Voice Mail Messages on the Morning of 12/15/07

"The following message will be deleted from your archive":

"Hi Tea. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for your message; it was very, very sweet. I saved it, although I don't know how to replay my messages, but the fact that it is there on my answering machine makes me feel good somehow. We had a very quiet Thanksgiving. It was really fun- we had a nice time, although now we have wound down. I did not get my Thanksgiving nap in like I wanted, because Charlie did not have a nap. I hope you are doing great. I am around the next few days. We'll just try to catch up. Love you lots. Hope you are having fun. Bye."

"The following message was left at 8:00 pm":

"Hi Lins. This is Chrissy. I am checking on your holiday scheduling and was wondering if you could give me a call to see what you are doing on Christmas eve, Christmas night. All I can say is those who spend the night get more presents. That's all I've got to say about that. I'll call you later."

"The following message was left at 8:30 pm":

"Hi. It's me. They did it. They named her AGNES FERN JONES. I am horrified! I am horrified! I called Ashley and we couldn't stop laughing about the fact that my sister just gave birth to a 150-year-old lady! We were joking about librarian school and lunch lady hairnets. Oh my god, I mean, Agnes Fern Jones! That has got to go down in history as the worst name you could ever give a perfect, beautiful baby. I wish I had told her about St. Lucia's day in time. 'Cuz it's done. I have got a little niece named AGNES. Anyway, talk to you later. Bye."

For a limited time only....

This lovely pink, purple, and aqua-esque template is brought to you thanks to the requests of all those DIVA lovers out there. I think I'll be able to stand this much pink through the weekend, so live it up while you can!

Calling Card

Our new drapes are lovely. It's true that with the Christmas tree my funky little sister is overwhelmed by the amount of girliness in the house, but I think when the purple velvet curtains aren't next to a sparkly tree they will look more classy and less diva. I went to close them the other night to take advantage of the way they help retain the heat on these snowy winter evenings. As I reached for the left panel, my hand froze. There was a mouse peeking out from under the curtain!

"Oh my god! Lesha! There is a mouse! I think it might be dead. It's not moving."

Lesha called back from where she was doing her hair in the bathroom: "Do you know what I did last time I saw a mouse? I got on a table and screamed."

"Well, great. Now what do we do?" I called from the far side of the living room of the mouse.

She left the bathroom, walked in the living room, and climbed on the coffee table. From the relative safety of her perch she said, "It's not moving. It's either fake or dead."

"I think it's fake. Throw something at it."

"Give me something to throw at it!" Seeing me reach for a couch cushion, she shouted, "Not something that can get diseased!" She picked up our coffee table book and throw it in the general direction of the mouse. "It didn't move."

"It's fake! Marc did it! He's evil!"

She threw another book at it. "It's totally fake," she said, "but I am so not going over there." She climbed off the coffee table and went back to finish doing her hair. I started looking around for the candid camera guy to come out from behind the house plant.

"We are ridiculous," I said.

Later that night my uncle Marc called. "Marc, you didn't happen to leave behind a friend of yours when you were hanging out curtains, did you?"

"Oh, did you find it?" he laughed. "That's my calling card. I leave it behind at all my jobs."

"Lovely, you big meanie."

He just laughed. After two hours and official confirmation, I finally was confident enough to pick up the mouse that I knew was fake. The curtains look even more glamorous now.

Design

Does anyone have any feedback about the new look of the blog?

He's Back

My uncle spent his career as a substance abuse counselor, up until his late 40s- about two years ago- when he started needing his own substance abuse counselor. For whatever self-destructive, awful reason, he started doing meth. And then he kept doing meth. He kept doing it after he lost his friends, and then after he lost his clients, and after he lost his job. He and his boyfriend had a meth inspired idea to rent an apartment together and remodel it (while on meth). They tore the place to pieces, infested it with a middle eastern mite, caught it on fire more than once by forgetting about cooking food, and in general did everything possible to get themselves evicted, which they finally succeeded in doing. My mom, her husband, and my grandfather drove up to Seattle to move his things out and bring him back to Utah. They took my grandpa because he was the only person alive my uncle was still willing to listen to. The plan was that my grandpa would be the one to get my parents in the door if my uncle and his boyfriend refused them entry.

This uncle was always my favorite uncle. My friends and the friends of my sisters referred to him as uncle my whole life. He was that kind of uncle- enough uncle for everyone. When we were younger, he taught us about etiquette and then took us out to a nice restaurant to practice eating politely. One time he was in town while I was in high school, he came to pick me up and take me to lunch. He arrived in front of the school with a bouquet of lilies, just because, and whisked me away to lunch, to talk and to listen, to make me feel respected and understood.

When I had questions about sex, love, life, family, I called or emailed my uncle. We kept in touch no matter where in the world I was. While he was my favorite uncle, he wasn't just my mom's brother, he was her best friend. Which is why imagining this scene at the door of a trashed, filthy apartment kills me. I imagine my mom, holding her husband's hand, her other hand on my grandpa's arm. One of the people she loves most in the world is refusing to speak to her. He's angry that she is "taking everyone else's side". She's enraged that her best friend is doing his best to ruin his life, and not content hurting himself, he has been manipulating his parents and other siblings into sending him money that he is using to buy drugs. He has racked up thousands of dollars in parking tickets, which one sibling or another has paid off.

My uncle opened the door without a confrontation. There was one day left until he would be officially evicted and locked out of the apartment. He and his boyfriend had packed nothing. Everything had to be sorted into piles of too trashed to save, piles of possessions to take to Utah, and items to remain in storage in Seattle. My parents and grandfather cleaned, scrubbed, and packed through the day and the night. Then they took my uncle and his boyfriend back to Utah with them. My parents told him he could remain in their house as long as he was clean and as long as he was in rehab. They put parental controls on their computer, put the prescription drugs in the safe, the alcohol in the storage unit, and eliminated all cash from their bags and wallets. They showered him, bought him a new change of clothes and a pair of glasses. He lasted one day, and then he walked out of rehab. They, true to their word, would not allow him to stay.

With help from the family he and his boyfriend got an apartment in SLC. All of this was happening while I was deciding to separate from my ex. I heard the reports mostly over the phone. When I came home for Christmas, I first saw my uncle. He still wasn't clean from the meth. His mind was fried. He was missing words, unable to think clearly. Both he and I were skinnier than we ever should be and both of us were wandering around looking dazed. Even through his drugged haze, he could tell that something was wrong with me. He decided that I had miscarried a child, but didn't want to say anything to me about it. In order to support me through the loss of my child, he sewed a scarf with two butterflies and told me, "These represent the two children you will have." I had no idea why he was telling me this. How ironic, I thought. I am getting divorced and he is blessing me with children.

My uncle refused to go to rehab. He felt that he could do a better job rehabilitating himself. His plan was to cook and sew himself to sobriety. After seeing the state of his apartment in Seattle, my mother and father couldn't eat what he made in the beginning. We would all take tiny bites, compliment him, and throw the leftovers away as soon as he left. As he started to get better, he was somewhat easier to be around. He still wasn't fully himself though. He could think, but not clearly. For example, he thought he was going to be able to move to France and write a book on his experiences. He tried to get me to hire him to do research. He tried to hire me to do research. He continued baking; he continued sewing. He stopped using meth; he started gaining weight.

It has been a year and my uncle can remember words again, but he still walks around with a memory notebook, the way a person with a brain injury does. He can't do basic math, but then, neither can I. He can read again. He is able to think quickly enough to make jokes again. He dropped off handmade sweet potato pies at my work before Thanksgiving, and not only did I eat them, I shared them with my coworkers, and they raved. He sewed me a new set of drapes for my living room. Last week, I had the first heart to heart I have had with him since my separation. He apologized for not being an uncle to me during my challenging year. I told him some of what I had been through. He told me he was proud of me; he always has been. He's back.

Snow

It has snowed so much and so consistently over the last few days that if I noticed a neighbor making a giant sled, a la Noah's Ark, I'd go over and try to make friends with him.

The ducks in my condo complex apparently don't mind the snow. They waddle around through the drifts and sleep along the snowy banks of the ice covered pond. Some kind soul hung a bird feeder in the yard outside my kitchen window. A gigantic tree blocks our view of the feeder, but we do see how the seed falls from the bird feeder and becomes a main food source for the neighborhood ducks. When the snow first started falling, I saw a duck face plant in the drifts on his way to the feeder. Now the trains of ducks have worn a little path from the the shoveled sidewalk through the drifts. When the snow first started, it took a while to get all our walks shoveled. My uncle came to visit us on the first day and exclaimed, "I couldn't find the path! I had to follow a goose in!"

In Sweden, the ducks never flew south for the winter. My friend, Mami, and I would walk out to the lake and feed them our stale bread. We would throw the bread out on the ice and watch the ducks slide around to get to it. We called them the "mighty ducks" and enjoyed those hockey games immensely. I think of Mami every morning as I drive to work past the icy pond and the ducks.

Editor

I love editing. I love taking a piece of writing and marking it up with commas, crossing out excess words, restating sentences to gain clarity, correcting commas or periods to semi-colons. You may have noticed I tend not to do such a great job of editing this blog. It's because I can't print out the entries and slash them up with my pen. It's not as much fun to hit 'backspace'.

The last two weeks, I found out that I am good at editing more than my writing. It turns out, I excel at editing my life. In fact, I am so good at editing my life I created a veritable marketing campaign. "Come visit the glamorous location of Linsey's Life, where true love reigns, and all is well with the world." I portrayed this edited version of the world, not just to others, but to myself. I took my mental pen and slashed up my brain. I crossed out contradictory information; I put it in tiny mental typeface like all the warnings at the end of a prescription drug commercial. "Warning: living Linsey's life may cause feelings of worthlessness, anxiety, confusion, and momentary flashes of euphoria. Linsey's life has been shown to be addictive and may lead to fluctuating weight loss and gain in the user. Operating heavy machinery while living Linsey's life is not recommended. And, good god, if you have ever been a passenger in Linsey's car while she's trying to carry on a conversation- we don't envy you."

