Esther and the Bride

Last week I actually went to a Bridal Shower—as a friend of the 22-year-old bride. She is technically my son’s friend, growing up in my house over the years during those long Shabbos afternoons, me the alt mom, getting the good stuff we never tell our real moms.

The party was very elegant, from the smoked salmon to the lemon-curd pie (which takes 3 painstaking hours to curd) to the jewelry on the mostly middle-aged ladies.

I sat on the floor while the bride opened her gifts—her super-frum aunt dutifully tearing the pretty wrappings into strips to make the “shower hat.” Each gift was murmured over approvingly by the ladies who were otherwise silent except when they kevetched about how difficult it was to capture the moment on their phone cameras: a crock pot, a pasta set, fancy knives, glass tumblers, another pasta set, a challah plate with a sterling silver inlay.

I got her a black, somewhat see-through, boudoir ensemble with matching thong panties from Betsey Johnson.

It was the only lingerie she got.

WTF?

Back when it was my turn, I got TONS of that stuff. Granted this gathering had more Monsey and less Queens but geez. The men had been banned from the house for hours and this was billed as a girlsy afternoon.

Purim, yesterday, brought me back a couple thousand years. Esther, our beautiful heroine, was also preparing for her big night. And there was not one practical thing about it. It was 6 months in the oil of myrrh, and another 6 in perfumes and cosmetics. Beautiful linens and soft garments. Ok, so the Megillah says she didn’t indulge as much as the other harem girls, but there was no mention of crock pots, electric or clay.

It was all about sex. What happened?

I can’t even tell you how often people complain to me about their love lives. Both husbands and wives have confided over the many years about how the other was unskilled, unresponsive, or uninterested. How they lie there, unsatisfied, night after night. How embarrassed they were to even talk about it, how they didn’t even know how to talk about it, how, you know, everything else is great, but um, That.

I don’t care how much your husband likes your chulent; nothing is great if That’s not great.

I am no therapist but I have given, shall we say, tutorials, and I know all about being too busy and too worried and too stressed to make pleasing and pleasure a priority.

I also admit that I should be soaking myself in some figurative myrrh more often—in my case at the gym.

But That really matters to me. And besides, Purim is my absolutely favorite holiday.

So I want to tell the bride to be like Esther—make him so crazy from you that after one night he is forgetting about all the other girls, giving you a golden crown and up to half his kingdom.

Keep his royal scepter (ha!) pointing up.

Start from the bedroom, not the kitchen.

The bride’s mother winked at me afterwards. I knew I could count on you for that, she said.

Of course, I said. And I was not winking.

