Situation Normal--It's Thursday, Duh

hursday is a hectic day for me as a matter of course. There is baking for Shabbes, shopping, laundry, and writing, too. But today was so hectic it should be written up in the Hectic Thursday Annals.





There was no slow and gentle easing into my day as on most days of the week, or even most Thursdays. It was almost as if when I woke up, someone screamed, "And. She's. OFF!"  (sound of Roadrunner saying, "Meep meep.")

 I know it's going to be a crazy day when I can't even sit and nurse my two cups of coffee over the course of two hours while I test my eyelids here and there to see if they still work (up/down). That's about what it takes these days to get my metabolism going.

But no. Coffee and Facebook newsfeed were not in the stars today. It was coffee dumped unceremoniously into my travel cup, coffee on the run, not the slow satisfying coffee time I depend upon to start my day.

I had big plans for today. Ah well, as Robbie Burns said, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley."










Which translates to the modern day SNAFU



Partway into my day, I realized that I could not possibly do all that I had planned. Some shortcuts were in order. Instead of the 2 marble cakes and 3 layer yellow cake I had been planning to bake, I made a double batch of one-bowl brownies. And instead of the more complicated lunch I had planned, I made TLT sandwiches.

And no. That was not a typo. We don't eat bacon. But we DO eat tofu.

I know the stuff has a bad rep. But that rep is ill-deserved. Like any other food, it can be FRIED, which removes all virtue from the dish whilst leaving the illusion that one is eating something with health-giving properties.

Here is how I make Tofu sandwiches.

Thinly slice a block of firm tofu, sprinkle the slices with soy sauce and granulated garlic and fry the slices in vegetable oil on both sides until crisp. Drain on paper toweling.

Slice a tomato and some purple onion. Spread whole wheat bread with Dijon mustard, cover with lettuce leaves, tomato slices and some onion and top with 2-3 fried tofu slices. Top with another slice of bread and VIOLA: your TLT sandwich is ready to roll.

This is a fast and yummy lunch for a hectic day. Even my kids love this, though some will opt out of the mustard and onion in favor of (you guessed it) ketchup.

 
So some of you, knowing I have a lot of kids, have asked me for kid-friendly quick-to-prepare meals. This is a winner. If your kid doesn't eat whole wheat, let him have it on white bread. Who wants to argue about grains on a hectic Thursday, anyway?

Water, Water, Everywhere But Only Coke to Drink

 couple of weeks ago, an Efrat resident posted the following message to our local elist:

"My daughter is doing a water survey–one quick question–How many families drink only water during the week at meals (as opposed to juices and fizzy drinks – not including milk, tea, coffee)?

Please answer with ‘only water’ or ‘other drinks’."

This question brought out the anti-sugar folk in droves. "Water," they answered, one by one, "Water," "WATER" and even, "water," until one brave soul at last dared to reply as follows:

"Hi my name is [name withheld] and I am an addict. I drink Pepsi Max for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between and yes I know its unhealthy."

Oh boy, did I ever relate.

After years of drinking heavily iced Coca Cola, my husband had put his foot down just a few weeks earlier and told me I had to go off the stuff and start drinking water. This was a tall order. I hate water.

Yes. That's right. I HATE water. Always have. The only time I can stomach the stuff is right after brushing my teeth and then, only if the glass is mostly filled with ice.

The family joke is that I am ALLERGIC to water. 

But at the time the water survey was posted to the efrat-chat, I had, Glory Be to the Man Upstairs, been off of Coca Cola for several weeks. This was no mean feat. However, I agreed with Dov (reluctantly) that Coca Cola was really bad for me on several levels, bad for our budget, and that substituting water was the only way to go.

Even these many weeks later, weaned from the love of my life: Coca Cola, in my heart of hearts I was still rooting for [name withheld] since I had imbibed the lovely brown brew since I was wee and sweet habits such as these are hard to break.

Blame it on my mother if you like. My kids are fascinated at the idea that when I was a kid, we actually had a Pop Man who delivered cases of the fizzy stuff to our home on demand. Mom just picked up the phone and placed an order. The Pop Man's truck would pull into our driveway and burly men would unload case after case of pop, bringing it in to the house through the garage door and into our basement. 

