Talking to Yourself

This morning Momo pointed out something interesting.  If you just walk down the street talking to yourself, everyone thinks you're crazy.  However, if you walk down the street talking to your dog, everyone thinks that's normal.

It's true.  I try not to talk to myself when other people are around.  Mostly because people will think I'm crazier than usual.  But if you think of it, saying something out loud kind of anchors it in your mind.  It somehow gives it a form that it didn't have when it was just bouncing around in your head.  Maybe it's a good idea.  And if you're wearing earbuds, people just assume that you are on the phone.  So go ahead, put in your earbuds and talk all you want.

What We'll Do Today

Back to the Drawing Board

Well... the earth didn't end on Friday, so among other things, I still need to clean the fridge.

My dad is 87 years old.  I told him that some people thought the world was going to end on the 21st and if it did then he wins... he made it all the way to the end.  Now he needs to figure out a different way to win.

My understanding is, that even if we are still here, there is some great planetary alignment going on.  I wanted  to show you a cool photo of the sun in the middle of the hole in Milky Way.  I didn't find anything like that.  However, I found this visually pleasing image that I don't really understand.  If you want to explain it, come by and we'll have a cuppa tea.

Projects

Sorry I haven't been posting lately.  I've been trying to get a bunch of projects organized and it sucks up all my brain power.  What I need is to be more disciplined but that's a constant struggle.

Mom's Yahrzeit

Today is my mother's yahrzeit (anniversary of her death).  We calculate the date using the Jewish calendar, so it actually began last night at sunset.  Each year on the anniversary of her death, we gather a minyan so we can say the mourners' kaddish for her.  It's a way to honor and celebrate her life, and it elevates her soul to be remembered and honored.

This year's minyan for mom...

Many of these young men were with us the night that she died and were part of the minyan before her body was taken away.  There are a couple of new faces who have joined us over the past two years.  The nice thing about gathering a minyan last night, was that even after we had finished, a steady stream of young Jewish men kept showing up to make sure that we had had enough to say kaddish.

You may notice that this minyan is all male.  I know this is going to earn me flak from my Reform friends.  (A minyan is 10 adult male Jews; however, Reform Jews count women towards a minyan as well.)  I'm okay with the all male thing.  When I need their support, these guys have always been there for me.  They should be aware that I depend on them, not only for physical support, but for spiritual support as well.

Here they are trying to emulate that one painting of a bunch of Jewish guys.  DaVinci it's not, but at least they have a big arms guy.

A Dogg By Any Name

The story going around is that Snoop Dogg, the famous Long Beach rapper, is now called "Snoop Lion".  He went to Jamaica and an old rasta man asked him his name.  When he said "Snoop Dogg", the old guy looked at him and said, "You aren't a dog, you are a lion."  Hence the name change.

It kind of makes people giggle to call him Snoop Lion.  "Dogg" is a LB nickname.  Even our parakeet Fitzwilliam is called "Bird Dogg."  The kid across the street calls his little sister "Bone Dogg," if their mother is out of earshot.

When Jacob wrestled with the angel/man/Esau/G-d (depending which version you ascribe to), he was told that his name was no longer Jacob, but Israel- which means "wrestles with G-d."  I think we can see a parallel here with Snoop's story.  Snoop started out as a very angry young man but as he has aged he has mellowed.  He has paid his dues and wrestled with his demons.  The rasta man was right: Snoop's no one's dog, he has earned recognition as a lion.  However, just as we still refer to Jacob as Jacob, we will probably continue to call the lion Snoop Dogg.

Hasid Gangnam

The Hasids have all the fun:

For those of you worrying about the absence of women... they are just dancing together somewhere where they don't have to worry about the men.

Life During War Time

I admit that I'm no closer to being able to figure out people and war than I was when I was a little kid.  With that in mind, let's have a look at what is going on in the world.

Is democracy a universally good idea?  There seems to be only one correct American response: yes.  I'm not real sure that it's working that well for us, and we all had to sit through jr. high social studies, so (theoretically) we're pretty well versed in how it's supposed to work.  Each of us has a responsibility to make sure that things work the way we think they should.  Not that any of us can agree on how things should work.

