Tinker and The Dude

One of my six-month-old adopted twin brothers tried to chew through the handle of my handbag last night, when I was over at my folks’ house for a visit. I noticed before he got very far, and hid the bag in a closet.

Ha! I'm playin' with you! Were you picturing a kid? I bet you were picturing babies. But! These adopted brothers that I speak of are my parents' newest set of cats. Kittens, still. And they are soooooo cute. They are just the sweetest, shmoopiest, silly-williest lil' hushie gooshie whoooza cute wiwwle boy! Are you the cutest lil' boy? Yes you are! Yes you are!

*ahem*

Where was I? Yes. Sadly, the old set of cats both departed for the big litter box in the sky within the past year. Lucy was a stray that we found at the Humane Society. When we first met her she had ear mites, and a skin condition that had caused all the hair from her rear end to fall off. Lucy did not let her bare bum affect her self-esteem. Once she had claimed her position as Queen Of The House, she grew her pants back and ruled with a regal arrogance that could only be lovable in a cat.

Mitsou was a show cat: one of those super-fuzzy Persian breeds with her nose pushed all the way in and up between her eyeballs. She came from a proper breeder, with a pedigree. Try telling her that. All she wanted to do was prowl around out of doors, hunting mice and rooting around in dirt. Leaves and bugs got swept up in her long belly-fur and ended up inside, on my mother’s clean floors. Because of her messed-up face, (I’m telling you, it’s cruel to breed cats like that) she had no end of health problems. I got very handy at forcibly applying ear drops, eye drops, and pills to the various facial orifices of my very uncooperative patient.

(Seriously, if you need to give your cat a pill, and she keeps spitting it back out, call me. I’ll jump on a plane and come over to your place to help out. Neighbours used to call on me to give their cats their daily medications. But I digress.)

The new guys came from the Humane Society. All they do day in and day out is wrestle their way from one end of the house to the other, with stops along the way for tipping over houseplants, chewing through the phone cord, and jumping up on tables while people are trying to have a civilized dinner. Sure, they’re a little spoiled. But they’re doing everything little brothers are supposed to do: being annoying, getting into my stuff, and jumping into my lap for irresistible snuggles. And purring! Can your little brother do that?

Consulting the Magic 8-Ball

Sometimes I dream about a place before I’ve been there. In the dream, I’m in a confusing, unfamiliar environment. Then, a year or so later, I’ll look around myself at some point and think: “Oh yeah, this is where I was in that dream.” I’ll recognize certain elements, like a pile of colourful cubes in the dream turn out to be plastic storage bins in real life, or a bouncy floor turns out to be the padded floor of an indoor climbing gym.

I’ve had other experiences which could be described as “psychic”, or “supernatural”. I’m not sold on those labels. Dogs can hear sounds that we can’t hear, and bees can see colours that we can’t see, but that doesn’t make them magical or specially gifted. Their sensory mechanisms are just tuned to a different range. And to me, that’s what real “supernatural” experiences are about. I happen to be more sensitive to certain energies or vibrations which science cannot yet measure. But I’m betting that someday in the future, we’ll find a way to measure these things. And then they’ll just be “natural”.

I don’t enjoy these experiences. For example: I have an unfortunate tendency to pick up other peoples’ emotions just from being physically near to them, especially if they are repressing intense anxiety, sadness, or anger. I know it can be argued that I’m just projecting, or guessing peoples’ emotions from their body language, but you’ll have to trust me on this. It has happened time and time again, even when I’m not in visual contact with the person, or even when the person is close but on the other side of an interior wall. Suffice it to say that I thought I was a moody basket case, until I realized that I was picking up on other peoples’ crap. Now I find it a lot easier to differentiate between my own moods and other peoples’ disowned negativity. I’m still a somewhat moody person, but I don’t feel crazy like I used to.

There are a lot of New Age-y folks out there who work hard to become more psychically sensitive. I want to tell them: don’t go there! It’s better to be oblivious. I spend my time and energy building healthier boundaries.

For a while I went to a New Age night school that gave me a language to describe my experiences. But mostly, that school made me feel frustrated. When my fellow students found out how much information I could get during our practice “readings”, some were jealous. They thought it made me “more special” or something like that. No one knew how to help me when I occasionally got overwhelmed by what I was receiving. Eventually I stopped going to the classes, because the experiences were just too intense.

