A Married Woman’s Peek inside the Single Man’s Shopping Cart
When I was a newlywed living out in California, I would stop on my way home from work at the Safeway to pick up groceries for dinner. I would cut, clip, and shop for gourmet recipes involving roasted peppers and wild rice and pumpkin ravioli to cook for my new husband. Cooking for two was fun and it seemed we had all the time in the world to prepare a meal.
One of the checkout cashiers would play this little game of guessing what I was making for dinner, or what kind of night was ahead, based on the contents of my shopping cart.
One night was pretty easy: Romaine lettuce. Anchovy Paste. Parmesan Cheese.
“Ahh, I’ve guessed it!” He exclaimed. “You must be making Cesar Salad! The anchovy paste is the key ingredient for a good Cesar salad,” he said with a big smile. I guess in his line of work he played this game a lot to stave off boredom.
The contents of my shopping cart have changed over the years. The newlywed lifestyle ingredients were first replaced by boxes of diapers and jars of baby food, and these items have been replaced by the basic stuff of lunchbox meals and quick meals at home: Bread. Eggs. Milk. Peanut Butter. Turkey Slices.
This weekend, as I unloaded my last item onto the belt, a young single man got in line behind me. He had cropped sandy blond hair and wore a light brown hooded sweatshirt with apparent skulls embroidered into it. I couldn’t help notice that each time he reached into his cart, me and everyone around him got a glimpse of striped, bright pastel underwear that ballooned out on top of his low-cut jeans. Really. WHY do low-hanging jeans remain in fashion?
On the conveyor belt, right next to my boring cut up chicken and bag of Yukon gold potatoes, he placed one, single-serving Baked Alaska from the patisserie. Yes, my local supermarket, Wegmans, has a real French patisserie inside, along with a real wood-burning oven for artisan breads, a sushi kiosk and a Kosher deli.
But this blog post isn’t about Wegmans, and it’s not about the Helping Hands at Wegmans who will on rainy days escort you to your car with a huge golf umbrella and unload the grocery bags into your cart. This is about the groceries of the single man.
So, this dainty treat, with its broiled meringue topping, was carefully placed inside a clear plastic container. This dessert for one, maybe two, also included its own garnish: five raspberries and three thin slices of what looked like the perfectly ripened peach. A perfectly ripened peach — in October.
The single man continued to load other contents of his cart onto the checkout belt – a big bottle of Listerine Complete that whitened teeth while it freshened breath. Several boxes of frozen gourmet gnocchi, and a box of flatbread sausage pizza.
In my head, I silently wished single man good luck for whatever his evening entailed, and hope that whatever girl was on the receiving end of that Baked Alaska appreciated that a man would buy her a Baked Alaska, complete with a raspberry garnish, for dinner on a Sunday night.
The Stinger and the Honey, and the Bitter and the Sweet
Preschool teachers have the honor of experiencing many sweet firsts in a very young child’s life. For some of them, it is the first time they are being cared for by someone other than a parent or a relative, and we are honored to earn their trust and love. As a preschool teacher, you may also witness the first time a child stands at an easel, brandishing one, sometimes two paintbrushes, to combine blue and yellow to make a green, refrigerator-worthy masterpiece.
And even still, you can be with a child the first time they go potty in a place that isn’t in their own home.
Unfortunately, there are a few bitter firsts that come up from time to time. Today, a little boy in was stung in the classroom while he was building blocks with his friends. The bee entered the classroom most likely through our open window on this warm October day. I am sure that bee did not want to be in the classroom, just as much as the children (and teachers) wanted it out of the classroom.
But our little student indeed got stung. At first he bawled and held up his finger, so we quickly checked for a stinger (no stinger), checked for visible signs of an allergic reaction (because you never know if a child is allergic to bee stings until they are stung), and ran his finger under a stream of cold water. A few minutes went by before we realized that he had been stung a second time, this time with the stinger in tact, on the back of his neck.
