March 2006 Archives

Ok it's waaaaaay past my bedtime but I just had to zip out this little hooray for posterity: I got my van back from the body shop today! What, I didn't mention that I got into a car accident back in early March? In my brand new lovely minivan? Um, well, I did. I was pulling into a tight space in a parking lot in Berkeley and I misjudged how close I was to the big ol' pickup truck to my right. (God did I feel incredibly stupid after that one...) I smashed up my right rear quarter panel and the sliding door pretty damn well (to the tune of $5,000 worth of body work, ouch) and the car has been in the shop for the last two weeks while it's been getting fixed.

So for the last two weeks I've had to drive a big black Jeep Laredo as my rental car (well, I didn't *have* to, but it's what they gave me at the time because they were out of normal sedans…bleah) and let me tell you, I did not like it, Sam-I-Am. I've probably ranted about my dislike for SUVs in general before, but this one was not only irritating in a big clunky gas-guzzling kind of way, it was also generally unimpressive in terms of schlepping capacity and driving experience, especially after having gotten used to driving a delightful creampuff like the Odyssey. And because it was big and black I felt like a mafia wife or something--I kept wanting to make excuses to everyone around me every time I got out of it ("no really, this isn't my car"). Of course if I had done that I would have had to admit why I *was* driving this car…because I'd smashed up my lovely new one. So I kept quiet.

But the point is, I'm thrilled to have my van back. I think I love it more than ever now. Mmmmmm minivan…an unlikely love story perhaps, but there you go.

Ta-da! In anticipation of my 2nd (woo!) blogiversary next month, I've finally updated the blog design. Today's look, featuring the Parenthetically traditional, eye-twitch-inducing color combination of purple, orange and gray (now how in the world did that become the Parentheticals trademark combo? I don't know, but it did) was brought to you by the fine folks at the Movable Type Style Generator. Actually although I *am* grateful that they make a tool that allows html feebs such as myself to do something vaguely original looking, I must admit to a fair amount of frustration at the pretty limited choices I had. If I'm going to tinker, I want to be able to tinker with *everything*, dammit! (Oh, if only I had *any* sort of Photoshop skills…ah well. Maybe once the kids are in college…)

Anyway, I'm going to live with this design for a while unless and until I get motivated to change it again. My long term goal is to add a nifty photo banner like Josh but as that requires Josh's help to actually accomplish, I imagine that photo banner will be added right about the time the angels are sounding the trumpets for judgement day.

However, now that I have accomplished this little victory, I'm going to give my poor aching eyes and pre-migraine poundy head a break and stop staring at the screen. How come nearly everything creative and fun I ever want to do involves my eyes? I'm going to be mighty mighty sad if I ever go blind…) G'night!

Agh, it's hard to get back into the habit of blogging regularly again, especially when one has been both a) sick (just a cold, thanks for asking) and b) single-parenting most of the week (Josh was out of town at a conference). And there's so much to talk about!

For example, did I mention that Isaac the Laughing King, my wee tiny baby, the stubborn one who took his own sweet time being born, just turned *one* last week? ONE! YEAR! OLD! Manohman, it's so true what they say that the days crawl by while the weeks-months-years shoot down the runway like rocket-powered turbocars. (Or something like that.)

What a treat he is now, too…hovering on that wavery tightrope between baby and toddler (he's been walking for a couple months now, actually, but I don't think I've mentioned that, given my general lack of blogging). Much as I sometimes grumble that I can't believe I have to go through teaching someone to eat with a spoon or wipe his own butt again, I'm really enjoying watching Isaac achieve each new milestone now. He feeds himself finger foods, he dances, he flips pages in books, he grabs toys and shakes them to hear them jingle, he has a whole repetoire of burbly gurgly unbearably adorable noises. He's such an emerging personality now, so far removed from the little newborn blob he once was. He's getting to that insistent "I've just discovered my own independent existence and therefore my own independent will" stage, where he wants what he wants right now, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! He growls, he shrieks, he bangs things together, he cries when he doesn't get what he wants. But he's so cute and interactive now too. I love making him laugh (which is pretty easy with peekaboo or fake sneezes) or showing him new things to look at/touch/experience. He's certainly another happy Archer baby, just like his brother was--but with his own determined, willful twist. Watch out world, this one is no delicate flower…he is ready for any challenge! God, I love him.

I mean look, can you even *believe* the cuteness??

^ Isaac sitting in his high chair having a snack, all dressed up for his birthday party, and evidently quite amused.

Ok, there is of course way more that's been going on but I'm gonna have to ease back into this blogging thing in little bite sized pieces. This is Gold Medal Mama, signing out and going to bed.

All right, now that I've finally gotten all that overly metaphorical agonizing out of the way and opened up the blogging floodgates again, I have the space for some happier, or at least less weighty topics. So what else has been going on this last month (that I'm willing to share with el Interneto)? Well--thanks for asking--there's been plenty, good as well as bad. I'll fill in some of the previous weeks' events (and pent-up topics that have been building up behind that last whinge) in future entries, but for now I want to just do a quick entry brought on by what we did last night: having friends over for a combined Shabbat and St. Patrick's Day dinner.

