Inland Empress

A song for my father

Seven years ago today, my father died while taking what was to have been a short nap. But this post isn't some three-hanky tribute or saccharine confession of how much I miss him and probably failed him or have some sort of unresolved filial issues.

He hated that sort of cheap sentimentality.

No, I'm going to honor his memory today by reprinting the lyrics here to his favorite song. I must've Googled every possible combination of appropriate words to find them, until I remembered one of my brothers had sent them via email a few years ago.

The song is from an old radio show in the early '30s, the CSI of its time, apparently. And I can say with great certainty that the lyrics exist nowhere else on the Internet but this site now, making this a fitting gift in his name and one he'd appreciate.

It's just a shame you can't hear him sing it.

Mr. Snoop and Mr. Peep

Whennnn ... a series of killings
by murderous villains
have all the cops perplexed;
With relatives groaning and shrieking and moaning,
And wondering who'll be next?
When Sherlock Holmes and Filo Vance
admit they're up a tree,
Then Mr. Snoop and Mr. Peep will solve the mystery.

While others are sleeping,
they're snooping and peeping
in closets and on shelves;
With sudden SURPRISES! and tricky disguises
they even fool themselves.
So if you wake up and find
that you've been muuuuurrrrrrdered in your sleep
Send for Mr. Snoop and Mr. Peep!

My father's official Yahrzeit is the eighth day of Chanukah, which I plan to commemorate by having an absolutely wonderful time with his namesake, my son.

Lael Sophia Joins Our Little Family

Time of birth: 12:49 p.m., July 22, 2005
Weight: 7 pounds, 5 ounces
Length: 19 inches
How to pronounce her name: Lay-el

Little Lael came into the world Friday without a hitch. Mom and baby are doing well, though the Empress will be in the hospital for a few more days recovering from her second C-section.

You’re probably wondering a bit about the name Lael. It’s kind of hard to explain the quirks of family, but our son, Seth, was named after his grandfather, Sam – we pick the same first letter of a deceased relative. Seth’s middle name Daniel was in honor of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was slain while my wife was pregnant. Pearl’s wife was pregnant at the same time.

So Lael is named after my dad, whose name was Leslie. A lot of our friends were guessing Leah, but the name never really caught on for us. Lael’s middle name Sophia has no special significance; we just like it and as my wife says, it gives our girl another option if she doesn’t like her very Hebrew name.

One strange note. It seems that the birth of a child in our household seems to break our air conditioner. When Seth was born during a sweltering week in June, we had to replace the heating unit a few days before he was born and the cooling unit a few days after. Yesterday – a concrete-wilting day in July – something in our NEW air conditioner failed. So here we’re waiting for the repairman as I write, because we don’t want mom and baby coming to a 96-degree bedroom. I just wish he’d hurry up and arrive. (Actually, Seth’s grandma has volunteered to stay and wait for the guy. Thanks grandma!)

The littlest princess

Here's the latest addition to our family. No, I didn't give birth yet ... still three months or so away for that! This is my newest niece, Tory Hadassah Boles, born yesterday in Washington, D.C. and weighing in at 7 lbs., 10 oz. and 20-1/4 inches.

She belongs to this couple, of the fish-themed wedding back in December. It's her second, his first.

Mazel Tov, you crazy kids. 

A happy Passover, sort of

We wandered the desert for 14+ hours, which felt like 40 years, and have successfully passed over another Jewish holiday-cum-excuse to complain.

My gracious, always cheerful Mom-in-law hosted us at her home in Scottsdale, Ariz., did all the cooking and indulged me in conducting my first seder, which lasted an entire 30 seconds while the chicken soup cooled on the counter.

She'd forgotten I intended to say a few blessings and had begun serving. Lucky me, I got to play killjoy and make her clear the table.

I spent much of the long weekend giving her reasons to throttle me. The fact that I walked out alive is testament to her generous nature and no doubt her strong desire for another grandchild. For that, some people will put up with anything, even the cyclone that always seems to follow on our heels.