He cried for his mom as we removed the stinger, iced his neck, and tried to soothe him. At the same time, we had to keep seven other kids happy and calm, so we called in another teacher for reinforcement.
Then a very unexpectedly sweet thing happened. I must interrupt my story to tell you that we were pretty late in setting up for snack before the whole sting operation went down. It had been raining all week and this was the first day we had a chance to play outside. By the time we returned to the classroom after an extended time playing outdoors, snacktime was overdue.
Have you been around three and four-year-old children waiting for a snack?
But these little people did not complain their snack was late. One by one, they went over to their stung friend, who was now sucking his thumb sitting on my co-teacher’s lap, and gave him a hug to feel better. The boy calmed down, and was completely recovered within the next ten minutes thanks to the healing magic of crackers and juice.
Do you recall the first time you were stung by a bee? I hope that it was not too unpleasant a memory and it didn’t give you hives or require an epipen shot or a trip to the emergency room.
Over snack, I told my friend the very first time I was stung:
I was about seven and a wasp and I collided as I ran from my back yard to my front stoop. Right on my neck, just like my little friend.
I remember me screaming and my grandfather picking me up and carrying me to the backyard, where my mother quickly applied some ice – and a pumice made of salt and meat tenderizer.
After the surprise and the shock, I was actually pretty insulted that a bee – a creature of the natural world that I loved – would sting me. Didn’t the bee love me back, I asked my parents and grandparents through the tears?
The impression the boy took away from this story, as told by his mom was that Morah Stacy (that’s me — Morah is teacher in Hebrew) doesn’t like bees.
My little friend, that’s just not true at all.
It took me a while – deacades perhaps — to get over my fear and develop an appreciation and love of bees. I’m not saying I will become a beekeeper, like many people are doing these days to thwart off the devastation of bee colony collapse. It’s just that since I have become an avid gardener, I am content to work right beside those bees happily buzzing and collecting nectar and pollen for their hives.
And I’ve come to appreciate how much we rely on these creatures for our food and think how scary it is that in recent years, the US bee populations have decreased by almost 40 percent. And as much as my little students are afraid of bees, it’s scarier to think about what will happen to their world and future without them.
There is a famous Israeli folk song that in English goes: like the bee that brings the honey, needs a stinger to compete, so our children learn to use the bitter with the sweet.
Next time you go to swat a bee, please think twice.
Take a Walk USA!
I love watching the Olympics, especially when our country is competing. I just love shouting USA! USA! from the comfort of my living room when our athletes come out on top.
Aside from our elite Olympians, our population as a whole is in no way in contention for winning a gold medal when it comes to our walking habits.
A recent study by the University of Tennessee was covered by ABC and said that only 8 percent of all errands and daily routines in the US are done by walking. The average Japanese citizen takes 7,168 steps a day. Australians take 9,695 steps per day. And for the average American sloth who has become accustomed to drive-ins for fast food, coffee, and pharmacy pick ups? We only walk an average of 5,117 steps a day. Not much to cheer about.
This week, my town, as part of its green initiative, sponsored Curb Your Car Week. ColorBrightonGreen.org, a non-profit organization that educates residents and businesses on global climate change, this week sponsored Curb Your Car Week Oct. 3-9. Brighton residents and others in the area were encouraged to register at www.colorbrightongreen.org and pledge a few days – or a whole week – to driving less.
If you didn’t register yet, it’s not too late! Log in and register any time this week you did not take your car to run an errand or walk to work or school.
Last spring, 184 Brighton and Rochester residents participated in the same event and logged in the miles that they walked, biked, bussed or carpooled. The results: participants saved 3,819 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from spewing into the air.
Now I know, I am spoiled. All my kids either walk or take the bus to school. I know most of you have a hellish commute from the suburbs to the downtown of wherever you live.
I live only seven- tenths of a mile from my job teaching preschoolers. If I am organized in the morning, I can get out the door on time to enjoy a healthy walk through a beautiful neighborhood that backs into a wooded grove and a reservoir.
