English is a strange language

English is a strange language.  This occurred to me a few nights ago when I was spelling out numbers to DD.  Well, it also occurred to me when I was learning it, actually it occurred to me more than once, but eventually I made peace with it.  And now that DD is learning spelling, it is re-occurring to me once again on a regular basis.  So here's my discovery:

Don't you find it strange that the word "one" does not have a "W", but the word "two" does?  Am I the only one (without a "w") who thinks that?

Reason to get organized #672

We read the books, attend the lectures, ask advice from professionals and those with experience, and still, there are things in parenting that catch us completely off guard.  I was caught off guard today.  I tried to brush it away, to dip into the knowledge acquired from books, lectures and discussions with professionals.  I ended up yelling a little, expressing my disappointment and largely tried to avoid thinking about it.  And now, when everyone is asleep, the clock is showing about 2 a.m. and I am scrambling, as usual, to find that piece of paper that I absolutely need, it hits me and I start crying.

In the grand scheme of thing it really is not that important.  It could be one of those things I will not recall a few years from now.  But it still eats at me.  My daughter, my lovely, kind, bright, absolutely delightful daughter has failed her Hebrew test, and she failed it miserably.  I knew there were problems in this subject; I spoke with the teacher several times.  DD has been having academic issues this year, but eventually math and English have picked up.  Hebrew - not so much.  And even though I was aware of it, nothing seals the fact that my child is not succeeding in school like seeing the failing grade on top of the test paper.  It sits there, along with the note that DD needs individual help in this subject, and I can feel it accusing me of somehow letting this happen, of being a bad, irresponsible, neglectful mother.

Rationally I know that I can't fault myself for every bad grade and I definitely shouldn't beat myself up over it.  Yet I can't help but feel guilty: for being such a disorganized mess, for quite possibly passing this on to my kid either through genes or through observation, and possibly both.  For working full time and not being at home enough to help her out or organize her studying time better.  For not having enough patience when I do help out.  For not having the means to hire a tutor and for not really knowing the subject myself.  For taking time to myself when I could've been studying with her.  It feels that it wasn't the test that she failed, it feels like I failed her in some major way.

I have always been a proponent of the very sound advice on homework: make it a kid's responsibility.   My own parents never checked my homework and helped only when asked.  It was never spoken, but I knew that school work, academic success and studying were solely my responsibility.  And even though I was a disorganized mess as far as I can remember myself, the first time I struggled academically was at the age of 12 or 13.  Even then, the onus of figuring it out was on me, with help available if asked for.  And it worked; as far as I can remember, I have never failed a test.  And I didn't expect my daughter to either, at least not at 7.  Armed with my personal experience and all the advice from all the books I read, I planned to employ the same approach to my kids' academics as my parents.  And it worked, until it no longer did.

It was apparent that I had to take over homework, in some way.  DD obviously needed someone to explain what she missed in class, help her focus and organize her work, check answers and drill, drill, drill, But mainly help her focus and get organized.  Ladies and gentlemen, how can someone struggling her entire life with organization and focus teach her child those same things?  How can I help her fight the monsters I haven't conquered myself?  Somehow I was always, or almost always, able to wing it, improvise, come through at the eleventh hour, which allowed me to compensate.  I don't know how to teach that.  I don't know whether I should.

I am  not in despair.  I am not upset at DD.  Well, I try not to be even though it drives me up the wall seeing how easily she loses focus.  We have a plan of how to improve.  Isn't what this life is all about - improving?  I should put getting organized  on top of my "to do" list.  Heck, it's been there as far as I can remember myself.  But I must get better, and sometimes it is easier to improve for someone else than for myself.  And now I have that reason.

If you had any doubts

...that men and women are different, here's another proof.  My husband has been spending 1.5 hours 5 nights a week for the past 4 or 5 years in a Jewish learning program.  He sits next to a man with whom he has got friendly.  They are not very best friends, but the man has been to our house a few times and my husband has gone to this man's.  And again, the whole spending 1.5 hours next to each other almost every night for several years in a row thingy.

This week this man came to us to help out my husband with his computer issues.  At some point of the conversation, the man noticed our baby sleeping on the couch.  He had inquired whether this was our youngest child and then asked, "How many have you got?"  Yeah, he did not know.  I asked hubby how could that have happened, and hubby said, "It just didn't come up."  I didn't ask - too petrified to confirm that I'm right - but am almost positive that hubby doesn't know how many children this man has.

