Bat Mitzvah Chronicles 1

We’ll call that last bat mitzvah post the Bat Mitzvah Prologue. Now we're heading into the thick of it. This weekend, we finally got M’s date, and we went to our first bat mitzvah of one of M’s friends.

About the date, all is good. It’s a morning service, a month before her birthday, with her friend A’s bat mitzvah in the afternoon, but A’s mom is totally cool, and in fact suggested that we plan a visit to a spa for the following week. I knew I liked A’s mom, and now I like her even more.

About the first bat mitzvah…well, what I’d really like to do is start writing bat mitzvah reviews, but I’m afraid my blog ethics won’t let me. Truly, we know very nice people and I’m sure the many bat (and bar) mitzvahs we will attend in the next two years will be delightful, and to review them would only be to reveal the base depths of my nitpicky, nasty self. Plus, the possibility of a bat mitzvah being recognized is just not worth it. So I will have to restrain myself to unobjectionable comments.

This weekend’s bat mitzvah was lovely. To not cavil at the tiny things I might cavil at makes me feel better than caviling would, and perhaps this is the beginning of a brave new me. Except maybe not.

And now for the unobjectionable comments.

I didn’t know the town where the bat mitzvah was had synagogues, and as we followed the directions, it seemed even more unlikely. We passed a lot of churches, and then turned into a dilapidated residential neighborhood, and the address was a dilapidated building, with an odd collection of giant crates in the parking lot (really). But inside it was exquisite. Quite small: maybe 100 seats on benches downstairs, and a balcony around three sides. Glowing golden wood everywhere, with carvings and curves, and shiny white paint, and lots of gold gilt. I felt like I was in a Polish shtetl, and it was such a different vibe from your usual modern or institutional hulk of an American synagogue. If you've ever been to the Touro synagogue, it was like that, except cozy instead of grand. Surely the synagogue was part of what made the bat mitzvah so lovely.

The women at the bat mitzvah were all wearing flowy garments and expensive comfortable shoes. Need I say more? All I will say is there was a time when I expected to wear flowy garments and expensive comfortable shoes when I grew up, but I don’t seem to have grown up that way. I wore high-heeled boots, probably the highest heels in the place; tailored black trousers and a boxy black sweater jacket that together look like a suit; a tight pink t-shirt; and my new purplish-red and black scarf. I did not look like the other moms. Which is OK.

Actually, there was one mom in a fitted wrap dress, and of course she’s the mom I ended up talking to. Her daughter goes to camp with M and the bat mitzvah girl, so we talked about camp, and it turned out we do similar work, and it turned out she knows a good friend of mine from college, so we chattered away. But, you know, I am quite certain that I will never become a brave new me, because I seem incapable of not being my nasty, nitpicking self, and I made two snarky comments to this woman, and they seemed to make her a bit nervous.

One of the comments was uncalled for, but one was about something I assumed anyone sensible would snark at, sort of along the lines of “isn’t the president awful?” which I would never have said to a stranger in No Longer Red State, but is pretty safe around here, but I guess not (that's an analogy--I was not talking about the president at a bat mitzvah, though I suppose one might). Oh, and there was a third moment that made her laugh nervously: when I said that slide shows always make life look perfect--hmm, I wonder if she thought I was insinuating that this family’s life is not perfect and the slideshow was a cover-up, which I was totally NOT insinuating. I don’t even know anything about this family, except that M adores the daughter, I just was truly, earnestly, even wistfully, remarking upon the slide show phenomenon, and how wonderful it makes life look, but I guess if you’ve been snarky once (and at that point it had only been once), you’ve established your reputation. Oh dear.

Note for bat mitzvah consideration: Slideshow?

[This post, which I wrote in Word, because I did not have internet access where I was writing, forced me to add shtetl, snark, and snarky to my dictionary. Clearly, I did not write that dictionary!]

2009 Is Going To Suck

But maybe it won't be so bad if I'm a paraplegic.

Men are unhappiest at almost 50, and women at just after 45. Paraplegics are not unhappier than healthy people. People who live with teenagers are the unhappiest of all. [link]

Research

Can you help me out?

