Not driving, but still need to park

Sabbath ended last evening at around 8:15 pm. Shortly after, we put on the television to hear the heartbreaking news that, sometime in the middle of Friday night, a fire had taken the lives of seven children, badly injuring their mother and an eighth child. The husband/father was away. The children were all asleep, and the fire appears to have started in a heating tray that many families use to warm food on the Sabbath.

The seven Sassoon children who were killed included three girls and four boys: Eliane, 16; David, 12; Rivkah, 11; Yeshua, 10; Moshe, 8; Sara, 6; Yaakob, 5. The children’s mother, 45, and 14-year-old daughter managed to escape the flames through a second-story window but remained in critical condition today.

We had one of those warming trays for many years. We were never happy with it because the wiring looked a bit sketchy. Thank Gd, at some point it just stopped working, and we never replaced it. In retrospect, we should have probably taken it to be looked at, but we never did. Today our experience feels like an incredible blessing.

I have mentioned here that, because of my disabilities, we have a placard we place in the front window of our car that allows us to park in a number of places in Manhattan that would otherwise be zones prohibited for parking. It has, to say the least, been a godsend, making both fun activities and necessary errands (MRIs at Memorial and such) a good deal less stressful. Writing this now prompted me to go back into my files to see just how long ago we first applied: 2007. We received the first placard in mid December of that year, and every year since we receive a renewal notice about a month before it expires. We provide information and they send us a new placard with instructions for returning the expired one.

In May of this year we bought a new car. This required an update, because the placard is specific to the car. We sent in all the appropriate paperwork once we had our new license number, received a new placard, and again sent back the old one. We just assumed that now that we had received a new placard in May, it would be valid for 12 months and expire this May.

Ah, the devil is in the details! Barry just happened to notice that, in fact, the placard expired at the end of 2014! The placards are a different color each year, so this is quite noticeable for anyone who might be looking. Yikes! But between the rough winter, St. John, and being sick, we really have not gone into the City very much this year. I called but they said I simply had to “renew” my current placard. There is a web site for this that allows the user to check on the status, and you can be sure I was checking every day. After a couple of days it said that it was being processed. Okay, good, they have it. And then a couple of days ago I went to the web site and saw:

Application Number	Application Date	Application Type	Status
1299775	March 03, 2015	City-Renewal Application	Completed

The placard arrived in the mail yesterday, and you can be sure it is sitting in the car, safely in its spot in the front windshield. And the old one is in an envelope ready to mail back in.

We saw a film today called “Deli Man.” The film looks at the history and current state of Jewish delicatessens in the United States. The film focuses on David Gruber, known as Ziggy, founder of a New York style delicatessen in Houston. Ziggy’s father and grandfather had both worked in such restaurants in New York. Ziggy planned a career as a top chef and was trained in top rate culinary schools, but after a few years he drifted back to the food and feelings of his childhood, and took on the Houston deli.

There are numerous cameos in the movie, well known folks recalling their younger years at famous New York delicatessens, including Jerry Stiller, Fyvush Finkel, Larry King and the lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

There is nothing heavy here other than the realization that the generations who were enamored of delicatessens have all passed. The film uses computer graphics to demonstrate the fall of delicatessens in the United States. A map full of dots, each representing a delicatessen, has little by little changed to a rather sparsely filled map by the 21^st century.

Have a nice week.

Love,

Rebecca

Too much

I am feeling lately that there has been too much of everything.

First, snow: Boston is all excited because the City has reached the record snowfall for one season: 108.6 inches – over 9 feet of snow! Here is the snowfall (so far) for some select cities:

US States  and Cities	2010 City Population	2014 – 2015 Snowfall Totals	Normal Season at This Time
Syracuse, New York	145,170	116.0	113.1
Worcester, Mass	181,045	115.6	56.5
Lowell, MA	106,519	114.5	46.3
Buffalo, New York	261,310	109.3	86.4
Boston, Mass	617,594	108.6	38.7
Rochester, New York	210,565	96.1	88.8
New York, New York(Central Park)	8,175,133	42.5	23.9

I included Rochester because that is where Barry and I met and lived for eight years. We still talk about that snow! Clearly, in New York we have had only a fraction of the record Boston snowfall, but getting around has been even more difficult for me than usual. I noticed this morning that I have barely used any of the oxygen tanks from the last delivery.

Second, low temperatures: it has been too cold! The frigid temperatures make breathing a challenge. When Barry goes out to clear even a small area of snow, he becomes short of breath, and I keep telling him that now he can feel how I feel pretty much all the time.

Third, too many senseless killings all over the world. The shootings in New York and other cities and the ongoing hostilities throughout the Middle East are bad enough. But the terrorists (perhaps lunatics is a better word) who will maim and murder anyone who chooses not to follow their particular path leaves me quite afraid. It is simply exhausting to hear of it day after day, week after week, month after month. We may not have to worry about climate change making the planet uninhabitable because there may not be any life here by the time that would happen.  

