Damn! That’s Funny! June 6, 2009

“From the Mouths of Babes”….

“Kids Say the Darndest Things”

“Yada Yada Yada”

As the proud mother of a 7-year-old, I’m often privy to some of the freshest humor around.  Delivered, of course, by my cutie pie/sweetheart/oh-so-squeezable offspring.  Scroll down a bit for the shares.

Single, non-parent types probably think this is downright boring.

Oh God.  There she goes on one of those Mommy Blog tangent things

To which I reply:  Perhaps. Sue me.  Take a commercial break and go make yourself a sandwich or something.

To my fellow parent-types:  Enjoy.   To the non-parents:  Can I get you a soda water with lime to go with that?

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#1 – I host monthly Writers Meetings in Tel Aviv for ..um..writers and each session is addressed by a lecturer on the chosen topic of the month.  We’ve had prize winning authors, network television correspondents, NY Times writers and business bloggers host meetings; last month our guest lecturer was a columnist and editor for Israel’s national Haaretz Newspaper.

Due to a list minute babysitter cancellation, my unfortunate son had to tag along with me to the meeting.  He threw a fit – rightfully so – raging about the unjust ways of the world and evil mothers therein.  Cajoling and bribery on my part got us into a taxi and to the meeting with not a minute to spare where I greeted the guest and welcomed the group.

My son calmed down and sat quietly drawing and doodling beside me for about an hour.

Then, during the Q&A part of the evening, he  suddenly raised his hand.

Ah.  My sweet precious child is curious!

Unabashedly he asked the guest: When will you be finished?

__________________

# 2 – At the pharmacy checkout counter :

150 Shekels! (the equivalent of about U.S. $42) You’re spending 150 Shekels? my son exclaimed.

The cashier and I chuckled and shook our heads in that knowing “Wait until he gets older and finds out what spending really is” sort of way when he blurted:

And it’s for Dreck!

__________________

#3 – En route home at the end of a long grueling day my beloved only child ducked into a toy store.

I went in after him.

“Come on!  Let’s go home!” I called impatiently.

He turned on his heel and glared at me squarely.

You don’t get it, do you? he huffed, hands on hips.

I’m a kid, mom.  This is what I’m supposed to do.

Chick Versus Chick April 29, 2009

Confession time:  I stand alongside the global multitudes struggling to make ends meet during the current recession. Jobs are scant and it’s downright scary right now.  Especially as a single mom.

Luckily I rely upon faith, hope, networking, routine and friends to buoy me.  And thank goodness for chat rooms and friends’ IM & email messages discussing fear, job scarcity and struggles.  “Thank goodness” not in the Schadenfreude way; I’m grateful not to be alone.  

I felt loads better last week after watching a NY Times video profile of a laid off exec who had formerly managed multi-million dollar accounts and is now pushing a janitor’s broom.  His wife needs cancer treatments so guaranteed health insurance benefits are essential.  He can’t afford the luxury of leisurely looking around.

Instead he kicks off the covers at 4 a.m. each day, checks emails and sends out resumes to potential employers.  He then heads to his janitorial job where, during breaks, he sits in his car placing follow-up calls.  I don’t know if I was more blown away by his story or by his bravado in letting the world know what he currently gets up to between 9 and 5.

I, too, am working overtime at phoning contacts, tapping into networks, making new contacts and attempting to drum up work.

Which makes having to go up against female colleagues doubly frustrating.

I have spoken several times with a work contact about leads in news production.  And each time I talk with this woman  she asks: “But what about your son?  Do you have anyone to take care of him?  I mean he IS young.”

And each time I reassure her  that yes, I do have a network in place.  A really good one.  Not to worry, the childcare issue has never presented a problem.  I even have overnight babysitters.  “I HAVE A VILLAGE!!!” I internally dialogue. “So please, send the work my way.”

But she hasn’t so far.  And I don’t believe she ever will.  Because I don’t think she can wrap her head around my being a single mom and concommitantly producing television news.  Never mind that scores of anchors, producers, editors and camerawomen before me have done just that and are faring quite nicely. Or that I myself have done just that.

I’m being pre-packaged and labeled from the get-go and not only by this particular woman.  Recently a well-known anchorwoman told me:  “You certainly don’t want to work full time or get into a heavy career.  You have your son to think about.” She wasn’t asking.  She was stating how “it is”.    And I thought:  “But you’re so wrong!  By getting into something full time I AM thinking of my son. “

It reminds me of the time I went to see U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright speak in San Francisco.  Someone in the audience asked if she regretted the choice of fast political track over full time mommy.  She explained that there isn’t a cookie-cutter path for all women – some are meant for careers, others to stay home with kids and others to do a range of things in-between.

But she told the packed house I DO believe there’s a special place in hell for women who give other women a hard time for the path they have chosen to follow.

And the room erupted in applause.

I don’t believe the women I mention here are malicious.  But their notions are misguided and create a certain level of frustration for me.

My Friend Jo April 19, 2009

Yesterday morning I found out my friend Jo died.  Via Facebook.

