Kvetch in the City - The Present

After a year living between a rock and a Covid hard place, I feel like I just crawled out vaccinated and squinting beneath clearing skies. Believe it or not, I did not feel like complaining about anything this month. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit shell shocked in a good way from being vaccinated and feeling hopeful about life again. I’m just getting used to what the word hopeful feels like again and the fact that I made it through this year intact health wise, which was no small feat for myself or anyone else I know for that matter.

So as not to disappoint my readers with a kvetch-less column, I asked my co-worker and friend, Alex, (the person with the original idea for this column,) if she had any complaints…knowing fair well, she most certainly would. I don’t feel bad in saying that she makes me look like a saint when it comes to kvetching. If I ever feel the need to go on hiatus, Alex would be a shoe in for this column. She eagerly replied (speaking for herself of course), “Now that I’m vaccinated, I have no excuse to get out of social engagements.” If there was ever a one-in-a-hundred-year good reason to never leave your home, or have to see relatives you can’t stand, a pandemic is it. It occurred to me then to ask the seniors we were on a Zoom meeting with at that moment if they had any complaints. Of course they did. They then started telling their terrible neighbor stories (I win that category hands down!) and we all started getting depressed and I thought, complaining is so hard to listen to. Ahhh…the irony of writing a kvetch column.

Back to another big reason I don’t feel like complaining…well, the days are getting longer, and Spring is here. When I think of Spring, I think of three things.

My birthday, my birthday, and Oh Yay it’s my birthday. I’ve pondered many times if I’m narcissistic, though to date I’ve never been diagnosed as such. I think it’s more that I’m like a child at heart, and what kid does not like a good birthday party? Cake, fun hats, balloons, ice cream, presents, and hopefully, friends and family that love you, or at least for a day act like they do and if they are Jewish, are genetically programmed to feel guilty, so you get a good present in the end either way. I’m not sure that’s how it works, that may be a reach. In my case though I suspect it may be true.

Usually, my birthday is a time I will reflect on the past year. Not this year. Nope. In no way do I want to reiterate or revisit this past terrorizing year by any means. Instead, I’m going to relish the fact that I can actually invite another vaccinated friend to be the first person to step foot in my house in twelve months, besides the exterminator’s five minute monthly visit. (I have to say, besides getting Covid, living with the thought of bugs in my house, is right up there with feeling terrorized.)

So, this April 13, 2021, you will find me wearing a Scooby Doo party hat left over from my son’s 6th birthday party from 18 years ago, while happily blowing out candles with a few vaccinated friends, while making a wish for herd immunity that can’t come soon enough, on my homemade infamous Tofutti cutie vegan birthday cake I famously make every year, (except last year…oops, I looked back!) and knowing with all certainty this year the best gift is having happily made it to what is the best God given gift of all…the present.