A Word From the Weiss

     I don’t know when using technology became a competitive event, but there are days when I ridicule my husband for not knowing how to post photos on Instagram, or being completely unable to distinguish between his wall and his timeline on Facebook.

      No, wait, let’s get real. Rare is the day when this doesn’t happen. The expression is “nice Jewish mom,” not “nice Jewish wife.” Despite 33 years of marriage, or maybe because of them, I rag on him about being technology-challenged almost every day.

      And yet I must confess that there are some technological issues that I don’t quite grasp myself, particularly when it comes to the intricacies of Internet etiquette. Otherwise known as Netiquette.

      Take what happened when I woke up last Sunday morning and realized that it was my son and daughter-in-law’s very first wedding anniversary.

      OK, I didn’t just suddenly realize it was their anniversary. Far from. Aidan’s wedding to Kaitlin last June 25 was unquestionably the biggest thing that has happened to this nice Jewish mom since Aidan and his sister Allegra were born… and their bar and bat mitzvahs, of course.

     And so I had been thinking about the anniversary for days. Not to mention nights. Why, a few nights earlier, I had stayed up half the night preparing a special gift for the occasion.

      Months ago, I had come across a beautiful wedding album in a store. OK, that store just happened to be HomeGoods, and the wedding album was on deep discount. No matter. It was a white satin one from designer Nicole Miller decorated with pretty pearls that could hold 500 4 x 6 photos.

     My plan had been to fill this album with photos from their wedding and give it to them as a surprise anniversary gift. But between the two photographers we had hired for the wedding, and the many guests who had been kind enough to send us their own candid shots, there were hundreds and hundreds of photos to be printed. To assemble them all would take hours and hours. And I was insanely busy.

    Life, after all, is busy. Mine is, anyway, and always has been. When my husband and I got married, 33 years ago next month, we immediately put our own hundreds and hundreds of photos together. Together in a plastic bag, that is. And three decades, two children, and one of those children’s own weddings later, that is where they still remain. Put them into an album? Who had time for that?

     The past year had been no exception. If anything, my life had only grown busier.  

     So somehow a whole year had come and gone, and I had never gathered Aidan’s wedding photos, either, let alone had them printed. Now we were leaving in the morning for a weekend in NYC, where Aidan and Kaitlin live, and I had nothing to give them. Nothing but an empty album. Was there any way I could still pull this surprise gift off?

     All the photo labs in my town long ago went the way of the pet rock. The only place to get these photos printed overnight was Walgreen’s, and its photo department had already closed for the night. No matter. I began to upload the wedding photos from my Dropbox onto the pharmacy’s photo department site. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

     Despite my holier-than-thou attitude toward my husband, I am no Wonder Woman when it comes to technology. I couldn’t figure out how to upload these many photos en masse. I simply had to do them – my hundreds and hundreds of photos – one at a time.

      After I had finished uploading all of these photos, which took hours, I texted my daughter to get her own Dropbox ID and password. Then I proceeded to upload even more photos from Aidan and Kaitlin’s wedding. Hundreds and hundreds more.

     By the time I had uploaded them all, it was around 2:30 a.m. I submitted my order and held my breath. I had managed to order 475 prints, nearly enough to fill the album. Yet according to the confirmation email I received, they would all be ready by 9 a.m.

     We weren’t scheduled to leave until 10. Talk about technological miracles!

     My only fear now was that Aidan and Kaitlin might not appreciate my present. At all. Even though I’d be able to pick up the photos before we left for NYC, there would be no time to put them into the album. They would have to do it all themselves. And as young Ph.D. candidates, they’re very busy. Even busier than I am. Would my special gift be a welcome surprise, or just a burden to them? Was it a blessing, or more of a curse?

       I know this was a ridiculous thing to worry about. Most things that I worry about tend to be ridiculous. In fact, most of the things that I worry about will probably never happen. I should know by now that I should try not to worry about these things until they actually do happen. If they do, there will still be plenty of time to worry about them then.

      But I’m a mom – a nice Jewish one, at that. All that I really want in life is to help my children and try to make them happy. And I worried that this gift wouldn’t make my son happy. It might annoy him instead. After all, he might end up with his own lifelong plastic bag full of wedding photos. A bag that begged to be emptied into a photo album, but would merely grow older and hole-ier over time. That's not a blessing. It’s a curse.

      Although we would be in NYC for the weekend, we had no plans to help celebrate the anniversary. After all, it was Aidan and Kaitlin’s anniversary. Not ours. We were just the mother and father of the groom. Last year, they had needed us to walk Aidan down the aisle and help make the wedding. They wouldn’t need us now to help celebrate their anniversary.

      So I wasn’t even quite sure that I would get to deliver my anniversary gift. Aidan and Kaitlin don’t live in a doorman building anymore, so we would have to arrange a specific time to drop it off at their apartment. And as I said, they’re busy people. Even busier than I am.

     But I was afraid to ask when I could drop it off because I didn’t want to bother them.

     And when I woke up on the morning of their anniversary, I realized that there was one more issue, one that related to the original subject at hand – namely, Internet etiquette.

     I wanted to deliver my gift in person, preferably at their convenience. Yet I also wanted to send them anniversary greetings via a far more public forum – Facebook.

