Shpitzle Shtrimpkind

Epilogue

2011-03-13T21:52:00.031-04:00

I wrote this blog in 2006 and 2007. Those were the times of intense blogging. I published, commented and lamented here daily. The site attracted hundreds of visitors a day. But after a while I was exhausted; my enthusiasm for the blog had dried up. The stress of an active internet life had taken a bite out of my simple Chassidic life. I had changed. I was no longer the same Chasidic woman, wife and mother. With the changes in me my world began unraveling. I confronted the pressing crisis of changing reality, lost innocence and divorce. I began neglecting to update the site. And so, the activity and readership here dwindled. I eventually closed the site to public access and left the content to sit, unreachable, in suspension, on blogger. My pseudonym disappeared into cyber-space obscurity, vanished with the other short-lived weblogs.

Now, some time later, friends sometimes inquire about my journey out of the Chassidic world and I tell them that it began with a blog, some blog, a funny blog, with a strange num-de-plume. The blog opened the world to me. The discussions here were my first open communications with people not from my Chasidic shtetle . It's hard to believe that the effect of internet exposure can be so drastic as to lead to one's leaving the community. But when the writing here is followed in chronological order, you can watch my tones and positions evolve. Whereas I began the blog innocently thinking it will serve to speak for the good in the Chassidic life, I soon found myself lamenting about the bad. I learned new things daily that ate away the fabric of my old understanding. In the archives you'll find my first ever piece, this post, a heated and unfortunate defense of Satmar, to be a far cry from my later posts -- sarcastic criticism on my Satmar/chassidic community. On the Shpitzle blog I went from committed chassidic mother and wife to enlightened bum.

The changes here spawned changes in my life I had never foreseen or imagined. When I stopped blogging it had all only begun.

I won't blog on this site again, but I decided to unlock the archives for a glimpse into the times of amul. The posts are a fun read. The comments are often even better. They're mostly written with spunk, idealistic curiosity and an overflow of double entendres (and lots of errors, which I hope you'll excuse given my poor education). I wrote wildly and freely, spinning ideas while I fed my family supper with the turban fit neatly on my head or while I was sitting among the neighbors and shmeesing. That exploding creativity has dried up for me, but some of its free spirited moments are bottled up in here.

Reporting to the Highness of Blogdome

2007-10-28T14:35:00.000-04:00

Oh, yeah, this is going very well. Very, very well. I've just returned for a few seconds to visit my new highly-successful, completely absent, dried-up blog in hiding that went into hibernation 15 seconds after its big-bang re-creation. This looks like it's going to be really big one day. I'll say.

I can't believe I restored my full Internet connection so I can give my laptop battery some rest. What from, Solitaire? What for, a few minutes on Yahoo Answers? Meanwhile, I've missed out on virtually nothing in our little chassidishe blog community, which, while I would've ranted furiously if I did, I'm ranting furiously that I didn't. Something has become so secular, educational and formal about the online blog community for -ironically- the very nisht secular, that the real issues have graduated and been filed away at Hasidic Rebel's archives.

But not surprisingly, XGH developments continued to come fast, insensitive to me huffing and puffing and trying to follow along, so I missed some pivotal events. He's declared the end of his blog, of all things! I'm not sure if that's a routine posting where he tries to grab control of the wheel of his life, before he gets swapped away by the claws of fame and blogging-adrenaline that drives him. Or if it's something that after a period of shiva, I'll realize is really gone. I hope it's just a routine pause when the kneeling fans are supposed kiss his toes. That I can live with.

There was so much to post here, so few to read. Not surprisingly, nothing was said. It's a shame there have been significant events in my life in particular and our lives in general that weren't vented. That's something to vent about, over and over again.

Oy. Like I said, this is going really well.

KJ Wins a Loss – Again

2007-10-14T16:10:00.000-04:00

Click: Record Online

The court ruled on Friday in favor of Orange County, accepting the county's request that KJ continue to study the environmental impact of its growth before the village can build the controversial water pipeline.

It’s becoming a predictable pattern. KJ’s development gets blocked by the neighbors, the battle gets dragged to court, the court rules in favor of their ‘enemies’, and the Village follows the ruling with a press conference where the Clerk, Mr. Szegedin, declares that the verdict is actually no problemo because he can still find a way to cut the line and avoid the full required procedure.

Says Szegedin “"The level of scrutiny and level of oversight is totally limited to the Village of Kiryas Joel trustees. There is no other forum for anybody to raise any other issues."

You can hear him laugh all the way through the paper structures we call home in this primitive place; the echo of his own high-five, as he declares that he once again outsmarted the system. After years of fighting against redoing the environmental review, he is now more than happy to do it! He’ll just brush it off in a few short weeks and get over with it. The results of the review are not even a matter in the equation. He just needed a way to get passed this hurdle and he has found it by approving the revised review only with his own board of trustees. Ha-ha to him! S'eiz ozoy git!

I wish the village officials would wake up and realize that legal requirements are not little pesky obstacles to move aside but important issues that need to be treated seriously. THe administration has to start reading into the requirements themselves, not the messengers that impose it. I’m sick of the the-world-is-my-enemy attitude we derive from the concept ‘eisuv sonah liyakov’. We are excusing ourselves from handling our mistakes by shifting the blame to the broad shoulders of anti-semitism. KJ is a delusional town shooting in self defense at unarmed neighbors. Wake up Mr. Szegedin and stop the bloody murder!

There's not much hope for a change so long as the Weider administration continues with their self-destructive strategies. My hope is that the voters will raise the bar by expecting more of its politicians and elect according to performance. KJ should know better when it comes to getting the most from its government.

10/10/07

2007-10-10T23:23:00.001-04:00

Click: BHB, Golden Handcuffs

Baal HaBoss returned. Oh, well, oh, well. I actually wasn't an active follower but I predicted he would return. (Just when I removed his link!) An on again/off again relationship usually means an intensity that gets too much. He seems to love standing center stage until the pressure mounts high enough. He suddenly yearns to get away from it all it all, then that nasty craving for attention wakes again. A lot like me actually.

His analogy is obvious and overused. The post is refreshing nonetheless. He seems to feel like he has to explain his ‘staying’ instead of ‘leaving’. That's entirely self explanatory to anyone on the inside and unexplainable to anyone from the outside. If you want to write something original and moving dwell on the nimshul and the struggle. Don’t apologize.

It's Time for Coats!

2007-10-10T20:15:00.000-04:00

The fall showed its true colors today for the first time in the season. The summer hovered long enough to gift us with an unusually warm September. Now I’m enjoying the northeast change of color. The trees in bright shades of reds and yellows, the fences are lined with bundles of windswept leaves, the wet sidewalks keep the browned remains clinging to its cracks. A crisp air completed the setting for this atypical six grade descriptive writing composition to enthusiastically spin adjectives in my head.

Romantic appreciations aside, there’s a wicked laugh to all this. All through the yomim tovim the weather shed our layers. We all dragged the cotton clothing back out. On Simchas Torah babies were dressed in short built ups and little bubbles except for the few that couldn’t resist showing off the new velour. All that unusual heat - right after a whole shipment of hechshered coats were marketed to the masses. Oy, sweet irony!

Some of my family members have the coat hanging in their closets, probably relying on it like a watchdog against the year's evil. The design is just a better version of the burka. If you think about it, burkas are really bold mini dresses. This, in bland navy, wide, long, big plastic buttons and sans lining must really be the most celebrated invention in the God's chambers. I'm sure he's very pleased given that Erev Yom Kippur He hassled His people to personally send a pre-recorded phone messager to my home to remind me to be brave and not let the sweltering heat stop me from wearing it. (It did).

At the shofer blozen rush Rosh Hashana the woman pressed next to me wore it, The Zimmer Mantel, giving me an up close feel of how real it is. I suppose until then the concept seemed too radical to be seen as more than an exaggeration. This woman had about eight little children around her, unless I saw double, which I sometimes do. Giving birth so many times hasn't taken kindly to her shape. She was making small talk over the deafening noise while I was clumsily shushing my own honking horn. With the coat folded over her arm, she explained that her neighbor called before yom tov and asked that she too wear it. There was a tiny note of apology, maybe defensiveness in her voice. “I thought” she said “it’s Rosh Hashana, you know? It’s a zechus”.

I felt sorry for her honest attempt because I sincerely believe it's in vain. I heard an upset inner protest of ‘why?!'. Why, why, oh why? Why would this garment be manufactured, why would this garment be bought and worn? Why would this be an act of moral bravado?

I know the answers. I know, very well, the logical formula behind this enterprise. I'm fully aware that modesty has been deduced to a tribute to the almighty, not a female social identity. I know that this religious sacrifice is about offering up one's feminine desires to be attractive. I know why a woman with a weight issue is recruited to hide behind a frock just as any. I know why this is not about the sum of one's appearance but rather why it's about this particular cloth.

I know it. At times, these answers seem to make sense - to some degree. But when I'm alone with my thoughts it all seems like a confusing calculation that doesn't match up sensibly.

As for how the garment took with the general crowd, there's much doubt that this will be more than a new year resolution . The women around the younger age are snubbing it. They don't seem to realize that the radical few determine the middle, and if the radical are extremist enough the middle is right where most people want it. Regardless, the concept is going too far too fast. I predict this will be another righteous fad that'll just melt away with time. Think sunny.

Talking Points

2007-10-09T19:34:00.000-04:00

Following are some subjects that are yet to be transformed into posts. That is, if my interest doesn't sizzle. Knowing myself I'm afraid the echo I'll get back after publishing a post will dampen my enthusiasm into oblivion. Well, anyway, here goes:

-Mothering and Indoctrinating

-Love Thy Fundie Husband

-Kissing Blogs and No Queens

-The Mystery of (Complete Stupidity and) Brainwash

-The Grazing Herd: Chassidic Black Sheeps Online

-Cowardism Chizzuk for the Critic. A how to guide for the sensitive soul like myself.

-Family Ties, Baggage

-Toby Grunburg and The Brave Ruffle (a true story)

-Both worlds. The Second One Found & How it's a Death Sentence.

-Alter Egoless: Being a Blogger.

-The Shtible. Why I'm Not a Learner.

-What makes Us Tick? Rebuffing the Stereotype

-Culture and beliefs/Culture or beliefs. Seperatable

-Conformity; Identity Theft.

-Political Anxiety. The Delusional Donkey that Thought She's an Elephant

-Skeptic Recruit, Sir. 100 Steps (and 4000 books) to Becoming a Skeptic Member.

Period. Beginning of Sentence.

2007-10-09T18:55:00.000-04:00

I have finally gathered the courage to close this blog. Yes, it naturally withered and died a long time ago, but I just couldn’t let go. Maybe it’s my inability to look back. I think I’m more comfortable pretending this site of mine never was rather than facing it for closure. Or maybe it’s those fifteen minutes of fame I’m clinging to. Either way, it was an extremely rewarding experience, eh, at the cost of some personal humiliation. It’s time to get over that.

Blogging changed my life in too many ways to number. That’s cliché of course, but it is still an amazing truth. The fact that something as powerful as the web community is available to a people as powerless as the Chassidic community is all the more extraordinary with every next saucer-eyed chassid’l that declares that it changed a life.

With the transformations in me came a rush of many thoughts that begged to be given voice. I’m thinking/hoping to do some routine posting on this blog to expresss them. Routine, spontaneous, or just the piping up of a long forgotten pitch; whatever. What’s important here is that I have a lot to say and the urge to do so. This won’t be about entertaining others in an act long not funny. Oh, I’ve done my gig, I’ve learnt my lesson. This also won’t be about conforming to what people want to hear (or, unfortunately, how they want me to spell it). I will just relay my thoughts, especially those I feel passionate about.

I might, as I go along, invite a friend or two I’ve had the pleasure to know anonymously, maybe even a husband I got to know anonymously. Not immediately though. When I prioritize I see blog commentary as the lesser important between that and honest writing --- not because I don't love zaftigeh shmoos; I do. Rather because I'll probably end up forming my writing through comment influence instead expressing my individual thoughts. That would defeat the purpose entirely. I wish to create a place where I can opine about anything and everything that might affect a stray apple, without holding back. I do, really, love the written word when it articulates a raw thought. I should add that it is not my intent tobe frisked for a gender ever again. Neither would I have my pockets be felt up for ID. This would be about the topic of the discussion, not the members thereof. If such a place can only be achieved with no more than one member, then that’s what it takes. A discussion of one member it’ll be. One member. That's a one whole member. Gather around everybody!

Well, let(s) chear up. Here, to new beginnings!

2007-05-16T21:07:00.000-04:00

___________________________________________________

Seeing Is Believing

2007-05-10T22:48:00.001-04:00

Our optometrist confirmed today that my seven year old son will be wearing eyeglasses, like every other Chassidic cheider boy that sits and learns yiddishkeit, religion and belief for most of his day.

It seems as if almost all of our Torah scholars wear glasses as a direct effect of learning.

Yep. Seeing is believing.

.

Treasure Hunting

2007-05-09T18:23:00.003-04:00

I had to go through my storage closet to find some summer clothing. If you’re familiar with this business, looking for a single pair of short white pants actually means ripping through every unlabeled garbage bag, paging through old albums and letters, and trying on your not-so-fashionable school sweaters while trying to encrypt the mystery behind the need to wear these rather bizarre garment. Amidst all, I came upon a small duffel bag and dragged it down with me.

The duffel bag with its moth ball storage smell. In it, there are hundreds of threads of all colors, webbed around a folded picture of fruits. I opened the needlepoint. Only a fraction of the sewing was done. But goodness, a good portion of it was actually filled with hours of my threading it, in and out.

Yawn. ..

I actually spent my last few summers working on that piece, since the year that it occurred to me that sewing was just what I needed, especially whenever I was bored. My sister and I, pocket books hanging from our shoulders, visited a woman’s home on Hooper Street where she sold sewing material on her kitchen table. From then hours have been stitched together by sitting under a desk lamp and threading in and out. In and out. In. Then out.

Really, needlepoint? What was I thinking? That I was 82 and retired, living in a Miami facility? What occurred to me, spending fifteen minutes regularly licking the dark-green end of a thread, pushing it at the needle, and then dragging that needle itself around for the next few hours, then over to salivitizing the maroon thread for another walk of the clock? To sit immobile all that time and breath loudly? Did I require reading glasses too?

“Vell, childrin, my stomach didn’t vork so good enymore, [hiccup] I don’t heff deh young energy yaknow. The doctor said is gut for me to sit a little bit and make deh gublein.”

I was struck by old age prematurely.

It was a desperate attempt to find an artistic release, retired to what is available. Although this picture is living proof that I’m not a pro at sewing, I busied myself with what everyone did. Alright, so I can't be a professional boxer or sing at the opera, but heck, I could shneer a gublein!

Likewise, other basic chores were and still are turned into creative opportunities. Everyone retreated tornado-style under a table when I announced that I’m going to bake, because I refused to learn that you can’t mix flour, sugar and me and ever create something edible. Nonetheless, I baked three layer cheesecakes for shvuos and designed the whip on top in a lengthy process that involved strawberries, chocolate, consumption of said ingredients and cursing. Not just once did I end a whole day of baking by sending off a bag of charcoal balls, nebech - rugelech wannabees, to my mother’s house.

We are bored with ourselves. Although working is an opportunity to employ your strengths, for women a career means making copies for a male boss. And although parenting is the most rewarding activity of all, it’s not enough. We need a way to develop our community's treasure of natural resources, beyond the talent of memorizing who the entire shandenfreud database is for the Annual Yenta Festival.

It’s time for the exhausted rabbonim to stop putting hechsherim on clothing and start approving of recreation. They can go to a dance club, check it out and declare it assur. They can go to an art studio, check it out, declare it assur. They can go to the gublein lady, check it out, and declare it assur.

I’m going to frame my art, unfinished as it is. To commemorate talent in our community, an incomplete picture.

.

Anonymity & Identity

2007-05-01T14:25:00.000-04:00

Spring is here, just about arriving. Still a bit reluctant to disperse its freckles over the youthful noses, but it'll come around. The new season unplugs me from the PC and places me amidst fresh air and knee-scratched children. The early warming signals have me buttoned down afternoons with the kids in the park. It charms me out during the day with friends or neighbors, despite my usual reluctance to get into the shmoneh b’gadim, by releasing an intoxicating smell from its budding trees. It has me going down to the corner grocery store, for no good reason, to randomly enjoy sights like an earnest kollel yingerman running after his hat in a sunny wind, a sense of blithe riding in the air.

The season wakes me back to reality, out of the winterized hiding. I'm once again leaning on the park bar, clucking my tongue over much exaggerated hand-me-down chitchat; like just another frum mother, wife and yenta. I run after a fallen kid, wipe a runny nose, while sharing dinner menus and sewing tips. I haven’t been doing much socializing as of late, and deep inside I can’t help feeling a sharp stir. Everything and everyone is the same as the spring of 2006. Precisely. Yet so vastly different.

It was a long, long winter, in ways too many to number. Six months of blogging was a radical procedure that gifted me with new senses. A new level of seeing, a whole new level of thinking. It jolted me from a community I was a vessel in, and made me an observer to it. I learnt about planets beyond mine, religions above mine, a gender otherwise a mystery, about a person I am inside, a family I can approach more sincerely. At times I vent because I feel oppressed, at times I vent because the situation feels not quite right, or simply because I get completely carried away with the, I'll tell ya, exhilarating venting. I enjoyed experimenting with my pen, trying over the top slapstick, or exclusively-ours yiddishism that left the unfamiliar reader scratching his chup at the incoherency. I was allowed to be inquisitive, angry, opinionated, naive, inane, or openly eager for that last adjective to be contradicted.

