Points of view

This video was posted on Facebook by a friend whose sister is undergoing treatment for a difficult-to-treat cancer. In the same way I attempt not to spoil movies, I do not want to bias your reaction to this, so for the moment I will hold my thoughts. But I would be curious to hear some points of view.

Have a great weekend.

Love,

Rebecca

Old memories, new memories

Visiting with my mother and sister dredged up an old memory. Actually, it was Barry who reminded me of this incident, which occurred shortly before I left for college.

I was the second of five children. When I graduated high school at 18, my older brother was almost 20, and my younger sisters were 15, 12, and 5. Our family had moved from St. Louis to West Hartford, Connecticut during the summer before my senior year. This move forced me to give up my friends, my top-10 high school academic rank, and many extracurricular activities. Despite this, I managed to have a pretty good senior year and made many new friends.

On a Sunday just after graduation, my parents planned a family day trip to the Catskill Game Farm, a zoo in upstate New York that has since closed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Game_Farm).

My brother and I, and perhaps my 12- and 15-year old sisters as well, were a bit old for this sort of thing, but I would have gone along willingly if not for the fact that one of my friends was hosting a big graduation party that day to which everyone was going. I can still remember the pleas and the tears. But my parents were insistent that I go with the family.

I remember very little of the place because, although I am sure it was lovely, and I might have enjoyed being there with my little sister had the timing been different, I refused to enjoy it. But clearly the memory of that day stuck with me so strongly that over a year later, when Barry and I started dating, I was still talking about it.

Barry and I were reminded of this because we were thinking about taking the family to a performance of Disney on Ice during the winter break. But we recognize that Joshua is probably a bit old for these sorts of activities now. He might be much happier getting together with friends than going to a show clearly targeted at younger children. This is exactly how it should be: children grow and their interests change, and we parents and grandparents have to shift our plans and expectations. We see this on a regular basis during our visits to Sharon. These days, the children’s plans with their friends often trump whatever the rest of the family is doing. This is especially true for the Sabbath daytime meal after synagogue, when the older children often invite friends or are invited to their homes. Although the selfish part of me misses having them around the table, I am thrilled to see that they are so popular!

Barry and I have had an ongoing discussion about this for a couple of years now, wondering if at some point our going to Sharon so frequently might not make as much sense as it did six years ago when we started spending most of our weekends there. Maya is only 5, so we had decided to table this discussion for another year or two. But as it turns out, we hope to table it for much longer. Some of you already know why: our daughter Dina and her husband Aaron are expecting a third child at the end of March. We are excitedly awaiting this new addition to our family.

It is quite cold outside, but I have an appointment with my pulmonologist today so I will be venturing out. I finally get to use the new scarf that Barry bought me when he was in the UK, along with the new wine-colored LL Bean Mad Bomber hat I bought to match it.

Stay warm!

Love,

Rebecca

Name that image

Other than my last quick “do not fear, I have not fallen off the planet” posting, it has been about a week, and a varied and busy one, since I last wrote.

We managed to squeeze in two movies last week. The first was “Dallas Buyers Club,” about the early days of the AIDS epidemic when, anxious to do anything and everything to extend their lives, patients mobilized and tried to take things into their own hands to obtain drugs that had not been approved for sale in the United States. I was interested in this film because when we moved to New York in 1991, my first job was at Lederle Laboratories where I was assigned to work on a new antiretroviral that was in the first stages of development. There was enormous excitement about this project, that this drug would be both more effective and less toxic than the only approved drug at that time, AZT. We got the trials up and running quickly. I had the opportunity to work with a terrific team and to attend fascinating meetings, many of which were attended by vocal AIDS activists. But about 8 months in, there were three deaths among patients in the trial. The patients were all late-stage AIDS patients, but there was concern that the drug was not working as had been hoped, was more toxic than had been anticipated, or perhaps both. While the jury remained forever out on precisely what caused these deaths, there was a decision to discontinue the development of the compound. It was just around that time that, by coincidence, I heard from someone at Pfizer, and the rest, as they say, is history. Still, it was a wonderful introduction to an exciting area of drug research. Some years later, a number of former Lederle colleagues ended up at Pfizer following a merger and reorganization.

A small afterthought to this story I have just told. You may be amazed, as I am, that someone who can barely remember what day of the week it is remembers this trial from over 20 years ago in such excruciating detail. This will remain forever the biggest mystery of this whole experience.

But back to the present…the movie was excellent, although intense and somewhat painful to watch. The acting was superb. There may well be some Academy Award nominations from this one.

The second movie we saw was “Inside Llewyn Davis,” the newest feature from the incredibly prolific Coen Brothers. This movie is supposed to be somewhat loosely based on folk singer/songwriter Dave Von Ronck, but can likely be viewed as a composite of many such artists who lived from hand to mouth trying to make music in the early 1960s. The movie told the story of a reasonably talented musician who could not quite get his act together sufficiently to be successful, and was ultimately so self-destructive that he even passed up an opportunity to join a group that clearly was intended to represent Peter, Paul, and Mary. The music was fantastic, and the audience were given free CDs of the soundtrack when we purchased our tickets. Growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis through the 1960s, this world is rather foreign to me. But Barry went to Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan in the 1960s, so the gritty streets of the Village are very real to him. I don’t know if there will be any recognition from the Motion Picture Academy, but Oscar Isaac, who plays Mr. Davis, was quite good. John Goodman, F. Murray Abraham, and Justin Timberlake are also in the film.

