There’s nothing quite as comforting as a rainy afternoon spent eating a plain, buttered bagel and sipping an ice-cold pint of chocolate milk. It’s a tradition, you see, one I’ve been upholding since the age of three. After dropping my brother off at preschool, my Mom and I used to go to the Chesapeake Bagel Bakery in Fairfax, get my incredibly goyish bagel, and then come back home to watch ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’. (Not the strippers, the chipmunks.) It’s been a comforting meal ever since, especially on rainy days.
And my goyish habits haven’t gone unnoticed. My sweet podiatrist that originally helped with the whole toe thing, Dr. Siegel, was a great Jewish guy from New York City. He got incredibly emotionally involved in my whole struggle – it was cute, really, but also rather sad in a way. He’s was sweet, though. After my first operation he came to visit me in my room, and as I was only half awake he took my little hand and said, “Is there anything I can get you, Bubbie? Anything I can get you at all? You name it, you got it.” I knew that every morning Dr. Siegel went to a bagel bakery to get his everything bagel. In fact, he claimed he’d been doing this so much that they let him come in the back way and get his own, but I think he was bragging.
So I asked him to bring me a bagel the next morning. He said of course, and started going on and on, saying, “Do you want an everything bagel? How about some lox? Cream cheese?” I shook my head and said, “No, a plain bagel with butter.”
He literally stood up and started pacing my hospital room, waving his arms about. “I cannot do this… it is an insult to my people, I just can’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to go in there ever again.” Then he paused, looked at me and said, “For you, Bubbie, I’ll give someone else the money have them order it.”
So my tradition is an insult to the Jewish people, but I love it! It’s the perfect comforting tradition. And I so needed it today, I had a constant headache all night and then it lasted well into the afternoon. It was just so perfect – the butter was whipped and nice and gooey, the bagel was perfect, just like the one I had in New York. Dr. Siegel would have been proud.
Hehe, sorry for the random bagel story. 🙂 Call me mashuga, but I’ve been obsessing about bagels all day. I hadn’t had one in such a long time, I was long overdue.
And now I’m way too tired to go on anymore about what I did today. In a nutshell, I’ve been preparing for the design class all day and I’m exhausted. I’ve been preparing design kits all evening and I literally just finished for the night. And they still aren’t done yet! I need to make tote bags for them tomorrow. But it will be so incredibly stylish! It’ll kick serious butt. I’ll take pictures when it’s all done.
I’m off to bed, please excuse any typos, I’m too tired to be bothered by them. Good night!