Judy's Mirth & Meaning Blog http://www.judygruen.com/index.php en jgruen@ca.rr.com Copyright 2014 2014-12-23T23:36:33+00:00 8 New Year’s Resolutions You’ll Mostly Like http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/8_new_years_resolutions_youll_mostly_like culture, humor, by Judy Gruen
Research has shown that worldwide, more than 3 billion people make New Year’s resolutions, but who really keeps them? My guess: about 16 people. Most vows to eat more fiber, hire a personal trainer and open a retirement account get dropped faster than cell reception in an elevator. Maybe we’re just aiming too high.
I say, make resolutions, but keep them reasonable. Make the kind of resolutions you will want to keep. Here are some that have worked for me:

1. Spend Less Time with Family & Friends
Over the holidays, millions of people will plan to spend more time with family and friends. At the same time, suicide prevention hot lines light up as people realize they cannot stand one more second with cousins and aunts who drive you insane with their guilt-tripping barbs, chewing with their mouths open, or tippling too much from the Jim Beam. If you are like 99 percent of the world’s population with “problem” relatives, vowing to spend less time with them ought to be a snap and reduce your blood pressure.

2. Become a Power Napper
These days, any 2nd grader can spew a long list of benefits of exercise. It takes a sophisticated mind to grasp the remarkable perks of a daily snooze. Why jog to lower blood pressure when you can get the same effect from a daily snoozle? Regular naps are linked to better mood, more focused thinking, and a fail-safe way to skip out of boring department meetings at 2 p.m. Besides, you can’t snack on a glazed donut when you nap (trust me, I’ve tried it) so napping also helps you lose weight. Why not make this the year you stop the charade of joining the gym and just buy an ergonomically correct pillow for the office instead?

3. Toss Your Bathroom Scale
Weight Watchers meetings throughout the world will be stampeded in January with repentant pudgy-wudgies standing in line to be weighed by a thin person. You, however, will be ahead of the game by not weighing yourself ever! In today’s high tech world, you can hardly even find a scale that doesn’t also give you aggravation by speaking your weight to you, in addition to announcing your body mass index and the day’s price of cattle futures. Look, if your clothes are getting too tight, you’ve gained weight. Isn’t that simple enough?

4. Add Some Guilt to Your Life
This tip is not as fun as the others, but guilt is a highly underrated emotion. Especially in today’s selfie-obsessed culture, the worldwide guilt shortage is even more acute than climate change. Experts predict that by 2025, Los Angeles may be submerged under 75 feet of egotism and breathtaking swellheadedness. If you cut people off in traffic, were snippy with a customer service rep who was powerless to help you, or made a snide remark to your spouse or best friend, you should feel a little guilty! I think a little more judiciously apportioned guilt would go a long way to a more civilized society. And if you have an overabundance of guilt but know someone whose arrogant behavior shows he or she is sorely lacking, go ahead and share. It’ll do you both good.

5. Resist the Temptation to Get Organized
January is National Get Organized Month, but if you succumb to this annual lure, you are likely to be visited by a professional organizer wielding threatening weapons such as color-coded file folders, drawer dividers, and, in severe cases, paper shredders. I once had an organizer make me clean my desk, but the sight was so unnerving I couldn’t think straight. Being disorganized makes you relatable to normal people. As I always claim, I’m not messy. I’m a genius.

6. Spend More Money
You’ve got all year to get a handle on your finances. January is the time when that intoxicating word, “Clearance,” is dangled provocatively everywhere you shop. Avoiding a good sale isn’t only bad money management, it’s bad for the economy.

7. Read More Celebrity Gossip
The lives of most celebrities are extravagantly shallow, silly, manic-depressive, drugged, and frequently illegal. All the more reason to bone up on their misadventures and be grateful that God didn’t make you a celebrity, too.

8. Don’t Travel to Exotic Destinations
Even before the Ebola crisis, I never went anywhere that required shots. Who needs the stress? If you have a wanderlust, go someplace safe, such as the Kern River Valley Turkey Vulture Festival or the Mushroom Festival in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Anyone can find thrills in Machu Pichu; but it takes authentic joie de vivre and imagination to find excitement looking at turkey vultures or at a festival celebrating fungus.
Remember, the key to sticking with any New Year’s resolutions is to keep your goals reasonable and to stay motivated. Here’s to success in 2015!
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]]> 2014-12-23T23:36:33+00:00 10 Fiction Books to Add to Your Wish Lists http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/10_fiction_books_to_add_to_your_wish_lists book reviews, ‘Tis the season for adding books to your wish list. Here are ten of my absolute favorite modern fiction works. While none of these are very new, all are worth reading and savoring. I hope to follow up with other lists over time with other top 10 lists in other genres as well, including classic literature, non-fiction, and humor.

I have linked my full reviews to these books to my posts on Goodreads.com. Happy reading!

1. Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier—Who is the woman who posed for Vermeer’s famous painting, “Girl with the Pearl Earring”? In this outstanding novel, the author imagines it is a 16-year-old servant in the Vermeer household named Griet. Hired to clean, cook, shop and help take care of the Vermeer’s ever-expanding family, Griet captures the notice of the master of the house, Vermeer himself, and thus begins the unfolding drama. Beautifully imagined. 

2. The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve—The late-night knock on the door instantly alerts Kathryn Lyons to the terrible news: her pilot husband has been killed in a plane accident. From there, the reader follows Kathryn through her grief and eventual discovery of her husband’s secret life, and raises the question: how well can we ever know anybody, even a spouse? I also enjoyed Shreve’s novel “Resistance” a great deal.

3. Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk—Marjorie Morgenstern is 19 years old, a beautiful daughter of Jewish immigrants who have steadily climbed into a comfortable upper-middle class life in Manhattan. When Marjorie meets and falls in love with the director of a summer stock production at a retreat in the Catskills, she loses her naiveté, her innocence, and her heart. Wouk’s brilliant character portraits include not only Marjorie and Noel Airman, but Marjorie’s parents, her best friend Marsha, and her Uncle Samson-Aaron, with a big heart and a big appetite that will lead him to trouble. An unforgettable book.


4. My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok—This novel explores the tension between artistic expression and the Orthodox Jewish world that would set limits on that expression. Asher Lev is born into a rabbinic dynasty and is expected to step up to his role, but his soul is that of an artist, and his calling cannot be denied. You don’t have to be Jewish to be able to appreciate the universal aspects of the story.

5. Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn—A novel about memory and how best to preserve it over time, spun around a semi-thriller involving the protagonist, Josie Ashkenazi, a young, brilliant and successful tech wizard who is abducted while on a consulting mission at the Library of Alexandria. A second theme involves the 12th century Jewish philosopher Moses Maimondies, who wrote the original “The Guide for the Perplexed,” a hallmark work of Jewish philosophy.

6.Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri —This is a short story collection about the lives and relationships among Indian emigres and often, their adjustment to a new life, such as a young married couple (in an arranged marriage) who move to America as newlyweds for the husband’s university job. Lahiri’s writing is elegant and uncluttered but evocative. I liked this collection far more than the author’s highly praised novel, “The Namesake.”

7.The Help by Kathryn Stockett—This book set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi grabbed me on the first page and never let go. It’s about the disconnect between the lives of white privileged women and the black “help” they rarely see as fully human. When Skeeter, a white woman who sees the injustice, tries to get some of the maids to speak out, trouble ensues. Really a wonderful read.

8.Excellent Women by Barbara Pym—A comedy set in post World War II England, the book centers around Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman’s daughter and “spinster,” one of the “excellent women” of the title who is expected to live a life of good works supporting others whose married lives are fuller than her own. This writer is not as well known as she should be.

9.Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner—This is a beautifully written book, a story about enduring friendships, enduring marriages, and the ways that friends and spouses grow through life’s often difficult journey to become more than what they were at the start.

10. 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith—I love McCall Smith’s gentle humor and wry observations about human nature. His books are light reads, but sometimes, that’s just the ticket for reading entertainment. The characters are finely drawn, including the narcissistic Bruce, intelligent-yet-confused-about-her-options Pat, wise Domenica, and scene-stealing Bertie, the 6-year-old who just wants to be a regular boy but whose feminist mother forces him to endure yoga, psychotherapy, wear pink trousers and otherwise make him her gender-neutral sociology project.

What would make YOUR top 10 fiction list? Let me know by writing to me at jg at judygruen.com.

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]]> 2014-12-10T19:34:04+00:00 The Return of the Grown-Up Kids http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/the_return_of_the_grown_up_kids relationships, motherhood, family, humor,
(Photo credit: imgur.com)

by Judy Gruen

A few days after our daughter left for a far away college, I called my friend Esther. I was still teary-eyed from our new status as empty-nesters, as our daughter is the youngest of our four kids. Now it was just my husband, me and the dog, whose cuteness barely compensated for the shedding. (I mean the dog, not my husband.)

“Esther,” I moaned, “we’re all alone now!” Who better to unload my sorrows on than Esther? After all, she had eight kids, all grown, and scads of grandkids.

“Enjoy it while you can,” she said with a wry smile. “Besides, they come back.” It sounded more like a warning than a promise.

Esther was clairvoyant. Jeff and I were happy empty-nesters. We played music that we liked, danced in the living room with no fear that a kid would barge in and roll his or her eyes, and bought new furniture that was not kid-friendly, including a previously unthinkable beige couch and a glass topped coffee table with slightly sharp edges. I didn’t know where my kids were late at night in other cities or when they staggered home. Ignorance is bliss.