Now, after this, do we really need research that men and women are different?  I assume we all know that had that been women, not only we would know the number, but also the names, ages, and quite possibly birthdays.  But this is precisely what I had seen recently on msn.com, another article that men and women actually are psychologically different.  Who would've thunk?

I am suggesting some other very valuable topics of research:

1.  Are men and women different physiologically?
2.  Is making bed really necessary every single morning?
3.  If you gorge on sugar and chocolate all day long for several years, will you gain weight?
4.  Does this dress make me look fat?  Please analyze from all angles.

and my personal favorite:

5.  If given a choice, would people prefer being rich and healthy over being poor and sick?

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.

I believe (?) I can fly...

Passover is over. With it comes some sort of sadness, but this time it's not for the holidays that are over.

It's probably no secret to anyone who knows me or who reads this blog that my housekeeping is lacking and my standards are kind of low. Not terribly low - while working full time, we almost never eat take out, husband and children have clean clothes, dirty dishes are not piled up to the ceiling and the house is habitable- but not very high. Some chores get postponed for months if not years. I never feel this more acutely as before Passover. As most of my friends are busy spring cleaning, I settle for some mild form of decluttering and basically Pesach cleaning my living room, dining area and kitchen. I don't believe that Passover should necessarily equate to spring cleaning and have very good reasons for not doing it during that time. After all, I am an accountant by profession and the months of February through April happen to be pretty busy for us. However, with Pesach there are some deadlines that one must meet. When spring cleaning is done on one's own schedule, well, it kind of never gets done. At least in one shot.

So what's up with sadness? This Passover I made a commitment to 1) rejoin Flylady AGAIN and try to stick with it, 2) to keep my dining room table, kitchen counters and sinks clean at all times. Sounds like not that much, right? Only that I found myself washing dishes and wiping counters almost nonstop all the time. I mean it - except for the times when we ate/slept/went for a walk, ALL THE TIME. And that's only part of the kitchen and dining area! Towards the end of the last day, I gave up and left some silverware and cups unwashed. But I have done it all the other seven and a half days, and have housewife's eczema to prove it! The most annoying part? This kind of forced me to neglect kids' room a bit and when I walked in today, I found a mountain of clothes piled up on the rocking chair. How??? And in only two days???

That's when the sad realization hit me. Basically, if I want my house neat at all times (not just when kids are in bed and no one actaully appreciates semi-neatness), I will never be able to really rest or do anything other than clean. There will always be something else to do. And, while the house will most likely be much neater than now, working this hard is not a guarantee that it will be really neat. This doesn't sit well with me. At all.

So I am sad. And depressed. And finishing horrible Passover chocolate (it's Swiss, but the lowering of pure cocoa % actually makes it taste very cheap, though cheap it isn't) because tomorrow I am also starting Weight Watchers. And thinking that maybe my old self that didn't notice and/or wasn't bothered by disarray was better than the new/older me, at least for blogging and socializing purposes.

Ahh, I already miss holidays.

Every breath you take

Wowie wow wow! It has been almost three weeks since my last post! Wow! Time flies!

Well, this one will be short.


My obsession with home early pregnancy tests (EPT) had reared its ugly head once again, which prompted SubHub to utter one of his funniest lines ever. (Actually there were two lines, but I don't remember the first one exactly because the second one was soooo good.) He looked over my new super-multi-mega-pack-SubWife special edition EPT purchase and uttered, "Every time you pee, it costs us five dollars."

Little did he know that it's $5 on sale and including super-multi-mega pack discount...

(The first line - I think - went something like, "You know, you don't need a pregnancy test to pee, you can go straight into the toilet?"

So I declare this line to be the quote of the month! (or with the say my posting goes, it might end up the quote of the decade.)

Consumerist stole my post!

Ever wonder why baby products cost more - and often MUCH more - than their adult versions? And if there are no adult equivalents, then the one can be guaranteed to pony up a lot of dough for almost nothing. Examples? Just off the top of my head - baby food, formula, diaper rash creams, toys, children's books, clothing, shampoos, baby bottles, breast milk bags ... the list could go on and on and on.

