We never did the entire book, and I was happy to be spared a two-hour prayer dinner so I could instead focus on what was really important – my cousin's fantastic matzo ball soup and to-die-for brisket. I was raised as a happy little heathen, so when the haggadah asked, "Why is this night different from all other nights," I would think, Because I get to eat gefilte fish. We eventually stopped reading on Passover, and instead started with the most important element: food. I'm told the haggadah is still in the room, but we leave each other be.
This year, there was a fantastic addition to the festivities – family from my mother’s side that I had never met. I learned something this weekend: I do not have a small family. Finding this out made me happy. I always envied family reunions where all seven aunts and uncles, 22 first cousins, 13 second cousins, their kids, and various family friends crowded into one house for a lobster boil, sack races and in-fighting. Doesn’t that sound marvelous?
My mother had conveniently omitted (or, more likely, I hadn’t paid attention to the fact) that she has a bunch of first cousins, four of whom I had never met. They were invited to the picnic, and I was slated to be introduced to a few of her first and second cousins and their wives and children.
I was so excited that I started using exclamation points after everything:
“Here are the platters!”
“I’m taking a shower!”
“Did you clean the tables and chairs!”
Not grammatically correct, but I was a little emotional.
With all of these extra people we needed a venue bigger than my cousin's house, where it's normally held. Thus, my secular family ended up hosting their First Inaugural Rosh Hashanah Picnic. It had all the traditional food, including brisket, matzo balls, chicken with brie, spinach and pears, noodle kugel, kasha varnishkes and tandoori chicken. For dessert: cakes from a Lithuanian bakery, fruit salad, gulab jamun and Chocorooms.
Take notes, non-Jews. I will teach you the right way to throw a religious Jewish holiday party.
My long-lost relatives turned out to be lovely and, thankfully, talkative. I learned that I had a great-grandmother named Ethel. She was highly beloved, and after she died, my grandmother’s generation followed the tradition of naming their children after this respected relative. Therefore, my mother has three first cousins named Ethel. My grandmother didn’t like the name, and chose to use only the letter “E” and pick the name Ellen. Smart lady – none of the Ethels like their name. (Even though they did love their namesake.)
There’s New York Ethel. She uses her name, but thinks it’s ugly. There’s Boston Ethel, who goes by “Saf,” an abbreviation of her maiden name. And there’s Florida Ethel, who is referred to alternately as “Big Ethel” and “Tall Ethel.” It wasn’t clear whether she objects to her nicknames or her actual name. I’d understand either way. (On a side note, I find it telling that at 5-foot-7-inches, she is considered the tall one in our family. We are a short people.)
Disappointingly, my dreams of a crazy family reunion were dashed. Not one of my new relatives showed up drunk. No one appeared bitter about their portion of a long-forgotten will or wanted to continue arguments begun in 1968. And all of the children were adorable, well-behaved and friendly.
However, I still have high hopes. You never know who’ll show up next year!
(Click to enlarge)
I have always said that I have a sixth sense about fire alarms. If you listen closely, you can often hear a muted click right before the alarms sound in my building. So when most people are calmly working, I’m muttering, “Damn!” and grabbing my stuff.
Granted, this has earned me a reputation. At my last job, the alarms used to go off constantly. This was not long after September 11, 2001. By the time my coworkers were getting back to something like normal, every fire alarm would trigger my fight-or-flight response. And my response was always: flight.
When the Great Blackout of 2003 hit the East Coast, I was working on the 32nd floor, and I RACED down all 32 flights. This is why I don’t sign up to be the fire warden – I’m so focused on leaving that I don’t see other people. I pretty much zigzagged around all the slow people who weren’t worried by the blackout.
I have always been like this. I believe that this is biological – that my body is wired to respond easily to loud noises and perceived danger. Now, I’m not loud when I think I’m in danger. I stop. I keep track. I become hyper aware and hear every noise and constantly evaluate my current situation.
I remember a trip I took to Florida with my closest friends after college graduation. We were eating dinner at Chili’s when I looked out the window and just…stopped.
“Is that a tornado?” I gasped, as my heart tried to start beating again.
No, no, no, they all reassured me. It was probably a heavy rain storm in the distance. It was just cloudy over there. The glass was a little dirty in that area. Maybe I was developing cataracts.
