More good news

A couple of months after I was diagnosed in April 2012, our Sharon, Massachusetts friend Mark Weiner was also diagnosed with a tumor in his brain. Barry and I did not learn of this until we started going back to Sharon last fall. I think our friends simply did not want to burden us with any more bad news.

For Mark and his wife Hedy this also hit amazingly close to home, as Mark is a neurologist. He in fact diagnosed himself! He was experiencing symptoms and by the time he went to a doctor he already knew that he had a brain tumor. The etiology, and therefore the treatment, of his cancer was quite different than mine, involving initial surgery and radiation therapy followed by chemotherapy treatments every two weeks for a year. He has just finished his chemotherapy, and shared the following message he sent to his four grown children, which he has graciously permitted me to share with my readers.

I know all of you will join me in wishing Mark and Hedy, who recently celebrated the birth of their second grandchild, many healthy years ahead!

Today's MRI remains stable, thank God. Treatment completed. Told to go home, fatten up, get strong and get over the lethargy.

There are no words which can express our (mom & me) gratitude to Dr. Wen and his team, Debra the RN and coordinator of the clinical trial and only other Debra, not Debbie, I ever met; Lisa the nurse practitioner responsible for overseeing my care and Priscilla who was responsible for all the scheduling and med orders - maybe the most complex part of the treatment. No words, but there is always baseball. So I wrote a thank you note to the team that mom read aloud at the end of the visit: 

It's a marathon not a sprint

I believe in those who say baseball mimics life. Or is it life mimics baseball. There is no set clock. The pace is set by the players. Every pitch is a measured calculation. Should the pitcher throw the ball fast or slow, high or low? Each decision has consequences involving every member of the team. If it's a fast and high pitch, the shortstop may move to the right a step. A slow and low pitch may move the second baseman a step to the left. Pay attention. The entire team works together. Be prepared. But then, out of the blue, despite all of the preparation, the unexpected suddenly happens. The ball is hit where no one expected it to go. If the fielder is well prepared and can react quickly enough, maybe he can catch up to the ball and make the play. Maybe. Maybe not.

And so it is with life. Get educated, train hard, eat right, exercise, don't smoke, etc, etc. Do all the right things. Live a long and healthy life. Make a living working hard. Raise children, watch grandchildren grow. Good preparation, good results. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe one day your employer announces the company is bankrupt, the real estate market crashes, or worse. Your health crashes. No problem; react quickly and correctly. Recover. Maybe. Maybe not. No matter how prepared, the outfielder may just not be able to catch up to the ball. The patient may simply not have any viable treatments available. Game over.

Early in May the Red Sox were swept in a 3 game series by the Texas Rangers. Immediately the great pundits of baseball (otherwise known as the get a lifers) were on the phone to Sports radio talk shows that the season is doomed. Don't worry, comforted the talk show host, the season "is a marathon, not a sprint." And so it is, a grueling 162 games over 6 months. Some series won, some lost. Hopefully more won than lost.

And so it is with my chemotherapy. One full year of monthly cycles. Some tolerated ok , allowing progress in rehab. Some tolerated poorly resulting in setbacks - .weakness, lethargy, fatigue. Get up and start the rehab all over again. In the end I was lucky to have moved forward more often than suffer setbacks. So far.

I, no, we  just finished a "season" of treatment, hopefully victorious. But "to everything there is a season"  (who sang that first, King Solomon in Ecclesiastes or The Byrds?). If King Solomon were alive today, he would instead have called out the great sports rally cry. "What did you do for me lately"?  Zach already called me as I enter the last chemo cycle. 20 miles on the bike? Not enough anymore. New year. New season. Kick it up to 30 miles. Zach is right. Whatever happened last year, especially the setbacks, now of course had to have an impact on our decisions heading into the upcoming year. Who knew back then if there would be a next year. But here we are lucky enough to have the blessing to start pondering  our upcoming changes, plans, decisions. What did you do lately? Time to kick it up.

