Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Our cat Janet, as I blogged about here , really loves bags. My husband Dan, or as I sometimes call him, Captain Environ-Mental, uses bags that are thermulated, recycled, recylable, organic, paba and gluten-free…you name it; and Janet loves them all. So when Dan got home yesterday afternoon after his 6 hour marathon grocery shopping trip; first, we still didn’t have any food in the house, and second, Janet immediately jumped into each bag as it was emptied.

She jumps into the bags while they’re still on the counter, and being a not particularly bright critter, inches herself off the counter into a brief free fall before she lands (of course) on her feet, still inside the bag, nonplussed. It cracks us up, but we have to pretend we’re laughing at some witticism, not at her, because she’s sort of sensitive.

But forget Janet. It was Dan who was in rare form yesterday afternoon, because with a totally straight face he tells me “You know the Romans used bags to catch lions.” And I roll my eyes to the high heavens. “No really, I read about it, uh, somewhere.” Now typically this means he read about it on the internet, the world’s most reliable source of news and information. But just for fun I played along and asked “So, paper or plastic?” and without skipping a beat Dan said “Well, I think they used some kind of canvas or cloth.” I asked if they caught a lot of lions like that and he said they did because they needed them to eat Christians, but some weren’t hungry and curious enough to go into a bag so they just wandered around eating Christians, freestyle. No, I didn’t ask how the lions knew who was a Christian because that’s the set-up of all time and it would have just been too easy.

I was still dubious. It occurred to me that lions are not native to Europe. Wouldn’t traders have captured them in Africa and brought them already in captivity? When I question Dan he says with authority, “Well, some, sure, but back then there were still some lions in Europe. Like in the Black Forest.” He can make up this BS as fast as I can ask about it.

So just for the hell of it, and of course in the interest of bringing you quality comedy, I searched the internet for “How Romans caught lions.” Oddly, the first site to come up was bodybuilding.com, where the elite internet intellegentsia congregate. Here are some of my personal favorite answers:

“Cheese on a ferry”

“Snakes on a plane”

“You catch the young ones and raise them, it’s easier”

“They went up to the lions and put their ass in a choke hold, alpha status”

“Are you ****ing serious?”

OK, I’ve laid down the gauntlet. Anyone else have any bright ideas? I hate to encourage Dan…but this is fun.

roman-lion-ns-742127

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I Accidentally Fell In Love With An Insect

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Here’s information that will shock absolutely no one: I’m not one for the wonders of nature and all that other crap. I say what’s outside should stay outside and what’s inside should be temperature controlled and free of insects. I can assure you I keep up my end of the bargain and stay indoors as much as is humanly possible. Yes, I love animals and Dan is more likely to relocate an insect to the front porch than to kill it, but sometimes enough is enough. With flies for example, as we recently discussed in depth.

But sometimes, something comes along that is so amazing even I have to admit it; and that something is the Monarch Butterfly. When the kids were younger Lisa used to foster them from egg to full grown butterflies; her sister Jill has not only taken over but also written a book* about it and posted some admittedly wondrous and beautiful photos on Facebook. There, I said it. Wondrous. Bah humbug.

The thing is, it is hard to believe that a caterpillar wraps itself up for a while and comes out a butterfly, or even a moth for that matter. It goes from crawling along the ground to flying high. And in the case of the Monarch, it is so, well, beautiful. I’m not going to say it’s spiritual or anything crazy like that, but…it’s certainly something. And as usual, Lisa and her smarty pants family are all interesting and have hobbies and talents and things. Our side of the family might be interesting too, OK? We’re working our way up to it.

Maybe I’ll learn how to play the banjo or something. And it wouldn’t kill my brothers to try to do something either…just sayin’, we look really bad compared to Lisa’s family.

