Open letter to T.K. Jr.

I subversively suggested you were a capable young lad, and your mom snapped at me. Hope I don't become the first target.

Saving the world, one rodent at a time

I accosted a woman over guinea pig nutrition. I had learned the pig wasn't getting hay (allegedly too messy). So I ambushed the mom in the school hallway and told her how important daily hay and vitamin C were to the furry creature's diet. And I don't think she appreciated either the ambush or the guinea pig nutrition tutorial. Note to self: subtlety and better timing will bode well in the future.

Disclaimer: Our son has a guinea pig and my spouse is a veterinarian. I come by my meddling honestly.

Woof

I may be a bitch, but I am not a dog. Someone tell my mother, please. She's given her poodles human names and calls them her children.

Now, I understand and appreciate the bond between people and their pets. But now that I have children, I realize a distinct difference between the love for them and the love for, say, a Labrador. My mother knows her references to the dogs as children offends me, and yet she persists.

So the day she tells me her child is having surgery (and I know it's not me), I call my brother to warn him, because he's about to be neutered.

Sundays will never be the same

We enrolled our son in religious school. We thought it time to expose him to Jewish culture and traditions. Does that make me a hypocrite? He still says God doesn't exist. So he hasn't been indoctrinated yet.

Of course we've chosen the most liberal of our local synagogues. The people we've met are friendly. Still I wonder if they'll think we've gone to far with our family rituals. I tell one woman about our blue and white lights, the kids' Chanukah stockings. I tell her Chanukah Charlie visits our house. She looks at me as if I'm the Antichrist.

Close shave

At a recent dinner party, one of the women repeatedly stretched her arms over her head to expose her underarms. She was wearing a sun dress and, I believe, wanted the rest of us to see her perfectly shaved arm pits. Actually, they were more than shaved. Denuded is more like it. Not a speck of stubble. No sign of razor rash. I can only imagine one attains pits as hairless as these via some primitive feminine hygiene ritual with which I am not acquainted. And I'm glad for that, because it looked unnatural. Eerie, really.

As soon as coin in coffer rings...

I have an inherent mistrust of clergy. So I was surprised that I felt a kinship of sorts with the rabbi who married my sister-in-law and, now, brother-in-law.

This woman was so cool, we had her perform a naming ceremony for our children --a ritual we had put off until our son was six and a half and our daughter was two. The ceremony was beautiful and meaningful. My spouse even cried, and I thought we had found our own rabbi.

We negotiated the bill via email. I sent a query regarding personal spiritual counseling. Then I mailed a check. I haven't heard from her since. And I'm back to square one.