For months now, the BB has done something that she clearly enjoys and I find totally mysterious.
She stands on my bed, which is next to her crib, and walks to the corner of the crib, always the same one. Then, she picks up some invisible object from the corner of the crib, walks back to me, and deposits the invisible thing into my hair. If I thank her for it, she will smile happily. Then she does it again. And again.
She'll also do it to her father, and yesterday she took the object and apparently deposited it on the head of someone else, not visible to me, but about two feet to side of me.
She used to announce 'ba-BEE!' when she did this, and I still occasionally hear 'Ba!'. I mention this because my MIL mentioned that children often play with spirits, and wondered if any older woman in the family had been called something like that. And of course, they were. My mother is 'Bubbe' to her, and as my mother points out, many generations before her would so identify themselves if they were asked by a little child.
I'm not superstitious. I swear. I just don't quite know what she's doing. My own notion is that the gesture seems as though she's picking flowers and then decorating us with them, but it may not represent that to her at all. I don't know if she's ever done that in real life. I also don't know why flowers only grow on one corner of her crib.
As my husband points out, by the time she's able to tell us what it means, she probably won't remember.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Saturday, August 09, 2014
What Happened To Unisex Overalls?
The Baby Balabusta has spent pretty much her entire eighteen months being misgendered more or less constantly. Today, at Target, the lady ran a couple of little dresses over the scanner, and asked me, "Oh, do you have a little girl as well?"
"She's the little girl," I explained, indicating BB, who was sitting in the cart. The woman looked extremely startled. "Oh. Oh, she's a girl!" She hastened to explain to me that one of her daughters is fond of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
BB has finally got enough hair that she looks as though she has a cute little pixie cut. (We have not cut it--I'm planning to wait until she's three, and give her a nice upshirin, to make up for the fact that we totally dropped the ball on naming ceremonies.) Today she was wearing small capri stretch jeans, a long-sleeved Batman shirt, and the Thomas the Tank Engine sneakers she got as hand-me-downs from a friend's son.
She's tall for her age, and sturdy, but I don't think that would be enough to identify her as male so consistently. The hair is a lot of what says 'boy' to people, the clothes are a lot of it. Her hand-me-downs at her present size are mostly from boys. Additionally, both I and the Balebos have tended to buy boy's clothes for her. There are reasons for this. The Balebos tends to get her clothes he would wear himself, from nice polo shirts in sober colors to Star Wars tees, and I'm afraid she might be allergic to pink glitter.
We were both startled by the extreme gendering of small children's clothes, which has, frankly, gotten the hell out of hand. I was a small girl in the 1970s, which, I realize retroactively, was some kind of golden age of unisex children's clothing. There does not appear to be any such thing as unisex children's clothing anymore.
Boy's clothes come in strong primary colors and have machines and macho animals on them, or male superheroes, or sports equipment. Girl's clothes come in a lot of pastels, and have petaled attachments and glittery images of girly animals, and Disney princesses, and a lot of stuff about shopping. Girl's pants tend to be leggings, skintight. When girls have blue jeans, or khakis, they have little touches of pink stitching here and there, just to reassure everyone.
There is sports-team themed clothing available for little girls, but it is not in the team colors, it is pink.
Both the Balebos and I had rather a negative reaction to this. Additionally, the Balebos absolutely rejected the practice of marking a baby with too little hair as a girl by putting small glittery, maribou-dripping or flowered headbands on her.
So she dresses like a teeny tomboy, and I accept that at some point she may decide that this is unacceptable.
We're starting to get the hang of shopping for a baby, and I've found some resources. Land's End has nice clothes for children,albeit mostly for older toddlers, and I was thrilled to find that they have tee-shirts for little girls with a range of graphics and colors, including, to my glee, not only outer-space themed ones, but also one that reads "NASA Crew". Clothes I can stand for my daughter are out there.
She has a few now. Her Tante Niamh bought her a small tie-dyed dress, and I found a gray one today at Target that looked like something a little girl should wear. Her father has picked out some sundresses for her. But in her daily uniform, jeans or shorts and a little tee-shirt, I continue to hear her referred to as a boy pretty much every day.
"She's the little girl," I explained, indicating BB, who was sitting in the cart. The woman looked extremely startled. "Oh. Oh, she's a girl!" She hastened to explain to me that one of her daughters is fond of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
BB has finally got enough hair that she looks as though she has a cute little pixie cut. (We have not cut it--I'm planning to wait until she's three, and give her a nice upshirin, to make up for the fact that we totally dropped the ball on naming ceremonies.) Today she was wearing small capri stretch jeans, a long-sleeved Batman shirt, and the Thomas the Tank Engine sneakers she got as hand-me-downs from a friend's son.
She's tall for her age, and sturdy, but I don't think that would be enough to identify her as male so consistently. The hair is a lot of what says 'boy' to people, the clothes are a lot of it. Her hand-me-downs at her present size are mostly from boys. Additionally, both I and the Balebos have tended to buy boy's clothes for her. There are reasons for this. The Balebos tends to get her clothes he would wear himself, from nice polo shirts in sober colors to Star Wars tees, and I'm afraid she might be allergic to pink glitter.
We were both startled by the extreme gendering of small children's clothes, which has, frankly, gotten the hell out of hand. I was a small girl in the 1970s, which, I realize retroactively, was some kind of golden age of unisex children's clothing. There does not appear to be any such thing as unisex children's clothing anymore.