Another Target Meltdown

I know I am feeling better than before because today was a prime day for another Target meltdown like the one this summer. Tomorrow evening is the first night of Hanukkah. Last Hanukkah I lit the first candle on the first night at the house of my Israeli cousin, Yaron. Yaron is 6 foot 10 and until about a year ago had hair that sprouted in crazy waves off of his head and down his back. It added another inch or two at least. His messy beard wasn't long enough to cover the chest hair that peaked out from his shirt that was always open to the third button down. In short, Yaron looked like an enormous Deadhead. Which he isn't. In the last year, after his wife gave birth to their second son, he tried to cut his hair. He walked into two different salons and no one would touch his hair. They didn't even know where to start with hair like that. So he started pulling it back into a tight braid. He shaved his beard and buttoned up his shirt.

From the first time I met Yaron, until the last family party I attended, Yaron was my Israeli big brother. There are a few people in my life who, no matter how little we know each other, or how rarely we see each other, I just love them- really love them and can feel they really love me. Even while we are still searching for common ground, or topics of conversation, our souls are already communicating. Yaron was like that for me. It was a rare connection for me, and I think just as rare, or more so, for him. I loved having someone who felt like a brother when I was far from my blood family.

Ever since Yaron's eldest son, Tuval, was born, Yaron and his wife, Shir, have hosted all the family for the first night of Hannukah. All the family is a lot of family, including all of Shir's family- immediate and extended and all of Yaron's family- immediate and extended. So much family means a gaggle of kids under the age of 10. All of the children made and brought their own menorahs (which are really called Hannukiahs). The kids would gather around the coffee table and place their candle in their Hannukiah and, here is the part where you know you are not in America, all the little kids would get to light their own candles. Ever seen a three year old light a candle? If not, you don't know what fear is. After the candles were lit came the singing. Song after song resonated off the walls, celebrating the Maccabean victory, the miracle of the oil in the temple, the light in the darkness. Last year, Tuval treated us to a song and dance about being a dreidle.

Then came the food. Platters piled with potato pancakes and sweet potato pancakes, mountains of salad, and for dessert, heaps of donuts. It is after all, a holiday that celebrates oil. We would pile our plates high while the kids tore open presents, the older generation kept bursting into song, and chaos reigned. This scene is some people's nightmare, but I love it. I love the chaos. I loved being at the house of my older brother and being surrounded by family. I wanted my kids to grow up knowing their cousins' cousins. I wanted to take them with their cousins to the synagogue on the High Holidays. I wanted to watch the candles on a dozen different channukiahs come to life simultaneously year after year.

Sometimes, when I wonder why I stayed so long in a marriage that clearly wasn't working, I remind myself of this. This family, these evenings, they were the hardest thing in the world to lose. This future me that I built for seven years, she ceased to exist without my marriage. The loss, while no longer devastating, still saddens me. So today, when I went to Target to look for a Channnukiah and some candles, and found not a single Channukah related item- no Star of David, no dreidle, no candles, no mention of the holiday anywhere, I felt the enormity of the distance between where I was a year ago and where I am now. I felt the third of the world that now lies between me and my older Israeli brother, and I almost cried.

It's the almost that is different. Six months ago, I would have cried. I would have had to leave the store. Now, I just acknowledge the distance, the sadness, the absence of the deep voice, loud laugh, and huge hug of my big Israeli brother. In spite of this, I know that I am better off now. Love alone isn't enough to hold together a marriage, even when the love is big enough to include all the cousins' cousins.

Ira

Parents in America spend a lot of time carpooling their children from activity to activity. My parents were no exception. I had a hard time sticking with any one activity. You name it, I took a class in it. For example in dance alone I took creative dance, modern dance, jazz dance, tap dance, and ballet. I took gymnastics, screen painting, cooking, pottery, ceramic painting, swimming, sewing, horse back riding, speed reading, acting, skiing, karate, piano, and guitar. There are others, but I'll spare you; I know you have other things to do with your time. The activities changed constantly, but one thing stayed the same: All Things Considered. Whenever my dad drove me, All Things Considered, the NPR news show, was on the radio. If they ever make a movie of my life, the notes of the All Things Considered theme should be incorporated into the soundtrack representing my childhood.

My dad is a Republican, like most believing Mormons. Republicans aren't known for their love of NPR. But my dad loved NPR. He also loved to yell at the commentators, which was particularly humiliating to his children when it was our turn for my dad to be in chauffeur the carpool. When people ask how my Republican father raised four children, all of whom turned out to be democrats, I usually respond it was due to all those hours listening to NPR. I told a friend this once and he promised to increase the size of his donation during the next pledge drive.

When I lived in Boston, I found that NPR had more to offer me than the news. I discovered "This American Life" and I fell in love. I fell in love with Ira Glass and I fell in love with his show. If I turned on the radio and found it on, I would be unable to run out for the milk, or to leave the car after running an errand. It is difficult to describe how I feel listening to this show, which is composed of nothing more than everyday stories from everyday people. While I tend to both laugh and cry, I also feel something stronger. I feel myself expanding. I feel the way the notes of the stories resonate inside me like notes resonating in a domed cathedral. Through these stories there is enough space inside me to be the prostitute, the gang child, the politician, the mother, the friend. Many, many people love this show, but for me in particular, who loves nothing more than to step inside another's life, it's practically nirvana.

Living in Boston was sometimes a challenge. I had wanted to stay in Israel. I was often ashamed to be an American while the country was gearing up for the invasion of Iraq. Whenever I was sad that I lived in America I would remind myself that America was the home of NPR. Whenever I found my disgust in America or Americans growing too strong, I would listen to Ira Glass and remember why it was that I loved my home and my people. I listened to the show on the internet at work while entering data and it kept me from going crazy during the long, quiet hours. I would come home and tell the stories I had heard that day, and get even more pleasure from the telling.

For all of these reasons, Ira became a part of my life in Boston, and a part of my relationship with my ex. I subscribed to the podcast months ago, but haven't listened to a single show. If I heard Ira on the radio, I would do something that very, very few NPR listeners have the power to do: I would change the station. It hurt too much to hear the voice of my old friend who was such a part of my old life.

Which is why when I found out that Ira Glass was coming to Salt Lake, I got tickets. I thought, here is my chance to have a new, and different experience with this voice. Here is my chance to become newly acquainted with something I love. So, I did something I find remarkable. I paid $40 to watch a man sit on a stage and talk about the radio, when I can listen to this man anytime, for free. I convinced two other friends to make the same investment. And it worked. I felt that same sense of expanding, of recognizing myself in the people in his stories, and the thrill of finding these strangers in myself. I felt both of these, without the accompanying sadness that caused me to shut off the radio for the last year. I feel like I rediscovered an old friend today.

With Both Hands Open

I saw The Joy Luck Club for the first time yesterday and it immediately jumped into my short list of favorite movies. I haven't cried that hard in a movie since Beth died in Little Women, and if I'd been watching it alone, I would have sobbed. As it was, I was watching it with a friend of mine, so I tried to maintain some semblance of self-control. He had told me about the movie earlier, when we were talking about how amazing it is what we take for granted in our day-to-day lives. His grandmother in China lived through such a terrible famine that everyone in her family died except her sister. The two of them somehow managed to survive by eating grass. And when his grandparents had children, they went hungry in order to feed their children. And his parents moved to America in order to provide a better life for their children. "That's how it is with us," he explained. "You live in order to be a step for the next generation, in order to move the family forward."

He loves The Joy Luck Club because it reminds him of his mother and his grandmother. There were several points in the movie where he pointed at the screen and said, "Yes, yes! It is just like that!" Like when the women friends brag about how incredible their children are, or when the mother of the chess champion walks down the street holding the magazine cover of her child like a banner on her chest and stops everyone she knows to show them.

Before we watched the movie, I told him how last year at this time, when I was still dreaming that everything in my life would return to what I had known before, I wrote my friend Isaac in Israel and told him that I was dreaming of coming back and that everything would work out. Here is his response:

"I'm biting my tongue, chewing my knuckles, and crossing my eyes in an effort not to give you personal advice about empowerment. I'm actually not sure what advice I'd give, other than: DO NOT COME BACK TO TEL AVIV BEFORE THE MONTH IS UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, read the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan."

I didn't understand why he recommended this book. I thought reading about immigrants was the last thing I needed. Now I understand he wanted me to hear what the mothers told their daughters: You are worth more than what you have come to expect. My favorite scenes were the one of the mother telling her daughter: Leave this lopsided house and do not come back until he offers you [tenderness and respect] with both hands open.

In my second favorite scene, the mother tells her daughter: I tell you the story because I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, and to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way. Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl, and I was born to my mother and I was born a girl, all of us like stairs, one step after another, going up, going down, but always going the same way. No, this cannot be, this not knowing what you're worth, this not begin with you. My mother not know her worth until too late - too late for her, but not for me. Now we will see if not too late for you, hmm?

It's not too late for me.

Memories

My Israeli grandmother passed away this week. It is surreal to be so far away from the family, the funeral, and the mourning. I am not sure how to commemorate her life from here. Safta Shulamit was a tough woman. At 16, she and her identical twin sister followed their 18 year old sister to Israel from Romania. After they arrived, the twins lived together in a boarding school where they learned to speak Hebrew. Shulamit used to tell me what it was like in order to encourage me when I was learning Hebrew and homesick.

Safta Shulamit was the one member of the family who spoke no English at all, which made her the best Hebrew teacher for me. We were left with no other means of communication, but we made do in the beginning, and then later, she always encouraged me by pointing out to everyone, "Linsey speaks Hebrew now. Listen to that!"