Even when it’s not Curb Your Car Week, I like to hoof it to work. So I thought it was no skin off my back when I made the pledge to walk or bike this week for at least three days.
But it’s not easy being green. The toughest part switching from my car to my feet is coordination.
I mean, I admit: I’m not much of an athlete, but I can put one foot in front of the other. But then, there’s the stuff that accompanies all of us to work. We want our coffee cups. If I’m walking I have to have my iPod. And I don’t know about you, but I seldomly go to work empty-handed. I am usually lugging many books and art materials back and forth to work.
And teachers take strange, cumbersome things to school -especially preschool – that don’t make for an easy stroll. For example, I didn’t walk to work today because carrying a small wash basin that I would later use in the morning for a science/art project did not seem like my idea of a good time.
So far this week, I walked to work twice. When I signed up for Curb Your Car Week, the sun shone and the skies were blue. And this week, well, it rained so much the week should have been called Curb your Ark Week.
But I did not lose my resolve. I donned a raincoat and found my umbrella. I dug my rainboots out of the closet and headed out into the cool air. And while I walked, I really was working and working out. I gathered fallen leaves and acorns for an art project. I thought about what toys I would put out while I blasted Viva la Vida into my ears. I had time to pet the yellow lab who waits for me in his driveway. I had time to process and transition between home and work. And when I got to work, I was a little wet, but relaxed, happy and energized.
Come on, America, let’s show the Australians and Japanese who is still No. 1!
If you want to boost your health and that of the planet’s, take your own Curb Your Car challenge and pledge to drive less. Take that walk to the bank or the library or the Starbucks and say hi to some neighbors on the way. Until the snows come to Rochester, even after this week, I will be walking uphill to work. Both ways.
Remembering the Bullies
The death of Tyler Clementi is sad proof that bullying is alive and well, even after decades of anti-bullying and tolerance education. What hurts is that this happened at Rutgers University, my college, a place that is supposed to foster higher learning, diversity and tolerance. In the 20 years since I graduated from Rutgers and the 30 years that have passed since my childhood days of being a repeated target to bullies, this death makes me realize that society has gone nowhere when it comes to bullies: conform to what they want you to be or be ridiculed and tormented without mercy.
This suicide, along with the other suicides reported in the news because of bullying, brought up painful memories of my own tormenters. While this wave of anti-gay bullying seems to be the cruelest form of tormenting a human soul, it doesn’t matter if you are gay, straight, black, white, rich or poor. Bullies find their target, draw you out and go in for the kill without mercy.
My first encounter with a bully was in the fifth grade with the boy next door. He would beat me up at the bus stop in the afternoon after I reported him to the early afternoon release bus driver that he was bothering me.
I don’t think the bus driver stopped as my attacker repeatedly unfurled punches into my stomach. He came back for another round in the playground the next day as I played jump rope with some friends in the playground. This time I was ready and delivered him a very satisfying punch in the eye. I made him cry and it felt good. I wised up and took the early shift bus home that afternoon. He never bothered me again.
Then in the seventh grade came even worse bullying, the bullying of the queen bee female kind. The whispers, the looks, and finally, getting tripped down the stairwell between classes.
I was a bully’s dream. I was timid and skinny. I was one of the only Jewish kids in school and yes, I had pennies thrown at me. I had a small face and a big nose. I was called every name in the book: The nose knows nothing. The nose who inhaled Tokyo. Nosenstein. Clinger.
But then again, you also got bullied if you were timid and fat. Anything that made you different made you a target. I can only imagine the torment a young adolescent or young college student faces if a bully finds out you are gay.
My bullying happened before the days of anti-bullying education, a topic that comes up so much in today’s middle school classroom that my eighth-grade daughter says she is sick of hearing about it. Back then, if you were bullied could muster up enough courage to tell a teacher or school administrator about it, you were basically told to ignore the bully. Don’t be a snitch. Stand up for yourself, and eventually, they will go away.
