of curriculum by the teachers, and the registrar’s specific instructions, an hour wasted on what could be easily read on their website from the comfort of my couch. I jumped through all the hoops, completed the application process, and waited for the lottery. The first year, she was 152 on a waiting list for sixty openings. The second year, she rose to 15 on the waiting list. I don’t even know if they had openings. Needless to say, she adjusted well to our zoned middle school and is doing swimmingly.
A friend of mine who has a daughter the same age as S reminded me it was time to attend the meeting for the charter school. I honestly didn’t give it any thought, since the idea of having to take my kids to two different public middle schools seems a bit on the indulgent side. But I would hate to be accused of not treating my daughters fairly, so I agreed to go with her to my third informational meeting in as many years. Why? Because parents are required to attend  the meeting any time they apply for a child, even if another child already attends that school or if they've attended in the past. Again, it has something to do with thinking about what is best for your child and not taking the cookie cutter approach to education, or some such bullshit.
My friend and I met at the W Road Christian Church, where the meeting was held. Nothing screams public school like meeting about it in a church, let alone one that refuses to specify a denomination. We walked into the sanctuary, clutching our completed applications, and found two seats together. The room was just five degrees shy of Hell, an attempt to make church goers reflect on what direction their lives of sin will take them. For us school meeting parents, well, we just drifted into that red-faced, near comatose place, the one where you move beyond “this room is hot” and head straight for bobbing and swaying in your chair.

The meeting was the same meeting I sat through two other times. I learned nothing new, not that I expected to. After daydreaming about the choir section, which was really cool in a clam shell kind of way, I studied the other parents and their children, judging them and also my chances of getting my daughter in the school. Mostly, I was just waiting for my little slip of paper to prove that I had attended.
After the meeting adjourned, my friend and I had one of those brief conversations about whether or not to ask them to accept our applications. At no point in the past hour did they mention taking applications at the meeting, which I pointed out to my friend. She was convinced if she explained to them she had the application all ready to go, they would make an exception for her and happily take it.
We walked up to a couple of teachers who were standing behind a display of textbooks. I stood slightly behind my friend as she mustered up the nerve to ask them if they would accept her paperwork. The younger of the two teachers launched into a polite, indirect spiel about why they don’t take applications at the mandatory meeting, going on and on about how every child is different and to process the information you heard to make the best possible decision for your child’s education. And then he said, “It’s kind of like a waiting period.”
That’s when I opened my mouth.
“Oh, a waiting period? You mean, like if we wanted to have an abortion?”
That’s what came out.
The two teachers stared at me, slack jawed. My friend knit her eyebrows together and grabbed my forearm, leading me out of the building.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” she said. “You can kiss your daughter’s chance of getting in that school goodbye.”
“Nah-uh,” I replied, “because they don’t know who I am. They don’t have this, remember?” I waved my application in her face.
“Well, if there’s a way to kick you out before you even get in, I’m sure they’ll find it. Jesus, and in a church, no less. We’re lucky the whole building didn’t burst in flames.”
“At least I didn’t say anything about a waiting period for buying a gun,” I said.
“You think that’s worse?” she said, rolling her eyes at me.
Next time, if there is next time, my husband is going to that damn meeting. Better yet, my daughter can go to the same school as her sister. Those teachers hear stuff like that every day. Hell, they probably have kids giving each other abortions in the locker room.  
Maybe that’s why they aren’t allowed to take coat hangers to school.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something...Red?


[THIS DISCLAIMER IS FOR MY SISTER. THERE IS PUKE IN THIS STORY, BUT NO PICTURES. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK]
 
My precious MJ is no more. She is now MJS; well, she is actually a Mrs. Yes, MJ got married. MJS freely admits she did it a little differently than some folks. She met a man. They fell in love. They made a love child. They decided to live together, and then she had their love child. He got a new job and moved out of state. She waited until her older daughter finished school, then they moved up there with him. They bought a house. And then, after all that other stuff, they got married.
MJS and her new husband, PS, aren’t naive. They have each been married before, and they decided that the best wedding for them, which isn’t necessarily the kind everyone else would plan, would be to have a small simple ceremony, just the two of them on the beach. They found a woman online who performed coastal weddings. Her name was something like Moonbeam Flowerpot or Petunia Shooting Star. I haven’t seen a picture of her, but I imagine she looks like something from a renaissance faire, with an odd colored full length dress and flowing white hair.

