Sleeping Co-Pilot
31 Sunday Mar 2013
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in31 Sunday Mar 2013
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in30 Saturday Mar 2013
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in29 Friday Mar 2013
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in28 Thursday Mar 2013
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inIt’s that time again folks!
Jews everywhere are busy torturing themselves celebrating Passover. Though I know it will hurt my dear departed bubbe’s heart to see me say it, I think Passover is among one of the worst Jewish holidays.
Like all Jewish holidays, Passover can be summed up concisely “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.” Except there is a caveat to that whole “eat” part because on Passover Jews eat nothing leavened. Meaning nothing made with yeast. Meaning no bread, no crackers, no cereal, no beer, NO PASTA (this was easily the hardest part for me of observing Passover as a child.) no pancakes, no doughnuts, no bagels, no pizza, basically anything you might enjoy eating on a daily basis. Meaning no fun for anyone. WHAT A JOLLY HOLIDAY.
The mainstay of a Passover diet is the communion wafer’s cousin Matzah. Matzah a flat, tasteless cracker type thing. If you close your eyes its just like eating cardboard that somehow magically turned stale. Or maybe cardboard that was left out in the rain for awhile to collect the flavor of despair and then thrown in an oven to dehydrate.
As a child my parents tried many ways to make eating endless Matzah fun. Matzah tuna melt! Matzah pizza! Matzah with cream cheese! In the end I ended up eating a lot of plain Matzah saturated in Breakstone’s whipped butter. I basically ate whole squares of butter.
Other food aspects of Passover that suck are the traditional Seder offerings. Do you know what Gefilte fish is? NO!??!!?!?!!? Gefilte fish is basically the bologna of the sea. I dunno what the fuck is goin on in there.
Moses sure did know how to party.
During the seder we also eat bitter herbs dipped in salt water to remind us of the tears of our ancestors on their escape from Egypt.
Nobody can say we Jews aren’t dramatic.
The length of Passover is something I also take issue with. 8 days. What is it with the 8 days of shit? I know on the 8th night of Chanukah even the kiddos are kinda over it. For some reason we love being miserable and depriving ourselves of things so much that we do it for an entire 8 days. Not a day, not even a weekend which I could abide by, but no. 8 days.
Arguably one of the worst things about Passover is that it usually falls close to Easter. Easter, the most glorious commercialized pastel non-holiday of all time. Sure, there’s that nasty bit involving zombie Jesus rising from the dead but even that idea is kinda awesome and exciting in its own way. Jews have a bunch of nasty plagues, gruesome bloodied doors and the angel of death AND THEN THEY GOT TO TRUDGE THROUGH THE DESERT FOREVER BAKING UNLEAVENED CAKES OF MATZAH ON THEIR BACKS.
Meanwhile Jesus performs magic tricks.
Imagine bringing a crushed ziploc bag of buttered Matzah into the cafeteria for lunch and watching all your peers stuff their happy cheeks with Peeps and pastel foil chocolates.
Even the Easter meal seems nice! I offer this picture of something Maverick’s mother makes at Easter time called “bunny bread.”
Little Easter celebrating children get to hunt in the garden for brightly colored eggs filled with candy or money or little toys. Basically a scavenger hunt of joy. Meanwhile Jewish children have a hunt of their own for the “Afikomen.” Aka a piece of Matzah in a bag hidden somewhere in the house during the seder. The children usually hunt for the Afikomen after the dinner portion of the seder is complete, as far as I can tell this basically just a way to get the children away from the table so adults don’t have to hear children whine for bread products.
To add insult to injury to this pathetic easter egg hunt substitute, in my family once you found the aforementioned Matzah in bag you brought it back to the patriarch of the family to claim a prize which, in true Jewish fashion had to haggled for. That’s right folks. We had to literally haggle our prize as if it hasn’t been doled out into envelopes already by our Zayde. That 10 dollar bill was nice but I think I would have rather had some bread and an easter basket.
27 Wednesday Mar 2013
26 Tuesday Mar 2013
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inPardon me while I step up onto my soap box here.
This is a post about parenting, sexuality, and Victoria’s Secret.
This past weekend I went underwear shopping at VS, because the underwear I wear on a daily basis was on sale, 7 pairs for 26 dollars. Considering they retail for 8.50 a pair this was a pretty good deal, too good a deal to pass up even though it meant torturing my boyfriend by dragging him into a lingerie store.
I made quick work of selecting my panties, sticking to mostly neutral and solid colors because I’m a grown woman in a graduate program with her own Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I spotted one pair of neon pink undies and assuming they were just solid neon, I grabbed them. Mostly to have some variety and the choices in the small drawer had mostly been exhausted. As the cashier rang me up I happened to see a flash of the neon panties and noticed they had writing on the butt.
“Oh man I didn’t know those had writing on them” I said to Maverick
“What’s it say?” He asked.
“I have no idea, I guess we’ll find out.” I said.
