Thank you, Inbound Zombie!

Thank you, Inbound Zombie. This is the kind of photo that I wanted!

Well, I do have another one, but that will follow shortly.

T and I did a big shopping today, first Whole Foods and then Costco. I wound up (what a great double-entendre word) with a cashier who was so busy not smiling that it hurt.

It hurt everyone around her. Maybe not Costco, but really, lady, would it hurt you to smile just a little?

I made a mistake with punching in my card. I did not want money back, but I pushed the red button and not the little sign on the screen. Bad me.

She told me to swipe it again and this time, follow directions.

I did and then admitted that I got confused by too many options. Red usually means stop.

She actually showed a hint of a smile.

There!

Did it hurt?

But then I got rewarded.

Another woman came by with a carriage filled to the brim with stuff, and on top of it, a gigantic bear!

Yes, stuffed.

Wait, Costco must have a photo of it!

Yes, here it is.

But I really really wanted a photo of how she positioned the bear onto the carriage. But my phone does not send photos. It could, but I don’t pay for that, so what would be the use?

So I asked T to take a photo. By the time that she could, the woman had already started to unpack her car. She put the bear into the front of her car.

It was too big for the car seat.

Yes, you can see the feet!

Didn’t this make you smile?

oh gosh he must have been reading my blog!

From here and here. If not more. I know I wrote those after he did what he did, but still…

This was recommended by a friend, but I just took the opportunity to watch it. That’s life, in a nutshell. We have to take the opportunity, but we never know if we’re doing it too when we should. And since we don’t, we just have to be prepared to be amazed.

Wait for it.

I think you’ll be glad you did.

And if you don’t think you have time to watch it, just remember to look up.

savoring the gift of today

While trying to write another blog entry, while waiting for people to get back to me, endlessly, my friend T called and said “Let’s go play.”

So we did and here’s proof.

I guess that’s not really proof of much of anything. We went for a walk in the brown woods that this non-winter is providing. Can you figure out what that is on the rock? Here’s another look.

And here’s another, with a piece picked off.

I do love my new camera! Look how gorgeous this is!

Here’s one more I really like from today.

I think I’ll put in a few more in a gallery, just because…

glorious day outside

Winter helps you focus on all the variations of color and texture and light in the most subtle ways. Thankfully, the wind wasn’t too sharp, just a little nippy, and thankfully, we were warmly dressed. And T brought along hot tea and a delicious giant pumpkin chocolate chip muffin and giant purple grapes to share.

And as we hiked, I played more with my camera.

What could be better?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

the good things about losing power

Thank G-d we got through this one. But yes, we lost power for even longer than we did only 2 months ago.

Yes I thought a lot about things to blog about, this past day and a half without electricity. But I did not write them down, even in an old-fashioned way. But here are some things I did come up with, during and/or after the ordeal. And, as usual, not in any particular order, unless I designate it as such:

1. Our guests who were here for Shabbat left on Sunday morning without too much problem. We worked as a team to clean off the cars, she and I, and then I cleared off the driveway pretty easily. Our husbands were both pretty useless, both having been sick, but we’re of the Lake Wobegon school, anyway.
2. Going outside to clean up all the branches and leaves was a great work-out, especially since it was warmer outside than in by that point today.
3. It helps me lose any vestige of magical thinking, as I brought my perishing perishables to a friend’s house, as I had done just 2 months ago. That time, right before I left, ISHI called to say that the power was back on. It didn’t happen this time.
4. This poor woman, who anxiously called me today to find out if this was normal to lose power so often here, having just moved here a few months ago, was found a place to eat, shower, and crash tonight, thanks to a good family I called upon (thanks again, purple!)
5. Isn’t it true that we’re not really in power, after all, anyway, so we might as well have these reminders, since we seem to forget so easily? Maybe this should be #1, or the last one, but maybe not.
6. I found out from talking to neighbors that we actually do have hot water, since it’s controlled with a thermocoupler and not with an electric system. Good to know, even if I do not know what that means, honestly. It was also good to talk to these neighbors and be neighborly.
7. I went to a shvitz with my friend T, and then luxuriate in a hot shower. Even though we had hot water, I couldn’t dry my hair at home, so that wouldn’t have been fun. So that was a great treat, especially after lugging heavy branches for a couple of hours.
8. ISHI had little option but to go to sleep, a sleep that he’s been avoiding for many months now, since before his father’s death and throughout all the holidays. He was feeling better even. Except now he’s realizing that he isn’t quite over his cold from last week. Oh well, so not everything can be good.
9. Extra blankets are easier to put on than worrying about no air conditioning. To a point.
10. It was great that it prevented kids from going around tonight begging, I mean, doing their halloweeeeen thing. Except for the IDIOT  parents who let their kids go around our neighborhood. In the dark. In the really dark. I swear there should be licenses for parents, renewable every 3 years, with heavy fines for such stupidity.
11. Simplify simplify simplify.
12. We feel so wonderful when it goes back on.

