In My Opinion

Soccer Mom?

I mean, just having a kid who plays soccer doesn’t make me a soccer mom, right?

I mean, does brushing your teeth make you a dentist?

First of all, I don’t have a minivan.  (Smugly) I have a much more environmentally conscious car than that.  A Honda Civic.  Ok, so it’s not a Prius.  When I bought my car they were expensive and hard to get, ok?  But anyway, I use a fraction of the gas getting my kid to soccer games than the moms driving SUV’s the size of a bus.   Why are they so big anyway – do they have hot tubs in them or something?  But I’m not staying on message here. 

Second, my life does not revolve around soccer.  Just because I drive my kid to practice and to games and sit around with the other moms, well, some of the other moms, the ones who have post graduate degrees from superior educational institutions.  Because the rest of them, well, it’s not like I have a whole lot of common with them, like the skinny one with the boob job and the designer jeans.  (Sniffily)  It’s not like you really need an advanced degree to drive in Los Angeles traffic, dig to the bottom of the laundry hamper to find missing soccer socks, and deal with an obnoxious 12-year-old, but it leaves you something to fall back on of the soccer thing doesn’t work out. 

Third, oh, by the way, I can say “third” in four languages.  I just thought you might want to know that.  So, third, I don’t even know the rules of soccer.  Of course, everyone knows that they run around kicking a ball, and then they have to kick it into each other’s net.  And occasionally they get kind of mashed up together, and somebody comes limping off the field, but it’s all part of the game, so no one gets excited.  I figure the coach knows where the nearest emergency room is.  What else is there to know about soccer that really matters? 

Just so you know, I have a life.  A rich and varied life.  Full of interesting people, and culture, and music, and, and, and, depression.  But hey, that’s something else that totally disqualifies me from being a soccer mom.  I’m not perky.  Isn’t perky annoying to just about everyone?  I’ll leave that to the mom with the boob job.

You know, I’d really like to tell you about the incredible book I’m reading about brain research, but I have to go.  Practice is in 30 minutes, and my kid is screaming at me that he can’t find his soccer socks.  (Yelling, over the shoulder) I don’t know where your socks are!  They are where you put them!  We have to go in five minutes!

 

I love Israel (sometimes)

In the current toxic political atmosphere, it has become almost impossible to be both a Zionist and a peacenik.  I am not allowed to be pro-Israel, and at the same time critical of the actions of its blindly right wing government. 

I should be used to this, after eight years of a right-wing administration in the U.S. that vilified as unpatriotic anyone who dared to oppose the war in Iraq.  While Americans love to talk about democracy, and even try to impose it on other peoples, they don’t seem to grasp that one of its core features is the right to criticize one’s government. 

The hardening of the opposing camps in the debate over the Middle East reached the height of absurdity, or tragedy, with the Flotilla incident.  The botched interception of the flotilla is just one more incomprehensibly block-headed action that kicks sand in the face of the international community, and provides encouragement to the anti-Israel, anti-Israeli camp.  But the Netanyahu administration is more or less controlled by the religious right that cares nothing for international opinion because it has God on its side. 

Knowing the flotilla was approaching Gaza, Israeli government officials met to decide on a course of action. According to Haaretz, the Israeli Foreign Ministry pointed out to the Defense Ministry that forcibly stopping the flotilla in international waters would pose a problem from both a legal and public relations standpoint: “If somebody breaks into your home and you shoot him after he enters the doorway, there's no problem in justifying this action in court," said a senior ministry official. "But if you attack the burglar while he is on his way to your house at a distance of two blocks away, then you have a problem."  Seems obvious.  But not when you have lost all sense of perspective.

Coming in the wake of the disastrous incursion into Gaza, this incident has so polarized American Jews that anyone who suggests that this was not the best way to handle the situation is shouted down and insulted as “hating Israel,” as was the regional director of Americans for Peace Now at the recent rally in front of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles.

One of the most unfortunate results of the flotilla incident is the media circus that distracts from the larger issues.  Whatever happened on that boat, any investigation will merely result in each side finding facts to support what they already believed. 

What happened on that boat is unimportant in the context of the bigger picture:

·      The blockade can’t go on forever.  It has created a humanitarian crisis that hurts mostly ordinary citizens. 

·      The international community imposes a double standard on Israel.  There were no demonstrations on college campuses when Palestinian suicide bombers were killing Israeli teenagers.  If, say, Mexico started lobbing rockets into Texas tomorrow, there would be no U.N. meetings and no hand wringing.  The U.S. would calmly nuke Mexico until there was nothing left.  