Now, the outdoors calling my name, I wonder which name is actually mine. Reconnecting with my generic self, I'm trying to make sense of the two people I am; the pseudonym I’ve been covering under and the deceptive birthname that identifies me.

Those new perspectives reflect not just my own view of myself, but a new angle on the society. Nothing about the hob-hob of the typical social life now fits into the word 'routine' by any remote definition. Our community suddenly seems smaller than it was a year ago, less threatening. Women that were deeply hurtful are now just clueless themselves. Gossip seems empty, almost dull. I don't burn with self-doubt anymore for hearing a critical voice in my head disagreeing with discussions. That condescending tone once had a nerve wracking high pitch that wouldn't be silenced. Now, it's happily yelling away at some faraway blogspot.

Occasionally, the situation humors me. I’d be lingering amongst the women early morning after the kids embark their school busses, wrapped in a spring coat, seeming no less absorbed in the conversation or no more different than the rest. A tickle would suddenly flicker across my wires for the mystery of the other person I am.

But the remainder of the time I’m left with two lives, both genuinely mine, both downright different.

Nevertheless, ‘we’ have no regrets.

-----

How has the web changed your life?

.

1.9.0.0.-T.A.L.K.

2007-04-26T15:28:00.002-04:00

"HELLO, XXXY..."

[Provocative giggle] "Thank you for calling 1900-TALK. Mmm. "

[Thick male voice] "1900-TALK is known universally for its 97% success rate with a guarantee of permanent, lifetime conjugal contentment.

You must be (exactly) 18 to call this number. If you are under 18 we will be legally responsible to marry you off to a Meislish rebbisheh einikle.

[Male Voice, very-very quickly]

In the event you have not intended to contact 1900-TALK, or have not dialed this incomplete number, please continue to hold the line.

There will be a brief silence for the next 60 seconds. Please stand still while one of our representatives stares at you to evaluate you. 1900-TALK reserves the right to ask you to turn sideways, the other way, around, look away, hold your arms up, show your hair, smile, move, walk, turn again, converse with a friend, tell you to act natural, stand on your head, yawn, fix yourself, fake laugh, blush, die, revive, thank you for your cooperation. Section 246-D, NYS Havah Nivalilah. See our website for further details.

[Smokey, provocative female voice resumes]

Our automated prompts have recently been updated to enhance the personalized search query. Please listen carefully prior to entering your selection.

1 –Enter your two digit weight and 5.8 height followed by the pound key. Your profile will be processed after a complete stranger says it's not true. If you do not fit those bodily digits please leave a message in our voicemail box explaining what you were thinking.

2 – Press two and deposit: “ninety nine dollars, and ninety nine cents” for each of the following minutes. You will hear several clicks while our system retrieves a gelt shidduch. Our Gelt Shidduk Platinum Option is packaged with a state-of-the-art ceremony, knakadigeh match, 9 generations lifetime kollel learning, shpitzle headgear, 500,000 dollar home and many more including our bonus feature of a groom or bride.
[quickly] Only eligible millionaires can benefit from the supreme love criteria.

3 – If you are from a broken home, por favor marka numar usinta and a sfardisha meidle will come on the line to marriage you, mucha gracias.

4 – If you are over 21 please continue to hold. Case personnel will be with you shortly. The estimated wait time is: “one thousand years, and one Tuesday, and fifty six minutes”. Calls are answered in the order that they have been received. If at any time your call is ‘skipped’ please hang up and give up.

5 – If you are a nebuch a divorce’ or if you are leider a bum, please marry each other.

6 - If you know your party’s extension, due to a previous beshow encounter, and would like to request an additional encounter, dial delete+delete for reputation and prospect removal. 1900-Talk takes enormous pride in offering love at first sight - only.

7 – Hey girls, got the looks? Are you a roytah maude, a red head? Congratulations. You can put on a wig already.

8- If you or your family has any history of illness or poor health, for example: grandmother has diabetes, second cousin epilepsy, or you had a nosebleed at age five, please fax medical records of entire family to us and we will hook you up with someone with bipolar disorder .
[Quickly] This crucial new feature is to credit the laboring of The Honorable KJ Rebbetzin.
9 – To cancel your order, please change your levish. Shidduch will be obliterated automatically. Otherwise, order will be shipped, wedded, charged, implemented and will produce off springs. No amount of hitting all keypad numbers angrily will change that. Ha-ha-ha. Please try me. There you go. Engagement still on. Ouch, not there, it hurts. Please review your hashkafa before blaming it on us. Okay – okay, you’re breaking the phone. I think she’s crazy. She’s crazy. Co su t yo r l cal rab … It s n t gon w rk… top it!
o der sta us – a tive! !

That’s true love children. Thank you for calling 1900-Talk.

O' Baby

2007-04-22T12:04:00.006-04:00

Every so often Yoelish wakes up in the morning especially enthused, the birth of a brilliant idea rousing him from slumber. "You know what just occur to me that we do?", he'd say to this snoozeaholic' "Listen to this great plan for a minute. It's about you, us!"

Then he'd explain. I can't repeat verbatim, but in general he says something like this:

"I think... how about... this plan: we get YOU very, very fat! But not only that, we make you sickly, and vomit daily, and dangerously moody, and sensitive to smell, and unpredictably and ravishingly hungry, and slow in motion, and breathless, and full of stretch marks and varicose veins, all bloated and blown up, a lot of nighttime heartburn, and also, prodded by a doctor where you like it least? And then we'll get you to the hospital to be hooked up to monitors and huge needles, with scrunching, crunching contractions and hell-raising pushes of the pelvic muscle. After that you'll have postpartum depression and temporarily give away all our other children!"

He'd sit up with a jolt, extra pleased with himself, and ask exceptionally cheerily "hu?! What do you think?! I think it's time! C'mon, you want it too"

I'll tell you what I think, and I'll tell you what I want!

I love that bearded fella in the nightgown from the bed across the carpet, for my life I do, but I don't want to hear all that fuss around another pregnancy. When he ever attempts to mention a combination of the words "baby" and "more" my face freezes over with a stepford smile only a married man can understand to crouch from. I look at him in my morning mode, while making a mental note to send him away first after the heartburn and pushing. If I say I want it, that's one thing, but him?

My husband is suffering from Birth Control Anxiety Disorder, according to my expert diagnosis. That's the result of a drastic, spiritually defeating change of pace in his life. Before he got married he'd been assured that he's getting a woman, a few truckloads EPTs (maybe even some free stretchies and sweater-sets) and soon enough, the dozen or so children would be generated. He'd be able to give kiddish in shul for all to come, make vacht nachts, drag a troupe of boys with him in shul, make sizable bar mitzvahs and eventually, knakedige family celebrations. The notion of having less than ten kids never crossed his mind. It wasn't a possibility.

When I first started to trigger his BCAD disorder by mentioning cutting my supply to him of babies, after a fair share of physical and emotional pressure, his reflex was to repeat like a broken record player that "m'meg nisht,", you're not allowed, and "nobody does!". Eventually, it wore him down. I'd like to say it was the hat-stand I bought him as a gift, but maybe it was just that babies made him snap. Or even more likely, the sleepless nights made his wife snap, and that really left him desperately running for a rabbi.

I proposed the strategy. Walk into the rabb's house, learn a bit of something Lashon Kodesh for good luck, and then proceed to take the sponge-tichel clad rebbetzin hostage. Yoelish should call 911, and tell the police that he's not letting go of the wife or the shep-weapon lest the rabbi gives away a two year break. Then he could come home with some of their soup, (might as well do it all the way) and we'll celebrate the heist.

I didn't get the soup, but somehow, someway, I got a nice hetter, much to my husband's surprise. From then on, if a kid wasn't on the way (and sometimes even if there was) we get those guilt ridden BCAD morning rituals where Yoelish wanted another kid NOW.

To cure my absence of typical annual maternal yearnings, I attend the "Boineh Oilem" party once a year. The ladies come to the party having left all their valuables at home, except those with a an inbound valuable. We sit around, yelling above each other's voices about nursing clean and nursing clean and nursing clean, and by the time the speakers would be through we'd all nod in agreement that we better not complain. On the walk home, late at night, all of us would talk about how ungrateful we are for always complaining when others have nothing.

I do sincerely feel sorry for couples that have infertility issues, but I have trouble comprehending how 16 for me would make it better for them. What I do know, while I'm not eager to go through child bearing again so soon, is that I love my children with everything I got. Every single one, deeply.

.

The Shtible

2007-04-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

Mazel Tov!

Here's the link to my new room, Shpitzle Shtible, where I'll be writing and discussing "sefarim" of all genres, each post consisting of a book review on any random title.

Feel free to hang your comments anywhere over its walls!

And please, shush during leinen ;)...

.

JIB Awards

2007-04-16T15:24:00.005-04:00

The Jewish Internet Bloggers Awards are coming up!

I haven’t been sleeping much lately. The anticipation! I toss and turn wide-eyed in the wee hours of the morning. And like, then I don’t even have enough energy to do my daily abs-squats with the 50lb weights on my lower torso, or the 500 mile run with my personal trainer Santos Ulasita. I shouldn't really admit but I haven’t been eating lately either. I’m on the beans-only-diet y’know (I endorse this AmAzing program, chullent.com!). Miracles, just, miracles. My sponsors put me on it and only two hours later I’ve shrunken into the ‘after’ photo. You surely understand that I must fit into my Oscar De Lerenta gown, which will go with a Gucci diamond-studded tichel over my newly-died-blond shpitzle. To that I’ll have my 14K gold kallah pearls. Ya-ay! I mean, the excitement of all this! The paparazzi, the reporters, the red carpet, the dates, the celebrities! Gosh!

I'm so nervous. I’m hyperventilating. Get me a paper bag! A papaper babag. Hoo, hoo.

Breath. Breath. Breath.

Kay. I’m cool now. No, really, I’m totally cool. I’ll have some of my beans though, please.

Anyway, so I’ve been naturally (duh!) vying for the award. This is my first year in Blogywood and I totally, totally deserve it. So I go down to the JIB website to check out all my nominations, all the while arching my back like my best BFF Pariz, and guess what! Hundreds of freakin’ blogs are being nominated, most of which I’ve never heard of! Is this about the indies now? Is that it? They call it “art”, hu? "Sinai Mountain", that makes it to the top, and why? What about my blog-buster music you pickle heads! Cheap sob liars y'all. They go about pretending that those stupid **** ****! @#$#------

(My publicist is back-spacing everything I write. Darn idiot.)

Well, (no, I’m not apologizing!) I have been preparing my un-acceptance speech. (No, I’m not apologizing!!! Did you ever?!) At least I’ll be able to go up there and chuckle into the microphone and say “this has always been my nightmare. Thank you so, so little! It was only with you guys that I could have not done this” and cry into the hostess’ chest with overwhelming thanklessness.
I decided that this rainy week will be a fine setting for me to pen my long and exceptionally brilliant speech. I’ve been sitting here in my twin size bed, next to my adorable pet Yoely, my pink laptop, and it’s just flowing out of me! God, I have so many talents, I keep on discovering more. First my beautiful voice and now this!!

I have about 1,256,549.25 written pages now. My therapist is so proud of me; she says that it helps me further develop my aura and psychic powers. It was just like that, I started to write about the people that helped this non-victory come about. I started with my parents. Man, like my therapist said, my parents are at fault for EVERYTHING. Even the liposuction disaster. So I wrote about them, about the way they raised me with a family of five million children in complete poverty and gave me away to the damaging foster care of Camp Machna Rav Tov. It’s a very sad story the way they abused me. I’ll be telling it on Oprah.

Then I proceeded to write about my education; teachers, principles and who-knows-who-else that were roaming the Bais Rochel brick building. I mean, I devoted five pages to the secretary in charge of the copy machine herself! These people tortured me while they were teaching me all their dumb genius ‘stuff’. I mean, I know we need to learn all the scientific theories, college ligature, a major and Jewish Torah, but they didn’t have to do it so often as five minutes a school year! It really affected me, and caused my allergy to the bedika-mit-a-bendel. So many high-leveled too-challenging studies to memorize can cause permanent brain damage (as it did for me).

Those pages of essay I already wrote are awesome, awesome. I am even using the Merriam Webster Dictionary of Great Epithets to help explain the traumatizing story. There are gonna be a lot of bleeps, especially when I write about the neighborhood from like, my hometown. Oh, man, those people from the Williamsburg Ghetto! Only because of them am I here today not winning anything. It's their credit! There'll be for sure one page for every person who stared at me. I’m still in the middle of my crocodile leather diary with that. Then the people that told on me to the Satmar school and caused my depression. All the guys that I didn’t date – also an awful story for which I have a book deal already. And I was totally deprived of stuff because of these people's treatment of me, like, I mean, the stores that didn’t sell Madonna, the theaters that didn’t have a screen, the dressmakers that made all the hips big, the shaver manufacturers that invented electric shavers and the company that designed celibacy-till-marriage and then the company that made open-back hospital gowns and the sfardisha mikvah ladies. And of course, the maker of the human hair Indians.

Gotta return to my essay. This whole break I took now on this blog interrupted my flow and ruined the speech. Ugh! How much more are my parents going to torture me?! When will this stop?!

Evil!

Chassidic Anthem

2007-04-12T15:11:00.000-04:00

Sung by Shtrimpkind

Yo!
You out there
Watchadoin today,
Gochaself some rainin’
Gochaself some blues...

You can't hear no music
To get your spirits up
Cuz it's time o’ year
The sfirah, man
And the boombox
Is banned.

So turn up the volume
Listen to me rap
All'll get bettah
In a big white snap.

Mah children and their daddy
We’re makin music sway
We’re all dancin’ and swingin’
Our bodies away
My little baby gurl
Is bangin’ the drums
While my big ol’ man
Pointin’ pinky and thumbs.

Yo you out there
Watchadoin today
Aint nobody singin
Duddi’s or Lipa’s beats
Aint nobody listenin’
To Yom-Tov-Erlich’s leids
Can't nobody play
No music today.
And with the spring away
The whole crazy delay
The sun gone astray
We need some spirit on dis day!

Ah-Yeah!!

Pop. Pop, O!

Tap, tap, tap.

Hip-hip, clunk.

So baby,
Don’t you be shy now
And all kind of crap
Turn up the volume
Listen to me rap
Shake and clap.

Yeah, me teachas in their kupshtik
Duster and it all
Gonna be real proud
Of this bangin’ doll!

Hallo, gleibmir,
Eech ken tsee zingin
Vee dee faryirige shney
Ubber eech trey
Yo, seiz a mechey
Shukkel in drey!
Ahmmm.
Yeahhh, gits a shrey!

Snap.

Humor Me

2007-04-11T15:04:00.004-04:00

Pesach passed in a blur. It came and went in a dizzying cycle of changing from white to floral to white to floral tichel, or in clockspeak, from night to day to night to day. Our yom tov was a lot of the ordinary extraordinary. The weather didn’t catch the drift from the fires we stoked before Pesach began, and it remained cold on most days. The seddar was uneventful; there were the loud yawns from the ladies, the red-eyed coughing fits from the men who overdosed on handfuls of bitter murrar, or the little ‘thieves’ under the table heisting the afikomen. Eliyahu the Prophet – drunk as ever - winked at me upon shuffling in at his turn in the haggada, patted his belly to indicate he’s filled it steadily, and then downed his designated extra large cup. Nothing special you see, just your typical yom tov.

On the eighth day of Pesach, when we expand our food choices to mixing matzah with liquid, we were beating up eggs and matzah crumbs in a matzah-ball kneidle mixture, when my sister mentioned a letter in the newspaper Der Blatt decrying the age-old kneidlemaker joke. For those unfamiliar with it, the tradition is to send a child up and down to the neighbors to borrow a kneidlemaker. It's a gesture that we're finally sharing food and utensils with other families, unlike the previous days of Passover. Some neighbors would remember the prank from the previous year and laugh at the innocent child in the doorway. Others would go searching their cabinets thoroughly, making a mental note to get that kneidlemaker immediately after the holiday.

Ha, ha, ha. The kneidlemaker, really, for you out there that are now digging through your shelves, is one’s hands moving in circular motion to form the ball. Ah-hahaha! Not so funny, but a good effort to coax a laugh.

My father usually entertained us during that Passover meal of hot chicken soup and freely floating grayish kneidl, by telling tales of his own kneidlmaker stories. We'd be guffawing at those mean-spirited adults. It was a legend, an old legend, from Europe even, the kneidlmaker.

In the letter to the yiddish newspaper the author calls to stop the humiliation and child insensitivity of the old kneidlemaker joke. My family discussed the argument that was raised, acknowledged the cruelty involved in it all, and then, without much opposition, murdered the tradition.

I stood by, in this egg-shell of a world, without saying anything. There isn’t much to advocate in a joke on kids, but it’s just another example of a society that lacks a good measure of humor.

Reminds me of a world I grew up in. My family is not the one to huddle around tables at family gatherings and have loud animated conversation. We don’t dance at weddings with wild steps, or make fun of ourselves. Humor, especially the effort to produce it, has been renamed ‘corny’ and partnered with a swift move of the entire mouth to one side. Exaggerations and lies have become synonyms. Making fun of yourself in Yiddish is “machsteech tsi-nar”, you're being a fool. And what’s left, ego intact, is making fun of others behind their backs.

