Personally, I think Jews recognize deeply-seated neurosis in themselves. How else does Woody Allen stay in business? Saturday started with a bat mitzvah. One of my daughter's best friends and thankfully away from the establishment I have mentioned previously. While walking into the building I was shouted at by a total stranger for letting Leif walk ahead of me. I did this because I was actually feeling guilty about being late and thought his entrance would soften the blow of my lateness. However, the stranger shouted that I was intentionally letting Leif run ahead and therefore get hit by cars.
Because it goes without saying that at 8 years old he's too stupid to stop and look both ways at the stop sign. It goes without saying that I wouldn't take his hand and it goes without saying that he would not wait for an adult to come level with him before crossing. It also goes without saying that he wouldn't see the car coming, even though we were on a private road and the speed limit was 5 and there were no cars within half a mile. I'm surprised that guy didn't call social services right there.
Then, we went in through some massive double wood doors. I whispered to Queak to please shut the door behind us gently. A woman (another total stranger) came running up and grabbed the door - glaring at me - and said loudly "be careful sweety, these big doors could really hurt you!"
Yeah, because he's 5 and I've never taught him how to close a door. Again, because like his brother he is too stupid to take simple direction and close the door gently. Again because I am too stupid to run to his aid and avert this whole disaster. Sheesh, there's another social services call.
Wait - before I go on - is it really okay to talk to other people you've never met before in this tone about their parenting? I didn't get the memo.
Okay, so in the service I barely had time to admire how my aforementioned neurotic friend was stood literally beaming as her daughter gave an absolutely flawless Torah reading when some other woman with a look of utter disdain dashed from her chair to the tall vase of bamboo decorating the scene and swiveled it around so the bamboo was pointing another direction.
At which point my husband said, out loud, "I liked the bamboo the other way and I'm going to move it back."
That was when I knew my cover had been blown. I looked nervously around to see who had noticed when I saw a woman I was dreading to see. Let's not call her neurotic, she might see this and be incited to homicide. Let's call her charming. Let's call her another story. Let's call her balefully glaring at us. So I moved to the other side of Brian (he deserved to be her fixation) so I would be less in her field of vision. Brian turned and saw her and in a stage whisper said "to quote the emperor Claudius, that woman is capable of murder through violence." If you get the impression he was trying not to be invited back you'd be right. Brian has totally lost his tolerance for the local jewry, though to be fair, as I contemplated it, I realized Jewish neurosis is universal.
The day progresses -
At one point I had a total stranger almost push Queak off a bar stool even after I tried to step in and him down so she could get closer to the dip. This caused him to lose his personal space to a total stranger and hide under the bar stool, spilling his cucumbers and sobbing about losing the cucumbers and strangers touching him. Before you get your back up, let me remind you I have already made clear in this blog that I'm Jewish, I'm a mother, and I recognize my own neurosis.
After calming him I reached to clean the cucumbers up and had another woman snatch them up with a paper towel - I said "I was just going to do that" she said "I'm SURE you were."
Smack. "Brian, honey, I'm ready to go - now."
Looking outside to see if Daddy had pulled the car up to collect us Queak stepped onto the porch, Celia stood watching and a young woman slams the door shut snapping at Celia "Ever hear of closing a door?!" Celia shouts back "MY BABY BROTHER IS OUT THERE!" orther girl shouts back "that's his problem, he shouldn't have left the door open."
Another woman took a brownie out of Buttercup's hands because she hadn't seen Buttercup eat "real" food yet. Seriously. You touched my child's food. I'm now torn between a screaming fight with this woman (who was surely the 8th person who should have called social services) and not being the one to start a fist fight at my daughter's best friend's bat mitzvah.
At the lunch I had a woman dart in front of me to exchange her salmon she slid it off her plate, onto the rest of the salmon and grabbed another salmon from the other tray. Two people cut in because they wanted seconds, a woman demanded yellow beet soup since she'd only gotten red in her bowl and a woman behind me spent the next several hours passive-aggressively telling a dozen or more people how she never got beet soup because some woman had to have yellow beet soup and all that was left was red and who wanted just red? I saw another woman act so self-importantly that she actually physically repelled me as she gnawed on her fingers after every bite she took, and held herself in the most peculiar and sexually open ways I've ever seen anyone move. And not one of these people failed to comment on which of my children had not eaten their beet soup, who had taken 1 too many cookies (Leif) on why I was letting them not eat their salmon (it was raw) and how I expected them to grow up to be healthy drinking coffee.
Because it goes without saying that at 8 years old he's too stupid to stop and look both ways at the stop sign. It goes without saying that I wouldn't take his hand and it goes without saying that he would not wait for an adult to come level with him before crossing. It also goes without saying that he wouldn't see the car coming, even though we were on a private road and the speed limit was 5 and there were no cars within half a mile. I'm surprised that guy didn't call social services right there.
