These speak for themselves

 

These simply speak for themselves. We are so glad we finally had a chance to see each other after so much time!

With boundless love,                                                          

Rebecca

 

Quite a day!

 

This has been quite a day for our Noah! He started the morning playing baseball, and then went on to successfully riding his bicycle this afternoon. Clearly, he is ready for a bigger bike!

 

To celebrate, he enjoyed a sundae from Crescent Ridge. I think our reading time today is going to be a bit of a disappointment next to all that.

 

Mazal tov to our amazing boy!

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

 

No words required

 

It’s been a very long time….

Love,

Rebecca

Progress towards the finish line

 

Earlier today, both Simmie and Dina received their second doses of the Moderna vaccine up at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro just a couple of hours apart. In just two weeks, they will finally be able to hug each other for the first time in over 13 months.

Simmie’s husband received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week. Aaron and Joshua are still waiting their turns. It is even looking promising that the Pfizer vaccine will receive approval for those 12-16 years old in the foreseeable future. That will just leave us with the two youngest, and it is not clear just when that may be. But little by little progress is being made. We do hope to be able to go up there in the not-too-distant future, albeit with limited physical contact, when it is warm and nice enough to gather out of doors.

Light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel.

Best to you and yours.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

Infectious in a good way

What would have been a major highlight of last week was unfortunately not quite what we would have liked it to be. Dina and Ella escorted Julia to New York for a day to visit the American Girl Store and buy her first American Girl doll, a gift from her parents for her recent birthday. Julia named her new doll Victoria, and although she is technically a good “match” for Julia, Victoria is totally lacking in Julia’s charm and infectious energy!

Unfortunately, after much agonizing, we just did not feel we could safely join them in this activity. We had given Julia a Kindle for her birthday and she has, much to our joy, become an avid reader. She also knows that we have ordered a bed for Victoria, which we plan to bring with us when we finally make our way to Sharon.

Meanwhile, the remainder of Passover was quiet. I had routine medical appointments on Thursday, the final two days of the holiday were over the weekend, and Sunday evening we packed up all the Passover utensils and moved our regular things back to their usual places. This exercise always takes a few days because even though it was only a week or so ago, I can never remember where I put some things. That first bagel is always delicious, and last evening we had pasta for dinner. We are looking forward to our first pizza dinner. Otherwise, this is a quiet week.

Meanwhile, most of our grandchildren are having “Zoom school” this week as all of the students await what will hopefully be negative results on their COVID tests.  

Stay safe and well.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

 

A beloved author

 

Jewish holidays often mean we fall behind on current news. Although this is a rather minor item, I have just learned of the death of a beloved author of children’s books, Beverly Cleary. In her 104 years, she published upwards of 49 books. In recent years, I heard her name often because of our granddaughters’ fondness for the Ramona Quimby books. The first book in the series, Beezus and Ramona, appeared in 1955. The final book, Ramona's World, was published in 1999.  

But the Beverly Cleary book I remember fondly was Fifteen, published in 1956. Although I was all of four years old at that time, the book was still quite popular when I came of age to read it ten years or so later, probably more than once. The main character, Jane, is a fifteen-year-old girl who is just discovering young love. I do not recall any of our granddaughters reading this one, and I suppose that by today’s standards it probably seems a bit sappy and silly. But it is available on Kindle for just $3.99, and remains a classic in my mind.

Today is the second day of the trial of Derek Chauvin in the May 24, 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The witnesses testifying today are all young people, one only 9 years old. These minors are not being shown on camera, only their voices are heard. It is so much easier to think about Beverly Cleary.

Stay well.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

 

Another Pesach alone

I thought this might be an interesting time to go back and see what I wrote here a year ago.

 

07 April 2020
Struggling to find words

 

You all know me, a person seldom at a loss for words. It has been a difficult past eight years, having survived two unrelated cancers on top of a long-term, albeit fortunately slowly progressing, pulmonary disease. I think I have maintained a pretty good spirit and sense of humor through it all.

 

But these are different times. At the risk of sounding a bit selfish, those previous challenges were just mine, and I was fortunately surrounded by many people who could support and care for me. But now we are all suffering, all navigating very difficult waters. Everywhere I look, everything I read (still with difficulty) or see on television is focused on people who have it far worse, not only the thousands of medical personnel who are on the front lines in hospitals, but the everyday folks who enable us to continue to put food on our tables and provide us with many of our everyday needs.

 

I do not have any good answers for this. As we approach the first night of Passover, my usual enthusiasm for this holiday is nowhere to be found. Over forty years ago we had our own “Passover miracle” when our daughter born after only 28 weeks of the normal 40 survived those early tenuous weeks. I can only hope that the first bites of matzah will awaken some reserve of hope.

