A Share in Community Supported Agriculture: Let the Adventure Begin
This week, a friend and I put down the down-payment on an epicurean adventure we will be taking this summer.
Why is it an adventure?
Because we have signed on and invested in a local farm, and all the risks that go with farming. We are taking a bet on Mother Nature that she will bestow upon our local farm the perfect conditions for growing a bountiful crop this summer.
Because this summer, we will have to get very creative with kale and beets.
The rising demand for locally-grown produce and sustainable farming methods has created opportunities for developing a connection between enterprising young farmers and suburbanites through a movement called Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA.
In December 2001, one source reported a net total of 761 CSA farms registered with USDA. By 2007, an agricultural census conducted by the USDA tallied 12,549 farms that marketed products by way of community supported agriculture (CSA).
Most of these CSA farms are located in California and Texas. Right now, in New York State, there are about 200 farms that use CSA as a method to market their crops.
Oe of them is the East Hill Farm CSA in Middlesex. It is the project of the Rochester Folk Art Guild a sustainable community of artisans and farmers who have worked and created on this farm since the 1960’s.
Though the ground is still covered with snow, the East Hill Farm managers are busy ordering vegetable seeds, recruiting volunteers and processing CSA membership applications. Over half of the farm’s 80 shares have already been sold. A membership for 20 weeks of produce costs $500, or $490 if purchased before March 1. Shares include a wide variety of vegetables, as well as fruit in the later part of the season.
Information on getting a CSA share can be found at www.easthillcsa.org or by calling the JCC at (585) 461-2000. At the website, one can even sign up for a “CSA buddy” to split a share if a boxful of veggies every week may be just too much to consume.
The East Hill Farmers represent a new generation of farmers who may not necessarily have a background growing up on a parent’s or grandparent’s farm. What they do have is a passion for growing food with organic and sustainable techniques.
Cordelia Hall grew vegetables as a child in a community garden and then became part of the “guerilla” urban gardening trend while she was a student at Boston University. Now in her third year as co-manager of the farm, she has observed and worked on farms in Tanzania, New Zealand and Mexico.
Thomas Arminio, another suburbanite-turned-farmer at East Hill, said his experience in farming has taught him that timing plantings just right is crucial for having successful crops. A native of New Jersey, he is looking forward to growing interesting varieties of melons and root vegetables along with heirloom tomatoes, beets, Swiss chard and lettuces.
So, this summer, I can actually say I have become acquainted with the people who will grow my food, because I interviewed them for my column and this blog post. You just can’t say that buying a plastic-wrapped package of hothouse tomatoes from a big box warehouse store or the supermarket.
As I get my box of veggies for the week, I’ll write about what I got, and what I made, so stay tuned.
Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner?
Take a listen to “Banana Pancakes.” by Jack Johnson.
Can there ever be a meal that conjures up more feelings of comfort than breakfast food?
I could eat breakfast any time – day or night. I have been known to make blueberry pancakes for dinner for my family of five after a very hectic day of school and work. It takes time to prepare breakfast foods like pancakes, eggs and French toast. Time that my family rarely has to spend together in the morning, not even on the weekends. In fact, if we had to wait for downtime to have breakfast at breakfast time that is not out of a box, with all of us together, we’d be waiting until summer vacation.
I guess my love for breakfast started when my husband and I were young, poor and newlyweds out in Berkeley, California. I was earning minimum wage in a PR internship and he was a starving student. We had no kids and no car, but we always had money to go out for breakfast.
We had several favorite breakfast places in Berkeley and neighboring El Cerrito. One was a tiny storefront on San Pablo Blvd. called the Shutter Cafe. We’d sit on wooden benches and enjoy eggs and some great home fries.
But the best place to eat breakfast was Fatapples in El Cerrito. We’d wake up in our one-bedroom apartment after sleeping in on a Sunday morning, grab the paper and start walking. There would always be a line for a table, but we didn’t care. We would glance at the news and sympathetically watch young couples struggle with their impatient toddlers as we waited for a seat in the airy dining room.