The United States is going to recognize the rebel forces in Syria if/when Assad falls.  We did a spectacular job of this in Libya.  Now those Libyans are free to hunt each other down.  At least the guy we disliked the most is out of it.  The LA Times points out this morning that we won't be recognizing all of the Syrian rebels, only the ones we think will impose a government that likes us.  Good thinking.

This is so not going to work.  What did we learn from Egypt?  Revolutions are exciting.  Americans love to see them happening elsewhere.  Was it Bertolt Brecht who said that fire is an intermission for the masses?  Maybe we could look at revolutions as a very loud kind of democracy.  For example: we voted to not have George III be our king.  Revolution is a strange thing.  You really can't decide if it worked well until it's been over for awhile and you can see the quality of life of it's people.  In Egypt, they have obviously decided that they need to vote again because they don't like the direction that Morsi is taking.

In Judaism we have a saying: two Jews, three opinions.  This saying could just as easily be applied to our Muslim cousins.  If someone sent me to Syria right now, and asked me to figure out which rebels will be able to form a cohesive government that has parallel values to the US, I would probably go (because I'm a sucker for trying to figure things out) but I probably couldn't find a single battalion of fighters who all agreed about everything.  Our alliances are formed by more than ideology.  If I'm going to go fight a war, I'm going to use my natural allies... people in my family or people I grew up with.  But if you followed us home at night, we'd be sitting around arguing as much as ever.

Remember... when I was a kid in America, we called the Taliban "freedom fighters".  Apparently who the enemy is is very fluid.  
 

X-ing People Out

In the olden days, like when I was a teenager, people still wrote letters.  It was fun.  You could write them on all sorts of things... glossy ads from magazines, paper napkins in restaurants, fancy paper from the stationary shop.  Then you put it in an envelope and viola! a few days later, whomever you  had written had the message in their hand.  The same message you had been in physical contact with before.  If the person you wrote to was in a far off land, there was somehow a physical connection established.

One of the interesting things about letter writing was that it was usually done in ink.  If you miswrote, or changed your mind about something you had written, you either had to start again, or cross things out.  Guess which method was more popular?  No delete buttons on pens.  Reading through crossed out lines was something of an art form.  You can imagine why... did he tell me that he loved me but then decide it was too early in our relationship to write that?  Was this misspelling really a Freudian slip?  My cousins and I spent a lot of time trying to read under the crossed out stuff.

Perhaps this is why it bothers me a little that we refer to a real person as our "ex".  What does that mean?  That we miss acted when we got married and had children?  That the person no longer exists?  A giant Freudian slip?

I was on an airplane once distractedly watching my seat mate do her homework.  When I glanced at the report she was writing, I burst out laughing.  She was writing a report on Malcolm Ex.  She was annoyed to have me laugh at her.  I told her that I thought she should write about the religious epiphany he had experienced in Mecca, that it was probably one of the most important spiritual awakenings of the 20th century.  I'm pretty sure that she had no idea what I was talking about.

But I digress (actually everything in this blog could technically be called a digression).  Malcolm X changed his name because white slave owners had obliterated his identity.  The X was a reminder that he was his own person and of the fight to become his own person.  The African American name that I really like is Morgan Freeman, nobody is getting ex-ed but nobody is confused about ownership.  He is his own man.

I wonder if there is a more respectful term for someone who was once central in some way to our lives.

Jelly Filled Donuts

It's that time of year again.  Eight crazy nights and whatever we want to do in the days.  This morning, I walked over to the shul to pick up the jelly filled donuts we ordered.  I got home with most of them.  Momo was not impressed.  You ate four jelly filled donuts between here and the synagogue?!  I'll bet he couldn't walk a block with two dozen donuts on the first day of Hanukkah and gotten home with any more than I did.  He is much more of a pushover than I am.  Besides, one of the guys standing outside of the temple told everyone that it's a mitzvah to eat jelly filled donuts on Hanukkah, and I couldn't prevent them from fulfilling a mitzvah.

