camouflage

how do you know (or at least get a mercilessly, maternal-ish suspicion that you could be) a bad Jew? when you shlep to Pico-Robertson to get a tan. THAT'S when.

for those who don't know, the Pico-Robertson district is a mostly Orthodox and Conservative Jewish neighborhood in Beverly Hills. that sounds ever so much more glamorous than it is, but it is a wonderful neighborhood. tons of kosher restaurants and grocery stores line the streets, as well as a plethora of Judaica shops, which was the reason for our visit on Sunday. a bunch of my friends went - one fellow Jew, a few Christian friends - on a hunt for a few good mezuzot. found some promising ones, but nobody made any hasty purchases.

anyhow, I spent the weekend away from home, and had already packed before we decided to hit Pico. could I have chosen a worse ensemble for the occasion? highly unlikely. modesty laws followed by most women in the area call for skirts below the knee, no pants, necklines to the collarbone and sleeves just past the elbows. I wore a long, red, Indian-print tube top and jeans. lots of nice upper body flesh, bare for all to enjoy.

I fielded a few looks, ranging from skeptical to scathing, not counting the "I should really book it to Boca before I keel over" old man in Starbucks who oogled me on a perpetual 20-second cycle. but I did manage to get that decent tan. the way I figure it, since my skin pretty much matched my shirt by day's end, that really should count as some sort of camouflage-style modesty. just call my arms my "frum fatigues."

the bun ban

so today is the Fourth of July, the only American institution that seems to inspire the creation of non-violent explosives, small-scale parades and mandatory backyard bar-b-ques. this year, it also happens to fall on shabbat. it amuses me that several of my Jewish friends were trekking to the Rose Bowl in order to watch a bunch of Gentiles light all sorts of rather glamorous fires on shabbos. seems like the ultimate in "shabbos goydom" to me. but I'm writing this on shabbat, so I ought not to throw stones, either.

anyhow, as you might have gathered from the subtitle of this blog, I'm plunging into the all-too-unfamiliar depths of Jewish observance. this is made difficult by several factors, one of the largest of which is that I currently live with my folks, who, as practicing Christians, are non-observant, to say the least. they know that I don't eat pork anymore. I am the one who threw the wrench in their yearly Christmas Eve Shrimpfest (I told them to go ahead, but my mother's Jewish guilt gene kicked in and she wouldn't hear of eating something I couldn't eat in front of me, and yet I still get the look every December 24th). so they get those lines. they get that I refuse any job that makes me work on shabbos. they're at peace with a few of the basics. but I have been dreading the conversation where I tell them: Mom, Dad, I no longer eat milk and meat together. and soon after that: Mom, Dad, I no longer eat non-kosher meat (a level I haven't reached yet). as a family, I know I have to take this in baby-steps.

this evening, my father (before sundown, thank G-d) bar-b-qued a bunch of burgers and chicken. now, my mom has been experimenting with homemade bun recipes the past few times we've had burgers, and, in my opinion, all of the varietals have been delicious, but she's never quite satisfied. so, during today's bun experiment, I noticed her simmering milk and still-dairy margarine in a pot. great, I thought. how am I going to navigate this one? I joked with my friend Libby about it for awhile. she suggested that I start the "bun-eating ban" on Sunday, but I explained that I'd already crossed the threshold into milk-meat separation about a month ago. I haven't been perfect, as far as the timeline of "when do I eat this after this," but I sure as hell have been careful not to mix ANYTHING. and so far, I've been able to accomplish this without a great deal of family drama. (I just don't tell them things, and everything's fine. BRILLIANT!!!) I decided, for this evening's purposes, I would eat the bun first and separately, drink in between, and enjoy my burger.

satisfied with my solution, I sat down to dinner, ate my roll, drank some water, and started in on my absolutely luscious burger. and other than a few weird looks from my folks - "you're eating the bun FIRST?" - my plan worked pretty darn well. until I asked my mother why the burgers were so delicious:

"oh, that's the onion soup mix and blue cheese I mixed in. delicious, right?"