One of the things I loved the most about my early years in Israel was Friday night dinner at her and her husband's house. We would arrive in time to walk Saba Shmulik back from the synagogue. When we returned to the house, the Shabbat candles were glowing merrily. We would stand around the table and sing "Shalom Aleichem", the men's bass voices rattling the windows while the women's voices danced around in harmony, and we smiled at each other. Then Saba Shmulik would say kiddush, bless the lovely, fluffy white loaves of bread and invite us to sit. Safta Shulamit would bring out a platter of gefilte fish, which I learned to love. Nothing made her prouder than the fact that her gefilte fish were so good she'd managed to make a Mormon girl from Utah ask for seconds. After the gefilte fish, there was dish after delicious Hungarian dish. And always coffee and chocolate yeast cake for dessert.

Saba Shmulik passed away three years ago. Safta Shulamit wasn't the same after he died. She was angry at him for abandoning her after everything they had survived together. She hated having to leave her home and move into an assisted living apartment. I always regretted not having the opportunity to live in Israel while Saba Shmulik was still alive. In the beginning, he was upset with me and with the fact I was a shikseh and didn't convert, but after a while, I converted him. He learned to love me, felt that I was good for his grandson, and saw how I loved Judaism and the family and embraced both. It is because of him and Safta Shulamit that I kept my name.

When we moved to Israel, Safta Shulamit was already losing her memory and by the time I left, it had declined seriously. She started to forget the names of her great grandchildren and sometimes her grandchildren and their spouses, but she somehow remembered mine. There was something gratifying to me to know that even when I wasn't there, someone remembered me. I will do the same for her; even though she is no longer here, I will always remember her.

DIVA!

I looked through all of Lesha's boxes of Christmas decorations and decided that none of them would do for my first full size Christmas tree in my own house, so I went out shopping. I had images of a beautiful, international folk art tree a la Ten Thousand Villages or World Market, but didn't fall in love with anything I found. I went to Target to look at artificial trees and while wandering the aisles I happened upon an ornament that was simply the word 'diva' carved out of a block and then painted with hot pink glitter. In a second, I knew I had to own it. It was so over-the-top ridiculous that I called my step-mom for support.
"Chris, can I do a diva tree? Can I really buy hot pink and turquoise ornaments?"
"Honey, of course you can! It's your statement. I am not what I was, I am something new!"
"What's that- tacky?"
"No. You are still your classy self, just a little more lighthearted and embracing where you are. Go for it!"

And I did. I bought the diva ornament, turquoise sparkling deer, glittery snowflakes, and a star tree topper with more bling than both the Hilton sisters combined. I came home and was so excited I laid out all the new ornaments on the floor, so I could look at them until the big day for decorating came.

The next day, as I was driving home from work, Abbie called. "Where are you? I am at Target and I have decided that you need to come here because there is this shiny pink ornament that says 'diva' and I think you should do a Diva Tree."
I started squealing about the time she said pink and by the time she finished her sentence my vocal pitch could only be registered by dogs. "I just bought it yesterday! And that is what I am calling my tree! The Diva Tree!"
"Well, there you have it. It was meant to be."

On Thanksgiving, my step-mom gave me a turquoise and turquoise-sequined Diva Tee to wear while decorating my Diva Tree. Today was the big day for decorating (I couldn't wait any longer.) I enlisted my friend Vince to help me put up the tree. He helped me hang the lights and found a way to clip the tree topper to the tree when I might have given up since it threatened to topple the entire tree. I keep wandering into the living room just to admire my sparkling silly tree and I end up grinning like a crazy woman. I feel like a diva!

12 Step Program

My friend, Dave, without knowing about my previous post said today, "It's a funny thing about 12-step programs. Everyone knows that admitting the problem is the first step, but no one remembers that there are still 11 other steps to go."

I guess admitting that I take myself too seriously isn't all that much of the solution after all!

Too Damn Seriously

I take myself too damn seriously!

If recognizing the problem is part of the solution, then I thought I better just admit it now. I sometimes forget that I am not perfect and that I don't have to be perfect and that, even if I HAD to be perfect or suffer terrible consequences, I couldn't be perfect.

I think this obsession with perfection comes with growing up Mormon, where there is always a right way. And that right way is both straight and narrow. I remember my ex-step mom telling me that even though it was true that we needed to keep on the straight and narrow path to get too heaven, we Mormons too the "narrow" part way too seriously. There was still some space for maneuvering, even on the straight and narrow.

I haven't been on the straight and narrow for years, and yet sometimes, I find myself putting one foot in front of the other like a woman on a tightrope, scared to death of a misstep. I also occasionally become convinced that whatever decision I make now will affect me the REST OF MY LIFE. That's how I was raised. For example, we were told over and over again that the reason we were supposed to be friends with other Mormons was because that when we were old enough to date, we would date our friends, and then marry the people we date, so bam! Non-Mormon friendships inevitably lead to unhappiness and misery which will last for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

So, if admitting that I take myself too damn seriously is only part of the solution, what's the rest of it?

The Boot Museum

Hanukkah is coming soon and I will have a colleague in town from Israel during the holiday. I asked my co-workers if they would be interested in attending a Hanukkah party in our colleague's honor. They weren't sure what a Hanukkah party would be like, but they were all game. I told them that it will be nice, but Hanukkah really is more fun with kids. It's a holiday that is really for kids. One co-worker offered to bring his 7 year old daughter.

"But I have to warn you, she is going to show up in bright pink cowboy boots. We can't get her to wear anything else. We bought her a pair of pale pink boots about 6 months ago and she refused to wear anything else since then. She wore that pair so much that she wore them out and we had to go buy her some new ones. And these new ones are really, really pink.

"She loved the old ones so much and knew her mom would make her get rid of them, once she got new boots. To avoid this, she declared, 'I am opening a boot museum in the basement. I will collect boots and charge people money to come and look at the boots.' In her room she put up a low table, placed her old boots on the table and made a sign reading 'Boot Museum' and placed it by the boots. I asked her if she wanted to put my boots in the museum too. She said, 'This is only for UNUSED boots. It's a MUSEUM. Jeez.'"

I hope she comes to Hanukkah.

Modern Day Parental Concerns

As several of you have commented, I haven't been writing on this blog for the last month and a half. I haven't been doing much besides work for the last month and a half. Yesterday I got a text message from my dad, who shares a family cell phone plan with me. "Are you OK? I am starting to worry. We got our phone bill and you only sent 7 text messages last month. Are you working so hard you are losing contact with your friends?"
The answer is yes! But I thought it was such a funny way for him to find out how hard I have been working.

Lucky day

Today, while waiting for the woman at the reception counter of my gym to check me in, I saw a thigh-high girl in a pink hooded parka munching happily on an oreo as her mother spoke to the woman behind the counter. "What are you eating?" I asked her, as if her black hands and lips weren't a clear indication of the answer. Instead of answering, she grinned up at me, tottered forward and hugged my leg. Her mother was horrified, "She's covered with Oreo! Lily, stop it!"
I was, as I often am, dressed all in black from the waist down, so I wasn't worried. In order to calm the mother though, I decided to make the little girl stop hugging me by coming down to her level. I knelt down and asked her, "How old are you?" She grinned at me with complete joy, tottered forward, and hugged my neck with her tiny arms. I did what almost anyone would have and hugged her back. Her mother was horrified.

I was so thrilled that as I handed my membership card to the woman behind the counter I said, "I just got a hug for no reason!" and giggled. It felt like my lucky day.

Taking the Bus to Amsterdam

When I lived in Sweden a group of friends decided to take a trip to Amsterdam. They came back with horror stories about how it took over 12 hours by train and there were multiple places where they had to switch trains and said, in short, that it was awful. My fantastic friend Larkin decided that we would not suffer similarly. So, we decided we would take the bus to Amsterdam. We were thrilled with this solution that promised no difficult connections.

The day came for our trip. We took the city bus to the bus depot and got on the bus. When we got on the bus we were instructed that at our next stop, we were going to have to get off the bus and take a taxi to the next bus. Our stop was in the middle of nowhere by the side of a pine tree-lined road. A taxi took us to a restaurant where we ate open faced sandwiches wrapped in saran wrap and bought snacks for the trip. The next bus finally arrived. We rode on that bus for a while, until we had to get off of it, to get on the boat. After the boat, we got on another bus. And then transferred to another bus, somewhere in Germany in the middle of the night. Finally, over 20 hours later, our final bus dropped us off, where? At the train station, where we ended up taking the train to Amsterdam after all.

Ever since, "Taking the bus to Amsterdam" means sometimes, you think you've beat the system and you've only managed to get screwed. It also means those times where you learn something the hard way. I realized this morning, as I was reflecting on the challenges of dating for the first time in years, and really, dating the first time as an adult. I need to figure out what is good for me and what I need. Inevitably, I am going to end up taking the bus to Amsterdam more than once and I need to just settle back and enjoy the ride.

Merry Commercialism!

Christmas is coming and I find myself itching to buy brightly colored,shiny, tacky objects. I want to hang them around the house. I want to plug little lights in all over. I wander aisles is the grocery store and department stores like a stoned or demented person, captivated by the colors and the scents. I am not being sarcastic.

Christmas... I am scared of Christmas. A lot of mixed couples experience what has been termed the "December Dilemma". I was no exception. Christmas brought with it a turmoil of emotions. All the positive nostalgia, along with cross-cultural confusion, concern for my ex's sense of alienation, embarrassment over how tacky, commercialized, over-indulgent, and endless the holiday season can be, particularly for someone who doesn't have nostalgic childhood memories. All this made my relationship with Christmas a complicated one. It took me five years to get comfortable with it. Last year was the first year I was excited about Christmas. I was sure I had finally struck the balance and could make the most of a Christmas in Israel. I ended up in Utah at the last minute, too shaken by life and it's tricks to be able to even choose between two pairs of pajamas that I had received as gifts. It took me two days to realize I could just keep both pairs.

When we moved into this apartment, Lesha had boxes and boxes labeled decorations. "What is all this?" I asked. "It's all my Christmas junk," she said. "The whole time I was married people kept giving me all this crap I have to store somewhere. Don't you have this kind of stuff?"

"I was married to a Jewish guy."

"Oh, right. So, you've got a menorah and I've got six boxes of Christmas shit."

I am waiting to see what's in all those boxes before I indulge my desire to buy "Christmas shit". But I am already scouting.