On the other hand, this creates a bright business idea. Just add the word "baby" to your product - and voila! You can charge 30% more without any justification! Too bad, there's no accounting for babies, or I would get seriously rich seriously fast. Hey, there's an idea - Baby Accountant video series! Guaranteed to teach your baby how to count, use a spreadsheet, get comfortable with debits and credits, and as a bonus feature - how to defraud the government and your shareholders. We do not guarantee results, but if your baby doesn't show any interest in the above activities, he will definitely fall asleep!

Anyone willing to invest?

Out of the mouth of the babe...

DS, patting his protruding ribs and concave tummy after lunch, "I have a big tummy, just like Mommy and ___." There were quite a few other names, but I won't mention that...

Currently trying to decide whether to multiply this year's goal for weight loss by 3 or by 4. Baby steps are obviously not working.

The last - summarized

I have been asked in the comments to yesterday's post to summarize the article about Dr. Hern, the last provider of the late term abortions in the U.S. Initially I said no, but then relented since he probably represents 30% of my audience...

The author of the article describes what it is like to do what Dr. Hern is doing. He draws a very vivid picture of a man, his reasons behind choosing his occupation and staying there despite all the hate and death threats he has been receiving for DECADES. While one might disagree with Dr. Hern's political and world views, one fact remains very clear - he is the last one in his field in the U.S. When he is gone, there probably won't be anyone willing to replace him - because of the death threats he, his employees, and family members receive on a regular basis and because of contempt from colleagues and even patients(!). While I am the first one to admit that I do not agree with the reasons some of the women choose to abort late term, BY LAW these abortions cannot performed on a "whim" or for the woman's convenience after 24 weeks of gestation. Something MUST BE WRONG either with the fetus or the mother. Those are not the cases where the woman wakes up one day and decides that she no longer wants to be pregnant.

The articles leaves off on the following questions: if a woman's life is endangered by pregnancy and the last late term abortion provider is gone, where will this woman go?

(This really is not the best summary and I would highly recommend reading the article itself and do more research on the subject. There are other options available in critical situations, but discussing them is well beyond the scope of this summary.)

The last?

It's strange how sometimes many things will come together in a string of co-incidences and, when put together, give you that eerie feeling. I don't think I am making sense, but I will elaborate. For the past week I have been working on and off on the post about abortion, mainly about extreme views on both sides of the debate. I am not quite sure whether I will post it, but for my own reasons I want to finish it. Hence no other posts.

And then I keep on seeing abortion debated again and again in the news, Congress, and pretty much everywhere one looks because of the whole health care reform business. Today I got a poll asking me to identify myself as a pro-Choice or pro-Life. For the record, I refuse to answer as neither describes my views.

Then yesterday I found an excellent article about the situation with late term abortions in the U.S. This is sort of a portrait of the last doctor in the U.S. (for some reason I though there was another one, even after Dr. Tiller was murdered) who is still performing this procedure. While I don't agree with everything he says, I definitely think that the article raises very serious questions and issues. So here's the link for those interested.

On health insurance

Another (short) article on the good ole health insurance companies. Good to know, bad for sleep.

How do you like THEM apples?

I have received a comment on my last night's post. Moshe complained about $75 emergency room co-pay. Here's my response to his comment.

About three years ago DD's elbow was dislocated. This had happened to her several times before and overall is very common among toddlers. Though not dangerous, it is rather painful. I remember DD sitting on the couch and whimpering while I called every single pediatrician I or my friends could think of at 8.30 pm. No one was in the office or even at home, so we had to go to the emergency room.

It was about 45 minutes from our arrival until we were seen by a triage nurse. She took DD's temperature, brief medical history and asked questions about the incident. She quickly realized that we were right and the only thing DD needed was setting her elbow. She tried to see if the doctor was available so that we wouldn't have to wait in line to get this simple procedure done. Alas he wasn't, so we had to wait another 45 minutes to be seen by the doc.

When we were called in, the doctor took about 5 seconds to set the elbow, then came back 5 minutes later to make sure that DD could raise her arm, told us not to pick her up by her hands (we never did, but he didn't buy it) and were on our way home. All this entertainment for a bargain price of a $50 co-pay.

