LET THEM EAT PROZAC

My neighbor (the one who knows what to do with rhubarb) popped over and handed me what she said was “a long overdue housewarming pressie.”

 

Yes, it was a bloody plant.

 

BooBoo and I were having a coffee in my garden, and when I came out carrying the unlucky flora, Boo commented “Great; something new for you to kill.”  Sometimes she’s not very nice to me.

 

Well okay…that other plant…the one Jeanette from shul gave me…so I murdered it.  How many times do I have to say ‘Sorry!’?  I watered it, didn’t I?  It could have said ‘Genug’ (Yiddish) or ‘Basta’ (Italian) or even ‘I’m fucking drowning’ (American).  I would have understood any of those sentiments.  Instead it just shriveled up and did the big Q.

 

BooBoo says she will nurture the new one personally.  She brought it inside.  “It’s an indoor plant” she huffed.  “Really?” I asked intrigued.  “Why?  Does it not like fresh air and sunshine?”  Inquiring minds want to know.  She just shook her head sadly at my ignorance about nature. 

 

“Yeah, well I can spot a knock-off Louis Vuitton at 100 yards” I told her.  “In the larger scheme of things, which is the more useful talent?  I vote for Louis.”

 

“How long is 100 yards” she asked.  “100 yards is… 100 yards!  It’s how long a Real, Proper American football field is…not counting the End Zones which are ten yards, and there’s two.  And don’t confuse it with Not Real, Almost Like American, Canadian football; their field is 110 yards, because they have two fifty yard lines.  I might be able to spot a fake Louis at 110 yards; We’ll have to do a test.” 

 

Then, to pay her back for the crack about killing plants, I told her all about Jeremy Maclin (WR, Missouri), the 19^th pick in the Draft.  The Eagles traded the 21^st pick and a Sixth Round slot to the Brownies to get him.  Maclin was expected to go in the first Ten, but he didn’t.  And about LeSean McCoy (RB, Pitt) the 53^rd Pick the Birds selected in the Second Round.  I had correctly predicted that the hapless Lions would opt for a QB with their Round One top slot and they did – Matthew Stafford from Georgia.

 

Yes, it’s NFL Draft time again. Oh, joy!   BooBoo went home when I segued on to NFL Draft Day Parties I Can’t Actually Remember A Whole Lot About. 

 

I went to shul on Saturday morning.  I looked stunning, and Adonai spoke personally to me as usual.  Just your basic Shabbat in Weybridge.

 

Saturday night, I had a date with BPeter.  He came over early, with his toolbox again.  No, that’s not speaking in tongues.  I had a ‘Honey Do’ list going, and he Did.  He put up a shelf, fixed a lamp, and mounted my mezzuzah on the door jamb so that I obey the commandment in Deuteronomy to inscribe the words of the Shema ‘on the doorpost of your house’.  Maybe so much bad stuff will stop happening now.  We just went to the Ash Tree for dinner and then had a few drinks with Cheese Boy; a relatively quiet evening.

 

On Sunday, I went to a seminar on Depression presented by Jewish Care, a charity which provides health and social services to the Jewish community.  It was sponsored jointly by the four synagogues in Surrey, and truthfully, NWSS needed bodies to fill our mini-bus.  It was held at Kingston Reform Synagogue.  It was informative, and I did meet lots of new people (Jews, naturally, the reason I agreed to go).

 

There are three people in my life, all of whom I care a great deal about, suffering from serious depression right now.  It’s my opinion, and again only mine, that Social Services here suck.  For almost any emotional problem, the only help offered is anti-depressants.  Practically the entire population is zonked out on ‘Mother’s Little Helpers’.   Personally, I find that shopping cheers me up much better. 

 

How can anyone be down about anything when they’ve just found the most stunning outfit for Pinkie’s Birthday Do?  And Pinkie has scored accommodations and tickets for us for the fabulous Clothes Show in Birmingham in December?  And we’ll be mooching on P.C. Hoofstraat and the Nine Little Streets in just a couple days?   Exactly.

 

Well, we didn’t win the Quiz at the Grotto Sunday night.  It was really hard this week.  But we came second, so we won eight drinks.  Pinkie and I will miss the Ash Tree Quiz on Thursday night because we’ll be in Amsterdam.  I hope the blokes will cope without us.

 

The next blog won’t be until we return.  Try to cope.  Just take another anti-depressant.

 

I’M NOT BORED

As promised, or threatened, I took pictures of the rhubarb.  Well, BooBoo took them; I couldn’t be in them if I took them.  I really do tell the truth…almost all of the time.

 

And I’ve posted some other pictures, of a memorial.  Fans who’ve been reading the blog forever know that Rere, my closest cousin, died just before I came back to Weybridge.  There were some issues—when aren’t there issues?—with her husband.  Anyway, when I got the pictures from License to Injure Slightly, of course I cried.  I dashed off a quick return email noting that I couldn’t believe Rere’s husband got it ‘right’ for once and noting how moving the sentiments were. 

 

By the way, for clarification, both our husbands were called ‘Jerry’.  We just called them ‘JerryC’ for ‘Cohen’ and ‘JerryS’ for ‘Schaffer’, and don’t confuse either of them with ‘GerryP’, who is cousin Geraldine.