I monitored that dark swath on the horizon for the rest of the meal, which I couldn’t eat.
Later, we watched the news and saw that it had been a tornado. Which my traveling companions had known, but had decided not to share with me.
However, since my platelet disorder landed me in the hospital last year, with both me and my doctors questioning my mortality, it’s like my panic receptors have been slightly altered. Loud noises still make me jumpy, and I still get concerned when alarms go off in my building, but now I can let it go. When I experienced real danger, I chose fight, not flight. Knowing that changed things.
Last week we received an e-mail that building’s management company would be conducting emergency drills. These drills always begin with the alarms being triggered so we know what they sound like and that it’s time to congregate.
When I arrived at work, my cubicle-mate turned to me and said, “Nancy, don’t panic later, remember that there’s a fire drill this afternoon.”
Five minutes later another coworker arrived. She hung up her jacket, settled in, then emerged from her office and paused. “Nancy,” she said, “don’t forget there’s a fire drill today. Don’t freak out.”
That day, I ate lunch in the cafeteria, one floor below my desk. Their drill started 15 minutes earlier than the one I was scheduled to attend. As it rang out, loud and shrill, I dropped my fork and literally jumped in my seat.
“Did you see me?” I asked my lunch buddy.
“Yes,” she said. “That was HYSTERICAL!”
I took a deep breath, picked up my fork and continued eating.
I have been home from Florida for two days now, and I have had to face a harsh reality: I am not tan. I am a fair-skinned, blue-eyed brunette with my fair share (probably your fair share too) of freckles. I have a theory that if I spent long enough in the sun, my freckles would grow and merge, and I would have a nice tan. As someone with a bachelor’s degree in English and French, I know this theory is scientifically sound, but I have not tested it yet.
This is because I burn easily and have a mild sun allergy that pops up every spring. I wear a sunscreen that is SPF 70. I have a hat that has SPF protection too. I am one step away from living in an SPF 400 plastic bubble.
I asked a co-worker yesterday if he liked my Floridian tan. He said, “Our people don’t really tan.” So I said, “That’s true, but I don’t think we share the same people.”
He responded, “You’re not Irish?”
I knew that was what he meant.
My name is vaguely Irish-sounding, and my features just scream, “Top of the morning to ya!”
However, my family is from Eastern Europe – Russia, Austria, Poland, the Ukraine – and blue eyes, red hair, freckles and fair skin are very common traits there.
When I started working for my current boss, he used to test me on the bible all the time. As an English major I had read many biblical stories, so I was able to answer many of his questions. One day, I mentioned that I wanted to schedule a trip to Florida in April. He told me he didn’t want me out of the office then because it was a Jewish holiday and he planned to be out. I explained that I wanted to celebrate that holiday with my family too. (This was only somewhat true, because I’m not actually religious.)
He was like, “But you’re Irish Catholic!”
I had to explain that no, I’m actually Jewish. Which led him to ask, “So why did you think I was testing your bible knowledge?” I told him I simply thought he was a big fan of the bible.
So now instead of bible quizzes, he’s trying hard to convince me to start practicing Judaism.
I wish he still thought I was Irish Catholic.Update: despite previous expectations, impending doom was averted and my plane landed safely in Ft. Lauderdale. I was pleasantly surprised.
Shockingly, I forgot to take a Xanax. This would have gone unnoticed, except my mother said, “Hey, did you ever take a pill?” as we were on the boarding line. I panicked before quickly realizing that taking it then would be pointless. After we landed, my father kept saying, “I’m so proud of you for flying without drugs!” Which is nice, but probably indicates the very low bar I have set for myself.
My mom did her best to distract me during the flight. She took over my brother’s responsibility of looking at every page of the Sky Mall catalog with me so I could decide which item I really need (first choice: a wooden bridge for my imaginary garden; second choice: a portable terra cotta pizza oven). My mom did provide a couple of minor panic-inducing moments, including:
I thanked her profusely for pointing that one out. During takeoff.
Still, it was an uneventful flight, so I was thankful.
It brought to mind a very different flight she and I were on a few years ago after a quick trip to Florida.
