MY MARCH COLUMN since it was once again not posted on the online chico e-r

            Last week, my sister leased a Prius, which brings the total number of cool family cars up to one.  The Prius is cool because it’s a hybrid, so it gets great mileage, is good for the environment, and has all the whimsical appeal of brocoflower.  My mom excitedly described the “magic key” that turns on the car, which is apparently very different from the more mundane keys you’ll often find turning on non-hybrid cars.  Yes, these new-fangled horseless carriages are quite a phenomenon.

The Prius is a cool car, and it deserves a cool name, so my sister has named it Priya, which sounds trendy yet somehow traditional, like the star of a Mira Nair film.  I hope it can learn to get along with Monty the Montana and the Malibu (which has no name at all, as it lacks a discernible personality). 

There is a long-standing tradition in my family of naming cars.  When I turned sixteen, my first car was a hand-me-down from my aunt that she had named Penelope.  A name like that really sticks, as did the smell of cigarettes and coffee left by the woman who drove it down from North Carolina. 

Penny was a tan ’87 Toyota Corolla with peeling paint, and driving her sometimes felt like driving one of those Little Tikes plastic cars that you move with your feet.  But she was a good car.  Not to say that she functioned well, per se, but she had a good attitude, and would respond well to coaxing. 

“Please start.  Please, please, please start,” I would coax, a pint of ice cream melting on the backseat.  The frustration caused by this particular model was immortalized in the 2000 film The Whole Nine Yards, where you can see Matthew Perry banging his head against the steering wheel in frustration because his tan Corolla keeps stalling. 

After Penelope met with an early demise, my parents bought me another used Toyota, this one a light blue ’89 Camry.  Creatively, we christened it “Bleu.”   Bleu had a certain savoir faire, a certain je ne sais quoi, which required a French name.  She had an almost existentialist disposition, responding—not to coaxing as Penny had—but to a set of her own indiscernible, internal convictions.  What is ‘transmission’?  She seemed to ask.  What is ‘air conditioning’?  Where does ‘drive’ end and ‘reverse’ begin?  And sometimes simply: why? 

Because I need to go to school, I would answer. 

If Bleu did feel that the right decision was to start, then I could crank up the tunes and manually roll down the window.  Bleu had a tape deck, as did Penny.  My sister and I were still playing mix-tapes in our car while the others kids at schools were wirelessly broadcasting mp3s from their home computers to a satellite that projected a signal down into their car stereos, prematurely anticipating what genre of music would be most pleasurable to the driver and all of the passengers. 

Meanwhile, my sister and I were mesmerized by the fact that if you pressed fast-forward and reverse at the same time, the player would switch to the other side of the tape.  

For most of my life, we’ve been a minivan family.  At age six, I was impressed by the Dodge Caravan my parents brought home, not understanding why it was called “mini” when it was clearly so big.  It was a big purple car—“black cherry,” the industry calls it—that later came to be known as Barney, in reference to the big purple dinosaur of which I was such a fan at that age (another point in its favor).    

I remember the day Barney was replaced with Monty, a sleek bright red Montana, with an automatic sliding door.  The haunting melody of the tune the door played to let you know it was opening or closing (“whee-ooh-whee-ooh-whee-ooh”) was like a harmony of beautiful voices whispering, yes! you are moving up in the world! A singing car!  What luxury!  Maybe it could bake and make your bed and do your homework as well!  (Maybe not.)

Also, we’ve never, not once, had a car with a working gas gauge.  But anyway, Priya is electric, so she won’t have that problem.  I still think my sister should have named her Bleu Two.   

My February column that failed to make it to the internet

I had decided not to grow attached to my little sister’s pet bird, Tzippy. 

For some reason, I was convinced that growing attached to any item—animal or otherwise—in my family’s house was foolhardy.  What with the constant patter of feet running in and out of the house, the shifting of Liora’s belongings to the closet, Elisheva’s belongings to the den, Charles’ belongings to the guestroom, Shira’s belongings to the study, Arielle’s belongings from one side of her room to the other, and the melodious tinkle of glass breaking in the kitchen, I had learned a certain detachment from material objects, which in a family of seven are frequently misplaced, broken, or accidentally thrown away. 

We’ve had pets in the past, but with little success.  Our first cat, Gingi, was an orange stray that started showing up regularly to our back door.  “Gingi,” pronounced “Gin-gee,” is an endearing way of saying “redhead” in Hebrew. 

