Service Interruptus

Here we are, a few days into Chanukah, and I have a great Jewish story to share. It doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday, but who cares, really? A good story is a good story.

Let’s start with a little background for context. I have been on the board of my temple for what feels like centuries. One of the duties, nay, privileges, of being a board member is that we have the honor to sit on the bimah during Shabbat and other special services.  The bimah is like the stage of the sanctuary where all the religious stuff takes place, where the rabbi does his rabbiing and the torah ark is kept and a few chairs have been placed for board members or other recognized congregants. Even though it’s an honor and a privilege, few board members willingly sign up to take a turn. To be honest, it’s not my favorite part of being on the board, but once I am there, I am usually over my dread and rather enjoy myself.

Part of the reason why is our rabbi. I don’t know if other board members have this problem, but whenever I have bimah duty, something happens that makes the two of us crack up and spend the rest of the service trying not to laugh. Many a time he has caught me laughing at something I shouldn’t, maybe a person coughing, his voice cracking, him choking on water, that sort of thing. Who doesn’t want a rabbi with a sense of humor?

Last week, I was doubly honored to have bimah duty because I was the attending board member for a bat mitzvah. My family is friendly with the bat mitzvah family, and I was genuinely happy to be a part of their daughter’s special day. They decided to have a Havdalah service, an afternoon service that is sort of like the closing ceremonies for Shabbat. It’s a lovely tradition, especially in early winter, when the sunset occurs right at the end of services.

Bear with me. I am getting to the great story, I promise.

At our temple, the chairs for the board members are stage left on the bimah, and the far right wall of the sanctuary is glass with a lovely view of the setting sun. Less lovely is the view of the neighboring church. I always call it the Church of the Nazarene, which may or may not be its name, but close enough.  I don’t use churches as landmarks because to me, they are pretty much all the same. Some are more conservative (or crazy) than others, but in my southern town, we have churches on every corner like real cities have Starbucks.

This particular church is in full Christmas mode right now. They do a live nativity drive-through production, complete with animals and back drops and costumes and hastily constructed mangers and whatever else is involved in a crèche. Every year, they use the parking area on the right side of our building to store the animal trailer. It doesn’t interfere with our temple much, and we are happy to do it in the spirit of Christian neighborliness.

So here we go.

While the bat mitzvah girl stood at the podium to lead the congregation in prayer, the rabbi sat next to me as we watched her. I could see what was going on just outside the windows from my board member chair, and since I am easily distracted, I paid a bit more attention to that than the Hebrew prayers. I watched as a man dressed in ancient Bedouin attire led a horse down the hill to the parking lot.

I whispered to the rabbi, “Is that a horse?” He replied, “Just wait. There’s going to be a camel next.”

As the service continued, more people in period clothing walked back and forth behind the neighboring church. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to see the camel.

Eventually, we reached the Torah portion of the service. During a bar or bat mitzvah,  three generations of family stand in a line in front of the congregation and pass the Torah from grandparent to parent to child, symbolizing the sharing of Jewish teaching and values throughout the generations from ancient times to today. It’s always a precarious situation; Torah scrolls are pretty heavy, and grandparents and children are not the physically strongest of the Jewish people.

As the congregation stood and watched the ceremony, the dromedary camel made its appearance. Two people in traditional desert garb were wrangling it, but the camel didn’t give a fuck about the live nativity in which it was to participate. It struggled against its lead, flailing its head back and forth. In a show of defiance and anger, the camel reared up on its back legs, wildly thrashing its front legs in an attempt to make a run for freedom.  It finally gave up, defeated, and was led away to participate in the live nativity. I wondered if an unfortunate wise man volunteer was going to have to ride it. An angry camel doesn’t seem like a safe mode of transport, even for a biblical reenactment.

I continued to watch through the window, but alas, no other livestock appeared. After the Torah was read, the bat mitzvah girl gave her speech.

