Story of the Day 10/16/2011 #2

Sarah and I made a trip to the grocery store.

We had to.

Despite the fact that the refrigerator and freezer are stuffed to the gills with food- potato kugel, Greek onion and cheese pies, tiramisu, carrot soufflé- there is nothing to eat.

For lunch.

Tomorrow.

At school.



In other words, we were out of bread to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.



So we bought bread, and three apples.

We had apples, but they weren’t perfectly fresh, so Sarah picked some out to take with her for her lunch, and we were standing in the checkout line.



Sarah signed, “ I know the cashier”, and “ I know the cashier in the next line, also.”


This is a hazard now that Sarah attends a large public school in our area. We run into people that she has seen at school.



Back when Sarah attended the Deaf School, a school whose high school had about 100 students drawn from all over the state, the incidence of running into someone she knew from school at the local grocery store was almost zilch. It happened, once a year. Now it happens every single time we go.



When she first transferred, and she first started seeing people she recognized, our forays to the store became stealth mode operations. We would have to keep our heads down as we browsed the aisles for mayonnaise, and pick the checkout line closest to the exit, and try to avoid being seen.



I can’t blame Sarah. She has inherited socially awkward genes from both sides of the family.



Fortunately, now that she has been at the public school for over a year and a half, she can tolerate being seen and noticed.

And, , for the most part, she is safe, because she s Deaf and they can’t actually do anything as mundane as talk to her.

At least not and expect a response.

And since I sign when I am with her ( uh, if you haven’t figured this out, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for me to talk, since she couldn’t hear me) , these school contacts usually assume that I am also deaf, so they don’t speak to me, either.

So, I am sheltered by her .



And, while we were standing in line, I told her how much I appreciated it.



You see, there is something about this chubby, middle-aged, sloppily attired woman that attracts a certain type of guy, every time I go grocery shopping.



No, they are not trying to pick me up.

Apparently, I look motherly, or at least not dangerous, and all of these guys who are recently widowed or divorced and thrust into the “ I have to cook dinner” mode come up to me and ask me all sorts of rather detailed questions.

Like, “ This is salmon. I’ve had salmon before and I like it. My wife used to cook it. How do I cook it?”

Of course, there are many ways to cook salmon, so I have to ask how they had it, before.
This usually elicits a response along the lines of, “Um, it was cooked.”

Which is good, but not especially helpful. So I usually give a general description of oven temperature and time and what to do to keep it moist, and then offer one or two tips on seasoning it.

And then there is the inevitable second question, which is usually, “ Can I cook a potato in the pan with it?”

With it?

“ No, and the potato takes longer, microwave it and just heat it up to be warm when your salmon is ready.”



At least I am a little helpful with this kind of a question, but the “ how do I make a pork chop?” is a bit beyond my kosher cooking skills.



At any rate, when I go grocery shopping with Sarah, I suddenly become, by association, “deaf”, and therefore no one comes up and asks me anything. This could be because they don’t’ know any sign language, but it could also be, as Sarah and I have noticed, that most people think Deaf people bite.

Well, at least we figure that is why they walk very wide around us, and hesitate to get into the checkout lien behind us, even if the other line is quite a bit longer.



The really sad thing about this, not the aversion to those “ Deafies” who bite, but the steady stream of recipe-deprived guys ( and it really does happen often), and which is somehow obscured by something about my appearance,

is that I can’t cook for shit.

Story of the Day 10/16/2011 #3

Sarah was complaining to me that she would not be able to set up the closed captiosn to watch the DVD she needs to watch for class.
She has to do a “film review” as a project for her English class, so her kind and wonderful mother went to Blockbuster and rented a copy of the DVD for her.
Captioned.

I know it is captioned. I called Blockbuster and made the man working there go over and get it from the shelf and read the back panel and he said it was captioned.
And the DVD box says it is captioned.
I neurotically checked to make doubly sure before checking it out.

Of course, it could be like Up. Up is captioned. In French and Spanish.
Apparently, the company that makes it doesn’t like Deaf people who read English.

