Tales of a Jewish Newlywed

It's all in the game

Shoshie — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:02:00 GMT

“What are you trying to do?” I asked my husband as he sat on our couch playing “Halo 3” on his Xbox.

“I’m trying to save the cartographer,” he told me as he proceeded to shoot at some creature that was, in turn, shooting at him.

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to go to ‘Halo’ school and study to be a cartographer?” I asked.

“Probably,” he said. “But that isn’t an option.” Why was he playing this game that seems to have no point?

“Because,” he informed me, “I know you can’t stand it when I play ‘Grand Theft Auto.’”

That was true. Talk about a waste of energy. I didn’t get it. Maybe it was my chromosome; maybe it was the literary lover in me … but, when I play a game, I want a plot, a purpose, some reason to do whatever it is the game is asking me to do.

"GTA," to me, is the lowest form of gameplay. Not only do you shoot at people for no reason, but you win points by breaking the law. Why not have it set up so you can join the police department and get points for turning in your loser friends?

Because my hubby wants me to partake in the game-playing experience, we bought a game called “Rayman Raving Rabbits” – a fun game where cow-tossing and warthog riding give you points.

Yes, it makes very little sense – and, in the long run, pulling worms out of the rotting teeth of a rabbit won’t get you very far. But it is a lot of fun and there are some neurons involved.

And I’ll be looking for “Grand Theft Auto: Police Academy.”

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Shoshie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:27:00 GMT

When I moved in to my husband’s house, I became a full-fledged member of a community I knew nothing about. The house we live in has been in my dear husband’s (DH) family since his grandparents lived there. When we were dating, I scouted out the important stuff: the grocery store, the gas station, the drug store and, of course, the Starbucks.

My DH knows all of our neighbors, their kids, pets and jobs. I know there’s one guy on the street who gardens every morning, and there is family who has been offering Lambada lessons in their homes in the afternoons.

There are very few Jewish families in our neighborhood – at one time, when Lawrence Welk was on the air, there were more.

Last week, a yellow newsletter appeared in our mailbox informing us that everyone in our area was invited to a Neighborhood Association meeting. I had never been to one, so I had different vision in my head of what to expect.

I had a flash to the tenants meeting I remember seeing on “Will and Grace” and to the town meetings on “Little House on the Prairie” where everyone would gather at the church and Mrs. Oleson would gossip and scowl.

So this week, we went to the meeting – at a church. Big crosses. Hymn books. The whole-nine yards. The neighbors who came were very nice … and informative. It was like having our own Mrs Oleson, except without the scowl.

We learned all about disaster preparedness – emergency kits and what to do in the event of a natural disaster (fun stuff, right). The entire time the fire department rep was talking, DH kept leaned over to me and whispering: “we need that, we should do that, we have to have that.”

I looked at him and said: “You do know the odds of an 8.0 quake hitting in the next five minutes are really slim.”

Then the subject came up of Neighborhood Watch. Now that was something I could get behind. I learned we have two halfway houses, in the southern part of our community; a graffiti problem in the northern part; a bar that, because of grandfather laws, is down the street from a daycare; and, best of all, a crack house of — as one person put it — “Nazi lowriders.”

They never had to deal with that in Walnut Grove.

Before the meeting ended, the coordinator mentioned that we had a great turnout – and that if the block captains could be the point people for their areas, maybe we could get more people involved.

Since I love being the center of the action, DH and I signed up. Cpt. Jewish Newlywed reporting for duty!

Although, it looks like if we want to get more people to the next meeting, I better brush up on my gardening and get some rhythm.

In the Summertime

Shoshie — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:41:00 GMT

This Friday afternoon is the start of summer, which should make me very happy: BBQ dinners, ice cream trucks, really stupid TV shows that the networks are too embarrassed to run during the regular season. Summer … you can’t say it without smiling.

For most of my life, summer meant vacation. I would go to JCC day camp and sing songs and make lanyard key chains and learn dances and sit around a big circle at Shabbat. Then when camp was over, I would visit my family in California and we’d go to Disneyland and to the beach and have a great two weeks before school started.

From the time I turned 16 through when I graduated from college, summer meant a job -- everywhere from Sportmart to the Disneyland College Program to an internship at a newspaper, with a vacation right before returning to school, sometimes.

When I graduated from college and moved to California, summer meant a job with more sun during my commute.