·      The often-mentioned bunker mentality of the Israelis is not purely the result of inexplicable paranoia.  It comes from the feeling of being besieged, surrounded on all sides by countries that have, in one form or another, been trying to wipe Israel off the map since its creation in 1948.  However, it has always received support from the U.S. and other allies, and cannot afford to go without.

·      After the 1967 war, Israel, thinking it would serve as a buffer against yet another invasion by Egypt, made the mistake of remaining in Gaza.  They are now stuck with the old rule - you break it, you pay for it.

·      The Israeli government has become completely tone-deaf to international opinion. Even more dangerously, Israeli opinion is hardening, supportive of any and all violence by its government.  

Meanwhile the international community dithers around, calling for investigations that will achieve nothing. If peace is truly the goal, the international community has to get on with the hard work of bringing all the parties to the table and refusing to be distracted by the latest headlines.

In the U.S., liberal Jews in the U.S. are appalled by the violence. The Israel that engages in indefensible military actions that result in the deaths of children is not the Israel they were taught to love in their temples, their summer camps, their birthright trips, their ulpans.  Many, especially the younger generation, see no reason to continue supporting Israel at all.  To them I say there is a third option –  working to strengthen the peace movement, pressuring Israel, lovingly, to engage in teshuvah, to once again be a light unto the nations. 

It would be naïve to suggest that Israelis and Palestinians will be holding hands and singing kumbayah anytime soon.  But it is equally unrealistic to believe that Israel can go it alone against hundreds of millions of Muslims.  Israel needs all the Jews of the world, just as those Jews need Israel to be the place where they can feel, as the plane touches down at Ben Gurion, that they are finally coming home. 

Learning New Skills in Middle Age

No matter what medical emergencies happen to me, I will always maintain a strict policy of avoiding brain scans.  I’m afraid to get confirmation that my brain bears an uncanny resemblance to Swiss cheese.  Why do I think the balance in my personal memory bank is this low?  Well, as an example , I’m pretty sure I went to college and graduate school, but only because I have diplomas with my name on them that look authentic.  My brain also seems to have divested itself of most of my childhood memories.  This might have something to do with years of talking about my dysfunctional family in therapy.  After all the sordid details had been recounted at great length,  my brain must have figured, what was the point of hanging on to the memories?  Why not just dump them to get more space on the hard drive, the way you get rid of stuff at Goodwill to make room for more stuff. Sometimes yesterday seems a bit hazy.  What did you say your name was?    

In this context, developing new skills presents quite a challenge.  For reasons that aren’t quite clear, even to me, I decided to take piano lessons after a 35 years hiatus.  In addition to the handicap presented by my, er, reduced capacities, I don’t have a mother anymore to nag me to practice on a daily basis.  I suggested to my teenaged son that he could have this responsibility; after years of being nagged by me, he could now nag me about something.  I thought this golden opportunity would be irresistible, but apparently the lure of Facebook is still stronger.

Fortunately I was assigned to a piano teacher who was too jaded by life to bother being highly critical of my lack of talent or progress.  After each lesson, I skulk down the narrow hallway between the tiny practice rooms, clutching my music and hoping that no one had been able to hear me playing the same wrong note over and over.   It didn’t help that my son has his lesson at the exact same time in the practice room right next to my teacher’s.  He plays wind instruments , which can get pretty squeaky, so I can hear him through the wall sometimes.  His teacher is highly judgmental and opinionated; I would probably be in tears within the first minutes of each lesson.  My son, who unlike me has extremely high self-esteem, just smiles and shrugs at even the most withering comments.

I also took a couple of stabs at learning Hebrew.  Not just another foreign language, mind you, but one with a completely different alphabet and structure.  I could remember a vocabulary word if it was repeated to me every week for about 20 weeks.  After a year, I could blurt “boker tov”  (“good morning”) and “Erev tov” (“good evening”) and yet managed to mix them up, wishing people a good morning at 10:00 p.m.  I have no doubt that given six months on a kibbutz in Israel surrounded by handsome young Israelis, I could master enough Hebrew to order a meal in a restaurant, but my commitment to the language isn’t that strong.

