Salami

One of my most vivid memories of the week my father died is all the food that came pouring into our two bedroom apartment within a day of when the news had reached our extended family. My mother had dozens of cousins when I was little. And it was all those cousins along with my mother's two remaining brothers who flooded our lives that week. When my father died, my mom was already down to having only 2 of her 4 siblings. Her only sister died exactly one year before my dad died. The first week of March would become “the week” in our family. As I grew I realized every family has a “week” or a “month” that stands out in the calendar because all their tragedies seem to miraculously fall in the same short space of time during a calendar year.

My dad and my aunt were both born in the first week of March in 1911 and they both died in the first week of March, my Aunt in1969 and my dad in 1970. My mom’s oldest brother died when I was just a first grader, but I cannot recall what month. My dad died when I was a little more than half way through the 4^th Grade. All time is connected to Grades when you are growing up. It is the only reliable way to measure time and who you are in the world when you are a child. Your grade is a significant part of your identity. So in 1970 when I had just past the half way mark through 4^th Gradde I got to take an entire week off from school to be with my family as we observed a period of mourning known as sitting Shiva. I do not remember a lot of sitting. What I remember is a lot of eating.

The week of the Shiva, is really a mandatory 7 days of feasting and welcoming people into your home at all hours of the day and night. It is the Jewish Way to help postpone the grief for the family until they gain enough strength to deal with the enormity of losing a loved one. The Shiva was one long week of chaos. The doorbell was always ringing with noisy and nosy neighbors waiting to come in and eat while expressing their shock and disbelief to my mother. Relatives arrived from near and far finding ways to fill up our days with family stories, and the phone never stopped ringing. The traffic was coming in from both ends of our apartment, the back door in the kitchen and the front door in the living room. Since we had an open floor plan it was easy to stand in the dining room and either look to the left to see who was coming in the back way or straight ahead at the big picture window in the living room where the half drawn shade only allowed me to view people from the knees down as they made their way toward our front door.

The food arrived in all shapes and sizes, some brought in by the actual giver and some by way of professional delivery. There were enough boxes of Fannie May Chocolates to feed a starving nation. The deli trays were always covered in tinted cellophane with a bow on top. Who would not want a wrapped gift of corned beef, tongue, turkey, and roast beef surrounding a giant container of chopped liver? Fruit baskets were more like fruit bushels, crates overflowing with apples, oranges, bananas and grapes. Coffee Cakes seemed to be multiplying over night while we slept. I remember thinking people were sneaking in while we dozed and leaving more and more food.

I cannot recall which day it was on during that long week but when it arrived I remember everyone gasping at it. It was huge. I tried imagining it hanging from the ceiling with the other salami’s I was use to seeing at the Kosher butcher, but I think it would have gotten in the way of the workers as they prance behind the meat counter trying to keep up with patrons pointing out which cut of meat they wanted. The salami was so long it extended far over our small round kitchen table. Like all the other salamis I had seen in my life it was tightly wrapped inside plastic with the words “Best” on it. It had a small looped rope at the top and a silver clasp to keep the plastic tightly sealed.

“I bet that salami is taller than you!” someone said as they came in through the back door and saw me standing by the counter that jutted out from the wall and separated our kitchen from our dining room. It was the spot I had chosen to make sure I could see people coming in from either door. I don’t remember who said it, I just remember being compared to the salami. Back then I was still short and skinny. But it would not take long for the people to disappear and what was left of my family to grow exponentially from grief fueled by fattening foods like fried chicken, French fries, smoked fish, brisket, sour cream mixed with bananas, and of course, salami.

Reinventing the Wheel, and the Blog, and the Purpose

Can I reinvent my blog? Can people reinvent themselves? Isn't that what Jay Gatsby was trying to do? It did not work out so well for him, but then again he was a fictional character and I think both my Blog and I are REAL. I was going to start from scratch with a new name, a new design, and a catchy new Mission Statement etc. but then I realized there is not such thing as "reinventing". There is only evolving. This is the entire reason for the saying "let's not reinvent the wheel." If it already exists we can change it anyway we need to but that is not reinventing, it is modifying. So, I should just continue down the path in this House of Mirrors where I keep bumping into myself. I never seem to find my way "out."

And what if I did finally find the Exit Door. I am not sure I would like what I found upon exiting. Would I be in some smelly carnival where the ground is littered with sticky food, and the air is filled with noisy children being screamed at by their parents, rowdy teen agers swearing at each other in an effort to feel cool, and the smell of beer and cigarettes? Or perhaps I would be in an amusement park from long ago where a House of Mirrors was part of a larger landscape including a tunnel of love, a haunted house, and a fun house with moving floors and a spinning drum exit. Would I just get on another ride, a merry go round or a ferris wheel? Either way I would simply be spinning my wheels. At least in the House of Mirrors I can check to see if my lip stick is still on. So, I will see me and hopefully you (a reader or two) as I once again try to fill the Internet Galaxy with the tiny stars we call words.

