games people play.

every so often i meet some joker who asks me to guess his age. its always "his age" because most women are usually trying to get everyone to forget how old they are, so they wouldnt suggest this game. usually when someone decides to pose this question i plead the fifth. after all, i dont want the next age guess to be mine. usually im a pretty good age guesser as well which irks the individual who has asked me to estimate his age. they usually think ill guess younger. guess again. and like i said, i dont really want to start guessing in the first place. why is it so important i know this particular guy's age? if he wants to tell me his age, why all the drama?
once when i was at someone's shabbos table an elderly gentleman started talking to me. i thought to myself "how nice this elderly man just wants to be friendly" not realizing that this "nice little old man" was really hitting on me. anyway, this senior asked me to guess his age and of course i refused. but he kept bugging me . finally i told him that he really didnt want me to guess his age. and then he insisted. well , finally i said that i thought he was seventy. well, as im sure you would guess he wanted me to guess again so i then guessed 69 and 72. this man looked older than my father!!! and wouldnt you know he tried to tell me he was really much younger than seventy, and that somehow he manages to date only women under 35. well just because he tells me hes younger than seventy doesnt mean he is. and the age he said he was , was way above my dating age range anyway. he was quite upset that i guessed such a high number, but i thought,what a fool? why ask a question you dont really want an honest answer to? i had told him that i didnt want to guess his age to begin with. it was irrelevant. furthermore, i think that one is probably better off lying and saying one is older because then people can tell you how young you look and how they would never guess your age!! because unless you truly look younger that your true age , everyone is going to know you are older anyway. or they are going to think you look really awful for the younger age you say you are.
actually, im all for avoidance. dont say your age at all. that way you arent lying. thats my preference. truthfully , if someone really likes you it wont matter how old you are. or at least they will like you for the age they think you are be it older or younger than you really are.
and you know what , for the seventy year old zaidehs there are always the anna nicole smith wannabes... although we all know what happened to her...poor soul.

friends to the end

when i was a kid and we were learning how to spell my teacher had a saying to help us remember how to spell the word friend. she used to say 'friend to the end ' so we would remember that it was ie not ei . of course as an adult i realize how much weight this mnemonic device held. turns out that not many friends are truly friends to the end. and thats okay. some friends are just situational friends. you're single , they're single and once they get married pouf ! they disappear. other friends are friends for awhile until you have a falling out. like perhaps one of you was always ignoring certain fallacies in each others personalities until one or the other couldnt ignore it anymore and then bye-bye friendship. or perhaps someone moves away and at first you keep in touch and then you occasionally keep in touch, and then you finally see each other again and then you realize you are just different people and really now turned out to be situational friends. other friends you just grow out of even though you may have been really close at one time. there are other friends that no matter how long you might be out of touch with them you can always pick up with them where u left off. they could be married and have loads of kids and you could still be single, but still you are true friends. friends to the end.

trader joe's

one of my favorite places to shop is trader joe's in union square. they have an awsome variety of kosher cereal, some that are even their own brand. they also have these very unique totally parve rice and seaweed crackers that taste like sushi. their frozen latkes are tops. they also have a unique variety of kosher cookies and candy. since the store is near nyu , alot of students who appear to be from out town work there. the employees wear these funky hawaiian shirts. the lines are always way long, but to me it adds to the experience. as long as the line is, it tends to move pretty quickly and its very organized. and since generally im not a fan of long lines and crowds, it says alot. the other great thing about trader joe's is that you can purchase all these "exotic" foods for a very reasonable price.

another cool thing about trader joe's is that they incorporate caring for the environment in to their business practices without making it preachy. for example: if you bring your own tote bag for your groceries instead of using their bags, they give you a raffle ticket for the next week and you are entered for a drawing for a bag of groceries . i think this is an ingenius ploy on their part. they make being ecological fun!! they save money on bags as well as saving the evironment!! i think its so cool how they just sneak it in. if other stores did this i think it would really cut down on consumer waste. hooray for trader joe's!!!

sheitle shenanigans.

being single i never had reason to pay any attention to sheitle stores. all of the excitment over the coney island sheitle store down the block from chaim berlin has actually made me have an interest . of course not an interest in sheitle stores so ill be able to know what the bargains are once i get married. my interest in sheitle stores as of late is a product of missing sixth grade games of boys versus girls.



the alleged photos of women's heads wearing wigs has indeed been trumped. there are no more pictures of women's faces, but the picture that is now up is far worse. the picture is taken from the back of a woman wearing a long blond sheitle in a long-sleeved, long black dress. the photo to say the least really accentuates the woman's form....obviously the store owner is trying to rile people up. its too bad the owner has stooped to such stunts. she should have left her original headshots up .

from what it seems like to me is that those who banned the store should have left well enough alone and just have told the bachurim to stay on their side of the street. now that would have been good chinuch. the store window was quite tame to begin with. this sheitle store window should have been a non-issue.

i think that if the yeshiva was so concerned that the stores on the block may be objectionable, they should start buying all of the bldgs on the block when they become available. actually, the space that the sheitle store is in always has seemed to be changing ownership. the yeshiva lost its chance.