     Everyone I know posts all of the good things that happen to their children on Facebook, whether they be birthdays, graduations, engagements, weddings, or the birth of a new grandchild. This shows the world that they’re proud of their offspring, and it gives everyone they know a chance to share in the joy by “liking” their posts and/or congratulating them by replying, “Mazel tov!”

     And what better news could there be to share than a first wedding anniversary?

    On the other hand, it was their anniversary, not ours. So maybe it was their news to share. Not ours. Would I be insinuating myself where I didn’t belong by posting about it? Would I be hijacking their private cause for celebration by kvelling so publicly myself?

     Should I wait until they posted something about it themselves, and then share that? Then again, as I said, they’re very busy people. Kaitlin was away until later that day attending an academic conference.

 And although Aidan had managed to wish his dad a happy birthday on Facebook earlier this month, he is not generally given to posting much himself.

      There was another issue: What exactly should I post? Facebook is a visual medium. You don’t just post words, like “Happy anniversary!” There need to be photos too. Then again, when it came to photos, I had plenty. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

      Obviously, I wasn’t going to post hundreds and hundreds in this case. The 475 I’d had printed were for the happy couple themselves. But it was hard to choose only one or two. Maybe I could get away with a small photo collage. I narrowed it down to 11. Was that too many?

      At least I managed to keep the message short and sweet. (Not too sweet, I hoped.)

     “Happy first anniversary to my incredible son Aidan and his beautiful bride Kaitlin!" I wrote. “Can’t believe it’s been a whole year!”

     Then I posted my 11 photos, more than half of which appeared merely as “+6.” Anyone who was really interested would have to click on the group to see them all.

     What if Aidan and Kaitlin didn’t like the photos I had chosen? Well, someone liked them, anyway. Within minutes, one of my Facebook friends posted a comment. “Mazel tov!”

     Soon after, the “likes” began.

     I wrote to Aidan to say that his dad and I were meeting my college roommate, Hallie, for brunch on the Upper West Side, about 40 blocks from where he lives, and asked if he wanted to join us. He thanked me, but said (no surprise) that he was too busy.

     Then we began to negotiate via text about when I might drop off my gift. He would be out for most of the afternoon. We couldn’t get to his apartment before brunch. And that evening, after Kaitlin returned, they were going out for an anniversary dinner.

     We finally agreed that we’d come right after brunch. I promised to arrive by 2:30.

     Brunch, of course, ran longer than expected. I had barely seen my roommate since the wedding. We had so much to discuss. By the time we got to Aidan’s, it was already after 3.

     He was very nice about it, but I had clearly inconvenienced him. He had a lot to do. Instead of adding to the joy of the occasion, I had made him wait around all day for a gift that he might not even want. A gift that might not be a blessing, but possibly a curse.

      Aidan, meanwhile, felt guilty that we’d been carrying this massive parcel around. The album alone was hefty enough. But the 475 photos? We might as well have been lugging a large rock.

      That, of course, wasn’t all that was in the bag. I had also bought them a nice new set of sheets that matched their bedding, plus a framed 8 x 10 photo and some cookies.

      Then again, Aidan didn’t know what exactly was weighing us down. Kaitlin hadn’t returned from her conference yet, and he wasn’t about to open their gifts without her. So after a quick chat, we took off so he could go on at last with the remainder of his day.

      My heart sank as we left. Once again, I had messed things up. I’d kept him waiting after carefully arranging a plan. I had brought him a gift he might not even appreciate. And I’d posted a whole lot of photos on Facebook. (At least it wasn’t hundreds of them.)

      Why is it that Father knows best, as they say, but nice Jewish moms, however well they may mean, can never quite get anything right? And who really cares about getting tech stuff right when you still end up annoying the people you love most, your kids?

      An hour or so later, while sitting on the subway, we received a text from Aidan. It was short, but very sweet.

      “Thanks for the photos, album and sheet set!” it said. “We love them!”

      Love them? Had he really said “love?” Maybe I hadn’t messed up, after all.

      “Really!?!” I wrote back. “I wasn’t sure if I should make the album or let you do it. But I ran out of time.”

      Or, to be more accurate, I’d never had time in the first place.

      “No, we want to do it!” Aidan quickly wrote back.

      Oh! So maybe by accident, despite myself, I had managed to get it right, after all. I'd done the right thing by not doing too much.

      Then, to top it all off, he added something else.

      “Thanks also for the thoughtful and heartfelt card!”

      Yes, there had been a rather schmaltzy anniversary card tucked inside the bag, too.

      I’m not going to tell you everything that it said, because the message was not only heartfelt, but private. Also, I didn’t keep a copy, so I can only approximate what I wrote. But it was something to this effect:

      “I can’t believe that a whole year has passed since the Big Day. But I also have to admit that, in some respects, I like today even better than that one. There was no need for hair and makeup, or seating arrangements. All of the guests are long since gone. Yet the honeymoon is still far from over… and I hope that it never will be.”

     It’s true. Next to the births of my children, their bar and bat mitzvahs, and my own wedding, of course, my son’s nuptials had truly been one of the biggest events of my life. But it was also the most overwhelming. Sure, it felt even more special to have hundreds of people whom I care about there to share my joy and wish me “Mazel tov!” But there were too many people to greet, and too many details to manage, from the Motzi, to the toasts, to the hotel welcome bags, bridesmaids’ bouquets, and groomsmen’s boutonnieres, not to mention the 17 different vendors whose final payments had to be delivered in cash during the wedding itself. So it had been hard to step back, relax, and revel in the joy that I knew I should have felt.

