First world problems

Consider the following:

 SOME FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

Can’t find a parking spot.

Nothing good on TV.

Too many clothes in wardrobe… in too many sizes.

No WiFi!

Cappuccino not hot enough.

Feeling bloated after eating too much.

Gym memberships.

Too many choices!!

Where’s the remote??!!

Rude waiters.

I am so EXHAUSTED after staying up late to watch the tennis!

Damn router is down again!

Hey! Who ate the last chocolate?

Wrecked my manicure!

Can you believe the price of 97 Octane petrol??

In-flight movie not working.

Have to charge my iPhone EVERY DAY.

Can’t hear you! You’re breaking up!

Arrgh! I hit send, I meant to hit delete!

SOME THIRD WORLD PROBLEMS

No clean water

Not enough food

No medicine

No sewerage

Polio, tetanus, diphtheria, cholera, etc etc

Illiteracy

Lawless militias

Child labour

Trafficked children

High infant mortality

I find it helps to keep things in perspective.

IT TAKES BALLS TO PLAY TENNIS (can I say that?)

OK, I admit it, I live a life of privilege.

I got to see the Australian Open men’s final stoush last night between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Ringside. First row Rod Laver Arena, I could have spat on the head of one of the ranks of 100 photographers courtside.

It was a corporate thing, so I also had to sit and chat with businessfolk, but that wasn’t too irksome. And the joke is I’m not really a tennis fan. I mean, I don’t dislike the game, but I’ve never played it and I only know the big names. I’m a tennis fan the way some people become figure-skating fans during the Winter Olympics, or ocean yachting fans during the Americas Cup challenge, or road cycling fans during the Tour de France.

But there I was and I watched history being made. 5 hours 53 minutes, 5 sets, 2 tennis greats battling it down to the last ounce of strength. I thought Rafa would combust, I thought Novak would collapse, but they went at it like warriors. And no tantrums or rudeness either.

To my untutored eye, Novak is a better and more skilful player, but Rafa has the heart of a lion and doesn’t know how to quit. Novak kept hitting to Rafa’s right, and Rafa, being a lefty, kept doing these weird backhands which often went out of control or had too much spin on them. But then Novak would attempt a smart-arse drop-volley thing and get himself out. So the pattern was: Novak wins point, wins point, wins point; Rafa fights back, gets point, gets point, gets point; then deuce. Then advantage Rafa, then deuce; then advantage Novak, then deuce. Then these long, long rallies until the decider. And then they would shake themselves and start up the power again. It was truly awesome.

Every cliché has been written about this match by now, and I will add a few more. Towards the end of the 4^th set which went on forever, when everyone was expecting Novak to win the deciding point and the game, I thought Novak was going all Slavic and despondent while Rafa was getting more Spanish and fiery; in the 5^th set, Rafa seemed to even strut a bit, G-d knows where he got the strength. But then Novak reached inside and pulled out enough to win, immediately collapsing onto his back on the court and then impressively tearing off his sodden shirt and tossing it into the audience, unfortunately on the other side of the court from where I was sitting.

A couple more observations:

If fans alone could make competitors win, Rafa would have been a shoo-in. I was 2 metres away from what sounded like the entire population of young Spanish women waving Spanish flags and screaming VAMOS!!! ARRIBA!!! And other Spanish words of encouragement which reminded me of Speedy Gonzales and thus made me smile even while I was being deafened.

The Ballkids. Who doesn’t love the ballkids?  Like little gazelles, so quick and leggy and graceful, trembling in anticipation of the next ball casually flicked towards them by the tennis god, leaping to offer a towel, to load the balls onto the champion’s racquet, scampering here and there, so disciplined and eager. Such a delight.

So Novak won and Rafa lost, but really, nobody lost, and tennis won. I’m sure Rafa went back to his dressing room and wept and threw things, but it’s far from over for him and there will be other games which he will win, so Rafa, see you in 2013, unless you actually do combust between now and then.

I could become a tennis fan yet!

Waste: NOT!

