Knitters-Knitters

What It Is

I made a baby blanket for an office friend for her second baby. Years later she mentioned how "they loved that blanket and always used it on the changing table".

Commenter Julie, you have inadvertently taken me back to 1991. I'm sitting on a small couch I've earnestly slip-covered myself using quilting cotton, in the Miracle Mile District of Los Angeles, opening wedding presents with my first husband. That day we learned that if you don't register for gifts, you receive lots and lots of picture frames.

One of the more interesting gifts we opened was from a colleague of my father's, a labor economist from India. It required some assembly and as it was clearly an antique there were no instructions. I was about to repackage the item and give up, but my ex was an aerospace engineer and was thus able to assemble the three pieces and create this:

If this wedding guest hadn't been from India, we probably would have not over-thought the gift and assumed it to be a candy dish, something you bring out at tea time, or just a general, all-purpose tchotchke holder. But since he wore a turban to our wedding and his wife wore a beautiful yellow sari with gold embroidery, the gift took on more significance.

Not knowing the item's function was only a problem when it came to writing the thank you note:

Thank you so much for the beautiful... it looks so perfect in our...

We called my dad to see if perhaps his colleague had told him what he was giving us and he said, "No, but Swarnjit did tell me he was giving you something very special. So make sure you write him a nice note."

Great.

In the gift's first incarnation in our home, we made it into a candy dish: Hershey's kisses and butterscotch drops. I said to OFD, "I think I'll write, "Thank you for the beautiful piece. It looks perfect in our living room."

OFD said, "But what if it's supposed to go in the bathroom?"

In the end, I think I wrote that the lovely tiered piece complemented our home. That sounded safe.

Now, when you are the one requesting the divorce and the circumstances are as ignoble as mine were, you leave a lot behind that you may have fought for if you'd felt less guilty. The Ex and I divided things pretty evenly along the lines of my side and his side, except when it came to the Toast-R-Oven. It had been given to us by Hen. I felt it was clearly mine, Hen being my brother and all, but the ex wanted it. It may be the first time Hen is hearing of this but it's true: I did not get to keep the Toast-R-Oven. I fought for the giant bowl painted to look like a watermelon and the six accompanying little watermelon bowls and it went without saying that I was taking the miniature dachshund, but I had to let the Toast-R-Oven go in the name of being culpable amicable.

When we came to the mysterious gift, Ex said, "You should take the... whatever the hell this is with you. And if you ever do find out what it is, I'd like to know."

The gift's air of mystery ensured that it would always be on display wherever I lived. It had started as a candy dish, and in my Tenderloin apartment it usually held almond cookies. For several years it held lavender clusters of glass grapes I'd bid on in an eBay auction that I inexplicably had to win or die trying. It's held small oddments of yarn, Barbie dolls, and yes: it's even been in the bathroom as an earring holder. These days it lives in that nebulous place we call Up High, where we keep all things that aren't safe in Olive's reach.

What I'm saying is, it's been 21 years and I still don't know what it is. But if one of you recognizes it, feel free to educate me.

Blinking in the Sun

Let's move onto another bodily function: weeping.  Diarrhea has always been my piece of emotional real estate (and an accurate indicator of my feelings) but SOME people have comfort zones that are this big and have a squeamishness that rivals that of the average Perlman: no small accomplishment.  So we'll talk about what makes me weep, what makes me want to weep, and hopefully, what makes you weep.

Lots of things make me feel weepy, but bring forth no actual tears.  When my son interrupted me while I was on the phone the other day with Aunt Marilyn and I waved him away, only to discover later he'd been trying to hand me a Valentine's card, I felt weepy.  I signed up for yoga classes this week and felt weepy after both the sessions I attended: something I attributed to a release of endorphins.  When Pam and Clover hear me pouring chicken grease onto their kibble bowls and then jostle through the doorway like Archie and Meathead it makes me feel weepy, anticipating a time when it'll be just Pam.

Things that make me weep, but just the odd tear or two: the frustration of picking up sick Olive from school, only to find that upon arrival in our home, she is now healthy Olive with no...er...bowel issues whatsoever. 

