I borrowed these from the library recently. In 10 days, Darby’s already read every single one . Coopers on his second book. It takes me a month to finish a book these days. I should hang out with him in his room and read.

The Tiramisu child in me.

I spent 20 minutes earlier this week in the fancy cheese section of my grocery store looking for some fancy Italian cheese I’d never heard of. They only had one pack left so I nabbed it and another pack of cream cheese to make up what I was missing for this recipe.

I made a tiramisu last night for this thing we’re doing tonight. I was feeling like such an adult whippin up my sabayon cream over a double boiler with my left hand while simultaneously whipping up heavy whipping cream to stiff peaks in another bowl with my right hand.

I was dipping lady fingers, (which I’d never even heard of until this week) in a bowl of espresso and khaluah ; total adulting. As I was dusting the top of my 9 x 13 Italian cream pie with unsweetened cocoa, I realized I had to wrap this sucker up eventually in Saran Wrap to let it chill overnight. In my former days, the Saran Wrap wouldn’t get enough clearance and would pull off the top layer of whatever was in the pan the next day. But on this occasion, I went to my adult brain and said “adult brain, how would a sophisticated adult handle this?” It instructed me to place some hard spaghetti noodles over the top of the pan to protect my precious tiramisu before I wrapped it. And by golly it actually worked. I am 42 years old and have finally arrived at a place where I can generate and execute good ideas that work instead of my janky half cocked plans that consistently fail me.

When I went to clean up the mess high on my sophisticated new sense of adulting, as the kids are calling it these days, I realized I ate almost half a package of cream cheese for dinner as I was cooking this mushy lady finger pie up. Plain cream cheese straight out of the philly pack is what I ate as a kid, so I guess I still have a bit of kid in me....maybe I’ll just skip dinner tonight and go straight to the dessert.

foosball rage

It took me seven hours to put this foosball table together. No predrilled holes here, nada one on this mdf board. What kind of company hates its customers so much that it’s willing to ruin their lives by just completely skipping the predrilled hole step to an item that literally has 145 places to put a screw?!

I do believe I may have solved some closed unanswered criminal cases though. I firmly believe now that for all the heinous murders in the last 10 years that made no sense , you know the ones where there was clearly no motive; just “random” rage on a stranger ....like the Vegas shooting for example. I’m sure if they opened these cases back up they’d find the perps had ALL recently purchased this exact football table they could never get together...and that’s not a threat, my table actually got finished here....but for the poor bastard that didn’t make it....those are your heinous “random” murderers right there. Check their internet history, you’ll find a kicker brand foosball table in there somewhere.

I lost a Jew

My friend of only five weeks is moving to Connecticut Monday with his family. I'm super happy for them, I really am, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that was sad to see them go so soon.

I was okay the entire day. I played pickle ball for a short while with Billy, said my goodbyes, made him sign his autograph on some obscure piece of paper I grabbed off the front desk of the pickleball club so I didn't have to listen to Cooper lament the entire way home. Cooper had argued with me on the full 25 minute drive down to Holland that he needed to get Billys autograph. I told him, "no one would know who he was, he's just an obscure writer". I didn't want to make Jets head bigger than it already was, but I was on my way out the door and it was a rash last minute ditch to get the kid to shut up. It worked.

The rest of the evening was pretty typical except that my husband killed me in a spontaneous game of rummy we started while the kids got ready for bed. I hate losing....especially to my husband because he's a bigger gloater than I am. I left the kitchen defeated and went upstairs to take a shower. And I started crying like my childhood dog had just died. It hit me how sad I was that my new friend was moving. I thought "what in the world is wrong with me?!" Then It hit me as  hot water hit my head and I stood there balling my eyes out. I'd recently  lost my entire Jewish family and community I'd had my entire life with the death of my grandpa, mom, and stepdad in the span of 8 months . My mom and stepdad were the ones I spoke to the most, but I'd drive to Detroit at least 4/5 times a year and see the rest of my family to catch up. I went through Bar and Bat Mitzvah season with them for their kids. We'd just spent the last 6 months together with the death of my grandpa and mom. I'd spent almost every thanksgiving with them for 41 years.

I knew outside of my mom, stepdad, and grandpa the rest of the family recoiled when i became a Jesus freak in 2008. I was okay with that, I expected it...but we still had some semblance of a relationship. When my mom died, the rest of the family smeared me so they could justify cutting me off completely. I didn't really know what to think or feel about it. I knew what they did was wrong, but I'd heard the aftermath of death had a track record of bringing out the worst in people, and I believed it wasn't who they really were. And if I'm being completely honest, I thought it was a blessing in disguise. There was so much drama emanating from the east side of the state, it released me from all of it.

