It’s all about perspective

So this morning I walk into the kitchen at 5:20a.m. Don’t even ask me how long the rest of my nocturnal crew has been awake. I see my husband, Mark, standing in front of the island sink. He is absent-mindedly spraying the sink basin with Pam cooking spray. He does this for approximately 10 seconds as I silently watch with perplexity. Next he returns the Pam to the pantry and pulls out his carton of Egg Beaters. After a few violent shakes, he opens the carton and proceeds to pour several servings of Egg Beaters down the drain to follow the Pam cooking spray. At this point, I am finding it hard to keep quiet.

So I say, in a less than kind tone, “What the hell are you doing? Why would you waste food like that?” I am irritated, and yes a bit concerned, that during the night he has lost or hopefully only misplaced some of his mental faculties. He looks up and simply says, “I’m making my breakfast.”

Now Mark enjoys a good joke and has never missed an opportunity to tease, toy with, or good-naturedly yank my rather easily accessible chain. But at this point, I am not amused. We are working hard to make ends meet. We are living sparsely, avoiding waste and trying to maintain a cash only spending regiment. Why would someone in that position carelessly spill an entire meal down the drain?

“What is seriously wrong with you?” I ask more with bewilderment than ire. “Nothing,” he retorts, still standing over his eggless creation in the sink. At this point, I’m taking into consideration the possibility that he has had some type of brain aneurism and can no longer be held responsible for his behavior. I quickly move towards him to catch him in case he topples over from the force of the bursting vessel within his brain. But as I get to him, I see that sitting on the bottom of the sink is his microwave egg-cooker, filled with plenty of Pam and two servings of Egg Beaters. He, of course, is snickering madly. He picks up his cooker, places it in the microwave and turns it on for 1:30 seconds.

“Why did you do that?” I continued my interrogation despite his giggles and snorts. “It’s more efficient,” he explained. “I don’t get Pam all over the counter and if I spill any of the Egg Beaters, I just turn on the faucet and clean the sink.”

I had to admit that did actually make a lot of sense. But from my perspective across the room, watching his actions was like watching an inane rerun of The Three Stooges. But then it hit me; that is truly what life is about. (Not watching inane reruns of The Three Stooges.) Life is about how we each view the world from our unique vantage points. Thus our challenges in life, our relationship difficulties, our negative attitudes are only as accurate as we allow them to be. If we change our perspective, by say walking across a room, or bending down, or climbing a few rungs of a metaphorical ladder, we may actually see the entire world differently. That’s an enormous realization.

When we argue with people or when someone close to us hurts us, it’s so easy to accuse, condemn and vilify whomever has done us wrong. But maybe we’re not really seeing the full picture. Maybe what appears to be careless or random idiocy is really thoughtful and considerate conduct. Maybe if we shift our mental or emotional viewpoint we will see that the situation is vastly different from our original interpretation. And maybe, just maybe, we too will find ourselves laughing at misconceptions that never actually even existed.

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A political diversion

Really? I kind of beg to differ.

Hard to think about anything today other than the President’s speech yesterday in Cairo. Look, I’m a Jew, first and foremost. The whole wife, mother, sister, lover thing somehow always manages to take a back seat to who I am religiously. I guess that’s because for so many centuries people have hated Jews and worked to destroy us. I’m not paranoid. I feel genuinely safe in society today. But I do worry at times, and with good reason.

Statistics show that anti-semitism is on the rise in this country and world wide. As economies continue to plummet, distraught members of society often look for a scapegoat. There are multiple factions in society who believe that the rising costs of oil today are due to U.S. support of Israel. To any sane individual, this is absurd. But that doesn’t stop masses of people from calling on the US to turn against our long-term ally and join forces instead with the Arab nations who look to destroy her.

I believe in Israel’s right to exist. Hamas, the head of the Palestinian government and confirmed terrorist organization, does not. For the President of the United States to call Israel an “occupier” and suggest that Israel give back land taken in a war in 1967 is ridiculous. Returning to the ’67 borders, as President Obama advocated yesterday, would put Israel in an indefensible position while also leaving major population centers beyond those borders.

I’ve been reading incessantly on this subject. I actually watched the President’s speech on CSPAN and heard him irrefutably say that Israel should return to the 1967 borders. But as I talk to most of my liberal minded friends, who also claim to support Israel’s right to exist, they insist that the President said nothing about returning to ’67 borders. They have emails from “reputable” leaders who assert that this is just another desperate Republican attempt to destroy the President’s credibility and weaken his ever decreasing popularity.

