This is the content of my Facebook discussion about my status message posted early today.

Alan Klein Today is the final chapter of The-Folks-Visit-LA. Why is it a moral imperative for Jews to find restaurants even while at other restaurants? 10:32am

Larry Silverman at 10:37am April 22

9:30 in the morning and they’re already planning dinner? Yeah, those are some Jewie parents.

Alan Klein at 10:41am April 22

Dinner?? Sure but they’re already planning tomorrow’s breakfast before they leave for the airport. And if they ask one more time how long it will take to get to Burbank airport….

Larry Silverman at 12:05pm April 22

Have they yet suggested a “dry run” to make sure you know how to get to the airport?

Lauren Kolman at 2:37pm April 22

they just have to be prepared…any meal could be the last one…

Michael Lavinger at 4:13pm April 22

while still attached to the web he’s swinging on, spiderman has to shoot his next web.

perhaps it’s related. after all, with great restaurants comes great responsibility.

Alan Klein at 6:12pm April 22

So we finally settled on a restaurant for tonight. Now, by settled, I mean they changed their mind about 3 or 4 times prior to ’settling.’ I’m happy with the pick though.

And, they did ask about the trip to the Burbank airport again. Not once. Not twice but 3 times. They’ve been asking not only me, but Lee and friends how long it takes to get to the airport from their hotel from the moment they landed here in LA. I’m sure they will ask again at dinner tonight. I’m shaking thinking about it.

Larry Silverman at 6:48pm April 22

Hotel? You made your poor mother stay in a hotel? oy.

Alan Klein at 7:06pm April 22

OMFG! This is for their own good. Trust me.

Alan Klein at 7:07pm April 22

They dropped me off no more than 30 minutes ago and they’ve already called to check on the plans.

Valerie Nuanes at 7:17pm April 22

Ok, so i’m late w/comments, but, did they ask you which was the best way to get to the airport and when should they leave because of traffic? Did they tell you what the traffic’s like at that time of day at home?

Alan Klein at 7:27pm April 22

Yes, it was presumably about traffic. But it was asked and answered. Then it was asked and answered again. Asked and answered some more, then asked to several other people that answered the question. They asked their old friends. They asked me again. They asked Lee again. They asked the tour operator yesterday. When they met another friend earlier today, guess what they asked? And it was answered again. Then, in the car, just a little while ago, take a wild guess what came up? Not to be impolite, I answered. I’m going nuts because I can’t stop thinking that they will ask again, over dinner.

Lauren Kolman at 7:06am April 23

i had the same experience…..ive lived here 9 yeaers…but my restaurant recommmendation wasnt good enough….my stepmother had to call three freinds and confirm my choice…

Tom Leone at 2:23pm April 23 via Facebook Mobile

You should have yelled out “Burbank Airport? Where is that? (It’s now called the Bob Hope Airport). This would have led to another round of inquires and repetitive checking of tickets.

We worry therefore we are. And that’s why we invented early detection for many diseases that we really don’t need to know about.

In fact my mother, who’s no slouch in the worry department, told me recently that early detection of many tumors is often harmful because in the vast majority of cases, whatever is detected usually goes away by itself.

In other words the body’s always making tumors but hardly any of them ever cause trouble with us — until we make trouble with them.

Actually I’m a top. As I say in my act — a Jewish top — a dreidel. Once a year someone takes me out and give me a spin.

Also in reference to the joke about Jews and abortion: Not only is it not wrong to have an abortion, a Jewish mother is technically allowed to nag the child to death until he’s 35.

Malapropisms:

On the fabulous hour-long, season premiere of the female killer series Snapped on Oxygen (the best show I’ve seen in ages!), the prosecutor said that the perpetrator wished for the victim to be deceased.” Ah. edumacated White Trash prosecutors.

Erik was feeling horny. He expressed his ho-ishness by telling us, “I’m feeling so rancid!” We think he meant randy.

On Religion:

Jesus is not the Son of God. Like any other good Jewish mother, Mary treated him — her first born son — like god. The Apostles just misunderstood.

Scientologists are space alien-worshiping Freemasons.

Martha (not her real name): “In a weird way I wish Tom Cruise was dead.” Ed: “Don’t you mean you want him deceased?” (See above)

Absolutely Meshuga:

Martha: I’m obsessed with an obscure disorder. It’s called Pixie Face Syndrome.