Finally, the waitress would beckon us to our table. I would order the blueberry pancakes and he would get the usual: eggs over easy with Rye toast. We’d drink cups of strong Peete’s coffee, talk, and do the crossword puzzle while we waited. After breakfast, we would walk home and were so full we didn’t eat again until dinner.
So, Jack, we completely understand. Because having breakfast for dinner helps us pretend that we are still young and newly in love, it’s the weekend, and we’ve just slept in.
What meal could you have all the time?
A Rose is a Rose is a Wose, or is it?
Ahh, the high school dating scene….
Did you go to high school in the 1980’s? I did. There, now I’m dating myself, pun intended.
Back then, I didn’t date anyone because no one was asking! Maybe it was because I went to the same high school where my dad taught physical education and coached two teams, and maybe dating a coaches’ daughter was off-limits in some unwritten high school code of law.
But, those in my high school who were seriously “going out” – and by that I mean they didn’t just “hook up” — were so very much in love and so happy the whole world needed to know. As sickening as it was for the rest of us.
In high school, you knew who was going out with who because of all the of PDA (and that’s not Personal Digital Assistant. Remember, this was the 1980’s. These were Public Displays of Affection) in the hallways, the stairwells, the cafeteria, in the schoolyard and on the bleachers.
Girls with boyfriends would go to the Mall and have these sweatshirts made up. (Another memory of the 1980’s, the melting, rubbery smell of the T-shirt shop.)
On the front of the sweatshirt, and it was usually a pink sweatshirt, would be the girl’s and boy’s name in a big air-brushed heart.
On the sleeve of the sweatshirt would be the date of what I guess was their first date, something like this:
12
11
84
Then on the other sleeve, something like this would be written:
4
EV
R!!!
Sick, right?
And, if the happy couple were dating a really long time – say, six months – the boy would bestow upon on the girl as a gift an ankle bracelet. Only the ankle bracelet was not worn on the ankle but on a chain around the neck.
No other time did the have-nots of high school romance feel more left out than around Valentine’s Day.
Every year in my high school, the Key Club would hold its annual rose sale for Valentine’s Day. Roses were sold in different colors:
Red – I love you
Pink – I want to get to know you better
Yellow – Secret Admirer
White – Friendship
Roses were distributed the morning of Valentine’s Day in homeroom.
In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day of one’s senior year, seniors had another big day to think about and that was prom. That’s because at the Staten Island Mall, the prom dress displays would go up pretty much as soon as all the Christmas decorations would come down.
What made it worse was I believe that was the same year Pretty in Pink was in the movies. So many questions arose months before the prom among my circle of friends:
Who are you going with?
What will you wear?
What other friends are going in the limo with you?
In the timeline of high school, receiving a rose on Valentine’s Day could be a determining factor for answering the above questions about prom night.
So, there I was in homeroom on Valentine’s Day, when to my shock, I received a rose.
A red one.
Now, at the time, I was not interested in anyone, at least anyone who went to my school.
At that moment I thought of my mom’s wise words: it will happen when you aren’t looking. Someone sent me a red rose! Whoever this person was had circumvented the rose selections of friendship, get-to-know-you-better or secrect admirer. The sender of this rose went straight to
L.O.V.E.!!
This could be big! This could be my first Love!
My 17-year-old mind whirred. Who could it be? Someone in my AP English class? Certainly not anyone in AP biology, I hoped. Or, someone who was in none of my classes who would see me in the hallway and confess his love and we would go to prom and everything would be wonderful!
With each class I went to, I walked in expecting – I don’t know what.
But nothing happened.
Then, it was time to go to gym.
As I headed across the gym floor to the girl’s locker, my dad was heading out of the boy’s locker.
He greeted me with a big smile.
“Hi honey! Did you get my rose?”
I gulped. “Rose?”
“Yes, I sent you a rose!”
At that moment, I wanted to die. Just someone, please drown me in the locker room shower.
But I know my dad really meant well. Looking back, my dad just wanted to send his little girl a rose. But then, the 17-year-old me just died on that shiny gym floor.
“Thanks, dad,” I said, and I think I even smiled. Because I knew he meant well. But when you’re in high school, with the sweatshirts and ankle bracelets, a rose given to you by dad is well, not all that – womantic.
