Fleeing Purim

"I'm going to Miami for Purim," the lady said to her friend, a rolling suitcase in hand. "I just can't do it anymore." 

When one is little, one takes their childhood at face value. Add that concept to my high gullibility quotient, it was quite a shock when I first exposed to the Freak-Out-Over-Purim (FOOP). 

Via underconsideration.com

FOOP symptoms usually involve copious amounts of screaming. The screaming is very important. "Where's the matching aqua tissue paper for the 'Under the Sea' basket? I can't use red!"

This is how we spent every Purim: 

Ma would make a few mishloach manos. For the grandparents and her aunts and uncles, containing a fruit, a baked good, maybe a small bottle of grape juice.

I never gave to classmates. When I was little I didn't know kids could exchange. One year I gave to a morah only because she was so needy.

Early in the day, after we heard Ta lein the megillah, we'd pile into the car and head out to visit family. Purim was the one day a year that was devoted to great-aunts and -uncles; my siblings and I would sit quietly, munching on a néni's stale sponge cake (it was probably in the freezer since Simchas Torah), while Ma caught up with them in flying Hungarian. Then the money would dribble in, all for a peck on a wrinkled cheek.

We would come home in the dark of night, our front doorstep covered in mishloach manos. No, we did not go frantically over in the morning to give back. Motzei Purim runs straight into Pesach cleaning, and no one ever mentioned how they were unreciprocated. Why would they want one? Something else to throw out?

Conclusions: 

1) Everyone is happy to give mishloach manos. 

2) No one wants to receive them. 

If you don't give to every single neighbor or friend, no one will hold it against you. No one will shun your children if they don't give to every single classmate—kids, one may recall, have pretty limited memory. Overdosing on sugar the previous day helps.

It is also so wasteful since everyone just exchanges junk that will get tossed before Pesach anyway, as Doni Joszef vividly describes. 

There is always option B: Don't answer the door after giving out your requirement, which is two edible items to one person. Or, option C: Usually little kids are sent to the door in their parents' stead; they'll be ecstatic with a dollar or two in compensation for their messenger services.

Purim is yontif, and can be fulfilled quite well without an original poem tying in the pirate theme. Purim is supposed to be enjoyed, and not everyone enjoys the current state of affairs. 

Impressive, but not the necessary minimum.

Sure, there are a number amongst us who merrily compose hundreds of divine goody baskets and happily dress their offspring in perfectly matching costumes and pen a witty gramen all without a single raised voice. Ladies, I salute you. But you are, it must be acknowledged, a rare breed.

Children would rather have calm and collected parents on a holiday as opposed to FOOPed and frazzled ones. If we make yontif into a chore as opposed to a happy day, what will the next generation be taught? That even our celebrations are tedious?  

If you are dreading Purim, put your foot down. Do that which you can handle. It's okay. No one cares. If they do, then question their sanity, not your own. 

It's also much cheaper than flying to Miami.

Educational Video, Class

  

This video provided some great tips for basic makeup application. I just relearned how to apply mascara—I used to brush my lashes to the side. Now I aim for up and in, and more product gets deposited by closing my lids during application. They look aaaaaaawesome.   

Who Will Buy?

Even though she watched it long ago, my grandmother still remembers the scene when Oliver arrives in London, having stowed away in a produce cart; his first sight of the city is a careful peek from behind a cabbage leaf. 

I really can't stand Dickens. Besides for the misery aspect (which, for me, is sufficient reason to eschew his works), Charles has a penchant for impossibly convenient outcomes. Take Bleak House: A young woman bumps into a man on the street, and he is overdoes his apology. Unbeknownst to either of them, he is her long-lost father. Eh. 

While Oliver! possesses similar soap-opera conveniences, the music certainly makes up for it. 

 

Oliver's (Mark Lester) girlishly high voice was dubbed in by Kathe Green, a fact which was not made public for twenty years. Mark couldn't sing to save his life, so it seems. 

