Pissy-Poo Day

[copied from dland]

So, my title pretty much says it all. I've had better days, although work was okay, other than I had to be there. I'm just bitchy, and K appeared to be bitchy during the extremely limited time I spent with her today (intentionally limited by me, in fact.) I won't regale you with all the tales of everything; I'll just hit the highlights.

Easter was fine yesterday. I ate way more than I wanted to, but pretty much exactly what I expected to. As to why I did this, I worked out the whole explanation for you all in my head on the ride home, which perhaps I will share in a few minutes or a few days. Let's see how it goes.

I weighed myself this morning. I gained two pounds since Friday. What. Ever. I'm not happy about that, but I'm not bummed about it either. It just is. I'd feel better if it didn't take me two weeks to lose a half pound, but hey, it's over, it's in the past. Moving on.

I am sick of it being this cold, and of not being able to dress for it. I dressed very warmly today. Wrong. It would seem that 33 degrees in mid-winter does not feel the same as 33 degrees in April. Must be the angle of the sun or something. So I was having one of those malaria days: hot, cold, hot, cold, rinse, repeat.

Speaking of which, I ate one of those Fiber One bars this morning. Seriously, I should be protected from those. This left me with euphemism an upset stomach all afternoon, but it did give me the opportunity to tell the principal that I wasn't feeling well and I was going home instead of to the faculty meeting. Which was almost true, because I had to stop at the supermarket on my way home. Because you know mothers will provide for the home even if they are bleeding out of their eyes. Let alone ... okay.

Tomorrow is K's birthday. It's the first one in her life that's not making her giddy with excitement. She LOVES her birthday, and this year, it's like she could care less. Which is not the case. This year, she feels like she's stuck in boring school and living at home with no friends and her life is on hold. I sympathize with her, but I do not wish her to take it out on me. A great deal of my conflict today stems from her birthday and her gift. She told me last night that her iPod is broken. (We knew it was dying.) Unfortunately, I have already bought her a camera that can only be returned for store credit. (Needless to say, to a store that does not also sell iPods.) She doesn't know about the camera, which she would like but doesn't need, and needs an iPod because it's integral to her everyday life, and as I've already said, she doesn't have a lot going for her life these days. Plus, she has a mother who is incapable of saying No. Raise your hand if you've already guessed that I'm putting the camera away for Christmas. She certainly had been an incredibly expensive kid to have this past month.

And .... now I'm letting go of that one.

Okay, next. When I was a kid, I had an aunt named Sarah. Without going into the complex relationships here, she was my great-aunt, married to my grandfather's brother. Grandpa and Uncle Joe were very, very close, and so we saw Uncle Joe and Aunt Sarah often, but never at their apartment in Brooklyn, always at our house in New Jersey or at their daughter's home in Long Island. Before I was old enough to know much, I knew that Aunt Sarah was not like other people. I rarely heard her speak, and probably had conversations with her no more than a few times in my life. She always seemed to be sitting quietly in a chair somewhere, although sometimes she would help her daughter in the kitchen. My grandmother would chatter away with her as if Aunt Sarah were responding as anyone would, although she rarely did. (They were best girlhood friends who had married a pair of brothers.)

For one thing, Aunt Sarah was not a looker, but she always had a vacant expression, as if she were looking off far away. A vacant smile. She did respond to her own grandchildren, but they were very exuberant little boys, and they overwhelmed her. (Although they were careful not to raise holy hell right where she was.) At some age, maybe six or seven, I learned Aunt Sarah's story (other than the story of their youth, how the two best friends married the popular brothers; I had always known that.) Aunt Sarah had suffered some kind of depression, later, I learned, a "nervous breakdown." (They don't use that expression anymore, but I don't know what's replaced it.) She went someplace for treatment, and they had used electric shock therapy on her. (This would have been in the late forties or early fifties.) And so from then on, she sat in a chair and looked vacant, and sometimes helped in the kitchen. And I steered clear of her, mostly because I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't afraid of her. There wasn't anything there to be afraid of.

For some reason, when I was 8 or 9, we actually trekked into Brooklyn to visit a whole mess of family that was there. It had been arranged that we would stop for lunch at Aunt Sarah's and Uncle Joe's. It was a hot summer day, I remember, and I couldn't imagine how she was going to give us lunch. My grandma helped her in the kitchen, and I was told to sit at the table, along with my sister and Uncle Joe. Aunt Sarah came in carrying bowls, and really, looked delighted to have us all in her home and eating a meal that she served. (She had been a famous cook in her day.) And she set before me a bowl of strawberries and sour cream.

Now, anything and sour cream is an Eastern European thing whether you're Jewish or Polish or, I think, Austrian. I had no problem with the sour cream. But I Did.Not.Eat.Strawberries.

I was a known picky eater, and strawberries had those ... things in them! The seeds! I could not bear to eat anything with seeds or pieces in it. I still don't like it, but I'm not four years old anymore, so it's not a problem. I've never, for example, eaten brownies with nuts in them. Ick.

So, dilemma. Aunt Sarah gave me strawberries to eat. And without a blink -- but with a grimace or two -- I ate them. I knew better than to hurt this poor woman's feelings. And this is how children learn compassion. This is how children learn to suck up their pickiness for someone else's well-being. My mother didn't have to tell me to eat it, or even throw me a look. She had already taught me that I was not the center of the universe, and that there's no reason to hurt a harmless, helpless old lady.

The moral of the story is that I now love strawberries. Just kidding; I do love strawberries (thank you, Aunt Sarah) but that's not the moral of the story. The moral is that yesterday I ate the Roast Crown of Pork, and the mashed potatoes, and the icky vegetables swimming in God knows what, and the antipasto, and the pizza'gain, and a cannoli. What would have been the point in saying to my mother-in-law, Oh, I'm on weight watchers and I can't eat a single thing you're serving today? Which is worth at least two pounds of peace of mind to me, knowing I didn't senselessly hurt someone's feelings.

Here ya go.



That's Passover, 1956. Sam and Ida (my grandparents), Sarah and Joe. (That Joe was a charmer, with twinkly Paul Newman-colored eyes. Remember, neither of the brothers was taller than 5'2".)

and



1965, Sarah and Joe with their grandson Peter at his Bar Mitzvah. She passed away about a year after this picture was taken; Joe lived on to 92, and only missed my wedding by a few months. Peter is my cousin who died of cancer at 55, a year ago last week.


watching Still Standing :: entry #1424