You May Already Be A Winner

Everyone's talking about the Powerball. It's a big one, I'm told, in the neighborhood of 380 million doll-hairs, as we say in this family. Don't ask me why we call it doll-hairs. It's a deeply-held family secret. So secret no one remembers the origins of this particular mula-related silliness. Except maybe my brother John, and if he does, I'll get an email later, telling me the exact time and place when the expression "doll-hairs" was first uttered, most likely by him. It may have something to do with receiving our paltry weekly allowance for doing unnecessary chores around the house. Chores were character-building, according to my dad. In fact, everything we didn't want to do was character-building. But let's get back to the lottery, shall we, and all those doll-hairs up for distribution. To land this big-ass pot o' gold, all you have to do is buy a ticket at your local convenience store, although what's convenient about these places, I'll never understand. They're often located in weird mini-malls. You take your life in your hands just trying to back up in their cramped parking lots. They're often filled with questionable folks, agonizing over which beef jerky goes best with their Schlitz Malt Liquor. Not that I judge.

My lack of desire to frequent the birthplace of Slurpees and beer nuts --snacks that would only appeal to me in an altered state, a state I haven't visited since that traumatic edible incident in the early '80s -- probably explains why the thought of purchasing a lottery ticket would simply never occur to me. I have never bought one in my life. Why is that? Am I already a winner? Is that how I see myself? Uh, no. If that were true, I'd be less neurotic and more confident in general. Clearly, high self-esteem isn't the reason I've never purchased a lottery ticket.

Maybe I just prefer to defer to the other potential winners in my immediate vicinity. Why not piggyback off their win? Hubby and the eldest are all about the lottery tickets. Hubby is always part of some "if we win, we'll split it 32 ways" arrangement at the office. The eldest thrives on lottery-inspired fantasies, too. Much like his father, he'd rather work for himself, as opposed to "all the idiots and morons who run things." Well, no wonder they both want to win the lottery. They share a dream of permanent, generously-subsidized unemployment. I figure, if either of them wins, they'll give me my well-deserved share. So please, if you're any kind of person at all, wish them a lotto luck, on my behalf.

If Machines Could Text

"Hi! It's me! Your fancy high-tech dryer. The second you try to put the wet stuff in my belly, I'm going to stop working, for no reason! So that's gonna happen. LOL."

"No problem. I'll just hang up all the wet 

clothes on my imaginary clothesline."

If only the dryer had sent me a text. But gosh darn it, it didn't. It just stopped working. No advance notice. No warning light. So rude. So inconsiderate. Good thing I put hubby on the case. A regular Dr. Fix-It, he spent the whole afternoon diagnosing the situation online. All I know is, he came home and went into surgery in the laundry room, unplugging things, jiggling stuff, removing important dryer-type organs, putting them back in, and after about an hour or so, the patient came out of the anesthesia in perfect working order. Yet another miracle, courtesy of Dr. Fix-It. No, you can't hire him. He's on my payroll, bitches. Find your own repairman. 

Knock On Wood

Oh, the indignities the SJG must endure on a daily, if not hourly, basis. What's that? You want a "for instance"? Fine: Every time I try to write "kina hora" in an email, or a blog, spell check rudely changes it to "mina hora." Spell check seems to know hora, which is a fun and aerobic Bar Mitzvah ritual, but not kina. It goes without saying that I resent this spelling intrusion on a deeply personally level. I've been re-written enough as it is -- I refer you to my entire career -- to tolerate the repo of my favorite Yiddish expression. At this stage, I'm so paranoid by the thoughtless seizure of intellectual property that I'm doubting my own knowledge of Yiddish. What if "mina hora" slipped past me like a phantom cutting in line at Gelson's? I could holler, "Hey, you Demon Yiddish Word, how dare you?" Or I could check with my go-to Yiddish maven, the one, the only Dr. Kasha Varniskes. "Kasha," I said in a frantic phone call, "is mina hora a thing, or a figment of my imagination? Please, Kasha, I beg you, enlighten me."

"Calm down, you," Dr. Varniskes said, "and I'll give you an answer. It may not be the one you want, but still, it's an answer. A mina hora is a little-known, not very useful phrase, the equivalent of half a kina hora. What I'm saying in layman's terms is that mina is kina split in two. How the powers of spell check got a hold of it, we'll never know. Some things are better left a mystery. Maybe they're too superstitious to go for the full kina, hence the substitution of mina. In the grand scheme of things, we'd rather have the kina in its totality to ward off the evil eye and all the tsuris that comes with. Whoever said less is more should have their keppy examined for potholes. Is the glass half empty or half full? More to the point, what kind of cheap-ass person offers half a glass of Vodka? Were you raised in a barn? Full is always better than half, especially when we're considering the holiest of Talmudic laws. The kina hora is sacred. 'Kina hora' is what Moses proclaimed before parting the Red Sea. 'I need a miracle. God willing, this trick works, kina hora, or biblically speaking, I'm screwed.' Torah-wise, the mina hora, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found. A mina hora doesn't do much for humanity, but it's better than bupkis. That said, whatever schmuck came up with spell check in the first place deserves a bad parking spot in Hell. All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer. I hope this clear things up, doll."