I Hereby Declare February Sickie Month
Looking for tips on how to not get sick in February? Good luck!
I am sure you know the drill: Wash your hands after going to the bathroom and before eating and preparing food. Use hand sanitizer when getting to a sink is not convenient. Opt for the elbow shake or an air kiss. But there comes to a point in the winter, especially February, where if you haven’t gotten sick yet, you are just plain lucky.
Sometimes, the best way to stay healthy and build up that immune system is not to lock yourself away until spring thaw but to dance straight into the fire. In other words, you can spend a lot of time with preschoolers, like I do.
Entering the preschool classroom in February is like entering the lion cub’s den of viruses. The rhino virus comes to play with the blocks while his friends influenza and roto hang out by the toy kitchen. Streptococcus and the dreaded Conjunctivitis like to frolic in the water table.
I guess I’ve developed a sense of humour along with the immune system. Because thinking back to when I was a young parent, the germful world was a very fearful place.
I remember being so worried of my children catching something when my kids were in preschool.
“Did you hear?” I asked another mom one day during a Yoga class that was scheduled during preschool hours. “The stomach bug is going around in class. What if my daughter gets sick?” As luck had it, I, the novice and neurotic first-time mommy, presented this question to a veteran mother-of-three mommy. I was feeling a bit guilty because despite this worry, I still dropped Jolie off because I wanted to go to my Yoga class.
“Don’t worry,” said veteran mommy in the middle of practicing Triangle pose. “They get sick. They get better. That’s why they have immune systems.”
This was probably some of the best advice a new mom could get. And as my kids get bigger, they get sick less often, but February is always the time they get sick. One February break, when my kids were in preschool, I cancelled nearly every playdate we made. The week was spent watching movies and reading books between doses of Advil for fever reduction and ice pops for hydration.
One year, my lucky husband was away in California for a conference just in time for the rest of us to get the dreaded stomach bug. I spent a wild Saturday night dragging sheets from my son’s bunk beds into the snow so I can hose them off.
I probably should NOT say this, but these episodes of illnesses seem to grow more seldom as my kids get older. So preschool parents, hang in there!
But if you are a younger family, this is the time of the year where a preschooler’s immune system gets the most rigorous of workouts. Unfortunately, that little 3-year-old may also take their whole family down with them. Siblings get sick. Parents have to reshuffle work commitments.
This is why I proclaim February as Sickie Month.
It is Sickie Month because it is the time in school when we see the most absences. I hear it in the lingering coughs when sick kids come back.
I see a sick day coming when the boy who usually roars like a tiger with his preschool pals loses his roar. I see a sick day coming when the girl who usually bubbles and twinkles with all the enthusiasm and glee of a little girl loses her twinkle. I’ve sat with kids as they shiver with fever and wait for their caregivers to pick them up. Now that I’m a veteran mom of three, my maternal instincts know that a dose of ibuprofen will make the child feel right as rain, though I know my school policy makes me as a teacher unable to administer any medicine.
If you have any doubts why it is necessary to have a February break, just ask a preschool teacher.
Happy Year of the Rabbit
My brother and I at Ko Shing Rice Shoppe's Grand Opening, circa 1977
Growing up, all roads led to Chinatown.
My family went into “the city” a lot. That is what Manhattan is called, even if you lived in one of New York City’s outer boroughs, as we did. We could be uptown at the Museum of Natural History, at Madison Square Garden catching the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus or the Ice Capades, or schmoozing on the Lower East Side. But when we got hungry, we ended our day in the city in Chinatown.
And most of the time, we ate at the same restaurant: The Ko Shing Rice Shoppe.
The Ko Shing Rice Shoppe was located right across the street from the brand-new Confucius Tower apartment buildings. Its dining room was sparsely decorated with wood panels and mirrored walls and plain tables and chairs. It was not a tourist spot so it did not have the usual Chinese kitsch of gongs, pagoda-sloped ceilings or dragon tapestries on the walls.
What it had was great food.
My grandfather knew the owner from many years before. He worked nights at the New York Daily News for over 50 years. His lunch break was around 3:00 a.m. Over the years, he became a regular at one of these all-night Chinese kitchens that operated out of a midtown basement. There, he met Lee. One day, or night, Lee said he was opening up his own restaurant in Chinatown and wanted my grandfather’s whole family to be there for the celebration.