 MJS and her man left the kids with her parents and drove down to the beach. MJS wore white, so what? They stood in the sand, and Milky Way Snapdragon pulled an older couple off the beach to witness their union. The couple was having their photo taken on the occasion of their thirty fifth wedding anniversary, so what more can you ask for in a couple of witnesses, really. MJS and PS were happy, and they married and celebrated by eating too much dinner and then having an intimate moment or two. You know how newlyweds are. A few days later, they had a small wedding reception in the clubhouse of their neighborhood, and my family along with some of their close friends and family members joined them to celebrate their big day.

“What do you want for a gift?” I asked her before her actual big day.
“Don’t get me anything. You don’t get people anything when they are already living together and have a baby.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
She had not registered for gifts, and Emily Post didn’t have any great suggestions on what to get a couple that’s already done all the stuff people do after they get married. Hallmark doesn’t even make a card that says “You finally got married? Jesus, I mean Mazel tov!” She’s got dishes and sheets and baking pans and glasses and furniture. And a baby. But what could I do?
“You know what, I would love if you would bake the cake for my reception,” she said.

I love to bake, and I’m pretty good at it, but I am a home baker. My stuff looks like it came from your grandmother, not the Cake Boss.
“I’m happy to bake for you, but I can’t make it pretty.”

“I don’t care about that,” MJS said. “I just want your red velvet.”

"I can't make you a six layered cake. I only have one sized pan."

She decided I should make two separate cakes. We would put out the first, and when that one was finished, we would set out the next one, and hopefully have enough for all the guests.

The day before we went to the reception, I baked six layers of red velvet cake. As they cooled on the counter, I doubled a batch of cream cheese frosting in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I frosted and chilled and smoothed and frosted and chilled and smoothed until I had two separate three layer cakes. I evened out the icing and the cakes looked like they usually did, like someone baked them at home. They were a tad lopsided, with an edge of red poking out of the fluffy white. They were less like newlyweds and more like a tired old couple, the kind that gave up on sex and settled for companionship. I attempted dressing up the sides with white chocolate shavings, which had about the same effect as if I emptied my vacuum bag on top of them.
I loaded the cakes into a couple of coolers and  we drove up to North Carolina for the reception. That night, it didn’t matter what the cakes looked like. After a drink or two and a contented belly full of appetizers and lasagna, everyone just wanted something sweet. I sliced the first cake and served it and everyone was happy, especially the bride.
Red velvet cake is rich, and with thin slices, that first cake was enough to serve the small crowd. MJS packed up the second one along with the rest of the evening’s leftovers and took them home to enjoy for the next few days after all the company was gone. She had that cake, along with an apple cake her mother made, sitting against the back splash on the counter, ready for anyone to come along and help themselves to a slice when the mood struck.
Unfortunately, the mood struck PS’s yellow lab, Boone, before anyone else could get a hankering. While no one was looking, he stood next to the counter on his hind legs and used his front paws to scoot the cakes closer to the edge. Then he ate them. Over half a red velvet cake, and about the same amount of apple cake, choked down by one pig of a dog.
MJS was so upset. Gone was her cake for breakfast. Gone was a slice for afternoon snack for her daughter. Gone was the after dinner treat PS had so anticipated.
Over two cakes: that’s a lot for one dog to handle. Around bedtime that night, he got sick as, well, a dog. He threw up bright red dog puke all over the bedroom. He upchucked more red in the yard. He dry heaved in the bathroom for a few hours. Then he collapsed on his side, exhausted from all the throwing up, and slept the sleep of the innocent. MJS, being the caregiver in her home, was up all night, tending to the dog and the messes he made.
“The fucking dog ate all the cake,” she told me the next day.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I said to her. Yes, we really do say 'fuck' that often.
“Fucking dog. I guess he’s mine now.”
“No, he’s a step dog. But I guess you have to love him like he was your own.”
“Fucker,” she said.
“At least he didn’t ruin your new  white rug,” I said helpfully.
“No, but he did puke in the yard, and every single one of us stepped in it.”
“Is that what’s meant by ‘for better or for worse’?”
“There is nothing about dog puke in wedding vows,” she said, “but maybe there should be.”

