BERNTHIS.COM

I record I'd have paid big money not to break

Someone call Guinness. My daughter has now set a record for yelling, "but they're mine!" over and over and over again for literally the entire last HALF AN HOUR. 

That being said, while Guinness is here, I think I might just let them know that I spent that same half an hour saying, 'No they are not", over and over and over again so maybe I too can become a record holder. 

Now, I have heard that to earn the title, you need to do whatever it is you're doing without a break. I'll admit that one time, I switched from 'No they're not" to "to snap out of it", but I swear that was it.

Then again let's be honest.  Walking around your home listening to my kid whine the same line more times in thirty minutes then I've said, "God, why am I still single?" in the last FIVE years, probably would put me up against 18,449,392,124 other parents but I'm guessing 18,449,392,123 of them didn't bother to call Guiness because they were too busy planning how they'd survive living in a padded room for the rest of their lives, so I really think I have a shot.

For a while there, it was literally so unbearable, I felt like I was locked inside a craftsman inspired torture chamber, with a six year old KGB agent who is extremely partial to the color pink.  It got to the point where just to get her to stop, I started spilling all these government secrets to her even though I have no idea whether or not they even exist.

Apparently (according to me): 

1) Obama's favorite color is orange so when he tells the country we are in a code orange alert we might just be in a state of code yellow but he thinks yellow looks bad on him so code orange it is.

2) Guantanamo Bay was closed because they figured why not just send these guys to live in a pre-school full of kids that haven't eaten or slept in over 10 hours.  They then realized that this form of torture was also inhumane and therefore the idea was scrapped. 

and finally:

3) Health care reform will likely include a provision whereby my father gets a monthly stipend for living with a Jewish woman for over 50 years who's two favorite words are "CAT" and "SCAN". 

I know there was more but I was lucky, as pinky lee boshenievsky, eventually cried herself out and promptly fell asleep. 

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A QUICK NOTE:

If you are a blogger and live in NYC or very close by could you send me an email off line and let me know? I would love to see if we could plan a get together while I'm in NY this summer, probably after the conference. 

Happy fourth of July!!!!!  

 

 

There's ripe and then there's riiiiiiiiipe

That's it. I'm going to produce school. If I buy one more bad watermelon, cantaloupe or Honeydew I am going to cry.

I've asked the produce guy to help me before and every time he nails it and never once does he smell the thing. That has been my way for years. Does it smell ripe? Great. Buy it, take it home, cut it up, eat some of it, spit it out, curse myself for not asking the produce man to help me and REPEAT!

The money I have tossed down the drain in bad fruit could have bought me a f**ing orchard by now. So, that's it, I'm done. I'm going to produce school. 

You see, to find out if the fruit is ripe, apparently, you have to tap the thing in different places and listen for some kind of sound.  

Now this may sound a bit paranoid, but there are many times when I've stood there while the guy hits the fruit in question honestly thinking that what he's really doing is tapping out morse code for "hey guys, get a load of this idiot" to the other produce boys.  

The fact that the guy gets it right every time kills me because it just reminds me that yet again of one my life's dreams has been left unfulfilled, that being a "fruit whisperer" which, truth be told, has been something I've wanted to do since the first time I bit into a rotten cherry. 

Many times I've asked these produce guys to teach me exactly what sounds to listen for and every time all I end up hearing is the musak version of "Mandy" which they are quick to inform me is not coming from inside the watermelon but from the store's overhead speakers. 

The most amazing part is they know the inner workings of the cantaloupe so well they'll often ask me:

PRODUCE GUY:  Do you want to eat it today or tomorrow?

to which I once responded: 

JESSICA: Thanksgiving....at 4pm.  

which doesn't necessarily sound unreasonable IF it weren't for the fact that it was the middle of July when we were having this particular conversation. 

Obviously, I'm just feeling inadequate because not only am I a failure in the fruit department but it has now gotten to the point where my cooking is so bad I can't eat it.  Last night's attempt at chicken parmesan was so pathetic that for the second time in a week I had to tell my daughter:

JESSICA: Go put your shoes on. We're eating dinner out tonight. 

Sad part is Phoebe doesn't even question me anymore.  In fact, last night, she already had her shoes and was pretty much ready to go before I even started to cook.

hmm.....

Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Me

Like everyone else I am shocked by Michael Jackson's death. Very tragic indeed but typical me, I can't help but find the silver lining around every black clo...cough...cough...ahem...cough...sorry, ahem...cloud.  

You see, in my mind something wonderful has come from this tragedy and that is, at least for now, whenever I pull up to a red light singing Billy Jean is not my Lover, I don't get people looking at me, wanting to scream,"Hey lady! The 80's called, they want their music back!"

