So, in today's primaries, if Howard Dean sees his shadow, we have 6 more weeks of his campaign, right?
I know that Groundhog Day was February 2nd. But let's pretend it's today also. After all, one of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day. I could watch it over and over and over and.......
Apparantly this movie has deep significance and symbolism. And I just thought it was funny and heartwarming. (Plus it has Andie McDowell).
Today on the radio, a reporter was talking about Groundhog Day and kept calling it "Groundhogs Day". She called it Groundhogs Day over and over and...
I was wishing she could have gone back and started her day again and said it correctly.
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Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
What Chinese New Year Means To Me
My college roommate was from China. His family escaped from there when he was a teenager. A group of us would often go to Chinatown in LA for dinner and we always had a party for Chinese New Year.
But I had a connection to China way before that:
When I was young, my mother always told me, “Eat your vegetables. There are starving children in China who would love to have that food.” To which I would respond, “Then send this crap to China.” Mom would get really mad and say, "Ooooh, just wait 'til your father gets home!" Since they were divorced, he lived elsewhere and she actually had no idea when he got home; so not much ever came of those threats.
Some of you may have heard the same “eat your vegetables” mantra from your mothers in the late 1950’s, except that they specified starving kids in Africa or Europe or India.
During the Eisenhower administration, mothers across the country received notices assigning them to be responsible for raising awareness of hunger in other, less fortunate countries. (No one was assigned to look out for hungry kids in the US).
My mother was assigned as the Los Angeles Liaison for Starving Chinese Juveniles.
This was not her only government task; she was also Regional Director in Charge of Keeping Your Hair Out of Your Face. She would always tell my sister, “You could be so pretty if you would only brush that hair back."
Mom had a few other odd guidelines for life. Besides warning me of the various ways I might put my eye out, she would tell me things like, “If you fall out of that tree and break both your legs, don’t come running to me.” She also warned me against going out of the house with dirty underwear, “in case you have an accident.” It always seemed to me that if I was riding my bike and got hit by a car, no matter how clean my underwear was just prior to that, it would not be so much right after.
And holey underwear was taboo as well. When the paramedics come to a multi-car pileup, they always say, “check everyone’s underwear. Anyone with holes in their underpants, pile them on the side of the road and call their mothers.”
But the weirdest things Mom said were “Why don’t you put on a sweater? I’m cold” and the deal about eating my vegetables for the Chinese kids. But my mom’s words took hold in me because, on a small scale I had the power comfort my mother by putting on my sweater, and, on the larger scale, I had the power to end hunger in China by eating my vegetables in Los Angeles.
And I knew my powers worked because I would put on the sweater my mom made me and she would smile warmly. So I went on wearing clean underwear to avoid accidents so that I could continue eating my vegetables in order to relieve the world’s largest continent of famine.
When I went to college and met my Chinese roommate, the first thing I said to him was, “Hey, do you recognize me.” See, I figured it must have been in all the newspapers over there. “I’m the guy that saved you from starving by eating my vegetables.”
He replied, “We were never starving.”
I immediately exclaimed, “Oh my God! It worked!”
I’ve never forgotten that humbling experience and how my mom helped me make the world a better place. What's more, all those other Chinese children I saved grew up and have created a strong economic power in the world. Yet none of them have contacted me to thank me for my contribution to their success.
In fact, The Chinese economy has grown too strong and they are taking jobs from Americans and I am now ashamed of the part I played in it. My daughter recently said she wants to be a vegetarian and I said, “Uh,uh! I’m through helping those people. Let em eat their own vegetables. We’re eating American: burgers tacos, pizza and spaghetti."
And that’s what Chinese New Year means to me.
But I had a connection to China way before that:
When I was young, my mother always told me, “Eat your vegetables. There are starving children in China who would love to have that food.” To which I would respond, “Then send this crap to China.” Mom would get really mad and say, "Ooooh, just wait 'til your father gets home!" Since they were divorced, he lived elsewhere and she actually had no idea when he got home; so not much ever came of those threats.
Some of you may have heard the same “eat your vegetables” mantra from your mothers in the late 1950’s, except that they specified starving kids in Africa or Europe or India.
