Monthly Archives: March 2013

Dear Reader,

 

When it came to writing this essay I immediately wanted to write about my grandmother. My grandmother, Bubby, as we call her is in my mind, and of those who meet her, the ultimate caricature of Jewish grandmother from Brooklyn. Having grown up only blocks away from her, she was my parents go-to babysitter. What is so amazing about Bubby is how she manages to offend and  embarrass most people who cross her path yet at the same time manages to endear herself to them.

For this essay, I decided to write a profile of my Bubby. I began by introducing my Bubby as if she were a boxer and I were an announcer hoping to show my reader what she physically looks like, and where her priorities are (her five kids). I attempted to incorporate character development, paragraph breaks and dialogue into my essay. While I may have experimented with one too many tools I decided to go big or go home. The character I chose to develop is my grandmother, my paragraph breaks serve to provide a division between the main story and flashbacks, and the dialogue are words directly quoted from my grandmother.

Upon completing my essay I am curious as to how my readers will respond to my paragraph breaks. Do they serve as clear transitions between storylines? Also,  something which I had a little trouble with was “telling” rather than “showing”. I found myself just wanting to introduce the class to my grandmother so that in an instant they can understand her persona. So, on that note, what can be improved about my character development? And how can I better “show” my readers?

Rebecca Seidman

Cover Letter

“From the “pink room”, standing five feet tall, weighing in at 233 lbs., donning a floral “house dress” (otherwise known as a muumuu) is Lola Seidman. With five sons, three of whom are triplets, Lola (otherwise know as “Bubby” by the neighborhood’s children), currently holds the title of heavyweight matriarch of the Seidman family. Hailing from Brooklyn, she now resides in Staten Island in the very same house she raised her five boys.”

***

“Becca!”

I had just left Bubby’s house and am making my way home when I hear her shrill from the window. I’m halfway down the block, but Bubby’s voice carries. I have a cell phone and Bubby has both a cell phone and a house phone- but why waste minutes when you can just alert the entire neighborhood the old fashioned way that you have one more thing to ask of your granddaughter? I quickly turn around and run back to her house from the corner at which I’ve momentarily paused. I see her standing in the window and begin to change my pace from racing to a leisurely stroll. I figured, we made eye contact, she sees I’m coming back, there’s no need to scream. But, Bubby can’t wait.

“Becca!” she screams from up above, “I was thinking…”

“One second Bubby, I’ll be right there just buzz me into the house, you’ll tell me when I’m inside.”

I stood there. Waiting. It usually takes Bubby about five minutes to walk the ten feet from the window to the buzzer.

Once I get inside she again, screams at the same level she did when I had been half a block away.

“Becca, what are ya doin tomorra?”

***

Now, Bubby is my father’s mother. To refer to her as merely a “character” would be an understatement. Bubby is the ultimate caricature. On an ordinary day you can find Bubby, her hair swept up in a gray hollow ball on top of her head, donning one of her floral house dresses, without a bra, sitting in her pink room on her favorite maroon recliner, eating a bowl of some ivory concoction. This shade of ivory is achieved by use of one of these three ingredients: boiled potatoes, Uncle Ben’s Minute Rice or mayonnaise.

***

 

“Oh nothing, Fridays I don’t have school. Why? Do you need something?”

“Oh no, I’m baking everyone’s favorite ‘Bubby cookies’ and was wondering if you and Loop’s would want to come over and help me.”

***

“Loops”, as she is often referred to, is my sister. She’s two years younger than me and at this very moment I am praying she is available to bake with us. Not because I need a buffer to hang with my grandmother but because I need a witness.

I need a witness so that when someone asks how my day was with my Bubby and I relay to them the outrageous things that have been said, “Loops” can back me up.

Luckily, my sister agreed.

***

The next day, the two of us got to Bubby’s house bright and early. Ready to bake with our elderly grandmother. Seems cute right?

***

Well, Bubby is hardly the sweet old lady who knits quietly squinting as she stitches away and shares her good advice. Rather, Bubby is the old lady that insults, yet somehow remains totally likable.

When I was fourteen years old I walked to Bubby on a Saturday with my friend Adina. Bubby, who had had a spat with Adina’s grandmother about a year prior, turned to Adina about mid-conversation and informed her that she “didn’t like her face” and thought that she was “ugly”.

I froze.

I stood there, as my grandmother- a sixty eight year old woman, without the excuse of dementia, called my fourteen year old friend “ugly” and told her she “didn’t like her face.”

As we left Bubby’s house Adina turned to me and said, “I don’t think your Bubby likes me.”

***

Upon our arrival Bubby buzzed us in and had all of her ingredients organized on the kitchen table. We got straight to work and for about twenty minutes it was actually adorable. Bubby handed us each a yellow piece of paper she’d ripped from one of my grandfather’s old legal pads. She told us stories of her grandmother, and how it is our duty to continue to pass the recipe down from generation to generation.

She was on her best behavior.

As I poured the sugar into the mixture I saw Bubby glance over at the yellow legal paper. I knew where this was going.

***

My grandfather, had died back in 2004. Coincidentally, this is when the theatrics intensified. At first it was sad. Every time she’d pass a photo of my grandfather, she’d cry. Not only would she cry but she’d stop, even if it was in a room full of people, and start petting the photo and having a conversation with my grandfather’s photo.

It was tragic.

However, empathizing became a little more difficult when we’d be at a formal event or any event for that matter where another widow was present. After my grandfather passed we had thought it might be a good idea for her to start hanging out with other widows. We thought that perhaps they could relate to her in a way that we could not.

We were wrong.