The shock came in a few weeks later when we received the itemized bill from the hospital. Even though out co-pay was still only (!) $50, our insurance paid much, much more. How much? $1,335. For what? The nurse spent 5 min on our case, that includes the time she tried to locate the doctor. Pediatrician spent literally a minute and a half with us, 30 seconds to set DD's elbow and 1 min giving us so-called advice. No medical equipment of any sort was used (other than thermometer and some gizmo that DD had to reach to show that she could use her hand). No medicine was administered. What exactly cost $1,385?

It took me a long time to figure out, but then it hit me: the hour and a half chair rental in the waiting room!

Oh, and since then our pediatrician showed us how to do this procedure ourselves, which we successfully had done several times after this incident, all in the privacy of our home and completely free.

Once again on health care

Yet another proof that it's not only irresponsible "it will not happen to me" people who get in financial troubles because of our seriously messed up health care system. Many times it's people with jobs and health insurance. People like me. Again, I am not advocating uprooting the entire system, but something obviously needs to be done.

Did pregnancy make me a socialist?

Preface: there are several posts in my drafts folder discussing my thoughts and feelings during pregnancy. Since I made a decision not to discuss my last pregnancy on my blog, I will be posting them now, when having a little one prevents me from writing much and on a regular basis. So some of the things are a bit outdated (in regards to my personal life), but I hope you will find them interesting nonetheless.

Women are often accused of not being objective because they tend to follow their heart and intuition over cool headed logic. There probably is some truth to that. The older I get, the more I lose sight of the big picture and concentrate on personal details of the situation. Whenever I hear about a child abduction, my heart skips a bit, because that child is someone's baby, terribly missed and desperately wanted back. Then I think about the abductor and it occurs to me that he too is somebody else's son. This might not be a good example, but what I am trying to say is that personal experiences such as having kids definitely softened my heart and swayed my views.

One of those personal experience was hyperemesis gravidarium (check out this site more info, if you wish), in layman's terms, severe morning sickness during my last pregnancy. Those who don't know what it entails should consider themselves lucky because it is much worse than it sounds, and not only for the one experiencing it, but also for those around her. My case was not particularly life threatening and probably fell in the mild category, but many women have it much worse and it is considered life threatening. Without going into lots of distasteful details, my mild case required taking medication for several months to suppress nausea, involved stretches of time when I could not stomach anything even while being medicated, and at one time living on half a toast and a bite of apple for four days and at another time celebrating eating five Cheerios, the first meal in three days. Drinking presented even a bigger problem, resulting in two visits to the ER for hydration.

But in many ways, besides medical, my case was truly a lucky one:
1. I had a doctor who understood the condition.
2. I had a manager who was understanding.
3. I had an employer who provides decent medical insurance and good prescription coverage.
4. My company also gives a generous amount of sick days.
5. I had an understanding husband and family nearby to help out.
6. The pregnancy and the baby were wanted and expected.

It makes me shudder to think that even one of those things would not be available to me during this very hard time. Yet the reality is that for many American women that would be the case. An appalling number of our compatriots has no medical insurance. Many times these people are blamed for their situation and called irresponsible, but I had crunched the numbers (I won't bore you with those, unless you ask me to) and wish that were the case.

And even when you do obtain insurance, the battle is not over. Not all procedures are covered by all insurance companies. In my case, the medication prescribed to me for nausea, Zofran, is often not covered or covered only partially. How much does it cost? $1,000 for 15-20 day supply, generic. (Somehow, it is only half of that in Canada. Interesting, isn't it?) I needed three refills. If my insurance didn't cover this medication, I would have to pay $4,000 our of pocket for the luxury of being able to function. Luxury that - with all my being responsible and insured - would be hard to afford.

Where am I going? I have given this topic a lot of thought, even before I got married and thought of having kids. Now my personal experience more or less cemented my belief that medical coverage should be universal. It is appalling that the country as rich as ours does not provide this to all its citizens. That people who are on the low are being kicked by their health insurance carriers, and that hardly promotes recovery. I would support any viable plan to bring decent coverage to every American. The problem is, though, I have yet to see that viable plan.

Would this belief earn me the lable of "socialist"? Does it make me one? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn...

