Way back a couple months ago a female friend with good intention gave me a card for praying for a Jewish spouse with the instructions that I pray this prayer every night after I say the Shma for 40 nights. Well only after a few weeks of praying I got not one, but two matches on my See You At Sinai match making site.
One match had seen me in a dream before my match come to him, and he knew without a doubt that I was his Bashert! He was set to marry me in an instant. When he looked at me for the first time on Skype, he just about cried in delight and told me that he loved me!
He came out for a week during Succot. He was not fit as he propounded throughout his match making page. In fact he had a watermelon-sized belly. I was shocked when he got off the plane, but I was trying to not judge him by his outsides, though he lied about his fitness. He'd also given me his legal name by accident in an e-mail with his flight itinerary, so I had a friend do a background check while I drove to pick him up and to our surprise, he had been sued by the State of Washington for bad customer service!
After a week of gently questioning him around this point about being sued by the whole state of Washington, he explained that he was sick with prostate cancer and under care in Texas while he was being sued in Washington. When he returned to Washington, his wife had kicked him out and filed for divorce, so his last bit of money went to getting some custody of the children and not to defending himself from the State of Washington. This made some sense.
Over time he divulged that he was living off social security and that to afford for me to move to Seattle, he'd have to start a new business, so I wouldn't be supporting him. His e-mails soon changed from love poetry about physics to ideas for starting businesses. Soon I told him to stop e-mailing about businesses, because that was his issue. I had a job, and it kept me too busy to help start a business.
He still through business ideas by me, until one day he said, "Maybe I could get a CNC from that guy who owes my $50,000 for making a CNC for me, and I could make counterfeit collectible coins with counterfeit written on the side of the coin."
"That's a federal offense!" I interjected.
After that phone call I paid for a background check on him and then investigated his father to see if his father taught him how to criminally think and not realize it was criminal. Sure enough his dad had been put in jail for 6 months by the State of Texas for melting feathers to put into pet food. The smell was so horrible from their plant that the people of Waco, Texas filed a suit.
Fortunately, G_d had a now expelled student torch a feather in my class to try to get me to evacuate it. Since it didn't smell like burning plastic which is toxic, I didn't evacuate the class. It did smell horrible and that was just one feather. I could imagine how badly his father's plant had smelled. I could imagine why a whole city filed suit against him and put him into jail.
When I asked this suitor who desperately wanted to marry me about if his family has had any other legal issues while doing business. He didn't admit to it. Then I said, "So you didn't have any problems in Texas?"
He blamed those problems on antisemitism. Now I would have believed that, if G_d hadn't had that student torch a feather in my class. G_d also had the poor suitor suffer from a very bloody bladder disease right after Yom Kippur, so G_d was really not happy about this guy pursuing me so strongly.
I'd also found that he was using his deceased father's name to do business in Seattle. He'd mentioned that his new business would also have to be under my name, not his. This just made my skin crawl that he could put me into jail with some sketchy business deal, so I finally told him that he wasn't ready for this relationship and ended it.
A few days later I went back to my other match that I'd previously told that I've found my Bashert, so I didn't want him to wait around for me. For some reason I never ended our match formerly, so I explained that the guy that I thought was my Bashert was a criminal. I was a corporate spy and did a background check and found that he had some criminal behaviors in business. My other match was kind and liked the idea that I was a corporate spy and took me back, but said that he would dating others.
Well, it's been well over a month since this other match actually communicated with me. I was actually going to formerly end it with him. Then, out of the blue, he called. He talked on and on like we've been talking every week. I did face exercises to rid me of my jowls in the reflection of my black window while I listened to him. I finally asked him, "Why haven't you ever been married?"
Then he started another soliloquy with exceptional detail and added at the end, "I'm on the autism spectrum."
"Oh really," as if I hadn't figured that one out. "What type of autism?"
"I have Aspergers."
"Well, so do I. How does yours exhibit?"
He doesn't have the tactile issues that I have, but he has little twitches like twirling his hair.
I added, "I said it was OK for my matches to have Aspergers, but I didn't say that I had it, since I can pass as a neural typical." I explained in detail how my daughter made me take the Aspie test, because she was so upset to be raised by an mother with Aspergers. My son is half neural typical and half Aspie.
"Aren't female Aspies rare?" He asked.
"Incredibly."
We shared our wonderful soliloquies of our very interesting adventures for over an hour---being gracious and letting the other talk without interrupting. We didn't have to worry about being misunderstood. We didn't have to worry about boring the other. We didn't have to try to be neural typical. We just were ourselves.
I ended the conversation, "So, you'll call in another month?"
He laughed.
"Could you make it sooner this time---like a week?" I added.
