Just Call Me Mrs. Claus

Remember the story "The Emperor's New Clothes?"  More to the point, do you remember that the one who could see most clearly was a small child?  If it is true that small children see most clearly, than I am married to Santa Claus.  What a revelation!

Without the help of a small child, I would never have imagined that FogieKnight had such a rich secret life.  I've been married to him for almost 24 years and I've never seen him chose to wear red.  Although he is a few pounds heavier than when I met him, I doubt anyone would suggest that he had a belly that shook at all, let alone as though it were a bowlful of jelly.  The man is tall and lanky.  He's over six feet and, if I were to guess, weighs 175 pounds tops.  Rounded is not a word usually associated with him.

Perhaps it is the beard.  He does have a beard.  I've never been completely sure that he has a chin.  I've never seen his chin.  When I first met him, the beard was really quite red—not so much to match his hair as to contrast with it.  Brown hair, blonde mustache, red beard.  But now it is rapidly going white.

So, last night's revelation came as a bit of a surprise.  The evening started with me getting home from work late and not managing to get dinner together.  No surprise there.  It happens from time to time.  We (mainly FogieKnight) decided to go out to eat as the most likely route for actually getting dinner.

As the hostess showed up to our seat, we went near the next table.  A family was sitting there with all sorts of very blonde children.  The youngest, in a high-chair-type seat looked as though she were approximately fifteen months.  As we passed her, her eyes got very, very big and she twisted around and almost upside down to look at us.  I twisted around, in hopes of amusing her, and thought her reaction was in response to me.  I should not have been so self-centered but I did not know it yet.

Suddenly, she started jabbering very excitedly to her mother.  Her mother turned to us, looked at FogieKnight, and said, "She thinks you are Santa Claus."  (Kat was not at the table at that moment and had to be filled in later.)  FogieKnight grinned at the little girl and she grinned back.

And then he ordered a beer.  A beer?  I was appalled.  How could Santa order a beer?  FogieKnight explained that if Santa could smoke a pipe, as many a Santa he had seen in his youth could do, Santa could have a beer.  As a Jewish child and later a Jewish adult, I've never known that much about Santa but I was horrified.  Shouldn't Santa set a better example?

And, as I nagged a bit, it became clear.  For sure, if FogieKnight is Santa Claus, I am Mrs. Claus.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

Who woulda thunk it?  Kat, it turns out, has become an excellent cook.  When she left home, she would boil water only under duress.  Yet now she is making elaborate meals.  She made a mean sweet kugel (noodle pudding) the other night with apples and raisins.  Tonight it was homemade onion soup, egg-cheese bread with peppers (and, for FogieKnight and me, mushrooms), and salad.  She even takes recipes and adapts them.

My amazement is even greater because Kat labors under a handicap (or, as Rob would say, battles with a monster albeit a largely tamed monster).  No, I'm not referring to her dexterity, even though it renders her incapability of flipping pancakes or latkes—a problem she recently discovered and that is still in search of a work-around.  I'm referring to her lack of a sense of smell.    We are not entirely sure what damaged her sense of smell so much but we suspect the problem is in her brain.  The area of the brain that handles smell is very, very close to where her seizures used to start.  The beginnings of the seizures (that she seems to be growing out of) often involved very strong and very bad smells.  Perhaps those brain circuits just burned themselves out.  But whatever the reason, Kat's sense of smell is badly damaged-- and taste is amazingly dependent on smell.

She does say that she does not vary spices, except pepper which she can detect herself, until getting feedback from others.  If there is too much thyme in the egg-cheese bread recipe, there will be too much thyme the first time (although there really wasn't.)  She won't change it until someone who can smell and taste better than she does tells her what needs to happen.  Her experimentation is with items such as peppers, mushrooms, and changes of texture ingredients.

And she is sensitive to the textures of food.  That child was always sensitive to touch.  However insensitive her sense of smell, her sense of touch is highly, highly developed, even in her mouth.  It took me a few years to figure out why she liked the broccoli some nights and not others.  It had to do with texture.  I suspect she still does not like mashed potato because it is too mushy.  Her cooking tends to have a wonderful mix of textures.  That toasted bread with parmesan cheese in the middle of her onion soup was perfectly crunchy.

No, I'm not sure how she does it but I know that she does.  She cooks very well.  I probably should take lessons from her except that then people might start expecting good cooking out of me—and we couldn't have that happening, could we?

Generation to Generation

Last night was the synagogue’s Chanukah dinner.  The food, as usual, was not the real reason to go to the dinner.  I understand why the synagogue stopped relying on potlucks, but I miss the potluck days.  We still retain the lukewarm chicken breasts and the latkes.  It’s a good thing that I mainly go for the sense of community.

We had what we refer to as a “family service,” with the youth choir singing and a moralistic story rather than a sermon (although the stories often are better than the usual sermons.  The stories always have a beginning, a middle, and an end and generally have a clear point.)  Our congregation is aging and there are not nearly as many children around as there used to be but I love watching the kids.  Mostly, I loved standing next to Kat and harmonizing with her.  It’s not that the harmonizing is a tradition because it’s not.  It’s only been a few years where she was too old for the youth choir and came and sang with me.

The oneg (or dessert and coffee afterwards)was fun.  I have been so good about sweets that I restricted myself to one small decorated cookie but that was not particularly hard.  The other option was sufganot, the jelly-filled and oily doughnut, which is a treat for Chanukah.  Unfortunately, the jelly is always red and it’s rarely clear if is it strawberry or cherry.  I’m allergic to strawberry so I left it alone.