But a bully never acts without a fellow bullier, and it’s hard to ignore a pack of bullies, especially when they are holding you down in the schoolyard and smearing your face with carbon copy paper. One advantage, of being bullied today: scarcity of carbon copy paper.
I don’t know where any schoolyard aides were when this was happening. I also don’t understand why my gym teacher didn’t intervene when they held me down again, took off my sneakers and threw them over to the other side of the gym to the boy’s side. Nor do I understand why my band teacher didn’t see how I was teased as I cried one day into my clarinet.
One day in the cafeteria, the queen bee bully pulls me by my necklace, a Jewish star, and tells me to throw her lunch away. I tell her no.
She then tells me, in front of the worker bees: “You better hide your ass inside your house, because we are coming today to kick the shit out of you.”
I try to shrug it off and walk away. Because that’s what your teacher told you to do, ignore them, right? After all, they didn’t know where I lived. These girls lived across town. And this was the time before GPS, before texting and cyberbullying. At least at home I would be safe.
Regardless, I walked home pretty quickly after I got off the bus. My mom had gone back to work and I had a key to the house. But that day, I realized I forgot my key. Locked out of the house, with the threats of getting the shit beaten out of me very fresh on my mind, I went into my backyard, kicked in the basement window, and shimmied into the laundry room. Lucky I was a skinny kid.
And they did come. With a baseball bat. They found a younger smaller boy in my neighborhood and grabbed him by the collar and threatened him with the bat until he told them where I lived. They rang my doorbell and said they just wanted to talk to me. I –stupidly!– opened the door. They tried to shove their way in but I somehow got the door closed and locked and I bolted up the stairs to call my mother’s office.
I can’t remember what happened next in the exact order. I think my mom called the police, and then she told me to call the mother of one of the few friends I had in school. As proof of how seriously bullying was taken back then, the police showed up about 45 minutes later, long after my friends’ mom came, long after she scared them away.
I still think about that day. I still think about what they would have done to me, with that baseball bat, if I was not strong enough to get that door shut.
If any bullying educator out there is reading this, I know this sounds bizarre, but please consider the plight of the bully as well as their victims. It turns out that the boy next door: he was being raised by his grandparents after his own abusive mother pushed him out the window and broke his legs as a child.
And the queen bee? Well, finally, after the baseball bat incident, she, her worker bee bully accomplice and I were called into the principal’s office. It turns out that my bully’s mother was dying of cancer.
As hellish as my middle school years were, I feel very lucky that I was bullied before the digital age and I hope my kids survive their adolescence unscathed. It seems like a lot more damage can be done with a video camera and a social networking site than a baseball bat.
How a Sukkah is like a Christmas tree
Okay, so the headline of this post might shock and offend some, but please let me explain my bold statement.
Growing up in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Staten Island, as the Chanukkah song from Adam Sandler song goes, I was the only kid on the block without a Christmas tree. Our neighbors invited my family over for cake and tree decorating and we in turn invited them on Chanukkah to light our menorah, spin a dreidel and eat fried potato latkes.
Even back then I understood that Christmas was a big holiday, and Chanukkah was a minor Jewish one. But Christmas trees still left me with a feeling of being on the outside, my nose pressed to the frosted window.
A menorah, no matter how big, even the ones that the Chabad Lubavich movement lights, just can’t compete with the smell of fresh pine, the twinkling lights and the tinsel to a Jewish kid on Staten Island. I even had my secret Christmas tree fantasies. If I ever had a Christmas tree, it would be simple: just candy canes and white lights would hang off the branches of the Christmas tree of my dreams. And it would only be in my dreams, because I knew very well that there is no such thing as a Chanukkah bush.
I did have childhood associations with Sukkot, the eight-day autumn festival of Booths, because of Hebrew school. I made the standard paper sukkah chains and ate within the large sukkah of my synagogue. In fact, the first time I was ever asked on a date was in a sukkah. It was in the seventh grade and a classmate asked me to go roller skating at Skate Odyesy as our teacher, on Orthodox rabbi, continually shushed us as he attempted to recite kiddush, the blessing over the grape juice.
