Seeking Tolerant Travel Buddy

I was chatting with a married lady about the rigors of travel. 

"I do like seeing other places," I said, "but I am such a bad traveler. The rattling plane, the jet lag, my tendency to hurl . . ." 

She blinked in puzzlement. "Oh, I'm like that too," she replied, "but my husband takes care of me." She made it sound like every woman has a man who would, of course, tenderly hand them a Dramamine with a considerate glass of twice-filtered water, followed by a tidy tuck-in.

To my embarrassment, I got a little teary-eyed. 

I need a small army to cart me around.

I am no romantic, and thanks to my powers of observation it is all too evident that not all marriages are alike. 

Battle of the Bulge: Hit the Road

I have always been voluble about loathing the gym. To voluntarily drive to one, just to murder my muscles? How could I possibly summon the motivation for that?

 

But exercise is necessary for good health and weight. For some, self-flagellation, um, I mean, the gym works. But for those who don't do any exercise at all, that could be too daunting.  

Especially after consuming quite a lot of calories over the last two days.

Walking is a great way to exercise.

All it takes to reap these benefits is a routine of brisk walking. It doesn't get much simpler than that. And you can forget the "no pain, no gain" talk.

It's effective without being murderous.

I have met quite a few individuals who will do anything to avoid walking, but are serious gym-goers.

Me: "Look, we've been circling the lot for a half hour already. Just take that spot; the walk can't be more than two minutes."

Her: "Let's look some more." 

Walking to public transportation, for me, takes a little more than ten minutes. Yet people who live closer than I do drive. They also tend to look at me pityingly. Often neighbors will pull over and ask, in the same tone as if I was clinging to a cliff face, if I want to ride. My response of "No thanks," leaves them cross-eyed in shock.

On Shabbos afternoons in the spring and fall, I throw a visiting toddler nephew or niece into a carriage and taking an hour-long walk. There are a number of benefits: the baby is happy to be outdoors (he remains eternally grateful, singing my name for a mile), he is no longer in the house and so cannot destroy it, and I get toned. Win-win.

Every morning there is an old man who walks grimly back and forth in front of my house, even when the temperature plummets. He just marches on, not speed walking, simply plodding away, getting the exercise he needs for his health. 

Walking does not require any sort of payment plan or specialty equipment. Yet many are absolutely terrified of walking. They'll go to the gym, happily, but they won't walk; it is a dreaded four-letter word.

But going to the gym gives visions of burning serious calories. Working out tones the muscles, but in terms of getting rid of that 500 calorie muffin, it isn't going to do much, according to Time Magazine. 

If the gym does not appeal to you (I cannot believe I am such a rarity), just park your car a little farther away from Target, for starters.

R2-D2 Loves and Learns

Here is a poignant saga of misguided love. Sometimes we are so sure that we "know" who our soulmates are, but then we realize how blind we were, paying court to an inanimate mailbox (so to speak).

Pesach Recipe Roundup

Here's a list of recipes for Pesach (and all year round) that I've tried and loved: 

○ Bais Yaakov Cookbook's Roasted Garlic Zucchini Soup (page 10. No soup mixes needed; use less water than called for to intensify the flavor; less onions and leeks are also fine) 

○ Butternut Squash Soup (add onion if not suffering from acid reflux)
○ What's Cooking?'s Potato Kneidlach (for the fellow non-brockers) 

Via Food.com, by "Delicious as it Looks"

○ Cucumber Salad/Coleslaw 
○ Overtime Cook's Tri-color Pepper Salad 
○ Baba Ganoush (no nutritional yeast, chili/red pepper flakes instead of sriracha) 

○ Roasted Vegetables
○ Lecsó/Ratatouille

○ Spaghetti Squash "Lukshen" Kugel (milchig)

○ Cauliflower Pizza Crust
 

○ Strawberry Fluff 

○ Sponge Cake

○ Pragmatic Attic's Intense Fudge Nuggets: These are an absolute miracle. No oil, only two egg whites, no potato starch, and a reasonable amount of sugar. Every other recipe I could find for Pesach cookies consisted of three cups of confectionery sugar or an entire cup of oil!

Easy to make, these have a light, almost meringue-y consistency, yet are soft and divinely satisfying. I have found that by turning off the oven at the 8-minute-mark and leaving them in for another few minutes, they swell in size while nurturing a gooey center. After removing from the oven, allow them to cool before storage. They are INSANE out of the freezer.  I have two batches currently in mine.

○ Chestnut-Date Balls   

My results of Pragmatic Attic's Intense Fudge Nuggets

The below are recipes I would like to try, but have not yet: 

○ Rita Nakouzi's Shredded Green Cabbage Salad with Lemon and Garlic: My palate is full-on Hungarian, which means that cabbage ranks rather high. In a holiday of too much fats, I like a coleslaw option that's less mayo and more garlic.

○ Mazel Munch's Pesach Shepherd's Pie: I would use safflower oil instead of margarine, personally, but all of my food fantasies come back to shepherd's pie, perhaps simply because I just love love love potatoes.