So yesterday was Australia Day and we had a BBQ  and of course I prepared too much food and there is uncooked meat and cooked meat and corn and salad and fruit cluttering my fridge, and there are uneaten burger buns and hot-dog rolls in my pantry. And there are leftovers from last Sunday brunch and from other meals. And I want to tell you that this KILLS me because I can’t stand waste. I am usually much better at this- in fact, I have written a hitherto unpublished cook book dedicated largely on how to deal with leftovers*- but this got out of hand.

Wasting G-d’s bounty is just wrong, and that’s even without factoring in the Holocaust  and Great Depression (my dad was a survivor and my mum was Australian born, so I got it from both sides.) And especially wrong is wasting meat. The thought that this creature had its life taken in order for us to have nourishment and pleasure, that I can just get my head around. But to then take the meat and throw it out…it’s just immoral. It really kills me.

Unfortunately, I still tend to cook like there are 7 kids living at home and now there are none. Empty nest. Except that the local marrieds generally do swoop back in to relieve me of leftovers, but not this week. It’s still vacation time, some are away, whatever. So time to roll up the sleeves and right wrongs.

What to do??

Freeze the raw meat which was fresh from the butcher. Easy.

Hamburger mince, all seasoned and ready for the grill- meatballs in tomato sauce. Freeze.

BBQ chicken wings. Hello, Shabbat dinner.

Cooked steak- cut into strips and serve with noodles and vegetables. Faux Chinese.

Older chicken, corn, vegetables, plus some bones and peelings  etc from freezer- chicken stock. Ahh, blessed stock, user of scraps and leftovers, basis of kick-arse soups, stews and sauces.

Old cake- trifle. I’ve been known to make rumballs but trifle wins every time.

Bread- I won’t fall into the trap of filling my freezer with bread rolls which then end up tasting funny, if they are ever used before being thrown out for Pesach. No. I will make croutons. I will make crumbs and freeze them for use on schnitzels, in meatballs, in fish patties etc. I might even make a bit of garlic bread with the long rolls.

Watermelon- freeze cubes and whizz in blender for natural watermelon slushies!

OK, enough writing, there’s work to do!

*All expressions of interest welcomed with pathetic gratitude

Doomed to Groom

DOOMED TO GROOM

Last night my husband, a Lubavitcher Hassid, ran his hand through his untrimmed beard and sighed about how much grooming his beard took. I looked at him, incredulous. I laughed. Slightly injured, he defended his comment by describing the travails of shampooing and conditioning, not to mention tying up the unruly beard into his signature subtle twist and tuck, for business. I laughed some more.

A man complaining to a woman about grooming?? Any man! Any woman! I’m no fashion model and that shaytel does hide the decision I made a while back to stop coloring my hair, but what is there to compare to the regular upkeep women are forced into? Maybe men can primp and ponce around in front of a mirror, but generally the exercise doesn’t involve tweezers, for starters. And it’s a CHOICE. I know about the ones who wax ‘back, crack and sack’ but ask any beautician about who comes to the salon more frequently and in greater numbers. And I know about women who choose not to exfoliate and depilate, but where I live, there aren’t that many. Not counting nonagenarians in nursing homes.

Girls and women are virtually forced into patronizing (matronizing??) the beauty industry, and you can only hold out for so long. Waxing and plucking and threading! And exfoliating those rough bits! And manicures and pedicures.  When did manicures become compulsory? I didn’t ever wear nail polish except for special occasions until a few years ago. I started with clear polish on a nicely trimmed nail. Then it was sheer colour. Then more protective coatings. But still on a natural nail, once a week. And now I have joined the grown-up ladies and I have gels, so every 2 weeks, infills. But my, the nails look better. And it’s now important that they look good! And I hate to say it, but I feel better when my nails looks better.

Don’t get me started on make-up either. I visited Paris when I was 40 and I could not believe how good those Parisian women looked. All that stuff about Frenchwomen was true. But not just the Catherine Deneuve look-alikes looked good, also the meeskeits looked amazing! It was then that I decided to start wearing make-up every day. Just subtle, like everything I do. (Pause for laughter.) No, really, I don’t overdo it. But it can take quite a while and a lot of product to get that natural look! Right, ladies?

