During the course of my mother-in-law’s slow, quiet slide into the abyss of dementia, I’ve become the ersatz matriarch of the family.

Mostly, it’s fine, pulling together a few Shabbos dinners a month and making sure everyone remembers each other’s birthdays. But for some reason, I’m not feeling it this Thanksgiving. I haven’t even been to the grocery store yet—just the thought of climbing around the aisles grabbing for the one unbruised potato is causing my intestines to entwine.

Surely losing my job has contributed to the ambivalence over two days worth of cooking that gets snarfed in 20 minutes, but the thing that’s been bothering me the most is that a threshold has been crossed: My mother-in-law no longer remembers me. She hasn’t said my name since the beginning of the summer, but her eyes would still spark when she heard my voice. The family singsong phrase “I love you love you love you…” could always evoke a response, though she hasn’t spoken any real words in months. Even if it took a few seconds, I could watch her face go from suspicion to scrunched confusion as her poor mind tried to latch onto something that matched. I could tell the second the synapse clicked: She would smile, the mystery of this person in front of her singing and waving solved.

Last week, though, the click never came. Her wonderful caregiver, Iris (whose nephew happens to be Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, a lil’ tidbit for all you SEC football fans) got her all fapitzed (that’s Yiddish for gussied up) in red for the JEA senior Thanksgiving lunch, complete with a spritz of the Chanel perfume that’s been collecting dust on the vanity for the last few years.

El Yenta Man’s eyes teared up when he smelled his mama. “She smells like Mom again,” he choked, placing his cheek against her neck for one more breath.

I knelt in front of her wheelchair (her ability to walk diminished right around the same time as her speech) for our usual ritual, but when I looked into her eyes and cooed our “love you” song, she looked back and shrugged. I tried a few more times, but the curtain of confusion never parted even a sliver, and that’s the first time in the five years she’s been diagnosed that I couldn’t get through.

Though one never knows with dementia, it appears that our family is nearing the end of having this dear lady around. I know what I need to do is step up and make this the best Thanksgiving ever—assign kitchen tasks to keep my father-in-law busy and out of the clutches of despair, make pies from scratch, encourage the children to learn a few new songs on the piano and have Iris put my mother-in-law in something fine, with a little spritz of Chanel behind her ears. Except all I want to do is scream at everyone to go out for Chinese and then zone in front of the TV, even if I have watch football all day. I’m making a lousy matriarch, more like Joan Crawford than Martha Stewart.

If my mother-in-law had her druthers, she’d let me spill my sadness and nod without saying anything for a while. She was the kind of matriarch who let everyone be who they were and do their thing while she quietly and without complaint shouldered the brunt of the shopping, the cooking, the napkin-folding, the wine uncorking, so it hardly looked like any work at all. Of course, as a good Southern Jewish girl, she somehow missed the entire women’s liberation movement of her generation, though when we discussed the feminism, she waved her hand and said she had always done everything she wanted to do.

If she could, she would tell me it’s very understandable that I should be feeling down about things and not so motivated to make a big fuss over a meal. She’d give me some simple shortcuts to make things easier, like buying instant stuffing (which is gross, but listen, though she is a fantastic and talented lady, between you and me, she was never much of a gourmet cook.) She’d also remind me how important I am to my family, and if I need help, I should ask for it. And finally, without guilt-tripping me or making me feel like an a**hole, she’d list off twenty or so amazing things in my life for which I can be grateful.

And what do you know? My father-in-law just called to volunteer to make the turkey. El Yenta Man said he’d make the stuffing. I’m still saddled with the shopping, the green beans and the pies, but if I treat myself to a carmel macchiato before I brave the florescent-lit purgatory of Publix, I can manage.

This may not be a Thanksgiving to remember, and maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And I may end up being the kind of matriarch who makes reservations at Wang’s Chinese next year.

Have any of you had the pleasure of being screened in the naked machine at airport security? I did a few weeks back on our way to San Francisco from the Jacksonville airport; the little booth reminded me of something at a hi-tech spa. The whole thing wasn’t so bad, although it would have been nicer if the process included a free spray tan.

I’m not a particularly modest lady, having logged plenty of afternoons in the nudey section of Muir Beach in my 20s as well as also having given birth in a room full of curious med students. I don’t really care if the person checking my electronic image for dangerous materials took a nice long gander at my fillings and the copper IUD hanging out in my Fallopian tubes.

