Saturday, September 22, 2007

Jewish in Spirit

This is my friend Nona.

Nona is an amazing mother of four, including to twin 4-year-olds (holy handful!), an incredibly intelligent and strong female, hugely successful in her professional field, and one of the most incredible and supportive friends I have. In fact, the last few months of my sanity are owed to her, our Friday Night Girl's Night, and our mutual love for sushi and Starbucks.




In addition to all her amazing qualities, Nona is Jewish. Nona has hosted the last two Jewish holidays at her house - last week it was Rosh Hashanah, and tonight it was Yom Kippur. And she invited me to both at her house. I know it's weird to write this, but I frankly don't know a lot of Jewish people (having been raised, educated and surrounded by mostly Catholics for much of my life, despite my own lack of association with the religion at this point), so in turn, I have very little experience with or knowledge of the Jewish faith.

So when I got to her house, I had my first experience with matzo ball soup, potato pancakes, creamy jello stuff, Jewish bread, sour green tomatoes, and this noodle thing that I learned to pronounce, but won't even try to spell. All of it was so very deelish, but it took my body three days to recover. Tonight for Yom Kippur, we had fresh bagels and lox, pretzels, fruit, and tuna and egg salad. Again, deelish. But the best part? She gave me a 6-pound bag of Gummy Bears!!!!!

SIX POUNDS, PEOPLE.
By my calculations, that's at least three days worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner. But getting back to my point -

So let me get this straight: I not only get to eat but am encouraged to binge on high carb foods, get schooled on the basics of Jewish faith (which I know embarressingly nothing about, but frankly, I know very little about the religion I was actually raised by - a funny little quirk that my family finds both ignorant and endearing), AND get a 6-pound bag of gummy bears as a parting gift? Heck, I've been Catholic for 31 years and all I got was a lot of guilt for having pre-marital sex and a stifling fear of Hell for silently cursing out my parents. Well, that and my First Communion, which came with a party and a nice chunk of money. And let's not forget forced confession during Lent, which got me out of classes during high school.
But still - bagels and gummy bears? No contest.
Nona jokes that I can be an honorary Jewish person, and go to High Holiday services with her. And frankly, my spiritual beliefs fall more in line with the Jewish faith than the Catholic faith, so she thinks I have one foot in the door already. So bring on the kugal and lox - I'm might be going to temple!
Shalom!

5 comments:

Duane said...

Back away from the Gummy Bears! (Unless you had a really good training session!) :-)

Cindy Jo said...

One thing though Megan - aren't the Jews the chosen people and the rest of us are screwed, no matter what we do?!

Being attorneys in Chicago we even had kosher food at our wedding for our guests (and we're not Jewish)!

BTW, Black Forest Gummy Bears are THE best brand of gummies IN THE WORLD!!!

Cindy Jo said...

Also Megan, a pro triathlete I know swears by gummy bears for IM. She eats them on the bike and run as a treat and carb source. So that bag might come in even more handy than you think (provided you're not like me - I would inhale it in a matter of days).

M said...

Cindy Jo- I literally had to seal it back up because I ate too many for breakfast and they gave me heartburn. I tried to rationalize that I swam this morning, and will run later, but alas, there really is no good excuse for the amount I managed to shove in my mouth.

This gift, of course, came on the heels of a 330-count TUB of Red Vines Nona gifted me two weeks ago. Let's just say I won't be posting any full-body shots in the near future, as the size of my ass won't fit into the frame of my little camera.

But ahhh, sweet candy. It's like the little bears are having a party in my mouth.

julie said...

Hey Megan- I'm Nona's friend Julie. I follow your blog from time to time and find it thoroughly entertaining and well written. You are right on here about Nona- she is unbelievably amazing and a wonderful friend. Enjoy the gummie bears and good luck with your training. Julie