Go to the window in the room you're in and touch the glass. Is it cold? cool? warm? hot?

Now what's the weather like outside? And how's the temperature inside?

Thanks.

Confession

I believe that, aside from the occasional op-ed or book review, the only thing I ever read by Norman Mailer was that story about having sex with that girl (Jenny, help me out, what am I talking about?).

Edited to add: Jenny failed me, and then I had a vague recollection, clarified by Google: "The Time of Her Time." Oy.

The Chimeric Oasis in the Distance

I don't know what it means that Harbin Hot Springs has come up twice in the last 24 hours, but surely it must mean something (like that I wasn't hired to write that article totally sucks, and that the older woman doing yoga in the pool on the Harbin website totally rocks). But this isn't about Harbin, where I spent a delightful day many years ago. It's about Orr.

Hot water is one of my favorite things. Hot showers, hot tubs, hot springs: I love them all, hence that day at Harbin, many more days here than I could afford, countless visits to slightly dank Asiatic-ish hot tub places across the country, lovely afternoons at dammed-up hot springs in the California mountains, not to mention every morning's too-long shower, which I know wreaks havoc with my skin and our oil bill, but I can't help it.

But I have never been to Orr Hot Springs, and that is an issue (that Orr appears to lack a website also seems meaningful).

When S and I lived in the Bay Area and were childless and early in our careers (i.e. had a lot more time), we loved to road trip in Sonoma and Mendocino. If we only had a day, we'd go to Marin, especially Hog Island and Point Reyes, and sometimes we went to Napa, but in Sonoma and Mendocino, there are beaches and forests, wineries and hippie bakeries, beautiful green hills and towering cliffs, and winding roads that you know will eventually take you to either the 1 or the 101, so you can get lost to your heart's delight, which we often did.

One lost late afternoon, heading east from Mendocino with nowhere to stay that night, I spotted a sign for Orr Hot Springs. "Let's go there!" I eagerly exclaimed. But we were already past the turnoff, and though I suggested that it would be easy to turn around, S wanted to keep going. He promised me that some day we'd come back.

Well, I'm sure you can guess the denouement of this story. We had a delightful evening in Hopland, enjoying both the brewery and the inn, but we did not return to Orr, not the next day, not on subsequent trips north, not ever.

I began to think--this was pre-google--that perhaps I'd imagined Orr Hot Springs. And in my imagination it became the perfect place, the hot water that would finally satisfy me, the ideal apex of hot spring nirvana.

And then my sister-in-law started going there. Regularly. Which made it even worse.

Now Orr Hot Springs has become a family joke: a sign for the things you want, that you're promised you'll get, but you never do. Everyone rolls their eyes when I begin my Orr laments.

Someday, though, as god is my witness, with this radish in my hand (get the allusion, please!), I will lie in the water at Orr Hot Springs. And it will be good.

Can You Say Meth?

I mean, I try to stick up for Courtney, but this is some kind of crazy. (No, I did not actually read it--it's unreadable.) (link, of course, from Jezebel)

Alternative Lives

If I had totally different values and knew a lot more rich people, this would be the perfect job for me.

Transience, Technology, and Intimacy

I have lived in seven places as an adult, counting college and the country.

S has lived with me in five of those places.

B and I met in college, lived together in Washington after college, lived in the Bay Area at the same time. Her father lives in No Longer Red State Capital City, so she was one of the few people who visited us there, and we are often together in the country.

A few friends from college have lived in other places at the same time I have.

Mainly I have left a lot of people behind, or they have left me. Sometimes I think about all the people I once was close to. I can't decide whether I'm sad that we're no longer close, or happy we once were. Probably both.

K and I have not lived in the same place for twelve years.

In the last two days, K and I have exchanged 39 emails, three texts, and a phone call. We have discussed their visit this weekend, dinner reservations, running, her chipped tooth, whether I should keep blogging, my new job, and Amy Winehouse. In twelve years, we have rarely gone a week without some form of contact, unless one of us is out of range.

