Sarah Palin:7 Million Dollar Woman!!

I'm sorry.  I have absolutely no time to be writing this today, but the headline just could not escape my attention.  It seems that the Governor of Alaska is in line for a big payday in the form of a book deal.  Publishing houses are lining up to throw money at this woman. This woman who could not string together two coherent sentences if her career depended on it! (Oh-that's right-HER CAREER DID DEPEND ON IT!!!)  If Governor Moosemeat deserves 7 mil, then I believe that I am entitled to at least half of that for having to endure the farce that was her campaign for almost three months.  Honestly!  Who in their right mind would actually shell out $25-$30 for the ramblings of the "Mind to Nowhere"?  If Sarah were to ask for my assistance on her book project, (and I am certain that she could care less about anybody's opinion but her own) I might offer her these samples as potential chapters.

• The Tenderized Moose and How to Cook it.  She could include family favourites like Moose chili, (which poor Matt Lauer had to endure!) moose burgers, moose meatloaf, a nice moose rub, and maybe chocolate moose for a dessert!!  She could also add step by step instructions as to the art of moose stalking and a how to guide on the rigours of how to properly dress a moose, so that the funky taste of buckshot is removed.
• Snowmobile maintenance and Care. She might require the "First Dude's" help with this chapter.  Relevant advice could include how to start the damn thing when the temperatures dip to the ungodly, diesel vs unleaded (drill baby drill!!) and how to safely affix a car seat to hold baby Trig! 
• Pandering to Congress for Pork Without Getting Caught.  Build a few more bridges, drill on a few more wildlife preserves and melt a few more glaciers all without it sticking to you politically.
• How to Shop at Saks and Barneys for $150,000 or less.  Worthwhile tips could include how to blame others for the expenditures, how to dress down a wardrobe so that items appear to have been purchased at the consignment shop in Wasilla, or how to teach your 7 year old to work that Prada bag!!
• How to Deal with the Liberal Media. Basically don't engage in any press conferences, hide your medical records from prying eyes, and only give sit-downs to the friendly sorts like Sean Hanity.  Avoid the beast that is Katie Couric at all costs!
• How to Name your Child like a True Alaskan! Just look around the room and find the most obscure object there, and VOILA!-baby name!!  "Sofa" "Frame" "Stool"......
• Vacation Ideas from the Gov! Who needs to travel and see the world when one can see Russia from the front porch.  
  

Please feel free to add your own chapter ideas for the "Thrilla from Wasilla".  Mama needs to earn that 7 mil!!

Kol Isha

This coming Wednesday has been circled on my calendar in red for almost a year. On that evening, I will join together with 5 of my colleagues and participate in a concert that has become known as Kol Isha -An Evening of Women's Voices. For one fateful night in November, the women cantors and soloists from the GTA will put our talents(?) on public display in support of Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning.  A bucketful of emotions has been churning within me for the better part of six months, and any attempt to validate them would seem strangely sad and pathetic.  Instead, I thought that I might share with you some of my observations of our preparations over the past year or so.  

