Two front teeth and one really evil eye

Sometimes I think that God hates me. All of us really. But me in particular. Or he/she has a wicked and twisted sense of humor. This week has been undeniable proof of that.

M. was abducted by extra-terrestrial beings. It happened one night last week. In her sleep I think. When she woke up she became obsessed with some Korean Telenovela she found online. Someone had gone through the trouble of adding Hebrew subtitles to all 24 or 48 episodes of this abomination. And so for the past week she’s been ignoring me. And my needs. And my blogs. And my whining. And instead she’s been cheerfully singing the Korean theme song. In Korean. And I wonder if this soap opera is the real cause of all the nuclear tension between Seoul and Pyongyang. And when she finally emerged from that obsession, came up for some air, she was disappointed that I was not Korean. And I reassured her that Jews and Asians share at least one thing in common.

It’s all Korean to me

U. was hit in the eye. Repeatedly. By my son. But let me rewind. We were invited to dinner at our friend’s house in Raanana. And they have two small children. U. is D.’s age. And poor U. just had surgery on his left eye. And it looked like he had been punched in the eye. By Chris Brown. And so there we were two couples sitting at the dinner table while the kids played and every two minutes a horrible anguished cry would arise and U. would come in holding his eye describing how yet again D. had managed to get him in the eye. “Mom, D. shot me in the eye with the toy gun!” and then “Mom, D. hit me in the eye with the Buzz Light Year slipper.” And finally, when I thought the night couldn’t get any worse I was told by A. (the husband) that I resembled Dvir Bendak, an Israeli actor noted for his obesity and portrayal of a sumo wrestler. And I took D. aside and asked him politely to keep aiming for the eye.

Dvir Bendak as a sumo wrestler

D. learned a valuable lesson. I call it two front teeth for an eye. Because he was bouncing off the walls at the nursery and fell. And broke his two front teeth. And the dentist who does the X-Ray tells us that the two front teeth will turn a hideous shade of gray. Or black. But they’ll eventually be replaced with two beautiful white ones. When he turns 7. But in the meantime he’ll be a pirate of the Caribbean. And we ride back home in awkward quietude. Well not complete noislessness. The painfully annoying cacophony of a young Korean couple pierces the silence from M.’s smartphone.

Feed Me Seymour

I learned a valuable lesson. About something called the evil eye. Yes. The evil eye. Mind you I don’t believe in anything. Not Jesus. Not the tooth fairy. Not even professional wrestling. But I’m scared to death of this fucking thing called the evil eye. I wasn’t always afraid of it. Before I met M. I had no idea what it was. Oh but the evil eye kicked me in the nuts this week. You see I post pictures of D. on Facebook all the time. And everyone comments about how beautiful of a boy he is. And he is a good looking kid. Hamsa. Hamsa. Hamsa (Arabic for “five” and a proven talisman for fending off the evil eye) And when M. was preggers I used to put the Sony studio headphones up against her baby bump and the first song I ever played him was John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy”. And he is a beautiful boy. But no thanks to me. I’m a chimpanzee. But now my beautiful boy has black teeth every time he smiles. And the evil eye was put on him by someone.

I learned another valuable lesson. About the evil eye. After writing the last paragraph (about the evil eye) I may have inadvertently angered it. And as a result, while eating dinner last night (a hearty home cooked meal that I had labored over for the better part of three hours) I chipped my tooth on the fork. And with my chipped tooth and my mullet and the fact that I haven’t left the apartment for a few days on account of the rain, the fact that my shirt has stains from meals long digested means only one thing: my transformation to white trash has been completed. So no more taunting the evil eye. You win. No more fucking around. I give up. And then M. calls me and tells me that her teeth hurt. And she’s been throwing up all morning. AAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Fork You Very Much

S. is the speech therapist that works with my son. She is now the foremost authority on the language known as “D’ish”. It’s a complex language and she is the world’s only known expert. It is a mixture of English, Hebrew and gibberish in almost equal parts. So for instance the word “Aryeh” which is Hebrew for “lion” can mean any one of the following (depending on context): his toy lion, The Lion King (movie, and not necessarily the Broadway musical), Shrek, Ice Age, Madagascar (the movies, and not the island off the coast of Africa) and that game we play in which he rides on my back while I pretend to be a lion. And yesterday she continued to write down his gibberish while deciphering it into Hebrew. And he’ll say “vlahsghgdjhgtuta”. And point to the ceiling, And she looks on like she’s fucking Jane Goodall observing us, the chimps, in our natural habitat. And say: “oh you mean the thunder. And lightning?” And he’ll nod. And say “Ken!” (Hebrew for yes) And the fact that there are pictures of monkeys on the walls does nothing to make me feel better.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

I almost burned the house down. Which is ironic. Since I’m like Smokey the Bear when it comes to fire safety in our house. And I resemble a primate. And if I were gay I would be of the bear variety. M. is always frantic when we leave the house. Did she remember to turn off the space heater? And sometimes we’ll be halfway to our destination and we have to turn around. Go back in. And check. And I’ll roll my eyes. And wait in the car while she checks. And she comes back to the car. And of course it was a false alarm. Or when she lights all that Bukhoor incense against the evil eye. Or against something malevolent. And she’ll fall asleep. And I’ll chastise her for not taking all the requisite safety precautions. And then I get the call about D. breaking his teeth in gan. And in my frantic haste I left the space heater. On. Full heat. On the carpet. And left. And came back a few hours later. And miraculously the house hadn’t burned down. But I’ve been stripped of my rank as safety officer in a humiliating ceremony. Much like when the French humiliated Dreyfuss publicly and broke his sword. Kind of like that.

Un-Bearable.

So this week is coming to an end. And thankfully we got some much needed rain. And hail. And even some snow in some parts.

And for someone who rides their bicycle into work that’s just further proof that the divine hates my sorry ass.