If You're Stuffy and You Need it, Clap Your Hands

There are very few things in life I love more than driving home from Seattle late at night with my mom and my cousin, the three of us bursting out laughing simultaneously, but, as we would later discover, all for different reasons.

My favorite cousin Naomi, who it seems is such a regular on my blog that I should add her to my Cast of Characters, drove over from Walla Walla the weekend before last for our second annual jaunt to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. But oh, we did so much more than frolic through muddy fields of daffodils. We also allotted the appropriate amount of time to being profoundly vexed by the tulip field map I'd printed off the internet, which was okay because I don't think there's a better way to spend a Friday morning than roaming the backroads of La Conner, Washington while devouring a bag of octagonal (or were they hexagonal?) edamame crackers while listening to Cat Stevens Greatest Hits for the second time in a row. Rest assured, though, that if there were tulips to be seen we saw them. We also saw several chickens on the side of the road, at which point I unnecessarily announced, "Chickens!" Naomi, glancing ahead at a flock of snow geese, responded coolly, as she is wont to do: "Those are definitely not chickens."

Other highlights of the visit included, but were not limited to, the following:

1. Encountering the world's most nauseating Port-o-Potty name and pulling up outside of it in our car to postulate on how incredibly awkward it would be if someone were to emerge from the facility while we were snapping photos through our rolled-down window.













2. Playing dress-up with my brother's Stetsons. I'm certain this is all the photographic evidence you'll need to conclude that I am not a gangster. Naomi, yes. Olivia, GOD no.

3. Paper marbling for dummies. Naomi's housemate recently learned how to marble paper in her art class, and we decided to replicate the procedure...with a few minor adjustments. Instead of a tub of water in which you dissolve alum and surfactant chemicals to help the ink stay on the surface and absorb into the paper, we opted for the slightly less scientific--but undeniably more pungent--choice of food coloring and shaving cream. Well, shaving gel. Lavender-scented. (You can admire our finger painting-esque masterpieces to the left.) For two twenty-somethings who have both had years of leg-shaving experience, we were astonishingly out of our element in the shaving cream aisle of Target. "What is shaving gel exactly?" we wondered aloud, not caring that we shared the aisle with two women who clearly knew what they were doing. "You know," Naomi said as we were leaving the store with our two bottles, "the only scenario I can imagine in which it is acceptable for two girls to buy shaving cream together is if we were preteens about to shave our legs for the first time."

4. The "ah-sem-blahge" of my brother's birthday dessert: a mouth-watering trifle made by layering cubes of poundcake, amaretto liqueur, sour cherry compote, Greek yogurt custard, crumbled almond cookies (supposed to be amaretti cookies, but apparently these do not exist in Woodinville), whipped cream, and crushed almonds. "Ah-sem-blahge," a term coined by my mother to spice up the dullness of the word "assemblage," became our weekend war cry of sorts. We went out of our way, almost to the point of actual physical pain, to integrate it into our daily conversations. And let me tell you, the ah-sem-blahge of this dessert was no small feat. While shopping for ingredients, we found ourselves standing in front of a rack of travel-sized bottles of liqueur in the liquor store, using--or should I say attempting to use--the conversion chart in the back of Naomi's day planner to determine how many 150-milliliter bottles equaled a half-cup of amaretto liqueur. (We couldn't figure it out and eventually had to ask the owner, who knew exactly what we were going to ask before we even asked it.)

5. Dinner at Banh Thai, home of "the best red curry in Seattle," before seeing Pacific Northwest Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream at McCaw Hall. This picture was taken after the waitress brought Naomi a drink she did not order, but before a group of elderly diners shuffled to the table behind us and decided that the dim mood lighting necessitated the use of a flashlight to read the menu. In fact, the menu was a hot topic that evening. It was bound in such a manner that it was literally impossible to open it with one hand, and virtually impossible even with two. On numerous occasions I caught Naomi sneaking a peak at my menu, as she was too distraught by the complexity of her own.

Other notable moments (of which I do not have pictures):

6. When Naomi was explaining that she was excited to start her new allergy medication, my mom was singing praises of her trusty pal, Zyrtec. "I've got my Allegra so I think I'll be fine," Naomi said, to which my mother responded, "Well I've got Zyrtec, so if you're stuffy and you need it...." In one of our uncanny cousin moments in which we share the same mind, Naomi and I looked at each other and exclaimed, "Clap your hands!"

7. The first act of the ballet was close to two hours long. During the intermission, we compared the length of the descriptions of each act in the program. Given that the synopsis of Act I took up two columns while the synopsis for Act II was a mere ten lines, we judged the second act to be approximately 12 seconds. We weren't far off.

8. Also during the intermission, we were discussing our plans for tuliping the next morning. Ever the helper, my mother used her finger to trace us a map of La Conner on the armrest between our seats. "If the water is here," she said, pointing to Naomi, "then the parking lot turn-around is here, the restaurant is here, and my favorite little knitting store is right down here." The diagram actually came in quite handy while navigating La Conner's one street, as long as we remembered that the turn-around was just past the restaurant and that Naomi was in the water.

Thus concludes the recap of yet another successful cousin visit. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have the absolute best cousin in the world.

A Very (Un)Kosher Pesach

This evening concludes the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, or Pesach. For those who don't know, Passover is the festival celebrating when the Israelites in Egypt were freed from  slavery under the Pharoah.

Bama with his Afikoman.

Being half-Jewish, I've celebrated the week in a manner befitting my plague-ridden ancestors. First, I made a few tasteless jokes about wandering the desert for 40 years. Next, I slaughtered a lamb and smeared its blood on my neighbors' doors. Then I unleashed a horde of frogs on the people, and when that didn't work I called forth a swarm of locusts so thick that it was as if night had descended in the middle of the day; and then I brought night. Then I offered up my first-born to the Pharoah, or as I called him when I was too short to see over the Seder table without sitting on the phone book, the Sparrow. 

Actually, the only thing I did was make tasteless jokes. And I dropped the f-bomb several dozen times during the Sounders game. Then I watched the Passover episode of The Nanny in which Pesach is referred to as "the holiday where you hide crackers from small children and then stuff yourself."

Tonight my family is having our first Seder dinner in years. We're a bit neglectful, the four of us. We've made a sport of forgetting to light the Menorah at least two nights every year during Hanukkah. That being said, we have decided it's high time to not screw up a Jewish holiday. This year's Seder is going to be the definition of ritual: The brisket is in the oven (which I'm assuming the fleeing Israelites did not have); my mom just finished making deviled eggs using the eggs we had every intention of dying for Easter but then didn't because they all cracked in the pot; when Garrison Keillor made a joke on A Prairie Home Companion about Donald Trump running for president, I experienced the apocalyptic despair with which every good Jew is bestowed upon birth; for my vegetarian main course, I heated a tofurky dog in the microwave. Pretty sure that's not kosher.

One of our Haggadahs (the text that tells you how to conduct a Seder) is called "My Very Own Haggadah: A Seder Service for Young Children," complete with recipes, crafts, and pictures of the Pharoah and unleavened bread for you to color. The other Haggadah is from St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah, I have no idea.

Here we go.

UPDATE:

We have now had our meal. Before I regale you with the highlights, here is a little pretext:

1. During the Seder, the front door is left open and one glass of wine is set aside for Elijah the Prophet who visits all Seders to spread glad tidings for spring. As my dad says, "He's like the Easter Bunny of Passover."

2. During the Seder, the leader breaks apart a piece of Matzah and one half becomes the Afikoman, or dessert. The Afikoman is then hidden, and the other half is kept to match against the Afikoman when it is found by whoever is forced to look for it. Usually it's me.

3. The Four Questions follow this format: "On all other nights, we do ____; why on this night do we do ___ instead?" They are read by the youngest person at the Seder table.

4. The Haggadah dictates precisely what and when you are supposed to eat and drink. Eating or drinking at any other time is strictly forbidden...but practically encouraged in my family.

Bama on the Seder plate.

Okay. Now that we're all on the same page, here is the chaos that ensued this evening. Keep in mind that this all took place while my dad was trying to conduct the Seder. He was frequently interrupted.

Me: Dad, is this piece of matzoh on the floor by my foot the Afikoman? *I pick it up* It's only a quarter of a piece. And where's the other half?
Mom, Michael, Dad: ...We ate it.

"You're not supposed to drink now!"

"You're not supposed to eat now!" 

Dad: And our people were finally free from Engl- Egypt! 
Me: Our people were in England?

Dad: Moses broke the Commandments, probably literally. He had to go back and get them. Who knows if they were even the same ones. They might have been ten completely different commandments. "Thou shalt not play Tiddlywinks after 11pm." 

Dad: We're praising Hillel who invented Maror sandwiches on matzoh. My dad invented submarine-style chocolate pudding with whipped cream squirted into it and you don't see us praising him.

Dad (reading): "The wine glasses are filled a second time."
Me: Michael, what is this for you? Your seventh?

Mom: Mmm, this is good wine. What is this?
Me: Moses didn't ask what wine was served at his Seder table.
Dad: Moses wasn't at the Seder table.
Me: Exactly. 

Michael (wearing a UC Berkeley sweatshirt): Wait. I brought a sweater to put on for this glorious occasion.
Mom: Well go get it! 
Me: Moses didn't interrupt the Seder to put on a sweater.
Mom: Good point.

Dad: Why on this night do we eat in a reclining position?
Mom: Because we worked in the garden all day.
     -Michael and I feign offense-
Mom: What? Everyone else was being snarky!

Dad: Okay, Liv, here are the Four Questions. But you have to sing them. In Hebrew.
Mom: She doesn't know Hebrew.

Dad (reading): "We have asked many questions..."
Mom: Many? We've asked four.

Dad (reading) : "...our own Seder becomes more than a gay family gathering.... The lord rescued not only our forefathers, but us."
Michael: Four fathers, huh? Is that where the "gay family" comes in? 

"Mom! Stop drinking Elijah's wine!"

Dad: We're supposed to sing this next song in Hebrew, but I think we'll skip it. 


And there you have it: the world's most un-kosher Passover Seder. And by the way, happy birthday to Shakespeare. He would have been 447 years old today. Shalom, old man.

So That Happened

Lest you think my life had begun to take the shape of normalcy, here is the latest list of things that could only possibly happen to me: 

1. I cut myself six times while shaving. New personal best.

2. Our bathroom door has recently begun to swell; instead of being able to click it shut, all you can do is push really hard until it wedges itself into the jamb. I went in a couple weeks ago to take a shower, and I pushed the door snugly closed. What do you think happened approximately four seconds later? My cat, Taffy the Linebacker, who had been crying for me to open the door, barged her way in using just her head and brute body weight. That thing is indestructible. Taffy, that is. I think the door is dented.

3. My internet has been acting strangely lately, mainly with regards to the Facebook. Sometimes when I click on a link on my profile or homepage, I will be taken to a random website, most often one I have never seen. This morning I clicked on my profile and was immediately redirected to a Craigslist job listing for an entry level retail position at Value Village. Thank you, universe. You're coming in loud and clear. 

4. I went to the bookstore the other morning, as I do every morning, to job search. I realized it was time to go home when I found that I had memorized the layout of Bibles on the top shelf of the Religion and Spirituality section and I had not applied for a single job.

5. I was boiling water for tea a few days ago and went upstairs to watch the season finale of Teen Mom 2 look for jobs. Out of earshot of the kitchen, I couldn't hear the kettle whistle. Thirty minutes later, though, I heard my mom come inside from her studio and turn off the burner. I ran down the stairs--I mean bolted--and when I got to the kitchen, the once-red tea kettle was entirely black, completely empty, and had melted onto the fiery coils of the burner. It suddenly made sense why no one is hiring me. I can't even boil water. If there was ever a case for court-mandated adult supervision, this would be it.

6. I was having a rough morning today, so I went to my cat for a little sympathy. She bit me on the shoulder.

Genealogy Update

During a recent Skype conversation with my friend Julia, I mentioned my new hobby of locating obscure and long-deceased members of the Margoshes clan. Because Ancestry.com only offers a 14-day free trial, my youthful curiosity will be crushed, like the hopes of a young child a half-inch too short to ride the rollercoaster, in approximately eight days. At some point during the vast tundra of my complaining, Julia interrupted. "My library has a subscription," she said. "I bet yours does, too." She was unaware, I'm sure, that her words had just guaranteed her a spot in my bridal party.

My library does in fact have such a subscription, but in a perverted display of librarian power, the subscription can only be accessed from the library itself. No matter. I scrolled through the list of genealogy databases and settled on a link to all New York Times articles published since 1899. My people were Jews: they practically invented the New York Times. I felt like a kid in a kosher candy shop.

I weeded through pages and pages of marriage announcements and property acquisitions lists, scribbled a handful of names illegibly on a piece of paper, and spent no less than eleven minutes staring at the sentence "Dr. Margoshes was born in Jozefow, Galicia, in Austria," trying to figure out how Galicia, Spain could have possibly been located in Austria. Thanks to several minutes of extensive research on everyone's favorite source of mostly erroneous facts (Wikipedia), I now know that Galicia was "the largest part of the area annexed by Austria in the First Partition of Poland."

That was only one miniscule pebble in a whole mountain of fascinating things I learned about the people and places from whence I come. Mostly this knowledge made me angry, mainly because every single one of my ancestors attended NYU and became editors of popular magazines and were awarded the Medal of the Order of Merit by the king of Denmark, while my greatest accomplishment to date has been inventing a type of hot chocolate made with milk, sugar, and unsweetened cocoa powder. (In case you're curious, it's actually purple. I kid you not.)

Once I acknowledged that I was never going to write for the Village Voice or travel to Poland to extol the heroism of the Jews in the face of Nazi oppression, I made a delightful discovery. A man named Henry Margoshes, who I now know was my dad's great uncle, was a lawyer in New York in the 1920s. In the newspaper article entitled "Backward Bessie Always in Reverse," I read that Henry once represented a man who was taken to court for selling a man a horse that only moved backward. This was, as you can imagine, the most thrilling moment of my life. I shrieked to my cat. (She was unimpressed.) I called my dad at work. I raced downstairs and gushed to my mom, who only appeared mildly perturbed that I had interrupted her episode of Criminal Minds. I texted my friend Sara who responded, "That is the best text message of my life."

This is big news in my world. If I learn nothing else about my family, I can die satisfied that I have uncovered the most meaningful snippet of Margoshes history that will ever be recorded.

That is all.