After hearing for years about the many benefits of meditation, I decided to make a concerted effort to learn how to do it.  I had made some prior attempts, but they hadn’t worked out.  There was the time I had burst out laughing when everyone else in a yoga and mediation class started chanting in what I suppose was Hindi on orders from a white chick in a turban who had introduced herself as something like Prajdeep.  I went to a retreat center deep in the New England countryside and took a week-long mediation class.  Every morning from 9:00 until 12:30 we met in a lovely space overlooking a pond and some mountains.  If I couldn’t manage this here, I thought to myself, I’m a hopeless case.   I’m pleased to report that I only laughed out loud once, and didn’t fall asleep a single time.   When I told the instructor about my past experiences and my recurring urge to laugh or giggle, he looked at me as if finding humor in any of this were extremely odd, and that I was deeply afflicted.   After a few days, I think I was actually starting to get the hang of it.   Now that I’m back in everyday life, I’m having trouble keeping up the practice.  If I were to announce to my family that I was going to go meditate and that no one should bother me, everyone would immediately need something, and the phone and doorbell would ring simultaneously.  My ADD-ish brain hardly needs any real distractions, it makes up plenty all on its own, and at home there’s no even low voice telling me that it’s ok if my mind wanders, but then I have to get it back to wherever it’s supposed to be during mediation, whether by pushing or pulling.

In the physical activity department, I’ve always wanted to become proficient in Latin dancing.  But I’m saddled with a husband who refuses to dance.   I suppose I could take up some new sport I’ve never done before, like golf.  But I think I’m still too young for that.  

My Secret Revealed

The title may have gotten your attention, but I admit, it's not such a shocking secret. Nothing like the revelations made every 30 seconds on daytime TV shows. My secret was that I write, that is, I write sometimes. This came as a surprise to many people I know, who discovered my mild secret when a certain community organization to which we belong organized an evening of readings. The initial email announcement indicated that anyone who wished to read should just make themselves known and they'd be placed on the program. Feigning self-confidence and nonchalance, I immediately sent back an email saying yes, I'd love to read. Fiction. From a novel in progress (to put a positive spin on it, rather than referring to it as a "novel I've abandoned due to lack of focus")

The organization in question is a fairly large, and includes all sorts of writers, including professional journalists, published non-fiction writers, scads and scads of TV writers (this is Hollywood), and even a novelist or two. So I figured that the unsuspecting organizer would be inundated with requests to read, and that since I'm not exactly a well-known literary figure, they'd ask to see my work prior to placing me on the program. Perhaps a committee would be formed to vet the work submitted by the complete unknowns in order to avoid awkward situations. The leaders of this organization go to great lengths to avoid awkward situations, while being clueless about the ones they themselves create. But as the date grew closer, no one asked to see the goods. This allowed me to put it out of my mind until a few days before, when I suddenly remembered that I actually volunteered to read my work to complete strangers, and worse, people I knew and would be seeing again. My first instinct was to beg any acquaintance with an even passing professional relationship to writing to read my work and let me know if, if – what? If I was undiscovered great voice, or I was about to embarrass myself completely? An acquaintance consented to be put in this impossible position, and I proceeded to be gripped by anxiety, and couldn't bring myself to email her a word. I then started talking myself out of it – I'd call the organizer and tell her I had to pull out, making some lame excuse, such as having E-coli. Swine flu hadn't really hit my area, that would really be pushing the envelope.

A couple of days before the event, a friend casually mentioned that she had been surprised to see my name on the program, as she hadn't know that I was a writer, and was planning to attend the event. I was on the spot. I had to just quit whining (to myself), suck it up, and make good my commitment. After all, this wasn't the first time that I had done something in public, screwed up, and lived to tell the tale. I am in a vocal ensemble at our local music school, and every summer, the teacher does a workshop, the finale of which is a solo performance of two songs by each of the 10 participants. The performances are generally in small-ish, out of the way bars or restaurants, and scheduled for Sunday evenings, which tend to be slow. So the audience is primarily captive friends and family of the performers. That is how, at age 51, I was relieved to learn that I hadn't missed my vocation as nightclub singer. I had horrible stage fright, and forgot all the music and words the moment someone placed the mike in my hand. How I got through it I'm still not sure, but it was with a lot of help from the accompanist, the very self-effacing but very efficient husband of my teacher, who sang the words as discretely as possible until I caught on. In that case, by the time the stage fright really struck, it was showtime, and there was nowhere to go but forward. No one made rude noises or threw anything at me. When it was over I sat down and socked back a couple of drinks really quickly, and that was that. In the case of the reading, the anxiety struck while I still had time to chicken out.

I decided I was making this into a big deal, when in fact, this reading wasn't going to change my life by one tiny iota. So I might as well just show up. I spent the afternoon frantically revising the bits and pieces I was going to read, while making a chocolate cake for party later that evening. At least I knew the cake would be a success. I hadn't really finished when the time came, but when you gotta go, you gotta go, so I shoved the pages into a plain manila envelope and hit the road.

