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carolsartain
Dec 4, 20187 min read
When Ma Would Make Me Giggle
Sometimes, when I was very young, my mother made me cringe with embarrassment. For example, on the few occasions when she and Aunt Rose...
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carolsartain
Nov 27, 20184 min read
How to Be A Neurotic Jewish Mother - Part 2: Neurosis
In Part 1, we examined the art of cultivating guilt, a necessary ingredient for the NJM. However, before we proceed with Part 2, I would...
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carolsartain
Nov 20, 20185 min read
How to Be A Neurotic Jewish Mother - Part 1: Guilt
In dealing with parents, specifically mothers, you often have to either laugh or be upset, and frankly, being upset is bad for the...
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carolsartain
Nov 13, 20186 min read
Gambling to Lose
You may have noticed when I write about famine times I use the phrase “not having two cents to rub together.” It’s an idiom for being...
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carolsartain
Nov 6, 20185 min read
My Three Weddings - Part 2
Years pass, affection turns to loathing, and the former bride and groom agree to stay together for the sake of the children until the...
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carolsartain
Oct 30, 20187 min read
My Three Weddings - Part 1
For most people, weddings are a big deal, I mean a really big deal. My weddings? Not so much. To get the full picture, you need a little...
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carolsartain
Oct 23, 20185 min read
My Mother Made Me Laugh
Saying that someone was funny is no good; you’ve got to give examples. The problem with my mother’s examples is they were only funny to...
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carolsartain
Oct 16, 20185 min read
A Gujarati, An Italian, and a Jew Walk into a Bar
Recently, I had the honor of attending a Gujarati film screening at a large Hindu Temple. I’d never been there before so I figured it...
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carolsartain
Oct 9, 20186 min read
Where's Mike?
I’ve been given the task of identifying bodies of the deceased four times in my life so far. There’s nothing funny about death and...
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carolsartain
Oct 2, 20185 min read
Speaking of Names...Part 2
Maybe you’ve read the story of Mary, my Amah. If not, Mary was the housekeeper-babysitter who took care of my sister and me for years,...
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carolsartain
Sep 25, 20184 min read
Speaking of Names...Part 1
Some families attach nicknames to their kin that are not very kind, such as Rat Face and Lard Ass. We never did that. Instead, we...
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carolsartain
Sep 18, 20186 min read
Why Daddy Bought the Bar
The chicken business had gone bankrupt, the Vegas gambling tables had cost him his few remaining dollars, and the strain of it all gave...
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carolsartain
Sep 11, 20186 min read
Ma's Glare and the Gay Bar
Since we’ve been on the subject of my mother recently, I’d like to take this opportunity to set the record straight about how she came to...
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carolsartain
Sep 4, 20185 min read
The Chicken Place
After my parents decided to sell their chicken ranch in the San Fernando Valley, they ran a chicken store on Temple Street near Boyle...
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carolsartain
Aug 28, 20185 min read
Life on the Chicken Ranch
People have told me I can’t really remember things that happened when I was two. People are wrong. I can remember all the way back to the...
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carolsartain
Aug 21, 20185 min read
San Luis Obispo Days
One of my mother’s family members was actually well off. He opened a shoe store, and then a second one, and before long he had 500 shoe...
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carolsartain
Aug 14, 20186 min read
Echo Park Sundays - Horse Racing Out to Sea
My father would become enraptured with a new interest, participate in it every weekend for a year or two, then tire of it and move onto a...
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carolsartain
Aug 7, 20185 min read
Echo Park Sundays - Going by Car
In an earlier post, I said my family didn’t go camping. That’s not exactly accurate. They went camping; they just never went with me. ...
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carolsartain
Jul 31, 20184 min read
Echo Park Sundays - The Trolley Days
Echo Park Avenue used to have a red car trolley line running from Sunset Boulevard all the way up to Grandma’s house. Past her house, the...
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carolsartain
Jul 24, 20185 min read
Ohm and the Harmonium
An earlier journal entry ended by saying my children froze in fear when I told them I’d started meditating again. That wasn’t entirely...
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