A date with destiny? not so much….

(This was submitted by a reader, was just edited a little)

I went out with this “man” from a Jewish online dating site… why? Don’t ask me why! It’s more like I had to even though my gut said, “Don’t go! For the love of Pete please don’t go!” He knows a bunch of people I know and it was sort of I had to go sort of deal. Everyone wants to fix me up, I am just so darn pretty and eligible, I guess.

This is how I knew it was going to be bad… despite the accident I recently had the “man”  kept calling daily asking me out, I’d say,” I’m in a lot of pain now, please give me some time”… He didn’t really get it and called again the next day. Persistence can pay off, but this was downright nagging.

I was never one of those ladies that liked a date that called me daily… NEVER. I’m not saying I never want to hear from them, it’s more like… aren’t you busy? And just how needy are you???

Anyway, so I throw on a slinky black skirt, a striped top that thankfully allocated room to accommodate my war wounds and my oh so functional sling (because my arm was injured). He drives up and waits in the car, idiot doesn’t even have the decency to walk out. Guess he never had a pep talk from a shadchan. So he finally levers his lazy self out of the car while I wait for him to pop the lock on the door- his car stinks of cologne. I don’t know what it was, but it made me woozy. Probably called Eau-de-Stink. Looks-wise… he’s sort of dumpy, eyebrows are quite un-groomed and pretty much a uni-brow, and his fingers look like sausages. Don’t ask me why I look at hands, but I always do. But looks are not everything, and in shidduchim we are told to consider the whole person. Shudder.

So we start driving, he drives slow, like a dead grandmother who never learned how to drive. He asks me “so what do people say when they see your face?”
me “what?”
him “Don’t they say things if you’re pretty or something?”
me “I normally don’t poll my dates”
silence
me “thanks for the odd question, I love awkwardness on dates, it’s happier than suicide”
silence
(Again, I think he definitely needs a pep talk from a shadchan.)
so as you can see, it’s going really well.

We finally get to the restaurant, which he repeatedly told me I was saying wrong, despite him being the wrong one. Then he told me I looked very Sephardic, I told him I wasn’t. (I should know, right??) He said, ‘no, no I really see it’ Oh Hell kill me now! I thought religious men were not supposed to comment on looks!! Certainly not on first dates!!

Now, let me walk you through dinner. First he complains about the menu, then finally decides on a dish, this took him over half an hour- during which he decides that everything I say, he’s going to say I’m wrong, even if it was an opinion. Oh boy, that was fun! What an obnoxious man – but I was well brought up so I sat still at the table…counting the minutes until I could leave.
At one point, I didn’t reply to him and he says “oh I see I’ve made you speechless”
me “no, I just have nothing to say because you’re a moron”

The appetizer comes and he eats it so quickly, I was scared he was going to bite his  hand while he was at it. Not only that, he ate with his hands and kept offering me some, I said no thank you and kept sipping my water. Which was an effort to keep the vomit down. Then the waiter comes by and as he lifts the plate we notice a piece of the fish appetizer had fallen off, the waiter goes towards the piece with his napkin, when suddenly sausage-fingers swoops in and eats the fish off the table. I drink more water, again in hopes of keeping the vomit down… in fact my mouth dropped open and he said, ‘that was tasty’. Table manners – #fail.

Oh, I should also mention that he kept furiously rubbing his eyes with his sausage fingers, leaving his eye red. He may have had pink eye, glad I am shomeret negiah and didn’t have to touch him. Euw!

When the main courses were served, he ate his meal so quickly you’d think he was just out of a refugee camp- now I may not be a gourmand but I at least like to chew and enjoy my meals, savor the flavor and relax… not this dude, he ate so quickly that I don’t think it was eating but rather inhaling. And while I tried to eat my meal he accused me of hiding things. Then I snapped, I told him that yes I was in pain (just had an accident, remember, oh needy one??) and no I don’t want to joke around all night because if you are joking then you don’t know who the person is because they are putting on a show and if for one minute could stop arguing with me then maybe just maybe we could have a civilized conversation. His reply, ‘I like to argue, and you’re wrong, people who joke can’t hide anything’ Oh my god, kill me.

Then he orders coffee for dessert, because we really needed to prolong this torment… and he went on and on about his nephew and niece being spoiled and their mom, his sister, not giving a hoot…. oh how pleasant. Nice of him to share his dysfunctional family – now I don’t have to check that out for myself with his references.

He pays for dinner (at least that much he did), I say thank you and we walk to the car.

