My 2012 resolution

I am not big on lists, even though I should get into a habit of making them.  I don't think I have ever written down my next year's resolutions, which I mentally make about every other December.  Being as disorganized as I am, half the time I forget to make them in December and end up scrambling first week of January or not doing them at all.  I decided to break away from that habit, and actually document what I wanted to achieve in the coming year.  There were lots of important things, such as paying more attention to the kids, becoming more organized, losing weight, ridding oneself of guilt.  It would include not only the goals, but the important milestones and ways of achieving them.  It would've been a very good list, even if never followed.

Only at some point between thinking about it and writing all of that down, I got re-inspired by The Bloggess.  I started thinking as to what was it that I really wanted in 2012?  And I decided I wanted to feel happy.  Somehow between taking care of my wonderful kids and a new bigger house and work and finances and all things that life threw my way this year, I forgot about being happy.  It somehow slipped away, almost by choice.  And yes, to be happier I need to become more organized, lose weight and feel that I am a better mother than I am now; I know that it won't happen by itself.  But the main focus should not be on the steps to happiness, but on happiness itself. And if it requires not only taking care of big stuff, but doing silly things that brighten up the day?  Well, I am up for that challenge! 

I will try my best to silence the voices telling me that once one declares the intent of being happy, all kinds of hell breaks loose.  Because I need to be happy, and if I don't try, I never will be.

Therefore, there is only one resolution on my list this year:  2012 should be the year of being

                  Furiously Happy!!!

Wishing everyone happy, no, furiously happy and healthy 2012!

And if you never read Bloggess, I suggest adding this to your list of resolutions!

(Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, being furiously happy, which could be hard to see because she is wearing a wolf. But she is, trust me.)

 Wolverines!!!
  

Where I admit to being a musical Grinch

I think my relationship with jazz music has been well documented on this blog.  I don't like, at all, in any way, shape, or form, period.  The only music I dislike as much as jazz is Christmas themed music. Unlike jazz, I do not object to Christmas music out of my musical sensitivities.  On the contrary, it all begins rather lively and teeth-grinding-free around Halloween, when every station in the nation (even those who only yesterday were advocating to "Tie Your Mother Down" and taking a "Highway to Hell") starts playing Christmas music.  However, at some point in early November I realize that I am listening to the same 10 songs again and again, day in and day out, and that's how it's going to be until December 26th.  And it looks like it simply cannot get worse, musically-wise.   Seriously, folks.  It has nothing to do with religious intolerance on my part because if I had to listen to my the Best of Queen album all day long for two months, I would most likely develop a strong dislike for classical rock.  (No, that's blasphemy and will never happen, but you get the point.)

Well, remember how only in the last paragraph I said that things couldn't get any worse, and of course I was wrong?  Well, it was also well documented that I have a cubicle neighbor with a penchant for jazz.  I don't think I have ever heard him play Christmas songs.  And now, after months and months of torturing me with Norah Jones and the like, he decided to try something new and tuned into one of those stations that play nothing but those ten Christmas songs.  Only there was a different spin on them.  They all sounded jazzy, i.e. incredibly sad and depressing. Why did the singers sound so sad if "it's the best time of the year"?   Even Jingle Bells sounded like a story of two forlorn lovers separated by cruel fate.  Yes, this was as bad as it gets.

I have been waiting for December 26th this year like I have never been waiting for it before. It meant the end of musical torture and the beginning of auditory freedom. I hoped and waited only to be laughed at by cruel fate and radio DJs.  Folks, it is now December 29th, and Christmas songs are still playing almost nonstop in my neighbor's cube.  Is there an end in sight?  Only time will tell.  Yet I learned another valuable lesson:  it could always get worse.

Sub-Cake or where I pretend that I can bake

It is Chanukah, so naturally I am blogging about Sukkot, when I took the whole 9 days off, we had our own sukkah this year and had been expecting friends over for dinner.  Suddenly I found myself in an unusual position of being able to experiment with food and having volunteers to be experimented on.  (Unlike my family, guests couldn't opt for cream cheese sandwiches at the sight of unknown food.)  It was a perfect opportunity to try Suburban Correspondent's upside down cranberry cake.  It had everything I was looking for in a recipe:  it was easy; it came highly recommended; it had cranberries in it; and being from Suburban Correspondent, it had a potential for good blogging fodder.