raking the leaves always makes me think of cancer

Well, at least for the last 11 years it has.

I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV. I don’t know why some events trigger memories; I do know that smells are the most evocative for memory, although I don’t really care to know why. I just know that a childhood friend always thought that my childhood house smelled like spaghetti (with tomato sauce, etc), so that when I cook spaghetti with tomato sauce, which is very rare since ISHI doesn’t eat tomatoes, I think of that childhood friend and my childhood, just a little bit.

But this is not a function of smell that I am talking about. It is the memory of an action that accompanied a group of thoughts. No, make that a group of emotions. There was not much thinking going on, just feeling.

I could cue up the music now…

Beware–Tangent approaching:

Lloyd Webber, fearing that the tune sounded too similar to a work of Puccini, and the opening – the haunting main theme – also resembles the flute solo in The Mamas & the Papas’ 1965 song “California Dreamin’“, asked his father’s opinion. According to Lloyd Webber, his father responded, “It sounds like a million dollars!” So he based the haunting opening bars of the tune on Ravel’s Bolero.^{[citation needed]} The carefull listener could also notice Memory sounds highly similar to the song Viņi dejoja vienu vasaru^[2], composed by the latvian composer Imants Kalniņš for Elpojiet dziļi, a 1967latvian movie.

Oh yeah, I knew the part about the Latvian movie reference, for sure. Really a beautiful song, isn’t it?

Where was I?

Maybe I’m also thinking about illness because there are so many instances of it these days and I’m hearing about them all, it seems. Many of them ending with endings, unfortunately. I had started a blentry about taking people off my prayer lists, but it was getting too depressing.

So I went with this instead.

So 11 years ago  בַּיָמִים הָהֵם בַּזְמַן הַזֶה ISHI was waiting to start chemo for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. We had known about it since the summer, but he was told that it would be okay (I think that is the best word) to wait until after all the holidays to start treatment. So for at least a month or two, the doctors knew, we knew,  and then the family knew, and then we had to tell the public. And by the public, I mean the shul. And then the rest of the world found out, if they had to.

But in that meantime, that very mean time, life was supposed to continue as normal, through all the holidays, through our nephew’s bar mitzvah celebration, through all the conversations with all the people that we had contact with.

Which brings me to the chore of raking leaves.

I enjoy the first bag’s worth. I enjoy the freshness in the air. When I warm up with the effort, it’s not enough to sweat, the absence of which I enjoy . I also like the monotony, of a sort, losing yourself to the task at hand.

As I said, for the first bag. The other day, I cleared up the driveway from the pine needles (sorry, T) and enough leaves to fill one bag, and then another half.

And that led me to think back to the raking that I was doing with ISHI 11 years ago, before we had sent out the letter to the community. So when one of the shul members walked by, and she invited herself to jump in our pile, I joined her.

That was the first time I did that for many years and the last time that I can remember doing it.

It was a great release.

ISHI didn’t join in. Too much dog poop on his mind, among many many other things. Eleven years later, he still looks over his shoulder for dog poop and cancer.

I can handle that.

