Enraged that Obama's Spinners Snagged him the Presidency--with God's help

With all this outrage about Hillary Clinton and the cast of characters involved in the spin of the September terrorist attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, many, like me, recall the original event with "where were you then" importance.

I happened to be visiting a friend in Honolulu, significant because she has a TV that's often tuned to Fox News, while our household is TV-free. I recall being riveted to the screen as info about the attack unfolded, and Fox reporters spent mounting hours unraveling the spin put on the tragic and lethal events by White House operatives, including, illogically, our ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice.

The event was gaining traction. Questions about the veracity of initial explanations were explored. It was looking more and more like the kind of horrific lie that could leave a culpable president the loser to his Republican opponent. Hillary was backed into a corner. Photos of the Embassy devastation made it clear that this was a well-planned bombing, not some street protest over a months-old item on YouTube, that just happened to coincide with September 11. And it was coming out that the White House, with its real-time attendants in the 'war room' observing and discussing everything as it occurred, chose to thwart rescue so as to minimize the attack as an act of aggression, if not war.

The airwaves were heating up. Parents of dead personnel were interviewed over and over. News reports pointed to White House deception; for highest-level Dems President Obama's re-election was the primary goal, and the safety of US personnel secondary. This story was changing the course of history.

Then, news about Benghazi stopped completely. Fox turned its attention away from the panels, interviews, statements of lack of confidence by Republicans, and denials from the White House. And President Obama was re-elected.

Now we've got Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom and a growing list of other evidence--emails and statements at the time--to confirm the truth of the deadly event. But it's too late to re-do those first weeks, and, most crucially, the election.

What happened? Hurricane Sandy. God sent Barack Obama a hurricane. Its devastation and uncertainty not only shut down all inquiry about Benghazi, but gave the president his chance to shine. Exit polls after his re-election showed that 14% casting ballots named the president's reaction to Hurricane Sandy as the most important determinant of their presidential choice. Of this decisive 14%, three-quarters voted for Barack Obama. Without Hurricane Sandy, Mitt Romney would have won.

Now we've got retrospective outrage, all over the place. This weekend, Peggy Noonan had an excellent, scathing column in the Wall Street Journal, shredding White House defensiveness. We're seeing where the highest-level spin doctors excised any reference to terrorism and especially al Qaeda, lest it conflict with Obama's repeated campaign line, "We've got al Qaeda on the run!" Conquering al Qaeda was supposedly a great achievement of his first term, proof of his worthiness for re-election. That al Queda wasn't "on the run," but killing Americans and we refused to stop it, wouldn't help Obama's integrity or perceived competence.

photo shown repeatedly, from inside Libya embassy after the bombing

It's all out there now. We're still stuck with Obama. Still stuck with huge national debt and the ridiculousness of the Stimulus Package handing out the people's cash in an environment where unemployment has basically held steady. And now we're seeing how the urgency of politics trumped national security. The additional news about the IRS targeting groups with conservative titles adds to the distressing picture that the goal, from many angles, was to keep Obama in the presidency, even at the cost of ethics and lives.

That still leaves me perplexed about God's motive in sending Hurricane Sandy, but I've got enough faith to hope that over time, we'll understand the bigger picture, and benefit appropriately. Until then, I keep remembering those October days glued to the big-screen TV of my friend in Honolulu, and wondering how all the shocking news will play out this time.

Stimulus vs. Sequestration... and Bad Tattoos

The news is filled with stories that elicit reactions, and as I'm catching up on the paper I have plenty, each worthy of contemplating but not so complex it requires an entire post. Here are just two...

A Seattle Times story, "Scientists Feeling Sequester Pinch" (May 1) describes researchers' visit to Sen. Patty Murray to lament the tightening of federal funds for their projects. For example, an oncologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer research center (who had "spun off" two private companies of his own from his work) complained that with his federal grant halved, "one of his senior staffers left to take an industry job," and several students' positions may not be subsidized.