Let me back up a second and explain. Ever since we joined the synagogue, we've been trying to find a way to fit in the concept of Shabbat and its "take a break" philosophy that makes sense for us in our busy juggling lives (oh the irony, yes I know--but if there's anyone who needs to learn to periodically slow down and take a break, it's us). So what we seem to have settled on at least for now is Friday night Shabbat dinners at home. We set the table with flowers and fancy tablecloth, placemats and napkins, we buy a challah and usually a pre-made roast chicken, and we say the blessings over the candles, wine and bread. After dinner we have no-TV family time (which for now mainly means we play games or do projects with Eli after the baby goes to bed). Maybe someday we'll work up to actually going to Temple for services, and maybe continuing the spirit (and observance) of Shabbat into Saturday, but for now this is at least a start. We've been doing it for a few months now, and it seems to have "stuck" as a family ritual. We've sometimes had other people over for these Shabbat dinners, and that's been fun too.

But last night's Shabbat dinner also happened to fall on St. Patrick's Day, which is something we've also traditionally celebrated ever since Josh and I have been together, in a mainly food-oriented way. In other words, Josh likes to use St. Patrick's Day as a good excuse to cook corned beef and cabbage. And since it's hard to eat a whole corned beef with just us (especially these days when I'm not eating beef anymore), we usually invite other people over to eat it with us. So we had Dri and Jim and the Coxes over last night, and since it was Shabbat, where we usually set a fancy table, it got to be a somewhat more formal event than the St. Patrick's Day dinner would usually be. It was a great dinner though--plenty of delicious food (including a fabulous home-made roast chicken Josh made just for me, green chocolate-chip cookies that Eli and I made earlier in the day and Marianne's ice cream that Dri and Jim brought).

What was really interesting to me about the whole night though was the way that both traditions combined into one big happy multicultural mashup event. Part of being an interfaith and inter-ethnic family (not to mention just living in the "salad bowl" country and historical era we do, with its proliferate appropriation and regurgitation of other cultures and eras) is this increasing need/ability to figure out how to do and how to be comfortable with mashups like this. (I've said before, if not very well, that I think that the mashup is the defining characteristic of our current historical era.) Gone are the days of "well we're XYZ so we do ABC because that's what we've always done and that's what we're supposed to do". Now we make our own hodgepodge traditions, cobbled together out of bits and pieces we remember from our own childhoods, beliefs (serious or not so serious) we've chosen for ourselves as adults, random whims, or any other things that appeal to us at the emotional/philosophical space we're in at any given moment. It's that globalized buffet/smorgasbord concept of culture--you take and consume what you want from the grand buffet, in whatever combination sounds tasty to you. And most of the time I think this is a great idea--the more, the merrier, the yummier the meal. But sometimes I worry that all this crazy combining serves only to dilute the original traditions, sending us crashing headlong into cultural relativism (if not moral relativism). Or is that just my own inherited Jewish guilt around assimilation showing through? Hard to say. I think I'll go ponder this some more over leftover chicken and cabbage.

Um, hi (she said, sidling shamefacedly back onto the blogging stage). Miss me?

Ok, so somehow a month without blogging just slid on by. (They do that, those pesky slippery months.) In a full-up life, something always has to give and this month it was writing (journaling, blogging, novel, the whole shebang). It's not that it hasn't been an eventful month with much that could (or should) have been recorded for posterity--far from it. In fact, there's almost too much, and I'm still too exhausted from living it to really reflect on it yet (at least in public).

But I have learned something important over the last few weeks, something I didn't really want to learn (but the Universe doesn’t give a crap whether you're "in the mood" for your lessons or not, you just get handed them anyway and you either deal or you don't): I learned I have limits. More specifically, I learned what my particular limits are. Without going into painful detail, I bumped up against something that forced me to acknowledge the actual limits to what I can truly handle and on how much energy I can put out, physically, mentally and emotionally. And that was hard to face. (Now don't laugh, I'm trying to get used to choking down some humble pie here.) I thought I was such a world-class gold medalist in the suck-it-up Olympics (and I am), so much so that I've been taking a perverse sort of pride in my ability to keep on keeping on through storm, hail, snow, overwhelm, crisis, drama, whatever. But guess what? Even highly disciplined and experienced Olympians can only push themselves so far before their performance starts to suffer more than it's worth. And there's a reason why some people consider pride a sin--it can really be damaging to one's self, let alone to others.

So yes, yes, of course this realization of limits has been a good lesson for me to learn--a perfectly reasonable, mature, and ultimately healthy (in an oat-bran-for-the-soul kind of way) one. But god, it smarts. And in its wake I find myself struggling with a general "crisis of confidence" where I start to ooze down the slippery slope of self-doubt and find myself wondering if I can handle *anything* anymore, let alone the usual juggling load. I know that if I just get back in the saddle, so to speak, this feeling will pass and I'll get some of the confidence (not the pride, but the confidence) back, but oof. I feel like the wind's really been knocked out of me for a bit. Or to go back to the Olympic athlete metaphor for a minute, I feel like a downhill skier who has a bad fall and now I'm just that crucial little bit more hesitant to tackle the next run. I guess I'll just have to settle for being somewhat less than gold-medal quality for awhile, and go back into training mode where it's all about the process, not the end result. Right? Right. Now pass me some liquid courage to wash down that humble pie with, will you? <cough>