Grapefruit Love

Instead of going through Facebook, which is full of all those horrible (to lonely me) Mother's Day posts, I'll share with you what I was thinking about today (and I see this is kinda' a continuation of the last post, although not about elephants).

I'm still making my way through the piles of left-over Pesach produce, so I brought in a grapefruit for lunch.  I love grapefruit, but they are such a mess to eat bare-handed.  I was reminded of the most romantic thing anyone ever did for me: when my college boyfriend would peel the membrane off grapefruit sections for me, unasked, just because he knew I would like it. 

It is hard to explain what makes for a beautiful gift.  But certainly the price, and even the effort are not necessarily the major factor.  Mostly, it's the reflected message "I know you, you are meaningful to me."

Happy May 12.

Ode to a Promiscuous Pachyderm

This is a public mash-letter, to one of the most important people in my life:

I was recently sent a short article, "Attachment and Connection" by Dr. Bruce Perry.  Dr. perry writes that that we can plot development of personal attachment (such as that between parent and child) into six distinct stages:  Proximity, Sameness, Belonging or Loyalty, Significance, Love, and Being Known.  I don't really have time or energy to elucidate here, but I think it is pretty clear even as just this list.  I reacted very stronly to the article, thinking about the amazing attachments I have to a select few people in my life, those who cross the boundary into Significance, Love, and even Being Known.

It is a terrible sorrow to feel that there is no one who knows YOU, it was a very large part of the depression that held me, that I still often fall in;  It is a tremendous joy to be with share with another, and feel "known." 

So to you who makes me feel significant, loved, and known, I give you the name Little Miss Inside.  It is not a perfect name, because it doesn't seem to include Little Miss Bubbly, Little Miss Kindness, Little Miss So Cute, Little Miss Popular; and Emunah is already taken.  But somehow this bubbly, kind, so cute, popular little miss invited me inside.  You are rich in attachment already, but here is another who hopes you understand how deeply you are significant, beloved, and (I hope) known.

But don't be upset if I sometimes slip back to Little Miss Slutty Elephant.

How do I get rid of THESE before Pesach?

I used to have a coworker, a very sweet, smart young man,of Italian decent, who I believe had never been more than 300 miles from home, and never wanted to (although that all changed before we both left the lab, but that is another story).  So, one day, he asked me, “have you ever eaten a bagel with cream cheese?”

I thought this must be the set up of some joke.  “Sure, of course I have.”

“I don’t get it.  How can people eat that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cream cheese doesn’t fit on something sweet.”

“Sweet?  Bagels aren’t sweet… Wait, what kind of bagel do you get?”

“Usually blueberry.  Sometimes raisin.”

“Eww, well no wonder.  Those aren’t bagels!  Raisin bagels are an abomination of nature!”

So I was in the bakery the other day, saw packages of bagel half dozens.  Thought this would be a nice simple lunch treat.  And what do you know – I thought they were pumpernickel  swirl!  Cut them open, Eww!  Raisin.  They should mark those things clearly, it ought’a be some kind of law!

Best Purim in Years

Yeah, that's exactly what I looked like, but prettier, and with a gold mask painted on...and glasses.

A few weeks ago, I cried my heart out to my friend (let's call her Ms.Useful from now on) about how much I have come to hate Purim in the past few years, since it was the best holiday I had, full of good memories and excitement, and I loved generated more excitement for the kids...until all my fun was co-opted by another (guess who!).  And this year I wouldn't even have the kids at all.

She said that I had to allow myself to learn and grow and enjoy the holidays as my own person, not only through the kids, not just as a Mommy. It was hard to let go of all the expectations, real or imagined, external and internal.  But it was really a great day, and (almost all of it) without the kids.  I did make a costume for the son who requested one, and it came out GREAT , not even considering it was totally last minute, with no pattern, and within one hour (I am quite vain about how well I can sew costumes on the fly).  I did bake some items for shalach manot with the kids.  But I knew that shalach manot were really going to be just mine, and the costume was not going to be a family affair.  I threw myself into preparing, and wrote my own little poem, which was really an after thought for the stuff I had already decided to send.  I happened to be at a friend's house shabbos evening, andasked if she still had the blue wig from a couple years ago: "I have a whole collection I bought at '5 Below'".  And it was the most comfortable costume I have had since the year of the "giant baby".  And even the seudah was really nice - a big family+Sweet Profusion dinner, and I was so happy and comfortable being there, better than it could be at the shul seudah.

I have commented before on how insightful I found the idea of Augustus Something-or-Other (sorry) who proposed, as an alternative to ending your life by suicide, rather, ending your identity by becoming a totally different person.  I don't plan to actually run off to Alaska, but certainly better in every way to let my identity take on a much larger non-mommy role, than to decay in the mommy role until it's not good for anyone...even if some people did see this as selfish or lazy or ugly, which no one but me seems to anyway!