1. The company that I have been keeping lately is astounding.  The talent of these women, both individually and collectively, is all at once truly remarkable and truly frightening.  I find myself torn between being in constant awe and being continually intimidated.  This group of women came together without much of a blueprint for the concert, but we have worked collegially without ego and without discord, (like the pun?) to strike a musical balance that I think really works. 
2. It was important to me right from the very beginning of this project that we "be ourselves" and not attempt to emulate the men, who have been giving these concerts for generations.  While we all agreed on this principle, finding music that would fit our criteria and yet be suitable for the woman's voice was a challenge.  We started out hoping to do only pieces that were composed by women, but that proved limiting in terms of the types of music that we could do.  In the end we compromised in composition, but refused to compromise in ourselves.  While many of the pieces have been composed by women, some have not and that is okay given the musical standards that we have set for ourselves.
3. We all came together to present this project, but we all come from very different places. There is an age range that spans decades, vocal ranges that spans octaves, musical styles that are varied and Judaic backgrounds that are eclectic.  We are all used to singing as soloists, and yet we have had to check those expectations at the door in order to sing as a group.  Some are comfortable with traditional chazzanut, while others are enmeshed with the more modern Jewish musical experience.  Some have known for a lifetime that this was a calling, while others fell into it by accident.  Some of us have day jobs, while some pursue it full time, but all of us have a true passion for the music and it shows in every note and every song.  (As an aside--I have joked during our rehearsals that at times I have felt like the Appalachian cousin whose musical stylings are more the "picking and grinning" type, which are in direct contrast to some of the more fluid and lyrical offerings. I am perfectly fine with this characterization because I have come to realize that all of our musical gifts are valid musical gifts and it would be terribly boring if we all derived from the same cookie-cutter mold. On the other hand, it is difficult to pretend that you are "Live From the Met" when you are much more comfortable with "Hee Haw"!!)
4. I am a performer who hates performing. I realize that this is a somewhat incongruous statement given my chosen line of work, but it came into focus for me when one of our group was able to better articulate it than was I. I see myself as a musical facilitator of prayer.  I enjoy the music because it is a vehicle that transports me to the spiritual plane. Singing with my choir or congregation is a natural extension of this collective prayer. Transferring what I view as an intuitive skill on the bimah, to a somewhat unnatural competency on a stage has been a true challenge for me.  I know that stretching myself has been a real positive in this experience, but I still find performing to be quite the foreign concept.  
5. A natural extension of this aversion to performance, is all of the "stuff" that goes along with performing.  I can honestly say that my wardrobe is not usually one of my prime concerns.  I throw on a pair of black pants or a black suit and I am dressed.  I could care less about accessories or how accent colours fit with lighting schemes. I don't give much thought to backstage food (I rarely eat on the day of a performance) or if the water backstage will be in environment-friendly bottles or single servings. It is a very good thing that I am working with people who do find importance in what I used to believe was superfluous detail, because without them I would be dressed for a coffee house (beret is optional!) instead of a theatre.  Thank you to everyone who became a detail-oriented maniac throughout this process, because I would be lost, parched and dressed like a refugee from a Kerouac novel without you all.  

And so, my friends, the day that has been haunting me for months, is drawing near.  I am excited, exhilarated, terrified, numb, giddy, and even somewhat horrified.  My chronic stage-fright has kicked into overdrive and my stomach feels as though it has been through more than a few turns on a theme-park ride. If I don't completely humiliate myself, I will regale you all with some backstage gossip.   

Ok, I Get it-I'm Short!!

Here's a little quick post to liven up your weekend.

The husband was returning from a business trip to Calgary this afternoon and he had asked me to pick him up at the airport. I generally loathe the drive to the airport. It is all highway driving, which by definition does not thrill me, (I think it is my aversion to speed that kills the excitement of the highway. "Life may be a highway", but I prefer the slower and more deliberate "Country Roads"!) and to make the trip that much less enjoyable, it has been raining steadily all day today. In addition, Pearson International Airport has been a misery to access over the last few years. There has been continual construction and the roads to the terminals have changed so many times, I have found myself on outer auxiliary routes too many times to mention. But, the husband demanded asked so nicely, that I found it impossible to refuse. In fairness the man does pick me up whenever I return from a jaunt to the southern home, so refusal was hardly an option. And so it was, that I spent the better part of Shabbat afternoon sloshing through a November rain to the newly constructed Terminal 1.