That is where the above picture is from. I was about nine, so my brother was only five. We were the only non-Asian family there among the celebrants, and we were treated to plate after plate of chicken & cashews, crab, bowls of winter melon soup and other delicacies.
From that age on, until my 20’s that was the restaurant of my family’s choice, above Italian food, above Kosher Deli, it was Chinese food that was our exotic cuisine of preference. Chinese food is as inextricably linked to my identity as Matzah Ball soup and gifelte fish.
So, on day outings to the city, we would get there at an odd hour: 3:30 or 4 o clock. The restaurant would be all but empty except for our family: my parents and my brother, my grandparents, and friends who would meet us there, locally and from out-of-town.
In the back at a huge round table, the cook staff would be chopping mountains of Bok Choy and broccoli in advance of the evening rush. My grandfather would take us into the kitchen to say hi to Lee and the chefs. Then we would order, my grandfather would order for the whole family not bothering to even look at the menu. He would just ask Lee to make us a dish of this and a plate of that, always with extra ginger and garlic at my grandmother’s request.
If the waiters had time, they would patiently instruct my brother and I how to use chopsticks. We would have to eventually abandon our practice and resign to use our forks when my mom and grandmother said we were taking too long in our attempts to pick up every individual grain of rice.
After dinner, it was still early in the evening. No matter the weather, summer or winter, we would walk through the narrow streets of the heart of Chinatown. And before vegetarianism or veganism was hip, my grandmother was the first person to introduce me to tofu. After dinner, she would have to make a stop at the Tofu factory to bring some home.
The Ko Shing Rice Shoppe was a place where we held our family birthday parties. My mom’s 40th. My grandfather’s 65th. I even found myself there with my grandfather after the funeral of my paternal grandmother, with whom I did not have a relationship.
But on the ride home, seeing that I was a bit glum, my grandpa found our way somehow from the funeral home in Westchester to the Ko Shing Rice Shoppe. We talked over the events of the day over steaming cups of tea and a dish of beef lo mein.
I don’t know if the Ko Shing Rice Shoppe still exists. I went back to Chinatown on a recent visit but didn’t have the heart to walk the street where it was, in case it was boarded up or another restaurant had taken its place.
In young adulthood, visits to another Chinatown – this time in San Francisco – were a highlight of my newlywed life when my husband and I lived in Berkeley, Calif. We ate at San Francisco’s famous house of NanKing, where lines would snake around the corner during the Chinese New Year to sit in a crammed dining room and feast on sizzling plates of vegetables drenched in the most incredible hoisin sauce I have ever tasted. In the evening, we squeezed into the crowds for a view of the parade, complete with Chinese Dragon dances, drumming bands, and marshall arts demonstrations.
Now I live in a town without a Chinatown. But there are still some good family owned Chinese restaurants in Rochester, like Golden Dynasty and Chen’s. My diet has changed from consuming everything to only sticking to vegetarian items. But still, on Chinese New years, my children delight in the traditions of getting a dollar in an envelope and opening up fortunes.
Have a great New Year!
Postaday: The Most Important Thing is Love
Valentine’s Day is coming, and maybe the Beatles had it right: All You Need is Love. Lenny Kravetz also sang the truth in his song: You’ve Got to Let Love Rule. With a two weeks to go, I guess people are looking for love in all sorts of places, including the blogosphere.
Unexpectedly, one post is attracting quite a lot of attention on my blog. It isn’t a blog post that addresses any serious issue, like bullying, Israel, or education. It’s about love, and in particular, the dying art of writing and saving love letters. But maybe I should expect such attention on a subject that is so universal and enduring.
This post has been read this week, so far – 335 times and counting. Traffic was drawn to my webiste over 320 times – and counting – this week through those who searched “love letter” or “old love letter.”
And this made me wonder – maybe romance isn’t dead. Maybe people still want to pause, be in the moment and pen old fashioned love letters. Maybe they realize that matters of the heart cannot be digitized into texts and tweets. Maybe, in spite of technology, old-fashioned love endures.