When you live in a city with so many people that drive and who are so musically literate they knew who Ben Folds 5 was when even Ben Folds 5 had no idea who they were, it's not hard to feel like an relic when you're sitting at the wheel of your car singing verbatim every song from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

I remember when one of the Bee Gees kicked it back a few years ago, I had about a three day window there where I finally felt comfortable rolling down the windows and singing "How Deep Is Your Love" with all the passion I could muster. It was great. There'd I'd be sitting at a red light, hipster guy pulls up next to me with his friend in the passenger seat,  "Night Fever" pouring out of my CD player and all I had to do was that little shake of the head while yelling out, "so horrible!" and for that one moment, me and the boys, we were ALL cool. 

I'll tell you something.  God help everyone when Donna Summer leaves this world.  "I work hard for the money", "Hot Stuff", "Last Dance",  I'm going to need at least a week, week and a half to get through that "mourning" period. Hopefully by then I won't care if people think I'm bats**t, overly medicated or just old, I'm going for it and if Rick Springfield happens to jump ship at the same time? Don't be surprised if Phoebe comes knocking on your door begging to live with you. 

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I AM Happy, I AM Happy

I have written approximately 237 pieces for BERNTHIS and never once have I have put together 300 words in a row where I wasn't saying something negative. I have decided here today, to test myself, to go against everything a good Jewish girl like me is supposed to, and be really happy for an entire post.

Now, I warn you, this could lead me to black out or possibly even perish, so if you don't get a submission from me in the next three weeks, you might want to stop by my house, oh and bring the coffed grinds, you know, just to get rid of the smell as the people from the county morgue might want you to stick around an answer some questions.

Now, I want you to tell them the truth. I died from being happy. That's right. I was in the midst of writing how happy I was to be a single mom to an amazing little girl when suddenly, the words just stopped coming. If they laugh, let them, as I love nothing more than to be able to put a smile on someone's face even if it means it's the last time I'll ever have the chance to do so.

And feel free to take whatever clothes of mine you like. I happen to big a big fan of sweater coats and if you have short legs and want to "feel" tall, grab whatever you can because they really do create the illusion of height.

Now, don't be surprised that if the people from the CSI group show up. Don't worry, eventually they'll find I died from Jewish natural causes, but I warn you, most of the crime scene people are usually gentile and will have a hard time believing "joy" can in fact be deadly.

So there you have it. I set out to be happy for 300 words in a row and by the fourth sentence I'm already dead on the floor of my living room recommending you bring along coffee to help you withstand the smell of my rotting corpse. 

Well, better luck next time. 

A Random Act of Kindness IN L.A.!

True Story:

I walked into a yogurt store today with Phoebe.  Behind the counter were two women, probably in their late 20's to early 30's.

As Phoebe and I were tasting a sample of yet another flavor (because I'm trying to teach her that it's important to eat the sample equivalent of what you're about to order before you actually do order)  a woman, early 60's, walked into the shop, handed the girl behind the counter a hundred dollar bill and told her:

WOMAN:  Here. For you and the other girl.

The woman then immediately walked out, got into her car and drove away, never once looking back. 

At that moment the only other person in the store was a hipster girl, about mid 20'’s, whose first response was:

HIPSTER GIRL:  I'll bet you it's counterfeit.

to which I wanted to respond:

JESSICA'S THOUGHT: Who are you? My father? 

but instead told her

JESSICA: I don't think so.

One of the counter girls got tears in her eyes while the other one couldn't stop jumping up and down. Meanwhile, Negative Nelly over there refused to be convinced that the something wasn’t up and even suggested that maybe the money was from a bank robbery.

As I sat there and wondered how she managed to pull that out of her a**, all I could think of was how to get her out of the store so that these women could bask in the joy of what to them was their new found fortune.

I thought about encouraging Phoebe to do a full reenactment of her kindergarten culmination ceremony which included 5 minutes of the chicken dance combined with a rockin rendition of head and shoulders, knees and toes and the itsy bitsy spider, but I figured there was no way she was going to do anything until her tongue had tasted every last drop of that oreo cookie sundae and considering how long it takes her to eat anything,  well let’s just say I have an appointment on Wednesday that I just can’t miss and therefore decided to let “Nelly” run her mouth until she’d pretty much made us all want to cry.

I'll give you three "P"s for that "O"

I just want to say how lucky I feel that I got to wait all day for the plumber to come to my home to fix what the plumber before him should have repaired but didn't and on top of that, as if my day could not get any better, and trust me I didn't think it could, I got to spend an hour in the Verizon store today waiting to return a headset that I was mistakenly told would work with my brand new Blackberry, that being the Curve and not the Storm, which it turns out is beyond the capabilities of a 43 year old, far-sighted woman, who did not graduate with honors from MIT.  