And so G_d answered my prayer for a Jewish spouse, and I chose wrong. At least G_d let us have another chance to figure out that we were each other's Bashert.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
The Thanksgiving Blues
Today as I kayaked on Lake Natoma where I met my ex-fiance tears were in my eyes, not for him, but for being without my children on Thanksgiving. Perhaps that's why my ex broke up with me last year at this time. My motherly instincts to have my children with me, when I'm thankful for all the G_d has given to me, always makes me sad when I'm without my precious children every year on Thanksgiving.
Yet G_d gave me glassy water with a massive storm overhead, a storm heading to the Sierra Mountains to drop the snow which I prayed for to keep me busy skiing while I was alone. G_d gave me a lake all to myself with the most beautiful reds popping out of deep greens. G_d gives me so much when I cry to Him on the water....and just when I cry to Him. I constantly blessed all the beauty and miracles that he gave to me as I paddled onward toward the mountains and back, and the glassy water and beauty lasted without a drop of rain upon me.
Though the blues hit me later in the morning, earlier this morning I was too sleepy for the blues to hit me as I dropped my son off at the airport. He's such a good man and lives with me again, so he can go back to college. I spent all my college money on his sister while he was finding himself and developing his rock n roll band, Air Surgeon. He's never stopped loving me over that. His sister is much different.
After his sister's college graduation and wedding, she wrote and told me to only write her if it had to do with money or a severe medical emergency. My dad's stroke was not severe enough, and she wrote, "Your breaking the rules."
When I told my son this for the first time yesterday, he said, "What a spoiled, bratty, princess!" That's what most of her psychologists have told her in professional terms over the years, too. I still have hope that one day whatever I did or didn't do is forgiven. She's my daughter, and I love her.
I know that, because I was severely physically and emotionally abused by my middle brother and sister as I grew up with undiagnosed Aspergers that no amount of work will obliterate the insensitivity that I have toward abusive behavior. With all my training as a teacher, I know more and more what abusive behavior is. I know what made me feel bad and never did it to my children. I know that I moved my children far away from my siblings to keep them safe, but what did I unknowingly bring with me that hurt my daughter?
She's explained it to me: I didn't listen to her enough. I had Aspergers. I wasn't strong enough during my surgical menopause, and she felt like a parent to me. I fed her huge Paku fish, that looked like a piranha, to the cat when that fish ate all the other fish in the aquarium. For some reason she felt like I always thought she was fat, though I purposefully stopped myself from doing that to her, since my mother did it to me. At least I did better than most abused children do as parents, but that's not going to make my relationship with my daughter any better now.
After finishing my mandatory reporters training for teachers last week, I remarked to my son, "They added something new into it this year. They added, 'Interview the parents that are abusing their children, because they probably will tell you how they're abusing their children without even knowing it. In their minds what they do is not abuse. It's just what the family does.'"
"Did I do something bad that I was unaware of to my children?" I asked my son. At least my son didn't think so, but what if my abuse was now his normal? What an endless cycle of training and retraining myself to recognize abusive behavior. What an endless cycle of removing myself from my siblings' and exhusband's abuse only to be abused by my daughter's rules of interaction.
Anyway, I'm alone, so no one is abusing me on Thanksgiving, but I wish that I wasn't alone. I wish that someday I'll find a life partner that will look into my eyes on Thanksgiving and make me focus on him and not on missing my children or the pain from my past, just as G_d keeps me focused on the beautiful glassy water and reds of the trees as I kayak toward the mountains and back beneath the storm clouds of life.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
Yet G_d gave me glassy water with a massive storm overhead, a storm heading to the Sierra Mountains to drop the snow which I prayed for to keep me busy skiing while I was alone. G_d gave me a lake all to myself with the most beautiful reds popping out of deep greens. G_d gives me so much when I cry to Him on the water....and just when I cry to Him. I constantly blessed all the beauty and miracles that he gave to me as I paddled onward toward the mountains and back, and the glassy water and beauty lasted without a drop of rain upon me.
Though the blues hit me later in the morning, earlier this morning I was too sleepy for the blues to hit me as I dropped my son off at the airport. He's such a good man and lives with me again, so he can go back to college. I spent all my college money on his sister while he was finding himself and developing his rock n roll band, Air Surgeon. He's never stopped loving me over that. His sister is much different.
After his sister's college graduation and wedding, she wrote and told me to only write her if it had to do with money or a severe medical emergency. My dad's stroke was not severe enough, and she wrote, "Your breaking the rules."
When I told my son this for the first time yesterday, he said, "What a spoiled, bratty, princess!" That's what most of her psychologists have told her in professional terms over the years, too. I still have hope that one day whatever I did or didn't do is forgiven. She's my daughter, and I love her.