Love,

Rebecca

Very good news

We went first thing this morning for the MRI and visit with Dr. DeAngelis. I think she was quite pleasantly surprised: her first words to us were “a perfect scan!” The “debris” that had shown up on all those previous scans has essentially disappeared. To say this is good news is an understatement. We talked about my progress with the neuropsych therapy, and she had some helpful suggestions. She also talked with me about not losing any more weight. All jokes aside, she told me that, frustrating as this is for people dieting to reduce body fat, after a certain age what ends up being lost is a lot of muscle, which is certainly not a good thing. I am still a bit suspicious that Barry put her up to this lecture! Barry now believes that he has received a medical order to make me gain weight.

We left Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on this incredibly beautiful morning and knew we had to do something to celebrate. First, we had to stop at the optician for a slight adjustment to my new glasses. Then, Barry had an idea of where we should go.

I have to diverge a bit for some history. For many years, Barry and I had been almost regulars during the summer at a place called The Boat Basin Café. It is just off the West Side Highway along the Hudson River at West 79^th Street. We would always try to go early to be seated near the railing, overlooking the River. But for the past few years, even before last summer, we had to abandon this place because it was just too difficult for me to walk back up the stairs, or for Barry to push me in the wheelchair, to the street level. We never stopped missing it.

www.boatbasincafe.com

Once we had tried an alternative called Pier i that is in a similar location about 10 blocks down at West 68^th Street. It is a nice place but does not have the sentimental value for us that Boat Basin does. The lay of the land is such that the walk down to Pier i is not nearly so steep as the walk to Boat Basin, so we decided to go there. But it was such a glorious day that we decided to first take a walk along the River before going to have drinks. We started walking uptown, and quickly began to realize that we were approaching the Boat Basin Café. And we noticed for the first time that we could enter Boat Basin from the south rather than the north path that we had always used, and this turned out to be a much simpler walk.

So we had our favorite frozen drinks: Barry had a Strawberry Daiquiri and I had a Pina Colada. It was absolutely thrilling to be back there after our long absence. It was truly the best place we could have possibly chosen to celebrate the wonderful news.

Thank you all for your ongoing support. The journey continues.

Love,

Rebecca

A quiet weekend

We drove back to New York on Friday. The traffic was surprisingly light. Where was everyone? The highways on the Washington to Boston corridor on summer Fridays are usually a force to be reckoned with, but somehow we sailed up the 240 miles from Bethesda back to Riverdale without a single back-up.

We had a quiet Sabbath. Because of our uncertainties about the travel, we had prepared all we could before we left for Bethesda on Wednesday, and we did not invite any company lest we were unable to make it home. We went to synagogue in the morning and relaxed in the afternoon. We have a new tradition of playing the best two out of three games of Rummikub on Sabbath afternoon, and I won the first two we played.

We also read the New York Times review of the new Woody Allen movie, Blue Jasmine. Putting aside his personal life, we are huge fans of his movies. This one received a stellar review. So we decided to go on Sunday morning to the first (11:00 am) showing at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema on the Upper West Side, where it is playing on two screens. It is also playing downtown at the Angelika, on three screens. We arrived at the theater at about 20 minutes before 11 and were shocked to find a long line of people waiting in line (outside, of course, this is Manhattan) to buy tickets. We ended up with tickets for the noon show, and did a little shopping in the half hour that was now unexpectedly open.

The movie did not disappoint. It is a story about money, corruption, love, and deceipt. Cate Blanchett plays a Park Avenue woman, Jasmine, married to a man (Alec Baldwin) who turns out not to be the wealthy businessman and devoted husband she thought he was, but a man who is cheating in both his personal and professional lives. The movie goes back and forth between flashbacks of better times and the present, as Jasmine becomes increasingly unable to accept or deal with her new, more humble, status. The cast includes an impressive group of actors: Sally Hawkins who had been terrific in the 2008 movie, “Happy Go Lucky,” Bobby Canavale, a fine actor who we first remember seeing in the 2003 film, “The Station Agent,” and Peter Sarsgaard, who played the newspaper editor in “Shattered Glass” among many other credits. It is definitely a movie worth seeing, maybe even more than once, when it comes your way.  

Tomorrow is a quiet day, and on Tuesday we head back to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for the first time in almost five months. I will definitely let you know how that goes.