Since, after opening it, you can only exchange it for another copy of the same DVD, it happened to be a very expensive joke on Deaf people by that company.

Oddly, we didn’t think it was funny.

So, remembering this episode in the annals of “accessibility” and ”captioning”, I asked Sarah if there was something wrong with the captioning.

“No,” she replied, “it is the remote. It is lost.”
”Well, look for it!” came the not-very-amused reply from her kind and wonderful mother.
“I did. I have been looking for it and looking for it. It has been lost for 8 months.”

Her kind and wonderful mother did a motherly-type thing and stuck her hand into the crack between the sofa seat cushion and the sides and backs of the sofa.
“Is this it?”

I cannot describe the look on Sarah’s face as she took it from me.
Did I forget to mention that her kind and wonderful mother is also brilliant?

She asked. “Where do you find it?”

”In a place that tells me my kids did not do a very good job when they were supposed tpo be cleaning this room for Passover.”

Story of the Day 10/17/2011

Last night, before going to bed, my husband told me that Cindie was right.
Cindie is a friend of mine who several years ago described me as “ your husband’s one act of rebellion.”

I probably should explain that when people know one of us and then meet the other, the typical response is, “That is your husband/wife?” with a voice filled with..disbelief.
In fact, sometimes a person actually knows both of us, but doesn’t’ realize that we are a couple . This isn’t all that odd. After all, when we married I allowed Larry to retain his maiden name, so the fact that he has kept his last name, despite being marred to me, means that there is no reason anyone would assume he is my husband.
At any rate it is even more fascinating, sometimes, to see the reactions of people who have know each of us, individually, and ten finds out that we are married. Happily, even.

Many years ago, when we were dating. Dating as in not even engaged. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in New York, and as part of the experience, there was the requisite fortune cookie. Larry opened up his cookie, read the fortune and then tucked it into his wallet, where it stayed for many years. It said “ your mate will be your balance wheel.”

Of course, I am several inches shorter than he is, but I do weigh about the same, so that could be what it meant.
Of course, it could also mean that he would have characteristics that I don’t’ have and vice versa.
For example, he has a memory.
He is organized.
He has will power.
He reads directions.
He knows his right hand from his left.

Please note that you can say all of the above about me as well, but only if you insert the words “ does not” into each sentence.

There is more.

Larry knows where his keys are.
He knows what today’s date is.
He knows what the year is.
He probably remembers where we put the children.

Hey, they get up and move!

He doesn’t walk into doorways.
He wears matching socks.
He remembers to brush his hair in the morning.
He does not use crude and rude language.
He has social skills.
He does not leave piles of papers, clean clothes, unopened mail, books, hairbrushes and shoes all over and then have no idea where anything has gotten to.
He knows how to use silverware.

Now, we can start a list of what I bring to the marriage.

I can wash dishes.
Of course, we have a dishwasher.
I can clean toilets.
Of course we have Aaron.
I can cook.
Not well.
But I can if it came precooked and frozen, or in a can. Although, I do sometimes burn things.
Maybe every other day.
Or a little more often than that.


I suppose this looks a might uneven.
But, I have one great and wonderful advantage.
I got him out of New York.

Of course, at the time, he didn’t think it was an advantage.

When we got married, we had a hard time.
The hard time was caused by his parents.
Actually, they were giving him a hard time.
They didn’t give me a hard time because they didn’t talk to me.

It started a few days after we got married.


We were married on a Thursday.
The 4th of July.
That is also a story, but I will save it for another day.

On Sunday, Larry called his parents.

He used to do this on a pretty much daily basis, but he had seen them on Thursday. At the wedding.
And Friday, I think we were busy. And Saturday was Shabbat , so no phone calls. So he called them on Sunday.

Their first question for him was “ Have you come to your senses, yet?” They wanted to know if he was ready for an annulment.

They eventually got used to the fact that we were married.

Not that year, though.

After the 4th of July, the next big holiday was Rosh Hashanah.

They invited him.

They also invited him for Thanksgiving.
Not me.