But because my family didn’t build a sukkah of our own, the holiday still felt remote to me. I didn’t have a sukkah to eat my bowl of breakfast cereal in, or sleep in.
Now, in adulthood, my family enjoys putting up a sukkah every autmn, and we have done so for eleven years. And because we have a family sukkah, I can now say why this celebration, one of the major holidays on the Jewish calendar, blows that overblown attention we give to that other holiday in December right out of the water. Why? Because a sukkah fulfills the Jewish Americans’ need to decorate a large, religious object with branches and lights and have social gatherings within or around it.
Sukkot is known in Hebrew as one of the “three legs” of Jewish holidays, one of the three times of the year when the ancient Israelites were commanded to make a pilgrimage by foot to Jerusalem. Imagine Israelites building one of these temporary huts and sleeping in their fields under a harvest moon.
This same harvest moon shines through the roof of our family sukkah on the first few nights as we feast and sing. After a month of self scrutiny, asking for forgiveness, and finally, fasting on Yom Kippur, sitting within the walls of a sukkah is like getting a hug from God and feeling His forgiveness, as one Chabad rabbi in my college years so eloquently explained it.
In my neighborhood, Sukkot is all around us. As we are finishing up our meal of brisket and sweet potatoes, our neighbor, an Orthodox rabbi, is starting his meal with his family within their sukkah. We can hear his voice as he joyfully sings the kiddush as we clear off our table. This is followed by the clanking of plates and the laughter of his grandchildren as they dine. This coming outside to eat, either in these formal meals or sukkah hopping later in the week may be the last chance we get before the long Rochester winter, makes our neighborhood just feel more neighborly.
How is a sukkah not like a Christmas tree? For one thing, Jews are commanded by God in Torah to build one to remind us of the booths that the Israelites lived in during their wandering in the desert after we were freed from Egypt. Plain and simple, it’s a mitzvah just to sit in a sukkah. I still don’t understand if there is a religious connection between a tree and the birth of Jesus, but I’d be happy to learn how this tradition got started.
So, now that it is December, I still admire Christmas trees, but with a knowledge and experience that the Jewish people have our time of year for our big celebrations with something to decorate and gather in. Come this Christmas, don’t feel bad for the Jewish people who have no Christmas tree. Instead, feel bad for the Jewish people who have not yet built, or ate, or slept, or dwelt in a Sukkah, back in September.
Trader Joe’s, come to Western NY, pretty please with a sun-dried organic cherry on top?
Fearless Flyer
Well, it seems I’ve opened up a can of worms. For the sake of this blog post, the worms would probably be Thai Lime Basil worms, or Trader Jose’s cha-cha chili worms.
My love affair with Trader Joe’s, the California-based small-scale gourmet supermarket, started nearly 16 years ago. A newcomer to the San Francisco Bay area, my roomate got me hooked on Trader Joe’s quirky products. I didn’t have a car. No one doesn’t have a car in California. But that didn’t stop me. To get to a Trader Joe’s, I would take two lines on the BART, with a small cooler in tow, to get there, where I would purchase delicacies such as frozen tri-colored butternut squash ravioli and mahi-mahi filets.
Later in life, when we moved back to New Jersey and had a car (because you *really* need a car to get around in NJ), I loved shopping at the Trader Joe’s in Westfield, N.J.
Now, I live in Rochester. We have Wegman’s, headquarters to the mother of all amazing supermarkets, where my own mother, on her first trip into the cavernous Marketplace section, with its patisserie, brick-oven artisan bakery and 20-foot long Mediterranean olive bar, described Wegmans as “where food goes when it goes to heaven.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Wegman’s.
But it’s not Trader Joe’s.