     The only real exceptions to this, as I recall, were when we danced the hora and when the happy couple exchanged vows. When my new daughter-in-law gave hers, I was so moved that I sobbed aloud. (So much for my hair and makeup.) When Aidan said his, I laughed so hard that I nearly wet my Spanx. It went by so fast, though, that it remained a blur. Yet I now have the video in hand and can tell you exactly what they said.

     I don’t know if this is another infringement of their privacy, or of Internet etiquette. I should know well enough by now to quit while I’m hopefully ahead. Then again, they recited all of these words publicly, so I hope they won’t object if I reproduce them here.

     Ladies first.

     Kaitlin: “Aidan, when I met you on a summer night, four years ago, I never knew it would lead us to this moment. In the rush of the city, you made New York home to me. You are my home. You stopped all the heartbreak in my life, and you replaced it with love. You brought music into my life, and you became my favorite song, the one I want to listen to again and again when I want to feel what matters.

     “You took me on adventures across the world, and now we start this adventure together. You take care of me when I’m sick. You make me talk about my feelings, and you listen. You adopted the kitties and say you love them as much as I do.

      “I admire everything about you – your empathy, your ethics, your mind, your work. I never knew there could be such a combination. You are serious and you are funny. You are quiet and you are expressive. You are gentle and you are strong. You are everything I want in my life…

     “I promise to be your friend and your partner, to always be there to support and challenge you. I’ll always listen to you and work to build a life that we love together. I love you now and always.”

      Aidan: "Kaitlin, you are a brilliant, beautiful, witty, vivacious, loving, thoughtful, empathetic, and compassionate woman. And being able to join our lives, in the eyes of the government, all of the beautiful people gathered here today, and anyone else who might be watching on closed-circuit TV is the greatest thrill of my life.

     “I’ve been told that before I met you, I never smiled. Some of my closest friends and family cannot remember me smiling. It’s true. Ask almost anyone here. I rarely laughed. I didn’t smirk. The proof is in the photos. But since we met, just look at me. I smile at least once a day. I’m even smiling now!

      “Of course, you have one of the all-time great smiles. Dark rooms are your nemesis. Mona Lisa has nothing on you.

     “Kaitlin, you are the love of my life. And so, in the tradition of top ten lists, going all the way back to Sinai, I offer my Top Ten Wedding Vows that I promise to honor and keep, in all media, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

     “No. 10: I promise to make certain that you always have easy and open access to a quality chocolate supply, be it in cake, bar, or beverage form. 

     “9: I vow to cook pasta with you with the freshest ingredients available, and to have it at restaurants, or wherever pasta is sold.

     “8: I vow to always, always save room for dessert.

     “No. 7: I vow to communicate with you in a language we both understand, and to solve problems together… but not before coffee.

     “6: I vow to build a life with you that accurately reflects our values, and a house that reflects a tasteful but modest aesthetic.

     “5: I vow to hold up my end of the litterbox duties.

     “4: In the tradition of Jewish law, I vow to put your needs before mine.

     “3: According to the philosopher Martin Buber, ‘Marriage will never be given true life other than by that out of which true marriage always arises, the revealing by two people of the Thou to one another.’ I vow to always reveal ‘the Thou’ to you.

      “2: Perhaps most importantly, I vow to adopt a dog with you… one day.

      “And finally, I vow to love and care for you, and to do whatever it takes to keep you smiling, through thick and thin, till the end of my days, no matter what life throws at us.”

     No matter what life throws at them? Even an annoying nice Jewish mom who worries, shows up late, and doesn’t grasp Internet etiquette?

     That's what the man said.

     Well, there you have it. A very happy anniversary indeed. And having witnessed their first year of marital bliss, I would say that the honeymoon is definitely far from over. The proof is in the photos.

     Hundreds and hundreds of them.

     By the way, Aidan “liked” my post on Facebook later that day, and Kaitlin followed suit the next morning. It has since received nearly 60 “likes” in all, perhaps more than anything else I’ve ever posted. So maybe I didn't do so bad. Netiquette be damned.

A Word to the Weiss

     In case I have left even the shadow of a doubt, I am a very proud mother. Never mind that the term “proud mother” is practically redundant. I mean, aside from the poor soul who spawned, say, Kim Jong-Un, what mother isn’t proud of her offspring? So when I tell you about what happened last week, please try to keep in mind that I am simply a proud mom. Not a delusional one. Not cray-cray.

       The cray-cray part would come later.

       Almost anyone who has ever read this space knows that my daughter, Allegra, is a jazz singer. I don’t exactly keep it under wraps. Rarely, if ever, do I mention this blog on Facebook. The same goes for my recent book. But I am almost shameless when it comes to promoting her shows whenever she performs.

       Last weekend, she had such a show. Not just any show, though. A CD release.

       Her second CD, Cities Between Us, came out in April on SteepleChase Records. She released it at a posh place in NYC called Club Bonafide, and the concert completely sold out. She wanted to have a similar show in our town in Connecticut, however, so that hometown friends, her former teachers, and others we know could attend as well. So with my help, she booked a small concert hall at a local university.