Boy's clothes come in strong primary colors and have machines and macho animals on them, or male superheroes, or sports equipment. Girl's clothes come in a lot of pastels, and have petaled attachments and glittery images of girly animals, and Disney princesses, and a lot of stuff about shopping. Girl's pants tend to be leggings, skintight. When girls have blue jeans, or khakis, they have little touches of pink stitching here and there, just to reassure everyone.
There is sports-team themed clothing available for little girls, but it is not in the team colors, it is pink.
Both the Balebos and I had rather a negative reaction to this. Additionally, the Balebos absolutely rejected the practice of marking a baby with too little hair as a girl by putting small glittery, maribou-dripping or flowered headbands on her.
So she dresses like a teeny tomboy, and I accept that at some point she may decide that this is unacceptable.
We're starting to get the hang of shopping for a baby, and I've found some resources. Land's End has nice clothes for children,albeit mostly for older toddlers, and I was thrilled to find that they have tee-shirts for little girls with a range of graphics and colors, including, to my glee, not only outer-space themed ones, but also one that reads "NASA Crew". Clothes I can stand for my daughter are out there.
She has a few now. Her Tante Niamh bought her a small tie-dyed dress, and I found a gray one today at Target that looked like something a little girl should wear. Her father has picked out some sundresses for her. But in her daily uniform, jeans or shorts and a little tee-shirt, I continue to hear her referred to as a boy pretty much every day.
Tuesday, July 01, 2014
One dog. Woof!
The Baby Balabusta has a favorite book. It is Doggies, by Sandra Boynton.
Luckily we actually have two copies of this, one from Bubbe and Granddad, and one from a pen pal of the Fella's. It's lucky we have two copies, because the first copy we started with is utterly trashed from rereading and rereading and rereading.
And rereading.
"One dog. Woof!"
Those are the opening words, and the BB lights up whenever she hears them.
She's seventeen months now, and in the process of beginning to talk. Just recently, she began to bring the book to us to read and then saying "Woof!" herself. Sometimes she woofed for books that were not Doggies. We began to think that "Woof" was, to her, a verb meaning 'read this'.
Today, however, we were outside, at the park, and a man stopped nearby with his dog. "Woof!" she announced.
I think she's getting the idea.
Luckily we actually have two copies of this, one from Bubbe and Granddad, and one from a pen pal of the Fella's. It's lucky we have two copies, because the first copy we started with is utterly trashed from rereading and rereading and rereading.
And rereading.
"One dog. Woof!"
Those are the opening words, and the BB lights up whenever she hears them.
She's seventeen months now, and in the process of beginning to talk. Just recently, she began to bring the book to us to read and then saying "Woof!" herself. Sometimes she woofed for books that were not Doggies. We began to think that "Woof" was, to her, a verb meaning 'read this'.
Today, however, we were outside, at the park, and a man stopped nearby with his dog. "Woof!" she announced.
I think she's getting the idea.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Kisses
The Baby Balabusta has learned to give kisses.
Sort of.
She has learned that we press our mouths onto her face to express affection, and she does it back. However, she hasn't quite gotten the concept of puckering up, so her version is to come at you open-mouthed, and suction on to the side of your face. Then she licks you, for good measure.
It is very cute, and also very silly.
Sort of.
She has learned that we press our mouths onto her face to express affection, and she does it back. However, she hasn't quite gotten the concept of puckering up, so her version is to come at you open-mouthed, and suction on to the side of your face. Then she licks you, for good measure.
It is very cute, and also very silly.
Monday, May 27, 2013
She rolls with a purpose
Today I put the BB down on her quilt on the floor. I showed her a toy--she's only just, at four months, starting to get interested in objects--and then I left her to her own devices, and got sucked into reading an article on the computer.
Some minutes later, whining pulled my attention back. She had, while I looked away, rolled from her back to all fours, and grabbed the toy, which she was now trying to pull toward her.
I showed it to her again, and then flipped her on her back, because she was getting tired.
A minute later, same thing.
So I put her in her bouncer seat, and we played with it together, which mostly consisted of me spinning the spinny part, and occasionally encouraging her to touch it and move it a little.
I've said that having a small child is like watching the evolution of humanity in fast speed-up motion. Having finally reached the point of seeing that this thing was interesting, she was beside herself. Her fact was rapt, and her whole body was twitching with the force of all those firing neurons. The colors! The sounds! The movement! This thing was AMAZING! Oh my God, this is the best thing ever!
Eventually she just started to short out, and cry a little. It was too much emotional energy for one sitting. I hid the Most Amazing Thing Ever under the bouncer seat, and we nursed a little. Now she is taking a nap.
Parenthood is awe-inspiring, and amazing.
Some minutes later, whining pulled my attention back. She had, while I looked away, rolled from her back to all fours, and grabbed the toy, which she was now trying to pull toward her.
I showed it to her again, and then flipped her on her back, because she was getting tired.
A minute later, same thing.
So I put her in her bouncer seat, and we played with it together, which mostly consisted of me spinning the spinny part, and occasionally encouraging her to touch it and move it a little.
I've said that having a small child is like watching the evolution of humanity in fast speed-up motion. Having finally reached the point of seeing that this thing was interesting, she was beside herself. Her fact was rapt, and her whole body was twitching with the force of all those firing neurons. The colors! The sounds! The movement! This thing was AMAZING! Oh my God, this is the best thing ever!
