The Art of the Sale

"I have just the boy," she says, ruffling through her papers. "Ah! Here we go. He's 35 and looking for a younger girl." She beams at me.

He sounds like quite the catch. 

"This boy," another woman gushes, "doesn't care if you cover or don't cover you hair." 

She knows what I'm like and the background I come from; of course I'm covering my hair. The fact that he doesn't care (a) doesn't apply and (b) tells me where he stands religiously. How is this supposed to pique my interest?

"This boy, while he doesn't want to leave the yeshiva world," another says, "he's still worldly. For instance, he can talk about the Yankees and the Mets."

The Yankees and the Mets. Memo: I'M. A. GIRL. I don't give a hoot about the Yankees and the Mets. And by the way: knowing about baseball doesn't mean he's "worldly." It just confirms the fact that he's male.

Proper shadchanim, shadchanim who do things old school, realize that when trying to sell someone, the way to go about it would be to, say, highlight their qualities and gloss over their faults.  

But when so-called shachanim try to sell me someone by focusing only on the negative, I get confused. Have you actually set anyone up successfully? 

Let's say selling a boy was like selling a house. Would the tactic be, "The plumbing could be better, the floor is slanted, and there is an army of mice in the walls"? 

Ladies, ladies, ladies. Here's the thing. If you want to make a date and then, hopefully, a marriage (and get shadchanus), presenting the other party with the most trivial of details that don't place them in the best light, is, oddly enough, not going to spike your success rate. 

"This fellow," the shadchan describes, "is super-sensitive." 

And I'm running away now. No commission for you.

Momma Always Said, "They Hate You"

Shalom Auslander is not an author I would usually bring myself to quote, but this tale featured as the back story in the NY Times Magazine kinda destroys any sort of fantasy where the whole world joins hands and sings "Kumbaya."

Purrrr

In the spirit of all the lovely ladies, who, in a moment of panic, believe their future to be feline rather than fella filled, I present the musical recommendation, Cats. The lyrics are derived from T.S. Elliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. 

It was one of the longest running musicals on Broadway; I was taken to see it at age 12, which for me was quite an experience. 

Andrew Lloyd Webber is an amazing composer, churning out reliably singable music. A made-for-TV version was released in 1998, which I had taped on PBS and watched on a loop. It was on Ovation the other day, and  I hummed The Peeks and the Pollicles on the way to the train this morning. 

If I'm to provide a snippet, Memory is the usual choice, but I don't like many slow songs. Here's The Awful Battle of the Peeks and the Pollicles, where the human performers who are pretending to be cats are now dressed up as dogs.

Thankfully, it doesn't take itself seriously.

Even They Had Skin Regimens!

The Jewish Week had a review of the book Biblical Beauty: Ancient Secrets and Modern Solutions.

C'mon, you knew my ears would perk at that. 

The reviewer, who was raised Christian but converted to Judaism, mentions how in her background painting oneself is automatically a sin of Jezebel; however, our five books rather encourage it. 

It seems Devorah HaNiviah and I have a lot in common. You know why she sat under a tree? To preserve her complexion from the sun.

I totally have to get this book!

Dressing For Men: Outerwear Counts

It is so sad to see a man in a bad coat. 

You know those bad coats. The one's with excess fabric around the waist and hips, so cinching the belt just results in flariness that make the wearer look like a distorted pear. 

Or when they show up to shul on Shabbos in a waist-length thin windbreaker, all blue in the face. 

Oy. 

During the winter months, one is mostly seen in a coat. So feel free to upgrade it.

Guidelines:

• Shabbos coats should be between 3/4- and knee-length. When I say knee-length, I mean no longer than the knee. It should be shorter rather than longer. 

• Opt for a beltless model. Keep an uncluttered, clean look. 

• For Shabbos, no weatherproof parka. But no one wants to be chilly, so be sure to check the fabric. Shabbos deserves wool and/or cashmere, but fabric content isn't proof enough.Walk around a bit in the store, or take it home if one can return, and wear it around the house. Feeling overheated? It's a keeper. 

For The Animal Lovers

I am a Rabbi Natan Slifkin fan. I think that Perek Shirah: Nature's Song is must for every bookshelf.

His next book is called The Torah Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom. His chapter regarding leopards is available for perusal.

Giftless and Giddy

I really can't stand it when someone bestows on me a box topped with dangling ribbons. 

While some would happily squeal, "Yay, presents!" I force a smile and make some noises to appease the beaming gift-giver.  

I can probably account on all of one hand the best gifts I ever received, that really, truly, hit the spot. The rest . . . meh. 

Conclusions: 

Gift giving is more for the giver than the recipient. If the receiver doesn't like it, she is met with furrowed eyebrows and scandalized comments until she is guilted into pretending better. 

Presents may be a sign of consideration, but if it doesn't achieve its purpose, then what is the point? The recipient, along with getting an unwanted item that she has to make room for or go through the effort of exchanging is also required to make the giver "feel good."  

Is the gift for me or for you? Consider the worst gift of all time: the Trojan Horse. 

