Sicilio-Judaica or perhaps, Judaically Sicilian.

Weird, weird dream. There was to be a wedding on the Sicilian side of the family. My dear friend the Amnesiac Concert Flautist (you know who you are…if you want a different moniker, just e-mail me) was also invited to the wedding, and as it was on the far East side of town, all the guests, including my family and the ACF, were staying at my cousin Pepi’s house.

So, the ACF and I were visiting with my relatives and all of a sudden my coworker Maria comes downstairs. She is holding one of those egg incubators we used in science class in high school. She is so excited that the chickens hatched. These were miniature chicks about the size of one’s thumb. And, thanks to Maria opening the incubator, they were infesting Pepi’s house. They were everywhere. Little fuzzy yellow baby chicks all over the floor. They were hopping and running around.

I was agitated by these developments and I think the ACF was as well. I was worried about the welfare of the chicks and I was afraid of stepping on them. Maria said she had everything under control and that the chicks would be just fine. So, we decided to go back to our side of town and just come back for the wedding at the appropriate time. On the way home, I had to stop for gas. We stopped at an Israeli gas station, complete with signage in Hebrew. This wasn’t just a gas station, this was a bazaar. A bazaar guarded by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. There were some soldiers on guard and some sleeping on bedrolls, etc.

One could find many things at this Israeli gas station bazaar: pottery, potting soil, etc; and there was even a marketing and promotions company that was operating out of the bazaar. After the ACF and I toured the bazaar, I decided to purchase two used, pink MP3 players, priced at $99. They were in poor condition and one of them would get staticky whenever the song played the musical note “A.” The ACF did not approve of the purchase, because the one MP3 player was faulty and because of the price. But, I bought them anyway.

The dream really wrapped up with my purchase. We filled the automobile tank with gas and went back to our side of town.

Oh, as some people believe odd food can cause odd dreams, I went to a restaurant with two good friends last night, incidentally, one being the ACF's sister. I had four vegetarian grape leaves for dinner, a bite of the mushroom appetizer ordered by the ACF's sister, three chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and a cup of blueberry tea.

David Caruso is my Crystal Meth

Ok, so I get addicted to crime dramas. For a while is was regular-flavored Law & Order, then Law & Order SUV, then Without a Trace, and now CSI Miami. I don’t know what it is with crime dramas. Actually, I do know what it is. They are on all the time. Whenever you turn on the telly, there they are, David Caruso (Horatio Caine on CSI Miami) , making some profound statement while assuring you that he’ll solve the crime, Anthony La Paglia (Jack on Without a Trace), also making some profound statement, while referring back to his divorce and at the same time, assuring you he’ll solve the crime, and of course, Christopher Meloni (Stabler on L&O SUV), beating up the suspect while referring to his divorce, and then assuring you he’ll solve the crime. The shows have the same pattern. Maybe that’s why I’m addicted. I know everything is going to turn out fine. Horatio will solve the crime as always, without showing any emotion, even when his mentor gets blown up in an explosion. Jack will get a bit sweaty or bloody and get very emotional at the end, but he will always solve the crime as well. And Stabler will beat up the wrong suspect, get beaten up himself, have his partner break up with him, but will also always solve the crime.

The sameness of the shows, the patterns, that what makes it addictive to me. There are no surprises and these shows are interchangeable.

sippy cup

So, I went to my favorite Irish pub today. No, not to have a drink in the middle of the day, though G-d knows I need it sometime. But, to pick up lunch (turkey burger and fries, with the fries literally drenched in malt vinegar, by the way).

I usually wait at one end of the bar for my carryout. But, this time, I waited at the other end of the bar, and I noticed something interesting. At the end of the bar, there is a lower bar with shorter bar stools. I never noticed this before. Was this for people who were eating instead of drinking? No, I think not, because on this lower bar were crayons and magic markers. This was a training bar for children! Perhaps, while mom or dad is sitting at the regular sized bar, drinking Guinness and watching rugby on the telly, Junior can sit on a stool at the lower bar, drink root beer and do some coloring. Oh, the customers smoking in the bar will also train Junior’s lungs to be able to handle second-hand smoke, which will come in handy when he starts sitting at the regular sized bar.

Am I the only one disturbed by this?

mixed blessing

So, I have been knitting like crazy. A bit too crazy, as I have injured my wrist. I called my computer consultant, The Breakfast Czar, for a diagnosis. Yes, one would think that if one's wrist hurt, one would go to a doctor, but as a computer consultant, working in an office with computer consultants, I'm sure that TBC is quite familiar with wrist injuries. So, she diagnosed me with carpel tunnel and told me to stay off my wrist for a while. So, I've been reading like mad. I can't get enough. I don't know what's wrong with me. I read so much in my job as an editor, that I find it quite difficult to read for fun. I guess I'm over it that difficulty, thankfully.