*Available late September; I will pass along details

Amazing photos courtesy of Jill Hampton:

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Have Waffle Iron, Will Eat

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I know how fortunate I am to have a husband who does all the grocery shopping. Dan actually likes going to the supermarket, whereas I hate it. We would probably spend twice as much on food if I were the one to do the shopping, because I have no patience for coupons, sales, specials, etc. I see it, it looks tasty, it goes in my cart. On top of that I engage in some “aspirational” shopping, meaning I aspire to cook a gourmet meal, and will buy all the (expensive) components, but my ambition fades even as I unpack the groceries. We end up having Cheerios for dinner while the artichokes wither.

artichoke

This is a lot like when I was convinced I could not live another day without a stand mixer. I’ve used it at least twice in 5 years, so…that’s good, right?

Dan is a coupon clipping maniac. He knows what, where and when specific items are on sale, he knows about double coupon days and BOGOs (buy one get one free, for you novices). Dan goes to no fewer than 4 different grocery stores over the course of a week or two. His big shopping trip is on the weekend, but he loves to drop by once or twice during the week too. Dan loves the clearance baskets with dented cans and otherwise questionable merchandise, and he eats out of date food too, as I blogged about here.

The thing is, Dan spends an inordinate amount of time at the grocery store. He is like the husband who went out for a gallon of milk and never came back…except thank goodness he does come back, eventually. So far.

Yet for all of this, we have little by way of substantive food in the house. We have cereal, crackers, lots of condiments, pickles (they were on sale so we have 3 jars of them at the moment), a random bag of frozen peas and some English muffins. We have peanut butter, does that count? Is the grape jelly a food group or just a condiment? Hard to say.

I guess technically the cans of tuna and vegetarian vegetable soup are substantive food, but, a sole small can of tomato paste is not. Ditto for the out of date waffle mix, because we don’t even have a waffle iron. We have toothpicks-a whole jar of them in rainbow colors. We also have paper muffin tin liners, flour, and baking soda that is likely past it’s prime, but, for real, I’m going to bake something from scratch? What shall I make, frozen pea and peanut butter muffins?

Dan would say I’m being too dramatic; we have plenty of food in the house. He counts the frozen soy dogs, which I guess is fair, but I only count them if we have buns to put them on. He’ll also remind me that we still have one precious bottle of unfiltered artisan olive oil from our trip to Italy last year. So tonight for dinner it’s pickle muffins and soy dogs, with a side of olive oil and withered artichokes on toothpicks.

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The Cole Slaw Chronicles

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Did you really think I wasn’t going to pick on my mom a little more?  I feel like you don’t know me at all, and she would be disappointed with me if I didn’t report back on a few things. First, the proof copy of my book arrived right before we left for the beach. Mom has been hounding me nonstop to read the book, so it was good timing.

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Not too shabby, right? Mom settled down with the book and immediately established radio silence throughout the apartment. She wanted to focus completely on reading and apparently that requires martial law. Making noise? Even if you might have a medical emergency or something, remain silent. Trust me, mom will shoot first and ask questions later.

At any rate, I was excited to see her reaction as she read; I didn’t expect her to start crying. The book is intended to be funny and all and I was hoping she would find it…you know…funny. She says she’s crying with happiness which is very sweet but, umm, can a girl get a laugh around here? Throw me a bone-a giggle, a smile, a chuckle-something.

As a Jewish mother, I’m pretty sure my mom is required by law to do this, but…she has to offer us every piece of food in the house, twice, anytime we might so much as glance in the direction of the kitchen.  Do you want a bagel? Lox? How about some tomato? Chips? Tuna salad? Potato salad? Pretzels? Cookies? Did you say you wanted a bagel? Lox? On and on, you get the idea.

There are more complicated laws too.  Like if I turn down potato salad but she takes some-at least three times during lunch she has to ask me if I want to taste the potato salad from her plate and if I’m sure I don’t want any potato salad and point out that the potato salad is delicious and maybe I should just take a little.

potato

The only way I can have any fun is to ask for the one thing mom doesn’t have in the house.  So I say “Gee ma, I was really in the mood for cole slaw.” And as sure as the sun rises each morning she goes into a state of panic and says “Cole slaw? OMG I don’t have cole slaw! I forgot to get cole slaw!” And then I say “Well, if you don’t have any, then I guess I’ll be OK. I was just looking forward to it…but if you don’t have it you don’t have it.”  Then I pout a little and let her make it up to me by giving me a cookie.