In this holiday of gift-giving (I mean Christmas, not Chanukah; I'm old school) presents are becoming a discussion. Especially now, when times are tighter; receivers want the money to be spent on items they actually need/want rather than another Singing Bass.

Enter the NY Times. 

. . . now this idea has been tested not only in the lab but also at Amazon.com, and it looks as if the zealous shoppers have been kidding themselves. Spending extra time and money for the perfect gift may make them feel better, but it’s not doing much for the objects of their efforts, according to one of the experimenters, Francis J. Flynn, an organizational psychologist at Stanford University. 

Gift giving, despite placing time, effort, and money, gets one nowhere.

Price matters not to receivers, but it does to givers. 

Why would price matter more to givers than receivers? Dr. Flynn and his Stanford colleague, Gabrielle Adams, attribute it to the “egocentric bias” of givers who focus on their own experience in shopping. When they economize by giving a book, they compare it with the bracelet that they passed up. 

Because the giver knows about another item to spend more on, they think price matters. But the receiver only knows of no gift versus gift - so they would be happy with the book. 

Similarly, the recipient usually doesn’t know how much time and effort you put into finding just the right thing, so it doesn’t necessarily strike them as particularly thoughtful.

You know you spent time and thought. They don't. So why kill yourself? Ask them what they like instead.

“With a gift registry,” Dr. Flynn said, “they’re telling you what they want, and you’re saying, ‘No, you want something else, because I know more about you than you know about yourself.’ ” The result is not joyous gratitude, as Dr. Flynn found in a series of studies with Francesca Gino of Harvard. 

People like MONEY. 

When married couples were asked about the wedding gifts they’d received, they reported liking the ones from the registry more than the unsolicited ones. When people were given money to buy presents for one another on Amazon, the gifts chosen from the recipient’s wish list were more appreciated than the surprises. Cash was better still — recipients liked gifts of money even more than something of equivalent value from their wish list.  

There is a reason why Purim and Chanukah is celebrated with GELT, people. It is a long standing minhag; let's not mess with it. 

Show me the MONEY. 

I'm So Typical

My grandmother, like every other woman on Earth, has seen Gone with the Wind in theaters. Now that she is homebound, I bought her the DVD. 

She was so transported she asked for the book. The large print was insanely expensive, so I bought a regular version that turned out to have miniature print which I ended up keeping. 

One yontif afternoon, finding myself bereft of library books, I dubiously opened it. 

And proceeded to clutch it to myself like a hypothetical firstborn. 

Oh, what a book. What a book. 

As John Cloud wrote in Time Magazine, "The book is not really a tale of North vs. South but of old South vs. new." It is a saga of cultural demise, not epic romance. 

It is blatantly racist, which is definitely a shock, but it can be excused as seeing through the eyes of old time Southerners. 

Thank Heavens we don't have to go through that anymore.

When Margaret Mitchell died, the country was plunged into mourning. Think of her as the J.K. Rowling of her time. 

For those unafraid of novels, this is a must. I mean it.

Lionized Memories

My grandfather passed away before I was born.  

My siblings would talk of him fondly with teary eyes while I could not relate. One cannot miss what one never had.  

On childhood visits to Bàbi, when the adults chattered in Yiddish over my head, my eyes would wander over to the items in the china closet. 

On the high shelf, there was a menorah, each branch a lion. As an animal lover, I was smitten.  

During every visit to Bàbi, my eyes would be drawn to the menorah. I would gaze at it for an oddly long amount of time.  

When Bàbi died a few years ago, my mother asked if there was anything I wanted.  

"Zaidy's menorah!" I said quickly. 

She managed to smuggle it out of the apartment (thwarting my other cousins; in your faces!). For the first time I was able to analyze it up close. 

An industrious and idiotic cleaning lady had scoured the back with steel wool, but the front was relatively unharmed. It still carried that same allure that mesmerized a big-cat-crazy little girl.

While it is a poor replacement for actual memories, I can picture Zaidy twirling cotton balls into wicks, making the bracha in the same havara that my father learned from him, sitting beside it and looking happily at its light.  

Frelichen Chanuka, all.

Splitsville

"Did you hear?" she hisses. "The Stormtrooper boy got divorced."

"No! That would explain why his mother hasn't been in shul lately."

"I can't believe it . . . but I just heard that the Hutts got divorced," says the shocked voice over the phone.

"Seriously? They seemed so happy together. How many children do they have?"

"Who would've thunk it?" gasps the informer. "The Fetts got divorced!"

"What? At 65?"

It seemed that when I was kid, divorces were as rare as Sasquatch sitings. Now I feel as though I hear story after story of marriages going bust, whether they be young couples still within their first few minutes of wedlock, or those with young children, or baby boomers who have grandchildren.

What gives?

In a time when Hallmark romance has reached rhapsodic heights to the point that us Jews are tagging along for the ride, why is it that more and more of us can't make it to the end? Growing old together is one of the idealized ends for every marriage, but why is divorce on the rise, no matter sect or classification?

No one goes into marriage thinking of divorce. None of us foresee a future with a yet-to-be-met significant other that hits a wall.

Is it valid in all cases? Could marriages be saved, along with all the lives linked to it? Or are more and more of us doomed to break up?