Needless to say, I too, at the ripe old age of eleven learned to hang one leg over the other and be ‘mature’. Forget funny, big, witty, real or light. “Oy, whew.” [pull down the blouse, pat hair] “So, vooz titsech epes?” [Cock the head.]

My first movie really reminds me of how seriously we take ourselves. Ahh, who could forget their first movie, hu? I was about 16, maybe 17, and I didn’t see another show before months, maybe years, later. But that was one movie I wound up watching after a supposed shopping day with a supposed chaperon supposedly with different friends. I pounced at the opportunity.

We sat at the edge of our seats, our rears mostly in the air, eying the audience for school spies. We were ready for more action from the back door than from the screen itself. There was something uncannily similar between one lady holding hands with a bald guy in the front seats and our school principle. To this day I could swear it was her in disguise.

The film began with a wife losing all her assets to a cheating husband in a bitter divorce. I can remember every detail like today. “Shoin, at least she didn’t have children” my friend whispered to us. At least she didn’t have children, that woman Chrissie or something. 35 and divorced! How’s she ever gonna get married again? Probably gonna get a gurish. We were concerned.

In a spontaneous move to improve her life, the protagonist moved to the nowhere, doomed by a place full of bad omen. When she entered her creaky little house we were shocked to look into the screen, as a wild bird flew clear over Chrissie's head. Wide eyed and appaled, we watched. The audience chuckled.

As she trotted up for her second story, all the stairs came crumbling under her weight and she landed with a jolt. We gasped. The audience laughed.

She got her tub running for a nice warm bath, and out came blasting in every direction, gooey brown water. The faucet itself flew off straight across the room. We looked on horrified. The poor woman. Divorced and now this?

Later, her window broke in a cold and harsh blizzard. Alone, in that old house. She huddled at the radiator for a bit of warmth when her electricity went baboom, sparkle – and gone. Darkness. She sat there in the cold, curled up in a blanket, without heat. The audience giggled with every development. I dabbed myself with kleenex. My friends looked equally somber. I blew my nose. We quietly cursed the movie. A comedy? Chrissie was a walking disaster in her social encounters and said all the wrong, morbidly embarrassing things. My ego bled.

The movie ended, after many an agony, with a sour improvement. I wiped my eyes in my sleeves and we all left, red noses marking our faces.

A good few comedies later, and I’m starting to remember this first one as the best one yet. For all it’s awful events, it told me a bit about how much easier life is with tougher skin and less sensitivity. It's also told me that above all disasters, those theatre-goers must have loved the three hollering chassidic girls best. Let them audience laugh away, those child abusers, I'm writing a letter to Der Blatt about that.

In light of all this, my summer’s resolution is to use my kneidlemaker on the keyboard more often. Seriously.

Desperate Housegirls

2007-03-27T23:52:00.000-04:00

Yep, ladies. It looks like Jewish girls are known for being 'Desperate Girls'! A single Yiddish Meidle at the thirty? Vey!

I caught the latest episode of American Dad online, an animated show for adults, that consists of a combination of ridiculous family dynamics and side-splitting satire. It's one of my favorite shows. I had a good, gut cleansing laugh.

Their most recent episode 'An Apocalypse to Remember' depicted (as a supporting role) the "desproite Yewish meidele" in hysterical strokes. Oh, the nose! The Jewish nose! God help! No wondah she cain't find a shiddahch! (We're even stereotyped for a certain no-nonsense, thickly voice!)

At a time of year that our community is full of desperate housewives, pitzing and washing from daybreak till, um, daybreak, we all deserve some time out. If you can, take a few moments of your own, lock yourself someplace away from unauthorized personnel or vagabond shmuntzes, get a bowl of Kosher for Passover chips and a large, ice-cube-full cup of homemade grapejuice, and enjoy the latest episode.

You're desperate for a break. You need some time to rest the tired feet and fill the empty midsection. Trust me dear. I know what I'm talking about. Poisenell experience. Kum shoyn, have fun, and I'll waive the shadchanes gelt.

L'chaim!

Outings...

2007-03-26T00:43:00.001-04:00

Buckle up people and get ready to scream.

Twice a year the chassidish community takes the entertainment world by storm. Roller coasters dip hundreds of feet with payos flapping in the air and sheitlech threatening to tear free and expose the secret of synthetic veibelech. Daunting spooky houses are fed whole schools by the classroomfulls, and mish-mashes get attacked by dizzy, blinking, boys that brave the ride over and over again. The train stations seethe with baby carriages. Museum lines consisting of shtreimlech, tichlech and restless children extend all through NYC or Washington DC. The wax forms of forbidden people are suddenly greatly admired, touched, and wowed, almost as if there’s a clue as to who they represent. Whole neighborhoods huddle around a borrowed computer to watch the riveting Al Naharos Bovel, yet again. Young families sit around in parks systematically goint through their plastic baggies of matzah. Even the shy Williamsburg streets get blocked off to host a mini carnival of its own. Women of all generations attend slide presentations; hollering loudly at the emotional balei teshuvah returning to her biological father, who, incidentally, is wearing the most hideous stick-on beard and baggy knickers.

So. Obviously. Chol Hamoed’s around again. God bless.

Throughout the year entertainment isn't very popular in the Chassidic society. You'd see a group of Yeshiva escapees take a park here, or a couple sans their children (or formal headgear) take a park there. I wasn't brought up really knowing date nights, movies, music, books, sports, eat-outs, great vacations or other healthy activities that typically need to take an important position in life.

I feel that entertainment is underrated. Without it, people never learn what they love, what they're good at, or what the hell they are rooting for (Vats deh score? Nee, Vats deh score hu?!). People don't get to bond together over therapeutic activities. We don't learn to refine our own taste, share hobbies, and air out after a tired day, week or year. Instead, growing up I got to enjoy a shpatzir to the bubby, building blocks, leminashin-puncher and Dertzeilung Fin Tsadikim stories. Later they were replaced by backing the ninth grade class in camp with heart and soul, 'groups' and for the particularly nasty stage, talking in hushed tones about, wink, the Korben Mincha siddur. Eventually it got even more exciting with shopping, countree, shopping, bikur cholim parties, EPTs, shopping and shopping.

It is so bothersome to me, that when Chol Hamoed does come around I celebrate it with exceptional flair. Just to show the world. Plan away, even if nothing comes of it.Entertainment is good for you.

Get crazy! Be spontaneous! Say 'gantz' Hallel on Chol Hamoed - the day is worth it...

It's Here!!

2007-03-20T23:37:00.000-04:00

Finally!

My much-anticipated post on the subjects of (1) Pesach and on (2) a woman's tafkid... It's here:

To clean and to be 'clean'.

Kushahr!

Kushahr!

(This post took hours and hours to scrub!)

.

Soul Cleaning

2007-03-20T23:24:00.001-04:00

Here, chronicled, is the very original diary of my escapades into a second identity, my little trips into a life as a shiksa.

* * *

I heard about it from word of mouth. It's not really, ahem, in compliance with the law. But it seemed that with the right contacts you know where to go.

The other day, I summoned the courage and made my way there, to a corner in the City. There they all were, just as told. Lots of people mingling and interacting and doing their 'business'. People from different walks of life were gathering there. I was hesitant, wasn't aggressive enough. I leaned onto my baby carriage, and watched other people converse uncertain who I'm here for. After an hour or so, I found myself going back home empty handed.

A number of these trips followed. I came but went without advancing. I couldn't stop myself from doing this, but I couldn't stop myself from stopping myself either.

Finally, on Monday, things took a turn. There were just a few initial greetings between 'us'. That was all. We looked at each other for a bit, said a few words, and then I turned my stride homeward. Someone followed me this time. It was happening.

My boots dug into the melting snow with every step, in sync with a pair of light thuds coming from behind, along with the music of crackling of bags hanging at the sides of my follower. I continued to look straight ahead, never looking back. It was a nice day, a combination of a glaring spring sun at 11:00AM and layers of semi-white snow covering the sides. I left my baby girl with my mother, and my husband was off to work. I knew I had the place to myself.

We both walked into my apartment, but I offered no formal greetings. It was like following an old habit, where words were no longer required. It was only after the door was shut that I wondered where to begin.

"The pants." I said to myself. "Get the pants."

Yes.

I locked my bedroom door.

Inside, alone, I shuffled through the bags belonging to my new friend, Maria. Indeed, there were a pair of hot-pink leggings, real pants, the ones I yearned for when I was little. I pulled them out. They smelled of shiksa, of thick, sweet strawberry perfume. Ahhh.

I slipped them on, and stared at my reflection. I felt my pulse racing. I didn't quite fill them out the way the real urelta did, the one that I just brought home from the corner on Division. There was something about her curvilinear figure that I couldn't quite imitate. The leggings sagged to the floor. I felt my hopes to break free crush with them.

I wasn't gonna give up there. All my life I've envied the shiksa with all her choices. All my life I felt oppressed and restricted. Here, now, I was finally gonna be one too, even if my useless rearing has crippled me unfit for its 'perfect mold'

I looked around, and the solution struck me. I put suspenders onto the legging's waist-band and I looked semi-shiksa-perfect. I fetched a short white frizzy wig out of its hiding and pulled a short-sleeved purple t-shirt out of the shopping bag --- and over my head. Pink lipstick I remembered, and penciled eyebrows like rainbows o'er the forehead. I looked like a dream. I was finally a shiksa --- a goyta!

"I am finally a goyta!"

I gulped. This was real.

In the full length mirror, I saw the door across the room vibrate. She was knocking. My cleaning lady wanted to know what to do next, it seemed, by the mix of demands she cursed through the keyhole. I had the urge to ignore her as I was too busy stealing her identity. I was conquering my dream. But a girl's gotta have a strategy, so I yelled at her to go clean the bathroom or pray, whatever she felt like.

The following step, of course, was breaking the law. As a teenager, I never got to break the law. No pot, no alcohol, no nifty little crimes. I was denied basic youth privileges. Now I was proudly an Illegal Polish (or Uzbekistani or Russia or African, if you can tell a difference) immigrant. @#$^% Amirica! Its laws meny-meny stoopid!

Of course, that wasn't enough. To get me on a high, I had to steal too. I hear that's what goytes do. So I grabbed all my Jewelry and I packed it into the cleaning lady's bag. The rush of adrenaline! Oh God!

Then came the peak of adventure... All my life I've been cleaning like a slave, especially Pesach season. A Jewish woman gets no career, just a broom 'n a mop. My labor is unrewarded. Now, I proudly walked over to rub my stove for $10.00 an hour. Here, I was getting paid, I was getting an agent, and I was getting a career!

Look at me!!

Maria Antsvigonaria'! I'm a somebody!

I sprayed easy off, and let the sprits whirl in the name of my mother, my father, and my awful education. "I went off the derech, eh?" I rubbed. I rubbed harder. And yet harder. "Zey go tell me what do? No Missis! I happy now! I become not-Jew!"

I took a break. I pulled Maria's bag out again, and scanned it. Finally, I'll eat real food, with real ingredients, not the hechsher stuff. I bit into the brownly banana with a clunck, full of relish. I was enjoying it. You know, it tasted good, it tasted real. Not like our Ungarishe same-ol' fushit.

My time, outside the realms of my society was coming to an end. I had to rush back to the role-play of my yiddene identity, before my boys come home from cheddar. I shuffled back into the floral punjello, the turban and took to cooking the same-ol' fushit.

For a moment, I lingered in front of the purple size xx2 top, reluctant to give it up. My fingers ran over the dinosaur design. Oh, what great things secular people take for granted. They don't know to appreciate basic things that when denied, become of such importance. I stared at the flip-flips before I returned them to its real owner. I had no choice but to go back to my double life. Spritz, Spritz, Spritz em all! For denying me a world that is neither as forbidden nor as sweet as you made me think it was!

I stuck the phone under the turban, as par, and was immediately transformed back into veibele mode.

So long.

Coexistence

2007-03-14T19:05:00.001-04:00

Over the last few days, I’ve been keeling over microscopic dirt – too busy with 'em to even breathe. God bless me and my Erev Pesach Mission. Surely, needling the woodworks has a purpose. Ask me why we take apart our chandeliers and hose down the fridge. Ask me why. I was raised this way and against all logic, I won’t ever give up the shmata.

Ever!

Misses mommy shepshka mucha nachas. Yeah, In some ways, I turned out just right.

In the midst of the aforementioned hectic zoobiz, I was planning to grab a few alphabets and scrabble some of my thoughts of the season into a post. Seems though, grabbing a few alphabets isn’t that easy either when there are legos everywhere. I didn’t even get around to check my favorite blogs lately. In the end of the day, from all my determination was left a heap of me, under the covers, in love with the magic of slumber. Night after night the day dies before its time.

So for now, my Pesach Cleaning pointers (and my Polish-immigrant auction) will have to wait.

However, at the moment I wanted to air some of my thoughts in regards to a conversation that took place in the comments section of a previous post about the legitimacy of the megillah, some on Exodus - Yetzias Mitzrayim, Bereishis or whatnot; Torah and Science. Or in its unfavorable name Api------sus. Personally, I embrace such information eagerly, but not without regret. In part, it shatters very clear and colored images created by my entire childhood upbringing, a mindset I so wish to preserve for many reasons. On the other hand, it fascinates me, and evokes a curious hunger to dig deeper.

On the blog level, I’m tsimished. While I don't have a desire to intentionally censor myself off of such info, I know that many believers are highly offended by such discussion, and are indirectly hurt. Coming from where I do, I know how sacred and important beliefs are, and what it means to tamper with them. Still, I think we all lose out a lot by walking in herds. Of belonging to a side of a fence. After all, many of us are now living in some hall closet eating salami and bread for dinner despite belief. Many of us are living in the blog closet hiding our identities like a 1st degree sin, despite belief. On the daily level, we all have a lot in common - regardless of godliness. Lots to share, lots to shmooze or vent about.

But in the same time, we also have a lot of uncommon ground...A hellofalot.

I’ve been chewing nonstop on these thoughts, and that doesn’t seem to quench the confusion a bit. I'm torn, totally.

Does a believer have to turn a blind eye to other views? And if so, do those that abandoned it have to be sensitive enough to respect their treasure? Is it ethical to be stomping around on a religion that’s been cherished for thousands of years, without any regard for those that are so hurt when it’s mocked and waived away?

Does a disbeliever have to shut up because his/her beliefs are not that of the popular person? Why? Does the world end where beliefs differ? Can’t a believer just ignore a conversation that he disagrees with, without making a big deal about it? Isn’t blogsphere a place we should avoid judgementalism?

Why do these conversations so often come in the form of bullets ‘n blasts anyway?

As the great ol' quote goes, "yaydem’s kigel is kigel". Alright. I made that up. But I do wonder if we shouldn’t just indulge in what’s served and enjoy it. What you don't like, leave for others.

Yom HakiPurim II

2007-03-04T16:04:00.001-05:00

INTRO to Tefilla:

Dear Jewish Daughter,

The Holy Day passed and many of us have not done proper teshuvah. The Satan lures us in through glitz 'n glamour and successfully diverts our focus from what really matters. Those that have not busied themselves on the Day of Atonement to return to the ways of Hashem, fear not. The good father gives you a second chance.

Following tefillah is a Kitzur Megillah – and was designed to be said on shishan purim. Remember to write Amalike on your right shoe and to pound that foot against your chest at every "Vaeis". Let us hope that in this zechus all runway vashtis will grow tails and other bodily horrors, Amen.

(Taken from a Yiddish publication)

Yom HakiPurim

2007-02-24T21:05:00.001-05:00

My friend phoned me. Like clockwork, she does that. Every Erev Yom Hapurim a certain sense of holiness comes over her, and she begins the search for means to prepare herself for God. She calls me for forgiveness and it’s not beyond her to beg at my knees. I respect her for that. Then she wants me to help her find a kosher shpitzle, so she can approach the Day of Atonement all ready. She wants me to guide her to the light.

We need a gemach for headgear, she cries. Don’t you people know how to accept Balei Teshuvas?

Not funny.

I personally, don’t like that getup. For me, I’ve been found staring at the furry pom-pom tail of the bunny costume. I suggested to Yoelish that he could dress up as the zissa carrot, to complete the seasonal spirit.

But well, Yom HaPurim tends to pass and for all the shake-up, life goes back to the usual. So I can’t afford the adult-eared-one-piece just yet. Shishon Purim can be cruel on ex-rabbits.

In the end, I’m dressing up in a white dress coat. No, no, not as a doctor. Doctor S. Shtrimpkind, MD PHD VIP ADD, with a remote stethoscope. \(Wake up, not a doctor I said. N-O-Ttt. \ Damn.). I’m gonna wear that coat, because I believe that that is the only way a woman should approach the holy day. In a white kittel.

On the Yom HaKippurim for men, the one that takes place in ellul, I enjoy the view from the top. From the balcony I watch the men freeze their butts off all day in shul. I would never make it in one place that long. I guess the knowledge that they spend all this time alternating between one wooden chair and two blue feet, I kind of excuse the ones I watch abusing their beards. (Push, pull, krazel, other hand, stare into the ceiling, curl the knot, run through from mustache to chin. Repeat process - as many times as possible). See, when I leave shul after a meager hour of participation, and rush home to feed peanut-butter sandwich to the kids, I am convinced that this day is shorter for us women.

On Yom HaPurim, tables are turned without mercy. I start the month by preaching "ivdu es hashem besimcha" only to try to fool myself out of what an ivdu I'm about to be. As I say tehillim on Esther Tannis, I have one bakasha. I let the tears free as I ask hashem to be matzil of evil puke.