       Shortly before the local show took place, we received a contract, and being not just a nice Jewish mom but also Allegra’s mom-ager, I read all of the fine print. That was how I discovered that the show was scheduled for the school’s Spring Fling Weekend, during which no one would be allowed to enter the campus without a special parking pass.

       When had they planned to mention that? The music critic at a large local newspaper was writing a story about the show. What would happen when dozens of people showed up and were turned away at the front gates? At least the school readily let us out of the contract. But it was too late to book another place on such short notice.

       Over the coming weeks, I searched for a new location. I called or visited at least 15 venues. Most proved to be way beyond our budget. But there were also other issues.

       A local alternative arts center called Real ArtWays offered the right hip vibe, but had a sculpture installation through the summer that was too fragile to subject to a crowd.

       A local nonprofit had a classy auditorium and plenty of free parking, but no piano.

      Then there was the community theater that said they would be happy to have her, with one caveat.

      Make that cat-veat.

      Her concert would coincide with the opening of their newest children’s production. Would Allegra mind performing on the set of a musical version of The Cat in the Hat?

      As one of my friends pointed out, she could have pulled this off by wearing a tall striped hat and calling it “The Scat in the Hat.” But she decisively declined.

       We thought we’d finally hit paydirt when a cultural center housed in a former historic synagogue agreed to let us rent its sanctuary. Then Allegra asked a savvy question: Did the place have air-conditioning?

        As Connecticut’s oldest synagogue, the structure dated from 1876. Stained glass windows, yes. A/C? No. By now, she had chosen a new date -- June 3. There was no telling in advance what the weather might be. Did we want fans fainting in the pews?

        After all my efforts, it was Allegra, who now lives in New York, who finally came up with the solution. She heard that a famous jazz drummer would be playing at a local place called The Polish National Home. If it was good enough for Jeff “Tain” Watts, it was certainly good enough for her.

       I went right over to check it out. The décor was, well, a little dated. But it turned out to have a large, funky concert space called the Chopin Ballroom, plenty of free parking, and a baby grand piano that the woman in charge assured me was regularly tuned.

      They would even give us our own bartender, who’d serve cheap cocktails and Polish beer.

      We signed the contract that very afternoon.

      As not just a proud mom, but Allegra’s mom-ager, I proceeded to do what I could to help promote the event. I wrote the press release that went out to local newspapers. I contacted the band directors at local schools. I put up posters all over town and sent an email inviting countless friends.

      And yes, I posted it on Facebook.

      Many people assured us they would come. A few days before the event, however, when I sent out a reminder, suddenly almost everyone I knew was otherwise engaged.

      Some were going to weddings, others to bar or bat mitzvahs, graduations, reunions, or birthday parties. Many were simply going away to their summer homes. The first weekend in June, it turned out, was apparently among the biggest social dates of the year. 

      So many people were unable to make it that instead of composing a guest list, I found myself tallying the names of the people who weren’t coming instead – 36 of them, to be exact. Which happens to be a Jewish number, but in this case not a nice one.

      A few of the people who had promised to come now needed to attend funerals. There was certainly no way we could fault them.

      But there were others who simply never responded. And that made me feel kind of bad.

      As I said, I’m a proud mom. I’m proud of both my children. But I am not delusional.

      I could sit and watch my daughter – or her older brother Aidan, who blows a mean bari saxophone – night after night, and never begin to tire of it. After all, I love them beyond words, and I am their mother.

      I do not expect that kind of interest or devotion from anyone else. Maybe not even their dad.

      I will admit that I feel embarrassed that there are so many occasions on which Allegra performs, or her brother publishes a book or whatever, that I always seem to be inviting people to come see them, or posting about them, or simply kvelling about them.

      On the other hand, Allegra hadn’t sung publicly in our area since she released her first CD in 2014, so it isn’t as if I go around hounding people about her every day. Many friends had gladly turned out for the show three years ago. In the interim, she had become infinitely better as a singer. I figured many would come again.

      Many? How about any?

      I know, I know. The average person is not that into jazz. And all of those excuses were totally legit. We had simply made a miscalculation in choosing the new date.

      Then again, the barrage of emails listing other commitments was becoming beyond daunting. And some of those commitments sounded a little less compelling than others.

      By Wednesday, three days before the show, Allegra had only managed to sell 25 tickets. In order to break even, after paying the venue, the band, and the sound man, she needed to sell 85. At least there would still be that story in the newspaper. We assumed it would be in the entertainment section, which comes out every Thursday.

      To say I’m not an early riser is an understatement. I rarely get out of bed before 10. But I got up at 6 last Thursday morning and bounded downstairs to seize the paper on our front stoop.

     I searched from cover to cover. Twice. There was no story in it about my daughter anywhere. Just two short blurbs about the show.

      Neither mentioned the website on which tickets were available. They gave only one means of contact – the Polish National Home.

       I went on the home's website. There was no mention of Allegra’s concert anywhere. People might actually assume the paper had been wrong. Yikes!

       I wasn’t able to reach the woman at the Polish Home until that evening. I asked if she could possibly post something on their site about the concert. She advised me to contact the newspaper that had made the error instead and “give them a piece of your mind.”

      I tried to explain to “Maja” that it is never in your best interests to attack the press (something that one very significant figure in our country apparently has yet to grasp).