But then Esther proved correct again: They started coming back. First was our youngest son, who decided to help Jeff in the family business, which proved a godsend. I set a third place at the table.

Then our daughter returned from two years in Israel and reestablished residency in her room and the comfort of being reunited with the seventy-five pair of shoes she had not taken to seminary. An ambitious and creative cook, she helped me prepare terrific Shabbat meals and taught me to dress better. Now we set dinner for four.

I was sure this would cap it. Our two oldest sons had lived on the East Coast for several years; the eldest was married and the father of a toddler. While my daughter-in-law also hailed from Los Angeles and all four grandparents pined for our married children to return to L.A., living in Baltimore cost a lot less than living in L.A., so their return seemed unlikely.

But the married kids started to miss their parents, whom they began to view as eager babysitters who wouldn’t charge. A bitterly cold winter also took its toll. My son found a job in LA. When they announced their return, we were thrilled.

I offered to scout out apartments, especially since they were expecting baby number two shortly after their return. I figured they’d want to settle in as soon as possible. So imagine my surprise when my son sent an email blast to everyone in the family that said, “We’ve decided we are moving back in with my parents until we find an apartment that we like.”
I read that line twice. Not only were they returning to sunny L.A., they were moving back to my son’s room, even though he was bringing his family of three and 7/9ths. Instinctively, I moved the abrasive cleansers from under the kitchen sink and washed some plastic toys that I had saved from when my kids were little.

“Why don’t you seem happier?” Jeff asked me as we added the second leaf to the dining table. “Isn’t this the news we were dreaming of?”

“Of course!” I said, feeling shame-faced. “But after they get here, you’ll still go to work each day. Your life won’t change much. I, on the other hand, will have to take a writing sabbatical and while helping take care of our granddaughter and soon, an infant! It’s a paradigm shift. Do you know if we still have those baby-proof cabinet locks?”

Before we knew it, our house was decorated in Fisher Price and Little Tikes. The dog had to scoot around the high chair to get to his bowl, when he wasn’t hiding under the bed from our granddaughter’s efforts to “make nice.” Everyone began to wear shoes in the house lest they step on the Cheerios our granddaughter enjoyed sprinkling like Pixie Dust everywhere. My daughter-in-law was very helpful but she was understandably tired. Our lives were no longer quiet. They were loud, messy, chaotic, funny and exhausting.

One afternoon I decided to take a shower. Our 21-month-old granddaughter, a budding locksmith, was just tall enough to finesse the door knobs and busted into my private bathroom. There she stood, not quite two and a half feet tall, with our old beagle as an accomplice. Both were staring at me. Both were retrieved post-haste by an authorized adult member of the house.

As the mess and the toddler-induced chaos grew, our other kids began to whisper: “When are they moving out?”

I shrugged and smiled. I decided the world could easily wait for my next book as I pulled my granddaughter around the block in the red wagon I bought for her, and later, snuggled in bed with her for an afternoon nap. I hoped my MacBook would survive the torment it received from her pounding the keyboard mercilessly if I so much as turned my head away for a nanosecond. I began to regret the beige couches, especially because I learned that blue pen will never completely wash out, despite the most careful cleaning of the fabric. It was impossible to put almost every useful implement up on high shelves for this exceptionally curious child.

Eventually, the married kids found an apartment, only six blocks away. Day by day I watched as they moved their things out and fought down an unexpected feeling of panic. When they left to spend their first night under their own roof, I cried. What chutzpah, to wreak such joyful pandemonium in my life and then just leave?

“But we’re having chicken fajitas tonight!” I said in wild desperation as they buckled my granddaughter into her car seat. I had gotten used to having the next generation under our roof. Even though they were no only six blocks away and not 3,000 miles away, it seemed far.

After they drove away, I looked around their room. They left a lot of stuff behind. It was such a nice afternoon I decided to stroll over there to make sure they didn’t need the PJs with the owl theme or the package of diaper wipes. And also to tell them I had a vegetable lasagna in the oven, plenty for all of us. Why should my daughter-in-law have to cook on moving day?

By golly, they’ll wonder how they ever got along without me.

(This article originally appeared on Aish.com,)

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]]> 2014-12-02T23:11:40+00:00 This Thanksgiving, Be Grateful You’re Not a Vegan http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/this_thanksgiving_be_grateful_youre_not_a_vegan culture, home and garden, humor, by Judy Gruen

We who live in sunny, star-studded Los Angeles are often envied by people who live in less glamorous, climactically inhospitable places, such as Embarrass, Minnesota. But to those who live in Embarrass, Minnesota I say: Don’t envy us till you’ve walked a mile for parking in our Birkenstocks. We have plenty of problems of our own. 

In addition to there being no parking left in Los Angeles, we have a surfeit of actors whose unnatural good looks are rough on our self-esteem.