Love,

Rebecca

A heartfelt, but not original, gesture

The news was abuzz yesterday with a story about the elder President George Bush, now 89. He shaved his head in sympathy with the 2-year-old, the son of a Secret Service agent in his security detail, who is undergoing treatment for leukemia. The President and Barbara had lost their second child, four year old Robin, to leukemia nearly sixty years ago.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/elder-bush-shows-support-for-leukemia-patient/?emc=eta1

This heartwarming act is not a new idea. Folksinger David Roth sang about a similar incident in “Manuel Garcia” on his 1993 album, “Rising in Love.” This incredibly moving piece, based on a true story and sung a cappella, tells the tale of a young man diagnosed with stomach cancer whose friends shaved their heads in a show of solidarity and support.

Although I never became completely bald, I had a large bald patch on the top of my head where it was shaved for the biopsy, and a great deal of my hair fell out from the chemotherapy, leaving me with a very sparse mane. It still has not grown back entirely, although it has been many months since I felt the need to wear a hat when I leave the house.

But I would have been absolutely horrified if my friends or, worse, my daughters, had cut their hair or worse, shaved their heads in sympathy! And that got me to thinking: as much as I believe in equality of the sexes, there are just some ways in which we fundamentally differ that can be neither denied nor ignored. Maybe that is why it is called the “Equal Rights Amendment;” it is not that men and women are identical human beings, it is that we deserve to have the same opportunities to achieve our dreams. While biology should not completely dictate destiny, it may be a bit naïve to think that it has no impact whatsoever in the lives we lead. All we – both men and women - seek is the chance to each find our own way on this journey.

I am writing this from a hotel in Bethesda, MD, where Barry is attending a meeting. We will be returning to New York tomorrow for the weekend. And next Tuesday we will be paying a visit to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for follow-up scans. Keep the good thoughts coming.

Love,

Rebecca

A wonderful weekend

The heat wave in the northeast has finally broken! Hooray!

We drove up to Sharon on Friday. On Saturday morning we went and picked up Eliana, and the three of us went to synagogue. As we had planned, Eliana came back to our apartment for lunch. By herself, she is a real chatterbox! She waited patiently while we finished the lunch preparations, reading some Dr. Seuss out loud. She entertained us during the meal with stories about the summer camp she is attending. When we finished lunch we took out the new Lego set we had bought her. I previously wrote about these new sets for girls, which the company seems to be churning out at an amazing rate, taking advantage of all those grandparents who cannot say “no.” We worked on building the set until almost 4 pm, when Simmie came to pick her up to go with her family to visit a friend of Simmie’s who was in Sharon for the weekend.

On Sunday, we went with Simmie, Ronen, Eliana, and Maya to Davis Farmland. It is located about an hour away from Sharon, in the middle of nowhere. There are many animals for feeding and petting, a great water play area, and fun go-carts for the children. Maya, who loves giraffes, wore the giraffe-inspired shorts and tank top I had seen on-line and could not resist, and brought along the matching giraffe swimsuit. The girls really enjoyed feeding the animals. We took some cute pictures of Maya at the water play area but Eliana was too busy running through the sprinklers to stop and pose for her grandparents! Eliana was quite the speedster on the go-carts, and she just kept whizzing by us even when we said it was time to go home.

Back in Sharon, Ronen barbequed dinner for the six of us: meat for the boys and the children, veggie burgers for Simmie and me. It was a wonderful day!

We drove back to New York first thing Monday morning. We are hoping to squeeze in a visit to the Botanical Gardens this week, but the weather report does not look promising. I do have an indoor project in mind: I have offered to help Simmie and Ronen make a photo album with the pictures from their recent trip to Israel. I have made a number of these on Shutterfly and each one I do, I learn some new features. Simmie and Ronen selected the pictures, loaded them to Shutterfly, and gave me a list of who and what are in the pictures. This week I get to have fun and try to be a little creative!

Be well, all.

Love,

Rebecca

Buster Poindexter - Hot Hot Hot (follow-up to yesterday's posting)

Thanks to a very dear friend for reminding me of this!

Hot hot hot!