My mom never disowned me or abhorred me when I became a Jesus freak; if anything we actually had a much closer relationship. My mom witnessed me transform from a messed up ghetto punk hippied out drug dealer to a poor single mom with a string of unhealthy relationships, to a mom of twins with special needs, to a well adjusted and healed human being who miraculously got her shit together and was blessed by God in ways I know I don't deserve....and it blew her away. She talked about it all the time with me. She'd remarked she was going to start reading her bible but would be continually distracted by other things, until Cancer became the dominant thing in her life.

A few years ago, and before cancer came, she had a little bible study she went to in her little neighborhood in Florida she wintered at. When we visited, she was excited to have me go with her. She would tell me stories of how she kept meeting other Jewish believers who would tell her I was right...and she'd say "Yeah, yeah, I know my daughter has been praying for me to meet people like you". But all those things really didn't settle well with the rest of our family members. And my mom hated controversy...so she lived to please them...and that was okay, that was her personality...she wanted to make everyone happy. She probably went to the bible study to make me happy.

In her last few months of life and sick with cancer, my mom dusted off her bible and we'd read passages together through tears...my mom was so scared. But she knew God was speaking to her. My mom gave me the bible from her house which we'd learned, while we were reading it ,belonged to her grandma on her fathers side. My grandpa that had just recently died. The Hebrew bible had never been ready by anyone in our family, it was just my great grandmothers bible passed down. When we dusted it off we found inscriptions from both her and my grandfather from 50 years prior to that exact date we were reading it!. My mom gifted  me the bible because she knew how much I loved Gods Word. I didn't take it because I wanted it to stay with her at her house while she was sick. Before her death, I told my family about some of the ways God was speaking to her using that bible and how we found my grandfathers and grandmothers message of hope written in its pages.  They weren't as excited about it as me, yet went to her house and took the bible after she died telling me I couldn't have it. I never argued for it...Gods Word is  written on my heart.

What I realized, as I sobbed in my bathroom for a friend I'd only met 5 weeks prior to this episode, was that I felt a special kinship with Billy that I'd missed. He felt instantly like both a friend and family. He knew I was one of those weird conservative converted Jews, but he was desperate perhaps, because Jews on the western Michigan Lakeshore are a rare breed. So perhaps it was his desperation to connect with his own community since moving here that created his high tolerance for this avowed Jesus freak and Trump supporting Jew. I don't care either way, I just know I was glad to have his friendship while it lasted, I believe it was a gift from God.

My husband went to the Holland pickleball club this morning without me. He said he ran into the one other Jewish person I met playing pickleball. He stepped on the court with her and she said to him "You know, I told your wife she's not a Jew anymore" and thats all she said. Theres this obsession with Jews trying to take my Jew card away...what IS that?

My five week friend, on the other hand, was over one day while we were ordering some pizza. My guests were questioning my choice of  pizza venue..."Why didn't you choose the place down the road?" I told them "They didn't have a coupon!". Jets instantly recognized the Jew at my core wrapped in the proper layers of Judaic cynicism and topped with the cherry Maga hat. I'll be a card carrying Jew until Jesus calls me home.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
-Galatians 3:28

Poor me vampires

Here’s my Friday public service announcement: so, Ive noticed a trend in social media of people who have crap going on in their lives...but sometimes the crap lasts so long ...like years and years, different dramas over different seasons, at some point you have to look at the common denominator of all your drama- it’s you.

Again you’re upset and you’re down, you feel like people aren’t serving you like you want them to. And when they don’t, you publicly insult them and disparage them. Why? Because they’re not serving you. So let me ask you something? How have you been serving them? It’s tiring to be the crutch of a person who has constant problems. And some point, all your human crutches are just that...human. So quit putting so much weight on them.
And maybe try this: not making your self the center of everything...put other people first. Quit blaming other people for your problems. Start blaming yourself. If you’re still blaming your parents and you’re an adult, please stop. You have until age 25, max, to blame your parents for your issues. After that it’s on you. Let your parents enjoy their lives in their old age for the love! It’s time for you to cut the cord and grow up. Honor your mother and father, even if they were shitty parents. Take the high road and honor them by figuring your crap out without blaming them.
You put yourself at the center of the universe and you’re miserable. Why? Cause you’re a shitty god, and you were never worthy of worship. So, remove yourself from the center, and put God back in His rightful place....and you just might discover the secret to joy.
What you’re doing isn’t working if you’re still doing the same thing today that you were 3 years ago...and you’re still miserable. You can get out of this vortex by simply stepping out of it instead of running in the same circle. Take a step right, towards God. He won’t ever get sick of listening to you, the rest of us will. He can actually do something about it, we can’t. He’s the place you should rant to when you’re feeling hopeless, not social media.