Now that Chanukah is on its last gasp, can I mention that the Dreidel song is the most uninspired and boring song ever foisted on a religion. No wonder there are so few of us, if that's the best we can do!
The dreidel game, on the other hand, is some kind of Jewish Candyland. Not worthy of us, my brothers.
This ape has more rights than you do. For instance, it doesn't have to pay taxes. Or buy health insurance.
Not only are we kissing up to Iran, now we are making overtures to the Castro regime. I can't believe I'm in the same country I was born in.
Here in the US, if someone expresses mild doubt about the feasibility of gay marriage, his life is made miserable and we try to ruin his business. However, in Cuba, gays are languishing in prisons camp, and apparently this is okay, because no enemies on the left.
In Iran, they murder young men for being gay, but that's okay because Muslims have a different culture and we can't judge them by our standards.
I wish I could believe that this cut in funding would affect the higher-ups in the IRS, especially those who tromp on the faces of ordinary people. But my experience of local and state government leads me to be cynical.
When my husband worked for the New York State Education Department, there was a big austerity campaign--draconian cuts were going to be made. People feared for their jobs. In the event, they cut out two positions--for part-time charwomen.
Everyone who worked there knew there were high level employees who never did a lick of work. Their jobs were spared, and they continued to do nothing--with annual cost-of-living raises-- until they retired on comfortable pensions. By the way, they contributed nothing toward funding their pensions. These were 100 percent funded by the State. Nice work if you can get it.
No wonder everyone wants a civil service job.
I'd like to put in a word of recommendation for the novels of Gerald Petievich which deal with the Secret Service, but only incidentally with lazy and free-loading employees.
Readers of my book, "Nothing Much," have written me extensively about their aunts. It seems my readers have as many aunts as I do, maybe more, and these aunts have loomed large in their lives. The aunts in question are devoted to bridge (or canasta, or mah jong)and would walk over burning coals in their bare feet rather than miss their weekly game(s). They also wore large, imposing hats and loved to get together to gossip or dish the dirt. But did any of these ladies plan to bring a card table and four chairs to the cemetery, to their mother's grave, in fact, so they could keep the old lady company while playing a comfortable game of bridge? I didn't think so.
I finally got a locksmith to come to my house--and what a locksmith! One of nature's noblemen, when he arrived he informed me that my outside tap needed to be shut down. He then shut it down, coiled up the hose, and deposited it in the basement. Then he shut off the inside faucet or whatever you call the doohinky that if it freezes your pipes would burst. This was before he had done any locksmithing at all.
I have zero sales resistance, so he managed to sell me five (5) locksets for all my exterior doors. They cost a lot.
He went out to his truck to get his invoices and business cards. Meanwhile, I cut my finger trying to cut some limes in half. I managed to drip a fair number of drops of blood on the floor in the kitchen and bathroom before the locksmith put a BandAid on my finger.
Wait--there's more, as the television pitchmen say. I had heated some chicken morsels in the oven and managed to eat one while he was out in the truck and nearly choked to death. This invaluable tradesman pounded me on the back until I had disgorged the remnants of chicken, thus saving my life.
Then he took some wipes and wiped up the droplets of blood from the floor. Did a good job, too. Now that's what I call locksmithing!
When I was young, I would apply for any job that didn't require math, and quite a few that did. Editor, garment model, newsreader, office manager, I figured out I could learn the required skills in two weeks. (Except math.) Besides, they sounded interesting. Who wouldn't want a job as a fitting model in the garment industry? Or the Napoleon of a large law office, striking fear into the hearts of all the underlings and lunching with rich lawyers? All the jobs sounded interesting to a 20 year old with no paarticular aim in life. Amazingly, I had multiple interviews.
Being a shy person, it was agony for me at first to go through these interviews. But I had so many of them that I became inured to the process, and my attitude was "bring it on!" although people didn't say that in those days. I got quite adept at presenting myself and modestly mentioning my many accomplishments, which mostly consisted of having a BA in English literature at the time.