Honestly, I don't know why I keep bothering with the last requirement.  Firstly, life keeps on throwing blogging fodder my way ALL THE TIME.  Fodder that would make you laugh, cry or remain uninterested - I have it all in my life.  If only I blogged about it.  Which would be, "secondly." Probably because I have so much fodder thrown my way, I can't find time or energy to produce a readable blog entry.  Actually, any entry.

But there it was, in all of its perfection - easy, tasty, cranberry-filled cake with high potential for blogging fodder.  I was sold.  That night, after I made three gazillion side dishes, soup, main course or two and a super hot pepper dip, it was finally time for cake baking.  SubHub, exhausted from watching me cook all night, slowly made his way into the kitchen only to restart the conversation we have been having for the past 8 years.

"Wow, what a mess."  "Yeah, I know.  I am almost done," I replied.  Then SunHub followed with a friendly suggestion I heard only three hundred times before, "Why don't you clean up as you go along instead of leaving it till the end when you are so tired?" "The counters ARE clean," I countered.   I'll spare you the details of this dialog because it deserves a post, if not a book, of its own.  That time it ended with SubHub taking a mercy on his hapless wife and washing a few pots and pans.  And, as the genre would require it, SubHub went off into the sunset feeling he had performed his duty and saved him damsel in distress.

The next day I, after the guests at SubCasa were souped and main coursed, was about to serve the dessert.  Fortunately, I had enough sense to try the cake before experimenting on my guests serving it.   The first cranberry I tried tasted a bit off.  "Wow," I thought, "those are some spicy cranberries."  This phrase was also off, so I repeated it again and again in my brain before finally realizing how crazy it sounded.  Spicy cranberries?  I took a big bite of the cake and felt my mouth on fire.  To my credit, I must say I never blamed the recipe or Suburban Correspondent.  Or SubHub, even though everything  that goes wrong is his fault. Unfortunately, not that time.  I had no one but myself to blame.  I tried to retrace my steps on the night of baking.  The only logical explanation I had was that the knife I had used for cutting up very spicy peppers for the dip was also used for cutting up margarine for the cake.  I knew I washed it, with soap, but apparently that wasn't enough to get rid of their aftertaste.

So I went in, fessed up to everyone who would listen, from the guests to the neighbors, about the importance of cleaning the knives after very spicy peppers.  We had a good laugh, at my expense, ate jello or lollypops or equally horrific backup dessert, some of the guests probably vowed to never eat in my house because I couldn't even wash my cooking knives properly.  

A few days later SubHub, while chowing on the very spicy cranberry cake, fessed up that during the clean up time he found a small quantity of unidentified goop on the otherwise clean counter, right next to the pan with the cake, so he just threw it in the pan thinking it was dough, or lemon peel, or something that truly belonged in the cake.   Which we now, of course know, to be the ground up super duper spicy peppers. "It's not even that spicy, I don't know what all the fuss is about," said the man who finds jalapeno peppers mild.

And I learned several valuable lessons, the most important of them that it is always husband's fault.  Even if all the evidence points in another direction.

Nonsequitors

1. I guess one way to avoid getting spam comments is to not write any new posts, so there, you spammers, I win!!! Sort of...

2. The holidays here are progressing, one more week, and we are done. On the one hand, sad (holidays, excitement, guests!!!), on the other hand - too much togetherness does not make the kids better behaved, the heart grow fonder, mosquitoes less agressive or a waist line to shrink.

3. I am afraid we scared off the one guest we managed to lure into our sukkah :(

4. Sukkot was and still is my favorite holiday, hands down. For the past couple of years, for reasons beyond our control, enjoying it became very hard. This year, however, for the first time in three years, I got my Sukkot back! Almost literally. It also came as a surprise, quite pleasant at that!

5. I am declaring October a scream-free month, parenting wise. Anyone care to join?

6. I need to write this one because if I don't, I won't have 7 points, and the Universe will stop making sense or exist in the way we know it. OCD much? Oh, shut up! (It's not October yet and you are not my kid, so I can yell if I want to...)

7. I wish I could say that after the holidays I will be back to my original programming, but for a few months before holidays there was no original programming to speak of. I guess priorities change, responsibilities take over, and FB is very, very alluring and time consuming.