Now that I am married, summer means two of us in jobs with more sun during our commutes.

Notice a pattern?

As two adults without children, taking a summer vacation is not only difficult – it is expensive. Hotel prices, airline prices, gas prices – everything is higher in the summer, not to mention the crowds.

However, just because we can’t take a summer vacation, doesn’t mean we can’t take a vacation.

Now, instead of June being our favorite month – it is May and October (the two months in which we’ve been taking our vacations). October is perfect – the days are cool and it is after the insanity of the High Holidays. May is perfect – the days are a little warmer and the kids aren’t out of school yet.

My husband and I are fortunate people who can afford to cruise. We know others are not as lucky and, because of high gas prices, can pretty much only enjoy a “Married With Children” vacation (where Al stays at home on the couch and his family can’t talk to him for a week because he’s on “vacation”).

This October, we are cruising in the Caribbean for our one-year anniversary. Since it is off-season, we found a great price for the cruise and the hotel at Walt Disney World the night before. We were even able to upgrade to first class using less miles as it is considered “off peak.”

Less crowds, less cost … a possible hurricane, but hey – we live in earthquake country, so who am I to complain?

Everyone else can look forward to a summer vacation – we’re counting down the days till fall. Three months and counting…..

The Swing of Things

Shoshie — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:05:00 GMT

When “Desperate Housewives” aired its season finale last month, I thought my “guilty pleasure” television-watching days would have to be put on hiatus. I am a fan of “Big Brother,” which comes back on the air later this summer for three days a week, but there is only so much “stupid” one person can take.

Enter "Swingtown"

The CBS drama, being touted as “That '70s Sex Show,” is the perfect summertime addition to my DVR “record me” list. The show airs Thursdays at 10 p.m., meaning after the kiddies have gone to sleep. Considering this was a show originally optioned to HBO, it is no surprise that CBS would slot it in “adult viewing” time.

I asked my husband if he wanted to watch “Swingtown” with me. He told me he’d skip it, so I watched it in our room while he worked in the living room. He came in at 10:54 and proceeded to ask me who everyone was – I explained as best I could, but with nine main characters, I’m afraid I didn’t do that great a job. When the closing credits came up, he looked at me with his face in a scowl and said: ‘I hate you,” which in our world is code for “I hate that I started watching this because now I have to watch next week.”

The show takes place during the summer of 1976 in Winnetka, Ill., a town 15 minutes from where I grew up in the north shore of Chicago. The three couples – the “swingers” (they have an open marriage); “the squares” (the wife is a prude with a capital “P”) and the “in-betweens” (she’s looking for something more, but he seems to be missing it) – are all played phenomenally.

From a newlywed perspective, the show is a study in marriage (at least the marriages of the 1970s). What category do you fall into? I My guess would be that most people fall into the middle one, not necessarily that they want to swing, but that they are sometimes looking to shake things up a bit.

Some have asked if this is the kind of show we should have on the networks. Personally, I feel that if they can show shoot-'em-up cop shows and “ewww that was gross” medical dramas, having a show where sex is talked about but never shown is totally fine.

After all, aren't things supposed to get hotter in the summer?

Dates With My Husband

Shoshie — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:05:00 GMT

I’ve heard that once a couple gets married, they lose the part of themselves that attracted them to each other in the first place. So how do you find yourself again? Well, as Maria in the “The Sound of Music” wisely said, “Let’s start at the very beginning.”

When I first met my husband in person, we went for coffee and walked around a shopping center. The second time we met, a week later, it was at CityWalk at Universal Studios. The third time was New Year’s Eve and we went out for dinner. Those first three meetings were followed by hundreds of others.

We dated. And why? To get to know each other better.

So what is the point in dating after we married? Well go back to those first dates. There was romance. There was flirting. There were butterflies. There was suspense. Everything that makes dating fun. Of course, marriage removes the uncertainty of if he will call again.

I’ve mentioned before how everything my husband and I do socially is written down in leather-bound planner. Amazingly enough, we hit a weekend when we had nothing scheduled.

My husband asked if he could take me on a date. Something fun and not too far (with gas prices being so high everything lately is closed to home). I told him he could take me wherever he wanted. So we’re off to Solvang.

He asked if I wanted to do anything special during our trip. I told him that I am at his disposal, happy to do whatever he wanted. We get to enjoy a drive up the coast followed by a day of eating, walking and shopping – plus flirting, handholding, romance and all the best aspects of dating.