Eventually she just started to short out, and cry a little. It was too much emotional energy for one sitting. I hid the Most Amazing Thing Ever under the bouncer seat, and we nursed a little. Now she is taking a nap.
Parenthood is awe-inspiring, and amazing.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Rolling
The Baby Balabusta can now roll over, if you start her on her side, and let her struggle a little to get over her shoulder.
Wunderkind!
There are other things I should blog about--for example, the latest job hunt, and the amazingly awful way in which it came about, and what happened with the miscarriage, and my pregnancy with the BB. But for now, rolling will have to do.
She rolls!
Wunderkind!
There are other things I should blog about--for example, the latest job hunt, and the amazingly awful way in which it came about, and what happened with the miscarriage, and my pregnancy with the BB. But for now, rolling will have to do.
She rolls!
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Making the Baby Balabusta: Part One
A year ago, I got pregnant. Again. I tend to say that 'we' got pregnant, but the Balebos rejects that formulation. I got pregnant, he points out, he did not get pregnant. I have had to settle for 'we were expecting'.
At any rate, I got pregnant, again, a month or so after a miscarriage at nine weeks that shook me badly.
I'd never been pregnant before the pregnancy that miscarried. And I was not entirely convinced that I was going to get pregnant, not at thirty-eight, not for the first time. I obsessively pored over websites explaining how your fertility dropped off a cliff in your thirties. I reckoned the odds. I worried.
I hadn't worried much before then. All through my twenties, and into my early thirties, I told people confidently that if by the time I had my financial and emotional act together I was no longer fertile, I would adopt. By thirty-eight, however, I had realized that my financial act might never be together to an extent that would allow for adoption. If I wanted to raise children, giving birth to them might be my only option.
And so, at thirty-eight, I put my foot down. I wanted children, and I could see the end of my eggs from where I was standing. There was no more time to give to hoping for a better job situation, or paycheck. There was no more wiggle room. We were going to do this thing.
The day I took the pregnancy test and learned about my first pregnancy, I was almost manic. I had realized that I was at least two or three weeks past when my period should have begun. And I had gone to get a pregnancy test from the drugstore, while firmly convinced that I would not be pregnant. On the way home, I had a vicious imaginary argument with a doctor who was telling me that I had waited too long to have children. I marched home with the CVS bag, bawling her out in my mind, surged upstairs on a wave of pure righteous anger, and peed on the brush end of the test.
And the two lines that indicated a positive came up, so fast that I didn't even have to wait the prescribed minute.
I assumed I had done it wrong, so I waited an hour and tried again. Two lines, strong and blue.
The biology, it seemed, worked.
I'd never been pregnant before the pregnancy that miscarried. And I was not entirely convinced that I was going to get pregnant, not at thirty-eight, not for the first time. I obsessively pored over websites explaining how your fertility dropped off a cliff in your thirties. I reckoned the odds. I worried.
I hadn't worried much before then. All through my twenties, and into my early thirties, I told people confidently that if by the time I had my financial and emotional act together I was no longer fertile, I would adopt. By thirty-eight, however, I had realized that my financial act might never be together to an extent that would allow for adoption. If I wanted to raise children, giving birth to them might be my only option.
And so, at thirty-eight, I put my foot down. I wanted children, and I could see the end of my eggs from where I was standing. There was no more time to give to hoping for a better job situation, or paycheck. There was no more wiggle room. We were going to do this thing.
The day I took the pregnancy test and learned about my first pregnancy, I was almost manic. I had realized that I was at least two or three weeks past when my period should have begun. And I had gone to get a pregnancy test from the drugstore, while firmly convinced that I would not be pregnant. On the way home, I had a vicious imaginary argument with a doctor who was telling me that I had waited too long to have children. I marched home with the CVS bag, bawling her out in my mind, surged upstairs on a wave of pure righteous anger, and peed on the brush end of the test.
And the two lines that indicated a positive came up, so fast that I didn't even have to wait the prescribed minute.
I assumed I had done it wrong, so I waited an hour and tried again. Two lines, strong and blue.
The biology, it seemed, worked.
Israeli Couscous: I Have Learned Something New
Israeli couscous from Trader Joe's holds a special place in the hearts of the Bay Area's local pro-Israel activists. TJ's, bless them, have gone on stocking Israeli products in the face of considerable pressure from the BDS crowd to get them to stop. They have all kinds of lovely Israeli products. My own personal favorite is the Dorot frozen garlic cubes, but I am aware that many of my friends at one time bought a lifetime supply of Israeli coucous from Trader Joe's, to the extent that local activists were trading Israeli couscous recipes for months, desperate to use it all up.
I confess: I never bought any. The garlic cubes, yes, and matzo in season, but not the product I thought of as the 'fake couscous'. When I first became aware of this stuff, I had no idea what I was looking at. Couscous, to me, means, well, actual couscous, and in my childhood was usually eaten in the form of tabouli. It was also generally cooked and served by Israelis, adding to my bafflement--surely Israeli couscous is no different from normal couscous, I thought, puzzled. This odd stuff from TJ's, made up of little pasta balls like tiny ball bearings was a new substance altogether, and confused me. What made it Israeli? Why wasn't it actually couscous? What the heck was this?
I've learned a little more about it though, now, and I'm fascinated enough to be planning the purchase of a few boxes. It turns out that this peculiar carbohydrate is unique to Israel, and is actually a piece of Jewish history.
