Hello and Goodbye

3 months. No blogging. Bad blogger. No biscuit. 

The transition from my regular fall show to a new show was less than stellar. I was rarely online, and I couldn't even begin to write how things were going. Combine that with electronics that were fritzing out the last 3 weeks, well... I'm lucky that I can get online now. 

It's 12 minutes until the calendar turns from December 2012 to January 2013. 

Watching the NYE shows I am already inundated with dieting ads. Apparently I'm fat, and so is everyone else in the the Western world. Oh, and Jessica Simpson is pregnant again, so she's going to continue dieting with Weight Watchers.  

It's 8 minutes until the calendar turns from December 2012 to January 2013.

My cat is asleep next to me. Jenny McCarthy is supposed to kiss some shmoe based on twitters.  Also, she should NEVER say "OMG, I can't believe I'm going to do.... THAT!" Seriously, who the FUCK says OMG. I weep for the world. I kind of wish some Weeping Angels would find Ms. McCarthy and transport her to some other world.

It's 6 minutes until the calendar turns from December 2012 to January 2013.

My daughter is asleep. She's dreaming. She smiles in her sleep. I love this.

It's 5 minutes until the calendar turns from December 2012 to January 2013. 

I have no resolutions. I do have intentions. Time to put them into action. Time to watch the wheel turn. Time to breathe. Time to release. 

It's 3 minutes until the calendar turns. 

December 2012

January 2013

Intentions count.

(crossposted at freerangefiddler)

Breaking Matzoh

2011 is an odd year for me in terms of holidays.  The Jewish holidays, to be specific. In a nutshell, and I really will try to be concise here, when I was young my whole family gathered at my grandparent's house on LI for the Jewish holidays.  Everyone. Relatives from across the US would fly/drive/bike in. Family friends would be there. I helped my grandmother prepare the feast, and we would eat.  There would be stories and laughter and food.  Seriously, a lot of food.  I remember one year my grandmother made gefilte fish from scratch, and there were fish swimming in the bathtub.  I was 3.  Really, that isn't something you forget. 

The feasts would go something like this: gefilte fish with horseradish, soup, chopped liver on a bed of lettuce with cherry tomato garnish, more soup or gefilte fish, platters of roast chicken and brisket, potatoes, spinach pie, cranberry or some other fruit compote, carrots, greens, have seconds or thirds or fourths of whatever you wanted, and lots of matzoh or challah, depending on the holiday.  After 2-3 hours of feasting we would clear the table  (we being the women) and reset it for dessert.  Dessert was always brought in since my grandmother did all the other cooking.  Dessert was fun.  There were cookies, coffee, cakes, tea, pies, and maybe some fruit. After 2 hours of schmoozing and dessert munching folks would leave the table and waddle to the various sofas and chairs to chat, laugh and tell more stories.  These were epic gatherings, ingrained in my young brain.  It's no wonder to me that when I moved out of my parents' home I tried to have that same kind of holidays.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but the fact remains that I love cooking for the holidays and enjoying them with as many people as possible.

Coming back to 2011, I say again that it's an odd year.  I don't have much blood family left, and my friends and chosen family are further away than in previous years.  Money isn't plentiful and food is expensive, so this Passover I didn't have a seder.  It was weird. I wanted to commemorate the holiday, however, so there was matzoh.  We had matzoh every day.  I made matzoh brei, and for the first time ever it turned out almost as good as my grandfather's.  I made matzoh pizza, which was a huge hit with DB.  I had open faced matzoh "sandwiches".  It wasn't seder, but it was a taste of Passover.  Then I got an email from my friend Mark. He was going to have an end-of-Passover dinner Monday night, and did I want to come.

I squee-ed.  Literally, I used my out-side voice and said, "SQUEE!"  I emailed him back immediately and asked what he needed.  I could make chopped liver, charoset, or some kind of dessert. I'd just seen 2 recipes for Passover kugel (one savory, one sweet).  He requested the sweet kugel. 

I made the apple matzoh kugel Monday afternoon.  Mind, I've NEVER MADE this before, so I had no idea how it would turn out. I changed the recipe slightly, as is my wont, packed it up, and drove to Mark's house.  A note: the dinner parties I've attended at Mark's have ranged from 5-15 people.  They're always filled with amazing food. Several of the folks who attend these parties are professional chefs.  To say that I was nervous about my kugel was an understatement.

I pulled into the driveway, and was a little surprised that I didn't see any other cars.  I went in, and it was just Mark.  There was soup bubbling on the stove, brisket bubbling away in the crock pot, and a jar of gefilte fish on the counter.  I asked where everyone was, and he said it would be the two of us and hopefully Leslie.  It was an intimate gathering.  That was cool.  Not what I was expecting, but cool. 

We caught up with each other (I'd been out of town for three months), and fought with the gefilte fish jar for about 30 minutes.  That sucker would NOT open.  I asked if Mark had run the jar under hot water, got a look of "Do what?" from him, and less than a minute later the jar was open.  Apparently he'd been struggling with the jar all week. 