They didn’t invite him for Passover, but that was because they don’t keep kosher so they knew he couldn’t come.

As time went by, things not only didn’t improve, they went south. So far south they became arctic.

As a result, we moved.
To Cincinnati.
Cincinnati had a conveniently located ( far from New York) fellowship program.

So… Larry ended up outside of New York.

It was quite an adjustment.
Three months after leaving the Big Apple, we were driving home from the grocery store in our small car and Larry turns to me and says, “I could never go back to living in New York.”


And his comment had nothing to do with his parents, either.
I think it had something to do with people being polite, drivers that actively were trying to avoid hitting pedestrians, and maybe, just maybe, the fact that not all of the stairwells at work smelled like urine.
It was also rather nice not being awoken to the sounds of teenagers torching cars on the street below our apartment, but maybe that was just me enjoying that little detail.

Years early, his sister had predicted this, even though I am not sure she understood what she was predicting.
She had told him that he wasn’t made for New York, that he just didn’t move quickly or aggressively enough and he was some sort of closet Midwesterner.

Now, I am not crazy enough to think that we have managed to stay married for over 26 years based on the fact that I got him out of New York.
Yes, he owes me something for that, but, at this point, he would be perfectly capable of finding a different abode, outside of New York, sans annoying wife.

We have managed to stay married because of the children.

You see, for years, ever since Ely was old enough to scream, which was at birth- in fact we were repeatedly told that he was the loudest baby in the nursery of the very large and busy metropolitan hospital- I have repeated the following phrase, “If you ever leave me, you have to take the children!”

Oh, I do have two things I do well. I can draw naked people and I can paint Xmas balls.

Story of the Day 10/ 9/ 2011 #3

I realized that this year, putting up the sukkah was much easier and less stressful than it was, last year and the year before that. This is because Aaron was here to help us.

Last year, it was just me and my long-suffering husband, Larry.
This year, there were no close calls or fears that Larry would take a tumble from the ladder onto the hard cement slab of the patio.

This is not because Larry is awkward or clumsy.
It is because instead of being at the mercy of my ADD-impacted ability to hold the ladder steady while he climbs up and down, Aaron held the ladder for him.

Story of the Day 10/9/2011

We were putting up our succah. We being Larry, Aaron and I, and Larry started telling Aaron about the time a patient gave him sefer torah-a torah scroll.
Well, not exactly.

Larry practices medicine on the south side of Indianapolis. The south side has been populated by wave after wave of immigrants. At one time, the wave was Jewish.
When this woman was young, there were still Jews living on the south side. ( More than 2 or 3). And there was a house fire. The family was Jewish, and they left behind a lot of things in the burnt out house, when they left. This woman, and her brother found a scroll that was left behind in a closet.

The woman realized that this was something that shouldn’t just be thrown in the trash, but she wasn’t sure what to do with it. So for 50 or so years, it has been sitting in her closet.

That doesn’t mean that she never tried to do anything with it, though.

Apparently, a few years ago, she thought she could call somewhere and get information about what she should do. She called Shapiro’s.

Shapiro’s is a restaurant on the South side. When all the Jews assimilated enough to be able to afford to move north, and the next wave of immigrants moved in, the restaurant somehow didn’t’ move with et Jews. It stayed, and became a regional fixture.
It is such a regional fixture, as well as being the only thing Jewish in the entire south side other than cemeteries, that it really was the only place this woman knew of.
So she called.

Well, Shapiro’s has a Jewish name, and they serve “Jewish food, like corned beef sandwiches and lox on bagels, real rare ethnic fare on the south side, but they are neither kosher nor very Jewish, at this point, and they had no idea what she should do with the scroll.

So it sat in her closet a while longer.

And then she had arthritis.

Well, actually, I don’t know if she had orhas arthritis. My husband mostly sees patients with arthritis, since that is his specialty, but the only information he gave me about the woman pertained to the torah and how she got it and how she came to mention it to him. For all I know she was seeing him for her diabetes, because he also has patients who do that. Oh, and I can guess that she is at least 60 and probably a good 70 years old, because the Jews have been gone from the southside for 50 or 60 years.

