Mice and chipmunks and flumes

If you’re around my age and grew up in the United States, you’ll likely remember Sunday night television as the highlight of the week because that was when we gathered around the boob tube and watched The Wonderful World of Disney.  Because we had nothing else to do before then, we’d situate ourselves around a big bowl of popcorn and catch Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom right before Disney.  Despite initial grumblings about educational television, Marlin had us on the edge of our seats while he rastled gators and stared down wild elephants.  He was the perfect opening to Parent Trap or Escape to Witch Mountain.

You could say that Disney tapped into the magic of wholesome family entertainment, but let’s be honest. There was nothing else on television.  I grew up with 4 networks and a meager selection of family-friendly programming.  We watched cartoons Saturday mornings, after Orion Samuelson’s Hog Report on WGN, which I endured if I woke up way early.  Anyone?  To this day, I can’t tell you why I wouldn’t just go play or read or do something else instead of watching the hog report.   Perhaps, I needed the company first thing in the morning when it was still dark outside, and no one else in the house was awake.  Or maybe I had some strange fascination with a pig-oriented population and the thick-lipped, sweet-sounding man who served it.

Disney was everything because there was little competition.  When my sister and I went to Disney World, we were star-struck by the characters and overwhelmed at the sight of Cinderella’s Castle.  Snow White’s Scary Adventures was a fantasy come to life, and It’s a Small World was worth the hour-long wait.  We felt like we hit the jackpot leaving the park with a Mickey Mouse hat with our names embroidered on the back and caricatures illustrated by artists along Main Street.

Our boys, however, are spoiled for choice when it comes to children’s entertainment.  They have access to children’s programming 24/7 on multiple networks as well as iPads, DSis, Netflix and DVDs delivering everything they could ever want on demand.  If that’s not enough, there is always an age-appropriate movie playing in the theaters--now in 3D.  Disney is one of countless companies producing books, games and action figures, and our kids are satisfied consumers of it all. 

When Gabriella and I went to Disney World for the first time with the boys last week, we did have a fantastic time.  But.  It wasn’t the magical experience that my sister and I had once upon a fairy tale time when there was such a thing as magic.  It couldn’t have been that magical in today's world where Mickey Mouse shares top billing with Chuck E. Cheese.  uch.

                                       

So why not stay closer to home and save a boatload of cash at a local amusement park?  I’m going to tell you that there is still nothing like Disney anywhere.  It’s a completely fabricated world void of cars and crime and litter run by thousands of smiling people dedicated to entertain and serve.  And in between the rides, there are characters to meet and parades and dance shows and barbershop quartets and fireworks!

We happened upon Trevor drawing an elaborate scene from Nemo in chalk.  Levi asked if he could draw Pluto, and Trevor was happy to oblige.

There were moments of disappointment.  Snow White’s Scary Adventures scared the bajeezus out of the boys.  It was too dark, and, well, scary.  Asher nestled his head under Gabriella’s arm and refused to look up, and as soon as we walked out of the ride, Levi burst into tears.  Then after much cajoling, we convinced them to go on Splash Mountain with us even though they had no interest in getting wet in spite of the heat. 

Gabriella:  Boys, you’re going to love the flume!

Deborah:  No one calls it a flume, Gabriella.

Gabriella:  But that’s what it is.

Deborah:  Is it because you’re foreign that you must use the technical term? 

Gabriella:  No. It’s because that’s what it is.  A flume.

We should not have flumed.  I did not recall that so much of the ride took place in dark tunnels.  Asher loathes the dark (see Snow White’s Scary Adventures).  To make things worse, after our first steep drop in total darkness ending with an unwanted splash, we came to an unexpected and unplanned halt and remained stuck for 15 minutes in yet another dark tunnel, cold air blasting at our wet bodies while Brer Fox lunged at Brer Rabbit over and over again to the recurring echoes of audio-animatronic shrieking interrupted every few minutes by the announcement, “Please stay seated.  The ride will resume momentarily.”  Lies.

Our family rode the log flume, and all we got was traumatized...and this (hilarious) photograph.  See girl in the 3rd row.

Furthermore, Disney is an expensive venture.  The park passes are pricey, and once you’re in the park, you can’t avoid all the toys and food and merchandise on offer not to mention the illustrators drawing caricatures. 

Full frontal costs a butt-load!

On balance, the highs outweighed the lows by far. There were plenty of rides the boys loved, and The Extreme Stunt Show at Hollywood Studios was a huge hit.  I'm thinking we made ourselves some life-long memories. We'd do it all over again though we might spend a little more time at the pool and a little less time traumatizing our kids with scary rides at the parks.  Next time, we promised no flume.  But we never said anything about Space Mountain!


Suck it, Chuck!