 

John (License to Injure Slightly, if you’re trying to keep score on the British side), husband of cousin Princess Maggie, emailed back the following complaint:

 

‘We do try to keep up with the blog but honestly, Jean, the cast of characters is too hard for our old feeble minds to keep up with.  You might think of adding some sort of list that identifies the players and their relationships, but that might blow out the mass storage devices.’ 

 

Wow!  They’re confused.  I’m not.  Confused, I mean … for a change.  I guess you sort of have to be there… I mean here… no, I mean in one of the two places… now I’m confused.

 

So here’s a primer for the uninitiated, a Cast of Characters, if you will.  I suggest you print it out and tape it to the wall next to all your passwords and PIN numbers to avoid that pesky confusion thingy in future.

 

 

BooBoo (Karen) & Sister Pinkie (Lizzie) – My two BFFs

 

Cheese Boy (Lou) – BooBoo’s partner & my best male mate

 

Irish Lad (Terry) – Pinkie’s husband and a lovely man

 

Amy & Eamonn – Pinkie & Terry’s offspring

 

Jackie – the rabbi at North West Surrey Synagogue

 

Monkey Joe – fabled procurer of ‘Camilla the Car’ & bad influence (drinking companion)

 

Scary Fairy (Mary) – my Scrabble playing friend from New Jersey

 

Muffin Man (Mike) *the good Mike not to be confused with The Turd Mike* and The Mule-ess (Patricia) – American friends who used to own the Grotto

 

Mike – again not to be confused with the scum sucking turd one- my favorite partner at Sam.

 

Bernie Cohen – extremely hot Jewish guy (fortunately no relation)

 

David – extremely hot Jewish guy (I now know two guys called ‘David’)  Of course I mean you.

 

BPeter – a good friend who’s a ‘boy’ rather than a real ‘boyfriend’

 

PPeter – my landlord

 

Steve-o from Strange-o (Rob) The Irish Lad’s best mate; I’m not sure we’re actually friends but I see him an awful lot.

 

The Scary Fairies, Forgotten, The Scooby Dos, The Bar Staff, Lady Driver & Neil, etc. – the other Quiz Teams

 

The Quiz Nazi (Leyla) The Moderator of our Quiz at the Ash Tree.

 

Israeli Guy, DooWop Guy, British Commando Guy, Repo Man, Filthy Rich Jewish Guy, etc., etc., etc. – former boyfriends

 

The Turd (Bagpipe Guy) scum sucking, bottom feeding, see-what- happens-when you fish-outside-your-own-gene-pool ex-something or other. Don’t ask me; I still haven’t figured it out.

 

Colin – the new owner of the Grotto

 

Gabby – the DJ at the Volly; he fancies me.

 

Sam – Not a person; it’s what I call the Sam Beare Hospice Bookshop.

 

Lulu & Jarvo – really good friends

 

Jimbo (James) – my Proper, Real, American Football friend even if he’s a G-men supporter

 

Oz Ed & Clare- more good friend

 

Trevor of the Fifty Hands – a really creepy bloke who is so not blog-worthy.

 

And a cast of thousands more who caught my attention for a second but are not worthy of making it onto the list.

 

 

 

Moving right along, we won the Quiz at the Ash Tree last night (again, for the second week in a row).  I know… all these wins are getting so commonplace. It’s hardly worth blogging about.

 

Pinkie and the Irish Lad were in London for Pinkie’s Leaving Do at Charing Cross (she has a new job at Guildford Hospital), so, kindly, Steve-o from Strange-o said he’d pick me up.  I was quite titillated.  Would he land his Space Module right on the roof of #1 Rede Court and beam me up, Rob-o?  Sadly, no.  He drove up in a navy blue Peugeot and beeped the horn.  But there were some dials on the dashboard that I’m certain monitor the activities of earthlings and fax it up to the Head Office on planet.

 

Rob usually quizzes with his friends, so Cheese Boy and I joined them, forging a brain trust dubbed ‘Don’t Ask Me!’  You might want to edit that ‘Cast of Characters’ you printed.  Add on Theresa, Philip and Jamison.  Oh.  Add on ‘Jessie from the Scooby Dos’ too, because I love him.  (He knows why.)

 

Note to Chris (Forgotten), Paul (Scooby Dos), Karen & Doug (Scary Fairies):  Make sure you tell Jessie he made the blog this week.

 

What a shame Pinkie and I will miss the Quiz next week because we’ll be in Amsterdam.

 

I’m covering an extra shift at Sam, meeting Monkey for ‘one drink’ on Friday, have a date Saturday night with BPeter, a lecture on Sunday at Kingston Synagogue on ‘Depression’, the Grotto quiz Sunday night, and another quiz Monday night for the Weybridge WI.  (They don’t think it’s especially funny when I keep asking when we’re ‘shooting the naked calendar’.)  And I have to shop yet; I have nothing to wear that screams “Brown Café” or “Planning on Smoking a Whole Lot of Weed”.

 

But I will try to blog before we go.