Congratulations, MJS and PS! And control your dog. I don’t make dog cakes, you know.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Just a Few Words


I need to be writing a speech right now. Speech writing is a first for me, as will be the speech giving that follows it. The subject is one I know well: my daughter. The occasion? Her bat mitzvah, a mere month away. My daughter, E, also has to give a speech, one which she is already finished writing, by the way, as if she has lots of free time to be writing speeches, in between her Hebrew tutoring and seventh grade homework and guitar and piano lessons and ridiculous amounts of texting. Then again, she had the guidance of the rabbi, a man who gives speeches weekly. Me, I got nothing.
Well, that’s not entirely true. What I have is twelve and a half years’ of memories of my daughter, and one strict admonition: don’t say anything that will embarrass me, Mom.  Don’t say anything inappropriate, Mom. You have to say this in front of the rabbi and my friends and my grandfather, Mom. Don’t scar me for life, Mom. It’s not that I want to say the wrong thing, it’s that I can’t help myself. It’s my super power.

When I sit down to begin my speech, I think about all the wonderful things about my kid. Then I think of the stories to illustrate it. Then I just think of stories. All the hysterical things she has said or done over the years, a small lifetime of inappropriate anecdotes. I can’t tell any of those on her big day, in front of everyone she knows, all those people who have come to show their love and support as she becomes an adult, responsible for her own actions, her deeds and her words. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me; I never had a bat mitzvah, and look at how I turned out.

Once, a long time ago, during the start of the whole Catholic Church pedophile scandals, I was at an art show for a good friend of my husband’s. I didn’t really know many people at the show, but fortified with a glass of wine, I began making small talk with some other people who were friends with my husband’s friend. We went from subject to subject, you know how you do at a party, where one person tells a story which reminds you of a story, and then your story reminds them of another funnier story, and it becomes this Jenga game of top that stories that eventually has to crash.
Tthere I was, talking to these people, and they told a slightly risqué but funny story that involved sex and religion. It reminded me of a similar but more horrible one that I read in the paper, so I told them about it. A priest had molested an altar boy by convincing him that fellatio was a form of the Holy Communion. When I got to that part, which I consider the punch line, the entire room went quiet.  It was like something out of a movie, where time stands still. My words hung in the air for all to see, to remember, to imprint on their minds, until they evaporated into the ether. The couple with whom I was speaking looked at me like I took a dump in front of them, not just any dump, but a dump on the baby Jesus. Turns out they are Catholic. Go figure.

E doesn’t know that story, but she’s been around me enough to know that she should be a little concerned about what might come out of my mouth. Plus, I’ve got the goods on her. With that kind of power comes great responsibility. How am I supposed to write anything about my child and not tell a single story involving a body function or a bad mood? Am I capable of relating a story that doesn’t somehow contain sexual innuendo? She’s an adult now, according to Jewish tradition, so none of it is lost on her, and if you don’t believe me, just say balls or nuts in front of her, for any reason at all, and you tell me if she doesn’t laugh. She hasn’t ever seen any, yet instinctively, she knows to laugh at them.
So I’m stuck. I have lots I can say about this marvelous child of mine, but keeping it clean? I just don’t know. I’m much better at keeping it real. And by real, I mean really wrong.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Can I Get an Amen?


Are religious services supposed to be somber, serious affairs or fun for the whole family? People should enjoy themselves when they go to church or temple, but more like a good time at an interesting lecture and less like at a drunken frat party. It’s tough for my family to find an appropriate balance.  One thing I know for sure, though, is that you should not distract the rabbi from doing his job.
My twelve year old daughter, E,  is rapidly approaching thirteen, and the date of her bat mitzvah looms over my head like one of those cartoon rainclouds. She has been learning Hebrew since she was eight, but now it’s crunch time, and with one month to go, she is eating, drinking, sleeping, and generally obsessing over her big day. One of the things I do to help her prepare is to take her to Friday night services on a pretty regular basis so she can be very familiar and comfortable with everything.

