Suburban Kvetch

Mom’s night out

I’m surely not livin’ the dream, but I reside in a picturesque Midwestern town with award winning schools, a quaint downtown and friendly neighbors. It’s ethnically diverse, has a commuter train station and a gorgeous new library. People stop their cars when you cross the street and wave when you walk by.

But…

For a single, 45 year old mom with two teenagers, it’s b o r i n g. Girls Night Out means home by nine — if I’m lucky and not home by 8. Conversations revolve around dads who are babysitting for their own kids, and the havoc that will be wreaked without mom at home. There’s talk of multi-family getaways, three-story additions and the perils of country club assessments. There are no single parents at all — or anyone without back-up or tee-times, no classes to take (don’t even mention it), no clubs to join and nothing for Jewish singles within 50 miles.

So, as daunting as it is that my kids are now a Senior and a Freshman in high school — it also means I am that much closer to moving somewhere else – ANYWHERE ELSE - perhaps where coffee shops with wifi are open late and there is more than one bookstore within a 30 minute drive. Heaven forbid — there might be other single adults and yes, maybe even a class or two. I’d bow down if I had a mall to meander, but alas, the only mall nearby is desolate, anchored by Posters-R-Us and Sears — and has been under construction for the entire decade I’ve lived here.

I’ll give credit where it’s due. It’s a tight knit community and I have steadfast friends who make me laugh. If I sent out an SOS in the middle of the night I would have more help than I knew what to do with. So, a while back, when a casual friend’s father passed away, I didn’t think for more than a moment whether or not I should attend the Shiva (the mourning ritual for Jews). It’s never wrong to attend a Shiva. Never wrong to show support with a plate of cookies and a hug.

And anyway, who was I kidding? I got to go out! On a Tuesday night! There would be adults! And food! Everyone would talk! I’d have to look nice too – you don’t show your respect in cut-offs. This would indeed even include mascara. Maybe even a spritz of perfume!

So off I went. I was where I should have been. It was a sincere gesture on my part, tainted only slightly – and stealthily – as I asked about the health and well-being of some old people chatting in the corner.

How gossip is like a new purse

Lashon hora is Hebrew for gossip. Negative speech. Evil tongue.

It’s a no-no of biblical proportions.

I’ve been thinking a lot about gossip lately. Girls do it, boys do it. Women do it very well, which in this case makes it worse. Men do it too, but claim to not.

Fact is, sometimes the bad part of human nature overwhelms our better judgment.

It’s like a purse on sale. Actually, even like a great purse, on sale, grown-up gossip is something I can definitely do without.

But in my suburban adulthood, both remain haunting and alluring. Neither the studded, suede, oversized, caramel-colored satchel, nor the mouth-watering gossip, add real value to my life. Each is a momentary fix that satiates and quickly goes out of style, losing it’s panache.

I know this -but it is hard to walk away from either one.

Although I did put myself on a purse diet that started longer ago than I care to admit. No new purse for me that would qualify as extravagant. SIGH

And recently I made my life a gossip-free zone.

I’m not sure which is worse. Or better.

According to Judaism do you know what the worst thing about gossip is? Listening to it. Yep. We passivists who simply listen and say nothing, who don’t interfere, are the only ones who have a choice. The person who is talking about someone else has already made his or her decision. The person being spoken about doesn’t have a say.

Although I have never been a gossip monger, I just wanted to pull the plug completely. More than anything it’s that looming parental responsibility that gets the best of me every time because wanting to set a good example weighs heavily upon me.

My daugher has entered high school like gangbusters. The teenage girl thing is going strong, and while she doesn’t seem to be gossiping - or be the target of gossip - I want to circumvent what’s bound to happen simply due to momentum and hormones.

So, I have put a personal moratorium on gossip. Spreading it or listening to it. (And I certainly hope I am not gossip fodder myself). And let me tell you, it’s not easy stop bending your ear to be in on the latest. I’ve realized that sometimes talking about others is the only thing that bonds you to someone else, or is a major part of a friendship. And in that case, it’s probably time to reevaluate that relationship.

And none of it is easy, even if it is good. Especially without a new purse to soothe my soul.

