rabbis may have hickeys

joined a new rabbis' internet forum the other day. it is inter-denominational, as it were. one of the posts opened up a can of worms in my breast ... it presented a number of situations, and asked what one's priorities would be - regarding self/family versus the temple.

a story (of which each rabbi has her/his own version):

the phone goes at 2 am. my mother picks up, and hands it over to my father (pre-cordless era). someone in the hospital is dying, and they need a rabbi - will he come? of course! 'is it a member?' my mother asks. 'no.' says my father. 'you are an idiot.' says my mother and off my father goes. he does not drive, and there is no public transport at that hour, so he takes a taxi. sadly, he is too late, and arrives to find the family in the midst of funeral arrangements. it becomes clear from the discussion that these are orthodox jews, and my father asks if they are members of a synagogue. 'of course!' comes the reply. 'may i ask why you did not call your rabbi?' says my father. 'we wouldn't dream of waking him up in the middle of the night!' he asks how they found his number, and they said it was listed in the yellow pages (there was a time when my father was, indeed, listed in the yellow pages. you could find his name under 'places of worship'. NOT going there ...). he asks if they would be kind enough to call a taxi for him. they tell him to ask the nurse. he arrives home and recounts the tale to my mother, who just looks at him and says, 'you are an idiot'.

and that, in microcosm, is the model so many of us have inherited.

as r. dreyfus always says, we are elected to serve. when, though, did it become servitude? and it is worse when you are single, i think, for you have no children to take to the dentist, or partner's business dinner to attend. since i have little family, and most of them are so far away, the issue has surfaced rarely for me. i still hope to find my own family - i wonder what may happen then?

stormy weather piglet

stormy weather piglet
Originally uploaded by ravaj.

the thing is - battersea power station is not near battersea bridge at all. for some reason battersea power station is closer to chels*** bridge. battersea power station is one of my favourite buildings in london. here, piglet and i are pondering, as we look out from battersea bridge.

the family curse

having posted the pic of magic hat celebrating, not only have qpr lost 4 out of 5 games in november, but kevin did his hamstring on saturday and is out for a couple of weeks. i'm not quite sure, but i think noam sponsored part of his kit (boots?) this season in memory of ahf. previous sponsorees have been injured, dropped, sold or they retired. perish the thought but perhaps we should start following our rivals instead :-)

another great talent we used to have was that of breaking droughts. all we had to do was to put on a new pair of espadrilles and go out for a walk - rain would begin to fall as soon as we were far enough from shelter to ensure the total ruin of said shoes. my mother made it rain in palm springs. my favourite memory, though, is of a sultry summer night in manhattan. we were walking along 5th avenue in our little sundresses and lovely rope-soled shoes when the drops began to fall. mummy grabbed the baby and a cab, and left us with our father to walk back to the hotel. it rained so hard that it blasted the streets clean. we got that kind of soaked that it doesn't matter any more, and we took off our ruined footwear and danced along the pavement. we did the snoopy dance - utter joy. then daddy wanted to go into the doubleday bookstore, but we had to stand on the mat by the door because they said we were too wet to come in. it was a horsehair mat, and prickled my feet. cannot believe that must be over 30 years ago. ouch.

away at home park

gallen has scored
Originally uploaded by ravaj.

after all the world cup qualifying shenanigans it is finally back to league play and qpr go down to plymouth on saturday. hoping to find similarly joyous pix of magic hat online soon after 5 pm uk time.

uuuuu rrrrr's

ps the thing is - a picture like this really makes me feel happy.

magnificent aunts & aunties

in honour of the fact that i have recently discovered i am to become an aunt next spring, i present to you an arbitrary list of noted exemplars:

auntie beeb aka the bbc
auntie em
t.s.eliot's aunt helen
aunt jemima
aunt julia and the scriptwriter
paddington's aunt lucy (did you know that in peru his name, or possibly his uncle's name was pastuso?)
auntie mame
spiderman's aunt may
creating an edible version of a diabetic banana chocolate parfait - aunt runner

and last but not least my darling auntie dorrit!

yippee - phase two!