...

Like these things go, the pangs really start about 2:00 pm into the second day. We then visit the in-laws to get the brucha of Purim Gelt. We come bursting in to a house full of the sound of prayer. Who knows why these people insist on turning the volume knob around chay times, till the powerful layhidim niggun hilchs oop into your kishkes, and makes an imprint on your eardrum that shall forever remain in you kemoi kol nidreh.

I should find me a zits and stop complaining, I tell myself, because I’ll spend the rest of my day praying fervently.

Uvini Malkini, please, zei dich derbarem of deyneh, or meyneh, children... They vehemently refuse to take their coats off, leaving my hand-sewn work buried in sweat. They tear through every can or box for sugar shapes, the consumption of which is rewarded with ample energy I cannot compete. ThI give up when they challenge the tall furniture or younger folks. I have talk to small humans through their white beards that have already been tasted, and tongue-tunneled, by every human my kin with salivary glands.

I coordinate meticulously my gift bags with the costumes. I tease the ribbons into perfect payos. I unscrew the door before we drag in the eye-popper to my mother. I deliver the basket to my shvigger with a crane. I ooh and ahh over the slice of kindle my sister wrapped up in a saran wrap for me, look at the stunning small kedem wine with gustah, and pat her on the back. I'll taste it all, I say, as soon as I'm done eating all the grass you filled the bag with.

Then I take out my pissum and ramseys and give it to her. Nah, it’s nothing, I'm being anivasdig. It’s horrible. I wanted to bake you a seven layer cake instead of the mini mirangues, chocolate truffles and engraved cookies.

Ha. Eat your heart out. Hearty appetite. (Alright, I am secretly evil. Salachtuh?)

A guy comes bursting through the door, followed by his sons. I know him, only now his beard is down and teased and he wears that litvish hat, from which sly contentment drips down, into a wise smile.

"Nee, dee frowen?" One of his sons, hardly 18, asks a sheilah. We are all ushered out, and I continue to watch the spectacle from the dining room door, over my mother-in-law's shoulder. The men vitzle themselves amongst each other, upon which I curse the damn headgear for making me deaf - completely. The half-drunk litvak whispers something l'men. He then leans back, giggles heartily and fumbles through all the glass bottles for a 'real sip'.

As they get up and dance, I know that I am in gulles. My baby holding onto my hip, us leaning through the entrance, holding the breath for the vase to survive the storm, I wonder why I have to see all this. Like a hungry person watching someone eat, I yearn to pull up a chair and bend in.

I wink to my husband as loudly as possible. He holds up a big hand, and finishes his cup. "Don't worry. Just a bit, it's Purim, a mitzvah. I won't get drunk this year. You know I can handle it".

I roll my eyes deep into my head. Anyone hear that?

He's doing his third cup, and I'm not counting anymore, or looking. I eat my food but the my palatte does not respond to the gourmet. Yoelish is wearing a 1 inch shreimel that opens at every shpitz, and runs all over the place to the music. It's shake before drink, so he dances wildly before downing another one.

Then he comes over to his mother, a little too close, and starts to explain to her. "farvoos hustee eer nisht leeb? Mayn vaab, mammi, dee kenst eer nisht! Mwua" He kisses into the air.

Shoot me.

He tilts back on his heals and forgets why he came over here. He runs back to the men where they start to talk Torah, and do teshuvah with loud cries. They hug each tightly.

My sister in law isn't that lucky either. True, it's my boy that balled at the wall, but she gets locked up in a room where her husband is loudly telling her how many sins they're doing. When Yoelish starts to look at me that special drunk way, and wobbles over to me, I lock myself in the bathroom. Hashem Yishmoyreynee, yiddishe kinder, being romantic, in deh public!! Showing affection! I must stop this at once!

My father in law, who's been benching his bochur'l all this time - holding onto him as if he's a bottle of alchohol, -starts to feel 'shlecht'. By the time the bowl is around he's vomited all over the carpet, wall, himself and table. If I look, I can see all that in the vomit actually. Holding a towel over his face, he pours himself another drink.

Yoelish sees someone to the door, a beggar that didn't get very royal treatment, one that heard a little more than he should about 'farshtinkene rashooim'. "Dee bist meyn breeder, all yidden are brothers" we hear him say and he too, is out the door. Hands wide open he swallows fresh outdoor air. He zigzags on the road even though I am yelling, stomping, and going positively off my mind.

A few good men take him home, against his will, and he falls into a calming routine of snoring. After I break the fast and furious by some quite time, 'I blow my own horn' knowing that I passed the test. I had my share of hell for the year.

Leshana Habah....

A K'Purim V'Purim Tovah :) !

.

That's a Wrap!

2007-02-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Purim/Pesach season is coming up so I won't be around blogger much over the next few weeks.

Y'know of course that I've got a lot of work to do, in preparation of the Purim2007 Suda I'm hosting at my blogspot. Most of you wouldn't typically attend a mixed celebration, but with all the costumes available in the vicinity, phhh, no problem at all! I can already see 'em coming, hundreds of bed-sheet-covered partygoers dressed up as Anonymous.

Naturally, I am casting a chusid as Purim Rav. Only a chusid knows how to fir a tish properly. I am sure I can find someone who knows how to bring about a storm, to act as Gabi. This is blogworld, after all. The Jewish Drama headquarters. Nailprint is the official fingerprint.

When you arrive to the party, make yourself at home. Find your niche, take out the coffee or chips you brought along and get the music goin'! If you're new to this, start by checking if your spouse/parent/children are here. Go over to the Australian Yeshiva Bochur and accuse him of being your neighbor on Fosse Court. Nice going, pal.

There is a fervent discussion on the crisis of the dating scene, or the shidduchim expenses in the chussid's version - next to the buffet. A Yiddish speaking geek explains to a long-wigged pregnant woman what the problem here is. His black glasses cover his eyes that look into no where, and he doesn't seem frazzled with the combination of English grammergoofs. The Satmar baldies are groping at the bookshelves for a sefar to prove to the red-faced frummy that he's wrong. Aha!! See? It seems so natural to see the Williamsburg lady sit cheek-to-jowl with a clean-shaven suit from the other side of the ocean, both arguing a gemera. A 21 year old chalat boy from Mondroe UTA puts his nose in, and walks away waving his hand. What do these people know? Mishigooim. They should hear what the Bayrach Moshe said! Nearby, an Isreali snood rebbetzin sits down on the bench, adjusts her long gathered skirt and tells a long story on topic. One commenter mentions 'judgementalism' and an army of outcasts storm the place firing off curse words.

A few 'special' winks are shot across the room and said parties escape us early, o'er to email. Pretend you didn't see.

An especially tall woman with a hairspray-stricken short sheitle shleps herself over to join the catfight. Her babbes on her stockings are untied and the shtrimp piled up at her ankles to reveal unshaven legs. In a flat ballplayer's voice she comments coyly to the petite female: "You're really a @#@%$ man, babe. Everybody knows. Stop lying already."

One table is particularly packed. There's a narrator there that's obviously keeping all others entertained with his multi-lingual accounts. He sits relaxed back in his chair, wears a pair of black pupuch on his knee-length socks, and thumps his cigarette into the ash-tray. He inhales again, ever so slowly, while scratching his balding head with his big black kapel. He thumbs the knip of his beard back up and goes on. From language to language he flips with such a straight face, all eager chassidim high-five each other. A chassidista looks on, listens in, and laughs loudly as if she got the joke too. She's left with her hand hanging in the air when she also tries to slap hands with one of the listeners, a colone-wrapped intellect that speaks an echta flisigeh yiddish.

Sirens and awful shrieks suddenly wail from the direction of the Link Room. Seems a bearded rebel with sunglasses is tearing at an English-speaking cotton-candy-bearded rebelle, both trying to cut each other's throat. Sigh. Yeah, the discussion over evolution didn't go so well. There have been some casualties.

Although the party is mixed, we still know our boundaries, so dancing is not. Or not really. The chassidim jump the horah up and down like springs, the litvaks kick their feet left and right into the air, and the "frum" guy waltzes in the middle of the circle with the rabbi, then they dip. Poor rabbi, he wanted to do it with the gartle! One clueless jewish grandma in pants dances along with the entire rekida of men.

See? This place rocks! Tol' you it's not all talk.

I get up to the bima next to the gefilta-fish-smelling Rabbi. I propose a toast. Clink, clink. I begin to thank you profusely for visiting my blog, the fun I'm having, and then I spend the next two hours wining about how my community made me wear this and that and that and this. By the time everyone is snoring I break down and holler. I fan myself to stop the crying. But then I burst out in bawls all over again. Blame my community.

"Cheers, Lechaim!" (sniff, sniff) (waaa!) (snore) (comment) (compliment) (snore) (attack) (nicey-nice) (mussar) (Lechaim!!)

Quit dreaming!

There is no party and there will be no entertainment. I'm gonna be home filling my hamen tashen with jam, curling the ribbon, retelling the Leibel Veinshtuk version of Achashveryosh's party to the kids, and scaring my husband with the George Bush mask. I do so love yom tovim and will spend my time passing the spirit on to my next generation.

(In case I was gonna be missed, I think I just did away with that possibility.)

Dress De-Code

2007-02-01T06:13:00.000-05:00

The sixty-watt bulb above our vanity mirror doesn’t do me justice. So I went out and bought a lamppost, dragged it all the way into my apartment and got all the mechanics up and running.

1-2-3...

Tadda!

Nope. I still don’t see it.

I’m looking for my Jewish nose. I know I have it, for sure. In a world full of diversity people can single me out in a snap. And Yoelish, he’s got it too. You can just imagine how our children look.

When I go to a place that’s not dominated by Jews, I feel like I’m walking with a gallon lump in the middle of my face. I'm accutely aware of my nasal entirety. Like a family of us cartoon creatures. In shopping malls, amusement parks, hotels and especially the theater. I get stares.

Sometimes I get more than that. Like the talkative cab driver that quotes the New Testament in eight places, showing off his religious knowledge. Then there’s the conservative 50 year old woman with the china doll hair that pats me on the back, counts my children three times and starts talking about the war in Iraq as if I can fix it, due to my great connection with God.

There are those from out of town that sigh loudly, and wonder when orange/maroon hair stopped being cool enough. They look at the action on my head, then the line running along my stockings, over to my boy's dangling facial thingies. Then they assume my tongue is pierced .

Some people walk quickly, so to prevent being involved in my suicide explosion. They grab what they can and get out of my way. They keep looking back with menacing glances and then quickly put in a phone call to the FBI.

I like the fellow Jews that don’t wear their bris on their face. They sound like your average goy (bald in front, pony in back) and suddenly come up to you with a perish on the parsha. What do you want of me? Did they just announce that I’m a Rabbi, available and looking?

It’s not good to compare me to the Amish. I suffer from a little envy. We got the beard AND the side-curls (and then some more) but we don’t get a chocolate factory to go with our little town. I betchya the Hershey's meant us. Just look at the name. And imagine all the tourism we could have! I'd be a sensation just by 'riding my buggy' to the 'market' wearing my 'bonnet'.

One particular instance ticked me off. It was a long time ago, when my husband and I stayed at some all-inclusive hotel in the Sunshine State. We were lounging around at the bar nightime when a man came up to me and informed me that there will be an adult performance.

“Okay” I said and sought out another non-broken pretzel from my Schwartz bag. C-u-runch.

The guy just stood there, hovering.

I love those tall chairs next to the counter and silly football games. Yoelish and I mock these players as if we’re wiser than the world. I was watching the HomeDepot commercial for the eighth time by running after the words on the screen with my mouth. That freckled guy started clearing his throat.

“Ahem. Ahem. Ma’am. I said there will be a show for, for, for adults. It’ll be like, a little offensive.”

“Good, okay.” I repeated absentmindedly.

“Ma’am. I’m not sure if you understand. They make fun of ---“ his hands tuned in a washmachine cycle “sexnstuff”.

I smiled up to that fidgety thin fella. “I can handle it Sir.”

“Are you sure, are you sure?”

The vein on my forehead popped out.

“I’ll get a nose job, okay! Just leave me alone!”

No Man's Land

2007-01-30T12:46:00.001-05:00

Mother always tells the story of my birth. Despite all the deliveries that precede me and succeed me, her eyes still fog over as she retells the tale of the day that I was born. So many times I’ve begged her forgiveness, and apparently that was done every chatsus in the first half year of my life, but she’ll never give up recounting it, each occasion adding an interesting inch to the length of the pain. It’s made me a family legend.

In my own definition of things, I think it was disappointment that left this imprint in her heart. She had given birth to girls before, and good, feineh, meidelech that is. They made their way into the world and immediately took to sleeping, smiling and hanging over their mother’s shoulder.

I teased the doctors for hours before I finally decided to come storming out, according to the frazzled woman in hospital gown. But what she won’t tell you is that I made my debut wearing the shoulders of the traditional pink undei slung down to my arms and I was hollering like the world’s coming to an end.

As she cradled little puffy me, she was horrified to notice that I was born without, well, a barrette in my hair.

Sigh.

Yes, my family was devastated, much like you can imagine yourself. I know. Thanks for the condolences.

See, where I come from, women must be completely segregated from men, in order for them to qualify as real Yiddish kroyn. That little boy inside me, the rowdy nature in me that buckled up and rode the contractions before bursting into life – that was complete tarivas.

So here’s a tribute to all women out there that don’t fit the Perfect Pink mold. To those that aren’t all ribbon and frill, and 100% girly girl. A little performance presented by All Sides of Me.

Testing, testing. (the guitar strings, that is). Go:

Vish Vash.
Vish Vash.
Dee gantsah hoze is tip-top.

Eech aleyn halt in eyn vashen…
Dee gantsah hoez zoeber tsimachen…
Dee goyteh tit es nisht genig git machen…
Oy vee feyn iz alamool pesach tsee machen…

Click, clack.
Click, clack.
My head-to-heal attire is tip-top.

To put my nose out the door…
Or to run to the grocery store…
I get dressed in the shmoneh begadem…
Fin voos se-hayngt nisht kayn eyn foodem…

Ahem, Aha.
Ahem, Aha.
My thin voice is on the lowest notch.

I walk in military order…
To yell or run shows of a serious disorder…
I never get hyper or a little silly…
And those that do are crazy, really…

@$#@%$^$! Wohoo!! (Okay, don’t put me away again, please!)

Shsh, Sha.
Shsh, Sha.
I sing a lullaby la, la, la.

To be a mother is my desire…
And a wife to my husband, a very getrayer…
To have a baby every year…
Because I instinctively love only for others to care…

Authorities Incorporated

2007-01-20T22:11:00.003-05:00

I leaned back on the brick wall that lines the building exterior, my hands tucked into each opposite coat sleeve, and I tried to breathe in a relaxing pattern. I inhaled deeply and let out a nervous breath. Inquisitively, I bent over and looked around me. The place was different than I expected, in the sense that it was quiet, not the come-and-go rush I assumed it would be like. I pushed the lit doorbell again, held it down a little harder this time, and waited.

“Why aren’t they opening?” I whispered to my husband impatiently. “Huh? What's taking so long?”

I confess I didn’t come there with the cleanest of souls. My chassid had planned to go with a kvitle anyhow, and he thought I could use a blessing from a good yid that has a special bond with God. When he first mentioned it, I laughed till my guts spilled out, wiping tears away, but when the hysteria died down I noticed that I’d been doubled over alone. Yoelish didn’t think it was funny. He was convinced a trip to the Rabbi will do us good and that I have just to go to find out that he was right. He couldn't get much enthusiasm out of me when it comes to rabbis, but I did intentionally pick that old grey and navy, dull scarf to tie on my head. I figured a shpitzle veibele with sagging shoulders will distract the rabbi from my sinning insides.

By the time they ushered me in to the rabbi's room, I was already considering leaving the whole ordeal and walking right back home. I was tizzy with tension. Having never gone to the Rabbi before, what followed passed in a blur of men's black long coats and thing belts tied on top. I don’t really remember how I arrived into the big room, one laced with sefarim on its endless walls. I think we went there was a quick toll exchange between Moshe and the gabi on our way in.

In the room, I wasn’t offered a seat or a kichelech made by the rebbetzin. I just stood at the door of the fluorescent-blue room that was empty of props but the rabbi’s heavy table. My husband rushed over to kiss the rabbi’s hand. The Rebbeh Shlita shukled in a front-to-back motion and loudly benched us with wonderful things.

"Umeyn... Umeyn... Umeyn... Umeyn..."

I nodded amens fervently. Then the rabbi fell silent. Yoelish’l spoke; he said it. I felt sick with fear when he made the admission about my personal shortcoming, my hidden reality. Yoelish told the rabbi that I have a blog, and that I feel it’s starting to poison my mind. That I stumbled upon the Internet unintentionally, and I’ve been trapped ever since. What should we do?

I began chewing at my nails. I pulled my pocket book strap back over my shoulders.

“Ah Blok?!" The rabbi's question came in a learning tune. "And there’s J Net or any other such program?”

“Yu, Yu, of course!”

The rabbi gazed down on his sefar, his fingers running through his beard through his beard. Then he balled up the end of his beard in his hand. He seemed unable to sit without jerking in little movements. Finally he looked me in the eye and asked, “In Gugle edsense (Google Adsense), iz doos doo? (do you have that?)”

My husband turned to me confused about what that adsense was all about.

“Se-iz mayglech” I murmured, my eyes fixed on my nails. It's possible to install it.