I’m not completely innocent either, of course. More than a few times recently I have picked up the phone to “tell” a friend something that was in no way a rumor, but certainly something not very nice. And you know what? I hung up the phone. No good comes of talking badly about someone else, or making fun of them in any capacity.

But because I have to cover all my bases, and because although I rarely like to admit it, I am human, I do have a few caveats for my new no-gossip lifestyle.

The Pick One Person Rule: That means you can have one person to whom you can tell anything, nasty or nice. Since I don’t have a spouse, who would hopefully be that person, anything I tell Sister-Friend is not gossip. She lives 600 miles away from me. Which leads me to rule #2.

The Distance Rule: If you need to get something off your chest because you’re about to burst at the seams, and in any way what you are about to say could be construed as gossip, you must tell someone who doesn’t know the people you’re talking about, and preferably lives several hundred miles away. If this person never visits you, you can use names. If they do visit you, using names is optional because it may lead to obvious ‘ah ha’ moments down the road.

The All-Bets Are Off Rule: If someone does something to you or your children personally, and it is 100% true because it’s first person, you can tell anyone you wish. If it involves someone else and me, revert to rules #1 and #2.

I think that about covers it, don’t you?

The next thing I’m going to work on is a change of mindset. Meaning, not even giving any of this a second thought. Why is it that tidbits are so juicy? (Oh, Juicy Couture has some nice purses). Why is it that if I see someone looking just plain awful in the grocery store I feel the need to tell someone else? Maybe I should just think to myself that he or she is having a bad day or isn’t feeling well. If someone decorates their home hideously, is that bad taste, or just taste different from mine? And why should I care?

I think it’s just human nature to be curious, and yes sometimes, nosey. (I also happen to think it’s human nature to need expensive wristlets.) I think we like to feel a kinship with others and sometimes that means having a common cause, and sometimes that means talking about someone else. One of the worst things about human nature is that unintentionally, and sometimes intentionally, we do things that hurt others - and ourselves. In hindsight, someone looks really ugly when they’re gossiping even though they may be glowing in the midst of it.

Come to think of it, the evil of spending money on purses pales in comparison.  Truly.  What’s the worst thing about purses?  That can only carry one at a time.

Maybe I need to go shopping.

(Originally published on Kvetch Blog in September 2006.  This post has been edited for relevance — it was written when my daughter started Junior High — and republished with permission of the author, who happens to be me.)

My sixth sense

I see…old people.

They’re everywhere.  You might be one of them, I don’t know.  What I do know is that all-of-a-sudden, from out of nowhere, they started appearing to me, not in my dreams, but in a place much more frightening.

My age category.

I answered my land line a few weeks ago and took an automated survey by new cell phone company.

What is your age?

Are you under 18? Press 1

18-20? Press 2

21-24? Press 3

25-29? Press 4

30-34? Press 5

35-39? Press 6

40-44? Press 7

45-49? Press 8

EIGHT?  I had to wait until EIGHT to push the number for my age group?  What happened to the 40’s being the new 30’s?   Guess no one told A.T. and T.

I do not see an old person when I look in the mirror nor when I look at my friends who range in age from thirty to sixty, with the preponderance falling between 45 and 55.  But show me a photo of people who are 45-55 whom I don’t know - and man, do they look old!  I asked a friend once if we looked like the scores of happy, hugging groups of strangers we come across on Facebook. You know, the women who look a little weathered with  a bit too much undereye makeup and a strange tan for Kansas in January and the men who are gray, balding with a little extra skin around the jowls?

She assured me, we do not.

A friend of mine in her 40’s married someone seven years older.  That makes him 55.  I have fun spending time with them as a couple - she’s one of my local BFFs and he’s a fun guy.  When together, it seems like we are all the same age.

I’m headed to a wedding reception this weekend for a 50-year-old friend who is marrying her long-time love.  He is 63. I have never met him, but my friend certainly is not old to me.

Yet, I went out with men in their 50’s this summer.

THEY’RE OLD!

The only upside is, that to them, I am decidedly young.

