Yiddish Lesson #6: Kvetch

"Does she have to keep it so hot in here? I should have worn my bikini. Can you believe the fuss she makes every year? I don't know why she does it. Imagine the expense! Just like a goy. And a wreath?! She's loosing her mind. For New Year's, she's going to some nudist hot springs in California. Believe me, I know. It can only end badly. Have you ever tasted latkes so greasy? And my God, this wine!  It tastes like a sponge. She's my only living relative, that's why. She feels obligated to invite me. Every year it's the same thing. 'Could you pick up some low fat sour cream? Remember, buy the all natural apple sauce. Don't forget the folding chairs like you did last year!' What a kvetch!  I've known some kvetches in my life, but she tops the list. Nothing is ever good enough for her. You bring over crackers and the first thing she does is read the ingredients. She claims certain oils are bad for her. Well, I've been eating those oils all my life and look at me! Healthiest one in the building. I don't go to the doctor more than once a year, thank God! But not her, she runs to him for every little ache and pain. 'My doctor says I shouldn't eat this, my doctor says I should only eat that!' It's enough to make you have to go to the doctor yourself. And the doctors these days, I'll tell you. It's all about money. Not like when we were young and the doctor was a member of the community. A solid citizen. I don't envy the young kids these days, absolutely not. The way the world is going, I'll be glad when my time comes. Unlike some people I know who think they can live forever. As if plastic surgery and crystals and flax seed can bring ever lasting life. And don't think you are going to get any dessert around here. God forbid some refined sugar should cross her lips!"

Yiddish Lesson #5

Shmata

In high school I had a particular way of dressing that drove my mother crazy.  My worst offense was the men's boxer shorts, since it appeared, to her, that I wasn't wearing any pants.  "But I'm wearing two pairs," I argued.  My mother failed to see the logic in that. My grandmother, on the other hand, didn't even see the boxer shorts, their very presence on her granddaughter's body beyond comprehension. She had other things to worry about.

Why are you wearing that shmata? You could be such a beautiful girl. Let me take you shopping.

But grandma, I just bought this shirt.

Just bought it?  Impossible! Who could sell such a thing?

It's vintage, Grandma.

Vintage?  You look like you just got off the boat.

Yiddish Lesson #4

Chutzpah

They said we had a lot of chutzpah, to get up on a stage and play that music in front of an audience.

Matt Turner, cello. Tad Neuhaus, guitar. Joanna Dane, harmonica.

Yiddish Lesson #3

My intent was to go to Guatemala to attend Spanish school, to visit A. in the Peace Corps and to return in four months.  One month became two, two became three, and instead of attending Spanish school I was hanging out with A. at his site in El Estor telling myself I was learning Spanish on my own, which I wasn't.  Every phone call back home was getting more tense.  When are you coming back? my mother demanded.  I didn't want to leave.  So I convinced A. to get married.  I called my parents.  "Ma," I said.  "We're getting married."  They had never met A. before.  "Oh honey!  What's he like?"

"He's got shpilkes."

"Harry!" my mom called to my dad in the other room.  "Did you hear that?  He's got shpilkes!"

Consequences of marrying a man with shpilkes:

When out to eat together, I often find myself alone (or worse, with all the kids) while A. is off on a mission to find a newspaper or to fill the car with gas or to "pop" into whatever store is nearby.

Even if A. is driving, he is not comfortable with me doing nothing so gives me tasks - to clean out the glove compartment or to look up the proper tire pressure or to make a list of whatever happens to be rushing through his skittish mind.

Several hours in a row spent at home on a weekend is cause for alarm and the immediate drafting of a plan of action which can carry us hours if not days from home.

At least one child has an inability to sit still inspiring many an adult to sternly insist, "Sit still!" an impossibility resulting in frustrating said adult.

Yiddish Lesson #2

Grandma Lil's recipe card which I recently found marking a page in a favorite book.

Grandma Lil used to send me double batches of kumisch broit in college.  She wrapped the pieces in wax paper and packaged them in shirt boxes from Brandeis.  She worried about the kumisch broit getting farschimmelt.  But my friends and I always ate it long before that could ever happen.

Yiddish Lesson #1

My father once had a famously excellent sense of direction.  When my mother and I were by ourselves we often got ferblondjet which made us laugh and irritated my dad even though he wasn't there.  Just hearing about it later made him upset because he couldn't understand how anyone could be so dim, that if we only paid closer attention we wouldn't have gotten lost, which may or may not be true.

Even though I have a terrible sense of direction, often I am so convinced that I am right about what direction to take, that I insist we follow my lead, that despite all the times in the past I have been wrong, this time, I am right, even though every time I convince my husband of this it proves to be the wrong direction to take.

These days, my dad's sense of direction is not as famous since he is sometimes wrong, or at least it takes him a while to figure out what direction to take.  He gets a little discouraged by this, but I try to tell him. It could be worse.  Better to be ferblondjet than to be fercockt.