Ok, happy rest of the Holidays to all those who celebrate! (Oh, no... Does this count as #8? O.M.G. I do not want to wake up in tomorrow's Universe.

Yours truly,

SubWife.

My annual Passover rant

Last Sunday I went grocery shopping and picked up a brief guide to Passover products in the supermarket. I quickly leafed through it when one section caught my eye: baby food. This year, to my great disappointment, the only certified kosher for Passover baby food is some foreign made fruit mush with added sugar. This is the first time I have seen refined sugar added to baby food. So naturally I wanted to see what the guide would say about baby food, which was not certified and whether some of it would be acceptable to use during Passover.

It might have been the fumes from Windex during Passover cleaning or exhaustion or my natural working mother defensiveness, but one sentence, actually one word in that section, ticked me off real bad. I quote,

"Ideally, it is best to (gasp!) prepare baby food at home using a blender or food processor."

Guess which word (gasp!) @#$%ed me off?!

Gasp? Gasp?!!! Excuse me? I was not reading an article or a blog entry or an essay on the topic. For goodness sake, I was consulting some very simple product guide. How dare they gasp at me and all the other mothers who are looking to buy baby food? What the hell? I understand and respect their recommendation, but what's up with the attitude? I was looking for mashed bananas and butternut squash, not crack cocaine!

Here's the newsflash for those MEN who have compiled the guide: I am reading your guide to (gasp!) only find out which products I can and cannot use during Passover, not to subject myself to the your judgment of my mothering/cooking skills and definitely not to the pitiful attempts at sarcasm from individuals who not only (gasp!) never made baby food themselves, but probably wouldn't even know how to plug in a food processor let alone use one, (but whose mothers - no doubt - busy as they were with Passover preparations still found time to make their own baby food, so why can't the modern women?) Gasp...

Here's another newsflash: if I (and all other women you are gasping at) made my own baby food - as I often do - all the time, as well as other products that I am perfectly capable of making myself instead of buying ready made, your kashrut certification revenue would greatly suffer. So would your employment and ability to come out with sarcasm- laden guides.

So here's a suggestion: when you prepare next year's guide, you will think about the last time YOU (not your wives) made baby food, how much you contribute to Passover preparations (vs your mothers and wives), how much you need your organization to generate revenue and raise contributions, and then make your buying recommendations for kosher consumers respectfully and (gasp!) keep your gasps to yourself? And if your compulsion to gasp overtakes you and becomes unbearable, you will express it in the blog post or - even better - in a private journal, away from exhausted female eyes?

Just a suggestion.

Then again, Windex fumes are thinning out, so I might look at this very differently a week from now...

I would like a side of air with that

I met a friend whom I haven't seen in a while this past Purim. Amid the sugarfest that Purim inevitably becomes, we somehow got on a conversation about the evils of sugar and processed carbs. Her point was, if I understood correctly, that many health-related evils are directly or indirectly related to sugar consumption. In order to be healthy one must completely eliminate all refined sugar and simple carbs.

I am not a big defender of sugar or white bread. I definitely could stand to lose quite a few pounds and eliminating sugar would help. However, I am just not buying the theory that all the evil is rooted in sugar. (I will also admit that few things in life are as satisfying as a freshly baked still warm white bread with a cold glass of milk. So yeah, I am biased.)

On the other hand, there are many other theories that blame other foods for all the ailments humanity suffers. There are those who say that dairy is evil; others say that it's actually meat; then there are those who claim that the only healthy lifestyle is avoiding all animal-derived foods. It doesn't stop there. One of my colleagues, citing numerous studies, said that fruit is to be avoided because it is high in sugar and whole grain Cheerios is bad for you. It doesn't end here because there are evils lurking in the form of salt, caffeine, alcohol, hydrogenated oils, not to mention preservatives, pesticides, coloring agents and other man-made chemicals.

Where does that leave me, if I were to follow every advice? Initially I wanted to say "with spinach", but there's E. Coli, then I wanted to say "cucumbers", but someone told me that the seeds in those could be bad for some people. Then I thought of beans, but men - how much beans can one consume before becoming a menace to society? (The answer: not much.) So that leaves me with an empty plate and stomach. Which would make advocates of the very low calorie lifestyle very happy. But not me...


