Do I Want It or Do I Need It?

It’s time for true confessions, so I beseech you not to judge me harshly. I have sink envy. There. I’ve said it.
It’s not as though I have the number of the vasser tregger on speed dial. We do, thank G-d, have indoor plumbing. There are sinks with running water where they need to be – one in each bathroom, one next to the washing machine in the laundry room, and one in the kitchen. And therein, my friends, lies the rub.

For a kosher kitchen, one sink presents a challenge. To turn over from meat to dairy or dairy to meat is like changing stage sets at an opera -- if the first act opened in Venice during Carnivale and the second in Siberia during a winter storm. Constant vigilance is required, lest someone, without thinking, drop a grilled cheese plate into the sink with the roast pan.

Others may pine for jewelry or Caribbean vacations, but I long for that second sink. Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean a double sink where my single now resides. I want the big kahuna, a completely separate bowl deep enough to accommodate soup pots I could swim in on a summer’s day.

She doth protest too much, you say, and perhaps you are right. I’ve never actually lived in a house with separate sinks, and I’ve managed to keep my kitchens strictly kosher. Lately, though, I’m finding it more and more frustrating to get by with one. I mean I am daydreaming about being able to clean a chicken in one sink while the mugs from my morning coffee rest in another.

Who fantasizes about sinks?

When visiting friends who’ve recently redone their kitchens, some ooh and aah over the kasherable granite countertops or the Viking wall ovens. They drool as they gaze upon the specialty tiles and the hand-painted backsplashes. But I make a bee-line right for Sink One and Sink Two, staring longingly at them to the point of utter distraction.

They needn’t be fancy or graced with a professional-grade pot washer. No hot water tap is necessary either. Just give me a no-nonsense stainless steel bowl and a faucet.

In desperation, my husband called in the contractor, who said he could make it happen… if I were to compromise my minimal work area, part with the cabinet storing my fleishig pots, and let the equivalent of a few yeshiva registration fees pass from my hands to his.

Thinking about it further, I started to wonder if I sounded like my boys, who need cable television, must have another pair of sneakers, or require those special karate gloves. We always ask, “Do you want it or do you need it?” before considering their requests. I soon began to wonder the same thing about my missing sink.

Are two sinks really too much to ask?

I love our house. It isn’t too big and it isn’t too small. That a pair of sneakers and a sink are the only things my family is missing means that life, thank G-d, is good. And not getting those karate gloves – or the sink -- is a reminder that we probably can do without them in the first place.

When it came down to it, I realized that I just wasn’t prepared to lose my counter space. After all, where else would I store all those drain boards?

But a girl can dream, and while I’m dreaming, why not long for a third sink? One just for pareve…

Please, May I Have a Do-Over?

Decoupage is Queen of the Crafting World and I am her loyal subject.   

It is a happy obsession, one that enables me to rescue the old, the garbage-bound, and the utilitarian and transform them into something colorful that makes me smile. My family knows this is no trifling matter. The long–running joke here cautions you not to sit for too long, lest you find yourself covered in giant paper tea roses.

My boys, who still believe the floor is the best place to store almost anything, possess an uncanny reverence for my art supplies that is generally reserved for their Eli Manning posters. I’d even bet they’d be able to differentiate between Mod Podge and regular white glue in a blindfolded smell test.

My husband, who is well-versed in my preference for glossy over matte varnish, has made many an emergency run to craft shops for me throughout the years of our marriage. He has a sixth sense that enables him to gauge my mood based on what I’m crafting and knows that my studio is my holy of holies. He may visit at any time, but not stash his own tools or medical magazines within its small, beloved confines.

Alas, there are moment s when, gulp, even decoupage cannot save the day and times when I must accept its impracticality. Sharp scissors and cross-country road trips shouldn’t mix, for example, and Mod Podge is a bit messy for watching a movie on the couch in the den. But a crafty girl needs to craft, so she’s got to have options. 

Enter the crochet hook. You see, when I’m not potchke-ing with paper, I’m making afghans. Lots and lots of afghans. Most recently, two for the basement man cave we set up for the Teenager.  Before that, bedcovers for the younger brothers, who – with their very own feet – embellished my work with decorative toe holes. And my favorite, the one that kept me sane on the drive from New Jersey to Mount Rushmore.

Occasionally, my husband will gently remind me that a family needs only so many afghans – at least two per person seems reasonable, no? -- and that our house isn’t that big.  Still, he understands this oddball need of mine to constantly be making something, and pretends not to notice when I begin yet another project. To be fair, I stop for a spell to consider what it is about these crafts that keeps me coming back for more.    
For starters, they both anchor me in one place while I’m awake. They provide fleeting moments of calm, too, little commercial breaks from the action-packed adventure that is life in a household of boys.  For brief interludes, they enable me to shut out the rest of the world, or at least let it in at a smoother, more digestible pace.

