Oy Vey, It's Mother's Day

They must’ve been having a sale on Mother’s Day, because this year I got two for the price of one.

I told my wife that I was going to take the kids to visit my mom at her assisted living home early in the day so that we could be home for a nice family dinner.

Instead of that plan, my wife said that I should invite my mom over to have dinner with us.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said.

And who I am to argue.

For those of you Sir Bacon long-timers, my mom is doing much better, thanks for asking.

It took a while, a LONG while, but I think/hope the docs have finally found the right recipe to end THIS manic episode and get her back on track.

For now.

At times she is still changing gears faster than a trucker heading down a hill.

For example, on the ride home today, she told me that the chef at her facility used to be a cook for a high ranking military official.

Then the next sentence -- literally, the NEXT sentence -- was, “I knew David Letterman was messing around with that girl.”

No comma.   No transition.   Barely a pause.

Fortunately I was wearing a seat belt at the time, so nobody was hurt.

As we approach the end of this most-recent swing of moods, I can once again find some humor in all of this crazynesss, but the truth is, it’s still very sad.

But the good news is she was well enough to receive and accept the invitation to our house, not necessarily in that order.

She hadn’t seen her grandchildren in several months and that was by far the highlight of the day for me.

I think my two older kids realize that something is a little left of right with their grandmother, but the six-year old only knows that Bubbie is in the house.

And thank goodness for that.

My wife decided to go all out for this meal.

The theme was... Passover.

Yes, that Passover.

With our crazy schedule, she was not able to prepare a Passover Seder during the actual holiday this year, so my Korean wife picked today to celebrate our exodus from Egypt.

Well, my exodus from Egypt.

And you won’t hear me complaining.

Brisket.  Potato Kugel.  Matzah.  Charoset*.

*-If you’ve never tried this, do it now.  You won’t regret it.  Apples, Walnuts.   To die fohr.

(I've never tried this actual recipe, but check out the ingredients.  How bad could it be.   http://www.jewishrecipes.org/jewish-foods/charoset.html.)

Growing up, we had a lot of Jewish meals in my house.  

Every Friday night, plus holidays and pretty much any occasion to pile in about 3,000 calories in one sitting.

Many of the meals ended with my dad throwing Challah Bread at me, but that’s for another blog.

My Italian-Catholic born Mother, who converted to Judaism, learned to cook all of the foods that have kept our people happy for 3,000 years.

5,000 years?  Even better.

Despite the subtle, and at-times not so subtle hints of my late father, I decided to marry outside of the faith.

I don’t know if cooking an authentic Jewish meal was one of his concerns, but my wife has got that covered.

Her chicken soup with matzo balls is the best I've ever had.

Even better than my moms.

And that’s saying something.

Happy Mother's Day.

It was for me.

Extreme Makeover

For those of you that have read my blog since Day 1 (or even Day 11), you know that I am Jewish.

And other than perhaps some of my rebellious brethren from the good book, this just in, Jews don’t hunt.

Or fish.

Or camp.

Ok, maybe some do, but I don’t.

Don’t blame me, it was the way I was raised.

I was also raised that there is nothing more important than family and now as the parent of three, there is nothing more important than the kids.

I guess that explains why I just went on a three-day camping retreat with my daughter’s school.

To some of you diehards, it may not have been camping by definition, but the combination of mountains, cabins, sleeping bags and 56 seventh graders, qualifies for me.

In plain and simple english, it was a GREAT time.

Great father/daughter bonding time.

Great getaway from the real world time.

Great time.

This is the second straight year that I’ve been a chaperone on this school trip.   Last year we went to one part of our state.  This time we went to another.

The days are filled with a bunch of activities from orienteering to canoeing to hiking. 

Did I mention that I was Jewish?

On Day 1, I pretty much played spectator, watching the kids climb up a bunch of trees, with a harness of course, and then proceed to do things I would never consider.  

Not even when I was 13.

My daughter asked me to try it.  I turned her down.

The instructor offered.  I declined.

My daughter said puh-leeeeeeeeze.   I said, no thank you.

Just like I did last year.

And like last year, I couldn’t have felt more guilty.   Other parents were doing it, just not me.  

Talk about middle school peer pressure.

I was somewhere between really nervous and really not interested.  Honestly, probably more of the second, but still plenty of the first.

I had no interest in walking across a tight rope about 30 feet above the ground.

I had no interest in pulling myself up a series of six wooden planks, each plank about five feet higher than the previous one.

And I had ABSOLUTELY no interest in doing “the leap of faith”, where you climb 20 feet up a tree to a wooden platform that you then jump off of into mid-air, hoping that your rope and harness do their job.

You can call me any name in the book, but it wouldn’t hurt more than the guilt I was feeling for letting my daughter down.

I apologized.

Like I did last year.

She said it was no big deal.

