Forefathers

As I sit here and write this, our wonderful first grandchild, Joshua, is boarding a bus to travel to summer camp. I am confident that he will have a fantastic time. He already knows a few boys who are attending, and he is an outgoing and fun kid who will certainly keep the other boys laughing and make lots of new friends.

But my jubilation for him this morning is almost assuredly not quite what his parents are feeling. I remember all too well the summer of 1988, when both Simmie and Dina, at 11 and 9 years of age, went to camp for the first time, suddenly leaving us childless for four weeks. We were living in Sharon and the camp was in New Hampshire just a few hours away, so we drove them up to camp. Barry and I sat in the car all the way back home without uttering a word. What could we have been thinking sending our two babies away? But soon we settled back in, and to be honest, by the time the month was over we were enjoying ourselves and even joked about signing them up for the second month.

Of course that experience paled next to what was to come a few years later in 1995 when Simmie left to spend the year after graduating from high school in Israel. In the weeks before her departure, Dina spent a lot of time grousing about all the attention being showered on her sister. Despite her threats to stay home, she did join us to see Simmie off at the airport. I have two very strong memories from that morning. I remember watching Simmie walk away, literally with a spring in her step, and feeling so happy that our little premie had reached this point and was ready to fly (literally and figuratively). But this feeling was quickly shadowed by a sobbing and inconsolable younger sister. Barry and I had to escort the poor girl out of the terminal, and I cannot help but wonder if nowadays someone would have summoned authorities.

Now here is Dina, seeing her own child taking those first steps to what we hope will be a wonderful and independent life. She may not realize this but I certainly do know how she is feeling. I wish I could put the video on fast forward for just a moment so she could see how well it all turns out, and how as a grandmother it is nothing but an incredibly happy occasion to see Joshua reaching this milestone.

  

This morning I had to listen to an old Dan Fogelberg song

And the sons become the fathers,

And the daughters will be wives,

As the torch is passed from hand to hand

And we struggle through our lives.

Though the generations wander

The lineage survives,

And all of us from dust to dust,

We all become forefathers by and by.

Have a great summer, big boy!

Love,

Rebecca (aka Nana)

One not so good and one terrific movie

About a month ago I wrote about a newly released movie, “The Fault in Our Stars.” Our interest in this movie was primarily piqued by the fact that a key aspect of the storyline involves a young woman who is on full-time supplemental oxygen. The movie received mixed reviews, and we were not expecting it to be particularly good. So we were neither surprised nor disappointed to find that it was a sappy tear-jerker, and not a very realistic portrayal of life on oxygen. We could have used that two hours in a much more productive way. However, teen aged girls probably love this movie.

But redemption on the big screen came about this afternoon in the form of a film called “Chef.” The film was written and directed by and stars a fellow with whom we were not familiar, Jon Favreau, along with a stellar cast of more familiar names including Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, and Sophia Vergara (Gloria on “Modern Family”). It is the story of an innovative chef whose creativity is stifled by the owner of the restaurant in which he works. He posts comments on the web, not realizing that they could and would be seen by thousands of followers of the critic who panned his cooking. The loss of his job forces him to go back to more modest ambitions, but this is, after all, a feel-good movie, and it all works out in the end. It is a terrifically fun ride along the way with such vivid kitchen scenes that you can almost smell the aromas. There is nothing deep here but it is great fun and we highly recommend it.

This whole issue of items “going viral” on the internet has been on my mind a good deal, as I wrote a few days ago about Baby K’Tan. The only consolation here is that these things tend to fade as the next new nonsense takes over. We can only hope that this wonderful company will survive this rather severe bump in the road.

The weather was beautiful again this weekend, and we did get over to the Botanical Garden this morning before going to the movies this afternoon. Barry has a busy week ahead but we are looking forward to Thursday, when we will drive up to the Berkshires to see James Taylor at Tanglewood. Those of you who have followed me since the beginning of the blog may remember that in the summer of 2012 we had bought tickets for all three nights James was performing at Tanglewood, but I was still undergoing chemotherapy and did not feel up to making the trip. Fortunately we were able to send proxies: one night Dina and Aaron, one night Riverdale friends who have a summer house in the Berkshires, and one night friends from Sharon. We are happy to finally be seeing James again at Tanglewood.

Next weekend we will spend Sabbath and Sunday in Sharon, and bring Eliana back to New York with us, the first of four such trips we will make over the next two months. We have all sorts of fun activities lined up for each of the children, and are really looking forward to this.