One of my most recent columns was about how and with what to fill the vacant retail spaces around Brighton. Lately, as I drive the stretch of Monroe Ave. between Brighton and Pittsford, I get an empty feeling. Whether the properties are older; like the former Steve’s restaurant in Brighton, or brand new; such as the Oak Hill Commons in Pittsford, I can’t help but wonder what the holdup is for filling these properties: is it the economy, or local politics?
The most glaring of these vacancies is the 11,348 sq.-ft. site of the former Rite Aid in Brighton Commons. To get some opinions on this for my column, I took a very informal poll of my Facebook friends asking them what they would like to see in this place. One friend wrote: Trader Joes! And then another and another in complete agreement.
I would love to see this place in the center of Brighton become the nation’s newest Trader Joe’s. It would be great to walk or bike to a store like this to pick up items ranging from organically grown lettuce, cage-free eggs, a box of gluten-free granola, or even mahi-mahi burgers for the grill.
Trader Joe’s was featured on the Sept. 13 cover of Fortune magazine, and described it as one of the nation’s fastest growing retailers. I make a pilgrimage to Trader Joe’s in Long Island whenever I can and ask the manager about the possibility of an opening in Rochester. But the answer is always the same: this privately-held company, which boasts 344 stores in 25 states, fears competition from a certain large-scale supermarket further up Monroe Ave. bearing the name that starts with a W. But one can always hope.
I got an enormous number of responses from my column, both via email and others who told me that “yeah! I want Trader Joe’s too!” at the gym, or — lo and behold — in the middle of the produce section at Wegmans! They even asked me how they could help me convince them to come here – like I have an inside track or something.
So you see, TJ’s – Brighton, NY folks are educated, earthy and slightly crunchy. See why we would need you and support you here?
One reader wrote in an accused me of starting a crusade of trying to bring yet another chain into town while running the little guy mom and pop markets out of business and told me to stick to writing and stay out of the business development business. Other readers wrote in and shared their Trader Joe’s love stories, and still others wrote to me with links of articles explaining the complexities of chosing a site for new grocery stores in urban areas.
So, Trader Joe’s, if you are reading, in spite of Rochester being home to the world’s greatest supermarket chain, there is still room in our hearts for you. So come on up!
A Most Peculiar Pumpkin
“I want to grow pumpkins this summer!” said my youngest son.
And so we did. Inside, in the spring, we started a pumpkin seed, which would in the summer turn into Toby’s pumpkin patch.
Knowing that from this seed would grow an incredibly long, invasive vine, I gave this vine carte blanche and let it take over one quarter of my tiny garden plot. And the vine grew, and wandered. Huge pumpkin blossoms bloomed, bees visited them and rested inside. But none of these blossoms turned into pumpkins.
Except this one:
This pumpkin will never become a jack-o-lantern. I would hack through the plastic fencing to free the pumpkin as it grew, but I think the pumpkin took care of that. It may become a pumpkin pie, but it might be too tough and stringy. So, I guess, the only thing our only pumpkin of the year will give us is a good laugh.
Season of Repentance, or…. Happy 5771
I was first aware it was the Hebrew month of Elul as we drove through Atlantic City on our way out to dinner. I was with my husband, his sisters and their husbands for a grown-up night out to dinner while my in-laws watched 10 of their grandchildren back at the beach house. The moon was rising over the intercostal waters between the mainland and the barrier islands of the New Jersey shore. It was full and red and a signal that it was just a little over two weeks before the new Jewish Year.
In Hebrew calendar cycle, the moon is always full on the 15th of the month, so I knew from that red moon rising over casinos and billboards promising everyone a good time, that we were at the halfway point of the month of introspection and spiritual preparation. A strange place I know to start getting all introspective and spiritual, but a wave of regret passed over me because I had yet to think about the new year. I had yet to hear the sound of the ram’s horn, or the shofar, that is supposed to wake up Jews out of their sleepy summertime complacency and think about repentance and self-improvement.