Blossom

My copy of Rumi has a broken spine. Over the last 8 months I have read the same poem so much that the book now falls open there. It's called "Joy at Sudden Disappointment". The poem tells the story of how when Mohammed removed his shoes to pray, an eagle scooped one up. Mohammed was aggrieved, but then the eagle turned the boot over and a snake fell out. The poem is two pages and not everyone loves Rumi like I do, so I'll spare you all of it. But part of it is relevant today.

"...Look carefully around you and recognize
the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those
who draw you to that.

Learn from this eagle story
that when misfortune comes, you must quickly praise.

Others may be saying, Oh no, but you
will be opening out like a rose
losing itself petal by petal.

Someone once asked a great sheikh
what sufism was.

'The feeling of joy
when sudden disappointment comes.'..."

I love the luminous souls around me now. The gentlemen with white or silver facial hair who mentor me and teach me up close or from a distance. My little sister's soothing presence, my co-workers' sharp minds and sharper wit, the circle of friends always up for adventure in Salt Lake, and the friends that stay connected to me via my free cell phone minutes on weekends.

I am lucky for this time. Without it, I wouldn't have learned what I have about my body, about myself, about my worth - to myself and to others. Petal by petal.

The Palm

Oded always used to tell a story about The Palm restaurant in New York. I drove past a sign for The Palms, a totally unrelated place, and it instantly conjured up an image of Oded telling stories and laughing deeply, wine glass in hand, eyes scrunched at the corners. Thinking of him laughing then made me think of his daughter, Michal, a sweet, modest social worker with a penchant for dirty jokes. She'd bring them home and gather the family for a telling of the latest. Which then made me think of Orna laughing, and of Tamar performing. Like the time that Tamar came to the dinner table in an extremely low cut, skin tight top. Her mother whispered that the shirt was inappropriate. Tamar stomped off and returned in a turtleneck, long pants, and a scarf wrapped around her head. Her mother laughed until tears rolled down her face. Orna laughs like that a lot.

It's funny how thinking about laughter can make me cry.

Fear of Fire

Today started out as an ordinary work day. I got to the office at 7:30 am and started in on the conference calls and the paperwork that I put on hold during my insanely busy week last week.

My work building sits on one corner of an ENORMOUS intersection. Salt Lake's downtown streets were laid out to be wide enough for ox carts to make U-turns, which must have made sense in 1850, but since the invention of the automobile, this design has put pedestrians at constant risk. So much so that there are orange crossing guard flags strapped to signs near crosswalks so you can be your own crossing guard and then deposit the flag on the other side of the street. It's an exceptionally silly method, but I have been frightened enough for my wellbeing to use these flags more than once.

Since my work is stationed on the corner of a particularly enormous intersection, car accidents and the ensuing police and ambulance vehicles with accompanying sirens are not uncommon. We tend to peak out the window and then head back to work. Which was why it took us all a little while today to look out the window when the fire trucks stopped in front of our building and the police cars closed off our street. But eventually I did peak out, and saw that unlike usual, the firemen had unrolled their hoses in front of my window and seemed to be waiting for something to happen. We looked on for a while and then a coworker walked outside to investigate.

He came back in with a troubled look on his face. "There is a gas leak in the neighborhood. I couldn't even breathe outside." It was about then that I started to notice the scent of natural gas throughout my office. It was coming in through the vents and leaking through the windows (which should also indicate that my cubicle is freezing). Since it is freezing, we all had space heaters going. We turned off the heaters and stood around chatting, wondering what to do with ourselves. My boss kept working away merrily at her computer.

The smell of gas reminded me of two childhood fears that haunted my dreams. The first was a dream of being left in a car with my sister and the car started to roll down hill. I would climb into the driver's seat, but didn't know how to work the steering wheel or the breaks and so I could only grab at things in terror as the car picked up speed. I'd always wake up before the crash. I don't think I overcame this fear entirely until I learned how to drive. This dream is incredibly easy to interpret for those who know me well.

The other fear/nightmare was more obscure and generic. I was scared to death of a house fire. I would pray desperately every night to be spared from waking up to a house full of smoke. Every evening I was sure that the house would burn down, and even more sure on nights when I was sleeping over at a friend's house. Perhaps it came from too many fire drills at school.

When I was about 12, I nannied for a family that had been in a fire. One of their four children had died in the fire along with a cousin who was babysitting at the time. One of the children was visibly scarred, and the other two were clearly internally scarred, as their behavior and artwork showed. I loved these kids, even when one prank called 911 and then hid. Even when one ground on the foot of a famous children's poet mid performance of the guitar playing poet. I think my fear of fire, interestingly, faded at about this time.

Today, during the gas leak, my old fear of fire came flooding back. When my boss realized that we should clear out, I had my bag packed and was out the door in two minutes. The firemen wouldn't allow us to drive (a spark starts the ignition) so my boss's husband was coming to pick people up a few blocks away. I didn't want to wait for the ride, I just got out and started walking. I realized I was sick to my stomach and my hands were shaking. I walked for about 10 minutes and then felt like a jerk. I hadn't stayed to make sure the building didn't blow up on my coworkers. I am normally calm in a crisis. I tend to do best when things are chaotic and challenging. I hoped to be someone who could remain calm and help others during a disaster. Thus, I find it interesting that I bolted.

I also find it interesting that I didn't leave the building until given permission. And I didn't suggest that leaving might be in order, given there were 5 fire trucks and 2 police cars and the whole block was affected. This was no minor leak; a neighbor didn't forget to turn off the stove. A construction team across the street apparently hit a gas pipe while digging. Our office building was declared unsafe for re-entry for over 5 hours. I think I need to keep working on those assertiveness skills.

Afarsimon

My favorite fruit, or one of them, is the persimmon, 'afarsimon' in Hebrew. The truth is, I don't even know how I am supposed to pronounce the word in English. Is it PERsimmon, or persimON? I don't know how to say it English, because I have never eaten one in America.

The first time I saw a persimmon was in Sweden. My Japanese friend was thrilled to find one in the grocery store in our small town in Sweden. She didn't know what it was called in any language but Japanese, but she told me that it was her favorite fruit and they were common in Japan. It looked to me like a little pumpkin the size of a plum. She cut into it carefully, almost tenderly, and proffered me a little piece. I was so taken with the fact that it looked like a pumpkin, and with the firm texture of the flesh of the fruit, that it tasted almost like a pumpkin to me- and it was just plain weird.

In Israel, persimmons are everywhere this time of year and throughout the winter. At my job there would be plates of fruit at many of our meetings and in the winter there were always little orange persimmons buried among the oranges and apples. I don't really like apples, and I couldn't concentrate while peeling an orange, much less take notes with sticky hands. I was left with the persimmon- a fruit that doesn't need to be peeled, doesn't crunch loudly, and the juice rarely runs down over your hand as you eat.

I don't remember the first one I ate in Israel, or if it was the first time that I tried it that my love affair with them began, or if I came to a gradual understanding that this was the most incredible fruit in the world. I started rushing to meetings to get to a persimmon before they were gone. I'd take any left over ones back with me to my office, and stop by the market on the way home to get more.

It's officially autumn in Utah and my craving for persimmons is rising. For the last month I have been looking in stores for them to start appearing. I figure if there are mangoes and guavas, there should be persimmons. Yesterday at breakfast I asked my companions to let me know if they ran across any persimmons while shopping.

Immediately after breakfast, I went shopping in a fine foods market, thinking maybe, just maybe, this was the store where I would find my favorite fruit. I walked in and allowed myself to be distracted for only a moment by the bags of nuts, the jars of jam with flavors like Almond Orange Blossom, and then rushed into the produce section. I meandered among the root vegetables and then found myself in the plum section and right next to the plums, there were the persimmons!

There was no price tag, so I tracked down an employee to help me. "What is this thing?" he asked when I handed one to him. "Can you spell it for me?" he asked. He showed it to another employee who also had no idea what it was. He wandered away. Five minutes later he came back. "It's $1.99. Each." Ouch. I couldn't do it. My experience with splurging on figs had taught me that fruit that has ripened while being trucked across great distances, doesn't taste anything like fruit that has been picked yesterday and transported 15 miles to the market, and so probably isn't worth the enormous expense. Until I just can't take it anymore. And then I buy it anyway, and think about the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia where the children realize that they have been living in a shadow world, where the colors are dimmer, the tastes less intense, the smells nearly non-existent. In Utah, I eat shadow produce.

I am not yet that desperate. So, I put down my little fruit and walked out into the snow. Yes, snow. For the second time this year- and it is only the first part of October.

Spanish

I have no one in Utah with whom to speak in Hebrew. I fought so hard to learn this language and I love it. I don't want to lose what I have. This means that I have begun speaking to myself. In the car on the way home, I tell myself about my day in Hebrew, as if I were telling a friend. I plan what I will do in the evening, and who I need to call. I write my grocery lists in Hebrew and try to learn the lyrics to Hebrew songs as I drive to work. This is truly the opposite of easy come, easy go. More like fought for with sweat and tears, and clung to forcefully.

When I was first in Utah in January, I made lists of things to help me survive should I be forced to ever live here again. One of the items on this list was to learn Spanish, since here I am so surrounded by it. There are people to speak to, there are signs everywhere, brochures are often bilingual, there are Spanish radio stations, and Spanish television stations. I have begun to study Spanish, and to increase my vocabulary, and just for the sheer joy of it, I have started reading Pablo Neruda's poems. I read each poem first out loud in Spanish and challenge myself to understand as much as I can. Then I read it in English, silently. Reading this luscious poetry feels like eating rich chocolate. I flip through the book and sample poems with the same sense of anticipation that I have when I poke through a box of chocolates, looking for one with a perfect center.

When I was in elementary school, we had an early morning program where we were supposed to learn Spanish. I have two memories from this program: a puppet show, and a show that we put on for the parents. I got to wear a long black skirt and put a big flower in my hair. The downside was that I had to dance with a boy. I remember absolutely no Spanish from this class, but I hope that somewhere, Spanish grammar is hiding in the depths of my subconscious, and when I start to study Spanish seriously, it will come rising to the surface.