When I got to the venue, drinks were being served, including wine. I resisted the temptation to toss back a few quick ones, if things went wrong, being soused would only make it worse. Just a little wine mixed with some seltzer. The crowd wasn't large – this was pretty much like the vocal performance in the restaurant, the audience only slightly outnumbering the performers. The readers were split into groups. I was to be with the fiction writers in the small library. I was thrilled to see that I was neither first nor last on the schedule. The readers prior to me were competent, but not so impressive as to intimidate me any further. My turn came. I got up, I read, I got the 2 minute warning, I read a little faster. No one made rude noises or threw anything. I finished. There was polite clapping. I sat down. There was one more reader, an older man, who read for so long he practically had to be dragged from the podium. Intermission. A couple of people I knew said nice things to me, I tried to be as gracious as was possible for someone who doesn't take either praise or criticism well. I shoved my manila envelope back into by bag, made excuses about not being able to stay for the last group of readers, and headed out to the party.

It's been a week now, and I was right; my life hasn't changed, not one little bit. Not that I am encouraged to be even more daring. I will not soon be scaling the side of a skyscraper or jumping out onto the field at a huge sports event wearing nothing but a cowboy hat. My daring has its limits.

My Good Friend Bernie

I saw him coming, with that weird sideways walk he has, kind of like a crab on the ocean floor. Come to think of it, he sometimes waves his arms like a lobster. Hmm, note to self: tell chef to get lobster for tomorrow's dinner. I thought about ducking into the nearest door, but it's was the men's room, so I was stuck.

"Hey Jenny, how are you," he said, reflexively reaching out to slap me on the back, only just stopping himself in time.

"Fine, Bernie, what can I do for you?" I said, looking at my watch and squinting out towards the fairway. "Tee time in 10 minutes, you know how they are about being late." I said preemptively. But Bernie Madoff wasn't the type to be deterred by a mere teetime at the Palm Beach Country Club, even if it was the world's most expensive round of golf.

"Ok, I'll cut the small talk. Look, I've got this incredible opportunity. 20% return on your money. Guaranteed. Smooth as a baby's butt."

Obviously the guy had never changed a diaper in his life.

"I really appreciate it, Bernie, but you know that my money's all tied up." We both knew this wasn't strictly true, but so what.

"Jenny, I'm only asking for a quarter of a mil, for starters. It'd mean so much to me if you were in. Everyone keeps asking if you're in."

Well, that's your problem, buddie. Just then, Sam Osterman came out of the men's room, having obviously just readjusted his expensive new hair implants which sprouted from his bald pate like mushrooms after a rain.

"Bernie!" he said excitedly, and not only slapped Bernie's back, but grabbed onto to his left arm for good measure. "Got anything for me?"

Bernie shook his arm loose, and attempted a look that reminded me of Helen Mirren playing the Queen of England.

"Sorry, Sam, not now, I'm talking with Jenny, I'll see you later."

Sam's face fell like a souffle and slinked away, one more pink LaCoste shirt in a sea of pink, yellow and lime green. After all, it was in Palm Beach country clubs that Lilly Pulitzer got her start. Who else but people with failing eyesight would wear these clothes.

"Bernie," I said, putting on my sun visor, "No one's got more money than Sam. For heavens' sake, the Muffler King. For reasons I couldn't fathom, Sam liked being referred to this way. You can take the boy out of Flatbush, but you can't take Flatbush out of the boy.

"Aw, but no one cares about him. Muffler King, my ass. Have you seen any of his old ads on tv? The guy's a freak."

"Bernie, his money's just as green as mine."

"Yeah, but it's yours I want." He started to get down on one knee, and I whispered, "Bernie, cut it out. If she hears about this, your wife will have you killed." I was only half-kidding. Besides, I kind of admired someone who would go to such extremes to make a buck. I looked around the room. The Club was full of people who had inherited their dough, and who were, shall we say, lacking in useful skills, if you don't count canasta or being able to pass along a nasty rumor at the speed of light.

"Bernie, I've already told you, I never invest in anything I couldn't explain to Grandma. And you haven't given me a whole lot of details."

"But Jenny, you know how I work, I can just go around telling everyone how I do it. That'd be like giving it away for free."

I'm about half a head taller than Bernie, so looking down on him wasn't all that hard.

"I wish you the best of luck, Bernie" and I exited the door to the deck overlooking the fairway.

The next time I saw Bernie, it was his mug shot in the Palm Beach Post. Rumors were going around about the fantastic amounts of money some of the club members had lost in what turned out to be no more than a Ponzi scheme.