All of you in the northeastern portion of the United States know that we are having a ferocious heat wave. We are up in Sharon now, and the weather forecasters are saying that the pattern will finally break after some rain moves in tomorrow. It is amazing how hearing that there is to be a high of 80^o on Sunday sounds like fabulous news. I have mentioned before that my internal thermostat has changed so that I am cold most of the time. Well, this weather has even gotten the better of me, and I can absolutely agree that it is very hot out there!

We had a wonderful day with Dina on Wednesday. Their children have spent this week in Baltimore with their other grandparents, and Aaron was in New York on business, so Dina decided to come up with him and we spent the day together. Because it was so hot outside we needed to select an indoor activity, so we decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We headed first for the Impressionist paintings, and walked around that area for quite a while. Then we decided to go to lunch, and we headed back to the restaurant Dina and the children had enjoyed a few weeks earlier. Barry met us there, and we had a wonderful lunch. Dina and I went back to the museum while Barry headed back to work, and stayed until they closed. Then we headed home while Dina went to meet Aaron for dinner in the City.

This was an especially nice opportunity because that day, July 17^th, happens to be Dina’s birthday! We had already given her a birthday gift when a couple of months ago she expressed a keen interest in owning an iPad, which many of the teachers are using. I know she is our daughter and I don’t want to embarrass her but she is one very impressive young woman! People often note that she looks like me and has many aspects of my personality. This is undoubtedly true, but what I see in Dina is a far better version of me, and it is quite a joy. I am touched and honored that she chose to spend her day in New York pushing her mother around the museum in a wheelchair (it is simply far too much walking for me to do).

We are back in Sharon now, although Dina and family are down in Maryland for the weekend. Tomorrow Eliana will join us for Sabbath lunch. We try to grab opportunities to be with the grandchildren one at a time when we can. It means a lot for them not to have to always compete for attention, and we can focus on each of their charming and distinct personalities. Then, if the weather cooperates on Sunday, we hope to go on an outing with the Simmie and family.

Have a wonderful weekend! It seems like just yesterday I was ending with words like “stay warm and dry.” Now I guess I have to say “stay cool and wet!”

Love,

Rebecca

Summer fun

I apologize for having been absent the past few days. They flew by very quickly with quite a bit going on.

We had a great time back together as a whole family over the weekend. We had dinner Friday evening at Dina’s house: Dina made a corned beef for the carnivores, and Simmie made a delicious stew with tofu, chickpeas, and red peppers. I have always wanted to learn more about cooking with tofu and I am happy to have such a terrific teacher! All of this was surrounded by countless side dishes. We spent Sabbath afternoon with Simmie and crew, giving us more time to hear details and look at pictures from their recent trip to Israel.

Sunday was a nice day, although the weather forecasters accurately predicted that it would be quite hot by mid-afternoon. To allow Simmie and Ronen to take care of some things, Barry and I took the girls to the Capron Park zoo about 20 minutes from Sharon. It is a small zoo but there are other attractions in the park, including a recently opened water play area. It was already warm enough in the morning for them to play in the sprinklers before the afternoon crowds. We brought along a picnic lunch and then got the girls some ice cream. Here are some pictures from our fun day.

Barry and I have wanted to get to know more about the beaches in Rhode Island and Connecticut, places we could go with the whole family on the way back to New York. On the ride up on Friday, we stopped at Hammonasset Beach in Madison, CT. This would have been a lovely place, with reasonably easy access to the beach, albeit with somewhat rocky sand, were it not for the ferocious black flies. They were biting like crazy, especially attacking Barry. We had not brought along insect repellent, and after a short while at each of three beach areas, we had to call it a day. This probably explains why the beach was practically empty! The weather was not perfect but still nice enough that you might have expected, at the very least, a lot of young children.

Undaunted, on the way home on Monday, we stopped at Roger Wheeler State Park in Narragansett, RI. This was truly a find! There was great parking very close to the beach, which was soft white sand. The waves were modest but definitely appropriate for young children, who were there in droves by the time we left at 11 am. Because it is a small cove, the water is shallow fairly far out and somewhat warmer than typical at New England beaches. It was a little over an hour away from Sharon, so a perfect place to go with our children and grandchildren before heading back to New York. Now we just need to find a Sunday, or perhaps a Monday, which may exclude our sons-in-law but would be quite a bit less crowded, to go with the grandchildren before school begins again in late August.