I should have known when I was talking to the probably 24 year old male customer service agent that "storm" and I were not going to go long term because when I asked the agent why he thought it was a good idea to hook up with this particular blackberry, he told me it was because it was:

Customer Service Rep: "Awesome" and "The Best one ever."

Now, this is not to say that the "Storm" is not a wonderful device for some.  If you are one of those people who love spend your time doing things like pressing the letter P over and over and over again even though you really want the letter "O" or like to draft an email only to lose it because you tilted the f**er thing eeevvver soooo slightly to the left, well then don't walk, run, my friend as I know for sure at this moment that in L.A. proper there is at least one "storm" waiting around with your name on it, well IF your name has a lot of "P"'s in it that is.....

Q: Remember that ti.... A: No, actually I don't

It was 2005. My neighbor's wife had died several months earlier. In his backyard, he was holding a memorial service. I knew this only because when you walk out my back door you can see everything that is going on in his yard and he can see everything that is going on in mine.. 

Imagine then, here it is, four o'clock on a clear Spring day when suddenly, Phoebe, who was 2.5 at the time goes running out into the yard, quickly followed by me, fresh out of a shower and now wearing nothing but underwear and a bra, oh and towel on my head. 

So please, continue to imagine me in the towel, bra and underwear, yelling from the doorway:

ME: PHOEBE!!! PHOBE!! COME BACK TO MOMMY!

only to then look up and notice that there are approximately FIFTY people dressed in black and one in white, who it turns out was the priest, now looking at me, their eyes wide, mouths agape, quiet as church mice, (no pun intended) just staring at this crazy, half naked, loud, NY Jew, yelling for her kid to come back inside the house.

Now, imagine, that this 2.5 year old kid has no intention of going anywhere I want her to go and therefore makes it so that I must walk out of my home to go and get her as there was no way I was going to run back inside, put on my clothes and THEN go fetch her as at that age, any parent knows, it takes two seconds for her to put something in her mouth and kiss this world goodbye. 

So there I am, crouched down/crawling along the very painful concrete, over to Phoebe, yelling out to everyone:

ME:  Sorry!  Really Sorry!

only to then pick her up and proceed to use her as my "cover" while I back step it all the way back inside my home.

WAIT, WE'RE NOT DONE.

come with me and watch as Phoebe runs back out of the house as soon as I put her down, making it so that I must go and fetch her once again. However, this time, you will note that I am smarter and more aware than the last time and so proceed to grab a bucket that I had failed to see a minute earlier and use THAT as my cover to run out and get her again all the while calling:

ME: Phoebe…

only now using my infamous "whisperyell" which is really a yell but with more of a raspy voice.

Continue to watch as I pull the same Phoebe/shield move only now I’ve got a bucket hanging from my arm and see as the mourners now pretend not to notice me with the exception of pretty much every man on the lot, who are still staring and only stop after I'm back inside, have locked the door and moved out of eye range.

WAIT, ONE MORE THING.

Sit back as minutes later, now dressed, the dead woman’s husband, knocks on my door and asks if I could hold down the noise and keep my kid inside until the ceremony is over.  Laugh as I promise to do just that and then, as soon as she’s safely back in her father’s arms, off myself.

Okay, now we’re done

THE FISH INCIDENT

I arrived back from NYC yesterday.  The flight was fine. I didn’t even need my Xanax as TLC was running their “more your husband loves you the greater chance it is he will murder you” marathon which kept me both horrified and for the first time in a long time, very grateful to be unable to get past the "hugging" portion of every date.

Before I left, I decided to spend the weekend with the very embodiment of all of my character defects, my parents. One of those defects is my family’s complete inability to let anything go. 

For example. My parents went to the Bar Mitzvah of their neighbor’s son yesterday.  Being they are the only other Jews on the block and the fact that that same neighbor had a DJ arriving  later on that night for a long loud night of dancing, my parents were invited to the ceremony.  

Afterwards, the boy’s parents held a little luncheon at the synagogue or as my father described it “the place where they tried to poison me.” Apparently, he took ONE bite of some kind of “fish dish” and was so disgusted that he immediately spit it out into a napkin. He then proceeded to talk about it ALL day yesterday and well into the morning, to the point where while hugging me goodbye at the airport he said,  

MY DAD: “Do yourself a favor, stay away from the fish.” 

