You Ask a Lot of Questions

What I Didn’t Realize about Other Families

March 17, 2019 in Uncategorized | Tags: Disney, matching, shirts | Leave a comment

Never in my life have I imagined that so many people besides my mother love matching shirts. Growing up, I thought my mom’s penchant for buying matching dresses for my sister and me, or matching sweaters for her and me, or custom-made matching sweatshirts that say “Hugging is My Favorite Exercise” was excessive. I must now apologize to her because I have seen first-hand thousands of families demonstrating a much more extreme degree of matchiness.

Before you stop me and say, “Wait, didn’t your whole family wear matching t-shirts to the Magic Kingdom last week?” I will acknowledge that yes, of course we did, in honor of my mom and in celebration of my parents’ 50th anniversary, which was the occasion for our trip. My friend Annie designed the shirts and my sister and I gave them to everyone for Christmas. So I am not trying to be hypocritical here, just expressing amazement at the level of matching we witnessed on our trip.

We spent five days at five parks in and around Orlando, and every day in every park we saw hundreds or maybe thousands of groups sporting matching or coordinated shirts. Some were parents with kids, some were couples, some were groups of girlfriends. These families were white, Black, Latinx, and Asian. Most shirts were t-shirts, but some were tank tops. Most shirts featured the iconic Mickey Mouse ears, but many had slogans like “My real home is Fantasyland” or “I’m here for the snacks” or “Best Day Ever.” (Although I also saw a cynical shirt that said “Most Expensive Day Ever.”) There were also plenty of Harry Potter shirts, particularly in Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure where the Wizarding Worlds of Harry Potter live. People were representing their Hogwarts houses and favorite Quidditch teams or displaying the Deathly Hallows. In Legoland we saw a large group wearing white and yellow baseball style shirts that said, somewhat meanly in my opinion, “I hope you step on a Lego.” A kinder, gentler shirt sported by an older gentleman read, “I would walk across Legos for them,” meaning his kids or grandkids I assume.

In both the Disney parks and Legoland, many families had shirts that identified each member, not necessarily by name, but by their role in the family. Like “Husband” and “Wifey” (ew). Or “Daddy” and “Mommy” and the names of each kid, like “Isabelle” or “Ryan.” I didn’t see shirts that said “Son” or “Daughter” but I did see “Sister” and “Brother.” I also saw “Birthday Girl” and “Uncle of the Birthday Girl,” etc.

Somehow these shirts that reduced their wearers to their familial role only in relation to the other people present rubbed me the wrong way. I might wear a shirt that said “Betsy” but I would feel weird wearing a shirt that said “Mommy” even though I am very proud and honored to be the mom of both my kids.

Similarly, I am not a fan of the shirts that say, “I’m with her” or “I’m with him” with many Disney-themed variations.

The only shirts in that vein that I liked were from the Star Wars shops in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

I also liked this one. I liked it because not everyone in the family has to wear it for it to make sense. It’s relevant and positive but it doesn’t only work if you’re in Hollywood Studios while you’re wearing it. The shirt demonstrates a sense of familial unity without being cutesy.

I love our shirts and I’m delighted that we wore them to Disney World. I just had no idea that everyone else was going to wear theirs too.

My dad and me in our shirts on the first day of our trip.

Off-Duty Nutcrackers

March 16, 2019 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In the airport on our way to Florida last week, we passed by this row of seven Nutcrackers with their backs to the wall. Four in red and three in green, all sporting ringlets and tall, plumed hats.

Why were they facing the wall? Sure, it’s a few months past Christmas so they may not be needed in an official capacity, but where’s the shame in that? Are they turned to the wall because they’re off-duty and they’re getting a little shut-eye, even still standing at attention, so they won’t embarrass themselves or their station? Are they playing team hide and seek? Closing their eyes and counting to 100 while seven other Nutcrackers march swiftly around the airport looking for places to hide, which may be tricky when you’re a six-foot-tall statue, although it is a large airport. Are they turned to the wall in sad resignation because they no longer feel useful and cannot bear to see the passers-by glance at them in puzzlement, or worse, derision? Do they feel dejected because they worry they have been forgotten, abandoned for more than 10 weeks when their fellow Christmas decorations have long since been carefully packed away. What if they are left to face the wall until next December? Oh, the horrors.

Where I spent my 100 words

March 6, 2019 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Yesterday I fell asleep before I had the chance to write my 100 words for the 100 words a day for 100 days challenge I’m doing with Zoe. But to be fair I had already written a few thousand words earlier in the day. Those words were about high school students meeting with construction industry professionals to get help with their resumes, high school students participating in classes about how to live drug-free lives, and high school students using their math skills to measure their classroom and price out paint and flooring as if they were going to remodel the room. I also wrote a bunch of words about how to get end your marriage if you live in Ohio. Apparently if you and your spouse agree on all of the terms, you can get a dissolution, which is faster and cheaper than divorce. I’ve never heard of this, but I’ve also never tried to get divorced in Ohio. I’ve learned during the course of my work for this particular client that there are a lot of fees you have to pay if you want to get divorced or change custody arrangements, and that’s not even including attorney fees, if you can afford an attorney.

