All the Yiddish I know...

This is my 100th post.  Five months, and one hundred posts into this crazy idea of Hubband's, I think blogging has made me a better person.  Seriously.

First, it has given me an outlet for all the grown-up things that rattle around in my head.  I love my children, but they just don't get me.  And, at their ages, I really would not want them to.

Second, it has made me live my life more fully and with more attention to detail, because I never know where great blogging material will come from.  (Unless I go anywhere with my friend Jennifer, in which case she will spoon feed it to me and then tell me I am brilliant.)

Third, because blogging has changed my life in the two previously mentioned ways, I have had to make time for writing and living, leaving less time for housework, which is just as well because I was taking it too seriously.  Now I have made it my goal to lower the bar for housewives everywhere.  (More on that in another post.)

Fourth, blogging has made use of something about myself that I always knew, but until now, never appreciated.

I'm a kvetch.

In case you don't know, kvetch is a Yiddish word that means "a complainer".  I wanted to say that I "like to kvetch," but once I started to write this post, I realized that all the Yiddish I know, I learned from the Dick Van Dyke Show, and that perhaps I should look it up, so as not to embarrass myself.  Well, according to Yiddish Dictionary On-line, kvetch is a noun.  It has a verb form, kvetchn, but I am not sure how to use it.  I have heard it used several times in the way that I want to use it, but I am not sure that it is correct, so I won't use it that way.  For now.  I wonder if there is a Yiddish word for tangent.  Anyhoo...

The other day I posted a story about the breakfast dishes.  It was riveting, I assure you.  In it, I implied that I have been so busy doing dishes, raising kids, etc. that I have not had the time to look up and even notice my life, let alone enjoy it.  Well, Vince, a frequent commenter, called me on it.

He said, "You seem to be saying that the business of marriage and breeding over the last 6 years had kept you so busy that you did not see the pure fun of what you had created. But then I realised the why of reading your blog IS that joy you have. And while you might be grinding your teeth while the lawyer is scraping poop from the walls you are mostly on a cloud of delight."

While I would never use the phrase "cloud of delight" to describe anything that was not edible, I have to admit, he has a point.  I love it when my life stinks.  I love it when things go horribly wrong (so long as no permanent damage is done).  Why?  Because there is good material in there, and I am a kvetch.

There are people, like my friend and fellow blogger, Jordan who can always see the bright side (even when she has to bathe in cold water at six o'clock on a Sunday morning) and when there is no obvious bright side, she makes one.  This is not as obnoxious as it sounds.  She is a genuine delight, really.  I love this about her.  But, that is not me.  I'm a kvetch.

But, I am a happy kvetch.  I actually like complaining.  I like looking at the darker side of things, and lightening them up, by making them funny.   There is nothing ugly about this, or even all that negative.  Kvetching (if I may be so bold as to make a verb and then a gerund out of a Yiddish noun), and all the things in the world worth kvetching about, bring me joy.  Great joy.

Does this make me a bad person?  Maybe.  But, it makes me a better blogger, and blogging makes me a better person (see above).  Or, maybe blogging just makes me a better kvetch, which makes me a better blogger which makes me a better person.  Oh, I'm dizzy.

 This is clearly 'kvetch' being uses as a verb.  

And, the guy who wrote this book probably knows what he is talking about.  

I feel better now.

Thank you all for coming.  I hope you will be here for 100 more.