Shin-ippets

Lots of things on my mind this evening:

* What is the sound of sixteen fifth and sixth graders on a Saturday evening? On the most part it’s a high-pitched shrill with the intensity and volume of a jet engine.  Believe me — I now know. I experienced this (voluntarily) last night.  I was tapped by a friend and colleague to lead a workshop for her synagogue’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah overnight retreat. The way it was laid out was as a sleepover at the synagogue for the kids — with some educational components built in but also a lot of unstructured fun time.  I had chaperoned these sorts of things in my younger days; they’re certainly tiring but rewarding.

My piece was a game about exploring one’s Jewish identity — what kind of values are incorporated within. My expertise with informally teaching kids has been at the high school level, so this was a bit of a stretch for me.  But I think I engaged at least most of the kids through the exercise.  If I gave them something to think about in the midst of them bouncing off the walls, I suppose I did a decent job.

* Rick! Rick! RICK! I guess I hadn’t been around kids of this age group for an extended period of time for a long while.  It’s kind of weord thinking that these kids are only five years older than my own.  I suppose I just forgot about the energy level that they have — combined by their conversational skills which are far more advanced than my six-year old’s. All in all, they’re a really good bunch of kids. But their enthusiasm and intensity? Wow. There was this one girl, Samantha, whose demeanor, voice and conversation was almost identical to that of Kaitlin, Amy Poehler’s SNL character of the same age:

Direct NBC/SNL video link

* Sixth grade drama: the kids were sleeping over in a social hall at the synagogue — a large room with a linoleum floor. I’ve been there myself at that age. The kids were quite impressive at self-segregating by gender. The big difference, however, was that while all the kids brought sleeping bags (as I had expected), at least half of them also brought air mattresses. It was just — not something I had expected.  I helped them all inflate their beds and overheard a conversation between one of the kids with an inflatable mattress and one without.

“Why do you have that? Isn’t your sleeping bag thick enough?”

“No! I need the mattress as well! I could die without it!”

“Yeah, right…”

“No! I swear! I have a soft pallette! I can’t sleep on a flat surface! I need my head and shoulders supported! If I don’t , my breathing could, you know, like not happen! I could smother in my sleep if I don’t have this mattress! It’s not like I have one of those sleep apnea machines on me, you know! So I need this mattress so I don’t die!”

(There was a dramatic pause of about six seconds as he with the sleeping bag took in this life-or-death soliloquy.)

“So, um, want to play DDR in the other room?”

“DDR? AWESOME!”

… and they were off! The drama had come and gone more quickly than a sixth grade attention span.

* DDR? What’s that? I’m getting very old — in that I didn’t know right away that DDR was “Dance Dance Revolution.”  One of the activities set up was a PS2 with DDR and two mats. The kids flocked to it.  It was such a contrast — seeing these kids chaotically bouncing off the walls in one room, and then suddenly falling into line with extreme precision as they mastered the game. I had seen it played before (haven’t gotten around to trying it myself), but I was amazed at the speed these kids were able to achieve.  The dance world will be ruled by Jewish eleven year-olds one day…

* A tale of two states: Last Thursday was butt-cold. Wind-chill temperatures were in the single digits. But yesterday and today? temperatures were in the mid to high 60s!  We took advantage of this by visiting one of our favorite DC area attractions — Great Falls National Park on the bank of the Potomac River separating Maryland and Virginia.

As Virginia residents, we’ve always found ourselves on the Virginia side. We’ve bought an annual National Park pass for the past two years (allowing us free admission and parking) which is good for either the Maryland or Virginia side of the Falls. Today we decided to do something new — and try the Maryland side of the Falls.

It’s more of a psychological hurdle for me: I moved to Maryland when I was two. I lived there through high school and college. I left the area for a brief while to pursue a career, and when I came back I decided to settle on the Virginia side (as it was where socKs was already living). We absolutely love living in Virginia; even though the state as a whole is far more conservative than Maryland, Northern Virginia is quite progressive.  It’s not far away from where I grew up — but for many, the Potomac River crossing is such a huge psychological barrier. When one crosses from Maryland into Virginia (or vice versa) it seems like you’re encroaching on enemy territory — as if the Civil War is still alive and well.

Today’s experience on the Maryland side of the park was no exception.  Maybe it was just the way I was feeling; perhaps it was just the first beautiful weekend of 2009 where people could do something outside. But I just felt that the Maryland side was filled with self-absorbed, imaptient ass-clowns who didn’t follow the rules of the road (or the parking lots) or of the trails (including  a pedestrian bridge with a large sign prohibiting pets).  I couldn’t help but think of these Maryland folks as self-entitled yahoos with attitude who didn’t play well with others.

And later I realized that they probably feel the same way about me as a Virginian.

* Amazing! It recently came to my attention that one of my favorite television shows of all time, The Amazing Race just started airing an Israeli version of the show this past Thursday. Called HaMerutz LaMillion (“The Race to One Million”), it’s an official version of the original show produced by the same folks. The logos and theme music are the same. The mannerisms and style of the Israeli host mimic that of Phil Keoghan.

We sat down to watch the first episode this evening. There are ten teams of two with their own special relationships (childhood friends, business partners, exes, stepfather and daughter, married parents of three kids, beauty pageant queens, kibbutz-dwelling women in their 50s). Even though my Hebrew is not quite to that point where I understand every word being said, it’s pretty easy to get the general gist of things for two reasons: (1) each of the teams has some proficiency in English — helpful when dealing with pretty much everyone outside of Israel; and (2) a whole lot of English has permeated modern Hebrew language. Even if yoy have no knowledge of Hebrew whatsoever, you’ll hear something like “blah blah blah blah blah babysitter blah blah blah give me a break blah blah blah whatever.” So far the show looks promising: the teams are a bit more ballsy than their American counterparts.  I’m looking forward to watching it week after week.

Direct YouTube Link

Here’s a snippet of it. Even if you don’t understand Hebrew, you’ll find that things look very familiar. You can also skip to 1:05 into it to see the opening credits which are identical to those in the American version.

* Time Machine: Guilty pleasure of mine #367: Baltimore’s JACK-FM (102.7) plays a steady stream of 80s music every weekend.  That in itself is wonderful. But at 8:00pm EST every Sunday night, they play an American Top 40 show starring Casey Kasem — from sometime in the 1980s.   I’m currently listening to the show from this week back in 1981.  It’s different from listening to your normal “It’s an 80s Weekend!” programming — as you also get to hear the songs that we’ve completely forgotten about — like the obscure Dan Fogerlberg ballad or experimental Rod Stewart track.  It’s also fun to hear Casey Kasem talk about “new” bands like REO Speedwagon and not quite understanding how to introdce ACDC.

That being said — I think I’ve heard enough Eddie Rabbitt and Air Supply to last me a lifetime.