*This post is dedicated to Asher and Levi’s godmother who sent them a generous gift card allowing them to buy some special Disney swag and taught them the art of budgeting.  Thank you, Nancy!

Snapfish offers manna from heaven for Mother's Day

Gabriella & her boys

We’re a celebratory people, my partner Gabriella and I. We were much more celebratory before kids, of course. It was easy to be celebratory when we had two respectable incomes and no children – when we could be spontaneous and stay out late and sleep in on the weekends – when we had no on else to think about but each other. Expendable income is a distant memory as is spontaneity and sleep. Now, we’re more celebatory than celebratory.

When Mother’s Day rolls around, we read from roughly the same script every year.

Deborah: Mother’s Day is coming up. Let’s just ignore it, ok?

Gabriella: Good idea.

Deborah: We only cancel each other out, anyway.

Gabriella: Exactly.

Deborah: I’d say we could agree to exchange cards with our own heartfelt sentiments, but I know that you’d rather eat jarred spaghetti sauce than put pen to paper.

Gabriella: Let’s not get crazy.

*For my peasant wife from the hills of Sicily who doesn’t eat anything she can’t prepare from scratch, eating jarred sauce is sinful transgression and a shanda of the highest order.

Deborah: You want to let me sleep in?

Gabriella: Uh, you want to let ME sleep in?

Deborah: We have to get Asher to Sunday school at the crack of ass anyway. If Jews loved their Jewish mothers, they’d deliver us all brunch baskets on Mother’s Day and pick up the kids for Sunday school at the same time they drop off bagels, tuna, rugelach…

Gabriella: and bloody marys.

Deborah: mmmmm, bloody marys…

Gabriella: So no cards.

Deborah: And no gifts.

More often than not, we ignore our agreement and pick up a little something to present on the day anyway – a token of love to say that we’re not completely void of feeling but nothing significant enough to make the other person feel guilty in case she does, in fact, make the conscious decision to negate all that other does for her children every day.

Being the housebound mom with a flexible schedule and a minivan, you’d think I’d be able to scrape something up for Gabriella. I’m also the one who has access to the kids all week. If I were a creative and thoughtful mom, I’d take them to a studio where they could paint a ceramic platter or I could have them decorate flowerpots and plant flowers or herbs (cooking herbs, of course). Then again, Gabriella’s got platters and pots up the wazoo (that’s a colloquial term synonymous with up the trapdoor).

The thought of putting in that much effort makes me resentful and grumpy – more so than usual. It’s a fine line between love and bitter obligation on Mother’s Day for two mothers. Guess that would make it Mothers’ Day though it’s a day for all mothers and should be Mothers’ Day, anyway.

“So, what to gift?” I ask myself each year. And each year, I ignore me and find myself scrambling for the perfect something only to eventually procure the satisfactory something at the last minute. “I’ll do better next year,” I tell myself only to ignore me once again.

This year, however, as I was about to trip into the Pit of Procrastination on my way to the town of Best Intentions, manna fell from heaven in the form of a Snapfish Photo Book! Snapfish offered me a chance to try out the new Mother’s Day designs to create a Mother’s Day gift. Here was the answer to all my Two-Mothers-Mothers’ Day-Conundrums. I could get the kids to help me create an artful book with minimal effort. Minimal effort. How that roles off the tongue! Yes, I’m getting a few shekels to have my way with photo book templates, but I am a firm believer in keeping shtum if you don’t have anything nice to say – sponsorship or not. It just so happens, I’ve got lots to say.

I’ll admit to you that before I even got to the Snapfish site, I was feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of creating something. I don’t like to learn new things or make mistakes or produce anything that is less than perfect. I’d rather buy a ready-made gift and spare myself the agony of design anxiety. It didn’t take long for me to learn that the Snapfish photo book is incredibly easy to make. “START HERE” directs a yellow arrow to my first step. But even before I STARTED THERE, I took advantage of the online tour, outlining the process simply and clearly in a matter of minutes. I took note of the link to chat with someone should I need help, but I felt secure enough to dive right in.

7 things I appreciated about the Snapfish Photo Book experience:

1. There are many stylized and elegant templates and page layouts to choose from but not so many that I felt overwhelmed. I chose Linen for Mom.

2. I liked that I could view examples of books created by Snapfish users, which gave me ideas for my own book.

3. The site is organized clearly and intuitively so that I was able to finish my book quickly without getting lost hunting for instructions or toggling between pages.

4. You can be as hands on as you like. Snapfish provides an option to take all of your uploaded photos and organize all your photos for you or you can design each page yourself.

5. Every few minutes, Snapfish saved my work automatically, which allowed to me breathe a little easier as I created my masterpiece.