However, apparently I was deemed extra suspicious that day because I also got my boobs patted down by a female TSA officer and that’s when I started thinking there really has to be a better way to protect the skies from shoe bombers and underpants terrorists. Wouldn’t it just be easier to ask me, point blank, if I planned to blow up the plane today? If my eyes got shifty and I started to sweat, then it might be prudent to take me aside and start touching me, but being felt up, in public, in front of my children, made me think we’re already living in a police state where any of us could be denied due process in a flash.

Seeing as I wanted to get to San Francisco, and my family was pacing around like I was being detained by KGB agents, I remained calm and cooperative with the lady with the plastic gloves, hoping that El Yenta Man’s snarky sexual comments would not get me hauled off to a Siberian work camp for an anal probe.

John Tyner gave no such acquiescence. He’s the guy in San Diego last weekend who refused his airport scan and recorded the consequences on his cell phone. Instead of submitting to the alternative method for determining his danger to other passengers (which basically includes everything but an anal probe), he turned around and went home. You can listen to the full exchange (in which Tyner famously warns the TSA agent not to touch his “junk”) here.

All week long people have spouted on about how the scanners and patdowns are “a necessary evil” of the times in which we live, while others are revolting against the breach in privacy and civil rights. CBSNews posted today that nobody even knows if the scanners even work since the information is highly classified. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of clusterf*ck ensues next week as the entire country crisscrosses itself in order to eat turkey with their loved ones.

We Americans talk so tough about our rights to own guns and vote in morons to Congress—why are we so willing to give up the right to be treated with dignity in the name of fear? Yet another mystifying paradox.

You know who’s watching all this nonsense and shaking their heads? The Israelis. This Toronto Star interview with Rafi Sela, who set up Tel Aviv International Airport’s highly efficient, six-tiered security system that keeps passengers moving and the bad guys out, is a must-read—especially the part about what would actually happen if a bomb was discovered in any major American airport and the entire place had to be evacuated.

The brunt of Israeli airport (and other types of) security relies on the individual screeners’ willingness to look a person in the eye and discern whether he or she is acting suspicious—none of this American faux-politeness (“Sir, please step to the side and submit to a search…”) Somehow as Americans we’ve come to believe that this “behavioral profiling” is discriminatory, when it so many cases it is a poisonous form of political correctness. According to Sela, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his exploding underwear would have never found his way onto a plane last Christmas if he’d gone through Israel.

“Israelification” shows us what we lack when it comes to vetting out possibly security threats from massive crowds: Balls. The very junk that John Tyner didn’t want that government TSA agent touching.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get more absurd, that ignorance-luvin’ element of our society that rejects evolution and dinosaurs has now turned its dull Cyclops eye on Einstein.

University of Virginia physics professor Paul Fishbane writes in yesterday’s Tablet of Conservapedia.com‘s re-labeling of the theory of relativity a “liberal conspiracy,” and geez, it is a mindbender. Not just because it’s challenging to absorb an AP Physics review before I’ve had a second cup of tea in spite of Dr. Fishbane’s generous simplifications, but that people actually believe the example of Jesus walking on water is a valid refutation of space-time curvature.

Conservapedia is a crowd-source “encyclopedia” founded by Andrew Schlafly (son of pursey-faced anti-feminist Phyllis) and patterned after Wikipedia, though it appears that most of its contributors were homeschooled in Waco, Texas.

Its entry on the “counterexamples to relativity” describes the Einstein’s findings on the nature of mass and speed and light are “heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world” and cites the following as Reason #20 why the theory of relativity is bunk:

“The lack of useful devices developed based on any insights provided by the theory; no lives have been saved or helped, and the theory has not led to other useful theories and may have interfered with scientific progress.”

Huh. While the atom-smashing that led to the nuclear bomb doesn’t count as fun times for humanity, surely the implication that relativity is “just a theory” that’s had no impact on the world is asinine. Nuclear power might not be perfect, but it is a viable power source. And how many lives have been saved—and helped— by PET scans that detect cancer and who would have found themselves wandering around in circles if not for their GPS device?

