Friday is the first night of Passover, one of the bigger holidays on the Jewish calendar. I’ve been hosting since before Mom moved to Milwaukee, but since she’s been here there’s no way I’d ever be able to think of not hosting. This will be the first Seder in years I haven’t had at least … Continue reading The Great Millennial Mashup Family Seder of 2012: A story of deliverance from slavery
“And I never forgot how that year after Dad died and we lost our house, my best friend moved away and the youth group turned its collective back on me felt (picture one of those cartoons where Daffy Duck is standing on a cliff and the giant eraser comes and suddenly there's only duck and … Continue reading Giant erasers, mean girls and shag carpet: A Dispatch from Misfit Hell
I don’t remember the exact point when my father announced that dating non-Jewish boys was off the table for my sister and me. It was before I started high school. Dad’s explanation was simple. Refusing to officiate at weddings in which the bride or groom wasn’t Jewish (if the bride or groom converted before the … Continue reading Teenage dating bans and skewed ‘benchmark Jewish male’ standards: A Dispatch from Misfit Hell
I really need to be working on my newspaper story about Miriam-Khaye Seigel’s wonderful recording of Yiddish music, “Toyznt Tamen.” I also want to write about Stephen Wade’s “The Beautiful Music All Around Us.” Sweetheart and I saw and heard him last week at our local Repertory Theater*. But I want to hold off until I have … Continue reading Procrastination, beautiful music and a sneak preview of “The Real Beekeepers of Flyover Country”
I sure wish I were as good at my own life as I am at other people’s. I am not kidding. I am terrific at other people's lives. Most of us are, at the very least, better at other people’s lives than we are at our own, and for the simplest of reasons. We are not … Continue reading How to be terrific at other people’s lives, featuring a vintage bee veil and a $10 ukulele
You know life is getting stressful when the prospect of multiple injections in your mouth followed by the replacement of every filling on two quadrant’s worth of teeth sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon. To be fair, a part of that is my new-ish dentist, Dr. J and her hygienist, L. Dr. … Continue reading A trip to the dentist, featuring “tooth-colored” filling material and a few good bands
So, last night was Book Group and my turn to host. Ever since my Facebook pal Chase recommended “The Orphan Master’s Son” and I read it, I had wanted to talk about it with other people. I thought I’d have to wait until August, but then Gail went AWOL (she does tax prep and is probably buried … Continue reading Bonus Post: Book Group at the Landfill and gluten-free baking, the maiden voyage
It's been 41 years since the day my father dropped my sister and me at school. Neither of us knew that would be the last time we saw him. Debby was in eighth grade and got dropped first. I was a freshman in high school, so got an extra six minutes of one-on-one time. What … Continue reading Memories of a futureless present in Urban Bucolica: a yahrzeit post about last words
Who says you can’t still learn stuff from your high school teachers decades after graduation? On March 1, Bob Barone, who was the theater director and also, I think, occasionally taught English where my sister and I attended high school, posted this update on our Facebook Revolution reunion group page: “This Thursday, March 5, is the … Continue reading Crispus Attucks, American history and a small serving of Jewish ‘potato/potahto’
This past weekend Tuki and I walked with R & Bailey again. We talked about her TV spot. She’s a city forester and was interviewed by a local station about damage to the trunks of her city’s streetside trees because of the extreme cold. She was pretty pleased with it but wished the reporter had included … Continue reading Trees on TV and a review of Judith Claire Mitchell’s “A Reunion of Ghosts”
the sentence factory 