Like she did last year.  
But you and I know better.

I don’t know if I was the only parent to take a pass, but I do know that I was the only parent that mattered to my daughter.

But give her credit, she NEVER made me feel bad.  I did it all on my own.

Day two was all about indoor rock-climbing.  On a beautiful wall, more than 40 feet high.

Another sport I’ve never really thought much about.

I sat there for nearly 90 minutes watching the kids go up and down the wall, side to side, having a blast.

With just a short time left in the session, the instructor turned to me.

But before she could get the question out, I said, “YES,” without one ounce of hesitation.

Why?  I have no idea.

I guess I realized that enough was enough.

Did I want to climb up a rock wall?   N to the O.

But unlike this blog, it was not all about me.

As I squeezed my size 11 feet into the size ten shoes, the biggest they had, I took a glance across the room at my daughter’s face.

She was somewhere between excited and scared to death.

By this point, she had about zero percent faith in my ability to be an extreme athlete.

And why would she?  I’d never even tried before.

Until now.

I jumped into my harness and headed to the wall.

Putting one foot in front of the other, I went from 0-40 feet in about forty seconds.  

A world record, probably not.

A Jewish record, perhaps.

Either way, to see the smile on my daughter’s face was all worth it.

For the first time in two years, my daughter’s dad was not a wuss.

Bungee jumping, here I come.

Loosening My Religion

The Jewish holiday of Passover begins tomorrow.

Growing up that was a biggie for me.  Well actually, it was a biggie for my family.  We used to have a bunch of people over for the Seder dinners.

That’s when we had a big feast celebrating how the Hebrews escaped from enslavement in Egypt.

If you don’t believe, check Wikipedia.

My dad was a part-time Orthodox Jew, who made sure that we had all kosher foods in the house, separate plates for milk and meat and no shellfish of any kind.

Unless he was visiting Baltimore, where he loved the crab cakes.

That part always confused me.

I was raised with religion being a big part of our existence, just one line below sports on the list of priorities.

If you don’t believe me, maybe this will help.

October 2, 1978 – the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, one of the High Holidays.

The High Holidays are when you spend all day in the synagogue counting the minutes until the service ends.   

I mean you spend all day praying.

October 2, 1978 was also the day when the Yankees and Red Sox met in a one-game playoff to see who would advance to the real post-season and who would go home.

Of course staying home and watching the game was not an option.  The holiday was too important.

But so was the game.

These days you would probably see an iPhone strategically planted inside EVERY prayer book, but that was 1978 and Steve Jobs had not been invented yet.

So my dad did the next best thing.

He snuck a transistor radio into the synagogue and used a wired earphone, running up the front of his shirt to listen to the game as he prayed for forgiveness.

If you think that the people around him were embarrassed, guess again.

They were jealous.

And he was popular.

He must’ve been asked every couple of outs for an update.

I was only 11 at the time, so I don’t remember all the details, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Rabbi even asked him the score at one point.

My father’s prayers were answered with Bucky Dent’s homer, leading his beloved Yankees to a 5-4 win.

So where was I?.... Oh yeah, Passover.

Well, despite my religious upbringing, religion is not a big part of my life anymore.

I definitely believe in God and definitely believe in most of that other stuff, but to be perfectly honest I don’t believe in spending my day in synagogue and I definitely don’t believe in keeping kosher.

Are you telling me that Moses would’ve passed on bacon if he would’ve woken up to the smell of it?

No way!

I have total respect for any religious person in ANY religion.

Whatever works for you is good by me.

But for me, I chose a different road to travel.

I married a woman who was raised Catholic, but like me she doesn’t have any interest in attending her church.

We have chosen to raise our kids with the religion of love.  

Deep down, I think that I care just enough about Judaism to not want to have my kids raised Catholic and my wife cares just enough about Catholicism to not want to raise the kids Jewish.

So we met in the middle.

We celebrate all of the holidays, especially the ones that have food as the centerpiece.

My favorite holiday is on December 26 each year.   I call it the Jewish Christmas.

That’s when we get all the best deals in the department stores.   Every Jew likes a good deal.

Even though my wife hasn’t really bought into the religious aspect of Judaism, she certainly has learned how to cook.

Her matzo ball soup is better than my mom’s.   She can cook a brisket like my Uncle Leo (if I had an Uncle Leo).  And the Hanukkah latkes…

…to die for.

I do my part as well.   You should hear me sing Jingle Bell Rock.

Passover kinda snuck up on me this year.  In fact, had I not almost run into a big box of Matzah Crackers at the grocery store this afternoon, I might’ve missed the holiday altogether.

If that near collision at the market doesn’t sound like a sign from up above, what does?

I brought up the upcoming holiday at dinner tonight, while we were enjoying a honey baked ham, and without any hesitation, my wife said that she would like to host a Passover Seder next weekend.

I’ll eat to that.