They’re oldies but goodies!

A drunk was in front of a judge.

The judge says, ‘You’ve been brought here for drinking.’

The drunk says ‘Okay, let’s get started.’

The Harvard School of Medicine did a study of why Jewish women like Chinese food so much.

The study revealed that this is due to the fact that ‘Won Ton’ spelled backward is ‘Not Now.’

There is a big controversy on the Jewish view of when life begins. In Jewish tradition, the fetus is not considered viable until it graduates from medical school.

Q: Why don’t Jewish mothers drink?

A: Alcohol interferes with their suffering.

Q: Have you seen the newest Jewish-American-Princess horror movie?

A: It’s called, ‘Debbie Does Dishes.’

Q: Why do Jewish mothers make great parole officers?

A: They never let anyone finish a sentence!

Q: What’s a Jewish American Princess’s favorite position?

A: Facing Bloomingdale’s.

A man called his mother in Florida, ‘Mom, how are you?’ ‘

Not too good,’ said the mother. ‘I’ve been very weak.’

The son said, ‘Why are you so weak?’

She said, ‘Because I haven’t eaten in 38 days.’

The son said, ‘That’s terrible. Why haven’t you eaten in 38 days?’

The mother answered, ‘Because I didn’t want my mouth to be filled with food if you should call.’

A Jewish boy comes home from school and tells his mother he has a part in the play.

She asks, ‘What part is it?

The boy says, ‘I play the part of the Jewish husband. ‘

The mother scowls and says, ‘Go back and tell the teacher you want a speaking part.’

For more on the Borscht Belt, check out Laugh.com.

Oy, what a week. I had to move out of my place in Culver City (that’s a story for another blog post). I hate moving. Packing really butts up against my obsessive-compulsive disorder. It takes me hours, it seems, to pack a box. First I must sort and then clean everything going into the box — even electrical cables get Windexed prior to boxing.

Needless to say my grumpy Korean partner became even more grumpy (and, by extension I suppose, more Korean) and threatened to pack those dirty cables if I didn’t pick up the pace. Of course I couldn’t have that. He won. I picked up the pace. At least I convinced him to label the boxes, another OCD-inspired affliction of mine.

So we finally finished, packed our possessions in a U-Haul and unloaded them in a friend’s garage in Silver Lake, where we will be staying temporarily. We finished rather late in the evening. Both exhausted, we headed for bed. Not our bed, of course, but Maria’s guest bed. It’s comfortable but a full-size. A tad too small for the two of us. We made do.

What I couldn’t hack, however, was the down pillow I found under my head. I asked Lee to switch pillows with me. His was a poly-filled, hypoallergenic number. I had to have it! I made the move for a pillow switch. Grumpily, he asked what I was doing (the maneuver must have awakened him, but this was a matter of life or sneezing!). I explained that I was allergic to feather pillows.

He was perplexed. Not only could he not understand how someone could be allergic to feathers, he couldn’t fathom how I even knew I was.

I explained that at an early age, perhaps four or five years old, my mother told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was allergic to everything. There was nothing on the face of the earth that would make me sneeze and features were just the tip of the Greenberg (iceberg).

Dust, mold, mildew, grass, pollen, dust mites, bees, you name it. They all contributed to my bouts with hay fever. And if the mere suggestion of being allergic to everything wasn’t enough, I was taken by my mother each week to the allergist for shots for all of these supposed allergens.

A scratch test, when an allergist literally scratches allergens on a patient’s arm and then waits for a reaction, is the typical method of discovering whether or not one has allergies. I did not have scratch tests, however. My doctor and I relied on my Jewish mother’s word. In those days a Jewish mother’s word trumped any test any doctor could perform.

From childhood on, my experience with allergies has been a constant and arduous process of elimination: To find out what doesn’t make me wheeze.

Sneeze graphic from: Allergy Help.

It’s seriously good with amazing animation — but I always thought Jewish amnesia was when you forget everything good and only remember the painful and scary.  In my mother’s case, as she gets older, she forgets everything but how my father annoyed her.

What do you think? Jewish amnesia is the premise. Go.