 

Meanwhile, we cannot let out guards down. We need to continue to do everything we can to curb the spread of this dreadful disease, and hope that we will get through this without too much pain.

 

Sadly, the only difference between this year and last is that, now, over half a million Americans and 2.75 million people worldwide have succumbed to this horrific disease. I guess we are among the lucky ones: we have known a number of people who have been infected (none of whom have died) but fortunately none of our family members have tested positive.

Although Barry and I have both been vaccinated, our daughters will not receive their second doses until mid-April, and it is not clear just when our sons-in-law will be able to begin the process. Only our oldest grandchild is old enough to receive the vaccine, but again, it is not clear when that may become available to him. I am sure that many of you might feel that we are being excessively cautious, but this caution is necessitated by my underlying pulmonary condition. We are hoping that, as the weather improves, we will be able to travel to Sharon and spend time outdoors with the two families, who of course are still having to keep distant from each other. So, the road ahead is still long.

I have also been reminded of this during the various classes given by our synagogue that I attend on Zoom each week. The students are virtually all senior citizens, all of whom have been vaccinated at this point. As we “gather” for each class, there has been a great deal of chitchat about plans for Passover. It is just another reminder of the challenges so many are facing.

Still, at the end of the day, I am grateful to have made it to this point, a year into the pandemic, with my health still more or less intact, my marriage and connection to my family still strong, and my hope for the future still undiminished.

Stay safe and well!

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

Sleep With Me

 

Time to get your minds out of the gutter…..

This is a link to podcasts that are so unbearably boring that they put the listener to sleep. We heard about this when a segment about the podcast was aired on “CBS Sunday Morning” with Jane Pauley.

Since the COVID pandemic began, one in three Americans has had reduced quality sleep. Correspondent Susan Spencer pulls back the covers on how pandemic stress is among the factors affecting people's already-tortured relationship with shuteye. Spencer talks with Drew Ackerman, a lifelong chronic insomniac whose storytelling podcast, "Sleep With Me," lulls listeners to slumberland; and with professors Sharon Bowman, Jennifer Martin and Tiffany Yip about the importance of sleep hygiene, and the effects of reduced sleep on chronic health impacts and productivity.

I figured I could do a great public service and share this information with my blog readers. You can let me know which is more sleep-inducing: this podcast or my ramblings.

Meanwhile, have a healthy week and try to get enough sleep.

Love,                                                                

Rebecca

So hard to know what to believe these days

I came across this graph entitled “The Problem with Congress Explained in One Graph.”

This would seem to make a convincing argument that Congress does not fully and accurately represent the American population.

It turns out that the numbers are off, but not the way that this posting represents. A brief summary of this is shown here:

How the graphic is incorrect

Was it always true that there was so much incorrect or misleading information out there? Or is it just that we have access to so much more information that, even if the same proportion of it is incorrect, the amount of it is simply mind-boggling?

The Washington Post said in January 2020 that Donald Trump had made more than 16,241 false or misleading claims as president, an average of about 14.8 such statements per day. The numbers for presidents prior to 2017 would appear to be much lower, but certainly not zero. Perhaps it was easier to track the last president’s statements because so many of them were on social media; there is no definitive way to compare his record to any presidents before him.

Speaking of cleaning up our acts, earlier this month I wrote about cleaning the car before Pesach (Passover). I was thrilled to just receive this video from Dina, which is so much more fun than we could possibly have doing this ourselves!

Have a healthy and peaceful week.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

 

Could not resist sharing this

 

If you have not yet seen this, take a few minutes and enjoy! 

                                                          

Holderness Parody "For the First Time in Forever"

Fond memory except the parts I cannot remember

I completed my Ph.D. in Statistics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in the summer of 1986. Two years later, I attended the annual Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) which were held in New Orleans. The JSM is  a professional/academic conference for statisticians held every year (usually in August) since 1840.

I wish I could remember the sessions I attended or the pearls of statistical wisdom I gleaned from those meetings, but what I primarily remember was the nightly gatherings with friends and colleagues along Bourbon Street. On one of those evenings, we made our way to a famous watering hole called Pat O’Brien’s, which has been in business since 1933. They are well known for a famous drink known as The Hurricane:

2 ounces amber rum

1/4 cup passion fruit juice, or 1 tablespoon passion fruit syrup

1 teaspoon superfine sugar

1/2 teaspoon grenadine

Juice of 1/2 lime

I suppose I was never one to hold my liquor very well, and I do recall being warned not to drink it too quickly. But it was a typically warm and humid New Orleans August evening and the drink was quite tasty, and let’s just say I was fortunate to be with friends because I probably made quite a fool of myself. Fortunately, it began to wear off by the time we headed back to our hotels. And, fortunately, I managed to return to New York with the glass.