We had boarded the plane and were sitting in the second row after the partition separating coach and first class. We settled in and had started slowly moving down the runway when a man blew past us toward the cockpit. Behind him, a frenzied flight attendant was running and yelling, “Sir, stop! Please sit down! Sir! Sir!”
Those of us in the front listened as a brawl commenced. People were shouting things like, “Stop him!” and “He’s trying to open the door!”
He did open the door. He then jumped off the plane, and was tackled a distance down the runway after officers zapped him.
It was almost silent when the captain announced over the speaker that everything was fine. He also said we would be exiting the plane so it could be inspected by “specially trained animals” – his polite way of saying “bomb-sniffing dogs.” Although, since he didn’t say dogs, I started imagining that they were little chimpanzees in FBI uniforms. Eventually, we were asked to de-plane and escorted into Continental’s Presidents’ Lounge.
It is a very peculiar thing to enter a room and see your flight receiving full “Breaking News” status on CNN. It showed that the tarmac was covered in police, fire and FBI vehicles, and that news channels swarmed overhead in helicopters. I didn’t watch much more, because I was already on the phone to my pharmacy in New York, finding out how many Xanax I could safely take and remain upright.
I stayed pretty calm, and started chatting with a woman who turned out to be a teacher in my best friend’s school. (The next night I called my friend, who said this woman told her we spoke. My friend asked her how upset I was. When she said I appeared composed, my friend said, “Are you sure you met Nancy? Short brunette girl? Blue eyes? Freckles?”)
The FBI cleared us for takeoff, and I reluctantly got back on board, unconvinced we would make it to Newark Airport safely. We arrived at midnight, and, in another first, found news crews waiting to pounce on our flight.
We found out later that the man was not a suicide bomber having second thoughts. He was just a troubled person with bipolar disorder who really hated flying, whose relatives made the poor decision of allowing him to fly solo.
I have cried before flights, been sick to my stomach, had minor panic attacks and even tried to convince my family to cancel our trip as we were boarding the plane. But I have never been Tasered after biting a flight attendant and jumping off a moving plane.
Small victories.
“Which suitcase has the fruit rollups?!”
“Dress shoes…casual shoes…sneakers…sandals…socks…”
“Look, I can fit six of these in this pouch! I NEVER knew I had a pouch!”
“…contact lenses…contact solution…glasses…”
“We’ll have to go to the dollar store and buy a plastic spray bottle.”
“Tommy Bahama shirt…dress shirt…t-shirt…”
“I’m bringing a Hawaiian shirt too!”
I should mention I hate flying, so I try to pack as quickly as possible to avoid having to dwell on my impending doom. It is irrational – planes are safer than cars, blah blah blah – but it doesn’t stop me from having nightmares the week before I fly. This is no secret fear. A few days before I fly, I start interrupting random conversations (say, in the middle of ordering office supplies) to inform my coworkers how much I hate flying. They just roll their eyes and tell me yes, they know, now can we get those binder clips?
In fact, I actually wrote an essay, published in New Jersey Monthly Magazine, about learning to fly a small plane to get over my fear of flying. I’ll never forget the instructor saying, “Nancy, now we’re going to simulate engine failure.” By the time I started protesting, saying that we could face that particular horror next time, he had already shut off the airplane and we were floating high above central New Jersey, a silent speck in the sky.
I survived – and learned that small planes can actually ride air currents and land without engines. So now I’m totally over my fear of small planes, and have become completely bitter that their larger brethren can’t float. I guess the lessons worked, but maybe not the way I hoped.
When I was packing for this trip last night, I stopped and considered bringing my “Treatment Pillow.” This is what it looks like:
It’s what I use during my monthly infusions (well, weekly, these past few months), so I can snooze comfortably while I’m getting treatment. And then I looked at what the case that holds it says it’s called: Inflatable Travel U-Pillow.
It’s funny, because I’ve used it so many times this year, and not once for travel.
When I realized that, it altered my perception of my fear of flying. Why keep such a positive attitude about my very real and sometimes scary hematological disorder – and not do the same thing for my irrational fear?
So I brought my Treatment Pillow, but this week I’m calling it my Travel Pillow. And it will keep me just as comfortable as it always does.
(Also, have I mentioned that I hate flying? Yes? Ok, I’ll get you those binder clips now.)