With our busy lives, we don’t have time to take a romantic vacation for a few months. But thanks to two people willing to go back in time a bit, we can be the couple we once were – and will be again.

My Leather-Bound Life

Shoshie — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:27:00 GMT

I would hardly call myself a luddite. I'm addicted to my e-mail, have become an expert on Cube Crash on Facebook, even met my husband on JDate.

But there is one thing I refuse to update: my datebook.

When I graduated from high school, a friend of my former stepmothers bought me a Scully leather-bound day planner. For more than a decade I have been faithfully buying the replacement planner inserts (I'm a total dork as it is something I look forward to every November).

I love the feeling of writing something down and being able to cross it out when it is over. I can flip ahead and flip back without having to turn anything on.
I even saved my entire calendar from last year so I could keep track of all the insane things I did leading up to the wedding.

My husband, on the other hand, keeps track of important things in his computer, on his phone and somewhere in his memory banks (which means some stuff slips through the cracks from time to time).

I was born to organize and plan. I enjoy being the social secretary for the family (at least for the two of us). Similar to what the president goes through daily - my husband gets a briefing. This is what we have planned for this evening … or this weekend … or tomorrow morning.

For example: Friday Night, dinner with mom; Saturday, Disneyland; Sunday, Israel Independence Day Festival; Monday, Rosh Chodesh planning meeting (OK, that one’s mine, but if I don’t remind my hubby he worries).

It’s kind of fun to have your whole life – literally – in your hands. It has a spot on the side for papers, so I have the print outs our upcoming vacations, in order, of course, along with random pieces of paper that I can't think of where to put, but I carry around with me because "you never know."

I don’t think I’ll ever get into the Palm Pilot world, but I’m grateful every morning for our DVR. It’s one thing to have everything organized in my life and my husband’s life. It’s quite another to have to track the folks the “Big Brother” house, the boys on the “Bachelorette,” the Oceanic Six and the ladies of Wisteria Lane.

Yours, Mine and Ours

Shoshie — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:21:00 GMT

It was inevitable. We were married last fall and it was bound to happen.

Mother’s Day.

Between us, we have two mothers, two grandmothers and an aunt (OK, four of those women are mine, but still). Throw in two best friends who are turning 30 within a two weeks of each other and you have the makings of a present tornado.

There’s the question of flowers vs. candy vs. Starbucks vs. edible fruit arrangements -- or some combination of the above.

Do we get cards for everyone? Do we get one card for each mother signed by both of us – or two cards since this is the first Mother’s Day we each have a new mother-in-law.

I live 2,000 miles away from my mother, bubbe and one of my best friends (who was also my maid of honor), so in addition to finding a great gift; we also have to arrange for shipping. We live 20 minutes from my in-laws, so yeah – no shipping!

Luckily, my mother is coming in next weekend, so she’ll be receiving her gift in person.

We have until this weekend to figure out the card question – although last time I went to the store the weekend of a major card-giving holiday, it wasn’t pretty. So I think I’ll have to get there before the days that begin with S.

I can’t divulge what each woman is receiving as a gift, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

And since my mother is a frequent reader of this blog who said I never mentioned her …. Hello ma!

Do You Mommy Your Husband?

Shoshie — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:22:00 GMT

I came across an article yesterday called “Do You Mommy Your Husband?”

Women find themselves mothering their husbands because of societal pressures to be the ultimate woman, says Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"We've been taught that the way to show love is to do for others," she says. And, according to Schwartz, some women believe that the more they nurture, the better a woman they are.

I’d like to think I don’t do this – but I know I’d be fooling myself. I pick up after my husband, remind him to not forget his keys or that he should have something besides a salad for dinner. And don't even get me started on how much I wish he hadn't have bought the new Grand Theft Auto.

We see images on TV all the time of married couples where the husband leaves his stuff all over and begs his wife to do this or that for him. In the last week I saw examples of this on “According to Jim,” “Still Standing,” “Reba,” “The Golden Girls,” “The George Lopez Show” and Everybody Loves Raymond. (Since family sitcoms are practically nonexsistant these days, I had to use reruns).

Considering the previous article I found on women spending seven hours a week on average cleaning up after their husbands, this article doesn’t surprise me.

Although, it does sound better than the reverse article: “Do You Daddy Your Wife.”

Sound off ladies (and gents), do you mommy your husband?