Magic Jewball

Goals: are they a good thing or a bad thing? Because I had a few at the start of this vacation and I’m not sure I really accomplished anything. If only I hadn’t actually set them up, I might have felt better at the end, which is, coincidentally, today. Remember how excited I was to begin my longest break ever? Sure, it was relaxing and all but it gave me lots and lots of time to be panicked out of my mind that this all ends in a few short months and then I have no job. A year seemed like such a long time! Not so much anymore.

So let’s do some accounting.

1. Make a little money

I did do this, actually, and spent my first week at a part-time job that was way more work than I thought it would be. It’s ironic, I hadn’t actually worked the week between Christmas and New Year’s since, oh, 1992. I haven’t gotten the check yet, though. That can’t be good.

2. Get my apartment cleaned up

I’ve had this one for nearly a year. The good news is, compared to what it was before, it looks great! The bad news is, compared to the average home, it’s still a wreck.

3. Start my thesis.

Thesis?

4. Help my brother with his synagogue’s website.

Website? No, but really, I think this is the one I’m most disappointed about. I can’t think I’ll ever have three weeks of free time again to do this. I wonder if I should start now….

5. Plan my Purim offerings at Cinnagirl.

Well, I thought a little about Hamantaschen. Surely that counts for something.

6. Visit friends.

I’m going to revise this to visiting them on the Internet. Made it with a technicality!

7. Lay on the sofa a lot and eat Pop Chips.

Close! I ate dry cereal. You all remember I’m coocoo for Cocoa Puffs. I think there are still a few lodged between the cushions. Next time I clean, in July, I’m sure I’ll find them.

I think that’s it. My, am I ready to go back to class, if only so I can be distracted from my budget spreadsheet and how many fewer tabs it has this year what with not having any more income than I made at Musicland in high school. On the plus side, I got to delete that pesky “taxes” tab as well. Score!

In conclusion, as I learned from Homer Simpson, setting up goals is the first step towards failing to achieve your goals. The lesson is: never set up goals.

Title comes from:
Pink Floyd – Time

So I hope you had a great New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. I certainly did; I was working. But it’s not what you think, see, I had a big baked goods order for New Year’s Day. But while I was rolling dough to Pat Benatar, I was thinking about previous working holidays. It all ties in together. I recently found a cassette of my second favorite album of 1981, Precious Time. It was a cheapie that I had recorded off the LP I owned and man, is it in bad shape. But I’ve been finishing off its disintegration by singing along with it in the kitchen lately. Pat Benatar represents a lot of things to me. The most recent connotation is the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High where, of course, “three girls have cultivated the Pat Benatar look.” I still laugh out loud whenever any of those girls is in the shot.

They say FTaRH is accurate as far as representing high school goes, but I have no idea as my high school was nothing like the typical. But I’ll tell you what, it nailed what life is like as a teen working in a mall. Every time I hear Stacy say, “another Summer at Perry’s, I can’t…” I nod in understanding. Not that I disliked my time in retail. I adored it even while I hated it. I dream of it even now, vividly. But I always worked holidays and Sundays too. I was thinking tonight about NYE 1992. I went to a party at a friend’s posh place on the East Side, slept over, and then took an early morning train back to Baltimore. See, the mall opened at 11 and I had to work. I remember my other friends still sleeping, the empty, snowy streets, the silence in the taxi. But I didn’t mind.

Still, even now I won’t work Sundays. I appreciate every single lazy Sunday I have. This week I proctored exams at a local, er, unnamed Orthodox Jewish university. The week ran from Christmas Eve every day through NYE except Saturday, naturally. I signed up for every available session except Sunday. I am telling you, all these years later you will not take away my Sunday. Now, I may not know Mike Damone’s high school associations (I did internalize his “wherever you are, act like that’s the place to be” credo, but that’s a subject for another day) but these kids, well, they were my homies. They dressed just like the kids in my HS (nice pants, no jeans, button-down or polo shirts, all with the same haircut) and they had the same mannerisms and smartass senses of humor. Some of them swayed while they concentrated on their exams, as Jews do in prayer. I remember that too. I hope they all did well… except for that one kid who wouldn’t keep his eyes on his own paper.

But back to Pat Benatar. I was thinking while I was jam-spreading why I liked her so much when I was never a big fan of any other woman singer. I think it’s because of her toughness. I wasn’t a tough kid at all, far from it. My mother used to tell me I was like a flower, that anyone could crush me. I think I wished I had a little Pat Benatar in me when I was that age. And by that age I mean so young that I originally thought Hell is For Children meant that she thought children should go to Hell. I was a little offended, I have to say.

Oh yeah, and the songs. What great songs, they still stand up even now. If you’re wondering what my favorite album of 1981 was, that, of course, was The Police’s Ghost in the Machine. If you’re wondering what my Top 10 albums of the Oughts were, you’ll have to wait till Sunday… I still have some more baking to do.

Title comes from Mike Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

People think Hit Me With Your Best Shot was Pat Benatar’s toughest song but I think it’s this one.

