Purim

Purim? I didn't do anything for purim of course. But I was happily surprised when I got a box in the mail from my parents on purim, complete with shalach monos (packages of food that are given to people on purim) with chocolate hamentashen, my flute + flute music, and about 500-1000 pictures of me from my childhood.

My mom used to mail me shalach monos for the first couple of years after I moved out of their house completely, until purim 5 years ago, which was when I first told my parents I was dating B when I was home for purim and they first told me they would disown me if I married someone not jewish. Since then, nothing. So that was pretty awesome.

The story with the flute is this: In high school I took flute lessons for 4 years and as far as other people told me, I was pretty good at it. I was getting to the point where I was learning to play the same music my *teacher* would play at the recitals of her students that she would put together, and my flute teacher wanted me to apply to Juliard to go to a music conservatory, but I wasn't sure about the life of a musician (which I believe mostly involves a lot of working nights and uncertain income) and I decided I wanted to go to a regular college instead.

In my senior year of high school I was dating my ex fiance, and my parents didn't like him and wanted us to break up- so at some point they said they would stop paying for my flute lessons if I kept dating him, and being the defiant teenager I was, I was all like "Fine, I don't want flute lessons anymore anyway!" I haven't touched the flute since, I left it at my parent's house when I moved away to grad school, and I thought my parents must have sold it or something (Since it cost like $700 or something back when I bought it in 1996).

But when they visited on new years my mom said she still had the flute after all, and she mailed it over with all my old lessons and sheet music! It's been 12 years since I've played, but the last couple of days I've been trying to reteach myself to read sheet music and have worked my way through the lessons that show you how to play c, b, a, g, f and f sharp. And the finger positions are coming back to me as is the music reading.

The dogs are very intrigued by the flute, and twice when I was warming up by playing each note as long as I could, Barkley and Max started howling along with the flute (which means my flute practicing is interjected with a lot of giggles on my part, they are so freakin adorable!). So yeah, that's pretty neat, maybe I can get good enough again to start jamming with some profs in my department who jam together occasionally. My old flute teacher had me playing 100% classical music but maybe I can find some music for like jethro tull/anchorman/jazz flute kind of stuff.

My mom also sent what turned out to be ALL the duplicates of photos of me taken as a child (at first I was like "what is she clearing all the pictures of me out of her house?" but when I talked to her she told me they were all duplicates). So I suddenly have gone from having around 7 pictures of myself as a child (all from like age 2-3) to ALL the pictures of me as a child! I looked through a few of them already and DAMN was I a skinny bean pole of a teenager, ha! Also quite nerdy looking throughout all my childhood due to the giant glasses I wore since I was 5 (these days I only wear glasses to read but back then I wore them all the time). My mom also sent this huge picture of me at age 2 days old from right when I came back from the hospital, which is pretty awesome to have. :)

I think what this means is that over the past few months my mom went through all the pictures she had of me as a kid to find all these duplicates. Which is pretty nice to think of.

Since New Years when they visited I haven't talked to my parents much- I've been emailing my dad back and forth a few times, but I've been drowning at work and am still feeling somewhat awkward about calling my mom, since our phone call history has now included: After talking once a week since I moved out of the house permenantly in 2004, last phone call sometime in November 2008, next phone call after that in November 2011 on Thanksgiving, and then they visited me on New Years (In between I talked to my dad).

So Friday I called my mom to thank her for the shalach monos which was our second phone call together (after the first on thanksgiving) since she temporarily disowned me. (note: I now use "temporarily" as a qualifier, yay!). We talked for like an hour and 15 minutes, disagreed slightly over politics (They finally got to her..she's a republican now!) but mostly got along, and she told me all the neat things she's up to (she's going to have her artwork in a few jewish museums! She's like a jewish folk artist now!) and I told her the neat things I'm up to (seedlings popping up! papers accepted for publication! trips to fun places for conferences!) and she told me it was hilarious that I was growing veggies cause when I was a kid and she was growing her own veggie garden she always tried to get me to be interested in it but I didn't show any interest in it then. I also remember my grandmother growing a huge veggie garden in her backyard, so I've decided to think of this as somewhat of a family tradition. :) Just because I don't follow most of the jewish traditions doesn't mean I've abandoned ALL my family traditions! :)

Then my dad came home and she put him on the phone and we talked for another 15 minutes. And he made some suggestions for B to find work and said he should "follow the family tradition" and drive a cab the way he and his dad used to do (my grandfather was a NYC cab driver and my dad drove his dad's cab for a few year at night to work his way through grad school). I had to remind him we don't live anywhere near NYC and since we're not in a major city there are hardly any cabs here. But the point is, he is using words like "Family" when referring to B. :)

So all in all, awesome. So awesome, that I actually let slip that I'm going to be in NYC in June- first time in several years that I am visiting the area my parents live in and they actually know I'm going to be there! I've visited the area they live in many times over the past 5 years because my two best friends and my brother still live there (Well not so much on the visiting since moving down south, but I went up to visit last year on fall break in October and many times before that when I still lived in Philly) and just didn't tell my parents about my visit.