The rabbi again sat next to me and whispered,” I would like you to recognize my professionalism for not losing it with that camel.” I smiled and whispered back,” Very impressive. I doubt many people could maintain their composure.” “I’m worried about my car. I parked it in that lot,” he said. “Why did I park over there? I hope it didn’t take a crap out there.”

Now, I can’t be certain if that was what the rabbi whispered to me, as we were trying to be quiet. He may not have said that on the bimah, in front of G-d and everybody, but that’s what I wanted to hear.

The rest of the service continued without any animal distraction on the other side of the window. The bat mitzvah girl finished her sermon, kept it together during her parents’ speech, and beamed with pride when she was through. She was amazing.

The rabbi mentioned the camel’s appearance as he offered some final thoughts. He made a joke to the congregation that if they wanted to witness a reenactment of the birth of a Jewish baby boy 2,015 years ago, they could go next door after the service. From the pews, with the windows to the side, the congregation couldn’t really see what was going on outside. Not too many people saw the camel episode, so they didn’t have the distraction that the rabbi and I did from our vantage point.

Never before had I ever seen a distraught camel at a bat mitzvah, but I have to admit, it just added to the whole experience. To sit inside a modern building, listening to a child read from an ancient religious text, while on the other side of the wall, people dressed up in clothing that we assume was like that worn thousands of years ago, reenacting an historical event where people spoke the language she was reading, well, that’s some powerful irony right there. It also made for a one-of-a-kind rite of passage, and I was honored to be a part of it.

Half as Much but not Half Enough

Yesterday was my half birthday. I am forty five and a half years old. Remember when it was your half birthday when you were a kid? It seemed like the kind of thing that should call for at least half of a celebration. Maybe a cupcake, or an extra hug or at least someone remembering it was your half birthday (Happy half birthday to my sister LM, whose half birthday was a mere four days ago). I’m not the only one who feels that way; if you don’t believe me, mosey on over to Pinterest. Now that I’m, well, more middle-aged, maybe it’s the sort of thing I don’t need to announce to the world, even if I am writing about it now and thus, essentially, announcing it to the world.

Instead, this half birthday of mine will be used to sort of reflect on the past half year, to check in with myself and see how I’m doing. After all, this is my twelfth of the twelve blogs of Christmas, and a little recap isn’t such a bad thing.

For the past few years, I have set myself a goal of writing twelve blog posts for the holidays, allowing myself from the beginning of December until roughly Epiphany, January 6, to complete this task. It isn’t as easy as it sounds, if it does sound easy, and if it does, you are either extremely prolific or extremely misinformed. I generally write 1000 words or so per post, so twelve posts is 12,000 words, because math. 12,000 words is roughly a children’s chapter book or a good chunk of a slim novel, so it isn’t a small amount of writing. It’s no month in the life of a James Patterson or a Stephen King, mind you, but chances are the likes of them aren’t in charge of all the holiday preparations in their house. Just a wild guess, but I bet I’m right.

In addition to trying to write 12,000 words in a month, I also plan celebrations for both Hanukkah and Christmas. That means I do all the planning, shopping, cooking, wrapping, and giving for two big holidays that occur roughly at the same time. If you think the holidays are overwhelming on their own, try coming up with twelve different topics describe and share at the same time. Nobody asks me do this, and even sadder, nobody pays me to do this. I put this on myself. I am the one who turns a fun little hobby into a stressor.

This year was different, though. This year, in addition to the two big holidays, and the relatively minor New Year’s celebration (because, let’s face it, I am not twenty five and in love, so who cares about New Year’s Eve, I just want to get some rest for fuck’s sake), I also planned and hosted my younger daughter’s bat mitzvah and mourned the loss of my mother in law. That is a whole lot on one plate. Shit, a platter couldn’t hold that buffet of stress, both happy and sad.

So, I am reflecting on all of this, right now, more for me than for you. Maybe you would like to reflect too. Just pretend it’s your half birthday, and join me.