 

GEE…I FORGOT I’M STILL REALLY SAD

As promised, or threatened, I took pictures of the rhubarb.  Well, BooBoo took them; I couldn’t be in them if I took them.  I really do tell the truth…almost all of the time.

 

And I’ve posted some other pictures, of a memorial.  Fans who’ve been reading the blog forever know that Rere, my closest cousin, died just before I came back to Weybridge.  There were some issues—when aren’t there issues?—with her husband.  Anyway, when I got the pictures from License to Injure Slightly, of course I cried.  I dashed off a quick return email noting that I couldn’t believe Rere’s husband got it ‘right’ for once and noting how moving the sentiments were. 

 

By the way, for clarification, both our husbands were called ‘Jerry’.  We just called them ‘JerryC’ for ‘Cohen’ and ‘JerryS’ for ‘Schaffer’, and don’t confuse either of them with ‘GerryP’, who is cousin Geraldine.

 

John (License to Injure Slightly, if you’re trying to keep score on the British side), husband of cousin Princess Maggie, emailed back the following complaint:

 

‘We do try to keep up with the blog but honestly, Jean, the cast of characters is too hard for our old feeble minds to keep up with.  You might think of adding some sort of list that identifies the players and their relationships, but that might blow out the mass storage devices.’ 

 

Wow!  They’re confused.  I’m not.  Confused, I mean … for a change.  I guess you sort of have to be there… I mean here… no, I mean in one of the two places… now I’m confused.

 

So here’s a primer for the uninitiated, a Cast of Characters, if you will.  I suggest you print it out and tape it to the wall next to all your passwords and PIN numbers to avoid that pesky confusion thingy in future.

 

 

BooBoo (Karen) & Sister Pinkie (Lizzie) – My two BFFs

 

Cheese Boy (Lou) – BooBoo’s partner & my best male mate

 

Irish Lad (Terry) – Pinkie’s husband and a lovely man

 

Amy & Eamonn – Pinkie & Terry’s offspring

 

Jackie – the rabbi at North West Surrey Synagogue

 

Monkey Joe – fabled procurer of ‘Camilla the Car’ & bad influence (drinking companion)

 

Scary Fairy (Mary) – my Scrabble playing friend from New Jersey

 

Muffin Man (Mike) *the good Mike not to be confused with The Turd Mike* and The Mule-ess (Patricia) – American friends who used to own the Grotto

 

Mike – again not to be confused with the scum sucking turd one- my favorite partner at Sam.

 

Bernie Cohen – extremely hot Jewish guy (fortunately no relation)

 

David – extremely hot Jewish guy (I now know two guys called ‘David’)  Of course I mean you.

 

BPeter – a good friend who’s a ‘boy’ rather than a real ‘boyfriend’

 

PPeter – my landlord

 

Steve-o from Strange-o (Rob) The Irish Lad’s best mate; I’m not sure we’re actually friends but I see him an awful lot.

 

The Scary Fairies, Forgotten, The Scooby Dos, The Bar Staff, Lady Driver & Neil, etc. – the other Quiz Teams

 

The Quiz Nazi (Leyla) The Moderator of our Quiz at the Ash Tree.

 

Israeli Guy, DooWop Guy, British Commando Guy, Repo Man, Filthy Rich Jewish Guy, etc., etc., etc. – former boyfriends

 

The Turd (Bagpipe Guy) scum sucking, bottom feeding, see-what- happens-when you fish-outside-your-own-gene-pool ex-something or other. Don’t ask me; I still haven’t figured it out.

 

Colin – the new owner of the Grotto

 

Gabby – the DJ at the Volly; he fancies me.

 

Sam – Not a person; it’s what I call the Sam Beare Hospice Bookshop.

 

Lulu & Jarvo – really good friends

 

Jimbo (James) – my Proper, Real, American Football friend even if he’s a G-men supporter

 

Oz Ed & Clare- more good friend

 

Trevor of the Fifty Hands – a really creepy bloke who is so not blog-worthy.

 

And a cast of thousands more who caught my attention for a second but are not worthy of making it onto the list.

 

 

 

Moving right along, we won the Quiz at the Ash Tree last night (again, for the second week in a row).  I know… all these wins are getting so commonplace. It’s hardly worth blogging about.

 

Pinkie and the Irish Lad were in London for Pinkie’s Leaving Do at Charing Cross (she has a new job at Guildford Hospital), so, kindly, Steve-o from Strange-o said he’d pick me up.  I was quite titillated.  Would he land his Space Module right on the roof of #1 Rede Court and beam me up, Rob-o?  Sadly, no.  He drove up in a navy blue Peugeot and beeped the horn.  But there were some dials on the dashboard that I’m certain monitor the activities of earthlings and fax it up to the Head Office on planet.

 

Rob usually quizzes with his friends, so Cheese Boy and I joined them, forging a brain trust dubbed ‘Don’t Ask Me!’  You might want to edit that ‘Cast of Characters’ you printed.  Add on Theresa, Philip and Jamison.  Oh.  Add on ‘Jessie from the Scooby Dos’ too, because I love him.  (He knows why.)

