Moving along.....

The last days of Passover were enjoyable. The only fly in the ointment was that our granddaughter Ella developed a fever. The whole family was together at Dina and Aaron’s house on Sunday evening, and it was clear that Ella wasn’t feeling well, her usual bright smile and joyful character having given way to sitting in the corner looking close to tears, and going off to bed long before dinner was over. Now the respiratory symptoms have set in, but we are hoping she will be able to return to school and her usual energetic self next week.

We put our apartment back together and, following a teleconference for Barry, headed back to New York on Wednesday morning. Then there were the usual mundane matters: mail, shopping for groceries, catching up on laundry. We have already managed to partake of both pizza and Indian food in the couple of days since the end of Passover. Much as I enjoy the Passover foods, I rarely if ever eat matzah aside from that one week. I have always felt that these foods magically become special during the week of Passover, but the minute the restrictions on leavened products end, none of it is at all appetizing. So those extra matzah balls will likely sit in the freezer for a long time. Note: for those of you who may be wondering how vegetarians are eating matzah balls, which are usually served in chicken soup, we eat matzah balls in “Not Chicken Soup,” the Mollie Katzen recipe with our own adjustments over the years.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you have probably noticed that I spend a good deal of time talking about food. As my energy has returned, albeit rather slowly, so has my appetite. Now the challenge will be to keep off the weight I have lost. I have continued to try to make sure I am eating fruits and vegetables every day, and I still cannot eat very much at a time. These are all good things, even if they started from adversity.

Yesterday I had my cognitive therapy session. We have been playing with a set of Memory cards with foods on them – how appropriate! She selects, say, six or eight pairs of foods and lays them out on a grid. We talk about patterns in the grid to help me remember where the different foods are located. Then she will turn them all over so that the picture side is down and will ask me to locate one of the pieces of pie, and the like. I am pretty good at this “game” so it is fun to play, but any of my grandchildren can do this much better than I can. I have continued with Lumosity, and have broken through to the next level on a number of the games, but am unable to break through to the next level of Playing Koi. Yesterday Anna (who works with Heidi) told me that she is actually very pleased that I can routinely track 6 fish well, and 7 fish about 50% of the time. But when you get all 7, the next round is 8, and I have never been able to do 8. I am hoping that when Heidi returns (she has been away the past few weeks) we can move on to some other games.

Our writing class met yesterday. I was relieved to see that I was not the only person who struggled to find time to write over the Passover holiday. But we have some assignments and I want to start spending more time working on them and see where it all takes me.

We will be staying in New York this weekend. They are predicting sunny although somewhat cool weather tomorrow, so we should be able to attend synagogue in the morning. It looks like the temperature is heading upward on Sunday, so we may try to get over to the Botanical Gardens to catch the Orchid exhibit a second time before it closes.

As always, I cannot thank you enough for continuing to read and to write to me. With reading still slow, some days I have a hard time keeping up with all the email – but the value of your words and thoughts make it a good and valuable struggle.

Love,

Rebecca