Because it looks like, once again, my family will be neglecting its duties to the Jewish culture on Passover, I present for your reading pleasure the post I wrote two years ago after our Seder.
Happy spring, happy Easter, happy Passover, and for all you thousands of readers in Europe, don't forget to turn your clocks forward tomorrow. (Or today. I'm not sure with the whole time difference thing.)
Anyhoo, here ya go: A Very (Un)Kosher Pesach
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
Spring Has Come! (I Think)
We Pacific Northwesterners know that spring here is a giddy
sixteen-year-old girl getting ready for her first date. She takes
forever to do her hair, does her makeup and then wipes it clean so many
times she's lost count, and changes her outfit every thirteen seconds.
On
the first day of spring, there was wind. Lots of wind. Shrieking,
clawing, window-rattling wind. And when the wind managed to blow itself
away for eight minutes, there was blue. Blue and this eerie, cautious watery light.
The
second day of spring brought the fiercest hailstorm I can remember in
years. Sharp, stinging pellets that covered the grass like snow. Which
was fitting because on the third day of spring we had snow. An inch of
it (which was, I'll have you know, an inch more than we got all winter).
It was like some sick start-of-spring prank: let Olivia wake up to a
winter wonderland an infuriating three months after Christmas. Not a
single damn white Christmas in my life, but hey, now I can cross "snow
on March 22nd" off my wish-list.
Since then we've had some showers, but mostly we've had SUN. Of course here, once the mercury hits 60 we all throw open our windows and stuff our sweatshirts into storage--until, of course, we wake up in the morning again to this:
But it's been in the mid-60s all this week, which is practically tropical for us this time of year. We've been promised 70 degrees on Sunday, so, you know, good for us.
On
the first day of spring, there was wind. Lots of wind. Shrieking,
clawing, window-rattling wind. And when the wind managed to blow itself
away for eight minutes, there was blue. Blue and this eerie, cautious watery light. |
| The little string bean hogging my sunshine |
Since then we've had some showers, but mostly we've had SUN. Of course here, once the mercury hits 60 we all throw open our windows and stuff our sweatshirts into storage--until, of course, we wake up in the morning again to this:
But it's been in the mid-60s all this week, which is practically tropical for us this time of year. We've been promised 70 degrees on Sunday, so, you know, good for us.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Poetry Corner Monday Wednesday
Chilled Through
Marge Piercy
Waking in the morning without you,
you sleeping two thousand miles
west where it is earlier and dark still
I am silly and sad and don't get up.
The day seems spoiled milk already.
The day is too thin to walk on.
It will give way beneath me.
I look forward to nothing
but its shriveling with twilight
another empty jar of night
two more bleak awakenings
until you return like summer
in February, my own miracle.
This lack whines in me, a wind
off the salt flats. The taste
of an empty glass. Wanting exhausts me.
I wish I could hibernate like a bear
and not even dream till you come.
Marge Piercy
Waking in the morning without you,
you sleeping two thousand miles
west where it is earlier and dark still
I am silly and sad and don't get up.
The day seems spoiled milk already.
The day is too thin to walk on.
It will give way beneath me.
I look forward to nothing
but its shriveling with twilight
another empty jar of night
two more bleak awakenings
until you return like summer
in February, my own miracle.
This lack whines in me, a wind
off the salt flats. The taste
of an empty glass. Wanting exhausts me.
I wish I could hibernate like a bear
and not even dream till you come.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Are You Kidding Me?!
I know that virtually none of you care, but I needed to post this video. I've watched it probably ten times, no exaggeration. It's a recap of the Sounders/Tigres CONCACAF game last night and it's unbelievable. (And I just have to say, Ross Fletcher--our announcer--makes me so excited to watch sports of any kind. Hell, he makes me excited to be alive!)