We inadvertently packed the entropy trolls in our luggage and they gleefully fell to the task of wrecking Mom-in-law's condo. First, they flung Minitaur's toys and all our clothes on every inch of space, including chairs. I'd go to plunk my weary self down and land squarely on a shoe or a book. Ouch.

Fortunately, we still had Mom-in-law's lovely white sofa, or it used to be white until she discovered a brand-new stain in the middle. Not sure what it was, but it didn't matter, because Plosh broke one of its legs anyway. He was performing a toddler-ectomy, a delicate operation for extracting a screaming, bedtime-averse pre-schooler from behind the narrow space between sofa and wall.

A closet door collapsed, spilling its contents into the hallway. We discovered -- the hard way -- that her new dishwasher had never been properly anchored to the wall. She bought us food we didn't eat, and we bought more food we forgot and left behind, which she doesn't eat.

After four days, Mom-in-law subtly let us know that the only thing that made her happier than seeing us, was to see us go.

Can you blame her?

Considering she didn't have to buy airline tickets or rent a car or a hotel room, this was probably a very expensive visit for her.

Which just proves that plagues are a relative thing, Biblically speaking.

Super Grandma to the rescue!

I thought I had a relatively easy existence. I don't work and I sleep late every day. I have a son who insists on doing everything himself, unless it's to tie his shoes, which I've so far been able to handle without stressing.

But apparently, I needed some R&R. This was well known to everyone but me. Everyone meaning my mother.

My mother is 75 and still works full-time, bless her tireless soul. She's a family therapist, which means she has a license proving she knows everything.

She goes to a wild and woolly conference every year, a real frat party for the psycho set, on geriatric psychology. It must be a real hoot because they always pick locales like

Honolulu

or

San Juan

– not places I normally identify with lunatic seniors.

But I suppose if you're going to discuss how to get great-grandpa spinning in his wheelchair, you should be able to relax on a beach afterward while you test those sample meds on yourself.

This year, the geezer shrinks met in

San Diego

and Mom decided to extend her stay five days and invite us down. Oh, sure, she could've driven herself up, all alone, two hours on unfamiliar roads in a rent-a-car if she can persuade them not to give her a compact, you know how she can't drive those anymore. And now that she's had cataract surgery in one eye her vision is clear most of the time ... oh, never mind. We'll just come down, Mom, okay?

Yeah, it was fun. The hubby joined us for a day and even he admitted to having fun.

The monsterling loved everything: the science museum, Legoland, the zoo, and seeing trolleys and boats and airplanes. He cuddled in grandma's bed when she read him stories, insisted she brush his hair (which he never lets me do) and push his stroller (he hates his stroller. Or so I thought. What do I know?)

She bought him a plastic alligator that eats Lego blocks and a new summer wardrobe. She fed him at every meal, though I insisted he can manage a fork all by his big self. Again, what do I know?

He screamed and wept for his grandma the entire way home Friday. I screamed and wept from exhaustion. I figured with my mother's advanced age, I could finally keep up with her, even while pregnant.

This is the same mother who has always squeezed eight days of activity into seven. Days, she works or runs errands or both, simultaneously. She can be in several places at once and be late to all of them concurrently.

Nights, she reads the newspapers and watches Nightline. Since no one in the family has ever witnessed her actually sleeping, we can only assume it's theoretically possible, like nuclear fusion.

I say this in a nice way. She is a good Mom, if you can catch up to her.

Lacking a preternatural ability to make time stand still, Minitaur and I planted ourselves in front of the TV and decompressed on Friday. Or at least I did. Or tried to. Minitaur head-bonked, kicked and punched his way to an early bedtime – about 4:50 p.m. – and slept straight through to the next morning.

I called Mom the next day and put Minitaur on the phone. He never talks on the phone, ever. When he heard his grandma’s voice, he said: “I miss you, grandma. I love you.”