Palms, Pelicans, and Puke

We had been driving straight for eight hours—eight hours—all through the night, with a pathetic nap on the side of the road when we couldn’t keep our eyes lubricated—to get to Ilana’s KlezKamp friend in North Carolina so that his toddler brother could meet her toddler brother and sister. It was our only stop on the way down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We were five minutes away from their house—five minutes. And little Johnny went AAAH!-- and threw up all over his car seat. And then—count to three—AAAH!—and little Charlie threw up all over her car seat. I went AAAH!—and pulled over. I looked back at the two of them covered in puke, turned to Sruli, and busted out laughing. So we spent the first day of our vacation at a local laundromat as I painstakingly stripped down the kids and Sruli painstakingly stripped down the car seats and everything cloth went around and around in the wash. So the babies are sick. Ilana is sick. Sruli is sick. I am not sick, of course, but I am not eating anything (!) prophylactically. Oh, and here in Myrtle Beach is the coldest it’s been in ten years. Yet all in all, not too bad, because the hotel is beautiful, there are loads of palm trees, and we got a suite for insanely cheap (Sruli is a wonder at the internet), there is a ginormous indoor pool complex and the first night I floated down the Lazy River with Johnny on my belly. Today we saw some pelicans on Murrells Inlet—just like in Nemo, Mommy! And, on the way to the pelicans, Sruli stopped for not one—but two—bead shops while the babies watched Barney in the car. He sat right outside the parked car on a bench by the door of the shops, waiting for me, playin’ his bones. Clickety clack clack clack. The ladies in the shops were all tsihitst—what is that sound? Oh—they peeked through the shades—there seems to be a “gentleman” (they are so gosh-darn polite here in the south) doing something unusual right in front of our store. Wait, said I blithely, bead shopping all the while, he will also take a solo on the sheep-dog whistle. Sure enough: Wooo wooo wooo-eee, Clickety, clack, clack, clack. The ladies stared at me. I found some lovely pink stone hearts to make Ilana earrings. Oh yes, I said, not looking up, I married him and had children with him. We are musicians, you know. Tomorrow we plan to go to the Aquarium to see the sharks—just like Nemo, Mommy!—and then a major expense—Pirates Voyage which is like Medieval Times only with Pirates. And meantime, city moms are calling to see if there’s any room left in our Presidents Week Mini-Camp next week. It all seems so far away—this Shabbos, Sruli is the Rabbi again, we have a freylikh Yiddish Dance Day at the JCC and a nice concert in Brooklyn on Sunday. Yesterday on the lazy river, I decided I am finally going to do it— I’m going to St. Petersburg for my big birthday next year. One makes momentous decisions when one is on vacation. Momentous decisions and mundane discoveries, Like sometimes love smells like puke.

Nothing But All of Us

I think—I hope—the honeymoon is over, and my Fairy Stepdaughter and the rest of us can start the happily ever after.

The party we had planned for five and a half years, the planning of which had kept us going—and connected-- through the dark ages was, if I say so myself, a smash.

She was radiant in a (oy a shande!) short short black velvet dress with a very elegant beaded décolletage and high high heels. Her crown, her refulgent hair, curled and luxe.

People came from all over to share the poignancy—her KlezKanada homegirls and boys, school friends, as well as our friends, musicians, artists, professors, Yiddishists—and lawyers-- from Toronto and Boston and Syracuse and Philadelphia and DC.

Her friends spoke about how much they loved her. Aaron likened their siblinghood’s bond to a hydrogen atom or something that couldn’t be broken even by free radicals. Zachary composed a song, which he and Aaron performed.

And, in front of all her Ortho high-school peeps, who sat quietly listening for over an hour, grownup after grownup said she was their hero.

I spoke too, first about Sruli. About the hell and humiliation he went through and about how I wondered why—and how—as he watched every precious thing being taken from him, that he didn’t just jump off a bridge.

And how he was one of the lucky ones. Sruli’s friend from his law school days was there, too. This was the friend who took him in and let Sruli sleep on his couch for two weeks when the judge told him one fine afternoon that he had fifteen minutes to take his stuff from his house and get out. The friend had had the same judge. This friend, a successful tax attorney, looked out at the room. I haven’t seen my kids for six years, he said.

The Angels spoke. The musician angel whose voice broke as he talked about his own broken childhood. He had testified at the trial. The artist angel who provided the safe house on that fateful last night when her mother sent the police looking for her. The lawyer angel who brought her to court and whose passion and smarts are the only reason she is free today. I had to rescue the princess who was trapped in the tower, she said. Indeed.

And Sruli, the real Daddy from this fairy tale spoke and cried. I have never seen him like this and I hope I never will again. It was raw and ecstatic and naked and frightening. He thanked me—which I deserved, hey!—and held his daughter tight as he looked around the room at the village who helped raise his child from the dead.

Then a hora with an all-star band, really, and special sno-cone ices a la New Orleans, and then the DJ rockin’ the house. A party.

At the end of my speech I told everyone how for 6 years-- 5 lawyers, 4 judges, 3 police departments, 2 forensic psychiatrists, 2 court appointed supervisors and 1 multi-millionaire mother conspired to keep one little red-head girl’s life a nightmare until she turned 18.