My mom would send one of us kids down to the basement to bring up a few bottles of pop for dinner and we'd line 'em up on the side bar where my mom would fix us drinks on demand. My personal favorite was a mix of black cherry and cola. The brand of pop the Pop Man brought to our home was Cott and I remember the advertisements: "It's Cott to be good!"

As I child I developed a fondness for cola added to my milk. There was something about the smell, which reminded me of chlorinated swimming pools. I would not drink milk unless coke was added to the brew. 

I also remember that if my mom was pouring two glasses of cola at the same time, one for me and one for my sister, and one glass was even slightly fuller than the other, the sister with the less-full glass would cry foul until my mother managed to correct the cola levels to those deemed fair in our eyes. This is the purest expression of sibling rivalry I can remember from my past.

Much later, I moved to Israel and discovered that Coca Cola in Israel is made according to a different recipe, or perhaps it's different because the water is different. I don't know. But I do know that Coke in America tastes better. It's less sweet and has a greater depth of flavor. 

Still, had it not been for Coca Cola, I doubt I could have made it through my pregnancies. I suffered from hyperemesis all through my 12 pregnancies. I would become dehydrated and malnourished in each successive pregnancy, unable to hold down food or drink. Except: you guessed it. Coke. With lots of ice. 

With pregnancy behind me, and weight gain in front of me *gulp* I have been forced to take extreme measures. Dov was right. It was time to go off of coke.

But I never saw my mother drink anything other than weak tea or diet cola until today. Well into her 80's she seems to thrive on these non-nutritive substances and has the most beautiful skin I've ever seen in a senior. Drinking water seems almost a betrayal of her teachings. *sigh*

70's Nostalgia

oday I took a little walk down Memory Lane, which for me is a place stuck somewhere in the 1970’s. It began with clackers, glass orbs connected by a string that really hurt if you accidentally hit yourself (or someone else) in the head.

Clackers were very pretty. They came in all different colors and some of them were sparkly. Clackers were something like a cross between nunchaku and yo-yos, but bigger and more attractive than either, if less useful in the greater scheme of things.

Clackers were the big thing when I was 12 or 13. But by the time I was in my mid-teens, all the boys were showing off their nunchaku skills. They called them “nunchuks,” and how well they were wielded seemed to have a direct relationship to supposed male virility/testosterone levels. Something like that. But I remember making the connection even back then: nunchuks were boy clackers without balls. Hmmmm.
Remember puka beads? I remember buying a choker made out of puka beads for a boy I really liked when I was 14 or so. He put them on and my logical brain thought: “They make his neck look really pimply and fat,” while my emotional brain thought: “He likes them! He thinks I’m cool!”

I’m not really sure what made those beads become so popular. Maybe it was the thought that they came from Hawaii. Associations with Hawaii: Hawaii Five-O, Don Ho (my aren’t we in good rhyming form today), resorts, exotic drinks with umbrellas, and um, marijuana? The beads themselves were boring and almost colorless.

First there was Cracker Jacks, then there was Poppycock (still the best of the bunch if you ask me, and Kosher to boot!), then Fiddle Faddle, but how many of you remember Screaming Yellow Zonkers? They weren’t that good, but they sure were brightly-colored. Wonder what additive got them that way? Luckily they weren’t around long enough for us to ingest much of them.
Screaming Yellow Zonkers were all about the Peter Max rip-off box design. The box just screamed “COOL” and you felt forced to buy them just for the packaging. A lot of the 70’s products were like that.

Mood rings were popular a bit earlier, I think. I never felt very comfortable wearing my mood ring. I was afraid I’d betray an embarrassing emotion in public. Which is why those rings were a stupid idea: they were all about betraying embarrassing emotions in public. Why would someone pay for that particular privilege? But we did. Everyone did.

Now leisure suits, there’s a little bit of Americana that should have been terminated before becoming a viable entity. Ugly. Just ugly. This was not a look for a guy with no chest hair. Here my friend Bernie Newman shows the look.

Bernie Newman with long time best friend, Robin Bergstein Berman

Rumor has it Bernie’s powder blue leisure suit is still hanging in his closet waiting to be flaunted at high school reunions.