Full disclosure: the post was written while drinking fully NON-decaffeinated Irish Breakfast tea and home made raisin cookies most definitely baked with sugar.

So you think it's funny?

I was on the train recently when I overheard - and trust me, it was impossible not to - a conversation one young girl was conducting on her cell phone. She very excitedly was retelling how one of her friends got so drunk at some party that on his way home he was stopped by a cop driving in the wrong direction on the one way street. To make the story even funnier - for the girl on the cell that is - it was the street where the guy lived and knew very well. The guy was so drunk that he could barely answer cop's questions - the girl was practically giddy with laughter talking about it. At the end, since the guy was practically two houses away from his home, the cop let him go scot-free. At that point I thought the girl would pee her panties with excitement. "Can you imagine? So drunk blah, blah, blah, hee hee hee."

This was one of the very few times in my life when I had a very strong urge to either yell or shake or do something to a person I did not know at all. I didn't think that there were people over the age of 13 who thought that drunk driving was hilarious. It's as if we don't know how many people get killed or maimed by drivers like this girl's friend. I find it hard to understand why the cop let this guy off the hook. Hopefully, the guy learned a lesson, but if he didn't - I pray he doesn't injure anyone after another party and gets stopped by a cop who is a bit less generous towards people who are careless with health and lives of others. But I might be hopeful in vain because it seems that cops care more about giving tickets to sober drivers standing at the pump while dropping off their offspring at the nearby school.

I might be hopeful in vain because few weeks ago our neighbor's fence got knocked down by a car that swerved out of control. If this were summer, or morning, or week-end or late afternoon, there would be children behind that fence. I shudder to think about the odds of their survival if they were there. The words "zero to none" come to mind. SubHub ran out to see what had happened and to offer assistance to the driver. The guy was not injured, but was so intoxicated, he could barely talk. He, however, had enough presence of mind to flee the scene of the accident. He was later apprehended by cops who told SubHub and a few other witnesses that the driver of the car would most likely not be charged with anything since there was only property damage. How about the fact that he was drunk? The cop only made a face and let people know that he was too busy for trivialities like that.

I wanted to blog about this story before, but every time I thought about the girl on the train or overly forgiving cops, I would inevitably get angry. I want to know what the heck happened to all the tough laws against driving while intoxicated? What is their purpose if cops let people caught driving drunk go left and right? Do we only enforce them when someone gets injured? Seriously, what the hell?

And now with Purim approaching, I decided to post this. Because drinking and driving is just not funny. And definitely not in the spirit of the holiday.

Today is SubHistory's Mysteries

Mystery #1.

I just looked over my blog and realized that I have misspelled the title of my previous entry. It was supposed to be "it" not "I". But even spelled correctly, the title still made little sense. What I really meant was ,"She could've been so much worse", but something tells me that even that is not very right, so I am leaving things as they are. Let the title remain a mystery of some sort.

Mystery #2.

When DD still wore size 2 diapers, our pediatrician recommended Triple Paste diaper ointment. We followed with the recommendation and bought a 1 pound jar, which lasted throughout DS's diaper years and was finally finished last week. A few weeks ago, anticipating the ultimate demise of the jar that lasted 4+ years, I bought another one in Target. The jar was exactly the same, and the price, though still rather steep, didn't change since our last purchase. Upon closer examination though, I found that the jar war marked as a 10 oz, not 1 pound. Here's what I find fascinating: the jars are identical and the 10 oz jar is filled to the top and not half empty as I have expected. I was so intrigued, I went on company's website only to find out that they don't manufacture 10 oz jars, only 8 oz and 1 pound. So is Target selling counterfeit butt cream?

Mystery #3.

I am still on Weight Watchers. (How I haven't stopped is a mystery on in itself.) After starving for a week, I lost 3 pounds, only to regain 2 pounds a day of starvation later. How, I ask you, how???? On the other hand, after allowing myself to "live" on Shavuos, cheesecake and all, I only gained a pound. I guess stuffing myself pays off better than starving. And so much more enjoyable!

On that note I am off to solve yet another mystery: is there any leftover cheesecake?

On cookies, donuts and organized religion

These are just my musings on the topic of Holiday Season. They are too short to get a post of their own, plus I am not sure if I'll manage to get another post out for this to be relevant. So there. Oh, and before I forget,

HAPPY CHANUKAH!!!