I looked around and there was Kat with her “kittens,” the group of younger children who would follow her just about anywhere.  The kittens used to be mainly under the age of eight but they are growing up.  Some of the girls are young ladies now, or very close to it, and sit next to her with dignity.

But it was even more fun watching FogieKnight.  I like watching him with a group of boys.  We have only daughters and so he has had to seek out groups of boys.  I think it’s part of why he enjoyed heading up the middle school stagecrew for many years.  But there he was surrounded by boys who were soaking up the really important male information.  FogieKnight, you see, was doing what all boys I have known seem to need to learn.  He had a dreidl and he was spinning it upside down.  From my earliest days in Hebrew school, I remember seeing older boys teach younger boys how to spin the dreidls upside down.

It’s not exactly that girls can’t spin dreidls upside down.  I can--sometimes.  Kat can.  I know a few other girls who can.  The difference seems to be that girls either learn or don’t learn.  Spinning a dreidl upside down seems to become an obsession with the boys.  It’s not religious.  There’s no religious significance to spinning it upside down.  It’s more of a “because you can” thing.  It’s like….well…skipping stones on a pond.

And there was FogieKnight, who came late to Judaism but not to boyhood, crouched down by the floor, with his little plastic dreidl, giving upside-down dreidl spinning lessons with several boys around him, each working very hard on learning how to do it.

From generation to generation……

Bad News, Good News

The bad news is that my car is easy to break into.  The good news is that my car is easy to break into.  How do I know?  Well, I watched a maintenance worker at one of our state prisons do it—with my blessing and undying gratitude.  It only took him a few minutes and then I could get on my way again.

Getting over feeling really, really stupid took me a bit longer.  I can remember the last time I locked myself out of my house but that was a team effort.  I thought Kat had her key.  Kat thought I had my key.  It worked out because I had planned for the contingency of someone doing it.  We walked down the street to a friend's house and got the extra key.

But yesterday I was a distance away from home and office.  It would have taken FogieKnight at least 45 minutes to come and rescue me.  The second I realized the problem, I felt awful.  I came out of the prison after visiting with my client, opened up the locker, and put on my coat.  My hand went into my pocket.  No keys.  None at all.  Checked my other pockets.  Nope, no keys.  And then I remembered…

If I were an irresponsible person, I would blame that particular prison.  The prison I was visiting is the only one I know of in the whole state (and, as a appellate public defender I know of most of them) that requires two quarters for their lockers.  Most of the others either use a token or require one quarter.

How can one measly little extra quarter cause such a problem?  Well, I take as little as possible into the prisons.  I usually lock most of my stuff in the car.  I took out my ID, my pen, my file, and a quarter.  So far, so good.  I took the keys out of the lock.  I was about to put them in my pocket when I remember.  The darn lockers needed two quarters.  At that point, I made my fatal error.  I disrupted my routine.  With my keys in my hand, I went back into my purse for the other quarter---and absentmindedly put my keys away.  I gathered up my stuff, pressed the power lock, and closed the door.

But prison staff rescued me.  When I discovered the problem, I asked the gatehouse sergeant if I could use the phone to call FogieKnight.  "I have a better idea," he said.  "I might be able to help you and, if I can't, we'll call Mike."  He arranged coverage for the desk and came out with me.  He couldn't get it but, in response to his call, Mike came and Mike could.

Funny, isn't it, how a skill that often gets my clients into the prison, got me out of the prison's parking lot.

Parents' Line

Because I am a good mother, I was up at 4:30 a.m. this morning.  Because I am a girl scout, I sent Day back to college in better shape than I found her.  She came with a horrible cold.  She went back healthy.  I think she did not pass it on to us but it is too early to be absolutely certain.

She had a 7:30 a.m. flight to Hartford.  Her travel agent (aka me) put her on that flight in case of bad weather.  There are very few flights to Hartford, planes often fly full, and I wanted as much leeway as possible, especially as Hartford is just under two hours away from her college and she must rely on school shuttles which run at pre-arranged times.

In any event, we were all ready to leave even earlier than we planned and we just went ahead to the airport.  We were thrilled to discover that the coffee places open quite early.  Day had her last Starbucks white hot chocolate for a while.  There is no such place in her neck of the mountains.

At 6:30 a.m., we realized that the line to get through security was getting very long so Day picked up her things and got in line.  We got in line with her and figured it would be quite a while.  We were wrong.

After Day went into the security area, FogieKnight and I hung out.  Because Day is not 18 yet, we tend to hang until her plane leaves.  If, for any reason, there was a problem and she had to rebook, she does not have a credit card.  We hang around to help, if necessary.

 And so we people-watched.  (Actually, FogieKnight examined the inside of his eyelids for a time, but then joined in watching the people.)  It was then that FogieKnight realized one of the reasons the security line was moving so fast.  Only approximately 75% of the people in the security line were actually flying.  That security line was the “college special.”  Approximately 25% of the people in the line were parents who stood in line with their kids and then stepped out at the last moment with a quick hug.  Amazingly, the hugs were very quick—whether from child embarrassment or fear of security personnel.  The real line was much shorter than it appeared.

Eventually, the flight board showed that Day’s flight had left and FogieKnight and I drove the 45 minutes home and then went back to bed.  Day is gone for another few weeks (although Kat is already on break.)  But we won’t do it again next time.  The morning flight was full for January and she’ll go back in the afternoon next time.