I know that, because I was severely physically and emotionally abused by my middle brother and sister as I grew up with undiagnosed Aspergers that no amount of work will obliterate the insensitivity that I have toward abusive behavior. With all my training as a teacher, I know more and more what abusive behavior is. I know what made me feel bad and never did it to my children. I know that I moved my children far away from my siblings to keep them safe, but what did I unknowingly bring with me that hurt my daughter?
She's explained it to me: I didn't listen to her enough. I had Aspergers. I wasn't strong enough during my surgical menopause, and she felt like a parent to me. I fed her huge Paku fish, that looked like a piranha, to the cat when that fish ate all the other fish in the aquarium. For some reason she felt like I always thought she was fat, though I purposefully stopped myself from doing that to her, since my mother did it to me. At least I did better than most abused children do as parents, but that's not going to make my relationship with my daughter any better now.
After finishing my mandatory reporters training for teachers last week, I remarked to my son, "They added something new into it this year. They added, 'Interview the parents that are abusing their children, because they probably will tell you how they're abusing their children without even knowing it. In their minds what they do is not abuse. It's just what the family does.'"
"Did I do something bad that I was unaware of to my children?" I asked my son. At least my son didn't think so, but what if my abuse was now his normal? What an endless cycle of training and retraining myself to recognize abusive behavior. What an endless cycle of removing myself from my siblings' and exhusband's abuse only to be abused by my daughter's rules of interaction.
Anyway, I'm alone, so no one is abusing me on Thanksgiving, but I wish that I wasn't alone. I wish that someday I'll find a life partner that will look into my eyes on Thanksgiving and make me focus on him and not on missing my children or the pain from my past, just as G_d keeps me focused on the beautiful glassy water and reds of the trees as I kayak toward the mountains and back beneath the storm clouds of life.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Getting Psyched for Skiing!
Water conveys energy on so many levels. This energy revives me while I'm kayaking on it, swimming in it, hiking through it, or skiing on top of it. With our cold storms with heavy rains my students and I were excited for the snow, so I watched my skiing videos from 2014 and got psyched up for visiting my old haunts at Squaw Valley and Alpine. I definitely need to train, so I don't get hurt this season!
While exploring Alpine Meadows I just followed ski tracks and got a bit lost on this adventure!
My GoPro can be a bit difficult to adjust for videos. A few times it fell downward and took a video of my legs moguling.
While exploring Alpine Meadows I just followed ski tracks and got a bit lost on this adventure!
This is a great mogul run which is way off the beaten path at Granite Chief at Squaw Valley.
I did have a nasty fall down this shoot when I hit some ice. I belly flopped on my apple and severely bruised my ribs. I learned to cut my apple into slices or just have soft fruit in my lunch, if I'm going to store my lunch in the front of my body suit.
Olympic Lady is my favorite run at Squaw Valley. It's where I'd always find my expert skiing friends each year and catch up. The lift isn't operated anymore, but you can still get to the East Bowl with a little work!
A random expert skier that had the same skill level as me joined me for the day, so I put him to work and had him take video of me!
I had to put a KT-22 video in. This is Northface. The Westface was solid ice that day and couldn't be skied by even experts.
This shows how tough it is to ski on ice and why I'm alone on Granite Chief!
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
Sunday, November 8, 2015
My Search for a Jewish Husband Continued
When I was dealing with my BRCA 1 issues 10 years ago, I clung onto G_d as a Christian trying to find in Him the strength to fight the error in my DNA and make the difficult decision to preemptively do a double mastectomy which I knew would be the end of my marriage to a boob man. My first love, who was my only male emotional support, told me then that I should be a nun. I was hoping as an orthodox Jew that I could love G_d as deeply as I do and be married. It's not looking likely that that will ever happen.
My devout Christian brother was so enraged with me when he heard that I was converting to Judaism and also marrying a Jewish man. He said, "You would give up Jesus for the love of a man here on earth?" Maybe G_d wants to emphasize that my conversion was purely His idea by taking all my possibilities of a Jewish marriage away from me. As my brother and a few dear Jewish friends now say, "Just cling onto G_d. Why do you need a man?"
It's been 2.5 years since I've had relations. Frankly I've forgotten that loving feeling, so I don't need a man. Orthodox men can't touch me, so it's unlikely I'll ever have that loving feeling start again.
My journey into Judaism has brought me into a deeper understanding of my dear Grandma Ruth, my father's mother, who was a closet Jew. Now that I'm Jewish I clearly see how she was secretly celebrating Judaism, so no one would harass her about it. My dear friends at my synagogue have taught me about orthodox Jewish loving kindness, mercy, charity, repentance, and peace---not annihilating another Jew, even when they probably deserve my version of hardball.