Leave aside that these workers are moving from government to private sector employ, which is fine with me. The issue that perplexes is "how does the sequester mesh with all the federal stimulus money that Pres. Obama distributed into the economy?"  Didn't the feds assign $787 billion to rebound from the big recession?  And now they've just raised the amount of Stimulus funds to $840 billion! Noted: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was to make up for the 2008 across-the-board economic recession, and the Sequester was to carve a budget for this year. But it's all from the same source, headed out to generally the same or similar recipients.

Did you think the Stimulus was done, its funds distributed to worthy shovel-ready projects? Then you must've missed the huge explosion of publicity when an extra fifty-three billion dollars got tacked on just last year. Don't you feel the new economic verve?

Well, you probably wouldn't, since according to Recovery.gov, the administrative body created to ensure transparency in Stimulus disbursal, just $252 billion of the $840 billion allocated has actually been spent ($2 billion won't ever be spent, because a few projects missed deadlines for use). Even so, billions have gone out there for health research. Please explain: What's keeping that infusion of funding from offsetting sequestration?



Tattoo gives new meaning to 'eyes on the back of my head.'

Over the past few days I've had several reminders of another conundrum of life: tattoos. 1) A piece in the NY Times yesterday by a Baby Boomer who regrets the droopy green unicorn on her likely-droopy right buttock. 2) Driving through the Rainier Valley section of Seattle, I saw many newly-opened, brightly-painted tattoo parlors, whose names coincidentally included the word "Lucky." 3) A news story revealed that a New York realty firm offered a 15% pay raise to staffers tattooing the company logo anywhere on their bodies (40 of 800 employees obliged). 4) And the Northwest has sunbathed in luxuriously warm temperatures this week, exposing the ubiquitous ink that usually resides beneath sweatshirts and flannel.

Rarely do I meet a tattooed person who, if it were free, instant and painless, wouldn't wash off at least some of the needle-scars they paid for. Googling "tattoo removal, Seattle," I'm amused to find my own dermatologist on the lucrative laser bandwagon, and further entertained reading Yelp notations like "it's not really their fault that this ugly green tattoo is taking so damn long to disappear!" and "tattoo removal is almost the worst pain in the world."

People on their way to get tattoos don't read Yelp recommendations for removal clinics, I'll grant you. But they should: "I thought I'd have to pay an arm and a leg to get this tattoo off my neck." What good is a clean neck when you're missing an arm and a leg?

A Los Angeles Yelper helpfully told a cash-strapped peer she could save money by having a new design inked on top of the old. Which is a much better idea than the failed results she reports: "My sister still has a shadow of the words 'PIMP' in Old English on the back of her neck." A woman with "PIMP" in Old English on her neck? What was she thinking?

Louise Rafkin, who wrote the NY Times piece, remembers the youthful exuberance that led to her tattoo but recognizes the truth: "So now I'm middle-aged with a misshapen cartoon animal on my rear." Louise, you're not the only one. Take a look at some of the worst-tattoo sites and you're in for a giggle. In fact the TLC TV network did a two-part special on "America's Worst Tattoos," featuring the brilliantly-hued tattoo artist Megan Massacre.

Megan Massacre at work

She's in the process of lasering off a large arm tattoo, inked by an old boyfriend who "did a really awful job." Professionally, she also covers up others' lousy art with larger drawings, an effort she calls "polishing a turd." In fact, she turned a little owl near the toes of a Rachael Ray Show audience-member into a large, rust and teal-colored feather sweeping up the woman's ankle. So feminine.

At 27, Ms. Massacre's learned some rules, like facing tattoos toward the center of the body, fitting their sizes to the target extremities, and avoiding children's portraits: "They can come out looking demonic or like an alien or like an old person," she told the New York Daily News. "I saw somebody who had a tattoo of a baby and it looked just like Richard Simmons.”


Not quite Richard Simmons, but not a baby, either...

"Not having a tattoo in Seattle is like living in Los Angeles without sunglasses," opines a directory on the Seattleite website, and it's definitely true. "I love this place because Spyder is a genius," gushed a patron of Apocalypse Tattoo. "The ferret skeleton tattoo he did for me is incredibly detailed..." Ferret skeleton?