Focus, focus, focus

Boston is such a lovely city. I remember walking down streets with a sense of being constantly charmed. I would bike along the bike paths that line the Charles river, looking at the city spread out before me. My 19 year old sister came to visit us once and we took her walking along those paths. "Holy cow!" she said. "This city is kicking my butt!" Which is one way of putting it.

I loved the little parks, the store windows that were lit up in the winter evenings as I rode the C-line home, the old houses that lined the street to the reservoir. Everything from the gigantic old trees with their brilliant colored autumn leaves, to the architecture, to the landscaping, brought pleasure to my eyes.

It was a shock when I moved to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is famous for it's Bauhaus architecture, so much so that it was declared a World Heritage site. Sadly, it was designed to be "The White City," but there isn't enough white paint to go around and it has become the gray city. And unfortunately for me, it turns out that I am not such a big fan of Bauhaus. Of course there were pockets of loveliness in the city, the newly rebuilt port, the park that stretched all along the river that ran two blocks from my apartment and that served as a migratory corridor for birds flying north from Africa. It took about a year, but I learned to stop scanning rooftops for the ornamentation that I had loved in Boston. Instead, I learned to focus on the plants and trees that flower all year round. My favorite tree had flattened out foliage, so it looked as if it belonged in Africa. In early summer, brilliant red flowers sprouted out from the flattened tree top.

Salt Lake, like anywhere, is a mixture of the breathtakingly lovely, and the depressingly mundane and ugly. I ordered an ice coffee and sat outside of the cafe to drink it. In Tel Aviv, my eyes would have been captivated by the gorgeous, sharply dressed young people around me. Here, I was all alone, staring into a parking lot. But the trick with Salt Lake, is to lift your eyes, up past the cars in the parking lot, up past the roof tops, and the tree tops, to the massive wall of mountains that can be seen from any point in the valley. I sipped my coffee and feasted my eyes on the dark green pine forests and the ocher colored rocks. The mountains never fail to be lovely, but the last couple of days, as they received the first light dusting of snow along the peaks, and the gigantic, full, cream-colored moon rose over them while the eastern sky still reflected the pink and orange of the sun setting to the west, they have been breathtaking.

Charlie Chaplin

I absolutely adore Charlie Chaplin. I saw my first Charlie Chaplin film only about three years ago, in the depths of a Boston winter that was too cold for doing much besides watching movies. I was surprised to discover that I love slapstick comedy. I was also surprised to find the range of emotions that can be communicated only via a face, or in body language.

This weekend, Radio West, an NPR show that broadcasts from Salt Lake, held an event at the lovely Capital Theater in downtown Salt Lake. For only 25 cents, we were treated to the live broadcast of the radio show, featuring a silent film organist, NPR's film critic, a professor of film, and an expert on Chaplin. During the commercial breaks, we saw clips of Chaplin films accompanied by the organ. (Did you know those organists improv the music as they play?)

People came in costume, costumed sellers sold popcorn for 25 cents, and the citizens of Salt Lake came in droves, representing an enormous range of ages. The line snaked out the doors of the theater 45 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin.

After the end of the radio broadcast, the organist accompanied a Chaplin short. It was apparent from the organist's body language and facial expressions that he had spent a lot of time watching silent films. His movements and facial expressions were all just a little larger than life. At the end of the short, he received an enormous round of applause, which he graciously received, and then moved very deliberately to take a seat in the audience. Without words he said, "No matter how many times I have seen a Chaplin film, I am looking forward to seeing this one." He settled into his seat as the opening credits for "City Lights" began to roll.

I don't see a lot of movies, particularly in theaters. This experience reminded me of why people go to theaters. It wasn't even just the sense of it being an occasion, what with the costumes and the ornate building. The real draw was that there were several times during the show when the audience reacted almost as one, with enormous bursts of laughter, gasps of surprise, and once, an "oh!" that was so gigantic, and so completely in unison, that I think we surprised ourselves. I was certainly surprised, at least.

Yom Kippur

Rosh Hashana was such a hit, I didn't expect that Yom Kippur would be such a challenge. Rosh Hashana was always better celebrated with friends around. It is a festive holiday and rejuvenating. Yom Kippur is a solemn day. In Israel, no one drives. One of my favorite stories is a joke about an immigrant who explains what Yom Kippur is in Israel.

"Yom Kippur is a day when a great miracle occurs. Every other day of the year, many people are driving and yet there is never any parking- anywhere. But one day of year, on Yom Kippur, no one drives and yet everyone finds parking!"

Anyway, no one drives. People don't usually speak on the phone. It is a time to remain at home, or go for strolls, watch videos, reflect, think, and be with family. Which makes it only natural that this was a day where I found myself desperately missing my Israeli family.

I had planned to go out with friends on Friday night, not making the connection that this would be the holiday, or that the day might be a challenging one. In the end, I did end up going out and enjoyed it immensely. I spent the next day at home, fulfilling the mitzvah of torturing my soul (by listening to Jewish liturgical music), and then practicing my Hebrew.

I think that this is how my relationship with the Jewish holidays will be from now on- hit and miss. A little bit of this, a lot of that, none of the other. I am working on accepting the fact that it will be a dynamic relationship as I continue to come in contact with new cultures and new people.

Happy New Year!

What do you get when a previously Mormon girl of Swedish descent celebrates Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year)? A two layer chocolate honey cake with handmade marzipan bees! I hate that I didn't take a picture of this culinary masterpiece that topped off a lovely meal with friends and family. The guests were fascinating. Saul, the guest of honor, and the only Jewish person, said the Kiddush (with a little help from me). He also showed off his lung power. Saul has a lung capacity four times that of a normal person. This makes for a great party trick!

Saul's fiancee was also in attendance, as were several friends, my sister and her boyfriend. Not only was it the first meal of the new year, it was also the first meal we hosted in our new apartment. I love hosting and Rosh Hashana is one of my favorite holidays. I had worried that I would be depressed or emotional on that day, but the autumn is my favorite time of year and naturally feels like a time of new beginnings. This autumn in particular is full of new beginnings and I feel that easier times are on the horizon for the year to come.

In order to properly celebrate the holiday, as well as do justice to the first communal meal in our house, I spent three days cooking. I made the afore mentioned honey cake (the traditional dessert) across all three days. In addition, I made challah with chunks of apple, Iranian pomegranate chicken, saffron rice, roasted autumn vegetables, and salad. The meal was a hit. When leaving, some of my guests apologized for leaving before midnight. It was only then that I realized I had forgotten to explain that it already was New Year's and we didn't have to wait until midnight. Next time I celebrate a Jewish holiday, I think I'll need to do some more advance preparation with the guests!

The thrill of being in my own place, of living in a place where canned pumpkin is readily available, the joy of having friends join me around the table, the gratitude for the people in my life embracing my Israeli side and joining in the party, culminated in near euphoria. I have been enjoying the memory of this lovely evening ever since.

My Israeli Side

I told my friend Mica that there was a guy that I sort of liked. "Does he know about your Israeli side?" she asked.

"Of course. I think that it is something that he likes in me. I mean, it shows that I am international, well-traveled, and that I can adapt to new situations and I am open to new experiences." At least I think that's what it shows. But I went out to dinner with another guy today and showed him one of the books I had just bought at the store. Yehuda Amichai's last book of poetry translated into English.

"Do you think that maybe by clinging to Judaism and these things, you are preventing yourself from getting over your ex?" he asked.

I was mortified. There was my worst fear coming true, someone equating an entire religion and some of my most profound experiences with my ex. I told him, "Imagine if you had moved out of Utah after your divorce and then you never spoke about Utah or anything that happened during those 10 years you lived there. You never brought up your knowledge of Mormonism, or what it was like to hike in the Wasatch. All those times you went snowboarding, they were about you, not about your ex. She probably wasn't even there with you. Admit it, it would be eerie if you just cut out those 10 years of your life. It would be unhealthy. It's just that the experiences I have had are so foreign that you notice them when I talk about them in a way that someone else would never notice if you brought up the Uintah mountains."

I had also bought a book of French poetry and a book of Buddhist teachings. Don't those say something about me too? Something that is as profoundly me as Amichai's book?

It's true that I wasn't planning on inviting any dates to celebrate Rosh Hashana with me. I realize how weird that looks to people who don't know me. But for those who do, they know that I have been celebrating this holiday "religiously" for the last 8 years and that, beyond that, part of me is Israeli; part of me is secular Jewish. At this stage, giving it up would have more to do with Yuval than embracing these parts of me. I imagine that at some later stage it might fade in importance for me, but for now, I am looking forward to baking challah on Tuesday with my non-Jewish friends, and I have already been planning the dinner menu for a week. This weekend I have plans to test out the pomegranate chicken recipe. Just not on Sunday. Sunday I am going to the most authentic Chinese restaurant in the city and then watching The Joy Luck Club with my new Chinese friend.

Elul

I have spent a lot of time reflecting over the last few weeks. It is after all, the month of Elul in the Jewish calendar. Elul is a traditional time of contemplation and I have certainly been doing my fair share. In fact, so much of my fair share that the last few days I decided I simply cannot think any more. I have done enough spiritual growth and contemplation to last me for a little while and I am worn out and sick of the sound of my own thoughts. Accordingly, I have been doing more pilates, taking longer walks, reading and talking with friends.

My biggest challenge of the moment, and one that I cannot seem to overcome, no matter how many walks I take, is being comfortable with where I am right now. I had a blissful moment a few weeks ago where I finally stopped wishing that my life had a fast forward button. I felt for the first time in months, maybe even years, a great calm and a lovely acceptance of where I was.