We munched on matzoh crackers and cheese, had kosher wine (Not Manischewitz!!) and chatted.  Leslie arrived with some spinach, and we chatted some more. Leslie sauteed the spinach with garlic and olive oil, and then we sat down to eat. 

The feast was delicious.  Soup, gefilte fish with horseradish and matzoh, brisket, potatoes, sauteed spinach and salad. The wine flowed, the conversation was engrossing, and it was really wonderful.  Mark's retelling of the Passover story was fun and educational. It was lovely.  After dinner I dished out the kugel.  Did I mention Leslie is a professional chef? Did I mention she makes incredible desserts, has had her own bakery and her food is divine? Yeah.  So I serve the kugel and they both LOVE it. By the end of the night the 2 quart kugel pan was more than half gone.  To know that these two people with very discriminating tastes enjoyed a recipe I'd never cooked before made me happy.  To know that I helped feed people for Passover made me happy.  To actually celebrate Passover with friends, and have a small seder filled me with joy. It wasn't too big, it wasn't too small.  To quote Goldilocks, this seder was just right.

It was a pleasure to end the holiday by breaking matzoh with my friends.  You'll have to excuse me now, because I've got some brisket leftovers in my fridge that are begging to be eaten for lunch.

Love,
Mel

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way

Christmas is an odd time of the year if you're not a Christian. Let me say right here, right now, that I am not knocking Christmas. I just want to be crystal clear about that.  I think the idea of  Joy and Peace and Love are wonderful. Giving unto others, being kind to your neighbors and strangers, and everything else that the Christmas Spirit can embody. No, what I'm talking about is seeing the majority of your world celebrate a holiday that you're not truly a part of.  There's a disconnect that not a lot of people talk about, though I know I can't be the only one to feel this way.

I didn't grow up celebrating Christmas. Being Jewish, this makes a lot of sense.  The allure of Christmas always grabbed at me.  My friends in elementary school would talk about decorating trees, making cookies, and visiting with Santa.  I didn't get Santa.  He was fake, everyone had to know that. I knew for a fact he was fake, because my grandfather, who did not live in the North Pole and who knew diddlysquat about reindeer, dressed up as Santa for some events at Briarcliffe College where my grandmother worked and taught. Lets forget about Santa. Lets talk about the Elves. I can get behind the Elves. Look at history with tales of Brownies, Cobbs, Faery Forts, Jenny Greenteeth, Faeries, Pixies, Dwarves, Dryads and more. How many faery tales are there? How many stories about Elves and Pixies and any of the countless Fey?  Seriously, my grandfather wasn't dressing up as Oberon, ya know?  My friends believed in the jolly fat man, but try to have one serious conversation about the Fey and get you get labeled a nerd for life. Ah, well, you pick your battles, right?  So, back to Christmas.

I never understood what Jesus had to do with Santa, presents, or the holiday decorations that spewed across the neighborhood after Thanksgiving.  I also had no clue what Jesus had to do with trees, cookies and reindeer.  My friends couldn't explain it, and my family didn't talk about it.  The combination of Sacred and Secular always confused me. Again, I am not knocking Christmas, Jesus or Santa.

What I loved about Christmas, being an outsider, were the decorations and the music. I loved the carols. I loved the lights in their garish cacophony. Most of all, I loved the trees. Christmas trees were amazing. Real trees, in your home, decorated with lights, sparkles and so many ornaments. The trees got me every year.  I remember in elementary school when I asked my mom if we could have a tree.  The answer was a resounding No.  Jews didn't have trees.  Trees were for Christmas.  There was no other discussion. It was fact, laid out, end of story. I have to say, I felt conned, but I let it go.  Several years later my family was invited to Christmas dinner with friend's of my parents.  Their family emigrated from Scandinavia, and celebrated the holiday with more European traditions. The food was different than the more American/traditional Christmas dinners my friends told me about, and there were amazing decorations.  Everything was carved out of wood, and there were candles everywhere. Their tree, however, stopped me cold.

The tree was huge, and by huge I mean it was over 7 feet tall.  It was decked out with lights, ornaments, and strings of cranberries. There was a glass finial on the top of the tree, and on almost every branch tip there was a small candle.  The ornaments and lights were mostly white, silver, or cream.  The string of cranberries popped against the light colours.  It was simply breathtaking.  After dinner our host turned the lights off in the room, and then he and his wife began to light the candles on the tree.  They may have sung Silent Night while lighting the candles, but I don't recall that as clearly.  Once they were done, the candles were the only light in the room, and it was magical.  It didn't matter that my family didn't celebrate Christmas, for that moment, in the warm glow of the candles, everyone in that room was connected.  It was breathtaking. Looking back, I don't think I've ever felt that kind of connection again.

Over the years holidays, not just Christmas, have become more commercial.  In college, away from my parents' prying eyes, I celebrated Christmas with friends and had my own "Chanukah bush".  After college, when I had a place of my own I would put up lights (indoor and out) and sometimes have a small tree.  By then I knew I didn't have a Christmas tree, but a Yule tree.  Pagan roots, pagan holiday, and I mixed it with the cultural trappings of the Jewish holiday.  It felt comfortable and right to me, but it wasn't Christmas.  It certainly wasn't that feeling of belonging that I'd felt that Christmas so long ago.