Holiday season happens to be the time when our large vendors send us, their good customers, Christmas baskets with edible goodies. I do appreciate the thought and all, but would it kill them to send something kosher? I mean, we live in NY, how hard could it be? Yes, I do realize that complaining about Christmas baskets not being kosher is at best ironic. But when the 3 p.m. hunger strikes and everyone around happily munches on gourmet cookies while you hope to satiate yourself with your own saliva, philosophical musings are the last thing that comes to mind.

Here's one for marriage experts to illustrate that men truly are from Mars. I call hubby today and ask if he would like some donuts. Ask any woman (any sane woman) what that means, and she will tell you, “Honey, would you be so kind as to pick up a few dozen donuts from the bakery on your way home?" What does a male hear? "Honey, would you be so kind as to allow me to spend hours in kitchen for the honor of serving you some home made donuts?" and replies with “Yeah, sure, make some.” Ugh, whatever, they are hopeless… When I explain the true meaning behind the question , hubby is genuinely surprised, “But you like making donuts!” Yes, I also like expensive jewelry, playing preferance and girls only nights out. I don't see anyone rushing to fulfill those likes of mine...

*************************************************************************************

This is the time of the year when one hears a lot of griping about organized religion (as far as I am concerned, in 99% of the cases this is just an excuse to avoid going to church or whatever else the religion would obligate the person to do). So I had a bright idea. What if I started a disorganized religion? Or religion for the disorganized? Either option would be fine, if it let me quit my day job and spend more time with kids. I even have a motto, "Mess for the masses." Something to look into...

P.S. As this post was edited, a very nice woman from a different department came over and brought me a package from a vendor that is delicious AND kosher. And left it on my desk since she knows we don't get many of those. How nice is that? And another (male) co-worker brought in a kosher donut, just for me (and other three kosher people on the floor). SubHub, if I were you, I would start getting jealous...and run to the bakery.

P.P.S. He ran, even before he heard that there's a competition. OK, got to get off the computer and start consuming all that nice food.

*************************************************************************************

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Does Pepto work for verbal diarrhea?

Today I went to DD's Chanukah party. It involved girls singing a few songs, some mother-daughter activities and consumption of a self-decorated donut. Not bad and not too long. Miraculously I came on time and didn't forget the camera. That lucky streak of me doing things right couldn't last.

During the singing part of the event, the music teacher started telling the story about Shani the rabbit who had a lot of sisters, and a lot of brothers and... One of the girls called out, "And a lot of fathers!" Most mothers politely giggled, and red lights and alarms went off in my head: DON'T SAY ANYTHING, DON'T SAY ANYTHING, DON'T SAY ANYTHING. Sigh... With alarms ignored, I whispered to my neighbor, "This information sounds a bit advanced for a four-year-old, don't you think?" Yep, DD. Mommy is trying to make a good impression...

Overall we had fun. Of course no school party is complete without some waterworks. As we got to the eating part of our activities, DD noticed that one of her classmates was crying. I said that she was crying because her Mommy left. DD immediately calculated the situation, "But you are not leaving. We are going home. Right?" Sigh. "No, sweetie, Mommy is going to work, like I told you yesterday and this morning." You should've seen it: those big gray eyes got even bigger and there it started. At least she wasn't alone. I don't know who was more traumatized, me or her.

Next week it's DS's turn. More songs, donuts and trauma on the way...

What I had done during my spring vacation.

Passover is over, and with it the longest non-pregnancy related vacation I had taken in four years, or maybe even more, it was so long that I don't even remember. It was nice. However it made me think about my parents and their standard three-week long vacations back in Russia. How did they stood us that long without losing their cool completely eludes me...

So here are the things that I had done during my vacation.

1. Cleaned. I don't think I have cleaned that much in a while. I had to constantly wash those darn dishes to the point where my housewife's eczema returned. At least this time it makes sense that I got it. Before I would get it just thinking about cleaning without actually doing it...

2. Ate matza and lots of it, and actually enjoyed it! (The trick is to drink to avoid a week-long constipation after the seder...)

3. Visited friends and had family over. That doesn't happen often. My kids finally got to see their cousins, first time in six months, even though we live relatively close to each other. And my folks got to see the kids without being the official babysitters.

