The Domestication of Murray and Other Meshugas

When asked over the years if I cooked, Gilda usually replied, nine times out of ten I could boil water—maybe. I would respond, Gilda and I had a mutual-partition-of-domestic-labor-pact: she would cook, we’d both enjoy the gourmet meals she prepared, I would be in charge of setting the table and cleaning up the dishes and pots and pans. 

The arrangement worked fairly well from my perspective for 40 years, but change is afoot. Given Gilda’s work schedule which includes waking up at 5:18 am, I have been conscripted into the meal preparation corps. Tuesday night was our first dinner at Maison Murray, Cucina Murray, Bistro Murray or just plain Murray’s Kitchen. We dined on broiled salmon, baked potatoes garnished with butter and sour cream, and steamed broccoli. We don’t eat dessert, as a rule, unless you count after-dinner pills as a treat. 

Tonight’s pre-tennis menu includes cheese blintzes and salad. 

Don’t think my cooking exploits know no bounds. I’m very much the neophyte chef in the kitchen, though I’ve put together a list of some dozen meals to rotate into our Monday through Thursday repasts. I’m writing down detailed instructions for each dish, making sure we have a balance of protein, starch and vegetable. 

This is a brave step for me, though not entirely a new world as I cooked for myself while in graduate school at Syracuse University. In my garret of an apartment in an old Victorian-style house on East Genesee Street, I would cook tuna casserole, meat loaf and anything else that would fit into a toaster oven. I also learned to drink beer, really drink beer. My friend and classmate Steve Kreinberg introduced me to Lum’s, a chain of family restaurants whose signature dish was hot dogs cooked in beer. I preferred their basket of fried shrimp, but what made a visit to Lum’s special was the frosted mugs used to serve the beer. To commemorate those days I keep a few mugs frosting away in the freezer. 

This Is Crazy: I'm always amused when gentiles try to speak Yiddish. They never get the intonation right. For example, instead of a guttural, growly “chutzpah” that conveys the indignant reproach of the speaker, it usually comes out as a soft “hutzpah,” a kind of “oh, really” quality to the put down.

Incorporating Yiddish in one’s writing isn't easy, either. Take Maureen Dowd’s attempt in her column last Sunday for The NY Times. Analyzing Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential prospects, Dowd wrote, “Her challenge is to get into the future and stay there, adding fresh people and perspectives and leaving the Clinton mishegoss (italics added) and cheesiness in the past.”

When I first read this I chuckled. I wondered how many non-Jews would realize she meant to say “meshugas,” the Yiddish word for craziness. I was all set to lambaste her for failing to correctly spell meshugas when I decided to do some checking and came across the following 2009 article from The Jewish Daily Forward (http://forward.com/articles/116716/clearing-up-the-meshugas-for-maureen-dowd-and-will/). 

For those not willing to jump on the link, here’s a precis: It seems Dowd had previously used the meshugas spelling but was chastened by Times columnist and wordsmith William Safire that the correct spelling was mishegoss. Safire might have been the only one to believe that, but his stature was sufficient for Dowd to follow his example. 

The lesson to be learned from this—before criticizing, it’s a good idea to check as many facts as possible. Thank you Google and the Internet.

Mr. Lucky: I consider myself fortunate not to be in school these days, not when technology enables teachers to monitor a student’s reading and study habits (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/technology/coursesmart-e-textbooks-track-students-progress-for-teachers.html?ref=education&_r=0). From high school on, I was a lousy student. I received good grades in subjects I was interested in, but not because I read the course material. I was just hard-wired, or lucky enough, to know the answers in subjects ranging from history to English to elementary sciences. 

I’d be in real trouble if my grades depended on whether I was reading the assignments. 

For Shame: There’s no doubt Margaret Thatcher was a polarizing figure, not just in British politics but throughout the world, as well. I find it shameful, however, that while media baron Rupert Murdoch praised the former prime minister for being "undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the 20th century. I found her attitude an inspiration in my business life,” he allowed his British tabloid paper, The Sun, to trumpet her passing with the following headline: “Maggie Dead In Bed At Ritz.” 

How tawdry. How lacking in respect. How shameful.

Three Departures

The airwaves have been filled all day long with news, commentaries and tributes to the Great Lady, the Iron Lady of British politics, the longest serving British prime minister of the 20th century, the indefatigable Margaret Thatcher who taught Ronald Reagan a thing or two about what it means to be conservative, who is credited with, at least temporarily, stopping the slide of the British Empire, or at least shoring up the pride behind the Union Jack. Thatcher died Monday. She was 87.

No less an iconic cultural figure passed away Monday, as well. Annette Funicello, one of the original Mousketeers of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club died. She was 70. For many of my age cohort, she was the embodiment (emphasis on body) of growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, first from her exposure on the Mickey Mouse Club and then from her recurring beach party films with Frankie Avalon. 