Local K and I will often text, email, phone, and see each other on the same day. I try to figure out, sometimes, why we do what when, but I can't, really. I just know at the moment which to do.

Eighteen months ago, I had no interest in texting, a sentiment I probably expressed in this very blog. In June, when we got a new phone contract, we got, I think, 300 texts monthly, apiece. I hope this is enough.

It used to be that only S, my parents, and the girls' sitters and schools had my cell phone number. Now everyone has it, and at least once a day one phone rings while I'm talking on the other.

I try to avoid the phone.

Texting is my new means of intimate connection. I text with S, M, my niece T, K, local K, J, C, and Lucy. That's pretty much my core. Except my sister. Her phone is very old. I am urging her to get a new phone. She finally got a new car, so there's hope.

The only effective way to reach T is by text. When I phone or email, I don't hear from her for days. If I text, my phone beeps in response within seconds. Nobody texts faster than T.

T is fourteen. She has 60 friends on Facebook, and counting. She sits on the living room floor, playing games with E, chatting with me, one iPod ear bud in her ear, texting pretty much constantly. She is the next generation. She lives her life at once in private (head bent over texts) and on display (meeting people on Facebook).

E has just discovered texting. She texts her dad and T. She wants to text me, but she's using my phone.

My favorite text of E's, sent to T: "Fighting. Mean M mean."

I wonder how my friendships with the people I've left would have fared without blogs and email. I know there are people I would never have become friends with without blogs and email (they know who they are).

I don't Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook. I have no interest in any of them. I don't want that level of display. But I blog, and eighteen months ago I had no interest in texting.

I used to read so many blogs. I used to read lots of blogs of people I didn't know. But eventually I ran out of time and interest, especially for blogs of people I didn't particularly like, but whose self-display engendered a sick fascination. My google reader now has seven blogs of people I know in real life, one blog of someone I have read forever and quite adore (a great writer), and one person I am slightly sickly fascinated by (a girl can't be perfect).

I seem to embrace new technologies for their potential to facilitate existing intimacies, once the technologies upon which I have relied become too open. This suggests that Facebook is not in my future, but I may be wrong. I may simply not understand yet, as I did not understand texting.

Though I think I still don't understand texting, I just do it.

In the country my cellphone doesn't work. I check my email every few days. When I want to find someone, I walk up the road, or I go down to the lake, or I sit on a stoop, and eventually they show up. We are all very predictable in the country. We know how to find each other.

I'm not making any generalizations. I'm just talking about me: a middle-aged, hopefully no longer transient mom, poised between technophile and technophobe.

Heroines

I have a friend who is a doctor in a rural state. She and her husband, also a doctor, have set up a micro practice. It's just the two of them: no secretary, no nurse, no P.A. They schedule their own appointments and return their own phone calls. They see patients on the hour, so they have enough time to really pay attention, and to do preventative care, as well as deal with the problem at hand. They take Medicare and Medicaid, so they are making available to low-income patients, of which they have many, the same kind of care rich people get from boutique doctors. They already have 450 patients, all of whom they know.

My friend also spends one day a week doing abortions, because they need to be done.

She is one of my heroines, and so is this woman.

Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

I feel about dark chocolate a bit like I feel about knitting (25 years), running marathons (13 years), and yoga (12 years): that I must proclaim to the world that I was on board long before the bandwagon started filling up, because, you know, I am so incredibly cool, avant-garde, and fashion forward.

The last time I actively chose milk chocolate unattached to peanut butter (i.e. Reese's) was in India in 1990 when I ate a Cadbury Dairy Milk every day, very much for comfort rather than taste. These days, if the only choice is milk, I just say no, and we don't even discuss the travesty that is white. But dark, now that is another matter, and apparently the rest of the world is coming around to the same opinion, or at least so says Bill Buford in an article I have not yet managed to finish, despite my commitment to the topic.

Lately, though, the commodification of all things dark chocolate has become a bit much for me. I will say with no shame that I can't tell the difference between Madagascar and Ecuador, and 80% chocolate does not taste good. I go up to about 70%, and then I stop. M, who also prefers dark (E does not particularly care), thinks 70% is too much, which is why we added four tablespoons of sugar to the Chocolate Oblivion Trufffle Torte, which we made with Scharffen Berger 70% Cacao Bittersweet.

