Big city haul

Every year, I amass a list of things that I can't buy in Normal. I count on our trips east to complete this list, and this year was especially bountiful. I scored several decorative window menorahs on sale ($5 each at Staten Island Pathmark!) as well as Light Coconut Milk from Trader Joe's and fancy pearlized brown rice (Pikesville SunSplash Health Foods). Danny and I also acquired several unusual family heirlooms: a set of rooster cocktail glasses (they each have one owlish eye that follows you wherever you go...) from Danny's mother and a small glass barrel with Polish on in from my grandmother ("You could put toothpicks in it!")
I also scored @90 new containers in which to individually house crickets for the lab (Staten Island Dollar Depot: 3/$1). Believe me--we have been looking all over the Bloomington-Normal area for containers that meet our exacting specifications with no luck. I have spent the better part of the weekend modifying the lids and inserting screens for proper cricket ventilation.

Christmakuh on Staten Island

We all spent an exciting time in Staten Island with Danny's family. The kids were very enthusiastic to see Grammy and Grandpa Joe (Danny won't let the kids call him 'Gramps' because it makes him think of cramps). The kids got Egyptian-themed Christmas presents, including a pyramid to excavate, a wrap-it-yourself mummy and a little archeologist with a tent and digging kit.

Joseph got to play with his cousins Cameron and Callahan and Karen, Danny's brother's fiancé.
Cameron, Callahan, Joseph and Karen

Cameron, Callahan, Mike and Karen

Due to the overlap between Chanukah and Christmas, we lit the Chanukah candles on the sideboard next to baby Jesus.
The kids lighting the candles with Great-aunt (Sister) Alyn in the background. By the eighth day, Joseph was able to light the candles and say the Chanukah prayer without help!

We took our bi-annual trip to the Staten Island Zoo. It was a misty day so very few people were at the zoo. The animals were all oddly happy to see us. The reindeer looked pretty malevolent and kept trying to escape.

The petting zoo animals were all ravenous for Rye-crisps, and the kids were happy to accommodate. Joseph was especially eager to feed the turkey. After Joseph finished dispensing crumbs, he cheerfully announced: "I'll be back to eat you at Thanksgiving!"

Mellowing out in Baltimore

Danny, the kids and I (and Argos) went to Baltimore for Chanukah. Grandma Dorinda couldn't come, so the kids got to spend more quality time with their great grandparents than usual. It was a low-key holiday, and we spent most of our time doing nothing in particular.

I think that everyone had a very nice Chanukah. Saul and Martha opening presents:

The angry young artist explains his artistic vision to his fans.

Lighting the candles. We had kind of an excess of chanukiah. I brought our two menorahs from home, and my grandparents also had two.

Later, cousin Melissa brought Aron over to visit. Sam really enjoyed playing with him, although Joseph was a little jealous and stand-offish.

We spent one morning visiting the Inner Harbor. The Torsk has received some minor restoration since last we saw it.


Joseph has been reading books independently for a few weeks, and he was delighted to show off his mad skills to Grandma Martha.

Joseph reads:

Joseph did all of his own menorah-lighting this year, and he is gradually learning the prayer. On this night, Grandpa Saul was humoring us by lighting one of the menorahs, although with so many people saying the prayer, Joseph got a little lost:

Passover pics

As you may have guessed, there aren't many Jews in Normal. The grocery store had some Passover food, although it was crazy expensive (and also went on the shelves and sold out a month before Passover). I thought that I would try to make my own Passover food.

I made my own gefilte fish! The process of making it was kind of nasty--I had to put fish in my food processor and mixer, which seems kind of wrong. But the end result was astonishing! It actually came out looking and tasting like canned gefilte fish, but much better--my gefilte fish was lighter and less soggy. I had hoped that it would be cheaper than canned gefilte fish, but I think that the price came out about even.

I made my own matzoh ball soup, but I did it from a mix, and it pretty much came out just like the canned kind. (Except that I didn't use a large enough pot and my matzoh balls got squeezed into all sorts of dodecagons, icosahedrons and triacontakaidigons.)
I tried to make tzimmes, but I have no ideas whether or not it came out OK--I have never had tzimmes before. I was imagining that it would taste like a Thanksgiving yam and carrot dish with fruit in it, but it did not end up like that at all. It was a slow cooker recipe, and the end result was sweet and savory, but black and slimy. I had a lot left over. I have decided that it is a chutney, and I am going to see if any of the vegetarians in my lab like it. (What a tzimmes over nothing!)
The haroset came out pretty well (It's hard to mess up haroset) and we also had chicken and green beans.

For the seder, we had some great new props sent by Grammy and Grandpa Joe! After years of coveting Catherine's 10 plagues puppets, I have some of my own!

Joseph loved the soft Passover seder set!

We have a lovely glass Passover seder plate that we got at our neighbor's estate sale in CA, but now the kids have their own custom painted (with delicious blue matzoh) seder plate.

Here is video of Joseph asking the Passover questions. I should have given the camera to Danny so that I could answer the questions myself, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Here is a two-part video of the plagues part of the seder, complete with finger puppets!

Random Chanukah pictures

Well, Chanukah is over. It now occurs to me that the two-month-long celebration of pre-Christmas, Christmas and post-Christmas may be more unpleasant knowing that people around here consider Chanukah to be some kind of crazy fringe holiday, but hopefully I will be proven wrong.
Apparently, the region has run out of salt, so let's hope that there will not be another ice storm for a while.

Sam passed his test and was awarded his yellow belt in TaeKwonDo. He is very proud. This week they learn falling technique, which will be helpful for Sam. (He's a natural at falling!)


Joseph breakdancing. Every Monday and Tuesday night when Sam goes to TaeKwonDo, Joseph and I stay home and bake, do yoga and/or dance. Joseph has developed a variety of new yoga poses including a set of poses for each of the Transformers. This is a picture of a dance that he invented called the Spinax dance.


