« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »
onder of wonders ... both kids are napping at once! Of course, both kids are also sick with stomach flu, but I'll take my miracles however I can get them.
So of course I must waste precious moments to read a blog that only an English major could love. How could I not hearken to such poetic lines as:
we two dide runne like eye makeupe on a televangelistes wyf
That Chaucer certainly has a way with wordes.
o I'm lying in bed the other night indulging in my usual far-away fantasy thoughts when Plosh brings up politics. I don't remember what, but it was something particularly gory and nasty and mean. Ruined the mood right there.
I tell him, y'know, I had a pretty good fantasy going until you brought that up.
Naturally, he wanted in. What fantasy?
Sigh.
Well, see, I like to think about having wings. I reviewed a book a while back called The Year of Our War
Ever since then, I've been trying to figure out the mechanics of how that would work. I calculate what I'd need in terms of wingspan -- I'm skinny in this fantasy, which helps -- to achieve lift. I also read somewhere that birds spend a lot of time preening to remove bugs and dirt and reposition their long flight feathers.
There are nights when I can't sleep and I lay awake imagining all this useless stuff about flying, until my back develops weird aches from overusing my wing muscles and I feel the need to fluff my feathers.
Unless I also grow tail feathers, I'd have to wear a narrow skirt while flying to catch the wind, which helps both with steering and braking to land. I'd look good flying around in a pencil skirt, maybe a dark maroon to contrast with the earthy browns and beiges of my natural plumage.
I swear I can sometimes feel air currents and eddies under my wings, that I can ride the thermals as the heat rises off the ground at midday, and if I stretch and then contract my flight feathers just so, I can do a belly-roll to impress all you landlubbers.
When I finally drift off to sleep, I have the same dreams as any Mommy; usually about five zillion horrible ways for my children to disappear or die. I wake up panicking until I realize the pounding against my ribs is from two tiny pajama'd feet kicking against me.
And then I wonder what my house would look like from the air.
e's my little Shushan boy. Note that he's wearing the same costume as last year. Except it's a bit shorter. Or he's a bit longer. Still the darned cutest Persian monarch ever to hold court in the Inland Empire.
(The fuss is over the Jewish version of Mardi Gras, called Purim, which celebrates one of the few times in our history we evaded massacre. Alas, it's apocryphal.)
On a serious note, a few of us Mommies are in high dudgeon at Minitaur's pre-school. It's a Reform synagogue, which is supposed to be a more liberal kinda place.
Yesterday, they rounded up the kids for a costume parade and then had them file into the sanctuary to sing the usual songs and have the Rabbi and Cantor explain all about wicked Haman (boooo!) and wise, brave Mordecai (yaaaaayyy!) and, oh yeah, pretty Esther (silence).
Just about every girl there had a Disney princess costume on.
Think about this. Think hard.
If you're unfamiliar with the Purim story, it's called the Book of Esther. Not the Book of Mordecai, her uncle. It's Esther who lands the king because she's modest, not just pretty. Big difference.
It's Esther who tells the king she's vegetarian so she doesn't have to eat unkosher meat.
It's Esther who confesses her fears and feels the weight of her position as Haman's plot against the Jews unfolds.
It's Esther who, at Mordecai's urging, screws her courage to the sticking place and finds a way to see the king.
It's Esther, alone and unaided, who pleads with her husband to save her life and that of her people.
But the version my son and all his crinolin-clad playmates heard yesterday is that Esther was real, real purdy, and isn't that nice? And aren't we lucky Mordecai was so brave and wise?
Fictional or not, it's an important story in Jewish lore, and one where a woman plays a prominent role. Can we please not Disney-fy her down to glass slippers and a vapid giggle?
Odd, but last year when I heard the Book of Esther read by Chassidim, they made a great deal about Esther's heroism. They even said a prayer for her predecessor, Queen Vashti, who lost her crown (and likely her head) when she refused to dance for the drunk king at a festival.
Next time somebody tells me the Reform movement is more "egalitarian", I'm going to ask them to explain exactly how.
op quiz time!
The most effective way to drop a baby without killing her is:
a. dangle her Michael-Jackson-style off your balcony;
b. swing her by the ankles and "accidentally" let go;
c. fall asleep standing up while rocking her;
d. launch her from a prone position on the bed while lunging to catch a vintage lamp.
Correct answer: D! Bonus points if it takes your husband's sleep-deprived brain a split second to transition from admiring his quick reflexes to panicky realization he's probably killed her! Ohmigod!
The lamp is perched precariously on a bedside stand. It was late and the baby wasn't sleeping. She did a few push-ups on her Daddy's tummy. He reached for a digital clock that caught her eye.
The two electrical cords are intertwined and the lamp took a dive. So did the hubby. So did the baby.
Milkula is okay. She landed face down on the carpet and took an extremely long second or so to start screaming, indicating she'd not lost consciousness. She has a bruise on her cheek and a reddish spot on her temple, plus a few rug burns on her tummy. Nothing to fret the folks at Child Protective Services.
Five minutes later, she was hugging her Daddy and squealing. All was forgiven. Daddy, on the other hand, still has the look of a condemned man.
Me, I'm biting my tongue. Hard.
ot sure why, but I've lost my groove and can't seem to get it back. Everything's off, like my entire psyche is hungover, but without benefit of having gotten drunk. Until I get it back, you can at least enjoy my latest book review.
Sigh.
Recent Comments