…

I started today at home and am finishing the day in a hotel in Orlando. Truthfully all the travel went as well as it could’ve, even though it required several different vehicles and a lot of long lines and there were seven of us including three kids. We met up with my parents at the hotel, as they had taken the auto train here. While it took a lot longer, it sounds a lot more relaxing. And in eight hours, the nine of us will be making our way to the Magic Kingdom. Mickey awaits!

Altogether Ooky

March 4, 2019 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

For a while when I was in elementary school, I would come home from school and turn on the tv to watch reruns of ridiculous shows. At the time, I’m not sure I realized they were reruns or ridiculous. The Dukes of Hazzard was one–please don’t judge me, I am well aware of how offensive it is now. And the Addams Family was another. I don’t remember much in the way of the plot of the Addams family, but I do know that hearing those first few bars of theme music would prompt an immediate snapping response. I didn’t realize until today that the Addams Family originally aired in the 60s, several years before I was born.

But today I was amused to see that the snapping response was nearly universal among members of the audience at the delightful Chalice Theatre production of the Addams Family musical.

The tv show theme song isn’t even in the musical, but just those first few measures, woven into he overture, are enough to stir the muscle memory of snapping.

Beyond the nostalgia, however, I really enjoyed the show because it featured a fantastic cast that included several friends of ours–mostly Zoe’s age. Many of them are already Chalice Theatre veterans who have acted in South Pacific, Shrek, and Peter and the Starcatcher. I love seeing their hard work and hearing them sing and watching them dance and so obviously have a great time performing. I love the intergenerational casts of Chalice shows and seeing some familiar faces in totally new roles. I love seeing new faces who light up the room. There was a teenage boy in tonight’s show who was a ballerina and danced en pointe with so much joy and passion, not to mention unbelievable strength and talent. I love the sets and the costumes and the fact that I’m surrounded in the audience by people I know. I love that my kids are completely captivated by these performances, and that they get to meet the actors afterward and congratulate their friends. I love the fact that all the snacks sold in the lobby are $1.

Although they are young and could change their minds, my kids have indicated that–like me–they love to watch theater but they are not inclined to appear on stage themselves. At least for now we are content to allow our friends to make the magic and we will simply be enchanted by it.

I Just Spit into a Tube

March 2, 2019 in Uncategorized | Tags: ancestry, Ashkenazi Jewish, family, Hungary, Romania | Leave a comment

I just spit into a tube, repeatedly, until my saliva reached the wavy black line. I put the cap on the tube, releasing the blue stabilizing solution, and shook it. I put the tube in the plastic envelope, sealed it, and put the plastic envelope in the little postage paid box, and sealed that. Tomorrow I will mail the box to a lab in American Fork, Utah.

Magically, or miraculously, or you might even say through science, my quarter teaspoon of spit will reveal to me who my long-lost relatives are and just what I am made of, at least genetically speaking.

I confess I have already done this spit-in-a-tube activity before, and I received endless pages of reports that I did not quite understand about how I relate to neanderthals and confirming what I already knew that I am half Ashkenazi Jew and the rest a fine but certainly unexotic blend of Irish, Scottish, and German with some other Western European stuff thrown in.

I am repeating the exercise–through a different DNA testing company this time–because of an unexpected conversation I had last summer with the mother of one of my best friends. I was at a street festival in the neighborhood where I grew up, and my friend’s mom happened by. We ended up sitting on the curb for a while talking about how to mobilize democratic voters, and then the subject turned to one of her favorite hobbies–genealogy. I knew she had spent years conducting copious research into her family’s history, but I learned when we talked that she had also spit into several tubes to maximize the information she could gather from various testing services which might have access to different pieces of her genetic inheritance. She assured me that Ancestry.com was the most comprehensive in terms of helping you build a family tree and finding family members to nestle among the branches.

Did you know you can buy these DNA spitting kits all over the place now? I ordered mine online, but I recently saw them on a shelf at Target. Once scientists unlocked the human genome, we ran with it until vast stores of genetic information are as easy to get as it is to fill your red cart with over a hundred dollars worth of stuff you didn’t know you needed every time you shop there.

Here’s what I really want to know–what were the lives like of my great-grandparents who came from Romania and Hungary? Are there other descendants of them out there who I might meet? What could I discover about my Jewish roots? My dad has a small family. He has one surviving brother and one surviving first cousin. I know my Grandma had younger twin sisters, but I don’t know their names or their children’s names or anything else about them. I don’t know if my Grandma or Grandpa had cousins or if they did where they lived or if they had children. I know my Great-Grandfather was listed in census records as a peddler. What did he peddle? I desperately want to know.