Let me take you back to the 1950s, when the newborn State of Israel is struggling to survive, and to feed its exploding population. Food is rationed. Immigrants and refugees from the Arab world are flooding into their ancient homeland and new haven. Rice is a staple food for these new Israelis, but it's not readily available because of the limited food supply and lack of imports.
David Ben Gurion to the rescue! Approaching the Osem company (yes, that same Osem whose tahini and matzo ball mix you still buy today), he asks them to come up with a rice substitute that can be produced in Israel. The result, called in Hebrew 'ptitim', is a baked wheat product, shaped like grains of rice, which can be boiled like pasta and served hot or cold. Dubbed "Ben Gurion's rice", it made its way into Israeli culinary history. The round balls of 'couscous' shortly followed.
Israeli couscous is currently very chic with foodies, to the amusement of Israelis, who seem to think of it as kid food. I am fascinated by its legacy. If matzo is the bread of affliction, this is the rice-substitute of the Ingathering, a tribute to Israeli ingenuity and determination to survive and thrive. I plan to learn to cook with it, and to give it a place in my kitchen, this most Zionist of foodstuffs.
Some reading:
http://www.haaretz.com/ben-gurion-s-rice-1.245490
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptitim
I confess: I never bought any. The garlic cubes, yes, and matzo in season, but not the product I thought of as the 'fake couscous'. When I first became aware of this stuff, I had no idea what I was looking at. Couscous, to me, means, well, actual couscous, and in my childhood was usually eaten in the form of tabouli. It was also generally cooked and served by Israelis, adding to my bafflement--surely Israeli couscous is no different from normal couscous, I thought, puzzled. This odd stuff from TJ's, made up of little pasta balls like tiny ball bearings was a new substance altogether, and confused me. What made it Israeli? Why wasn't it actually couscous? What the heck was this?
I've learned a little more about it though, now, and I'm fascinated enough to be planning the purchase of a few boxes. It turns out that this peculiar carbohydrate is unique to Israel, and is actually a piece of Jewish history.
Let me take you back to the 1950s, when the newborn State of Israel is struggling to survive, and to feed its exploding population. Food is rationed. Immigrants and refugees from the Arab world are flooding into their ancient homeland and new haven. Rice is a staple food for these new Israelis, but it's not readily available because of the limited food supply and lack of imports.
David Ben Gurion to the rescue! Approaching the Osem company (yes, that same Osem whose tahini and matzo ball mix you still buy today), he asks them to come up with a rice substitute that can be produced in Israel. The result, called in Hebrew 'ptitim', is a baked wheat product, shaped like grains of rice, which can be boiled like pasta and served hot or cold. Dubbed "Ben Gurion's rice", it made its way into Israeli culinary history. The round balls of 'couscous' shortly followed.
Israeli couscous is currently very chic with foodies, to the amusement of Israelis, who seem to think of it as kid food. I am fascinated by its legacy. If matzo is the bread of affliction, this is the rice-substitute of the Ingathering, a tribute to Israeli ingenuity and determination to survive and thrive. I plan to learn to cook with it, and to give it a place in my kitchen, this most Zionist of foodstuffs.
Some reading:
http://www.haaretz.com/ben-gurion-s-rice-1.245490
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptitim
Saturday, April 06, 2013
Adventures in Bad Housekeeping: Crib Solutions
Well, the Baby Balabusta refuses to sleep in her crib, so for the time being she sleeps in her bouncer seat. Meanwhile, the corner of our bedroom is dominated by this giant crib from IKEA, occupied only by a forlorn-looking pacifier.
Also meanwhile, a mound of laundry that needs to be done was taking over the earth.
Today's solution: take the laundry, and put it in the crib. This gets it all out of the way, in one place, and I'll have to do the laundry if I ever intend to get the child to sleep in there.
Simple solutions!
Also meanwhile, a mound of laundry that needs to be done was taking over the earth.
Today's solution: take the laundry, and put it in the crib. This gets it all out of the way, in one place, and I'll have to do the laundry if I ever intend to get the child to sleep in there.
Simple solutions!
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Mommyblogging
So, the Balabusta is now a yiddishe mama. I have a daughter.
OK, I realize it's been an age, and this blog more or less fell by the wayside, and I never even told the blogosphere I was expecting.
It's been a long crazy ride. But the Baby Balabusta is now eleven weeks old, and I'm back to work, and considering the possibilities of Jewish mommyblogging.
Stay tuned for the adventures of a working mom, an at-home dad and a baby, as we learn the ropes of being an interfaith, eclectic, Bay Area family of three.
OK, I realize it's been an age, and this blog more or less fell by the wayside, and I never even told the blogosphere I was expecting.
It's been a long crazy ride. But the Baby Balabusta is now eleven weeks old, and I'm back to work, and considering the possibilities of Jewish mommyblogging.
Stay tuned for the adventures of a working mom, an at-home dad and a baby, as we learn the ropes of being an interfaith, eclectic, Bay Area family of three.
Sunday, August 05, 2012
Sort of, Semi, Back on Track
This is starting to feel like an annual to semi-annual ritual at this point, the resurrection of my teaching career, which I had, this time, figured was pretty much down for the count, with a stake through its heart.
OK, bringing you up to date. A year and a half after my dramatic departure from St. Attracta's, I've taken another full-time teaching job. This is not an ideal job. Perhaps that's best. I went into St. Attracta's expecting a lot. This time, I am expecting relatively little. The school is a small charter with high academic expectations and an exceedingly high opinion of itself. The administration is lackadaisical, the students polite and well-prepared. I do not expect to be treated well, but I think I may enjoy the actual classroom teaching.