Okay, wanna learn of my amazing mishloach manot? 
Homemade lekvar hamantashen (and pretty! this is one place I make the kids take pride in doing it right!)
Homemade rumballs.
Homemade petit-fours, all butter!! butter cake with real butter cream frosting.
Cafe-au-lait
Panini lightly baked with olive oil and garlic
Cream cheese and lox
Insert:

These butter cakes are made with real butter,

The rum balls really have rum,

Homemade Hamentaschen

Supplied for your noshin’

Are filled with traditional plum.

Sometimes we see a closed shutter

On the window of reality

These treats’ looks reflect

Ingredients you expect

We present them to you guile-free.

The café au lait is quite dairy,

And has a good kick of caffeine,

Both cream cheese and lox

Are of the real stocks

And not texture vegetable protein.

Today we should drink and be merry,

To celebrate Hashem’s hidden plan.

We wear masks that hide

The face that’s inside

To praise He Who knows more than man.

Yet we ask for the day to come quickly

When the Master reveals what is true

That time’s not yet here

Still our aim should be clear:

Wishing a wonderful purim to you!

Minimal packaging, used goody bags left over from last year, but had to get disposable coffe cups.
With all cholov Yisroel ingredient, it was more per package than I normally spend... so I did have to limit to 20.  And really, even that was fine too.

Please help

I didn't want to post this on FB, because really, that is mostly acquaintances who know my face and don't know me.   If you are here, more likely you know me (or at this me), though possibly not my face.  If you are one of the few who know both, please help.
I'm really falling.  I can't keep on like this.  I don't even know what I am asking for.  But I am out of strength, out of belief, and certainly out of hope.
I just started reading Anne of Green Gables for the first time.  Although it is obviously good, I can't enjoy Anne.  She is so full of life and hope.  I am 43 years old, and I am like the very very old.  I have no hope that life will change, and only wait to finally be done with it. 
I'm not saying I have given up the last thread - if I was, would I bother to ask for help?  But I don't really think it is coming, or would I be posting the request on the stupidest of places?  I would be better off posting the request on the tree outside my house.
Okay, rambling.  Gonna go pretend to be doing something useful at work.
Oh, and I hate DST as well, wanna go throw a brick at a congressman.

Don't hate me for being ahead of the game

Pesach, Pesach Pesach Pesach! There I  said it! Hahahahahahaha.

Yes, I started some small but significant Pesach prep already.

For some of you (whom I will try not to hate), this is lagging behind, those of you with the humongous mansions that you start to clean from the end of Chanukkah.  Of course, not soooo long ago, every housewife was almost constantly preparing - my mother is forever sharing how her mother saved schmaltz from months in advance to have for Peasch (how does one save animal fat??? does it really not go rancid?  with all my "crunchy" interests, I have no knowledge or experience of this), and certainly anyone canning produce would prepare the products to be chametz-free, at least some of it.  I assume the "Pesach kitchen" was a fairly regular thing - even if it just meant a basin, pot and some utensils; kinda' like my "parve kitchen", in fact exactly like it. 

Since I now have a "Pesach storage space" that is pretty easily accessible, it seems outright foolish not to start loading up on supplies in advance.  I made a nice comprehensive list of my Pesach stuff last year, and I'm pretty sure I can find it, but didn't do so yet.  Okay assignment for tonight...

Oh, and I got a coupon from my local Rent-A-Center for basically a free extra months rental, so I think I'm gonna get that extra fridge extra early!  Yeah, 2nd assignment...

Also I cleaned my car, so I could carry home said supplies.  Also I gave my stove a really good scrubbing so the final scrubbing will be that much easier.  And thank goodness I did - I had forgotten I had agreed to let a friend use my kitchen to give a cooking demonstration. Phew! no one need know what my stove normally looks like! Also I started sweeping up those crumbs up against the wall that the vacuum won't get, and back and around and under my living room furniture.

Then I got sick - unrelated to cleaning, except I had to stop cleaning.

Okay, now is only concentrating on Purim, and trying to be actually kinda pleased that I'm not spending months on that this year (subject for "another blog" which I have been unable to write for years).

Pesach, Pesach Pesach Pesach! Yeah man, I'm gonna revel in it at long as I can! 

Clackers!

Sunday the weather was so nice, but the ground was so wet, that we decided to drive into the city.  After obligatory pizza, we headed to the great toy store.  The line at the register went all the way to the back wall!

"Is something special going on?"

"Just shopping for Purim."

But I found out it wasn't mostly costumes or even candy or trinkets they were buying - it was little fireworks, crackers, caps and such.  Alright, if that is was gets you excited.

Ironically, what was my "must buy" find?  Clackers!

I loved these!  I used to play with my babysitter's pair whenever I could.  And I was pretty darn good, as I remember, for a little kid anyway.

But then they were banned, and when my oldest son was little, I could only get him these lame light balls on sticks:

So how did the toy store come by these great old things?  Are they any safer?  They are still clearly able to be used as a weapon, but are they different material?  more shatter resistant?  I don't know, and I didn't ask, I just grabbed them, bought them, and started clacking away before we even left the city.

So who is the worse mommy: the ladies with all the fireworks, or lady with the clackers?


P.S. The clackers are for ME, not the kids.  The kids are really bad at them, and I'm hoping they get bored of trying before I just have to hide them away.