The turkey is sooo DONE

Sooooo overdue for a post here... but hey, hardly anyone ever leaves comments, so I guess no one's really waiting out there w/ bated anticipation, huh? Yes, it's for me, anyway, so I'll take the tip & "blog on". :)

Well, I suppose I could re-cap my Thanksgiving (sorry - boring, I know). There's really so, so, SO much I could write about it - but I think it might be better to keep some of it private, as it (of course) deals with family stresses. Maybe I'll get the nerve to write it all out someday soon, but it's a thin line between therapeutic catharsis (yes, I know that was a redundant phrase...) and offending or hurting a loved one. So, for their sake - as hilarious as I see a lot of what happens in my life - I'll refrain.

MONDAY:
I worked til 5, made it to 7:15 kickboxing, and picked my brother up from the airport. He suffered my slooooow dial-up internet connection & bad cell phone reception from the apt.

TUESDAY:
No work today. My brother & I went shopping at Whole Foods for all their special needs - organic, natural, expensive... Gave my brother directions to the airport, since 6 of us couldn't fit in the car (that is, not with each getting their own seatbelt - you know, the "safe, legal" way). He picked up his wife, 2 babies & our mom, who all flew in from my mom's place in Florida. They all made themselves at home in my apartment, and as the afternoon wore on & I started to feel overwhelmed (add on that I'm an admitted clean-freak - and clearly my sister-in-law is not), I was rescued by an incredible knight in shining armor, someone who knew exactly what to say & do. Thank you!

WEDNESDAY:
In the morning, met up briefly with my cousin visiting from Israel (in NYC on business) at Grand Central, along with all my houseguests. It must've been the coldest day yet, and the 1.5 mile walk to & from where I finally managed to find parking was an evil reminder of why I hate winters in the NE. My brother & his family tried catching a taxi uptown, but absolutely nothing was available (that's Park Avenue for you). So, I drove his wife & babies, along with my mom, up to her friend's apt in the Upper East Side, while my brother walked & caught a cab. Mom & I rushed back home so that I could make a 2pm personal training session - at 2:45pm. My trainer is soooo understanding!

My sister, her husband & toddler drove up from VA to a hotel near my uncle's house (where we'd have Thanksgiving dinner). They said the drive took an extra 3 hrs, 2 of which they spent walking around a mall b/c their boy went through 2 pairs of pants (diaper leaks) and needed to air-dry them. Egad! And people ask me why I only dream of having puppies.

THURSDAY:
We hang out at home until we're ready to drive out to my sister's hotel, so my nephews (both just over 2 yrs old) can play together. We manage to convince my sister-in-law to have all 6 of us drive together, with my mom on my brother's lap up front. Weee! That was fun. At the hotel, the guys got hungry. So we ended up feasting on delicious stuff from Whole Foods nearby, about 3 hrs before our Thanksgiving dinner feast. At my uncle's house, we had 25 adults and the 3 babies - plus my sister's announcement that she's expecting her 2nd. Woo-hoo! We had my 2nd-cousins from Boston, those from NJ, plus 1 cousin's in-laws, as they live nearby. It's always great to see everyone - at least once a year.

The drive home was memorable, to say the least. Again, 6 of us, but with my brother's wife on his lap & our mom in the back, responsible for amusing the babies. She didn't. The "I'm hungry!" screeching cry of a 7-month old, muddled with me singing "The Rainbow Connection", my brother whistling, sister-in-law cringing, the radio on low in the background, our mom 'shhhhh'ing, and the toddler giggling... left us all with a headache. Me personally? I think it was hilarious!