But our most severe is problem is vegans. This town is swarming with them, and they are especially annoying at holiday time, when normal people are daydreaming about moist Thanksgiving turkey with all the fixins’. Just yesterday, I was companionably bagging groceries at my neighborhood Trader Joe’s with the cashier, Blaze. “Looking forward to a satisfying Turkey dinner on Thanksgiving?” I asked. 

“I don’t eat turkey,” Blaze said, boldly meeting my eye.
 
“Ah, tryptophan-intolerant?”

“Vegan,” he corrected me, carefully balancing a carton of eggs into the bag. Eggs that he, personally, would not touch on moral grounds.

As soon as he uttered the V-word, I knew everything I needed to know about Blaze. I knew he was wearing canvas shoes and carried a wallet made of nylon or hemp. He voted for Obama and had recurring nightmares about our city suddenly being submerged by the Pacific Ocean due to climate change. He had a poster of white polar bears in a “bear hug” in his apartment, clueless that these cute-looking beasts would eat him for breakfast if they could. He considered himself a citizen of the world, and actually believed Yoko Ono was musically gifted. He brushed his teeth with a cruelty-free toothbrush before getting into bed at night and curling up with a book about the dangers of biofuels. I’d only met the guy two minutes before and he already bored me. 

Although he gamely tried to hide it, Blaze must have viewed me with contempt. Since his diet was really a political manifesto for the cruelty-free, bio-sustainability lifestyle, what choice did he have? He knew that I planned to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, and that I had had a dietary rap sheet filled with chicken, beef, fish, and eggs, and that I had no remorse for such carnivorous behavior. I hadn’t even bothered to buy the cage-free eggs.

In the spirit of promoting mutual understanding, I asked Blaze what he planned to eat on Thanksgiving. Suddenly he brightened, and spouted off like a waiter describing the evening’s specials. He listed delicacies as sprouted tortilla wraps with avocado, including soy “chicken,” gluten “steaks,” seitan “burgers,” bean spelt oat spread and other ersatz foods that required scare quotes around them. I tried to fake fascination and awe.   

“Do you feel healthier being vegan?” I felt obligated to ask. Another mistake. 

“It was a good start, but I’m probably going raw soon,” he said earnestly. “Living in this polluted air, you’ve got to detoxify,” he said, giving a little shudder. I nodded in assent, as if I too couldn’t wait to give the heave-ho to every type of food in the universe except for Tebetan goji berries and dehydrated cashews.

“Well, I hope you have strong teeth!” I said, thankful that we had reached the last bag. I had exhausted my curiosity about Blaze’s dietary future and was in no mood to segue to a discussion on globalization and free trade. But I had to hand it to the guy: He seemed pretty energetic for a man who hadn’t eaten a steak since 2004. I held my head high as I headed out the door and declined his offer to help me with my cart to my gas guzzling minivan.

There’s no way I’ll ever go vegan, but I can at least try to love vegans by talking to them and trying to pretend I think their gastronomic agenda is sound. So to all of you who dream of the good life in California, don’t say you haven’t been warned. Not only will you have no place to park, but vegans like Blaze are everywhere, waiting to bag your groceries as they thinly disguise their contempt for your carnivorous Thanksgiving cravings. 

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]]> 2014-11-21T01:52:39+00:00 Online Shopping From Soup to Nuts http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/my_online_shopping_cart_runneth_over culture, home and garden, humor, by Judy Gruen

“Who bought all this stuff?” my son asked in astonishment the other night. The question was not a brazen act of chutzpah. Half the living room was piled with heavy white bags, emblazoned with the logo of Google Shopping Express. Now my guilt was compounded. Not only had I buckled under the lure of another e-tailing enterprise, but during my maiden online shopping expedition, I accidentally ordered duplicates of lots of bulky things. At least I won’t run out of paper plates, facial tissue or laundry detergent till 2017.

I had watched with a mixture of envy and self-righteousness as my neighbors began to get their groceries delivered to their door steps in recent months. Our street, normally rather quiet, had become a consumer superhighway. Move over, U.S. Postal Service, UPS and Fed Ex – home grocery deliveries were horning in. Friendly drivers pulled up in colorful vans by Amazon Fresh and Google Shopping Express several times a week with everything from mayo and cereal to industrial-sized bottles of grape juice.

“You ought to do it, Judy,” my neighbor urged. “Delivery is free during the first three months! Why, when I realized I was out of pickle relish, they delivered that alone, for free!”

But I resisted. Was nothing sacred anymore? Home grocery delivery services are not new, but I had already caved in and regularly buy books, office supplies and clothing. With free shipping to and fro, what’s the harm? Who needs to drive all over town in heavy traffic spewing carbon emissions, looking for parking, and then in the store, looking for that rarest of species, a semi-intelligent salesperson not engrossed in a texting session at the register? Besides, the two main players in the grocery delivery service around here are Amazon Fresh and Google Shopping Express. Their parent corporations were already on a seemingly unstoppable quest for worldwide commercial domination. I drew the line at grocery shopping.