6. Before I ordered my book for Gabriella, I could see the finished product as if it were right in front of me, flipping each page for inspection and admiring the elegant Mothers’ Day gift I had created.

7. The boys were able to participate without mess or fuss. They helped me select photos and provided copy and counted photos to make sure they were equally represented throughout the book. I’m pretty sure they’d be able to make their own book next time with little guidance from me. They can’t wait for Mommy to see what we made for her.

I’ll always become a bit twitchy around anything that is remotely crafty, but I will confess to you that this project was, dare I say, fun and surprisingly enlightening. All my grumblings about getting the short end of the stick on Mothers’ Day prevented me from looking at us as our children do. We are not a pair of moms but two individuals who love and parent distinctly. In making this photo book specifically for Gabriella, I realized that it is essential not to cancel each other out because we are two mothers on Mothers’ Day but to celebrate and honor the special relationship we each have with our boys.

I hope you’re inspired to have a go on Snapfish for someone you love this Mothers’ Day. I bet you’ll find just as much pleasure in the making as she will in the gift itself.

This post is sponsored by Snapfish as part of their support of the LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER SHOW 2012 series of Mother’s Day performances. I am reading at the New York City show on Sunday, May 6th.

Feast accompli

I bring you my Passover highlights, which will appeal mostly to those who have some experience with the Passover Seder or to those who like to read about strange customs and ancient rituals and thank their gods and goddesses of fate that these strange customs and ancient rituals are not their own.

The night before our Seder, Gabriella and I retired for the evening, blankets pulled high to our noses ready for sleep and in anticipation of a full day of Passover prep. Instead of saying, “Good night my most beautiful treasure,” I said, “I didn’t pick up gefilte fish. I’ll do it in the morning.”

*Gefilte fish is the Jewish fish hotdog made from a selection of ground, un-gourmet fishes and packed in jars of jellied fish stock. Doesn’t that sound appetizing?

Gabriella: Forget it. We’ll skip it.

Deborah: No, no, it’s ok. I have to pick up more snacks for the boys’ lunches. I’ll grab some jars of gefilte fish while I’m there.

Gabriella: I really don’t want that jarred gefilte fish in my house. Let’s not serve gefilte fish this year.

Deborah: No! We can’t not have gefilte fish at Seder!!

Gabriella: Why, because the Jews ate gefilte fish in the desert?

Deborah: Yes, Gabriella. Because the Jews ate gefilte fish in the desert. And because that’s how you start the Seder dinner. I’ll pick up some jars in the morning, and you don’t have to eat it.

Gabriella: I’ll make it.

Deborah: Make the gefilte fish? On top of everything else? Don’t be ridiculous.

Gabriella: I refuse to eat gefilte fish out of a jar.

Deborah: Well, as one doctor said to the other, suture-self.

And then she made the gefilte fish in the morning while the soup was simmering. And it was good.

My side of the family arrived first having left early in the morning from Boston. Gabriella’s side of the family arrived 2 hours late having left Queens. The Holland Tunnel was as backed up as a Jew’s colon on the 6th night of Passover.

While we were waiting for the Queens contingency, I pondered the Seder and how I might be able to make the Seder more accessible for the guests who do not know how to ask. The “she’aino yodea lishol” crew.

I commanded those of us in the room to think up a bunch of accents to write on pieces of paper and throw in a bowl. Everyone at the table would select an accent before reading from the Haggadah so that we could tell the story of the Exodus as it might be told around the world...though people in other countries would be telling it in another language entirely. Feh. Technicality. We included accents such as French, Irish, Israeli and Canadian (ay) and we threw in some not-exactly accents like Darth Vader and Pig Latin and Ye Old English. And because our guests came with their own accents, we threw in a couple “Imitate the person to your right (or left)” cards. We filled the bowl just as the remainder of our family walked through the door.

Those Who Do Not Know How to Ask (TWDNKHA for short) arrived bearing gifts for the boys. Enormous milk chocolate Easter bunnies, which are not kosher for Passover or kosher on any other day of the week in our house. But, Gabriella’s family is kind-hearted and generous, and I’m sure if chocolate Easter bunnies had fallen from the sky instead of manna, our ancestors would have eaten them-and quickly so they shouldn’t melt everywhere what with all the sand. So, we stored them away for the boys to devour after Passover. It’s good that they should have something to anticipate after a week of eggs, matzah and potato starch. Dayenu.

The accent game was a hit! Everyone participated and did a stonking job, and it is now, from this day forward, a family tradition.

Gabriella’s festive meal was a sacred experience in itself, and I am still in awe of her ability to cook many tasty dishes for many people in little time and without a drop of angst. She is a wonder to be sure. The Seder was a success. To be fair, its success was due not simply to the cooking or the leading but to the enthusiastic participation of everyone around the table. There was reading and singing and happy mingling between the families. Good stuff.