Who remembers the gum wars? Double Yum, Hubba Bubba, and Bubblicious were the names of the game. Green Apple, Grape, and Watermelon were the big three flavors. I confess I never much liked chewing gum or blowing bubbles. But I did admire my girlfriends who could blow super-sized bubbles without having them explode all over their long, straight (ironed) tresses. Hint: peanut butter is useful for removing chewing gum from hair.

We were Baby Boomers and we drank in TV with our mother’s milk, though lactation was not in vogue back when my bottle-fed generation came into existence. Our sexual and other mores were predicated on the images that paraded in front of our passive faces for more hours than I care to remember. Imagine my shock then, at seeing this old commercial for Love’s Baby Soft products which seems to be peddling, er, pedophilia.

Is that not creepy or what?

But this was a successful ad campaign. My girlfriends bought this stuff in droves. There was a huge line of products and a girl's popularity at that time was dependent upon what percentage of that product line you owned. My God. How did our parents let us buy this stuff??

Before Love’s Baby Soft shattered our innocence, there was Shake-A-Pudd'n. The commercials were shameless in targeting children. Moms could not go to the grocery store with children in tow without purchasing this product. Their kids would give them no peace until said product had been loaded into the grocery cart and purchased.

I remember making this with my sister and it was fun shaking the stuff. However, I also remember feeling perturbed that the finished product had a taste inferior to our family’s usual brand of instant pudding. I don’t recall that my mother purchased Shake-A-Pudd'n more than three times, at most.

Did you have a Frosty the Snowman? I did. He lived in the basement and I didn’t use him too often. Frosty was kind of a pain to use. I needed my mother’s help too much and she was too busy playing bridge and getting her hair done to load a plastic snowman with ice. I think we also ran out of the flavoring syrups and my mother used that as an excuse to put old Frosty in the basement cabinet for the duration of my childhood. I do remember taking him out and using him as a character in my playtime with friends.

What 70’s products do you remember?

Dov was Right

y son Natan is very proud of having been a very early user of Facebook. He saw Facebook’s potential way before most people caught on to the addictive social networking site. Four years ago, I caved in to Natan and let him set up my Facebook account.

At 21, Natan is too young to appreciate what it meant for me to find friends I hadn’t seen in over two decades. The early days of my Facebooking were heady indeed and life seemed fuller for having allowed social networking into my life. Every once in a while, I still find someone I cared about and had lost touch with, via Facebook, but those occasions are now rare, the heady early days long past.

Facebook has become part of the fabric of my life. I read my newsfeed two or three times a day, catching up with friends, the news, and the newest video clips to go viral. I play word games and Bejeweled Blitz to wake up in the morning, take a break from work, or to wind down at night.

Sometime after I became active on Facebook, my husband did, too. He wanted to see what the fuss was all about. That’s when we discovered that there seems to be a generational cut-off point for Facebook. Dov is eight years older than I and his buddies, it seems, just don’t appreciate or understand Facebook to the same extent as my own generation.

Feeling wiser than Dov in this one particular arena, I didn’t hesitate to express my annoyance at his insistence on posting links to articles echoing his right-wing Middle East political sentiments. Since we were Facebook friends, I was embarrassed by this inappropriate use of a social networking site. Dov and I didn’t agree on what was and was not an appropriate use of prime Facebook real estate. He stuck out his chin in that pugnacious way of his and I just rolled my eyes, continuing to cringe whenever he posted one of THOSE links.

Then there was the incident with the Mavi Marmara. It happened the day after my 49th birthday. Israel was forced to board this flotilla for flouting Israel’s Gaza blockade. The blockade was meant to prevent weapons from flowing into hostile territory and was a legal blockade according to international maritime law.


The Israelis who boarded the flotilla were armed with paintballs. The Mavi Marmara people lay in wait for the Israelis, beating them with iron bars and attacking them with knives. There was footage! But the mainstream media suppressed the truth and made the Israelis sound like brutal barbarians while painting the Mavi Marmara participants as saintly martyrs.

Having previously lambasted my husband for posting pro-Israel articles I was forced overnight to take up my fork and eat humble pie. I was so distressed by the slanted media reports of the Mavi Marmara incident that I was unable to rest or sleep. I realized that as a patriotic Israeli, I had no choice but to exploit Facebook as a platform for combating the rampant universal delegitimization of Israel.

Dov was right to have been posting those political articles. I had been very, very wrong.