 

Note to Chris (Forgotten), Paul (Scooby Dos), Karen & Doug (Scary Fairies):  Make sure you tell Jessie he made the blog this week.

 

What a shame Pinkie and I will miss the Quiz next week because we’ll be in Amsterdam.

 

I’m covering an extra shift at Sam, meeting Monkey for ‘one drink’ on Friday, have a date Saturday night with BPeter, a lecture on Sunday at Kingston Synagogue on ‘Depression’, the Grotto quiz Sunday night, and another quiz Monday night for the Weybridge WI.  (They don’t think it’s especially funny when I keep asking when we’re ‘shooting the naked calendar’.)  And I have to shop yet; I have nothing to wear that screams “Brown Café” or “Planning on Smoking a Whole Lot of Weed”.

 

But I will try to blog before we go.

 

BUT SERIOUSLY…

It was a serious and a frivolous week, because I can do both.

 

Monday was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I went to the service at shul.  The guest speaker was a survivor of the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.  Jackie had mentioned on Shabbat that since the number of survivors is rapidly dwindling, it’s important for teens to get the opportunity to hear first hand accounts.  So I took Amy to the service.

 

The story was chilling.  The woman and her father lived in Berlin.  Her mother and grandmother had already been deported to the camps, and her father worked twenty hours a day as forced labor repairing railway lines that had been bombed.  At five years old, she was virtually alone and responsible for scrounging for food for herself and her father, cooking, and finding a place to hide when the Allies bombed.  (Jews were not allowed into the bomb shelters.)

 

I won’t drone on about it or her experiences in the Camp, but Amy was overwhelmed and moved.  The survivor had brought along her Yellow Star, she had pinned it onto her jumper.  Amy said that image would stay with her always.

 

The Yom Hashoah service made three days in a row that I’d been to activities at NWSS, including services on Saturday.  It’s never too early to start thinking about the Book, especially if you forgot and ate a piece of garlic bread during Pesach. 

 

The Israeli Group Chair’s husband told me on Monday night that he’d Googled Abbie Ben Ari for the article he was doing for Haderech and the first item that came up was my blog, because I’d mentioned going to the lecture.  Of course, he complimented the blog (this is true; you can ask Amy) and said he’d read back through several months (shit!) and would be reading more.

 

Amy also had the pleasure of meeting Bernie Cohen.  I introduced them, and added jokingly “He’s my cousin”.  Bernie said “We’re closer than cousins.”  I carried right on telling Amy “We’re really brother and sister, but we were separated as babies, and Bernie grew up in Scotland and I grew up in Philadelphia.  That’s why only one of us has an accent.  Guess which one.”  Bernie laughed and asked “So do I make it into the blog again this week?”

 

On Tuesday, I wasn’t a Tea Lady.  I’d forgotten that Sanjay had asked me to be on the Weybridge Centre Committee and there was a meeting on Tuesday morning.  He said he needs ‘new blood’ on the committee; he just needs somebody….anybody…younger than 94.

 

The Chairman was droning on about this summer’s Day Trips for the old dears, including Strafford-on-Avon, Brighton, and the Cotswolds.  I zoned out to ClothesLand.  Then he said “A half day trip to Camberley”.  Camberley?  Is he kidding?  “Is there anything in Camberley?  Besides the Scum Sucking, Bottom Dwelling Turd’s house on Cedar Lane?” I asked innocently.  (Jack reads the blog faithfully.)   He wasn’t kidding.  Apparently, the Weybridge Center’s old dears will be spending an afternoon hoping for a glimpse of Mike in his kilt and then having a cream tea somewhere or other.

 

Tuesday was Beauty class too.  Pinkie’s on nights this week and felt it was more important to sleep than look good.  So she missed “Building a Core Wardrobe’.  I took notes for her.

 

I’m pretty sure Ruby said Cool Winters should wear stripes and florals, together.

 

Honestly, it took me an hour to get dressed for class.  I don’t spend that much time getting ready for a date.  I didn’t want Ruby to be disappointed in me.  I did monochromatic, ‘cause I can; shades of beige.  Ruby said “That look works well for you.”  Of course it does; I’m a Warm Autumn.

 

It’s funny, though.  Everybody in my class said the same thing.  They spent ages deciding what to wear, or changed two or three times, in case they got it wrong.

 

On the Bad Shit Keeps Happening front, it looks like Scary Fairy isn’t going to be coming over in May.  Her brother is still in the hospital and fighting major infections, and she doesn’t want to be here if something happens.  I was truly looking forward to some serious cutthroat Scrabble, and to seeing her too, naturally.

 

But on the Good Shit Happens Too front, Pinkie and I are off to Amsterdam on Tuesday for a few days of much needed ‘Girls Gone Wild’.  At least I’m planning to go very wild indeed; I can’t speak for Pinkie although we all know that she’s much wilder than me.  Dearest Irish Lad, whom I positively adore (have I mentioned that before?) got us the airline tickets using his KLM mileage. 

 

I got cracking and planned our entire itinerary and booked it and our hotel.  Tee offered to have his secretary do it, but, of course, Jeano knows Amsterdam…very well.  No crappy tourist class hotels like the Maria Theresa in Venice for us; we’re staying on Dam Square at the Die Port Van Cleve.