“Meyn froe zoogt es is mayglech, it’s possible” Yoelish repeated to the rabbi.

“Nee." came his hoarse, pshetldig voice, "Our educational institutions are struggling financially. The melamdim in the yeshivos are not getting paid and the buildings can't be covered. Oz men ken oroishelfen, if we can help out, that would be a big mitzvah. Seshteyt duch, "shliach mitzvah eyneh nizoykin" he who does a good deed cannot be in danger. Should der eybershter help you and you should be successful in alleh inyanim, amen!”

So very dear reader, I’ve put Google Ad Sense up. Let us hope that in the merit of a combined Blogger’s effort we’ll be zocha to see a lot of riches for this rabbi and a few more rabbjs, until moschiach tsidkayno, Amen!

The Chosen and Choices

2007-01-15T14:46:00.004-05:00

Life as a Chassidic Jew is without doubt full of challenging restrictions. However, there are some very positive aspects to its lifestyle. To name one, openness to the unexpected. It creates for its people to a world of choices. As long as you abide to its rules, your future is yours to map. Go, do, live just as you want.Thus, the journey of my life has been full of unpredictable twists and turns. It’s been an adventure of ups and downs; the experiences all shaped by the choices I made. Here is my condensed dramatic autobiography:

The Unexpected

As a seventeen year old, three years into attending an all-girls high school, I decided not to pursue a college education. I was young and hot-headed, and on impulse, dropped out from my studies and picked up an employment offer at a fellow chasid’s modest business.

Work had little excitement for a young secretary like me, but relying on the income as I looked ahead at my lavish dreams, I touched-typed away. I made my way through the streets of Williamsburg ever morning, and I returned at five o’clock precisely. My days each resembled the next. I checked in each day for minimum wage and then used a fraction of that income to shop for designer European wear; as fine and modest clothing is the absolute product of my own taste. The rest of the gold-backed paycheck was stashed away for big times to come.

On one particularly foggy day, as I was walking home in my clockwork route, absent mindedly watching my feet upset the brown puddles lying lazily between sidewalk cracks, I made a detour in my usual route. I stopped by an aunt’s house per my mother’s request.

It was that very day, that very visit, that spontaneously changed my life. It threw my world of predictability into a disarray and hung a thick veil of mystery over my future. After that sudden detour, my trips to work would no longer be the same. There in my aunt's house, as I was sitting at her dinette, the doorbell rang. At the threshold stood a middle-age couple, behind them their son, a handsome young gentleman. His demeanor and attitude had me from the first minute. He looked down, shook with anxiety, and hardly acknowledged me. It was that moment that I knew I had found my soulmate.

In a spiral of unexpected events, what is a story in its own, the next seven months were consumed by an incredible romance. Despite my young age, our love developed something so much more, for instance, into a sparkling diamond ring, and soon I stood at the tall mirrors in Brodey’s Bridal shop, trying white dresses. I watched my own reflection, a glorified angel in endless tulle, and mulled over the irony. Me, married, hardly twenty.

I was looking over to the girl standing next to me, envying her better dress, when I realized I’d known her from school. What a coincidence, I gasped, amazed to see another one of us getting hitched.

“Oh, yeah” she said to me, while the seamstress fondled her shoulders. “We’re not the only ones.”

Much to my surprise, I found many other classmates bubbling between the racks. Some were donning tiaras, some trying on ridiculous off-color ill-fitted gowns, and others crying in their mother’s arms with anticipation.

What are the odds?!

Ironically, my fellow friends were all also locating in Brooklyn, NY, of all places. They too were marrying young chassidic scholars. They too held down secretarial jobs at small business owners. They too were absolutely in love.

They too, were making choices.

My eyes almost fell out of the sockets. What. The. Hell. Are. The. Odds??

Time went by, and I lost touch again. My husband and I decided to start a family immediately after the nuptials. Nine months hence, the baby was about to join us. We arrived to the hospital in the middle of the night, gasping for breath.

“The baby is coming” I stuttered, “cu-cu-coming, right this now!!”

The nurse looked up, nose high in air, and pointed her pencil to a chair. “Take a seat, ma’am.”

Dragging our bags to the waiting area, I nodded to the other much-overdue patients. I realized that many of them were women my age, and I’d gone to school with them. Only it was now that they sat back, drained of every ounce of strengths, as they stared into the ceiling like nothing mattered anymore.

“You all?” I gawked. “Having babies??”

“What then you think I’m doing here, like THIS?” an old friend looked at me, obviously ready to pop more with anger than with child.

I fell onto a bench and wondered about this wonderful life, a life so full of choices.

I WANT EPIDURAL!

Marriage-In-Law

2007-01-09T15:48:00.000-05:00

Before I got married I went for some preparation classes. At my first class I learned about the fundamental structure of a Jewish Home in those words:

“Consider it a glass wall. Every so often there will be a glass wall in your home, one that no one will see but it will separate you from your spouse. It will make sure that you do not come too close to each other”.

It didn’t seem like an awful piece of furniture, especially when the teacher ended by saying that when the glass wall is not there, you and your mate can be so close, you can even play a game of rummy together.

Rummy?!!! Blink. Really? Bliiiiiink, blink. Wow!

Life as a married woman was full of surprises. One of them was the glass wall. It wasn’t half as simple as I thought. Let me tell you about that slob.

The Glass Wall is just the name for an animated ogre made of misshaped gooey glob of soft glass, the ugliest creature to ever walk the planet. It talks in a nosey thin voice with an ever present cheerful disposition. Little feet drag its tummy-dominated body all over in small quick steps. Most of all, it hates me.

It arrives into my life with or without notice, on its own whim. “Hey, hunnee” I find it sitting on the toilet tank reading a pashkaville that was retrieved from the garbage bin. He doesn’t even bother to look up. “I missed ya galfriend" he teases.

I cringe and storm off. It hops off and runs after me. “Cheer up, will ya? Life’s good, life’s really goooood.”

Ugh?

It follows me to the bedroom where I tuck myself into bed feeling miserable. I know what’s in store for me. Glass will make himself at home around here for a good few days and suffocate my personal space. I put the pillow over my head and let the mood swings bring about little sips of cries.

I feel my bed moving, and I peek out to find a sweating Glass pushing my bed farther apart from the other one. He dusts his palms off and hands me a pair of men’s washed-out socks. “Here, put this on. And close that top button of that nightgown. Sheesh. A little decency. Is that too much to ask nowadays? What’s the world come too? People have no more pride in this day and age. That’s all I see- - -okay, okay, I’m ramblin’ on…”

Just the sound of that voice makes my insides grind.

It gets lonely, talking long distance to your own husband from one pillow-planet to the other. I eat clementines while we discuss our day in the depressing way these things work. Glass sits on the night table, next to the glowing lamp, yawning away. Just when we are starting to forgive each other for an argument earlier that day, Glass perks up. “Duh, you guys are so boring. C’mon with all the mushy. Whew, gross! Can’t a guest enjoy himself? I mean, get a room!”

I roll my eyes hatefully and turn to the wall. I see rummy cards all over. There, there. A joker!

During dinner, Glass piles extra ketchup, mustard and seltzer bottles on the table. He has no table manners whatsoever. And he talks so much; I can’t put a word in edgewise.

Scrubbing away the dishes later, as I yell the chorus of Father Don't Cry in my lethal way of singing, Glass flutters his eyelashes in frustration. "He-l-l-l-p!" he holds both hands over his ears. "Have pity on me, will ya?!" And so, my music comes to a barbaric end.

When I get ready to go outside with my husband, Glass too schleps his hat on and hurls a scarf around its neck, all hyped. He walks between us, throwing me almost off the curb, going on about this and that with rolls of freezing vapor escaping his mouth.

I don’t even pretend I’ll miss him when I find him packing to leave the next day. What a relief it will be. Life, the way we knew it.

Grrrr! Change of plans. Something came up, I have no idea what, and Glass is staying for another week. At this point I'm so angry I don’t know how to let go of all that fume.

Ah! Yoelish! Good ol’ Yoelish! He can handle some of my feelings, can't he? It takes no time at all for me to be complaining to him, then about him, then with him and ultimately blowing at him in the silent way that eats me alive.

“Finally some quiet around here!” Glass lying on the carpet between our beds, sipping a beer. “This place is full of chitty-chatty, chitty-chatty” he gestures a moving-duck-face with his hand.

I get beside myself with anger when Glass visits us outside the home. Like while we’re on vacation or at a relative. Oh, the maternity ward, that makes my nostrils expand in lack of a better gesture. Just when the unborn child is about to make its debut, I notice glass curled up on one of the hospital chairs checking the channels. When the baby is born to its teary-eyed parents, Glass pushes his way in like a real grandparent. Takes the bundle from me, swings it from side to side, but forgets about it if me and my Yoelish are about to celebrate.

“Not now, you people. We’ve got this cutest baby to look at! Lookee here, doesn't the kid look just like its papa! coo. tsu, tsu...”

The day Glass leaves our home is a holiday. I walk him out the door with a beating heart, feeling newly-married all over. As I close the door, he presses his face back to the peephole:

“Ya neva, eva, know when I’ll be back, ya extra-kind hostess o’ mine! ! !” and tapping his belly he makes his way down the hall with victorious “ha, ha, has!”

I lock the door, close every bolt.

________________________________________

(Note – This post is my last one” blineder” that gets carried away with outlandish, over-the-top analogies... I couldn’t resist just this one more time...just this one time… :)

Fitting In

2007-01-05T13:11:00.004-05:00

For me, the focal point of a simcha is the challah. It's only natural for me to head directly from the coat room to whatever smells crusty, and remain there, at least in mood, way past the badchen's gig. My appetite is relentless.

Yeah, well, today as ever, I'll just eat my watery vegetable soup here and leave the floating kneidle to dry.

Damn cooked carrots they call stew.

I blow over a spoonful and feel sorry for myself. All my life I've been trying to fit into a mold that's too small to fit almost anyone naturally. All my life I've been following a world of rules to become someone I'm naturally not. All my life I've been denying myself certain pleasures because my mother would look me up and down and make me feel awful if I'd be who I am.

All my life I've been trying to live another life.

A first cousin comes over to our table to enthusiastically vinch mazel tov. Mma, maa. Cheek, cheek. "Mahazel Tuhuv! You look really good! Turn around. And this way. Wow. What are you doing?" She feels my waist to check for the garment of magic.

She plops down on the empty chair next to me, picks the maraschino off an untouched appetizer, and mesmerizes the audience by telling a 'beferishe' story about a friend of hers that passed away from yene machlah and came back in the form of a bird to request that a $20 loan be repaid.

We all gasp. Seiz doo a bashefer of der velt.

"Unbelievable!" I exclaim. (Oh, for crying out loud!) "Din v'cheshben.."

It doesn't take long for all the dead-visiting stories to come rolling, and I'm not there anymore. I'm looking into my empty plate, knocking the spoon softly into the poor kneidle to the musical rhythm, my left ear positioned in a way that suggests it's listening, and off I am thinking about a subject I read on a blog and the ensuing comments.

I try to hold my facial gestures from moving with my thoughts. In my mind, I argue with the topic's arguments, think about the mood of the discussion, and absentmindedly slip me feet out of those high pumps.

I perk up when I realize I've been spoken to. "Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean." (I have no idea what you were talking about, my dear sister.) Wake up, I tell myself.

I look around for my kids, wave to an aunt, and spot my brother jerking his head sideways at the mechitsah.

My brother always seems to be bored with male companionship. At every wedding he signals for his wife twenty times. We've come to expect him to be hovering in that area. His wife, Paris Hilton, would make her way over to him in her clickity-clack way and halfway disappear on the other side, leaving her rear in the women’s section for tsnuis. I watch her, or what is left of her, and wonder about my big brother who doesn't seem to find his place between his male counterparts. I've always assumed that side to be superior in social interaction.

My thoughts are already weaving a new web and then a blog about the mysteries of my brother when I realize everyone’s quiet. The kind of quiet that turns the music and all noise off. My sister Rosie O'Donnel shakes her head in Paris's direction disapprovingly.

"Zee zayt ois a shrek! Ah shrek" Her hands fly in the air with despair.

(What? Where? How do you mean? )

"Look at this little skirt she's bursting out of. It's ekeldig. It's not even tsee dee zach. She looks like she's wearing a pajama. Mommy eats her heart out when she sees her like this. I'm just plain worried. Zee glitcht with every day. I've tried to talk to her but her head is in the wrong places." I was afraid Rosie was going to cry. She looked so sincere. No wonder she's the family favorite.

I hand her a napkin to dab her eyes with.

"I know" (now), I nod like an old, sad lady. (C'mon. Glitched? She's got her brains stuck in a clothing rack. I wonder what you would consider me had I not been sobbing along with your veygeshreyen.)

Barabara Streisand, the sister in law from Montreal can't agree more. "He isn't even the type for any of this. He was such a good boy. Zee hut eym fardarben!"

Azans!

All women 'round the table are now actively worried for the well being of our dear family member. For some reason, I feel like I'm on fire. I feel like they're talking about me. For a change, I’m not bored.

I want to fit in. I want to be an insider in a community whose mold is too small to fit almost anyone naturally. I follow every program, and every exercise to become an eligible member of this celebrity society. I'm not brave enough to be entertainment, in a Paris way.

Hillary Clinton, a younger sister of mine, she always likes to share little darling bits of info that she coaxed outta you. "Uh, uh. Paris' on birth control. I know for sure.".

"WHAT?" I gasp. "Really? I thought she's nursing clean?" (I can hear the rear end of my brain exploding in laughter, and wonder what set it off).

Barbara is already bent over the table probing Hillary for a source. Laura Busch, like always, tries to stop this. She won't accept the loshan hora.

I hand my nagging son the whole basket of sour pickles and tell him to disappear. Nem. Gey shoin. I've got more important stuff to worry about.

Barbara Streisand sips some lemon soda. "My mother saw Paris on the bus the other day. She wasn't wearing palm. Everyone looks at her. She looks very modern. How does she think she'll do shedichum?"

Shedichum! Vey! God help ME!

I suggest to Barbara that maybe Paris should go to the rebbe for a kvitle (ha, ha, ha. not funny) so that she can find the way.

Rosie explains to me that there's really little we can do. "You can tell everything about a person from her clothing. You can see that she wants fremdeh felder. Shpitzle, She's erger than you think. It's bad."

"I see. I see.” (Okay, coward, this has surpassed funny. Can you for once, not act heart stricken?)
I can't take this anymore.

Why can't one be who one is?

I start at the challah. I tear off a chunk and chew with loud thumps. The hell with fitting in!

I won't ever look like Rosie anyhow.

Mailer Demon

2007-01-02T10:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

Happy Nework Year!

I know I'm a couple of days late, but I'd like to apologize to all of you for closing my email account. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you personally and I hope to continue to hear from ya via the comments. I do miss it all.

Hug?

Yours,
Shpitz

Shpitzleshptrimpkind@godmail.com (kidding)

Fear Not, My Child

2006-12-30T23:27:00.001-05:00

I’m not gonna be kiddin’ myself. The American Dream whistles my name. It tempts me. Y’know, the big private house on the manicured lawn in a sunny-all-year-round state, the college degree, the double income, double garage. The great escapes ‘round the world, the well-tended women, the rowdy li’l mistah, the half-undressed teenage smartass….

Not the dog. Take that dog away from here.

And the cats too. Or any other haunting specie for that matter.

Come to think of it, it's probably because the Satmericana Drim is lacking in that respect. The over-populated apartment: Check. the B&H job: Check. The Ben Torah: Check. The overpriced, fourth-hand minivan... The road trip to the Arlington in the summer... The woman hidden somewhere under all the tsnuis, the little boysss, the little girlsss, the bochurim that do not teenage….

Check, check, check.

Where’s the cow? You know, a nice soft mooing cow. Or any other Kosher animal that can take the place of a pet.

Hey, maybe we could even get a chicken for every kid in the house.

Sure.

Why do we really fear animals so much? It’s not animals exclusively, it’s more than that. We’re afraid of looking at people with disabilities, my kids are afraid of goyim, hell, we’re afraid of anything unfamiliar.

I sat in the kitchen last night, drinking something warm at 4 in the morning, wondering why we, The Jews, the people I was taught are above all forms of nature, are awfully afraid of cockroaches.

A couple of hours earlier I was having this wonderful dream when my subconscious mind detected some tugging. I turn the other way, but the tugs continue. I'm tired, leave me alonnne. I finally stirred with a voiceless, lifeless “Voos iz tsadikle?” and continued to dream on my distorted story.

He held his pillow and started to cry, hushed and desperate pleas. “Seiz doo a doggy in mine room”.

Oh no, not again. “Crawl into tatti’s bet, his is way bigger than mine”.

I think I was too tired to turn that thought into words, because I heard little feet shuffling at the foot of my bed. My cover began moving about, and in no time I was left with just a wee little piece of blanket in my fingers.

It was cold. Rubbing my eyes, I tucked him in and stumbled out.

Whereever he took the dog idea, I'm not worried. \ What does bother me is the array of objects that can evoke fear.

When everything unfamiliar is scary, familiar must at least vary. Otherwise we risk scaring our children from growing up. It's such a big world out there and there isn't always a mother's bed to climb into.

Eech hub nisht keyn moira noor fin daym heiliga boyrah.

Yeah, sure.

Blogged Off

2006-12-24T16:31:00.003-05:00

I really hope that whatever the problem, solitary confinement won’t last forever.

Freilicha Chanaka!

