Broccoli-Mama-in-law

Wow, so I haven't blogged in 6 months.  I'm always thinking about topics for the next blog, but somehow get myself all finger-tied (as opposed to tongue-tied) when it comes to putting the ideas stirring in my head on to the keyboard.  Too much thinking and not enough doing.  

My mother-in-law, Helen Wachtel, passed away in September.  She and I were civil to each other, but in a way, we were rivals, both vying for Broccoli Rob's attention.  I always lost that battle.  Helen was a difficult person to begin with and I'm not here to trash her like I used to.  She lived to be 92 and was in fairly good shape until a few weeks prior to her demise.  I can't say she was a happy person, but as an outsider looking in, I didn't think she had it so bad.  But anyway, she once told me of how she left Hitler-occupied Germany when she was 12 or 13 years old and I thought I should let that information go forth.

Helen, born in 1922, grew up with her younger sister, Ellen, in Worms, Germany.    She spoke fondly of her family, especially her grandparents on both sides.  We have some lovely photos of her childhood in Germany and it's a shame no one can name many of the friends and relatives in the pictures anymore.  But my mother-in-law, who grew up Jewish (but not observant), said that one day she was forced to attend a Catholic School.  She was young, but she was aware of the indignities around her.  Her father, who must have been very clever, decided it was time for the family to leave Germany.  This was the early 30's.

As Helen once told me, she and her family lived next door to a Gentile family, a wife, an alcoholic husband and a child.  Helen's mother had befriended the wife in that family and would be especially helpful when the alcoholic husband was, well, alcoholic.  The child of the alcoholic grew up to work in the passport office in Germany.  Voila!  The child didn't forget that Helen's mother was a good friend to her own mom and was able to process all the passports to get the family and one set of grandparents to safety in the US.  (The other grandparents must have already passed away from old age).  

So, my mother-in-law and her immediate family were able to sail to America with all their belongings--furniture, clothes, dishes.  I thought that was pretty amazing, as my own grandparents/great-grandparents, came here from Minsk with the little that they had to their name.  When I first got married 30 years ago, Helen gave me some of the furniture that she sailed with.   She didn't want the items anymore as she wanted new stuff.  I like the old stuff anyway.  And to think of the history that came over on that trip.   

 Look at this old buffet from Germany.  It's a bit scratched up on the bottom (from the vacuum cleaner), but still functional and beautiful.

 These are the dishes my mother-in-law's parents brought with them to the US.  Service for 16, but not all the salad plates survived.  I proudly use this set every Thanksgiving.  Haven't broken a piece yet.

This wooden armoire is still in great shape.  I still have the original skeleton key to open the doors.

So these beautiful old pieces of furniture remain with me, from their start in the days before Hitler-powered Germany.  A lot of history here and, quite frankly, some nice pieces of homesteading that I've put to use.  Thank you, Helen, for these items.  Rest in peace.  

Mother of the Bride, Part I

I'm an MOB, a mother of the bride.  My older daughter, Broccoli Baby, will be getting married later this year.  Small-ish, fancy-ish affair for mostly immediate family and the betrotheds' friends.  Broccoli Baby has nice taste, is a master at party planning and pays attention to detail.  She's making all the wedding arrangements herself and I predict all will be perfect. 

As the MOB, of course I’ll need a new outfit for the affair.  (Broccoli Bob insists on wearing one of his, ahem, better suits, and we're just hoping he gets it altered in time.  He's no fashionisto).  This past weekend, Broccoli Baby came over for the sole intent on shopping with me for my MOB outfit.  I have in mind what I'd like...palazzo pants (back in style, thankfully!), a colorful, flowing jacket and pretty flat shoes.  I also know what I don't want--no spanx, no high heels, no pantyhose, no matronly dress and probably not any dress at all.

Broccoli Baby is fine with my ideas.  She, being the daughter she is, wants me to be comfortable and agrees with my decision to wear nice pants to her Saturday evening affair.  She knows that:         

1. I haven't worn a dress in ages. 
2. I don't do pantyhose.  I consider them tortuous to women without waistlines.  I gave them up a long time ago when it was clear that I wasn't getting a waistline back post-partum.  Being on the short and squat side, pantyhose can only fit around my waist if the legs are about 20" longer than they needs to be.  All that tucking under the toes and cramping the nylon into the shoe is way behind me.  I stand firm on no pantyhose.  Ever.  
3. Haven't worn any footwear with a heel in ages either.  That has naturally happened after years of walking around hospitals and years of comfort in sneakers.  When I first started working as a dietitian, I was able to wear gorgeous peep-toed high heels to work without pain.  Now, I can wear cute flats, but they're only worn for beauty, not comfort.  
4. Spanx.  see #2 regarding tortuous women's apparel.  
5. Oh, and I don't wear sleeveless, so that needs to be added to the "what I know I don't want" category.  Those with thick waistlines often have wriggly upper arms.  There I am.