Why talk about this? Because last evening on Jeopardy! in the category “Potent Potables,” the $800 answer was:

Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans is famous for this stormy cocktail that has its own tall glass.

And the question was:

What is The Hurricane?

Thanks to Jeopardy! for bringing back this fond memory.

Have a wonderful day.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

Hurricane Drink Recipe

They're back....

 

I am not sure if this is good news or bad news, but one thing for sure is that the last thing we need right now is something else to keep us awake at night. They may be small but they can sure make an awful lot of noise! What am I talking about? Cicadas!

 

Brief side note: I struggled with that last sentence, because “about” is a preposition and it is not proper English to end a sentence with a preposition. However, to ask “about what am I talking?” when writing about cicadas seems a bit melodramatic.

 

Then I found this on a blog called grammarly.com:

 

It’s not an error to end a sentence with a preposition, but it is a little less formal. In emails, text messages, and notes to friends, it’s perfectly fine. But if you’re writing a research paper or submitting a business proposal and you want to sound very formal, avoid ending sentences with prepositions.

 

We are all friends here, correct?

 

Back to cicadas, first, a brief video of the sound of summer cicadas. 

USA Today recently published an article on cicadas that included a brief video and began:

Brood X periodical cicadas, underground for 17 years, ready to reemerge and make some noise

Keith Matheny and Georgea Kovanis

Detroit Free Press

DETROIT – It’s an underground movement now, but it will be all the buzz this spring and summer.

This year will mark the reemergence after 17 years of Brood X, or the Great Eastern Brood, of periodical cicadas – those large, winged, kind of scary-looking but mostly harmless flying insects known for their almost deafening buzz.

“The end of May through June, it can get pretty loud – if you are in an area where they are numerous, there can be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of them,” said Howard Russell, an entomologist (insect scientist) at Michigan State University.

One of the largest broods of periodical cicadas in the nation, Brood X will emerge this spring in 15 states: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.

 

Return of the cicadas video

Return of cicadas article

I suppose I would rather be listening to cicadas than to the forecast of snow in the coming days! Here is part of the forecast for tomorrow, March 16th:

 

Time	Temperature	Weather	Probability
7 pm	38°	Snow Showers	35%
8 pm	38°	Snow Showers	39%
9 pm	37°	Snow Showers	36%
10 pm	37°	Snow Showers	40%
11 pm	37°	Snow Showers	42%

 

Hopefully those temperatures mean the snow will not accumulate.

Meanwhile, stay safe and well.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

Being useful

 

One of the many challenges of these past nine years of living through two cancer diagnoses and their consequences along with pulmonary disease is that, most of the time, I feel relatively useless. This past year has been frustrating for all and downright painful for many, and has only added to my sense of being a person who takes far more than she can give. That was never the person I believed I was.

But today, for a change, I was actually able to do something helpful. Both of our daughters are teachers in Massachusetts. After many months of showing rather poor support for their educators, the state finally did the best thing any state can do right now: they opened appointments to teachers for vaccinations for COVID-19. Just one problem: booking appointments can require quite a lot of time on-line with a system that opens each day at 8:30 am, when most teachers are engaged with students. This provided a unique opportunity for Barry and me to step in and offer to help. So, this morning, we had 3 laptops going in an effort to log in to the site and find appointments. The first one Barry was able to schedule was over an hour away from Sharon. But then we managed to get on to the site that included appointments at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, about 6 miles from their homes. And from there we were able to schedule an appointment for each daughter, both on the same day but a number of hours apart.

And now, we see that Massachusetts has finally lifted travel restrictions for those who have been fully vaccinated:

Individuals who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for at least 14 days are no longer required to quarantine or have a recent negative test result upon arriving in Massachusetts, under a new exception quietly made to the state’s emergency travel rules this week.

The updated rules — which apply to most people visiting or returning from states with high COVID-19 rates — say that asymptomatic individuals who have gotten both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine or a single dose of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine more than 14 days ago do not need to quarantine for 10 days or have a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival in Massachusetts.

Why was the exception “quietly” made? I cannot answer that.

With all of this combined, but admittedly continuing to err on the side of extreme caution necessitated by my underlying pulmonary disease, we are hopeful to be able to travel to Sharon when the weather is warm enough for us to remain largely outdoors to visit with our children and grandchildren. This is the first time we have actually even been able to seriously consider doing that.

And that is indeed happy news.

Love,                                           

Rebecca

A shot in the arm from two great musicians

I have never been a particular fan of Dolly Parton but was impressed to read of her substantial contribution to the development of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna. The New York Times reported:

Last year, Ms. Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which worked with the drug maker Moderna to develop one of the first coronavirus vaccines to be authorized in the United States. The federal government eventually invested $1 billion in the creation and testing of the vaccine, but the leader of the research effort, Dr. Mark Denison, said that the singer’s donation had funded its critical early stages.