We had guests with celiac, which meant flourless cake, so I turned to Nigella, but we had no rum, so I turned to Rose, and there we were. Butter, chocolate, eggs. And the aforementioned sugar. A lot of melting. A fair amount of beating. Some folding. Minimal baking. Chilling.

Totally to die for. Outrageously delicious. I'm not sure why my descriptors are so lacking, because this cake was outstanding, in an out-of-control, dark-chocolate, truffle kind of way, hence, I presume, its name, but this one is a serious keeper. In fact, I think I must go eat some more of it right now. Sorry I can't give you any through the computer, but you might want to go make it yourself, if you have any attachment to dark chocolate and deliciousness.

Doing Good, Theo

I am quite happy with Red Sox post-season moves so far. Signing Wakefield was the Right Thing To Do for many reasons, value included. And I know I said I would understand if they let Schilling go, but I'm glad they worked this one out. Truly Schilling is worth as much in team leadership as in pitching capacity at this point, and he is my favorite blowhard Christian Republican, though I hope he never runs for office. I had structured an incentive-based deal that would segue him from pitching to coaching (S even thought it was a good plan), but Theo did not take my calls. I guess he didn't need me.

The likelihood of losing Crisp is a sad but inevitable thing. I will miss his outrageous catches, and especially the way the announcers at Fenway say "Coco Ka-riiissssp," but the guy deserves better than we can give him. So long as we have Manny and Ortiz, Manny will be doing his Manny thing in the outfield; J.D. Drew is not going anywhere with that salary, and hopefully will perform at his post-season level for many years to come; and, well, what can you say about Jacoby Ellsbury (that could be a really twisted Love Story quote if you want, or not). Basically Crisp should go somewhere he can be a beloved starting outfielder.

Still, the fat lady won't sing till the ML and AR situations are resolved. Good indications from Theo (you might have to scroll down), but I don't think the fat lady has even arrived at the ballpark yet.

And now I really should put in some outrageous disclosure that I can then harangue my mom for missing, because she skipped yet another Red Sox post, only I don't think I have an outrageous disclosure. Alas, my boring life.

Work

When I was thinking about whether to leave my job in No Longer Red State, I decided that work, for those of us privileged to have choices, can be righteous, interesting, or lucrative, and the ideal job would be all three, but you should have at least two. Of course this formulation leaves out the work-life dimension. My job in No Longer Red State had some theoretically righteous components and was adequately lucrative, but I found it increasingly uninteresting, and the kicker to all this eh-ness was that I (we) did not like where we were living, so we left. I'm quite sure, though, that if the job had been truly righteous, interesting, and lucrative, or firmly two out of three--or if S's job situation had been similarly compelling--we would have overcome our dislike and stayed.

The first job I had in Blue State was lucrative, but neither righteous nor interesting.

The second job I had in Blue State was righteous, but neither interesting nor particularly lucrative.

I think I have come into work that is righteous, interesting, and, if I change some of my plans, sufficiently lucrative. This seems good.

Alert the Culinary Gods!

E ate half a baked potato for dinner, her first new food since I can remember!

Katie Holmes's Marathon

1. My last marathon, ten years older (than her), I beat her by an hour and 27 minutes.

2. How nice life must be if one has time to train for a marathon with a one year old.

Link, if you need it.

Autumn Notes

Snagged the first clementines on Saturday morning, and the box was gone by Sunday evening (granted, there were eight of us this weekend, but still). They were perfect: tiny, juicy, with that ideal Clementinian balance of sweet and barely tart. Clementines mean November, and the first boxes are always so good, but then they get woody and dry and so quickly nasty and moldy. I think I must get another box this afternoon.

I ran in tights for the first time yesterday morning, and then again today. I ran faster than I've run in months, though I didn't feel any different.

We have not yet turned on the heat.

None of these statements are metaphors, though they seem, somehow, as if they should be.