Faith versus Works

In Christianity there is a saying: Faith without works is dead.  We Jews have a very different understanding of the whole faith and works thing.  Judaism is a religion of deeds not faith.  This is very confusing to non-Jews for some reason.  Let me try to explain it and if you still don't get it, please ask questions in the comment section.

A few years ago, when I had first moved to Long Beach, I was quite ill.  I was so ill that if I got too tired I would vomit and feel like I was going to pass out.  One day, in the Christmas season, I was in Target.  Unfortunately they build stores that are difficult to leave easily if you aren't right by the front entrance.  I got really sick and couldn't make it out in time.  I was sitting on the floor, vomiting into a plastic bag, and wondering how I was going to get home.  Christmas music was playing, reminding people that this is the season of giving.  Nobody stopped to help me.  One woman said, "Are you all right," to which I replied, "No," before she walked on.  Thanks.  I'm making an assumption that most of the Christmas shoppers in Target that day were Christian.  I am sure that many of them have a lot of faith.  That really didn't do me any good.  I think that the "reason for the season" may have given them explicit instructions on what to do when someone, even someone you don't know, needs help.

Later people pointed out that, since I was vomiting, it was obvious that I was ill and they probably didn't want to catch anything.  Like leprosy or something.

See, Judaism doesn't let us off that easy.  We are expected to do the right thing if we feel all warm and tingly or not.  I know Jews who don't believe in G-d at all.  That doesn't make them bad Jews.  It would be nice if they were in touch with their mystical side, but the bottom line is that that is kind of like frosting on the cake.  We're okay if we just have a nice solid brown bread instead.

The ninja who lives here was raised in a strictly Orthodox family.  Ergo, he doesn't consider himself a "religious Jew" with his current lifestyle.  If you ask him for help... if anyone asks him for help, he does his best to help them.  Omanis who need a fridge moved... the ninja is there.  The hitchhiker going the other way gets to his destination via the ninja.  People on the street who need money... the ninja usually has some.  I don't know what he believes, I can only see the things that he does.  That's what counts with Jews.

Seasons

We have seasons in Long Beach.  Just not that nasty one.  Here are some photos from my afternoon walk.

I really don't miss the snow and cold at all.

Homeless Boyfriends

The boys always like to tease me about my homeless boyfriends.  The only men who seem to have any interest in me at all, all seem to be homeless.  There's Johnny on 2nd Street who played me a song on his guitar and asked me out.  There's Carlo at the pier, who is handsome and quite pleasant.  There was the paraplegic guy from outside of Trader Joe's.  Momo says it's the perfect setup... they don't have a home and I do.  In the olden days men were attracted to me based on more than I look like I have regular showers.

This morning on my walk down to the beach, a homeless guy called out, "Ola, bonita muchacha."  I think that literally this translates into something like, "Hello, little beauty a lot."  Come to think of it, the muchacha may have been an afterthought, kind of to negate the "little" part.  Figuratively translated, I think it means, "Hey Mama," but not the way the boys at the house mean it.  The standing on the street corner fishing kind of hey mama.

When I was a teenager, I was getting hey mama-ed by a small group of cholos and decided to go over and see if they ever catch anyone that way.  They admitted that it wasn't working very well/at all.

Ah men.  They're everywhere.

Skyfall Is Brilliant

Yes, I just called the new James Bond movie "brilliant".  It is one of the most masterful pieces of propaganda (not in a bad way... there is good propaganda, you know, all that white hat stuff) that I have seen in my life time.  Remember how most of our perception about the movie was linked with the Queen of England months before the movie came out?  She parachuted into the Olympics with that blond guy, thereby totally connecting herself with the Dame Judi Densch character.

The Dame Judi character is an old woman who is still as sharp as a tack.  She's also brave, protective, and fierce.  She and the old blond guy can save the world without all sorts of computer trickery.  They can save the world with a cheap radio and old junk they find.

There's also a graphic that rather pointedly equates the Dame and the Queen in sort of a negative way using the V For Vendetta style.  Which is also brilliant, because it allows you to take a negative image (the G-d Save the Queen poster from V) and make you feel a bit protective of her having been attacked.

Also, Skyfall is just fun.  I had to laugh in the theater when James shows off his fancy car and an audible male moan of lust rose from the audience.