Thing of the Day: Passover

Even though/especially because my roommate and I failed to go to tonight's Vanderbilt-sponsored seder, I would like to take this time to say that Passover is among my favorite Jewish holidays. I love Seders. In high school, these would involve long, wine-drenched meals at my best friend Rachel's house. Rachel's mother is Jewish and her father is not, and their Haggadah (the text that tells the Passover story and explains the Seder) was deliberately simplified and hand-illustrated with stick figures in order to teach him, (and bad Jews such as myself who learned the story of Passover exclusively from The Prince of Egypt) the stories with minimal complaint.

Last year, Passover fell during a trip to Moscow with my dear friend Stacy, and being a better Jew than I, Stacy rallied the four other celebrators in our tour group and assembled us in a Russian Restaurant that was a bizarre cross between an all-you-can-eat buffet and a Soviet TGIFriday's, where we made the best of it by arranging eggs, herbs, and assorted vegetables on a circular plate and drinking copious amounts of crappy Russian wine. We kept the celebrations pretty discreet, because I'm pretty sure they still hate Jews in the Motherland, but Stacy led some prayers and we felt rather proud of ourselves.

This year, a piling up of midterms exams and general laziness caused me to miss the Seder. I initially tried to claim that my vegetarian-ness would prevent me from eating the traditional foods, but when one thinks about it, that is a lie. The Seder is really as vegetarian as Jewish foods go. And if the Obamas can do it (awww, Barack and Michelle), so can I. In the face of midterms, TiVo, and excessive excuse making, we are going to the Vanderbilt Hillel's celebration tomorrow.

I am hoping that my efforts to keep Passover (that is, refrain from eating breads/bread products) this year will combat the fact that I spent the hours that I was supposed to be at Seder buying children's aquatic toys and warm-weather alcohol for my upcoming beach weekend in Florida.

But for serious, happy holidays and warm wishes to all those celebrating.

Thing of the Day: Chelsea Handler

I have expressed my not-so-secret aspirations to become Chelsea Handler (that is, physically morph into her in every way shape and form possible) both on this blog and in every day life, but after reading her third book, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, I have become hellbent on going to a filming of Chelsea Lately, charming her with my own inappropriate humor and affinity towards vodka sodas and television, and becoming Ms. Handler's intern and susequently her second in command for all time.

In Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, Chelsea takes her 300 pound African driver to Turks & Caicos to find him a lover, adopts a dog with the same nickname as her boyfriend, steals a Cabbage Patch Kid from the neighboring teenage boy in exchange for an innocent game of doctor (here we diverge, Chels--I find Cabbage Patch Kids terrifying and awful dolls for children. They look like Chucky and cause hieghtened levels of teenage pregnancy in kids who grown up thinking that babies come from cabbage patches), and boozes her way through weddings, funerals, meetings, and casual Monday afternoons.

Furthermore, a recent episode of Chelsea Lately has clued me into this gem of a news piece--Zhora, a chimpanzee in zoological captivity in my great communist hometown of Moscow, has been expelled from the zoo and sent to rehab because of his drinking problem. Oh yes--zookeepers decided that Zhora the chimpanzee was consuming too much alcohol, and the alcohol caused him to behave erratic and aggresive. Additionally, he began to fiend for booze to the point where he would harrass innocent zoo-goers sipping on brewskis for sips of their alcohol, and sometimes accompany his liquoring habits with cigarettes.

WHAT? How does a chimp even hold a cigarette, let alone smoke one? Cigarettes are fairly fragile, I always find them irritatingly broken in half and scattering tar and nicotine onto all of the contents of my purse. Chimpanzees have big hairy clumsy hands, and if they get their hands on cigarettes without breaking them, how in the world do they light them?

Food for thought for Chelsea's next book, perhaps. Or mine.

Thing of the Day: Handicapped Restrooms

Up until seeing the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David is berated by a man in a wheelchair by using a handicapped restroom, I hadn't considered that the etiquette on handicapped restrooms is the same as that in say, handicapped parking spots--they are actually reserved only for the use of handicapped people.

I don't know if its because my immigrant parents didn't teach me better (because c'mon, there's no way Communist Russia attended to the public bathroom needs of handicapped people), but when it's available, I always use the handicapped restroom. It's bigger, and usually all the way at the end of the row of stalls and thus tends to have less urine on the seat. Speaking of urine on public restroom seats, I wish germaphobes everywhere would realize that there wouldn't be urine on (female) restroom seats, ever, if they could just stop squatting. It's simply unneccessary and creates a vicious cycle of pee. Sitting directly on the toilet seat is about as unsanitary as sitting on any public seat anywhere ever in a skirt. It is only the back of your thighs that touch toilet, not your genitalia or any somewhat private part. Last time I checked, one can contract no diseases via thigh to thigh contact.

But what do I know? I have full use of all my limbs and have never suffered from seizures or any other handicapping ailment and proudly and exclusively use those massive, sometimes equipped with own sink (!) last stalls.