all of this "frumkiet " with the sheitle store is idiotic anyway. there wasnt anything wrong with the store window to begin with and why arent people more concerned with bayn adam l'chavero issues?

last of all, i didnt like the dynamics of petty sixth grade boys versus girls games when i was eleven ,and i certainly don't want to experience them when im biologically old enough to be the mother of a sixth grader.

the band's visit

i saw the israeli movie the band's visit on sunday night. it was cute. it was an israeli movie about an egyptian police band who get lost and end up in an israeli town . they have to stay overnight because by the time they get there there is no more bus service to the town they really wanted to go to. i liked it because it felt like a real slice of life of two different types of people who are forced to spend a little time together and how they manage to co-exist. what i liked about the movie is that instead of actually spelling out to you that israelis and egyptians have differences, it just presents it as a given, but delves more in to the fact that are from peoples who are different from each other in a general sense but they never spell out specifically WHY . to me this is why the movie works. its about people as people being different, but not in a global political way. of course when i read a review of the movie in the angelika's movie theater flyer, it makes the movie seem like it deals with the politcal differences between egyptians and israelis. this i find so humorous. if i had read their review before viewing the movie i probably would never have gone to see it.

time out at starbucks

for all of u starbucks lovers, all starbucks across the united states will be closed from 6-9pm on february 26 for training. so make sure u get your caffiene fix in advance.

welcome to new york

every city has their own jargon nyc included. carbonated beverages are soda not pop , gym shoes are sneakers , people stand on line not in line. frumspeak has a life of its own here. growing up out of town when someone decided to be "frummer" they would affect what i would call a " new york speech impediment" so they would sound more frum. now in nyc its okay , because that's how people here actually speak. out of town...well..its a different story. here instead of eating a meal at someone's house, they eat by their house. this term would always confuse me especially when people would say they were going by so and so's house that day. i wouldnt understand why they were just going to pass by the house instead of actually visit them. another puzzling question i would get was " how long are you here?" at which point i would look at my watch and say "ten minutes, why is this so important?" what they actually meant was how long had i been in ny. who knew? my other favorite is when people say they are looking for a guy who learns. don't they mean a guy who studies as in torah? and the list goes on. actually i probably would be doing myself a favor if i myself affected the new york speech impediment and picked up the jargon instead of adhering to more grammatically correct english. less people would speak to me as if i was BT, because after all, don't all frum jews have ny accents???

dating doldrums

loshon harah and dating is always a difficult one . one thing for sure no one is going to tell me what i need to know, but you can bet on the fact that someone is going to tell someone something about me . and this my friends is why i believe that there is a special place in hell for shadchanim. for all of the ways they twist the truth just for their own pocketbooks, nothing else. the only way a shadchan is going to make a shidduch for me is by accident, and they would have to be paying me for my tzar in having to deal with them. once long ago someone set me up with a guy so fat that the moment i looked at him my face fell. i didnt mean to do this, but if someone would have just warned me i would have been prepared. then i wouldn't have had such a strong reaction. maybe i would have met him anyway(probably not, i admit) . was it fair to him to have to meet someone with such a negative gut reaction? and i actually checked him out, but no one managed to tell me this. when i mentioned to the shadchan that i would have preferred someone slimmer the shadchan said "well he used to be even fatter". i would be more upset with this woman, but i heard years later that this noble shadchan is divorced. not that she deserves to be, but now she can get to know what it feels like to be set up.

my all -time favorite is the person "friend" who says you are too this or too that,but they won't tell you who said this so you could maybe understand the context. of course i always wonder why the authority of this anonymous friend is taken so seriously and my supposed friend is taking their side and not mine. whose friend are they anyway? a variation on this theme is the guy who i dated who told me he heard i had nerdy friends in high school. at the time i was 26. high school was a million years ago even then. aside from the fact this particular guy wasn't so cool ever. ive always been an individualist . im friends with someone because they are my friend. friendship with me never depends on a coolness score. at the time i told him that my friends were great, and i didn't know what he was talking about and who told him this anyway? and to this he replied ' i cant say' baloney!! don't insult someone and not let them be able to defend themselves.

happy un-valentine's day

i realize that valentine's day is not a jewish holiday, but as a single it still manages to bum me out anyway. i guess its just the sentiment that i like . a day dedicated to romance. and today because im single i have no romance. i bought myself perfume and chocolate just to make myself feel better. ive had valentines day dates and they were fun. or actually what made it more fun was being able to say i had a valentines day date.

of course then there is that dreaded alternative to the valentines day date and thats the valentines day single's event. not that they have been all that awful but they really do take the cake. if you actually meet someone what do you answer to the question about how you met? at a valentines day singles event ? oy vey. i could have gone to one of those tonight but i opted to stay home instead. too much pressure.

the namesake

recently i watched the namesake on video. i had seen it when it first was released in the theaters and it was just as good the second time around. in fact it was even better because in the interim i had read a book called beneath a marble sky by john shors. beneath a marble sky is about the building of the taj mahal . the taj mahal was built by a king in india in honor of his favorite wife who died . the book tells this story as well as a historical fiction account of the romance between the kings daughter and one of the builders of the taj mahal. the whole idea of a man building such an incredible structure to honor his deceased love is amazing. the book was incredibly romantic and well written. anyhow, in the movie the namesake this indian couple talk about love and do they love each other when they visit the taj mahal. in the movie they actually make mention of the reason the taj mahal was built, but since i hadnt yet read beneath a marble sky i didnt understand the significance of a conversation like this taking place at this location .this time around i really appreciated this scene .

at what age did you feel you had reached adulthood?