      Plus, even though we had already gotten the paper to put the correct information online, the print version would continue to point readers to her place.

       So she reluctantly told me to send her some info and she'd see what she could do.

      Two hours later, I received an email from the Polish National Home inviting me to a ceremony in which 60 new American citizens would be naturalized the following day. This was followed by an invitation to a musical tribute to a Polish poet.

      If you scrolled down to the very bottom of the email, there was a copy of Allegra’s poster and a link to buy tickets to her show. But when I clicked on the link, it led nowhere. “Whoops, the page or event you are looking for was not found,” is all it said.

      The link was broken.

      In a panic, I called “Maja” back, apologized profusely, and related the problem. Was there any way she could fix the link when she managed to put it on their website?

     At this, she unleashed a tirade unlike any I had ever heard before. I mean, even if you feel no compunction about attacking the press, was it OK to verbally assault paying clients? 

     Perhaps it was in this case, considering that I’d submitted our final payment when we’d spoken earlier that evening. What did she have to lose now? She had me over a barrel.

Make that a ballroom.

      “All we did was rent space to you!” she was shrieking now in a heavy Polish accent. “I am a very busy person. And I have no obligation whatsoever to help you market your musical event!”

      I kept trying to interrupt her to agree and apologize. After all, she was absolutely right. But I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She just kept ranting and raving. Until, that is, she abruptly hung up.

      Now what were we going to do?

      At least we'd learned that the newspaper story Allegra had been interviewed for was actually still running, but not until Saturday, the day of the show. Wouldn’t most people have made plans by then?

    To enhance the show’s local appeal, she had booked three other musicians who grew up in our town, and well-known ones at that. They would presumably stay with their families, but we would be putting up the rest of the band.

     Yes, part of being a singer’s mom-ager is occasionally running a bed-and-breakfast.

     Allegra has a regular Friday-night gig in Greenwich, CT, about two hours away. I picked her up there, along with her boyfriend JP and piano player Carmen, and we got home after midnight. So I must admit that I started the weekend off feeling fried. But even worse was my mounting sense of dread.

     It wasn’t that I was worried that Allegra might end up losing hundreds of dollars on the event. Being a young jazz musician is not a lucrative venture; we’ve been down that road before. It was more about not wanting to see my kid be disappointed and hurt, not to mention embarrassed to have to play to a room that wasn’t even close to half-full.

     The newspaper story came out the next morning. A nice story with a huge photo. You really couldn’t miss it. But as big as it was, and as nice as it was, wasn’t it now too late? 

     After serving everyone a lavish brunch, I helped Allegra print copies of her music for the show and choose an outfit to wear. Then I attended to one final minor detail.

     I decided to design some actual paper tickets, print them out on card stock, then cut them out, one by one, on a cutting board. Allegra insisted that we didn’t really need them – we could just check people in at the door. But I thought it looked more professional.

     The question was, how many to print? By now, despite the newspaper story, Allegra had only managed to sell 36 tickets, including the two her father and I had purchased ourselves.

      I’d designed the tickets to be 12 to a page. Seven pages would yield 84 of them. But if she sold only that number, she would barely break even. Then again, to make too many more seemed like it would be tempting fate. No, worse. It would be delusional.

     And if there’s one thing I’m not, I’d like to believe, it’s delusional.

     So I printed out one more page. Eight sheets of 12. A total of 96.

     When we reached the Polish Home, I dropped Allegra and her bandmates, then slipped in via a back staircase to avoid running into “Maja.” My best friend, she was not.

     While the band set up and did a sound check, my husband and I arranged a sales table in the lobby outside of the Chopin Ballroom, along with Allegra’s boyfriend, JP. The show was slated for 8 pm. At 7:30, a lone couple trudged slowly up the stairs.

     “Is there where you get tickets for the jazz concert?”asked the husband, who appeared to be in his early 70s. He seemed pleased that we were able to take credit cards, but grew a bit annoyed when I fumbled with the little white plastic Square device I had plugged into my phone. I should’ve practiced my processing skills at home. A sales clerk I am not.

     Over the next 15 minutes, only a small trickle of patrons followed, most of whom were on the list of patrons who had already paid. But then, gradually, the pace picked up. It wasn’t exactly an avalanche. But the lobby was filling up fast.

     The lobby was filling up because Allegra had ordered us not to let anyone into the ballroom yet. This was the only chance the band had to rehearse, and they just weren’t ready. I started to flip out, wondering how we could expect everyone to just stand around when the show was supposed to start in five minutes and the doors were still closed. But my friend Liz, who’s in the music biz, told me to get a grip and chill out.  

      “This is a jazz concert!” she noted, with a laugh. “Jazz never starts on time!”

      Finally, right at 8, the doors opened and everyone rushed in to grab seats. I couldn’t follow because people were still arriving in droves. Good thing we were starting late.

      There was another good thing. I had numbered the tickets from 1 to 96, and we had now sold 85 of them. Allegra had hit the break-even point. It seemed like a miracle.

     No, here was the miracle: By the middle of the first act, when Liz insisted on relieving me at the sales table so I could go sit inside, we had sold exactly 96 tickets. 

     I had somehow hit the nail right on the head.

    The band sounded amazing. Allegra? Also amazing. Everyone seemed enthralled.

    Even Maja, who had stormed past me earlier without saying a word, popped in to listen and seemed entranced.

