5779: On the seventh night of Chanukah, I did not buy for you...

I was SO CLOSE to actually posting each day of Chanukah on the actual DAY.

The seventh day was my downfall.

Here is what I fully intended not-giving you on day seven of Chanukah:

Snacks.

The festival of lights is the FEASTival of fried! We celebrate oil! We make lotsa-latkes! We fry up some sufganiyot (that's hot jelly donuts, my friend!). We eat chocolate gelt (gold foil wrapped around chocolate so it looks like MONEY!-- I have no idea why this is a thing, somebody help me out here, but it is definitely a thing!).

So we eat. But not these things:

I found assorted gums with clever titles: I hope eye rolling counts as cardio gum, I’m sorry I called you an asshole—I thought you knew gum, I have PMS & GPS: I’m a bitch and I WILL find you gum, I’m not sarcastic I’m just mean gum, cat butt gum—

Okay, that last one wasn’t especially clever, but you get the idea. These are just GUM with labels*.

You are a creative guy. You can label your own gum. 

Also not buying you these:

 

Or these:

Snacks, yes. But do these say Chanukah to you? Chanukah is fats (all that oil!) and carbs (all those potatoes!). Don't let the cheddar cheese or the sour cream & onion fool you-- these are protein snacks**!  

Besides, how would you know if you were crunching an ordinary cricket, or your conscience, by Jiminy?!?

Nope. 

I did consider these mints, though.

However, the timing is all wrong. You are far too young for Retiremints; and let's face it, Atonemints are more properly offered at Yom Kippur.

I hope you had a happy seventh day of Chanukah!

 ______________

*At least, I HOPE cat butt gum is just regular gum with a label saying cat butt!

**I know this because when I was substitute teaching, I taught a science class to fourth graders about eating bugs. "BUG BITES. Earth Science News for kids in Scholastic News."

5779: On the second night of Chanukah, I did not buy for you:

The sun has set, and so we light the candles for the second night of Chanukah.

There is something of a tradition for night number two.

For instance, last year 5778, there was this festive fecal reindeer.

In 5775*, we considered shittens and subtle butt gifts.

In 5774, even though the post was for nights one through four, it was really all number two.

In 5773, back when it all began, night number two (heh - heh) started this tradition.

You can guess where I'm going** with this, right?

So this year, I am not giving you this:

 "One of the amazing things poop can do is create beautiful white sandy beaches."  Did you know that? I did not know that. Apparently, it's true. Because SCIENCE***.

This book is one in a series of the POWER of POOP. Other books in the series include:

And more:

Also: 

(This is actually a thing: Check out the power of poop here. However, this site, even though it is SCIENCE, makes me nervous, because it has a Do It Yourself instructions link, right under "Is Fecal Transplant for You?" DO IT YOURSELF???)

Then there is this:

 


This is actually something I could get BEHIND****. 

POOP CAN SAVE THE WORLD! Check out the VIDEO 

Finally, the book series (and perhaps the world) ends with this:

I'm not sure I want to know.

Anyway, as useful, educational, and world-saving as this is, I did not get you the Sand-Beaches-with-Poop book.

WHY, you may ask.

Is it because you don't have lake front property? No, that's not it-- you are close to Lake Michigan, AND a splash pool park, so where there's water, there can be beaches, yes?

Is it because I fear fecal fish? No, 'fraid not.

Is it because I don't believe in the power of poop? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? In this season of miracles, I BELIEVE!

No, it's just that-- this book is available at your local library -- YOUR library, DSIL :-) 

That's where I took the picture. 

SO, check it out!

 
Now I'm going to go light the candles.
If it's safe to light a match.



* I don't know why we missed the tradition in 5776 and 5777 -- but if you noticed, what is the number of years we missed? That's right, number TWO!

** GOING, get it?

*** No, really, SCIENCE. Nova even has a website on GROSS SCIENCE about the power of poop.  And also on how pee can change the world.

**** BEHIND, get it??

5779: On the first night of Chanukah, I did not buy for you...

Hi, friends. I bet you are wondering what I did NOT buy for my DSIL* this season.

I give you (actually, I do NOT give you) the light up holiday 3 piece suit:

It comes in a variety of colors:

 

Oh, yes it does!

Pretty snazzy, right? Here is the manufacturer's description:


"Each suit is made with durable, comfortable polyester fabric that includes a flexible waistband for added comfort. It comes with 20 LED lights that you can turn off/on."

How about that! It's durable! It's comfortable! It has a flexible waistband (a nice option for these feastivals, I can tell you)! Wearing this, you can GET LIT!

So WHY, you may ask, did I NOT buy this for you.

1. Cultural reasons. Tonight is the first night of Chanukah. It's Chanukah not-giving. You can say "Holiday Suit" until you are red (and green) in the face, but this is clearly a Christmas Holiday suit.

2.  Ecological reasons. BATTERIES IN YOUR CLOTHES??

3. Kindness to your other clothes reasons: I wouldn't want this to overshadow my DSIL's pineapple suit, which he does own and does wear:

4. Redundancy issues: I am not 100% certain my DSIL doesn't already own, or hasn't at least WORN, one of these suits. The half-face on this model looks suspiciously familiar, especially as posing in suit #3 of 4!


Enjoy the holiday! May you be among those who bring light in the darkness!


*DSIL = Dear Son-In-Law, for whom I have started and continued this tradition.

The N word

I can't say it. I'm a white woman of a certain age, raised in a certain place, in a certain era, and I can't say that word.