 

Pinkie popped in this morning on her way home from Charing Cross.  She suggested that we each just take one carry-on bag.  I laughed.  Then where are we supposed to put all the stuff we buy?  Honestly, she was just tired and confused from night shift.  And I told her we have to shop before Tuesday.  We have nothing to wear to Amsterdam; at least I don’t. 

 

 

A Cute Sign

BORN IN THE USA

Somewhere…somebody…is continuing to read all of my old blogs.  It’s still a divine mystery.  You’d think they’d send an email complimenting me at least.

 

Right now, I’m in a time warp – back in April/May 2005, when I was trying to settle-in in Weybridge and trying to cope with life and not fight with Marina.  I’m not re-writing history; whatever I wrote happened or it was how I felt at the time.  I’m just polishing.  It’s a bit tedious, given the ‘been there, done that’ factor, but I admit that I’m enjoying revisiting my baby steps metamorphosing into ‘Jeano’ and the entrance, Stage Right, of the people who will play a major role in my future. 

 

I worked my normal shift at Sam on Thursday and it struck me that my life is completely ‘my’ life now, for better or worse, if that makes sense.  I chose it and fashioned it to suit me, and except for the memories of Jerry that are with me always (and the 3:00 AM visits) he never was, nor will be, a part of this Jeano’s life.  Everyone I know, and everything I do, came after Jerry or with no input from him. 

 

Thursday night was Quiz Night.  I’d missed last week because of the Second Seder for Pesach.  In honor of the Irish Lad’s big mother ulcer, our name was ‘Bob’s Bitches’, which is what the ulcer is called.  Rob deserted us for his other friends, so it was Pinkie, Lou, Terry and me, still a formidable line-up.

 

We were brilliant.  No, really, we were.  Maybe the questions were especially easy, or we just knew an awful lot of useless shit.  We won.  And I have to point out that this was the second quiz in a week that El Cheese-o, Irish Lad and I nailed. 

 

Surprisingly, the weather here has been almost ‘spring-like’ and it’s almost warm.  The bad news is that the grass in my garden grew.  Apparently, one ‘cuts the grass’ from time to time.  Well, obviously not ‘this one’.  This one had ‘John and his Marauding Mexicans’ who piled out of a huge truck every couple weeks like worker ants with lawnmowers and hedge trimmers.  In the fall, they were equipped with leaf-blowers.  In the winter, it was snow shovels and a plough.  In the summer, I swore they turned up to swim in the pool when we weren’t home. 

 

I found a charming boy who will do this ‘mowing’ thing every few weeks.  He even brought his own lawnmower.  (Property Peter got me one when he suggested I might want to ‘trim’ things a bit.  I told him I didn’t think so.)  Mowing Boy is called Richard and he has ginger hair.

 

And the rhubarb is as high as an elephant’s eye!  (That didn’t ‘work’, did it?  It works better with ‘corn’.)  The rhubarbs are enormous with big green leaves.  I thought the leaves were the rhubarb, but apparently not.  There are these pinkie, stalky thingies that are the rhubarb and you cook them and make pies and compotes and jellies.  At least other people do.  I can’t wait ‘til somebody whips up some rhubarb whatever.  I don’t think I’ve ever tasted it.  I will take some pictures of the rhubarb and post them, for anyone else who’s never seen nature up close and personal either, or shops exclusively in the Frozen Food section at Acme.

 

On Sunday morning I went to a lecture at Shul.  The topic was ‘The New Dimensions of Israel: Post Election Issues, the Coalition and the Peace Process’.  The Chair of the Israel Group phrased it more succinctly: “This is an opportunity to understand what’s really going on and counteract the stupid comments and uninformed criticisms clueless Gentiles never seems to get tired of uttering.”  Well, that’s what she meant.

 

The speaker was Abbie Ben Ari, who is a well-known social and political analyst, at least on this side of the Pond.  His bio does note that he has spent a great deal of time in the States as a senior Israeli diplomat, but I’d not ever heard of him.

 

His talk was brilliant, although one cannot adequately explain the entire West Bank and Gaza situation in two hours.  But I am much clearer now on the specifics and will be able to decimate any critics, should they feel compelled to bring the subject up.

 

Unsurprisingly, he was highly critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose far right wing Likud party is anti two separate states.   My take on the American Jewish view (gleaned from the Jewish Exponent which gets sent to me every week on-line) is that he is rapidly losing Jewish American support due to his hard-line stance.

 

Just because it’s interesting, Netanyahu grew up about fifteen minutes from me in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.  I wonder if he went to Wagner’s on Friday nights and did The Stroll?  On second thought, probably not.  We could have been invited to the same Bar Mitzvah, though.

 

Sunday evening, I went to dinner at Pinkie’s, and then she and I, plus the Irish Lad, wandered up Monument Hill to the Grotto for the pub quiz.

 

We won.  Again.  For the second week in a row.  Damn, we’re good.

 

When I went outside for a fag during the break, the other teams started to take the piss because there were quite a few ‘American’ questions again this week.