Though there is no overt anti-Semitism, Dr. Fishbane susses that the rejection of Einstein’s work smacks of the Nazi political tactic of rejecting science that doesn’t jive with the agenda. He writes that the Conservapedians believe that “Einstein is at the root of a Great Liberal Conspiracy. His work is not science but a foundation for radicalism; relativity is not a scientific theory but the advance guard for an all-out assault on the edifice of fundamental conservatism and, by extension, on absolute authority.”

We’re up against people who are using Genesis and the New Testament as their physics textbooks, folks. How do you argue with that kind of crazy? Read Dr. Fishbane’s entire article here.

When I was a kid, the neighborhood boys would play a game with a Nerf football called “Smear the Queer.”

I wasn’t old enough to discern the homophobic nuances, but the spectacle of pre-teenagers with spindly mustaches beating the living crap out of the unlucky guy with the ball was enough to keep me in my own yard, safely ensconced in a Nancy Drew book. These were the kids who smoked cigarettes in their basement rec room lit by black light bulbs that made everyone’s teeth a scary yellow, and any game they played I quickly knew better than to be a part of.

Apparently, some students at La Quinta High School near Palm Springs, CA had no such inner compass, as several were apprehended this summer for spending the wee hours of the morning playing a game called “Beat the Jew.”

According to Care2.com, “the game consists of “Jews” being blindfolded and taken to a random location off the freeway. They then must make it to “base,” or the school, while being chased by “Nazis” who are out to tackle and capture them. While seven students were caught, the game has 40 fans on its Facebook page.”

Charming. The Facebook page has since been shut down, and the ADL swooped into Southern Cali this week to throw down what’s bound to be one muthafarkin’ tolerance and anti-bias education program, but I have my doubts that even Ravin’ Abe Foxman Himself can really make a difference to these kids.

Especially since some of them defended themselves with the argument that their “Beat the Jew” game was not anti-Semitic since no Jews were actually harassed.

Seriously, how much patience does a society have to have for this kind of stupidity? Does that mean the late afternoon ass-kickings of “Smear the Queer” weren’t homophobic because my scary redneck neighbors didn’t shake the sh*t out of any actual gay people?

At least they might have truthfully claimed that they didn’t know the word “queer” was a fairly obvious reference to a gay person in 1978. But how could the term “Jew,” in 2010 or 1939 or 1492, refer to anything else?

Have you met Alice yet?

At 106, she’s the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, but that’s hardly the most remarkable thing about this extraordinary lady. Filmmaker Nick Reed captures the magnificent light of his graceful and lovely subject in “Alice Dancing Under the Gallows,” his forthcoming documentary that’s been burning up the Interwebs with this trailer:

A testament to the capacity of the human spirit, certainly. And also a damn good reason to keep taking piano lessons.

Would you believe you can pre-order the film for $4.99? Do it, do it now, and show it to all your friends when it arrives.

Remember that fab new job I started over the summer promoting Georgia history? Well, it’s history as of Friday.

Not quite sure what happened, as I had some what I consider several successes in attracting statewide media coverage to the organization in the five months I was there, but apparently there were other factors involved that remain opaque. All I can say is I know I did everything I could to squeeze this round tushy into a square hole and I wish all the lovely people over there the very best.

Bygones. The good news is that I’m a full-time yenta again, which means this website will be getting some kind of makeover in the coming months and that the book proposal will get some loving attention.

Speaking of books, I picked up Dara Horn’s latest, All Other Nights, last week at the library and I’m already hooked like a gap-mouthed trout. It’s a meticulously researched historical novel about Jewish spies who run both sides of lines during the Civil War, a period I remain fascinated by in spite of not being paid to like it anymore.

From the publisher:

Based on real personalities like Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy’s Jewish Secretary of State and spymaster, and on historical facts and events ranging from an African-American spy network to the dramatic self-destruction of the city of Richmond, All Other Nights is a gripping and suspenseful story of men and women driven to the extreme limits of loyalty and betrayal. It is also a brilliant parable of the rift in America that lingers a century and a half later: between those who value family and tradition first, and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

So that’ll keep me busy for a little bit. It’s so interesting to see a broadened historical context for Jewish stories—especially the in early American history. Of course, Savannah’s storied Jewish past would make excellent fodder for a novel…I’ll get right on that, ‘k?