Sometimes it's tough for me to focus on the faces of baristas and sales clerks who are heavily tattooed. I respect them as individuals but worry that by so distractingly inking their skin they've made their lives more difficult. I'd rather notice their communication than their "sleeves" and the glint of silver in their tongues, or the hole-enlarging rings they've inserted in their floppy lobes. I know there's a story for every drawing and puncture, and I'm dying to ask, but wouldn't deign to intrude.

Is this a youth-versus-age thing? Not sure, but as these human art displays get older, they'll watch their tats morph into distorted shapes, or regret permanently scarring themselves. The one thing we know is that change is constant, and when people develop, evolve, grow and droop, they'll see their early choices differently. All this synthesizes down to: Don't get tattoos; spare yourself, even if having them now seems the most meaningful commitment you can make.

Male and Female: Different despite denials

I'm a bit agog right now, after reading an article in the April 21 New York Times' Sunday Review called "The Tangle of the Sexes." In it two researchers report their analysis of 13 psychological studies done by others--where they conclude that men and women don't form two different categories.

Their assertion that males and females should be judged on the same continua, as individuals, is certainly laudable; nobody wants old-time prejudice that would box women into restrictive careers or make assumptions about feelings.

But just because men and women share an emotional and even an interest spectrum doesn't mean they're not discrete in major ways. In fact, the genders differ in such basic, fundamental aspects as to render early Gloria Steinem feminism yawningly passe.

How could these researchers bash the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" logic that sold John Gray millions of books (which they explicitly do in their study, in February's "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology")? How can they deny that so many physical and brain differences shape behavior?

Beats me. In fact, the two researchers, Bobbi Carothers, who completed the analysis for her doctoral thesis, now senior data analyst at Washington University in St. Louis, and Harry Reis, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester, admit that indeed the genders do exhibit some unbridgeable differences. Their penultimate paragraph in The Times describes their confirming their findings by checking typical, vastly disparate results: "Just to be safe, we repeated our analysis on several dimensions where we did expect categorical differences: physical size, athletic ability and sex-stereotyped hobbies like playing video games and scrapbooking. On these we did find evidence for categories based on sex."

Indeed. I chuckled when I looked over their journal article. The studies they chose to analyze were mainly the typical university studies using college students as subjects. I remember earning my degree at UCLA; it was required that we "volunteer" for several studies every year. How do you tease out the self-selection involved in data on those who not only made it to research-oriented universities but offer themselves up as subjects?

But, you might answer if you happened to take the time to read the journal article, Carothers and Reis just tried a new statistical approach on data that originally showed the sexes as psychologically polar. They found a way to say men and women aren't so different after all.

Beyond the fact they ignore using homogeneous populations, their study, which is

covered as a big deal, comes to a "duh" conclusion: Even though men score differently from women in most traditionally-recognized gender markers, there are plenty of men and women who respond in one or more psychological and social ways more like the other gender. The wife who takes charge of finances, the husband who enjoys childcare may be mighty feminine or masculine in the majority of their other interests and behaviors.

I reflect that showing men and women as interchangeable is essential to the ongoing effort to legalize same-sex marriage. The crux of the issue is whether men and women are uniquely joined, a "marriage of opposites," as I often call it, when they wed, or whether the institution has morphed into simply a declaration of commitment that any two people can make. If it's something special--bringing together two categories, male and female, that are compatible yet essentially different, it's worth preserving as it has always been. By shifting the definition to the joining of two-of-any-kind, America is bereft of any relationship that recognizes the reality of these basic differences.

And inherent differences between the genders are indeed reality. Ann Moir and David Jessel were the first to shock readers in 1989 with their description of brain research, Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women. That was followed in 1997 with Deborah Blum's Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women. As the field of neuropsychology lept forward, Melissa Hines chronicled it in Brain Gender (2004), and a new stir erupted when neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine published The Female Brain (2006). Those are just the books I happen to have on my shelf; I'm sure you can buy many others that confirm the inescapable truth that men and women are hardwired differently, and that these differences profoundly affect attitudes, communication styles and behavior.