Anyways now I guess me and my parents are probably going to get together when I'm in NYC in June? I don't think B is going to be with me for that trip, but now that they've been to visit us at our home I think my policy of "Not visiting my parents without B cause if they want to hang with me they have to accept B too" can be relaxed a bit.

The whole thing is still a little bizarre to me. Talking to my mom for an hour and a half like nothing ever happened and we didn't just NOT talk to each other for several years is kinda just...weird. And it still gives me anxiety to call her. I've kind of gotten used to the idea of basically just not having parents in my life, they were pretty absent for the past 5 years since I met B (and especially the past 3 and a half years since I got engaged) and we didn't get along together for a few years before that because I was openly 'off the derech" since my senior year of college (2003) and even before that we fought a lot the last few years I lived at home because I was miserable living the orthodox life /double life of being a secret OTDer and was probably just a jerk to be around as a result. So we've had a bad relationship for basically over a decade. But now with that 3 year break of hardly ever talking it's like our relationship has hit the reset button to some degree and we are getting along in a way we never did before, and having the sort of adult-to-adult conversations we've never had before. It's still really weird to be able to talk to my mom when for so long I didn't talk to her...it's like we're friendly strangers almost, but at the same time we have this huge shared history together and can talk about things that happened decades ago.

Meanwhile in plant news, look what just popped up on my meyer lemon tree (about a year after I first got it):

I'm guessing those will turn into flowers and then lemons! Yay! This is the first time in the last year the tree has grown something that wasn't a branch with leaves, very exciting! Supposedly once the lemons set they take 6-9 months until they are ripe, but they haven't even turned into flowers yet...maybe we will have lemonade for thanksgiving or something :)


These guys (which will be sugar snap peas) also just came out a couple of days ago. And the lettuce seedlings are doing well and starting to sprout some "true leaves", the blueberries are still alive- I stripped the flowers off so they can grow roots instead of blueberries and they are currently starting to leaf out. I've also planted carrots and onions but they have not yet come out of the ground. I'm going to plant another round of lettuce today so that I can extend my lettuce harvest (it's good to plant a group every 2 weeks as long as you can so they don't all ripen at the same time). Yesterday I bought an artichoke plant a the farmer's market and I need to find a good spot to stick that, since they turn into huge 5 foot wide and 3-5 foot tall plants, so that can't go in my regular square foot veggie garden. :) Thinking of clearing out a random spot in the front yard and just having it as part of the landscaping out there, but I'm going to wait a couple of weeks till I plant it outside as it is still pretty cold at night (but going to be in the 60s and high 70s all next week, I love the south!)

Also last weekend I planted about a million annual wildflowers (specially formulated for "the southeast") in 4 spots in my backyard and 3 spots in my front yard. I didn't do much there, just broke up the land with a hoe, scattered some seeds, and tried to move the dirt around so they were covered up a bit, so we'll see how successful I was at that later this year. Also thinking of getting some saffron crocuses to plant this fall so I can start growing my own saffron.

Email from a reader!

Your post makes me wonder how accurate the rest of your blog is. The groom is most definitely NOT Chassidic. No beard, and dressed like any other Yeshivish groom (The long black coat is only for the ceremony to cover the white Kittel). And "My cousin met with her husband in public places or in houses under parental supervision about once a week for a few hours for about 6 weeks." is the custom amongst the Yeshivish. Chassidim meet a lot less, and only in the parents house, NEVER in a public place. Also, "and of course she can't use birth control- at least not until she has had two boys and two girls." is similarly inacurate. It is one each. lastly, "and one day he will be buried in it." is a very wide spread myth, widlye prevelant even in orthodox circles. A kittel is supposed to LOOK like burial shrouds, but it isnt ACTUALY used as such. Feel free to post this, but please don't use my email address."

I guess accusing OTDers of lying is all the rage these days!

Let me start with this- I'm not close with my cousins. I used to see them about 3 times a year at family events, and since turning 22 and moving away from my parents (which was 8 years ago), I've seen them even less - the last time I saw them was at this wedding, which was 2 years ago.