(originally from 11/2/08)

You would laugh too if it could never happen to you

Few days ago I paid a visit to my gyn. While waiting for him in the exam room and lacking other reading materials, I grabbed a pregnancy magazine. Well, here’s a bit of history. While expecting DS, I had a blog on one of those pregnancy sites. Several posts there were dedicated to pregnancy magazines, mainly about what kind of an idiot who thought that it was a good idea to print some of the stuff in a publication read primarily by - duh! - expectant mothers. So pregnancy magazines and I don’t have a good relationship, but still, I would rather read them than examine a chart with birth control options posted on the exam room door (not because I am against birth control, but because I have it memorized already. I don’t think it changed since I was pregnant with DD, who is now 4, and I spent many hours staring at that door in the past 5 years.)

So I opened this magazine, and the first thing I saw was a “fun fact.” Oh, nice, fun AND not written by Heidi Murkoff. Too good to be true? It was. This fun fact contained the following information: during pregnancy woman’s uterus stretches to over 1000 times its original size. Yippee! As in ouch!!!! Good for us, women, I guess. I instinctively cringed and crossed my legs. Who in their right mind (people in medical profession excluding) thinks that having your uterus stretch is “fun”? Have they ever been pregnant? Did someone, whose uterus will never stretch, aka “a man”, write this? What other fun facts does this fine magazine have up its sleeve? That when uterus shrinks back to its original (??) size, it is quite painful?That there is no cure for stretch marks, except plastic surgery? Or that about 30% of pregnant women will end up with a C-section?

Well, here’s another fun fact. Right after reading this, my eyes immediately returned to the aforementioned birth control options chart. Was this the writer’s intent?

Those were bloody murders

I still haven't managed to put together the serious post I have been nursing for some time now. But I found this, and this post, though not exactly on the same topic, expresses very well at least some of the frustration that I have with our media.

http://www.alfassa.com/blog/2008/12/the-chabad-rabbi-in-india-was.html

The Chabad Rabbi in India was not 'Killed'
Media suppresses word 'murder' and overlooks 'torture' by Islamic terroristsBy Shelomo AlfassaNEW YORK (December 1, 2008)

On Thanksgiving Day 2008, gunshots rang out startling the family of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and others inside the Chabad center in Mumbai, India. A maid at the Chabad center thought it was firecrackers--then an Islamic gunman came up the stairs. Explosions and gunshots rattled the building and continued through the night. At the same time the Chabad center is attacked, Islamic terrorists were attacking a police station and a few minutes later they opened fire at a hospital. They also opened fire in restaurants and at hotels, all together, at over 10 locations, the Islamic terrorists murdered over 190 people.

The Chabad center maid told the media that the gunmen destroyed the elevator, dining room and "everything" else. The rabbi ran to the telephone to call the Israeli Consulate. He got them on the line, told them there were men with guns in the house, but in the middle of the conversation, the line went dead after the rabbi said, "something's wrong" and the rabbi's wife was heard screaming "SEND HELP IMMEDIATLY."

The rabbi was grabbed by the Muslim terrorists, held down and had a belt secured around his legs to prevent him from walking. Several other Jews in the center had their hands and feet bound with telephone cords or nylon rope. The Indian Express reported that, Rabbi Holtzberg, his wife Rivka and their three friends died in a "brutal manner..." The paper horrifically reported that there was "brutality unleashed on the Holtzberg." The paper reported that police photos inside the Chabad center spoke, "volumes of the nightmare the family and their friends must have gone through before they died." The Rabbi's body was found in a room on the second floor, with his legs under the mezuzah, stretching into the hall where his wife's body was found. Rivka's body was found near the legs of Rabbi Holtzberg, the floor was covered red in blood. The rabbi's 2-year-old son Moshe was found drenched in blood, crying in the silence, beside his parents who lay dead on the floor. The dead bodies of the murdered Jews were then booby-trapped with live hand grenades and other explosives. Indian security forces indicated the Jewish women were murdered first, as the Jewish men were first tortured before being murdered.

In the United States, where the news media like to cover up all things which may make Muslims look bad, they never mentioned that the Israelis were mutilated beyond belief. In the Digital Journal news, it was also reported that the victims of the terrorist attacks had been tortured. In the words of one doctor, "It was shocking and disturbing." A doctor who conducted the post-mortems on the victims added: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again."When someone is "killed" they may have been hit by a car, drowned at sea or struck by lightning. In contrast, when someone is "murdered," this speaks of a victim who was targeted with premeditated malice. It is someone who inhumanly had their life taken from them, it is someone who was a victim of severe mutilation, targeted brutality, a person who had their life taken by another person who sought them dead. This begs the question, why did the media avoid using the word "murdered" ?