Childish?  Yes. What’s your point? I can do worse-like using the kids as pawns in my little game.  They are such quick studies. Craig works up his best puppy dog eye look (he’s really good at this) and says “Grandma, can I have some cole slaw?” I don’t want to be too close to her when he does this because she’ll start swatting at me, and as I have noted numerous times, she has deadly, albeit beautifully manicured, nails.

After all that, I know that next time I see her she will have 10 gallons of cole slaw in the fridge, but I will suddenly be in the mood for macaroni salad.

So those are my usual tips and tricks, but sometimes mom just hands me something on a silver platter. Like telling me about the times she calls City Hall, which apparently she does on a routine basis. A couple of years ago she called City Hall to report that there were too many shells on the beach and they were a nuisance. When I heard that, I asked her to call and see what they could do about the salt content in the ocean, because it wreaks havoc with my hair.  Also, if she could put a word in to the Wave Improvement Council; I’d like them a little higher but crashing closer to shore. If it’s not too much trouble.

All in all, I really enjoyed spending time at the beach. Except I did have my heart set on cole slaw.

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Send Sunscreen Now

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Well, I promised to bring back more material from my mom, and she did not disappoint.  We all worry about our elderly parents, or that’s what I hear; I guess I wouldn’t know because my mom isn’t elderly yet (right, mom?).  I’ve heard that personalities can change, likes and dislikes.  But I was not prepared to see this upon arrival at her apartment:

momcart

So before we even stepped through the door, a rusty shopping cart with a foreboding, and ironic, sign; PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE.  I’m guessing the grocery store felt the very same way about their cart before it vanished from their parking lot and showed up at my mom’s building, where it joined dozens of others.

The cart would be ideal if she was planning on becoming a bag lady, but she assures me her finances are in order. I am still unclear on what mom does with the cart; I think she uses it to lean on and wheel her 50 pound purse to the elevator or something.  Call me crazy, but maybe if she traveled a little lighter she wouldn’t need to rely on the cart.

When we finally made it inside I was disappointed to see that my mom has a watch-tan.  I scolded her for not wearing sunscreen and got a whole song and dance about how she’s never in the sun.  But here is Exhibit A:

momtan

At least she was cooperative for the photo shoot. I tell her at the very least if she’s going to tan, she should take her watch off.  And you know what I got?  She doesn’t think I saw it, but I did; I got the eye roll.  She gave me the eye roll.  WTF?

Just for that I sat back down and let her serve me more food.  It killed me to do it, but sometimes they need a little tough love, right?

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A Brief Refuel

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I’m really long overdue for another blog picking on my mom, but I’m low on material.  I’m remedying that situation by heading out to her place for a visit.  Things may be quiet for a few days, but I can assure you I will be working hard the entire time to bring back quality comedy material for your enjoyment.

Mom: Please don’t disappoint!  Get a head start on your antics.

Readers: Cover me-I’m going in.

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Space Odyssey: In The Year 20Never

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I think by now everyone knows about my predilection for reality TV.  Every once in a while, Dan gets to use the TV, and he watches that genre commonly known as Bad Science Fiction.  After careful observation, I’ve learned that garden variety Sci-Fi TV is typically just a soap opera that happens to be set in the future, and has even cheesier sets.  Granted, I haven’t watched soaps since college, but I’m guessing they haven’t changed much.

Doppelgangers?  Ask any soap fan and they will tell you that good characters always have an evil twin who slinks into town and wreaks havoc.  Someone is almost certainly going to be tricked into sleeping with the evil twin, and then there will of course be a wrong-twin offspring.  In Sci-Fi they alter this only slightly; it is an alien disguised as a human that cross-breeds with a human to produce an even worse spin-off show.  Yawn.  We’ve seen it all before.  It is not unusual for a character in a Sci-Fi show to have his or her memory wiped by aliens.  Amnesia anyone?  A soap opera staple since before even I was born. The stuff Dan watches has love triangles, betrayals, dramatic death scenes…sound familiar?