Anyway, I like going shopping. In my opinion, nothing beats the grocery store as a source of exercise, news, entertainment, and even opportunities for self-improvement. I mean, how many calories will you burn tapping away at your online shopping cart? I also run into friends I don’t often see at synagogue or anywhere else, for that matter. Recently, on aisle 11, where I wrestled with the decision to try a new kind of pre-measured cube of dishwashing soap that promised not to leave spots, I ran into Marci, who told me that her synagogue was getting a new rabbi all the way from Melbourne. I’m pretty sure I was the first person to whom she confessed this still-secret information.

I also am frequently amused watching husbands shopping. They are a riot. They are studying the lists their wives gave them like they’re cramming for final exams. Every time they put something in the cart, they call their wives.

“I got four of these long white things. Are those parsnips? What did you mean by ‘big’? There only seems to be one size.” Or, “I don’t see gluten-free Oatios. Is it okay to get gluten-free Rice-E-Os instead?” I tell you, these guys look paranoid. I think online shopping might be a good idea for them.

Shopping in person is also good for my self-esteem. Total strangers often come up to me and assume I have encyclopedic knowledge of the store’s contents. It’s true: I do. This is what happens after you have walked 10,000 miles of its aisles over the last 20-plus years. I am asked things such as, “If you were a box of raisins, where would you be?” And I know the answer! I am especially happy to help troubled husbands, wondering if the box of pasta they are considering will meet their wives’ expectations, since their wives stopped answering their phones five calls ago. I give these husbands my calm assurance that their choices in pasta are sound. I also give them my cell number in case their wives disapprove and they require some psychological support later on. You know, I ought to go in business doing this.

At check-out, I also get to practice the value of being patient. Just my luck, when I wheel into the line to pay I am often right behind a very elderly person who still does not use credit cards, or even checks. She is accompanied by a saintly aide who helps her unearth every coupon at the bottom of her voluminous handbag (doubles as carry-on luggage) and is determined to pay for the entire shopping trip with dimes, nickels, quarters, and pennies. She questions the reason for the store not giving her double coupons, though those were phased out two years ago. I want to scream, but I wait till I get back in the car to let it all out.

Finally, it would be the height of ingratitude to ditch the store, especially after they just remodeled (again) and installed a kosher take-out section and a kosher bakery. (But honestly, I cannot recommend the potato salad.)

So what made me buckle? I’ll answer my own question. I got tired of running out of things, and having to run back to the store an embarrassing number of times a week. My local store also doesn’t have the best prices for everything, and doesn’t even have everything. It takes a lot of time to plan and hunt and gather to keep a household well stocked. Also, I contracted a case of post-traumatic shopping disorder after our recent spate of Jewish holidays, and realized that no matter how much I bought, another holiday was around the corner and I still needed more stuff. So I waved the white flag, established my online account and ordered like a woman possessed. I felt triumphant after placing my first order: I had just gained at least six hours! Now I had to make them count.

Of course, online shopping has its dangers. An online shopping cart never overflows, never warns you that you’ve bought enough. You better bet that Amazon and Google are well aware of this. And an online shopping cart doesn’t give you any news, or stroke your ego by assuming your superior knowledge of all things grocery-ish. And my fingers are getting repetitive stress syndrome from all this clicking online. This is a risk I cannot take.

Darn it. It’s lunchtime – how am I out of tuna? Please excuse me; I’m heading out to the market.

(This article originally appeared in slightly different form on Aish.com.)

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]]> 2014-11-09T22:27:12+00:00 Don’t Hate Me If I Voted for the Other Guy (or Gal) http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/dont_hate_me_if_i_voted_for_the_other_guy politics, culture, One of the dumbest things I ever did was to satirize a friend’s political point of view on Facebook. Yeah, I really did that. I hadn’t identified her by name of course —I’m that that dumb—but she knew I was talking about her and let me know how upset she was. I felt lower than a slug. I was shaken and apologized. Thankfully she ultimately forgave me. You betcha I haven’t made the same blunder again.

With a high-stakes mid-term election around the corner, it’s hard not to talk about our political passions—the candidates and issues we believe in and especially those we detest. Um, weren’t we supposed to have transcended those “red state/blue state” divisions among us by now? As if! Today we seem almost hopelessly divided along political fault lines. Name calling, hyperventilating, and heart palpitations are not uncommon. 
I have strong opinions too, but stopped sharing them even at via bumper stickers after I became the target of road rage a few campaigns ago. My bumper sticker supported a presidential candidate in bold letters. This unnerved the driver behind me, who tailgated while screaming at me and making hostile gestures. I pulled over, hoping she would disappear, but instead she pulled up beside me and unleashed her limited inventory of verbal and finger invectives. After she finally sped off I was able to read her own bumper sticker. It said, “Practice Random Acts of Kindness.” 