Maybe with friends, it’s the familiarity, the history (looong histories sometimes)that means — although we know them best, we see their faces through rose colored reading glasses.  I look at the faces of my friends from long ago and see the child within.  I hear a school yard chant in their present-day wisdom.  In the friends I’ve made in the decade I’ve lived in my current home, age only seems to matter when there is a milestone to celebrate and a party to plan.  Their faces look like mine.  Unchanged from ten years ago if only to us.  Maybe it’s the effect of seeing people often and not noting subtle shifts.  Maybe it’s the lake effect breeze.

We see only the best parts of ourselves and our friends.  I guess that’s as it should be - holding a steady course of aging with those around us certainly softens the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

But, when we feel a distant, gnawing sense of familiarity looking into the faces of strangers, our own reflection — for just one second — becomes a little bit scary.

Brisket and the Art of Long-Term Friendship

I landed a job in the admissions department of a small Lutheran college in New Jersey.  The fact that I knew nothing about college admissions wasn’t nearly as strange as the fact that I was the only Jewish staff member, and most likely, the only Jewish person on campus.

I picked up on the way things were done and grew comfortable in my role handling computer issues, desktop publishing and learning the admissions business.  One day, waiting for a staff meeting to begin, we talked about our weekends, and subsequently our meals. And although the details before this elude me, I must have mentioned brisket.  A somewhat tanned, dark haired woman turned to me.  I’d seen her in the office before.  She was new, but we hadn’t met.

“Did you say brisket,” she asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Are you Jewish?”

I wasn’t sure if this was a trick question.

“I am.”

“I’m Catholic,” she said, “I love brisket.”  She moved from her seat next to me, and leaned in.  “And lox and bagels.  I’m the only non-Jewish person in line for bagels on Christmas morning.”

I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to make me, the lone Jew, feel at home or if she truly felt a kinship and wanted to bond over brisket and bagels.

“How do you make it,” she asked. “You know, the brisket.”

And so I told her.

That was over 18 years ago.

I was pregnant with my son and my new friend, Renee, was thinking about getting divorced.  She was 32 - practically ancient to my 27 - but we were close friends from that moment on.  She was a seasoned (as seasoned as one can be at 32) admissions counselor and showed me the ropes.  Renee introduced me to Martha Stewart, country clubs and Eggs Benedict.  I taught her the Russian-Jewish custom of tying a red ribbon to something to ward off any ne’er-do-well (i.e. her mother-in-law) wishing her harm.  That next Christmas - the last with her ex - she decorated her house with big red velveteen bows.  That was right around the time I started coordinating table cloths and napkins for dinner parties.

Renee was there the day my son was born and took a hearty dose of allergy medicine to attend his Bris (she was allergic to our dog).  She reveled in my new parenthood and I listened as she mourned the loss of her single home, her Laura Ashley adorned bedroom and at times, even her ex-husband.

Our friendship, the way I remember it, just happened.  There were no mommy cards, no texting, no cell phones.  There was no email.  At least there wasn’t for me.  Our campus and local diner lunches took us away from campus and enabled us to find our similarities and revel in our differences.  The pot luck dinners brought varied friends together.  Maybe it had something to do with being young.  I think it really just had to do with it being a much simpler time - or maybe back then, I just new simpler people.  And I mean that in a good way.

But then I stopped working to be a stay-at-home mom.  The college closed and Renee got a new job.  I moved several times.  We lost touch somewhere between Renee getting her master’s degree and me and my family moving to Cleveland.  I couldn’t find her even though I was online, because I didn’t know where she was.  This was before the days when you could find almost anyone on Google.  Her parents were unlisted.  Can you imagine?  As creepy as internet access can be, it lends an element of permanence to relationships.  It is really hard to lose track of someone these days.  But not back then.

Renee and I lost track of one another, found one another and then lost track again.  And then one day - about ten years ago — I got a phone call.  It was Renee! She was packing her apartment for another move to another city and came across my parents’ phone number.  She called them and they gave her my number.

Sometimes, after a long time, we hear from someone we haven’t thought of in ages.  It wasn’t that way with Renee.  I’d thought about her often.  And even if I hadn’t, I think the key to these long-term, heavy-duty friendships is the willingness to remember the past and embrace the possibilities for the future.  Would it have been easy for me to shun someone who called, after years, who lived thousands of miles away and with whom technically I had nothing in common?  I had new friends in a new city and I believed I was on the cusp of an amazing life.  But when someone reaches out through the years and over miles, it behooves us to slow down enough to listen and to remember those technology free years when we met and became friends because of brisket.