Hearing this Jane Siberry song:

Seeing Nicholas Cage on Live! with Kelly and remembering how when Sabina was born, I took comfort in remembering the lupine heart-throb Cage played in Moonstruck, and how his one hand just made him all the more appealing.

Last week LB and I had an argument -- the one, long argument that threads its way through our marriage -- about which burners to use on the stove.  He feels the burners in the back are larger, boil water faster, cook faster in general, and are therefor preferable.  I am short and cannot see into the pots as easily when they are on the back burners, so I use the front burners exclusively. 

Our general rule is that whoever is cooking gets to choose the burners, but last week LB moved all my pots around even though I was one doing the cooking.   Usually a small growl and snap on my part is enough for him to back away from the stove, but this time he felt the choice of burner was a battle worth fighting.  Pots were flying, and boiling water splashed on my hand in the melee.  It was a day when Olive had been sent home from school early, so I was In No Mood for this argument.  I was so in no mood that instead of getting hostile I got plaintive. 

When LB left the room, Sabina gently approached me and said, "I really don't think the burners in the back cook any faster than the ones in the front."  The argument did not make me weepy, but validation from my one tall child did.

There are things I don't let myself weep about for fear I'd never be able to stop, but we all have those.  I'm trying to remember the last time I really, really cried, and I'm pretty sure it was on July 23rd, 2011. 

Now that I think of it, I should add ham sandwiches to the list of things that make me weepy.

A Meme, for Old Time's Sake

Did memes go out of style? I feel like I haven't seen one in a long time. Memes are more fun to write than they are to read. Being tagged is iffy: sometimes it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy to be called out by another blogger, and sometimes it's just pure burden. With that said, consider yourself tagged if you're in the right mood for it. Here are five things about me of minimal importance but which I don't think I've yet told you.

1) I will wear mom jeans until the day I die, regardless of my weight and level of fitness, because I live in fear of raising my arms to reach for something and having my stomach exposed. My sister does not have this fear, and it is perhaps one of her more glamorous traits. She goes about her day sitting, standing, reaching, bending over to pick something up, and it shows that she does not care if her stomach shows. I've tried to do this once or twice -- sit down without reaching behind me to make sure my top is covering every bit of lower back, or lift a child up high without a glance downwards to make sure all is covered in the front, but I can't. It shows that I care if it shows, and there's nothing less glamorous than show-phobia.

2) A lot of my clothing comes from a company called Soft Surroundings. If you've ever seen their catalogue, you are now snorting with derision. At first glance, it looks like an apparel line designed for the woman who find Chico's too risque and who eats Activia in public with the hopes of running into Jamie Lee Curtis and getting to appear in an ad. But if you peruse the pages, there's some cute things and it is directly aimed at me: the woman who doesn't want her stomach shown. And the woman who wishes she were in her pajamas. I'm wearing one of their tops in this early morning photo with newborn Henry:

Speaking of little Henry, here he is in the sweater I made him. The blanket was made by Miss Susan:

3) I'm frightened by hummingbirds. You knew about the echidnas and skinks, but I don't think I've shared the hummingbird phobia. To me, they're a cross between a flying insect and a rodent. When I lived in Huntington Beach and worked the breakfast shift at the Old World Espresso Bar, I had to walk through the heavily-landscaped pathways of the apartment complex at around 7 a.m. At this time of day, the L.A. "burn off" hasn't occurred yet and the foliage was alive with hummingbirds. I'd walk to work very fast, looking down, with my arms folded across my chest. If anyone saw me they probably assumed I was embarrassed at being seen out and about in the St. Pauli Girl outfit I had to wear, but it was just the hummingbirds.

4) I miss Regis almost as much as I miss Charlie Sheen. For the past several days, Kelly's co-host on Live! with Kelly have been "football analysts" and a NASCAR driver. Know your audience, ABC! I have discovered that I dislike Boomer Esiason almost as much as I dislike Bob Costas, and that's saying a lot.

5) Speaking of Charlie Sheen, I did give the new Two and a Half Men a chance. I watched several episodes and found it creepy. Weird. Inexplicably unnatural. Maybe even -- yes, I'll say it -- a sin against nature. Now I only watch the reruns.