What a little suck-up, huh?

Next time somebody suggests R&R, I'll send Minitaur to his grandma's. I'm going to bed.

Into the jaws of love

Nothing says "I love you" more than getting hitched beneath a gaping shark's mouth. For the rest of their married lives, my brother and his wife will be able to look over their wedding album and relive the tender moment they committed themselves to one another beneath a 10-foot spread of razor-sharp teeth.

Oh sure, they erected the traditional chuppah, or wedding canopy, a lovely floral banner by an artist friend of the bride's. It coordinated nicely with the yarmulkes (skullcaps) with vivid fish patterns -- you had your choice of clownfish or sharks.

Was there some fishy symbolism in all this? I wonder.

It takes no small amount of creativity and chutzpah to marry at an aquarium, but it has to be one of the most fun weddings I've ever attended. My own nuptials were such a serious affair, I'm almost embarrassed to admit I was there.

We started with hors d'ouevres by the Petting Gallery, where, if you tired of cheese cubes and fresh fruit, you could reach in for a horseshoe crab or sea sponge or other non-kosher delectables. Just kidding! You had to put them back. The crackers wouldn't hold a whole starfish anyway.

While I caught up with friends and relatives, oversized fish slid past in burbling tanks and classical musicians played by the glow of a jellyfish display.

People who know my baby brother weren't the least bit surprised. He's the easygoing sort, all about kicking back and enjoying yourself. Not to flog the marine metaphors, but he's always cast a wide social net and anyone ensnared since earliest childhood seems reluctant to swim free.

Heck, the younger sister of his kindergarten best friend came.

I threw my arms around two grinning redheads and asked what the heck those middle-aged farts were doing here? I remembered them -- and a half dozen others in attendance -- as attitudinous high schoolers huddled over many a round of Dungeons and Dragons at our kitchen table. They cast "No Big Sisters Allowed" spells to keep me at bay, and now find themselves charmed into submission by wives and kids and mortgages.

His college frat buddies turned up in force, though it's been 17 years since their last kegger. An old boss from nearly a decade ago flew in from California. Cousins shook loose from the family tree that no one'd seen in years.

As usual, our tribe overwhelmed the other half. At my wedding, my side numbered 100 to the groom's 10. Yes, 10. This time, the bride's family gave a somewhat better showing, but were still outnumbered by the largest collection of neurotics, gossips and goofballs outside of Congress. 

We ate, we danced, we watched the seals flop around on rocks. What else is there?

Mazel Tov, Larry and Joyce.

The family kvetch-catcher

Must update blog ... must update blog ... oy. How do I squeeze a lifetime of aggravation into a few days? I know -- attend a family wedding!

We flew to Connecticut on Wednesday and landed smack in the middle of my family's usual baroque intrigues all neatly compressed into the short time it will take to see my youngest brother wed.

It's not even a matter of who's sleeping with whom, but where. Oh, it's not like anyone's sleeping anyplace interesting, like a bed of nails, though there's certainly one or two who deserve it.

Let's just say I'm having trouble keeping track of people's current addresses. Who's moved out? Who's moving in? Are they still speaking? Which one's been designated the "bad guy" this week?

Mostly it concerns people who should be living together as families who aren't, for one reason or another, engendering a certain amount of disbelief, heartbreak and irritation, depending on the family and their set of circumstances.

This puts pressure on me, the only sister, thrusting me into the unfamiliar role of interlocuter, sounding board and, for lack of a better term, kvetch-catcher. I stand around in my emotional padding and intercept all the stray insults, bellyaches and discontented mutterings.

I long ago retired as the family neurotic, the introverted and slightly odd spinster who finally married but lived too far away, then went and had a kid she was obviously going to ruin. But I'm pregnant now and temporarily on everyone's good side. And I have the curse of appearing to be a good listener, when people mistake my silence for rapt attention.