Have a nice week!

Love,

Rebecca

A red letter date

It was only around dinner time that today’s date registered. For some mysterious reason, June 26 has been a notable date for me in years ending with 9.

In 1969, when I was 17, my family moved from our hometown of St. Louis, Missouri to West Hartford, Connecticut. It was the summer before my senior year of high school, and leaving a lifetime’s worth of friends and places was difficult for me. The moving van came on the 26^th of June.

In 1979, Simmie was two years old and I was pregnant with Dina. Complications in the pregnancy had kept me in bed for many months, but on the 26^th of June I was hospitalized, where I stayed until a week after Dina’s birth on July 17^th.

In 1989 we were living in Sharon. I had completed my PhD in statistics in 1986, and had stayed close with my graduate advisor, who is just a tad older than I am. On June 26^th he had surgery to remove what turned out to be a malignant tumor in his brain. Fortunately, he has remained in remission for these 25 years.

In 1999, June 26^th was the last Sabbath before we moved into the house in Riverdale in which we still live. We still love this house, and we are even finally doing some of the long-neglected maintenance projects it has needed. I remember in 1999 thinking that perhaps my luck on this date had finally turned around.

I cannot remember anything significant on June 26^th of 2009. I guess my association with the date ended with the change of the century. But on this date in 2012 I was discharged from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after cycle 6 of chemotherapy. And I am more than happy to uneventfully mark the passing of another year on this date.

An item from the first round of Jeopardy broadcast this evening:

Category	They Own It
$1000 answer	Xanax and Lipitor
Question	What is Pfizer?

Have a nice evening!

Love,

Rebecca

19,947 but who's counting?

As I sit down to write this post, Blogger tells me I have had 19,947 page views, just 53 short of 20,000. In the blogosphere that is a paltry number. But I am more interested in quality than quantity, and the warmth and support in those nearly 20,000 visits to this blog are far more valuable than any number with more zeroes in it could possibly be.

It has been an incredibly busy few days! First, the weather was beyond spectacular: warm but not hot, with low humidity and abundant sunshine. Anyone who planned an outdoor gathering this weekend was quite fortunate indeed. We arrived in Sharon early Friday afternoon and picked up Maya, who was coming to spend some time with us while the rest of her family was otherwise engaged. We then joined Dina and family for lunch outside on their newly completed deck, a terrific new addition to their house that blends in so well that it is difficult to remember what the back looked like when it was not there. Here is a picture of Ella and Maya with a friend enjoying a snack on the new deck.

After playing with the children for a while, we headed over to a local camera store where we had in early May left a box containing our old Super 8 videotapes to be transferred to DVD. Barry and I were only able to watch a couple of minutes of the DVD before Sabbath but were surprised with the results. The images are somewhat grainy but that is to be expected. The sound is surprisingly good, although the speed seems somewhat excessive so that my talking, never slow to begin with, sounds very fast and the pitch a bit high. Unfortunately, most of the videotapes were not labelled, so the 3-minute segments are in no particular order. My next project is to go through and put them in order – all 27 of them – so that Aaron can burn us a new DVD.

I do not know why this never occurred to me before, either when I found the box of videos or when we took them to be transferred, but here is a quiz:

Identify the source of this line

They took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. 

Ella joined Barry and me for Sabbath lunch. While gathering the whole family is nice, we especially enjoy spending time with the children one at a time. We made a lunch we were sure she would enjoy. She is a bit of a particular eater but she does have a list of foods she will pretty much always eat: macaroni and cheese, cheese lasagna, blintz soufflé, and one that does not quite fit with the others, gefilte fish. We had the last two on that list, and I had made a blueberry pie for dessert. We built the newest Lego Friends kit we had given her for her birthday, played a few other games, and it was 5 pm before we knew it. We headed back over to Ella’s house and Barry played ball with Joshua for a while before we returned to our apartment for some much-needed rest.

Sunday was another beautiful day. In the morning, Barry and I took Joshua and Ella to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, our first of what I am sure will be many visits this summer. We came back to Sharon around 2 as Simmie was leaving with Eliana to attend an open house at the camp she is attending this summer, and we spent more time with Maya. We suggested going out for either ice cream or frozen yogurt, and, in typical Maya fashion, she gave us a long explanation of all the times she had been at the frozen yogurt shop and not found the flavors to her liking, so we headed to Crescent Ridge Dairy, where we sat outside and chatted while eating our ice cream. I had the camera in my purse but of course forgot to use it.