Preserving Milwaukee Landmarks

We're all familiar with the Aha! moment. Some of them are small and pleasant. For instance, this morning after Olive got picked up and I'd dropped three children off at their various camps and schools, I realized I had a window of opportunity. I had over two hours to knit, go grocery shopping, or teach myself Icelandic with audio cassettes before it was time to drive to Highland Park. Not that I did any of those things, but it was pleasant to ponder my many options as I drifted off to sleep.

You could say I'm having another such moment of quiet revelation now, as it occurs to me that I have enough time before I must get back in the car to speak to all of you and still load the dishwasher.

But some Aha! moments come as horrifying shocks to the system. I had one after Lo's October, 2010 visit to Chicago, when I uploaded the pictures I'd taken onto my computer and came across this beauty:

Many thoughts came to mind when I saw that photo. For one, I realized that the yellow Hanna Andersson scoop-necked tee-shirt I was wearing was not "slimming," as it had been described in the catalogue blurb. I also thought that I should have chosen a much larger sombrero to wear. Briefly, I debated writing that I was actually wearing one of those micro-sombreros they make for Chihuahuas, but the picture contains too many other clues as to the size and scale of that hat. The one thing I did not think to myself was, "That picture makes me look fat," because my powers of self-deception, though strong, have their limits.

This particular Aha! moment was enough to drive me to the South Beach diet, where I slowly and painfully lost about eight pounds. Then, as many of you know, I went on the involuntary, extended panic-attack diet and lost seventeen pounds. I do not recommend this method of weight loss to anyone. The only benefits are that you never get hunger pangs (it's hard to contemplate eating during bouts of anxiety-induced nausea), and when it's all over and you've adjusted to your Vitamin P achieved emotional equilibrium, it's a nice surprise to find that your jeans are too large.

Lo's visit last week and our ensuing trip to Milwaukee seemed like a perfect opportunity to return to the scene of the crime -- El Guapo's restaurant on Milwaukee's Silver Spring Boulevard -- and show that sombrero who's boss. But as my Milwaukee readers know, much of Milwaukee's prime commercial real estate is owned by an evil developer who enjoys charging a rent that few can pay. Apparently, he is unperturbed by empty storefronts and the sad appearance it gives Milwaukee's pleasant shopping areas, and his pride exceeds his desire to make a profit. I did read a blog entry recently that stated he should be "run out of town by torch-wielding natives," and the rude shock of seeing the empty restaurant that used to be El Guapo's makes me inclined to agree.

But this is no reason I should be kept from showing off my hard-earned physique.

In the photo above, Lo is telling me to, "suck in the barriga!" I'm pretty sure I could diet and/or angst myself down into the double-digits and that barriga would remain firmly in place. And for this, I blame OFD: he handed down what we lovingly refer to as the Perlman Physique, which looks adorable on Olive and Baley...

... but significantly less so on adults.

You see, Mom? Not everything is your fault!

When one is up against an immovable object, it's best to find a way to appreciate it instead. I choose to look at it this way: it's a piece of Milwaukee-born real estate that no developer can price out of existence.

Films for the Face-Blind

Last weekend LB and I went to see a movie at the Bensenville Theatre, in the dynamic cultural hub that is Bensenville. We do this about every two weeks and it's not really about the movie.  Or Bensenville. 

Bensenville in the gloaming.

Okay, it's a little bit about Bensenville, since this theatre charges $4 a ticket and it's never crowded.  But really, it's about being out alone with LB.  It's about the popcorn and Junior Mints and Raisinettes and big soda and the giant soft pretzel and perhaps most of all, it's about a little break from Olive.

We've gone to see movies we'd have never seen otherwise just because they happen to be showing at this theatre, like the Adam Sandler vehicle-du-jour a month ago, and in this most recent outing, The Lincoln Lawyer.  