Oddly enough on the car ride home we finally manage to have a decent conversation, and because we were 4 blocks from my house I decide to say, “Are you enjoying the conversation?”
him “Yes actually I am”
me “Odd, and it doesn’t include fighting but rather two people talking about their lives and not joking”
him silence
me “oh well whatever”
him “I guess I get a little ahead of myself and can be a bit arrogant”
me “yeah, a tad, ya think?”

So he drops me home, asks to walk me to the door, I said no thanks and thanks for dinner- walk away and have never heard from him since. Thank the lord.

Lesson to be learned, I don’t like sausages, inbreeding is bad, and I know how to rock a sling.

Hog Heaven

We were walking along minding our own business this morning, on Decarie, when we passed a shop that had a sexy red Harley parked out front. I whipped out my camera phone and took a pic of the Harley….drooling all the while. As I was putting away the phone the owner came out of the store and asked me if I wanted to sit on it. OMG I about passed out with the joy of the moment. I perched my perky little patootie on the big red machine and let myself daydream away as my friend snapped a pic. KoD – this one’s for you.

(Mum, if you are reading this, please know I was not planning to ride the machine, I was not wearing a helmet because the motorbike was stationary. If it had been moving I would have been wearing a helmet, but I wasn’t planning on riding it anyway. Enough of a disclaimer? I think so)

Summer Camp – Right or Privilege?

This time of year the great North American summer rite of passage starts. Mothers pack up their kids duffle bags with 20 pairs of everything, all labeled and neatly folded. Parents drive their kids to the bus stop and watch as the kids all play cool and ignore their parents as they board their buses for a month or two of fun away from the family. The parents pay through the nose for this camp – but most parents say it’s worth it. My eldest two have been to sleep-away camp once or twice, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but that was years ago.

Those who aren’t old enough to go, or those who wish to stay closer, they can go to day-camp. 8 hours a day of fun and sun, a little bit of learning thrown in – but it’s a way to keep the kids occupied during the long break from school. (and a way to keep parents from going totally mental having their kids home for 10 weeks complaining they are booooored). And yes there is a cost involved, but day camp is significantly cheaper than sleep away camp. But when you add up the trips they go on, it gets expensive. But if you need to work and keep the kids occupied this is an informed choice.

Neither of these two options are MANDATORY. Kids can stay home and many do. There has been many a summer that my kids did ImaCamp because there was no money for day camp, certainly not for sleep-away camp. OR you can hire a local teen to watch your kids. OR there are local kids that make little camps in their back yards. OR you can switch off with friends, if you have to work, or have errands you want to do without kids in tow.

Seems to be from watching the FaceBook pages of numerous friends and associates, that the majority of Jewish / religious kids go to a summer camp of some sort. I happen to know that many of these parents are not wealthy and are probably still paying off school tuition for the year. How the heck do people afford to send numerous kids away or to day camp all summer long? There is a recession on, no one has money, yet these kids almost expect to be going to camp, and probably don’t even think about the cost. I guess if they go year after year, they come to expect it. Which is what begs the question – is summer camp a right or a privilege?

My kids have very low expectations when it comes to sleep-away camp. They know it’s not an option, and they aren’t so thrilled about day-camp either. If I send them they will go, but they love hanging out with me. The local day camp is at their school – for them that’s a good enough reason not to go. They would prefer to sit around all day Wii-ing and DVD-ing and going to the pool occasionally. But if they stay home, they have to help with the laundry, the housework, the shopping, the errands, etc and it teaches them what it takes to run a house. We do fun stuff too, but only after other stuff is done.

My kids, due to circumstance, know that when I send them to camp they are privileged to be able to go, and they appreciate it. They don’t expect it. And if I were to tell them, sorry kiddos, but no day camp this year, they would totally be ok with it. No tears, no tantrums, no kicking and screaming. Yes, most of their friends are going either to sleep-away or to day-camp. Yes they would love to have gone away, but they also know that there are limits to what they can have. They also know that we are to be moving soon, and that will be a HUGE adventure in and of itself. One that most of their friends won’t have.

So, my point, or my question, to you, dear reader, is as follows. Do you send your kids to day camp or sleep-away? Do they appreciate the financial sacrifice? Have you had to cancel a summer of fun? How did they take it? Have you kept the kids home in the summer, even it meant not being able to work? How did that work? Do they see camp as a privilege or a right? I want all your thoughts on this. Tell it to me straight….I can take it.