At 1:40AM, after cleaning the dining room of any evidence of dinner and loading the dishwasher to full capacity, Gabriella surveyed the hand-washed dishes airing out next to the sink and said to me, “Start drying.” “What?” I whined. “It’s so late..."

“I don’t want to come into this kitchen tomorrow and have to clean anything,” she said without apology. “It IS tomorrow,” I said and grabbed a dishtowel.

By 2AM, the kitchen was spotless, and there was absolutely no trace of a Seder anywhere other than the empty bottles of kosher for Passover wine in the recycling bin. My body ached the next day, but there were left overs in the refrigerator and wonderful memories of a truly special holiday.

Famiglia and mishpachah on Pesach

When I was a kid, Pesach was my favorite holiday. Of course, I wasn’t the one who cleaned out the kitchen and rid our house of rising, puffing carb-tastic hametz. And I wasn’t the one who cooked the meal or set the table or led the Seder. My job was to show up, read passages from the Haggadah, sing some songs and eat. Even though the service seemed to go on for an eternity, my father refusing to skip a section or recite an abridged prayer, I remember a lot of laughter building up to that page in the Haggadah when we were finally instructed to eat the festive meal. My sister and I spent weeks discussing where we’d hide the Afikomen and anticipating the ransom reward.

I still read, sing and eat, but now I also set the table and lead the Seder with help from my sister and brother. Gabriella cooks. She’s cooking for 20 and is completely unfazed. Chicken soup, multiple main dishes including Alex Guaranschelli’s lamb and Gabriella’s own recipes for beef tenderloin and brisket, side dishes, flourless chocolate cake, hard boiled eggs pickled in beet juice, haroset with fig, dates and apricots - she’s whipping it all up without breaking a sweat. “How does she do it all and remain so calm?” ask friends. “Jew by Choice,” I respond and they understand exactly what I mean. Making a tuna fish sandwich is enough to unravel the high-strung Jew whose inbred genes predispose us to a constant state of tsuris.

As close as we get to dyeing eggs.

I’m not off the tsuris-hook just because I’m not cooking, mind you. There’s a lot of pressure to create a Seder for our children that encompasses the traditions and rituals that make it feel legit whilst tweaking it enough to make it thought provoking and fun. The boys are still young and impatient and I’m not really sure how much they are absorbing. I probably whined just as much as they do when I was that young, but I don’t remember the fidgeting or the kvetching as much as the fun.

This Pesach presents an added layer of pressure for me as the in-house Seder leader. This year, on the second night, we’ll have Gabriella’s family and my family in the same room, breaking matzah together. No one in her family has been to a Seder except for one of her brothers-in-law who is Druze and grew up in Israel. Not only will I be presenting the story of Jewish slavery and the Exodus to my Sicilian family, but the Druze brother-in-law will definitely make fun of my hacked Hebrew.

More than feeling the pressure, though, I am thrilled. The families haven’t all been in the same room like this...ever. We’ve not been all together for a wedding, a bris, a confirmation or otherwise. I may get a little weepy. Or, our kids will fidget and kvetch and add just the right amount of Seder realness to keep me from adding my own tears to the salt water on the table.

Almost ready.

The last time I felt weepy at Pesach was in 2003. Gabriella was chopping celery in our friends’ kitchen preparing for a smaller Seder with the two of them and my brother Benjamin who was visiting us in England. We were discussing his trip to Stonehenge and other sights he planned to see when I excused myself to take a pregnancy test. Only Gabriella knew what I was doing, and when I returned to the kitchen with an enormous grin on my face, Gabriella ‘s eyes grew wide and she returned to her chopping immediately to contain her excitement and keep our little secret for the time being. Such a thrill on Pesach could not be matched until this one when our siblings and their families will all be here together for the first time in Gabriella’s and my 18 year history together.

You want me to seamlessly tie the stories of creating families and families coming together for the first time to the Passover story? As Gabriella’s people say, fuggedaboutit. Instead, I’ll seamlessly tie all that aforementioned family stuff to the joy of creating memories for our kids. Yes, they’ll learn about the story of Pesach. Yes, they’ll learn about slavery and injustices that remain around the world. Yes, we’ll talk about all the symbolism on the Seder plate and rituals that connect our people to each other. Most importantly for me, though, is that the boys have such a great time that they forget the fidgeting and kvetching and remember family and food and plenty of laughter.

The pressure is off to create a Seder that is an exact replica of my childhood Seders. Our version will be meaningful because of the people around the table. And if I’m really lucky, I’ll get to play my own grown-up version of Hide the Afikomen.

Happy Pesach!