In contrast with January 1, I consider this New Year truly the new year, even though to most of the world, the calendar will still read the same year for a few more months. But think of the physical changes that are take place right now: the summer is over, the days grow shorter, a new school year begins. The heat is leaving the air. In fact, on our way to Slichot services this evening, I wished I had worn a heavier sweater. Funny thing is, just yesterday, it was so hot I wished I had a nearby pool to jump into.
These changes seem far more apparent than the new year in January. In Rochester, it will be just as ice-cold on December 31 as it will be on January 1.
Slicha – Excuse me. Slichot – pardon us, are some of the translations from the Hebrew.
In Judaism, Slichot – this little known and sparsely attended service — occurs on the Saturday night immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah. It serves as a warm-up to the big show that are the services of Rosh Hashanah. Slichot includes a sampling of prayers that we will recite just days away, including the confession of our transgressions.
Now, in Judaism, there is no direct translation for the word sin. The Hebrew word chet means to “miss the mark.” It assumes that we tried to to the right thing, but for whatever reason, we went astray and failed. The season of repentance is our chance to get us back on the right path.
At services, my rabbi suggested to his congregants to make a list of all the places we missed the mark this year. And, like the liturgy of the High Holidays, I know he doesn’t mean “I’m sorry I ate a bacon double cheeseburger” or “I’m sorry I went to the movies on Friday night instead of having Shabbat dinner.”
No, the list of transgressions we need to make for ourselves in the season of repentence is much more personal, much more interpersonal.
So here goes my list:
- I’ve yelled. I’ve yelled at my kids for not cleaning up after themselves.
- I’ve yelled at my husband. Even worse, I’ve spoken to my husband in harsh tones and unkind words
- I’ve drawn too many quick conclusions of others. I’ve assumed the worst in people instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt.
- I’ve ignored or lost touch with friends, neighbors and family who may have needed my help.
- I’ve talked too much when I should have been listening. I’ve made too much talk about me when I should have asked more about you.
- I’ve held grudges
- I’ve shown indifference
- I’ve let my emotions get the better of me
For all these things, I will ask not of God to forgive me, but I will have to ask forgiveness of the people I may have hurt. For all these things, please this year make me a better mother, a better friend, a better wife, daughter. And a better teacher.
To all those who observe, a sweet, healthy new year!
SET? No! SET? No! And other games with the family
I married into a family that plays games. And they like to play the games only late into the night, say, after 10:30, when we have put our kids to bed and my brain starts to rapidly shut down.
The setting for these games is usually at a family gathering, such as the beach house we rented this summer for a week at the Jersey Shore with 8 adults and 10 kids ranging from age 13 to my niece who just turned one, figured out how to walk while we vacationed, and likes to scream – a lot.
More on that in another post. Maybe.
Have you ever played SET? This is a game that, according to the manufacturer works both sides of the brain: left brain logical skills and right brain spatial skills opening up pathways to creativity. In plain English, you are dealt cards with squiggles and diamonds or ovals, red, purple or green, striped, outlined or filled in. There are one, two or three shapes to a card. When you find three cards with all the same characteristics, or all different, you have a SET.
That’s if you can get a SET before your daughter finds one, or your sister-in-law, a MIT and Columbia graduate, finds one. For me, I just stare at those cards until I can’t see straight. I just can’t compute fast enough. My daughter is apparently *extremely* good at SET, she played it all the time at camp, as pictured above. We talked as her pile of SETs nearly toppled over. I didn’t have a SET to my name.
“Who did you play SET with?” I ask her.
“Anyone who would play with me,” she replied.
Then, after a pause, she added, “but after a while, no one wanted to play with me anymore.”
Then there’s Boggle. Have you ever watched an episode of King of the Hill, where the mother enters the Texas all-state Boggle championship? Well, she couldn’t hold a candle to my husband’s sisters and parents Boggle skills. This is cut-throat, take ’em to the ground no mercy Boggle, as most games are played in the family.
