Women who know their place.

Received this via email and seriously spat my coffee onto the screen! (I wonder if it’s even true, if Baba Wawa did go back and have this convo, anyhow, it IS funny).

WOMEN WHO KNOW THEIR PLACE……. it’s all in a point of view!

Barbara Walters, of 20/20, did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.

She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind their husbands. Despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women are happy to maintain the old custom.

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, ‘Why do you now seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?’

The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said,

“Land Mines.”

No matter what language you speak or where you go:

BEHIND EVERY MAN, THERE IS ONE SMART WOMAN!

Cooties

My mother (a born and bred Brit, like me) asked me to explain what cooties are. Help! Do only North American children have them, or can British and European kids have them too? If I do not have them, how can I get them? If I do have them, how do I get rid of them? Please help us out here.

Of Lawyers and Cheesecake

Squiggy said to me the other day that we should have a reality show about us. I personally think it would be pretty boring, but then, there are those moments…..like last night.

Wednesday nights the boys spend a little time with their other parent, and I generally hang out with a girlfriend. It’s my one night a week to socialize. Last night I spent time with Lady Diddliedee. We went out for a great dinner, onion soup and sushi. Tried to find cheesecake – yeah, kosher cheesecake in Montreal at 7.30pm on a Wednesday night – apparently this provincial backwater is not set up that way. I jokingly texted the KoD to ask him to run to the Purple Pear and get us some and then meet us in Lake George.

So we got back to my house, and within minutes the boys returned full of energy and pep. I sent them all to their rooms to get ready for bed while I schmoozed with Lady Diddliedee.. Prince HockeyFan showed up in the living room, wanting to lodge a formal complaint against Prince ChatterBox.

All of a sudden we had a mock courtroom set up and much hilarity ensued. HockeyFan presented the case for the prosecution, and ChatterBox was called upon to defend his action of annoying his older brother. I was the judge and Lady D was the court reporter or interested bystander. There was much use of the word allegedly and the defendant had a very difficult time of testifying without getting a severe case of the giggles. We had no jury as it was totally a kangaroo court. I had some really good lines, but this morning I cannot remember one. But it was funny. Lady D and I were totally in fits.

Final arguments for the prosecution and the defense were heard, the defendant finally pleaded guilty and was sentenced to spend the night in his bed forthwith with no time off for good behaviour. Everyone was pleased with the outcome, the press was dealt with, and the prisoner removed to his cell. The prosecutor patted himself on the back for a job well done, and was sent to bed too. Oh the injustice of it all.

I gently told Lady D that when her adorable and cute little kids grow up her house will be just as “busy” although I may have used the word insane…

Just another day in the palace of the Queen of Hearts…..

Kids

I made them pizza for supper. The kind you buy frozen, put in the oven and ten minutes later, voila, dinner is ready. Kids love it, and when the IGA has a fresh batch delivered from Israel I usually buy a few.

So after dinner tonight one of the princes says to me “thank you, Ima, for throwing dinner in the oven”. I glared at him and told the brother sitting next to him to smack his sibling upside the head – gently. “What?? Whenever I say thank you for the pizza, you always say you didn’t make it, you just threw it in the oven. So I’m thanking you for that”.  More glaring. Other brother explained to him that Ima is allowed to say it, but he isn’t. “You know, like when you tell Ima you like her dress, and she says ‘this old thing’ you can’t say you like that old thing / dress because it’s rude.”

“OK fine. Ima, thank you for slaving over a hot stove to make sure we had good food in our bellies tonight.”

“I just threw it in the oven, didn’t take much……..”

Kid muttered under his breath “WOMEN!”

I let the side down ;)

My not so militant feminism took a huge hit today. I let it down. I may as well just hand in my membership card and start fluttering my eyelashes again.  I went shopping for a truckload of groceries to feed my hollow-legged army of young men. Haven’t shopped properly in about 10 days so there was a lot of stuff to shlepp. My parking spot is on the other side of the apartment building, in a parking garage that has a makeshift ramp so you can push up the shopping carts full of stuff and take the elevator. Usually I have no problem pushing the cart up myself, although it has fallen off the ramp a time or two…. Mostly when the boys are around it’s their job, but seeing as they had to attend school today (sucks to be them) it fell to me to do.

I tried to push it up the ramp. To no avail. It was way too heavy. My superintendant always helps me, but he just got out of the hospital after 3 weeks suffering from a heart ailment. So I couldn’t ask him. He just happened to walk by, and immediately went back to his apartment to call his wife to help me. Girl Power!!

So I am stood there at the bottom of the ramp with my huge shopping cart full of vittles, and the two furnace guys walk by to  fix the poxy furnace that has been in a mood lately. I asked them, in French no less, to please help me push the cart up the ramp because it is too heavy for poor little moi. I may even have batted an eyelash or two. They were only too pleased to help me out, and save Mrs Superintendant some extra work too.

I still had to shlepp it to the elevator and down the long hallway to the apartment, but at least my back didn’t break this time.

Now comes my second offense. My name is Hadassah and I am such a girl! At 6 am there was a big to-do chez nous. The boys spotted a mouse. And chased it. And failed to catch it before they went off to school. I tried so hard to be nonchalant about it. Maybe I pulled it off. Inside I was quaking. But after their merciless teasing last time, I figured I had better play it cool.

After I had put away the groceries, I decided to straighten up the living room. I moved the couch to sweep under and behind. There was a mousetrap still there from last time. With a dead mouse stuck to it. I screamed. No one around to hear me, yet I screamed. I swept all around it. Cleaned up the rest of the living room and left it there. There was no way I was going to pick that thing up and dispose of it. Every time I looked at it I felt totally skeeved out. I was reminded by Kosher Academic that my boys would be home soon, and I was so thrilled to know that one of my strapping young men would get rid of it for me. Squiggy came home, and I asked him straightaway to dispose of the body.

He looked at me, and said, “Ima, go in your room. I don’t need you fainting”. I had this perverse need to watch him sweep it up. I guess to make sure it was gone?! When he touched it with the broom I yelped. He rolled his eyes. I was accused of being such a girl. Yeah. What’s your point, kid??

He took it to the garbage chute and said goodbye. I sat down relieved. Then he said, almost as an aside, “You know Ima, that was not the mouse we saw this morning. That mouse has been dead for a while and was the wrong colour. Just thought you should know”.

My feet have not touched the floor in an hour. I am scared of a teeny tiny little mouse that I could squish easily. Pathetic.