I was just getting coming out of women's dining room at the Club, and I was rummaging for my Blackberry in the cleverly concealed pocket of my golf skirt. It had been buzzing incessantly during lunch, but I, alone among my dining companions, had the good manners not to answer. Someone bumped me, and I turned to see Sam Osterman.

"Jenny," he whispered hoarsely, I lost everything. Even my Aunt Sylvia's pension."

"Sorry to hear that Sam," I said, patting him on the arm, " you can always sell more mufflers."

Bad, bad moods

Why is it that when I'm in a bad mood, the people I like the least are suddenly drawn to me, like bugs to a corpse on CSI: Las Vegas. For reasons that are as mysterious as the beginning of the universe, and why people watch reality TV shoes, they seem especially cheerful and friendly. There's a reason I'm not crazy about these people: when I'm in bad mood, it's plain to see, I've never been successful at hiding my emotions, even when I cared to. These people either can't read the warning signs, and press ahead regardless, querying about how I am. Some get the message, when I hiss "fine," my mouth hardly open because my teeth are grinding together. If that doesn't do it, I start moving. If I'm already walking, I speed up. If I'm sitting, I get up and head for the exit. Sometimes I hear behind me something like "guess you're real busy, huh?" Yes, busy getting away from you.

You might think this is rather rude. However, I think it'd be ruder still if I actually answered the question by describing in great deal just how depressed and bored with my life I am. I might even start in on how I think perennial cheerfulness is a sign of low intelligence; after all, anyone who is always cheerful is obviously unable to grasp the awfulness of the world around him or her. I mean, don't they read the paper? What is there to be cheerful about? The prospect of conversation with these people simply isn't appealing, because it's going to the very lowest level of small talk. People I know who are capable of a higher level of discourse never come anywhere near me when I'm in a bad mood. They can see that little black cloud hovering over my head. Since I'm in a bad mood most of the time, this means I'm not terribly popular.

I've never really understood the social conventions of asking people how they are when in fact neither party gives a lick about how the other person is, and each person is expected to state that they are doing well, regardless of the actual circumstances. I can't see the point of asking a question if the answer won't bring me any new information I don't already have. I admit that in some cases this convention can be a blessing. There are the people who when asked this question take as a green light to provide a detailed description of what they and everyone else in their entire extended family has been doing. When this happens with people I barely know, I'm baffled as to why they harbor the belief that anyone other than one of these family members would actually care. I am supposed to be sorry that your old mother fell and isn't doing so well, and it's great that your daughter will be coming home tomorrow from her first semester at Hohum State tomorrow, but why should I care about them more than any of the other 6 billion people on the planet I have never met? We all have some degree of neediness, but for heaven's sake, people, have some pride!

When I go scuttling away like a crab over the ocean floor from people inquiring as to my well-being, I'm sparing them the recital of my personal woes. My problems even bore me, why would anyone else want to hear them? Besides, as a socially conscious person, I know things could be worse: I could be starving in a refugee camp in Darfur, being tortured in a jail in some third world country for protesting corruption, or merely have cancer. At least I know how to keep things in perspective.

Was I like that at 13?