○ Tamar Ansch's Salisbury Steaks in Mushroom Sauce: I love ground meat, I love mushrooms, I love sauce.  

○ Vichna Belsky's Chocolate Quinoa Cake or Cupcakes: This is a variation of a popular online gluten-free yet still nutritious dessert. Pragmatic Attic uses coffee instead of the dairy-free milk, which means I don't have to purchase kosher l'Pesach almond milk, which I otherwise don't need. I am psyched about it because it is filling, unlike most non-gebrocks desserts. It can also be made into a two-tier cake with frosting of choice.

Lecsó/Ratatouille

Lecsó is a classic Hungarian dish, officially consisting of a variety of peppers. As a child I visited a fellow Hungarian classmate's home, and was delighted to discover her mother added sliced hot dogs to hers (I was young and foolish then).

Ma's has evolved into a completely different being, more akin to ratatouille, in that hers consists of zucchini, rather than peppers. But we still call it lecsó. It is rather simple to prepare, and plays well with others—fish, meat, pasta, potatoes, etc. It is also ideal for Pesach. 

Lecsó/Ratatouille   

 
1 onion, sliced or chopped

4-6 zuchinni, depending on size, chopped

1 eggplant, chopped (optional)

2 garlic cloves, minced 

2 shakes red chili flakes 

1/8 t. oregano

1/4 t. basil 

1 T brown sugar
squirt of ketchup

salt (soy sauce for the heathens) and pepper 

shake of dill (optional) 

Begin by sautéing the onion in a little oil. Caramelized is best, of course, so spend a solid three minutes gently coaxing it to a golden shade. 

Then add the garlic (garlic burns easily, so baby it) and red chili flakes.

Then the squash and non-mandatory eggplant. 

Then season with the herbs, ketchup, sugar, salt, and pepper. Stir.

Cover and simmer. Zucchini contains a lot of water, which will ooze out. 20 minutes should do it. DO NOT overcook it. Squishy zucchini is not appealing. If less liquid is desired, take the lid off close to the end to evaporate the excess water.

I enjoy mine with a dollop of cottage cheese and/or plain Greek yogurt.  

A Peaceful Pesach

Yontif is coming, the "Season of our Liberation"!  Rejoice, for we have been redeemed!

And yet, one can feel suffocatingly confined when a multitude of guests pile into a restricted space. Toes get stepped on, proverbially and literally. Lines are crossed. Words are said. By motzei yontif, the squatters vacate in a hurry, and the hosts happily shoo them out.

In order for an entire household to be at peace, it requires a conscious choice by each individual to tuck in elbows, fake smile, and swallow any resentment.

"Crisis Negotiators Give Thanksgiving Tips" by Henry Alford addresses potential family drama regarding the gobble-gobble holiday. The people who spend their day coaxing guns away from hostage-takers are apparently chock full of valuable skills in this department:

1. Active listening. We all want to be heard. Let others speak, and by repeating what they said, and also using emotional labeling ("Sounds like you were hurt/saddened/angered/irritated by that"), shows that their words were processed and understood. 

2. Don't bargain, appreciate. Story: My niece is the worried, bossy-boots type, and when her cousin complained about her managerial style, she dissolved into "this is unjust!" hysterics. I took her aside and told her that everyone appreciates how much she helps out with the younger children, and no one is forgetting that. Additionally, I had told the cousin to cut her some slack, and could she should cut her some in return? She wiped away the tears and bounced away. 

3. "Into the Crevasse" (30 Rock reference). Often, in order to transcend, we first have to crawl downward. This can mean apologizing even when guiltless. Then, the other side melts into malleable putty. And guess who was the bigger person? You were! Now, doesn't that feel good?

4. Don't escalate. There will always be some sort of clash of beliefs or perspective. Instead of demanding that the other side agree, gently present a personal opinion, but don't demand acceptance. 

5. It's not lying, it's minimizing. Matters are usually not as dire as they can initially appear. By parsing it into smaller pieces, hey, it's not so bad. 

6. Bring in the loved backup. There are those who just don't want to look at you, but they are close to someone else. They don't necessarily have to intercede on your behalf—rather, they can distract from any drama by being a cheerful and merry buffer. 

Let's all shut up and eat some matzah!  

"Making Sense of the Midwood Tragedy"

Emor M'At

Years ago my folks went to weekend bar mitzvah of a neighbor's son. 

Speech after speech extolled the boy's virtues, real or imaginary. One even made the comparison of this schnook to a gadol hador. He was 13!

My parents squirmed in their seats. Such blatant displays of self-congratulation were, and still are, alien to their upbringings (i.e. "ayin hara"). My brother dryly refers to orations of this nature as "obituaries."

My Zeidy phrased it a little more severely, when he would talk (he was a quiet man in general). "They are just asking for it,"  he would say, sadly.

My Zeidy, you see, believed in ayin hara. Not in the current mystical sense, which provides absolution with a red string. No bit of yarn will grant license to brag and boast. 

