Z IS FOR ZAFTIG

Z is for ZAFTIG...a lovely Yiddish word that sounds a hellova lot better than 'plump'!

Plump makes you think of all those blind dates when you were told 'He/She has a great personality.' HA! We get it! Face like a dog and clothes made by Omar the Tentmaker! Zaftig, my ass! Wait! I mean…! Sigh.

Actually, I love the word zaftig. Makes me think of a fluffy pillow or my ideal of what a Bubbie’s chest is supposed to be like. You know the one—you can put your little keppeleh on that chest and all the troubles of the world disappear as she pats your back and sings you a song in a language from another country.

In my day…way back when the air was clean and sex was dirty, women like Marilyn Monroe or Mae West were drop-dead gorgeous. They were also zaftig.

Then the tragedy occurred…Twiggy appeared and all of us became some sloppy model that only a painter like Rubens would look at. Those ladies were takkeh ZAFTIG. But in those days they were perfect specimens of healthy, well-fed, wealthy women.

As a person who has been battling zaftig all her life I want to make my thoughts clear right now. One, round is a shape, and should be number one on the shape list. It is a perfect shape. It is so perfect that it is very difficult to draw freehand. You need to stick a little pin in the eraser end of a pencil and tie a string around the pin and hang on if you want to make a circle. Any damn fool can draw a triangle or a square. But a circle? That takes talent.

Two, I figure that God, in His infinite wisdom, made zaftig on purpose. What that is exactly, I don’t know, but then God doesn’t often consult with me before erecting his pillars of fire. So, once again, I will just take it on blind faith that zaftig is an acceptable, viable, exquisite shape in God’s eyes.

Finally, my prayer: ‘Dear God, in my next life can I please have fat hair and skinny thighs? Thank you. Your friend forever, marallyn.

Well, here we are. We made it through the alphabet. Thank you so much for coming along and sharing my journey. It wouldn’t have been the same without you. Some of you have written that I should turn around, go back to Zero and start all over again, I’ll mull it over during Shabbat. In the meantime…

Have a great day…stay safe…and thanks for dropping in.