At any rate, she was seeing my husband who is a rheumatologist, for something, and she quickly identified him as being Jewish.

Not from his New York accent.

Not by his nose or his last name, both of which do give a clue.

Not even by his beard, but most likely because he happens to wear a kippah.

There are plenty of people with New York accents, distinctive noses, beards and even possibly Jewish sounding names who were not Jewish. But outside of a friend of the family in synagogue for a Bar Mitzvah, only rarely does one encounter someone who is not Jewish wearing a kippah or yarmulke or skullcap.
…Unless it is crimson and they are a cardinal or white and it is the pope, but they don’t usually have New York accents. Not usually.
And the probability of running into one of them on the southside of Indianapolis is actually even smaller than the probability of running into a real live Jew, although, not by a lot.

So, she brought the problem to him. What should she do with this torah scroll?

In fact, after a couple of visits, she LITERALLY brought the problem to him.
She brought the scroll to his office.

He took a look at it and said, “This isn’t a Torah scroll.”

He carefully opened a bit of it up to read the lettering. I say carefully, because the heat from the fire had damaged the parchment to the point where it was rather like matzah- and liable to start cracking. And he said, “You see, it says here ‘Vayahe bemay ahashverosh…”

She replied, “You know very well I can’t read that!”
Which he did know, but he couldn’t resist the urge to tease her.

He did explain, though, that this wasn’t in fact a torah scroll, it was a scroll of the book of Esther.
And the lady, relieved, gave it to him to deal with.
She wasn’t relieved that it wasn’t a Torah scroll, she was relieved that she could finally had it over to someone and get it out of her closet.

Of course, now it is in my husband’s closet, where it has been for 14 months, waiting for him to do something with it.

Story of the Day 10/8/2011

Kindles are not Jew friendly.

I don’t mean just Kindle-brand Kindles. I mean electronic books.
This is because we have these things called Shabbat, holidays, etc, when we are not allowed to use them. No electronics, no phone, no computer, no Kindle. So, if your only reading material is a Kindle…..

I realized this early on, and have been telling people for ages that this is why I do not wish to invest in a Kindle. Of course, I really just don’t want to spend the money, but Sabbaths and holidays and the like are my only large blocks of reading time, so why invest in one of those when I could only use it for the few minutes here and there that do not really lend themselves to reading more than the newspaper or a magazine?
It is really nice having an excuse for being cheap.

Of course, despite the anti-Semitic stereotypes, many of my Jewish friends are not all that cheap and have tossed their stacks of dusty books and learned to snuggle up with their Kindles, and one of these friends, last night, at services, after realizing she was going to have nothing to read during the middle of the day, asked to borrow a book.
You know, one of those old fashioned paper and ink things that pre-date Kindles.

Actually, she didn’t ask, at first. Rather she was casting rather hungry looks at the book my daughter had brought with her to synagogue- and I do not mean hungry as a double –entendre, because Yom Kippur had barely started and eating paper hadn’t yet started to seem like a good idea.

I meant hungry as in, “ all I have is a Kindle, what will I read, since it is forbidden!”

Any book. Something with pages and no pixels.

My daughter was reading a book by Alexander McCall Smith, not a title from his most popular series, but one from another series he wrote.

I am not sure exactly how Kindle owners browse.

Okay, I have a vague idea, because I too buy things from Amazon and they let you peek at some pages, before buying, to make sure the book is worth the sight unseen $16, but it is not anything that really compares to browsing through the stacks of books at the bookstore, sitting in the coffee area for 20 minutes while you decide which of the cartload of books you will drag home, and ….so I am not sure how such readers ever really get exposed to all of the great options you find in the stacks at a traditional book store.
At any rate, my friend had never even heard of the series by McCall Smith.

In fact, the first time my friend saw this author’s name was on my daughter’s book, yesterday evening.
“Is it any good?” she asked.
“Yes, but not as good as another series he wrote.” So, today, I brought a copy of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency for her to read. You know, one of those paper and ink- Jew friendly things called a book.