·         I am pretty good at what I do. I don’t have a job outside of my house. I do, however, have almost all the jobs inside the house, except for the home repairs. I tackle these jobs regularly and repeatedly. They are mostly thankless, but honestly, if I didn’t do them seamlessly, everyone would notice. I run a tight ship, whatever the hell that means. I don’t know much about sailing, but I do know what is for dinner tonight and how much milk we have and whether we have enough food for the cats and the hamster. I know when the last load of laundry was completed and when the next will be started. I know who hasn’t done the homework, and I also know that we have plenty of white poster boards, paint, and glue sticks in case we have an emergency project. I know all the things in the house. If you can’t find it, come to me. I know exactly where it is, even if I haven’t seen it in two years.

·         All of the family’s health needs are current. No one needs any prescriptions. All the doctor’s visits have been either completed or scheduled. If there are runny noses, I have plenty of Sudafed, Mucinex, and Kleenex to cover them. I maintain a complete pharmacy at all times, and almost none of it is expired.

·         My daughter’s bat mitzvah was a beautiful thing. She was amazing, and her day was amazing. She had exactly what she wanted. I did not exceed my budget. I loved all my guests for attending, and I understood those who couldn’t be there. I enjoyed the day, no matter how stressful the days leading up to it.

·         I am glad my mother in law is at peace. I have been making dinner for my father in law several days a week since she has passed, and he has been joining us at our table. He gets out of his house, even if I don’t really like him driving. I love to have him over. He sees us as we are, discussing politics, history, whatever odd topic comes up at the dinner table. I am giving my children a gift in this time with their grandfather. We put down our cell phones, we turn off the television, and we are a family, like an old fashioned one, only without the pearls and post dinner cigar, and yes, with the occasional F word. My younger daughter burped last night in front of him, my southern father in law. He is part of the family, and she is comfortable to be a person, and he laughed and was okay with all of it.

·         I need to learn to stop setting crazy ass goals for myself like writing 12,000 words in a month and a half. Seriously, why did I even come up with that in the first place? Why not the 8 blogs of Hanukkah? Isn’t that good enough? Isn’t any of it good enough? Writing is not my career. It is something I do that makes me happy, when I have or make time for my happiness. I shouldn’t allow it to become a chore, unless I start to do it for money, in which case let me add it to the to-do list. It is very difficult to know when to set big goals, and when to give yourself a break. I need to work on that.

Don’t worry about me. I have plenty to keep me busy now that the holidays and the bat mitzvah are over. Don’t feel like you need to give me a call and ask me to do anything else, no matter how small or how much I like you. I don’t want to do more. My new goal is to do the right amount, and hopefully I will figure out what that is.

Almost Perfect

We are two and a half weeks away from the tween’s bat mitzvah. It is almost crunch time, which makes me think of tacos. Mmm, tacos sound good, and appropriate too, because the theme for the bat mitzvah is a Mexican fiesta, the most Jewish party idea ever. We were able to find THE PERFECT DRESS, which honestly is a story for another day, but trust me, it’s exactly what a bat mitzvah should wear for her own fiesta. PERFECT it is, except it needed to be hemmed, so maybe not entirely PERFECT, but damn near close.

Then we had to find shoes to go with THE PERFECT DRESS, which we needed in order to get it hemmed. For those of you who don’t have to get things hemmed, and fuck you if you are one of those, you have to have the shoes you plan to wear with the pants or dress so you know where the hem should be. If you don’t believe me, look at women with boots. You can always tell a woman who knows about hems from where the hem of her pants hits the shoe of the boot. If the pants are tucked into the boot, she is very familiar with hems.

We had the shoes, we had THE PERFECT DRESS, so off we went to the alterations shop. We didn’t just go to any old shop; we went to our friend SS’s mother’s shop. SS is one of my husband’s dearest friends, the fool who introduced us, and an honorary uncle to my children. While he no longer lives in our town, his mother still does, and she has owned an alterations shop since forever. SS had given his mom a heads up to expect us, so when we arrived, she quickly grabbed her bowl of pins and instructed the tween to change into THE PERFECT DRESS.