Late August is just around the corner! What happened to summer? School is starting early this year, the week before Labor Day, because the fall Jewish holidays are very early, beginning with Jewish New Year on September 5. As teachers, Simmie and Dina have to start back at school one or two weeks before that. Oh, well, if we don’t make it there this summer, it will definitely be high on our list for next year.

I feel a bit imprisoned, albeit in my beautiful air conditioned home. I look forward to this heat wave breaking so I can get outside a bit.

Stay cool and well.

Love,

Rebecca

Seeing red (in a good way)

My mother has always been an expert at the television game show, Jeopardy. Three contestants compete to provide the questions that go along with answers given in a variety of categories. Many, many years ago (circa 1976) my mother was a contestant on the show. Despite her broad knowledge of many areas, and her amazing skill on the couch in our den, I think she froze a bit in front of the cameras and she didn’t do very well. But our whole family still recalls the final Jeopardy, for which none of the contestants had the correct response. The category was Presidents, and the answer was “He was President of the United States when California was admitted to the union.” I will provide the question at the end of this posting for those of you who want to mull it over for a bit.

I am reminded of Jeopardy because over the past year, Barry and I have become fairly avid watchers. I was never all that good at it before my illness, but in the early months, every time I was able to correctly state a question felt like nothing less than a miracle. Before you knew it, we were hooked, and now we TiVo it every night in both Sharon and New York so we never miss an episode.

Last night, during the second half, one of the Daily Doubles was in the category of Anniversary Gifts, on the $2000 slot. The answer was

40^th: A Pigeon’s Blood is one of these

And, having just celebrated two 40^th anniversaries in our family, my brother Joe and his wife Judy, and Barry and me, we knew the question immediately:

What is a ruby?

In an effort to pull far out ahead, the contestant wagered $10,000 and she got it! I think she was as surprised as her opponents and the host, Alex Trebek. Unfortunately, she went on to lose the game at Final Jeopardy.

We are up in Sharon now for the weekend, looking forward to being together with the whole family. Dinner tonight is at Dina and Aaron’s and lunch tomorrow is at Simmie and Ronen’s house. It just doesn’t get better than that.

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Rebecca

And the final Jeopardy question was: Who was Millard Fillmore?

(president from July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853)

Why they are here

Yesterday was the last class on female singer-songwriters, with the subject being Carole King. This session really drove home to me the significant age range in the group: I am 10-20 years younger than all the other students. So although they were somewhat familiar with the more well-known material, none of them shared my passion for or knowledge of Carole King. After discussing her long career as a songwriter and her reluctant transition to performer, the instructor focused on her best-known album, “Tapestry,” with brief mention her earlier albums, “The City” and “Writer.” He then moved on to the next two albums, “Music” and “Rhymes and Reasons.”

Since he had lectured on Joni Mitchell last week, it was natural to compare and contrast the two. Joni Mitchell’s songs tend to be serious, with more complex music and lyrics. Carole King exudes joy, generosity of spirit, and warmth. No one could describe her music or lyrics as complex or ambiguous. The two women also took rather different roads in their careers. One of the criticisms that people often have of aging pop stars is that they just keep doing the same thing year after year, song after song. Joni Mitchell tried to branch out in other directions, but this did not serve her career well, and she never again received the attention she achieved in her early career. Carole King, on the other hand, is criticized for doing essentially the same thing over and over again. This is true of James Taylor as well, and in fact at a concert Barry and I attended a few years ago, he introduced a song by saying “here’s a new song, sounds pretty much like all the old songs,” which clearly resonated with his audience. He never expressed this better than in “That’s Why I’m Here,” when he sang

Oh, fortune and fame’s such a curious game,

Perfect strangers can call you by name,

Pay good money to hear “Fire and Rain”

Again and again and again.

Some are like summer, coming back every year.

Got your baby, got your blanket, got your bucket of beer.

I break into a grin from ear to ear

And suddenly it’s perfectly clear:

That’s why I’m here,

Singin’ tonight, tomorrow, and every day,

That’s why I’m standing here,

That’s why I’m here.