Story of the day 10/6/2011

I was in Kroger’s, the grocery store near my daughter’s high school,. I was trying to find the brown rice. Not the instant 5-minute whatever, but the brown rice that no one has reconstituted.
And I had to use my phone to send a text message.
As a result, I learned something very important, although I did not manage to find the brown rice.

My phone likes to auto correct terp.
It prefers it be spelled “ twerp.”

Story of the Day 10/5/2011

The interpreter cancelled. Well, she was only the backup interpreter, so I am not sure it is completely accurate to say that she cancelled. But she cancelled. And since she was my only hope, after around 19 calls and emails to different terps…. You see she was the backup interpreter, except there is no one scheduled for her to back up….

In case you have missed my previous ramblings, I am in dire need of an interpreter for Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur being this Saturday. This Saturday being 3 days away, and since I turn my phone and computer off on Friday evening….

In addition to biting off all of my fingernails, I have now called all of the interpreters that the Deaf people who are coming feel are good. Well, all of the ones that we know of.

I was scrounging around for more names and sending multiple emails “Do you know…? Would they be okay?”
I was asking friends for recommendations.
I even had a moment of brilliance and thought of a terp who is very good, and whom this family likes, but we just hadn’t come up with his name on the original list.
Excitedly, I fired off an email.
I was in luck, either he has a smart phone permanently turned on and attached to his hand, or it was his lunch hour.
Unfortunately, that was as far as my luck went, he already has a job scheduled for Saturday.
I thought of another terp.

I carefully worded my email, “What about….. Some people like him, but some people don’t.”
Within minutes, the reply came back, “NO! NO! NO!”
Well, I guess I will not be calling or emailing him.

He does terp well, it is just his personality that is an issue.

I would now start biting off my toenails, as well, but I am not that limber.

A friend emailed me “I'm at a loss. Maybe you should infiltrate the Jehova's Witnesses and learn how they make so many interpreters! “

We Jews do have a dearth of interpreters, and I might consider doing this, but I don’t’ think there is enough time left. I am also not sure if he means that I should kidnap one of their interpreters, or convert them to Judaism, and I feel rather ill equipped for either alternative, although I could try.
At least the kidnapping.

Another friend wondered how long it would take for her to become fluent enough to do this. Since she doesn’t sign at all, I told her to forget it.
But it was a kind offer!

But he did start me thinking.
Maybe we could use Aaron. My deaf son.
After all, he attends services twice a day. He knows all of the daily and Shabbat prayers, the only ones that would be unfamiliar to him would be the ones that are specific to Yom Kippur- some hymns and poems- neither of which hold much interest for the Deaf participants. Nothing personal, but this things do not translate well. Especially because they are based on repetition. Many, many repetitions of the same lines. For Deaf people, that is like nails on a blackboard, not that they would understand that comparison.

And he is personable. No, “NO! NO! NO!’s” would be proffered by anyone, well, other thank his younger sister. But she is, after all, his younger sister.

The only problem is that despite ASL being his first language, he doesn’t sign well enough.
We would probably do better sending my friend who offered for ASL lessons….

Story of the Day 10/4/2011

Aaron is lying down for his first nap of the day.

I am supposed to be someplace else, but I am stuck at home being itchy and red and puffy.
That is because I have hives. I have all sorts of fun allergies.

So here I was when Aaron came home and decided to take his first nap of the day. This is the post-morning-services-before-yeshivah-class nap.
Later, he will take a post morning classes nap. Then, if he is lucky, he will get in a pre-dinner nap.
But only if he is lucky.

He got a blanket and set up a pillow and lay down on the sofa in the family room.
I asked him if he wanted me to wake him.
He told me, “No, I will leave my hearing aid on so that I can hear the clock.”
We have a clock that strikes the half hour and counts off the hour.
I told him, “That is smart, because I will forget to wake you.”

It is definitely safer for him to leave his one hearing aid on, even though he is deaf, and “listen” for the clock.
At least I know my shortcomings.