FRIDAY:
We stayed in mostly - yet another cold, windy day. We ordered in Indian food for lunch. As is our tradition for the last few years, we eat at a Mediterranean restaurant on the Friday after Turkey-Day, and it's always been at a place near my apt. But noooooooo, they had to pick somewhere new, in the middle of crappy-podunk-nowhere! (OK, it was Cresskill, up near Tenafly - which actually was quite charming! Will I ever be able to figure out how to get there again? Hell no!) So, we got there a full HOUR late. New Jersey highways & signs - what fool designed them? I mean, they may as well be written in crayon. They always appear way too late, U-turns are incorrectly labeled... And Mapquest gave me directions with over 15 turns on local streets (!), not to mention the fact that it never mentioned Local vs. Express lanes on I-95. Add to my stress that I had my sister's car following us. Like I had any clue where we were going! My cousins asked me to come out to NYC later for drinks - but no go. I was way too stressed & exhausted to enjoy anything at that point.

SATURDAY:
My sister's crew headed back home to VA. My brother & his family met up with friends in Hoboken for brunch. We all then took the bus into NYC - my brother's tribe heading back up to their friends in the Upper East Side, and my mom & I meeting up with a friend from Ohio in the Upper West Side. Poor girl was hungover from a late night out, and yakked twice while we lunched at a diner. Mom & I crossed the park to meet up with my brother, and we all had dinner at a quaint little restaurant. Bus, subway & another bus back home. Mom snored that night. Hate sharing the bed with snorers.

SUNDAY:
E-day! Day of the exodus. My brother dropped off his family & our mom at the airport, bound for Florida once again. I spent the afternoon cleaning - I mean, seriously bleaching my roommate's entire bathroom - floor, tub, tiles (more on that in a future post, I think...). I cooked us some steak for dinner, and spent much of the evening on the phone while he watched TV.

MONDAY:
Dropped my brother off at the airport at 9am. Our goodbye was lame, judging by our usual standards. Again - won't get too much into the personal stuff here. Let's just say the cosmos had shifted in our family. Usually, I'm the one everyone 'picks on' at Thanksgiving - my siblings are always trying to "fix" my life, everything I'm doing wrong or the potential I'm not fulfilling. And yes, mom chimes in too. Anyway, that didn't happen this time. My sister's family being at a hotel staved off their unsolicited input, and my brother being under enormous pressures due to uncontrollable circumstances made him primed as our estrogen-driven target. I think we'll go back to picking on me next year.

Thank God Thanksgiving comes but ONCE a year! And yeah, thank God we're Jewish - no more holiday get-togethers in my family until Passover! That should be just enough time to recover...

My favorite duckie, Kim Jong II

There's this duck I love seeing at my brother's neighborhood reservoir/park, and this time I finally took photos. He reminds me of North Korea's dictator. See for yourself (but fyi, the photos do NOT do him justice!) He's even loud, obnoxious & bossy towards all the other ducks - sort of "el jefe":

How I Spent Vacation (part 2)

SAT - TUES, 11/5-8

Flew to my mom's in FL on Saturday, with my sister-in-law & the 2 babies. They were remarkably easy to handle throughout the whole trip -- probably the excitement of 2 planes, a terminal shuttle-train, moving sidewalks, etc.

My mom's "retirement community for active seniors" (term I appreciated from Jennifer Weiner's "In Her Shoes") was hit quite hard by Hurricane Wilma. Though generally confined to downed trees (1,100 to be more exact), gossip did reach us that some bldgs' shingles flew off the roofs & some windows shattered. As we rode in a taxi to the Wynmoor Village (population somewhere around 14,000), we gazed in awe at enormous highway light-poles pushed aside along the shoulder, car dealership signs completely blown out, plywood still lining businesses' windows, street signs barely anchored at 45+ degree angles, traffic lights not functioning, and anxious drivers trying to decipher other drivers' intentions at each intersection, negotiating who'd next make their move. Within the Village, maintenance crews hurried to clear the roads, chain-sawing dying branches & piling the rubble in mounds along the grass. I'll let the photos speak for themselves (note the determined golfer, unphased! - and the round, white globes in pic #4 were street lamps):

How I Spent Vacation

No, it wasn't a "vacation" -- it was actually an "emergency family crisis trip", but "vacation" fit better in the little title-field here.