At my house, we've never been at our best first thing on Monday mornings, but the other morning, we reached a new low. Finally emerging from his lair five minutes after we were supposed to leave to meet up with our carpool, the 13-year-old-old (hereinafter referred to as "13") announced that he had left his prized suede Pumas at his friend's house after a sleepover Friday night. As a result, he couldn't do PE that day and asked me to write a note excusing him from PE. You have to admire the audacity. When I pointed out that he had another pair of sneakers, his white tennis sneakers, he said dismissively that they didn't fit anymore. I made the error of asking why he waited until Monday morning to tell me all this. When dealing with 13, any attemopt at trying to introduce logic or reason into a conversation of this type is destined for failure. He took on that expression that's become so familiar recently, that blends irritation with having to answer my inane questions with a small drop of pity for my lack of enlightenment. "I told Dad (hereinafter referred to as "H")," he said. I happened to know this was a whopper, because if he had realized he didn't have the Pumas on Saturday, then why was he in his room not five minutes before, swearing like a sailor, looking everywhere for the sneakers. To say nothing of the fact that 13 knows damn well that H has no interest whatsoever in anything unconnected to electronics or food, and would have put this trivial issue of footwear out of his mind before 13 even finished the sentence. He sensed that I wasn't eager to write a note to the PE teacher that would necessarily contain either this preposterous story or some outright lie, so he gave a little cough, and said weakly "I've been short of breath recently." This was my cue to develop instant amnesia and forget that he had played on the winning side in a soccer game Saturday morning, and had gone both ice skating and bowling on Saturday night. Gritting my teeth, I wrote a note to the PE teacher that combined elements of the truth with some pure fiction, and handed it to him. I suggested that he might also make an effort to bring home at least one of the two lunch boxes that had gone missing. As it turned out, I didn't even know the full extent of it. The lunch boxes weren't even both at school, one was at a friend's home (naturally, not the same friend who had custody of the Pumas) along with various items of 13's clothing. By the time I learned this, partly from the parent of the Friday night sleepover, I was beginning to lose interest in the specifics of how 13 could have managed to scatter his belongings across such a wide swath of a city of 10 million people in such a short period of time. I could either spend the next three weeks nagging 13 and emailing and calling all the relevant parents, or I could just write these items off, and run out and buy new ones. My reasoning capabilities told me the latter option would be the least stressful. However, my parent voice immediately butted in and pointed out that this would "send the wrong message." It would also be expensive, as 13 has developed exacting standards for clothing and foot wear. The days when I could run out to the closest discount emporium, grab the first pair of sneakers or pants I found in his size, and bring them home and toss them into his lair are over. Anything I bring home now without prior consultation is subjected to a variant of the expression described above and summarily rejected. At least I don't take it personally; my guess is that most famous couturiers, arbiters of style for millions the world over, do not have teenaged children, and even if they did, their children would not allow them to select their footwear for them either.

When I pick 13 up this afternoon, it will be obvious whether he has retrieved either lunch box. The clothes are another matter. At least he didn't end up actually using the note I reluctantly wrote to the PE teacher. Both of us were spared from our respective fates by the fact that much of Southern California is on fire. Therefore, the air is think with ash, and the sky is reminiscent of illustrations of The Last Days of Pompeii, so the kids are not made to do PE outside, and just sit around in the gym instead. At least I haven't lost face in the eyes of the PE teacher, there's something to be grateful for. 13 asked me a couple of days ago if I wouldn't mind dropping him off at a large mall on Friday night so he could see a movie with some friends. Since he knows that I, hopelessly behind the times, think that 13 is a bit too young to be roving around public places at night with just other 13-year-olds, he had taken the precaution of asking H to buy the movie tickets online. Ever compliant when it comes to using a credit card, H had apparently done so, no questions asked. Who were the other kids, I asked, how were they getting there, and how and when were they going home after the movie. See above for a description of the standard response to such inane questions. However, H heroically volunteered to bring 13 to the mall and hang around until the end of the movie. H has an amazing ability to tolerate doing nothing at all for long periods of time, somewhat like the fish you see in the those large tanks at aquariums. I lack this ability, so I will be elsewhere, perhaps meditating in an attempt to achieve greater calm. Calm that will vanish the instant 13 opens his mouth again.

Batty Mitzvah

$2,000 bucks? I said incredulously. After all, we were talking about a DJ for a bar mitzvah dance party, not for a hip Hollywood night club. Why yes, said the other Bar Mitzvah mom, you have a good DJ. The emphasis she placed on the word "good" was a bit sinister. As if anything less than "good" was tantamount to feeding your guests leftovers. A minute though to explain what a Bar Mitzvah mom is. In my world these days, we are not all Georgians. We are all Bar Mitzvah moms. These days, I don’t waste my time talking to anyone whose kid hasn’t recently had his or her Bar Mitzvah, or is having one soon. I need information, and I need it now. I am as single-minded as a CIA agent on the trail, though unlike a CIA agent, I have no cover, I’m right out there in the open, exposing my cluelessness about this whole thing. I wasn’t raised as a Jew, so I have no memories, good or bad, of Bar Mitzvot long past to serve as a baseline.

I have been meeting middle class people who are intelligent and well educated and therefore should know better who think nothing of putting themselves in hock for a Bar Mitzvah party. Talking to them, I am reminded of my wedding, which cost a grand total of $4,000, with only 35 guests. $1,000 of that was for my dress, an expense I justified by telling myself I’d wear that gorgeous mermaid line dress again sometime. Ha. I haven’t been anywhere in the intervening 15 years where I wouldn’t have been way overdressed sporting this hand-beaded affair. And my usual format for home entertaining is to race through the aisles of Trader Joe’s and toss items into my car until things are spilling out, then get it all home, open it all up, place stiff drinks in all unoccupied hands, and voila instant conviviality. Usually I spend the rest of the evening running back and forth with food and drinks, so I’m too busy to notice whether the party is successful or not. When I have people to dinner, despite my best intentions, I am still in the kitchen when they arrive, unshowered, cursing because I can’t find the garlic press. At least my renovated kitchen was inadvertently tailormade for this situation, as the guests can plunk themselves down at the lovely granite counter, and watch me whirl around, like a cooking show featuring an organization-challenged hostess. All this to say that I don’t any particular affinity for elegant entertaining.