Of course men and women aren't all clump-able into two isolated camps, different on every measure. Of course plenty of men embrace stereotypically female interests, and ditto in reverse for women. But what's the gain in denying the plethora--the overwhelming landslide--of data that illuminate chasms that, by being recognized, allow for greater understanding and harmony?  You can reorganize studies to your heart's content to show that individuals are just that, but despite society's eagerness to say homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality, and men and women are interchangeable, certain essential differences cannot be erased, and gender is discernible in every cell of each human on the planet.

Viral "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" Ad a Manipulative Disservice

"Jenise" in self- & stranger-described drawings from Dove ad

The "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" ad that's gone viral on YouTube is one of those sappy, group-hug efforts that supposedly aims to bolster women's self esteem--perhaps too much.

A forensic sketch artist sits behind a curtain and draws the faces of women from descriptions he hears on the other side. His first rendering comes from the subject's description of herself, and the second from the observations of someone who talked with her for a few minutes. The emotional moment when the subject compares the two sketches to realize she described herself as less-attractive than the new "friend" did is supposed to teach her to value herself more.

With 13 million views and counting, plus news articles and Facebook re-posts, Dove has a publicity hit, so I applaud its advertising success--but I have big problems with its message.

Set aside its manipulative emotionalism, too-close camerawork, weird massage-room background muzak and tedious length, and look at its goal, to elevate women's self-esteem by showing them they're more beautiful than they believe. Sounds good--but what if that goal were achieved? What if the subjects bragged like the men in this excellent parody by New Feelings Time? Stuff like:

"Everyone says my eyes sparkle and light up a room."

"I'm so lucky my nose is cute, the kind people pay big bucks to plastic surgeons for."

"My teeth are straight from orthodontia and really white because I bleach them."

"Men tell me my lips are really kissable."

What kind of woman would that be? Even if she were accurate, we'd think her a narcissist. Humility and modesty are a good thing, and portraying oneself as less attractive than you are to a stranger would be the healthy response to the situation.


Same guy, self- & stranger-described, from parody on male real beauty

Of course, the male parody's guys are more boastful than 95% of men would be. Men, like their female counterparts, would likely downplay their good features. And a large swath of men don't evaluate their faces much at all, other than what they need to know to avoid slicing off their noses when they shave.

An article about the campaign in the New York Times says the Unilever-owned Dove based the concept on its research showing only 4% of women consider themselves beautiful. They say they want to "create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety." Sounds laudable, but how about a world where values and achievements are a source of confidence, and beauty isn't the first and foremost means by which women are judged?

What about the useful maxim, "beauty is only skin-deep?" Kindness, now that's something to promote as a source of well-being.

The problem is that everybody's getting older, and sooner or later, everyone gets ugly. That is, if you judge the person on her externals. Admittedly, I'm as vain and caught up in our society's responses to physicality as most women are. But creams and even Dove soap are less able to freshen my appearance as the years mount. Will I be "more beautiful than I think" at age 80, as the tag line of the ad suggests? Women judged beautiful at 80 are no longer held to the standard of smooth skin, lithe muscles or model-esque features.  The wise ones step back and see their lives in the context of those they touched and their accomplishments. Most of us step back and still feel inside like we're the same children we always were, insecure and striving to please.

But our looks are just part of a much larger picture of self-esteem. Ask all the actresses and models, whose desperation to compete in a hopelessly perfect realm drives them to plastic surgery, eating disorders and psychological frenzy. "Who is wealthy?" asks a famous Jewish traditional source. The query might as well be, "who is a beautiful woman?" because the same answer applies to both questions: "She who rejoices in her portion." In other words, the woman counting her blessings, grateful that she's alive--or, after the heartbreaking events in Boston--grateful that she has two legs upon which to walk has the wealth of a beautiful world, whether or not her face meets some societal standard.