This is disappointing in certain ways. I thought I was running away from teaching, and by doing the MFT program, preparing myself for a different career, one hopefully more lucrative, and suited to my strengths. A year and a half later I am about halfway through the program, unsure of my ability to finance the rest of it, unsure of how I will manage to do the required clinical hours to complete the course, and more deeply in debt. And going back to teaching. But this needs to happen. I can't support my family on student loans and the money from a part-time tutoring gig down the street, and this is something that will work for a year, maybe two. I will figure things out, perhaps not in the short term I had hoped for, but I did accomplish a lot during this impromptu sabbatical.
OK, bringing you up to date. A year and a half after my dramatic departure from St. Attracta's, I've taken another full-time teaching job. This is not an ideal job. Perhaps that's best. I went into St. Attracta's expecting a lot. This time, I am expecting relatively little. The school is a small charter with high academic expectations and an exceedingly high opinion of itself. The administration is lackadaisical, the students polite and well-prepared. I do not expect to be treated well, but I think I may enjoy the actual classroom teaching.
This is disappointing in certain ways. I thought I was running away from teaching, and by doing the MFT program, preparing myself for a different career, one hopefully more lucrative, and suited to my strengths. A year and a half later I am about halfway through the program, unsure of my ability to finance the rest of it, unsure of how I will manage to do the required clinical hours to complete the course, and more deeply in debt. And going back to teaching. But this needs to happen. I can't support my family on student loans and the money from a part-time tutoring gig down the street, and this is something that will work for a year, maybe two. I will figure things out, perhaps not in the short term I had hoped for, but I did accomplish a lot during this impromptu sabbatical.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Still Coughing, Outlook Unclear
First, I am still coughing. So there's that.
Secondly, I interviewed for a job at a high school, and I'm waiting to hear from them. If they call back, I will need to start almost immediately, which is going to be tricky on a number of levels.
It's going to be a weird job. And yet, I'm desperately hoping it comes through, because a year and a half in random free fall is enough.
Hoping...hoping...
Secondly, I interviewed for a job at a high school, and I'm waiting to hear from them. If they call back, I will need to start almost immediately, which is going to be tricky on a number of levels.
It's going to be a weird job. And yet, I'm desperately hoping it comes through, because a year and a half in random free fall is enough.
Hoping...hoping...
Monday, May 28, 2012
Sick and Sniffly
Second day of Shvuos, and I'm down for the count. Got a lot of sleep.
Tomorrow, life begins again, and I am yet again wrestling with the financial aid people at my graduate program. This has been an ongoing disaster, and every time we do a new bit, I get hysterical all over again.
Bleah.
Tomorrow, life begins again, and I am yet again wrestling with the financial aid people at my graduate program. This has been an ongoing disaster, and every time we do a new bit, I get hysterical all over again.
Bleah.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Throwing Stuff Out
I've got a bag of things that I'm planning to take tomorrow to the Gaia box.
One of them is a sweatshirt from a school I taught at many years ago when I was a very new teacher.
I kept it all this time, because even though the design was stupid, and I hated the school, it was a perfectly good sweatshirt, and also very roomy and comfortable.
But I resented it. It was a gift from the principal, who I disliked. She came around to my room, delivering them to everyone, and dropped mine off. I thanked her, and put it on the desk.
Some of the kids asked why I got a sweatshirt, so I explained all of the teachers got them.
And a little schmuck used his limited new English to ask, "Is it an EXTRA large?"
I've remembered that for six years, and have determined that now would be a good time to ditch the damn sweatshirt.
One of them is a sweatshirt from a school I taught at many years ago when I was a very new teacher.
I kept it all this time, because even though the design was stupid, and I hated the school, it was a perfectly good sweatshirt, and also very roomy and comfortable.
But I resented it. It was a gift from the principal, who I disliked. She came around to my room, delivering them to everyone, and dropped mine off. I thanked her, and put it on the desk.
Some of the kids asked why I got a sweatshirt, so I explained all of the teachers got them.
And a little schmuck used his limited new English to ask, "Is it an EXTRA large?"
I've remembered that for six years, and have determined that now would be a good time to ditch the damn sweatshirt.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Jewish Women's Lit Review--The Dovekeepers
This week I read The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.
First things first, and since I'm going to get somewhat critical and nitpicky soon enough, and then start talking my own emotional response, I should first offer much-deserved praise: I read this book with enormous pleasure. The writing is lush and dreamlike, and the evocation of the Judean desert and Herod's palace fortress is amazing. I was delighted by the sense of visceral connection to the land that was communicated through the characters' eyes. The Dovekeepers traces the experience of four women following the destruction of Jerusalem, and throughout the siege of Masada, Yael, the daughter of an assassin from Jerusalem, Revka, a grandmother from a smaller community, Shirah, a midwife and witch with a complicated past, and her daughter Aziza, raised as a boy in Moab, and now struggling to find a place for herself on Masada. For all of my criticism, I would absolutely recommend this book.
Reading (and writing) historical fiction about Jewish communities is always odd for me. The people, the names, the language and the cycle of life is always at once utterly familiar, and (sometimes wildly) exotic. Some details of Jewish life portrayed in The Dovekeepers I find odd and unexpected, and I'm not sure if they are actually errors, or if I simply don't know enough about the period to know what I am reading. (I chalked up the presence of a northern European legionary, taken prisoner and sent as a slave to work in the dovecotes, as a somewhat silly plotline, and too reminiscent of The Bronze Bow, however apparently one of the artifacts discovered at Masada is a scrap of plaid fabric, apparently originating in Wales. So see what I don't know?)