TUES, 10/25
Fly to Lubbock, TX where my brother lives. He flew to Israel the previous day to attend our grandmother's funeral. His wife was to pick me up at the airport, but her baby girl's doctor appt ran late. Very late. They picked me up 2+ hrs later. Anyway, it left me plenty of time to drink in the beauty & charm that is Lubbock. (sarcasm, folks) Actually, it left me vulnerable to the chatty-kathy kindness of several men.

Meet JOEL: a really handsome fella, but looks a bit older & wears a business suit. Chatty-Joel decides to sit on my bench (all the others were empty) waiting for his ride, and coyly chats me up. My sister-in-law was shocked by how much he must've talked to me in the span of 20 minutes, considering how much info I now knew about this stranger. He's 32, from Dallas (raised in Kansas City), in Lubbock for a presentation at a pharmaceutical company, feels too old to enjoy a city as lively as NYC, a stranger he wasn't sure he'd recognize was picking him up, he was staying at the Embassy Suites... believe me, there was a LOT more, but I've since forgotten. Anyway, Joel is m-a-r-r-i-e-d. The big fat ring on his finger tells me so. Now, I'm not saying married men can't be polite & friendly (and anyway, I really wasn't interested - amazing what having someone else on your mind does to your interest in the 'prowl'), but hello? He was doing what I'd categorize as 'close-talking'. Maybe my perception of 'polite' has been skewed from living in NY this long, but I'm pretty damn sure the man was flirting. He sure was pretty.....

Meet the SOLDIERS: there's a base in Lubbock, so HumV's and other military vehicles are always picking up personnel at the airport. These fellas talked about: where their hometowns get their water (interesting topic to my brother & dad, at least); how military officially states a soldier could live on a max of 33 days of RPMs (rations - MRE/Meals Ready-to-Eat) but that they've heard the army has been giving soldiers in Iraq 2-3 months of RPMs; one soldier said he's so poor he'll take any handout the army offers incl. taking home free RPMs for himself & his wife; how much they hate this sort of pick-up duty (Beavis interrupts: "she said pickup doody... hehhh...") delaying their dinner; etc. When my ride finally arrived, they all blushed & apologized for anything they said that might've given me a terrible impression of military men.

WED - SAT, 10/26-11/5
Helped out my sister-in-law with their 2 babies as best I could. Felt like Suzy-homemaker after a while... washed dishes, laundry, wiped counters & tables & floors & chairs endlessly (I'm a bit of a clean-freak), sang to them, changed (just!) 1 or 2 diapers, gave them baths, fed the toddler, took him on walks around the reservoir, played in the backyard & playground, made stuffed grape leaves from scratch, grocery shopping, etc.

My brother returned from Israel on Friday, 10/28; we flew a kite that evening. Saturday evening we went to a drive-in movie (my first ever). Always wanted to, but the one in my hometown closed down before I could drive. We also had my first (and probably last) Fried Twinkie. I much preferred the funnel cake.

Sunday we all went to a corn-maze. Would probably have been more fun without the vicious 'dry mosquitos' inside the cornfield - we only did 1/2 the maze by the time my nephew got bored. They also had this weird 'skeet shooting' thing, where they actually launched corn cobs hundreds of feet, aimed at targets out in a cornfield. Then there was a rock-climbing tower, which my brother conquered twice - in dress shoes. Lastly, a "no left turn" maze for kids (IMHO, an homage to NJ driving).

Trip continues on to FL - see next post...

Dirrrty money

The weirdness that was my Wednesday...
So, I just got my hair cut & I'm making my way from 57th & 6th to 55th & 8th -- slowly, since it's only 1:35pm and my mtg doesn't start until 2pm. BOOM! A woman teeters around & falls to the ground, as a car grazes her backside making a turn onto 57th.