Story of the Day 10/3/2011 #2

This morning was special. Instead of trudging off to morning services at The Place Across the Street ( this being the official name for the place across the street), Aaron headed off to morning services at our synagogue, Etz Chaim.

This is special because we don’t usually have a daily morning service at Etz if it is not Shabbat, or a holy day or Sunday- and Sunday is a recent instigation by our new, young, enthusiastic rabbi.

And today was Monday.
The reason for services on a Monday morning that isn’t a holy day being that it is a friend’s son’s Bar Mitzvah. Not the Bar Mitzvah where he gets up and make a speech and people throw candy and we all eat a huge lunch, this is the day he first puts on teffilin.

Teffilin is a Hebrew word. In English it is this REALLY weird word that no normal person has any idea how to pronounce or spell. So if you happen to know how to pronounce or spell it, you are definitely not normal.
The English is phylacteries.
I am weird, but even I had to look up how to spell it.

Now that you know the word, I do not recommend using this word in casual conversation, either, because the only thing you will impress people with will be your weirdness. Besides which, the only people who use this word in casual conversation call them teffilin.

I am also not going to go into a long explanation about teffilin, but I will say that the first time a boy ( or girl) puts them on is a really important event and Aaron was looking forward to it…partly because there was a nice breakfast, following services, hosted by the parents.

After service, and during breakfast, Aaron sat with a rabbi who attends our synagogue and with his two sons.
As Aaron said to me, “His sons are really cute,”
They are.

The older son, who is probably 3, but may be pushing 4, expressed surprise when Aaron said the bracha (blessing) over bread before eating.
His father said, “All Jewish people say brachot (blessings).”
“I am not Jewish.” Came the reply from the little boy.

“Yes, you are Jewish.”

“No, I am not. I am a fireman.”

His father calmly explained, “You can be Jewish and be a fireman.”

A moment later, the little boy asked my son what his name was.
“My name is Aaron. What is your name?”

“Fireman.”

I can’t wait to find out what his brother’s name is.

Story of the Day 10/3/2011

It is Monday, the Monday before Yom Kippur.
On the very slim chance, that you have no idea what Yom Kippur is, it is Not the most important holiday for Jews. That happens to be Shabbat. However, it is the most solemnly observed one.

There are two holidays that non-religious Jews observe. Passover- even if the entire observance consists of having a box of matzoh with their pork chops, and Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is substantially more solemn and serious. And not only because you do not eat matzoh with your pork chops or with anything else on Yom Kippur, since you are fasting.
So, Yom Kippur is substantially more solemn and serious, and stressful.
And it is especially stressful for me.

That is because, in addition to having to look into my soul and examine my sins, errors and omissions of the past year- which, sadly I haven’t done because I am an ethically lazy slob – I need to find an interpreter for synagogue.

This particular issue rears its head every damned year.
On good years, I find one.
On bad years, I am stuck doing a very lousy job translating ( it isn’t really interpreting because I have to read the English side of the prayer book to know what the rabbi and hazan and other readers are rapidly intoning, in order to sort of render it into ASL or whatever it is I manage to sloppily sign.)

Those years are the worst.

But even on years that I find an interpreter and can sit and relax through the service ( and I assure you, after finding that interpreter , I am much more relaxed than the average fasting Jew, because they didn’t have to find an interpreter ), I am stressed out for weeks in advance as I call and email and IM terp after interpreter after interpreter to try to find a live body that is not comatose and actually knows ASL.

I always start out a bit foolishly, I mean optimistically, with a list of 5 or 6 names of reliable, good interpreters. But as I get to the bottom of the list, and as the time rushes past, I start worrying and worrying.

First I call or text back the family or families or lone person who has requested the interpreter.
Do they have any other names I could call? A terp they had at a doctor’s appointment 4 years ago? An interpreter they ran into at Wal-Mart and who signed well enough to consider? A terp who their 15th cousin twice removed once mentioned ……anything.