Unmarried girls go the mikvah following menstruation, which seems odd to me, but may well have been the custom of the day. (More that I don't know.) At one point, bafflingly, a single, pregnant girl is subjected to the Sotah trial. There is a passage in which it's stated that women are not allowed to touch weapons, and those they handle will have to be purified before men can use them again. This is, in fact, a custom in a lot of places. Polynesia, say, or among Jean Auel's Neanderthals. But where in Torah does it say any such thing? The closest I've been able to find to this is an argument in the Talmud that a woman carrying weapons is beged ish, it is a man's 'clothing', and therefore assur. (I'm not sure that this would rule out one of those cute little 'Hello Kitty' assault rifles you see online occasionally.) However, a woman is allowed to pick up, wash, carry around, etc., a man's clothing. This prohibition has the feel of something randomly made up. Once again: I'm not sure. But it makes me wish that Hoffman's world-building felt more stable, as I attempt to sort out the ways of people who are as familiar as cousins and yet impossibly distant in terms of time, way of life, and religious practice.
There is a complex interweaving of women's magic and religion, which I am not totally comfortable with as an historically and critically minded reader. Shirah, 'the Witch of Moab', is described in lavish detail as having been raised and taught magic in Alexandria, by her mother, a kadesha, a biblical term defined by Shirah as a holy woman who is 'available' to priests. Shirah describes these women as, in her lifetime, being outlawed by the religious authorities, and going from being considered sacred to being considered ordinary prostitutes. Shirah's mother also teaches her daughter the worship of the goddess Ashtaroth, whose cult is presented through the novel in a jumbled way, sometimes forbidden by the priests of the Temple, sometimes accepted as an ordinary although private form of worship by the other women.
Remember, this is supposed to be happening in the first century CE. I'm not an expert on that era, but given how much earlier the emphasis on pure monotheism began, I am having a really hard time imagining that these specific (and highly appealing to a sizeable modern audience) religious practices survived to just about, but not quite the end of the Second Temple Era. It's not quite as insanely anachronistic as Clysta Kinstler's The Moon Under Her Feet, (little is), but it is unconvincing in this era. I bought it, (the concept, not always the portrayal) in The Red Tent. In a novel set during the early days of the First Temple, I wouldn't blink. In the life of a woman living through the siege of Masada, no. And there is something truly miraculous about the way the reverential worship of the divine feminine always seems to last just up to the period of any given novel that wants to include such elements.
Beyond my kicking of the tires of realistic portrayal of time and place, I found myself immediately sucked into the premise, and protective of the characters, and to some extent, the novel itself. Despite my own gripes, I found myself decidedly angry with the author of a dismissive review in the New York Times. I knew what was coming at the novel's end, and it gave the struggles and conflicts of the characters an added intensity for me. All of the characters are suffering recent trauma, in their own lives, and collectively, in the loss of Jerusalem. Hoffman refers to the fall of the city and the destruction of the Temple only glancingly, as in one reference when a character comments that this is the first Pesach when they cannot bring offerings to the Temple. For me, the single passing reference was gut-wrenching. I don't know if it would have had the same effect on a reader further removed from the material.
The fall of Masada was difficult for me, both in terms of reading, and in terms of how Hoffman handles it. Given the determination to survive of some of her characters, it doesn't seem unrealistic that they would disagree with the communal choice of mass suicide, but it troubled me in particular that one young man, chosen by lot to kill others, is treated by the narrator of this section almost as though he were committing a crime for personal satisfaction.
I suppose I wasn't going to react in any sort of a neutral way to a novel about Masada, but I was fascinated both by the novel, and the intensity of my reactions to authorial decsions. The story, realized, belonged to me in my mind, and I was both thrilled that someone was writing, and publishing, a novel about it, and deeply picky about how it should be done. A good read. Recommended.
First things first, and since I'm going to get somewhat critical and nitpicky soon enough, and then start talking my own emotional response, I should first offer much-deserved praise: I read this book with enormous pleasure. The writing is lush and dreamlike, and the evocation of the Judean desert and Herod's palace fortress is amazing. I was delighted by the sense of visceral connection to the land that was communicated through the characters' eyes. The Dovekeepers traces the experience of four women following the destruction of Jerusalem, and throughout the siege of Masada, Yael, the daughter of an assassin from Jerusalem, Revka, a grandmother from a smaller community, Shirah, a midwife and witch with a complicated past, and her daughter Aziza, raised as a boy in Moab, and now struggling to find a place for herself on Masada. For all of my criticism, I would absolutely recommend this book.
Reading (and writing) historical fiction about Jewish communities is always odd for me. The people, the names, the language and the cycle of life is always at once utterly familiar, and (sometimes wildly) exotic. Some details of Jewish life portrayed in The Dovekeepers I find odd and unexpected, and I'm not sure if they are actually errors, or if I simply don't know enough about the period to know what I am reading. (I chalked up the presence of a northern European legionary, taken prisoner and sent as a slave to work in the dovecotes, as a somewhat silly plotline, and too reminiscent of The Bronze Bow, however apparently one of the artifacts discovered at Masada is a scrap of plaid fabric, apparently originating in Wales. So see what I don't know?)
