We had a most
enjoyable Sabbath. Friday evening, Dina and Aaron and the children joined us
for dinner. We actually made something without a specific recipe, something we
do not do very often. But I had an idea and we think it worked out pretty well.
We stuffed bell peppers with rice, chopped tomatoes, cheeses and herbs and
baked them. We also had company for Sabbath day lunch, two couples, one of whom
we knew when we both lived in Dallas in the early 1980s. Their daughter is
right between Simmie and Dina so they were all very good friends. We left
Dallas and moved to Sharon and we like to joke that they followed us there. We
waited for them to follow us to New York (which is where they both started) but
they never did. Since we renewed our Sharon life we have been able to pick up
where we left off and enjoy each other’s grandchildren.
The other guests were
our friends Hedy and Mark, about whom I had written recently. Mark also
continues to struggle with some of the side effects of his tumor and treatment.
But he is amazingly upbeat, and when we commented on that he explained that if
he looks at his life, he has had a multitude of blessings: a wonderful wife, a
fulfilling career as a physician, four talented children and now two
grandchildren, and a myriad of friends. He tries to look at this cancer against
that background, and he figures that the balance is definitely on the plus
side. That thinking may not work for everyone, but I am grateful to say that it
really works for Barry me, and we appreciate his doing such a wonderful job
articulating it.
Our children and
grandchildren planned a trip to go apple picking today. We would have really
enjoyed this but I called the orchard to ask about just what was involved to
determine how difficult it might be for me to navigate. The man was very nice
but it was clear that it was simply not an appropriate outing for me. The
children went on their own, and we had a sneak preview of the pictures and I
could see we made the right choice. They did bring us back a lot of different
apples with names we had never heard. We tried one and it was delicious!
Meanwhile, we made
dinner for everyone, Baked Pasta with Cauliflower and Cheese from one of the
old Moosewood cookbooks, a long-time family favorite. This is basically how to
take a very simple dish and turn it into a gourmet feast that pretty much
dirties every pot in the kitchen to make! The recipe makes a huge amount and
all I can say is that there are only a few cups left, so it’s fair to say that
everyone enjoyed it.
I just realized that
I have written about this dish before, back in late February! Ah, the wonders
of word processing. You go to “find” and
type in “baked pasta” and it finds
it!
We put together the
casserole in the morning, and then went to see the new Tom Hanks movie, Captain
Phillips. I was a bit leery about this one because I knew there was a good
deal of violence in it. Of course since it is based on actual events, you know
going in that Tom Hanks survives this ordeal. It is gut-wrenching to watch, a testimony
to the outstanding cast and script. Still, I could not help but wonder why I
was willingly watching something so painful. At one point I leaned over to
Barry and said that this film made chemotherapy look like a walk in the park. The
final few minutes of the film were especially gripping, with no effort to
sugar-coat the impact of the events. Tom Hanks has proven himself a superb
actor again and again, and this is surely a worthy addition to his resume.
We came home to put
the casserole in the oven and cook the carrots and were stunned to see an
e-mail that someone we know in Sharon has just been diagnosed with a rare and
difficult-to-treat cancer. All that I might think I have learned over this past
year and a half has not prepared me for what to do and what to say. It is
simply too painful for words.
I will be staying
here in Sharon all week because Barry is travelling to a meeting in Cambridge –
not the one in Massachusetts but the original Cambridge in the United Kingdom. How
could our daughters say “no” when he asked them to look after their old mother
while he is away? So they are stuck with me, while I have the pleasure of
spending time with them and our grandchildren. It surely seems to me that I am
the real winner in all of this.
Have a good week and
stay well!
Love,
Rebecca
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