Yes, I've had cause to want to play my hardball. The Jewish men that have been attracted to me have had major character flaws. My fantasy of meeting a righteous Jewish man to marry is shattered. An Israeli man lied to me for 2.5 years about not wanting children, renovated a home with me that I purchased for us, used me as a vacation spot in Tahoe, broke up with me in a text while I was sleeping when I was returning to get married, and almost immediately got engaged to an Israeli woman who could have kids. She broke up with him after 8 months. An older famous Jew, whose wife was dying of cancer, tried to seduce me. Another older mogul of the Jewish community, who was conservative, continually tried to get me to transgress from orthodoxy, so we could date. An American man who wanted to get betrothed by Rosh Hoshana and married by Simcha Torah just wanted to run businesses under my name and credit and have me be his support in his old age. A man who wanted to be more orthodox broke off his Thanksgiving visit and left me for a women 23 years younger than him---a woman who wanted kids when he didn't. Numerous men have also just wanted me in the wings, so they could tell their moms that they were dating someone.
Many of them said that the Mashiach, Messiah, will come when all the Shabbat candles are lit together, which is a mitzvah performed by women. Well, I do think that the men contribute to this Mashiach issue, too. How is the Shechinah, the column of G_d's light, supposed to descend upon a minyan of Jewish men in prayer if some of their minyan are capable of such selfish, misguided behavior?
Though I'm not sorry for converting to Judaism, it has given me spiritual peace while I'm in the spiritual realm, and made my connection to G_d so strong that He even blew the matches out when I tried to light the Shabbat candles too late last night (I wasn't used to Day Light Savings Time yet). Unfortunately, I am sorry that my Jewish ancestors that left Judaism did have reason to do so. However, they left a pure form of worshiping G_d in order to find peace on earth with people.
May we all have G_d's peace within our hearts with every breath that we take and radiate light to this dark world---if we all try to earnestly behave righteously, not just proclaim to be righteous, then maybe the Moshiach will come.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
My devout Christian brother was so enraged with me when he heard that I was converting to Judaism and also marrying a Jewish man. He said, "You would give up Jesus for the love of a man here on earth?" Maybe G_d wants to emphasize that my conversion was purely His idea by taking all my possibilities of a Jewish marriage away from me. As my brother and a few dear Jewish friends now say, "Just cling onto G_d. Why do you need a man?"
It's been 2.5 years since I've had relations. Frankly I've forgotten that loving feeling, so I don't need a man. Orthodox men can't touch me, so it's unlikely I'll ever have that loving feeling start again.
My journey into Judaism has brought me into a deeper understanding of my dear Grandma Ruth, my father's mother, who was a closet Jew. Now that I'm Jewish I clearly see how she was secretly celebrating Judaism, so no one would harass her about it. My dear friends at my synagogue have taught me about orthodox Jewish loving kindness, mercy, charity, repentance, and peace---not annihilating another Jew, even when they probably deserve my version of hardball.
Yes, I've had cause to want to play my hardball. The Jewish men that have been attracted to me have had major character flaws. My fantasy of meeting a righteous Jewish man to marry is shattered. An Israeli man lied to me for 2.5 years about not wanting children, renovated a home with me that I purchased for us, used me as a vacation spot in Tahoe, broke up with me in a text while I was sleeping when I was returning to get married, and almost immediately got engaged to an Israeli woman who could have kids. She broke up with him after 8 months. An older famous Jew, whose wife was dying of cancer, tried to seduce me. Another older mogul of the Jewish community, who was conservative, continually tried to get me to transgress from orthodoxy, so we could date. An American man who wanted to get betrothed by Rosh Hoshana and married by Simcha Torah just wanted to run businesses under my name and credit and have me be his support in his old age. A man who wanted to be more orthodox broke off his Thanksgiving visit and left me for a women 23 years younger than him---a woman who wanted kids when he didn't. Numerous men have also just wanted me in the wings, so they could tell their moms that they were dating someone.
Many of them said that the Mashiach, Messiah, will come when all the Shabbat candles are lit together, which is a mitzvah performed by women. Well, I do think that the men contribute to this Mashiach issue, too. How is the Shechinah, the column of G_d's light, supposed to descend upon a minyan of Jewish men in prayer if some of their minyan are capable of such selfish, misguided behavior?
Though I'm not sorry for converting to Judaism, it has given me spiritual peace while I'm in the spiritual realm, and made my connection to G_d so strong that He even blew the matches out when I tried to light the Shabbat candles too late last night (I wasn't used to Day Light Savings Time yet). Unfortunately, I am sorry that my Jewish ancestors that left Judaism did have reason to do so. However, they left a pure form of worshiping G_d in order to find peace on earth with people.
May we all have G_d's peace within our hearts with every breath that we take and radiate light to this dark world---if we all try to earnestly behave righteously, not just proclaim to be righteous, then maybe the Moshiach will come.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)