I may be old and boring but as far as I can tell, when someone does something as well as Carole or James do, there is just no need to change it! I am happy to continue to fill my life with their music as long as they are able to keep it coming.

Love,

Rebecca

Photo Book

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Our Global Kitchen Now Open

A very busy few days

We have needed some down time the last couple of days following a very hectic week. We were supposed to go up to Sharon but Barry had caught my cold and we ended up spending a very quiet weekend holed up in our Riverdale home. We played some Rummikub during Sabbath afternoon, and Barry actually won two out of three games. This may not seem particularly noteworthy, but I was actually very happy about it because it proves to me that he is no longer just letting me win, something he has consistently denied despite my doubts.

When I last left off here, Ella was about to head off with her parents to the American Girl Doll Store in Manhattan, while Barry and I were headed to Citi Field (formerly known as Shea Stadium). They had a blast! Here is Ella with her two dolls, Julie and Dahlia, taken when they were seated for lunch. Her smile tells the whole story. Next time I will definitely go with her. The reason I went to the ball game instead was that we had purchased accessible seats, so I really had to go to that.

Meanwhile, Joshua, Barry and I sat through a two hour – yes, two hour – rain delay at Citi Field. The Mets were losing and it didn’t look hopeful, so we headed out to the car during the ninth inning, as it was approaching midnight. We intended to watch the fireworks from there and then leave before the crowds, but Joshua was exhausted and asked us to just go home, so we did. We had all seen incredible fireworks at Disney World so this was not a big deal.

I may have forgotten to write about what we did on Monday. Barry and Aaron were both working, and the weather did not look too good, so Dina and I took the children to the Museum of Natural History. Of course the skies opened up to a torrential downpour just as we parked the car a few blocks away, so we spent most of the day soaking wet. But we had a great time, and we especially enjoyed the exhibit called “Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture.”

Thursday was July 4^th, and finally the weather cooperated!  Because we had gotten home from the ball game so late, we did not get off to quite as early a start as we would have liked, but we packed up a lunch and some beach towels and the six of us headed off to Jones Beach. By the time we arrived at 9:30 am, the Lot 6, the area we wanted, was full. Lot 6 has the best accommodations for handicapped visitors, including rental of beach wheelchairs. We were a bit concerned about how much walking I might have to do. But fortunately, the area where we ended up had a sort of walkway they have put along to the beach and Barry was able to push my wheelchair along that, so that I did not have to walk very far. When we arrived the beach was still not very crowded, but when we left around 1 pm it was pretty much packed and people were still pouring in – I cannot imagine where all of them squeezed in. For us, 3½ hours was more than enough of the heat and the sun. But it really was a lot of fun, and Barry has been reading about some other beaches we might try to check out on less crowded days during the coming weeks, perhaps on our drives to and from Sharon. Suggestions welcome!

We barbequed dinner and everyone went to sleep early.  Dina and Aaron left early with the children to stop at a couple of sites in southeastern Connecticut.

Meanwhile, Simmie and family have returned from two weeks in Israel. We spoke briefly last evening and we look forward to seeing them this weekend and hearing of all their adventures!

Tomorrow is my last music class, and we will be discussing Carole King. I am looking forward to this one.

Have a good week, and if you are in the northeast, try to stay cool!

Love,

Rebecca

A couple of pictures that speak a thousand words

We had a thoroughly enjoyable last few days with Joshua and Gabriella and their parents. Time does not allow me to fill in all the details right now, but these pictures tell the whole story far better than any prose I can pen. I’ll fill in with more later, but meanwhile, have a wonderful weekend.

Love,

Rebecca

The magic of music

After two weeks of missing my Tuesday evening classes, the first when we were at Disney World and the second when I was recovering from the trip, I finally made it back yesterday. I felt badly leaving Dina, Joshua, and Gabriella, but there were only two sessions left and I knew he would be covering the female singer/songwriters from the 1960s so I did not want to miss these last lectures. Dina, Joshua, and Gabriella had a fun day in The City, visiting the Central Park Zoo and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and taking a pedicab ride near Times Square. We met for dinner at Noi Due, their first time at our favorite Upper West Side hangout. They thoroughly enjoyed it! Even Ella, who has quite discriminating taste in food, loved everything she tried. The rain held off until later in the evening, so it all worked out well.