During the Eisenhower administration, mothers across the country received notices assigning them to be responsible for raising awareness of hunger in other, less fortunate countries. (No one was assigned to look out for hungry kids in the US).
My mother was assigned as the Los Angeles Liaison for Starving Chinese Juveniles.
This was not her only government task; she was also Regional Director in Charge of Keeping Your Hair Out of Your Face. She would always tell my sister, “You could be so pretty if you would only brush that hair back."
Mom had a few other odd guidelines for life. Besides warning me of the various ways I might put my eye out, she would tell me things like, “If you fall out of that tree and break both your legs, don’t come running to me.” She also warned me against going out of the house with dirty underwear, “in case you have an accident.” It always seemed to me that if I was riding my bike and got hit by a car, no matter how clean my underwear was just prior to that, it would not be so much right after.
And holey underwear was taboo as well. When the paramedics come to a multi-car pileup, they always say, “check everyone’s underwear. Anyone with holes in their underpants, pile them on the side of the road and call their mothers.”
But the weirdest things Mom said were “Why don’t you put on a sweater? I’m cold” and the deal about eating my vegetables for the Chinese kids. But my mom’s words took hold in me because, on a small scale I had the power comfort my mother by putting on my sweater, and, on the larger scale, I had the power to end hunger in China by eating my vegetables in Los Angeles.
And I knew my powers worked because I would put on the sweater my mom made me and she would smile warmly. So I went on wearing clean underwear to avoid accidents so that I could continue eating my vegetables in order to relieve the world’s largest continent of famine.
When I went to college and met my Chinese roommate, the first thing I said to him was, “Hey, do you recognize me.” See, I figured it must have been in all the newspapers over there. “I’m the guy that saved you from starving by eating my vegetables.”
He replied, “We were never starving.”
I immediately exclaimed, “Oh my God! It worked!”
I’ve never forgotten that humbling experience and how my mom helped me make the world a better place. What's more, all those other Chinese children I saved grew up and have created a strong economic power in the world. Yet none of them have contacted me to thank me for my contribution to their success.
In fact, The Chinese economy has grown too strong and they are taking jobs from Americans and I am now ashamed of the part I played in it. My daughter recently said she wants to be a vegetarian and I said, “Uh,uh! I’m through helping those people. Let em eat their own vegetables. We’re eating American: burgers tacos, pizza and spaghetti."
And that’s what Chinese New Year means to me.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Davening for Applesauce
Hanukkah started Friday night. As is our family tradition, Karen's parents came over and we had pot roast and latkes. As is also traditional, my in-laws asked, "so, when did you start eating sour cream on your latkes", unable to hide the faint note of disdain when mentioning the "s-c word". See, in Judaism, just as there are divisions among Reform, Conservative and Orthodox lines, there are divisions between the "Chanukah" and "Hanukkah" spellers and between applesauce and sour cream consumers when it comes to latkes. Karen grew up in an applesauce family, but we have come to embrace both traditions in an effort to unify the two movements.
Between the strict Applesauce In-laws and the Sour Cream/Applesauce Revisionists, we ate all our applesauce. Saturday morning I went to Kroger to get some more. As I entered the Canned Fruits aisle, I noticed two men who were apparantly friends who happened to meet there and had just finished a brief chat. One man said, "Merry Christmas" and the other said (with some hesitancy) "Happy Ha-holidays."
The man who received this uncertain wish then joined me in a search for applesauce. The shelves had clearly not been restocked after the pre-Ha-holiday rush on Friday. We had to get down on our knees and reach to the back of the bottom shelf to find the last few jars of the stuff. We exchanged some innocuous comments about the experience. It seemed obvious to me that, based on his friend's uncertain Ha-holiday wishes and our shared quest for latke toppings, that the man was Jewish. I thought that and yet failed to wish him a Happy Hanukkah, uncertain myself and afraid I'd be embarrassed if I was wrong.
So let me extend to all of you (whoever is still reading this far) a Merry Christmas and a Happy Ha-holidays.
Happy Hanukkah too.
PS: Our sour cream useage dates back to when Karen got our recipe for latkes from our friend Debbie Greenwood (who is also Susan's long-time best friend and a Nutrition Sciences educator and a caterer to the stars.)
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