"As always, you've been a big help, Kasha," I said, "although some of your scholarly explanation puzzles me, I admit. I'm thinking mina is Yiddish for mini, and some bastard at Spell Check thinks I'm only worthy of a mini kini, not a full kina, which, in my opinion, is unacceptable. They should free a madman, and lock Mr. Spell Check up, instead."

The Care & Maintenance of The SJG

Today's Short Jewish Gal is much more complex than the early 1958 model, who only needed baby formula, a binky, a nice soft blankie and a good burping to operate. Basic care and maintenance of today's SJG requires a few more steps, but nothing a fully qualified brain mechanic can't handle. Just follow these easy tips and the SJG will run forever:

1.  Check for inner turmoil.
2.  Gauge pressure levels.
3.  Inspect engine for neuroses.
4.  Examine psyche for cracks.
5.  Determine level of childhood damage.
6.  Estimate repair costs.
7.  Calculate exhaustion.
8.  Suggest a nap.  
9.  Pay attention to warning lights.
10.  Recharge batteries with compliments.
11. "You never age."
12. "You look thinner."
13. "Your hair is fabulous."
14.  "Without you, I'm nothing."
15.  "You light up my life."
16.  Replace worn-out parts.
17.  Pump up ego.
18.  Recalibrate denial.
19.  Hose off guilt.
20.  Renew warranty.
(7-7-13)

My Morning Ritual

6:15: Pretend to sleep while hubby gets up to walk dog.
6:16: Ignore personal need to tinkle.
6:17: Can't ignore. Crawl to bathroom.
6:19: Crawl back to bed.
6:20: Think about starting day. Decide not to. No one needs ride to school. Thank God.
6:21: Feel brief sense of gratitude. Never have to drive carpool again.
6:22: Gratitude this early exhausts me. Stay in bed.
6:23: Review "to-do" list. Decide not to do anything.
7:00: Turn on TV. "Today Show" full of bad news.
7:01: Thanks for that, "Today Show."
7:02: Smell coffee. Time to haul big arse downstairs.
7:03: Kvetch while walking downstairs. Things hurt.
7:04: Greet dog. Greet hubby.
7:05: Pretend to understand where hubby's freakish early morning energy comes from.
7:06: Feed dog. Clean up drool. Regale hubby with complaints.
7:07: Hubby pretends to listen. Nice hubby.
7:08: Retreat upstairs.
7:09: Turn on laptop. Sip coffee.
7:10: Wait for hush-hush, well-paid ghost SJG blogger to send me today's post.

Best Way To Watch The Super Bowl Ever

The best way? Well, best for the SJG, which is, personally speaking, all that matters in my tiny universe. Skip the game, go to dance class, flash the aging jazz hands, and later, watch the recorded half-time show and the commercials. All the fun without the football.

The wackadoodle, high-tech, lip sync-a-thon with some actual singing thrown in? The insane costume changes, the dancing sharks, the showy lunacy of it all? I adored every goofy, hallucinogenic moment. 

Of course I loved this commercial with Bryan as Walt and sorta Greg.

I loved this one, too, although I forget what it was about, which explains so much about me at this moment in time.

The Brady Bunch-Snickers commercial was my absolute fav.

Pierce Bronson imagining his next action movie: Big fun. A car commercial, I think.

Liam Neeson was funny here.  He's playing some kind of game. Please, I beg you, don't ask me which one. Thank you.

Dusty picked this Budweiser one as his fav. A lost puppy may have little to do with beer, but it's a winner.  

The Senior Puppy Bowl

Dusty rests up for the big game

(Sherman Oaks) The Senior Puppy Bowl is SJG-TV's solution to what to broadcast against the more popular Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. "Sure, it's easy to put adorable puppies on TV and watch them run around, bumping into each other and tinkling on the puppy-size football field," said the Short Jewish Gal, SJG-TV's head honcho. "You put a biseleh peanut butter on a camera lens, and puppies are going to lick and slobber. Cute is cute. Big deal. You put a bunch of elderly puppies together, altacocker Spaniels and Labrador Retrievers that have already done plenty running in their day, and have the hip dysplasia and the arthritis to show for it; you put lovable dogs that shed everywhere and can barely get in the car anymore, not to mention up the stairs, you put that noble team of Olympic nappers on the field, and see if they can stay awake long enough to make a touchdown; now you've got something to root for." This year's halftime performers will be Schlomo and the Rodents, a talented group of senior squirrels that will attempt to sing "Lullaby of Broadway" while searching for walnuts they've hidden in the SJG's backyard. "Listen, their memories aren't what they used to be. They may not  remember where they hid their nuts. But the search promises to be riveting. Plus, these guys can really carry a tune."