1. 21 - 30%
2. 30 -38%
3. 33 -7%
4. 40 -0%
5. not yet!!-23%

my poll closes in a few minutes, but i figured id start writing anyway. i was hoping to get 20 respondents, but instead i got lucky 13. its all good. i really did get results along the lines i might have guessed, and im glad that although there were those who responded with not yet, no one felt they had reached adulthood at 40 . of course, im not sure anyone over forty responded and im not sure if any of the respondents who felt they had reached adulthood at 21 were actually over thirty. i appreciate the nod from the reader who responded that they felt they had reached adulthood at 33.

i myself feel i reached adulthood at 30.

color me jewish

i attended a book reading at barnes and noble tonight featuring the author james mcbride who has just come out with a new book. for those of you who are not familiar, james mcbride is the author of the book 'the color of water' which is about a jewish woman from russia or poland who moves to the united states, marries a black man and passes herself off as black. i read the book years ago so i dont remember all of the details. it was a very interesting book because unlike 'turbulant souls' by steven dubner , which is about a man whose jewish parents convert out and eventually he returns to judaism , james mcbride does not,which makes it even more interesting. in 'the color of water' james mcbride does acknowledge his jewishness, but he doesnt identify himself as a jew. he prefers to be a black christian. what is most curious about mr mcbride is that a few years after i read his book there was an exhibit of photos of jewish writers at the center for jewish history and behold, there was a photo of james mcbride with his daughter and a siddur. for years ive wanted to hear him speak because though he isnt a member of the aish hatorah baal teshuvah of the month club, i do consider him a curiosity. he did not disappoint. i found him to exude a very warm personality, and though he doesnt consider himself jewish, he does acknowledge that those are his roots. he mentioned during the book reading that his first supporters of his firstbook were seventy year old white jewish women . he admitted to feeling the love when he was in the room with them because they reminded him of his own jewish mother. interestingly enough, other jewish celebrities who are black seem much more jewish than james mcbride does, seeing as other black jewish celebrities like lisa bonet or rain pryor grew up with jewish identities that shaped them , whereas to be fair, james mcbride did not.

mickey mouse for president

someone left the most idiotic message on my answering machine today. they said that registered democrats shouldnt vote for clinton or obama today out of protest and that they should write in ronald reagan's name instead!! i couldn't make this up if i tried!! i don't think that the choices are great, but i think that people ought to vote for a viable candidate who actually belongs to the democratic party. oh and by the way , the candidate must be alive!! im not sure what organization sold my phone number to the moron who left that message on my machine, but they out to think twice before sharing their lists with this message leaving nut. personally i think that obama rhymes too much with osama . or maybe that's the point. i actually am a registered democrat but only once have i voted for a presidential candidate belonging to the democratic party

the case of the hidden primaries

until i went to work today and read my favorite newspaper metro new york, i didnt realize that tomorrow will be the primaries in ny. i find this most ridiculous because due to the media i knew when new hampshire, iowa and florida had their primaries. the heads up were all mentioned on 1010 wins in advance. now i do admit that i only listen to the radio for a few minutes in the morning mostly to hear the weather forcast, but you would think that they might bother to give us some advance notice. i know that i didnt recieve the voter postcard notice telling me what date the primaries will be. at first i thought that i must have recieved it, but just misplaced it, but apparently no one at work recieved one either. well anyway for anyone who may not know, the primaries in ny are tomorrow . please vote. in my mind , you have alot of nerve complaining about the government if you arent even a voter.

I CHOOSE JIF

i just love how people like to assign a pat reason for why singles are still single. i wish it were that easy!! if this truly were the case, i would of course be married. my most favorite "reason" is that singles are too choosy. and of course we are. wouldnt you be? after all , this is someone who one will be sharing everything with. its not like just picking a roommate. yes, there are singles who are way too choosy, but to use such a blanket statement is ridiculous. there are many reasons to be discerning. many liars are shadchanim, many singles of poor character. i think that people are frustrated with singles and since they dont know how to fix things they like to play the blame game. i say leave the amateur psychiatry to the professionals and just consentrate on trying to set people up or at the very least be a sympathetic friend. there are so many reasons singles are single because people are different . even though there may be validity to some of these "reasons" it doesnt mean that every "reason" applies to every single. furthermore so many in our society are single that the problem is greater than just blaming me for being single. i certainly dont have any answers, only questions, but if you know someone for me....