The Wall Street Journal reported: "The dead also included a young New York rabbi and his wife..."
The Boston Globe reported: "the New York rabbi and his wife were among the foreigners killed..."
The International Herald Tribune reported: "Two of the victims, a rabbi and his wife..."
The Sun-Sentinel reported: "killed were Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, and his wife, Rivkah, 28, who died in the attack..."
The Associated Press reported: "The bodies of New York Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, were found at the Jewish center..."
National Public Radio reported: "Among the dead are Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka..."
The New York Times reported: "six of the hostages were killed, including the Brooklyn couple who operated the center..."
The Los Angeles Times reported: "the Chabad Lubavitch members who were killed by militants"

The stupidity of the Western media is blatant. What is not being made clear in prominent Western media is that this was a meticulously planned and well-organized attack. What is the motivation of journalists in trying to downplay these heinous atrocities? Do they wish to express some sympathy for these murderers? The mainstream media remains a giant bureaucracy with no feeling, soul, or intelligence. They make it too easy for blatant evil to be excused or explained away.

The Muslim murderers had a well coordinated well thought out plan. They had been in the country for months, obtained jobs in the area, stockpiled food for the siege, and stockpiled ammunition enough to kill thousands. Some of the Muslim murderers had even rented rooms in the Chabad center! They utilized BlackBerry email devices to stay in touch with each other and outsiders, to exchange intelligence information in different locations during the attacks. An Indian Marine commando told the media that it was obvious the terrorists were well trained. The Marine said the attackers were "very determined and remorseless." The Times of India reported that the sole surviving murderer told Indian police that the terrorists were sent with a specific mission of targeting Israelis at Chabad House in order to avenge "atrocities committed against the Palestinians."

The Chabad rabbi and his wife (as well as the other 190+ victims) were not killed, they were murdered, there is a difference, and one that needs to be differentiated at every opportunity.

Kosher lunch in 30 easy steps

I keep kosher and work in Manhattan, so getting lunch presents certain challenges. I do realize that the following post is a confession of a spoiled brat since people in other parts of the country/world/Manhattan have a much harder time finding kosher food or any food at all. But then again, it's my blog and my whining. Whoever wants to remind me about starving children in Africa is free to leave a comment, Mom .

So this is lunch, a-la SubWife, in 30 easy steps.

1. Promise yourself the day before that you will bring lunch from home. It's too expensive and too much trouble to buy.

2. Don't pack lunch the night before and run out of time in the morning. Alternatively, pack lunch and leave it in the fridge. Either option is acceptable since the result is the same.

3. The minute you get into the office, email you lunch buddy, who swore, bli neder, yesterday to finally start bringing lunch from home and find out whether she made good on her promise.

4. Tear up at getting her response. She didn't. Now you don't need to worry about making a minimum for delivery. IF you choose to get it delivered.

5. Start thinking about what it is that you want for lunch around 11. Narrow down your choices: meat or dairy? Make a little list of pros and cons of each, and arrive to conclusion that you want dairy because 1 - meat is too expensive, 2 - food is unimpressive, 3 - your lunch buddy will probably not be in the mood for meat any way, 4 - meat lunch is really, really expensive. Find the list of pros and cons from yesterday and realize that it is exactly the same as today's. And you ALWAYS go with dairy. Promise yourself to never consider meat again.

6. Email your lunch buddy again and casually ask if she gave lunch any thought, knowing perfectly well that she was hard at work on this since 11.

7. Convene at 11.30 for a quick meeting re: what to order for lunch and from where. Be a generous spirit and offer her to make a choice of place. She will try to make you choose, but don't fall for her niceness - it's a trap. For a few minutes try to make each other decide on the place since neither of you wants to be responsible for the disaster that will inevitably come.

8. Once one of you is worn out or tricked into making the decision, choose what you want - salad or something cheesy. Agonize over this decision for another 10-15 minutes, but make up your mind before 12. Whatever unappetizing thing you are getting, you would want to order it before lunch rush or you will get it for dinner.

9. Toy with the idea of actually going out to buy lunch instead of having it delivered.

10. Decide on delivery, just like you did 100 times before. Remind yourself that the added cost of delivery saves you from having to pass by 7 adult DVD stores and 3 strip bars.