2006-12-14T14:13:00.001-05:00

Don't even think about it ringing my blog for tsedukah. I'll tell ya, this here 9 inch plastic plate holds my entire paycheck in coins. I juggle employment with motherhood; a part time office position that pays me just enough to keep my Chanukah charity fund afloat. Given that I started digging the gold mines at age 17 with a high school diploma (going for a major in Hilchas Shabbos) I can truthfully say my job's job is more to protect my sanity than to dress me in minks.

Eight Days Chanukah is the time I pause the hubbub of daily life to celebrate breadwinning.

It's called Chanukah Gelt.

Coming up, is the only holiday we actually work. 9:30 on a Chanaka AM in my office cubicle, I go about my daily life. I grab a bite of my sandwich, enter figures in QuickBooks but I somehow find myself day-dreaming over the children's faces. I can see my eldest especially; his dark eyes alive when his father hands him the $5 Chanakah earning. Oh, what do the children know about bosses, language barriers and taxes? What do they know about overworked, overtime and underpaid?

They'll know, in due time. For now I want to teach them that although we hustle through a fair amount of our life working, we can still spend the evenings gathered around a warm fire. After lighting the candles, we all sing muez tsuir, in what must be the most horse-crackled choir, but with every note I feel a growing sense of indescribable happiness. My husband tied up with the traditional thin gartle holds the little one on his tapping lap as she eagerly claps her dimpled hands together...The oh-so-grown misters, their tin menorahs burning over the windowsill, they shukel from side to side with the rhythm, a real example of deveykes. .

Deep inside me I feel a candle's flame igniting.

I just love Chanaka.

At night I serve latkas of my own making, customized with jam, custard or confection sugar as per individual order. I hum to them a Yom Tov Erlich song, one my mother would sing to us every Friday Night, while we watch the color candles extinguish one at a time.. For a special treat, there's distribution of chelkas around the dining room table, all bakers donning aprons. We mix flour and sugar, margarine and eggs and knead, roll and shape some delicious menorah themed vanilla cookies. Even Yoelish gets creative with the melted chocolate and sprinkles fiasco.

There's laughter. There's love. There's birth to memorable moments. All after a full day of gelt...

It's the 8 day miracle. A lesson to burn a whole year.

A WARM CHANAKA TO YOU AND YOURS!

Trilingual

2006-12-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

You know these people that actually go through the hassle of writing a note to a manufacturer with product feedback?

My husband is one of them.

Lo and behold, he penned a letter to no other than Bill Gates. I held my sides, thinking it was ridiculous. For all you know we heard back!

I had to share this amazing correspondence:

(published with permission. please excuse the errors, I wanted to upload it as is.)

der mikrosuft word

i am ritink to yu tudai a jowish guy becos i whant to tank yu for all youre helps.. in my callage U.T.A, i only stude the torah so i don't know now aynglish, den one day my vife bore our first babi and i cant be in kollel because i got to go maik the monee because being a jow is vary ecpesif

i try to found a job wery long , bott its not asee for me , i don't speecking aynglish good or no compurers or no odder busnis tings, my vife tell dat i go to a gentyle skool but we dont haf teh resours,,,,

my swooger gives me a job but i have to learned to make the faxs and memos for the wendors , i 22 yar old end i only speeked jowdish and l.k. , in i was vary loost. i said for god to make me a nes.

won day i se a miraikl from god cald mikrosuf word, it fixes all errors, som'tims it gives mi a bettur wort and sometimes not, it is a large help

may god sand yu brachos and yeshuos and kul tuf uman

tanks
Joel strimpkond

n.b. pliz make the program mikrosof acsent becuz my acsent makes me tok slolech and sometime peoples dont understood.

And now for the reply:

February 12, 2003

Joel Strimpkond
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Dear Joel,

I am rethinking to you toady Jewish guy bacons I want to tank you for all you’re helps... In my collage U.T.A, I only stud the torah so I don't know now anguish, den one day my vie bore our first babe and I can’t be in killer because I got to go maim the Monee because being a jowl is vary ecclesia .

I try to found a job wary long, butt its not apse for me, I don't specking English good or no comparers or no odder basins tings, my vie tell data I go to a gently spool but we don’t haft the recourse.

My swinger give me a job but I have to learned to make the facs and memos for the wanders, I, 22 yarn old end only sleeked jewish and o.k. , in I was vary loots. I said for god to make me a nest.

Won day I se a mariachi from god clad Microsoft word, it fixes all errors, sometimes it gives mi a bettor word and sometimes not, it is a large help .

May god sand you braches and yahoos and kill tuff unman?

Tanks,

Joel Strimpkond

PS I feel for you, man. -Bill

Women's Rights 'n Lefts

2006-12-05T16:38:00.003-05:00

I don’t usually curse. I’m above that. Today I’m in an especially brazen mood. I feel like kicking a few dirty words around. Like, Gasp, “Slow down!, whatch**t!, care****!" . Or how about “Oh god, oh god, OH GOD!”

Fingers planted in your ears yet?

I learned these and a couple more of the sort during my days in the back part of the car. Yes, I’m a backseat driver. I'm sorry to let you down like this. You'll have to learn to live with who I am. A lowly backseat driver.

From as far back as I can recall, my mother sat in the station wagon patrolling my father’s swivels from lane to lane. (my ol' man isn’t much of a pilot himself). Mammi would bite on her tongue as if her mouth has been stuffed with towels and offer up some urgent prayer in odd yiddish. When Yoelish took to the wheel, I assumed the matriarchal role.

When we're out in the car, my fingers grovel into the armrests if he is in a rush, in hopes that my nails will find brakes to press onto. Sometimes when he’s calmly looking up street signs without a clue as to where he is, I just want to remove the steering wheel and take a long walk home. I swallow a short stop with just a tiny screech escaping my mouth. I sit on his outdated newspapers and ignore the empty Snapple bottles lying around on the floor. During every ride I say tefilos haderech with kevana, praying to hashem that I shouldn’t be tempted to commit the sin of being a backseat driver.

I’d like to think that Satmar women are so esteemed, they are chauffeured around. Such a Yiddish kroyn as her must be pampered. My Service loads me onto a pair of wheels and I’m driven in a royal carriage from door to door.

It’s a wonderful life. Just kick your pumps off and enjoy the ride. I’ll be in the seat behind you, on the Sharmash bus, relishing the odor of your foot-airing. Meanwhile I'll be multitasking; exasperatingly trying to control the volume on the custom stereo system I own called children. I try to straighten the seat up, lie it down, settle myself in a corner, shift to the other side and massage my own back because it hurts like hell. I’ll be more than delighted when another shpitzle woman spreads her belongings out beside me, after asking me to move the baby from the seat to my lap. She has so many things to share with me about the family of the kallah, I can’t help but listen with boundless enthusiasm. As we ride on the FDR, every move is a blessing from god. The bus jumps up, and I am thrust to the ceiling. I land with a few little bounces. It’s the experience of a lifetime…

There’s more where those luxuries came from.

I have a private escort service called Yoelish. It needs to be ordered to a place an hour before the actual time of departure for it is sometimes a little too busy preparing its limos for me, to be punctual. When I decide to go somewhere from one minute to the next, the Yoelish agents advise me to spend a few days walking to the destination, while they get ready to pick me up for return.

It’s not like all these royalties limit my opportunity for real-people activities . Nuh uh. Just for the kick of it I sometimes saddle up a carriage and push it up and down Lee Avenue. It’s thrilling. I huff and puff, begging the walking kids to hold onto the sides. Winter is carriage-racing high season. I have such a merry time walking-walking-walking, through snow or just smoke-breathing frost, I feel sorry for the men strapped up in their 'taxis'.

Take the keys. It's not gonna stop me from having the ride of my life.

Headaches

2006-11-29T20:46:00.002-05:00

My wedding anniversary is coming up. I am commemorating these years from the nuptials by making Yoelish's favorite supper. But I will be marking not only the birth of my family and my love for Yoelish, but I also will be reflecting on other aspects of my young life that have changed when I got married. As I think back to the things of past and to this momentous wedding event, some very strong feelings envelop me. I'd like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to some very dear part of my life I lost when I got married, because of my marriage.

I've prepared a little ceremony, a little ritual of sorts, that I want to perform. I lit some vanilla scented candles and turned off the lights, and I will observe a few moments of silence in memory.

...............................

And I will now read a letter I wrote to express my strongest, deepest, broken voice of longing.

To my Dear Friend,

My heart aches with endless pain as I once again open this wound. I know that you are angry with me, and I understand your reason. I too, am really hurt.

I want you to realize that there was nothing I could have done about it. I was presented with a choice one should never know of. It was very clear that it was either you or him.

I love you very much, but after excruciating reflection I concluded that although my feelings for you are unconditional, you can not satisfy some parts of my life that he does. I hope it makes you feel better to hear that even though I have gone on to a happily married life, I still think of you every day.

I think of the special times we shared, and then of the times our relationship was under stress. I can now appreciate the extent to which our friendship made me a better person. You no doubt accented me in many ways.

I smile fondly at the memory of you under the rain. I remember your obsession with clothing. You had an endless collection of shoeboxes of ribbons, barrettes, ‘chuts’, ‘rifes’, brushes, mirrors… All of which were always updated according to the latest style and fad. Oh, you were so materialistic; I sometimes wondered how we ever got along.

Actually, very often we didn’t. In the Nine Days you were ecstatic. You looked awful, oil dripping from every end. You insisted that you be washed. In the earlier days, you owned pets; ugly ones that freaked me out. Because of them my mother tried to tear us apart.

You always wanted for me to spend over thirty minutes with you every morning, while you humored yourself by flipping out while I constantly tried to turn you in. You loved cuts, but when we arrived for the appointment you were a control freak. Not too short, not too long…

Oh, you were such a headache.

Despite all that. I miss you.

When I turned 18 and you became fearful that I will leave you for a man,you overreacted. You stopped being yourself. You attended hours of ‘therapy’ at the stylist, giving yourself the ‘of age’ look. You refused to look natural. You always had to be thoroughly conditioned and perfectly blow-dried.

I recall the summers with you most fondly. When you let go of all the uptight dos and you just had fun. You’d be wild, messy and bundled up in a bun. You were happy then.

I miss taking baths with you. I miss it so much. At first, when we broke up, I would stand in the shower and cry. I felt empty and alone.

I placed a memorial, some sort of tombstone, in your place. It’s called a shpitzle. Every day as I pile the plastic hair, sponges, tashtichels and silk paintings onto my head; I dedicate that moment for you.

You will have a special place in my heart, forever.

Love,
Shpitzle

Yentela

2006-11-27T15:56:00.002-05:00

I have some great news for all you blogaholics. I think you’ll be mighty proud of me.

I joined the Yuniversity for Yiddishpeaking Yentas. Within three years, I should have my Masters Degree in Yentaology!

The first class was held in a small bes medrish off Bedford Avenue that is only in use on shabbos. All the attending yentas-to-be seemed very determined.

Throughout the 45 minute session the coordinator introduced us to the system and discussed a little the importance of the course, as for some it’s the key to community survival. I listen and nod enthusiastically. Everyone looks at me. I wonder what I did wrong. Oh, I realize, I should look back. So I stare hard and feel like I’m learning something already.

We were then given an assignment on Page 86 of the program textbook titled STARING IS CARING. Session dismissed.

As I was making my way out, the Professor, a middle-aged figurely woman, called out to me. “dee Pony veibele”, she refers to me by my maiden name, “come here a sekund.

“I know you can really use this cuhrs, mammele. Your Private Investigation IQ is at about 60. You’re not good at ‘detecting’ what’s going on in the lives of your lahved ones. You know, you can’t have them know everything about you and be so self-centard in return, right?…” I looked at her surprised, wondering where she took all those absolutely true details from. She winked at me with a knowing smile. She was a yenta champ.

But then she told me something that really boosted my self esteem. I learnt that although observation is an important feature in a yenta, I had high hopes. “You’re a natural at the Art of Exaggeration, an essential subject in this program. I think you’ll graduate in the top ten of this class”.

Ah, well. She’s probably right.

I was gonna share some excerpts of the textbook here because I know everyone can use some brushing up on their yenting skills.

THE NEWLYWED LAW: Monitoring the goodwill of the newlywed couple.
Example: You’re out shopping, piling four tunas into your cart per the grocery list, when two half-conscious people enter. The male counterpart is wearing a shtreimle. Upon the shtreimle clue, you hurry up to the chosen/kallah (from behind) and stare ‘em up and down. You should be able to determine if they are happily married. It is also important to observe the features of the new veibele’s headgear, as when you get back home you’ll want to report on that too.

THE 5 POUND LAW: Monitoring the progress of the unborn child.
Example: You meet up with a friend at a wedding. Her face seems rounder and her skirt seems a little choked. You don’t ask her anything, but you closely observe where the primary weight went. You can then ask around in hushed tones if Friend is pregnant again. Your keen observations will probably be confirmed with a positive.

THE GENDER LAW: Diagnosing the baby-room color.
Example: Your sister in law is pregnant. She can’t stop eating, has some acne, and gained weight in specific areas. In this chapter you learn exactly how to use these symptoms to declare the fetus boy or girl. Remember however, when you have come to the gender conclusion you have to voice your diagnoses with great conviction. You can also go out and buy a color-coordinated gift already, because you definitly won’t be wrong.

THE MUSEUM LAW: Enjoying the Williamsburg Waxes
Example: You walk by a woman whos clothing or demeanor is a little off the usual. This is your opportunity to enjoy a very interesting wax being. You stare it up and down, and then look closely at the face. It should not occur to you to mask your obvious ogle with a nod, greeting or smile.

THE STATUS LAW: Reading the label
So much of what a person's social status is can be read off the little tag on the clothing. Those that dress all their boys and girls in matching money-weaved designer label sweaters are country-club exclusive. Those that shop at H&M and Children's Place but do so 24 hours are still upper-class. Those that use hand-me-downs beg that you feel sorry for them.

THE SHIDDUCH CRITIC: Reviewing the match
When two families break l’chaim, everyone is a mechetanista. You should immediately research the who, what and where. You can look through the phone book to find out more about the ‘yiches’. You are entitled to wonder if it is an interesting thing, a gelt shidduch, or a PERFECT match.

That’s what I’ve learned so far....

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-23T00:46:00.000-05:00

HOLIDAY POLL!

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving?

A. I'm a chassid. I don't celebrate these holidays.

B. I get off from work. (So that's pretty much why I'm lounging around on blogs)

C. I cook a turkey, bake the pies, and my kids ask the Mah Nishtana of American History.

D. What's Tanksgifinks?

Vakatsia

2006-11-18T23:15:00.002-05:00

See, yours truly and her mister will take off for a two day escape – alone! Between a neighbor, my parents, and my nagging worries, I think the kids will be fine. With all the preparation I’m doing, I can’t resist indulging in a pre-vacation vacation; a nice trip down memory lane....

July 2006

After hours on the road we finally pull up with our gold minivan to the hotel entrance, the clock confirming we’re going to be an early check-in. We eye each other with anticipation when a soldier-looking guy with white gloves knocks on my window. I ask him if I can help him. Turns out, he wants to help me. He wants to take our luggage.

“Hmm.” I wonder nervously. Before we left Williamsburg we cleared the shelves in one of the groceries, and thought we’ll smuggle the piles of shopping bags in by ourselves. Now my husband reminds me to get our money’s worth. So as the bell-hop loads our odd and sloppy belonging onto his cart, I openly gesture my mister to give a tip. Yoelish fishes something out of his wallet, but with worrying uncertainty about the proper number a tip-bill should be.

Our entrance into the lobby is a grand one. We stand there, tasting the reality of our dream. As I relish every crystal in the chandelier, my husband embraces the waterfall. Couches, paintings and five-star staff – we’re off to a wonderful start.

Things get even better as we slip into room 752. I take in the ugly floral bedspread, the useless minibar, the smaller-than-pictured balcony. It’s all a source of great excitement. As I start to work my way through our suitcases and worry about a fridge for my milk, my husband is already busy piling the bite-size shampoos into our bags. He pretends he’s helping out a mighty load by checking the programs available on the TV. “This is cool!” he delights.

Well, I’m not sure. I furrow a brow and try to make out a whole picture on the screen. Yoelish is pounding at his remote. Click, ball game. Click, news reporter. Click, killer. Click, crying gal. Click, cartoon. Click, another ball game. Click, medication ad. Click, another news reporter. My husband points eagerly at the remote he’s kidnapped. “I wish we could have one of those!”

Yeah, keep wishing.

Dinner time comes around with loud reminder from my stomach. We’ve read all about the hotel’s fine restaurants, and find a corner table in one of them. Yoelish digs into his little boxed microwaved kosher serving with gusto, ignoring that it's half boiling and half frozen. For some reason, my appetite is selective. It averts my eyes onto a neighborhood pile of fries and little drool-drops are released from my glands. I hate Meal Mart.

What to do next? Not a question at all. There’s a gym in this hotel, and to us Chassidic peopes it’s like a manual amusement park. I peddle the pike. He runs on the treadmill at 8. This is so fun.

When we’re done sweating, we go over to what I call the aqua museum. It’s a glass enclosed section, the inside a hole filled with water. We press our faces onto the window and watch a fat, hairy guy sit around in the sauna. When the pool gets empty, we venture in for a half second but run out like the FBI’s most wanted water-thieves.

At night, my sleep is flavored with a special treat of affection, as I can put my arms around my husband in the queen size bed. It’s almost like in the movies; only in the movies they don’t have to kick the blankets around so much till they are covered with a decent piece of quilt.