There are things that the French get right, not just the croissants. The whole looking good-feeling better thing is really ingrained, not just superficial. Like the story of the nurse entering the hospital room of the woman who had just had a mastectomy; she brought her a mirror and her make-up, and said, not unsympathetically, ‘Courage, Madame.’ I really get that.

But back to topic; Every now and then my husband and I have a whinge-fest about the stuff we do. He has to wear woolen tzitzit and it’s 100 degrees! But I have to wear a shaytel! And uncomfortable shoes! Trumps! But he has to wear a tie to work! But I have to wear panty-hose! Trumps again! But complaining about beard care? What about my nana-whiskers which I hunt down relentlessly and uproot every night? What about my night cream, day cream, lip cream, eye cream, cleansers, toners, body butter, pedi-paddle, and many other alliterative beauty aids? It takes me 20 minutes of extra prep before bed, and HE’S complaining? Open up my bathroom cupboard and risk an avalanche of jars, tubes, tubs and small bottles, but open his and there’s a toothbrush, a hairbrush and a jar of Q-tips. Which we both use. The Q-tips, I mean.

Why, saying that men have equal grooming duties is nothing but a bare-faced lie!

THE SANDWICH

THE SANDWICH

For a while there I was a member of the Sandwich generation, where I had to deal with ailing parents and young children; now I guess I am the bottom piece of bread in the sandwich and my grandchildren the top slice? I know people whose parents are still alive (and ailing) and who have grandchildren with whom they are actively involved- is this a Reuben sandwich generation then?

My mother was 65 when she died, and I was 30, a mother of 4 little children who don’t remember her at all. As much as I miss my parents, as much as my mother passed away too young, both of us too young, I also am comforted in knowing that they are in a better place. At least they were spared the nightmare of dementia, and by ‘they were spared’ I mean ‘I was spared’ too. My father would have been 100 this year, and couldn’t manage a cordless household phone when he passed away age 86; just couldn’t work out how to hold it when his younger cousin called from Israel to speak to him, essentially to say goodbye. What would he have made of Skype? What would my mother have made of iPhones? Suddenly I feel so old myself; I remember when phones were made of black Bakelite and had a fabric covered wire connecting the handpiece to the main bit with the heavy rotary dial. Why am I thinking of phones so much? Communication?

Yesterday a colleague debriefed to me at work. A busy doctor, mother of 3 young kids, only surviving child since her brother was killed in a car crash 4 years ago, her father is dying of a rare form of cancer and her mother is angry about it. She has to deal with the medical side of the equation, as if the emotional stuff wasn’t enough. She feels he was mismanaged by his GP and one of the specialists, and she is probably right. I felt the same way about how my mother was managed by her GP, who also never once visited once it was clear she was terminally ill; yet my parents still respected him.

My colleague has to explain the stuff they are doing to her father, to her mother. She has to do this, and work, and care for and fret about her 3 little kids. She is in the Sandwich. She must have a supportive husband who is preparing the children’s dinner and bathing them because by the time she gets home they will be in bed.

I have nothing to say to her, no words of comfort, except maybe ‘this, too, will pass’, that all-purpose mantra for good times as well as bad. Life goes on. It’s a great cycle. I don’t think she is religious so there’s nothing to say about G-d moving in mysterious ways. Same with ‘he is going to a better place’.

But it does get better; it’s just that it will get a lot worse before it gets better.

Wordless hug. Nothing else.

IT'S A GRAND THING

GRAND

A few years ago I first became a grandmother and it opened a few doors into the tangled corridors of my thoughts. Firstly, I felt a bit–well- old; and not only because I was sleeping with a grandfather. But it didn’t bother me that much. Because I am, after all, a Boomer, so therefore will be young forever. OK?

Then I quickly realized that I had no Booba experience, role models, mentors etc to tell me what to do. I had no grandmothers. I had no mother.

I had no grandparents because, on my father’s side, they perished in the war (‘Killed by the Nazi murderers’, as my father z”l was wont to put it). And on my mother’s side, heart disease took her father and cancer took her mother, and that was that.

My mother also passed away when my eldest children were very young, so she gained little experience in the Booba role.