For those of you who searched “love letter,” I can’t help but wonder – were you looking for an actual love letter template? This written display of affection shouldn’t be approached as you would a resume and a CVC. I think the recipient of such a love letter would see right through the prefabrication of it. Love letters are unique, like snowflakes.
Were you expecting me to print one of those love letters here? Sorry, but in a future post, I may discuss a box of love letters I found between my grandparents, written to each other when they were only 19.
So, in your search for love letters, I hope that you craft that perfect heartfelt prose to give to your loved one before February 14.
Love should be about love. Acts of love should not be reserved to one date on the calendar. I think Valentine’s Day puts equal pressure on those Happy Loving Couples and All the Single People. Valentines Day is on a Manic Monday and romantic feelings are somewhat hard to switch on between dinner, homework, and after school commitments.
For singles, you must start dreading this day right after the Christmas decorations come down in the store. It seems as soon as the trees and lights come down, the hearts, cards and candy go right up. For couples, it’s hard to throw on that romantic switch on a Monday night between dinner, working, homework with the kids and after school commitments. So remember, love is every day and can be shown in different ways to the different people in your life. If it’s a stranger, hold the door open or leave behind a store coupon you are not going to use in just the right spot. If you are a parent, sneak in an extra treat into a lunchbox. If you are a teacher, teach with enthusiasm and energy for your students. If you are in a relationship, don’t take it for granted. Do some dishes unasked. And by all means, go buy that heart-shaped box of candy. If you search and put love into the universe, one day, love will find its way back to you.
Sisters are Doing it For Themselves – but we can do better
Women, we need your voice and leadership in Judaism
To my dear readers,
This blog post focuses on synagogue life inside Conservative Judaism. If you follow a different faith and don’t wish to read on and get bogged down in all the Jewish lingo, I will completely understand. But, if you want to read on and offer your point of view on women participation in religious life, Jewish or not, read on and chime in with your comments.
Last Saturday afternoon, after many warm hugs and handshakes on a job well done, and a shot of chocolate schnapps over a Kiddush lunch with my volunteer co-chair, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
I co-chaired Sisterhood Shabbat at my synagogue as part of a nationwide celebration of women and women participating in synagogue life. The service went splendidly with many firsts for our congregation: The first part of the service was led by our congregation’s first woman rabbi. During the Torah service, the Torah was capably lifted by a woman who is a weightlifting fitness instructor. My co-chair and I felt a great sense of accomplishment that we had risen to the challenge to find a woman to lead every part of the service. Every woman who volunteered rose to the occasion as well and did their parts beautifully.
What troubles me is who will lead in the years and decades to come.
My concern over the last few months as I helped put this service together was on two fronts:
- The sparse feeling that I get when I see the increasingly empty blue seats week after week indicates the dwindling number of families who take the time to be with their community on Shabbat mornings. I get a little concerned about the future of my synagogue and the future of Conservative Judaism as a whole.
- I also was troubled by the number of women who I approached to participate who were not comfortable leading services or not comfortable with their knowledge of Hebrew. Among those who politely said no to participating were Jewish educators themselves. This level of discomfort, the scarcity of women who are comfortable enough to lead services, comes after nearly two decades of the Conservative movement counting women in a minyan and allowing full participation in synagogue life.
Sisters, we have to do better. If we truly want to see egalitarian Judaism survive and flourish, if we have the privilege of being counted in a minyan, than we owe it to ourselves and our daughters to push out of our comfort levels and learn to lead.
Is this a challenge? Of course it is. But it is not impossible. Look how far women have come.
- Don’t be afraid of not being comfortable leading services. We all need to start somewhere. Know that however you do, your community deeply appreciates that you participated in this mitzvah, or good deed, of leading your community.
- There are so many resources available for learning. If enough people voice interest and commitment, synagogues will happily create classes or sessions with our clergy. I didn’t learn to read Torah until I was 38 years old. Why? Because when I was a kid, girls “didn’t have to” learn Torah. But I knew even as a child that I would someday learn.
- If you are more comfortable learning at home and are tech savvy, there are online programs galore to help. For example, Siddur Audio walks you through nearly every page of the Siddur Sim Shalom prayerbook of the Conservative Judaism movement. You can even download mp3 clips and listen to them on your iPod to learn.
