And it was not whale blubber that had leaked, but olive oil from Italy. We had sent bottles of olive oil and vinegar and a container of coffee and a package of pasta and a picture of Brian and me with the statue with the tush.

I notified my mother of this, and got back this email:

Went to the post office with a black plastic bag lined laundry basket and got this lovely, albeit half wet, package. Only the oil broke, and it was very nicely encased in bubble wrap, but one side of it was open. The postal worker gave me the package in a plastic US mail basket after first telling me that the package was in isolation for fear of explosives. But somehow, it looked innocent enough, and he allowed me to take it. I opened it in the back of the car with the help of a UPS delivery guy who happened to be there picking up from the UPS box. He said it would have arrived safely from UPS, because they handle things much fewer times and much more carefully.

It's a shame, but It looked so nicely and compactly wrapped. . . . The second bottle is not damaged, nor is the pasta, nor is the other stuff in a box that I can't tell what it is (I don't remember).

Thanks for such a thoughtful gift!! Maybe I should dip the box in our salad to get a whiff of Italy! How in the world did you get all that home?

While we were in Italy, we purchased two additional bags to bring home all the heavy food we had purchased. And then we realized why people buy souvenirs of light little figurines and t-shirts and mugs. Everyone gets dry goods next time around.

So by some evil fluke of the calendar, we will be visiting my uncle for the third visit in a row. How taxing. On the bright side, I don't know if I made this public, but Brian got a job with the city and he starts working Monday. His department has a very long name, but I understand it has something to do with reviewing contracts. He is presently looking for another suit. I, on the other hand, am still schlepping around in my clothes from high school. Thank you, Non-Profit Organization!

09.08.04
At the risk of sounding like a crazy bag lady I would like to complain loudly about the erroneous association between religious fanaticism in this country and the term "moral".

People who own guns, support the death penalty, dislike foreigners, think gays are disgusting, believe unborn people should have more rights than born people, and eat buttered meat with ketchup for every meal are allowed to run around like headless chickens cloaked in the word "moral". Like streakers in raincoats. And they are allowed to do this because they spit up the word "God" into every two words they rub together. Like spitting headless chickens in raincoats.

I can do that too. Godgodgodgodgod. God bless America. God save the president. God bless you all. God is my co-pilot. How's my driving, God? God is in my TV. I married a Jewish carpenter named God.You're going to Hell!

I get very annoyed about this. Really I do. Why is a fetus worth more than a grown-up person? Because soggy almost-babies are cuter than cracked-up gang members? Are white people's lives generally cuter than the lives of people of color? And American people are cuter than Middle-Eastern people, obviously. A gun in my hand is a million times cuter than a gun in the hand of a criminal. Gay people can be cute on TV, but when they want to have the same rights as me, well, that's just going too far. And money is cuter in the hands of the already-rich, because when it gets into the hands of the sniveling poor, it gets all crapped up with their dirt and their sweat.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the Bush.

I am in full Crazy Bag Lady mode now. Why am I any less moral than Dick Cheney? I've never had enough money to be corrupted. I am a kindly vegetarian Jewish girl working at a Museum in downtown Manhattan. I get dern tootin' mad when I think how my tax dollars went to protect the well-fed folk who were lobbying last week to make sure I don't have as many rights or opportunities as they do. But at least the moral well-fed folk went to see Avenue Q while they were here.

From here on out, I would like to request that all demon-seed republicans who have previously been referred to as "moral" be heretofore identified as "bat-shit crazy" or "fascists". I would like to replace the word "values" with "give me your money so I can snort it like coke" and the term "Religious Right" with "Bat-shit crazy fascists who want my money so they can snort it like coke". The word "God" will be replaced by the word "Carbuncle", but only because I think it sounds funny.

You see? Words don't really mean anything. I was an English major. I should know.

Thank you and good night. I will now crawl back into my corrugated cardboard box and take a nap.

09.06.04
Broward County got lucky again.
The storm missed it. And thank goodness. I called my parents Thursday evening asking if they were prepared. They told me they had batteries and water and canned goods, as well as hurricane shutters, so I shouldn’t worry.