We had a quiet Friday evening and had Sabbath lunch at the home of friends who had also invited some other friends from our Riverdale circle. As so often happens on the short Sabbath afternoons of winter, we ended up talking and talking until Sabbath was over. The food was yummy, the company enjoyable, and the time just flew past.

Saturday night we finished packing and tried to get to sleep early because we had an early flight on Sunday. We flew down to Florida to visit my mother and sister who live there. My mother is no longer able to travel, and we had not been down to visit since the family Disney World trip in June of 2011, having been a bit preoccupied through much of 2012. It was good to have the chance to visit.

We were scheduled to fly back to New York late Monday morning. We started hearing about the terrible weather that has been moving up the East Coast for the past few days. But fortunately, our plane took off, albeit about an hour and a half later than scheduled, and the flight was less turbulent than we expected. As we started our descent, it was clear that there was a thick cloud cover over the City, but suddenly I saw something sticking out from under that blanket of white puffy cotton. Barry managed to snap a photograph with his iPhone. You can click on the image to make it larger and more clear. Can you see what it is? How cool is that? It was a delightful ending to a hectic few days.

It is snowing as I write this. Stay warm and dry!

Love,

Rebecca

A brief break

Just want to let you all know that we are well, we’ve seen a couple of interesting movies I want to share and had a very nice Sabbath afternoon today with friends. We are going down to Florida for a couple of days to visit family and in an effort to travel light, I am not lugging along the laptop.

Hopefully we will essentially jump over the storm that is moving up the east coast by leaving before it moves as far north as New York and returning home after it has moved on its way further north. It may be a bumpy flight tomorrow, though.

Have a good week.

Love,

Rebecca

And the winner is….

Two months ago, I posted a piece about our friend Michal Chesal who had been nominated for the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association Super Hero Spotlight Feature for the innovative design and development of the Baby K'tan baby carrier. I am happy to share the good news that Michal has won!

There is a piece about Michal posted at this link. Thanks to all of you who voted for Michal and helped to make this possible.

Q&A with Fall Super Hero | JPMA: Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association

Love,

Rebecca

Flying objects

After all the bad news of the last couple of days, I was happy to wake up early this morning and find new Colbert Report and Daily Show episodes on the TiVO.

I was particularly amused by a piece Colbert did on Amazon. I wanted to insert the video here but for reasons I cannot understand I was unable to download it, so here is the link:

New use of drones?

This really hit home for me. I have probably mentioned this here before, but although I do fundamentally agree with the point Colbert is making, and I really do miss going to regular stores and actually seeing and touching things (the recent trip to the outlet mall was a notable exception), I cannot even begin to imagine how I would have functioned during this past year and a half without on-line shopping. Granted I would have saved a lot of money, probably enough to feed many starving children around the world. But I would also be sitting here with baggy old clothes, and I would have to send Barry out for every little thing I need. Instead, our house is now well stocked with random items like Chapstick, toothpaste, deodorant, and various cleaning items to last through a very long confinement to quarters for at least our entire family of ten. Add to this American Girl paraphernalia, Legos kits, Quadrilla, and Hex Bugs sitting in various Sharon homes, all thanks to Amazon Prime and other on-line shopping, and we could stock a few elementary schools.

My joy at the wonders of the world wide web is somewhat tempered by the fact that early reports are beginning to suggest that the New York Metro North rail conductor was using his mobile device while driving that train early Sunday morning. I have for some time now been grousing about the need for developing basic courtesy standards for use of electronic devices. Talking on cell phones on airplanes, as appears to be under consideration, would seem a very bad idea because people will inevitably be yelling into those phones in the close and noisy quarters of the cabin. But this goes far beyond making lives more pleasant, it gets to the potential for putting our lives at risk. We all want to believe that we are good at multi-tasking, but study after study, as well as simple common sense, shows that we are not. The real question is, if it should eventually be established that the conductor was in fact texting just prior to that horrific accident, will anyone listen or care or change their behavior?

My memory works in strange ways, sort of fits and starts of tidbits going in and out. For the past week or so I have been incessantly humming the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major. This piece was used in the climactic scene in the Oscar-winning movie from 2010, The King’s Speech, but I am not sure why I started thinking about it again.

I mention this here because what I forgot to write about entirely was that we saw a movie the other day. Barry, Dina, Aaron, and I took all four children to see Frozen. Although animated and having a PG rating, it is visually impressive even in 2-D (for various reasons we did not choose to see it in 3-D), and a real twist on the usual fairy tale. Rather than being a typical damsel in distress the girl at the heart of the story is spunky and strong-willed, and does not wait for some prince to fulfill her dreams. I don’t want to spoil the movie for those who have not yet seen it, but this leads to a rather surprising outcome in the choices she makes. As Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times review:

They are significant departures from tradition in a film that shakes up the hyper-romantic “princess” formula that has stood Disney in good stead for decades and that has grown stale. Treacly, kissy-kissy endings are not enough anymore. Nowadays, a princess has to show her mettle and earn her happily-ever-after stripes.

With or without children, I recommend this movie.

Have a good day.

Love,

Rebecca

The full range of emotions

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