It occurs to me that my Land's End virtual model is dressed like Adam Sandler as "Little Nicky." My coat did finally come in the mail. As my model predicted, the smallest women's coat is huge on me. I look bizarre in it--I have a tiny little head and undersized legs sticking out of a smooth walrus-like padded torso.


Footage of lighting the menorah.

More Chanukah and more ice

I got a lead on where I might be able to find Chanukah candles--apparently, one of the Asian food markets usually sells them. Ordinarily, I would dismiss this as unlikely, however, the Asian foods stores around here also tend to sell Mexican and Indian food, beer or whatever. Saturday we went to all the Asian food stores, but no luck.
Friday I did a presentation for Joseph's school about Chanukah. I read "It's a Miracle," which is a reasonably secular book about one family's miracles (the little girl who wanted a pony then grew up to have a horse; the class clown who made his sad parents smile; the dentist who taught his parrot to help around the office, etc). Joseph brought in his Little People Chanukah set to show the class. This set was a present from Grandpa Joe and Grammy many years ago, but every year the kids get it out and give it a workout. It has a little Jewish family sitting around the table with a menorah, which lights up and plays Chanukah songs.


We had another ice storm this weekend, and we were iced in. Everything was closed because both the streets and sidewalks were repeatedly coated in ice. But, HA! not me--I still have my strap-on crampons from when I lived in Pullman, WA, and I was able to easily hike it to campus while all of the undergrads were clinging to trees in their UGGs.


The dog is deeply confused by the snow and ice. For a while, he kept coming inside, bugging me and then asking to go back out. Perhaps he wanted me to turn it off? This morning he was very enthusiastically retrieving iceballs, so I guess that he has accepted the weather.


Some menorah lightings. Note the attempt with birthday candles--they ended up wilting sideways.


Since we got our new digital video camera, we have had so many problems that we have pretty much stopped making videos. So, I figured that a bad quality video from the regular camera was better than nothing. Apparently, the school district has the kids learn a Chanukah song. I had never heard this song before. Sam doesn't know the song either and is trying to copy Joseph to keep from being left out of a photo opp. I also like the part of the video where the dog gets yoinked out of the way.


For whatever reason, after seeing this sign I had a dream that I gave everybody beer nuts for their Chanukah/Christmas present.

Worst Chanukah ever

I am not amused. I knew that Normal was not cosmopolitan, but so far, I have been able to find pretty much what I needed. However, I have been struggling to find clothes that fit. My jeans are wearing out and I don't have appropriate winter outerwear. I have been everywhere all over town looking for Levi's 515 or 505 size 2 jeans. These jeans are available at any discount store and mall, but inexplicably, only size 4 and up. I finally broke down and bought the smallest pair of size 4s that I could find, and everywhere I go, the crotch of my pants is sagging, and I am constantly yanking up the back of my jeans and adjusting my underwear.

Unattainable jeans


I also can't find a winter coat that's warm enough. Every women's coat that I have tried on is too large. I am currently wearing a neon-pink coat from the junior's section, but it is not warm enough. I ordered a coat from Land's End, but my virtual model tells me that the smallest women's coat that they have will be a "poor fit" for me.

My Land's End "virtual model" dressed for a Hellinois winter


Today I had one of those days that makes me realize that I am NOT like everyone else, and in fact, I was crediting the people around me with much more cultural understanding and sensitivity than they actually have. In Riverside there was a general feeling of multi-culturalism: stores carried all kinds of random things, and people were vaguely familiar with a variety of different cultural practices. There aren't many Jewish people in Normal. However, I figured that because they all have television, they had probably seen some Jewish people and had some passing familiarity with the Jewish holidays. I was wrong. We just got the schedule for the multicultural festival at Joseph's school--it is basically Christmas around the world. No Chanukah, no Kwanza, just Christmas. I volunteered to do a little presentation on Chanukah for Joseph's class-- I am used to the kids being the token Jewish kids in their classes, but not the only Jewish kids in the entire school.

Sam and Joseph?

We don't have enough candles for the whole holiday, so today I went out to try to find Chanukah candles. I went to Target, Kroger, Meijer, WalMart, KMart, Schnucks, Walgreens, Jewel-Osco, The Party Store, Hobby Lobby and World Market and did not find a single piece of evidence of Chanukah at all.

Unattainable candles

I went into Borders, and I only found ONE BOOK on Chanukah in the entire store. In the clearance rack was a stack of books called "Chanukah, Schmanukah" in which a JEWISH SCROOGE learns the true meaning of Chanukah. What kind of idiot publisher would think that Jewish people would buy a Scrooge story?

"Offensive and weird"


Although Hobby Lobby had no Chanukah supplies, they did have "Multicultural markers"-- a set of markers in a rainbow of human skin colors. I suspect that multiculturalism around here is like a rainbow of otherwise identical paper dolls. It is OK for people to look different, as long as they don't actually try to act different.


At every store, I would have to ask someone if there was a Chanukah section. It was very awkward. At Jewel-Osco, the guy answered, "Chanukah? Is that a kind of liquor?"

Chanukah?


When I asked people where they might recommend that I look for Chanukah candles, two different people told me to try various stores "because they had Jewish ties." I think that this means that (a) the store/chain is Jewish-owned, (b) people may not know what Chanukah is, but they sure do keep track of which businesses are owned by Jews.

Jewish ties?


I am also infuriated by the fact that everything around here is Seasons Greetings this and Happy Holidays that. Presumably, this is an effort to acknowledge other cultural traditions. However, there is no evidence of any other holidays around here, so they should just give it up and stop pretending.
I miss Christmakwanzahanukah.