The poor Franco dictatorship must have been in quite a pickle, choosing sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Whom do we hate more, Jews or Muslims? Muslims or Jews? Darn Semitic folks never quit making trouble.”

I’m kidding, of course. It wasn’t that hard. Almost a quarter of volunteers in the anti-fascist International Brigades in the Civil War were Jews. And Franco had Muslim troops fighting on his side, which prompted the anti-fascist Republicans to collapse in a torrent of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Muslims and Jews ended up fighting against each other in the Spanish Civil War.

I just bought tickets to go to Montreal. With Klara. On an airplane.

I so want to be more like those adventurous, strong women who see no problem in traveling with a single, moderately rambunctious toddler. I really admire women who are less sheltered and who don’t see every trip to a new supermarket as an adventure requiring days of planning and mental preparation.

When I was learning to speak Spanish, I pretended that I was the kind of person who wasn’t terrified to speak in class and who could easily share things about her life with strangers. And after pretending for a while, I actually became that person. So I’m hoping that if I adopt the persona of this more adventurous woman who isn’t intimidated by new experiences, maybe it will grow on me.

Klara and I were eating eggs. Want to guess who managed to mess up her own clothes and hair more in the process?

And then these very same academics will wonder why everybody thinks they are elitist and out of touch. They will blame Fox News instead of wondering how such articles must sound to women who lug boxes at Amazon warehouses or wait for an uncertain 12-hour shift at a chain restaurant. 

At my gestational diabetes group, there was a working class woman whose boss wouldn’t allow her to take a 5-minute break for a snack. As you know, diabetics need to eat in small portions and often. She had a lot of trouble controlling her diabetes.

This was a job that was really incompatible with motherhood.