Now this brand-spanking terminal is absolutely state of the art. The parking garage is a wonder of modern technology. When you enter into the complex, you are stopped at the gate by an automated machine that should dispense your ticket. Being the conscientious driver that I am, I pull up as close to the machine as I can without scrapping the side of my beloved car. I roll down the window and to my horror, I discover that my arms are not long enough to reach the f@$#*&g button. I remove my seat belt and practically do a contortionist maneuver in order to reach. Still no dice. I literally stick half of my body out of the window and finally manage to push the button. As I am hanging half of my body out of the driver's side window and getting soaked in the process, the f@#$*^g machine spits the ticket out at me as if it were hocking a loogy!!! The ticket, which I will require to exit the bloody terminal is now in the water, muck and tire grease of a Toronto rainstorm. I wriggle back into the car (swearing the entire time) and put the car in park, because now I have to open the door to scrape the wet ticket off of the asphalt. All the while, the asshole in the gas-guzzler behind me is honking his horn as if I were doing this for some sort of enjoyment. I finally manage to find the bloody thing under the front end of my car, and enter into the parking garage. It takes me a good few minutes to dry off the ticket (which I can only pray will be accepted by the automated teller on the way out!) and make my way into the arrivals lounge, where I discover that the husband's flight is delayed by 1/2 hour. Now the parking gods not only had a great laugh at my expense, they are going to charge me extra for the privilege. Please answer this question for me: "Isn't there an industrial engineer anywhere in the world that recognizes those of us under 5'0"? " I get it-I am short, but do I need to be humiliated by this fact every time the world insists on technologically re-inventing itself! GIMME A BREAK!!!

The New Bond Girl is a Polydactyly

Did the title of today's post catch your interest? Are you curious about the new Bond girl or the fact that I included the ten dollar word "polydactyly"? Well if you came aboard for the former, I suppose I owe you a picture of 22 year-old British-born beauty Gemma Arterton who will be opening in the new flick this coming Friday.





But the fact that Ms. Arterton is making news as a polydactyly truly intrigues me. This condition, which occurs in approximately 1 in 1000 children, involves the happenstance of extra digits on hands and feet. It includes everything from small skin buds next to the pinkie to two fingernails on one finger to fully functioning extra digits to fingers or thumbs split into a Y shape.

According to Dr. Terry Light, a hand surgeon and chairman of the department of orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois, polydactyly and syndactyly, the webbing or fusing of fingers and toes, are the two most common congenital hand anomalies seen in the U.S.

“The limb bud starts off as a glob – like a paddle – that normally separates into five distinct rays or digits,” says Dr. Light. “But if that process of separation goes a step too far, then it separates into more packets, or one of the digits, such as the thumb, becomes separated yet again.”

Ms. Arterton, it seems, was born with 6 fingers on each hand. Are you fascinated yet? YAWN!!!! If this is all it takes to stand out in a crowd and get your name in the press, then Older Son should have been rich and famous long ago!!

You see, Older Son is also a Polydactyly. This congenital defect which runs through families, was presented to us on the occasion of the birth of my first-born. Since he was born at 2:30 in the morning, none of the doctors or nurses were either awake enough or astute enough to examine him closely. (You know all of those stories of parents checking fingers and toes to make certain that they add up correctly-HORSESHIT!! New parents are either so exhausted or so excited, that they rarely notice a newborn's digits in the first moments after birth. We leave that little detail to medical professionals and ours were certainly derelict in their duties!) It was left to me at our first feeding to notice the "y"-shaped dual thumbs on his right hand.



It was a weird sight to behold and being that he was our first, I was left with numerous questions as to the origin of said digits. I mean he was born with opposable thumbs that opposed and opposed again. He had a spare! In later years he would write about his uniqueness and was left to wonder what interesting things he could have accomplished had we not had the extra removed at age 2. (The following are some of his observations!) He could have thrown a mean split-fingered fast ball! He could have had one mean "green" thumb. He could have thrown some mean spin on a bowling ball. He could have typed or texted with extra speed. (A whole new meaning to the term "Blackberry Thumb"!) He could have been his own movie critic-three thumbs up! He would never have been without a ride while hitchhiking and he would have made the Fonz jealous-AYYYYY!! And now, dear son, I can add one more to the list. Apparently, you could have been a Bond girl!

The Great Miriam Makeba

I had the profound privilege of seeing this great woman perform with Harry Belafonte way back in the 70s. A courageous champion for South Africa and a brilliant musician. May her memory be forever a blessing!

My Anniversary Issue!