As I've mentioned many times before, I'm face-blind, especially when it comes to men.  I sat through an hour of The Departed before I understood that Leonardo di Caprio and Matt Damon were two different people.  As odd as this may seem, it was not until Mel Gibson's arrest that I could comfortably distinguish him from Harrison Ford.  People tell me they don't look much alike, but I see two white guys with light brown hair.  Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman?  Fuggetaboutit.  Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett?  Completely indistinguishable.  Almost as difficult as men are long-haired blonde women.  My idea of a nightmare would be a film starring Kate Hudson, Amanda Seyfried and Gwyneth Paltrow.  To be honest, just about any film starring Kate Hudson is a nightmare, but I digress.

The Lincoln Lawyer, however, was right up my alley. Matthew McConaughey and John Leguizamo look nothing alike, not even to me.  And the extreme sex appeal of William H. Macy makes me always know it's him, even when he's wearing a long-haired wig and a cheesy moustache.  Ryan Phillipe is a featureless, blank face in the crowd, but I kept tabs on him throughout the movie him through process of elimination.

It occurred to me that since many of my readers are Spectaculan-friendly and may have a little Spectaculanness themselves, perhaps a list of viewing choices ideal for the face-blind would be appreciated.  Feel free to jump in and suggest your own Yay!  I can tell everyone apart! favorites.

Foul Play:  It's an oldie, and a face-blind person's dream come true: a dwarf, an albino, Dudley Moore, Chevy Chase, and the Pope.  If you can't tell people apart in this film, then you are in worse shape than I am.  Name-tags and assigned seating for your own children may not be a bad idea.

Death Trap: I'm all over movies with only two main actors.  Tip: the older one is Michael Caine.

Con-Air.  You knew I'd mention this one.  I love this movie for so many reasons, not the least of them being that John Cusack does a handy run-down of each perp individually as they board the plane.  Also, you've got some really distinctive voices, with Nicholas Cage, John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi, making Con-Air perfect for those of us who see with our ears.  And, in case you did manage to get confused somewhere along the way, they clear it all up at the end with a close-up on each cast member in the credits.  It's as if this movie were written just for me.  I'm pretty sure that when they release the director's cut, it'll be clearly marked as such with a little picture of me that appears at the very end.  And the words For Jen Sullivan.  Yes, You, with an arrow pointing down to the picture.

Cast Away:  To be honest, I did not care for this film.  I haven't liked any film starring the post-Big, terribly important and socially responsible Tom Hanks.  But I do concede that it's really easy to tell which one is Tom Hanks and which one is the volleyball.

Vicky Christina Barcelona:  The three women in this film look nothing alike.  As for the men: there's Javier Bardem, and a few other guys who are not Javier Bardem. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Hustle and Flow, Crash, or for that matter, any movie that includes Terrence Howard.  He's one of the few actors where I always, always know it's him, because of his uncanny resemblance to my Uncle Danny, who died in 1998.

See, here's Terrence:

and here's Uncle Danny (with Aunt Marilyn).

Terrence...

...and Uncle Danny.

It may be worth mentioning that part of being face-blind means seeing connections that others may miss.  But you see this one, don't you?

The World and My Place In It

While Olive was on break, it was hard to keep a coherent thought in my head.  My blog ideas were like floaters: those dust motes you think are in the air but they're really right there on your eyeballs (or is it the other way around?).  I'd try to focus on one, and then it would be gone.  Olive's very thoughtful teacher sent her home with several tasks involving Legos and peg boards and Olive enjoyed doing them very much: as long as I was at her side.  Not on the computer, not talking on the phone, and thinking only Olive-centric thoughts.  Ten days may not sound like a very long spring break, but it's an eternity when you're thinking only Olive-centric thoughts.

I had a very outspoken friend in college who used to tell me that I lived in a Jen-centric universe and should probably not have children.   She claimed that the fact that I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about just proved her point.  Eventually, she conceded that if I really felt I must have children,  I should be sure to sit them down at some point and give them what she called The Speech: where I would explain how the planet revolved around me, and they were just meteors in my gravitational field, along for the ride.  I spoke to her once on the phone after I had Sabina and Daisy and she jokingly asked me if I'd given them "The speech" yet.  Hah!  They were easy children and no speech was ever necessary. 