Continuing on the Civil War theme, I, along with the rest of the folks at last night’s Director’s Choice showing at the Savannah Film Festival, got a sneak peek of Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, filmed right here in the SAV. The film stars that sexy Scot James McEvoy as the lawyer charged with defending the mother of one of the men who planned Abraham Lincoln’s assassination—played with depth and grace by the gorgeous and amazing Robin Wright (I do believe she has dropped her ex-husband’s name.)

I’ve been a devoted fan of RW’s since I was a teenager—yes, before she was Forrest Gump‘s Jenny, even before she melted everyone’s heart as The Princess Bride: I have adored her since she was the beautifully tragic Kelly Capwell on the super-cheesy 80s soap opera Santa Barbara and I would fake being sick just so I could stay home and watch her get chased by her serial killer boyfriend and have miscarriages. Many years later, when she and then-husband Sean Penn lived down the road from us in Marin County, I once saw her at the drugstore and stared for about 30 seconds longer than would make anyone comfortable

So yes, that’s embarrassing, and when I got to actually meet and hang out with her last night at a dive bar on River Street, I am proud to say I kept those little tidbits to myself. By the way, she’s as gorgeous in person as she is onscreen—you should see The Conspirator just to check out her flawless complexion.

The night also paid tribute to Bobby Zarem, legendary publicist and Savannah son, whom I am hoping to interview here very soon, if he’ll have me. Bobby is the great mind behind the “I (Heart) NY” campaign and one stupendous character; he’s the magnet that’s attracted so many stars and films and finance to Savannah and I feel pretty damn cool wearing my “I (HEART) BZ” baseball hat today.

Finally, the best thing about losing my job is that I have time to take my mother-in-law to lunch at the JEA with the other Yentas today. She’s difficult to manage these days, her body deteriorating almost as quickly as her mind, but she still likes the chicken. And the company, I think. I know I do.

Oh fer froop’s sake: Since October 31 falls on a Sunday this year, the City of Savannah has taken it upon itself to change Halloween to Saturday, apparently to accommodate the complaints of a few idiots who want to have their religion and their candy, too.

Chatham County Commissioner (I’m almost positive this isn’t even a real job) Pete Liakakis said the reason for endorsing this completely farkakte move is meant to “address the concerns some parents had about celebrating Halloween on their day of worship.”

Hmm. I can’t pretend to know that much about churchgoin’, but doesn’t the worship usually wrap up around noon on Sundays in time for a nice lunch? And if you’re seriously that into the hypocrisy that’s hijacked Christianity, shouldn’t you be at home praying for all the gay people and Democrats and the rest of us sinners no matter what day of the week it is?

Because Savannah is city that prides itself on providing an equal opportunity for absurdity for all its citizens, the Savannah Morning News article included this unhelpful tidbit:

Acknowledging the members of Chatham’s Jewish community, Mayor Otis Johnson noted their Saturday Sabbath ends at sunset, which allows for trick-or-treating that night.

Mayor Johnson, it’s very nice that you would consider the small number of observant Savannah Jewish families that this would affect, but I would think from your education at Brandeis University you would have concluded that any Jew who wouldn’t trick-or-treat on the Sabbath wouldn’t trick-or-treat AT ALL.

Yes, according to his Facebook page, Mayor Otis Johnson attended Brandeis University. Still wrapping my mind around that one.

Say, maybe should Christmas should be changed to Dec. 24 because the 25th is the Jewish Sabbath and I’m sure that I can find a way how that is somehow inconvenient. I think I’ll invite Mayor Johnson over for gribenes chopped liver to discuss.

On a related note, The Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival has stubbornly stuck to its October 31 commitment to taking over Forsyth Park with egg creams, reubens, kugel, matzah ball soup and every other Jewishy treat you can imagine–just don’t ask the bubbies to do a trick or you might get slapped.

UPDATE: The New York Times picked up this story. Fan-freakin’-tastic.

Last post I had to get all furtive about why I’ve been a slow Yenta because there was a VERY BIG SECRET at stake. You should know by now that beguilement is NOT my strong suit (unlike loquaciousness, kvetching and tailored linen in a size 6, which ARE my strong suits) and it was terribly difficult for me not to ruin everything.