    When Allegra came out during intermission, I whispered, “You sold out. Every ticket! You’re actually in the black!” Her face lit up brighter than her vivid fuchsia silk jumpsuit.

    OK, so maybe she was in the pink.

    Which was a good thing, because the late dinner that I served to everyone back at home consisted largely of pretty messy pasta. We stayed up partying past 2.

    When I mentioned the bizarre coincidence with the number of tickets, her trumpet player said I should have dared to print even more. Either I was psychic or there was some supernatural force at work. Maybe we would have sold those as well.

    Who knows? Or cares? It was over at last. It had been a success. Although none of her former teachers had shown up, and little more than a handful of my friends, Allegra had even made a small but decent profit.

    So by all accounts, I should have been not just a proud mother, but a very happy one.

     I would like to leave you with that happy ending, but here’s an honest one instead.

     I was so stressed out by the entire ordeal that I’d already lost my sense of equilibrium. Ditto my appetite. I was also so disappointed that I couldn’t seem to summon more than a handful of friends in my own town – albeit on one of the busiest nights of the year – that, despite the positive outcome, I felt a lingering sense of sadness. It was as if I’d discovered that this terrible thing I have always feared is true.

     I may not be a jazz singer, or performer of any kind. But life often feels to me like a perilous high-wire act. I'm the Mom on the Flying Trapeze. And I now know that I may be performing without a safety net.

     I'm a nice Jewish mom. If my children fall, I’ll always be there to catch them.

     But if I fall – and sometimes I am bound to – I am afraid there will be no one there to catch me.

    Will my husband do it? He probably thinks he would. But he’s always working. Or working out.

    I know this is crazy. No, beyond. Cray-cray. But over the ensuing week, I’ve remained so exhausted that I feel like I can barely go on.

    One night, lying on the couch, I stared for over an hour at a cup of tea I’d made. I was desperately thirsty, but too weak to sit up and reach for it. So it just sat there and grew cold. Finally, dizzy and faint, I realized that I had barely eaten in four days. Maybe that’s what was wrong with me. So I Googled hypoglycemia – low blood sugar, that is.

      Bingo! I had about 10 out of the 12 symptoms, the last two being coma and death.

    It said I needed to drink a small glass of juice right away. So my husband brought me some apple cider. (What a man!) I gulped it downed, crawled upstairs, and went straight to bed.

     Since then, I’ve felt a little better every day. And I’ve tried to eat a little more every day.

     I’m also trying to chill out and get a grip every day. Maybe everything is more or less just jazz. And jazz, as Liz said, never starts on schedule, just as life almost never goes according to plan.

     Beyond that, for the moment, I have no plan. 

     I’m still, I repeat, a very proud mom.

     But maybe I’m not cut out to be a mom-ager.

A Word From the Weiss

        The morning of the day I was to address the Jewish Book Council, I did not spend even one minute practicing my presentation. I had far more pressing issues on my mind. Mainly, what to wear? I tried to get my daughter, who had put me up for the night, to help me choose between the four or five possible outfits I had crammed into my suitcase. These ranged from a crisp, white-and-black gingham shirt and crinkly white linen skirt (too funky?) to a tailored black pant suit (too funereal?).

       Late for work herself, Allegra had no time to watch me put on a fashion show at 9 a.m. "Just wear what you feel most empowered in," she advised.

       Empowered? Was she serious? My daughter is 27. I am decidedly not. The world is no longer my oyster (pardon the reference to trayf). The best I could do, given the circumstances and that feminist guideline, was choose the outfit in which I felt the least fat.

       And even then, any semblance of looking svelte would require poor eyesight on the part of the beholder, and the aid of control-top pantyhose on the part of the wearer.

       Me.

       So far, this foray into NYC had not gone well. Given my indecision in the wardrobe department, I had arrived the night before schlepping multiple suitcases. Reaching down to lift them all as I exited the elevator, I had felt my glasses dislodge from my head and watched in horror as they clattered directly into the elevator shaft, never to be seen again, no doubt. Never mind that they were just inexpensive readers. They were silver with teeny black polka dots. My favorite pair.

       Not exactly an auspicious start to what promised to be a stressful excursion.

       But then, just that morning, shortly after I had poured out my tale of woe to the super in Allegra's building, he had knocked on her door and delivered them back to me, not only intact after falling six stories to the basement, but without even a scratch. A good omen, perhaps?

      Dressed in a compromise solution, a combination of two of my proposed outfits – the black blazer with the white crinkly skirt (funereal, yet funky) -- I felt not empowered exactly, but hopeful. At least now I would be able to see what I was reading. Things were looking up.

        I had registered for this annual conference, seeing it as a prime opportunity to promote my new memoir, The Adulterer's Daughter, to my prime target audience -- Jews.
       Once a year, the Jewish Book Council invites reps from Jewish community centers, synagogues, and other such groups throughout the USA to come to NYC for three days. Authors are also summoned there to promote their latest books. Books with Jewish content, that is. Each author gets two minutes to speak. And by "two minutes," they really mean two minutes flat. That's it. My two minutes flat of would-be fame were slated for that afternoon.

       I arrived at Hebrew Union College in the West Village to discover that there were around 50 authors pitching that afternoon, one of five such sessions to be held over the three days. I would be competing with 244 other authors in all, some of them fairly famous.