Nearly everything in town closed down Thursday afternoon, and my parents and my sister (with her new pooping dog, Amelia) sat around waiting for the worst.

And they sat around Friday as well.

And Saturday too.

Early Saturday afternoon they lost power, and by Saturday evening, they appeared to be going stir crazy. I spoke to my father on the phone, and he sounded depressed. They had been sitting around the house listing to the radio the whole day long. No TV. No Internet. They couldn’t go anywhere. The air conditioner was out, and the house had been growing steadily warmer in the highly saturated air. Yes, they had food, but they were going to have to eat it cold. My father asked what we were doing for dinner.

Brian and I had escaped to East Northport, to the home of Heather Scott’s parent’s Bob and Mary. We had spent the day visiting the wineries of Long Island, going from tasting to tasting, until Brian was drunk and I was falling out of my shoes. Then Heather, who had to remain sober enough to drive, turned us around and we went home and all took naps. As I spoke with my father on the phone, the Scott’s were cutting up vegetables to grill on the barbeque.

"Barbeque," my father said. "Grill. I wish we still had a barbeque."

"Dad, you guys never used it when we had one. And then you threw it out fifteen years ago when Mom thought it was going to explode."

"Hmm," my father said. Then he pepped up and said, "Look! Your mother just woke up from her nap. Talk to her."

He handed the phone over to my mother, who seemed equaled demoralized. The storm was still stalled off the cost Florida, and even the radio news was unbearable, as it had been basically the same since the previous evening.

Then I heard my mother shout, "Martin! What are you doing? Where are you going with that? A barbeque? You can’t make a barbeque!" She turned back to me and said, "I have to go. Your father is lighting things on fire." And she hung up.

On Sunday, I learned that my father had taken a large iron skillet, filled it with newspaper (which he then set on fire), put an oven rack over the skillet, and grilled their leftover Chinese food. In the morning, my father lit more newspapers on fire and heated up the teapot to make coffee in the French press. This fire-setting was a major point of contention between my parents. But before my father could light a third batch of newspapers on fire, the storm was on its way out. My sister Ali had been able to reach her answering machine throughout the storm, and she new her power was still on. Sunday afternoon, the Schwartz family piled into the car and headed over to my sister’s apartment in Plantation, where they stayed for several hours until getting the word that the house’s power was back on.

Did I ever mention that we were not the kind of family that went camping together. Needless to say, all my people are safe and sound. Brian and I are rested and back in the city. Our long weekend is almost over.

09.03.04
All of my hurricane memories so far are happy ones.
It was a time to take the lawn furniture into the house. My sister and brother and I would pretend we were in a spaceship. Hurricane warnings were a time when the whole family was forced to be together. I have always slept better during rainstorms. I remember once, I was in third or forth grade, there was a hurricane warning, and the school let the students go home early. I spent the night that Hurricane Andrew hit talking on the phone to a boy I had had a crush on, and by three thirty in the morning, we were dating. The storm missed Broward County, and we went to the Mall together the next weekend. We broke up soon after.

Still, I worry about my parents. I worry more about them the farther I am away. Even though I’m sure there is nothing my presence could do that would keep them any safer.

Last night, I talked on the phone with my father and my sister. Ali was planning on staying at my parents’ house for the weekend. She had brought over her dog and had spent the afternoon with my father cleaning up loose objects around the outside of the house. The dog had apparently passed the time pooping inside the house and then sitting on it. This was the cause of some tension between my father and my sister. Animals!

I have been feeling lousy all week. I feel like getting out of town. I wish I could be with my parents and my sister, though it looks like they’ll be safe now. It might still be fun. All of us together in the house again. Sitting around and watching the news. The dog pooping and sitting in its poop. Good times, good times.

As I wax nostalgic, I must restate for the hundredth time that I am a bad person: Because I am gleeful that my brother was able to snap pictures on his camera phone during our last visit to our uncle.

I am posting the pictures on my website. Because I am a bad person. A very bad person.

09.02.04
Shit.
This reporter's South Florida family may get walloped. This reporter is quite a bit nervous.