I have no idea whether my questions are beyond the scope of the quarter teaspoon of spit that I have collected for analysis, but I cannot wait to find out.

The First of One Hundred Days

March 1, 2019 in kindergarten, middle school, reading, volunteering, writing | Leave a comment

Zoe’s English teacher announced this week the prospect of a new challenge–write at least 100 words each day for 100 days, beginning today, March 1. Apparently if you write every day for 100 days you become a Writing Centurion and you get to choose a t-shirt from Woot! Shirt. I can safely say this is the first time this school year that I have wished I were in sixth grade. Writing and t-shirts–two of my favorite things! So when Zoe said she was accepting her teacher’s invitation, I immediately said I would join her. This means you will be seeing a lot more words from me over the next 100 days. Maybe if you like what I write, you’ll buy me a punny t-shirt too!

March also happens to be National Reading Month, and reading is one of my other favorite things, up there with writing and t-shirts, so I am lined up to volunteer at both of my kids’ schools doing book-related activities. At Zeke’s school on Monday I am going to be a guest reader in his kindergarten class. I think I will read Mo Willems’ Nanette’s Baguette, which may not have the name recognition that Elephant and Piggie or the Pigeon do, but it is hilarious and reading it makes me so happy. I hope Zeke’s classmates share my feelings about Nanette and her baguette. (As an aside, I am ecstatic that Mo Willems was recently named the Kennedy Center’s first Education Artist in Residence, meaning we will have the opportunity to see some of his characters come to life at the Kennedy Center and perhaps meet him sometime over the next two years. He is, in my humble opinion, a creative genius.)

After I read to Zeke’s class, I will skip down the hall to the library to volunteer at the book fair. It should be obvious that book fairs are another thing that I love. I volunteered at the book fair at Zoe’s elementary school for all six of her years there and enjoyed every minute of it. Zoe’s librarian was marvelous and she and I exchanged book recommendations every time we saw each other. At the book fair I would often help kids look for good books and write down their wish lists, or help teachers or parents who were browsing. And between classes I would read books myself, and buy a few. And come back the next day. And buy a few. And then the kids would come in with me and they would choose books and we would buy a few. Book fairs are dangerous for me. But so satisfying. So I have high hopes for Zeke’s school book fair. Since this is his first year at the school I don’t know many teachers or kids besides the ones in his class, but hopefully I will get to know some in the library. For a few weeks I have been reading for an hour a week with some first graders at his school, so I’ll know them too. In any case, I will have the opportunity to walk around and look at and touch all those beautiful books.

On Tuesday I will be at Zoe’s school bright and early to help set up Booktopia, a day-long book giveaway where we will lay out 1,500 books on tables all over the gym (which we sorted by genre and boxed last week) and invite every reading and English class in the school to come in browse. Each student can choose a book and take it home for free. The PTA started this event when they discovered that many students at the school couldn’t afford to buy full-price books at the book fair, and that the book fair didn’t always have books that reflected the diversity of the student body. So the books we will give away at Booktopia will include a wide variety of new and used books selected to appeal to a wide variety of kids of all reading abilities and backgrounds. In middle school, parents definitely don’t have as much opportunity to hang out at school as in elementary school, so I’m looking forward to this chance to observe all the teachers and all the classes and hopefully connect some kids with some books they will love.

When Zoe’s school year started, I was surprised to learn that she had a reading class as well as an English class. Reading is mandatory for sixth graders, and I was skeptical because Zoe was already a great reader. But I soon realized that the class was not offering remedial help (although it does for those who need it) but pushing her and her classmates to read compelling and intriguing texts by amazing authors, and read critically and think about what she’s reading at a higher level. I have been incredibly impressed with the books she’s read in reading class, including Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover, The 57 Bus, Amal Unbound, and Child Soldier. Pretty much every time Zoe finishes a book, she brings it to me and says, “You’ve GOT to read this.” And I do the same with her, at least with young adult novels I read.

So when Zoe’s school announced a read-a-thon that kicked off today, I was all over it. I am so excited to support her in her reading and help her raise money for literacy programs at her school. If I had not become a writer, I definitely could have been a children’s librarian. I did spend several glorious months right out of college working at Barnes & Noble, which was unbelievably fun. I got to be around books all day! I got to tell people what books I thought they should read! (also we had to clean the toilets at closing time, but the books!).

Right now I’m reading a YA book called Saints and Misfits, about a Muslim girl who feels pulled between her secular friends and her Muslim community. She wears a hijab like her Mom, but her Dad (divorced from her mom and remarried) disapproves. It’s fascinating and beautifully written.

Zoe is eager to read my Day 1/100 sample, and I am pretty sure I’ve exceeded my 100 word requirement. I better save some of my words for the next 99 days.