      The odds seemed daunting. No, hopeless. Why had I even bothered to come? 

      I was a little intimidated to have arrived 15 minutes early and be greeted by a fellow author waiting out front. When I asked this attractive young woman if she had ever done this tour of duty before, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and murmured, “Many times!”

      Indeed, her name, Pam Jenoff, sounded awfully familiar. Stepping aside to Google it surreptitiously, I had discovered that had 10 books to that name, including the New York Times bestseller The Kommandant’s Girl.

     Was this the caliber of person I would be competing with for speaking engagements? Why had I bothered to come?

       Once inside, I went to the ladies’ room to freshen up and noticed that I’d already managed to run my pantyhose. Yes, the control-top ones that made me look svelte. Why had I worn a skirt?

       At least everyone there was being extremely friendly. I soon discovered that I was far from the only newbie. Almost everyone I met was a Jewish Book Council virgin too. 

      One of my newfound friends, an author there to promote both a children’s book and an adult novel, assured me that you couldn’t see the run in my stockings.

      Was she just being polite? I raced across the street to a nearby Duane Reade to buy another pair. How empowered would I possibly feel wondering if everyone was staring at my legs?

     I got back just in time for orientation, during which three very encouraging members of the JBC staff divulged the details of the proceedings. “Make sure that microphone is right in front of your mouth,” counseled a woman named Joyce, the same enthusiastic woman who had called weeks earlier to coach me in preparing my pitch. We would each be given a chance to go up and practice speaking on the podium – bimah, actually, since the event was held in a sanctuary at the college. That sanctuary was enormous and would soon be packed to the gills. We had to make sure we were heard, Joyce asserted.

      As for that two-minute limit, as she had adamantly admonished me, that was truly no joke. Each of us would have no more than 120 seconds to speak. To keep everyone within those bounds, another woman named Andrea would be seated in the front row and hold up signs. The first of these was a small placard that said “One minute left.” Followed by “30 seconds left.”

      Then “10 seconds left, pls wrap up!”

      And finally, “TIME’S UP!"

      The “TIME’S UP!” sign was in Day-Glo lime green. You really couldn’t miss that one.

       “We know it is wholly unfair of us to make you take this book you may have worked on for years and sum it up in just two minutes," Andrea said, "but that’s the best way we’ve found to do this." They had learned this lesson through trial and error. The error had consisted of handing hundreds of Jewish authors a microphone and letting them speak for as long as they wished.

        “Suddenly, it was 3:00 in the morning,” Andrea said with a sigh.

      I wasn’t worried. I had spent weeks whittling down my spiel. Yes, I would need to spit it out at the speed of sound. But I’d practiced until I could do that. In two minutes flat.

       When we were given our time to practice speaking into the mic, I prevailed upon an affable author named Lois to take a photo of me on the bimah. Then I gladly returned the favor.  

     After that, we were given a quick break to freshen up again and have a last sip of water. My husband had convinced me to take a bottle along, but no food or drink was allowed inside the sanctuary. So I gulped down a plastic cupful, then surveyed the long line of representatives waiting to get in to hear us pitch. There were hundreds of them.

       Yikes!

      Andrea had mentioned that a special guest was among them. Before we authors began our talks, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin was there to also speak for a couple of minutes.

      Rabbi Telushkin is not only a famous rabbi, but a popular lecturer and the author of more than 15 books, including the 2014 New York Times bestseller Rebbe. I wondered whether by “a couple of minutes," Andrea actually meant only two minutes. Would he be cut off after 120 seconds, just like the rest of us schlubs? Would he suffer the indignity of the “ten seconds left” sign, or G-d forbid, “TIME’S UP!”?

     “It’s never comfortable to give Rabbi Telushkin the one-minute card,” she confessed. “But he asked me to!”

      In fact, the remarks he delivered were short and sweet, yet took nearly four minutes (although who, other than Andrea perhaps, was counting?).

      “At first, I thought it was unfair to ask authors to summarize their books in only two minutes,” he began. “Then I thought back to that famous story in the Bible, the one in which Rabbi Hillel is asked to summarize all of Judaism while standing on one foot. And I thought, ‘Maybe two minutes is more than enough!’ ” 

      Hmmm. Maybe he was right.       

     As the long parade of speakers began, I quickly concluded that he actually was. You could easily tell within a minute or two what each book was about, whether you might want to read it, and whether you would want to listen to its author lecture about it at much greater length.

     Although we were seated in alphabetical order, Ms. Jenoff, the famed author I had initially encountered, needed to get home to a sick child. So she led off with an account of her latest historical novel, The Orphan’s Tale, a powerful story of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II. Destined to be another Times bestseller, no doubt.

      She was soon succeeded by a man who had been inspired by the smash Broadway musical Hamilton to write a book he described as “the tragedy of Moses in verse.”

      Then there was the Reform rabbi whose spiel started off sounding like a musical itself. “Don’t worry, be happy!” he began crooning the second that he reached the bima. “That doesn’t sound like a very Jewish song, does it?”