DUL*

I figured today would be a good day to spend in the car. After all, it was the first nice day we’ve had in a while. Yesterday, I took the kiddies to the library in the afternoon, after all threats of rain had passed.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

Thankfully, my son, the kiddies’ abba, picked us up on the way home. Big boy was looking at every blade of grass and rock and even though we had our raincoats on, and I even had an umbrella for him to hold (I’d manage, of course, without one, since I was pushing the baby stroller), it would have been much too messy to make it all the way home in the driving rain.

So I didn’t quite trust the weather report when they said it would be a nice day today. Oh, maybe a passing shower in the morning.

The morning shower didn’t pass until the afternoon…

I took the car to return a dress that really didn’t match its catalogue description. Of course I could have just returned it to the post office. But I thought maybe there was something even possibly on sale that would be a good replacement. After all, I really do need a white blouse to replace the one I wore to death that has a big irreparable tear in it.

Okay, could use, not need…

So off I went, making sure I had all my coupons, since I planned to go to do some food shopping afterwards. I really didn’t need anything besides coffee (no I didn’t NEED coffee but yes I did neeeeeed it, or would at some point. I only have about 4 on my shelf now.)

As I took off, I realized that I had forgotten my water bottle. Oh that should have been a clue to stop and go back. But no, off I went.

I got to the store, found a few things that might have worked, tried them all on but to no avail. So I went to the counter to return the dress and…

something important was missing.

My wallet.

So I called home to see perchance if I had left it on the counter. Thank G-d for cellphones; thank G-d for someone there; thank G-d it was there.

Where I had clearly not noticed it. Yesterday I had it; I had my library card. But today is the next day of the rest of my forgetful life, I guess.

I drove home very very carefully, not exceeding the speed limit at any point (even while going 20 miles slower than all other cars on the highway).

I carefully put my wallet away.

Later I went for a walk to a friend’s house. She’s sitting shiva now for her father, ob”m. He was much younger than my FIL; she’s much younger than me. Her white blouse is torn now, too.

*Driving un-licensed, that is.

i do hate soda

I went into the shul to bring some supplies in for an upcoming event . My dear dear friend T who apparently loves loves loves to shlepp shlepp shlepp helped me bring the things that we had bought the other day, along with a bunch of stuff I was storing in my pretty clean basement, over to the shul. So here is our version of “If you bring some food to the shul”

If you bring some food to the shul, you might have to have a friend help you.

If you have a friend help you, you might have to have her drive because she’s storing so much stuff in her car and she’s got a nice big van.

If your friend drives, you might have to have her wait by the kitchen while you go around to the other side to open the shul, since the kitchen door lock is stuck.

If the kitchen door is stuck, you might also have to remember to remind the House committee person to fix the door and the screen door which is also broken.

If you have to remind the House person to fix all those things, you might want to remind him to put in the air conditioner in the hot hot kitchen.

If you have to work without an air conditioner in the hot hot kitchen, you might want to wait until tomorrow to cook, even if it will be hotter tomorrow.

If you have to cook tomorrow, you might as well wait for the water not to be brown after the water main break yesterday.

If you have to wait for the water to not be brown, you might also remember that when you have to clean the carpet and the floor after trying to take the soda from the storage room and one bottle falls off the cart and explodes every which way in the storage room and yes, in the sanctuary.

If you have to clean the carpet and the floor,  you might as well throw away the used coffee cup that you find in the storage room.

If you throw away the coffee cup, you might as well throw away the cookie that you found on the shul carpet by the door.

If you throw away the cookie, you might think about the food from the bar mitzvah from yesterday.

If you remember the bar mitzvah from yesterday, you might think about the cooking that you need to do for tomorrow.

If you think about the cooking for tomorrow, you might remember the other person who apologized profusely to your husband and asked if he could join and put him on your list.

If you put him on your list, you might remember to put out a notice about the next event.

If you put out a notice about the next event, you will probably forget to write who to make the check out to.

If you forget about the check, then someone will probably remind you to do that.

If someone reminds you, then you’ll remember that you need all the help you can get.