I have to get out of this thinking, and where better to focus my energy than on Passover preparations? First, we discovered that, not too far from here are two stores we never knew existed anywhere near Riverdale: TraderJoe’s and Amazing Savings (both presumably relatively new).  Shopping at TJ’s in Manhattan is an experience in and of itself. It is unbelievably crowded with a very long line at the check-out. But because few shoppers have a car, and are far too trendy to use what some New Yorkers call “Bubbie carts,” they cannot buy more than they can carry; hence the line moves quickly. The Westchester TJ’s is significantly more civilized.

Before yesterday, our annual Passover shopping at Amazing Savings had involved a trip to either Monsey (an hour north of the city) or Cedarhurst (on Long Island). It is a great place to buy foil pans and really nice paper or plastic disposable plates, but these two stores are incredibly crowded and I always leave there with a headache. What a pleasure to find this store in Westchester – we hope it is there to stay!

So we will be driving a very full car up to Sharon before the holiday. This will be the first year in a while that the Rosenstein 11 (not to be confused with Oceans 11) will all be together for the Sedarim. We plan to have one at each of our daughter’s homes, and then we will make our traditional Passover Pizza and eat cake (chocolate, of course) and sing “Happy Birthday” to Simmie for lunch the second day. Remembering Simmie’s humble beginnings, having been born 12 weeks prematurely on the second day of Passover, is always a good opportunity to stop and appreciate all the blessings we have had.

The one thing I never feel I can purchase in sufficient quantity is holiday clothing for the children. It has been a bit of a challenge this year because the two older girls are in a size range that is more limited than the little girls clothing. Teenage girls are not usually looking for simple, nice dresses. I spent a lot of time looking around on the internet and have ordered quite a bit, so I am looking forward to the upcoming fashion show. Even though Julia has plenty of hand-me-downs, I could not resist getting her some new outfits as well. Of course I am not necessarily expecting them to wear any of this for Passover; it will almost assuredly be too cold and we will remain in our winter clothes.

I know I have mentioned, and those of you who have seen me have certainly commented, that I lost a fair amount of weight during chemotherapy. All my doctors keep after me not to lose any more, and I have been able to stay quite stable. During the spring and summer of 2013, the first year after I finished treatment and lost all that weight, I essentially had to start from scratch and buy a new wardrobe. But I was nervous to spend much because I had no way of knowing whether the weight would come back. Well, it has been 3 years now and I seem to be doing a good job keeping it off, so I decided that this year I could invest a bit more in clothing. After all, I don’t go out all that often so nothing gets worn very much. My goal has been to find things that I really like, nice colors, nice fabrics, and focus on having more interesting things in my closet. So I have not just been shopping for the girls, I have also bought some things for myself, and that has been fun. It helps me look forward to the nice weather which is hopefully ahead.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Rebecca

π Day

First, a trip down memory lane to high school mathematics:

The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Although commonly approximated as 3.14159, it has been represented by the Greek letter "π" (pi, pronounced pie) since the mid-18th century.

π is an irrational number, meaning it cannot be expressed exactly as a common fraction. Consequently its decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern. Also, π is a transcendental number – a number that is not the root of any non-zero polynomial having rational coefficients. This transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straightedge.

Here are the first 40 digits of π:

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197

Tomorrow is

March (3)

Fourteenth (14)

Twenty fifteen (15)

26 minutes and 53 seconds after 9 (both am and pm) will be the perfect time to enjoy a piece of π.

(Yes, you can round up and begin the celebration at 9:26:54!)

Thanks to my friend and former Pfizer colleague Guy for first bringing this to my attention and reminding me of it every year!

Here is a fun question: when is the next time we will be able to celebrate a pi day? It looks like the next time we can go as many digits as this year will be on March 14^th of (2)159 at 9:26:53. Unfortunately I do not think any of us will be here to celebrate. But if anyone is reading my archived blog, I hope you are having a wonderful day.

Have a relaxing weekend!

Love,

Rebecca

Ultimate in Legos for girls

I have written before about the Lego kits we have bought for our grandchildren. The ones designed for girls are filled with pink and purple and flowers and puppies and all sorts of things that little girls love. Still, the same skills are required to put these kits together as the original kits, so we have bought quite a few of them.  

I was so excited when I came across this: Lego figurines of the three current and one past female members of the Supreme Court of the United States.

For 192 years, until 1981, the constitutionality of United States law was decided by men alone. In that year, President Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She served until 2006. Three women, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993), Sonia Sotomayor (2009), and Elena Kagan (2010) have since joined and continue to serve on the Court. 

Unfortunately, at this time the Lego set is not available for purchase. It was submitted to LEGO Ideas, but was rejected by the company for going against their "no politics or political symbols" rule. If they ever change their minds, I can promise you we will be the first to order it!