Ok so here we go: This guy is not dressed like a chassidic guy. Ok. You may be right. I only know what I was told to me by my family (and remember that 2 years ago I was newly married to my non Jewish husband and I was hardly talking to my family at all - this is a post I wrote about that wedding at the time). What I was told by my family is that my cousin was marrying a chassidic guy. My impression was that he's not part of a specific chassidic group and may be more liberal for chassidim. It's also possible he follows more yeshivish customs but comes from chassidic ancestry of some kind - in my misnagid family, even if he currently followed yeshivish customs but had chassidic ancestors he would still be labeled "chassidic." Also the groom was 18 years old at the time, not all 18 year olds can grow a full beard.

My cousin's family is yeshivish, not chassidic, although two of my female cousins in that family have married people from a (more liberal) chassidic background. So the fact that they met for about 6 weeks in public places meant that my cousins were following the same customs their yeshivish family always follows. I don't know the details of their dates or anything but I do know they supposedly dated for about 6 weeks before getting engaged and got married a few months after that.

The thing about having 2 girls and 2 boys is how I remembered my cousin saying the rule to me, but I went back and checked a post I wrote about the conversation I had with that cousin about that rule and you are right, it was only 1 boy and 1 girl until they are allowed to use birth control. I must have gotten confused since the cousin who told me this had 2 boys and then 2 girls at regular intervals (and I wouldn't be surprised if she's pregnant again), so it seems she's not using birth control of any kind despite already having the 1 boy and 1 girl and kept having kids. I have also heard from many women that even though the 'official' rule is 1 boy and 1 girl, they have a very hard time getting a heter (permission) to use birth control from their rabbi unless they have very dire circumstances such as being on the brink of a mental breakdown, and even then the heter they get tends to be short term. So while you are technically correct about the actual halacha, in real life it plays out differently for many women. But your mileage may vary, and I know different communities have different standards.

As for people being buried in their kittel- that's my family's custom as far as I know? It might be a misconception on my part, but that's what I was always told by my dad...

As for the entirety of your email, you seem to be arguing that my cousins are a lot more liberal than many chassidic people. Which just goes to show my point- how insane these rules are.

Here's another recent email from a reader

"You Can Abandon G-D but He Will Not Abandon You"

That was the whole email. Thanks Mr. anonymous emailer! And to you I say, you can abandon the flying spaghetti monster but he won't abandon you either. Because things that don't exist by definition can't abandon anything.

A jewish wedding

Apparently there were some "Amazing" pictures of a segregated orthodox jewish wedding posted in a newspaper.

Well I can do that too! ;)

Here's some pictures from my first cousins's wedding. My cousins are misnagid/yeshivish orthodox jews, and my cousin married a hassidic jew. The marriage was arranged through a matchmaker- her parents and the parents of her groom talked beforehand and knew that the couple was a "good match" before they ever met. My cousin met with her husband in public places or in houses under parental supervision about once a week for a few hours for about 6 weeks. Then they got engaged and didn't see each other more than once or twice over the next 3 months, at which point they got married.

They both grew up completely segregated from the other gender (Other than close family), under strict rules that dictated they never touch someone of the opposite gender. Then they are expected to go from never touching a man to having sex on their wedding night. After which they can't touch for a week because the woman presumably has bled, which renders her 'impure' and which means she must wait until she has been clean of blood for a week, at which point she will dip naked in a ritual bath in front of another woman in order to have sex again. Unless of course she is so unfortunate so as to get her period during those 7 days, at which point she has to wait until her period is over and then count another 7 days clean until she can touch her husband and sleep in the same bed again. If there's any questions about her "cleanliness" she must wipe herself with a cloth and give it to her husband who will send it to a rabbi to inspect it. Oh and of course she can't use birth control- at least not until she has had two boys and two girls.

There are the rules my family follows.


The bride walks down the aisle with her mother and father (my aunt and uncle) holding her arms and holding candles. The men sit on one side of the aisle and the women sit on the other side


The bride's mother and mother in law (Both wearing wigs to cover their hair) walk her around the groom 7 times under the chuppah, a cloth held by which symbolizes the home that they will build together. Why 7 times? Cause Jews are superstitious, that's why. I'm sure it symbolizes something. I always disliked the circling thing and fought against including it in my wedding when I was engaged to my ex fiance at age 21.

This chuppah is one of two my mom has made using quilting techniques. She has this one which is white and more traditional for my more traditional cousins (who are getting married in these photos) and a more colorful one that has a tree of life and a dove and stuff that she designed for that wedding I never had back in the day.