Since that time, a year and a half ago, I have become a member of an unofficial Facebook group. The members of this group spend their days at their computers, posting every pro-Israel link they can find and countering the lies said in the mainstream media about the Jewish State.

I know that a lot of people find us very annoying. They think we abuse social networking for our political cause, just like I thought my husband was misusing Facebook for this purpose. I know that some of my friends, even those who share my politics, have stopped following my newsfeeds and some have unfriended me altogether over my insistent and constant politicization of the social networking site.

I care. It wounds me. But I care about Israel more.

I felt vindicated when members of the Israeli Knesset encouraged Israelis to keep on posting pro-Israel articles on Facebook. It seems that we are an important asset in combating the PR war against Israel’s enemies. We tell the real story when the media is quiet. We report the daily missiles emanating from Gaza and targeting our civilian population when the media will not. We expose the false propaganda spread by the other side by citing the facts, when the media would rather print the falsehoods for the sake of higher ratings.

And that’s because we don’t live by ratings or even by how many people send us friend requests on Facebook. We live only by our consciences and our strong moral sensitivity for right and wrong.

Maybe you think I have an inflated sense of self—that I fancy myself a sort of true-life, contemporary superhero? Maybe you think that some things shouldn’t be discussed in public: religion and politics. I don’t, CANNOT worry about that anymore.

As far as I’m concerned, the truth must out lest my people and my country perish. More than that, I believe that the world has failed to identify the enemy in its midst. I fear for world order. It’s a life and death situation. And like it or not, no one is safe. It’s coming to a theater near you.

Of Secret Societies and Bureau Drawers

ears ago, there was in my town, a group of women who did self-therapy by straightening bureau drawers. I received a call from one of the members who invited me to join their ranks. I declined the offer.

For all I know, the group still exists. But it sounded kind of crackpot to me--she wouldn't give me all the details unless I agreed to join. And why anyway, would I need to join a group to straighten out my bureau drawers? I imagined that all these women had messy lives and minds. But not this woman! I thrive on order.

I needed no secret society to explain the connection between housework and resolving issues. There is nothing better for the soul than throwing the windows open wide to the fresh air and throwing one's self full force into housework: taking down cobwebs, scrubbing things with hot soapy water, polishing silver to a fine sheen, or straightening out a lingerie drawer. The smell of cleaning products, the snap of latex gloves...okay, maybe that's going a little too far, even for me...I dread housework as much as any red-blooded housewife, but I'm guessing I'm not alone in feeling vibrant and in the mode once I stop procrastinating and get cracking on a household job that needs doing.

And I'm guessing I'm also not alone in realizing that as people clean and mend, their minds are freed up for thinking about and resolving their life issues. You feel great when you look at a window so clean it looks open, even when closed, but you feel better about stuff in your life, too, once a cleaning job is complete.


The mechanical movements used in cleaning are mindless and repetitive. Your mind is free to wander and will tend to seek out and settle on outstanding problems. You scrub and run through the possible solutions to your biggest problems.

Chances are, you will keep finding things to clean until your mind comes to a state of resolve and can finally rest.

A major component in the process of cleaning house, both literally and figuratively is that it is a solitary process. It's something you do by yourself in peace and quiet. The solitude is healing, in and of itself: it's just you, the dirty object, and your cleaning supplies.

Got issues? Clean out your bureau drawers. But do it on your own.

It doesn't take a secret society, let alone a village. Just remember: you heard it here, first.

I'm Blue but Rain Came Down

oday was a bad day for me and I am tired and still fighting not to be blue. I believe that it's possible for a person to fight the blues as long as one doesn't totally give in to the feelings. So, I got on with things as though it were just another day.

I got through my errands and my Friday baking (four sourdough challohs, 3 yellow layers for the decorated cake I will make for Yitzchak's upcoming bar mitzvah, and two marble cakes for Shabbes). I made lunch and did a couple loads of laundry. I played my iPod the entire time, thinking that music might help lift my mood.

Still, I had that heavy feeling all day and it persists until now, despite my best efforts. I know that people really like it when my blog is cheery and inspiring, so I debated about just not writing today. In the end I decided to push myself to write, just as I pushed myself to do everything else that needed doing today.