So, here is what I'm reading:Yiddish Civilisation. The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation. As I have been doing quite a bit of genealogy, I want to know what my ancestors' lives were like. I also just read The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, which is like a Jewish Da Vinci Code. I wanted to learn more about Portuguese Jews. It was kind of Sherlock Holmes-y, but educational. Lastly, I'm reading The Harlot by the Side of the Road. Forbidden Tales of the Bible. Good book, but way, way too much about circumcision! And, thanks to a chat I just had with TBC, I now have a yearning to read Sense and Sensibility again. It's one of those books I can read over and over. And I haven't read it in a few months. So, I think I'll start it again.

Anyway, feel free to leave literary suggestions or perhaps let me know what you are reading, in the comments.

snow boots

Ok, so it’s snowing out and every year I have to go through emotional abuse when I mention one of my favorite things about winter. Yes, you too may think I’m a freak, but I can’t help it. Here’s my confession…I enjoy shoveling snow and I’m not embarrassed to admit it. No one I’ve ever confessed this to has said anything other that I am nutty. I don’t know how to defend myself. It’s a task I enjoy, especially late at night, when you can hear the snow fall and in the distance, you may hear the scrape of the shovel of another soul who also waited until late night to clean their driveway off. There are many household tasks I don’t enjoy. I don’t enjoy washing dishes. I do it anyway. I don’t enjoy putting away laundry. I do it anyway. But, I do enjoy shoveling snow. And tonight, late, I will be outside shoveling with my shiny, new snow shovel. I can’t wait to try it out.

olive

If one were to hypothetically spill a bottle of olive oil onto one's brown suede winter mocs, and one failed at cleaning the two huge spots left on each of one's mocs, does it sound logical to just coat one's mocs completely in olive oil so instead of two large stains, one would just stain the entire surface of the mocs, hence unstaining them?

Anyone?

wolves or barns

So, The Breakfast Czar would be the first to tell you that I am a tad fussy. But, I think even you non-fussy folks would have issue with the poor decorum displayed by a coworker tonight. Ok, so I said that I would work on my night off. I regrettably changed my plans for coffee with a friend so that I would be available to work on this 63-page project.

As I am an editor, the process is that the writer, or one of their representatives, will hand me the booklet, catalog, or whatever it is they want me to read and edit. But, where does it say in the editor's handbook that when we sit down to discuss the details, before I have begun to edit the piece, that I should be subjected to the writer sticking her fingers in her mouth to get traction to turn pages to show me what she wanted to talk about. Now, the corners of the piece are drenched in her spit. And I'm the one that has to look at the piece. I didn't sign up for this gig to have to touch pages with her saliva on them. Either she was raised in a barn or raised by wolves or both. I don't know and I don't care.

5

So, I’m practicing walking around without grimacing as the icy wind taunts me with its, well, icy wind. I am tired of looking like the frigid cold is cutting through my spleen with one of those slightly serrated butter knives, even though that’s what it feels like while I am out in the cold for too long. I want to look like one of those expressionless, Botoxed women I see jaunting around the chic town in which I work, albeit with more clothing. Yes, on the surface, my actions sound like a folly, but I have a goal. So, we have a windchill of 5 degF today. Yes, 5. I went out for a walk at lunch. I walked to the supermarket. It’s about a half-mile away from my office. I discovered that it’s all about relaxing the face muscles when you’re walking in 5 degree weather and you want to look like you’ve had Botox instead of scrunching your face up like you’ve just had a sip of sour milk. I found that it was working. My face was relaxed and I looked like I didn’t have a care in the world, even though my major organs were freezing and on the verge of shutting down due to hypothermia. But, relaxing your face works better when you also relax your shoulders. So, if you were driving down the main street of my little corner of suburbia today and you saw a woman walking like she was in some yogically induced stupor, that was me. The only downside to this experiment was that it was so cold that none of the idle rich were out today to see my triumph.

dosa

So, I was at this Indian restaurant with a friend. We ordered our usual curries and set about to enjoy them. A spectacle seemed to arise at the table near us. The waiter brought out what can only be described as a two-foot long burrito. Everyone in the small restaurant turned to watch the waiter deliver the interesting looking food item to the eager restaurant goers. We were intrigued. What was this food? We were amazed by the flurry of excitement that surrounded the lucky recipients of the curious dish. We wanted all of the adulation and attention that those people got. We asked around and found out that the dish was called a dosa. It was a large crepe filled with curry or potatoes. My friend and I decided that next time we met up for Indian food, we were going to order the dosa.