I was going to name my new blog "Shooting Stars" and then googled that phrase and found it was a rather common name for Blogs. I am not someone who is accustomed to having a common name, and neither should my blog. So, "Here's looking at you kid." (I am just speaking to myself in the mirror - of course).

I wanted to be unique in my naming of a new blog

Experimenting

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Hello World. I am experimenting. Way cool. I bet a monkey could do this faster than me (and better). Can you hear me now??

Really??

Soon our world will be divided into two groups:

1. Those “starring” in reality television shows.

2. Those watching reality television shows. (Aka the audience).

Recently, I was channel surfing which does not burn up nearly as many calories as real surfing but I am hydrophobic and a girl has got to get exercise anyway she can. I fell into the abyss of the “The Bachelor.” It was scary in a Ray Bradbury kind of way. No giant monsters or mad slashers, just an insidious descent into a self induced trance. My brain was being destroyed while my eyes were feasting on Brad’s good looks. I heard later on he is a schmuck from a regular watcher, but hey Reality TV is a lot like college. We are pretending to go for knowledge but it is really just an excuse to look for the next party.

As I watched Brad on a couch with his choice I kept wondering why does the guy get to choose? Later on I learned there is the same format for a reality show where the woman gets to choose. Is this true? Is this for real? I mean really, this seems like a rather difficult way to find a mate. Can’t these people go to a bar like I did? Hey, I have been married for almost 17 years. The bar scene works. Ahhh, but alas, no audience was there to watch me go on thousands (I am not exaggerating) bad blind dates, or sappy singles events organized by strangers. The only one watching my silly life unfolding was my mom and I assure you she never found it entertaining.

But Brad and the bevy of beauties begging for his narcissistic ass to be theirs for the kissing had a loyal audience. Millions of Americans watched as Brad and bimbo after bimbo, oops I mean bathing beauty after bathing beauty, soaked up the sun and experienced fabulous adventures called “dates”. I am guessing most of the audience was female, and I would feel perfectly safe in assuming (yes another dangerous sport that does not help with weight loss) that no one watching the show ever went on a “date” where they get to fly to another continent and ride on an elephant. Who would not feel wooed? How does Brad afford it all? Oh, wait, he doesn’t. It is the newest version of “Dutch Treat”, a major television network foots the bill for the dates and all you have to do is be very good looking to go.

Why exactly was Brad “chosen” to be “the bachelor”? He is movie star handsome. You see men are not the only ones who like to gaze upon physically superior beings with whom they will never be able to copulate. Hip Hip Hooray for Women’s Liberation. Brad is the male equivalent of a Playboy Bunny. In the good old days one never heard the Bunnies speaking. Their silence was as much a part of their costume as their cottontails and ears. Now we get to hear Bunnies thanks to Hugh Hefner sharing his life (reality hits again). This is why we have shows like the Bachelor. Male Bunnies are demanding equal time and pay.

Oh how I miss the good old days where the picture perfect people lay their one-dimensional lives in between the pages of magazines. Really, I do.

The Bitch is Back

I am at the apple store with Steve for a one on one, not that kind of one on one. It is the kind of one on one where a 25 year old tells an old lady how to maneuver on a computer. It is sad but true, I used a reference to an old Elton John song for the title of this post and Steve had no idea what I was referencing. He also let me know WordPerfect is no longer available and I am actually using Microsoft word. Next thing you know he will be helping me cross the street.

See you tomorrow. I am going to learn how to take this out of Microsoft Word (aka Wordperfect for those of us over 50) and put it on my blog!

Just my luck

Hello World,

I am typing on an Apple Mac. And I just found out Steve Jobs is happily married, damn it.

Elephants, Part I

I have a friend who keeps reminding me I have not written on my Blog since July 8th. I have been writing a lot actually, inside my head. I just don’t bother writing it down or typing it in the computer. The words are always floating around. They string themselves together like strands of pearls and I turn them into imaginary necklaces only I can see hanging (around my neck, like a noose).

I am not really inside my own body. I have written about this before. I may be repeating myself. I may be repeating myself. I am definitely repeating myself. I don’t want to go back and search through all my old blog entries to see if I have written and posted this material before. Besides, even if I did, who is going to remember? The two or three real people who read this blog or my imaginary friends (they last a life time) who are talking to me right now: “Oh, good lord, we have heard this one before. Yada Yada Yada, tell me something new.” I guess my imaginary friends watched Seinfeld. I would respond to my many imaginary friends (I am very popular inside and outside of my imagination)
“Don’t Yada Yada Yada me! I need motivation, I need spiritual guidance. I need Yoda Yoda Yoda.”