The cashier had overheard and unfolded the panties to show me:
I bought the panties anyway, even though I really had no desire to parade around with the word “angel” on my derrière surrounded by glitter hearts. I said as much and the cashier made a joke, that she was “an angel when I’m sleeping.”
I told her that was funny and she should pitch it to the company.
“If there’s a part of your body you most want to put humor on its definitely your butt.” I told her. Simultaneously making Maverick laugh and probably embarrassing him. Sorry I’m not sorry.
Anyway, today on the internet there is a firestorm brewing over the fact that VS has launched a new line of underwear marketed toward teenagers called “Bright Young Things.” The “bright” is a play on words, because I think its meant to bring to mind super young, fresh, dewy teenagers but the underwear themselves are mostly neon in color. Neon is like super in right now 0MG. The part about this that is making parents all over the internet lose their shit, is the fact that they’re emblazoned with phrases such as “too hot” “wild” “I dare you” and “call me.”
The fact that these underwear are clearly designed to be seen by boys (or hey, girls!) is a huge problem for parents across the board, and they’re calling for petitions and boycotts and all of that nonsense.
And, I gotta say, I think there’s a way bigger issue at stake here.
Obviously if I were a mom, I would not go out and buy my middle school aged daughter underwear that says “call me” on the crotch. Mostly because I think that’s super tacky and hopefully a daughter I’ve raised will have better taste. I also think the “I Dare You” slogan is especially tasteless when coupled with all the rape conversation happening right now. Though maybe we should use VS’s lack of taste or class as a teaching tool?
But all of that aside, I think we need to focus on the fact that sexy panties are not some sort of magic device. A teenage girl wearing a suggestive slogan on her crotch doesn’t magically make her legs open for sexual intercourse like some sort of really effed up Jack in the Box. or should I say Jill 😉
In middle school I started going to the mall with my friends and secretly buying thongs. We bought them at a store called Tello’s because they were hideously cheap and we didn’t have very much money. The thongs were thrown together haphazardly in bins and we rifled through them with great delight. The thong in my collection I was most enamored with was actually more of a g-string. It had a little rabbit made out of fabric on the back with a literal cotton-ball tail glued to it. I originally bought it in blue, I liked it so much I purchased it again. I also had a few pairs with my zodiac sign across the crotch made entirely out of rhinestones. My mother would routinely find these undergarments in the wash if I wasn’t careful, and she would confiscate them. Presumably because they were hideous and tacky and, oh yeah my mom was probably more afraid I’d have sex than anything else in the world. I guess having a daughter built like a “brick shithouse” as my Aunt once so elegantly described me, will do that to a mother. Just one more title for my future memoir: A Life With Large Breasts, the Sarah Danielle Story.
Despite my sexy underwear choices in middle school I did not have sex.
I did not have sex and frankly I don’t think anybody other myself and my horrified mother really saw those tacky thongs.
I didn’t have sex for a lot of reasons:
1. Not that many boys were interested in me.
2. I did not want to get pregnant.
3. I did not want to get an STD.
4. My mother would kill me and/or keel over dying a premature death of horror.
5. I did have some semblance of respect for myself.
The girls I knew who had the most sex (and yeah, I’ll go ahead and horrify you, I knew girls that had sex in middle school) dressed provocatively all over their bodies not just their underwear, and also did drugs and drank alcohol and made all manner of bad choices. I’m going to go ahead and point to this behavior as resulting from a lack of parental control and supervision, not lacy underwear.
It isn’t just the clothes. It isn’t just the music on the radio. It isn’t just the internet.
It’s all of it.
I won’t argue with anyone who says that young girls are bombarded by sexual material on a daily basis: they are. And no, VS is certainly not helping the situation but instead of crying over tacky panties I think we should be lobbying for better sex education. And we should be talking more openly about sex with our children. I’m not suggesting you watch porn with your 14 year old, although if I’m being honest I think that might beneficial in a way.
If I had a daughter I would teach her a lot of the things my mother taught me about feminism. As much as I complained when she wouldn’t allow me to watch the Spice Girls because “WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS IN YOUR WONDER BRA IS NOT GIRL POWER!” she was completely right. And while I’m fairly certain watching the Spice Girls movie would not have made me lose my virginity any faster, I know that the sentiment stuck with me. Whether I wanted to or not I grew up a feminist, and even if I had lapses in judgement I never once let a boy order me around.
I recall a boy once trying to pressure me to do something sexually because it was “his last chance.”
I was thankfully smart enough to ask, “Why? Is your penis falling off tomorrow?” Underneath it all I valued myself, I wasn’t going to be pressured or rushed to do something for a guy.
I’d add on to that feminist foundation a hell of a lot more information about sex than my mother gave me.
I’d tell my daughter how awesome masturbation is (seriously!) I’d tell my daughter how sex is really and truly 3000% times better with a person you seriously love and trust. I’d tell her how bad it feels to drive to CVS in the middle of the night in a panic because the condom broke. I’d tell her how STD screenings are super no-fun. I’d tell her to wait. I’d tell her to be so so smart if she couldn’t wait. I’d tell her she was smart and beautiful (um, she’s my daughter,duh) and that if she treated herself like she was priceless other people would follow suit.