Lastly, don’t be afraid of making mistakes or screwing up. Or the butterflies in your stomach. I get nervous – complete with sweaty palms – nearly every time I read Torah. I often say to myself right before I read, why am I putting myself through this? But I know why I do it: it’s good for the community, and reading Torah is really good for your brain!
But it is not an exercise in perfection, rather an act in participation, because if you falter, there are people right beside you who are there to help. That is why it is called a kehilah kedosha – a holy community.
What did MLK day mean to you today?
Can you recall your first memory? One of my earliest memories was not a good one. It was the kind of very early memory that makes you check in with your parents and ask: “did that really happen, or did I dream it?” Before I wrote these paragraphs, that were included in an article I wrote for last year’s MLK Day, I checked in with my mom and dad, who told me that it was no dream.
One of my earliest memories is a harsh one and a stark reminder why we must always honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his ideals of racial harmony and social and economic justice.
My grandfather found the house where my parents still live to this day on a “For Sale By Owner” ad placed on a bulletin board of his workplace, The New York Daily News. And this was back in the day, when ads were written on paper and bulletin boards were literally bulletin boards. The house was a duplex townhouse on a quiet dead-end street. The back of the house overlooked just one more row of townhouses, and then a field. Beyond the field, on a clear day, I could see the ocean from my bedroom window.
One night in the spring of 1972, I remember an orange glow outside that window. My mom, pregnant with my brother, was screaming to my father, “They are burning that house down!” I was three. The house directly behind our backyard was on fire. The culprits were three New York City police officers who lived on that block in this predominantly white neighborhood. Years later they were convicted of racially motivated arson and civil rights violations in a federal court. They vandalized and burned the house simply because an African-American family had purchased it. And while they set it on fire, they didn’t bother to tell the Jewish family who lived in the adjoining house that they were going to do so either. When this happened, my parents feared not who was planning on moving into the neighborhood, but who was already living there.
At the age of three, I already witnessed what happens when racial hatred goes unchecked. At the age of 13, when I started high school, this tinge of racism was still alive and well in my neighborhood. The black family, the Alberto Charles family, one a social worker and the other an educator, never moved in but the hate was still there.
“I hear there are a lot of niggers that go to your high school,” one girl my age from the neighborhood said to me. The N word slipped out of her mouth so easily, so casually. As easy as saying, “I hear they serve a lot of hamburgers in you school cafeteria.”
I attended a high school in another part of Staten Island to get away from the group that had bullied me all through Jr. High School. This racist comment further bolstered my parent’s decision to get me out of my own school district.
I stared at her and then said, “Yes, there are quite a few African-Americans in my school, and it doesn’t bother me one bit.” Maybe I shouldn’t have justified her with an answer. Maybe I should have said more.
Today, I sat my youngest son on the couch and read the children’s book “Martin’s Big Words” with my youngest child, even though he said he read it with his class at school on Friday. We all listened to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on NPR, my oldest son reciting some of the parts by memory. I know it wasn’t much and I know that racial and social injustice exist, but I couldn’t let the day go by without acknowledging why we had the day off.
This is why I find it reassuring that today, there are many in the Rochester area who filled this weekend with memorials, services and programs of social action. And every month, it seems like there is some sort of book, toy food or clothing drive in our schools to help the less fortunate. In the words of Dr. King, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.”
Taylor Lautner’s Boiling Hot Chest and other Conversations of Adolescence
My daughter is a December baby. But with the craziness of the December holiday season, we have made a tradition of pushing back the birthday party in recent years until January.
In comparison to last year’s Bat Mitzvah extravaganza party, this year’s birthday celebration was quite low-key: T-shirt decorating, Pizza & other munchies, cookie cake and – watching Eclipse.
I think I found my cure for the winter blues and the remedy is inviting over 11 girls aged 13 -14 and add pizza and Shirley Temples for extra joy. How can anyone be down amidst the constant chatter and giggling? I was happy that my daughter let me be around her friends, who showered my daughter with hugs and presents accompanied by cards that were no shorter than novellas. The cards, written in every conceivable color of Sharpie, were filled with private jokes and all the ways my daughter is a good friend. Those cards I know will be treasured just as much as the gifts.