Today is an anniversary, of sorts.  Around this time last year, I began this exercise in idiocy that has become known the world over (ok-maybe just in my small corner of it!) as Dawn Ponders. On November 5th 2007, I decided to write a short Facebook note describing the impending chaos of our kitchen renovation.  (If anyone is interested in those early posts, they can be found in the archives on this site and the pictures are in the file Kitchen Renovation 2007.) The initial impetus in starting the Kitchen Reno blog was to keep my parents, who had already made their snowbird flight to Florida, up to date on the progress.  Facebook was an easy way of posting the pictures and writing a quick blurb.  Never in my wildest dreams did I suspect that others were lurking and reading the posts and keeping abreast on my kitchen progress.  I was stunned to receive comments from friends and their friends asking me for more.  As the project wound down to its natural conclusion, I figured that my scribbling days had come to an end. But, something strange happened on my way to writing retirement.  I found that I missed it.  And so, I started up again and have kept it going ever since.  I don't expect anyone to read it (although I am truly gratified that you do!) and I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my ranting. (I love that we all have differing opinions, and I love the debate and dissent.) This is my space and these are my thoughts alone, but the feedback has been eye-opening and gratifying.  So, on this my anniversary, I thought that I might share with you my random thoughts on blogging and my tentative sticking of the toe into the water of the blogosphere. 

• My sister-in-law, the political science professor, has described blogging as a giant sociology experiment, sort of like a giant virtual time capsule.  On any given day and at any given time on that specific day, millions of people around the world are expressing their views, thoughts, dreams and disdain on a whole host of issues.  We can read about parenting problems, political and social issues, humour and maybe a kitchen renovation or two. It is a slice of life that cuts across oceans, socio-economic and racial lines, sex and age. It has been truly fascinating to venture into this world and peek into people's living rooms, kitchens, backyards and read what is on their minds.  There are some very talented people out there and some very scary ones as well.
• Unless I personally know the blogger, I never post a comment.  This is an extension of my own shyness, and I cannot understand speaking, even virtually, to a total stranger.  I admire those who can, but it is not me.  On the other hand, I have become a rabid lurker, a sort of legalized peeping tom.  I am fascinated by what is out there.  
• There are some very famous bloggers out there who make very substantial livings through their blogs.  Some have book deals, some have become attractive for advertisers, some have set up virtual stores on their sites and some have made their way to the mainstream media. This is most definitely not me, but I am so in awe of these people. They have found a new medium to build careers upon.
• If there was any doubt left in my mind that this is the new wave of communication, it has been put to rest.  I absolutely believe that we are witnessing the final days of the printed media.  In the next 10-20 years, (and that is generous!!) it is my belief that all of our written media- newspapers and magazines- will be online exclusively. The print guys simply cannot keep up with the instantaneous nature of the internet and they are putting more and more of their resources into their online sites.  Most newspapers have blog sites of their own!  Save a tree, read online.
• You have no idea how techno-savvy I have become.  I can now upload, download and create slideshows, movies and add music.  I understand more about my computer than I ever have before.  I think that this new side of my personality is a serious turn-on for The Husband.

There are some rules that I have learned to follow while blogging. (These are the rules according to Dawn and should not be misinterpreted as blogging-gospel!)

1. Use a pseudonym whenever possible.  While many of you personally know The Husband and the Progeny, I would never think of putting their actual names out there for the world to see.  I think that some semblance of privacy needs respecting and frankly, I am not certain that they would speak to me again.  Many many bloggers would disagree with me and state that the intimacy of putting themselves and their loved ones out in the forefront is what makes their blogs work.  I need the veil of anonymity and it works for me.
2. Always be careful to credit other people's work.  The internet is easy to steal from, but it is still stealing.  If I use another site, music or words, at the very least it should be credited and linked.  I personally know the pain of being ripped off.  Years ago, I attended a kiddie Channukah party with a young teacher who was passing off one of my songs as her own.  While somewhat flattered, I felt a flash of hostility that I was being usurped. Intellectual property is still property.
3. Too personal is uncomfortable.  Nobody really wants to read about certain things and I am certain that you all can figure out what they are without me labeling them.  
4. Trust is important.  My friends and family need to know that they can talk to me without fear of it ending up on the blog. With one notable exception, (which was quickly rectified!) I think that I have managed to walk that line. The stories that you all get here are the PG versions and they are usually about me and my ineptitude, with a bit of The Husband thrown in for good measure. (He loves me, so he is somewhat tolerant of this nonsense!)
   