[The CONCACAF Champions League is a competition among teams from North and Central America. This was the quarter final stage, and the team with the most goals after the two-leg series, one home and one away, advanced to the semifinals. Away goals count for more than home goals, the reasoning being that it is much harder to travel to another team's country and play on another team's field in front of another team's fans than it is to play at home. In the first leg of this series, the Sounders lost to Tigres 1-0 in Mexico. Last night they were at home. They needed one goal to force overtime (an aggregate score of 1-1) or two goals to win it outright, but if they allowed a goal by Tigres they would have to win by two. One Tigres goal would put their aggregate score at 2-0, and even if the Sounders had scored 2 to tie it, the visitors' away goal would have carried them through to the semis. Meaning that if Tigres scored once in Seattle, the Sounders would need to score three times. Does that makes sense? Probably not. I apologize.]
[The CONCACAF Champions League is a competition among teams from North and Central America. This was the quarter final stage, and the team with the most goals after the two-leg series, one home and one away, advanced to the semifinals. Away goals count for more than home goals, the reasoning being that it is much harder to travel to another team's country and play on another team's field in front of another team's fans than it is to play at home. In the first leg of this series, the Sounders lost to Tigres 1-0 in Mexico. Last night they were at home. They needed one goal to force overtime (an aggregate score of 1-1) or two goals to win it outright, but if they allowed a goal by Tigres they would have to win by two. One Tigres goal would put their aggregate score at 2-0, and even if the Sounders had scored 2 to tie it, the visitors' away goal would have carried them through to the semis. Meaning that if Tigres scored once in Seattle, the Sounders would need to score three times. Does that makes sense? Probably not. I apologize.]
I Will Always Love You, Boy Meets World
When I was growing up, one of my favorite shows was Boy Meets World. I still love it, and not in the ironic way that I am still loyal other questionable childhood obsessions like B*Witched and Lip Smackers. Watching Boy Meets World felt like I was hanging out with my best friends, like I was safe and carefree and valuable.
In November, it was reported that Disney Channel was in the early stages of a follow-up series called Girl Meets World, centered on the life of Cory and Topanga's twelve-year-old daughter. This news delighted me, as the original series was such a big part of my life that to this day my mom and I quote it on a near-daily basis. I figured the twenty-somethings of the world would unite in a collective whoop of ecstasy.
Imagine my surprise, then, when my beloved Boy Meets World became the topic of judgmental conversation this past week on both This American Life and Too Beautiful to Live, a Seattle-based podcast that I love. I won't get into the details of the discussions because doing so hurts my soul, but I will say the overall consensus was...grim. And so I ask: What is with you people? Again, and I say this with zero sarcasm (which is probably a first for me), this show is a masterpiece. Proof:
How could you not fall in love? They don't make TV like this anymore.
In November, it was reported that Disney Channel was in the early stages of a follow-up series called Girl Meets World, centered on the life of Cory and Topanga's twelve-year-old daughter. This news delighted me, as the original series was such a big part of my life that to this day my mom and I quote it on a near-daily basis. I figured the twenty-somethings of the world would unite in a collective whoop of ecstasy.
Imagine my surprise, then, when my beloved Boy Meets World became the topic of judgmental conversation this past week on both This American Life and Too Beautiful to Live, a Seattle-based podcast that I love. I won't get into the details of the discussions because doing so hurts my soul, but I will say the overall consensus was...grim. And so I ask: What is with you people? Again, and I say this with zero sarcasm (which is probably a first for me), this show is a masterpiece. Proof:
How could you not fall in love? They don't make TV like this anymore.
Monday, March 11, 2013
I'm a Genius
And I actually don't mean that sarcastically this time.
I'm watching an episode of Bones from a few weeks ago and Bones was just shot in the lab and rushed to the hospital. There was no exit wound, but the surgeons couldn't find a bullet. When they announced that to Cam, I shouted, "ICE BULLET!" and was utterly perplexed that my genius seemed to go unnoticed. Cam repeated the news to Booth and again I shouted, "It was an ICE BULLET!"
Bones finally woke up after surgery and told Booth that the site of the wound had felt cold when she was shot. Booth told her that they didn't recover a bullet and Bones said, "That's impossible." "No it's not!" I shouted. "It. Was. An. ICE BULLET." How is it that a highly skilled team of forensic anthropologists, working in tandem with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is puzzled by something that a 25-year-old English major who talks to her cat all day figures out in four seconds? I don't understand! I have something to say and it's actually important this time! Listen to me!