I knew Jo was ill & her condition rapidly deteriorating -  I had talked with her daughter in San Francisco earlier in the week.  But the Inbox message was shocking nonetheless.   It’s a sign of the times.  Notification via Facebook.  I don’t know if it would have been less impacting had there been a phone call.

I have been privileged so far in life  – I’ve lost no one close to me other than beloved pets.  This is a first & memories have been surfacing since receiving the news. I have cried intermittently.  It’s surreal.   What do I do with Jo’s address and phone number  in my contact list?

At one point when I was crying in my bedroom, my 7-year-old came in and wrapped his arms around me.  “It’s just like that in life sometimes, mom.  But you still have me.”

He doesn’t remember Jo but she visited him in the ICU after he was born, bringing him his copy of Goodnight Moon. She indulged his piano banging whenever we went ’round her place during his toddler years and she didn’t mind when he pulled out and scattered the cat and dog toys.  She was at his 1st birthday party, pouring herself a drink in the kitchen when I stormed in.

“The cake is horrible!” I panicked, my face flaming hot with embarrassment.  “Nobody’s eating it.  What do I do?”  Jo burst into raucous laughter.  “Tell them they don’t have to.  Let them off the hook,” she suggested.

I met Jo at the dog park when I moved to San Francisco in the 90′s.  We both had Golden Retrievers who became thick-as-thieves friends.   As publisher & editor of the reputable photo metro photography magazine, she gave me my first literary break as a reviewer of photographic works.

The years progressed and Jo & I attended photography lectures together, hung out in her kitchen, took the dogs for outings at Alamo Square, drove across the Golden Gate Bridge for a Thomas Friedman book signing and we shared. Gossip, hopes, dreams, disappointments, failings, family talk.  Jo was there snapping pictures at my City Hall civil marriage and she was there not long after offering refuge and comfort as the marriage went to pieces.

She was always ahead of her time with the latest Mac , scanner and photography gear, trying out digital but hanging onto her decades-old Leica.  When she discovered Photoshopping as a means of removing errors, she sat   for hours clicking away at dust particles and glitches.   The scanning phase…I don’t think there was a plant or flower for miles that didn’t get plucked up and pressed to the screen for scanning & photo-shopping.

Three years ago she was at the other end of the phone line as I sobbed.  My Golden Retriever Atticus had died.  Two days later she emailed. Her Golden, Chance, had perished suddenly  as well.  “Attie must have needed Chance.”  That comforted me – the thought of perhaps the two of them frolicking together in some parallel universe.

“Rest,” she wrote “knowing that she is no longer in pain and that she will be with you always in the best of ways.  Don’t forget the (somewhat schmaltzy) crossing over the rainbow bridge where she will be waiting for you.“

How apt.  Jo is no longer in pain.  And I hope she has crossed the rainbow bridge to meet her friends waiting on the other side.   When it’s my time to cross, I hope she’ll be waiting there for me  too.

Bring a Gun to School Day!! September 12, 2008

Last month I caught this Reuters story about Harrold, Texas schoolteachers gaining district approval to carry guns in school.   At the time, I was too busy getting my own son ready for 1st grade to blog it but I bookmarked the story because it was waaaay too good to let slip by without comment.

Clearly I wasn’t alone.

In late August The New York Times carried this story on Harrold’s new “teachers with guns” measure.

Here’s the thing: Harrold is a small, “impoverished” town characterized by “grain silos”.  The high school in question has a student population of 100 and employs two dozen teachers.

From what I could gather, there hasn’t been a problem with violent incidents in the school in the past but the proposal was put forth as a preemptive measure:

In the center of the storm is (school superintendent…sf) Mr. Thweatt, a man who describes himself as “a contingency planner,” who believes Americans should be less afraid of protecting themselves and who thinks signs at schools saying “gun-free zone” make them targets for armed attacks.

Mr. Thweatt maintains that having teachers carry guns is a rational response to a real threat. The county sheriff’s office is 17 miles away, he argues, and the district cannot afford to hire police officers, as urban schools in Dallas and Houston do.

Umm, okay.  But if, as the NY Times article sites, the idea is to ward off a Columbine-esque repeat…Columbine happened nearly a decade ago.  What took Harrold’s town-folk so long?

“Our people just don’t want their children to be fish in a bowl,” said David Thweatt, the schools superintendent and driving force behind the policy. “Country people are take-care-of-yourself people. They are not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”

Hmmm…now where else have I heard that rationale?  Oh yeah.  Within other small towns, communities and insular religious groups adopting a “we’ll keep this silent and in the family” approach to problem solving.

And specifically, speaking of Columbine, I also heard that same rationale nearly a decade ago while producing a post-Columbine story on Youth & Guns in America for German network television.

Living in the U.S. at the time, I traveled to L.A. for pre-production work that included visiting gang members in South Central projects, driving around Watts with an ex-Crips member, touring an NRA range and attending a weapons and gun exhibition.

I was a woman working on my own and risks were inherent but most of the week was spent listening to a lot of superfluous talk and a lot of rhetoric.  More followed during production week when I returned to L.A. to join my German colleagues in filming all of the above plus night sortees with the LAPD.