And what about the science part of Sci-Fi?  Honestly, not much has changed since the original Star Trek days when Captain Kirk sat at that poorly constructed cardboard Bridge.  Lots of dials and lights and bleeping and vague discussions about gamma rays and parallel universes.  Nowadays they throw in avatars, too.  Totally lame.

So why do men, in particular, continue to watch this crap?  Well, the women are always wearing skin tight, skimpy “uniforms.”  The male aliens may look disgusting and slimy, but the female aliens are always able to morph into some kind of sexy vixen, a la Barbarella.

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The other day Dan was watching something where the men were all fully clothed but the women were essentially naked, painted to look like they had bright white skin.  It left little to the imagination.  I pause the show and tell Dan that the women look essential to the plot line.  He emphatically agrees.  The show seems particularly bad, worse than the usual; my suspicions are confirmed when suddenly, apropos of nothing, two of the women start making out.

There’s another rule too; when there are hot women, the men have to get violent, I guess to showcase their incredible virility.  So the show is toggling between a scene with two men in some kind of laser sword battle and the scene with the two women who are really, really getting to know each other rather well.  I ask Dan how the two scenes are related, either to each other or the alleged plot, and he tells me it’s  complicated; over my head.

All I can say is that Gratuitous Alien Sex must be a terribly important scientific concept. And a great name for a band.

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Who’s That Girl?

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

My August Washingtonian arrived the other day and as I was casually flipping through it a little blurb caught my eye; quick tips from a couple who travel extensively for work and pleasure.  Here’s the first piece of perky advice from the woman:  “Almost any outfit is one blazer and a swipe of bright lip gloss away from looking polished.” Hmmm.

Here’s the deal; I know this woman.  She is the woman zipping through the airport fabulously put together.  Matching luggage, hair pulled back neatly, nice loafers.  Now look right behind her.  There’s a woman with her hair sticking up at an odd angle and a piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe.  This woman left her jacket back at security and her blouse is stained with a big glop of salad dressing.  Yikes, now her phone is ringing but she can’t answer it because she can’t find it in her purse.  And while she’s groping for her phone she drops her carry-on bag and the bottle with her 3 lousy ounces of shampoo goes skittering across the floor.  See her?  That’s me.

I think I’m missing some important woman gene.  I’ve grown old waiting to learn the secrets of pantyhose with no runs, blouses with no stains, hair that stays put.  I know nothing of how women make this happen.  I just stand back in awe and wonder.  I start out looking polished, I just can’t maintain it for very long.  I’m the woman who just stepped on a grate and caught her shoe and ripped the heel right off the bottom and has to limp down the street with one heel and one flat trying to catch a cab in the rain.  And for the record, maybe I should have spent less time debating whether to pull the heel off the other shoe or hope that the broken one could be repaired and given more thought to the street I was crossing.  Maybe then I wouldn’t have gotten splashed from head to toe when a bus went careening around the corner.

I don’t know where I went wrong.  Did I miss a class?  Is there remedial training?  Drag Queens manage to pull it all together and technically they’re not even women.  I am pulling out a blazer and some bright lip gloss but until the heel is glued back on to my shoe, I’m just not feeling it.

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Hair We Go Again

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

As I was trying to figure out what exactly was happening with my hair today, it seemed like a good time for a re-run…

My Personal Best

There are bad hair days and then there are bad hair days.  Today, like most summer days, was the latter.  I was not out of the shower for a solid minute this morning before my hair just sort of died. Not a quiet death either! First it puffed into a shape resembling a porcupine, and then each and every hair on my head individually frizzed in its own “gotta be me” direction.

Folks, this is not a good look for me.  I’m guessing it’s not a good look for anyone.  I’ve been growing my hair out, and it’s at that stage where it’s too short to pull back but too long to keep under even minimal control. I would post a picture so you could see my dilemma, but any photo of me today would only be appropriate for Halloween.