The female singer/songwriters class was devoted entirely to the early career of Joni Mitchell. If you were born before 1960 or so you are probably quite familiar with her music. She wrote complex tunes and lyrics and sang them in a beautifully clear soprano voice while playing a guitar or dulcimer. She wrote and recorded a number of songs which were popularized by others, such as “Both Sides Now” (Judy Collins), and “Woodstock” (Crosby Stills Nash and Young). In the late 1960s and early 1970s when she was at the peak of her popularity, I enjoyed her music and owned a few albums but was never a major devotee.

Sitting in that class, brought nearly to tears hearing “Both Sides Now,” I wondered why. I am sure I struggled with her complex lyrics and melodies. I have heard her recordings often over the years but she just never “clicked” for me. But hearing them now, I found tremendous resonance. Carole King, who is the topic of the last class next week, and who has for forty some years been a central component of the music in my life, is a much simpler songwriter: a lot of good feeling, nothing too deep or mysterious. It took a long, dark, road to bring me to a place where I could finally appreciate and connect to Joni Mitchell.

Our dear friend, jazz pianist Leslie Pintchik, often thanks her audience for “lending their ears.” But we in the audience bring so much more than our ears to the music. I was never particularly fond of jazz but Leslie does something with that piano and her music that reaches out and resonates in me. The events of this past year have helped me to find new meaning in the long familiar. It is not just about our ears, but about our hearts and our souls.

We spent a lovely day with Dina and the children at the Botanical Garden. Aaron is now headed to New York, and he will be going with Dina and Ella to the American Girl store for dinner this evening. Barry and I hope to take Joshua to a Mets Game: we have the tickets but it has been raining during the past half hour. Hopefully we have seen the last of the precipitation.

If the weather holds out for tomorrow, we are hoping to do something outdoors. All my best for a happy and safe July 4^th to all!

Love,

Rebecca

A major milestone

Today is Barry’s and my fortieth wedding anniversary. When we entered our fortieth year of marriage last summer, it was not clear that we would make it to this milestone. But here we are, and I have to say it’s pretty cool.

Thinking about this, the statistician in me kicked in, and I wondered how many couples stay married for 40 years these days. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), 2008 Panel, Wave 2 Topical Module (for information on sampling and non-sampling error, see www.census.gov/sipp/sourceac/S&A08_W1toW3(S&A-12).pdf), 50% of women and 60% of men who married between 1960 and 1964 made it to their 40^th  anniversaries. More recent data is not yet available, and it is not clear whether the couples divorced before the milestone anniversary or simply did not live long enough to reach it.  Either way, since the percentage of couples making it to various milestone years appears to be decreasing over time, getting to 40 years seems to be a reasonably significant accomplishment.

Of course none of this addresses the quality of marriages. People stay together for lots of reasons: financial considerations, children, social pressures, convenience. But Barry and I have been truly blessed to be content together for these forty years. If anything, the events of this tumultuous past year have driven this point home to us more strongly than we could have ever imagined.

When my brother Joe and his wife Judy celebrated their 40^th wedding anniversary a couple of months ago, I learned that the traditional gift for that milestone is rubies, and we gave them a red crystal Waterford bud vase. Barry must have kept that in mind, and this morning he handed me a small box with a beautiful pair of ruby earrings. After he gave them to me, he told me a funny story. He shopped for this gift on one of the days he spent in his office. Barry and I share credit cards, so to keep this from me he paid cash for the earrings. The proprietor of the little Upper East Side jewelry shop was clearly unaccustomed to patrons paying with cash, and after a bit of banter Barry realized that she almost assuredly thought that he was not buying the earrings for his wife! After all, how many smart, generous, good-looking guys on the Upper East Side of Manhattan have been married to the same woman for forty years?

As we pass this milestone, we are fortunate to have our younger daughter and her children staying with us for a few fun-filled days in New York City, and grateful for the blessings bestowed upon us. Let’s hope we can make it to the half-century mark!

Love,

Rebecca