Sometimes I think this is why God gave me Olive.  It's certainly not because I'm a selfless person, and not because He wanted me to learn to become a selfless person: it was because He knew he could count on me never to become one.

Today was Olive's first full day back after Pesach break (yesterday was a short day).  After I dropped her off and Dana's bus had picked him up, I crawled blissfully back into my Tempurpedic bed with the ridiculously luxurious sheets and cuddled up with the large stuffed pig Agatha knit me a few years back.  I fell into an immediate, intense slumber without one stitch of guilt.  After I woke up, I looked at my watch and it said it was five minutes to one.  Immediate, horrific panic!  I hadn't even cleaned up the breakfast dishes.  When I looked at my watch again and saw I'd misread it -- it was only five minutes after eleven -- I was so relieved that I went back to sleep for another hour.  God, that felt good.

Now, let's move on to my recent accomplishment.  I have finished my ten-stitch blanket for Hen and Andra's baby-on-the-way.  I think the color scheme (or lack thereof) is arguably unisex.  I'd like this to be the sort of blanket that gets turned to in times of emergency and habit, but given the fact that it's not machine washable, I doubt that will happen.  I'd love to knit that special lovey, but I can't bring myself to do it because it would involve acrylic, or worse still, yarn treated to make it "superwash."  Pleh.

I have now alienated whatever audience I had left after explaining the Jen-centric universe. 

Years ago, my friend Miss Susan asked me why the knitting listserv I belonged to needed a moderator since, "What was there to argue about when it comes to knitting?"  Oh, the battles over acrylic vs. natural fibers!  And the nasty names some knitters called those of us who expected a new mom to hand-wash something!

In the end, it's all up to the baby: Anatole's favorite blanket was knit from untreated wool, and it was a blanket I had intended for "special," just for that reason.  I never meant for him to use it every day.  It ended up being machine washed many times (hand-washing was not enough, since Anatole was a soy formula baby.  If you've had one, then you understand) until it was the size and thickness of a large potholder, but he loved it all the same.  Any attempts to replace it in his crib was met with a musk-ox bellow and the new blanket flying across the room.  When he finally outgrew it, I disposed of it wrapped in plastic as one does with all biohazardous waste: you can wash something woolen a million times, but the pervasive odor of soy formula poop will never entirely leave.

This ten-stitch blanket was easy and non-threatening to make, and got me through the long process of acclamation to the oft-referenced Vitamin P.  Koigu wool and Vitamin P: just two of the things that maintain equilibrium in my universe.

Specifics and a few more photos here:

Cluck

I chickened out.  I couldn't do it.  And though it had nothing to do with seeing Maria Shriver on The View...well, she didn't make me regret my decision.

Highs and Lows

In high school, I had a good friend whose father was that other kind of dad: the kind who rarely spoke, and whose arrival was heralded by an uneasy hush falling over the house.  He was more than just a wet blanket: in the world of depression, he was a carrier.

My friend lived far away, so when I went to her house I usually stayed overnight.  Staying overnight involved eating dinner, and dinner when her dad was home was such a silent and stiff-backed occasion that if my friend and I hadn't smoked so much marijuana beforehand, I don't know how I'd have ever gotten through it. 

There was only one time I remember this man speaking.  His wife was making small talk about the school year and how quickly it had gone by, and he said, "Each year feels shorter than the year before, because as you age each year represents a smaller fraction of your life."

The silence that followed made the silence preceding look like a Cinco de Mayo celebration.  His comment wasn't exactly new information, but it answered a few questions for me.  For instance, I understood why his children were always stoned and his wife was always drunk. 

I think of my friend's dad whenever I'm making a project where there's a choice of starting with three stitches and working my way up to hundreds of stitches on the needle, or starting with all the stitches and gradually decreasing until there's only three left.

You'd think that starting with lots of stitches and working my way down would be more satisfying.  Each row goes by more quickly than the one before, even as the triangle grows longer.  But I never enjoy those decreases as much as I think I'm going to, and working on this blanket for Olive--which involves both knitting up and knitting down--makes me understand why.

The phenomenon of each row getting shorter is only fun if I'm in a hurry for the project to end.