 

A bloke called Trevor (not Trevor-of-the-fifty-hands; a different one. There are only about seven blokes names in England; they have to take turns using them) said to me sarcastically (at least he thought he was being sarcastic) “What’s he going to ask next? Name all fifty-two states?”

 

I gave him my patented Italian Jewish American Bitch Princess look. 

 

“Sweetie, even I would have trouble with that one.  Since there are only fifty.”

 

“Really?” he asked.  “Are you sure?”

 

REWRITING HISTORY

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve certainly blogged about things that were best left unsaid even though, at the time, I felt like saying them, often in italics or bold.  But ultimately, any embarrassment, resentment or repercussions have been for me to deal with.

 

This is literally the first time ever I’ve been asked to delete or modify a blog. 

 

My first impulse was to scream about my First Amendment right:  Freedom of the Press.  (Wow!  I must actually be part of ‘The Press’ if people are bothered by what I wrote in a blog.)  But I’m not in Kansas or any of the other contiguous forty-seven anymore; I’m in Britain.  

 

Then I got huffy about ‘censorship’.  Come on.  We all know that’s a slippery slope. 

 

The blog was factual.  Yes, I embellished a tiny bit and let loose some ‘politically incorrect’ zingers.  But that wasn’t the issue.  I discussed something, with specific details, that is highly classified information.  I didn’t know.

 

So I have, again for the first time ever, edited a posted blog—The Second Seder.

 

While I came to understand the rationale for the secrecy regarding the specifics of the Synagogue’s security and deleting any details of it, I decided that my opinion—and it is only my own—based on my personal experience in the States was my right to write about.

 

‘I am a Jew.  Hath not a Jew eyes?’

SEVEN NIGHTS AND SIX POINTS

Pinkie and I went to our ‘Beauty’ class on Tuesday.  Modestly, we are stopping traffic on the High Street already whenever we venture up to the shops together.

 

This week we had to bring two outfits to be critiqued by Ruby and the other ladies in our class.  Coincidentally, there was a Trunk Show at the Centre right before class started.  Naturally, we had a peek.  Our motto is, of course, ‘We Came, We Saw, Damned Right We Bought It’.

 

Pinkie got a stunning black jacket (I hate Cool Winters; have I said that before?)  I got a sophisticated Mauve top (with an interesting neckline to disguise my wimpy shoulders) to go with the infamous ‘Paris’ skirt that I can never find anything to match, because I fortuitously had it with me to be critiqued.  (Everybody oohed and aahed.)

 

I tried on a Cream Sweater that I loved, but Ruby wouldn’t let me buy it. 

 

Really.  She said “it’s not flattering.”  “That’s a bit harsh” I countered. “It’s probably because it’s very ‘New York-ish’ and not at all ‘British’”.   My classmates all chimed in to assure me that I looked like crap in it.  Probably because I’m an Even and the only Warm Autumn in the class and they’re all just jealous.

 

I brought my favorite divine black jacket and the black and white skirt I usually wear it with.  I love that jacket like it’s one of my children or something.  Pinkie loves it too.  In fact, she suggested that I give it to her since I can’t wear black anymore.  Yeah.  Right. 

 

I told Ruby it was not negotiable, so we found a lovely off-white top to soften all the blackness. (It already has shoulder pads.) Problem solved.  Disaster averted.

 

We criticized each others’ outfits (God, women are cruel) and it was jolly good fun.  Pinkie actually bought a classmate’s dress right off her body.  To be fair, the colors were all wrong for Angela but perfect for Sister Cool Winter.  Have I mentioned that I loathe Cool Winters?  And the dress was amazing. 

 

We also got our ‘Color Analysis Books’ which are little diaries with swatches of ‘our’ colors to take with us when we shop, or carry all the time, which is actually the same thing.  By the way, Warm Autumns are the only season who can wear colors ‘monochromatically’ or neutrals from head to toe if they feel like it.

 

Note to Cool Winter:  Nah nah nah nah!

 

Pinkie is busily shopping on Ebay at the moment at the NFL gear shops for clothing suitable to be worn in Philadelphia.  She’s gonna get her own Donovan McNabb jersey like mine.  She’ll probably get a black or white one because… all together: “She’s a Cool Winter”.  I had to explain that it was time to retire Eamonn’s Dawkins jersey.  And why.

 

Plus, I think she might actually have believed me when I told her there’s a checkpoint on Amtrak when you get to Wilmington.  No Eagles’ gear, they won’t let you off ‘til Newark. 

 

I’ve heard a rumor that someone crossing the Pond in May bought her a Yankees shirt, but I can burn that fashion faux pas in my garden now that I have one.

 

I had a ‘Girls Night Out’ this week too—a Quiz at the Slug & Lettuce with Pinkie’s friends.  Sharon, who used to be married to Keith who is my neighbor (God, I love little towns), is going to do the Midnight Walk with us this year. 

 

I’d already done a quiz another night with Cheese Boy and the Irish Lad at the Grotto, which we’d won!  Sixteen drink coupons!

The first round was all about beer.  I didn’t know a single answer.  But the second round (20 questions) was general knowledge.  Question:  How long is the Festival of Passover?  Seriously, that was one of the questions.  Cheese Boy threatened “If you’re wrong I will personally drive you to Heathrow and stick you on a plane to the States.”