To this day, I am not sure a villain could be played the way Oliver Reed can. That's because he was pretty terrifying in real life, which certainly granted his roles authenticity. He died during the filming of Gladiator after an all night drinking binge, complete with sailor wrestling.You think he would have learned after a bar fight in the '60s had left his face scarred. Woo. 

The most beautiful scene/song undoubtedly is "Who Will Buy?," but it is unavailable in the film form on YouTube, and I'd prefer not to muddy the waters with stage versions. 

Fagin (Ron Moody) and Dodger (Jack Wild), while thieves, are so charming that one practically forgives them anything. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that Fagin is the source for my fingerless-glove obsession. Watching his performance one can detect the distinct stereotypical Jewish flourishes—the trill of the clarinet, the flamboyant hand gestures, the last "Hey!" sounds very Tevye-ish. In the book he was oft called, simply, "the Jew." Despite his protestations to the contrary, Dickens was, like the rest of London, an anti-Semite.  

 

Then there is the quintessential love song, "I'd Do Anything." 

Who Are You

My experiences with antisemitism have been slight. Living in the second Jewish capital of the world, New York, I would venture that most of the snide comments aimed my way originated from irreligious Jews, not racist gentiles. 

Take this pleasant exchange by the elevators. 

"How was your Christmas?" 

Hesitant pause. "I don't observe." Apologetic smile.

"Oh. You're Jewish?" 

"Yes." 

"Ah! Have a happy Hanukkah, then!" 

During this civilized chat I had stiffened in concern that this cheerful-faced chap might suddenly morph into a neo-Nazi. Perhaps it is due to my inherited paranoia as a grandchild of survivors (a professor from college would have merrily agreed, to prove his thesis), but I always assume the worst. Yet America, that ever-bubbling melting pot, has always been tolerant and interested in the many diverse cultures that were spat onto its shore. 

Yascha Mounk describes a vastly different experience in "German, Jewish, and Neither." When Jews are not a ubiquitous presence in a small town's population, comments can get ugly. Despite the fact that Mounk's parents gave him a secular upbringing, his surroundings imprinted "Jew" on his forehead. But what eventually drove him away from Deutschland was not antisemitism, but Germany's eagerness to repent for the Holocaust. 

Conversation had to be edited around him. He was treated considerately, tenderly. Not as a comrade, but as a revered endangered species. But even this seeming overdose of good-will proved to be not innate, but a newly acquired "cloak." It wouldn't take much alcohol to reveal how his fellow countrymen really felt about his race. 

He moved to New York, and was delighted how his Jewish status was, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. 

Which led to his no longer identifying as either Jewish or German. Since he was raised with no belief and still knows little, if at all, of Judaism, he finds the label unnecessary.

Why must it always be that in acceptance, there is loss of identity? 

Samurai Santoku

When I first began absorbing Jacques Pépin's lessons, what drew me was how with a few deft flicks, a perfectly diced pile of vegetables results. 

Yes, while proper tools do matter (like proper knives), there is also proper tool maintenance. I did not know this until this article about the esteemed chef, "There’s the Wrong Way and Jacques Pépin’s Way." 

When Jacques Pépin slices a baguette, there is a distinct sound that seems to be imbued with six decades of experience in the kitchen.

The knife goes through, and you hear a little schloomp.

By contrast, many amateur cooks keep their knives far too dull, he said, and have a habit of crunching the blade downward on the crust, like a handheld cider press, which only squishes the white interior of a baguette into a fluff-less layer. 

Ooooooh. 

Pépin favors a sharpening steel, but if the knife is not honed at a correct angle kiss the grooves goodbye. I eventually purchased the Presto EverSharp Electric Knife Sharpener.  

It sat in the pantry a bit before I was brave enough to try it. (While the box stipulates that it is for non-serrated knives only, the instructions contradict that with specific sharpening methods for serrated knives.) 

Heaven, I'm in heaven . . . 

Instead of my wrists seizing when I struggled to chop a carrot, my trusty Santoku now breezes right through it like a whack on Fruit Ninja. Cooking is a fraction of the effort, with much prettier results.