My point is that romanticizing these experiences, whether you want to call them psychic, supernatural, occult, or whatever, is wishful thinking. Would we understand this realm better if it weren’t so inextricably entwined with dramatic fantasy? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. Shall we try it and see?

Name Dropping

When I was working in a health food store near movie shoots:

Saul Rubinek came in and bought a bag of Cheesy Bearitos popcorn while I was on cash.

More excitingly, a gofer came in and bought a bunch of stuff on Kevin Bacon’s credit card. So, if you slightly bend the rules of the game Six Degress of Kevin Bacon, I am only two degrees removed from Kevin Bacon himself. And since you almost know me, you’re three degrees away now. Amazing!

Connections through my high school, North Toronto Collegiate Institute.

Eric Lindros went to my high school, one grade behind me. He’s famous in Canada. Has anyone outside of Canada heard of him?

Apparently I missed Keanu Reeves by one year. Ain’t that the luck! I have been told that he attended my high school for one year, the year before I started. I should have skipped a grade. Then I could have Keanu Reeves in my yearbook instead of Eric Lindros.

None of my business

There is a question that has been nagging at me. It’s about the Mommy Bloggers, those gifted writers who can spin endless entertaining stories from the antics of their young children. Especially those who earn an income in this way.

My question is, what is going to happen in just a few years, when their kids get old enough to have an opinion about being the subject of so much publicity? There is material online on everything from their tantrums to their bowel movements. There will come a day when they become aware of how exposed they are, and I can only imagine that they won’t like it very much.

I guess most parents come up with silly nicknames for their kids to try to take the edge off the stresses of full diapers (Sir Poopsalot!) and other challenges (Miss Screamy-pants!). No harm done as long as these are retired before the kid gets a firm grasp on the spoken word. But what if they are recorded for all posterity? Kids learn to go online at an awfully early age these days. There is so much material for playground torture in these blogs that it makes me cringe. I mean, anal suppositories! Posting that information online is like handing a loaded gun to the bullies.

Now, all of these women are very intelligent, and I’m sure they have thought about this issue, especially if the family income depends upon their online writing. I’m really curious to know what they’re planning to do. Is deleting certain posts from the archives an option? Once information gets online, it has a certain staying power, even if the original source disappears. What is going to happen to these kids?

All that being said, I don’t feel a need to “save” these children from whatever their destiny is. All the families involved seem to be healthy and supportive. I’m sure they’ll work it out in the end. I’m just sayin’, is all. I guess it’s because I was at the receiving end of so much playground torture that I’m a bit sensitive to these issues. Good luck to them, is all I can say!

Suggestions

Here are some things you might like to do if you get stuck in an uninhabited apartment for one hour with no TV, no internet, and one friend.

1) If you brought food, enjoy a snack. One serving of fruit juice and a package of sesame snaps should hit the spot.

2) Find the 20-year-old boom box with the broken tape deck. Turn the balance all the way to the right, to compensate for the missing left speaker.

3) Dance in the kitchen. Convince your friend that it's cool to do fake ballroom dancing to top-40 pop hits, especially including twirls and dips.

4) Locate a board game. The traditional Asian game of "Go" should keep you busy for a while. Try to remember the rules. Fail. Make up some rules. Play badly by the made up rules for a few turns, then abandon the game. Promise to look up the rules on the internet as soon as you get plugged back in.

5) Locate a pen and paper. Play Hangman. A good word with a lot of letters to challenge your friend with is "Rumplestiltskin" . If he takes a long time to guess the word, let him have extra turns by drawing individual facial features onto the hangman instead of drawing in that last leg.

6) Feel grateful for this opportunity to experience life without cable. (Although you probably wouldn't want to carry on like this for much more than an hour.)

Now do a U-turn!

Let’s say you’re getting into a car with four other people. Where do you want to sit, if you’re not the driver? Probably up front. Or if you have to squish in the backseat with two other people, you want a window seat, right? You don’t want to sit in the middle, on the steering column bump, with your knees tucked up under your chin. That’s the loser seat. The loser shortest person always gets stuck in that seat.

Hey, wait, that’s me! I’m always the smallest person in the car. Last time we took a bunch of friends up to Pacific Mall, which is approximately a half-hour drive in each direction, I spent an hour stuck on the bump. And how much did I hate it?