The following incident happened with a group of teens that I'd been working with a few summers ago. In the teen theater troupe I was directing, we have occasionally had Hispanic or Black youth as participants, but only occasionally. There were no youth of color in our troupe at the time of this incident.

During this particular summer, an incident occurred. Not during rehearsal, thank goodness, but after, when some of the teen boys were hanging out being cool together.

So, imagine three guys, 14 or 15 years old, hanging out.

Chillin'.

Three white, suburban boys, who think they are gangsta.

So, they are hanging out, goofing around, yelling back and forth to each other outdoors in this public park.

Calling one another the N word.

I wasn't there (rehearsal was over, and I had headed home). The boys' moms were around, but not right near them ('cause that wouldn't have been cool).

And I might never have heard about the incident at all, except that-

As it happened, in this public park, there was a Black man and his child.

Who heard the boys- gave them a look- and took his child and got in his car and left.

Enough was observed by one of the moms so that she talked to her son and to the other moms who talked to their sons and then I heard about it. The moms told me about the incident, and asked me to talk to the boys, because I wasn't their mom, maybe they would hear me.
 
  I tried to talk to the boys.

JE, I said, you aren't Black.

Yeah I am he said.

NO, I said, you're NOT, and that is not your word.

I don't think the boys ever "got" it.

I felt terribly disturbed, though. It still bothers me.

It makes me cringe and it makes me want to slap those privileged white boys upside the head.

Even being 15 doesn't excuse being ignorant, when people have first gently then firmly tried to point out the error of your ways.

Part of what disturbs me about this is the lack of understanding/appreciation of history.

torture movie

I had a terrible, terrible dream last night. And I think it was inspired at least in part by the movie Funny Games, which I have not seen, and do not intend to see.


Funny Games is a movie that is about torture and that purports to torture the audience with "the fear and violence that, according to [director Michael Haneke], flow like poison behind the fake facades of bourgeois life."

I saw Naomi Watts interviewed on Jay Leno's Tonight Show about this movie and her role in it. Just the description and the brief clip shown on the show was enough to set my stomach churning and give me nightmares.

A whole stable of them.

Why are there such violent, sadistic movies made? Naomi Watts suggested that it was the director's intent to torture the audience for being an audience of such violence, for having a taste, creating a market for violent, horrific movies.

Really.

It seems like this movie is just more pornography of violence. Perhaps artistic, perhaps well constructed.

But the worst kind of pornography, in my book: that of violence.

I don't go to any of the movies which have violence as their raison d'etre.

And I won't see this one.

Yuck.

But I hope I sleep better tonight.

reply

One of the features of the digital info age is that near instantaneous replies are possible. Literally around the world, someone can ask and be answered almost at once.

Live chat sessions to repair your computer. INSTANT messaging.

One of the drawbacks of this feature, it seems to me, is the change in expectations resulting in less patience.

In a bygone era, if you wrote a letter, a speedy response would be in a week to ten days.

Now, if I post a question or a comment, if I don't hear a response before days end, or AT LEAST within 24 hours, I am puzzled, frustrated, nearly offended.

Was my message not received? Is the receiver ignoring me? WHY haven't I heard back?

What do you think?


HEY! Why haven't you answered??? It's been TWO MINUTES!

drugs

I have a friend who has recently had major surgery. He is slowly recovering, and he is on morphine.

I remember morphine.

When I went in for an appendectomy, I was put on morphine post-surgery. This is a lovely drug. Seriously. I knew there was pain, but I truly didn't care.

Even emotional pain: my parents were newly divorced and each had a significant other with them when they came to visit me at the same time in my hospital room.

I knew I should care, but I didn't.

It is a testament to my dedication to being a nursing (that is to say, breastfeeding) mom at the time, that I got myself off of morphine in just a bit over 24 hours.

My friend has the new pusher device so that he can self-medicate. This is new: not something they trusted me with-- probably a good idea.

It's not perfect, but when you are in a lot of pain, morphine certainly helps. In my opinion, it's a good drug.

I am, myself, the child of the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll era. Even so, I am anti-drug. I don't really want pharmeceuticals in my food. Definitely anti-recreational/illegal drugs. And I have longed, how I have longed, to avoid drugs in my own life.

Even antibiotics.

I think we are all over drugged. I think that's why there are drug-resistant super-germs. I am one of those who believes that we should let our immune system do its thing, that our immune system gets stronger by doing its job.

And yet...

Morphine is a lovely drug. It's no wonder it's controlled.

And I cheerfully use my favorite and most frequent drug, caffeine. (In fact, I am not at all cheeful when I am caffeine free.) I am well aware that alcohol is a legal drug with many dangers, to be used carefully-- and I use alcohol. Often I use them both in the same day. Not too long ago, after a night in which I'd had a couple of great cups of coffee-- at midnight-- and then 2 or 3 glasses of wine, I had a sleepless night. I remarked to my friends:

You know how if someone is drunk, and drinks a bunch of coffee to try to sober up, all you get is a wide-awake drunk?

--my friends conceded they were well aware.

Well, I continued, I've discovered that if you have too much coffee late at night, and try to drink some wine so you can sleep, all you get is a really mellow insomniac.

It's not just my drugs-of-choice caffeine and alcohol. My physician has me on two drugs by prescription. One is for my depression, and I hope to wean myself off of this one in the not too distant future. The other is for my cholesterol. According to my latest bloodwork, this one is working. I may be on it for the rest of my life.

Drugs. Maybe the symbol shouldn't be :

But instead, the symbol should be: