We'll always have pieces of E.T.

For week 2 of Friendship Friday, I have chosen A.S. as my friend of the day.

I met A.S. when I was a freshman in high school. We were at a NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth) retreat over winter break. I would see her around at meals and a few of the events, but we just smiled at each other and moved on. Then we were making candles and we were the last two people to leave. So we started talking. We had an instant bond because of our naturally curly hair and we took it from there. By the end of the retreat, we were inseparable. We had so much to joke and laugh about. One of our first duties as best friends was to come up with lists of unusual Barbie and Ken dolls. We would send each other letters (before e-mail came along) with pictures of the crazy Barbie situations we came up with. We also joked about McDonald’s a lot and I remember bursting into laughter at one of the events (at the retreat) just because she said “Grimace.” Our jokes started to include V.C. Andrews books, “Sesame Street,” and a slew of other things, such as characters she made up for fun. We would make tapes for each other with songs we deemed to be “demented.” One of my favorites that she taped for me was “Sandbox” by King Missile.

A few months later, she came to visit during spring break. We took her to some fun places, including Ed Debevic’s. It was a blast to hang out with her again and we could not stop laughing over anything and everything. We continued our correspondence between the times we got together. I got to take the bus by myself to visit her that summer. We lived a few hours apart; she was in Madison, WI (not far from the college campus) while I was in the Chicago suburbs. We met up again later in the summer at another NFTY retreat. However, she got kicked out for standing her ground over a T-shirt that some people in positions of authority deemed inappropriate. I was sad over her departure, but proud of her for standing her ground and being an individual. She had more guts than I did.

Our friendship continued to blossom and flourish over the years we were in high school. We sent thousands of letters to each other and did monthly phone calls. During senior year of high school, she introduced me to “Rocky Horror.” (I knew about the movie and had seen it a while back, but never in the theater with audience participation.) She even went to see it with me a few times. She also introduced me to some other friends with whom I am still in contact. Whenever we had the chance, we would visit each other. This was usually during summer or winter break from high school and then college. She was always dynamic and a lot of fun to be around. I wasn’t the only one drawn to her presence.

During freshman year of college, she came out of the closet and announced she was a lesbian. It was the first time a friend had ever come out to me before. (I knew people who were gay around that time, but their outings occurred before I met them.) Her revelation actually helped prepare me when another friend came out shortly after she did. It has not changed or affected our friendship and I was glad that she could be honest with me. Other people actually saw it coming before I did and I didn’t believe them at the time.

One of the times that I visited her on a summer break, she and I were making pasta for dinner and I added chunks of garlic to flavor it up. Her dad bit into a piece of garlic and asked what it was. A.S. said it was “pieces of E.T.” (she had an obsession with E.T.). I found that hilarious and we still bring it up from time to time.

A.S. is just a fun and fascinating girl to have as a friend. I consider myself lucky to be as close with her as I am. She is fluent in Yiddish and also performs in a Yiddish theater troupe. She studied library science and now works for a library. She seems to have interesting experiences wherever she goes and always finds a way to leave her mark.

She has been there for some big moments in my life. The first was my high school graduation. Next was when she was in town the first weekend after I had Lasik eye surgery. Then she came to visit after I moved into the condo. She also came to my wedding and my younger son’s bris. My sister and I visited her when she was living in NY. We had a fun weekend staying at her place. When I moved to NJ, we got to see each other more often. Not as often as if she were living right next door, but more than we had over the past few years. While I was sad to move away from her, I know we’re in contact often enough that we stay in each others' lives. She occasionally comes to Maryland for Yiddish events, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to coordinate schedules one of those times. In the end, no matter where we go or how often we get to hang out, I know we'll always have pieces of E.T.

Time to celebrate!!!

I have officially written 100 posts to this blog in the span of 3 months!!! And this is after I thought I would just write a few posts every so often. I just love blogging! There's a lot of fun in store for the next 100 posts!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I have a few friends who knit and blog and we've decided to embark on a blog project that has nothing to do with knitting. We're going to take turns coming up with a topic every Thursday and we each have to blog about it by the end of that day and post links to each others' blogs so that people can see our different perspectives on the same topic.

Check out the backstory about how the project was conceived and how we all came together.

Here are the other blogs:
Froggie Knits Like Crazy
Charmingly Random
Desperate Madness


This week's topic comes from Charmingly Random: Do you have any birthday traditions? If you don't celebrate your birthday, are there any annual traditions you participate in? Tell me about them!

Oddly enough, I don't have any traditions surrounding my birthday. I love celebrating my birthday, but every year it has been something random. I used to stay up till 12:35 am to see my birthday come in, but I'm too tired these days to uphold such a custom. This year, Tisha B'Av (a sad day during which we fast; it is held in remembrance of the burning of the temples) happens to fall on my birthday. (A few years ago I shared it with the Fast of Tammuz, but I broke it halfway through because it was extremely hot outside.)

Instead of sharing birthday traditions, I am going to share my top 5 favorite birthdays ever!

1. My 11th birthday party at Ed Debevic's. It's when Froggie and I first became friends and she got me the "Beverly Hills Cop 2" soundtrack because we would joke about "I Want Your Sex" by George Michael (because sex was such a bad word for us at the time. :) ) Afterward, Froggie and another close friend spent the night and then we all took the bus to camp together the next day. Even though junior high was hellish for me, it was a nice way to see myself into my adolescent years. My party was a lot of fun in general, thanks to a cool waitress.

*Side note: I was watching "90210" after writing this post and one of the guys had "I Want Your Sex" as his ring tone. :)

2. My 30th birthday party, which was a semi-surprise. My husband and two close friends of mine (one who unfortunately ended up not being able to make it because of heat sensitivity) threw a Hawaiian luau (that was the surprise part) and then we went to Hala Kahiki, a Hawaiian bar with really cool drinks. My husband had a picture of me put onto an ice cream cake, and even what he did to the picture was a surprise. A video of the experience can be found here.

3. My 18th birthday, which involved going to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" with my parents, sister, grandparents and a close friend of mine (whom I talked about in last week's "Friendship Friday" blog). Afterward, we went to Lockwood Castle and they gave me a birthday sundae with a sparkler in it. I hadn't had a sparkler in my birthday dessert since I went to Farrell's when I was little!

4. My 33rd birthday, which made up for my 31st and 32nd birthdays being so dull and forgettable. I went to see "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" with my older son and a girl I had become friends with over the past few months. Then we went bowling with my husband and her husband (as well as my younger son, of course). Afterward, we went to one of our favorite restaurants with the couple. It was just a fun day overall.

5. My 25th birthday, which was held at the Cubby Bear North. It was just fun to have a group of friends together at a bar. We all sat outside because the weather was so gorgeous. "Jack" was there and gave me some fun birthday surprises (the best one being a DVD player....he couldn't take my old school style). :)

There are other birthdays that I enjoyed (such as one at the Neo-Futurarium and one involving my dog embarrassing me in front of a fun group of friends), as well as some that I wish had never happened. With my birthday being in the middle of the summer, it was never acknowledged at school, but the upside was being able to have outdoor parties or do something summer-themed.

One of my other favorite birthday memories was when I turned 26 and my husband (then boyfriend) decided to surprise me with a cake at work. I did not expect that at all and he earned major brownie points for doing so.

I enjoy focusing on my kids' birthdays nowadays and always making them special in some way or another. I know there will be a lot of milestone birthdays to celebrate as time goes on. I'm already excited for my younger son's upsherin (hair cutting ceremony) next year. :) And my older son will be 5, so that's a big deal too!

I also enjoy doing stuff for my husband's birthday, whether it is throwing him a surprise party (which I did last year) or just taking him out someplace special.

As for my own food-free birthday this year, I'll just celebrate the next day, when it's permissible to enjoy things again. :)

At this "time" last year

Right before Pesach last year, I saw Adam Lambert perform "Mad Mad World" and with that, he completely obliterated any celebrity crush I've ever had (including Michael J. Fox, Patrick Swayze and David Duchovy). He even usurped my crush on Lin-Manuel Miranda at the time. Pretty powerful stuff, huh? I couldn't stop thinking of him and those thoughts sometimes distracted me during the sedarim. (Not that I'm not already distracted in shul to begin with.) In any case, my crush on Adam Lambert was (and still is) pretty apparent and I wrote this before he even came out. That doesn't change things for me, of course!

April 13, 2009, 03:41 pm
It's just a little crush....

I have crossed over to the dark side....of American Idol, that is.
Last year, I had a crush on Michael Johns and then he got booted off and I suddenly lost interest. Not because he got booted off but because he wasn't around as much and that he also kept me from noticing how HOT David Cook was.
This year, it is different. I mentioned in a previous entry titled "My Latest Crush" that I had a thing for Danny Gokey (2/17/09). Then I started thinking about Adam Lambert in a different way. And when he sang "Mad Mad World" last week, it just sealed the deal. I have been constantly daydreaming about him (and had an interesting night dream too). I just feel like I'm mentally cheating on Danny. I still adore Danny, but he doesn't make me blush as much as Adam does these days.
I have heard rumors that he is gay, but that would probably make sense given my history. :)
Anyway I had to get this out of my system. Thanks for listening.

Follow up: This post was written to livejournal. I wrote one more minor little post after that and haven't posted there since. I really like blogging here much better at this point in my life. :)
Initially, I did like Danny better than Adam. I sympathized with his story and thought he was genuinely adorable and had a great voice. I actually thought he would have been Adam's main "American Idol" competition instead of Kris.
Of course, I still have a huge crush on Adam and I listen to his CD almost every day!

High FLYing Adored

Yes, the title is from "Evita." :)

Anyway, I haven't posted about my FlyLady progress in a while. I've been ignoring the actual maintenance of home appearance in favor of getting ready for Pesach. Everything is in its place now, but there's still a lot of cooking to do. I spent my Saturday night moving food around the house.

There was a FlyLady objective for kids: To organize books and give away ones we don't need. I did just that and my older son helped initially. He is a hoarder like me and wanted to keep everything. I did come up with a huge bag of books to give away and was able to Freecycle them today.

I vacuumed out one car today, as the other is in the shop until tomorrow, when it gets a new tire. I managed to hit a pothole and got a busted tire as a result. The same thing happened to someone else in the neighborhood at around the same time. It's a conspiracy, I think!

Not too much else to report. We had a cleaning service here last week, so there wasn't much else for me to do, other than straighten up the night before their arrival.

Anyway, Pesach starts tomorrow night and I will be offline until Wednesday night (probably after I watch the "American Idol" results (I'll just watch the performances I like online.) I already have my "Time Warp Tuesday" post scheduled for Tuesday morning, so check back then.

To those of you who celebrate Pesach: Chag Kasher V'Sameach!

We'll Always have Angel Oil...

For my first Friendship Friday post, I have chosen my friendship with L.A. to share with my readers.

I met L.A. during my senior year of high school. She was a sophomore at the time. We were in dance class together and would try to make each other laugh when we had to do these silly dance exercises every day. I think we slipped easily into a friendship. I don't know what the catalyst was or how we really became close. All I know is that I was invited to her 16th birthday party that spring and by the summer (after I had graduated), we would hang out or talk every day. We would chat on the phone all throughout the Ricki Lake show and would laugh every time an Eagle Insurance commercial came on. We even made a parody of it with my dog and called it Beagle Insurance. My sister taped over it though.

That same summer, she was my accomplice to "Rocky Horror" many times and I thank her for putting up with my obsession with the show. (She will attest that I used to say the audience participation lines while listening to the soundtrack in my car.) She and I also highlighted the steamy scenes in V.C. Andrews books and would laugh over them together. We also spent lots of time at the mall. I invited her to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" with my family and me for my 18th birthday.

Throughout the time I was in college, we stayed in touch through letters, e-mails, phone calls, etc. We'd always hang out when I came home for holiday or seasonal breaks. When she went to college, I would visit her a few times. She even connected me with a close friend of hers who was attending my college. (That's another "Friendship Friday" story for another time.)

There was a time during one of my summer breaks when I decided to take L.A. to the mall with me on a rainy Thursday night so that I could get my left ear triple pierced (as well as get my right ear double pierced). On the way there, my car stalled. She and I got it over to a nearby restaurant (which is no longer there, unfortunately). One of the guys working there was kind enough to look at it and then told me I needed "angel oil." He had an accent so that's what I thought he said. We managed to get it started again and drove over to a gas station, where I asked the attendant for angel oil. He thought I was crazy and she and I had a good laugh about it. I ended up purchasing engine oil, but my car was okay by then and I didn't need it after all.

Over the next few years, we continued to hang out as often as we could and would end up talking for countless hours. Once we sat at our favorite Chinese restaurant laughing about a mutual connection we just found out about. During the spring of 2000, she invited me to join her for dinner on her birthday. On the train ride back, she was there for a major epiphany I had about my life. And when we got to my car, I played her an 80's song with her name in it that she had never heard before that time. The following year, we both had some bad luck with guys we liked and decided to spend a weekend shopping, lamenting and seeing "Bridget Jones's Diary." She gave me some words of wisdom that helped through that period in my life and made me feel more empowered. That summer, she introduced me to Pad Thai during another girl's day we had to celebrate my birthday. Over time, our taste in books changed from V.C. Andrews to chick lit and we recommended and exchanged numerous novels.

The following year is when we both met our (now) husbands. Meanwhile, she was in graduate school and it kept her busy a lot of the time. When she got her degree, she had a party to celebrate and we met some other close friends that way (I have a "Friendship Friday" post in mind for one of them, as well). Her husband (then boyfriend) and I graduated the same year from the same high school, after being in school together since the 5th grade, so the party was also like a mini-high school reunion (as was their wedding 2 years later.)

Oddly enough, we didn’t stand up in each other’s weddings. Normally, I would have asked her to stand up in mine, but she had already been in a few weddings and was planning to be in more, closer to the time of my wedding. I didn’t want to overwhelm her with even more bridesmaid demands and the cost of yet another dress. In turn, I wasn’t asked to stand up in her wedding. I wasn’t bothered about this since I was 6 months pregnant at the time (nor did I expect to be asked...my expectations had chaged a lot by then anyway). I was just happy to be there to share in her special day and was glad she could also share in mine. Between the times of our weddings, we took my husband and her fiancée with to see “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.” It was cool to know that we were in a different place in our lives between the times the first and second Bridget Jones movies came out.

After I had my first child and L.A. and her husband moved to the south suburbs, we didn’t get to hang out as often. We’d still make plans to get together, but it was more sporadic. The first movie I saw at a theater after I became a mom was with her. We saw “In Her Shoes,” as we were both into Jennifer Weiner’s books. (In the past, we had a tradition of buying her books together on the day they came out.) When I moved out east, we stayed in touch and still got together when I came back to town for visits. We even met up when she and her husband came to NYC for a weekend (she was pregnant with her first child at that time). She also was the only one to predict that my second child would be a boy.

Nowadays, between her work and parenting schedules, it’s harder for us to stay in touch. I would love for her to get on Facebook, but that’s wishful thinking. Her husband is on there and he shares lots of pictures of their son, including ones that she is in. We play a lot of phone tag, but we finally got a chance to talk last week. I hope we’ll continue to stay in touch as our lives continue to move in parallel directions, no matter how far the mileage is between us. I'm grateful for her friendship and our long lasting history and I know that no matter what else happens, we'll always have "angel oil."

Wake up in the morning...

When you hear the words in my subject line, what is the first thing you think of? If it is this song, then you know you’re a “Degrassi” fan, just like me!

When I was in junior high, very few things saved my sanity. “Degrassi Junior High” (later becoming “Degrassi High”) was one of those things. I originally got a book based on the TV series and thought it was interesting. Then I saw that the show was on PBS (right after “3,2,1 Contact,” where I got to see “The Bloodhound Gang”) and I tuned in. I fell in love with it immediately and raced home from the bus every day to watch it. I even got my sister addicted to the show.

“Degrassi” is a show based in Canada that has teens and adolescents dealing with some pretty heavy stuff in a way that is interesting and educational, but entertaining at the same time. It has covered such topics as suicide, teen pregnancy, molestation, abortion, AIDS, eating disorders, drug addiction, etc. It would really get into the heads of the characters dealing with such issues.

On the other side, there were a lot of amusing and fun things to take away from the show. I had a friend in college who would joke with me about Zit Remedy, the band that Joey Jeremiah and his friends were in. They sang a song called “Everybody Wants Something”. We’d randomly sing that during the middle of dinner with our other friends. I also loved the dialect and how everyone said “aboot” (about) and “surry” (sorry). In “Chasing Amy,” Banky even said he had a thing for girls who say “aboot” when he was talking about “Degrassi.” (And just so we’re even here, when I went to Canada, everyone was trying to get me to say “hockey” because they thought it sounded funny coming from an American.) There was also a time in high school where my friend and I were joking about a guy who looked like Wheels and we’d draw a picture of a wheel when we were talking about him. I also knew a girl who looked like Heather/Erica.

Aside from the personal jokes and pop culture references, there was one episode where Lucy was making a horror movie and it ended up being funny instead of scary. I think it was called “It Creeps” and it took place in one of the locker rooms. The show also had a lot of warm fuzzy moments and showed a lot of different friendship dynamics.

At the end of the series, there was a movie called “School’s Out.” I finally got to see it, thanks to a friend from Canada who mailed it to me. It was pretty interesting and showed a side of the characters that I hadn’t seen before. Around this time, I was also able to find old episodes of the show on a cable channel at my parents’ house and I taped a bunch for when I need my “Degrassi” fix. Nowadays, there is a new series called “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” I’ll also watch that when I visit my parents on our annual Chicago trip. (I was able to watch it when they showed it on a local station in NJ on Sundays, as well.) I even stayed up for a marathon of episodes one night. It’s almost as good as the original series. They cover some more modern issues, such as school shootings and cyber-bullying. Some of the original series characters are even featured on it, such as Caitlin, Joey, Spike and Snake. Spike’s daughter is one of the teens on the new series. I know Kevin Smith had some connection with the series a while back (which makes me love him even more, beyond his reference in “Chasing Amy.”)

No matter how old I am, I will always be a “Degrassi” fan. I just hope it will be around for when my kids are old enough to appreciate it. If not, I just hope my tape of the original series will still work by then. Otherwise, I may need to invest in some DVDs (if it is even on DVD by then).

“Everybody can succeed, all you need is to believe.
Be honest with yourself, forget your fears and doubts.
Come on give us a try...”