Not at all! Because I secretly love that seat. Not for the bump itself, although, being a short-legged little twig, I’m not *un*comfortable. I love it because I get to wedge myself in all cozy-like with a couple of silly friends. Then we can giggle every time the car goes around a corner and mushes us together, yell funny things in each others’ ears, and generally act like children until the driver threatens to leave us at the side of the road. Jokingly, of course – I know he’s just jealous and would rather be in the back with us.

Yes, there is nothing quite as good for bonding as digging around under each others’ butt cheeks to find the ends of seatbelts. Everyone thinks it’s a gas when I ask my male friend “Is it in yet?” I meant his seatbelt, you perverts!

Ice Age

There is a freakishly early snowstorm blowing through Toronto today. We don’t see weather like this until January, normally. Days like this remind me of the time I worked in that unheated store over the worst part of the winter…

*cue wavy dissolve screen and synthesized flashback sound-effects*

Back in 1997, in immediate need of a way to pay my rent, I accepted a position at a very run-down health-food store. The owner was a sweet, religious woman. Many of her customers were disabled by chronic illnesses, and had very little money. She sold food and remedies to them almost at cost.

The building was drafty; the floors were uneven and creaky; and there were infestations of every type of pest. Because the store barely made any profit, the owner saved money by not using the furnace during the wintertime. I wore as many layers as I could pile on, but I still frickin’ froze every day.

There was a scruffy, calico cat who was allowed to sleep in the store, in exchange for keeping the mice, roaches, and rats (yes, BIG RATS, I’m not joking) under control. This cat would drag his prey up to the counter to show off in front of customers. I would excuse myself to get the broom and dustpan. I remember apologizing to a half-dead rat, for leaving him outside in a snow bank to freeze to death. I didn’t have the nerve to kill him quickly. I told him, as I scraped his limp body into the snow, “I’ve heard hypothermia isn’t such a bad way to go.”

I was so cold that I encouraged the scruffy cat to climb up onto my shoulders and lie curled around my neck while I worked. A few flea bites weren’t too high a price to pay in exchange for some precious, extra heat. I had to be careful, ringing up and bagging items with slow, deliberate movements, so that the cat wouldn’t slide off. He was a heavy son-of-a-gun, too.

I worked there for two and a half months, from January through mid-March, before I managed to get a job somewhere with heat.

Just like that scene in Napoleon Dynamite

It's Ed’s fault that I can’t do Downward Dog.

Ed was a really warm and friendly guy. But sometimes too friendly. His signature greeting was to administer a violent hug, while pounding on my back and yelling in my ear how great it was to see me. I always staggered out of his embrace feeling slightly stunned, in need of a moment to re-orient myself.

Around 12 years ago, I was over at Ed’s place one afternoon, with several friends. He had just started studying Aikido, a “non-aggressive Japanese martial art”.

“Shake my hand!” Ed demanded, and, like a fool, I did. Next thing I knew, he had me in a wrist-lock and I was being forced to the floor. All in attendance were suitably impressed, and Ed was mightily pleased with himself.

My wrist never fully recovered. It didn’t hurt too awfully that afternoon, but for the next several years it swelled up and ached anytime the weather was damp. I had to wrap it in an elastic bandage to immobilize it until the swelling went down. Also consider: I had given him my right hand to shake. I am right-handed. Inconvenient!

More than ten years later, I still have to be careful how I treat that wrist. I can’t do push-ups, or any yoga pose that requires me to support my weight on my hands. Annoying!

Surely, it could be much worse. Ed never meant to do me harm. I never told him that I’d sustained an injury. I’m sure he’d feel terrible if he knew. But every time I overdo it and have to put on the splint, I think of Ed again.

Kids, martial arts are not for fun and games! Be careful, and use your skills wisely, or you could hurt your friends.

How I saved $50 without even trying

I would tell you the name of this furniture store, but I’m afraid of being sued for libel. Not because I’m lying, but because it’s a weird place and I wouldn’t put it past them. Ken drove me there so that I could buy two pieces of furniture for work.

We enter an enormous furniture showroom. A half-dozen desperate-looking salesmen, wearing mustaches and corduroy blazers, are wandering aimlessly around the displays. There is only one other pair of customers in the whole, vast store. On a Saturday afternoon in Toronto, especially just before Christmas, this is very unusual.