When I have to rip out a row of an afghan or recover a mirror because my paper choices feel all wrong, I am reminded to cut myself a little slack. Almost magically, I can make these crafty mistakes disappear – poof - without over-analyzing them or questioning my decisions well into a sleepless night. 

Unlike real life, they are forgiving. They allow for a do-over. And if I don’t catch a misstep, I can cover the evidence with a toe hole in just the right spot, as if nothing was ever wrong in the first place.

Make Way For Ducklings

• My brother-in-law, Zarko, is the genius behind the design of both my blog and my website.  Sadly, his father, Ilija Jovanovski, passed away suddenly last week.  I decided to take a moment of wordlessness in the blogosphere to honor his memory by delaying this post until now.
  (Thank you Merri, Zarko)

With all the books I’ve read, I should be able to make a more esoteric reference, but Make Way for Ducklings – that classic from my childhood – just gets this whole mommy business like nothing else. All the essentials are there as if it were an illustrated parenting manual, complete with an avuncular traffic officer watching our backs while steering us in the right direction.   

Lucky Mom Mallard has an innate ability to raise fine, upstanding ducklings, and she passes along some solid advice to her non-aquatic counterparts.  Teach your little guys to stick together. Find a nice neighborhood to live in and spend a lot of time hanging out in the park. And most important, let your children have snacks, because snacks are one of life’s greatest pleasures.

With her chest out, she makes her way around the city, leading her crew in an enviably neat row.  Such pride in her waddle! She never doubts herself, and why should she? Her offspring don’t squabble. They listen the first time she says something. They never sass. When challenges do present themselves, she gets back-up from a fine team of Boston policemen.

Over on my side of the river, you’ll hear a lot quacking, but that’s where the similarity ends.  

The seeds of my insecurity were sown while skimming the parenting magazines in the waiting room before my first sonogram fifteen years ago. The bar they set was just too high. Let’s face it. I was never going to look like the glowing celebrity in the designer maternity dress or puree my own organic baby food.

To complicate matters, I drafted my own impossible guidelines. My children would never fight. They’d see eye to eye with their parents, too, even as they approached the dark abyss of adolescence. They would be compliant and easy-going and like every dinner I’d ever place before them. They’d run to do their chores and go to bed in spotless rooms without a peep of protest after diligently completing their homework.   

The reality is that I cannot recall my darling ducklings ever following me in a neat little row. One is always out of line, though the errant one varies, and sometimes they’re all off flying in different directions, poking the nearest sibling with a beak before takeoff.   

From behind the exasperating cloud that obscures maternal confidence, I acknowledge that looking good in that designer maternity dress was more likely than my ever getting this right. On sunnier days, when the view is clearer, I can see that I just have to keep the bar I’ve set for raising my own ducklings a bit more down to earth. 

After all, their spiritedness may well forecast future success and their eagerness to negotiate with me on matters large and small a sign of their ability to swim upstream and think for themselves. By the time they start dating, they will have figured out on their own that shirts are not napkins, and we can always patch up the holes in the walls when they leave for college.

For now, though, I am focusing on what I know I’ve done right. I have taught them to swim and to cross the street safely. I never cower when it comes to watching out for the foxes in the woods or the turtles in the water. What’s more? No matter what lurks beneath, I’m not afraid to stick my beak into the muck at the bottom of the pond to care for them and groom them into menschen.  

As for Mom Mallard, even she allows her ducklings to dine on peanuts – without dining on guilt herself – when fishing yields skimpy results. But she isn’t perfect. If you are blessed with eight children, you probably shouldn’t give them all rhyming names.  And she molts. Need I say more?   

Right now, there are telltale signs that my boys are wrestling upstairs. I put on an apron and my best smile, pretending to hear nothing. I’ll get the blow by blow with laugh track over dinner.

The water’s boiling. In goes the mac and cheese. Right out of the box. 

All’s fair in love and parenting. The trick is to let any expectations of perfection slide off. Like water off a duck.

Quack.

The Art of Idling



Learning to let go and see the positive

It is a truth universally acknowledged that on the day I have a long-ago scheduled doctor’s appointment or an important meeting or even once-in-a-blue-moon plans for a social activity that one of my boys will awake with an unpleasant, uncomfortable – though, thank G-d, in no way life-threatening – ailment that will require him to stay home from school.

I will cancel my appointment/meeting/frivolous outing post-haste. I will take him to the doctor and, if necessary, the pharmacy. I will allow him, in between naps and for durations unheard of in healthy times, to watch all the puerile television shows I generally prohibit.