11. Finally place an order and feel the weight of decision-making lifted off your shoulders. Take a coffee break because you have exhausted yourself making all these choices.

12. Call the food place back in half hour asking where your order is.

13. Call again in another half hour.

14. Get your order. Carefully examine it. Wonder whether it is your imagination or the salad is actually smaller than the last time. Find beets instead of tomatoes with croutons and grated cheese missing from it. Curse under your breath.

15. Call the place and complain. Graciously accept their apologies and refusal to make you whole or threaten to never do business with them again. Don't worry, no one will take your threat seriously any way; they know that your lunch options are limited.

16. Decide that tomatoes are too important a source of anti-oxidants to forgo and run out in search of a fruit stand. Find that due to bitter cold there are no fruit stands anywhere in sight. Start walking along 8th Ave in hopes of finding a grocery store.

17. Walk three blocks before you find a business, any business, that doesn't sell booze or human flesh, in digital or natural form. Enter the so-called grocery store only to find out that they don't sell tomatoes.

18. Keep walking.

19. Keep walking.

20. In the process of walking ask yourself why you paid extra for delivery since the point of delivery is to avoid walking in the bitter cold.

21. Finally find the store and buy the stupid tomato. Realize that by now you have spent on your lunch more than the average monthly income of an average African family.

22. On the way back to the office consider moving to Africa.

23. Call your significant other and inform that you and him are moving to Africa. Soon. Patiently explain that you are neither drunk nor joking.

24. Learn something new about your genetic makeup from your significant other. Find his findings amateurish and dismiss as a vicious rumor.

25. To preserve peace in the family, decide not to move to Africa. Besides, kosher food is hard to come by there too.

26. Cut the tomato with plastic knife.

27. Eat your salad.

28. Get hungry again in an hour because salad is not very filling.

29. Complain to your lunch buddy about how ridiculous it is to pay so much for bad service and blah food.

30. Swear, bli neder, to bring lunch from home tomorrow.

Peculiarities of parking in Brooklyn

We live on the block with primarily private houses. So common sense would suggest that finding parking there should not be an ordeal because every one of those private houses has a driveway that would easily fit two cars. Easily. Not so. Parking space any time of the day is hard to come by, and after 6 p.m. it is simply non-existent. Since we come home after 7 p.m., parking presents a particular challenge for us. On more than one occasion we circled around the neighborhood for close to 20 minutes, going as far as six blocks away from where we live, only to be unable to find a spot, any spot. And with $200 worth of groceries and two tired toddler in tow, this particular exercise seems even less fun. At the same time, all these driveways are completely empty most of the time, and G-d help you if you block them for more than 30 seconds.

One of our neighbors shows particular devotion to her husband. When she comes home from work around 2 or 3 p.m., she parks her car smack in the middle of two parking spots, so that her husband, who comes home around nine, doesn’t have to look for parking. She simply moves her car into the first spot, and he occupies the second. The idea that someone might desperately need that second spot during the 6-7 hours of her husband’s absence probably doesn’t cross their mind or simply doesn’t bother them. And the funniest thing of all? Their driveway is always empty. Her husband simply could pull into it at any time of the day. But why worry about anyone else?

These peculiar parking habits are unfortunately not unique to our block. The block where we used to live before had similar issues. Again, one of our neighbors could not tolerate anyone other than herself parking in front of her house, which was situated between two driveways. Once hubby had to use that spot because the spot in front of our house was taken (our landlord didn’t let us use the driveway, so we had no option but to park on the street.) The minute we got out of the car, our neighbor started yelling at hubby that he was blocking both her and her neighbor’s driveways. Hubby looked at this woman in complete bewilderment. He wasn’t blocking anything! Our car fit perfectly into that spot. Yet the lady continued to yell that we were blocking her driveway, causing her unimaginable discomfort and pain, and that she would call the cops. Hubby said, “Go ahead.” Of course she didn’t, and even if she did, we got no ticket that day. Again, the most peculiar thing about this exchange was that at the time of her yelling her car was parked at a curbside a few feet from ours. As a matter of fact, it was always parked at the curbside, which left the supposedly blocked driveway free pretty much all of the time. And all that pain and suffering? Probably self-inflicted.

Maybe you should try the arab quarter...SATC

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/20/sex.israel.ap/index.html (warning: this page will bring you to the picture of immodestly dressed women.)