 

 

 At the Slug quiz, we were in first place after the first two rounds.  The third round was ‘Sports’ and I did pretty good; half of the questions were ‘American’.  Question: How many points is a touchdown worth in Real, Proper American Football?  Too bad they didn’t ask a couple about March Madness.  Jeano knows the Big Dance, too.

 

The last round was ‘Music’ and the theme was ‘The 90’s’.  We scored a whopping big Goose Egg in that round.  We didn’t win, but we had fun.

 

The Slug serves each team a Starter Assortment during the Quiz, and I was so focused on the Picture Round that I ate a slice of garlic bread before I remembered that it was Pesach.  Oops! 

 

A big thanks to everyone, and especially the Mule-ess, for emailing that the ‘Mikey likes it!’ cereal commercial was for Life Cereal.  (Scary said in her America it was for ‘Moon Rocks’). 

 

Patricia passed along a link to the coolest web site; it’s brain teasers: www.sporcle.com.  I got instantly hooked.  I did the NFL teams by conference – I was perfect, naturally, and a few others.

 

However.  I did the Fifty States one.  Not only did I forget Life Cereal, but I couldn’t remember Nebraska, Kansas, Kentucky and Wyoming.  On balance, though, who would?  It’s not like we use them for anything or that people from the Right Coast go to them on purpose. 

…AND HE RIPPED HER CLOTHES OFF…

Gee, what a boring weekend.  I had no idea people took Easter so seriously.

 

Stores were actually closed on Friday.  “Why is that?” I asked a friend.  “Because it’s Good Friday” was the answer. 

 

“What’s so ‘good’ about it?”  It’s not a ‘good’ Friday if I can’t shop, if you get what I’m saying.  And Monday is a holiday too.  I think it’s called ‘The Monday After Easter Sunday’ holiday.  Those are some mighty strange holidays they have here.

 

President Obama has been in the news here a lot lately, or I’m just noticing it more.  He had a Seder at the White House for Pesach.  Let’s all feel warm and fuzzy for a moment.  But I bet he can’t say the Four Questions in Yiddish.  I bet he just mumbled the Hebrew transliteration.  And due to ‘national security’ the article wouldn’t divulge who stole the Afikomen and how much they got for it.

 

And the Obamas’ got a dog.  Let’s all feel warm and fuzzy again because some puppy is going to be pooping on the priceless carpet in the Oval Office.  That will certainly distract people from thinking about their shrinking portfolios and IRAs.

 

But the presidential news that caught my attention was that Obama’s brother got denied a visa to the UK.  That made me feel almost as good as shopping.  And my friend, Snoop Dogg, too; he feels as good as if he was shagging a lot of college coeds while filming Girls Gone Wild on Spring Break in Daytona Beach..  (I’m projecting here; Tha Dogg and I don’t Twitter back and forth a lot.)  But it’s reassuring to know that Immigration picks on Americans besides housewives from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania or inarticulate rappers.  Those Immigration guys must be pretty tough.

 

The Bro:  “Hey!  Whatya mean, you’re deporting me?  You’ll be sorry!  My brother’s the President of the United States…all fifty of them, plus some territories and islands and military bases in Cuba.  Well maybe not the base in Cuba….he might be closing that.” 

 

The Immigration Guy:  “Righto.  The Shizzolator and Jean Cohen tried that same one on.  We deported them, too, Mr. Presidential Brother.”

 

BPeter came over on Saturday night to watch a film.  We couldn’t go out to eat or order take-away because of Pesach.  I did sort of break Passover, though, by buying some noshes for him to snack on while we watched the movie.  I was really, really good.  (I just bought stuff I don’t like.)

 

I’m at the point of Passover where I can’t even walk into Waitrose.  It smells like bread baking and there are luscious loaves of French and Italian breads giving me the bird.  I go a little manic.  I was whinging to BooBoo about it and she said “But you never eat bread”. 

 

“That is so not the point” I replied testily.  “The point is to be able to have the goddamned bread if I wanted it.  Whether I eat it or not is immaterial. It’s about what I want—if I might, just possibly, for some reason, on a whim, want it.”

 

Pinkie has been feverishly reading my Harlequin novel, ‘The Reluctant Escort’.  Mikey likes it.

 

Wait a second.  ‘Mikey likes it’ is an American expression.  Really.  Ask an American…any American, even Scary Fairy who lives in a parallel America in a different Solar System.  It’s from a cereal commercial for… a breakfast cereal.  I forget which one.

 

It was not a cheap way to mention you-know-who in the blog.  And after all that creativity in coming up with new names for him, the guys just refer to him as ‘The Turd’ when they’re taking the piss.  Like “Hey Jeano, has The Turd extended any body parts across the Wey lately?”  (Never, ever let your male friends read emails from your boyfriends, especially when you’re all pissed.  Trust me on this one.)  