I wonder how the sketches would have turned out had the women been told what was happening. "We're going to draw a sketch based on your description of yourself, which you'll compare with one based on a new acquaintance's description." The women were sketched by a police artist, after all, someone whose work is usually a composite of witnesses' recollections with the caption, "wanted for bank robbery."

"Maria" drawn from self and stranger descriptions in the Dove ad

Are women often too hard on themselves? Do they frequently fret needlessly over details of their looks? Of course. Do they need to hear that their outward appearances are perceived by somebody they barely know as better than they verbalize? Don't think so.

Now isn't the time to foster narcissism. We've got Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and a whole app store of means to shout out how important we are. The Dove campaign platform is, after all, a website called YOU Tube. You. Or, just as often, "I." Are the iPhone, iPad, iTunes named for generosity and thinking of others? Um, no.

How about a campaign showing some selfless women? Women who care for an aging relative, or a spouse with dementia? Women who work ceaselessly at their kids' schools, or mentor a younger colleague professionally? How about some exemplary women who are obese, truly unconventional-looking, or have scarred skin? Why not apply the same tag line: "You're more beautiful than you think"--because then we could define beauty beyond skincare. Oh yeah, but it wouldn't sell nearly as much soap.

How to scare off a ducky duo??

These are not our ducks, but they could be.

The news of the Boston Marathon terrorism is engrossing and horrifying. Still, it's springtime, and events marking the season continue as a backdrop. For us, a frustrating minor distraction quacks.

When we bought our home in the Northwest 16 years ago, we had but a single day to make a choice, due to my husband's immediate new employment. We flew up from LA and our efficient realtor showed us homes in the order they met our criteria. We ended up purchasing the first one we saw. The only drawback: it happened to have a swimming pool.

We're not swimmers, and there's absolutely no need in the Northwest to have a pool, given that there's just three months--at best--of decent weather. Our hole in the ground has caused one in our wallet. I think the expense of each dip comes to something like $500.

We really should have filled in the pool years ago, but aside from the enormous expense, we had the erroneous fantasy that when our kids became teens, the pool would be a friend-magnet. The three times each one brought guests wasn't worth the ongoing need for maintenance and repairs that our pool-dominated yard required.

One pair of lovebirds, however, has greatly enjoyed our swimming pool, despite our crying fowl: mallard ducks that arrive every March or April to make themselves at home in and next to our pool, pooping and molting where they please for two or three months.

Our usual line of defense is to scare them off when we see them, which is whenever we look outside. We throw fir cones shed by our trees, though it takes really accurate pitches to convince them to flap away. They circle around in the air, before our eyes, and wait for us to go back inside, at which time they return to languishing in or near our pool.

We talk a lot about Duck a la Orange and making soup, though we obviously couldn't kill them in a way that's kosher. Our handyman, however, has brought out his bow and arrow and slingshot. The pair are unimpressed.

There's something almost human about the couple. They're clearly married, after all. I've never seen any ducklings, but if they have a nest, it's likely closer to the lake; we're their vacation home. They like to sleep by the concrete pool edge in the afternoons, just a couple feet from each other. I hadn't known that when ducks snooze, they kind of wad themselves up, tucking their heads and wings into a neat little one-legged ball.

One time my thrown fir cone scared them; the male flew above our deck railing but the female didn't quite make it and slammed into the wood. I felt badly; though part of me wanted to kill her, I didn't want to see her hurt. After all, she was in a romance, and I wouldn't want my hurling cone to create a mourning widower.

We usually try to put a plastic floating "solar cover" on the unheated pool, to make it less alluring, as soon as the ducks return. But last year's cover disintegrated; we better buy a new one, fast.

In the meantime, my son is developing his pitching arm, I run outside flailing and screaming at the haughty birds several times a day, and our pool is becoming less appealing for human use. If anyone has a nicely natural, non-toxic way to deter our part-time residents, please let me know.

Bread Flour for Profit, and the President's "War on Independence"

Just made my weekly challah bread for Shabbat (recipe in the previous post), and happened to see something on the King Arthur bread flour bag that excited me: "The business is based on three pillars: people, planet and profit. We do what's right for our customers, for ourselves, and for our environment..."