SATC billboard were banned from Jerusalem and Petakh Tikvah. So comforting to know that the sense of decency still can prevail somewhere... As a side note, I do not appreciate the sub-text of the article, i.e. how ridiculous religous of Israel are. Well, it is CNN afterall, and one cannot expect much from them.

Paper or plastic?

I have been browsing parenting book section on Amazon when my eye caught a topic of active discussions. The topic was dedicated to raising children, and the original poster presented the following question: why raise children in a certain religion when it seems much more preferable to not indoctrinate them with any religious teachings; once children are old enough, let them make the choice about which religion to follow, if any any.

Obviously, the question was presented by an atheist. (As a side note, he was quite sure that if the children are presented with such a choice without any influence from prior religious teachings or observances, they would, of course, come to conclusion that there is no G-d and all religions are phony.) Quite honestly, I had the same question growing up. I was brought up in an atheistic, at least officially, society, but during every Christian holiday saw my Ukrainian neighbors going with their children to church. I always wondered: why do they drag their children with them? Don't they realize that their beliefs are false and anti-scientific, etc, so why indoctrinate the children as well? If adults choose to believe religious nonsense - let them do it, but I felt that they should've left their kids alone.

Ok, so here's the difference. I had these thoughts when I was 12-14. I think even if I didn't become religious, I would've reached some emotional and intellectual maturity that would allow me to realize this: people who truly believe see no other alternative. And of course, now that I am on the same side of the debate, different religion, but similar issues and questions, the answer seems all too obvious to me.

But before, please let me rant a bit here. I am sick of people treating religion as some sort of personal choice, a little more serious than the choice between paper and plastic in the supermarket, but a lot less serious than the choice of profession. I have seen this time and again, across the border: from my non-religious family, my Catholic co-workers, on the Internet and, really, pretty much everywhere. When people find out that I wasn't brought up observant, the most common question is : how did you decide that being Orthodox is for you? There are many variations of the same question: when did you find yourself? what in particular appealed to you? have you considered other religions? are you doing it for your husband or to get married to him? To me, all of the above are more a statement than a question: your choice of religion was brought on by a personal preference, by something that you found appealing; there had to be something that made Judaism look attractive to you.

Initially, yes, there were things that I liked, and they made me ask the questions. But ultimately, whatever seemed attractive would not have carried me very far for very long. After all, other religions had their attractions as well. What made me commit was the realization that this is the truth, the ultimate truth, about the world, the universe, people, G-d, Creation, you name it. The truth was there. After that realization and a lot of learning and investigating, all the laws were easier to accept and follow. Because if this is THE truth, then there is no other choice. My beliefs and my actions must be consistent.

Once my colleague had told me that he would not have been able to be Orthodox. His reasoning was that there were only two days in the week-end: one for errands and the other one for social life. If one of these days would always be dedicated to Sabbath observance, when one cannot drive, do everyday work and is "stuck in the house", then the other day would be automatically dedicated to errands. So what about social life? Even though I have a big mouth, at times it is hard to give a good answer on the spot. I told him something lame, though true, about my social life never being so full after becoming observant, about community, etc., but I knew all those answers weren't good. And at the end my colleague,whom I honestly wasn't trying to convert or persuade, said that Orthodox lifestyle will never be for him. Now looking back at this incident, the answer is so simple! If I truly and honestly believe that it is against G-d's will for me to drive on Sabbath, then what's there to talk about? Between my desire to see my buddies and fulfilling G-d's commandment, commandment wins hands down! Who am I to argue with G-d, Creator of the Universe? You don't have to believe that Judaism is true to see how simple this logic is and how little sense my former colleague's statement makes. We don't have to agree on what the truth is to conclude that following what one deems to be true simply makes sense. I think this is something that anyone truly believing in any religion and G-d would understand, but I happen to know that Catholicism for this guy was just something to do if the social life allowed, a bunch of nice rituals and Christmas.

So back to the original question. Because my beliefs for me are more than just a personal choice and I am sure that they are true, I would not dare to withhold this truth from my children. Furthermore, I would feel obligated to share it with them together with the reasons for why it is the ultimate truth. So hopefully for them it won't be a matter of personal choice, but following one's conscience and behaving consistently with their beliefs and what they know to be true.