Katie Couric Knows Yiddish

This week, I learned a few things:
1. There are a lot of very cool Mom blogs out there that I didn't know about.
2. Driving to yet another birthday party at Chelsea Piers may soon cost me yet another eight bucks.
3. The NYC Moms blog is populated with cool, fun, chic, and amazingly accomplished (and published) women.
4. I cannot drink ANY alcohol without feeling like crap for two day afterwards.
5. I have too much hair and, evidently a double chin.(I'm the one farthest to the right)
6. Katie Couric knows Yiddish.

This week, a bunch of us NYC MOM bloggers met at Brasserie 8 1/2 to celebrate the recent launch of this blog site-- and to get to know each other.  Graco graciously sponsored and  gave out a wonderful gift bag that my kids adored,  and Yahoo! provided the always difficult to get but reserved for us for the evening transportation. 

It was a great evening, and so much fun to meet everyone I'd been reading all these months.  It all felt very glamorous, since a  crew from The Today Show was there to film our every move. (They didn't pick

me to interview, though.  Maybe it's all that HAIR or the double chin -- gotta love that!)

Then today, a group of bloggers from NYC Moms, DC Metro Moms, Chicago Moms Blog, SV Moms and a new site for women without their own children, met with Katie Couric of the CBS Evening News. Beforehand, we all obsessed over what to wear.  Especially the shoes.  Then, we all obsessed over  the rain.  Could we get taxis? Could we  make it from the nearest subway in our fabulous  but uncomfortable shoes?? What was this meeting really about anyway?

Well, what it turned out the be was a regular gabfest with Katie Couric.  We found out that she likes Dancing with the Stars, that she doesn't worry about aging (yay for you Katie), that she likes to sit on the floor and just talk, and that there's a reason she was so good at the Today Show:  she's charming, funny, likable, and smart.  Kinda makes me want to hate her, but I can't.  She's too nice, dammit!

At one point, one of our bloggers, Beth F., described someone as a farbissener punim. Yiddish for sourpuss (more or less).  Katie knew what it meant.  And that, my friends, was when I fell in love with Katie Couric.  True, if you live in NYC long enough, you learn a little Yiddish.  But for most people it stops with oy vey and schlepp.  Katie knew farbissener punim!  Could making her own gefilte fish be far behind? I felt like I knew her alread, from seeing her on TV for so many years, but this Yiddish thing just put me over the edge.  She felt like a Landsmann.

So I did a little sleuthing (God bless Wikipedia) - and it turns out that Katie's Mom was Jewish!! I knew it!  She was raised Presbyterian, but according to Jewish law, if your mother was a Jew, you are too!  So welcome, Katie, to the tribe.  We're glad to have you (and a lot of these celebs, too)!

But seriously, something about Katie's knowing a fairly obscure Yiddish phrase said to me that Katie is warm.  Yiddish is the (sadly dying) language of "the people."  Not fancy, not particularly lyrical or pretty, but hamishe....and I bet Katie knows what that means, too.  Think about it:  here's a woman who is amazingly accomplished:  the first solo female anchor of a major Network News program, a children's book author, a spokesperson for colon cancer who broadcast her own colonoscopy to encourage others to get checked for colon cancer,  and had a mammogram on air to do the same for breast cancer. She's been in movies, on tv, and most of it, while being a single mom to two daughters.  Amazing.

So here's to you, Katie. A gracious hostess (her office is beautiful, by the way), a talented, serious journalist, a devoted Mom, and the kind  of girl you'd love to go out to lunch with.

By the way, I'm free next Tuesday, and the 2nd Avenue Deli makes great gefilte fish!

Katie, bei mir bist du shein! Gay Gezunte Hait!

Original NY City Moms Blog post.

Comments

[Jenn]

Very cool! Love to hear that my favorite celebs are super nice in real-life, too!

[the mama bird diaries]

So true about the alcohol! One glass of wine and i feel hungover too. Great meeting you!

[bshackman]

Mazel Tov!!! (Hebrew word, not yiddish?)Sounds like a terrific day! Her on-air colonoscopy prompted me to get my first colonoscopy 5 years ago in my mid-30's because I have a family history. She is an inspiration!

[Beth]

Great to know Katie is a warm person, there are so many celebs that are not worth meeting!

[anna]

Thanks for all those seriously funny insights into Katie.A great read for what was clearly a great time.

[suki]

I have always been a fan of Katie's, but I always wondered if she was as warm, charming, and "real" as she seemed. Nice to know it wasn't "projection" on my part!

[KT]

gotta love the regular girls!

[Juliehat]

You do not have a double chin or too much hair, but a gorgeous Shana Punim (probably spelled wrong)

[Jayne Sosland]

Who ever heard of too much hair? You're meshugener and hiderdik!

[Gunfighter]

It's funny... growing up in northern New Jersey (less than 30 minutes from Manhattan), I always took it for granted that people sprinkled their speech with occasional Yiddish. When I joined the service, I spent 3.5 years in Germany and wondered why I picked up that language so fast... it was then that I realized that a German or Yiddish speaker could learn tha other language very quickly as they are very similar.

The things you learn.

[cathi fortner]

What a wonderful tribute to an awesome woman - I do hope that Katie gets to read this!

Glad the taxis worked out - I feel like I missed out on a great party!

-Cathi from Yahoo!