The tween emerged from the dressing room, a vision with a dragging hem. SS’s mother quickly got her to stand before the three paneled mirror as she knelt on the floor in front of her and eyeballed the right length and fold of the hemline.  After a few pins, she stood back to check the dress length, which was, of course, PERFECT. She sat down on the floor again and began to pin around the dress, taking into account the train, having the tween turn a bit at a time while she worked.

As she pinned, SS’s mother asked all the small talky questions to catch up from last we had seen each other:  how the girls were, their ages, how my husband’s business is doing, even the health of my ailing mother in law. Then she asked my least favorite question, “Do you work?”

I hate that question. The answer is always wrong somehow.  I do work, I work very hard. I just don’t earn a paycheck. People don’t want to know that. They want to know if you have a job. You either have a job or you don’t. Being a wife and mother is a lot of work, but the pay is shit, and nobody counts that as a job, except maybe for other stay at home moms. I volunteer too, but volunteering doesn’t count because you do it for free. The longer I stood there not knowing what to say, the more awkward I became.

“No,” I finally said. “No, I don’t work. Outside of the home. I don’t work outside of caring for my family.”

“So you don’t work?” she asked me again.

“No,” I said quietly. She stopped pinning and looked up at me.

“Good,” she said.

Around this time, a short, round man came into the shop, carrying two pairs of jeans. He wanted to get the inseams measured, which I found odd since most men’s jeans have the measurements right on the labels. He figured if she just measured the pants, she could cut off a couple of inches and he would be saved from the standing in the mirror and getting his little stubby legs pinned.  SS’s mom had him sit and wait while she finished working on the hem of the tween’s dress.

“She looks very pretty,” the man said as he sat down. “It must be prom season.”

It was late December. No amount of being polite would make this prom season.

“Thank you. But not quite. It’s for her bat mitzvah,” I said.

The man said nothing, which meant he didn’t know what a bat mitzvah is or he doesn’t like Jews, or, possibly, he had nothing left to say. SS’s mother finished pinning the hem and stood up.

“Quick question,” I asked her. “What about this?” I pointed to the tween’s chest, where the dress hung empty.

“I have just the thing,” she said and went behind the counter. She came back with two push up bra inserts, which she proceeded to shove down the tween’s dress. She arranged them just so, by both plunging one hand into the bust area while squeezing it into place from the outside of the dress with the other hand. All this took place in front of the man sitting with his pile of denim. I waited for the tween to start crying.

“Don’t mind me,” he said, sensing how uncomfortable my daughter was. “I can close my eyes.”

After a few more manipulations, SS’s mother asked how we thought it looked. The tween and I agreed it improved the lines of the dress, and she took out a few more pins to secure the inserts in place.

“Perfect,” the fat man declared.

“It is,” I agreed. “That’s why we call it THE PERFECT DRESS.”

I helped the tween back to the dressing room, and unzipped the back of the gown and undid the other strap.

“That was so embarrassing,” she whispered. “She stuck her hands right down the front of my dress, and that man sat and watched it all.”

I took the dress from her and hung it on the hanger.

“Today,” I said to her,” you are a woman.”

Over the Rainbow

I have sixty rainbow colored personalized yarmulkes on my kitchen counter, and I have no idea what to do with them. In addition to those kippah, I also have a box full of rubber duckies shaped like unicorns, with rainbow manes. And about 45 brightly colored programs. These are all the extra items left over from my daughter’s bat mitzvah last weekend. Her theme was “rainbows and unicorns,” which in addition to being a teenage girl’s dream, is also the gayest party theme ever.