I told everyone how, on that last night, she was barely one step ahead of the police and the court forensic whom her mother enlisted to forcibly commit her to a mental institution. An institution that would finally cure her of loving us.

I didn’t say how she might never have escaped that institution since the mother would have had complete control over her fate for the rest of her life (“Can you imagine what I had to do to my own daughter” she would say piteously, as her sedated and medicated daughter turned 18, and then 28, and then 38) and that’s what delusion and anger and immaturity and paranoia and a crazed sense of vengeance can do when it has millions to spend.

I told everyone that my fairy stepdaughter had run out without her shoes, her clothes, her stuff, her books, her papers.

She has no more trust fund. She has no money for college.

She has nothing. Except happiness, pride--and all of us.

And—for all of us—for our happily ever after--it is enough.

Hi Res

Two weeks into the New Year and already they’re telling me to give up. No way to lose weight. Gotta be superhuman to do it. My leptin is fighting with my ghrelin; my peptides and genetics are consigning me forever to shop in Women’s.

A pox be upon you. I am determined to be determined.

I once went to this diet guru who told me that she has to dress like a movie star every day. I guess it’s how she tells herself she’s worth it.

Growing up, my sense of worth came with mixed messages—as the daughter of a professor and scholar I felt it unseemly to focus on the superficial; it was embarrassing to be the kind of girl who “takes care of herself.” But I’m sure there was a bisl envy mixed with disdain for my glisteningly blonde friend who treated herself to manicures when she was only fourteen.

I discovered Neutrogena sesame body oil at a sleepover once—it felt amazing on my naked skin after a shower. But in the store I discovered that the bottle was like, 9 dollars and even later when I was making a fortune in advertising, I couldn’t fargin myself.

Of course, 3 pregnancies later and no body oil, guess who has stretch marks?

Meantime I’ve been getting up earlier and getting on the bike. I’ve been shlepping to yoga and risking all kinds of kooky injuries to mimic that tight-girl next to me. Who the hell can do the “Crane?” Jeez.

I consider myself an optimistic gal, though Sruli assures me that anyone who grabs the first possible parking spot like I do, rushes to get to a movie as early as I do, and bids as frantically high on Ebay as I do isn’t a half-fuller. Nevertheless I made him promise me that if I fit into a certain red dress (I know--me! Red!) by Valentine’s Day, he is going to take me someplace good. Overnight.

And I am trying to count my blessings: superficial—good hair, good skin, good teeth (poopoopoo) and the not so superficial—good health (poopoopoo) and to recognize that although age has brought a stubborn midsection, it has also granted a smiling patience. It has taken all of me a long, long time to get here.

I am going to try to be kinder to myself.

Neutrogena sesame body oil is $7.99 at Target. I am planning to spring for it.

Sno-Ball

The very first food I ever wanted and couldn’t have was a Hostess Sno-Ball. I was 4. It was on the low shelf by the checkout at Key Food, pink and round and glistening.

Pink. Round. Glistening. And Treyf.

Sure, I knew from treyf, even though I never used the word. Not Kosher, that was all my mother had to say. Couldn’t have it, no argument, nothin’ to discuss.

Nowadays everyone reads food labels for polyunsaturates, trans fats and allergens.

Back then I read labels for one word only: gelatin.

“GEL-atin!” we’d say, our lips twisting in disappointment in the aisles of Key Food and later Waldbaum’s and later Food Emporium and still later Stop and Shop.

It was like finding a piece of doggie poo on your living room floor, or a boy in the girl’s bathroom, or (now, oy) a new grey hair, or maybe just Waldo. Aha! —great, now get rid of it, on to the next.

Many yummy-looking things had gelatin like Oreos, and Lucky Charms and something else chocolatey I really wanted that I forget right now.

Such an innocent looking word; didn’t even make it to the top ten on the ingredients list, and all lower-case unlike those chemical compounds at the end.