Last time we played Boggle was at a holiday gathering at my in-law’s house out in Long Island. The Boggle board is shaken, and someone runs over to the microwave to set the timer for 3 minutes, 10 seconds. That is because someone long ago lost the sand timer and the family on principle has not replaced it with a new one. So the 10 extra seconds allows time for that one player who has to set the microwave to run back to the chair at the kitchen table and pick up their pencil. Ten seconds are up, then it’s time to GO!
My husband and his sisters write furiously, as a novelist would if he broke through writer’s block in a chapter of a novel. My brothers-in-law and I, the folks who married into this clan, jot down a word or two and then look up at each other for a second, shrug and give one another sympathetic looks.
My mother-in-law never really plays. She says she’s just going to knit or watch TV. Until we sense that she is standing over us, looking over our shoulders. After we go around and cancel each other’s HEES or HAWS, or PAWS, my mother in law finds the one eight-letter word on the board. Like SQUEALED.
My husband says that games are good healthy fun. But losing all the time is just no fun and that’s why when it is time for gametime with the in-laws, I’m going to start curling up with a BOOK.
What I hate about being Transplanted North
This post is for anyone who has been taken care of by a relative, or anyone who changed plans or dropped every other responsibility in one’s life to take care of a loved one. So, I guess you can say this post is for everyone.
A transplant never really cuts all roots from where it first sprouted. Tendrils and shoots wind and twist back over states, oceans and continents, especially if the bulk of the transplant’s family still lives where they were originally planted. And sometimes, the parent plant can pull on those roots pretty hard.
Last week, my family had its plans tremendously and suddenly altered. It was to be a perfect summer week spent in Western New York: my parents were coming up to visit! We were going to explore Canandaigua, hike some local trails, visit the Rochester Public Market, check out a museum. Then, my folks were to take my youngest son back with them to Staten Island for a week of fun in New York City.
The day before their planned arrival, I worked at getting the upstairs room ready and poured through magazines looking for the perfect summer recipes.
You know that saying, Man makes plans, God laughs?
The day before the visit, I got the call from my dad from the emergency room. Through a weak signal, I could make out that my mom was having terrible pains in her abdomen, and that she needed emergency surgery. My mom was in pain and my dad sounded scared. And I, the transplant, was about 400 miles away.
If you have ever received a call like this, you know how your mind reels. What to do? Wait it out? Leave immediately? Fly? Drive? And what about kids? Do you take them along for the ride, and if you do, how can you be a help out a loved one in the hospital with kids in tow? No, that won’t work.
So calls have to be made, favors have to be asked to watch kids from people who never have to ask favors from us transplants. Why? Because of all their family – their support network – lives in town.
Luckily, summer schedules found two of my kids still away at sleep-a-way camp and my youngest in day camp. Luckily, I have an amazing and supportive husband who booked me a flight to JFK, a friend here who drove me to the airport, a wonderful father-in-law who picked me up from the airport – with a packed lunch even – drove me to the hospital and waited with my dad and brother while my mom had her operation.
And, most luckily, as scary as this whole ordeal was, this operation saved my mother’s life. And it taught me that people – family – manage to come together to make everything alright. Through the waiting, I spent time alone with my brother and dad in a way that I haven’t since I was 17 years old. No spouses, no kids, just the three of us, waiting and talking.
Through my mom’s recovery, I cooked meals and spent time with my sister-in-law. And when the week turned into the weekend, I was reunited with my husband and Toby in Staten Island. In my childhood bedroom, I read him a bedtime story, but not before bedtime was interrupted by a surprise fireworks show from a nearby beach that could be seen out my window.
People ask me how I can still consider myself a transplant after living in Rochester for ten years. After ten years of living “up here, you should be used to it,” they say. But, ten years can still considered as being a pioneer in the woods compared to five generations of my family’s roots in New York City.
Why do I hate being a transplant? This week, now that I’m home – or back- or wherever I am – was a fine example of why.
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Stacy Gittleman 