Throughout college and beyond I dated and married non-Jewish men.  I celebrated Christmas with their families, and incorporated their festivities with mine.  I was now celebrating Chanukah, Yule and Christmas.  Finally, I was celebrating Christmas in a cultural way that made me feel like I  was part of it. I'd made the cut! I was Celebrating Christmas.

There was some grand Christmases, and some crappy ones.  There were years with gifts, years without gifts. There were even years without trees, but I still celebrated Christmas with loved ones.  It was nice. I developed my own Christmas traditions.  Like most Jews, I enjoyed Chinese food for Christmas dinner, and I would go to the movies. There were compromises along the way.  More traditional Christmas dinners with lovers and friends, so the Chinese food & movie would move to Christmas eve.  It all worked somehow. 2010, however, was different.

I didn't have a significant other to celebrate Chanukah or Yule with. The holidays seemed empty, especially Christmas.  I read blogs, facebook posts and tweets from my friends talking about the joy of the season, and how they were spending the holidays with their loved ones, and I was back in elementary school again.  Don't get me wrong, friends invited me to celebrate with them, but it didn't feel right.  I lit the Channukah candles with my daughter every night, and it was sweet. It was calm, there wasn't a big fuss, and the night moved on.  I celebrated Yule with my daughter, and it was the same thing. It was sweet, calm, and not a big fuss.  Both holidays felt comfortable and inviting.  Christmas, however, was uncomfortable.

I made a baked ziti for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas day we had Chinese food for lunch and we watched movies. Meanwhile my friends online were posting their Christmas stories, tweeting their loot, and I felt like a voyeur.  I was out of the loop again for Christmas.  Christmas 2010 was lonely. It was an uncomfortable quiet.  It was a day where I felt I didn't belong.  Christmas wasn't special for me, it was just a day.

I propose this.

I propose that Christmas isn't about gifts, food and insane holiday decorations. It isn't about carols or drunk uncles. Christmas is about surrounding yourself with people you care about, and enjoying their company.  It doesn't matter if you celebrate Christmas as a sacred or secular holiday, it's the people who matter. I think I want to celebrate Christmas in 2011.  I can't tell you where I'll be, if there will be a tree, or carols playing, but I can tell you that it will be more than just a day for me. I don't want to be disconnected.  I want to be part of the Peace, Joy and Love that can embody the holiday season.  Maybe, by being a part of it all, I can reach out to others who are on the outside and we can all celebrate together. Wouldn't that be spectacular?

Thoughts on Solstice Eve

Sitting at my desk, the smell of cinnamon raisin bread wafting out to me from my kitchen. I have a few hand-fulls of yogurt covered raisins in a dish as well as a cup of watered down oj next to me.  I'm ready to sleep, and at the same time I'm wired. There's a scene at the end of Highlander (the first and best one) where Connor says "I know Everything, I Am Everything".  I don't feel like that. Not exactly.

Sticking with the Highlander reference, I always thought the Quickening was more than just a money shot.  I always thought it was the Calm in the Storm.  Everything is moving around you, fast and furious, and in that insanity of chaos the mind is calm.  The mind is Focused.  The mind sees clearly, and certain things/thoughts/ideas crystallize.  Clearly I am not an Immortal (first off in the movies all the  Immortals are men and second it's a movie), but I can relate to where Mr. Widen was going with all of that.

2010 has been a whirlwind. Fuck that, it's been a chaotic flux.  For much of 2010 I couldn't see straight. There was too much, too overwhelming, to see much of anything. I have, however, been trying to tame the winds and I think I'm starting to see more clearly.  Tonight, especially, being in-between wired and spent, I feel like I can see.

Everyone A lot of folks have blogged about the Eclipse. I think it's awesome. I'd use a different word to describe it, but I am flitting between dragged out tired & wired, so awesome will have to do. I think tonight is a night for clarity.  I think tonight is a time to really see what's going on inside and outside of my brain.  I would love to say that I'm definitely going to stay awake to see the eclipse, but I know better.  My brain may be functioning, but my body is rebelling.  Still, I've spoken to the sky and put out some freshly made cinnamon raisin bread and cream.  You never know who's moving about on a night like tonight.

How does all of this tie together? Well, for the few of you reading, let me tell you.  Clarity.  Being able to see past the emotional baggage I keep piled around me like a wall.  That's the problem with walls, you know.  Sure, you can block things out like over-due bills and the incoming zombie hoards, but if there's no way for things to get in, then there's no way for things to get out.  Creativity, love, music, laughter, friendships.... all of that stagnates if it has no room to move.  While much of the chaotic flux around my life has been out of my control, I have to wonder how much I added to it by hiding behind my walls; hiding in the darkness.  I'm tired of being in darkness.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm looking forward to the return of the Sun.  I'm looking forward to celebrating the New Year, and saying goodbye to the old.  I'm looking forward to more clarity and less chaos.

Happy Yule