So, when Paul (a real person) threw out an idea, “write about Facebook,” while I appreciated the prompt I was hoping for something more. I wasn’t sure what or how to ask for it. Facebook has been overdone, to say the least. I am trying to stand out, write something unique and profound that will get me energized to produce even more.

Then I remembered, all Roads Lead to Rome! I just saw “Eat, Pray, Love”. I thought the movie was okay. I thought the men in it were really hot. Oh yeah, the meaning of the movie, I almost forgot…(now you can see why writing is so difficult for me. I am all over the place mentally). If I can’t follow a train of thought, how can I construct a piece of writing someone else will be able to follow? Are you still with me?

Okay, back to the movie, “Eat Pray Love”, and the lessons it was supposedly sharing with the rest of the world. I think the main lesson was about deep breathing. I deep breath, usually when I am making obscene phone calls, but it has yet to provide me with the keys to the doors of knowledge Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert is finding all over the globe. So much for breathing, but I will continue to breathe anyway because even if it doesn’t enlighten or motivate me, it does allow me to keep tapping these keys.

Another key element in the movie spoke to me on a more personal level. Yes, more personal than heavy breathing during obscene phone calls. I think I am procrastinating. I am doing things, just not the things I think I should be doing. I think I should be writing a book of short stories or a novel, or essays to mail to magazines. But instead, I took a stand up comedy class (YouTube: StandUpShowcase7). I agreed to teach some children’s classes for a local business. I started obsessively playing Banangram with my 11 year old daughter. I wish Banagram had a solitaire version for the hours when my daughter is in school. I never develop a strategic plan because I cannot choose a goal. No goal, no plan. It is simple. I hop from goal to goal like a hooker hops in and out of cars on a busy night.

In the opening scene of the movie, it shows the main character married to a man who just can’t find himself. He is thinking about all these different professions he could be pursuing, but he can’t commit to any one of them. I feel his pain. I think the movie and its author/lead character had three main points to share.


l. Deep Breathing – yeah I do it all the time. Hasn’t helped.

2. Can’t find myself or choose a clear path for a profession. I am so glad I did not marry Elizabeth Gilbert, the woman who wrote “Eat Pray Love”. She dumped her indecisive husband like a hot potato. My dedicated husband encourages every New Adventure I come up with and there have been many:

A business to help care givers
Writing
Stand up comedy
Selling things (don’t ask, don’t tell).

So here we are still married and living off only his income (I have no idea how we are going to pay for college for two kids – next job idea: “would you like fries with that?”) But the truth is, eventually I need to find a way to pitch in financially. I am done producing humans/children and now I need to produce an income. My timing could not be better. We are knee deep in a recession and America is on the road to becoming a third world country. Hopefully our desire for fries will be unabated. I guess I can always learn to clean the grill. I am more worried about how I will get along with my co-workers and the customers. I never did win any congeniality contests when I had to work in an office environment. Perhaps that is why I am determined to find a way to make money without having to deal with the politics of being in public. Which leads me to the third and most important point of the movie.

3. Wait a Minute! There is an Elephant in the Room:

In the movie Julie Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert buys a Ganesh Elephant icon at an idol store. It is part of the Hindu religion which is not monotheistic. I have no business thinking about icons since in my religious background, they were nothing but trouble! No idols allowed. I don’t even watch American Idol. That is how afraid I am of worshiping anything I can actually visualize. Keep it blurry – cloudy. The lord is around us and within us. Do Not attempt imagining or personifying G-d in any way or someone is going to throw two big stone tablets on top of your head!

Okay, but my religion does not prevent me from attributing deep meaning to symbols and signs that pop up, does it? I am wearing a Jewish Star. I tied a red ribbon around the cribs where my babies slept and I even tied one around my mom’s hospital bed. I kiss the Torah as it is passing me by on High Holidays. And my own mother said if you “want your prayers answered, say them while the ark is open and your prayers will be answered. I got a husband by sticking a note in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem (it is TRUE). So I am back to the premise presented in the book the Celestine Prophecy. There are no such things as coincidences. Pay attention. Everything means something. You just have to look a little deeper, between the lines, under the layers, and inside the molecules. A writing instructor once told me the key to good story telling was in the details. And remember, I am looking for the keys. So come back tomorrow for part II of my version of Eat, Pray, Love. I have decided if I cannot come up with a unique idea on my own, I will just steal someone else’s and customize it so it is no longer recognizable to the viewing public (real and imaginary). And that is my final decision. I think. Good thing I wasn’t watching the Godfather over the weekend. Who knows what this post would have looked like.