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Dec. 19th, 2003 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraWeek has passed in a blur of crashing computers and incontinent pets. It’s kind of like a real-life version of Find Waldo: what animal has deposited which turds where? Milo, the puppy, favors the Purloined Letter approach, depositing his droppings in plain view – under the kitchen table, for instance, where nobody would think to look until we’re all gathered round for the evening meal.
"What’s that smell?" says Robin, wrinkling his nose.
He holds the title as the family’s most finicky eater so I scream at him. "It’s perfectly good chicken! Eat it or I’m going to take that goddam Playstation to a homeless shelter and donate it to some deserving child!"
"Homeless children don’t have electricity," Max points out.
"It smells like poop," says Robin.
Dem’s fighting words. Like many middling chefs, I pride myself on my cooking. Plus I have just spent fourteen hours doing the books, mailing Internet orders and sitting behind the counter of my struggling store, and yet – because I am a responsible parent and would rather die than feed my children frozen food! (however much they would prefer it) – I have cooked this three course meal! Roasted chicken á l’orange! (You stick a tangerine up its whazoo.) Caesar salad! (Okay, it comes in a bag.) Broccoli with Hollandaise sauce. (Hollandaise sauce is easy in a blender.)
I am fixing Robin with my blackest look when Ben says in a strangled voice, "There is something on my shoe."
We draw the curtain over the remainder of this family repast.
Of course I blame myself for the pets’ dysfunctional behavior. I haven’t really been available to them what with all the demands on my time. I resolve to get up at 4 AM instead of 5 AM so I can take the dogs running on the beach before I go in to the store. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the cat. She doesn’t really like sand.
And I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the children either.
Ben reports a really disturbing conversation with Max in the car on the way home from school.
"I’ve heard Jewish people have a certain look," Max began.
"That’s not true," said Ben calmly. And went on to explain that originally Jews were one of many Semitic peoples living in a particular part of the world, a homogenous population as most were back then save for the occasional rape by marauding Mongols. After two thousand years of exile from Israel, however, through intermarriage and the cuckoo’s nest, there wasn’t any defining look.
"What about Anne Frank?" Max demanded. "She looked Jewish."
Ben went on to talk about Sephardic Jews, Ladino, and how when the Sephardic populations of Spain and Portugal were driven out, many of them sought refuge in the Netherlands. "Hence the Jewish population of Holland tended to have a more conventionally Semitic look," said Ben. "Dark skin, dark hair. Distinctive noses."
Max was silent.
"Look at your great aunt Annie," said Ben. "Remember your grandmother. Think about your dentist. Do they look alike?"
"They came from Russia," said Max.
My son, the neo-Nazi.
I’m beside myself with rage when Ben reports back on this conversation. "You should have asked, ‘Who told you that?’"
"Well, no. The proper means of combating ignorance is with information. And by the end of the discussion, Max agreed with me – there is no Jewish look. And he’ll argue the point with whomever it was that brought it up. Education up the line."
"Whoever brought it up will just respond that it’s a clinical fact that the appendix, while a vestigial organ in most humans, has evolved in Jews as a second stomach, physiologically designed for digesting Christian babies."
"I never heard that one before," said Ben.
"Of course, not," I told him. "I just made it up."
Happy Hanukuh.
"What’s that smell?" says Robin, wrinkling his nose.
He holds the title as the family’s most finicky eater so I scream at him. "It’s perfectly good chicken! Eat it or I’m going to take that goddam Playstation to a homeless shelter and donate it to some deserving child!"
"Homeless children don’t have electricity," Max points out.
"It smells like poop," says Robin.
Dem’s fighting words. Like many middling chefs, I pride myself on my cooking. Plus I have just spent fourteen hours doing the books, mailing Internet orders and sitting behind the counter of my struggling store, and yet – because I am a responsible parent and would rather die than feed my children frozen food! (however much they would prefer it) – I have cooked this three course meal! Roasted chicken á l’orange! (You stick a tangerine up its whazoo.) Caesar salad! (Okay, it comes in a bag.) Broccoli with Hollandaise sauce. (Hollandaise sauce is easy in a blender.)
I am fixing Robin with my blackest look when Ben says in a strangled voice, "There is something on my shoe."
We draw the curtain over the remainder of this family repast.
Of course I blame myself for the pets’ dysfunctional behavior. I haven’t really been available to them what with all the demands on my time. I resolve to get up at 4 AM instead of 5 AM so I can take the dogs running on the beach before I go in to the store. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the cat. She doesn’t really like sand.
And I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the children either.
Ben reports a really disturbing conversation with Max in the car on the way home from school.
"I’ve heard Jewish people have a certain look," Max began.
"That’s not true," said Ben calmly. And went on to explain that originally Jews were one of many Semitic peoples living in a particular part of the world, a homogenous population as most were back then save for the occasional rape by marauding Mongols. After two thousand years of exile from Israel, however, through intermarriage and the cuckoo’s nest, there wasn’t any defining look.
"What about Anne Frank?" Max demanded. "She looked Jewish."
Ben went on to talk about Sephardic Jews, Ladino, and how when the Sephardic populations of Spain and Portugal were driven out, many of them sought refuge in the Netherlands. "Hence the Jewish population of Holland tended to have a more conventionally Semitic look," said Ben. "Dark skin, dark hair. Distinctive noses."
Max was silent.
"Look at your great aunt Annie," said Ben. "Remember your grandmother. Think about your dentist. Do they look alike?"
"They came from Russia," said Max.
My son, the neo-Nazi.
I’m beside myself with rage when Ben reports back on this conversation. "You should have asked, ‘Who told you that?’"
"Well, no. The proper means of combating ignorance is with information. And by the end of the discussion, Max agreed with me – there is no Jewish look. And he’ll argue the point with whomever it was that brought it up. Education up the line."
"Whoever brought it up will just respond that it’s a clinical fact that the appendix, while a vestigial organ in most humans, has evolved in Jews as a second stomach, physiologically designed for digesting Christian babies."
"I never heard that one before," said Ben.
"Of course, not," I told him. "I just made it up."
Happy Hanukuh.