Tomorrow's Another Yom

Last week we had Yom HaShoah and today is Yom HaZikaron.  It's another solemn day, so Olive is wearing black and white.  Tuesday is Yom Ha'Atzmaut, a happy day, and we wear blue and white--the colors of the Israeli flag.  Thursday is, or course, Yom Earth, and Olive is supposed to wear blue and green.  Yesterday I told LB that in Israel, Mother's Day is called Yom Mama and I almost had him.

Yom Earth I know about, and I get why I'm supposed to dress the cylindrical column of plutonium that is my child in the colors of grass and sky.  I know that observing Yom Earth means no zip-lock baggies in her lunchbox, and that Thursday would be a good time for Olive to make it through the whole day in big girl panties.  I know it's a day when we pretend the very act of celebrating it publicly doesn't create extra litter.  Yes, I'm somewhat toxic on the subject of this particular Yom.

But when it comes to Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'Atzmaut, it's like I'm dancing the Hora.  I don't know how to get it started and I'm unsure which circle goes in which direction, but I recognize Hava Nagila when I hear it.  If you tell me where to stand I can probably follow along. 

Ah, Yom HaShoah.  I remember how we'd all gather 'round Tante Marilyn's table in our somber shmatta of black and white, eating Chinese Take-out while my Bubbe spoke in hushed tones of fleeing Riga before the Anschluss.

I've eaten many a meal at Aunt Marilyn's table but if it was Yom Anything, I didn't know it.  I had one set of grandparents which means I had a Bubbe, but we called her Nanny.  Nanny was married to Dada, naturally.  The fact that Nanny was my dad's mother and that Dada was my mother's father is another blog post entirely, and something I assumed happened in every family until I hit my teens.  I have ancestors who came from Riga, but did they flee or did they come to the US much earlier, in a leisurely fashion, stopping often to take photos of each other in striped bathing attire, pretending to jump off deck?  

It was Riga, wasn't it? 

The beauty of being young and unobservant means that I didn't have to know.  Most people my age have parents too young to have lived through it, and if it weren't for those older siblings of mine I probably wouldn't have Nazi dreams at all.  On the other hand, the problem of being young and unobservant means I don't know. I could learn, but it would be just that: information I learned.  Honestly?  I don't know if I truly remember Nanny or if the stories and pictures and home movies makes me think I do.

Let's assume you're a young, sort-of Jewish girl growing up in Wisconsin, and your knowledge of what it's like to be a Jew begins with the Anschluss and ends with displaced persons wandering through the Bronx, trying to find their relatives in the personal ads.  It makes being Jewish sound like not a whole lotta fun.  Chosen, Shmozen!  I knew about that wildcard in the unlikely Bridge foursome that was my grandparents: Carmen Valdaliso.  She lived in Cuba and abandoned my mom and her sister when they were toddlers.  I never met her and I never would, but I clung to her with both hands.  What, me Jewish?  I married a gentile.  Our sons would be...very uncomfortable undressing in Abraham's Locker Room.

So how did it happen then that we ended up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, with a daughter attending a conservative Jewish day school, participating in the Jewish Special Olympics, and going to Camp Ramah?  I think about this as I wait in the Shecther parking lot, in my van with the We Love Israel bumpersicker--especially if it's a Yom.

It started like this: three years ago we enrolled Olive in Autism Academy, a Jewish preschool that was relatively non-observant.  During our interview the social worker asked LB and me if we were Jewish.  I said yes, we were.  In the distance, a cock crowed three times.  LB looked at me questioningly and I kicked him under the table in a way that could only mean, "We're all-in Jewish now.  Deal with it."  The social worker told us gently that we didn't have to be Jewish to enroll our child.  I think she was a little amused that Robert J. Sullivan, Jr. was trying to pass.

We loved this school, but after nine months we simply could not afford it.  We never could, but after nine months none of our relatives could either and people stopped answering the phone when we called.  I asked Olive's speech therapist, Cate, which of the Chicago public schools she'd recommend for Olive.  After all, we lived in Chicago, and Cate taught in CPS.  Her answer was, "Move to Northbrook."  At first I thought she was kidding, but then she leaned in closer and said--and here it's important to know that Cate was not Jewish and didn't know the predominant seasoning in my cultural melange: Follow the Jews.  They know what they're doing!