Mark Ronson

Thanks to Jackie (for the recommendation) and the perpetrator of all things CD (for the legwork), I am love Love LOVING Version, Mark Ronson's second album. I've had it playing in my car for five days straight, and I just can't wait to drive so I can hear it some more. It's wacko Brit covers, fun dance pop, with some killer guest vocals, and I don't care what the snobby boys at Pitchfork say. My favorite tracks of the moment are Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, of course, but also "Amy" with Kenna, and, especially, "LSF" with Kasabian which just thrills my blood, I have no idea why.

Butterfly

I must announce--and I know this is of interest only to grandparents, aunts, and Jenny, though the rest of you are welcome to cheer loudly--that E did butterfly at practice last night. (She is looking over my shoulder and proudly declares, "Eight lengths!") (Actually, she said "Eight laps!" and then we had a little google-solved debate over laps and lengths, revised her declaration, and she now proclaims proudly, "Which could be four laps!") (Shall I continue to quote her? "Four laps! Eight lengths!") (And now she has returned to her french toast.)

This Time I Know What I Think

I shouldn't let Judith Warner get to me. I should roll my eyes, say "there she goes again" with a tolerant smile, let Judy be Judy, and do something worthwhile with my time (and goodness knows I have enough worthwhile things to do today). Except I can't, because just as she is her, I am me. So rather than argue with her in my head, I might as well spew it here, get it out of my system, and go on to my worthwhile day.

So here she goes again with the dire plight of American girlhood. I'm down with the Daring Book for Girls props--it's #1 on the charts at our house, and even S was reading choice bits aloud to me last night. The problem starts when she begins lamenting the fact that nobody else cares about our poor girls, around paragraph 10. I'll spare you my "it's not that bad" schtick, based as it is on dubious anecdotal evidence about the kids I know--oh and, uh, facts like girls graduate from high school at higher rates than boys, girls are more involved in school, Title IX has led to a huge increase in girls participation in sports, etc. (sorry, I just cannot keep finding links, I must get to the worthwhile things I need to do).

Instead, I want to point to two problems with her analysis, both rooted in this paragraph:

Peskowitz, who has a Ph.D. in ancient history and religion, may find it a thrill to apply her professional knowledge to teaching girl readers about “Queens of the Ancient World.” Other mothers may find similar ways to communicate the passions of their lives – poetry, or chemistry, or camping — to their girls via the “Daring” book’s pages. Yet, while all this will undoubtedly strengthen individual mother-daughter bonds, I wonder if it will have any wider effect. What power can any of us – moms and daughters, adrift in the cultural mainstream — have against the hugely seductive, hypnotic machine that has brought us Paris, Miley, Lindsay and more?

First, are we really supposed to believe that only women with Ph.D.'s who are passionate about poetry, chemistry, and camping care about their daughters? I think not. Has Judith Warner has ever talked to a WalMart clerk who desperately wants her daughter to succeed in school? Has she listened to the women in inner cities who are speaking up against violence and begging for alternatives for their kids, girls and boys alike? And for that matter, do you think she has actually watched Hannah Montana? Yes, it's Disney, and I have my Disney critiques, but you can do a lot worse in the role model business than Miley.

Which leads to my second problem, which is about the nature of pop culture and its consumption. It is, I believe, a highly elitist (I know, pot, kettle, and all that) perspective which holds that pop culture is just a "hugely seductive, hypnotic machine," something the ignorant masses simply imbibe without thinking, while we intellectuals watch them, understanding them better than they can possibly understand themselves. From this perspective, if stores are selling revealing costumes for little girls, then little girls must believe that all they are is sex objects. But if you actually get in the trenches with kids and pop culture--hell, with people and pop culture--you will see that the consumption of pop culture is often--not always, but more often than people think--a dynamic event. Kids take what they're given, but they transform, critique, rework, and appropriate--hey, just like smart rich people do, just like, dare I say it, Judith Warner and her daughter might do. Except, maybe not, because they are too busy putting up their hair with pencils and bewailing the state of the rest of the world.

And now I really must get on with my day, which I hope will turn out to be worthwhile.

