Dear Kid,

The Mathematics of Yom Kippur are astounding. I will leave it to the theologians to explain the theology and to the scholars to explain the scholarly and to everyone else to explain the ratios of the length of the sermon to how hungry we are. I, being a mom, shall explain the Mathematics of Yom Kippur Food.

After extensive research on the subject, I have ascertained that the following is Exactly How Everything Works in Every Household celebrating Yom Kippur.

Day Before Yom Kippur

Eat a normal breakfast

Have a slightly larger than normal mid-morning snack (after all, you’re fasting tomorrow)

Have a slightly larger than normal lunch (ditto)

Have a huge afternoon snack (after all, you’re fasting tomorrow and there might not be enough food at dinner even though you know there will be enough food to feed several small nations)

Dinner. Gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, wine, chicken, brisket, tzimmes, challah, apples and honey, another portion of brisket because you wouldn’t want to be rude, some more tzimmes so the brisket isn’t lonely, asparagus (a little green veggie never hurt anyone), some more tzimmes because it’s really good, another glass of wine because it’s a holiday, a little more chicken because you wouldn’t want to be seen as favoring the brisket, another piece of challah (love those raisins), the chocolate and the apple pie and the honey cake for dessert because you can’t make up your mind, another piece of honey cake because it feels right, another piece of chocolate because YUM, another piece of apple pie because you’re fasting tomorrow. And cream with your coffee please.

Total day before Yom Kippur calorie consumption: 5,782 calories.

Yom Kippur

Breakfast: Skip

Snack: Skip

Lunch: Skip

Snack: Skip

Break-the-fast at Temple: tiny cup of juice, slice of challah, another cup of juice because you’re thirsty, another slice of challah because you have to drive All The Way Home, 2 slices of challah for the road because it’s Really Far to Home.

Dinner at home: Challah (because you didn’t get enough at temple), gefilte fish, a second gefilte fish because you can’t save just one, wine because it’s a holiday, soup because YUM, bagel, lox, cream cheese, kugel, more kugel because YUM, cucumbers, another bagel with everything because you’ve been fasting all day, another glass of wine because wine on an empty stomach is fun, another slice of challah (love those raisins), some more kugel because it’s delish and you’ve been fasting all day, another bagel because this is not really a substantial meal, dessert because it’s time for dessert but please don’t clear the kugel because you might have another piece, more kugel because it would be rude to ask to keep the kugel out and then not eat it, some more dessert because it goes so nicely with the coffee, but no cream in your coffee because you’re sort of watching your calories.

Total Yom Kippur calorie consumption (before the late evening snack because you’ve been fasting all day): 6,891 calories.

Conversation in every home: I can’t believe I didn’t lose any weight and I was fasting all day!

Isn’t math fun?

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

Today is Elephant Appreciation Day! And who doesn’t appreciate elephants?

In order to help you appreciate elephants more (or to help you appreciate more elephants), I have helpfully compiled some Extremely Interesting elephant facts. (You can tell they are Extremely Interesting because I just said so.)

An average newborn elephant weighs around 200 pounds and stand about 3 feet tall. That’s bigger than you were when you were born.

An adult elephant will eat about 300 pounds of food a day. Personally, I don’t see this as a huge accomplishment, since there have been days where I’ve eaten 300 pounds of Oreos before noon.

Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing. John Donne

An elephant’s trunk has more than 100,000 muscles. Elephants use their trunks to breathe, pick things up, make noises, drink, and smell. Also to look cute.

Elephants are the only mammal that can’t jump. Which explains why you never see elephants on professional basketball teams.

Elephants are the only mammals besides humans to have chins. (I love that.)

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know. Groucho Marx

Elephants normally only sleep 2 or 3 hours each day, proving that they would make excellent college students.

An elephant’s skin can be as thick as 1 inch, so while they may not be sensitive to most insects or insults, they are sensitive to the sun. Rather than invest in sunscreen, elephants will cover themselves in mud or dust. Interestingly, they are scared of bees. Me too.

Only those with skin as thick as elephant hide can hope to sail through their teens unscathed by self-doubt and bouts of depression. Mariella Frostrup

Elephants prefer one tusk over the other (think of it as handedness except with tusks). About 100 elephants a day are killed for their tusks. That is not part of appreciating elephants.

African elephants have the best sense of smell in the animal kingdom. They can smell water 12 miles away and detect rain 150 miles away. Elephants would make excellent TV weather people, except they are smarter than the average meteorologist.

I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me. Noel Coward

Elephants are extremely intelligent animals and have memories that span many, many years. This helps during dry seasons when they need to navigate to watering holes; they just pull up the memory and follow their memory GPS to the drinking fountain.

Elephants communicate over long distances (except the ones in elephant college who are busy ignoring their mothers) by producing a sub-sonic rumble that can travel over the ground faster than sound through air. Other elephants receive the messages through the sensitive skin on their feet and trunks. Think of it as ground-based cell phones for elephants.

Elephants purr (like cats) as a means of communication.

Elephants can hear one another’s trumpeting calls up to 5 miles away. Except for teenage elephants who have selective deafness.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

As you may recall, I spent Saturday morning downtown with Best Friend Errand Service helping set up for the Samuel Adams annual employee Oktoberfest celebration.

