We arrived in Sharon
on Friday afternoon and settled back in to our apartment. We had a quiet Friday night dinner (Barry
prepared one of my favorite Moosewood recipes, Rebaked Potatoes) and on Sabbath
day after synagogue the whole family headed over to Dina and Aaron’s house for a
wonderful lunch prepared by our daughters. The lunch was dairy/vegetarian, because
it was, after all, for my birthday, and
we enjoyed a J.P. Licks ice cream cake with layers of mint chocolate chip and
chocolate ice cream separated by a layer of chocolate fudge. The cake was
decorated with chocolate fudge flowers and cookies that looked like Girl Scouts
Thin Mints. The truth is that both of our daughters are excellent bakers, and I
would have loved whatever cake they served, but this was clearly ordered with
me in mind. Fortunately, the rest of the family enjoyed it as well.
Lovely as the
afternoon was, Shabbat was somewhat
bittersweet. We had learned on Thursday afternoon that a member of the
community who was about our age and we had known for many years had collapsed
and died. It was heartbreaking seeing the family gathered as the Rabbi (also
about our age) spoke about the integral role Eddie had played in the community,
for many years helping most of the boys in the community prepare the ritual Torah reading that is done on becoming a
Bar Mitzvah. The Rabbi asked everyone
who had a relative who had learned with Eddie to raise their hand, and an
amazing number of hands went up. This morning, before leaving Sharon, we went
over to the Shiva house to visit his
wife Amy and their sons. What made this even sadder, if it possibly could be,
was that Amy’s father just died a couple of weeks ago. So now here she is,
sitting Shiva again, this time for
her husband.
Eliana and Maya came
over after Sabbath for a sleep-over while their parents went out for the
evening. We made them macaroni and cheese (or perhaps it should be called cheese
and macaroni) and played and talked and before we knew it bedtime had arrived.
With the time change overnight, we tried to get them into bed early but of
course we did not succeed. Fortunately they did sleep until about 7 the next
morning. We made breakfast and then we started up a game of QBitz. I had
written a while ago about Maya being quite good at this game, but we had never
played with Eliana and she did extremely well, winning many of the rounds the
four of us played. The girls went home for lunch and afternoon plans, and we
left for an engagement party for the son of some Sharon friends who is getting
married in a few months. This, too, was somewhat bittersweet, as our friend,
the father of the groom, was also recently diagnosed with cancer. We had not
had a chance to see him since his diagnosis, and it was nice that when we
arrived we managed to have a few minutes to chat with him.
We stayed at the
party until we had to leave to pick up Maya. She was at a friend’s birthday
party at one of those gymnastics and video games places that have become a
popular venue for birthday parties. From there, we took her to a carnival for
preschoolers at the synagogue to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Purim. Maya enjoyed going around to all
the games. Somehow with everything going on I had failed to bring my camera,
but Barry caught this with his iPhone.
We are back in New York and settling in. The residual snow from our poorly shoveled driveway has finally completely melted! And now I am running around changing all the old clocks. You have to love the new ones that change themselves!
Have a great week!
Love,
Rebecca
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