Plosh knows better, but isn't blowing my cover. Hard experience has taught him that the vacant look on my face is because I'm on an entirely different planet. It's amazing what a few well-timed nods can convey.

So I'm at my mother's house, wagging my chin up and down, wondering if this soap opera has a commercial break. Because, vacant stare or not, I need to think about something else for a while.

Quick, where's the shotgun?

They met through JDate sometime over the summer. He insisted he wanted someone tall, athletic, preferably blond, not too religious, with a professional career and Ivy League education. No kids, no pets, no divorcees.

She is short, dark-haired and gets to the gym occasionally. She has a four-year-old boy from a previous marriage and a dog. When she’s not doing a little catering here and there, she’s a part-time Cantor and teaches Hebrew (i.e., she’s very very religious).

Knowing she met zero items on his checklist, she gave him a call anyway.

That was back in June sometime. The wedding’s in December. And, oh yeah, a few weeks after a doctor told her she was all but completely infertile, turns out she’s preggers.

He is Brother #4, the youngest of the siblings and a former frat boy and reformed beach bum. He called today to give us the good news. He seemed happy and relieved. After nearly 39 years of waiting, he gets his family ready-made, as if making up for lost time.

I’m the only immediate family member who hasn’t met his beloved, whom I shall dub the Cantor, so I can’t say much more than I’m thrilled for them both and confident we’ll all get along. Anybody who could get Peter Pan to grow up and like it must have her shit together.

He’d dated his last girlfriend on and off for three years before they finally pulled the plug. This time everything clicked for him. Plosh and I knew we were right for each other within a few weeks, and he proposed after six months. My father proposed to Mom three months after meeting her.

Since this is the Cantor’s second time down the aisle, the wedding will be a quiet, casual affair, most likely a brunch on the Sunday after Chanukah ends (immediately before Christmas) which will make getting airline tickets tough.

Ah, so what. I’m so happy I’m going to go make her some jewelry.

Love is blind, deaf and bankrupt

Imagine you’re a wealthy surgeon with a Beverly Hills practice. You’re about as studly as they come, fitting in well in a place that values good looks and money above all.

Chick magnet, right?

You betcha. You marry a former Miss Arizona, a half-Navajo beauty with legs up to here and cheekbones that should be outlawed. She agrees to a Jewish wedding and the relatives fly in for the extravaganza.

You situate her in a mansion exquisitely furnished, adorned with pricey artwork and all those classy wedding gifts: hand-painted china, the best silver, a well-stocked kitchen to make a chef drool.

Being a doctor, you could be excused for not knowing much about the law, especially that whole community property thing that kicks in after a year. Exactly 13 months after your wedding, you return home from a busy day at your practice to find:

Nothing.

Furnishings – gone. Wedding gifts – gone. You move from empty room to empty room in amazement. You find your clothes heaped on the floor; she took the hangars. These are the days before cell phones, so you can’t call anyone because she took all the phones. There’s not a single spoon in the drawer, and nothing in the cabinets – or your bank account. The only thing you do find is a few cookbooks, the one thing she had no use for.

Two days later, a clerk from Harry Winston’s calls, concerned about your canceled credit card. Your wife bought $50,000 worth of sapphire jewelry, and who’s going to pay for it now?

“Get the money from my wife,” you say, then hang up.

The divorce sets new standards for ugly even in a town accustomed to such acrimony. She asks for half the value of your lucrative practice, which the judge refuses.

You won’t be so lucky the second time in court.

A few years later, you’re crossing the parking lot to your latest Mercedez when a man asks if you’re Dr. M. Of course you are. He flings a stack of papers at you. “You’ve been served.”

It’s a paternity suit.

The plaintiff is a hospital administrator in her early 40s who heard her biological clock a-ticking. You remember it as a brief, uneventful affair. She decided the M stood for “meal ticket.”