I must say (and so I shall) that we did an awesome job turning the “before” into the “after.” Table cloths, centerpieces, corn stalks (yes, I tried to put one bunch up upside down, but we fixed it), HUMONGOUS pumpkins, bales of hay, and a bunch of other stuff make for a great transformation.

They were expecting about 750 to the private event and I hope they had a wonderful time.

Not only did we get to see the incredible ArtWorks mural (still waiting for someone to tell me where the second pint glass and the word Cincinnati are hidden), we got to learn a little about Samuel Adams brews.

First of all, it turns out there is a special, secret, private, locked, and very cool room for the making of the KMF. OK, first it turns out that there is a beer (or perhaps it’s an ale) called Kosmic Mother Funk. You probably knew that, but I didn’t. And it turns out that some (or all—I’m a little unclear about the specifics) of it is made here in Cincinnati. And it further turns out that it ages in HUGE (bigger than the huge pumpkins) vats that are Works of Art Themselves. Holy cow is this room gorgeous.

I know you are probably more interested in what’s in the vats, but I don’t really have info about that. What I can tell you is the room is a beer brewer’s dream and even for those of us that don’t dream of beer it is amazing.

At either end of the room are big stained glass pieces that Samuel Adams commissioned. They show the important figures in Cincinnati brewing over the ages. Beautiful.

After our quick tour of the room, we went back to work transforming the parking lot into an event locale. But the memory lingers. Just like a fine beer.

Love, Mom

Check back Thursday for more about beer.

Dear Kid,

Happy New Year! And happy apples to celebrate the New Year.

Apples are members of the rose family. Unfortunately, handing your True Love a bouquet of apple blossoms doesn’t really have the same effect as sending a dozen roses. Or even a single rose.

There are over 8,000 varieties of apples, 2,500 of which are grown in the US.
Which is weird since only a small number of varieties are sold in your grocery store. This has a lot to do with grocery stores and shoppers and not so much to do with apple availability.

Apples ripen six to 10 times faster at room temperature than if they are refrigerated.

Apple varieties range in size from a little larger than a cherry to as large as a grapefruit. The largest apple ever picked weighed 3 pounds. As with so many things, I’m not sure that those at the extreme ends are fabulous.

A peck of apples weighs 10.5 pounds. A bushel of apples weighs about 42 pounds. Therefore, if I Love You a Bushel and a Peck of apples, a considerable percentage of my body goes toward loving. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Or a misrepresentation.

It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.

In Chinese, the word for apples is pronounced “ping” which also means peace. This is perhaps my favorite apple fact.

Thanks to their high levels of boron, apples can help improve your memory, mental alertness, and electrical activity of the brain. While apples don’t have a lot of calcium, their boron content helps strengthen bones. I think I might have to research boron.

Apples also contain malic acid, a chemical used in teeth whitening products, which helps dissolve stains.

Malusdomesticaphobia is the fear of apples. I have no idea why you would ever need to know that because apples are good things. And according to popular lore, they keep the medical professionals away. Mostly because you have shiny white teeth and strong bones from eating all those apples.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I hope you had a great weekend. I know you were spending time with friends and that has a way of making a college weekend better than not spending time with friends.

I spent part of the weekend with friends too (even though I’m not in college).

The big news is that the amazing Girlfriendology is moving closer.

This has the dual advantage of having her not be as far away as well as having her be closer. See how that works out?

So I went over to their new house to help them move in (and by “help them move in” I mean get the grand tour, deliver toys for the puppy, and visit for a few minutes. I am a huge help to my friends.).

Wishing them many happy and healthy years in their new digs.

I also spent some time hanging out with Sue at her community pool before it closes for the season.

Sue’s pool has the distinct advantage of having shaded areas and Sue, so it is a good place to visit on occasion (and by “on occasion” I mean once a year or so). I’m not a huge hanger-outer-at-the-pool these days but it was good to spend some time catching up.

The thing about being friends is knowing when to be blindly loyal to a friend’s POV (Point of View—if you watched enough bad reality TV, you’d know that) and when to share your own.

Sometimes you get luck and they are one and the same.

Like, “There’s that girl with the perfect body and I don’t think she does anything to keep her looks. And she’s really sweet.” “Hate her.” “Exactly.”

It’s why Sue and I are friends.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Labor Day is all about celebrating the workers in our society. Which—depending on how you look at things—is pretty much everyone.

Today I want to talk about a labor of love: writing DearKidLoveMom.com.

Sometimes people ask how I write a blog every day. Today I shall attempt to answer that question with something other than “um…well, I don’t really know.”

Sometimes blogs just appear, fully written, just needing to be typed out.

Often, I write them in my head, while walking the dog, driving to work, or at the gym, trying out sentences and rewriting them as necessary.

Sometimes it’s harder. I stare at the blank screen, willing words to appear. I can pretty much always manage to get “Dear Kid” written down. The rest of the words, not so much.

Sometimes it feels like I have a good idea. One short paragraph later, I hit delete. It’s the modern equivalent of ripping the paper out of the typewriter and crumpling it up. (Remind me to explain to you what a typewriter is.)

Some days I write about what’s going on in my life. Some days I write about what’s going weird in the world. Some days I write about what went on in the world a zillion years ago. Some days I make up what should be going on in the world.

People have asked why I have a Post-It note holder in my car. The answer is because some days, this is how you write a blog.

Happy Labor Day!

Love, Mom