Most of us think we’re pretty smart, and therefore, we think other smart people will see things our way.  Some will; others vehemently won’t. I’ve had readers of my columns email me political jokes that ridiculed my point of view, assuming I would find my political ideas as laughable as they did. I respond to them gently. After all, why alienate a potential buyer of my books? My friend Dave is one of the sole conservatives in the office where he works. Because he wants to keep his job, he just nods politely when his boss freely disparages conservatives. Why do people talk politics in the office anyway, unless you’re are working at someone’s campaign headquarters?

Now we seem so fired up about our views that sometimes we will dump friendships over a political division. When my friend Mona told her friend that she was not interested in supporting a certain political cause because she disagreed with it, her friend expressed her shock: “I thought you were smart! I misjudged you completely!”  Another friendship was also blunted unceremoniously via text message by a man who discovered that his friend supported the “wrong” party, making any further social connections impossible. Something is really wrong with that – unless the “other point of view” is truly hateful.
Nowadays even dating web sites are geared for people of either liberal or conservative viewpoints. I can understand this, but then again, maybe it’s a mistake to instantly write people off based on being a Republican or Democrat. When I first met my husband and discovered he had voted for Ronald Reagan, I was aghast: “There goes another potential romance! How could he have voted for that slick-haired B-movie actor? How could I show my face to my liberal friends if I continued to date him?” I asked myself.

But an honest, kind, handsome, funny man is hard to find. Over time and over many “discussions” I discovered we actually agreed on core principles. We disagreed on the means, not the ends. I learned that “conservative” didn’t mean “greedy ogre.” Since then, I know better: greedy ogres can be found in every corner, and no political party has a monopoly there.

So what’s a country to do? I wish I had the answer, so for now I’ll just recall a famous slogan issued by Great Britain during World War II, meant to bolster public morale. It’s a good slogan as election fever spikes ever higher:  “Keep calm and carry on.”

Maybe it would make a good bumper sticker.

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]]> 2014-10-30T21:28:11+00:00 Twelve Tips to Write for Laughs http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/the_ten_commandments_of_humor_writing1 humor, Writing for laughs is seriously hard work, but the payoffs are priceless. If you can make someone laugh with your words (because you intended to, not because your writing is so God-awful they can’t help but spurt coffee out their noses), you’ve done a great thing. You’ve brightened someone’s day, and improved their health, unlike those miserable wretches who make their living by writing traffic citations or delivering subpoenas. Why not try your hand at the humor game? You’ll have fun, and if you don’t have fun, at least you’ll have more appreciation for those who do make you laugh. Here are my twelve tips to make your readers laugh out loud.

1. If you want to write funny, read funny! Channel your inner comic writer by savoring the greats. My favorites include British comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse (author of the Bertie Wooster series) and master essayist S.J. Perelman, who also wrote screenplays for the Marx Brothers. Their inventiveness with the English language is as astonishing as it is hilarious. Erma Bombeck could make even losing keys and a broken answering machine funny; Steve Martin is a favorite for his imaginative genius. I mean, could you have thought of writing a column called “Times Roman Font Announces Shortage of Periods”? It’s in his collection, “Pure Drivel” and it’s enough to make me mad with jealousy. I also love Christopher Buckley, whose politically satiric novels include “No Way to Treat a First Lady” and “Boomsday.” 

2. Keep it clean. Today, lots of comedians and humorists have confused explicitness with sophistication. Relying on bodily functions or an overemphasis on sex, is usually more crass and junior-high than smartly funny. And also, what’s with the profanities? Hammering an audience with four-letter words isn’t funny; it’s deadening. Clever humor aims higher than waist-level.

3.  Grab ‘em at the beginning. People have very short attention spans. Reel them in at the first sentence so you don’t lose them to their Facebook page, and keep your story moving.

4.  Make your humor relatable. People love it when they feel you are writing about their lives, and gently self-deprecating humor is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. For example, “I discovered that I had a textbook case of ‘Congenital Fraidy Cat Syndrome.’  I knew it: my expanding medical knowledge was slowly killing me.” Or, “I had my fat tested today. It came back positive.” (Both lines by yours truly.)

5. Show your strength.  Self-deprecating humor isn’t loser humor. Write with the kind of punch that reveals your fortitude to survive life’s worst agonies, including being on hold with your health insurance provider.

6. Be sharp, but not mean. Good humor has a point of view, but shouldn’t be downright nasty. 

7. Don’t shy from “evergreen” topics. Misunderstood spouses, unreasonable bosses, know-it-all teens and why bad contractors happen to good people have been funny since lions roamed the Colosium, but a fresh angle is essential.