4. Went to the Bronx Zoo,

5. Went to the Bronx Zoo. No, this is not a mistake, we actually went twice. Despite our most earnest pleas, both DD and DS were considered too wild to be accepted by the Zoo; the administration was worried about the animals' safety.

6. Discovered that I am much more materialistic than I used to be. I ogled every Baby Jogger double stroller and Honda Odyssey on my path. I want both of these things for a while now, but it never bothered me before. But when confronted with the avalanche of observant Jews everywhere we went during the holidays, many of whom possess both of the things I want, made me crave both the stroller and the car a lot more than I ever thought I would.

7. Looked for a new apartment, unsuccessfully, sigh...

8. Looked for a new car. Hubby finally admitted that it was time to retire ours. Found out in the process many, many interesting things; for example, that many people can't count, and car dealers take advantage of this mercilessly.

9. Was not dreading going back to work and was very relieved to find out that one of my friends felt the same way too.

10. Didn't update my blog. Sorry, just too busy! I am sure you understand.

Feliz Purim

My amazing ability to channel out (read: inability to notice or concentrate on) the things around me was one of the things that my husband found particularly cute when we were dating. As some unwritten law of relationships goes, it is the very thing that drives him particularly crazy now. But that's not what the post is about.

One of the ways this channeling out thingy declares itself is in my not knowing my neighbors. At all. I know that they are my neighbors because they appear where my neighbors supposed to appear - on the porch next to ours, in the doorways of houses next to ours, in our own yard saying hello - but I wouldn't be able to pick them out of a crowd. I know my landlady really well because I have to climb down a set a stairs every month to bring her a check for an obscene amount of money, which is now called a bargain due to the present real estate market. But this post is not about real estate either.

So on Purim we exchange packages of food (shaloch manot). This Purim was particularly hectic, and giving a package to my neighbors was not something that occurred to me in the morning. Then some time in the late afternoon it hit me that it would be a nice gesture. Our (or more precisely, our landlady's house) is adjacent to another two-family house owned by an Israeli family, and they have Israeli tenants on the second floor. So I prepared a package for the landlord, and rang the bell. There was some scurrying around behind the closed door, then the woman who obviously didn't expect anyone at this hour (wet hair, bathrobe, etc), opened it. She looked positively scared and seemed to not quite comprehend what I wanted from her. I tried to not look directly in her direction, threw at her the package and ran off with a "Happy Purim" wishes. I hate being caught in the middle of a shower, and didn't enjoy doing this to her.

So after I brought the food package to the neighboring landlord, hubby said it would be nice to bring one to his tenants, since apparently hubby is friendly with them. Again, this was news to me. I got the package ready and went out to deliver it. I knew the family wasn't home, so I had to leave the package by their door. I thought it was right next to the landlord's when all of a sudden stairs to the second floor porch caught my eye. I had seen my neighbors on this porch numerous times, so I knew that the door on the porch led to their apartment. So where did the second door on the first floor lead?

After I left the package on my neighbors' second floor doorstep, I ran to hubs and asked him whether the adjacent house was a two or three family house. The look that hubby gave me was worth more than the words could express and much more than we have in our savings account. "Didn't you live here for about a year?" he finally said. "It is a three-family house. We have a landlord and his Dominican tenants living on the first floor, and our (??!!) Israeli friends (??!!) living on the second."

Dominican? As in most likely Catholic? As in on a Good Friday (which happened to coincide with Purim this year)? I obviously rang the wrong doorbell! That explained why the poor woman looked so shocked when I presented her with my food. I would be shocked too if someone for no reason dumped food on my lap and ran off. Very, very grateful, but nevertheless shocked.

At that point I suspended all my food-giving and started getting ready for Shabbat. When all of a sudden a bell rang and a girl (who looked like she could be my neighbor's kid) brought us a basket with goodies. They were all kosher and made in Israel, so I guess I rang the right doorbell after all. Phew. The neighborhood peace is preserved, the inter-religious conflict averted.

Short Recap in my favorite art form: MasterCard Commercial.

Cost of ingredients and goodies for shaloch manot: about $150.
Time spent baking/preparing them: don't know, all I know is that I went to bed at 3 am the night before.
Finding out who your neighbors are: priceless (and still on my "to do" list).