The judge nails you. Your lawyer gives you a choice: stay away and write big, fat checks. Or become a real dad. You’ll still write big, fat checks but at least you’ll have some say in how they’re spent.

You opt for fatherhood, kicking and screaming the whole way. But you fall in love with this athletic, good-looking kid with his father’s hazel eyes and goofy grin. You sign up for a lifetime of hassle and tug-of-war with his manipulative, lying bitch of a mom.

Your next girlfriend moves in. She moves out. She cleans out your kitchen of all your replacement china and gadgets. Your guests from then on will always eat from plastic plates.

So the girlfriend after that is a sweet California thing, about eight years younger than you, too naïve even at 30-something to see the “damaged goods” sign flashing over your head.

She stays with you though you treat her like shit. Your parents love her even when you insist you don’t. You don’t let her move in, forcing her to commute to see you. Worse, she works as a nurse in your office, and she’s too skilled for you to dismiss no matter how many times you break up with her. After 10 years, you realize she’s not going anywhere and you may as well get used to her.

I love telling this story about Cousin M. I used to joke that money can’t buy you love, but it sure gets rid of a lot of misery. Probably M would disagree, though he can laugh at most of what’s happened to him.

His poor current girlfriend though: all that angst and heartache and not even a Harry Winston bauble or a decent blender to show for it.

My amazing Cousin M

I tried hard to hate Cousin M. He’s an honest-to-goodness Beverly Hills doctor with a mansion in ritzy Encino, a million miles above the San Fernando Valley and its twinkling lights. You can see the Santa Monica mountains from his patio and crowded constellations of stars above – where I live, stars are seldom visible through the smog.

We visited Cousin M today to retrieve a second roomful of cast-off furniture. Or so I thought. For 17 years, I’ve shoved, squeezed and wriggled my worldly possessions into his cheap-ass bachelor furniture, with its warped particle board, broken handles and splintered joints. It’s followed me to nine different addresses in four states. Whenever I remind him of it, he gapes at me with mixed astonishment and pity.

M always had “bred for success” stamped on him. Athletic, hunky and smart, he took no notice of his shy, bookish cousin. I was also nine years his junior, knew nothing about football and suffered from a severe lack of bodacious female friends for him to hit on. I existed in some netherworld where the non-beautiful people are exiled along with unwanted possessions and fuel-efficient cars.

When we moved to LA, I looked him up reluctantly, visited him infrequently, made awkward conversation about the housing market or family gossip or life in L.A. Somewhere along the line, I started laughing at his jokes. I began asking about the train wreck of his marriage, earned hugs from his out-of-wedlock son, befriended his on-again, off-again girlfriend, and traded war stories about sickly, stubborn, crochety parents, who happen to have been fished from the bottom of the same gene pool.

I learned he was human and could hurt – a lot, as it turned out – and possessed a sharp tongue, an encyclopedic knowledge of current events and a hugely bad collection of ‘70s disco music.

When Plosh and I showed up today, I had no idea it was for a party. I never thought M would admit publicly to being related to me. Yet there we were, meeting his buddies and their trophy women and his funny, effervescent, Yenta of an office manager. I got my mind off some oppressive personal grief and had fun. One of the trophy girlfriends gave Plosh an appraising look and made his week. Everyone loved Minitaur, which isn’t hard, so I was spared having to talk about myself.

And then came the furniture: a colorful plastic desk with places for crayons and paints, plus matching chair. A chest the size of a steamer trunk apparently chock-full of toys (I haven’t seen them yet). Then another box of toys – helicopters and trains and enormous cars that all run and will keep us at the mercy of Duracell for years. A box of clothes; nice stuff, designer sweats and sports clothes in mint condition. We’d driven in separate cars, neither of which is a Mercedez, and filled both.

It still sucks to feel like the poor cousin in the family. M’s kindness and generosity is taking much of the sting out if it, however. I find I really like the guy, and not just because his hand-me-downs have improved.