Then, it was time for cake and movies. This was a very important agenda with a limited timeframe. With all the girls refusing to leave until they saw every second of Eclipse, a vote needed to be taken as to when to eat cake.
Who wanted to eat cake now?
Who wanted to take a short intermission in the movie to eat cake?
Eating cake while watching Eclipse on the family room couch was not an option.
My daughter piped in: “Hey, how about: we watch the movie,and the first time Taylor Lautner takes his shirt off, we eat cake!”
Friends: “No, then we will want to watch the whole thing.”
So, cake came out, candles were lit, a wish was made. Within 10 minutes, the cookie cake was completely snarfed down. Then, all lights went out. It was time for Eclipse.
Again, I was so glad my daughter let me watch this movie with her friends. The comments made were even more entertaining than the movie itself.
As overheard in the darkness:
“I can really learn how to kiss by watching this movie!”
“He’s sooooooo cute!”
“No. He’s sooooo cute!”
“Even as a wolf, he is cute!”
“The wolves look so fuzzy and cuddly!”
“Bella, you need to wind up with Edward, because then Jacob will be mine!”
And on and on and lots of giggles and screams to go right along with it.
Then, at some point of the movie (and I couldn’t hear a word of dialogue because of all the giggles and nonstop chatter), Bella and Edward are on a mountain. Bella is in a coat and wearing a hat. Then, Jacob shows up – shirtless – and a pair of shorts.
So, being the Jewish mother, I ask, “So why is Bella all bundled up and Jacob is walking around without his shirt for a change?” Because, I had fallen behind (no, I had become sick of) reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series and didn’t understand the complexities of man/wolf biology.
The replies were instantaneous:
“Because Jacob is a werewolf and his blood is warm!”
“His blood is hot, his blood is boiling hot!”
“His chest is so hot.”
“His chest is so hot you can bake cookies on it!”
“If someone baked cookies on Taylor Lautner’s chest, I would certainly eat them!”
Oh. Well, now it is all completely logical to me.
A woman I know from a playgroup from many years back asked me the other day if I missed the days when my kids were really little.
And I thought: No, I don’t miss the diaper bags, the diapers, the stroller shlepping. I do miss picking up little people and swinging them around, but teaching preschool cures my fix for that. No, I love the ages my kids are in right now and I wouldn’t change a thing.
So, girls, when are you coming over next?
Winter Blahging
At the beginning of January, Mother Nature gave us Western New Yorkers quite the tease.
Every flake of snow melted away. Temperatures soared — SOARED – into the 50s. People were out everywhere that first week in January. We thought – so this is what the outside feels like again. So this is what it is like to go outside minus the hat, the fleece gloves, the silk thermals. This is what it is like to walk outside without guarding every step from a trecherous icy patch.
But we knew it couldn’t last. And the cold, along with the winter blahs, is hitting many of us as hard and unrelenting as this winter.
This week, temperatures refused to budge above the 20’s and the sun made a few cameo appearances, starring as a pale egg yolk in a grey sky. As tempting as it is to fly away and visit my parents in Florida over February break, the $600 plane tickets say we are in the cold for the long haul.
Turning on the TV doesn’t seem to help matters. The grim news from Arizona, plus the loss of the contemporary Jewish song composer Debbie Friedman made the week even tougher to bear.
Did I say that the days were getting longer in a recent post? Well, the darkness still seems to come very early these days. And though I do try to get outside, I’m tired of fighting Old Man Winter, and he is starting to win.
I posted just how blah I felt on my Facebook status and was thankful for all the friends who wrote in their suggestions: exercise, a drink, getting out with other people, or staying inside with one special person : ).
But there, in the seasonal aisle of Wegmans, I saw it. My cure for the winter blues.
A Jiffy Greenhouse Seed Starter!
With that, and a purchase of some organic Parseley and Arugula seeds, the smile returned to my face. Let the 2011 gardening season begin.
About Me
Kreativ Blogger
Versatile Blogger Award
Stacy Gittleman 