Yes, I saw a person get hit by a car. This is the first time I've ever seen that happen in this pedestrian-ruled city I've lived in for 12 years; much less, in my life. I have, however, seen an accident in NYC once before - sort of. I was in a taxi on my way to JFK at 6am, and the driver starts pointing to his rearview mirror, babbling something in his language with shocked wide eyes. So I look over my shoulder, and I swear I was watching a movie stunt - as we round a curve on the highway leading out of the Midtown Tunnel, a car doesn't quite make the same curve and literally flips up & over several times, seeming to float 10 feet up in the air, presumably travelling at least the highway speed limit. I can't believe what I've just seen, call 911, report our location & what I think I've seen, and continue on to JFK as if we'd just seen nothing more than a wild commercial. But I digress...

I run over to the woman lying in the crosswalk, positioned in lane 2 of 6 that span 57th St. Two other men seem just as committed as I to staying beyond the requisite "Are you OK?" One turned out to be the woman's husband; the other, just another stranger like me. She says the car 'hit' her (again, making a turn at a busy pedestrian intersection; so, not driving very fast), causing her to bang her head on the car, teeter around & fall on the ground. I didn't catch the full 'hit', but saw the teeter. I thought she had hit her head on the pavement (which would be, in my imagination, equally as painful). Waiters from Rue 57 ran out to tell us they called the police. A cab driver heading the opposite direction jumped out of his taxi to stop the woman in the hit&run car who seemingly had no idea anything had happened. He and about 4 others chased towards her to get her license plate # and flag her down.

She eventually pulled over & ran out towards our huddle, arms flailing about, literally screaming in a most annoying stereotypical New Yorker voice, "Oh my gawd! Oh my gawd! ARE YOU OK??? This is my worst nightmare! I've always feared this would happen! I didn't see her at all! Oh my gawd! She shouldn't have been walking out like that! I couldn't see her! Are they going to tow me??" This overly made-up, frosted tipped bouffant from Long Island, I presume, with manicure & oversized sunglasses to hide the sags & wrinkles just waiting for the next facelift... well, she wasn't exactly the focus of anyone's empathy at that moment.

Anyway, I covered her up in my wool coat, in case she didn't realize she was going into shock. By the looks of her husband (early 70's), I'd guess she was in her 60's. I tried to make light conversation to reassure her that she was safe. The couple was visiting for a few days, with tickets to a 2pm B'way matinee. The police arrived, most of the crowd disappeared, then renewed with new gawkers' curiosity, then disappeared again. Meanwhile, the other stranger - gray-haired, chubby Queens-type, wearing some movie or play's embroidered jacket - he started conversation with me. Yup, right over the poor woman.

"You did real good, hon. Real good. Where you work? Oh, yeah? What do you do? Oh, I used to be in publishing too. Worked for Time Warner, with the videos. Production. I'm in movies now. Where you from? What part of Ohio? How old are you? Oh, you're just a lamb, a young kid. You got a card?" and on and on. Since I didn't have a business card, it could've ended right there. But nooo, he figures to tell the poor victim's husband, "She saw the accident. You should really get her info, you know, in case you go to court. What's your number, hon?" So, I gave him the cell #, and he handed that scrap of paper to the husband. While this fella is making nice-nice with me, I'm trying to comfort the lady, b/c I can just imagine what it must feel like to have 2 strangers talking over you about where the female lives & what line of work she's in. I couldn't get this fella to stop & focus on her.

So finally, the ambulance arrives & I remove my coat, as the husband thanks me for my generosity & time, hugging & kissing my cheeks. The stranger introduces himself - John Goldman - wouldn't ya know it...? Looks like he could be related to my ex, and even has the same friggen' last name. Ick. He decides to escort me to wherever I'm heading, repeating, "You did real good back there, real good."

SIDE NOTE: is it so strange that someone would stop & stay with an accident scene until s/he knows the person is in the safe care of police & ambulance? I guess maybe in NYC, it is. It didn't feel like I was doing anything remarkable. But again, only her husband, I and this stranger who seemed to focus more on me than the victim stuck around.