So only for you dear readers, I went to the extreme of measuring how far my hair protrudes from my head at its widest point (the hair, not my head.)  We are looking at about 3.5” today people.  Not good.

Thank goodness for Sidekick Dan’s anecdotes. As I looked despairingly at my hair tonight and noted that it practically demanded to be my blog topic, Dan helpfully pointed out that “In the old days they used a single strand of hair to measure humidity. They used to go out and look for people like you so they could report the humidity.”

Is this true? Well now you’ve read it on the internet, so it must be true.  So I guess my hair could be useful for scientific measurements.  The other upside is that it is a look that says to everyone in the office “Does this look like I’m having a good freakin’ day?  Try me.”

I know that some of you out there…some of you who have perfectly lovely, decidedly un-frizzy hair are wondering why I can’t just control this situation with hair spray or gel or “product” of some kind. All I can say is, unless you have something nuclear powered, it’s a lost cause.

The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, so when I wake up on a morning like today, I don’t fuss with a “product” overkill.  I just look in the mirror and say “This is your personal best for today. Work with it.”

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Viola At Bat

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Well, sooner or later someone had to write a blog about flies and fly swatters…it might as well be me.  But my blog can’t be about flies and fly swatters because someone I loved a lot used to called them fly bats, so it has to be about flies and fly bats, not swatters.  I don’t think there’s an official word for the family member who is your sibling’s mother-in-law, so we always just called my sister-in-law Lisa’s mom by her name, Vi.

I always admired Vi’s can-do attitude, including her aggressive fly hunting techniques.  I like to just shoo flies away and whine about them non-stop; Vi was much more action oriented.  When Dan and I found a souvenir fly bat in Helsinki, well, we had to bring it home to her.  I wish she was still enjoying it but it came back to us when Vi passed away, and now when we look at the fly bat it brings back our fond memories of her.  So if you’re ever at my house and I seem to be engaged with a fly bat, I’m not, OK?  I’m smiling because I’m thinking of Vi, and she was really special to me and I have a lot of lovely memories of her.  Anyway, the fly bat is both functional and decorative, and although it has never seen any action, I believe it would work well if called upon for duty.

flybat

I know what you’re thinking.  She sounds like a nice lady and you bring her a souvenir fly bat?  OK, first of all, yes.  And you know why?  Because in some crazy tourist trap shop in Helsinki it was available for sale, was it not?  If someone in my family loved dried meat I guess I would have also picked up a package of the Moose Jerky that was on display nearby.  My brother CJ didn’t even know how badly he wanted a cheap plastic snow globe collection until I started bringing him cheap plastic snow globes. It’s a little thing I like to call thoughtful.

And if you still don’t think it was a good idea, a woman I knew, a co-worker in a far flung office, used to make fly bat, cozies, I guess, for lack of a better word.  They were little hand sewn pieces of fabric to slip over the business end of a fly bat, and they weren’t just functional either; the fly bat cozy she kindly sent me as a gift was made of brown and white gingham and had a little face and fabric hair and was less a cozy and more some kind of Fly Bat Fairy.  She even sent the fly bat with it, although she insisted on calling it a swatter.  It was a very sweet gift, and I think I kept it in my office after that, but I have no recollection of what happened to it after that.  It seems a sure bet I would have given it to Vi though.

For the record, we used to get Vi real gifts sometimes too, not just fly bats and re-gifted Fly Bat Fairy cozies.  We brought her chicory coffee from Café Du Monde in New Orleans, for example.  Don’t judge.

As with most of my stories, this one needs to come back around to either a TV show or my cats, because I’m that blogger.  My favorite arbiter of justice and intelligence on the airwaves, Judge Judy, swats down idiots like flies, but recently she had a real fly buzzing around her head while she was trying to think.  The Judge rolled up her papers and prepared for battle.  Then she smacked the paper down!  But the fly got away, and she noted that if she had the proper equipment, the fly would have been toast.  So her trusty Deputy Byrd found a fly bat and brought it to Her Honor, and sure enough BAM!  She made short work of the fly.

Vi would have been proud.

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