We are approached by a salesman in a tan blazer and brown plaid shirt. I show him the items that I want. The smaller piece is marked “Regular $129. Sale $99”.

Sales guy: “Oh, I think that sale is over.”

He picks at the sale sticker with his fingernails, trying unsuccessfully to remove it.

Sales guy: “This is $129. Yes, $129.”

Me, because it’s for work and it’s only $30 and I don’t care that much: “Okay.”

Ken: “That’s illegal. You have to sell the product at the sticker price. The sale isn’t over until you change the sticker.”

Sales guy: “Um. Let me talk to my manager.”

We wait. He returns.

Sales guy: “I give it to you for $79.”

Me, surprised: “Great! Thank you!”

Sales guy: “Now you can buy two!”

Of course, I didn’t buy two. Poor, sad Sales guy. He bargained himself down! He needs a sales techniques refresher course. Or maybe a self-esteem workshop.

We are then directed to the so-called “Customer Service” desk, to await the arrival of our boxes from the warehouse. Keep in mind that there are no other customers waiting for warehouse services.

Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. We pace. We sigh. We inquire politely of the girl at the desk: how much longer? She gives us the stink-eye. Twenty minutes. We’re ready to go back to the sales desk and ask for a refund, just so we can get the heck out of there. After 25 minutes, a guy finally comes out with some boxes on a trolley. His excuse: he was confused because the table is packed in two flat boxes. This, he says, doesn’t look much like a table. I’m like, um, well, that’s the table-top in that box, and that other, smaller box, that’s the legs. And when we put it together, it will become table-shaped! Just like magic!

This is only my opinion, but EVEN IF IT WAS HIS FIRST DAY ON THE JOB, that is no excuse for not understanding the concept of flat-packed furniture. Since he was a nice guy, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he was actually an alien from another galaxy, trying to pass as human. At least he had mastered the basics of our language, which, if you think about it, is pretty impressive.

A Love Letter for Zaidy

I'd like to introduce you to my father's father. He's 94 years old. He has a full head of wavy white hair, kind of like Einstein, and crazy eyebrows to match.

Be careful when you shake his hand. He might look frail, lying there on the couch, but he can still just about break your fingers with his vise-like grip. That's the kind of tough-ass he's always been. I recently had lunch with him in the assisted-living facility where he lives with my grandmother. He started a silverware duel with the guy sitting next to him. I've never seen anything quite like it: two elderly men shouting "En garde!" and fencing with their forks.

When I was a kid, he used to flip his eyelids inside out just to give me the creeps. Then he'd grab me by one wrist and one ankle and spin me around for a helicopter ride.

My grandfather is the fifth of eight children, born to parents who had recently immigrated from Poland. They lived downtown in the Jewish ghetto, raising chickens for a living. My grandfather used to get up at 3:00 am in order to kill, pluck, and deliver fresh chickens around the neighbourhood before he went to school. He could pluck a bird so fast that he was declared a Champion Chicken Flicker.

In three more months, if he hangs in there, the Champion Chicken Flicker will turn 95. I'm thrilled to have him around. Because even though we can't really have much of a conversation, (he can't remember what he said 30 seconds ago), he can still get my hand in that killer grip of his, look right into me with his ice-blue eyes, and tell me that he loves me. And I tell him that I love him too. Then he says "I'll miss you when I'm gone". And I tell him that I'll miss him too. But secretly I believe that we'll meet again. When it's my turn to walk through the Pearly Gates, I bet he'll be right there to greet me, grinning, with his eyelids flipped inside-out. (And then he'll give me a helicopter ride.)

Rx: Teletoon, 2 units daily

This past spring, I asked my doctor for anti-depressants.  I was sick of tired of being in a dark hole inside myself, and I wanted to take a pill that would make it all better, NOW!  This wasn't the first time I'd spent months seeing the world through a dark veil, but it was the worst so far.

Normally, I shun medication.  If there is a side effect to be had, I will have it.  Plain old Tylenol gives me palpitations.   I even get side effects from herbal remedies.  Usually I'd rather just tough it out.

So there I was in the examining room, hands shaking, telling the doc about how I'd been feeling lately.  How I'd been thinking way too much about hurting myself, and feeling hopeless all of the time.  But darn it all, wasn't it just my bad luck that I didn't qualify for a diagnosis.  Because in typical depression, you sleep less and eat less.  In atypical depression you sleep more and eat more.  I was sleeping more and eating less.  Therefore, as per the doctor, I wasn't depressed.  Uh, that's good to know.  I guess I'll just stop feeling bad right now because you said it's not real.

In the end, the doctor did finally agree to write me a prescription, for Zoloft, because he didn't want to be held responsible if I harmed myself.  I felt validated.

I never did fill the prescription.  I did some research and found out how terrible these pills can be, not while you're taking them, but when you are ready to stop.  Basically, any symptom in the book is a possibility during withdrawal, including diarrhea, dizziness, burning sensations all over your body, and anxiety.  And it can go on for months.  I decided, as usual, to just tough it out.  And in the end, I got through to brighter times.

Being prone to mood swings has forced me to get to know myself very well.  If I lie to myself about how I'm feeling, I can't expect to get away with it for long.  Also, I have to take good care of my body, or my moods will take a nose dive.  8 hours of sleep, vitamins, exercise: they're not optional.  Depression can bring on severe fatigue and even joint pains, and conversely being tired can bring on depression.  So I have to keep on top of these things.

Sometimes, during hormonal moments, or when I've been too busy, I can feel the gravitational pull of the dark pit trying to drag me down.  I talk back to the negativity.  I get myself to my couch on the double, under a blanket, and dose myself liberally with Sponge Bob Square Pants and other comforts.  I'm doing good so far, and at least Sponge Bob has no side effects.

Why I prefer cats

Why do I post about work so much? Because home is kind of boring, in a good way. In a "no news is good news" kind of way. I don't have kids and I don't have pets (thanks to Ken's allergies). I do have an array of beautiful and much-loved houseplants, but somehow I think that appreciating houseplants is one of those experiences that doesn't translate so well into prose. It's one of those "you had to be there" kind of things.

If I'm wrong, and there are crowds of green-thumbers out there who would love to hear me rhapsodize about the new blooms coming up on my azalea, just let me know.

I used to have cats. I am a cat person through and through. I appreciate dogs at a distance, with all their spontaneous, wiggly, loving energy. Up close? I can cope with a clean dog. Dogs that want bathing, or drooly dogs - ew. I wish I could explain to a dog that I don't want to touch that sticky tennis ball. Nor do I want my face licked.

Why I prefer cats: The purring. The softer, more snuggable body. The lack of drooling. The self-cleaning. The litterbox advantage. The fact that there is no domestic cat big enough to drag me down the street by its leash.

I miss having cats around the place. On the bright side, I can sit down anywhere I want in my good clothes and not get completely furry. And of course, while a litterbox is an improvement over picking up your pet's poop while it's still warm, it's pretty nice to have no litterbox at all. However, if Ken's immune system could handle it, I would not hesitate to repopulate my world with cats. The love is worth all the poop.

Choice

I have always felt jealous of women who unambiguously knew their reproductive destiny from a young age. I always teetered on the fence. I have never had that sense that some women speak of, that they “always knew” that they were meant to be a mom, or not.

Until I was 21, I just assumed that I would marry and have children. Then I was exposed to the concept of alternate choices, and suddenly I felt wonderfully free. At that time I was engaged to my first husband, and he shared my feelings. We declared our intentions to the important people in our lives. Of course, no one older than us took us seriously.

When I got to be around 26, I reconsidered again. I had been married for 3 years to my high school sweetheart, and we were preparing to move into a house that we would share with his mother. What better opportunity could there be? I brought up the subject in a very tentative way on a few occasions, but he was not keen on the idea. Now I thank my lucky stars that we never had a child, considering the very painful divorce that followed when I was 28. (The split was not caused by reproductive conflicts.)

Shortly after I moved out, one of my best friends announced that she was expecting. This was the first child in my group of friends, but others were soon to follow. I went through agonies of longing to participate in this rite of passage. I felt left out, lesser than, and a failure, especially since I was still brushing off the dust of a ruined marriage. I went to a high school reunion where it seemed that every woman but me was pushing a baby carriage.

I began a new long-term relationship, and for the next five years I spent endless hours going around in circles in my head. Did I want the experience of parenthood? Was I ready to devote so much of myself to another being? Could I handle the challenges of motherhood on top of the already substantial health and emotional challenges I was already facing? Would my new beau, who was not enthused about fatherhood, be able to accommodate the change, or would it tear us apart? Did I really want a real baby, with all the attendant demands and concerns, or was I just chasing fairytale, white-picket-fence dreams from my girlhood?

I started reading, finding every book I could that dealt with the realities of parenthood and reproductive choices. Many women of the childfree lifestyle stated: “When I see a mom dealing with a crying baby or a Terrible Twos tantrum, I just shake my head and thank God that that’s not my life.” When I see a scene where a parent is having a hard time with their child, I feel relief, and I also feel jealousy, mixed in equal parts. After all, parenthood is a mix of everything from the ecstatically wonderful to the supremely awful. You can’t pick just half and call it the whole truth.

In the end, I decided that given the circumstances of my life, it was best for me to remain childless (or childfree, if you prefer). If my circumstances had been different, I might have made a different choice. I have achieved as much peace as I ever will with my decision. I believe with all my heart that I made the right choice, and yet I also grieve what I had to let go of to get here. Dreams, a sense of belonging, the love of my own child, all of these and more.

I wanted to put this out in the public realm, because there might be someone else out there with a similar story, who can find comfort in my words. I have always felt so alone in this experience.

The goose is getting fat

I've almost finished my seasonal gift-getting. Don't think that being Jewish gets me off the hook (although granted, it helps). There are 7 people in my family who all have their birthdays in November and December. Then there are others who require holiday gifts (Ken's family, for example). So, in the end it adds up to a fair bit of shopping.

I spent most of the weekend zinging around the inside of the Eaton Centre (downtown Toronto's only big, indoor mall), hauling bags until my shoulders ached. The place was already jam-packed with holiday shoppers. It was the kind of crowded where you can't help but bump into people and their packages every few paces, as you try to maneuver from one store to the next. This tends to bring on my flight-or-fight reflex, which adds another dimension of Me No Likey to whole experience.

I like the idea of shopping online, and I do some of that, but mostly I prefer to have full sensory interaction with objects before I buy them. Dad, I'm sorry that the corner of your calendar is wrinkly, but I couldn't buy it without a little taste first. So sue me - I am thorough!

Today I picked up a couple of final gifts at Pacific Mall. If you live anywhere near Toronto and you haven't been to Pacific Mall, GO! It's the most fun mall ever. It's an all-Asian mall, and it offers dozens of tiny stores, maybe 15 feet squared each. There are no chain stores whatsoever, not even in the food court. And the whole place is filled with amazing bargains and curiosities.

If you're feeling brave, eat in the food court. Depending on where you order from, you may find yourself pointing at menu photos and holding up a number of fingers to get your point across. Ken and I have a favourite dish (some kind of savoury fried rice gluten squares), and we have never learned the name of it. Our receipt is printed in Chinese characters. Mmmm.... rice gluten. I bet you're all jealous.

We're here and we're winning! (sort of)

The Canadian dollar is beating the U.S. dollar for the first time since nineteen-eighty-something. Yes, I said "beating"! We are winning the dollar race, do you hear? Neener neener, nyah nyah nyah!

Except, financial people keep interrupting my gloating with their pessimism. "A high dollar is bad for the economy!" they warn. "The U.S. is going to stop importing our stuff! Our manufacturing industry will suffer!" (Canada has a manufacturing industry? Wow, really? Because I rarely see the words "made in Canada" on anything in our stores. But I digress.)

Anyway, I'm thinking that it's time for the Canadian and the U.S. eonomies to re-think their relationship. They need to have A Talk. One of those talks that goes on until at least 4 am, where all the ugly truths come out. Because this sounds an awful lot like one of those bad relationships where she (for the sake of argument) can't dress up too nicely, or seem confident, because he's jealous and needs to keep her down to feel good about himself.

"You think you're worth $1.06 of me?" accuses the American dollar. "Oh yeah? You're putting your cold nose up in the air like that? Bitch! You'll see what happens. You'll come crawling back to me in a week, begging me to buy your exports. Then I'll push your government around a bit, just to prove that I can."