8. Find your distinctive voice. Use great writers for inspiration, but don’t be an imitator.

9. Know your audience. Don’t poke fun at lifestyles of the rich and famous in a piece you’re writing for Town & Country magazine, or gun rights for a piece in NRA Monthly. Study your target markets, then see if your world view and humor make you a good match for them.

10. Write what you know. Your writing will be more natural, convincing, and funnier this way.

11. Be colorful and specific. Writing that you have 87 pair of shoes is funnier than saying you have a closetful. Talking about your need for “Jumpy Java” in the morning is funnier than talking about your need for caffeine. The more specific you can be, while throwing in a bit of exaggeration, ups the humor ante.

12.. Get me rewrite!  Outstanding writing may look effortless, but it’s not. Four or five rewrites are not unusual before your work really shines. Let a piece rest for at least 24 hours before looking at it again. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll find to improve after you’ve both marinated in it for a day.

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]]> 2014-10-20T21:35:10+00:00 Cliches: Bad for Writing; Better as Philosophy http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/cliches_bad_for_writing_better_as_philosophy relationships, spirituality, happiness, I’m always on the lookout for clichés. When I find them slipping into my own writing, I excise them out. Spotting them in my clients’ writing, I suggest alternatives. Too many cliches make for unimaginative writing, but some cliches are so wise and pithy we just cannot do without them. One of them, “Today is a new day,” recently saved my friend Anna from getting dragged back into an old dispute.

This five-word phrase is so obvious, right? Of course today is a new day. But when Anna received an email from someone who had made her life miserable a long time back, the idea that “today is a new day” gave her a totally new perspective. Though Anna had thought the episode with her former friend was long over, her email correspondent clearly felt otherwise. She dredged up her old grievances, accusing Anna anew of various wrongs and of causing hurt.

Anna was determined not to get trapped by the other person’s anger. She refused to embroil others in the dispute, refused to talk about it to sympathetic listeners and spread the rancor like a virus, tempting as that might have been. So instead of returning insult for insult, Anna did something different. “I had just attended a class about Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, about new beginnings. The teacher emphasized the idea that ‘Today is a new day.’ We can’t hold on to junk from the past. I heard the teacher repeat this phrase in my head and knew I would just not engage. I was going to keep my focus on the positive.”

So Anna took a deep breath and sat down to the computer. She replied to the email, saying she was sorry that the other person felt the way she did, but she saw the situation differently. I’ve known Anna a long time. She is a very modest and thoughtful person, and there wasn’t a hint of self-congratulation when she told me the story. Instead, she felt the episode was freeing. “When I was sure of what I wrote, I pressed that ‘send’ button and I could practically feel whatever residual anger I had about this go “whoosh!” up into the atmosphere along with the email. It was gone.”

I love this story and wanted to share it with you. It’s hard to take the high road (oh dear, was that a cliche?) but Anna’s wise and eloquent handling of the situation also had the beauty of being the best revenge: she denied her would-be combatant with the joy of battle.

Tomorrow is a new day, today is a new day. Statements like this are so full of hope and optimism. I guess cliches don’t become cliches for nothing.


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]]> 2014-10-08T23:02:14+00:00 President Obama’s First Yom Kippur http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/president_obamas_first_yom_kippur politics, spirituality, culture, jewish life, President Obama isn’t much of a church-goer, having dropped that practice after moving from Chicago, but he does take time to publicly commemorate various religious holidays in the White House. Mr. Obama has koshered the White House kitchen for Hanukkah celebrations and hosts annual Passover seders, complete with gefilte fish and matzo ball soup. He hosts Iftar dinners in the State Room for Ramadan. Naturally, he and the First Lady light the White House Christmas tree and host the Easter Egg Roll.

But as the President slogs through an interminably rough year, his dismal approval ratings the butt of jokes on Saturday Night Live, he might try an innovation and become the first president in American history to observe Yom Kippur in the White House. Sure, the Jewish Day of Atonement – a fast day – would lack the press-friendly “optics” of a multi-course seder or Iftar dinner. On the other hand, Americans who are used to seeing this normally peripatetic president winging from Democratic fundraiser to the golf course and back might be impressed to see him schedule a few hours for quiet contemplation. A Barack Obama Yom Kippur would certainly set the reset button with alienated Jewish voters, and may help Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. But the president better hurry: Yom Kippur begins at sundown Friday and ends twenty-five hours later.

He wouldn’t have to fast or even attend synagogue. Instead, Mr. Obama could simply turn off all his electronic devices and consider his “year in review.” With the Yom Kippur prayer book as a reference, he could ask himself whether any of the transgressions that Jews cop to on the Day of Atonement are things that he may have committed, either intentionally or unintentionally: sins of arrogance, scoffing, accusing falsely, entrapping a neighbor, showing contempt for teachers and parents, bribery, denial and false promises, haughtiness, baseless hatred, failure to extend a hand, gossip-mongering, and obstinacy. For Jews, the list is much longer, but no need to overwhelm the president during his first Yom Kippur. This rap sheet should be plenty to chew over.

