Howdy, friends! Before we get back to the Yenta’s regularly scheduled program of Jewishy snarkiness, I want to thank y’all for all the nice emails wondering if we had been abducted by backwater hillbillies and made to do treifful things in the wilderness. Have no fear – we returned safe and sound last week after an amazing, wonderful North Georgia experience, the only banjo-picking to be heard was El Yenta Man’s attempts on his guitar (which was disturbing, but hardly dangerous.)

We rented this sweet little cabin on Lake Nottelly near the tiny town of Blairsville, a rustic retreat where we canoed and fished and barbecued and chased fireflies and bellylaughed over the dog trying to swim and rode horses and tubed down a really cold creek and ate pretty decent Mexican food and soaked in the hot tub and watched the Olympics and unwound from life and enjoyed each other’s company. We brought home a couple souvenirs; a jar of pickled okra, an antique hummingbird letter holder to hang on the front door, and most special of all, a fairy house from Sleepy Hollow Enterprises, made by a retired Disney architect who has created a magical world all his own in the mountains.

This low-budget road trip beat an expensive trek to Disneyworld or dealing with airports, and I feel like I got to know my family again after being a Busy Working Mother for the last year. We rounded out the trip with a stop at Callaway Gardens outside Atlanta, a huge man-made nature preserve full of bike trails and lakes and a butterfly conservatory with hundreds of different species of winged exotic creatures that landed on our heads and brought us eye-to-antennae with the majesty and breadth of creation.

By far the most exciting side activity was a trip to the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, where you purchase Soylent Greenish pellent snacks and drive your OWN CAR into a park full of giraffes, goats, antelope, cattle, zebra, hilariously scuttling Vietnamese potbellied pigs and crazy-eyed ostriches that stick their drooly heads INSIDE the windows and eat the food and anything else that might get too close – I am telling you it was MESHUGGEH. Yet memorable, and worth the entire bottle of hand sanitizer I doused the children in afterwards. Don’t worry, we left the dog in the front office.

(And how ABOUT dem Olympics, nu? I didn’t really research the Jewish athletes, but hey, that Mary Wineberg sure can move, right? She was smokin’ in that 400m relay and got the gold! Wait, what? A name like Wineberg, but not Jewish? Man, I gotta get my head back into my Google;) But I do know my main woman Dara Torres not only got her two silver medals but also proved herself a true sportswoman and mensch, if we may apply that to a woman, for her insistence that the judges wait for the Swedish swimmer to change a ripped suit.)

You may have noticed that this is a pictureless post. For all the fun, love and laughter the Family Yenta experienced on our trip, apparently the price was the loss of all our photos while trying to download them. *sigh* Guess you just had to be there.

…fist bump optional.

The Family Yenta is taking a long-overdue vacation next week, no computers or Blackberrys allowed, just the four of us in the minivan, driving all over Georgia, eating at scary roadside diners…please pray for me.

Shalom out, friends – I’ll be back around August 20!

Man, Agriprocessors, the behemoth kosher meat plant in Iowa, has had some major tsuris these past few months! They got busted for illegal workers in May, then in June some of their old meat surfaced at summer camps, and now this:

From AP: DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa labor officials said Tuesday that they had uncovered dozens of child labor violations at the nation’s biggest supplier of kosher meat…The types of violations included minors working in prohibited occupations, exceeding allowable hours for youth to work, failure to obtain work permits, exposure to hazardous chemicals and working with prohibited tools.

Full article here.

C’mon, just try the tofu – you just might like it…

If you’re in the neighborhood, two young, hip Jews have cool shows up around town:

First off, Rachel Raab, an adorable and talented dreadlocked moppet with a fantastic PEZ collection, has a retrospective of her fine art photography up at the JEA. It’s a colorful, twisted mix of landscapes, animals and inked, pierced people – I freakin’ love it. I interviewed Rachel for the upcoming “Women to Watch” issue of skirt! last week – she’s only 24, and I get that “She’s going to be famous in 10 years” vibe big time.

Her photos are hung just past the lobby on the way to the fitness center. It was a trip to see which photos people gravitated to – folks really love her large landscape triptych, though some scratched their heads at the guy underwater with the tattooed neck.

We took the portrait for the magazine at the exhibit, but I convinced Rachel to let me follow her home so I could snap a shot of her PEZ:

And that’s only like half of ’em. See more of Rachel’s work at Raabstract.com.

I’ve never met Ian Aleksander Adams, but I was in the Sentient Bean this week and while sipping my Earl Gray I recognized the Holy Land in the photos on the wall. The work is a product of a Taglit Birthright trip Ian took recently, and I thought his stark landscapes captured the ancient, dusty place that exists behind the shiny, modern cities. He writes in his artist statement that his work is non-political, which I agree with, but it is evocative of the complexity of how an American Jew feels about Israel.

I’m very much looking forward to Ian’s next project, Knees Are Weird. (‘Cause, dude, they so are!)

Check these two out all month long!

Right, so last week we had pig Botox, and now a salon near Washington, D.C. is touting nibbly fish as the very latest in spa pedicures:

Patrons at the Yvonne Hair and Nails are treated to a footbath full of hungry carp to rid tootsies of those unsightly rough spots on heels and toes. Spa owner Jon Ho wanted to “come up with something unique while finding a replacement for pedicures that use razors to scrape off dead skin. The razors have fallen out of favor with state regulators because of concerns about whether they’re sanitary.”

Because fish poop is verrry clean, dontcha know?