Gingi had claws, and she was fat and not always friendly.  But we loved her ragged fur and her swollen belly, almost as much as some of our other toys.  And we tried our best to take care of her, we really did, but in the end my dad had to give her to a coworker, because the dead birds by the back door upset my mother.       

So when Arielle brought home a little ball of blue fluff from the pet store, I steered clear.  She’d insisted on this bird in particular, even though all of the birds running circles in the parakeet cage looked identical to my mother. 

Tzippy was a little smaller than her peers, a little meeker, a little more vividly blue, and my sister named her after a character from one of our favorite children’s books.  Her name, “Tzippy,” is short for “Tzipora,” meaning “bird” in Hebrew.  Not exactly creative—it’s like naming your dog “Dog”—but it sounds a lot like “Zippy,” as in “Zippidy-doo-da…Mr. Bluebird on my shoulder,” so it works on more than one level.    

And in a lot of ways, it’s easy not to like the bird (or “the fish” as my dad inexplicably chooses to call it).  For one thing, she leaves little “gifts” all over the house.  I suppose this is some Hansel-and-Gretel-inspired method of finding her way back to her cage at night.  I’m pretty tall, and if she sees me, she assumes I am a nice, tall tree and heads straight for my shoulder (although I find screaming will gently discourage her from landing).

Also, my family is completely—and might I add disproportionately—obsessed with this bird.  They take her outside when the weather is nice.  They make her “playdates” with other parakeets.  They prioritize purchasing Tzippy’s favorite snacks over purchasing Shira’s favorite snacks any day of the week.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure my mom likes her better than me. 

Furthermore, she leaves birdseed and feathers on my little sister’s bedroom floor, squeaks and squawks well before any human being ought to be forced to open her sleepy eyes in the morning, and has an unsettling tendency to sneak drinks from the faucet while I am trying to brush my teeth.

However, despite her unattractive qualities, and despite my attempts to stay detached, Tzippy does have one surprising, rather glorious quality, which to my mind lifts her out of mere pet status and into the role of treasured family member: She is the only animal—bird or otherwise—in the house who likes my piano playing.

From Arielle’s bedroom, she chirps along to my uneven scales and mottled melodies, quietly protesting the strictures of tonal coherence and the graceless formality of the notes on the page.  Music—real music—comes from the throat, the heart, the soul! cries the bird.  And tickling the ivories until they scream for me to stop, I think that such a heavenly sound as her chirping has never before graced the ears of the Danan family.    

I imagine I’ll have an easier time not growing attached to whatever’s growling under my little brother’s bed. 

I'm a little overwhelmed with the amount i have to get done in the next three and a half/four weeks.  eek!  four papers (2 8pagers, 15-20pager, 12-15pg), three exams, one oral presentation, a sketch comedy show, the core journal, a trip to boston for passover, um...getting in shape for the summer?  and somehow getting rid of all the junk in my room before may 14ish.

this is not happening. 

in dc, with the sis.  liora, that is. 

mom says "send me some jokes for purim."  i dont know what that means.  but its good to know my st.james bible version of the megillah isn't out of commission. 

some things liora and i have done:

saw the holocaust museum where liora's friend works and also heard long lunchtime conversation between liora and said friend about how much it stinks to find a job.  and then to have a job.

accidentally saw the white house - "what's that park?"  "lemme check the map"  "oh, its the white house"

kramer's bookstore and cafe - bought the new jonathan safran foer book, which is unputdownable

teaism - a tea shop where i bought a muffin with dried plums which are really prunes, but it was still good  and the tea was good

"organic farmed"/drove through country and briefly sat in the grass which is what ive been wanting to do/antiqued/ate free food

complained that shev doesn't read or write blogs

bought tons of groceries...kind of true, but also we ate most of them already

worked out...by which i mean i watched old SNL while i "power-walked" on the treadmill

drank cocoa spice tea and watched "Little Women"

um, i'm sure we did some other stuff, but when a trip to the gym takes three full hours, it's hard to get much done.  liora seems to think the public transportation here is wonderful, and i'll admit it has its nice qualities like cleanliness and affordability, but new york's makes more sense to me, anyway.  and you can swipe your metrocard twice, for two people, which you cant do here, which is dumb. 

georgetown is really cute with all the little shops and restaurants.  a bit hoity-toity but also clean and safe.  and i kinda like hoity-toity in small doses. 

i really breathed a sigh of relief when i got out of the city on friday.  i needed a break.  a year in the country in englandfordshire'll do me good.  have so much work to do when i get back...dont even want to think about it.  i think i will go back tomororw or thursday and get lots of work done. 

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