Why you all up in my grill?

Gabriella: I’m going to buy a new grill now.

Deborah: Why, is your Lesbian License up for renewal?

G: Our grill is officially dead after only a couple of years. I’m getting a Weber.

D: Because you hate my people?

G: They’re my people, too.

D: At least we know that German Research & Development has proven that they can char just about anything.

G: If I buy anything else, we’ll just be shelling out cash every few years to get a new one. Do you want to waste that kind of money?

D: How much is a Jew worth?

G: I’m going to buy a Weber now unless you can find another grill that is just as good.

D: …she said with her car keys in hand.

G: Do you want to do a quick search right now?

D: Sure, Goebbel-ella.

G: Just check out Consumer Reports please.

D: hmmm. Says here they like the Vermont Castings grill. Made in Canada. I love Canada, don’t you?

G: Ok, check out the ‘cons’. One reviewer said the porcelain coating started to peel after 2 months and they rust out in 3 years.

D: He recommends the Weber. Clearly an anti-Semite. Look! His name is Erik. With a K! I rest my kase…with a K.

G: Deborah. Find me an alternative, or I’m getting a Weber.

D: So, if I can’t find an alternative for you right now, it will be my fault that we own a Weber? Screw it. I can’t find a better grill.

G: Bye.

D: Auf wiedersehen.

Sweeping is fun

It rained the weekend of Independence Day which bears no significance whatsoever except that we had originally planned to show our friends a good time at the town pool.

“What are you doing this July 4th weekend?” our neighbors asked.

“We’re hosting friends from out of town,” we answered.

“Oh, how lovely,” they responded. “From where?”

“All the way from New York City!” I gushed as I clapped my hands together and smiled wildly to be sure to emphasize the sarcasm behind my wide-eyed glee. We don’t consider the trip from the Upper West Side to South Orange to be a vacation, but our New York friends do. While we’re not that far away from each other, I do understand why a drive through the tunnel constitutes a vacation. Our dilapidated bungalow may not hold a candle to a rental home in Martha’s Vineyard or a beach house in the Hamptons, but our house in the suburbs of New Jersey offers an escape from the congestion in the city, room enough for guests and an on-site chef who makes meals to order and mixes cocktails all day long.

Furthermore, for families with children, we provide two boys who enjoy most activities (especially when bribed), a swing set and access to various playgrounds and the aforementioned town pool.

We had plans on Saturday, but we determined that Sunday we’d spend the day at the pool. Hours of swimming and splashing and baking in the sun would surely lead to exhausted children by bedtime. It rained all day long, and we made a new plan. It was our visitors who inquired about the Liberty Science Center (home of interactive learning experiences), and we agreed that it would be an excellent rain destination with 5 children under the age of 8.

As we walked from this room to that, I noticed that we were there with a significant number of Jews and Asians. While I had no means of calculating the exact percentages, this was definitely not the typical population at The Land of Make Believe amusement park or Fun Plex or the cinema. It is at this point that my mother would have made a crack like, “You see why WE are at the Ivy Leagues?” and I would have rolled my eyes and dismissed her entirely. Neither of my parents went to Ivy League schools.

But once I made the initial observation, I couldn’t stop taking a quick count in every new exhibition we entered to establish that, in fact, there were a whole lot of Jews and Asians. I tried not to make sweeping generalizations even though that’s the only kind of sweeping I like to do. In fact, there was a whole lot of everything at the museum. Why, we even ran into another gay family from South Orange at the cafeteria…who happened to be Jewish come to think of it.

The observant Jews stick out. Young, wig-wearing mothers. 10-20 kids per family (I may exaggerate a wee bit). Prayer shawl fringes hanging out of shirts. “Nachum! Tsvi! Go with Abba to the bathroom.” They’re tough to miss. And the Asians – be they East Asian or Indian – are easy to identify in a crowd. Are the percentages of Asians and Jews higher in a science museum than at the corn maze? Perhaps. Are our children more likely to get into an Ivy League school? Given that Asher’s favorite part of our visit was the enormous bag of popcorn he ate, I’m not going to take that bet.

Then again, I’m not going to be shy about calling it like I see it. Jews and Asians like science museums. Christian fundamentalists don’t. Neither group cares for mechanical bull riding. Sweeping generalizations come from bits of truth...for the most part.

Countdown to BlogHer '11

Got my hair cut last week and realized that this was my BlogHer cut. I will not need to go to the hair salon before August 4th when I board a plane for San Diego and leave my wife and two children for a weekend of blog-mania.

A word about words – specifically the word wife. Only recently have I reluctantly embraced the word wife when referring to Gabriella. I had held on to partner ever since we moved to London in 1999. I wanted to hold on to it like so many other words and phrases. It was time to shed the term with the other words that have slowly evaporated out of my vocabulary since our move back to the U.S. Lift, chips (meaning fries), crisps (meaning chips), kip, git - all just confuse people especially spoken with a Yankee accent.

Philosophically, I still believe that partner should replace all couple oriented terms as it does in the UK. Lover, girlfriend, fiancée, wife - 1 word fits all is my version of couple equality. But the more we discuss our relationship and friends’ relationships with our kids, the easier it is for them to understand the terms that everyone else uses. Wife is the word that best describes who Gabriella is to me in U.S. English. Scratch that. Wife best describes who we are in Canadian English where we are, in fact, married. In spite of our status as Civil Union partners in New Jersey, kids and grown ups alike understand what a wife is, and Gabriella is as wifely as she can be without the legal benefits.

Reminds me of the day when I finally ditched spelling women in a way only feminists and seven-sisters graduates could recognize. Womyn. Wombon. Wimmin. They don’t compute in Word spell-check; a program clearly written by a misogynist who hates his mother. I’ll admit to taking the easy route and conforming to the mainstream vernacular for the sake of ease. In a land where tradition trumps intellectualism, sometimes it’s best to go with the flow. Can I get an A-womyn?

I will continue to struggle with the word ‘wife’ until we are married in the U.S. - Canadian-style. But for the sake of our kids, I now pronounce us wife and wife. Lick-hymen! That’s how you say “To Life” in Jewish lesbianese. Fur real.

BlogHer hair cuts. That’s where I was. The week before my hair cut, I received a message from Vikki. “One more month to go until BlogHer!” I smiled. And then I panicked. Business cards, packing comprehensively yet sensibly, the fear that my credit card will be declined at the hotel (one of the many illogical fears that follows me everywhere). Must make a to do list. Lists sooth me. Also soothing is collecting enough happy thoughts to outweigh my anxieties. I have collected quite a few happy thoughts about BlogHer.

The first time I went to BlogHer in 2009, I traveled to Chicago. I had no expectations, and Gabriella was unemployed and able to take care of the kids. I didn’t have to pay for a hotel, and I figured if it sucked, I’d hang out with my Chicago crew. It didn’t suck, but I wasn’t sure I’d go again if I had to pay for airfare and a hotel room. And then they announced that BlogHer would be in New York in 2010-home turf. No plane ticket. No hotel room. And, there was the little matter of the Community Keynote.

This year, I bought a ticket to fly to the opposite end of the country and booked a hotel room and asked Gabriella to take a couple days off work to mind the children because this year, I will see friends I actually made online-a concept that freaked me out when I first started blogging. This year, I will be able to let loose as opposed to constantly gagging at the thought of reading in front of hundreds of bloggers. This year, I’ll reunite with the fantabulous ladies I met last year. This year, I’ll be a bit wiser about how to manage my time. But most importantly, this year, I need a vacation! The count down has begun, and I’m well chuffed.