Zeidy never gushed about his children; that, to him, was the only way to circumvent ayin hara. The most he would admit, Ma said, even when they were in shidduchim, were his children's height. 

A few years later the aforementioned neighbor's son began to rebel big time. Luke would overhear him cursing fluently, for no major reason, probably simply for the shock value. He stopped keeping Shabbos, waiting outdoors for his ride to show up at the same time as lechtzen. Drugs were apparent. His parents never threw him out (thank goodness), so his exploits were obvious to the neighborhood. 

Eventually he wandered back (kinda) and married a like-minded girl. But the time that he was distinctly out of control was harrowing, not only for his family, but for his neighbors, who witnessed it and wondered, "What could have gone wrong? Could this happen to my child?"

Of course I don't think that it was simple ayin hara. A couple of compliments by a party doesn't have such a supernatural force, in my opinion. It's more along the lines of what it represents. Children will not excel based on wishful thinking. Standing up in public, expounding with easy, empty praise will not guarantee a bright and dazzling future. Public displays of affection, even between parents and children, counts for nothing if it is not provided in private.

Ta recently discovered in the Taamei Minhagim that when hosting a seudas mitzvah, meaning even when someone is required to throw a party, one should be sure to invoke the coming of Moshiach in order to deflect ayin hara.  

Besides for the fact that no one really likes speeches (when did one by every course become required?) a d'var Torah should be a d'var Torah (as opposed to a hesped). Instead of elaborating on the honoree's qualities, how about emphasizing what we still have to learn, where we still need to improve? Our celebrations signify beginnings, not ends.

Take the average sheva brachos speech. A glowing, flirty couple sits before an entire room, and mostly everyone deliver paeans about how wonderful their married life will be, since the two of them are so wonderful. A wonderful married life does not just happen; it is based on two people making it a priority for their relationship to work. 

Please keep speeches short (two minutes), sweet (laugh-cry-laugh), and most of all, true. Instead of saying what a loving brother the bar mitzvah boy is (when his little sister knows he melted her Barbies just last week) talk about how this occasion is but the first milestone of many. Reference a d'var torah about what behavior is now expected from a bar mitzvah boy. Invoke avos, imahos, grandparents, his namesake. 

Just don't say how great he is. That's not for now. Still 107 years to go.

  

A Small Flame

We expect a lot in life. It's not surprising, considering how much life has upped its game in the last fifty years—delicious fruits and vegetables are available all year round, our homes can be heated and cooled to our whimsy, and oh, the bliss that is indoor plumbing. 

So we get rather annoyed when life is short of perfect. "What is up with this weather?" "What is up with this traffic?" "What is up with these taxes?" 

 

David Brooks' "The Case for Low Ideals" cites the political realm, wherein lies all sorts of hope. 

I’m here to make the case for low idealism. The low idealist rejects the politics of innocence. The low idealist recoils from any movement that promises “new beginnings,” tries to offer transcendent “bliss to be alive” moments or tries to fill people’s spiritual voids.

Low idealism begins with a sturdy and accurate view of human nature. We’re all a bit self-centered, self-interested and inclined to think we are nobler than we are. Montaigne wrote, “If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself.”

Brooks continues that politics is not about seeking a miracle cure. It is about careful maintenance and slow change. My favorite line: 

Government in good times is merely dull; when it is enthralling, times are usually bad.

Mmm, dull. 

This view is applicable to many areas. Any lasting change is sedate, boring, and diligent in nature. Ideas that explode onto the scene swiftly fizzle out; low flames can burn steadily with small amounts of fuel. Starting small—smiling more, considering another person's perspective, taking a moment to double check an almost spoken word or almost sent text—can yield deep, meaningful alterations upon our minds and souls.   

The low idealist . . . likes the person who speaks only after paying minute attention to the way things really are, and whose proposals are grounded in the low stability of the truth.

There is nothing new under the sun. It is not by reinventing the wheel that we can be better people, but by putting the basics into practice. 

The low idealist is more romantic about the past than about the future.

Mindfulness and Marriage

I had already grasped that the method of mindfulness meditation is to focus on breath, slowly bringing the mind back from any distractions, but I didn't know that it is also the point of mindfulness meditation. That is what I learned from this Charlie Rose interview with Dan Harris, the news anchor who had a panic attack on the air. 

The more I hear about mindfulness meditation, the more I believe that it is davening's parallel. I am working to finally achieve true focus during davening, and using the methods of mindfulness meditation has been the most instrumental. 

In other news, it is incredibly gratifying that two days after presenting my thesis on the post-Holocaust marriage model, corroborative material is printed.

Her embrace of Marxism led to a young man who within a week became her first husband. The haste, she said, reflected her loneliness and sense of displacement.

It is “unnatural and unworthy, how I lost my family,” she said. “At my age now, it is normal not to have grandparents, parents, uncles or aunts. But when it happens as it did, you cannot simply get over it.”

Marrying within a week happened “because we felt so terribly alone that it was quite natural to say yes, now at least I have a husband, and one belongs somewhere.”

Hey, she said it. And me.