The day finally came. We were so excited. We ordered a dosa. We wanted the throngs of restaurant goers to turn in amazement as the waiter brought out the two-foot long curry-filled crepe. We sat in eager expectation, waiting for our dosa to arrive. Our excitment turned to sorrow when the waiter came out with our dosa. Instead of bringing out the entire dosa on a large platter, the kitchen staff, probably thinking they were doing us a favor, cut the dosa up into bite-sized pieces and arranged them on a platter. No adulation, no head-turning, nothing. We both felt so let down. We ate the dosa and enjoyed it, but it was a bitter enjoyment. It was an enjoyment marred by the disappointment in not receiving the dosa with all of the pomp and circumstance afforded those restaurant goers we saw those many weeks before.

Indian food just doesn’t taste the same anymore. It has a sadder, more lonesome taste now and maybe it always will.

spoon bending

So, I was sitting at Border’s, drinking a cup of tea and eavesdropping on the cell phone conversation of the woman sitting next to me. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. She was so loud that she was talking over the Elvis Costello I had playing on my iPod. So, the lady informed whomever she was talking to that she was a psychic. Apparently, she wanted to write a book on being a psychic. I would think that it would be hard to go out in public if one was a psychic. All those people bombarding you with all those thoughts. So, I decided to test her. I wrote some things to her down in my notebook. Nothing nasty, mind you. There was no response on her part. Either she isn’t a real psychic or she was ignoring me. I guess I’ll never know.

omelets

I learned something interesting about my sister yesterday. I was reading the website of the professional organization she belongs to and I found that before she had the title of vice president in this organization, she had a brief and tempestuous rule as Breakfast Czar. I have so many questions about this. First, why didn’t she ever tell the family she held a royal post? I wonder if she was too bashful. Maybe she thought we’d insist that she wear a crown and carry a sceptre. Those sceptres can get pretty heavy…from what I hear. And of course, the more people that knew about her rule, the more chances there could be riots in the streets, plots by Bolsheviks, etc. You know, my sister and I look nothing alike. Could there be some sort of mystery here? Was she descended from some royal family and then secreted away to the vast wasteland that is the Mitten, only to regain her crown for a few brief years. As she lives her life in seclusion…well not really seclusion as we recently had coffee at Starbucks…but as she lives her life in anonymity, I wonder if she misses the pomp or the parades or even the serfs that were her life while she was Breakfast Czar.

snow

I work in a very chic town and sometimes just don’t understand the inhabitants. So, it’s cold out today. Bone-chilling cold. I go out for lunch. I’ve got long boots on, mid-length coat, scarf, mittens…the works. I’m still freezing. The wind is whipping in my face, the snow is blowing in my eyes, and I’m grimacing, as one would do in such a situation. Well, walking down the street, coming towards me is one of those negative body fat, idle rich that we see so much around town. She’s wearing Ugg boots of course, skinny jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. No coat and her hands and head are bare. She looks perfectly poised. I don’t even think the snow was snowing on her face or hair. She has some sort of aura that repels precipitation. How do they do it? How is she not as miserable as me? Do they teach being meteorologically poised in 7th grade around here? How does one not scrunch up one’s face is disgust while being hit in the eyes with snowflakes. I need to know the secret.

deeply personal information about me...

my favorite word is "froth."

Victoria's Secret

I've always harbored this secret aversion to wearing ripped underwear to religious functions. I always feel that I were to do that, G_d would know. But, if one subscribes to religious beliefs, one would assume that G_d would know any time I was wearing ripped underwear, at the gym, at work, etc. But, I can't bring myself to go into a religious institution with ripped underwear on.

bad shrimp

So, I was on my way to synagogue this morning and was suffering from a bout of agita (bastardized Sicilian/American for upset stomach). So, I stopped at a gas station for the nector of the gods, Vernors.

Just as an aside, I've never known anyone outside the Mitten who liked Vernors. And, really, I've never known anyone who was from the Mitten but not from the Detroit area to even like Vernors.

So, I grabbed the Vernors from the case, took it up to the counter and handed the guy behind the counter a 20 dollar bill. It was early and he couldn't change it. He said the computer was down and he couldn't open the register. He told me he needed exact change. Well, all I had was my 20. So, I told him that I lived a mile away and I promised I'd come back later on if he let me take the pop. I was desperate and I wasn't even thinking that of course I could stop at another gas station for pop. So, he said yes.

Later on, I came back with my one dollar and 35 cents that I owed him. I was expecting some sort of fanfare and was disappointed at the lack of joy on his part that I came back. I had thought that they never expected to see their buck 35 and I was doing a great thing by returning. Of course, I didn't get the fanfare and I didn't deserve it anyway. I was just doing what I said I was going to do. Nothing more. I didn't deserve any praise. I was just being egotistical about the whole thing.