14 days gone by and today i am allowed to eat fruit again plus terribly healthy grainy breads and rice and pasta and cereal. the plumbers were here so i never made it to the supermarket to find the banana of my dreams. however, we did have a fascinating conversation about my boxing gloves:

'you box?'
'i have a friend who's going to teach me a bit.'
'know anything about boxing?'
'maybe a bit.'
'my grandfather was a famous boxer.'
'yeah? whatsis name?'
'rocky graziano. on my mother's side'
'yeah. i heard of him.'

like i said - fascinating. but i did have cereal for brunch, and was amazed how clearly i could taste the dried fruit in it.

nu - phase two is to be maintained until target weight is reached. my definition of phase two? learning to be on the diet without talking about it all the time to everyone:

'cannot eat that sorry i am on the south beach diet fish or insulin y'know said my doctor i mean i've been a vegetarian almost all my life but apparently the choice between my health or the health of a fish should be an easy one although i am still working on that issue with my therapist o no of course i don't mind if you eat a cookie right in front of me i am a mature adult i could eat one if i wanted it is just that i choose not to because that is the healthy thing to do no i am not crying at the sight of that cheesecake piece i am on the south beach diet you see so i am not allowed to look at that piece of pie because i am going to be healthy and pick up some celery instead did you know that you lose weight when you eat celery because it takes more calories to digest than are in it to start with so all you have to do is eat only celery of course the problem with that is that it is celery that you have to eat perhaps i could have a sip of that margerita no no i am strong and healthy and diabetic and on the south beach diet' etc ad nauseam

thank goodness qpr are playing again soon ... uuuuu rrrrr's

south beach diet day whatever

did i mention that when i cooked my first fishy food all the smoke alarms in my flat kept going off? a tribute to the miracle perhaps?

i have now lost all desire to eat anything really. however, having paid for a new glucometer and test strips, and having found out that my insurance does not cover them, i am making bloody good use of said instruments. have to keep an eye out for low blood sugar levels, and then not buy peppermint patties for recovery purposes only :-)

not to mention that i forgot to weigh myself at the beginning, mainly because i do not possess a set of scales :-)

meanwhile, all anyone can talk to me about is food. how is the diet going? i have a great recipe for fake mashed potatoes/everything soup/lobster in only 20 minutes! when my friend/cousin/babysitter/ex/fencing team-mate tried the diet s/he lost loads of weight/hated it/grew a second head. have you tried liberian goat beans - i hear they make you less gassy than cauliflower and are much prized by menopausal korean women!

*sigh* and d. wonders why i seem to be watching so many comedy dvds at the moment (little britain 2nd series, not the nine o'clock news & catherine tate) ...

piglet at old faithful

piglet at old faithful
Originally uploaded by ravaj.

piglet and i were seated on the front bench waiting for old faithful to blow. i started talking with the little girl next to me, who was from some far-flung american state. "you have an accent!" she said to me. "no i don't," i replied, "you do!" "i do?" she said, and, with great joy, she ran over to her daddy calling out, "i have an accent! i have an accent!"

south beach diet day 3

so here's the deal: after 30 odd years of being a vegetarian, although i only gave up fish about 12 years ago, my doctor says to me that my diabetes meds are maxed out and i should try the south beach diet since many of her diabetic patients have reduced their meds through doing it. but one cannot do it as a vegetarian. i just won't eat meat, but wavered a little about fish. then she gives me the choice: fish, or insulin. you'd think that this would be an easy choice. it is not an easy choice. apart from the fact that after passing for all these years, i might actually have to decide whether or not to be kosher (yes for now); there is also the guilt, the taboo, the principle, the loss of integrity. on the other hand, as my mother said - quatsch! (german for 'bollox!') fish aren't cuddly! in september, when i went home for the stone-setting, she made plaice for me my first night there, and insisted i try it. it tasted very fishy, and full of guilt & taboo. last month, when she came to visit me, i ordered salmon at every restaurant in which we ate, and a tuna melt at the diner. less guilt, but still some indigestion. gosh i do like salmon. i always have. it was one of the major reasons i decided i could be a rabbi, since in those days it was served in one form or another at every lifecycle occasion. meanwhile, i had not yet begun the diet.

this week i ran out of excuses. the fact that every single thing i love most to eat is now totally banned for 2 weeks - not naughty things, but all fruit, even healthy bread, and potatoes :-( - is utterly depressing. nevertheless, i had told so many people i was going to do it that i really had to have a go. so tuesday evening found me trolling through the supermarket, and filling my trolley with new and different things. an awful lot of green stuff, the kind i often buy a small amount of with the best intentions and then have to throw away when it goes brown and starts to become liquid. an awful lot of stuff that has to have something done to it - slicing, peeling, cooking - before it is palatable. an awful lot of ersatz stuff - i can't believe that i had to buy i can't believe it's not butter spray. i could not bear the sight of cottage cheese, but did buy my first pot of skim milk ricotta cheese. and, possibly for the first time in my life, i bought a fillet of salmon.

the next day was wednesday, and my first big test. in the afternoon, there are always piles of fresh, delicious bagels awaiting the students for snack before classes begin. i decided not to arrive until after the bagels were put away. nevertheless, it appeared that each child walking past me had hands filled with leftover halloween candy and a lollipop in each corner of its mouth. i began to practice with a batmitzvah student, and became convinced that someone was frying latkes in the synagogue kitchen. o dear - an olfactory hallucination. after class i ran home and inhaled the latest of several giant bowls of salad liberally drizzled with carb solutions dressing. i then returned for a committee meeting, and someone brought snacks: leftover halloween candy and cheese puffs and a bottle of wine. i am very grumpy.