Then, in a matter of a day, that sense was shattered and ever since I have been trying to outrun myself. The truth is, where I am right now is messy. I am messy. I don't feel like a competent, intelligent woman. I feel like I nervous young woman who missed the dating phase in her life and now has to learn the same things everyone already learned when they were in their late teens and early twenties. It's rather unnerving to try and pass myself off as a healthy adult when what I am is an anxious, naive teenager, and a limping ex-wife. In fact, I cannot do it. My neuroses are simply hanging out all over the place like so many unpacked clothes in a heap next to my emotional baggage. "Good lord, look at that mess!" I keep thinking. And so, I have taken the last few weeks to pull out and examine some of these clothes and see what it is I am lugging around with me. But now what, after I have done all the thinking I can do?

I think the answer to my 'now what?' resides in the question: 'Now'. I need to accept that I am actually here, living my life, right now. I can't outrun myself. I am here with all of my messiness, confusion, and uncertainty. All things that will hopefully resolve themselves eventually. But right now I am here, enjoying the rain storms of the end of summer, the first hikes of the early fall, the incredible sunrises that start later and later each day, the cup of morning coffee with an autumnal dash of cinnamon, the fresh peaches from Abbie's tree, the friends around the world who are patient with me as I continue to take myself too seriously and do too much thinking, and trying to learn to embrace life in all its messy glory.

Missles and Jackals

Just over two years ago, a year before the war with Hezbullah, I went on a camping trip. Yuval and I and another couple went. We drove up to the green northern border, stopped at a roadside restaurant and filled up on hummus, salads, meat, and lemonade and then hiked through streams to a crumbling Crusader castle. After the hike, we started driving to find our camping spot. The border with Lebanon had been quiet since Israel's withdrawal a few years previous, so we were surprised to find our way blocked by an army truck. The soldier signaled us to stop. We did so, and rolled down our windows.
"Hezbullah has been firing over the fence," he said.
"Can we drive through," we asked, "or should we turn around."
"You can go," he said. "Just no bathroom breaks on the side of the road."
Everyone laughed as I thought, "we are all going to die."
We drove along the road that passed right next to the fence that demarcates the border. After a few minutes we turned off a little towards the camping spot. Another army truck blocked the road.
"Can we go down here?" we asked.
The soldier shrugged as his commander walked over.
"Is it safe to stay the night here?" we asked the commander.
The commander shrugged too, "Is anywhere safe?" he asked.
We drove a minute further into the campground. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked the males. "Can you show me where we are on the map?" They pulled out the map and showed me the half a pinkie nail distance between us and the border with Lebanon. I called a council with the other woman, we decided the men were insane and we got back into the car and kept driving.
When we were about an entire pinkie nail away from the border, and it was starting to get dark we found an empty camp site in the middle of nowhere. We set up camp, lit a fire, drank wine, roasted marshmallows, and listened to the jackals howl in the night time around us, until we said goodnight to the hyraxes and crawled sleepily into our tents.
The next morning when we woke and started wandering around in the daylight we found we were camping on the outskirts of a preserved town from about the first century. We climbed up and down ruined walls, sat on wine press wheels, and lost ourselves in the maze of streets. There were no signs, no ropes keeping us out of any area. By Israel's standards, it was apparently not a very important first century village, so no one had really bothered to do much besides dig it up. After we had wandered our way down the last stone street, we got back in the car and drove back to the humid heat of a late Tel Aviv spring.

Why am I thinking of this story while in Utah, in the beginning of fall? Because I am not feeling very brave today. I needed to remind myself that I survived Hezbullah and wild jackals. I can survive whatever's next.

Old Friends, Sitting like Bookends

It's been a crazy two weeks, completely unconducive to writing for pleasure. Things have started to settle down the last few days and my brain is starting to clear- the insomnia induced fog is fading and my to-do lists are consolidating. The move into the new apartment was far more trying than I expected. Those around me don't seem much surprised by that, but I was hit out of the blue. For months I have looked forward to having my own space and my own home again. I didn't expect the air of finality that would accompany this move. Moving into my own place means that I am truly single and living with my sister in Utah, at the age of 28.

Obviously, I knew this before the day we went to pick up the moving truck. I guess that is why I was surprised to find myself crying as I packed up my books to move them from my mom's house to my new place. Books to me are like friends: there are some that are clearly associated with specific times and phases, and others that have stayed with me and become a part of me and my character and I find myself reassured just by being near them.

Several of my books are associated in some way with Yuval. They are gifts he gave me, authors he introduced to me, or the first books I owned in Hebrew. I found to my surprise, not only that I was crying, but that I was crying as though for someone who was dead, and had been dead for a while. My Yuval is dead, because I was in love with him in the past and in love with who I was certain he would become and in love with the life that we were going to build together. That Yuval, with that future intertwined with mine, doesn't exist, nor does the potential for that future together. It was actually nice to cry without longing. I have spent so much time the last year longing for things to be different- for me to be different, for him to be different, for our circumstances to change, for time to speed itself up and rush me into the future where the pain is already lessened.

After a week of turmoil, moving, working, setting up house, buying furniture, changing light bulbs, etc. I found a lovely bookshelf and prepared myself for unpacking my books. This time, the sadness didn't come. Instead, I found myself laughing over the homemade book my friend Larkin made me in Sweden, "Chicken Soup for the Swedish Soul: For those two bunny and a moose days". Two bunny and a moose days were the days that were so gloomy that a single stuffed animal just didn't cut it. They were the homesick days, the break up days, the sick-of-a-foreign place days when Larkin and I would cry until we had to laugh at ourselves, and each other, and life. Whenever we got to that point we would create toilet paper banners and wave them and dab our eyes with all the melodrama we could muster and declare that we were "going to write a letter about this!"

I found the children's books that my friend Kim has given me over the years. Each one has a dedication to me in her beautiful handwriting encouraging me on my journey, to continue bravely in whatever new direction I had been heading at the time. It's the idea of a continuation that is so powerfully reassuring to me. I had been mourning "starting all over". But we are all still here, my books, my friends, and me.

Things I Love about Utah

I have had the lovely experience lately of going about my daily business and experiencing little waves of pleasure washing over me, and finding myself thinking, "I am glad I am in Utah." This is not something that I ever expected to find myself thinking and so I find it even sweeter for its strangeness.

Here are some of the things I love:

The view of the mountains as I drive toward my condo. I have never lived in this part of the city before and the mountains are enormous seen from this perspective. Their golden brown sides, burned by the July sun seem to reach forever, and the clouds seem to billow like smoke around them.

The Wasatch beer company. Not only do they make decent beer, they make me smile. Their ads poke fun at the dominant culture in a way that is subversive, and yet somehow friendly. (At least I hope so. I don't think I know anyone who is religious and actually offended.) Their ad for Polygamy Porter: "Polygamy Porter- Take some how to the wives." There is also the 1st Ammendment Lager, with a label that sports a quote by Benjamin Franklin: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Xeriscaping. Finally, people here seem to be catching on to the fact that we are in a desert and water is a valuable, scarce resource. More and more people are choosing landscaping options that minimize the need for water and that take advantage of desert plants and native plant species. I love seeing these yards "sprouting" up all around the city.

The Avenues. My work is well located in the older part of the city and is surrounded by beautiful Victorian houses that for the most part are well cared for and brightly painted and I always know which street to turn on to get to my office because the house on the corner has a 10 x 10 foot poster of Elvis singing. They must have waterproofed it because it's survived a week of afternoon summer showers.

In some ways, it's good to be here. (Ironically, I originally wrote 'home' in place of the word, here, and I was so uncomfortable I had to change it. Now that's telling.)

Ugly

I used to think that it was the lack of civility that made divorce ugly. I remember my parents fighting over the children, the furniture, the blame. We've all heard or lived horror stories containing lawyer fees, custody battles, drunken middle-of-the-night phone calls, broken windows, etc. Lesha just made me a mix cd with a great song about smashing up a cheating lover's car. She played it to me when I first arrived in Utah, and I wasn't to a point yet where I could laugh about any of the feelings in the storm of emotions that I was weathering. She had already moved on to the point where laughter was possible, and I am thrilled to find that I am there now too, blasting the music and singing along: "I dug my key into the side of his pretty little suped up 4-wheel drive, I carved my name into his leather seats. I took a Louisville slugger to both tail lights..." You get the idea.

My divorce has been remarkably civil. We lived in the same house until I left the country; we hung out with the same friends, and still do have contact with mutual friends. There haven't been court battles and we really don't own much of anything worth fighting over. The things that we might have fought over weren't worth the cost of shipping to the States. After my first hand experience with a civil divorce, I feel safe in saying that it isn't the lack of civility that makes divorces ugly.

In my case, I think the civility was ugly. I wish I would have shouted and yelled more while I had the chance. I wish I wouldn't have worried about being "good" and "doing the right thing". I wish that what I had done instead was take care of myself. I feel like I betrayed myself. Which is why I am glad that I am starting fresh with a new life, and new friends, and a new place. As I design my apartment I am thinking about how I am going to create a refuge and a place to take care of me.

One ugly thing about divorce is that there are parts of my personality, my spirit, my psyche that were merged into another person and have grown to compliment and compensate, or have become underdeveloped or fallen into disuse because they were compensated for by another person. I am creating an emotional hothouse of sorts, where I can tend to these places- fertilize my skills at navigating and friend making, trim back my sense of responsibility and my tendency to worry. I can't wait to create this refuge. I owe it to myself.

Faxes and Phone Numbers

I had to go fax my tax information to my accountant in Israel tonight. It's what everyone wants to be doing on a Thursday night. My 22-year old step sister was staying over with me at my mom's house so I recruited her to come along for the ride. We drove along, singing together to the Black Eyed Peas and then fell to complaining about how we are both lonely and looking for more people to hang out with and that all we want are people in our lives that we can call when we come up with fun things to do. She is newly back from her mission, and, this being Utah, the majority of her friends are married off. I still feel new here as well.

We walked into the store and the guy behind the counter was exceptionally friendly. He was from the East Coast and had just barely moved here. I asked him if he came to go to school and he said he'd already completed his undergraduate, which inched him somewhat closer to my age range. He looked about my age, but who can tell? No wonder people like on-line dating; it would be great for those of us who are single if we could all carry signs around stating our age, marital status, sexual orientation, and interests. He sent my fax for us, and as we were turning to leave, he asked for our names.