When I advised him that I didn’t think the food court offered anything in the vicinity of Tilapia or any other form of sea life he would not be detered telling me, “just make sure you smell it before you buy it.”   

Thankfully, my mother didn’t seem to mind the food nearly as much, maybe because after the service she was smart and headed straight for the dessert platter telling me: 

MY MOTHER:  I’ve never heard of anyone dropping dead from a bad brownie, so I went for it.”   

This is not to say that my mother isn't equally as adept at holding onto things. You see, all during that day, there was light rain on and off, something which disturbed my mother greatly as the reception was to be a dance/POOL party. So, like any person who has absolutely nothing invested in a relationship, all day long my mother worried, saying over and over again how badly she felt and to which my dad would respond every time:

“You’re worried about the rain. I’d be more worried about the food.”

Calling all Gods! Please report to Terminal 5!

Flew to NYC this week.  I was feeling super anxious because of what happened to the Air France flight last week although a my guy friend from the North, who is nothing if not "deep" reassured me:

FRIEND:    Yeah but you'll be flying over land.

to which I responded:

Jessica:    How is falling  25,000 from the sky better for me over land then at sea?

Friend:    You're right, it's not.  Anyway, so did I tell you I met someone?

I had the window seat. A very nice woman in her late sixties sat in the middle.  Before I even sat down, I whipped out my Xanax and then proceeded to ask this complete stranger:

Jessica:  Do you think I should take this now?

to which she responded:

Woman:  I've got my rosary.

Jessica:  Okay, that works for me. Although, I'm Jewish but that's okay, just tell him I was married to a Catholic for ten years and I even put up a Christmas tree. Actually, probably better not to mention the divorce but definitely the Christmas tree, every year, I might add. 

Woman: Right, got it.

At this point, knowing I would be sitting next to her for the next 5 hours, you could tell this woman  was no longer sure whether or not she wanted to live.  

Anyway, as soon as we took off, I closed my eyes and grabbed her non rosary bearing hand like a woman in the midst of a natural childbirth. I could hear her mumbling and it took everything I had not to chime in:

Jessica: Hey Jesus. Just wanted to say hi. 

I mean, I didn't doubt this woman was putting in a good word for me but I was sitting right there and I just didn't want Jesus to think I was weird...er, weirder, than I am. I mean, I know Jesus loves everyone, but who then again, who knows. I mean the guy is 2009 years old and hey, people change right? I know I have.

And listen, old age is not for sissies, as my father tells me repeatedly, so whose to say that Jesus is any different?  I mean arthritis, diabetes, cardiovasular disease, they don't care who you are and let's face it, the guy has been through A LOT.

Yeah, I know "move on Jessica, we got it. Jesus is old, he may no longer love EVERYONE and you're a freak." 

I think I need to go to fairy school

Phoebe lost her first tooth yesterday. It was the lower front one.  Two other girls in her class also lost their very first tooth yesterday as well.

Last night, the tooth fairy left Phoebe a dollar under her pillow. This morning, she came into my bed, waving it back and forth wondering aloud if her other classmates also got a dollar.

Of course, my heart sank and I immediately started to panic, wondering to myself, "what if she walks into school and both of the other girls come up to her waving a ten dollar bill or worse, a credit card?" How do I explain to her why it is the tooth fairy felt that Phoebe's tooth was worth less than those of her classmates?  So, with not much time on my hands, I came up with the following reasons:

1. Location. Everyone knows location is key right? Maybe the other girls lost and incisor.
2. The tooth  fairy is anti-semitic
3. There is more then one tooth fairy and we just so happened to get the cheap one.
4. Next time she'll get more and the other girls will get less, like say a Mobil Card.
5. She got lost, landed up in Mexico and used all her "fairy" money to bribe the border patrol to let her back into the U.S. without her passport.
6. She ran out of cash but luckily I she found a dollar in the ashtray of the car her little fairy pocket  and all she had to do was peel the gum off George Washington's face throw her fairy dust on it and leave it under Phoebe's pillow.

By the time we arrived at school, I decided to go with the fairy pocket figuring it's not like she'll ever be able to walk up to me one day and tell me:

PHOEBE: Uh, yeah, that whole fairy pocket story?  I just saw her outside Starbucks and the only thing in that pocket of hers was a pack of Camels.

Anyway, I also ended up putting the tooth in the change purse of my wallet because I wasn't sure if I should dump it. Naturally I forgot about it until I was paying for food at the airport today and in search of a quarter, ended up dumping both my change and the tooth onto the counter.

As soon as the cashier saw it, I quickly explained:

JESSICA:  Oh, that's just my daughter's tooth.

to which he responded:

CASHIER: Okay, but where is the rest of her?