today, it just seemed easier not to eat at all (except for a glass of skimmed milk in the morning to persuade my body it was being fed so it didn't lock down into starvation mode). and then ... all ye who know and love me please sit down and do not faint ... for dinner tonight i made myself broiled salmon with sauteed spinach and garlic. and there is salmon left for shabbat dinner tomorrow!

the only problem is the amount of washing-up i have to do. later ...

wish i'd said that!

talking to d on the phone she said for her being late was a chronic malady. i pretended to mishear and said, "melody?" she said, "no, that would be a late-motif!" bloody brilliant.

da vinci code piglet

da vinci code piglet
Originally uploaded by ravaj.

in honour of noam's book on opus dei, piglet cuts the louvre pyramid down to size :-)

happy birthday noam!

for the best gift that she received, look here. v. proud.

happy new year

a pulpit's eye view:

although we rarely have more than a minyan on a shabbat evening, the new year brings out the best in people and our sanctuary cannot contain the masses so we move to the methodist sanctuary instead. it is an extremely plain room, decorated only by a giant wooden cross hanging from the ceiling with spotlights on it so the two shadows create a trinity of crosses. luckily for me this is behind my pulpit so i do not have to look at it. the pjc-niks tell me it is 't' for torah.

there is no a/c in the church, and there is another spotlight on the pulpit. it is early october but the temperature is in the seventies and the humidity is high. i am wearing a robe, because i would rather sweat all over my simpsons in jerusalem t-shirt underneath it than ruin a fancy shirt. before we start i am meeting and greeting and young maddy says 'rabbi you are all sweaty'. during the service i do a pretty darn good impersonation of the wicked witch of the west. my new g/f is in the pews. she is a nephrologist. in the morning she brings me water. i think that saved me from fainting! upon request, a sort of fan was rigged up behind me (presumably to blow cool draughts of air up the stairs and under the hem of my robe?), but each reader that came up managed to kick the plug out of the whatchamacallit thingy that you stick it in. for those who wondered why i kept disappearing from the pulpit, i was bending down trying to plug the fan back in and then going down the stairs to turn the switch.

one of the tricks i have found useful is to take a large handkerchief (or in my case, a well-loved purple bandana), and spray it lightly with a lavender-scented cologne. it is very refreshing, and at the end of the service you may be a bit soggy, but you won't smell bad when you shake hands. that reminds me: one of the tricks they never taught us at rabbi school - take off your rings during the final hymn. my first rosh hashana i did not do that and had to shake a thousand hands and my fingers swelled up a lot. ow.

enough already with the whinging. a happy and healthy new year to you all!

red square piglet

red square piglet
Originally uploaded by ravaj.

GUM is to the left, and waxy yellow lenin (before they cleaned him up) is to the right. piglet is front and centre.

i don't know ... it doesn't seem right to say anything at the moment when the horrors that so many far away face regularly are now snarling at us where we live.


or, to be more accurate, i haven't a clue what to say.

katrina

extensive list of web sites to follow the news and support relief efforts here.

i do not have television access and thus, perhaps, have missed the full impact of the pictures that have been shown. nevertheless, i am lost for words ... except for saying the misheberach for healing for all the victims and those who are working to save and help them. from our mouths to god's ears.

unlucky in love

rather than wallow (any more) in an acute state of singledom, here is an account of the number one most humiliating moment in my sort-of-dating life so far:

when i was small, my mother told us that if we missed her when she went out to dinner, we should go to the coat cupboard, and sniff her perfume on the clothes in there, and then she wouldn't seem so far away.

when i was not small at all, yet blithely unaware of, well, anything much really, i was in tel aviv airport waiting on standby to get a flight home for rosh hashanah. although i'd only said goodbye to dbl a couple of hours ago, i was feeling an intense sense of loss rather beyond what was appropriate for a new best friend. anyway, i had an idea! dbl had a thing about drakkar noir aftershave. i would go into the duty-free shop, and squirt myself with a bit of drakkar noir from a tester, and then she wouldn't seem so far away.

when i entered the duty-free shop, a snooty woman looked down on me from behind the counter. 'may i help you?' she said snootily. ok i didn't look my best - 6 months without a haircut, black denim shorts, black basketball shirt, sneakers and baseball cap - but still i was a customer. once in the hilton hotel in manhattan, dressed much the same but with dark glasses on as well, i was sitting on a lovely sofa waiting to collect a plane ticket from the continental desk when an officious hotel security man said 'hey, ya bum, get offa that couch!'. i looked over the top of my shades and said in my best english accent, 'i beg your pardon?' 'gee, lady, i'm sorry!' he said, and left me alone, no longer a bum but now an eccentric englishwoman. israelis do not, of course, have the same reverence for an english accent. but i digress ...