My sister and I went out to the car and she said to me "Yeah, well, I see a lot of copies and faxes in your future."
"Yeah," I laughed and opened the car door. As I moved to sit down, I remembered what we had been saying when we left it. "I just want new people to hang out with." I felt like a hypocrite. I hate feeling like a hypocrite. "I am going to go ask that guy for his number," I said. "He's probably like 21 and he is working here, and he is going to think I am crazy, but I am going to do it."
My sister cheered.

I entered the store and the guy said, "Hey, you came back! I realized we didn't get the confirmation report from your fax."
"And I realized I didn't get your number," I said. "Do you mind if I have it? I am new here too and am looking for people to do stuff with me."
We started chatting about the East Coast and Utah and art and hiking- looking for mutual interests. After a while, I asked him if the report had come through yet. It hadn't so we went to try from another fax.
We sent it through and a paper printed out. "Hey, look! This time the report is coming right away," he said.
"But a paper printed out last time too," I said, showing him the paper he had handed me the first time I had left. "Is this the confirmation report?"
"Are you serious? Of course you are serious. You are holding it. I must have given it to you."
"So, this is what we were waiting for all along?" I asked.
He looked ready to sink through the floor.
"It's OK. I still got your number," I said, scooping up my papers, including both reports, and headed out the door.

Comparing and Contrasting

Usually I don't pay attention to the Gmail ads that pop up along side my email, triggered by seemingly random words in the mail. Today was different. I opened up an email that contained the phone numbers to my Israeli bank and while I was waiting on hold, dazed by trying to handle banking at 6 am thanks to the time change, my eyes wandered over to the ads. One in particular caught my eye. It was for "Great Deals on Hostess Dresses!" What in the world was a hostess dress, and how could a letter containing only a bank's name and phone number trigger it? Since there wasn't much to do while waiting on hold, I opened the link. Even after seeing them, it took me a minute to figure out what these dresses were. I thought maybe they were for religious Muslim women, until I looked up the locations and found that there is one in B'nai Brak, the ultra-orthodox city near Tel-Aviv. I was fascinated by the dresses, note the names: Sunset Boulevard, Greta Garbo, Soft Innocence. I cannot imagine anything further from those names than the all black and all white floor length dresses in these photos. Isn't it interesting that they borrow the names from life styles that are shunned? I mean, why exactly would an ultra-orthodox woman want to resemble anything related to Sunset Boulevard?

Then I started thinking about the Mormon fashion parallel. For the most part, Mormons dress modernly, albeit more modestly than many non-Mormons. For example, knee length shorts, which Lesha calls "morts" (a contraction of Mormon shorts) are a common site here. But when Mormons go into the temple, they wear modest clothes that aren't so far off from the hostess dresses. Here is that link.

Who knew there was a wide world of religious fashion out there? It's amazing what one discovers on hold at 6 am.

Thanks

I just want to thank those of you who are reading this blog. I appreciate all your feedback and love hearing from you. It encourages me to keep writing.

And an extra thanks for those who go so far as to post comments in response!

Tisha B'av is the 24th of July

I received this email today from my sweet friend Dor in Boston:

Thought I'd let you know today was a fasting day and a special day when people commemorate the destruction of the first and the second temple in Jerusalem. Actually the three weeks prior to today are called (freely translated) between the limits of sorrows. During those days orthodox Jews mourn. No marriages, no dancing, avoiding music and no blessings on a new clothing or fruits. No haircuts or the allowed shaving, etc ...

The first temple was burned by the Babylonian soldiers. The second temple was destroyed by the Roman Titus. Amazingly enough those two events in history took place on the same day. Later in history this day was also the day Jews were cast away from Spain in 1492. Ferdinand the king of Spain decided that by the end of July that year the foot of no Jew will step on the land of Spain.

A lot happens on this day and I won't bore you with details .. just wanted to keep you in touch since you expressed your feelings about that distance between you and everything that is Jewish."

Little did Dor know that it was also a Mormon holiday today. The 24th of July is the day that Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon settlers arrived to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Before I post the Wikipedia blurb, I'll just say that this bit of history is still being argued about between Mormons and the few non-Mormons who care enough to argue about it. The Wikipedia article is written from the Mormon view.

"Since its founding in 1830, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were often harshly treated and persecuted by their neighbors, primarily due to their inclination toward social and political unity and their unorthodox religious beliefs. There was violence directed against the Church, its members, and its leader, Joseph Smith. This among other reasons caused the body of the Church to move from one place to another- Ohio, Missouri, and then to Illinois where church members built the city of Nauvoo. Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an extermination order against all Mormons living in the state. In 1844 Joseph Smith was killed by a mob while in custody in the city of Carthage, Illinois. In 1846, religious tension reached their peak, and in 1848 mobs burned the Latter-day Saint temple in Nauvoo."

After moving from place to place in the East, the Mormons moved out West to Utah, which was not part of the US at the time, in order to establish their own place- Deseret. Which, for those of you who had no idea what I was referring to in my blog's subtitle, now you do.

There, now everyone on both sides of my life learned something today. :)

The Joys of Skype

Today was one of those blah days. It's grey here in SLC, but still hot and humid- the sky is heavy, but refusing to rain and my work requires hours of straight concentration while I sit and write and try and keep my mind from wandering. It's also a state holiday, but there is too much work to be done on a tight deadline, so I went into the office anyway. At the end of the day, my mind started to wander and I saw that my friend, Mica, in Israel, was online. Mica apparently never, ever sleeps. She is always online in the middle of the night. It used to be that she would stay up late and sleep late, but I think having a 9-month old must make that impossible. While I worry about Mica's not sleeping, I certainly benefit from it! It means that I have someone to chat with on the computer on dull, grey days, and today was just such a day.

Mica tried to convince me to move back to Israel and in the course of the conversation I had to face two things that I have known for a while. The first, I cannot go back to Israel to live- ever, unless I change something major in my life- like my marital or religious status. Second, life over here is much, much easier. I don't know how much of that is due to the fact that here I am single, but it really is easier. I felt like I was scraping out an existence in Israel. Everything around me seemed so expensive and the things I wanted in life- a nice condo, a nice car, seemed unobtainable, at least for the foreseeable future. At this time last year, we were listening to war planes fly overhead and watching the news every night to hear about the latest destruction in Israel and Lebanon.

In spite of this, there are bizarre longings that wash over me, triggered by odd things. Today's grey sky looked just like a winter day in Jerusalem and I would love to know that someday soon I would be walking through the Old City and ending the day with a cup of hot cocoa at Tmol Shilshom. The other day I was in the grocery store and noticed that my neighborhood grocer has started to carry Puffin cereal. This is the cereal that I ate all through grad school in Boston. And that was enough to make me sniff a little. I am certain as I get more settled in here, I won't find myself sniffling over brand names, but in the meantime, it's nice to know that there are good friends around the world, at all hours of the day and night.

Beto's

One thing that I missed desparately whenever I have lived out of the country is Mexican food. The entire year in Sweden we were starved for Mexican food, so when we took a trip to Norway and found that there was a Mexican restaurant in Oslo, we treked across town in order to find it. I still remember the white plate that arrived with white food swimming in white sauce. I received something that looked like a flour tortilla covered in cream of mushroom sauce out of a can. I don't know where in Mexico those Norweigan's had been, but it certainly wasn't anywhere I ever want to go. Even the East Coast never had the kind of Mexican food that I was missing. Of course, there was incredible Cuban food, Spanish food, Italian food, Indian food... Oh, I miss Boston and New York! But, still, there is nothing to compare to the Mexican food here.

I recently discovered a new thing about Utah Mexican food. It's what everyone eats on the weekend at 3 in the morning when everything else is closed and everyone has been drinking long enough to start craving grease. A few weeks ago, Abbie and I drove by one of the drive-through Mexican places at 4 am, on the way back from playing sand volleyball. We had planned to stop, but the line snaked around the entire restaurant. Now, in some cities, this wouldn't be strange. In Salt Lake, where everything else is silent and everything has already been closed for an hour or more, it's especially shocking. Fortunately, Abbie is not a stranger to these late night Mexican food runs, and we found another, quieter one about 10 blocks away, where we could get our three pound burritos wrapped in lard and white flour tortillas. For those of you that worried I was getting to thin- worry no more! The solution has been found and my weight is rising accordingly. In fact, I am beginning to worry!

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...

I did a photo shoot last weekend. A friend of mine who is a fantastic photographer offered half seriously and I jumped at the chance. He is a man who could make any woman look beautiful. He makes run down houses in Kayesville, Utah, look like exotic destinations, and department store clothes look like haute couture. Introducing...Jake Garn. Check it out.

I went to the shoot with a suitcase full of retro clothes from Leah. I didn't end up wearing very much of anything, and in the photo, I look like I am wearing even less! We used the backdrop of Jake's living room wall, and I stood there, worrying that my shirt was going to fall off, trying to destress myself enough that my jaw muscles wouldn't look clenched in the photos. It was nothing like pretending to be a model in the mirror when I am bored and brushing my teeth. Jake has nice eyes, and had a non-judgmental face, but it was still a challenge to have him stare at me in the bright glow of the lights and I felt like my face showed every bit of my nervousness. Which makes the fact that the photograph came out beautiful even more incredible.

The photograph set me thinking about feminine beauty in general. The feminine beauty I love the most is well-personified by one of Orna's artworks:


I began daydreaming about how I would capture that sort of strength in a photograph, and then I realized, I am not a photographer. But I am a storyteller, so let me tell you about it instead. The backdrop is the Four Corners desert, a plateau stretches off in the distance where it meets the sky. The air is soft; the light is soft- it is a spring dawn. I am standing on a dry patch of dirt next to a small, earth colored house. An elderly woman with a long stick in her hand is teaching me to plant her garden according to Navajo tradition, at dawn. Her wrinkled hands drop a seed into the red-brown earth. "Your turn," she says, and hands me the stick and some seeds.