My Parents' Refrigerator, Deconstructed

I had been planning to make Saturday the day for my weekly reward for not buying yarn, but then it occurred to me that Saturday would be well over a week from my last shopping spree.  Thus, Thursday shall be the day when I shall give unto you much extraneous information.

Memes are more fun to write than they are to read, and more interesting to start than they are to follow.  In the spirit of making this exercise interesting for you, too, my memes will bear a great, personal significance to me (for instance, the question of "what are you wearing right now?" is rarely of great personal significance to me).  I won't tag people, but if you're reading this and find yourself inspired, please feel free to consider yourself "It."

Several months ago Crazymom Tats did a meme where she displayed and discussed the contents of her refrigerator.  While my own refrigerator says little about me and lots about what my children like to eat (I'll save a discussion of Mommy's Secret Treat Shelf for another day) my parents' refrigerator speaks volumes.  If you know me and have read this blog even a little while, then you also know that the melange of Perlman and Lowenthal that my parents have created is a family--five at present, and one who lives on in spirit--whose members are unusually (and at times uncomfortably) close.  Or as Dr. Bowtie tells me, "a family with some boundary issues."  I have my own family 'fridge as do Lo and Hen, but I think they'd all agree that the mother of all refrigerators is my mother's.

We'll start with the outside of the 'fridge.  Do you have a child?  Do you know someone with a child?  Have you seen a child at the grocery store, on an airplane, or at the dry cleaner's?  It matters not how well you or anyone else knows this child: he or she is on my parents' refrigerator door. 

In the photos below, OFD contemplates the door from two angles.  A good many of the people you see here are strangers to me.  For instance, the birth announcement in the upper left hand corner: I think it's for the baby of a member of my mom's cleaning team.  There's an attractive African American family of three whom I don't recognize, and here and there, we find a sprinkling of European labor economists with whom my dad has worked over the years.  They, too, have had children who have made their way onto the 'fridge.  Some of these labor economists have divorced and remarried, and are now pictured on the fridge with their new spouses, and the children of said spouse from a previous marriage.  If this new, blended family has hired a cleaning team and one of the member of that team has had a child, then that child, too, is on the 'fridge.

Some faces are familiar: Olive with her face in a circle, representing the head of a snowman.  Miss Susan's brood assembled in front of a barn.  The girl in braids lying on a bed is my niece Rachel, and to her immediate right (in the suit) is her brother Seth.  But the child below them putting on a backpack?  I've got no clue.  Same goes for the two kiddos dressed in red, with one wearing a Santa hat.   Toward the bottom of the 'fridge we see Saint Francis, whom my mom loves for complicated reasons involving the poet Ruben Dario, and to his far left, we have the children of my ex-husband.  The door of my parents' refrigerator makes for interesting research and discussion, but just try getting yourself a drink of seltzer in the middle of the night without knocking off three photographs and getting hit in the eye with a refrigerator magnet that says "Jamaica, No Problem!"

Out of deference to my mom's sense of aesthetics there is no picture of the inside of the 'fridge, but I'll describe it.  Since my mom was expecting a crowd that day-- Hen, Andra, Baley, my three eldest girls and me--there was more food in there than the usual assortment of yogurts, diet cheese and half a lemon shriveling quietly in an egg compartment.  There were marinating steaks, because Andra needs iron.  In the crisper there were strawberries and grapes, because Andra loves strawberries and grapes.  Monopolizing the top shelf were ingredients for a green salad with everything in it including hardboiled eggs and artichoke hearts, because Andra likes green salad with everything in it including hardboiled eggs and artichoke hearts.  See a trend?  But don't worry: mom didn't leave Hen out.  The 'fridge held a bottle of beer purchased just for him, and that French bread on top of the 'fridge also has his name on it. 

Mom tried to tell me that the seltzer had been bought with me in mind, but she can't fool me.  God hasn't yet created the Perlman who doesn't like seltzer.