That's what it's like to be Canadian. We have the whole upper half of the North American continent, but a lot of Americans don't even know that we exist. One time, in Texas, my grandfather stopped at a gas station to fuel up. Noticing his accent, the attendant asked him where he was from. "Canada," said my grandfather. "Oh," drawled the attendant, with a friendly smile, " and what state is that in?"

Because it's only going to get colder

How is it that some girls can stand to walk around bare-legged all winter? How can they tolerate frigid winds blowing down their low-cut sweaters?

I was all set to write about how stupid it is for these girls to dress so inadequately, but the truth is that I'm jealous. Very jealous! Because I'm always the first person to need a sweater, to want my slippers, to desire an extra blanket. You would not believe what I consider to be "earmuff weather". You would laugh. I am ashamed.

The Least Jewish Jew

Most days, I don't think about being Jewish. When I was growing up, what it meant to me was occasional family dinners, during which the men recited prayers in Hebrew (which I didn't understand). It meant that there were a lot of rules in my grandparents' home that I often broke unintentionally, and then felt embarrassed. It meant being different in a way that I didn't really understand, and always being on the periphery of Christmas and other holidays.

Today, I still can't fully articulate what it means to me to be Jewish. I don't follow the religion. I'm not involved in the politics of Israel. I don't speak Hebrew or Yiddish, and I never went to any special Jewish school. I'm Jewish by default because my parents are.

I know that being Jewish means many different things to many different people, and that there are lots of Jews who are overwhelmingly positive about their identity and experiences. Within my own family there is every shade of Jew, from ultra-orthodox to... well, to me I guess. I'm the least Jewish Jew in my extended family. It really leaves me feeling like I don't fit in anywhere, neither with my supposed ethnic group, nor with any other group.

But hey, that's me. I'm just not a fitter-inner. So instead of making myself crazy with it, I just enjoy the best of both worlds. I love Christmas! Need someone to decorate your tree who's not totally jaded about it? Call me up! I also love Hanukah, however you chose to spell it. Want someone to sing the Hebrew Hanukah song while you light the candles? I don't know what the words mean, but I have all the syllables memorized, and I get it almost right. Heck, life's too short. Forget about having an identity crisis. I just want to celebrate ALL the holidays.

Rinse and Spit

Today's highlight: scaling.

I'm considering writing a letter of complaint to my dentist regarding his hygenist. I'm pretty sure that she carved her name into my gums with her pointy tools, several times, on each available surface. If I can just fit my digital camera inside my mouth, I'll have undeniable proof.

Also, while I appreciate the advantages of having my teeth cleaned with a high-speed water jet instead of abrasive pumice paste, I do feel that there is still room for improvement with this technology. Specifically, someone needs to invent a way to make it silent, or maybe introduce sweet and soothing sounds, like wind chimes in an evening breeze. Because while I'm trying to be cool about having my gums needled by pin-sharp blasts of water, the last thing I want to be listening to is the frantic death-squeals of one hundred thousand hyper-sonic guinea pigs.

That's, like, really irritating. Especially after 20 minutes or more.

So if you are a dental tool innovator, I would appreciate if you would get on that one pronto. Why not start tonight? And make sure you've got it finished and sold to my dentist before my next appointment, okay?

Daredevil

My hat is off to the talented salesgirls at Jean Machine. One in particular saved me, yesterday, from giving up in frustration.

I doubt that there is any woman over the age of 16 who enjoys shopping for jeans. But when the jeans you own are as washed-out and baggy-assed as mine were, you just have to bite the bullet and go for it.

One of the things I like least about the experience is the overwhelming choice. There are about ten zillion styles of jeans out there and THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME! At least, they do when they're just sitting on a shelf or hanging on a rack. There are often some helpful tags attached, with symbols or a list of style features, which I can sometimes interpret, if I don't lose patience after the first two minutes of browsing. And what size am I? God help me; I have no idea. The pants in my closet range all over the map. Do I have the patience to try on three different pairs until I find the right size. NO!

So I have to send a shout-out to the lovely Librarian of Jeans, a 21-year-old salesgirl who interpreted the jean version of the Dewey decimal system for me and did all the hard work. She wrestled the jeans off the jam-packed racks; she knew which fit loose and which fit tight; she didn't lose patience with me when, after trying on half-a-dozen pairs of skinny jeans I changed my mind and decided I wanted boot-cut after all. (I'll pass along this tip: if you are old enough to remember wearing the skinny jean in high school, you probably shouldn't go back to them now. Even if you can struggle into them, that doesn't mean you should be wearing them. Unless you're like, a supermodel, or something.)