John says, "Let me take you to lunch!" I kindly decline, saying I have to make my 2pm meeting. He pulls out a $20, and presses it into my hand, not letting me push back. Says, "Well, then please treat yourself to lunch. No! Take it! You have to - believe me, I'm lucky. Take this money & it'll bring you luck." Luck? I don't know about that. I mean, it did bring me John. Oy. And isn't that the most appropriate name for a situation such as this? I wondered, should I feel like a prostitute accepting this money? For what? Not for doing a good deed, but for allowing this "close-talker" to stand closer & closer towards me as I edge away, his hand once landing on the small of my back (one of my favorite sensitive spots)? Grrrr.....

Then John asks, "Hey, what's 6 inches long, has a big head, and every girl wants?" Hiding my mortified expression (he is a stranger, after all - from a friend, I could accept that joke w/o batting an eye), he chuckles and pulls out a $100 bill. "Hehhh, I don't know you well enough to tell you the other version of that joke!"

He goes on, "I'm a producer," rattling off names of some action movies & shticky-Jewish-type actors he's managed (Elliott Gould? Wow. I'm mesmerized. Tell me more.) "I don't know if or how I can help you, but maybe there's something I can do for you. Where you live? Me, I've got an apartment here in the city, but I live up in Westchester. Call me," and he gives me his info & we part ways.

11/15 - Geico insurance just called me asking for a recorded statement. After we finished, he basically said I probably couldn't help them much since I didn't see the actual impact. Uhhh, yeah? The split second of impact: I was facing the accident, but I didn't see it cuz folks were obstructing my path and I wasn't exactly looking for an accident. But I saw everything from that split second on - how the victim teetered & hit her head, the driver kept on driving... What a litigious society. Semantics.

"Life is meaningful"?

I have a short yet serious little question for everyone. I was on my bus home from wine-night at an acquaintance's apt last night, listening to Jason Mraz on my mp3 player, and as often happens for me on the bus, it inspired some lyrics for me. It also brought up this question (no, it wasn't the champagne!):

What makes a life "meaningful"?

Post your thoughts as a comment - would love to hear from you.

Don't wake me!

OK, sooooooo much to cover since getting back from my trip to TX & FL! I'll just have to pace myself, split stuff over a few days just to feel caught up.

While in FL at my mom's (with my brother's wife staying in mom's bedroom, with her 6-month old daughter & 2-year old son), she and I shared the pull-out sofa in the living room. She had asked if I'd mind when I first arrived, and of course I didn't - we're very close - I just joked that as long as she didn't snore, it'd be fine.

Monday night, my final evening there, I woke up from some great sleep to - you guessed it - snoring. Now, it wasn't anything like sawing wood or peeling paint off the wall, but it was enough to jar me from a pretty damn good dream... And worse yet, I suddenly had flashbacks of being in bed with my ex - arrrggghhhh! Him snoring away, and me, sleep-deprived, nudging in a whisper growing ever more annoyed & angry each time I had to repeat, "Shhhhhhhh! Sheket!" ("quiet" in Hebrew). It's a phrase I grew up hearing my mom grudgingly repeat almost nightly to my dad as he actually did peel the paint off our walls... My dad's snoring has since gotten so bad that walls in his other bedrooms literally vibrate! Anyway, she eventually awoke & surprisingly said "thank you" in half-sleep, and turned over. The ex would actually jolt awake & then get really mad at me for scaring him, saying I could've killed him that way.

It took a while to get icky-ex out of my head and back to dream-guy, having been so rudely interrupted.....

Mural (part 2)

More pix that, for some reason, wouldn't upload into the previous post...

WALL #2:

WALL #3:

Mural, forever in progress...

Here are some updated pix of the mural I started painting before my nephew, Noah, was born. He turned 2 this past September. I hope to finish before he graduates high school.