Sruli says, whenever I kvetch to him that I am too fat, (which is way too often, but he got me at middle age, and knocked me up, and it’s very hard to lose baby fat now even after two and a half years and anyway I am noticing lately that most women my age have that thickness around the middle that marks them as middle-aged, so I have a double whammy that makes it doubly hard, dammit, and do you think Sensa really works because those pop-up ads on Facebook are kinda cool the way they shrink that red dress and I have a red dress from Lucky that I was hoping to wear for Thanksgiving but my stomach might stick out too unattractively, see above, and at this rate I will never ever get to wear it with that cool dangling gold oak-leaf necklace, the point being that it would dangle and not just rest on any protrusion) that I should go back in time and make all fattening foods “treyf” in my head the way I used to with gelatin. You didn’t even want it, he says, didn’t even tempt you.

I see the way my beautiful and slim fairy stepdaughter eats: small sensible meals, a fruit, some soup. She doesn’t crave, the way I crave, and food is just not that important. Just not that important. Ha!

And it’s not like I don’t have a million things going on.

Sometimes, ok, most times, I suspect that I would get more done if I stopped thinking about food, but I also suspect that that is tantamount to exhorting a seventeen year old boy to stop thinking about sex every 17 seconds or whatever the statistic is.

One of my theories about food and treyf and the reason that so many Ortho Jews are so fat is that when you deny yourself in one department you tend to go overboard in another.

Sure, no Ortho is eating Sno-balls, but watch them at the pizza place on Motzei Shabbos.

I am trying, of late, to be in control, and matter of fact and not greedy at all those buffets at all the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs we are doing every weekend; trying to absorb the concept of moderation and ease and the fact that the platter of pasta, or fried chicken cutlets or brownies that the caterer put out is not, repeat, not my portion, and I shouldn’t be eating that stuff anyway since there is almost always a grilled something and a nice salad and an even nicer fruit display.

Calm is good, calm is sexy. I’m going to try to be calm about food.

So tonight at the supermarket, Charlie Re noticed something on the low shelf by the checkout, something pink and round and glistening.

Mommy, she said, holding it up.

She is two and a half and the world is her oyster.

Ok, I said.

We checked out. I opened the package and handed one to her and one to her drooling twin brother.

She took a tiny bite and held it out to me, the coconut sprinkles (I never realized what they were!) yes, glistening, and I slowly leaned in for a taste.

She watched me carefully with her green eyes.

Mmmmmm, I said. But it was awful.

The Redhead Badge of Courage

I’m almost afraid to say it—she’s here. After five and a half years of waiting and hoping and crying and screaming and paying and praying, she is doing her science homework on our dining room table.

At the end she did it herself, really—escaped by a single night her being khopped, grabbed and committed to an institution that would “cure” her of loving us.

She knows how close she came, and how far she came—from that 12-year-old who would scream Daddy Daddy in agony as he was threatened and prevented from seeing or even speaking to her-- to a courageous young woman who is now liberated and free from fear.

There were angels who helped her—a brilliant and beautiful family friend who took her in that last crazy night and a young saintly matrimonial lawyer who fought passionately against a teeth-gnashing monster in Family Court.

And there is a legal document out there called an Order of Protection. I am ashamed and sad that our kids even know what that is.

I have to let go of this rage and, as the shrinks say, move on. Yes it took up the entire first part of my new life with Sruli and yes it took up our entire nest egg and yes it took its toll on our children and our families and our music and our love and even our dogs but it’s over and the wicked witch is, legally anyway, dead.

Our happy ending includes eight suitcases overflowing with teenage girl belongings overflowing my living room. My sons are bemused and fascinated—they have never seen so many “products”—for hair, skin, eyes, lips, nails—or so many sweaters or so many shoes.

Sruli and I both tuck her in—it’s a surreal moment. She says “it’s so nice to be in a place where everyone loves me.” We look at each other and smile on the outside and fume on the inside, then shrug and hug and kiss.

