Story of the Day 11/ 23/ 2011

I had just finished my shopping at Trader Joe's.
Trader Joe's is the home of many good things, including breakfast cereal and organic chocolate bars.
They also, every year have these very special Xmas trees, and every year, I look at them with longing, but do not buy them because there are Xmas trees .
And I am Jewish.
My longing has nothing to do with a lust for Xmas decorations or for the scent of pine- to which I happen to be allergic.
It has to do with food.
You see, the trees that Trader Joe's carries are rosemary trees. They are rosemary plants that have been trimmed to Christmas tree shape and have been decorated with Xmas wrap and decorations. and I love the taste of Rosemary in different dishes.
And the smell of it!

Every year for the past 4 years, I have looked longingly at the small rosemary Xmas trees, and have not bought one.
So, today, when I was checking out , and I saw them ( they were on the other side of the door where one walks out to one's car- and very visible, because the area is walled by clear glass,) I looked and sighed, and looked again as I walked out the door, and then turned around, with my grocery sack filled with breakfast cereal and chocolate bars and walked back into the store, and started to look over the trees.

A young lady was standing right beside them, and when I took a momentary look up and away from the trees, I realized that it was someone I know, Talia. Talia and her family attend the same synagogue that my family attends, and she is in the same hebrew class as my daughter Sarah , at North Central High School. After discussing some of the things that one can do with rosemary ( apparently , Talia is a cook), I also said hello to her mother, and I explained that I was going to give into temptation and buy ...an Xmas tree.

I explained, rather sheepishly, that I was back in Trader Joe's after having checked out and left, because I had been enticed by the Xmas trees. i mean by the rosemary. I also explained that the huge number of organic chocolate bars that were visible in my grocery bag were for Aaron.
I was sending a box with heavy duty mouse traps, and since it was going to be $9 to send just the traps, I was going to spring for the small flat-rate box and throw in some chocolate. chocolate for Aaron, not for the mouse.Or mice. Or meeces.

"You are sending him mouse traps?"



Apparently, most people do not pay to airmail mouse traps to their children who live overseas.

I explained how the room was overrun with mice, and how the yeshivah had this one old trap that didn't' seem to do a very good job.
Poor Talia, her face scrunched up in a look of disgust and she exclaimed" Oh no, I am planning ongoing there for a semester of college!"
"Wait," I cried, " Hebrew University is not overrun by mice. Aaron is at a very odd yeshivah that has one mouse trap for the whole darned place and the rabbi in charge of the dorms has some sort of strange " kinder and gentler " attitude about the mice, so they have multiplied in a very Biblical sense. I am sure Hebrew University is not at all like that. You can ask..." and I named a girl who recently spent an entire school year there.
The color returned to Talia's face.

I asked what they were doing for the imminent Thanksgiving holiday, and Talia's mother told me that they were headed up to South Bend.

"South Bend, I didn't realize that you were from SouthBend!" I explained. "Aaron's' roommate at the yeshivah in Israel is also from Southbend. Maybe you know the family!"

Okay, I am grasping at straws in the game called "Jewish geography". This is a game that is several generations old, say, about 100 or so, at least. It is played by trying to figure out if someone knows someone that your cousin knows because they were roommates with your cousin's husbands's 4th cousin twice removed, who also is from the same continent.
On the other hand, South Bend is not all that huge (108,000 residents ,give or take a few thousand- this is according to Google) and has less than 4,000 Jews.
I know it has less than 4,000 Jews because Indiana has about 14,000 Jews ( give or take a thousand) and 9,500- 10,000 live in Indianapolis, and there are some scattered in various other pars of the state, like Evansville, where my cousins live, and Richmond, where my other cousins live, and I can't think of the place that my other cousin's kid lives, but you've got the idea. There are simply not enough Jews left in the state for it to have a full 4,000. So, it is possible they know this guy or his family....which is exactly how Jewish geography works.

"His name is Aaron," I said, " and his mother works for a Dr. Birnbam."

Talia's eyes grew wide and she said something like, "Oh Mom, it's got to be him!"
To which her mother, Sharon , said, "Oh no, it isn't."
"But , Mom, who else could it be?"
"But he isn't the same age."
"Well, Aaron's' roommate, Aaron is a bit older, he was at Hebrew University." I replied.
"And the army?" said Sharon.
Bingo.
5 points! I was now ahead by 5 points in the game!

" He is my nephew!" Sharon exclaimed.
Okay, now she was ahead by about 90 points. Or maybe an even hundred.

"Your nephew?"
"Well, my cousin's son, but we are very close and he is like a nephew to me!" No, only 90 points.
Wow. This is such a small world that my knees felt a bit weak. And all of this over buying an Xmas tree at Trader Joe's.

I then shared with them the story of their cousin's son's face to face encounter with one of the mice. And assured them that I was mailing the mouse traps out as soon as possible.

In the meanwhile, they can share the mouse stories with their cousin in SouthBend, and pretend they have some sort of karmic cosmic connection that enabled them to have this inside knowledge.
Which, after all, is what Jewish geography is all about!