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"Eternal Soup" ~ I'm Mortified!
Posted: May 15, 2011 By: Leah Jaffee

It's been a crazy week. Event after event, we pull long days to positive reviews. As a member of the sandwich generation, I manage calls to my mother and a quick visit erev Shabbat. Sadly, I fear she may succumb to Alzheimer's as has her sister. I feel compelled to check in on her more often. She frequently calls me at work and I don't know what she is talking about. Of course, my mother has a propensity to pick up very odd tidbits off the TV and try to repeat them to me. Something has to be lost in the translation; the world can't be that weird.

My four sisters keep the email chain going with their accounts of my mother's situation. We brace against the uncertainty of the future. Watching the Larry King special on Alzheimer's last week, I am nervous to hear that symptoms may present even at 55 years of age. We're all fair game. Once, my daughters and I are visiting my mom. As she is saying something my eldest turns to face me and silently mouths, "you're next". Thanks.

Aviva, whom I share custody with my ex Marty, seems to have spent more time at my place over the last few months. Since she is driving and can remember my pin number, I let her do the grocery shopping on occasion. Works for me; I live in grocery stores. She mostly makes good choices selecting broccoli, Nutella and chips. I'm into fusion cooking: Nutella on flour tortillas. It is sort of like a crepe, right? I even see on TV that it a healthy breakfast choice. Anyway, shopping gives her a sense of being in control, responsible and grown up. Always a proponent of self-service child rearing, I applaud her attempt at proving her independence.

Recently told by a good friend that Marty and I are the poster children for divorced couples, I take complaints by Aviva against the other household with a grain of salt. Aviva has definite ideas of right and wrong. As of late, she's been ranting about the food at Marty's. Animated and full of hyperbole, she declares that her father doesn't look at fruit and buys it already rotten. There is nothing but beans to eat. I remind her that I worked all through high school at the Pike Place Market. I remind her that I'm a caterer. I tell her that her complaints must be exaggerated. She tells me, "Mom, you wear gloves when you cook...at home!"

I've been aware (and envious) that Marty and Charla's kitchen is undergoing renovations as of late. Hearing Aviva protest about the stressful food preparations over the months, even I break and email Marty asking what idiot he hired who needed 6 months to remodel a kitchen. Finally, it is done and the ranting has ceased, more or less.

Back to my relaxing weekend. Shabbos is great; nap and more nap. By the end that nears 9:40 pm, I'm driving to Seward Park in pouring rain to pick up Aviva from Marty's. Why she can't stay until morning I haven't a clue. Today, leisurely going through the week's mail, I come across The JTNews, Seattle's local Jewish bimonthly. I see that Marty's column, "A View from the U" is in this issue. We may be divorced but I still appreciate his wit and odd perspective, somewhat irreverent as it is.

This week's title is "Eternal Soup".....(http://www.jtnews.net/index.php?/columnists/item/8359/C6/)

Okay, I'm dying! "This miraculous soup cooks up for Shabbos and, like the lechem panim (the "Bread of the Presence") of the Temple, that stayed fresh from Shabbos to Shabbos, grows tastier as the week unfolds." This is the best description in the entire article. I'm mortified. I'm ashamed by extension and even divorce doesn't redeem my unintentional co-conspirator status. What have I been allowing my kid to eat??! No wonder she has been at my house ranting. I'm embarrassed and humiliated....eternally ashamed. Marty, Marty........

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