But at last I have seen an ad for the job of my dreams: wardrobe, makeup and costume construction for a theatrical company. I'd be perfect for the job. As it happens, I can sew. I made all my daughters' dresses when they were little. A short visit to Sephora or Ulta would bring me up to date on makeup. Unfortunately, it's in San Francisco, and the rents there are too high. I'll just have to remain satisfied with unassuming, humble Delaware.
Invented in Spain,this game could easily be adapted to other settings. Like: New Jersey. Maryland, Illinois, and California. Only the faces would need to be changed.
I am taking a course on Mahler, mostly his music, but two sessions are given to the notorious beauty Queen of Vienna. It is impossible for us in the 21st century to understand her charisma. Her photographs show her as a pretty girl, all right, although in her later years she looked more like Brunhilde. I think Tom Lehrer said it best.
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
The first I ever heard of Guy Fawkes Day was in the book, Mary Poppins, by P L Travers. It sounded both scary and exciting. I loved reading about children in another country with exotic habits, like eating scones. . I hope it still is celebrated in the Mother Country.
A president's life is really tough--all those pesky voters! According to the New York Times
The main impact of the midterm election in the modern era has been to
weaken the president, the only government official (other than the
powerless vice president) elected by the entire nation.
However, he does have the White House cook and rides around in Air Force One.
Bubbe, my grandmother, did not approve of the women her sons married; she did not consider them good enough for her family. Clearly, nobody could be. But her daughter's husband, my father, was her special nemesis.
He had a lot of charm, but it was lost on her. They loathed each other from the getgo. When he tried to mollify her, she was not playing, and their mutual hatred grew worse.
Mother always felt that you could please two people at once, even if they wanted completely opposed actions on her part. This worked about as well as you would imagine it would, which is not at all.
After my grandfather died, it was generally agreed that someone would have to move in with bubbe. The whole family felt that it should be my mother, her only daughter. So the three of us moved in with her.
The result was a clash of wills, and since bubbe was twice as cunning as my father, she won the long game, thereby destroying our family and depriving her grandchildren of a father. That was collateral damage, and didn't matter, as dad was obviously a weak character and we were better off without him. Bubbe was as compassionate as Julius Caesar, who surrounded his enemies and starved them all.
The tradition continues: my nephew just got married, and his sisters hate his new wife and think she's not good enough for him. Fortunately the young couple are moving out of the country, so perhaps their marriage has a chance.
I made 70 cents from my Amazon Kindle book. I make more than that from my first book, published in 2002.
About a year ago I fell right on my nose in the lobby of the Kimmel Center. It hurt like hell, but. aside from two black eyes, I was essentially unharmed. I looked grotesque, though.
Last Thursday, a dog knocked me down a (short) flight of stairs. The sound of my head hitting the step was horrific. Again, no damage, unless there are bruises under my hair.
My father lived to be 99, and it took a dedicated team of doctors, at a renowned medical center, to kill him.
I am starting to feel like Rasputin; who I understand survived several attempts to kill him. And that's all I know about Russian history, and probably all I ever will know.
My broom has no home. When I want to use it I take if from wherever it is standing, usually in the way, and after using it I leave it somewhere, usually in the way. The somebody knocks it over.
Does anyone else have broom problems? I never notice other people's brooms standing around waiting for someone to knock them over. Other people have control of their brooms.
I have lost my last house key. I never use them, because I come and go through the garage, but I think one should have a house key. So I have to start thinking about a locksmith.
I let my husband's subscription to a magazine come to a close. Then I ordered a new subscription for myself. Now I either have two subscriptions or none. This requires action, but the thought of straightening it out makes me want to take a nap.
These are first world problems, right? St Teresa said, in a quote that's too good to check, that life was a night spent in an uncomfortable inn. Try to imagine a 16th century Spanish inn, where you had to share your bed with other travelers, some of whom probably smelled bad. Now call a locksmith.
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