It’s not easy to go every Friday night; I like to do things on Friday nights, and going to sit for an hour and half to pray in a language I don’t speak isn’t usually high on the list. I have told our rabbi before that if we could switch services to Sunday morning, more people would want to go, but he just laughs like he is pretending that’s funny. Since we have been going regularly, however, my daughter and I have made it fun. It’s nice to spend some time alone with each other, no phones, no television, no iPads. We sit calmly and sing along for about the first five minutes, but after that, we lose interest and get slap happy.

It usually starts with us finding bad words in the Hebrew-to-English transliterations. There’s a “tush” in there and a “shit” or two, although they are pronounced like “sheet.” And since our cat’s name is Moshe, a good Hebrew name, we enjoy the many references to him. Whenever the rabbi strums his guitar, one of us will lean over to the other one and whisper, “I feel a song coming on” or “I didn’t realize this was a musical.” Then we get the giggles. It doesn’t matter if whatever we laugh at is even funny. It could be the way someone’s pants are tucked in their crack or a seriously unusual singing voice booming behind us. Whatever it is, funny or not, we start that silent laughter that involves lots of body shaking and tear streaming.

Recently, we attended Friday night services together on a night that a local college group came to observe, like they were on a field trip to the zoo. We generally try to be very welcoming and, there’s that word again, appropriate, so they can study us Jews in our religious habitat. The rabbi took a little extra time to explain parts of the service, but overall, it was the typical Friday night worship scenario.
Friday night services follow a general pattern. We start with a call to worship, then some we are so happy to be here together praying and singing, followed by the Thank God It’s Friday blessings. We take some time to honor the past, pray for peace, and remember the sick. After that, the rabbi reminds us to take a moment for silent prayer.

While the congregation meditates, the rabbi usually drinks from a water bottle he has tucked away in the podium, because all that singing and praying can really parch one’s throat. But that night E and I were there along with the college group, the rabbi choked on his water during the silent prayer. This wasn’t one of those little coughs; it was full blown violent gagging and choking with no breathing.  E and I immediately started cracking up, not because the rabbi was dying in front of us but rather because of the irony of loud choking during the silent prayer. I covered my face with my Gates of Prayer book so he couldn’t see me laughing, although if he looked at my daughter, he would have known. I have no doubt the whole pew shook from our laughter.
We knew he saw us laughing because he began laughing too, laughing and choking. I raised my hands up in the air, since I am of the belief that raising your hands while choking is the best way to make it stop. The rabbi was then choking and laughing with his hands in the air.

“Touchdown!” I whispered to E. At least I hope it was a whisper.

“Raise the roof!” she said back to me. I laughed.
When he regained his composure, he continued services as though nothing happened, making his way through the Torah portion and the sermon with relative ease, punctuated by a small cough or two.

Usually at the end of services before we have refreshments in the social hall, the rabbi offers a priestly blessing over the congregation. He raises his hands overhead and forms the Hebrew letter “shin” with his fingers while reciting a prayer. You know what that looks like if you’ve ever watched Star Trek. Remember Spock and his Vulcan salute, with his four fingers held in a V, two fingers and two fingers? Well, that’s a Jew thing. The rabbi does the Vulcan salute/priestly blessing every week, and whenever we are there, my daughter and I too raise our hands in salute, mostly because it hurts a little between the middle and ring finger, and because it’s funny.

When the rabbi’s hands went up, so did ours. And for the second time that night, the rabbi could not continue because he couldn’t stop giggling. Yes, giggling. He would start again and then have to stop, a little Hebrew, a little laughing, while we were sitting in the pew, laughing along at this inside joke while the other people in the temple tried to figure out what had gotten into their spiritual leader. There was a lot of turning around in seats to see what was so funny, and it was us.
We did offer our apologies after services, and the rabbi seemed cool with it, like he usually does. He knows us, so it’s not like our cutting up is a surprise. The only surprising part was that he didn’t tune us out. “It’s his job to be the rabbi, for Christ’s sake,” I told E. “We have to make more of an effort to control ourselves. We can’t be making the rabbi laugh while he’s up there doing his thang.”Our rabbi has assured me that he is glad we have a good time at services. He’s probably just glad to have some live bodies paying attention, even if we are paying attention to the wrong things.