Jews admit to each of these transgressions and dozens more, and we do so in the plural. This is because on Yom Kippur we are judged not only individually but communally, and we share responsibility for one another in this way. Yom Kippur culminates a 40-day period when we are meant to assess our priorities, actions and relationships, and make necessary adjustments. We are meant to ask forgiveness from individuals we may have wronged, and forgiveness from God for the sins that only He can forgive. It is not an easy exercise. It is, however, a very healthy and cathartic one.

Ironically, Yom Kippur is a happy day. Although we thump our breasts with each recitation of a wrong we admit to sotto voce, we are optimistic that God will accept our authentic expressions of regret when we also demonstrate we are taking action to correct the wrong behavior. We are grateful for the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. 

President Obama has no problem apologizing. He is often filled with regret, but almost never for the things that require it. Instead, he apologizes over matters with which he has no connection, using his expressions of remorse to demean some aspect of American society. This week at the U.N., with violence and instability raging in the Middle East and Vladimir Putin eating the Ukraine for breakfast, Mr. Obama apologized for the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. After the 2012 attack on the embassy in Benghazi and the murder of Ambassador Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, he apologized to Muslims over the obscure video his administration outrageously claimed sparked the attacks. It took months after the disastrous Obamacare roll-out for the president to apologize in a begrudging manner for having endlessly repeated his promise that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

Apologies are just empty words unless they are backed up by a change of course. Obama’s misplaced apologies and failure to acknowledge serious errors has been one of his signature weaknesses. He seems almost constitutionally incapable of authentic personal remorse.

Everyone makes mistakes, and misjudges situations. Most people behave badly at times. But Americans are a forgiving people. If they saw Mr. Obama willing to let the engines of Air Force One cool down for a while and instead do the hard work of sitting still and considering the impact of his words and deeds, they would be heartened: A mature adult had finally arrived on the job. He would also demonstrate that humility doesn’t detract from greatness; it is a prime ingredient for greatness.

If the president did this, I for one would celebrate with a bowl of matzo ball soup. 

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]]> 2014-10-01T20:41:30+00:00 Don’t Stay Stuck This Rosh HaShana, Honey http://www.judygruen.com/index.php/blog/dont_stay_stuck_this_rosh_hashana spirituality, jewish life, I once asked a friend of mine, a therapist, what the biggest problem she encountered with her patients was. She answered swiftly. “They stay stuck. They get to a certain point of self-awareness but then cannot move forward.”

I think about this as I try to prepare myself for Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year. In the secular world, New Year’s is party time, although a few weight-loss resolutions have become de rigueur.  But there are no funny hats or champagne on Rosh HaShana. It’s a serious holiday that launches the Ten Days of Repentance. These are days when we are supposed to take an honest inventory of our goals, our behavior, our inner core. We are supposed to ask forgiveness from those whom we may have wronged, and resolve to stop negative or sinful activities that deep down we know are hurting us. The Ten Days of Repentance culminate in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

But isn’t this backwards? Shouldn’t we atone, assess and apologize first, and then celebrate our New Year’s with a clean slate? Even more strangely there is no mention of our transgressions, no confessionals at all, in the Rosh HaShana liturgy, even though we understand that God is deciding our fate for the coming year: Who will live and who will die; who will live in health or illness, peace or distress, material comfort or material need. Some New Year! 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom has a great answer to the question about these holidays seemingly being out of order: “To mend the past, first you have to secure the future.” 

Rabbi Sacks observes that he had long wondered how Holocaust survivors were able to rebuild their lives, given the horrors they endured. He also notes that most of them did not, could not, talk about their experiences for decades, if they ever did at all. Instead, they looked forward. They refused to be paralyzed by grief. They redeemed the past by building the future. 

Rosh HaShana offers us all the opportunity, even the obligation, to think about what really matters in our lives, to change course if need be, and build a more meaningful tomorrow. On Rosh HaShana we use our freedom of choice to affirm that God is our Father and King, and wants the best for us. It is a day that invites us to move on from yesterday’s mistakes. It’s a chance to get unstuck. 

The Hebrew language is one that offers deep insights into God’s blueprint for humankind. One example: the Hebrew word for transgression or sin is “aveyra.” The root of that word is “avar,” which means “past.” God’s language tells us that He is giving us the benefit of the doubt, and that the wrongs we have done are just so yesterday. They do not define us today or who we aspire to be tomorrow.

We dip apples and challah in honey on Rosh HaShana, symbolic of the sweet year we pray will come. May the New Year bring sweetness and peace to each and every one of us.

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