Broccoli Baby and I go through the entire mall looking for my MOB outfit.  Lots of strapless gowns, plenty of matronly long dresses with sparkly shoulder padded jackets (not me!), loads of too-young-for-me outfits.  But wait.  Sak's has a pair of black palazzo pants with a beautifully designed stripe up the sides.  I try them on.  No exaggeration--they're about 15 inches too long.  And they're (no exaggeration again) $1195.00.  Yup.  1200 bucks for a pair of pants.  (All the clothes in my closet right now don't add up to $1200).  Broccoli Baby and I carefully slip out of the Sak's dressing room before the saleslady returns.  (But at least they fit in a smaller size than I expected.  Now that’s priceless).  

Next to Nordstroms, where Broccoli Baby has arranged a personal shopper for me, and he is waiting, with bottled water, and clothes already hanging in a lavish dressing room based on the “rules” Broccoli Baby phoned in.  What's there but:

1. A sleeveless cocktail dress.  (Can you picture me in this?  What a laugh).  To boot, it’s creased.  The least he could have done was steam those lines out.   
2. The aforementioned matronly dress with a sequined, shoulder-padded jacket.  And to boot, it ties at the waist.  Didn't I already say I didn't have a waist?  
3. A horrible, really horrible, gold jacket with dolman sleeves with a stretched out buttonhole.  

this isn't me, but you get the picture, don't you?

So this poor personal shopper is feeling badly for me.  I tell him that I’d like pants, so he goes back out and brings back, ta-dah, the exact same pair of pants I tried on at Saks.  And the price tag is still $1195.  He brings in a white (sleeveless!!) sparkly top and a black sparkly jacket and they’re obviously not a matching set.  Even though I tell this to him, he insists that they match.  I see Broccoli Baby from the corner of my eye shaking her head “no.’”  See, I’m right.  They don’t match.  But I try them all on anyway, the $1195 pants, the $200 white sleeveless blouse and the $600 mismatched jacket.  Pants are too long, blouse and jacket too baggy.  They don’t fit.  They don’t match.  They’re schlumpy and hideous.  I stand on that little platform in from of the tri-folded mirror and pronounce…”FOR TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS SHOULDN’T I LOOK BETTER THAN THIS.”   Loehmans...come back.   

NAT GLATT

Cute name, huh?  It’s the name of my childhood piano teacher from Jersey City.  Nat Glatt (I had to address him as Mr. Glatt, but when I referred to him otherwise, it always came out as the melodious sounding one-syllable "NatGlatt") came to my house every week to hear my horrible piano playing.  The piano was beautiful however.  A Wurlitzer ‘living room grand’ in the turreted alcove of my grandparent’s apartment on the first floor of the house we shared with them.  The piano was bought in Newark by my grandfather and presented to my mother on her 16^th birthday (1942) in that same apartment.  My mother, to my knowledge, barely played it, but can still play “I love coffee, I love tea” if she’s in the mood. 

Wurlitzer living room grand piano, in of all places, my living room.

I loved that piano but, as most kids of age 10 or so, didn’t want to practice.  I used the excuse that I couldn’t practice because I had Hebrew School right after school, and after that, in the evenings, my grandparents were in the living room watching tv, so how could I practice?  Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good reason.  I guess I could have made more of an effort on the weekends, but nah. 

Nat Glatt as far as I was concerned though, was renown in all the Jewish piano-playing homes in Jersey City for his great knowledge of Broadway show tunes.  I still have the enormous book of ‘show tunes’ piano music that Nat Glatt said was used by weddings bands of the era.  That book I loved!!  Words and music for all the hit Broadway and pop tunes of the 1960’s—‘Blame it on the boss nova’, 'Mame,' 'Sunrise, Sunset,' etc.  It’s the reason I knew all the lyrics to these songs, though all my friends were listening to the Beatles by then.  I still have the book and had put reinforcements on all 470+ pages!!  I certainly had time to lick reinforcements, but didn't find the time to practice the piano.

We only had to pay $10, not the $75 that's printed!!

Nat Glatt's instructions penned in

The best part though--besides the Wurlitzer living room grand piano--and besides the big book of show tunes, was my Aunt Jane singing from the kitchen whenever Nat Glatt or I was playing from the show tune book.  Aunt Jane was my mother’s sister who came back to live with my grandparents after her divorce.  Aunt Jane had a fabulous voice and even studied vocal performance in college (for the one year she was there).  She could have made a living as a singer, but she said she had 'mike fright.'  But boy, could she sing in the kitchen when no one was looking!  I swear she sounded just like Barbra Streisand!  

I think it was Aunt Jane’s accompaniment that got me as far as it did with playing the piano.  I was done with the instrument by age 13, though I'm still a show tune nerd.  My mother presented the piano to me as my college graduation gift, big pink bow and all wrapped around it, and I taught myself a couple of Scott Joplin rags on it right after that.  It had a place of honor in my first home after Broccoli Rob and I got married and it’s still with me, here in the living room of my condo, kinda hidden behind the couch. Years go by without a note being played on it’s very-out-of tune keyboard.   A few weeks ago, after seeing “Saving Mr. Banks, a movie about P.L. Travers and the making of the movie “Mary Poppins,” I came home and immediately opened my 1964 easy piano book to “Spoonful of Sugar” and played.  Those few left-handed chords came back to me natch.  Nat Glatt would be proud.

Just a buck!