Morning comes early, as we sit outside and watch the sunrise in our sleepwear. It’s been a long time since we’ve been so alive. It’s been a long time since we remembered how much we love each other.

Well, we got to love the vacation too, so we cut all the nostalgia short. I shower and get dressed, while complaining non-stop about looking out of place in the layers of headgear. When my husband starts with the shachris and tefillin, it’s payback time! I indulge in a good car insurance ad. Ahhh.

Our day’s activity is golf. We set out to rent the hotel’s clubs, balls and cart. If you think golf is for old rich guys only you’ve get another think coming. My husband and I love golf.
We speed the little car up and down acres of grass. It’s like NASCAR with a romantic setting. I hold on tight. It gets as close to a private plane as it’ll ever get for me.

It just becomes a little sticky when a snobbish group of players in shorts and sneakers seem not to like us. No problem, the local mall will appreciate us more.

Arriving back at the hotel at night, with piles of expensive toys added to our name, we feel above the world. My guilt for leaving the kids behind is a little appeased. We inch closer, fingers even brushing a bit. I’m all smiles.

Out of nowhere a yiddish couple emerges. This is a disaster. They see us and quickly look away. I rush up to our room, taking the stares for security, and refuse to leave again.

“You think they know me?” I beg my husband for no as an answer.

“I don’t know”

“She wore an uncovered sheitle. Maybe they’re Monsey. Maybe they’re Baro Park. Right?”

“Maybe” he gives me another unsatisfying answer.

“Think they’ll tell my mother that you wore a cap?”

“Who cares?” He’s totally not getting it.

“I care!”

It takes some coaxing to drag me out again, this time I look 100% Lee Avenue presentable. We stroll in the hall, my confidence just partially recovered.

In the bar, I wonder who the sick inventor of dim lighting is. High stools, I’m not sure why they’re there. We order two beers from the bartender.

“Which?”

Oh. I have no idea. A beer is a beer, like everyone knows. I remember the big highway ads and I confidently order Budweiser. I hear my husband say Heineken. Probably they advertised that where he traveled.

I try to nurse my beer, but it’s not working. I can’t make it go down my throat. The other end of the room is starting to interest me more.

We both get our sticks, and load a pile of colored balls onto the billiard. I try not to make it seem so obvious that I am just doing what the other pool players are doing. Yoelish aligns his stick like an expert. He bends over. He decides to come from three o’clock. He hits.

Amazing! I tell him he’s a pro. Never mind five of the balls that are rolling their way out of the bar. One ball actually made its way into the sack! Did I marry a genius or what!?!?

You’d hear us make our way back to the room, with spasms of giggles. By now, you can be Jewish and see me. I don’t even care.

Shalom Bais

2006-11-14T17:41:00.004-05:00

I’m eagerly awaiting the release of the book "Women are from Venus, Yungeliet are from Yeshiva". Until they publish this self help manual, I’m grappling in the relationship on my own.

Yeshiva is an odd planet. It’s a place buzzing with species dressed in loose, big black chalatlech gowns; Its living beings consumed with worries and debates about Rebbes day and night. The Yeshiva definition of fun usually incorproates flamables or similar destructive material. The Yeshiva definition of hygiene involves nothing at all. The Yeshiva definition of women involves sisters, period.

My parents drove down to that very planet, and brought me home one of them people. He was a good boy, they said, and we were to spend the rest of our lives together.

A couple of days before we wed, my Yeshivinite was briefed on the nature of the institution called ‘marriage’. He was introduced to the unpredictable female specie, with all her interesting ways, and given some important pointers as to how to survive life with her. His handbook mentioned nothing about seeking love. It was about nidda, about faking basic cleanliness, and the infamous moods of the wife. By the time I started to scramble eggs for him, he considered himself blissfully and eternally married.

Why shouldn’t he be happily married? He figured he’d executed all instructions in excellence. He proudly took his socks out of the bedroom every day and threw them next to the hamper. He volunteered to skip the disposables and use the corell dishes, and washed them afterwards. He thanked me a million times for every bite of my lavish breakfasts, and he issued a replica of the exact same compliment every time I got dressed. If you throw in a home he has to himself, and a few new men-gadgets on his belt, walla, he’s absolutely in love!

Well, this here Venus wasn’t all that delighted. At first, I was occupied with convincing my friends that I’m ‘In himle’, in heavans. Trouble began a few weeks post nuptials.

I remember one particularly dark evening. I was standing at the mirror, trying to make a headgear out of the scarf and all the pins, with hands numb and impatient. I overheard my husband beam his newlywed happiness via cordless waves to his parents, as he was gushing into the phone.

Then heard him casually disclose a most private secret. He said “oh, my wife doesn't wash my tsitses at all! She just says we can send it to the cleaners.”

My hands limped to my sides. I could not believe what I just heard. The secret was out, this baal habusta has a pact with the dry cleaner. My in-laws will now know that they’ve been really been had. The housewife they were promised is a fraud. The Shout technique they taught me really isn't what makes his tsitsis so beautiful.

I rushed into the kitchen and silently, with a face bright purple, motioned for him to stop saying so much. Later that night I explained to him that I do not appreciate the sharing of personal information with the in laws.

“Why not?!" he protested. "They always ask me about you!”

“Because! They don’t tell you this, but when they hang up they ask themselves what sort of wife they got you.”

“What makes you think that?” My Yeshivanite didn't get it.

“I know that! Nobody sends the tsitsis to the cleaners. Everyone washes it by hand. It's just... I don't do well with the scrubbing.”

“Nah. They love you.” He returned to his beeper.

“HUH!?” I croaked, tears were swelling in my eyes.

“Okay. Then I won’t say it again. ”

There. Problem solved. We were blissfully married again. After these discussions, he considered the subject resolved and shelved. He could put his keyrings on the nightchest, turn out the light, roll to his side, and begin with the deep, long, snores.

Just a couple of days later I, woman and moodiness, created another one of these fusses. Again, the blissful newlywed life Yoelish was enjoying was interrupted by my emotional big-deals. It was after he asked the in-laws not to make the goulash supper anymore. “She doesn’t like it. Not the potatoes, not the chicken”.

I exploded in my contained way. “I told them a half hour ago that I loved the supper they sent! Why do you tell them everything?”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I won’t tell them anymore.”

Simple. Another little bump in married life was resolved. Did he learn anything? Oh, no need to. He just needed to avoid conflict. It wasn't about if I was right or not, if I was hurt or not, it was about not having any disagreements at all. I couldn't get Yoelish to agree to hash out my complaint. I hardly began crying and he soon had a solution and closed the discussion. Thus, I began with the infamous, ultra-wifey "blowing", the silent treatment. The next time I had the urge to argue, but couldn’t summon his cooperation, I simply stormed away. How helpful! When he tried to go on with life in total oblivion of my earnest blowing situation, I’d answer in short monosyllables through tight lips. I participated in conversations with a lot of ‘adonoknows’. I ate my food with loud, angry crunches.

It took a lot of time for him to grasp the concept of a fight. To understand that it’s a cleansing ritual. It took a lot of time for him to understand that a marriage involves a relationship, and a relationship involves some good arguments. It was my Yeshivinite’s most important lesson and he wasn't taught any of this in all of his introductory courses.

God’s Guards

2006-11-11T22:12:00.001-05:00

I have this black suit; it’s my suit-mate, I think. My body and the suit have gotten along even through the worst of times. Even when the doctor told me I was gaining too much in pregnancy. Even when my mother told me I was gaining too much over honeymoon dinners. Even when I ‘brisk walked’ all around town till my waist showed again. The suit (almost) always fit.

See, it looks pretty simple, but it’s made of the marvelous fabric called knit. As the female body goes through the miraculous experience of bearing a child, the body stretches. So did the suit. As my body was bouncing back after the babies, so did the suit.

But well, whom am I kidding. A mother’s body is never perfect. There are stretch marks and other imprints left by the child that once called your womb home. So is it with my suit.

When my friends and I went out to a tseduka event the other night, I didn’t spend too much time at the closet wondering what to wear. Besides, my shoes are black and best tichel has a matching border, so I was dressed and ready to go in no time.

I enjoy parties, for many reasons. One of which is food. Another which is the absolute confidence that I’ll walk out with the grand prize. But mostly it’s the catching-up factor. Sitting around and schmoozing about things we never thought we’d ever talk about.

I was having a good time, particularly enjoying someone’s pile of cheese that was meant to be a cheesecake, when an older woman tapped me on the shoulder. She was of a small frame and wore just a tichel.

“veibele” she whispers, sparing me the embarrassment from my friends. “Your neck is completely open.”

“Oh, thanks” I mutter, hoping she’ll go away fast. I know. One of my suit’s stretch marks is at the neck. All the knit got dragged down a little.

But she insisted. I wasn’t tsnuis. At an all female party she could not tolerate me going around with a neck. She wanted me to get a pin. Pulling down the shell from the back didn’t help. I must put in a safety pin.

So she searches her hem and asks around but nobody volunteers a pin. Until an idea strikes her. With all the loose knit I’ve got going, I might be hiding the treasure. And she was right. She kindly asked that I offer up the little silver thing that held together a bunch of fabric at the waist.

Me being myself, I didn’t decline. My party wasn’t ruined, but I got home almost blue in the face from lack of oxygen, and was dragging my skirt in both hands for or else it would’ve landed at my ankles.

Inside I felt anger stirring, as part of me wanted to open my mouth and give it to this frow for minding my business and making a scene. But the other side of me has been trying to respect that innocent attempt to do the right thing. I’m trying very hard to appreciate people that simply want to fix our little slips; a sign of hair that’s escaped the turban or a first button that’s been left open. They stop a conversation at its peak or 'humorously' point out that the pencil shoes you’re wearing look hideous (you yourself said it a few years ago…). They close your sweater if it fell to the sides or tug your skirt down a bit. The male guards shush in beth medrish when others shmooze or ask women to move over or stand up if they’re making themselves conspicuous. They’re just trying to help.

But should they?

Immodest Modesty

2006-11-08T17:17:00.000-05:00

My shabbos evenings are sometimes very enlightening. As a Jewish mother in the city, my afternoon outings extend to the end of the gates on the window. While the kids, in sweaters, watch the cars go by, I watch out for the latest Chassidic fashion trends.

This shabbos I enjoyed a particular sight that spoofed this yenta’s interest. A young girl, about 17, was rushing down the block. Under a very short (and I’m learning, stylish) jacket I identified what was a popular long robe.

Her face spelled innocence. I guessed she was still in school and was learning all about a Jewish girl’s ‘kroyn’; her modesty. To her the defintion of an immodest girl is probably something about hair being a quarter inch below the chin, a sweater with a neck one can breathe out of, or stockings that aren't winterized. One very bold crime on her list is going outside in a long robe.

The poor girl had no idea she was doing something that she might need to knock another slicha into her heart for. She simply held the robe up, gathering all the fabric in something that resembled a flower at her crotch. Her rear, well, I’ll say it left very little to the imagination.

It got me to wonder if the emphasis on modesty without understanding its purpose doesn’t sometimes do exactly what we are trying to avoid, make a sexual statement.

As kids my parents would be very careful about keeping the boys and girls apart. We’d run out of the bathtub with the naked tush and Mother would frantically yell for the boys not to look. Well, it didn’t last long till they really wanted to look.

For now I let my children bath together and don’t make a big deal about it. I don’t think I’ll make a fuss about the grown up boy giving ‘shalom’ for the sister when he comes home from yeshiva either. I don’t think I’ll angrily talk about an immodest woman’s top so much, putting adjectives to it as ‘horrible’ and ‘so mees’.

The key to our structural homes is modesty, but we cannot explain the concept to our children until a few days before one gets ready to build his/her own home. So we set rules with hopes that it’ll keep us on the right track. We think up the most drastic methods and let our good hearted kids take it to their own extends...

Those hardly-bar-mitzvah boys walking with their face stuck in the side walk. The girls walking into a busy road when a man comes their way. The seventeen year old bochur’ll that’s hesitant to take the plastic glasses off, even when the mother says he’s ready. The girl that insists her mother must buy her four sizes bigger clothing…

All this is nice. The intentions are so pure. It’s a kiddish hashem.

So long as it doesn’t defeat the purpose.

60 Seconds in America

2006-11-04T20:01:00.000-05:00

Researchers are bewildered with us. They have yet to find physical evidence to explain the strong separation between the Chassidic Community and the American world. A barbed wire fence, a brick wall, a border - some sort of mechitsa.

I find it ironic that it’s just that, a mechitsa, that brings us together with the secular world.

LADIES AND GENTELMAN, I GIVE YOU YOUR VOTING BOOTH…

Enter your voting booth and welcome to America. Where all votes are created equal. Your voice will not have a chareidish accent, wear a headgear or huge black glasses. Your vote is counted just the same as the vote of the Hispanic woman that voted before you. Just the same as the vote of Donald Trump or Rudolph Guiliani. You’re in America and you’re entitled to an opinion.

* * *

Americans often complain that although they very much welcome newcomers, the immigrants refuse to assimilate. I second that claim. My cleaning lady has been to America for 10 years but she still didn’t get rid of the horrible hair dye, the ridiculous leggings or the huge bag. She runs up and down Lee Avenue desperate, stopping preoccupied men and women alike, begging for directions. She points to the little sheet of paper in her hands and begs “Missis, Missis. Six-Vohn-Six Harrison?”

We’re not very much different when we enter our own America on Election Day. We hog the instruction sheet we received in the mail from the local authorities, put on our reading glasses and read off our little white sheet to the machine: “ah von Hillareee, Ah vun Spitserr. Ah von Patakee. No more Patakee? Ahh. No Patakkee?! “.

Our block vote has been ineffective for a long time. The laws our representatives pass affect us in our daily lives. There is no reason to casting a blank ballot. There are many reasons to learn more before voting. To assimilate.

The first step to choosing a candidate is understanding how your representative effects you. Gay Rights, Abortion and other laws that define the American freedom do not concern us since we have our constitution, the Torah. Rather, we should focus on issues like taxes and security.

If you are earning a high income you might want to vote Republican and save on your taxes. If you are benefiting from government programs as in Foods Stamps, Medicaid or Section 8, you’d probably rather vote Democratic, as they emphasize more on the catering to the lower class Americans. Those that own businesses, or even are employed, need to find out if issues are being lobbied that might affect their line of work. We are all fairly structured people so for us more security means more peace of mind.

For some reason many vote the way they choose a rebbe. Why did they choose their Rebbe? For no good reason. Actually, for no reason at all. Still they fervently support the rebbe and all his mishigasen to a baffling extend. Not much unlike that do they political choose a party and run to vote with supposed intellect.

Well, this year when you go to vote, forget that. Enjoy your 60 seconds in America like a true American.

* * *

Most of the candidates I’ll vote for get my nod for personal reasons. Hillary Clinton however, I have a general issue with.

I’ve never read her biography but after following her political journey closely for 10 years, I think I know it: When she was six she put on her mother’s pumps and promised herself that one day she’ll be a big star. When she was sixteen she boarded a Greyhound bus en-route to Hollywood. For some reason she got off at the wrong stop and arrived in DC. She went on to live a typical Hollywood life, with the typical Hollywood husband and the typical Hollywood daughter. With American’s infatuation with celebrities she was given a seat in the US Senate.

Throughout her six years as your senator she has done very little for you as an American, even less for you as a New Yorker and practically nothing for you as a Chassidic Jew. Unless you count the political rally she held at both Satmar headquarters.

Her agenda consists of one thing. To promote herself. To be popular and admired. Unlike Chuck Shumer, who balances being a political leader with serving New York, Hillary cares very little for the state she represents.

I vote Spencer.

Chullent

2006-11-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

I was having typical Post Shopping Trauma. I had spent a full day in Boro Park exhausting my credit card and I started to question the good the shabbos robe did for me figure. Maybe it does give away the truth?

I got a little aware of my surroundings when a yungerman besides me placed his order. I was after him in line, and I was gonna feed some soup to my rumbling midsection. Any other edibles will only increase my suspicion about the shabbos robe.

The misses behind the counter in this corner deli was taking instructions.

Hallo, mach es ah pickle size potion mit chullent. In zey nisht karg mit deh fleysh, herst? Git hys, git hys. A slice kishka. Hust kigle? Overnight? Geb noor.

As the guy was carting away his tray to the little table in the eating section, I suddenly heard a divine voice tell me what to do. I was to take the tray from the guy and tell him “Yo, go home and eat the chicken soup the wife made”.

I was amusing myself with the thought when I realized the man had already left. He walked out with a loud burp as a thank you to the chef.

Not all men are like that, but I know quite a few that simply lack some manners. Eating your food is fine, but take your time and treat it with respect. Don’t pounce on it.

A while ago somebody posted a question on Yahoo answers. The person was wondering why Hassidic men smell. Smell? That was very unfair. Especially using that expression.

But deep down, I knew that although it is not right to be stereotyped with any such labels, some of our bachurim have turned into yungeleit without being taught anything about personal hygiene.

I’d start by simply introducing cleaning accessories called ‘soap’ and ‘deaoderant’. I’d point out that a toothbrush is not just for making pesachdig. A hair brush, although popularly designed for his sister, can be borrowed for the beard. And socks must be changed once a day.

Please and Thank You is universally also known as ‘bita’ and ‘danka’ so language barrier is not an excuse. On the subject: holding the door for others is not a must, but slamming it into other’s faces isn’t either.