The theme started out as one of my typically weird dreams. About a year ago, we started thinking about what kind of party E, my now 13 year old daughter, wanted for her bat mitzvah. I had a dream that her bat mitzvah was a rainbow carnival. We had rainbow colored things everywhere, and carnival games and snow cones and corn dogs and a cotton candy machine. We even had a tent with a freak show, the freaks all dressed in rainbow colored costumes. I told E all about my bizarre dream. She said, “I don’t know about the carnival, but I kind of like the rainbows.” And that’s how she picked her theme.

Parties don’t require themes, exactly, but it sure makes it easy to go over the top if you have one, which I did. I ordered monochromatic floral arrangements and table cloths. I ordered a balloon arrangement shaped like a big rainbow arch, with white cloud balloon clusters at the base; one side even had a giant Mylar unicorn head poking out of it. I ordered rainbow cupcakes that were decorated with rainbows, displayed on a rainbow arch. I ordered three cases of rainbow cookies. And if the cookies and cupcakes weren’t enough, I also had a huge glass bowl of Skittles, so if you were in the mood, you could also taste the rainbow.

Now, three days later, the only person tasting the rainbow is my husband, because in addition to the yarmulkes and the programs and the rubber ducks, we also have a gallon sized plastic bag filled with leftover Skittles. Every time he walks through the kitchen, he grabs a few, and then complains about how he can’t stop eating them. I’m just glad they aren’t M&M’s. For the record, I hate Skittles. They could sit on my counter until the apocalypse and I still wouldn’t eat one.

I did manage to send a half a case of rainbow cookies home with my sister’s family. The rest are going bad in my fridge, along with a few dozen pounds of mac and cheese, succotash, chicken fingers, and squash casserole. It all tasted so fabulous on Saturday. Now just looking at it makes my mouth flood with saliva, and not in the good way. We did donate a portion of food to the soup kitchen, but even the soup kitchen doesn’t know what to do with fifteen pounds of peach poppy cole slaw. You know what starts looking like a melted rainbow three days after a party? Fifteen pounds of peach poppy cole slaw.

We had a fabulous party, really we did. And everyone seemed to be enjoying the heck out of themselves, dancing and eating and chatting and laughing. Everything looked beautiful without being excessive. It wasn’t like we hired Elton John and flew everyone to Vegas. But still, there’s nothing that makes you feel like you wasted money like watching your balloon lady pop all of the balloons in the parking lot after the event. We got to see that while we loaded eighteen floral arrangements in the car. Eighteen. Even the cats can’t eat that many floral arrangements.

So what to do with my yarmulke collection? The standard response was “make them into a quilt;” a bunch of people jokingly said that to me as I carted them out of the temple. Is there anything less snuggly than a quilt made of cheap satin beanies? Plus, when I think of satin throws, I think of satin sheets, and when I think of satin sheets, I think of cheap sex. I don’t want to think of cheap sex on a quilt made out of my daughter’s bat mitzvah yarmulkes, in bright gay rainbow colors.

I can’t exactly donate them either. If Goodwill won’t take my old booster seats, it sure as hell won’t take gently used yarmulkes. Who is going to buy them anyway? They were used for maybe an hour and a half. Now what? Send them to an impoverished nation? I doubt a third world country has a use for them either. Plus, the idea of a bunch of men wearing a beanie with my daughter’s name on it is kind of weird, don’t you think?

Which begs the question: If I can’t find a use for my old yarmulkes, what happens to all of the leftover bar and bat mitzvah yarmulkes in big towns like New York City? There are probably more yarmulkes in NYC than there are Jews to wear them. And don’t tell me to Google what to do with them because all I found was a bra made out of yarmulkes, and it didn’t exactly look supportive.

If you can think of a use for them, for any of that stuff, then let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to start scratching out her name and writing in her sister’s. Hopefully, no one will notice when it’s her turn in a couple of years. Maybe her bat mitzvah theme can be recycling. In addition to hand me down clothes and shoes and underwear, only the gently worn ones, she can have a hand me down bat mitzvah too. I’m sure that will make her feel really special, don’t you?

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.