Suburban Kvetch

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.)

Dirty Dancing from the olden days of 1987

In 1987, at 23 years old, I went to movies without really knowing what they were about. I mean, there was no internet - at least not as far as I was concerned. We learned about movies from TV commercial and GASP — newspaper advertisements. Those usually black and white ads lead us to search the paper for times and theaters nearby. I think I chose movies with a ‘why not’ philosophy. I do know that I went to see Dirty Dancing with no idea at all what it would be about.

So my sister-friend and I drove to the movie theater (that is now a Target, I hear) — probably in a tiny white Datsun — and drooled and hyperventialted smiled and bobbed and tapped our feet for an hour and a half.  And like gazillions of others that movie became one of my all-time favorites and not only an roadmap for dancing (as if!) but a touchstone for all things romantic.

I’ve never been to the Catskills but, face it, does that matter if you can sing the Kellerman’s anthem? Since that day I’ve watched the movie countless times on TV — it’s the kind of movie that makes me put down the remote control and pay attention no matter where in the 105 minutes I happen to land.

Especially here. Really, do we even need the rest of the movie? Yes, we do.  I’m on a cyberhunt to secure my own copy…and will review it ad nauseam for the sake of history and in memory of Patrick Swayze.

Oh right, and Jennifer Grey’s nose.

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

I was in the house I live in now,  getting dressed and standing in front of The Today Show on my bedroom TV like I had done every morning for as long as I could remember.

I watched the plane hit Tower One.

I canceled my plans and moved to the family room where I watched TV for the rest of the day. And night. And the next day.  And probably days after that.

I kept my kids, in 4th and 1st grades, away from the news but I told them what happened. Sort of.

Where were you?

Doolittle’s got nothing on me

I talk to my dogs. Let’s go out. Time for lunch. Want a treat? Get off the sofa. Ok, more likely: Make room for me.

I also, in the course of my day, tell the pups what I’m doing. I’m going to take a shower. Heading to the grocery store, be back soon. General Hospital is starting, let’s watch.

None of this is a problem for me. The dogs keep me company and I’m pretty sure they understand a good deal of what I say. I know they agree with me that Sam and Jason should definitely get back together but that Nicolas and Liz, well, that’s not a good match.

That being said, as if two (and until a week ago, three) dogs isn’t enough, I also tend to talk to the appliances.

When the phone rings I often yell, “I’m not answering you!” or “Call the cell phone!”

When the washer is on the fritz and buzzes throughout the cycle I say, “Just wash the damn clothes.”

When the garbage disposal broke sometime last week or the week before I said, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon I don’t have time or money to fix you, cooperate.” It’s still broken.

I also ask questions.

When the spring broke on the garage door and it sounded like a gunshot in the house, I asked, “Why? Why do you have to break today when I need to leave the house in 20 minutes?”

When I forget to take out the trash because I think it’s Tuesday, not Thursday, I look at the pile in the garage and say, “Why didn’t you remind me to take you out?”

There are also quite a few damn corners and chair legs that get berated when I bump into them on occasion, and toilets that might flush a little slowly sometimes for which a good crossing of the fingers, holding hands together in potty prayer and saying a chant of pleaseflushpleaseflushpleaseflush seems to work. Sometimes.

I also express gratitude to found keys, glasses, money and socks — sometimes resulting in kissing the object (except for the socks).

I’ve decided it is not an issue worth therapy though, unless they start talking back.

Ode to a good dog

I walked around the house, picking up the bowls full and half full of water that we’d put every where Tucker liked to lay, so it was easy to give him a drink when he looked thirsty.  Some of the water was still cold.

I took down all the bones from the top of the fridge, the bones Tuck wasn’t allowed to have because they might irritate his stomach.  Those bones also  forbidden from the other dogs since May.  Giving one dog a bone and not the other is like giving one kid an ice cream cone and telling the other to watch him eat it.  I dropped the bones around the house in the used-to-be-usual spots for chewing  — under the dining room table, on the expensive living room rug, in the middle of the long hall leading to the bedroom where it’s easy to step on it if you’re not looking.

The rugs Tucker laid on the past few weeks, because it was easier for him to get up from a rug than the slick  floor, stayed.  They’re our bath mats really, because bath mats don’t slip, and by tonight they’ll be washed and back with their mates in the appropriate bathrooms.