Eventually, I start cornering not just the Deaf people coming to services for their list of okay terps, but any other Deaf person I can find who signs ASL for possible names of terps.

And then there are the actual contacts. With the terps, that is.

A timid, “Well, I really am not qualified” is answered by my frenetic “ Yes you are, you are alive and you can sign!”

And then,” But I have never interpreted anything Jewish before”
“ But you have never actively been a member of the Nazi party, right?”

“ I feel I wouldn’t be able to do a good job since it will be so unfamiliar.”
“That is okay, you are breathing, aren’t you?”
“ And I am unfamiliar with the vocabulary,”
” Are you still breathing? Breathing is good!”

In fact at this point, it is the only requirement.

Okay, and not being a member of the Nazi party.

I should also add that in addition to breathing, behaving professionally is important……

Several years ago, we hired an interpreter who was actually recommended highly to us .
After services, I was helping to clean up and put away things, and a couple came back into the building to let me know that the interpreter had cornered them in the parking lot and tried to convince them to come to her church so they could be “ saved”.
I later heard she had said the same thing to another Deaf attendee, but that person didn’t let me know until later.
Somehow, this didn’t really hit me as being very professional behavior.

At any rate, as desperate as I have gotten, some years, I haven’t called her for a repeat performance.

However, if you have the names of any other terps who are still breathing……..*

· Reality note- I actually run all names of interpreters past the Deaf people who are coming, so they can veto anyone who was recommended by someone else. This is hard to explain to people who do not know ASL, but an interpreter who is perfectly clear to one Deaf person may be terribly hard to understand for another deaf person.
· Meanwhile, that same vetoed terp may be exactly who the next Deaf person coming to the next Shabbat or holiday service thinks is perfect.

Story of the Day 9/ 28/ 2011

It is almost Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year, and I am being inundated with bras.
And they are not even my own.
I have a cousin who lives in a rest home and she needs bras.
I went to visit her , yesterday, and the director pulled me aside and let me know that my cousin only had two bras and they were both worn out.
Since I had taken her shopping and bought her bras- more than two, 6 months ago, and a few others last fall, and I started to wonder what had happened, and then I realized that she had moved, recently and perhaps a box had gone astray.

I took my cousin out to the only store in her area that has bras, Wal-Mart, and we looked and looked and looked, and only found two black lace bras that were her size.
I promised my cousin that I would look for some bras to send her from Indianapolis- since Indianapolis has more than one store that carries bras.

So, today, since I was driving pasta different store, I went in, and they happened to have two more bras in her size. Also black lace.
I went to pay for them and the woman looked at the boxes she was ringing up, and then she looked at me, and she asked if I was dressing up as something interesting for Halloween.
I wasn’t, but since I am, smallish, at least relatively small busted, and wearing khakis and a plaid shirt and since these were black lace bras in size 54 DD, I can understand her question.


But there is the other bra. The one I have volunteered to sew.

As you know, my son, Aaron- yes the one with the hearing aids and the pink bathrobe, likes to do stand up comedy.
One of his regular joints- I mean venues, is a comedy club/bar in Carmel, a fancy city north of Indianapolis.
Carmel is the sort of city that is having some trouble convincing themselves that there has been a downturn in the economy and that there might possibly be a need to cut some of the budget from their multi-multi million dolor arts center or civic center or whatever it is.
At any rate, the place, the comedy club, not Carmel, has a burlesque night. All of the performers are expected to wear……ummmmmm bra like things.
And Aaron doesn’t’ want to miss a chance to perform.
So, I might be sewing a bra for him.

In the meanwhile, he is going to ask the rabbi if it is all right to do this, in his new , sober, tell no dirty jokes, religious phase.
Ahem, sorry, maybe it is not a phase.
I told him he could tell the rabbi he will wear super dark sunglasses to perform and since the place is dimly lit, he would not see anything risqué- or at least not any more risqué than himself in a bra.

Addendum:
Aaron has decided not to ask the rabbi about this.
I think this is a very good decision.

I was also mistaken, he is thinking about doing this in a different comedy club than his usually place……