And that really is the end of the story.

bentching to katy perry

If I were really good at doing graphics (okay, if I could do them at all, rather than just copy stuff), I would make two very large circles and then make them intersect. You know, Venn diagrams. And I would list all the things that were the same in the intersecting parts of the circle, and all the things that were different in the two unshared parts.

Oh, what am I talking about?

You know the phrase “You can’t dance at two weddings?” Oh, I can provide a graphic for that:

Apparently, the Yiddish improves upon the German phrase with the addition of the tuchus.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, at two weddings. But they couldn’t have been more different while being the same.

So I’ll start with the same.

They were both Jewish weddings, both in the same approximate area (so we could think about attempting to drag our tuchusses to the two), both in the evening, both first marriages, both with family drama in the background, both with many non-Jews attending, both with beautiful flowers, beautiful brides, and beautifully beaming families. And smaller crowds than many weddings I’ve been involved with. Oh, and ISHI was not officiating at either of them.

I think that covers the intersecting area.

Now for the differences:

The first wedding had a bride who was 20 years old. It was low-key, mostly filled with young women who looked like they had never been to a wedding before. They didn’t come up to the bride when she entered the room, and had to be coaxed to come see her. The men went in their little room and there wasn’t really a chance to see what they were like. Although really for the first time, I did not have any interest or curiosity to see what was happening. There were also a number of people there who were so informally dressed that they must have thought they were going to a wedding in Israel. Israel weddings are nicely informal, so that the emphasis is on the joy and the simchah, rather than the production of the event.

Although I’ve never seen anyone bring food to the chuppah and sit down with their little kids on the runway so they can continue eating.

One of the little children, whose mother was letting wander around, was headed right to the keyboard to play something interesting, I’m sure. One of the (2) musicians sat quickly down to prevent any mis-notes. The photographer, who was poised at that part of the runway to catch photos, took a moment to show the toddler (who was a girl, btw) her camera. Someone from the family came over to take a photo of that, which was a sign of the times. You know, the picture inside the picture, which I guess is what we all experience. Are we living in the moment, or are we running to catch something for another time, thereby missing the experience we’re so eager to catch?

This was a wedding where the bride is in a hurry to grow up. I suggested to the mother that she remind her daughter to play. Not to play house, but to play. The chosson looked scared to death.

The irony is that this 20 year-old looked older than the other bride, who is twice her age. She and her husband don’t need that reminder about playing. They’ve got that down nicely.

So that leads me to the second wedding.

Since ISHI was asked to read the ketubah for the first one, we had to wait and wait for the first one. So we didn’t get to the second one for a while. The first one was supposed to start at 4, with the chuppah at 5. The second one was scheduled at 5, so that’s why we had the thought we could do both. We didn’t get there until 6:30. The first people we saw were the bride and groom. That meant not only was the chuppah long finished, but so were the photos. Although, since it was not an Orthodox wedding, perhaps they had all the photos earlier. I do know that they looked relaxed. They were having fun.

As I mentioned, the second bride was 40 years old. She had a number of rotten relationships and I think she was convinced she would never find the right guy. Well, thank G-d for friends. An old friend (who she’s been friends with almost as long as the other bride has been alive) had met this wonderful fellow and persisted for a year and a half until they agreed to meet.

Not a shidduch. A real friend.

Now, the reality was that we could not dance at either wedding. The first we didn’t stay for the dancing; the second, well, it wasn’t quite appropriate musical style or opportunity. Sure, they had a “horah” opportunity, but well…not for a proper Orthodox rabbi’s wife to join.

And the big band with the black singer perfecting Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, but still not an opportunity to dance.

And the title of this blog?

How else do you bentch?

my children did all make it to the sedarim!

Well, at least the second one. Thank G-d for the second seder! Thank G-d for Galuss! Thank G-d for creative friends!

They each showed up, one by one, at various times during the seder, with quotes of what they would actually say during any particularly normal seder. I had no idea who was coming next, even though of course, I did remember, even with all the wine, how many children I do have…

On the other side of each is a photo of each one, taken from Facebook. Let me know if you want to see the other side and I’ll email the photos to you.

Moadim l’simchah!