By the way, my mom just walked past my room and wanted to know why I've been shouting "ICE BULLET" for the past five minutes.
Also, I'll have you know that it was a full 17 minutes before Hodgins said, "When you eliminate the possible, you are left with the truth. Have you ever heard of an ice bullet?" At which point I shouted, "THANK YOU!"
My work here is done.
And after all that, it was a frozen blood bullet. That would have been my next guess.
I'm watching an episode of Bones from a few weeks ago and Bones was just shot in the lab and rushed to the hospital. There was no exit wound, but the surgeons couldn't find a bullet. When they announced that to Cam, I shouted, "ICE BULLET!" and was utterly perplexed that my genius seemed to go unnoticed. Cam repeated the news to Booth and again I shouted, "It was an ICE BULLET!"
Bones finally woke up after surgery and told Booth that the site of the wound had felt cold when she was shot. Booth told her that they didn't recover a bullet and Bones said, "That's impossible." "No it's not!" I shouted. "It. Was. An. ICE BULLET." How is it that a highly skilled team of forensic anthropologists, working in tandem with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is puzzled by something that a 25-year-old English major who talks to her cat all day figures out in four seconds? I don't understand! I have something to say and it's actually important this time! Listen to me!
By the way, my mom just walked past my room and wanted to know why I've been shouting "ICE BULLET" for the past five minutes.
Also, I'll have you know that it was a full 17 minutes before Hodgins said, "When you eliminate the possible, you are left with the truth. Have you ever heard of an ice bullet?" At which point I shouted, "THANK YOU!"
My work here is done.
And after all that, it was a frozen blood bullet. That would have been my next guess.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Enough Already
I am currently reading Wild, a memoir in which author Cheryl Strayed recounts her solo trek north along the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother dies. Though I am not yet halfway through it, I have some thoughts that I would like to share with anyone in the mood for some good old-fashioned whining.
I am, mildly put, unimpressed with this whole sub-genre of memoir--what I call the "enlightenment memoir"--that has gotten its footing in recent years. You know the one I mean: authors find that their lives have spiraled out of control and they decide to have one detoxifying, earth-shattering experience that will magically transform them into new people.
But here's the thing: no matter the author or the circumstances leading up to the Great Big Important Transformative Experience or the nature of the Great Big Important Transformative Experience itself, the story is exactly the same. "I was unhappy," they all start. "I _____ [1) lost my mother to lung cancer, 2) lost touch with my friends and family, 3) cheated on my husband with my friend's boyfriend, 4) got divorced, 5) 3, then consequently 4]. I was _____ [1) drinking myself into a blackout every night, 2) in the throes of a heroin addiction, 3) going through a divorce I/my spouse didn't want, 4) sexually promiscuous, 5) all of the above.] I needed to change."
In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert takes off on a journey across the globe to "find" herself. In Running Ransom Road, Caleb Daniloff runs a marathon in every city in which he'd battled alcoholism, and "finds" himself. And in Wild, Cheryl Strayed decides that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail will be her answer to the death of her mother and the subsequent rupturing of her sibling ties and her marriage. And oh yeah, she "finds" herself.
My poor best friend Casey had to listen to me shout for a solid ten minutes on the phone this afternoon about how irritating this concept is to me. We as readers are introduced to authors who have managed to fuck up their lives in an assortment of (sometimes) inventive ways, and we are invited to sit back and relax as these authors describe extramarital affairs (drunken or otherwise) or stealing from siblings to pay for their drug addictions. And then, after we couldn't possibly care any less about them, we get a holier-than-though lesson in achieving spiritual transcendence from a woman who, two chapters ago, was shooting heroin into her ankle because her boyfriend-of-the-week couldn't find a vein in her arm.
You're miserable, you climb a couple mountains/run a couple marathons/eat some pasta/do some yoga, and you're not miserable anymore. We get it.