We are having the standard luncheon at our temple following the bar mitzvah service. That part is easy, because there is temple staff to deal with most of it. Though I am a bit nervous about what is becoming a growing number of people who are talking about performing music of some kind, a sort of talent show. I don’t want anything that’s going to remind me of this one Mexican restaurant in East L.A, that is right by the corner where the mariachis looking for work hang out. Often several different mariachis come into the restaurant and work the two small rooms simultaneously. The noise level makes conversation impossible, and the fact that I can’t stand mariachi in the first place brings this experience close to something that should be banned by the Geneva Convention. Ok, it’s unlikely any mariachis will bust past the temple security to show up at our luncheon, but other bad things could always happen.

The hardest part to plan was the evening kid-only dance party and my son wanted and we agreed to. Shouldn’t be hard, right? You find some space somewhere, not in restaurant or hotel, which would have catering minimums, get a DJ, bring in some food, and what more could those kids possibly need? Plenty, according to many, many Bar Mitzvah moms and the professional party planner who is helping with the temple luncheon because she is a member of the temple and helps with temple events at a discount. How about DJ’s who will keep them from even thinking about sitting down, magicians, face-painting, pinball machines, dance machines (whatever they are) a video detailing every precious moment of my son’s life, photographers, videographers? The possibilities, and the possibilities for spending money, are endless. I had the foresight to start preparing my son long ago for the fact that he was not going to have a $30,000 bar mitzvah. Enough time has passed for him to have gone through all the stages: denial, rage, bargaining, acceptance. Luckily, he’s kind of a cool, social kid of guy, he loves girls, and they love him, so he doesn’t really see the need for the kind of props that the more socially insecure might need. In his mind, himself, music, dancing and food, that’s a pretty meaty package.

The only problem is that his robust self-esteem is not a genetic trait inherited from his mother. I am completely insecure, and therefore susceptible to hints and suggestions that I might not be doing this the "right" way. However, the reality of the limited budget for this affair has laid its boney hand on my shoulder and whispered "Just say no" in my ear. This has led to some wince-inducing moments, like the look on the face of the B M mom when I told her I didn’t plan to spend more than $500 on a DJ, and I didn’t plan to have additional "entertainment." She looked at me as if I had just told her that my kid could go off to some crummy public school where he had to go through medical detectors and avoid the bathrooms, because I didn’t feel like paying for private school, as would any really good, caring mom. But this is really nothing new. I have been bearing the shame of being a bad, bad mother since my son was a baby, from the first time a parent said to me "oh, you mean you allow your child to have sugar…." Besides, why should these moms care, they’re not invited to the dance party anyway!

 

 

Home Cooking

As someone raised by a foodie, no, two foodies, I have fallen on hard times. Food was my father’s truest love. Back in the 60’s, before cuisine had infiltrated into the American consciousness, he had truffles sent to him from Italy packed in Arborio rice; he was asked a very well-known New York store to test the first cappuccino machines to come on the market in the U.S., we spent entire weekends clamming in the Long Island Sound to supply the ingredients for spaghetti alle vongole, and I could neatly remove the cork from a bottle of wine by the time I was 12. My mother’s tastes and cooking were not as rarified, but dinner was never boring, or bad.

With this background I should routinely be whipping up fabulous meals for my little family. But, like I said, times are hard. When I first started what has become a prolonged hiatus from work, I read my cookbooks with great interest, and experimented with new and different flavors and ingredients. But, alas, I lacked my father’s complete devotion to food, and soon grew bored of having to crank out dinner seven night s week, 52 weeks a year. Matters weren’t improved when my son announced that he had decided to become a vegetarian. Meanwhile, my husband is from the Midwest where meat is serious business, and would no sooner repent for his meat eating ways than would a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The prospect of my new career as pro bono chef in the world’s smallest restaurant led me to consider going to the train station downtown and hopping a freight train. However, I don’t think the hobo lifestyle would work out for me, considering I despise even well-equipped camping. I announced to my boys that they would just have to come to some accommodation, because I could hardly be expected to prepare two separate meals each night, now, could I? They both nodded in unison, agreeing that yes, it was totally unreasonable. Then the husband went back to his newspaper , my son to his IM’ing. So concluded the first and last Skoble/Levinson Family Summit Conference on Food and Nutrition. Like most international conferences, we had agreed on a principal and accomplished exactly nothing.