See, my dad, also known here as Dr. Skip, was invited to San Francisco to accept the Humanitarian of the Year award from the American Osteopathic Association for his volunteer surgical work in Tanzania for the past four summers. (What, you need background information you say? Read one of my many posts on the subject. Even better, especially if you enjoy detailed descriptions of leprosy and goiters, is Dr. Skip’s blog.)

Humanitarian of the Year—kind of a big deal. So my mother thoughtfully decided that Dr. Skip should be surrounded by his entire family while accepting this award. Because she is a huge fan of suspense and drama, my mother also decided that the presence of me, El Yenta Man, the Yenta children, my Brother the Doctor and his Fabulous Flower-Named French Girlfriend should remain unknown to the Humanitarian of the Year until the last possible moment, so as to maximize the excitement of the occasion.

This plan was hatched back almost six months ago. That equals approximately a few hundred phone calls, emails and texts to my father in which I made NO MENTION of the fact that I would be seeing him in San Francisco in October. This was more challenging for me than it was for the children, who seemed to revel in the conspiracy and would say wistfully on the phone “I miss you SOOO much, Grandpa…I wish we could see you SOOOON. It’s no FAIR we won’t see you until DECEMBER…”

I couldn’t even update my Facebook page to let the West Coast peeps we’d be in town because even though Dad flicks around the social media neighborhoods about as often as El Yenta Man changes the toilet paper roll, he might’ve checked his FB page at the precise moment I made a reference to looking forward to Shabbos dinner in the redwoods, and then my mother would’ve written me out of the will. Counting down the last few weeks I pretty much had to stop speaking to him altogether because keeping the secret devolved my conversational skills into a series of excited cheeps.

Somehow, we all managed to keep our mouths shut and our electronic devices innocent and shlepped across the country last week. We spent a few days in our beloved town of Fairfax before heading to the city, where my mother had orchestrated the MOMENT at the lovely Waterfront restaurant on the Embarcadero. We gathered and turned to face him en masse as he walked up to the bar. Boy, was he surprised. And fortunately, did not have a heart attack. (I personally do not enjoy surprises like this, so if I ever win Best Jewish Mother Blogger in the Whole Wide World, please keep that in mind, Mom.)

We attended the award ceremony the next day, where Dr. Skip accepted a nice fat plaque in a roomful of his peers, successors and yes, his whole family. Unfortunately, my iPhone snaps look terrible but I’ll see if Bro the Doc caught some better ones. He kept his speech short and sweet, telling the other doctors that after a long career, they absolutely deserve a retirement of golf and leisure, but if they missed the adrenaline rush of caring for patients, there are a whole heck of a lot of organizations who’d be glad to accommodate them.

Serious kvells. How many kids and grandkids get to see the family patriarch recognized for service? Totally worth the jet lag.

Speaking of jet lag, Dr. Skip says he’ll be returning to Sumbawunga next summer, right on schedule. I don’t know how he and my mom find the energy to travel like they do—Las Vegas last week, San Francisco over the weekend—Crikey, just driving to Tybee for the weekend stresses me out, and I’ll probably be recovering from this cross country whirlwind for weeks.

And get this: Right before we all said our good-byes, Dad causally mentioned that he’ll be heading out this weekend for Washington, DC of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and take photos for the Phoenix Jewish News!

This you call retirement, Dad? Maybe you’re not just a humanitarian but possibly part robot?

Oh and by the way: GO GIANTS!

I’ve been digging through Cafepress and other interwebby places searching for decent Jewy t-shirts for over six years now, and I promise you, I’ve seen ’em all. but for you dahlinks, I post only the best.

Most of them are painfully silly (if I come across “Don’t Worry, Be Jewish” one more time I’ma gonna gag) and occasionally downright offensive, but once in a great while I find a jewel of a Jewish schmata that gives me a good chuckle, even stirring an urge to point and click myself to PayPal to purchase it.

Today is our lucky day, friends.

It’s kind of misnomer to call it a “T-Shirt of the Week” since this logo is more apropos for a trucker hat and it might well be three months before I find another worthy candidate for the category:

Just in case you can’t read that, it says: “I hope you Jewish, ’cause you Israeli hot!”

Heheheheh. Cheaply punny, yet you laughed, didn’t you?

Get it from JTshirt.com.

Also, posting will be slow for the next lil’ bit for reasons I cannot relay at this time but promise to fill you in on later.