As worn-down as I am by these formulaic enlightenment memoirs, I keep reading them. I believe that to be a successful writer you need to be an informed reader, and as I hope to be a writer myself one day I find it necessary to know what's being published. Unfortunately, this is it: some young, attractive, educated person dealing with, oftentimes, first-world problems that make me roll my eyes and groan, "Get over yourself." I promise I'm not trying to sound unsympathetic to these issues. I am inspired by people who recognize their mistakes--or even just things about themselves and their lives that they want to change--and set about changing them. I couldn't be happier for those people. What I have a hard time getting behind is the fact that memoirs of this type are inevitably whiny and, simultaneously, elitist. The authors assume that chronicling their hardships--"I had barely run a mile and already my feet were killing me!"--will ingratiate themselves with readers to such a degree that the readers are willing to overlook the I-found-enlightenment-and-you-didn't moment at the novel's climax. I've noticed an influx in recent years of books by ordinary people who have transformed their lives and essentially thought, "Hey, good for me. I should write a book about how I'm not a schmuck anymore." To which I say, enough already. I get that you were self-destructive and emotionally unstable and now you've learned to hold yourself accountable for your actions. That's really great, and I honestly mean that. But lay off the let-me-regale-you-with-my-tale-of-spiritual-transcendence memoirs, will you? You're not inspiring anyone--you're just making us all hate you.
But here's the thing: no matter the author or the circumstances leading up to the Great Big Important Transformative Experience or the nature of the Great Big Important Transformative Experience itself, the story is exactly the same. "I was unhappy," they all start. "I _____ [1) lost my mother to lung cancer, 2) lost touch with my friends and family, 3) cheated on my husband with my friend's boyfriend, 4) got divorced, 5) 3, then consequently 4]. I was _____ [1) drinking myself into a blackout every night, 2) in the throes of a heroin addiction, 3) going through a divorce I/my spouse didn't want, 4) sexually promiscuous, 5) all of the above.] I needed to change."
My poor best friend Casey had to listen to me shout for a solid ten minutes on the phone this afternoon about how irritating this concept is to me. We as readers are introduced to authors who have managed to fuck up their lives in an assortment of (sometimes) inventive ways, and we are invited to sit back and relax as these authors describe extramarital affairs (drunken or otherwise) or stealing from siblings to pay for their drug addictions. And then, after we couldn't possibly care any less about them, we get a holier-than-though lesson in achieving spiritual transcendence from a woman who, two chapters ago, was shooting heroin into her ankle because her boyfriend-of-the-week couldn't find a vein in her arm.
As worn-down as I am by these formulaic enlightenment memoirs, I keep reading them. I believe that to be a successful writer you need to be an informed reader, and as I hope to be a writer myself one day I find it necessary to know what's being published. Unfortunately, this is it: some young, attractive, educated person dealing with, oftentimes, first-world problems that make me roll my eyes and groan, "Get over yourself." I promise I'm not trying to sound unsympathetic to these issues. I am inspired by people who recognize their mistakes--or even just things about themselves and their lives that they want to change--and set about changing them. I couldn't be happier for those people. What I have a hard time getting behind is the fact that memoirs of this type are inevitably whiny and, simultaneously, elitist. The authors assume that chronicling their hardships--"I had barely run a mile and already my feet were killing me!"--will ingratiate themselves with readers to such a degree that the readers are willing to overlook the I-found-enlightenment-and-you-didn't moment at the novel's climax. I've noticed an influx in recent years of books by ordinary people who have transformed their lives and essentially thought, "Hey, good for me. I should write a book about how I'm not a schmuck anymore." To which I say, enough already. I get that you were self-destructive and emotionally unstable and now you've learned to hold yourself accountable for your actions. That's really great, and I honestly mean that. But lay off the let-me-regale-you-with-my-tale-of-spiritual-transcendence memoirs, will you? You're not inspiring anyone--you're just making us all hate you.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
So That Happened
Once again I bring you the finer moments of my life exactly seven years after they happened. And by "seven years" I mean a few months. Same thing.