If I didn't have their product all over my hands, I would've run right to my computer to post my kudos that they openly state their pursuit of profit, and list "ourselves," the employee-owners, among the three "pillars" of the company.

I'm tired of the drippy altruism of most big enterprises who present themselves as solely concerned with helping their communities, the third-world workers who fabricate or grow their products, and the environment--and exclude profit as a central goal. I don't disparage the real benefits from businesses eager to be good citizens of the world, but a primary motivator of their contributions is positive public opinion that translates into more customers.

Hooray for King Arthur flour, not just because it makes my weekly challah fluffier than other brands (it does), not just because they run their company fairly, contribute to their communities and are environmentally sensitive, but because they're honest that financial success is something they seek, and their own welfare is worthy of pursuing.

With that in mind, I also applaud a very important editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, "Now He's After Your 401(k)." It's a cleverly-written expose of the real reasons Pres. Obama wants to cap the amount of money workers can save for their retirements without first being taxed for it. Here's the crux: "The Administration's political motive here is two-fold: First, it's a redistributionist play and a revenue grab. But for many on the left it's also about reducing the ability of individuals to make themselves independent of the state."

In other words, it's part of what I term "The War on Independence."  The goal of that war: Undermining personal choice and power in favor of channelling people collectively "in socially responsible ways" (by the government) to minimize human effect on the planet and "for the good of society."

Redistribution of wealth is central: Joe the Plumber made Obama slip that "when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody." Our president has determined that about $250,000 per year is all anyone should have to live on, before exorbitant taxes kick in. He seems to think $3 million in savings should do for the years from retirement until death; anything else you sacrifice to save should have your tax bracket's percentage taken off first. Government knows best what it's "fair" to live on; individuals who worked hard and chose to prudently put aside money for retirement could have "substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving," warns the POTUS.

Similarly, policies crucial to The War on Independence seek to herd people onto mass transit, especially light rail that forces them onto fixed routes, and out of their personally-empowering automobiles.  They want to curb Second Amendment guarantees to self-protection, and make the public reliant on governmentally-funded police and military. They believe obesity can't be addressed individually (despite research that overweight and Grade I obese people live longest, as well as that obesity is often something one can't influence) and want laws that limit the size of soft drinks, or put calorie counts of restaurant food on all menus. Generals in The War on Independence prefer children eating their meals in schools, and recruit their parents to take food stamps. Even sustenance becomes less personal and more dependent on government.

Read the Wall Street Journal editorial and weep: you're losing control of your freedom. That's why we need to support businesses like King Arthur Flour who say outright that they support free enterprise and that profit is to be pursued. And we need to fight policies that thwart frugality, creativity and industriousness "for the good of society" by curtailing our personal independence in favor of government.

Challah Bread, Tiny Houses, and Appreciating "Stuff"

Jews like me just completed the annual holiday of Passover, when we avoid anything leavened, like--especially--bread. One explanation is that at the commemoration of the creation of Jewish people-hood, we shouldn't get "puffed up," like risen dough, with our own sense of self-importance. We shouldn't be arrogant because God decided we were His people, or because individually, it's too easy, with Facebook posts and Instagram and Twitter, to think the world revolves around us. Not us: Me.

So with that recent reminder, it seems we ought to laud the folk who are smiling from the front pages of our newspapers and magazines because they've divested all their personal effects and decided to live in a 250-square-foot box. Downsizing to the ridiculous is now a fad, the "Tiny House Movement," perfect for anyone on the no-carbon-footprint bandwagon. Still, I respect those with small aspirations. In an engrossing documentary by Kirsten Dirksen on tiny homes, Stephen Marshall, who builds wee buildings in California, (quoting Michael Janzen, from the Tiny House Design blog) repeats the trendsetters' slogan: "Tiny houses are not a fad; it's McMansions that are the fad."

Not that people choosing small spaces are selfless. But generally, they are passionate that a life with minimal material goods is not just good; it's better for the planet and the soul.