When the Mickey Mouse Club made its debut in October 1955, Funicello was but 13 years old. I always thought my sister Lee, four years younger than her, looked a lot like Funicello, though as Annette grew older and filled out her Mousketeer shirt, Lee’s resemblance appeared less prominent. 

Though it lasted for only three original seasons, when I was six through nine, I really loved the Mickey Mouse Club, especially the Spin and Marty dude ranch serial. Tim Considine played Spin, and later the eldest son of Fred MacMurray on My Three Sons. 

A departure of a different kind took place Monday at J.C. Penney. Ron Johnson, the CEO recruited from Apple, has been sacked, a little more than a year since taking the helm at Plano, Tex.-based Penney. He was replaced by the man he succeeded, Myron “Mike” Ullman, brought back from retirement (http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/johnson-out-ceo-jc-penney-ullman-back). 

Johnson’s fall from grace was swift but not unexpected. After scoring a success with the sleek Apple stores he helped create, it was not a surprise that transforming a dowdy department store with 100 years of tradition and arteriosclerosis would be difficult. 

Where will Johnson go from here? My guess is he will land at another specialty store, perhaps Best Buy which has been troubled of late and has the added benefit of being based near Minneapolis where Johnson worked as a key executive of Target.  

A Woman's Place (Is Up to a Man)

Ann Romney Blinked: Post-conventions, there was lots of talk about which candidate’s wife conjured up a more touching, if not so truthful, remembrance of the tough financial times she and her husband had starting out their lives together. 

Ann Romney pictured their struggle in a basement Boston apartment, eating tuna casseroles and pasta off an ironing board doing its best impression of a dining room table, while Mitt studied for his Harvard law and business degrees at a desk made from an old door propped up on two sawhorses. 

Not to be outdone, Michelle Obama related how she could see the pavement whizzing by from the holes in the floorboards of Barack’s car; his best pair of shoes were a size too small. 

Oh, how far the seemingly destitute have come!

I’m not sure if the First Lady has retracted any of her depiction, but Ann Romney fessed up to David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, “We have not had a financial struggle in our lives, but I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is to struggle.” 

For sure they did, as Ann began suffering from multiple sclerosis in 1998. Good thing her husband can afford quality health insurance, or to pay for her treatment out of pocket in case a new insurance company would deny her coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Unless, of course, she’d choose to be covered under provisions of Obamacare that requires insurance companies to extend coverage even for pre-conditions. 

For the record, I was less than impressed by David Gregory’s big moment with Mitt. I watched Meet the Press after returning home from my weekly softball game. Gregory’s questions were softer than the pitches I hurled. What a wasted opportunity to pin Romney down to specifics. He tried once or twice, but for the most part he failed to ask probing questions. 

It also was interesting to hear Romney talk about the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, considering many Christian sects don’t consider Mormons to be part of their faith. 

A Woman’s Place: Recent articles and events struck me as indicators the world is far from accepting women as equals with men. First there was the controversy in Missouri generated by Rep. Todd Akin on the issue of “legitimate rape” and the ability of a woman’s body to fend off uninvited sperm. That an elected congressman in this day and age could harbor such nonsense is beyond the pale. He’s a deeply religious man. I wonder how much his ignorance is engendered by his religious teachings.

Which brings us to the first article, (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/world/middleeast/05iht-letter05.html?_r=1&bl), a depiction of a woman’s place according to the new rulers of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood. In case you haven’t yet clicked on the link, here’s how the writer, Mona El-Naggar, started her article, “Women are erratic and emotional, and they make good wives and mothers — but never leaders or rulers. That, at least, is what Osama Abou Salama, a professor of botany at Cairo University and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told young men and women during a recent premarital counseling class.”

The Muslim Brotherhood apparently does not believe such women as Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, or Golda Meir were good leaders or rulers. It doesn’t look promising for the women of Egypt, many of whom protested last year in Tahir Square in the hope they would achieve equal status from a post-Mubarak government.

It doesn’t look too rosy to the northeast of Egypt, either. Israel made the desert bloom, but it cannot cultivate tolerance among its religious zealots. Even with their lives at stake, Haredim, the ultra Orthodox, adhere to dictates that endanger the Jewish state. A long-time deferment from compulsory military service has been lifted, so Haredim are now being drafted. The Israeli military has long been an assimilator and equalizer, but the Haredim are offering stiff resistance to modernity, as can be seen in last Sunday’s Review submission in the NY Times by Shani Boianjiu, “What Happens When the Two Israel’s Meet” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/opinion/sunday/what-happens-when-the-two-israels-meet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss). 

No, the world does not look very egalitarian these days.