Then, we went in through some massive double wood doors. I whispered to Queak to please shut the door behind us gently. A woman (another total stranger) came running up and grabbed the door - glaring at me - and said loudly "be careful sweety, these big doors could really hurt you!"
Yeah, because he's 5 and I've never taught him how to close a door. Again, because like his brother he is too stupid to take simple direction and close the door gently. Again because I am too stupid to run to his aid and avert this whole disaster. Sheesh, there's another social services call.
Wait - before I go on - is it really okay to talk to other people you've never met before in this tone about their parenting? I didn't get the memo.
Okay, so in the service I barely had time to admire how my aforementioned neurotic friend was stood literally beaming as her daughter gave an absolutely flawless Torah reading when some other woman with a look of utter disdain dashed from her chair to the tall vase of bamboo decorating the scene and swiveled it around so the bamboo was pointing another direction.
At which point my husband said, out loud, "I liked the bamboo the other way and I'm going to move it back."
That was when I knew my cover had been blown. I looked nervously around to see who had noticed when I saw a woman I was dreading to see. Let's not call her neurotic, she might see this and be incited to homicide. Let's call her charming. Let's call her another story. Let's call her balefully glaring at us. So I moved to the other side of Brian (he deserved to be her fixation) so I would be less in her field of vision. Brian turned and saw her and in a stage whisper said "to quote the emperor Claudius, that woman is capable of murder through violence." If you get the impression he was trying not to be invited back you'd be right. Brian has totally lost his tolerance for the local jewry, though to be fair, as I contemplated it, I realized Jewish neurosis is universal.
The day progresses -
At one point I had a total stranger almost push Queak off a bar stool even after I tried to step in and him down so she could get closer to the dip. This caused him to lose his personal space to a total stranger and hide under the bar stool, spilling his cucumbers and sobbing about losing the cucumbers and strangers touching him. Before you get your back up, let me remind you I have already made clear in this blog that I'm Jewish, I'm a mother, and I recognize my own neurosis.
After calming him I reached to clean the cucumbers up and had another woman snatch them up with a paper towel - I said "I was just going to do that" she said "I'm SURE you were."
Smack. "Brian, honey, I'm ready to go - now."
Looking outside to see if Daddy had pulled the car up to collect us Queak stepped onto the porch, Celia stood watching and a young woman slams the door shut snapping at Celia "Ever hear of closing a door?!" Celia shouts back "MY BABY BROTHER IS OUT THERE!" orther girl shouts back "that's his problem, he shouldn't have left the door open."
Another woman took a brownie out of Buttercup's hands because she hadn't seen Buttercup eat "real" food yet. Seriously. You touched my child's food. I'm now torn between a screaming fight with this woman (who was surely the 8th person who should have called social services) and not being the one to start a fist fight at my daughter's best friend's bat mitzvah.
At the lunch I had a woman dart in front of me to exchange her salmon she slid it off her plate, onto the rest of the salmon and grabbed another salmon from the other tray. Two people cut in because they wanted seconds, a woman demanded yellow beet soup since she'd only gotten red in her bowl and a woman behind me spent the next several hours passive-aggressively telling a dozen or more people how she never got beet soup because some woman had to have yellow beet soup and all that was left was red and who wanted just red? I saw another woman act so self-importantly that she actually physically repelled me as she gnawed on her fingers after every bite she took, and held herself in the most peculiar and sexually open ways I've ever seen anyone move. And not one of these people failed to comment on which of my children had not eaten their beet soup, who had taken 1 too many cookies (Leif) on why I was letting them not eat their salmon (it was raw) and how I expected them to grow up to be healthy drinking coffee.
This all sounds aimed at women, but don't worry the men were annoying too. Each man acting disgusted at beet soup and raw salmon. A host of men blocking the door and the food line while talking, oblivious to people trying to say 'excuse me' to get to the stupid beet soup (I like beets, I liked the soup, I may be alone in this) each man trying to one-up the other in the "what I do for a living and how intellectual I am" tirade. Plus, the group of little old men Shushing the week-old baby who was crying because it was hungry and the poor dejected mother was terrified to break away but also terrified to feed him in public.
I said to no one in particular "you know, I know he sneaks coffee, he only gets away with it at buffet lunches like this and I really don't care" The woman closest gasped "really? You know you really shouldn't do that"
I remember my daughter (then age 2) once going around a Friday night dinner table with our new chavurah, emptying all the wine cups. We knew they were good people when all this behavior elicited was some laughs. I'm kind of glad we declined that invitation.