Here's one of my favorite episodes:

 

Begone, Marshmallow!

One of the most renowned psychological studies is the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment from forty/fifty years ago. The results, as triumphantly tooted until the present day, "proved" that children who would wait for the second marshmallow as opposed to immediately eating the singular one resulted in higher-percentile adults in everything.

Recent work, however, is dulling the shine from these conclusions. Michael Bourne explains the limitations of the original experiment in "We Didn't Eat the Marshmallow. The Marshmallow Ate Us." Despite the study's drawbacks in terms of diversity, which is just one factor, it became intensely popular and constantly cited. I only took a couple of college psychology classes and it came up repeatedly. 

I'm all about self-control and delayed gratification, so this marshmallow thing would really appeal to me. Yet Bourne delves into the many factors at play that were never explored: emotion, intelligence, hunger, time. But there was only one simple statement: Those who waited for a second marshmallow was obviously more disciplined and were high achievers later on. However, it is not so easy. 

The real world is fantastically complex with thousands of factors, some tiny, some enormous, acting on us every day. Did I drift in my 20s because I lacked the temperament to stick with a goal or was I merely exploring my options until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life? Is that child dropping out of school because she lacks grit and determination or is she making a rational decision that, thanks to institutional racism or endemic unemployment in her community, school just isn’t worth the effort? Either may be right. Or neither. Or both.

But that isn’t what we want to hear. We want the instant gratification of an easy answer. We want to hear that character traits can be taught like algebra and geometry and that if you can resist eating a marshmallow at 4, you possess the secret to a successful life. We want the world to be a big fluffy marshmallow, and we want to gobble it up. We want to eat the first marshmallow, but get the second one, too.

"We want the instant gratification of an easy answer." That's it. 

We want easy answers for everything. We want to look gorgeous by slapping on a single miracle product every once in a while. We want to shield ourselves from the realization that tough things can happen by blaming a little boy for his own illness. We want our bashert to walk through the door, tagged and labeled, ready for inspection.

We want complex matters to be clear-cut and self-explanatory. But as Anne Lamott said, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, it's certainty." Jews don't claim to know how God plots this world, yet we still state firmly that A caused B.

As with the marshmallow, there's more at play.   

B'Shaah Tovah

This fellow, to be dubbed Biggs Darklighter, quite obviously disliked me on sight. He managed to keep it together (admirably?), and we had passable conversation for a bare hour before he deposited me on my doorstep. 

Hmmm, I thought, he would be great for Mrs. Dack Ralter's daughter. I didn't know Miss Ralter very well—it was our mothers who are friends—but her background was very similar to Biggs', and from what I had heard about her second-hand, I figured it was certainly worth a date. 

As soon as I came home I told Ma so. She tried suggesting it, but for whatever reason the two never went out.

A few years passed. 

Then one day, Ma informs me excitedly, "Miss Ralter is going out with Darklighter!" 

"Darklighter? Who's Darklighter again? Darklighter, Darklighter, Darklighter . . ." 

"Remember, you said you thought he would be good for her!" 

It took a few more minutes for me to recall him. After comprehension dawned, I became giddy with anticipation. Whatever tidbits Mrs. Ralter would pass on to Ma I would eagerly consume. Despite being in the security of our own four walls, we would whisper conspiratorially.  

Their engagement was soon announced. 

Was my initial reaction, "If only they had gone out when I had suggested it"? In no way. The more I observe the dating scene (as frantic as I am to be done with it) the more I realize that timing is everything. 

This happy occasion could not, should not, would not, have occurred at any other moment. It's not that if they had gone out earlier then all that aggravation of dating could have been avoided; that aggravation had a purpose, to make them into the people that could now meet and then commit.

And no, I did not attempt to claim retroactive shadchanus. 

Being proved right is so much more satisfying.           

Bill Hader For "Star Wars"!