This photo was sent to me by a dear friend who swears her feet have never been so soft:

Me, I prefer my fish dead, smoked and on a bagel.

The whole extended Yenta family’s getting a huge kick out of this one:

Our Israeli cousin, Mikhal Shiff, is playing Mother Superior in a Jerusalem production of The Sound of Music.

Mikhal is a classically-trained singer, music teacher and surely a shoe-in for the role, but the most hilarious part of her wearing a nun habit?

She’s a cantor.

*snort* tee hee hee…I’ll never be able to listen to her High Holy Days liturgy again without thinking of her in this pengiun outfit…

From the jokers at Bangitout.com:

10. Lox Luther – Only weakness is bagels
9. Pareve Dishes – Surreptitiously slips into milk and meat meals undetected
8. Oddball Hasgacha – Scams unassuming foods into pretending to be kosher
7. Over-Priced – Can’t help marking up anything and everything
6. Pitum Breaker – can crush your entire Succot experience with a simple flick
5. The Pen(flipper)guin – his pen flipping during a shiur is both mezmorizing and annoying!
4 The Mad Hatter – Wears his back hat only in the most inappropriate places (beach, Great Adventure, sleep)
3. Sefira Face – After six weeks, his wild rat beard in the office makes you reconsider your faith
2. Shabbos Freeze – Makes all shabbos food taste like leftovers
1. Bad Joker – Guy who won’t leave you alone at synagogue kiddush

So SavannahRed thinks Heeb’s swimsuit calendar of hot Jewish women would irk this feminist.

Let’s be clear: I abhor exploitation of all humans, especially young women. There are horrible, disgusting things happening in the modern slave trade and child porn industries. And yes, a hipster magazine touting a bunch of high-paid models as the standard of Jewish beauty is sad, and a little uncreative. (Now, a spread on hot Jewish moms – there’s something new!)

Sorry to disappoint, SavRed, but I just don’t find chicks in bikinis all that offensive. People like to look at pretty ladies, even (especially?) if every mole, wrinkle and dimple has been Photoshopped to oblivion; this has always been and will never change – why shouldn’t Jewish women like Bar Rafaeli be slobbered over like everyone else? May the Heeb calendar adorn bathroom stalls of Jewish tattoo parlors everywhere.

I’m not much into visual stimulation myself and consider the mind the only true erogenous zone, but here’s a photo I consider REALLY hott:

Future presidents in yarmulkes – sexxxxxxy.

Thank God It’s Shabbat. (Yes, I know, heathen woman spells out G-O-D. I know some folks use a dash instead of an ‘o’ because we’re not supposed to write God’s name anywhere it could be erased or something, but I figure the word “God” isn’t God’s real name anyway, just a word we’ve all agreed to use in place of the actual holy word none of us actually know. Disagree with me later.)

S’sorry for the slow week in Yentaland, folks – it’s been a doozy.

My day job has been more of nightmare: The woman who takes care the advertising end of the magazine had her (gorgeous boy) baby over the weekend, right in time for our August deadline. This put me in charge of chasing down sales contracts, arranging ads in the layout so that Boutique Y who hates Salon X was happy and getting the whole puppy uploaded to the printer.

Let me reiterate something to y’all: I am the editor of a women’s magazine. I like free make-up, blueberry martinis and using neat words such as “fierce” and “sartorial.” My job is to write funny copy about cool people, be a cheerleader for the saleswomen and look pretty. Dealing with clients who don’t like the color purple and anything to do with money makes me want to hide under my desk and eat chocolate (which is how I got freakin’ rug burn on top of my foot.) But, by the grace of Grammatica, the Guardian Angel of Publishing, the issue went to bed without me experiencing the “dead” in “deadline.”

Outside of my personal dramas, the week also brought actual tragedy: Steve Shoob, a local TV reporter and part of the regular morning minyan of Agudath Achim, the Conservative synagogue, was killed Monday morning while covering a traffic accident on I-95. I didn’t know Mr. Shoob, but by all accounts he was a wonderful person, someone who covered the graveyard shift of Savannah’s news with compassion and kindness, a doting father and grandfather and a good Jew. His death is a loss for the entire community. The Family Yenta offers its deepest sympathies to his family.

(In better news, Sarah Silverman finally got rid of her shaygetz boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel. Anyone know any nice Jewish guys who dig a woman with pervy sense of humor and likes to say “poop”?)

Many thank-yous to the lovely energetic counselors at the JEA, where the Yenta children have been attending day camp while their mother has been going bat sh*t. These kids are so sweet, so attentive – it’s a parent’s dream to drop off their kids every day to smiling faces and “Hatikvah.” Plus, they cook lunch on Fridays so I didn’t have to pack PB&J’s this morning. Anyone have any good suggestions on end of the summer gifts for them?

Documentation of this asinine week must contain a big shout-out to my parents, celebrating 40 years of marriage in Paris on Wednesday. Their secret? Separate vacations. May they continue to inspire us all. My Brother The Doctor turned 35 the same day, which is probably why he got to go to Paris too, while I, merely Bearer of the Grandchildren, toiled away on the floor of my cubicle, surrounded by foil wrappers. Happy Berfday, bro.

The painting above is by a Yenta favorite, Canadian artist Martina Shapiro. (Read more about this gorgeous Czech-born Jewess here.)

So long to a super-juicy six days of work – I’m ready for some rest. So much so that instead of the usual home-cooked Friday night meal, we’re hitting the new organic takeout joint and heading out to the beach. Shabbat Shalom, y’all!