It's this that I want to capture. The one generation saying to the next, "It's your turn." She didn't have many people around her to listen to her and learn from what she wanted to pass on, so I did. She taught me about how to pick the right kind of grass for basket weaving, how to make fry bread, how to speak a little Navajo, and how to mop. It killed her I didn't know how to use her enormous mop. I want to capture her like that too- mouth wide, in hysterics because I don't know how to mop. I tried to explain I had mopped, just with different kinds of mops, but she wouldn't have it. She knew a spoiled city girl when she saw one.

I want to capture too the omnipresent absence of men in the community. There was no work on the reservation and some of the men went in search of a living, some were in jail, some had simply disappeared and no one knew where they were. Some of them were missed by their wives and children, some of them weren't. Usually what I saw were women alone. Women with their mothers and daughters scratching out a living from the ground, from their sheep. Quiet women bumping down dirt roads in gigantic trucks, children or dogs bouncing around in the back.

Rapunzle, Rupunzle

I am house sitting in a lovely house that overlooks the entire Salt Lake valley. I invited Abbie to come and enjoy the hot tub with me, while we soaked in the cool canyon breeze with the lights of the city laid out below us. As soon as she arrived, I poured her a glass of white wine and started a tour of the house. After we finished with the ground floor, we moved up to the top floor and out one of the bedrooms onto a balcony with a panoramic view. The day had been cloudy, and suddenly one of the cool canyon breezes became more than breeze and, with a vengeance, slammed the door behind us.

My first thought: Oh, no. Please let this be one of the doors without a locking door handle.

I tried the door, it was locked and the wind was blowing harder. Abbie's voice began to rise in pitch and volume, shrieking-muttering words that I couldn't quite make out, other than, "and on a school night!"

"Don't worry," I said. "We'll call someone."

"Except we don't have a phone," she said.

"Oh, well no wonder you are freaking out. We have a phone." This house is so large that I have taken to carrying my cell phone around in my pocket because otherwise I would never hear it ring. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you right away," I said. I started scrolling through my list of contacts. Who exactly is the right person to call when you are locked outside on a balcony, in a wind storm, on the outskirts of the city at 11:00 at night? My sister? No answer.

"I don't want to call anyone," said Abbie. "I want to find our own way out of this."

"You are right. Let's do that." I reached over the balcony ledge and felt the texture of the roof shingles. They were rough and hard, the way I remembered them as a kid- the last time I climbed on a roof. Fortunately, I hadn't even tasted the wine yet, so I was relatively sure that my judgement was mostly sound when I climbed over the balcony ledge and started scrambling across the roof. Abbie wasn't so sure.

"This is crazy, this is crazy!" she repeated.

I turned the corner of the roof, expecting to find the balcony to the room where I was sleeping, where I knew the door was still open. No luck, the roof didn't continue and the roof that led to the other balcony was a good 7 feet over my head. I stared at it for a while and then looked down over the roof edge. My new car was parked under the roof, but the roof of my car was still a serious plunge away and I imagined myself slamming into it, denting it and me. I tested the stability of the drain running along the edge of the roof, imagining myself hanging from it and then nimbly dropping onto my car. Then I imagined hanging onto it and ripping it off, along with some of the roof and trying to explain why I had inflicted thousands of dollars worth of damage to an innocent roof. I gave up and scrambled back to Abbie.

The wind was gusting harder and the clouds were threatening. "Abs, we gotta call someone."

"Can't we just drop down there?" she asked.

"Where?"

"To the balcony below us."

This was a sign of true desperation. "Dropping down" would have required one of us to sling ourselves over the edge of the balcony, drop almost twenty feet and land on a metal pole railing a few inches wide. Missing the railing would mean hitting the cement of the balcony on one side, or falling another 10 feet to a rocky, terraced hillside. "Um, no. We can't just drop down there."

I called a few more people. No one answered. After the tenth person, it seemed inevitable. "Abs, we are going to have to call Jay." Jay is my stepfather. He's the person we called when I was staying at Abbie's house and the garage door broke and after an hour of trying to fix it or lift it, we called him and he explained to us the simple laws of physics and instructed us to stand at opposite edges of the door and not try and lift it together from the center. We called him the next night when the fuse blew, and after flipping them all back on, I couldn't get the electricity to work again. And then we called him when the internet stopped working and we couldn't start that either. And now, we would have to call him and explain that we would once again need his help, and this time, over the phone wouldn't be enough.

"Hello?"

"Jay, we need your help!" I said desperately- relieved that he had answered. And then realized that calling someone in the middle of the night and shouting those words wasn't exactly good for the heart. I imagined him imagining me by the side of the road, in jail, in a hospital, or maybe that I had been by the side of the road in a car accident, until I was taken off to the hospital for examination, then pronounced in stable (but injured) condition and finally carted off to jail where I was able to call him. That was how I sounded anyway. "Actually, we are OK," I corrected, waiting for the sigh of relief, but he was still just listening.

I explained our predicament, in the background I could hear Abbie: "He'll never let me near you again. How does this happen to us?" He agreed to come.

Relieved, we finally sat down on the balcony floor to wait for his arrival. Abbie turned philosophical, "We might as well make the most of this, because as soon as he gets here, I have to leave." We picked up our wine glasses.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Let's pretend that this is how we wanted to spend the evening, a glass of wine, a view of the city..." That was when it started to rain. I am not taking any poetic license here- it really started to rain. We scrambled under the four feet of covered roof space and crouched against the wall. The whole city had been waiting for this rain for days. It's been over 100 and we all needed some relief, and it finally came. Impeccable timing. "I better at least make it onto your blog for this," Abbie said.

Thirty minutes passed, and our hero arrived to find the two golden haired Rapunzels stuck in the tower. From that height, we were able to direct him around the edge of the house in the darkness and in through one of the side doors. After losing his way in the middle of the house, he finally made it to where we were stranded. Relief!

Together with Jay, I finished Abbie's tour of the house. He figured he might as well see the house that he had to drive to in the rain in the middle of the night. I hugged him at the door, promising dinner, wine, chocolate, all of the above.

"I better go too," said Abbie. "Oh, no. My keys aren't in my pocket." We began hunting through the house, the sense of panic rising. After a few minutes I asked, "Maybe they are in your car? You'd better check. I am staying inside though, in case anything happens to the front door."

She tromped out through the darkness to the car and started laughing as soon as the interior light came on. "They are here! Thanks god the damn door is broken so it doesn't automatically lock!"

She looked up at me. "You had better end the blog entry with this. In fact, I plan this shit! This was all staged!" She came inside to grab the cookies that were supposed to go with the wine. "I really need these," she said, and headed back out into the darkness.

The Supremes

I love the Supreme Court. To be accurate, I love the idea of the Supreme Court. I think it was wise of our founding fathers to build into the checks and balances system a branch that can make decisions without having to worry about reelection. The Supreme Court functions (or should) as the protectorate of the Constitution, defending it against misreading by lower courts and law makers.

Currently, I am currently frightened by what is happening in the Supreme Court. Does this mean that I don't actually like the Supreme Court, that I only like it when it upholds my ideals? I don't think so. I have been reading some of the opinions that have been recently decided. It took me four days to finish reading the short opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart (the "partial birth abortion" case because its treatment of women and prior abortion law was both ridiculous and infuriating.

I don't talk about politics too often, but I feel very strongly about this and I want other people my age to recognize the importance of this topic. I had an email exchange this week with my health law professor from BU, Leonard Glantz. Leonard deserves his own blog entry, but we'll get to that later. Leonard, as you will notice, is both outspoken and eloquent, even in a casual email, so I received his permission to post his thoughts on the Supreme Court:

"The right wing has really taken over. All the decisions from the past week are deeply disturbing. The scariest is the high school free speech case- Thomas (concurring) actually says the 1st amendment does not apply to HS students. I never saw anything like this. It also permits censorship based on what the principal thinks what the speech means- its actual meaning is irrelevant. Terrible. Makes me want to smack Ralph Nader in the face with each case that comes down."

I didn't get the Ralph Nader comment and asked for clarification.

" believe Nader is responsible for the election of Bush. He (and the nitwits who voted for him to “make a statement”) took essential votes away from Gore in key states. Nader’s argument was that it didn’t really matter who the president was because all the candidates are in corporate pockets, anyway. I guess he forgot about Supreme Court appointments. As far as I am concerned , this is Nader’s ultimate legacy.

One of the noteworthy things about this Court is how fractured it is. All the important cases were decided 5-4. This means that it is not only ideologically split but it has no real leadership.

When Brown v. Board of Education was decided, the chief justice was Earl Warren (who, by the way, was a California republican prosecutor appointed by Eisenhower). These were the days when quality and integrity mattered in court appointments and not solely one’s views on abortion and gay rights. Because of the sensitivity of the issue in Brown, probably the most revolutionary decision ever handed down by the Court, Warren insisted that the decision be unanimous so that all lower courts and legislatures would have clear guidance on where the Court stood on the issue of desegregation. It took some horse-trading and wording changes, and so forth, but Warren got the unanimous vote he knew was required to really make desegregation work.

The current decision [on using race in school placements] is a 4-1-4 decision with Kennedy being the decisive vote (how pathetic is that?) in any future litigation and no one having any idea what is permissible now and what isn’t. So it isn’t just the outcome of the decision that is troubling, it is what it indicates about the dysfunction of the court and the fact that the radicals are quite content to cause social chaos. There will now be scores of cases challenging all sorts of plans in schools across the country- it is hard to imagine how unleashed the right-wing will feel to attack school integration programs, and how much expense and disruption this will cause to already fragile school systems.

This court is also the most radical court one could imagine- it pays no attention to precedent even though Roberts and Alito swore in their hearings that precedent was so important and must be followed. There was no doubt at the time that they were simply lying when they said that (they were appointed because they are right wing radicals, not judicial moderates) but it is startling to see that they are entirely unembarrassed to be exposed as perjurers – an advantage of life-time appointments."


(The cartoonist here is Pat Bagley again.)