She seems to be past the poison and looking only forward. College looms, life looms but happily she seems to have chosen a blessed career path that will do good in the world.

The boys of the world have taken notice as well. Sruli is kvelling.

I will try to convince her to write about what happened to her— the lies and the bizarre reality that is the courtroom and the incompetent judges and the new, replacement judges who admitted that although the verdict was wrong they wouldn’t do anything and the seedy greedy lawyers who stoked an angry and obviously unbalanced, vengeful, cruel mother—who happens to be a multi-millionaire—and most of all the New York Divorce Inferno which includes “supervisors,” “forensics,” “law guardians,” and “psychiatric experts,” who screwed a little redhead girl out of a father and out of a normal life.

Maybe she will write about it to help herself or other kids and maybe it will be a warning to divorcing parents everywhere but right now, as she says—“I’m so happy just to sit quietly and eat Cheerios with you.”

Five and a half years. When she officially turns 18 we are going to throw a kick-ass party for her and you are all invited and you should wear your happiest outfits and your most waterproof mascara.

I feel like a new Mom. And I can’t stop crying.

What I Did This Summer

As I sort through euphoric, exhilarated, ecstatic and exhausted, I settle on—proud.
We have a camp.
It’s really ours; we are not working for anyone else.
We finished our first two-week session today and the kids were convincing their
parents to let them stay for another couple of weeks.
As one 10 year old boy put it to me on the second (!) day: “this is the weirdest camp, but also the funnest.”
It is weird—we have a stand-up comedian and we play butt-ball and we turned everyone into a jug band with washboards and spoons and limberjacks and shtumph-fiddles.
We built a giant hexagonal tent in the lobby with a hammock and a six-foot red beanbag.
It’s the lounge.
The gorgeous auditorium is set up like a disco, with lights and a killer sound system.
Kids can have as many twizzlers and yogurt-fudge cookies and lemonade for snack after morning yoga and as many ice-pops-on-the-terrace-at-3 as they want.
We have a popcorn machine.
We have a giant screen Wii.
Our kids are artists, jugglers, models, singers, musicians, dancers and fashionistas and loudmouths and kvetchers and goofusses and come from all over the city.
I LOVE them. Sruli loves them.
They know they are loved and they are happy.
Their parents are happy.
Both my big boys are counselors and teach everything from martial arts to chess to digital recording to how to build remote control cars. They are experts on all these things.
The younger girls chase after Aaron all day long.
The twins’ feet have not touched the floor in two weeks and the girls fight over who gets to hold them. Charlie Re loves being a Barbie Doll and receives new hair-dos every hour.
We have gotten a parking spot in front almost every day. We found a cheap deli.
And we are in the West Village.
It almost makes me forget the previous year’s heart-attack stress levels: getting the permits, the insurance, more insurance, more insurance, more permits, finding the place, losing the place, scrambling to find another place, writing contracts, searching for the right comedian, the right artists, the right actor, the right hip-hopper; meeting all the parent coordinators of all the schools, advertising and more advertising, The American Camp Association, the Tri-State Camp Association, camp fairs and conferences and open houses, dealing with the city and with Citibank, the Board of Ed, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Fire Department, The Mercantile Office, writing safety plans and getting all the proper certifications from The Red Cross, plus dealing with over a dozen shuls as well as the Archdiocese of New York.
I haven’t been able to blog in a long time. I haven’t been able to fold laundry for a long time. I haven’t been to the gym in a long time.
Frankly, running the camp has been like a vacation.
Oh, and we even passed this week’s surprise inspection.
This is not what I thought I would do with my life but it is what I am actually doing (with a large part of it) and I have been truly happy every minute of every day at that camp.
I guess I didn’t think of doing this, maybe didn’t think I could do it, should do it, whatever, til one night at 4AM, 17 months ago when Sruli said—how about a camp?
Yeah—how about this camp?