We had a wonderful
first four days of Chanukah with our family. I do need to figure out how I made
sweet potato latkes in the past because the spices were not quite right, but the
regular latkes were a big hit – there were only a few left of the more than 40
good-sized pancakes. We had lots of fun watching the children open gifts. We
went with the big items for that first night, which included a lot of American
Girl paraphernalia for the girls and tickets to an upcoming basketball game for
Joshua (to be chaperoned by us). The second night was Thanksgiving, and we
gathered for another fabulous year of Thanksgiving fare prepared by our
children. Friday was a relatively quiet day, and then Joshua came over for
Friday night dinner and a sleep-over. We had bought him a puzzle/model of
Manhattan and we spent a few hours before and then after dinner working on
putting it together; it is still not quite finished.
After lighting
candles Saturday evening we headed back to our apartment to pack up the car so
that we could leave early this morning, anticipating the usual
end-of-Thanksgiving-weekend heavy traffic. We awoke quite early and were on the
road by about 5:30 am. I had shut down my computer Saturday evening and neither
of us had taken time to check e-mail on our cell phones before leaving. It was
only about an hour out of Sharon that I turned mine on and was shocked to see
an e-mail sent by our daughter Simmie in the wee hours of the morning telling
us that Ronen’s grandfather had died a few hours earlier. He had a full life and
had not been well for some time but that does not alleviate the shock and pain felt
by his family, including his very devoted grandson. Ronen’s parents, who had
been in Sharon for the weekend, quickly packed up to head back to their home in
New York and catch a flight to Israel, where Ronen’s grandmother still lives
and the funeral will take place.
Then, as we were
nearing New York, we heard the very distressing news of the horrific commuter
train derailment in the Bronx this morning. This one really hit close to home
because it happened just south of the Spuyten Duyvil station, the one very
close to our home from which I commuted in to and out of Manhattan for many of
my years at Pfizer. It was shocking to see the images of my old stomping ground
on television when we arrived home. At least four people died and another dozen
were seriously injured, with dozens more suffering varying degrees of injuries.
But in the interest
of not closing on an entirely sad tone, I will post a few pictures of the fun
we had with the children, and wish everyone a good week.
Love,
Rebecca
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