When I was a teenager, I studied drama at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. We were assigned to read about the Stanislavski Method and I learned that one can act from within or from without. To act from within is to invent a background, story, motive, or secret for your character, so that a performance is informed with greater depth. To act from without is to put on an accent, wear the clothes you think the character would wear, and otherwise act like you think the character would act, in hopes that one might internalize the character's persona.

My intent today was to do all the things I do when I'm happy, calm, and content. I'm acting from without. The hope is that if I act like everything is copacetic, somehow they WILL be copacetic.

Still, I didn't neglect to act from within either. I davened a slow Mincha, concentrated on the words, and said them with lots of feeling. I davened from the heart and I asked for help.

One very good sign that things will improve is that it is raining in Israel right now. In Israel, rain is a happy event. Our agriculture and our water supply depend on lots of rain, but not too much, during the winter months. When it rains at night during the rainy season, this is one definition of what we call "gishmei bracha" or rains of blessing.

Rain at the Western Wall at night

Gishmei bracha allow a person to do all his daytime chores by falling only at night when the day's chores are done. This is the kind of rain that is ideal because it doesn't impede us from our work, but replenishes the water supply while we are at rest. All day long, the skies had threatened rain. But the weather held, even if it was a bit blustery. Only when night fell did it rain.

This is a good sign and I am taking it that way: things will look up, my blue mood will lift, and all will be well once more.

I Know What I Know (with apologies to Paul Simon)

 his morning, I stumbled bleary-eyed to the computer to read my email and found two job leads forwarded to me by Dov. I scanned the leads. One of them didn't quite fit me: they wanted someone with an academic degree.  But Dov kept telling me to ignore all the nitty-gritty details listed on these job opps and to just go ahead and send them my resume and so I did.

Not long after, I received a message from the poster of the job opportunity that had required an academic degree. The message said, "Hi Varda, its nice to meet you.Your resume is very impressing, however you didn’t write anything about your education, and since this job is in the government they have specific demands, could you please elaborate?"

There was nothing I could really do but tell her that I have no academic degree. That I am an autodidact. That the only piece of paper I had to show her was a terrific recommendation from my boss at my last full time position. In my head, I was thinking of the lyric from a Joni Mitchell song, My Old Man:

We don't need no piece of paper
From the city hall
Keeping us tied and true  

Not that we were talking about a marriage license. But I wanted to scream and protest: I'm GOOD at what I do. I don't need an academic degree or a piece of paper to prove that. My work speaks for itself.

But I didn't scream, didn't protest. No point really. It wouldn't help me get that job.

Later that morning, I had some errands to run, and I decided I needed some music to cheer me up. I wasn't depressed exactly. But I felt like I needed to work a bit to keep my spirits up. So I grabbed my iPod and plugged in my earbuds.

I put on my Paul Simon Graceland playlist and as I was nearing my first stop, the song, I Know What I Know, came on. For the first time, something in the lyrics latched onto some synapse in my brain and really resonated. It was like I'd never heard that lyric before:

She looked me over
And I guess she thought
I was all right
All right in a sort of a limited way
For an off-night
She said don't I know you
From the cinematographer's party
I said who am i
To blow against the wind
I know what I know
I'll sing what I said
We come and we go
That's a thing that I keep
In the back of my head



Wow. That was exactly like what had happened to me earlier this morning with that job.

Now that happens to me a lot. Something I hear or read will seem to be so connected to current events. And I do not believe in a random universe. That message was coming to me from on high. So I strained to listen to the rest of the song and when it was over, I clicked replay.


Just like in the song, someone had looked me over and found me limited, wanting, because I didn't have the credentials.

I know what I know! I have the talent and the know-how. But owning the qualifications weren't enough.

It didn't seem fair.

I appreciate that education is a good thing. I appreciate that education is a commitment and huge expense. But not having a degree is like not being a man: it doesn't speak to my qualifications for the job. Isn't ruling me out because I lack a university degree then, a type of discrimination?

I came to this conclusion: When we are all dead and gone, what is left is the body of the work we produced while on this earth. I stand by the work I do and feel no shame. I know what I know. And that is the thing I will keep in the back of my head.

With that resolved, I felt better. The gloom that had threatened to ruin my day lifted and the sunshine came back. There will be other opportunities. Other jobs.

I guess I just need a little nudge sometimes.