When I was a little girl, my mother’s mother was a big part of my life. I don’t recall ever seeing her sitting down to relax — she was always cooking, sewing, cleaning, gardening, canning, plucking a fresh-killed chicken, ironing, baking, scrubbing, cooking some more . . . and then standing by to watch everyone else enjoy her incredible food.

(For years I wondered why she was never hungry, and then one day I figured out it was because she kept tasting the food all day as she prepared it.)

Seeing her family at her table, sharing a meal she had created — that was her greatest joy in life. And because she loved us, she also dispensed opinions and advice.

Only once do I recall hearing her make a derogatory remark about anyone. It was a young woman who lived in our neighborhood, who frequently passed our house on her way to the little grocery store up the street. And each time my Bubbe happened to see her walking past, she would mutter under her breath a single word: “kurva.”

Now, I had no idea what it meant, or even what language it was; but from the tone of her voice, and the disapproving look on her face, I knew it wasn’t good. And I knew that that young woman was someone not to befriend.

Much, much later, when I began studying Russian, I bought a wonderful little book (which I still have), called “Dictionary of Russian Obscenities.” And there it was, that mysterious word: “kurva.” Once I knew what it meant, I understood what my grandmother had been telling us: that, fairly or not, we are judged by the company we keep.

It’s just a shame that Donald Trump never knew my grandmother. She would have set him straight in a New York minute. But that never happened; and today he is hosting Xi Jinping in Washington, and has invited Vladimir Putin — for the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine — to participate in the G20 meeting in Florida in December.

If my Bubbe were alive today, and she were asked to decide which was the lesser of two evils — a two-bit small-town hooker, or a man like Donald Trump — I do believe she would choose that young woman. In fact, she probably would have invited her to dinner and tried to “talk some sense into her,” whereas Trump . . . well, she would have seen him for the waste of space he is and turned him in to the proper authorities.

To my old-world grandmother, who loved unconditionally, a “fallen woman” still had a heart, and feelings, and a soul worth saving. But Bubbe had grown up Jewish in Tsarist Russia, so she also knew real, deeply-rooted, unreachable, irredeemable evil when she saw it. And she would have had no difficulty in judging Donald Trump by the company he has always chosen to keep.

I rest my case.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/25/26