Tucker loved the bathroom - it was a one-stop shop.  A bowl perfect for drinking that was always full (and in a house with three dogs, always flushed), a cold floor and a comfy rug, and visitors.  So many amenities!  As a puppy it was the place he’d grab the end of the toilet paper roll to begin his romp around the house - the canine caper that ensued was not unlike that of high schoolers and trees.   His antics got him a permanent place in the bathroom when I showered, because I never knew, as a pup, what he’d do alone for those few minutes.  It remained his routine always, the shower started by anyone here and Tucker knew it was time to lie on the bathroom floor and wait.  If you didn’t wait for Tucker, he barked outside the bathroom door to get in.  So we always waited.  The other dogs followed suit and many times there were three dogs in the bathroom at shower time, which was so sweet and very much like an obstacle course when wanting to dry off.

Tucker was 100 lbs of Golden Retriever sweetness.  A Retriever who never retrieved, he liked to be chased around the table on the patio in the backyard, changing directions every time he thought you were about to catch him.  He loved to roll in the mud out there too, and when we replaced it with mulch, he loved to roll in the mulch.  It was then we learned he simply loved to roll around.

He would never hurt anyone but was a good defensive strategy for a house with one mom and two kids, because to everyone but us, he was really big.  He was the dog, who when he got out of the backyard, came to the front door because he was no dummy - his bathroom was in there.  He wasn’t going anywhere.  Tucker was a dog who listened because he wanted to but could never quite get over his need to jump on people who came in the front door.  He loved company and any food they might happen to have under aluminum foil.  He was fiercely protective of us and loyal to us - and anyone hoarding treats.   Tuck was the dog who was in-touch with our feelings, lying still and quiet if we were sick; wagging his tail at our happiness.   He barked loud and deep at the doorbell but forgave you silently if you stepped on his tail or said no.  He hung his head before getting yelled at when he scavenged in the trash - and only threw up when he was sick - not when he ate sticks, grass, chicken parts, coffee grinds or apple cores.   Even with those escapades we knew he was very smart.  But more than that, he was gentle.  I called him Prince Charming.  And Tootles.  Once, I mentioned Tupperware and he came running.    He also had a sense of humor.

There were a few years — the two-dog years — when all of us slept in my bed.  Me, my much younger kids and two dogs.  Then, with kids preferring their own rooms , and the adoption of dog #3 almost five years ago, Tucker took to his spot in the hall most nights, where he could see every bedroom.  And keep his eye on the bathroom too, I’m sure.

I looked at the doggie place mat and Tucker’s food bowl.  I’d have put them away but Zachary said it was OK to use them for the other dogs.  The little dog bowl stand meant our biggest pooch didn’t have to bend all the way down to the floor for his food.  Frankly, he’d have eaten anywhere — and anything.  But why should such a good dog bend so far for his meals?

I let out the dogs - one and then the other - and tapped on the sliding glass door when I wanted them back inside - which was very soon after they’d gone out.   Fed and filled they chewed, pawed, snuggled, annoyed and asked for belly scratches in the way dogs do.  They walked off to their own favorite spots - one on my bed, head on the pillow (where else) and the other in the middle of the hall where she could see me, lest I go to bathroom, fridge, laundry room or basement without her.

Tucker never made a lot of noise, but Zachary and I agreed it was really quiet.

It’s morning.  It’s time to feed the dogs again –  and then shower.

Where, from now on, I’ll have just a little too much space to dry off.

Lizzie, Tucker, Mitzi - March 2009

August is the new October

Nothing says hot, humid summer like candy corn, costumes and bags of mini chocolate bars.

While I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that my kids start school before Labor Day, the folks at the big box stores have moved the sunscreen and flip flops to the end caps and stocked their shelves with all things scary, creepy and spooky.   The Fall fabulousness is there too, with fake haystacks and cutesy scarecrows, spicy scented candles and everything pumpkin.

I think it’s wrong to buy school supplies when I’m wearing sunscreen but with two kids in high school that starts soon, I have stacks of spiral note books and boxes of pens and mechanical pencils next to the bug spray and aloe in the storage closet.

On principal I don’t walk down the Halloween aisles before October, but the permeation of holidays into months where they really don’t belong, makes my shopping excursions more like scavenger hunts.

Who buys their Halloween candy in August?  Really.  Who?  I can’t buy it before the day of Halloween if there’s going to be anything left for a wayward trick-or-treater who happens to ring my doorbell.  Either that or I buy the candy no one likes and then the kids skip my house anyway.  No one wants lollypops or bags of pretzels on Halloween — even in cute themed bags, just for the record.

Then the other day I walked into the local card shop and was greeted by the scent of peppermint.  Peppermint candles.  To my right was a display of Christmas ornaments and in the corner of the store a friendly clerk was setting up a toy train.

“Can I help you find something?”

“Yes,” I said.  “Do you have Halloween cards?”

I gathered a few, paid and left — humbly reminded that things can always be worse.