And anyway, it was Renee.

That night we talked and talked like we were sitting across the table in her kitchen, her dad playing with my son, sticking ten dollar bills into his one-year-old pockets.  She and I filled in all the blanks - or so I thought — until I mentioned my four-year-old daughter and Renee said, “Who?”

She didn’t know I’d had a daughter.

We remedied the situation and saw Renee on a planned trip to Florida, where she lived.  Another time she flew from to meet us on a different vacation.  She and I spent a girlfriend weekend in Chicago.  Ten years since our reunion we have not lost touch again - on the contrary.  Through more moves, job loss, my divorce and both families’ tragedies, we’re more connected than ever. And as always, she can lift my spirits with three small words…Amy, it’s Renee.

Long ago and far away we giggled innocently about a handsome professor (we were married, not blind), shared recipes (so much more than brisket), talked about our families (the good, bad and ugly) and planned our futures (boy, were we wrong).

Now we talk about being single, and not naively.  We reminisce about the past and look forward to times unknown.  Today, the intensity of our combined experiences is way beyond that of a chuckle. We belly laugh until we cry - or until someone has to pee.

Come to think of it, that’s the same as when I was pregnant — and Renee was on the divorce diet.

That’s what you call coming full circle.

* * *

Brisket Recipes or Essential Ingredients for a Friendship

Unlike Texans, Jews don’t barbeque their brisket, we braise it like a pot roast.  I started making ’sweet brisket’ when I got married.  It’s a traditional holiday meal, but was unlike the brisket I grew up taste-testing in my grandmother’s kitchen. Shortly after I divorced, my grandmother passed away.  I’ve only made her brisket since. Both recipes are below.

Sweet Brisket

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:
Salt
Onion salt (optional)
Garlic salt (optional)

Liquid:
1 12-oz bottle chili sauce
20 oz Manischewitz or other very sweet wine
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Vegetables:
1 sliced sweet onion
6 chopped carrots
3 lbs potatoes, quartered

Sprinkle seasonings over meat and rub in lightly. Sear the meat in 500 degree oven for 10 minutes on each side. Combine liquids and vegetables, pour over meat, cover and cook at 350 degrees for 3 hours. It freezes well if you invite light eaters and have leftovers.

Brisket with Gravy

5-7 lbs. brisket, first cut

Seasoning:

Onion Soup Mix 1 or 2 packets

Liquid:

Water

Sprinkle onion soup mix over meat and rub in lightly.  Wrap meat tightly in several layers of aluminum foil and place in a roasting pan.  Cook it at 300 degrees for as many hours as you can stand not eating it, at least 3.  Slice against the grain, place back in roasting pan, cover with au jus and keep warm on 250.  The more it cooks the better it tastes, it tastes even better the next day.  Serve it with au jus or the brown gravy of your choice.  Make it or buy it, I don’t think it matters.  I’d say it freezes well too, but there’s never enough left  to find out.

Cross-Posted at Imperfect Parent

You can blame it on Rio, or my friend Fern

I opened Fern’s email.

You must read Pioneer Woman.

I’m an obedient friend when plied with flowery words such as must and read, so I did.

I emailed Fern.

OMG, I want to be Pioneer Woman when I grow up.  Without the calf nuts.  Or the mud.  Or the homeschooling.

Good luck with that, Fern replied.

I persisted.

She’s just writing about her life.  I used to do that. I could do it again.  I’d write the truth about carpools, raising kids, having friends and my life as a single mom in a tiny and very married suburb.  Life here is so mundane it’s fascinating. (She lives here, and knows it to be true) And I’d still have my other blog.

Fern was tough.

Yes, you could do all that and more — but  remember, it takes Pioneer Woman fifteen minutes to drive from one end of her ranch to another.

I was tougher.

It takes me fifteen minutes to pick up sushi.

* * *

So here I am.  Back in the land of the mom blogosphere.

Hang onto your calf nuts.  We’re in for a ride