I want to thank all of you who have visited, read, commented, lurked, dissented or merely just tolerated me while I have experimented with this new side of my personality.  I have found that since I don't drink or do the wacky weed, (believe me both have been suggested on numerous occasions!) this blog has become my outlet.  It is definitely cheaper than therapy. And now--onto year 2!!

Germ Phobic and Still Sick!!

We have a quaint little custom in our synagogue whereby at the conclusion of the service, everybody joins hands and lifts voices collectively in the recitation of the Motzi, the prayer before we break bread. As much as I love the connectivity of the community, I hate this little exercise in germ warfare. It is a proven fact that most viruses are passed on by simple person-to-person contact, and frankly, I don't always know where those hands have been. I have always thought that a dab of Purell should be required before we link around the room. At the height of the SARS crisis here in the GTA, we temporarily suspended our practice and grabbed forearms instead. I felt much better knowing that those insidious little buggers didn't have as much chance for survival on people's clothing as they did on the warm host of the human flesh. But, while the grabbing of forearms may provide for some fraternal bonding, it does not provide for the true human contact that people crave, and so we have resumed the joining of hands. I love the idea of the practice, I just hate the practice of the idea!

You see, I am extremely susceptible to the rhinovirus, also know as the common cold. I always have been. As a kid, I was sick at a minimum of 4 or 5 times during the school year. If it was going around, I caught it! It got so that I knew with the first scratch and itch of the throat that something was coming, and it was never easy. The watery eyes, congestion in the nose that inevitably found the chest, fever, chills--the whole enchilada! I learned to live with constant tissues falling out of my sleeves or pockets, and Vicks Vapo-Rub on my pajamas and sheets.

In my first year of marriage, I was afflicted with pneumonia, and was sidelined for weeks. The coughing was so severe that I cracked a rib, and the husband sent me to his doctor for a narcotic so that HE could sleep. (Never again. I was so loopy that I don't remember much of that time. I could have stripped naked and danced on the roof and not known about it. Maybe I did and that is why the neighbours were so odd for weeks after!) The residual effect of that illness was adult onset asthma. I have suffered with it ever since, and as such, the common cold has become much more of a hardship. The effects linger in my chest for weeks, and in my line of work, I can ill afford the brutality that the hacking and coughing inflicts.

And so, as I grew older and wiser, I learned how to better wage the preemptive battles. I learned to eat better and I tried to sleep better, though not always successfully. I took up exercise and found that it boosted my immune system, even while it caused aches and pains of a different sort. I became a freak about hand washing and I taught my boys the same. If anyone brought home a bug that was better left elsewhere, we washed and scrubbed and took great care with communal surfaces. It didn't always work, but it reduced my sick days markedly. I carry around hand sanitizer in my purse for the emergency situations like the Motzi and I avoid the sick people like the plague. (pun absolutely intended!) Nothing is foolproof however, or even Dawn-proof (some might argue that these are one and the same!) and so, today I find myself wheezing, dripping and coughing. (The only comfort I take from this fact is that my Kol Isha colleagues are ALL wheezing, dripping and coughing as well!! Now I know where it came from!) Since we all have two weeks until the concert to recover, the old adage of "timing is everything" could never have been more apropos.

So, here I sit with my green tea, "blankie", foot duvets (these are fantastic--find them at Restoration Hardware!!), tissues, hot water bottle and Vicks Vapo-Rub staining my pajamas in an effort to be well enough to sing this weekend at Shabbat services, a B'nai Mitzvah and a wedding! No rest for the weary, I suppose. I do know one thing. I will NOT be joining hands for the Motzi. I refuse to pass this misery on to anyone else.

Shabbat Shalom to all who observe.