Now imagine a gerbil wearing a sheitel, logging miles on one of those little toy carousels. I spend my average day scampering to and fro, getting a million things done, but very little that leaves me feeling accomplished. There are exceptions, like my teaching and writing, and when I turn on the music and shimmy about with my (real) hair up in a pony, doing my crafty-girl thing.

But with sick children at home, almost nothing happens. Time stops, a challenge for someone like me who remains unskilled in the art of idling. Exasperated, I stare at my must-do list, a mountain of tasks

I fear I’ll never manage to climb.

I do a lot of sighing while ministering to the coughing child on the couch.

Of course, I don’t want to see the boys lying there – miserable, febrile, red-nosed. I want them well for wellness sake, but full confession: I also want them well so that we may all get back on the road at our standard mph. They need to return to school and I need to resume trying to do to everything.

Stuck as we are, I gradually begin to see these sick days not as a hindrance to productivity, but as a chance to let things go and take stock of my blessings. Two of my three are old enough to be mortified by my proximity during a public event, but sick, even they allow me – without rolling their eyes – to stare at them longingly like I did when they were very young.

They doze, and I begin to nest. I steal a moment for some housekeeping – straightening up a cabinet, organizing a shelf – and not begrudgingly. I dare say that I come to cherish what I do get done instead of stressing over what I do not.

The television is back on, so I’ll set a pot of chicken soup to simmer and a batch of challah to rise. Happy smells, these provide the olfactory backdrop to our family life, both on sick days and healthy ones. Hopefully, these memories will eclipse the ones of my running around like a chicken without a head when my boys look back fondly on their childhood.

Alas, what happens when it is I who get bit by the stomach bug or the flu or a terrible cold? There’s no nesting, just resting, and in that challenge I find the wisdom of the oracle: Most must-do list items can wait.

The boys are probably taking their favorite shirts out of the laundry to wear dirty when I’m not looking anyway.

There is an art to letting go, too.

Let the Frying Begin

Spin a hand-made dreidel. Happy Chanukah!

You might not have noticed me had you walked past my dining room table the night before Chanukah began, but there I was, obscured by rolls of wrap and ribbon. Ticking off names as I went, I tucked and taped stacks of gifts into pretty packages, all the while feeling the pressure of this season of presents.

While frying the first round of latkes, I wondered, with Chanukah gift-giving being such high pressure material, whether it was safe to be standing so close to the flame. Well, that and the fact that I will probably smell of hot oil for the next eight nights no matter how often I shower. 

At best, gifts are cherished for a lifetime. At worst, they are returned to the store. Most, though, land somewhere in between, genially received and appreciated, but presents with little lasting presence nonetheless. For children especially, even the top items on their wish lists tend to be of the moment, savored for a short while, then quickly outgrown and forgotten.

I’m sure I also had wish lists when I was young, things I believed I wanted so much it hurt to imagine not getting them. And I’m certain that there were years I received them. But what I remember most are the gifts that disappointed or bewildered, occasionally even embarrassed – the book I’d already read four times, the hand-knit sweater that was more pillow than cardigan, the new slip given when guests were present.

I’m no pessimist, so why is it that I cannot recall what I so desperately wanted in Chanukahs past, but can remember so many of the things I wish I’d never received?

While frying yet another batch of latkes – this time cheese, not potato – it dawns on me. The experience of getting a gift chosen from the top of my wish list ended with the tearing of the wrapping paper and my first shrieks of delight. Soon, maybe almost immediately, I moved on to wanting something else. As is often the case with a young soul, the longing was much more satisfying than the fulfillment.

The items I did not want, the ones that disappointed, stay with me because they were more than gifts that missed their target. They have had a much longer shelf life, providing a lesson in appreciation and the knowledge that you can’t always get what you want. But even bigger, the unwanted gifts often transformed over time into humorous stories that make up my personal Chanukah lore, the tales that I share with my own children when I give them a gift that fires askew.   

So on I plod, doling out assorted tchotchkes and baked goods to teachers and rebbeim, relatives and friends. And to those most difficult to please, my children, I give hoping that maybe, just maybe, something will result in at least the faintest squeal of delight.

And if not? I will wish that they at least inspire a good story, another layer of who our family is, a lasting presence in the men my boys will, G-d willing, become.   

Chanukah Sameach! Happy Chanukah!

Grandma and Grandpa, all dressed up behind a glass plate

Customized Square Plate

Jeopardy Trumps Granddaughter

For the years that our time here on earth overlapped, my Grandma Sadye lived in the Bronx. The first apartment I remember had heavily-painted kitchen cabinets that never fully closed. Grandpa’s cigar burned in an ashtray, and British hard candies gathered in cut crystal bowls that dotted each and every surface.