No Gluing Required

"Your lashes!" she gasped in delight. "Are they fake? Are you wearing, like, you know, those inserts?" 

"No, no—let me tell you about this great trick I just found out about . . ." 

Remember when I told all my lovely frumanistas about applying oil to eyelashes nightly? Well, I have to confess, when that post was put up I had only lash-oiled sporadically; usually following what I felt to be an abusive mascara-removal session, after a three-day yontif, for instance. 

About a week before the post, I began dabbing castor oil on my lashes every night, and quickly I began to see results. A number of lashes began to grow ridiculously long. New lashes were also beginning to grow in right above where my lash-line ends. Smaller lashes were filling in the base. 

Not me, but another satisfied lash-oiler.

From what I read online, the oil in question does not have to be castor. Coconut, avocado, olive, and the like are also options, as is blending them. Instead of prescription lash serums with scary pigmentation side effects, all one needs is a little grease.  

All this new growth means I have more real estate to apply mascara to. Along with the black powder eyeliner I dab into the lash base with an eyeliner brush (it is applied beneath the lashes, not above), I am left with a strong appearance of fullness.

I discovered my new mascara love, Diorshow Iconic Overcurl Mascara, after a number of letdowns. I never had any joy with the original Diorshow, even though it is the gushing favorite of, well, everyone, but after three tries of dried-out goop they were returned with an exasperated wave of hands. 

Iconic Overcurl does what I expect my mascara to do, which is separate, define, plump, lengthen, and fix the kitchen sink.

A few sidecomments:

• Do not rub the eyes. That encourages not only sagging, but lash fallout.

• False lashes are not good for natural lashes. If donned sporadically and removed carefully, however, they don't leave lasting damage. Keep them just for special occasions.

• Remove eye makeup every night gently, lovingly. I soak a cotton round in makeup remover and lightly swipe it along the eye area in one direction. Make sure it is a good remover so that rubbing isn't necessary. Then apply the oil of choice thoroughly with a q-tip. 

I own an eyelash curler but I haven't yet used it. For the sake of progress and experimentation, I'll try it and report back. Soon. Ish.       

Battle of the Bulge: Change That Can Be Kept

In order to maintain a healthy diet, it is imperative to make the diet a habit, not a task. 

I have fallen off the wagon for a day, sometimes two. That is also necessary, because it reminds me that even if I slip up, it's not the end. I know how to clamber back aboard, but I just want to wallow off the road for a bit. 

Studies have been claiming recently that adult obesity can have its roots in childhood, when habits are forged. I was raised with pretty good habits, and I have acquired even more recently; believe me, it would have been easier to tackle those latter stages when I was 5. 

Yet slowly, gradually, even glacially, my current high-fiber, greenery-laden, nut-munching menu has overtaken my life to the point that without oat bran, I am bereft. 

Mark Bittman, who has dubbed me "Flexitarian" (by proxy), shares some tips is "Sustainable Resolutions for Your Diet." Fads don't offer lasting change. Good habits do. 

Via inkedincolor.com

Of his pointers that appeal to me: 

(1) Buy less, but better quality. Then make the most of it with hefty vegetable-based sidedishes or soups. Meat should not be the main focus; it should be regulated to the status of commentary.

As a sidebar, cholent is an example of how those on low incomes stretched a scrap of expensive meat. There is a ridiculous amount of flavor that can be extracted from dead animal when even a small bit (i.e. turkey neck) is added to a soup, for instance.

(2) Frozen fruits and vegetables are so convenient. If I make a last-minute supper, I can rely on sautéing an onion then adding frozen spinach, peas, and broccoli. Then I don't have to cook as much (whole-wheat) pasta, which gets mixed together with the veggies. If it is readily available, it will be utilized. 

(3) Vegetables for breakfast! Sounds mad, but only to the pancake-flipping American; other cultures have been eating green first thing in the day forever. I've often consumed butternut squash soup or pan-roasted cruciferous for breakfast. Satisfying, weight-loss friendly, and healthy. A triple threat.