And you can’t argue with these people. Because they refuse to believe the facts. Look, I’m all for a healthy debate. Like most people, I support a Palestinian state. They have the right to exist just as Israel does. But time and again Israel has withdrawn from areas, offered concessions and agreed to multiple conditions in order to secure peace with the Palestinians. But the Palestinian government insists on Israel’s complete and total destruction. They refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. How can that be a recipe for peace?

I am frustrated by this. Frustrated that people wont do the research and fact-finding they need to do to understand what’s going on. Trusting anyone as your sole source of information is foolish and naive. I listen to NPR every day on the radio. But I also force myself to listen to Rush Limbaugh and a variety of other radio hosts whose opinions I don’t necessarily agree with. But if you only watch CNN or read the NY Times, or at the other end of the spectrum, exclusively watch Fox News, how will you ever know what’s truly going on?

Look, believe what you want. But be honest and thoughtful about it. And don’t delude yourself into thinking that President Obama is a friend to the state of Israel, the Jews or to true democracy in the Middle East.

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Give me back my Kindle!

I’m okay sharing my bank account, my bed, my body, my children, my soul etc… But don’t ask me to share my Kindle! Look, there are some things that are just not shareable, and my KIndle is one of them.

Okay, so it’s not really MY Kindle. If you want to be technical about it, it’s his. I bought it for him for his birthday last year. It is probably the only gift I’ve ever given him that he actually enjoys. He used it all summer during our travels and he used to use it each morning on the ellipticle. But he got busy at work, ceased exercising altogether and left it to atrophy on his bedside table.

I tried to leave it alone.I knew it wasn’t mine. And honestly, I didn’t think I would become so attached so quickly. But after three trips to various Barnes & Nobles, searching for my latest book club book, I decided it was absurd to waste my time looking for a hardcover version of some $25 book that I was literally going to read and then throw away. So in a weak moment, I ordered a book from the Kindle store and started reading.

Then I was hooked. I started using it every night before bedtime. After a few nights, I started taking it with me during the day for down-times during my carpool regime. I started to wonder how I had ever lived without it (kind of like garage door openers or television remote controls.) I began reading voraciously. One night it finally ran out of juice and I could barely cope. Luckily I found a way to stretch the cord to my bed so I could manage my now ritualistic nighttime reading.

And then it happened. I climbed into bed a about a week ago, turned on my bedside lamp and reached for my new addiction. It was gone. My husband was innocently snoozing beside me. I leapt out of bed and began racing through the house in search of my drug of choice. Finally I found it lodged between two cushions on the couch. I gently cradled it in my arms and safely returned to bed with it. But when I “slid and released the power switch to wake” my coveted mechanism, I was met not with Dinesh D’Souza’s Life After Death: The Evidence but instead found myself smack dab in the center of Norman Podhoretz’s Why are Jews Liberals? It was an afront to my psyche. The last thing I need to be reading before bedtime is some of my husband’s right-wing political propaganda.

I was able to find my spot back in my D’Souza book and his well researched data and philosophical musings helped to ease my mind and allowed me to drift off to sleep peacefully. But this was more than a one night mishap. Every night for a week I’ve gone through a similar trauma. One night I landed mysteriously in Stock Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. Another night proved particularly upsetting when I found myself trapped in the mystical Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life by Rav Michael Laitman. But perhaps most disturbing was my accidental forray into Stevens Levitt and Dubner’s SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance.

I ask you, objectively, are these the kinds of books one should be reading as one relinquishes consciousness and ventures into another dimension? Certainly not! And more importantly, should I be forced consistently to rampage through the house in a frantic effort to locate this pint-size electronic device?

So I have decided to allow my husband the use of his Kindle under the following circumstances:

1) He must accept the fact that it is now my piece of equipment and while he may use it from time to time, he must remember to always keep it charged and replace it from whence it came.

2) I officially have the right of first refusal regarding Kindle usage.

3) Should a Kindle conflict arrise, I alone will assess the situation and render a fair and just judgement as to who is entitled to Kindle usage at that time.

4) He will be responsible for any maintanence/repairs needed on said Kindle.

5) Finally, should we fill up all available Kindle space we will jointly determine which books to delete. (With me obviously having the final say should we come to a standstill.)

Well, I feel much better. It’s wonderful when two people can learn to live harmoniously together. All it takes is a little effort and communication.