Instead, Bubby would begin a conversation by highlighting what they had in common- dead husbands. She would quickly end the conversation by informing her “new friend” that she really doesn’t blame her for not understanding the pain that she herself had experienced because, “‘new friend’, your husband didn’t love you.”

***

So, while Bubby stared over at the yellow sheet of paper she began to tear up. My sister and I continued mixing.

“Girls, you know I loved your grandfather very much.”

“Yes, Bubby” we said in unison.

“Well, I’m giving you advice. Marry a man that loves you more than you love him.”

“Well, shouldn’t we love each other equally?” I asked.

While I disagreed with her advice, I knew this was only the start of what would be an epic exchange. So, for the sake of conversation…

“No. He should love you more. And then you’ll get anything you want. Your grandfather gave me everything I wanted and he thought it was all his idea. I would lead him down a path, making him think it was his idea- but it’s what I wanted all along.”

“And you know Becca,” Bubby added, “your grandfather and I always had sex, up until he couldn’t anymore.”

My sister and I sat there partially stunned but mostly nauseous.

“We made love all the time. Even when we hated each other. Now, that’s how you keep a man.”

So, the way to a successful marriage was manipulation, and loving your husband at least a little less than he loved you, and having lots of sex with him- noted.

How many people can say they got such candid advice from their grandmother while baking cookies?

A Bubby’s Advice

 

I was eighteen.  My status was “legal”, my curfew non-existent, my beverage of choice was tequila (or whiskey if it was bought for me, or champagne if it was one of my weekly birthdays). My extra-curricular activities consisted of napping, dancing and eating french fries too late at night. I was in Israel and my parents were in New York.

It was September of 2008, and I had embarked on a year-long journey to Israel on a volunteer program. Upon my arrival at the airport, I was greeted by a woman who within one breath both introduced herself as “Meital” and barked for me to get in line. Each of us were handed an ancient brick of a cell phone whose only capabilities were basic phone calls and black and white texting, our volunteer placement information and the keys to our apartments. Our only rules were to attend our volunteer jobs on time daily, keep our apartment presentable and to be present for one weekly meeting with our fellow roommates. OOOther than that we were simply advised “don’t do stupid.” “Stupid,” as it was referred to, included but was not limited to: sitting in the front seat of a cab when traveling alone and blacking out. So, essentially, we were a group of six hundred eighteen year-olds,,, abroad, far from our parents, with no curfew and license to drink.

Each night was a declaration of our freedom. People drank too much, conducted themselves poorly and were lucky enough to have friends whom were willing to drag them home. As the novelty of going out every night began to wear off we began to limit our nights out to Thursday nights because (at least for the ladies) while the novelty of drinking every night and waking up early to go to work lost its’ sheen, a strapping Israeli man in his army uniform did not. Thursday night marked the start of the weekend for Israeli soldiers and so did it mark the start of the American girls’ weekend. Clubs and bars were filled with extremely attractive men, only made more attractive by their well-fitted green uniforms.

Thursday meant waking up at 7 a.m., volunteering until 4 p.m., napping until 8 p.m., only to wake up when most people head to sleep to shower and dress for the night ahead.  Alternating Thursdays meant it was my birthday and my roommate Pemme’s too. We were both redheads and it occurred to us early on that redheads were so rare over there that people would naturally assume that we were twins. And so, we were. On such Thursday’s when it was our “birthday” we’d tell the bar owner who would bring over two champagne bottles on the house “for the twins!” What made these Thursdays even more comical was that this bar was the bar we started at every Thursday night. So, this bar owner in the span of one year celebrated at least ten birthdays with “the twins.”

It was only a matter of time before a young Israeli soldier fresh off base would approach the young American girls at the bar, buying us drinks and dragging us onto the dance floor. We would almost always exchange names but often neither of us would make an effort to remember them since neither of us intended to hang out again. The guys were always super excited to practice their English and would quote movies like American Pie as if on repeat. They would ask the same five questions, one of which would usually be “Is college in America really like in the movies?”

I recall one encounter in particular, because it marked my first real kiss and because a bizarre conversation ensued. I had gone out with four friends that night to a new club in Tel Aviv hoping to dance the night away with an attractive soldier. Instead, I got a slightly shorter, skinnier version of the attractive soldier I had been hoping for but he was a soldier nonetheless and I decided he would do. He pulled me toward him, screaming his name over the music—“I’m Noam!” Following our introduction he proceeded to pull me towards the couches lining the walls and gestured for me to sit down. Now, we were going to talk. Our chat went like this:

Noam: Tell me something interesting about yourself!

Me: I don’t know, you tell me something interesting about you first!

Noam: I have five cats!

Me: Cool!

Noam: Can I get your number?!

Me: No! Here, type yours!

Noam typed his number then handed me back my phone as if to test my memory, seeing if I had remembered his name. Thankfully, I had, and confidently typed his name “Navy Noam” into my contact list—where it was forever immortalized.

In January of 2009 after over a week of air strikes, the Israeli army finally crossed the border into Gaza and war was finally being declared against Hamas. While our parents in America were panicked for our safety, all I could think was whether one of the soldiers being reported dead today was one of the men who had bought me a drink on a Thursday. I was struck by how these soldiers, our same age, were not just guys who came out to have fun with American girls but men, who at the age of eighteen were handed a rifle and uniform. I quickly realized what I had already known but had yet to process.

Sitting in the lobby of our hostel, our ears burning from the news—I sat there. I took out my ancient brick of a cell phone and opened my “Contacts”. As I scrolled down the list to call my parents, “Navy Noam”, who was immortalized in my cell phone, reminded me of both his and my own mortality.