I briefly tried one solution: buying large numbers of one-pound steaks, and throwing one on the grill each night for my husband. I was concerned that a lack of red meat might lead to weird mood swings. But as the smell of broiling meat filled the house each evening, I started feeling guilty as well as disappointed by my failure to find a fabulously creative solution. My husband wasn’t complaining yet; he’s the type that nurses grievances for months, and then one day without warning, explodes and splatters all over the place. However, he had gotten used to the finer things in life, and his expectations had been heightened by our kitchen re-do. After 10 years of scraping along with pitifully outdated kitchen – the avocado green color of the appliances were a testament to the dark underbelly of the 1970’s - we now had a professional level cook top with six burners and a built-in grill, and computerized double ovens large enough to roast two 25-pound turkeys.

In addition, I fretted about my 12-year-old’s getting enough protein. I pored over vegetarian cookbooks that extolled the virtues of the meatless life and advertised the protein content of various vegetarian staples, but the prospect of six years of beans and tofu made me feel ill. I had briefly belonged to a food co-op in Brooklyn eons ago when those were popular in certain kinds of neighborhoods, but I couldn’t deal with the pervasive smell of the place, one I couldn’t quite identify, probably of some highly nutritious soy-derived product.

At present, while I’m still here, my culinary motivation is AWOL. We eat a lot of microwaved Trader Joe’s food. Just to forestall complete revolt by the husband, who comes home at the end of the day practically thumping his chest for dinner like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, I usually throw something together that will make the house smell good and give a vague appearance of cooking. Sautéing onions in butter or olive oil are an excellent way to do this. After all, this smells wonderful and provides the base for about 8,000 marvelous dishes from around the globe, none of which I intend to make anytime soon.

I have read that the sense of smell is an extremely important component of the human response to food. If only I could provide nightly aromatherapy, passing around a vial of scent of Osso Buco or Boeuf Bourguignon on one side of the table, a vial of soy beans and tamari on the other, while plopping something microwaved moments before onto the plates.

Social Networking Sites: They're So Over

Everyone knows that by the time parents of teenage kids know about something, it’s passé, done, finished, so over.  Until the resident 12-year-old in my household started 6th grade, I had only read about these “social networking” sites, which didn’t sound very appealing, since there were no cocktails or hors d’oeuvres included.  In addition, I had attended a very informative talk about cyberstalkers held by an FBI agent, which had done nothing to improve my attitude.  So, when my son entered the brave new world of middle school, I told him he was expressly forbidden to go onto either website.  Since my son doesn’t always place the highest premium on truthfulness, a trait I can’t account for, I figured a little surveillance might be warranted.  Within weeks of the start of 6th grade, I found an email from my pride and joy to one of his fellow travelers urging the kid to “check out” MySpace,” because it was “so cool,” though, my little darling added, if I ever found out that he had put a profile up,  I’d “kill” him.   When I confronted him with this smoking gun, I didn’t expect actual fear, since it has not been my practice to parent through violence, but I was expecting some embarrassment, perhaps even some contrition.  He barely blinked, and just shrugged when I told him I had instructed MySpace to remove his profile.  That must have been the beginning of the end. 
Ultimately, I let him put up a page with no photo and no personal information, accessible only to “friends,” since it appeared that I was the only parent who seemed to find any of this objectionable, including the parents of a 6th grade girl who put up a sexy picture of herself, along with the whopper that she was in high school, and enough information for anyone with half a brain to find her.  Within three months, my son stopped using the sites altogether.  Why bother, he says, when he can IM his friends instead.  What’s worse, I started to receive requests on these sites to be added to other people’s pages as a “friend.”  I had to put up a “profile” in order to access the pages of my sons and his buddies.  It contained barely more than my name, along with an old picture of my son and his cousins on vacation.  Yet this shallow husk of a profile started to generate “friend” requests.  In real life, I don’t have lots of friends, and not being in active circulation, I rarely make new ones.  But in cyberspace, all sorts of people suddenly wanted to be my friend, including people I don’t know, people I barely know, and people who ignore me when they see me for real.  This puts a whole new spin on the meaning of “friend.”  This kind of  “friend” is apparently a commodity, something you use to puff up your profile and make it look like you are a real mover and shaker.  Even I could see how it was over – behold, a mom getting requests from other moms to be their “friends.”  No self-respecting preteen could hold his or head up in school if he were found to have his mom as his “friend” on MySpace.