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Jewish Information

As a general principle, Jewish holidays are divided between days on which you must starve and days on which you must overeat.

Many Jews observe no fewer than 16 fasts throughout the Jewish year, based on the time-honored principle that even if you are sure that you are ritually purified, you definitely aren’t.

Though there are many feasts and fasts, there are no holidays requiring light snacking. NOTE: Unlike Christians, who simply attend church on special days (e.g. Ash Wednesday), on Jewish holidays most Jews take the whole day off.  This is because Jews, for historical and personal reasons, are more stressed out.
 

The Diet Guide to the Jewish Holidays:

There are many forms of Judaism:

 
You know you grew up Jewish when:

·      You did not respond to the teacher calling roll on the first day of school because you thought your name was “Princess.”

·      You’ve had at least one female relative who drew eyebrows on her face that were always asymmetrical.

·      You spent your entire childhood thinking that everyone calls roast beef “brisket.”

·      Your family dog responds to complaints uttered in Yiddish.

·      Every Sunday afternoon of your childhood was spent visiting your grandparents.

·      You’ve experienced the phenomena of 50 people fitting into a 10-foot-wide dining room hitting each other with plastic plates and forks trying to get to a deli tray.

·      You thought pasta was the stuff used exclusively for kugel and kasha with bowties.

·      You watched Lawrence Welk and Ed Sullivan every Sunday night.

·      You were as tall as your grandmother by age seven.

·      You never knew anyone whose last name didn’t end in one of six standard suffixes (-man,-witz, -berg, -stein, -blatt or -baum).

·      You grew up and were surprised to find out that wine doesn’t always taste like year-old cranberry sauce.

·      You can look at gefilte fish without turning green.

·      You grew up thinking there was a fish called lox.

·      You can understand some Yiddish but you can’t speak it.

·      You know how to pronounce numerous Yiddish words and use  them correctly in context, yet you don’t exactly know what they mean.

·      Is that Kenahurra or is that kaninehurra?

·      You have at least one ancestor who is related to your spouse’s ancestor.

·      You grew up thinking it was normal for someone to shout “Are you okay? Are you okay?” through the bathroom door if you were in there for longer than 3 minutes.

·      You have at least six male relatives named Michael or David.

Baruch Hashem and G-d willing, may you have a day full of mazel and shalom!

Also of note is Stewie’s disdain for insects. I too hate the little critters, and my disdain for them comes directly from my mother.  

In fact, the last line, delivered by Stewie in this Family Guy scene, could have indeed been delivered by my dear mother.

(Click the Image Below to Play)

Illness, not health, is our way of “keeping up with the Schwartz’s” I suppose.

So it should have come as no shock to me that all the allergy medicines (and there were many)I took as a kid, along with weekly allergy shots, all given to me at the insistence of my mother, were unnecessary from a health perspective but completely necessary from a Jewish perspective. My mother derived narcissistic satisfaction while I just got drowsy!

Worse, however, was that I couldn’t have a pet. My mother insisted that allergy scratch tests confirmed that I was allergic to dander and therefore could not have a dog or cat.  I had always wanted a dog so this announcement was a crushing blow. I never really was a cat person so not having one was not an issue per se.  What was an issue, and very problematic indeed, was that not only could I not have a cat but I could now not be at any friend’s house that had a cat.

Now here’s the rub: As a kid I would develop symptoms of cat allergies — runny nose, itchy eyes, sneezing, coughing and, last but not least, wheezing. But I’ve since had my own allergy scratch tests and none have ever indicated that I’m allergic to cats. 

So the question remains, did I get that runny nose, itchy eyes, sneezing coughing, wheezing simply due to my mother’s insistence that I am allergic to cats? Did I became a human snot rag to get love and affection from her in the only way I knew how — by filling a Jewish mother’s narcissistic need for her son to be ill? Was my allergy to cats just psychosomatic, or in my case psychosemitic?

On my last trip to Los Angeles, the trip I made after my mother told me how to pee so as not to drip on her marble bathroom floor, I arranged to stay with one of my oldest friends. He has two cats. On the way to the airport I told my mother about the cats. She cut me off saying, “You can’t stay there. You’re allergic to cats!” I told her I wasn’t but she insisted I was.  I let it go and with it my allergy to cats. 

The Katz’s