And now, a New Year’s Eve Eve message. It’s really by the Kinks… well, mostly. I do have an intro. This has been one of the weirdest years in my adult life. It’s up there with 1992 and 2005/6 (technicality, I’m counting mid-year to mid-year) but the difference between this year and those years is that this time, things didn’t happen to me, I made it a strange year all by myself. Well, it started terribly. There were layoffs at my office about two weeks into the new year and my job was combined with someone else’s, causing me to hate both it and my life. I seriously woke up every day feeling physically sick that this was my life. But unlike previous times where this has occurred to me, I did something about it.

Now I know this isn’t always possible for everyone and that circumstances aren’t always conducive to this kind of thing. But the fact is, I would have said that my life didn’t allow this kind of thing. I have a mortgage and no spouse to depend on should things go wrong. And there is plenty of room to still go wrong. I could fail to find a job and lose everything. I’d be lying if I told you that I’m not nervous and worried and scared. But every day I’m happy that I left my job. Every day.

Here’s a little story from this year. When my job was changed, I went to the CFO and spoke to him about maybe shifting to something different. We had a good relationship and I knew he wouldn’t rat me out. His suggestion was to read some book called “Who Moved My Cheese?” I had no idea what that was, maybe you do, it was a huge bestseller, apparently. But I looked it up on Amazon. It turns out it’s about adjusting your thinking to react to change and letting go of the old. In other words, Becca, give up and go with the flow. You can sort of guess what I thought about that advice. Yeah… I didn’t buy that book.

Eight months later, long after I had made my decision to leave and finally given notice, I ran into the CFO at my going-away party. I thanked him for coming, told him I would miss him, and said cheerfully, “You know what? I move my own fucking cheese.”

So my advice is, don’t wait for change to happen in the new year. Make it happen, in any way you can. Be afraid, it’s OK to be. Just plan, plan, plan and then leap! Even if you fall, you’ll be happier.

So, the song. This song is available on no download service so I went to YouTube. Usually, YouTube comments are kind of the lowest common denominator of Internet text. It really scares you about the state of humanity to read them. But I found this very perfect comment in there about the Kinks’ most hopeful song: “In the imaginary country where I am president, this is the national anthem.” Hats off to you, anonymous commenter. I would like to be a citizen of your country.

Happy New Leap, everyone!

(The “video” here is just lyrics. Don’t like the song? Read the lyrics! Except that “accept your life and what it brings” line, I’m not so keen on that. So skip that one.)

Ladies and gents, I may have six papers due this week but am I the luckiest girl in the world or what? Just look at the Hannukah haul! I practically had to delete my entire wishlist.

Doesn’t Andre look soulful? That’s because he knows I won’t have time to read this until my semester is over. Have faith, Zen Master.

I am Serious Chris Noth. Do not look at the sexy, I’m just here to catch perps. CHA-CHUNG!

Brownie pan! With lid! I have been looking for one for ages; tin foil on top of the 9×9 is just not my speed. Also shown, potholders to match new kitchen < Vanna White hand motion >.

Awwww! Isn’t it darling? It’s a mini crockpot which serves one to two. One is for when you’re not visiting me and I scarf down the whole thing. I mean, uh, leftovers.

Actually, I have one of these already but it finishes cooking in five hours and I like my crockpots like my… oh never mind, let’s just stick with “this one’s better.” Also, it says it’s great for party dips and I am nothing if not a party dip.


But (serious voice), I don’t want to get away from the real meaning of Hannukah. The hearkening back to a time when the brave Maccabees rid Israel of the scourge of people who sought to assimilate and take on the ways of the foreign conquerors. So now we celebrate their victory by watching eight days of Law & Order. CHA-CHUNG!

Or not. Sorry, I’m full of jelly doughnut.

Once upon a time, long long ago, this was my favorite song on earth, I kid you not. Scott Muni used to play it on “Things From England” on WNEW. Then Wham! became big and I pretended I never liked it.

Title comes from:
Wham! – Everything She Wants

I’m taking a break from studying how technology changes society as well as the baking I should be doing to talk a little about baking and how technology has changed society.

I had a special request from a customer to make “Hannukah cookies” which don’t really exist in the way Christmas cookies or Purim cookies do. The special sweet for Hannukah is sufganiyot, or jelly doughnuts, and I can’t make those. But I thought about how my mother used to make sugar cookies in the shape of dreidels and stars and menorahs with blue sugar on top. My aunt does the same thing so I assume my grandmother did too. Maybe it came over from Christmas sugar cookies, I don’t know. So I suggested that and my customer agreed. I happen to have my mother’s recipe boxes from when we cleaned out my parents’ house last year and I looked through them.

I think the thing that struck me most was how dishes I had thought of as my mother’s really came from her friends and neighbors and how every one was clearly marked, “Mrs. So-and-So” on the top right corner. My mother was like me and saved everything so the recipe boxes are also full of notes from people saying, “Hi, here’s the tzimmes recipe you asked for…..” Some are still in little envelopes. I think if you looked through my computer, you’d see the same thing but in .doc files. And I do call many of my recipes by the person who gave them to me. So it’s Monka Muffins and PaxilRose’s Chocolate Chip Crack and Aunt Honey’s cookies.

But I mean, look at this picture… I somehow don’t think it will be the same. Sure, the search would be a lot easier, but it will also be a lot less fun.

Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box