Magic

I was thumbing through some of the many catalogues we receive this time of year when my eyes caught what looked like a terrific baby item, the Mozart Magic Cube. I ordered it and set it aside to give it to Julia for Chanukah. Of course she is just a baby and it does not much matter when we give her things, but the older children will enjoy “helping” her open her gifts while they open their own.

But when we arrived at their house on Sunday, sitting on the floor just inches from where Julia was playing was a Mozart Magic Cube! At first I was confused. Did Barry forget we were planning to save it for Chanukah and instead brought it over to Julia on one of his errands earlier in the day? No. It turned out that Dina and Aaron had just purchased a Mozart Magic Cube because - and here is where the story becomes rather amazing - we had bought this for Joshua when he was a baby and he, and later Ella, loved it! Like so many of the toys Joshua and Ella had as infants and toddlers, it had long ago moved on to other families, too many to be tracked. But they remembered how much Joshua and Ella loved it and went ahead and purchased a new one on their own. I, on the other hand, have no recollection whatsoever of the two older children with this toy. I truly thought I had discovered a neat new baby toy and was quite proud of myself.

So now we have an extra one, and either I can send it back or wait until the next one of their friends has a first child and they give it as a gift. The moral of the story is that even when great minds think alike, that is no guarantee that both of them will remember what they thought.

Often when I write about things like this, friends who have also passed that milestone birthday will write and tell me similar stories of their own memory lapses. I know they are just trying to feel connected, but believe me, it is really not the same thing. However, I had shown Barry the Mozart Magic Cube in the catalogue before I ordered it and he agreed that it looked like a great toy. Never did he say “didn’t we buy that for Joshua?” because, like me, he did not remember. So if I can just keep myself from getting much worse over the next few years, friends who are around my age will catch up with me, and we will all be sitting here with our little devices, which of course we will barely know how to use, having to look up EVERYTHING!

We had a very nice Shabbat. The fourth through sixth grade students at Striar Hebrew Academy, where our grandchildren attend school, were having a group Shabbat dinner that the children had prepared (with the help and guidance of teachers, of course) and the parents and grandparents were invited to join for an after-dinner program of music and sketches. We do not usually like going out in the cold on Friday evenings but this was very much worth the effort, not only as Joshua’s grandparents but as the parents of Mrs. Saks (aka our daughter Dina), who spearheaded the event as part of her professional role as Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator for the school. Seeing her standing up front, Julia in tow, I was reminded of the final verse to a Carole King song from her 1972 album, Rhymes and Reasons,

Missing you the way I do
You know I'd like to see more of you
But it's all I can do to be a mother
(My baby's in one hand, I've a pen in the other)

You know my love is always there for the taking

Eliana joined us for lunch on Shabbat and stayed through the afternoon. We have accumulated a fairly large collection of Lego kits. We have been buying plastic bins onto which I have affixed labels, keeping the Lego tiles and instruction manuals in each bin. Eliana was able to select the one she wanted, we took it apart, and she is now working to build it again. And then there is the table tennis. We bought a collapsible tennis table to keep there as well. It is a bit smaller than a standard table, but it is still great fun. Eliana had never played but we were able to get her to a point where she could fairly reliably hit the ball, even if not often where it needed to go. The afternoon went by very quickly.

On Sunday we had bought three tickets for the Celtics vs. the Washington Wizards at TD Garden in Boston. I have gone to a number of sporting events with Joshua, and I have to say this one was particularly enjoyable. Perhaps it is because I am learning more about the sport, but likely it was because for once we also had a chance to see the home team win what turned out to be a very exciting game! By the second quarter the Celtics had pulled out over 20 points ahead, but somehow by the fourth quarter they lost that lead, leaving the game quite close until the last couple of minutes, and the Celtics won!

It has been raining quite heavily here, but here is a bit I read on the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

How many inches of snow equals one inch of rain?

On average, thirteen inches of snow equals one inch of rain in the US, although this ratio can vary from two inches for sleet to nearly fifty inches for very dry, powdery snow under certain conditions.

It seems funny that this government agency uses the acronym “NOAA,” pronounced like the name “Noah,” a fellow who knew quite a bit about floods!

The bottom line is that I am far happier with this rain than I would be with that much snow! It has to happen sooner or later, but later is just fine for me.

Stay warm and dry!

Love,

Rebecca 

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