A few days ago, a short video of Ms. Parton receiving an injection of the Moderna vaccine was widely publicized, including a short rewrite of her song “Jolene.”

Then, yesterday, Carole King released her own video to encourage people to be vaccinated. Be sure to “unmute” if you are not hearing the audio when you go to this link. I love the rhyming of “late” with “hesitate.”

Carole King "It's Not Too Late"

Stay safe and well.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

The real world and the virtual world

Every year, traditional Jewish families spend the month before Pesach (Passover) cleaning their homes in preparation for the holiday. Pesach is the strictest Jewish holiday when it comes to food. For eight days, Jews traditionally avoid eating or even owning what is known as “chometz.” Chometz may be defined as the resultant product of the fermentation of one of the five grains: wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and oats, after its combination with water. Many people use the opportunity to do a full-blown spring cleaning, but the important focus is on ensuring the removal of any traces of chometz from our homes and offices.

One of the many annual pre-Pesach rituals is cleaning out the car. After all, who does not eat in the car? Families with young children usually have a car full of Cheerios, and even we adults will snack on bagels or pretzels during car trips.

Last spring, we cleaned out the car before Pesach. But during the past year we have used the car only to travel to medical and dental appointments. We drive so seldom that once a week or so Barry takes the car out just to keep it running! So it goes without saying that we have not eaten anything at all in the car during the past year. I guess we should be glad that, this year, ridding the car of chometz is a rather minimal task. Yet somehow it is very sad, a stark reminder of all the disappointments of this year of Covid in this very real world. 

At the same time, all of us now exist in a virtual world as well. A day or two ago, we started having trouble with one of our television sets. We could watch things we had recorded on the DVR but could not watch live TV on that set. Barry called Verizon FIOS and, without his even speaking to a human being, they were able to diagnose and fix the problem. It is a little scary when you think about it. But at the same time, it was a big relief because we are reluctant to have anyone in our real-world house, so we would have just had to live without that set.

Meanwhile, stay healthy.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca

Dr. Seuss

 

Theodore Seuss Geisel, the children’s author known as Dr. Seuss, was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, MA. On the 117^th anniversary of his birth yesterday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the business that preserves and protects the author’s legacy, announced that six of his books will no longer be published because they "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong." The titles are:

• And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
• If I Ran the Zoo
• McElligot's Pool
• On Beyond Zebra!
• Scrambled Eggs Super!
• The Cat's Quizzer

Charis Granger-Mbugua, a National Board Certified teacher and Spelman College graduate, published an opinion piece on Dr. Seuss in the Atlantic Journal Constitution:

 Why schools should rethink Dr. Seuss

Ms. Granger-Mbugua was interviewed by Erin Burnett on CNN:

Dr. Seuss Six Books Erin Burnett

I set out to find some of the possibly troubling images in the Dr. Seuss books. Here are some that I found.

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

If I Ran the Zoo

McElligot's Pool

When I first heard about this, I found myself scratching my head. We had our weekly group “Zoom” with our daughters last evening and looked through a few of the titles. I could not help but wonder if I am simply not sufficiently sensitive to the issues being raised. To attempt to address this, as I prepared this post I tried to come up with similar examples of Jewish stereotypes. In my mind, these fall into two categories. Some, such as the overly protective Jewish mother, are usually at least somewhat amusing. But there are plenty of others that can be downright offensive, such as those that show Jews as nasty and obsessed with wealth.

So, the question is, do the images in the books cited by Dr. Seuss Enterprises foster negative racial or ethnic stereotypes that children maintain into adulthood? Alternatively, are we being overly sensitive by removing much beloved books and preventing children from benefiting from literature that may, on balance, have positive messages and provide hours of enjoyment?

So where does this leave us on reading Dr. Seuss to our grandchildren? In answer to this question, it may be helpful to consider thoughts shared by author Art Spiegelman (Maus) about Dr. Seuss taken from an article written by Fiona Macdonald in 2019 on the 115th anniversary of Dr Seuss’ birth.

 

Describing Dr Seuss’s wartime output as “very impressive evidence of cartooning as an art of persuasion”, Spiegelman explains how they “rail against isolationism, racism, and anti-semitism with a conviction and fervor lacking in most other American editorial pages of the period… virtually the only editorial cartoons outside the communist and black press that decried the military’s Jim Crow policies and Charles Lindbergh’s anti-semitism”. Dr Seuss, he argues, “made these drawings with the fire of honest indignation and anger that fuels all real political art”.

Julia and Noah do not seem to share my love of The Lorax, but I cannot see giving up The Cat in the Hat.

Love,                                                          

Rebecca