I beg to differ. While certainly there's plenty of waste, plenty of hoarding and plenty of consumerism that unfortunately trumps kindness and spirituality, it doesn't have to be that way.  A Jewish approach holds that wealth is a positive, worth pursuing, as long as it's attached to the proper attitude. More money means you can help more people. Beautiful things are a blessing if they're appreciated and cherished.

How do I come upon this topic? I'm often heard saying, "I have more of (fill in the blank) than any human should be allowed to have." I have a collection of lovely paper napkins, each pack with a print that thrills me. They're too good to use, my "save it for the best occasion" self says, and then my smarter self takes over: "But what could be a better occasion? Who better than my friends and family to save it for? How many packs of heart-thrilling printed paper do I really need? There are more exciting napkin designs to be had!"

So I use them, and enjoy them, and frequently re-organize them. A simple pack of paper napkins (always bought at bargain price at Tuesday Morning or Ikea) enriches my day. Do I need 20 packs of paper napkins? No. But just having them reminds me how privileged I am to be able to collect them.

Same with napkin rings. I host Sabbath meals--fancy, formal, religious occasions--for 12 every week. And over 28 years of marriage, I've amassed a large collection of tableware. Table cloths. Cloth napkins. Vases. Drinking glasses. Table runners. If I can use it on a Shabbat table, I have "more than any human should be allowed to have." Occasionally I cull my possessions. Often, I enjoy and admire what I have (since every week, I'm designing another completely new tablescape).

I also have a drawer-ful of socks. More socks than I could wear every day for three months.

These are not my socks, but could be.

In fact, choosing my socks today spurred writing this post. I'm wearing a lavender top (a hand-me-up from a daughter) and could choose from many patterned socks. I recalled when I was in college and scraping by on my part-time minimum-wage earnings that I owned just two pairs of jeans, four tops, and four pair of socks. I owned two very cheap necklaces. It never occurred to me to spend time shopping, or that I needed more.

Now I have dozens of necklaces, selected at craft fairs because I enjoyed them, or gifts from people I love. Am I living an inferior life? No, I'm simply surrounded by more beauty, memories and joy. If I had to live in one of those eensie shoe-boxes, I could, but I'd feel loss when I gave up the necklace my son made in kindergarten or the one my friend bought, the same for each of us.

But as I get older and keep pushing aside the idea that there are only so many days left to use up all those napkins, wear all those pairs of socks or colorful necklaces, I view them all with increased appreciation and urgency. Yes, it's good to purge and even downsize, but it's also good to see something beautiful or useful and enjoy it. I don't have to own everything I appreciate; I certainly don't buy all the clever and gorgeous items I see or even want. But I don't think that people in spacious homes with lots of stuff are necessarily any less responsible than the tiny housers, and I don't think that embracing the bounty of our material world is inferior to eschewing it.

And now, post-Passover, it's once again the eve of Shabbat, the busiest day of the week for me, as I prepare to welcome my brother-in-law from Israel along with two tables-ful of guests, and must immediately make my challah bread dough, so it has enough time to rise.

                                                  Diane Medved's Challah

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
2 cups warm water
8 1/2 cups King Arthur bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2/3 to 3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 beaten egg for glaze

Sprinkle yeast on warm water in measuring cup; set aside for about 10 minutes. In large food processor with dough blade, combine flour, salt and sugar. Add oil and eggs but don't mix. Return to yeast/water and gently make sure all yeast is combined in water and starting to bubble. Flash blend while slowly adding yeast mixture, then process until dough moves as one lump around processor bowl. Remove the clump to a trash bag-sized plastic bag; knead a little and then seal the bag with a twist-tie. Place in a warm place several hours until risen. Line 2 large baking sheets with foil and spray with nonstick spray. Punch down and divide dough into four large pieces. Divide one of the large pieces into three strands and braid onto the baking sheet; repeat so there are two long loaves per baking sheet. Set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush beaten egg on loaves and bake for 16 minutes, til golden. Say a blessing, and enjoy.