Because really that’s all you can do.
Seriously.
Boycott VS all you want, those tacky panties likely aren’t going anywhere. As far as I know, Tello’s still exists.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this:
Neon Panties come and go, Self-Respect is forever.
I’m basically a marketing genius. Someone put THAT on panties. “Self-Respect is Forever” right across the butt, glitter hearts and all!!
25 Monday Mar 2013
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inThis past weekend Maverick and I went on a double date with his friend and his new girlfriend. It was definitely an adventure.
We started our journey at the mall, and my favorite part of the day was probably the part where Maverick and I went early and shopped around for things like underwear (me) and shoes (him.)
Then we met up with our corresponding couple at California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. The girlfriend was super cute and way more put together than I could ever hope to be. Which really means her hair looked nice and she was wearing not only nail polish but eyeliner and mascara, whereas I am a beauty school drop out.
She was really quiet all through lunch and try as I might to engage her in conversation it just wasn’t really happening. I was totally failing my responsibility of the whole double date. Oops!
Little did I know girlfriend’s personality would shine bright like a diamond thanksRihiana in the second portion of the date, otherwise known as, our trip to Dave and Busters.
at this point in the story you should realize I had no part in planning this date whatsoever.
For those who don’t know, Dave and Busters is like a Chuck E Cheese on crack. Full of various arcade games BUT WITH A BAR! If you’ve ever seen a Dave and Busters commercial you’ll see adults, in their twenties or maybe thirties, dressed for a night on the town laughing, beer in hand, whilst they play games, reliving their childhood.
In reality, Dave and Busters is crawling with children and teenagers running amok with copious yards of tickets draped round themselves like necklaces. And weary looking parents sitting at the bar drinking overpriced alcohol.
There it is, in all it’s blinking, flashing, glory.
Once we arrived we met our other couple at the bar and were informed we should go to a little machine to purchase a “power card” which is just a new fangled version of tokens in order to play the games. Maverick and I stood in front of the machine, a little baffled by the entire concept. In the end we chose to buy a ten dollar card which gave us 48 power points, which seemed totally reasonable to me.
“If we have a burning desire to play more arcade games we can always just come back and refill it?” I suggested, thinking us wanting to use more than 48 power points would be pretty ridiculous.
This was possibly our first mistake, after wandering around with our couple friends we were informed that they had 250 power points on their card. That option on the machine had cost something like 50 dollars.
I just have to take a minute and let this sink in. 50 dollars. 5-0. Which like, hey big spenders! Good for them. We were not going to spend 50 dollars to play endless games of whack a mole though. Over my cold, dead, body.
We watched as other couple competed in a basketball game. Girlfriend came to life. It was like that Evanessance song, and the only thing that could wake her up inside was potentially beating her boyfriend at a basketball shooting game. She screeched and jumped and laughed. It was adorable. And interesting because it illuminated how very much we are not that couple. But the couple hiding out in the fake cab of the “18 Wheeler Trucker game” making fun of those couples. Because we are the snarkiest, oops.
We saw a grown woman win something like 200 tickets, she was gathering them from the machine all excitedly and I turned to Maverick and said, “I wish I cared about any of this that much.” And we laughed. Because we just aren’t those people. We aren’t competitive, even when we’re fake competitive for fun we aren’t even that convincing.
Despite all my anti-arcade grandstanding I will say I did have a really good time. My favorite part of the day was when Mav challenged me to air hockey. I was, of course, abysmal. But I did get the puck in the slot once so I took that as a solid victory. We also played a weird version of pac man where you had to eat your other pac man opponents like a cannibal. We also played skeeball, which I actually find to be super fun. Mav also taught me how to shoot zombies in House of the Dead II.
After that we had pretty much exhausted our interest as well as our power card, and continued around and around the arcade watching other couple play games, they were so into it. Girlfriend had an entire purse full of tickets they had won.
A highlight of the day was watching this grown man play Dance Dance Revolution like his life depended on it. I have never seen someone’s feet move so fast in my life. Any time he failed a level he dismounted the DDR machine and paced around, catching his breath and berating himself quietly.
In the end we gave our tickets to other couple. All of the prizes, of course, cost something crazy like 3000 tickets, and no I am not exaggerating. Other couple ended up with 1700 tickets but decided to save them for another visit. They wanted the banana with the mustache, obviously and that was 3000 tickets. I guess they’ll only need one more 50 dollar power card and then they can win said banana. Which I would be remiss if I didn’t point out will then make it a 100 dollar stuffed banana with a mustache.
But of course that isn’t what this date was about, in the end it’s all about the memories :).
24 Sunday Mar 2013
23 Saturday Mar 2013
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in22 Friday Mar 2013
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inYesterday Jess and I took advantage of Boston’s Restaurant Week by having a lovely lunch at Henrietta’s Table! It was a really delicious reminder that we should not squander the glories of living in the city: namely three courses for twenty dollars. such a deal!