Byline: RUTH MARCUSSYNDICATED COLUMNIST
WASHINGTON -- My family knew I was losing it when I started growing grass.
Not the hallucinogenic kind. Not even the suburban homeowner kind. I was growing wheatgrass to use in centerpieces for my daughter's bat mitzvah.
A bat mitzvah - bar mitzvah for boys - marks the entry of 13-year-olds into Jewish adulthood. It has also evolved - mutated might be more accurate - into the occasion for a celebratory extravaganza.
Which explains the wheatgrass: Despite my determination to resist succumbing, I found myself caught in the iron grip of bat mitzvah mania. And I began to understand how ordinarily sane parents get carried ...