The day ended when we all gathered for a barbeque at Simmie and Ronen’s house to celebrate Barry’s recent birthday. We drove back to New York on Monday morning, and I am still trying to play catch-up.

Yesterday, New York City Mayor De Blasio signed 11 bills into law, including Intro 171-A — “Cooper’s Law” — which will allow the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to act against hack licenses of cab drivers who injure and kill pedestrians while breaking traffic laws, and Intro 238-A, which makes it a misdemeanor for drivers to strike pedestrians or cyclists who have the right of way. It is at least a start.

Have a great week!

Love,

Rebecca

The best and the worst of the internet

I was just stunned, perhaps even horrified is a fair word, to learn about a vicious campaign being waged on Twitter against Baby K’tan, our friend’s company that designs and markets infant carriers. The carriers come in various different fabrics and styles, and both the web site and the various boxes in which the carriers are packaged are full of sweet pictures of people “wearing” babies. Apparently someone saw two boxes of Baby K’tan carriers on the shelf of a local store: one with a picture of a white couple with the woman wearing a baby, the other with a picture of a black woman wearing a baby. Looking at these two boxes that just happened to be on the shelf in that particular store at that particular moment, knowing nothing about the company, and clearly not even bothering to take a look at their web site, the person took to Twitter and accused the company of racism. Sadly, this post has “gone viral.” Michal is working with lawyers and consultants to determine the appropriate response to such unjustified and untrue claims.

I am reminded of a traditional Jewish tale.

Once there was a child who loved to tell stories about his friends. Sometimes the stories were true, and sometimes the stories were not quite true. The neighborhood children did not like their gossiping friend. One day they decided to ask the Rabbi's advice. 

The Rabbi heard their complaints, and called the child to his house. 

"Why do you make up stories about your friends?" the Rabbi asked. 

"It's only talk," replied the child. "I can always take it back." 

"Perhaps you are right," said the Rabbi, and he began to talk of other things. As the child was ready to leave, the Rabbi asked, "I wonder if you would do something for me." 

"Of course," said the child 

The Rabbi took a pillow from the couch and handed it to the child. "Take this pillow to the town square. When you get there, cut it open, and shake out the feathers. Then come back." 

The child was puzzled, but agreed to do what the Rabbi said. He carried the pillow to the town square and cut it open. The breeze scattered the feathers across the sky. 

The child returned to the Rabbi's house and told him what he had done. 

The Rabbi seemed pleased. He handed the boy a basket and said, "Now please go back to the square, and gather the feathers up again." 

The child gasped, "But that's impossible." 

"You are right," said the Rabbi. "So is it not possible to take back all the untrue things you said about others. Be careful with the words you spread. Once spoken and sent on their way, they cannot be gathered again." 

If you or any of your friends has a Baby K’tan carrier, please know that this accusation is not only vicious but just plain wrong! It is not going to be easy to collect all those nasty feathers.

Love,

Rebecca

Sounding like a silly old lady

A few days ago I wrote about seeing a report on CBS Sunday Morning that featured Dr. Martin Goldstein. I mentioned that we had taped the show on our “VCR.” Some of you who are reading my words a bit too carefully might have chuckled at the idea that we are still using a VCR. Well, rest easy. We have not recorded anything on a VCR for years – we have joined the 21^st century and record programs on our DVR!

Having said that, I hear that long playing record albums are making a comeback!

Have a great weekend,

Love,

Rebecca

Sweet Melissa

By Thursdays, The New York Times crossword puzzle becomes somewhat tricky. Most of the time I am eventually able to figure it out, but I usually “cheat” some amount with the help of Google.

Today, the clue for 42-across (7 spaces) was:

What notorious 1999 computer virus was named after an exotic dancer?

I was able to fill in enough of the surrounding squares to realize it was

MELISSA

Melissa was a computer malware program known as a worm, a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. Often, worms use computer networks to spread themselves, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it.

Do you see how the black squares form a question mark? The theme is found in 17-across:

Classic 1940s-'50s quiz show

Namely,

Twenty Questions

Twenty of the clues are questions of the sort one might find on a television quiz show.

This was clever and provided a good excuse to share some Allman Brothers music: a perfect combination!

  

If I do not post again before the weekend, have a good one!

Love,

Rebecca