 

Back to my literary masterpiece, Pinkie is super fantastic.  If you’ve written a novel, send it to Pinkie to critique.  I get loads of texts and emails saying, like, ‘OMG!’, ‘Jesus Wept’, ‘ Gee, he picked her up and threw her on the bed six times in Chapter 7; Can’t she just walk over to the bed and get on it?’, ‘Can you actually have sex in that position?’  Okay, I made that last one up.  And they can have sex in whatever position I feel like.

 

Anyway, Pinkie is now hot…really hot….to go to Amsterdam.  That’s where the story takes place.  Modestly, I’ve obviously done a brilliant job making Holland colorful, vibrant and fascinating.  And the sex scenes are pretty exciting too.  I think.  You might have to check with the Irish Lad on that one.

 

So we are planning a little jaunt, hopefully before the Birthday Do, to Amsterdam.  If it comes off, I may have to postpone Eretz Israel until after we do the States in October.  Its too hot to do Israel in the summer.

 

Finally, I’ve posted some snaps from my friend Lisa’s Bat Mitzvah.  Because she deserves recognition and a big ‘Mazel Tov!’.  And because I’m in a couple and I look really good.

 

THE SECOND SEDER

I worked a morning shift at Sam, covering for Mike, who is ill.  When did I stop being a ‘morning person’?  I was supposed to be off because of Pesach, but gave in when Andrea, the manager, rang and started whinging.  I barely made it there in time to open promptly at 9:30. 

 

It was rainy and cold, and I thought ‘oh, goody! Ghost dress!’.  Of course, two hours later it was sunny and warm and I thought ‘I have nothing to wear to the seder tonight; this is a disaster.’

 

I zipped next door to Bric-a-Brac demanding ‘What’s in the secret stash that’s brand new, stunning and a size 10?  It’s an emergency.’  Fortuitously, they had a divine Anne Taylor skirt that perfectly matched the new sweater I picked up last week when the Pinkster and I were shopping.  Me: “I have nothing to wear it with.”  Pinkie:  “So?”  I picked up a few tchotchkes, too, because they were there and I still have room for stuff in my new little house.

 

After my shift, I dashed up to the Queens Road to get my hair cut.  You never know who’s going to be at your Seder, and I don’t mean Elijah.  I had to rush, because I was meeting a friend for a coffee to discuss the next Sam fundraiser.  Then I dashed home.  Then I pondered why I’m always dashing.

 

The weather couldn’t make up its mind, but I did.  Ghost Dress!  I got loads of compliments, of course, but I really don’t think it got the awe it deserved.  Sometimes I wonder if those women are really Jewish.

 

When I arrived at shul, I got the most exciting news.  I had been given a coveted slot on the Security Rota!  (Damn!  The Anne Taylor number would have gone much better with the orange vest.)

 

I also had a part in the service.  (Double Damn.)  Jackie said “You’re doing the part about the matzahs.”  I said “You’re kidding.”  She wasn’t. 

 

At least it was in English.  I had to recline (‘ why is this night different than all other nights? …on other nights, we eat sitting upright; on This Night we eat reclining…’), point to the Matzahs (in case anybody forgot what they looked like since last year) and read a long paragraph from the Haggadah.

 

Dinner was really nice, although needing to be Kosher, it was fish.  I’m not fond of fish.  The rituals of a seder are proscribed and very strict.  I shocked my table by making my first matzah sandwich with pickles and olives instead of parsley and salt water.  Parsley sandwiches taste like crap, and the pickles were green (it has to be green stuff in there).  The second sandwich is bitter herbs, which in my experience then requires drinking a great deal of cheap Passover wine to get rid of the taste.   So I just doubled up and had two charoset sandwiches instead.  Charoset is a paste made with apples, nuts, cinnamon and wine. 

 

Security duty was very cool.  

 

Our shift, in fact the whole evening, was uneventful; no Arabs with backpacks inquiring ‘Does the #451 Bus to Kingston stop here?”

 

It’s sad really.  My partner and I started talking about the intense security synagogues and all Jewish buildings need in England.  It’s not like that in the States.  At home, when I did Hebrew School carpool, all the mothers would be in a long line of cars double parked in front of the building, and everybody would stand around the cars gossiping and checking out what everybody else was wearing.  And at the JCC Palisades, when I went to the Schmoozes with Israeli Guy, there was one security guard, about a hundred years old, inside at a desk.  You just told him which activity you were there for, and that was it.

 

  

And I met a man.  The kind I’m looking for.   Duh.  I met him at a Pesach Seder; of course, he was the ‘right’ kind.

 

He’s a doctor, has published a mystery novel, and he’s circumcised.  The Trifacta of perfection.   He lives in Santa Barbara, California.  My mazel.  They always do, don’t they?

 

We exchanged details; he crosses the pond, he said, fairly often to visit family.  Intriguingly, he mentioned that he holds Swiss citizenship in addition to American.  Not to be outdone, I casually mentioned that I’m an Italian and have the AIRE to prove it.  We agreed that we could go on vacation together to Havana and nobody could stop us.  Of course, you can’t get to Havana from the States; there aren’t any flights.  I expect you can from London or Geneva.

 

A correction to the last blog:  Well I didn’t know you can’t stuff a Baked Virginia Ham like a bloody turkey.  It sounded like a good idea to me.