Unmarried girls go the mikvah following menstruation, which seems odd to me, but may well have been the custom of the day. (More that I don't know.) At one point, bafflingly, a single, pregnant girl is subjected to the Sotah trial. There is a passage in which it's stated that women are not allowed to touch weapons, and those they handle will have to be purified before men can use them again. This is, in fact, a custom in a lot of places. Polynesia, say, or among Jean Auel's Neanderthals. But where in Torah does it say any such thing? The closest I've been able to find to this is an argument in the Talmud that a woman carrying weapons is beged ish, it is a man's 'clothing', and therefore assur. (I'm not sure that this would rule out one of those cute little 'Hello Kitty' assault rifles you see online occasionally.) However, a woman is allowed to pick up, wash, carry around, etc., a man's clothing. This prohibition has the feel of something randomly made up. Once again: I'm not sure. But it makes me wish that Hoffman's world-building felt more stable, as I attempt to sort out the ways of people who are as familiar as cousins and yet impossibly distant in terms of time, way of life, and religious practice.
There is a complex interweaving of women's magic and religion, which I am not totally comfortable with as an historically and critically minded reader. Shirah, 'the Witch of Moab', is described in lavish detail as having been raised and taught magic in Alexandria, by her mother, a kadesha, a biblical term defined by Shirah as a holy woman who is 'available' to priests. Shirah describes these women as, in her lifetime, being outlawed by the religious authorities, and going from being considered sacred to being considered ordinary prostitutes. Shirah's mother also teaches her daughter the worship of the goddess Ashtaroth, whose cult is presented through the novel in a jumbled way, sometimes forbidden by the priests of the Temple, sometimes accepted as an ordinary although private form of worship by the other women.
Remember, this is supposed to be happening in the first century CE. I'm not an expert on that era, but given how much earlier the emphasis on pure monotheism began, I am having a really hard time imagining that these specific (and highly appealing to a sizeable modern audience) religious practices survived to just about, but not quite the end of the Second Temple Era. It's not quite as insanely anachronistic as Clysta Kinstler's The Moon Under Her Feet, (little is), but it is unconvincing in this era. I bought it, (the concept, not always the portrayal) in The Red Tent. In a novel set during the early days of the First Temple, I wouldn't blink. In the life of a woman living through the siege of Masada, no. And there is something truly miraculous about the way the reverential worship of the divine feminine always seems to last just up to the period of any given novel that wants to include such elements.
Beyond my kicking of the tires of realistic portrayal of time and place, I found myself immediately sucked into the premise, and protective of the characters, and to some extent, the novel itself. Despite my own gripes, I found myself decidedly angry with the author of a dismissive review in the New York Times. I knew what was coming at the novel's end, and it gave the struggles and conflicts of the characters an added intensity for me. All of the characters are suffering recent trauma, in their own lives, and collectively, in the loss of Jerusalem. Hoffman refers to the fall of the city and the destruction of the Temple only glancingly, as in one reference when a character comments that this is the first Pesach when they cannot bring offerings to the Temple. For me, the single passing reference was gut-wrenching. I don't know if it would have had the same effect on a reader further removed from the material.
The fall of Masada was difficult for me, both in terms of reading, and in terms of how Hoffman handles it. Given the determination to survive of some of her characters, it doesn't seem unrealistic that they would disagree with the communal choice of mass suicide, but it troubled me in particular that one young man, chosen by lot to kill others, is treated by the narrator of this section almost as though he were committing a crime for personal satisfaction.
I suppose I wasn't going to react in any sort of a neutral way to a novel about Masada, but I was fascinated both by the novel, and the intensity of my reactions to authorial decsions. The story, realized, belonged to me in my mind, and I was both thrilled that someone was writing, and publishing, a novel about it, and deeply picky about how it should be done. A good read. Recommended.
So, I Did It
I actually departed the house, wrangled the buses, and made it to Netivot Shalom's twice-monthly Kabbalat Shabbat/Friday evening maariv.
It was nice.
We shall see.
The Husband is pleased that I am 'being a good Jew'.
It was nice.
We shall see.
The Husband is pleased that I am 'being a good Jew'.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Full Circle
So, I've decided that I need to make it back to shul.
I haven't been in a long time, except for the chagim and such. And it's time.
It will have to be Friday night services, since I'm working Saturday mornings, and will be for the foreseeable future. And doing this, still carless, and dependent on AC transit, is going to require a little bit of thinking and planning, and most of all, the willingness to stand on a street corner for far too long, but I think it needs to happen.
I haven't been in a long time, except for the chagim and such. And it's time.
It will have to be Friday night services, since I'm working Saturday mornings, and will be for the foreseeable future. And doing this, still carless, and dependent on AC transit, is going to require a little bit of thinking and planning, and most of all, the willingness to stand on a street corner for far too long, but I think it needs to happen.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Fat Shaming, Health, and the Atlanta Ad Campaign
So there's a little scuffle going on at the moment, because Children's Healthcare of Atlanta has been running the ads above, ostensibly as part of the fight against childhood obesity.
Fat activists are upset, but they don't seem to be the only ones distancing themselves from this. As the just-linked article comments, Dairy Queen approves this ad campaign, while Kaiser Permanente disclaims it, an odd pair of reactions if there ever was one. I can see why, though.
The Balabusta, having successfully lost ten pounds since the beginning of 2012, would like to report that she is still bothered by the degree of fat-shaming and blaming, and the ham-handed crappiness of these ads.