'may i help you?' she said. 'no, thank you,' i replied, 'i'm just looking.' so i looked around, keeping an eye for the moment when she turned around so i could grab the tester and squirt myself. she, of course, was keeping an eye on me because i was a bum. we danced this dance for a while, and then my moment suddenly appeared: she turned away! quickly i grabbed the drakkar noir bottle, and squirted it on my face and neck. the trouble was - i got the shaving cream by mistake. the kind that expanded. and then, the saleslady turned back.

what did i do? what could i do? i wiped my face off with my hand, and walked out of the shop. *sigh*

coming home

can it be? the football season has begun again. qpr did not lose, although the scum did win the charity shield, sorry the community shield as it is now called. the hull "fans" are lucky qpr are not millwall, for their chants of "town full of bombers, you're just a town full of bombers" were horrific.

good morrow mistress ravaj

was somewhat disconcerted today after torah study. came out of the building and walked over to my car. there was a native american woman sitting on the kerb next to it. when she saw me she jumped up with the face of a kid caught out of bounds. i smiled at her and said something like "no no, sit down". she said, "no, i have to go to work," and trudged off in her flip-flops towards the garbage truck that had just pulled in behind me. as she passed me she said, "thank you, miss."

was i really that patronising? utterly not my intention. utterly the opposite intention. maybe that was what was so patronising?

piglet pays homage

piglet pays homage
Originally uploaded by ravaj.

ferncliff cemetery in white plains, n.y., has a lot of famous people buried in it. from aaliyah to judy garland, thelonious monk to malcolm x (although his plaque is not where they say it is). piglet and i went for a walk there one sunny day before i left westchester county.

the lemoncake lady

last week was the first yahrzeit for my darling father. it is strange, because that is the marker in jewish tradition of the end of the mourning period, and the full return to life. in contrast to that, i feel like perhaps soon my mourning may really begin. the actual day was friday, and i took advantage of my position at the synagogue by using the drash time to acknowledge daddy. i told them i wanted to tell a story about my father, but that most were not suitable for this particular moment. i decided on the story about the lemoncake lady, which might appear to be about me, or about her; but was really about albert, or perhaps themselves.

i was standing in line outside the chapel after the funeral service. it was a bit like a large party, where all the people i'd known since i was a child were passing before me, and once i'd adjusted my vision for their being taller or shorter, thinner or fatter ... and darkened their hair, i recognised them all. a strange woman stood before me. "it's such a pity your father died," she said, " we were due to study together. never mind," she continued, "i'll have a word with him next week and we'll figure something out." a bit woo-woo, i thought to myself, smiled bravely and on she moved.

in the week that followed, my main memory is just of people all the time. e-mails and letters and flowers arriving constantly, and people everywhere. i drifted in and out, wearing jeans and my a-rod yankees t-shirt. i would go into the front room, talk a little, then return to the couch in daddy's study and go back to sleep. meanwhile, noam was running interference for mummy. so many wanted to visit, it ended up that they had to make appointments, so mummy could have some time to rest.

i am called from my repose. the crazy lady is here - you have to keep her away from mummy. she is in the hall, and has a long, narrow cake tin with her. we take it to the kitchen, and i taste what is in the tin. it will never make it into the public domain. for the next hour we all stop by the kitchen and take just another tiny slice. it doesn't last long. it is the most delicious lemon cake we have ever tasted. later, i decide to call her the lemoncake lady because i don't want to remember her as one of the crazies.

we go into the dining room, and sit away from the others, and she begins to tell me her story. she is very jumpy, and ready to flee at any hint. she is well-groomed, well-spoken, clearly intelligent. she also speaks in a way that one would usually say this person is utterly bonkers. i listen to her story. a lot of it makes sense to me. i begin to think to myself that if i change the literal way she speaks into metaphor, she doesn't sound so mad. i read a book written by the rambam - she sits at a table with him and he talks to her and teaches her. different descriptions of a similar process, perhaps. my family keeps trying to rescue me, and the lemoncake lady twitches in her chair. i tell them i'll be back in a minute, and ask her to continue. it occurs to me that the reason she is here is because daddy listened to her. he took her seriously. it occurs to me that i should do the same. i do.

eventually she does leave. and i want to remember the lemoncake lady, because i want a way to remember how to be with someone where they are, and not always make them have to be where i am.

this is not, of course, exactly how i spoke on shabbat. i did note that this was a way my father continues to be with me and to teach me after his physical death. i did suggest that each of us has stories and people that may do the same for us. nice and rabbinical. and of course, after services, several people asked for the recipe.