I got an earful of the “right to bear arms” and “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” credos.

Funny that because at the same time, the ex-gang bangers were on a crusade to get the younger generation to put down their weapons and duke it out hand to hand.  “Old school style” they said.  They seemed to understand that guns, indeed, DO kill people.

Of the above, guess which group genuinely sent chills down my spine?  Hint:  The one with loads of $$ and a strong U.S. government lobby…

Let’s hope none of Harrold’s teachers gets his or her britches in a twist over an incomplete homework assignment.

Call Your Mom May 12, 2008

Yesterday was Mother’s Day in the United States. I almost forgot. Because calendar dates for special events differ here i.e. in Holy Land Central, Mother’s Day falls in winter.

Luckily my calendar is a United States issue.  Because as I sat down to breakfast with my 6-year-old and remarked “Sweetie, we have a week to get something together for Grandma Ruti”, I glanced up at the wall to discover that we didn’t have a week at all.

So I picked up the phone.

This heart-wrenching column by The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman is a day late. But really, it’s none too soon.

Call Your Mother
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: May 11, 2008

The ad popped up in my e-mail the way it always has: “1-800-Flowers: Mother’s Day Madness — 30 Tulips + FREE vase for just $39.99!”

I almost clicked on it, forgetting for a moment that those services would not be needed this year. My mother, Margaret Friedman, died last month at the age of 89, and so this is my first Mother’s Day without a mom.

As columnists, we appear before you twice a week on these pages as simple bylines, but, yes, even columnists have mothers. And in my case, much of the outlook that infuses my own writings was bred into me from my mom. So, for once in 13 years, I’d like to share a little bit about her.

My mom was gripped by dementia for much of the last decade, but she never lost the generous “Minnesota nice” demeanor that characterized her in her better days. As my childhood friend Brad Lehrman said to me at her funeral: “She put the mensch in dementia.”

My mom’s life spanned an incredible period. She was born in 1918, just at the close of World War I. She grew up in the Depression, enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor, served her country in World War II, bought our first house with a G.I. loan and lived long enough to play bridge on the Internet with someone in Siberia.

For most of my childhood, my mom appeared to be a typical suburban housewife of her generation, although I knew she was anything but typical. She sewed many of my sisters’ clothes, including both of their wedding dresses, and boy’s suits for me. And on the side, she won several national bridge tournaments.

My mom left two indelible marks on me. The first was to never settle for the cards you’re dealt. My dad died suddenly when I was 19. My mom worked for a couple of years. But in 1975, I got a scholarship to go to graduate school in Britain and my mom surprised us all one day by announcing that she was going, too. I called it the “Jewish Mother Junior Year Abroad Program.”

Most of her friends were shocked that she wasn’t just going to play widow. Instead, she sold our house in little St. Louis Park, Minn., and moved to London. But what was most amazing to watch was how she used her world-class bridge skills to build new friendships, including with one couple who flew her to Paris for a bridge game. Yes, our little Margie off to Paris to play bridge. She even came to see me in Beirut once, during the civil war — at age 62.

The picture of her in Beirut makes me think back in amazement at what my mom might have done had she had the money to finish college and pursue her dreams — the way she encouraged me to pursue mine, even when they meant I’d be far away in some crazy place and our only communications would be through my byline. It’s so easy to overlook — your mom had dreams, too.

My mom’s other big influence on me you can read between the lines of virtually every column — and that is a sense of optimism. She was the most uncynical person in the world. I don’t recall her ever uttering a word of cynicism. She was not naïve. She had taken her knocks. But every time life knocked her down, she got up, dusted herself off and kept on marching forward, motivated by the saying that pessimists are usually right, optimists are usually wrong, but most great changes were made by optimists.

Six years ago, I was in Israel at a dinner with the editor of the Haaretz newspaper, which publishes my column in Hebrew. I asked the editor why the newspaper ran my column, and he joked: “Tom, you’re the only optimist we have.” An Israeli general, Uzi Dayan, was seated next to me and as we walked to the table, he said: “Tom, I know why you’re an optimist. It’s because you’re short and you can only see that part of the glass that’s half full.”

Well, the truth is, I am not that short. But my mom was. And she, indeed, could only see that part of the glass that was half full. Read me, read my mom.

Whenever I’ve had the honor of giving a college graduation speech, I always try to end it with this story about the legendary University of Alabama football coach, Bear Bryant. Late in his career, after his mother had died, South Central Bell Telephone Company asked Bear Bryant to do a TV commercial. As best I can piece together, the commercial was supposed to be very simple — just a little music and Coach Bryant saying in his tough voice: “Have you called your mama today?”

On the day of the filming, though, he decided to ad-lib something. He reportedly looked into the camera and said: “Have you called your mama today? I sure wish I could call mine.” That was how the commercial ran, and it got a huge response from audiences.

So on this Mother’s Day, if you take one thing away from this column, take this: Call your mother.

I sure wish I could call mine.