If the wife isn’t the balabusta to do the buttons or wash the tallis there are professionals that do that. Also, not looking at woman is tsnuis, but not looking at all is not a chimreh, so wash them’s glasses. I'm not sure if people know this, but understanding a peshetle needs digging into the upper part of the face called brain, not the lower part called beard.

And mostly, don’t forget. Chullent is not G-D.

The Threesome

2006-10-31T17:05:00.001-05:00

The first two years following my sister’s marriage were very traumatic for me. Memories of those times stir up feelings of anger and resentment. I'm sure if I’d see a therapist today, all my current troubles would probably be traced back to those times.

I remember especially the Sundays, I’d come home from school exhausted. As was customary, I poured myself a glass of milk and headed for the freezer for some heimish, frozen Kokosh cake. That, while reading the Balachtoongen, really did it for me.

Just four weeks after her Chassana and the trouble started. The Kokosh cake was gone. It wasn’t like my mother wasn’t baking them. Oh, sure she did. She’d spend hours kneading the dough and mixing the sugars till the entire kitchen just needed to be rolled up and baked. But my sister had just been tied to a lover forever, and she was destined to celebrate it with every piece of mezonas around.

She’d be talking on the phone to him in kollel, giggling into the receiver like an idiot, while devouring mountains of food. She had no conscious and no problem with keeping the zipper open.

She'd sit on my mother’s bed, crunching something onion-and-garlic, while shushing about things I wasn’t privy to listen to. From under the door I’d get lots of pronouns like ‘him’ and ‘his’. Most conversations ended with thankful words addressed to my mother. Hug, hug. “chachmes nashim, my dear…”

See, to her marriage was about being a threesome.

Sister would bring bags of laundry that she needed to wash ‘here’ because she’s eating dinner 'here' anyway. She'd be found cleaning in my favorite robe or only pair of slippers. It didn’t matter that she’d said good bye to me with a heart of sincerity. She was back in my life, this time owning my mother.

The kokosh cake was now being shipped off to her home, and the rest my sister burnt with a blink. My mother would do turnovers and lasagna but we got chicken. When Purim came around, our home was full of enough ribbon to wrap the globe, because my sister had a shvigger.

But my sister had no home.

Many of my friends have gone on to live such lives. The mother is there to cut the cord as the baby makes its grand entrance, the mother dictates what should or should not be done in the bedroom, and the mother listens to the daughter's cries and encourages her over and over again to practice savlanos.

To those, the men really belong in Kollel, where they should enjoy the big breakfast that the mother-in-law cooked up. The woman should be working hard to earn a living, only to fall into the mothers house where veibele would sit around and whine about how much she wants to quit work. The mother, the loving mother, is always there to make her feel better and get her through the tough times.

This bothers me, not only because the other children also need cake, but because a mother has no partnership in a young woman’s relationship. A husband and wife should learn to ride the waves themselves, and master the art of holding on. To each other.

Romantica

2006-10-29T18:36:00.000-05:00

…the bachur is brought into the room, where he meets his bride to be. They spend a half hour scraping their vocabulary for words that can fill the gaping silence, clear their throats a few times, and trace the tablecloth pattern with the fore-finger till the parents finally dismiss them. They then hurry home where the girl can shout and jump with her pals and the boy can call the list of relative till the 6th-removed-cousin to get his mazel tov.

In short, the start of a Chassidic marriage is not very romantic.

It doesn’t get much better.

Hashem has created this world with a wisp of romance. He put the beaches, the sunset, the birds, the flowers, the greenery, the snow and rain, all onto his planet. The only problem is, he also put man.

Man and flair have never gotten along. Man tends to get to the point, consider himself less lazy for spending less time at an act. Especially since the feminist movement in the goyishe world in the 1800s, romance was amongst compromises man had to make to fit into a more female dominated society.

Of course none of these developments affected the religious. So the Chassidic community, for all the commotion, remained accustomed to its simple marriages, with more love and less romance.

Times are a changin’ for us as we learn to have better taste in entertainment. Yet, I struggle. The classic candlelight dinner is ‘so tinkle’ for Yoelish, the leisure walks are proper opportunities to discuss business, and birthdays happen only when you’re born. And even when Yoelish does express interest in any of these celebrations there’s not much we can do about it. There are no fancy restaurants you dress up for that I’ve enjoyed thus far. There’s no place I can steal a private pool from. There is no kosher beach we can relax at. And without a doubt, there is no way I can get that peck of appreciation in public.

That all without taking the little cherubs into account, those that are always 'game' right when you got ready for a two-player-only round.

The Fanceis

2006-10-29T00:49:00.001-04:00

Satmar girl’s camp was one hell of a place. There’d be all of us Satmar from all over the place sleeping in large, hot bunks and spending every waking hour chairing and yelling for our team till-voice-do-us-part.

Although camp was a waste of time and energy, it taught me my first lesson of Chassidic society. And this lesson is still relevant today.

We’re all better then the next. The Williamsburg girls would pull at their sleeves, put on white tights and white sneakers and have a kick out of the way the Monroe girls were SO YUNCHY. The Borough Park girls considered themselves so smart, because they walked casually between people that the Williamsburg girls openly gawked at. When other mosdes would visit us there’d be busses full of ‘moderns’ that would make no secret of how hysterical the naïve, clueless Satmar ‘kids’ where.

And so it goes on. It’s the simple math. A chimreh less is a brain and a half more.

Things have changed within me, as I’ve learned to judge the human value by individuality, not heritage. But the world around me can not shake the feeling that you are better for being less restricted.

At the risk of bad-mouthing my own people, I must admit I think its time for the anti-semitism organization to take this matter in its hands. As they’re chasing George Allen out of the Senate for being an unenthusiastic recipient of the news of his Jewish origin we ourselves show no respect for the fundamental aspect of our sacred religion. That is, minhagim and mesorah.
How should the none-jew resist from mocking our traditions if we do the exact the same?

I’m especially unhappy about the sect I’ll dub ‘The Fancies’. These are people that drop SOME restrictions common in their society. They’d take this heroic act as an opportunity to find themselves ‘open minded’ and scientist worthy. They’d blow at their manicured nails and schlep at the stockings that get a run the first time it’s worn and feel like all others are SO schupid! Duh, they wear some mascara; they can now see the world a lot better!

Even those that are mature and open-minded find it hard to live the culture. I know some very brilliant people that understand that every culture has its quirks, and every culture is no more the NEB for ‘em, but still have a tattooed fear of acting it because they’ve been mocked for it as a child.

I’m not a doctor, but I think I’ve seen what’s in the human brain a couple of times. If you haven’t yet, let me tell you that it is very complex. No snowflake is the same. And if you are interested in escaping the block vote, learn more about being a unique person, not looking like one.

No Women Allowed

2006-10-28T20:55:00.001-04:00

The average Joe comes home from work, takes off his construction hat or loosens his tie, and falls into the couch where he flips the channel and catches the game.

The average Joel comes home from work, drops his tefillin and hat in a place that makes the wife cringe, eats dinner while asking the kids the sedra and then escapes to shul for two hours.

Two hours!

Two hours every evening, and two hours every early morning. That’s without putting Shabbos into the cheshbon.

As an unmarried girl, my calendar did not include any Shabbos mornings. There’d be Friday night with lots of food and socializing with friends, and then a circle of sleep until the men would come home from shul. I’d roll out of bed and serve the morning suda while stealing from everyone’s slice challah.

Becoming a mother brought with itself the ‘wonderful’ time of Shabbos morning. The kids are up at eight AM, and after a half hour of shushing them you gotta get your pack of bones out from under the covers. Then I’d spend 3 hours with a rumbling stomach waiting for the Yoelish to get home.

Three hours!

When he gets home he has no big social scandals or zaftig shmooz’n to relate to me. It’s simply shul, where you daven and learn. What’s to relate?

I can’t explain it to him, but having your husband spend more than half his non-work life at shul makes me really wonder about it. I’ve been to the veiber shul, popped one eye through the tiny hole but came out none the wiser. It was just black on black vibration.

I need a one day pass to check the place out.

I’m sure there are ‘kipkes’ men talking about things I’d stop and listen in, people from out of town I’d be obliged to stare at, bummes that spend all their time smoking out the window, or those that I’d watch from the corner of my eye taking a bedika to the dayin. I’d spend two hours soaking up all the pubic hair in the mikvah of course, then enjoy the showers that are supposedly warm and dry my face while making my way to the kaveh shtible. I’d sip my coffee while interacting with people Yoilish never mentioned he knows, then do what’s customary and drink another dose of caffiene. I’d spend some time learning and davening, and watch guys zoom messages to god through their cell phone.

The next day I’d spend telling Yoelish all about my day at shul.

Can anybody make the guy talk?

Yiddish Chayn

2006-10-26T01:41:00.000-04:00

I have very keen memories of my grandmother’s house. I remember the smell, I remember the ‘brown theme’, I remember the candies, but most of all I remember the blush.

An einikle kallah would come in and she’d come running. Blush Bubby.

Blush Bobby would brush the makeup up and down the kallah’s cheek bones in a not very fashionable line with a not very attractive color. But she’d constantly repeat, A Kallah must be shayn, A kallah must be shayn!

Our aunts and uncles would krechts. Makeup is not tsnuis. But babby would insist. A kallah must be shayn!

Years later, and these kallahs are now mothers of families. I meet them at simchas, at parties or just anywhere and the blush is still there, deep imprinted on both cheeks. It’s bubbie’s memory.

But things changed. Below the cheeks another few chins have been added, around the forehead some wrinkles have emerged and at the place of the waist sits a 15 pound metzayveh, memory of the times that were.

I watch my friend get herself a new dress. She dons a size 18woman, walks back and forth in front of the Tauber’s mirror all the time wiggling her behind in both directions. Then she walks out feeling just fine with the way she looks. Wiggle, wiggle.

Only a kallah darf zeyn shayn?

I know that we women should be the symbol of modesty. We should not flaunt our figures or mess with our faces (admit it, you have acne. Everyone must know!). But on the flip side of the coin, how do we keep our men from looking if there’s nowhere to look away to?

I don’t suggest we should all stand in line for a lip-plumping procedure. I don’t suggest we go on the carrot diet. I suggest we acknowledge our duty and let our men know that at home too, there is a hot girl.

Drop the Kaff’s, go for a waxing.

Yes, mostly the important message that our gender holds should be communicated in the stark night, while you are following instructions A to F from the Kallah’s Heart Attack Manual. But some of it should be conveyed by presenting yourself neatly, femininely and modestly.

Why do we think the abdominal extra is another freebie we take home from the hospital after the birth of our first, to be filled with lots of chocolate while the kids are at school? Why do we think a healthy mother is one with folding hips? Why do we own just one decent dress, and live our lives in a big, baggy, La Smock robe?

Women rush out of the mikvah, with cold raw hands, and half-tsiflogen sheitlech. It doesn’t occur to anybody to stay for another hour and prepare an isha nooah.

Are we really modest or just living on easy street?

Flirting

2006-10-23T18:07:00.001-04:00

Give me a minute while I muster the courage.

Okay. Here goes:

I admit it. I’M A TERRIBLE FLIRT.

I’m taking a deep breath. Saying this wasn’t easy.

As a chassidish girl, flirting is useless and embarrassing. Well, some of you might not think what I do is flirting, or ever realize that I am a flirting, but deep down I’m a terrible flirt.

I don’t get all pink in the cheeks, show cleavage, wink with one eye, take on a cheerleader voice and breath, hike up my skirt, run a finger through my hair. No, that’s the secular version of flirting. All I do is notice that something G&G is a few feet within me, and wonder if he notices me.

It is at its peek when I’m a niddah and I get this keen desire for anything man. Yes, I know, only the man has a right to be ‘undersexed’ and act crazy when he does not have a release, but I too can lose my mind, and I lose my mind from losing my mind.

Here’s what happens. I walk down Lee Avenue. There’s a guy coming in my direction. I move to the side – pushing the carriage almost off the curb. I look far, far away. I am thinking about my grocery list. I am really not noticing the man that just passed me. I don’t turn my head. I don’t look to see if he glances up. Because I know he isn’t.

But as I wait for the ‘WALK’ signal all I can see in my mind is the guy. His shape, his glasses, his glasses, his levish. I wonder if his wife is a stone while they are together. I wonder if he checks out porn every so often, I wonder if he has a whole secret life. I wonder mostly about his mate, and if she has any idea what it means to satisfy a man.
And then I wonder if I could do a better job at that…

When I get home the yungerman’s intimacy troubles that he might or might not have are not with me. But mine are. Because I can’t stop flirting with chassidish men, my way of flirting.

The goyim in my building are easy. I come into the elevator, they push and wink, and I proudly ignore them. But the super-human super-cute chassidish men, that don’t acknowledge anyone woman, they kill me.

No offense to you Yoelish. You’re the best lover a girl could have. But still, feeling sexy in the presence of men is a torturing desire. I have yet to find another woman that admits to feeling the same.

According to my non-scientific assumption, no relationship can refrain from fizzling somewhat after 1 year. And no one can feel the same about a stranger and a spouse of 10 years. The heat in the relationship falls away and is replaced by deep love. And even more, I have concluded, that although deep love is more important than heat, heat still really calls your name.

Between Yoelish and myself we always feel free to admit attraction to others of opposite gender. It’s unusual for Satmar couples to acknowledge the presence of others in their life, but I really believe that the only other option is denial. Natural feelings don’t go away even if you have a very good marriage.

When my husband says that a guy from work spoke about me in shul, he enjoys seeing me blush. And I feel a rush of excitement. But I know that is stupid because whoever spoke about me doesn’t give a hoot about me.

I wish I could find out what’s behind your face while you ring me up in the store, put down papers on my desk at work, or review information over the phone. I wish I could hear that you find me attractive. But deep down I know it is good that you keep that blank face, because it is what keeps me and Yoelish so tangled up together.

www.satmar.com ??

2006-10-22T03:37:00.000-04:00

My computer-mouth stands evidence to some overtime googling. There is a stark coffee smell on the smiling-family-picture-mouthpad in addition to what my husband refers to as the 'shiny area' on the mouth itself - a result of the stuff I munched on while oogling at the screen (won't even talk about that, it's just gonna take me down another food-related guilt trip. I've definitely been feeding one mouth too many.)

It started when I began googling the word 'satmar' for a work-related project. I alternated with 'satmEr' and 'chassid'. I needed some pictures to put into a document. No biggie.

Turned out, I discovered a gold mine. Being a chassidic girl, I thought we all utilize the web for the same reason. To get access to the news and information we're cut off from. There's mostly mainstream reporting but sometimes, I'll admit, there's stuff a little off my mainstream. Either way, I wouldn't exactly doublya-doublya for the Chassidic Bible. I have enough without the wire...

I was shocked to see how the web is a feeding tube for all Chassidic souls that have struggled with a community that does not acknowledge all sorts of people. What bothered me though was that there is no one to balance the boat. All young women and boys that are happily following the instruction sheet for life, and derive great innocence and comfort thereof, do not air any of their laundry online. Therefore, when one googles the word Satmar, like myself, you get hundreds of result pertaining to either the rift (let's not go there) or the restrictions. Consequently, the online Satmar has formed into a body resembling nothing of the innocence and happiness that our community actually consists of. As much open minded as I tried to be, deep down, I know it's not us.

No. I'm not one of the people blessed with 'innocence'. I've been out of here, returned, dubbed a 'bum' and later struggled to catch up with the robotic pace. With the help of DSL I now learnt that I'm considered a conformist. Baruch hashem for that. Identity crisis is just not something I can afford to put onto my to-do list.

Over shabbos I've been sitting on all the info I found on the web. The girl that asks questions on Yahoo Answers like "What do you think about Jews?" and then "Where can I get a small, cheap TV?". She later admits to being 18 and mostly unfamiliar with the details of sex. That makes her one of 'us'.
There's a blog that posted a newspaper piece. To sum it up, the piece suggested that the Kiryas Joel officials 'sent somebody' to sexually molest a girl, for political reasons. I'll tell ya, I wasn't sure what surprised me more, the article itself or the fact that all the eager listeners bought the shtism. They celebrated the garbage.
There's a blog, gay-ex-choosid, by a guy that was forced to leave our community because of the judgment we easily pass at others that are not template. I feel sorry for him, but I don't buy that he screws with MANY other chassidish men and knows that many men have other women while their till-death-do-us-part is in the Catskills.

Child molestation, wife beaters, extramarital relations, gay, lesbian, atheist, murder, drug abusers, mafia - - whatnot. It's all online. Almost the guide to proper chassidis.It's good we have a shabbos. One disconnected day helped wake up. There are no regular wife-beater. There are no regular 'wife swaps'. Tempted by the thrilling monster of gossip, I almost believed all of it.

Not that I'm suggesting this is the Tribe of Saints. No, no, no. Don't get me wrong. But it isn't the Tribe of Monsters either. Most people I know are innocents. Those that are not close their front door and cheat a little, with a movie - a book, a getaway - or clothing that's really inappropriate.

I myself, hmm, am a sad story in its own. I wish I could say my house is ready for audit, from above or those that have mistaken themselves as the representatives of above. But yes, I do stuff. I'm open minded. I listen to stories of 'brenen in gehinem' because of certain minor deeds and I think "what crap". I consider any good person a good person, regardless of observance. However, by means of learning more about cultures and ethnicities I have come to the conclusion that the Satmar society produces a high volume of good people.

The end justifies the means?

The big picture does away with the little mistakes?