I ended up buying a style called "Daredevil", because they are "Dangerously Low Cut". I think they'll do just fine. As long as I never have to bend over, sit down, or squat while I'm wearing them. And that's what hot jeans are all about! Hurray!

No Kidding

I am 35 years old, in a stable relationship, with no children and with no plans for children. People often ask me: why?

To the best of my knowledge, I could conceive if I wanted to. And there is a part of me that desperately would love to raise a family. The miracle of new life, the joys of first smiles and first steps - who can resist the warmth of those glowing moments? Kids can be super-awesome: spontaneous, loving, and bursting with sunshiney energy.

The thing is, you need an awful lot of resources to raise a kid. Physical, financial, and emotional resources. And, after years of agonizing indecision, I finally concluded that I do not personally have the resources to raise a child in a way that would be truly beneficial to the child, to myself, and to the world at large. A lot of people don't enjoy their children much, and I didn't want to become one of them.

I had the kind of childhood to which withdrawal was a natural response. I didn't get the love and emotional support that kids need. I had to keep a sharp eye on the grownups and try to please them or disappear much of the time. Then I got married and took those same patterns into my first marriage. I finally moved out on my own when I was 28. Then I had a few years of desperate and almost deadly depressions as I tried to sort myself out.

I'm finally happy with myself and my life. I'm still learning to support myself emotionally: to not be scared all the time and not to make myself disappear. There are little challenges each day, and I feel proud when I can handle them all. Things that would be small to an average person can exhaust me. Raising a child is a monumental task even for someone who is relatively emotionally healthy; I don't believe that I could enjoy the challenge or cope with it well enough. I suspect we'd all be miserable.

My husband Ken, let's just say that he has his own story, and his bottom line is the same.

I read a lot of blogs written by women my age who are raising children, because I want to understand what their lives are like. I am fascinated by their stories. After ten years of longings and indecision, I finally feel at peace with my choice. I have a lot of respect for the parents out there who are putting their hearts and souls into loving their kids. And for the responsible non-parents. Courage and love to all of us on our chosen paths!

At least the delivery guy was cute

Today I experienced what may be the ultimate claustrophobic nightmare: getting trapped in an elevator.

OK, well, at least I THOUGHT that I was trapped in the elevator, for like, almost two whole minutes. Or was it hours? It felt like hours.

I almost never get into the dodgy elevators at work. I take the stairs instead. Old as the hills are these elevators. They rattle and thunk, and do unreliable things like stopping with four inches difference between the elevator floor and the floor of the corridor. IF you do, foolishly, call the elevator, once the doors are open, there's always just enough time for everyone in the elevator to get out, and then the doors close in your face. If you try to hold them open, the elevator starts yelling at you and slowly, mercilessly pushes the door closed.

Today I had to get into one of the elevators to show a delivery guy how to put it on service. I had been given instructions on how to do this, but had never actually done it before. While I searched for the switch, the door started closing. I stuck my foot out to stop it, and immediately the loud, whining alarm started buzzing while the door did it's "overpowering the measly strength of humans" bit. So I took my foot back.

The doors shut. Neither I nor Delivery Guy pressed any buttons. The elevator started moving, on its own. It went up a few floors. Stayed there. The doors remained firmly shut. Went down a few floors. Paused. No opening. Went up a few floors. Still no opportunity to exit was offered. Almost like it was toying with us... like it had PLANS for us that involved lots of slow, elevatorish torture. Up. Down. MWAhahahahahah!

I was flooded by a huge wave of terrified helplessness. The evil elevator had us in its maw! Nothing could help us! We were TRAPPED! We might die here! My adrenal glands turned themselves inside out. All the blood in my body rushed to my face, or away from my face, or maybe both at the same time.

Then it occured to me to press the button for my floor. The elevator moved, stopped, and then after what seemed like an interminable delay, opened its doors. I stumbled out into the corridor. Never has that tiled, old, orange-painted corridor been so dear to me.

If anyone asks, I'm taking the stairs for the cardio benefits, okay?