      “Judaism focuses more on ‘oy’ than joy,” he continued. “Our theme song is more likely to be reminiscent of that old Jewish joke about the telegram." He proceeded to sing its contents to the exact same tune. "Start worrying! Details to follow!’ ”

     My new comrade in pitching and photo companion turned out to be a motivational speaker named Lois Barth who had written a book called Courage to Sparkle. This was a commodity she clearly possessed in spades, given her sequined violet jacket and her equally vibrant speaking style. Her book, subtitled “The Audacious Girls’ Guide to Creating a Life That Lights You Up,” was an upbeat self-help manual filled with what she had dubbed “LOIS-isms,” an acronym that stood for "Lessons, Opportunities, Insights and Solutions."

     “My version of tikkun olam [the Jewish mission to repair the world] leaves the world with a whole lot more sparkle,” she exclaimed, before concluding, “Courage to Sparkle. It’s a book. It’s a movement!”

      By the time my turn finally approached, at long last, I could have used a movement myself. Make that a chance to get up and run. Listening to so many spiels was daunting. And demoralizing. Why would anyone want to listen to me prattle on for two minutes, let alone hire me to speak?

      Although, with luck, I had been seated among the L’s (for Levy), rather than the W’s (for Weiss), it seemed like an eternity had passed since I had gotten to wet my whistle. My mouth was bone dry. Was it fear of public speaking? Or just fear that I would totally bomb? 

      We would find out soon enough. Andrea announced my name.

      As I noted, I had practiced relentlessly spewing my spiel rapid-fire so that it took under 120 seconds, rather than risk being cut off. But now my mouth just wouldn't cooperate. The words I had pared down so painstakingly came out in a halting, tremulous voice.

       Have you ever dreamed that you’re trying to run away from something, but your legs just won’t move? That’s exactly what it felt like. Except that the things that wouldn’t seem to move were my lips.

       Here was the other issue: I had practiced my speech in my living room, my dog Latke my only audience. My focus had been exclusively on getting the words out fast enough. But I had never given much thought to what those words actually meant.

      Considering that my book is about how my father kept a mistress for 15 years while he was still married to my mother, those words were far from dryly informative, like a grocery list. Much of what I had chosen to say sounded more like an intimate, heartfelt confession. Still, I hadn't expected to get emotional about it. Those words were not news to me.

     But now, reading them before a roomful of strangers, my eyes welled up with tears.

     Having those tears hardly helped. Glasses or not, I could barely see. When I looked up as I concluded the last sentence, I saw Andrea flashing me that pesky “TIME’S UP” sign. Yikes! How far overtime had I gone?

     Mortified, I slunk back to my seat and barely heard what the next few authors said. Or perhaps sang. 

     A few minutes later, Andrea announced that we were taking a short break – the book council's equivalent of the seventh-inning stretch. At this, the author seated in front of me, a professor of Middle Eastern History at Berklee College of Music, spun around.

     "I think for your book, people were absolutely silent because they were riveted," she told me. “Of all the books here, yours was the most compelling!"

      Huh? Was she kidding? I couldn't resist reaching out to hug her. So I hadn't totally bombed?

      Maybe not.

      At the reception afterwards, I was inundated with reps from around the country.

     "You're on my short list!" exclaimed a lively woman from a temple in New Jersey. "Are you available to come speak to our sisterhood?"

      Another woman, from Austin, Texas, asked if I was free for her group's book festival in November.

      A publicist slipped me his card. The "joy versus oy" rabbi said he couldn't wait to read my book.

      Then there was the writer from San Francisco who planned to recommend my memoir to his wife's book group. I was happy to hear that its members were in their 50s.

      "There's too much sex in it for a much older crowd," I warned him.

      "Now I'm intrigued and REALLY going to recommend it!" he replied.

      It remains to be seen how many, if any, of them will actually book me to speak. But now, at least, I know why I went.

      I went because you can’t succeed if you don’t try.

      OK, here, in case you're curious, is my two-minute pitch. See if you can read it in two minutes flat.

                             Book pitch for The Adulterer’s Daughter

       My father always said that women should be “slender and laughing.” My mother, with all her advanced degrees, was neither of those things. She was zaftig. And brilliant! So he preferred his mistress – “Elaine” – who looked like a Jewish Sophia Loren (yeah, she wished!).

      The situation was horrific. But having to keep it hidden? That was The Worst.  

       The thing was, he didn’t leave my mother for his mistress. He kept them both. Girlfriend in the city. Nice Jewish family in the suburbs. He moved in and out of our house relentlessly.

       When he was home, he was abusive to my mother – and I don't just mean verbally. But I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. My mother was convinced it was too shameful.

      So I kept my Jewish family’s dirty little secret for decades. I grew up to be a successful journalist, writing for newspapers like The New York Times. Covering murders and other scandals, I was nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize. But still I kept my own story to myself.

      Until one day, I just couldn’t keep it any longer.

     This book is not about my father’s affair, but how it affected me, and MY quest to meet the nice Jewish boy of my dreams. Eventually, I did fall madly in love. With a married man! But after all I’d endured, there was no way I could do that.

     So (spoiler alert!) I had the good sense to simply walk away.

     Years later, as my father lay dying, I consulted my rabbi about the need I felt to forgive him. "Has he ASKED for forgiveness?" he asked. Good question. He hadn't. "Have you told him you love him?" That, I had. "Good enough!" he said.

     Because in order to have parents and other people in our lives, however flawed they may be, that is often all we can do.

     Never fear, I also found plenty of humor in the situation. That's what we Jews do.

       Writing this book made me feel better. Reading it may help others too.