A guy from the heating company came out to fix our furnace a few months ago and was oddly eager to make small talk. First he asked if my husband was at work. I should mention that he was at our house two weeks ago and talked to my father, a man old enough to be--obviously--my father. I corrected him, and seeing that his first question went off so well, he then he asked how old I was. (I appreciated that he did not attempt to tell me how old I am, as we all know what happens when people do that.) When I answered him he suggested that I give his son a call. Here is what I learned about this son:
1. He's 26.
2. His girlfriend of three years just left him.
3. He works at QFC.
4. He has a condo in Mukilteo with a pool that backs up to the golf course.
5. "He doesn't have a lot of friends," the heating guy explained, "so I always try to find him people who..." "Who also don't have a lot of friends?" I asked. He pretended to busy himself looking for a pen in his shirt pocket (honestly, how long does it take to realize there isn't one?), which I took as a yes. Fantastic, I thought. Even people who have only spent 20 minutes with me know I have no friends. Is it just some vibe I'm giving off? I really don't understand.
My mom and I got our first smart phones a few months ago and my mom has been spending some time trying to learn how hers works. Yesterday she decided that the call volume was too low, and rather than ask me to help she thought she'd tackle the issue on her own. How did she do this? She used her cell to call the house phone, which hangs on the wall in the kitchen. When it rang she shouted, "Don't answer that, it's just me!" Assuming she was just practicing how to place a call, which is totally something she would practice, I didn't think anything of it. That is, until she marched into the kitchen, cell in hand, picked up the home phone and, with a device in each ear, said "Hello?"
In the past two weeks I have started getting calls on my cell multiple times in the middle of the night from the Orange Cab Company in Seattle. I have received five such calls, at ungodly times ranging from 12:03am to 5:37am. I never answer because I am sleeping--that pesky thing I do sometimes--but I always wake up when my phone rings. When I get up in the morning I have as many messages as missed calls, all with the prerecorded message: "Your cab has arrived." My mom has taken to asking me when I come down for breakfast if I had a good cab ride. My most recent notification call came during the Oscars, and when I told my mom who was calling she looked toward the window and asked, "Do you think there's actually a cab out there?" I laughed...but was there?
A guy from the heating company came out to fix our furnace a few months ago and was oddly eager to make small talk. First he asked if my husband was at work. I should mention that he was at our house two weeks ago and talked to my father, a man old enough to be--obviously--my father. I corrected him, and seeing that his first question went off so well, he then he asked how old I was. (I appreciated that he did not attempt to tell me how old I am, as we all know what happens when people do that.) When I answered him he suggested that I give his son a call. Here is what I learned about this son:
1. He's 26.
2. His girlfriend of three years just left him.
3. He works at QFC.
4. He has a condo in Mukilteo with a pool that backs up to the golf course.
5. "He doesn't have a lot of friends," the heating guy explained, "so I always try to find him people who..." "Who also don't have a lot of friends?" I asked. He pretended to busy himself looking for a pen in his shirt pocket (honestly, how long does it take to realize there isn't one?), which I took as a yes. Fantastic, I thought. Even people who have only spent 20 minutes with me know I have no friends. Is it just some vibe I'm giving off? I really don't understand.
My mom and I got our first smart phones a few months ago and my mom has been spending some time trying to learn how hers works. Yesterday she decided that the call volume was too low, and rather than ask me to help she thought she'd tackle the issue on her own. How did she do this? She used her cell to call the house phone, which hangs on the wall in the kitchen. When it rang she shouted, "Don't answer that, it's just me!" Assuming she was just practicing how to place a call, which is totally something she would practice, I didn't think anything of it. That is, until she marched into the kitchen, cell in hand, picked up the home phone and, with a device in each ear, said "Hello?"
In the past two weeks I have started getting calls on my cell multiple times in the middle of the night from the Orange Cab Company in Seattle. I have received five such calls, at ungodly times ranging from 12:03am to 5:37am. I never answer because I am sleeping--that pesky thing I do sometimes--but I always wake up when my phone rings. When I get up in the morning I have as many messages as missed calls, all with the prerecorded message: "Your cab has arrived." My mom has taken to asking me when I come down for breakfast if I had a good cab ride. My most recent notification call came during the Oscars, and when I told my mom who was calling she looked toward the window and asked, "Do you think there's actually a cab out there?" I laughed...but was there?
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