We were up in Sharon for the weekend. We had a fun Purim holiday, a terrific meal, and a lovely Shabbat. The only downside was that Ella was under the weather and was unable to join in all the festivities. But by the weekend she was back to her usual self and we had some time with her. Then, as planned, we spent Sunday preparing the apartment for Passover. It is still four weeks away, but this was our best opportunity to take a couple of days to focus on that activity. We will be in New York the next few weeks, so it works well.

Barry was a bit under the weather so we stayed up in Sharon until early this morning, and then made our way back to New York. Shortly after we arrived home and plugged in our laptops, Barry received some wonderful news.

Barry had submitted a grant proposal to the Prostate Cancer Research Program of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, and he found out this morning that his project is going to be funded. Many of you may not be aware but these are incredibly difficult times for basic research, with far less funding available than in the past. At one time, 25-30% of grant applications were approved and funded; now that number is fewer than 10%. This was not Barry’s first attempt to obtain funding for this project, which is the result of years of federally funded research work. This was especially frustrating because that work is now coming close to yielding results that will help doctors and patients determine the best treatment for their particular tumors. It would be a great shame to have to abandon it now. So we are thrilled that, at least for the next three years, he will be able to keep it going.

And it is a bit warmer outside!

Love,

Rebecca

Good news!

No change in the MRI! We can put this out of our minds for another 6 months.

Love,

Rebecca

Catching up on reading

I suddenly remembered today that I never wrote about the audio versions of two books, each recorded by the author, to which Barry and I listened during our trip to St. John. No Tolstoy or Shakespeare here, just light “beach reading.”

On the flight to St. Thomas we began listening to Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan. Neither of us was all that familiar with Jim Gaffigan but we had read and heard that the book was enjoyable. From the start I will say that one of the most appealing things about him is that he wholeheartedly resists the temptation common among popular comics to use off-color language. I often think that comics use offensive language for its shock value, helping the audience forget that what they have to say is not really all that humorous. Of course, just the title of Mr. Gaffigan’s book tells you that he is writing about parenthood. He and his wife had five children between two and ten years of age squeezed into a two-bedroom five-story walk-up in Manhattan. They needed to learn to laugh or they might have done some harm to themselves or others. Did we really believe all of his stories? Of course not. But they were told with good humor and were perfect vacation reading.

Once we arrived in St. John we toggled our listening between Dad is Fat and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling. We have become familiar with Ms. Kaling from her series The Mindy Project which is in its second year on Fox TV. Until reading her book, I was largely unaware of her earlier career, in part because I was never too fond of the NBC series, The Office, a show on which she was a cast member from 2005 to 2013. She is bright and funny and quite charming, all of which she might do even better if she took a cue from Jim Gaffigan and cleaned up her language a bit. Actually when I hear her use or read her written off-color language, I am always a bit surprised because it feels somehow out of character.

We had a nice but very cold weekend. We did manage to walk to synagogue on Saturday, and had invited friends to join us for lunch so we had a nice afternoon. We had hoped to go out on Sunday but (again) the snow started falling in the morning, another 6” or so before it stopped in the afternoon. So we had a quiet day at home, and while Barry worked I decided to bake some hammantaschen, the filled triangle-shaped cookies traditional for the upcoming Purim holiday.

Since we were not able to get out yesterday, we went instead this evening to see a movie, “Two Days, One Night.” This movie received quite stellar reviews, including A.O. Scott of the New York Times and a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. My hesitation was the fact that the movie is in French, but feeling buoyed by seeing a Hebrew language film last week, I decided it was worth a try.

The film is about a young family, parents Sandra and Manu and their two children, struggling with both financial and psychiatric problems. Sandra has just been discharged from a hospitalization for depression. Unfortunately, she returns to the small solar energy company where she had worked only to be told that she will be laid off. It seems that the management had offered the employees a choice: they would either maintain the current staff at current salaries, or, if they agreed that one of them (Sandra) would be laid off, they would provide the workers a long-promised bonus of $1000 euros. Sandra and a couple of co-workers appeal to them to allow the employees to vote again. The two days and one night was the time that Sandra had to try to convince all of her coworkers to support her continued employment. While most were sympathetic, many had their own financial woes and were just one small step from living off the government. The vote resulted in a tie, and the company decided that Sandra must be laid off. At the end, they made her an offer: if she waited a couple of months, they would not renew someone who was in a contract position and she could take that job. It happens that the contract worker had really gone out on a limb for her, and she was unwilling to accept that offer. But along the way she found that perhaps she had more inner strength and reserve than she thought, and somehow you just know at the end that she will land on her feet.

I may not have gotten all of those details completely correct, but hopefully I have provided the gist of it. It was an extremely well done and acted film, simple but very moving. I am not sure just how realistic the scenario is in France, but it still made for a thought-provoking tale.

It is hard to believe it has been six months since my last visit to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. First thing tomorrow we head down for the MRI, followed by a visit with Dr. DeAngelis. Good thoughts are welcome!

Love,

Rebecca