So many weeks, so little time

So many weeks, so little time

Where have these last few weeks gone? I last wrote during Passover. There is a tradition to count the days between the start of Passover and the next major holiday of Shavuot (literally, weeks) that begins 7 weeks later. Since we are now at Day 22, I know it must have been close to three weeks since my last post.

We returned to New York as planned during the middle of Passover so Barry could attend some meetings in New York, and had the final two days of the holiday here. But we were quite busy that week, because that was when the workers were ready to begin the major work in Barry’s mother’s (may she rest in peace) apartment which required that everything be moved out. We had decided that we would keep some of the furniture, including the dining room set (table, chairs, breakfront, and server) and master bedroom set. There was also some upholstered furniture that Barry’s grandfather had made years ago which was going to Barry’s cousin.  All the pieces are now in their new homes. We are still figuring out just what goes where in this newfound space. We have moved our nice china to the breakfront, something we had never owned. We divided the bedroom furniture between two previously sparsely furnished bedrooms in our house. We are still working on choosing fabric to reupholster the dining room chairs. In the hubbub the table pads, which may have been in sufficiently good shape to use, were accidentally taken by the “Got Junk?” folks and new ones have been ordered. My project of organizing the family photographs has been at a standstill as we have dealt with these other matters.

It might be fair to say that we had been living in quite an under-furnished home, because even with all the newly acquired good-sized pieces, the only room that looks just a tad over furnished is one of the bedrooms. We selected and are waiting for a few new lamps to finish up this project.

Meanwhile, we started a project in our own house to repair a problem in one of our bathrooms. We are hoping the plumber will complete that this week, but as is always the case with home ownership, there remains a list of more things to be done.

Meanwhile, this sort of works begs for an escape, and we have managed to see a couple of movies. The first was “Sing Street.” What I did not appreciate until I just sat down to write is that the movie was directed by John Carney, who nearly ten years ago directed a terrific low-budget movie called “Once.” The music and story later became the core of a quite popular Broadway show of the same name, winning 8 Tony Awards in 2012. In a way, I am glad I had not made that connection, because that enabled me to think of them together without any particular bias. Fair and square: “Once” comes out on top. This newer effort was a bit too slick, with an edge that “Once” did not have.

The second movie was “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” which stars Dev Patel (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”) as the brilliant mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan traveled from his native Madras (now called Chennai) to study under G.H. Hardy (played by Jeremy Irons) and became the first Indian to hold a Fellowship there. When he first arrived in Cambridge, he was taunted and insulted, but over time as he restrained the hurt and continued to produce amazing proofs he was able to convince the mathematicians that of his brilliance. Unfortunately he suffered from various illnesses throughout his short life, and died at age 32 in 1920.

I have shared a summary of our lives over the past few weeks, but this post has one special highlight: a picture of all the Rosenstein/Hefetz/Saks ladies together. There is also a little guy hiding in that picture. Our grandchildren will be in perfect symmetry: BGGGGB! We look forward to greeting this new person for the fall holidays.

Be well, all!

Love,

Rebecca