So no grandparents. And because most of my school friends were children of Holocaust survivors, nobody had grandparents. A grandparent was like a mythical creature one read about in books; perhaps a benign, wise, grey bearded Zeida, or a plump, flour-dusted, be-aproned, huggable Booba. They might as well have been unicorns or hobbits.

So after years of navigating the unknown seas of parenting, with not much help from living people but some from books and parenting classes, I suddenly found myself thrust in the role of Grandma and having absolutely no idea what that actually meant, except in the most abstract of terms. Are there any books on how to be a good Gran?

I’m winging it. The ones that live close by come for dinner at least once a week, babies nap here so Mum can finish a diploma course, there’s always lots of food in the fridge and pantry. I have a cot, a high chair, car seats, a stroller, toys, nappies, wipes; all the paraphernalia of parenting that I had shed so gleefully only a few years ago. I have a heightened sense of responsibility since my American daughter-in-law’s parents (can I please say machutonim?) live in Pittsburgh so I have to be more than a mother-in-law to her. My own daughters married American boys and live in the US or Israel, so I try to be a glamorous long distance Booba who visits once or twice a year, laden with gifts. I Skype.  It all doesn’t feel enough, but then I don’t know what enough is.

And I have to remember that I don’t have to be the heavy! I’m allowed to be the provider of snacks and goodies- without totally undermining parents of course. I do insist on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ though. And Brachot, which is like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Hashem.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am a doctor, so I also shine lights down ears and throats and poke at painful things; health is the major currency of communication between my kids and I, but this time around I’ll try to remember the hugs too. I’m Doctor Booba!

I think I’m looking forward to taking my oldest granddaughter out for coffee and a chat. But between then and now, it’ll have to be dinners, Shabbat and Yom Tov meals, Sunday brunches, occasional sleepovers, birthday parties, admiring crayon drawings and sundry crafted objects, watching (but not participating in) jumping on the trampoline, reading stories, and that sounds like plenty to me. I don’t do outings to crowded events or sporty things and I’m over the Play-doh. But I’m working on the hugs.

The Cycle

I am currently sitting on shpilkes, as they say, waiting for the birth of my 7^th grandchild, my son’s 4^th child. No doubt I am far more comfortable than my lovely daughter-in-law, but I’m on shpilkes none the less.

I will be leaving soon for the hospital as they have asked me to be present in the delivery room; I have been a sort of makeshift doula in the past and I guess I can be useful. And there really is no bigger deal than attending the birth of your grandchild, apart from attending the birth of your own child (and in my case, this is a lot less painful.).

But I can’t stop thinking about my parents and my brothers, all departed this world. Why am I thinking about Death when I am excited about Life? I believe it’s all part of a continuum; I’m not alone in this belief. Some compare dying to a form of birth of the soul into another world. I have a sense of the presence of departed souls at times of times of great emotional power, whether of celebration or mourning. Some would say that the human brain conjures up these sorts of ideas as a means of supporting itself through crises, but I really believe that there are other planes of existence and this world is one of them.

My mother passed away too soon, aged 65, 26 years ago, and not a day passes without my thinking of her. I wear her engagement ring and it summons memories. My father and brothers drift in and out of my consciousness and at the moment it’s feeing a bit crowded here with all the folks kind of jostling and murmuring around. Could be the adrenaline, maybe it’s my pulse I’m feeling.

Giving birth is really the ultimate act of faith. Faith that the mother will survive, the birth attendants will be competent, the baby, above all, will be well, the child will grow strong and healthy and become a decent person and a contributing member of society, that the world will go on, that there won’t be a nuclear conflagration, that G-d knows what He is doing, that G-d is there in the first place. It doesn’t really bear thinking about.

So back to the mundane realities of organizing the other kids and washing their faces and hands and getting their lunch and dinner together; back to the suspense, the waiting for the call, waiting for the amazing moment of seeing a new person enter the world, waiting to hold the damp, warm, pink miracle of a newborn, as full of potential as the stars, this crazy melding of the finite and the infinite, the mundane and the holy.

Shpilkes indeed.