WALL #1:

The ark is my biggest hurdle; I started out way too much of a perfectionist on it. The shading is pretty damn nice, but I literally lost a lot of skin off my fingers for that. The tiger still needs his stripes, and there are a few animals on the ark I still have to finish. But otherwise, I'll be quitting - errr, finishing - someday soon. The pandas are my personal favorite. My family seems to like the giraffe. (see next post Nov. 8 for add'l photos) Perhaps I'll build a site someday to market this hobby... Yeah, this hobby, and the other 20 I have...

A nice, clean war

WARNING! Do not view these images (exposing the "visual sanitization of the war in Iraq") if you have a weak stomach or faint heart. I was just so shocked & mortified. OK, I wasn't a surprised kind of "shocked" - my family is from Israel, after all. I knew it was like this all along. My shock is more concerning how much the current administration is whitewashing the whole affair, and even more so, how much of American society - our own neighbors, friends and even family - actually seem to prefer to turn a blind eye.

Enlightenment in Bush-country

Welcome to Texas -
where politics & religion go happily hand-in-hand, riding off into the sunset.....

Guess the 'welcome' hugs aren't for everyone - just for the politicians.

May you find "abundant peace from heaven", Safta

My grandmother passed away 2 Saturdays ago. She was the last of my grandparents.

Now, to be perfectly honest, we were all rather relieved when we heard the news. See, her last few years (she was 93) were rather painful - physically and emotionally. It was a mix of Alzheimer's, dementia, tumors on her uterus the size of grapefruit putting pressure on her lungs, blood so thin that if she just barely bumped her arm she'd start bleeding, immense loneliness; you name it. I think I "made my peace" with her passing years ago, probably nearly a decade now. Then again, that could be also b/c she didn't express much in the way of love - instead, she reserved criticisms centering on weight just for me. "You're FAT! Men don't like fat women. You know, I was never fat. I was a ballet teacher. You're sister is so pretty." You doubt this as just my biased memory? Ask my siblings. This is truly how she'd speak (but in Hebrew, of course). Last time my sister visited, the first thing grandma said was, "You got fat!" Meanwhile, my sister had just a few months prior given birth to my nephew.

Anyway, my father, brother and sister flew to Israel for the funeral & to take care of her things. In my brother's absence, I flew to TX to help his wife take care of their 2 babies. So that explains my being in TX today. It seems that while they were in Israel, my family had quite a few interesting discussions (others we'll cover in future posts). Which brings me to the topic here...

When did my parents get old?

I mean, take my father: the same lines around his eyes, gray whiskers, big (strangely rock-hard) belly, intimidating professor's stance, slightly receding hairline that he had when he was 47. But now he's 67. And my brother is talking about getting him a "medic-alert" button, in case he falls. What?!? Sure, he had a quintuple-bypass operation a few years back, but... fall?

It was weird enough in my late teens when I had that shocking epiphany that my parents were human. You know - fallible, not omniscient, guilty sometimes. Just like me. So I guess this is that other "shift" in the life-cycle, when you stop being taken care of by your parents & start returning the favor. But in doing so, one can't help but ask...

Am I getting old? Already?

And you start noticing the wincing exhale you make when getting up out of a car's bucket-seat, worry if you're saving enough for retirement, fear that little kids don't consider you in the same visual category as 20-somethings anymore, count how many prescriptions you're on... Have you heard that theory? Supposedly, if you're on more prescriptions than the decade you're in (i.e. 3 drugs in your 20's), you're in bad shape. And you wonder, "Am I where I wanted to be?" Am I doing what I imagined? Earning what I hoped? Experiencing adventures like I planned? With the person I dreamed of? Or if not with anyone, is it getting to late for this old ass to find that love?

I believe you're as young as you feel, as young as you WANT to feel. So, you're definitely going to find me in that NYC marathon one of these days, even if I'm 20 years older. As for my parents, well, a "medic-alert" button is just something I'll have to get used to... They are human, after all.