The moral of the story. When your friend gives you reasons not to eat shrimp at 9:30 at night, heed their advice.

shoes

I recently discovered a smart way to save money. I suffer from SRSS (stress-related shoe shopping). In times of stress, I can spend quite a few dollars to alleviate my stress and give myself that high that one gets from purchasing the perfect pair of shoes. Well, I believe I have been cured of my SRSS thanks to downloadable music. You see, if one suffers from a bout of stress in the evening, such as hypothetically having an argument with one's aunt at 9:00 on a Tuesday night, one cannot run to the shoe department at Macy's and pick up a new pair of Liz Claiborne slides (yes, I'm looking for another pair of slides, even though I still think it is ridiculous to purchase backless shoes in the winter). But, one can download some funky Nelly Furtado tunes almost instantly, and for a fraction of what a new pair of Liz Claiborne slides would cost. The same rush one gets from a successful shopping outting can still be felt, and in the comfort of home.

motorcycle

bad cholesterol

So, I had a very weird dream last night. It started out with me reading a report from my doctor indicating that my cholesterol had sky-rocketed, which really upset me. Kinda boring dream, eh? No, it gets better. I decided to take my doctor's report and show it to the Hip-Hopibrarian(R), Well, the Hip-Hopibrarian had her own problems. Apparently, after coming back from checking out the underground Tel Aviv hip-hop scene while writing her book on...? Hip-Hopibrarian, are you reading this? What were you writing a book on while you were checking out the underground Tel Aviv hip-hop scene? Well, anyway, the Hip-Hopibrarian had apparently hung up her...um...dancing shoes and reading glasses and had become a minister. Perhaps a Hip-Hopister. I caught her while she was very upset. Apparently, she caught a misspelling in the prayer book the Church wanted her to use. The person formerly known as the Hip-Hopibrarian was in the middle of suing the Church over the misspelling. And, she was so upset over the misspelling that she was planning to hang up her, well, whatever Hip-Hopisters hang up and enter into a new career.

Elvis

Even though this blog was established for me to have an outlet to try to be sarcastic and humorous, only one thought is going through my head right now and it isn't sarcastic or humorous. That thought is:

Isn't Elvis Costello the best singer, songwriter, entertainer ever? Ok, I'll give you Leonard Cohen as best songwriter, but everything else applies to Elvis Costello.

pride

It was pouring rain, the wind was whipping around, but I left the store jauntily carrying my sole purchase, a new black umbrella. I thought I was very clever. Here I was, armed to take on the weird Michigan winter rain storm while other shoppers were scampering in and out of the store, bareheaded, without even as much as a hood to cover them.

I didn’t get more than 20 feet away from the store when the wind got a hold of my new umbrella and started whipping it around. Since I was holding my new umbrella, I went whipping around as well. Picture Mary Poppins, gently wafting down to the ground, umbrella in one hand, carpet bag in the other, ready to take on the day and conquer two obnoxious children plagued by an absentee, uptight British father. Well, this wasn’t that. Instead, one must picture me clothed in my usual Saturday attire, threadbare jeans which I am hesitant to toss because I don’t believe I can replace them now that Marshall Fields has become Macy’s and I can’t find the same model, grey t-shirt, blue hoodie and lastly, a black ski vest, which I wear because I think it looks cool even though I’m terribly cold in a ski vest due to the obvious lack of arm covering necessary in inclimant weather. My shoes of choice are usually my brown moccasin slides, incidentally stained with olive oil due to yet another tragic kitchen mishap. The slides I purchased with a bit of skepticism, because I think it is a tad ridiculous for stores to sell backless shoes in the winter in a wintery climate, but again, they looked really cool in the ads, with the tall models wearing the mocs in the Land’s End catalog frolicking in the woods with a fishing rod in one hand and the leash to their lumbering golden retriever in the other hand.

So I’m chaotically being flailed around in a fierce gust of wind. The rain is pounding on me sideways, wetting my arms that would have been dry if I had been less vain and had bought a jacket with actual sleeves, the backs of my feet getting soaked (a sight not seen in the Land’s End catalog when the models are happily trudging through the elements, scampering Golden Retrievers in tow) thanks to the lack of backs on my olive oil-stained moc slides. My brand-new umbrella, of which I had so much pride and love for, at least in the 45 seconds that I owned it, gave up, turning itself inside out, saying "uncle" to the ferocious storm. I flung myself towards my car, broken umbrella in tow, tossed it in the back and drove home, wet, chilled and umbrella-less, yet again.

my world

Quote expressed during the holiday festivities:

"Gosh, those latkes gave me agita."