Her last apartment created an entirely different collage of memories. Grandma was the tchotchke queen, an acquirer of delicate things: creamy blue Wedgewood, Bennington pottery bought with Grandpa on anniversary trips to Vermont, Rosenthal cake stands, and that crystal, much of it gifted to her by lifelong friends. Above all, though, she cherished Grandpa’s tokens of affection and the cards colored for her by her grandchildren.

She sang to her philodendron and African violets as she took them for walks around the apartment. Who was I to question the source of her green thumb? She hid her jewelry in the freezer and her bus money in her bra, and she never left the house without lipstick, even to go down to the laundry room. She always wore a smile, too, undeterred by the arduous, daily commute on public buses to the nursing home, where she spent her days with my grandfather, who had long forgotten who she was.

When I visited, she would wait in the doorway of her apartment as if the queen were coming for tea and all of my childhood problems, adolescent anxieties, and adult stresses would evaporate. She called me shayne punim, especially when I didn’t feel particularly pretty. She was my guardian angel and I was her pearl and I was the luckiest girl in the world.

Still, I could not call her during the sacred hour when “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” aired. She would perch herself on the couch, sipping her cup of Sanka as Alex provided the first answer. Then she would knit as she watched, her wrinkled hands working the wool into cardigans until Vanna had turned over her last vowel.

And so she was until her first tumble out of bed in the middle of the night, the one which derailed our every confidence in her ability to live alone. There was time in an assisted living out of the Bronx, and later, a brief stay in a nursing home. Then suddenly, she was gone, too short on earth as angels must be, leaving the scent of her violet talcum powder in her wake.

She bequeathed to me her heavy Persian coat, its strength and beauty reminiscent of her. An angel must hide her wings somewhere, I thought, when I noticed the coat was torn in the back beneath the arms. The tailor said, “Sorry, nothing to be done. The wool is too old and fragile.” But I knew it was because he feared he’d clip the wings that she’d hidden for me beneath the monogrammed lining.

They are my yerusha, my inheritance, from her, and it is she who continues to encourage me to fly in my own direction.

In memory of Shayna bat Mariyasha on the occasion of her yahrzeit

Color Me Happy

A garden behind glass for my Shabbat table.

This unseasonal weather has me befuddled. First, we get a snow storm at the end of October, then a string of balmy days leading up to December. Huh? Still confused but very happy, I broke out my flip-flops this morning – I LOVE my flip-lops -- and practically skipped in them to kickboxing. 

Shame, then, that the moment the October snow melted I ran out to tuck my garden in for its long winter nap. I trimmed the roses, pruned the lilacs and dug up the cannas. Threatening to replace them with animal-resistant evergreens, I took a stab – literally – at killing off the row of demolished hostas. They cannot defend themselves against noshing deer, but do they ever have bullish roots.

Against the backdrop of these clear, sunny days, the garden looks wretched. Except for the verdant boxwood, all that remains of its summer glory is a bouquet of what is essentially mulch -- brittle stems, forlorn branches, and mounds of soggy leaves in varying shades of sludge and burnt toast.

It reminds me of the time when one of my sons, then quite young, ran to me clutching my black-and-white baby portrait. He sighed heavily and asked if it had been difficult for me to grow up before there was color.   

Indeed, it would have been, I think, missing the flowers and their colorful chaos.

So I ignored the mountain of unmatched socks and the cooking for Shabbes that needed to be done today and attended instead to preparations for a new garden. I pulled out vintage paper images of flowers and greenery. I finely trimmed the thorns from tea roses and snipped gardenias from their branches. I cut coleus and poppies and dahlias and carnations.

As I delicately planted each of them behind glass, affixing them with sepia-toned decoupage medium, I was distracted only twice. The first time was by the buzz of the dryer, which I ignored. Later, I heard a loud thumping on my roof. Not the scratchy scampering of squirrels, but the sound of something heavier crawling around the perimeter. 

I should have been fearful and concerned. But surrounded by the fierce collection of pointy-tipped scissors in my studio and the cross-jab combo I had practiced during kickboxing, I felt empowered and continued decoupaging. It took a few minutes before I realized it was the guy who mows our lawn cleaning out the gutters, one of the few pre-winter chores that I leave to the professionals.

This warm, sunny weather notwithstanding, the cold winter – along with its dull palette of whites and greys -- is coming. I plan to don my flip-flops and hang out here in my indoor paper garden, even as the snow begins to fall. 

Hope you’ll join me.