I Should Care

Last time I said "It doesn't matter who gets elected, let's just get this over with," it was December 2000, and I was very very wrong. And yet I'm still having trouble getting invested in this election. Of course I desperately want a Democrat to win (though I know any Democrat who could get elected will break my heart), but basically I think the Democrats are all bearable and the Republicans all suck. I'm not naive enough to think the overwhelming suckiness of the Republicans means they don't have a chance--Republicans are like the Yankees: they have too much money and they always have a chance. But at this point the question is which Democrat, and that's where I'm having a hard time caring, and feeling kind of guilty about it.

The thing is, in 2007, anyone who could get to the point of possibly being elected president is so different from me that it's hard to get excited. They'll all just say whatever it takes to get elected, they're all in bed with big business, and they're all trying to be as careful and with the pack as possible. You can track the nuances if you want, and you can come up with rationales for one or another, but does it really matter?

And that's the point at which I slap myself across the face and say "don't go down this road again, these things matter," only it's really hard to figure out how and why they matter. Is Hilary too calculatingly unprincipled? Too toxic for a general election? Uh, yeah. Is Obama too inexperienced? Too passively entitled? Um, yup. Is Edwards too out of the loop? Too hypocritical? Probably. Is Richardson too far behind to make a difference? Likely. Are any of these dealbreakers? I have no idea.

At this point, I'm kind of sick of Edwards and leaning toward Richardson, but then would I be once again throwing away my vote? Do I wish I was still young and passionate and throwing myself into campaigns?

Eh.

For more useful political analysis, try here.

Edited to add: I didn't even realize that I was characterizing the candidates with negatives...that seems to say something about this campaign: it's about who's the least bad. Interesting, too, that my characterizations veer between presidentability (like that one? yesterday I invented protocolian) and electability, though I think that has to do with the lack of differences between the candidates.

The Idea of Order

A few months ago we seriously considered buying another house. The house had big pluses and small minuses, but when we looked at the inspection report from the previous purchase, we realized it had very big minuses, and just said no. The salutary result of this experience was that we fell quite in love once again with our current house, kind of like when you flirt with someone else and it makes you realize that your boyfriend is the right person for you.

We also resolved to make the improvements that our house needs to be perfect (here's where the boyfriend analogy falls apart, because you cannot make the improvements that a boyfriend needs to be perfect--and truly the house won't be perfect either, but few things are). We have reconceived our renovation plans so that they are more practical, i.e. affordable, and even though we'll lose the big kitchen, we'll gain lots of other spaces and have room for guests galore. (I'm also resolved to make one very impractical renovation and turn the enclosed sunroom into a real porch, which is the kind of backwards thing I'm known for--like quitting a job other people would sell their souls for and moving from one of the most affordable parts of the country to one of the most expensive.)

Renovations are still a few months off though, so for now we're dealing with the little things that drive us--OK, me--nuts. Like the CDs.

I'm not sure you can imagine the CD situation, if you haven't seen it. We have a small sunroom (not the porch-to-be) off the living room which is currently TV room, guest room, and music room (this would make you laugh if you saw it, because really it is so small) (post-renovation it will just be music room, and I can't wait!). It had two CD shelves that held maybe 1100 CDs. But the input of CDs to the house is enormous and unstoppable, plus there is a bad habit (note passive tense) of not putting away CDs, and the result was that the floor and the windowsill (lovely wide shelf-like windowsill) were piled with stacks of CDs. Maybe a dozen stacks? Maybe 30 or 40 CDs per stack? Maybe falling over approximately weekly, leaving the floor tiled with CDs? You can imagine my frustration, disgust, and annoyance, which I tried not to channel at others...OK, I didn't try very hard.

But yesterday the perpetrator of things CD annoying transformed into the perpetrator of CD goodness, bought a new CD shelf (plain, at the unfinished wood store, of course), and put away all the CDs! My joy it is unbounded. Except that, believe it or not (oh, believe it), all three CD shelves are now full, and I fear the cycle only begins again. For the moment, though, I will rejoice in order restored.