Recipe for Guilt

Well nothing can kick start your writing like showing up at writing class today that ended last week. AAAAARGH! It makes me laugh cause all I wanted to do was stay home and isolate but I got my butt there cause class is fun and more important. Desperate for quiet I have not been alone for 2 weeks plus, my daughter was home with a cold and I haven't had a chance to get over my jetlag. Spent 5 days staying with my dad. my mom is in Florida for the winter.


Couldn't write my blog as my father has smoke signal computer with dial up internet which is slower than a frozen slug. Trying to explain to my almost 80 year old dad that he needs a new computer was more painful than changing tv channels by hand..with out a remote! so no computer.My father has basically stopped working and he is bored. My visit with him I think was the first bit of excitement he seemed to have had in months. I was sleeping on a Murphy bed in the living room. A murphy Bed for those who don't know, gets pulled down from of the wall. That way there is a bed for guests but room in the living room during the day. Most of our conversations went like this


. "are you up? let's put the bed back in the wall"( can't be done alone too big and heavy) "dad It is 7 30 in the morning. I am up for a pee and want to go back to bed. Please daddy I am all messed up with time and didn't sleep very well. I was up at 1am for 4 hours." "yes but If I am not here when you leave the bed will be open all day" " so? it is only you and me" I say. " I can't get to my computer" he says. "And...? Turn it on now and by the time I come home we will put the bed up and then you can use it" " no. too messy" " okay dad, let's put it up" 5 minutes later.....


"when are you getting back? should we take the bed down now?" " I don't know dad" "let's take it down" " but then the room will be messy" "But I don't want to have to wait up for you..." OY is a biggally way......au but!!!


The moment I arrived back here I was launched immediately into the school xmas fair. As vice-chair of the parents association( stop laughing) I felt I had to make up for the time lost as the fair was last wednesday, so I missed class last week...the the last class.

okay so it is not so much my parents association responsibilities that made me miss class and do anything possible to help with the fair but my Jewish guilt. Guilt that I was away for the first time in 5 years and I couldn't help for the most important time in preparing for the xmas fair.So when I came back I blew off every other responsibility to make up for lost time so no one would think I am a slacker. (guilt /shame)
You can replant the Jew in an area with nary another Jew in site but the guilt roots are still there no matter where you go. "just water with shame and guilt blossoms grow" it is just the way it is. Guilt is passed down from generation to generation, usually via the mother, like a good cake recipe except instead of flour, sugar , eggs and oil......you use a "handful of shame" , "3 pinches of not calling your grandmother for 3 months", a vat of "living with a non-Jew and having children but not being married "and a lot of "spilling french fry gravy on your mother's most expensive designer purse that you weren't allowed to borrow in the first place" which is her fault really because she has fabulous taste in handbags and doesn't buy cheap so I had no choice but to use an expensive one.

So I missed my class because of my mother...really.

(NB: that all "guilt" recipes have two things in common....always.....a Jewish Mother and blame on your parents.)
nb2: hand me down Jewish recipes do not have proper measurements. When I ask my mother what a "handful" of flour means ,she says "a handful." yes I say but whose hands?" "your grandmother had huge hands. " "A handful..you'll know" it always ends with " you'll know" no I don't know that is why I like to use step by step cook books with clear instructions and pictures.. I don't know.
the upside is if my food sucks I can always blame it on my mother.

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