The groom is wearing a black knee length coat and black hat that his particular hassidic group wears, and under that he is wearing a kittel, a white garment that kind of looks like a bathrobe but made out of a thinner fancy shirt like material. He first wears this garment at his wedding, and later will wear this garment again at certain holidays each year, and one day he will be buried in it.


After the wedding ceremony there is a meal during which there is lots of courses and lots of dancing between courses. The men and women dance separately. This is the women's section. Almost all these women are wearing wigs.


Here is the men, dancing in a circle dance.

Blueberries!

When we moved in we had a hedge of evergreen bushes along one of the fences in our backyard- one bush was already dead when we moved in and a second one died from being choked to death by the millions of morning glories that the prior owner thought would be a good idea to plant. SO meanwhile we have 2 gaping holes in our hedge. Good thing this is the neighbor we like, but our dogs tend to stand in the holes of the hedge and yowl, and the neighbor next to our neighbor has already complained about them a few times (like a jerkface).

So we decided to get some blueberry bushes to fill in the gaps! After doing some internet research I decided on two different varieties of "highbush" blueberries. Highbush blueberries grow to around 6 feet tall, as opposed to the lowbush varieties which only grows well in the north and 2-3 feet tall, and the rabbiteyes which (Unlike the name suggests) get like 12 feet tall. I got two different kinds, because when you have two different kinds they get cross-pollinated and somehow that leads to more blueberries (I think the blueberries know there's competition so they grow more blueberries to win the competition)

So on Monday our two bushes were delivered and I planted them on Tuesday morning. On Tuesday Barkley (or possibly max) dug one up and I had to replant it by moonlight, and so on Wednesday we got some nice little fences to put around them.


Supplies: two blueberry bushes, dirt for acid loving plants like blueberries, and a bucket full of peat moss that soaked in water overnight (if you don't presoak it it just sucks all the moisture out of the soil, which is not good for growing anything)


Two holes, each about a foot and a half deep and two feet wide. After digging out the top layer of dirt, I dug out the deeper layer of clay and moved that to the sinkhole. Then I refilled it with about 1/3rd native dirt, 1/3rd peat moss and 1/3rd acid dirt, and planted the bushes shallowly. I planted them a little further away from the fence, since blueberry bushes can spread up to 5 feet wide, and I don't want to have a bunch of blueberries falling on my neighbor's driveway all the time, that's just rude.


I think this one is the sharp blue


This one is the gulf coast one

After planting the bushes I pruned them by about a third to encourage growth. This year I'll remove all the blossoms so that the plant puts its energy into growing a good root system versus growing blueberries, but I should have a decent amount of blueberries next year! Next year I will probably have to get some sort of netting to keep the birds away from the blueberries, since they love to eat them right when they ripen. These bushes will grow to full height by around 6-7 years, and should continue producing fruit for the next 30 or so years. Once they are full grown, each bush should produce 10-15 pounds of blueberries each season.

Black dirt live again!

It's been drizzling here the past few days, which made today the perfect day to go dig up the hard clay soil, as the water makes it diggable. Yesterday I bought a hoe, peat moss, lime, high acid dirt (for planting blueberries and potatoes), low acid dirt (for covering the asparagus), and compost. Today I dug out the area which will be a long raised bed garden on the south side of my house, and another area out front which will be an asparagus bed.

My ground is clay, so next week I'm going to mix in compost and pre-moistened peat moss (after soaking it in water overnight so it doesn't wick all the moisture out of the soil) to improve the drainage, as otherwise the clay will hold too much water and be too dense and drown my seeds when I plant them in a few months. This morning I started loosening up the top layer of soil with a hoe and mixed in lime (to lower the acidity) and the leaf compost that's been sitting around all winter in a corner of the garden.

My seed collection for this year! Not pictured but also will be growing/planting: asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, onions, garlic, potatoes, rosemary, oregano and possibly lemons (if my tree decides to bloom this year)

Also next weekend I have plans to plant 2 blueberry bushes in the backyard that will eventually grow to be around 6 feet tall. And I'll be starting bell pepper and eggplant seeds indoors. And a few weeks later the lettuce and peas and onions will be going in the ground and i'll be starting basil seeds, and a few weeks after THAT will be carrots, and after that the frost season will be over and it'll totally be on!

Now I'm making about 2 gallons of chicken soup for our "stay home, be antisocial and watch the superbowl while eating tortellini soup" fest tonight (and lots of extra to freeze).