Caperton, over at Feministe, has a very good analysis of the ads, and I think it is well worth a read. My key problem with this, aside from the fact that I sincerely doubt it was a good use of funds, is that that, as always, people who like the 'fat will kill you, fatties' approach seem to have no clue or care what an already desperately negative environment for fat children they are projecting their additional, hopeless crap into. The idea seems to be that if you can make life bleak enough, with constant mockery, chiding, reminders that you're ugly, and reminders that this is all your fault, people will change.
How's that working out so far, Georgia?
"Fat children turn into fat adults" Fat adults get the same blaming directed at them. My interactions with doctors as an overweight adult have ranged from the mildly annoying to the horrifying.
(I especially cherish the woman who, along with a variety of other bizarre behaviors, many of them directed at my size, told me, when I called her office to ask if I should be concerned that my upper arm was double its normal size following a tetanus shot, that it was probably because of 'the fat on your arm preventing the vaccine from being absorbed'. Since you're supposed to shoot the stuff into muscle, I always kind of wondered about that. Luckily, I haven't gotten tetanus.)
I've been nearly yelled at, and told that I couldn't be helped when I expressed a distaste for Weight Watchers' program. I've suggested exercise ideas and been told they were 'too dangerous', and that I should take 'short, gentle walks'. (This to a twenty-something with the health of a horse.)
I've been dismissed for picking target weights for weight loss the doctor felt were too high, apparently on the theory that someone who decides to diet down to 120 pounds is more likely to do so that someone who targets 180. I've been shamed, insulted...and offered help exactly once. When I was in a graduate program at USF, I mentioned wanting to lose weight to the doctor there, who nodded agreeably and offered at once to set an appointment up with a nutritionist who could discuss my goals and help me put together a good food plan. The memory of that kindness still seems utterly startling.
In general, much of the 'healthcare community' seems to think that offering any kindness or hope to fat people will only encourage them to continue being fat. You know what kids do, Healthcare Atlanta, when their pediatrician tells them they're going to die, the TV tells them no one will ever love them, and the kids at school call them whales?
They go home and eat all the Hostess cupcakes they can get their hands on.
Think carefully before perpetrating this cruelty that pretends to be helpful into another generation. The obesity situation in the US is real. We no longer have the leisure of trying to fight it by attacking people.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Physical Therapy
As a Christmas present this year, my mother sent me to a physical therapist. All I can say is "Wow."
Briefly, my right lower back has been acting out like crazy for something over six months. Somewhere in the middle of that, my right ankle decided that now was an excellent time to develop tendonitis.
The tendonitis started when I was in college, and got very, very bad in my early twenties. I blame the tendonitis for a number of things, not least of which being that I gained a lot of weight gradually after college because moving was damn near impossible for several years on end. We tried a lot of stuff with the tendonitis, and eventually it receded, possibly due to a course of what I like to think of as electroshock therapy for my ankles--a process involving a TENS unit, little electrodes taped to me, and a cheerful lab tech who hooked me up and left me to be zapped while I read the paper.
Anyway, it was back, albeit only in one ankle, plus my back hurt. I was hobbling around like I was eighty, and not one of those spry eighty-year-olds who take tennis lessons either.
I went to a doctor in November, who barely glanced at the back. She bent me in a couple of directions, didn't know what it was, and shrugged. She was, however, worried about the ankle, which was, at that point, at its absolute tendonitisy best, so freaked out that I could hardly put weight on it, let alone use it to lift. She recommended the physical therapist. (She also wanted to discuss my weight, or rather, pass comments on it, and the screaming fury this sent me in to may well have been one of the culminating events leading up to my current diet.)
The physical therapist though...wow. I was almost in tears during the exam. He took the pain seriously. He asked a lot of questions. He gave me exercises, and they are actually working. For the first time in months, I'm waking up without intense pain in my hip.
I'm sold.
(Also, eight, possibly nine pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I am mighty.)
Briefly, my right lower back has been acting out like crazy for something over six months. Somewhere in the middle of that, my right ankle decided that now was an excellent time to develop tendonitis.
The tendonitis started when I was in college, and got very, very bad in my early twenties. I blame the tendonitis for a number of things, not least of which being that I gained a lot of weight gradually after college because moving was damn near impossible for several years on end. We tried a lot of stuff with the tendonitis, and eventually it receded, possibly due to a course of what I like to think of as electroshock therapy for my ankles--a process involving a TENS unit, little electrodes taped to me, and a cheerful lab tech who hooked me up and left me to be zapped while I read the paper.
Anyway, it was back, albeit only in one ankle, plus my back hurt. I was hobbling around like I was eighty, and not one of those spry eighty-year-olds who take tennis lessons either.
I went to a doctor in November, who barely glanced at the back. She bent me in a couple of directions, didn't know what it was, and shrugged. She was, however, worried about the ankle, which was, at that point, at its absolute tendonitisy best, so freaked out that I could hardly put weight on it, let alone use it to lift. She recommended the physical therapist. (She also wanted to discuss my weight, or rather, pass comments on it, and the screaming fury this sent me in to may well have been one of the culminating events leading up to my current diet.)
The physical therapist though...wow. I was almost in tears during the exam. He took the pain seriously. He asked a lot of questions. He gave me exercises, and they are actually working. For the first time in months, I'm waking up without intense pain in my hip.
I'm sold.
(Also, eight, possibly nine pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I am mighty.)
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