My blogging history:
2012: diagnosed with and underwent treatment for Primary CNS lymphoma in my brain.
2012-2013: blogged on Caring Bridge.
2013: moved to Blogger.
2017: diagnosed with bladder cancer and blogged through 14 chemotherapy treatments and 37 sessions of radiation therapy, each with its own t-shirt and musical selection.
2018 to February 2020: Treated every 3 weeks with pembrolizumab for spread of bladder cancer to lymph nodes. As of June 2020, continue to be cancer free.
In November of 2015 I
wrote about the murder of Ezra Schwartz, A”H, a native of Sharon, Massachusetts
who was spending his post-high school year in Israel and was brutally murdered
by a Palestinian terrorist.
Yesterday, Ezra’s
mother spoke at the United Nations. I do not know her well but she strikes me
as someone who absolutely never craved this sort of visibility yet has found
the strength to speak truth to power, and we should all admire her immensely. (be patient through the couple of ads at the beginning)
In 2001, Jennifer
Lopez and Matthew McConaughey starred in “The Wedding Planner,” a romantic
comedy. Needless to say, this is not to be confused with a newly released
Israeli film called “The Wedding Plan,” which we saw this week.
Meanwhile, Michal is
determined to continue planning her wedding for the last day of Chanukah, and
sets out to find a groom. She “interviews” numerous clearly inappropriate
candidates, including one who refuses to look at her on the theory that if he
only looks at the woman he marries, she’ll be the most beautiful woman in the
world to him. She even joins a pilgrimage to the Ukraine, where she shares a
brief flirtation with a nonreligious pop star, but it seems clear that there is
no future with him. As the days count down to the end of Chanukah, the
possibility of her marriage seems quite dim. Yet she dons her wedding gown, the
guests arrive, and she sits and waits.
I do not want to give
away the ending here. It is a charming and enjoyable film worth seeing. I only
wish that reading those subtitles were not such a struggle for me!
Speaking of movies,
here is an adorable short video of our little Noah being entertained by his
older siblings.
I am writing these opening words on Friday afternoon, May 19th.
As is my practice, I compose in Microsoft Word, and save each posting with the
date of its creation. But this one I am saving as “21 May 2017.doc,” because I
do not intend to post this until Sunday.
The reason for the delay is to avoid publicizing the fact
that I am here in New York by myself for this weekend. Barry is attending a
meeting in Ann Arbor. If travel were not so challenging, I would certainly have
gone with him. But he will be completely engaged in the conference today and
tomorrow, and my limitations would essentially mean that I would be cooped up
in a room at the University of Michigan Executive Learning and Conference Center.
Staying here at home made a lot more sense.
The main downside of all this is that it would have been
nice to be in Sharon, because Friday was Yom
Orchim, Grandparents’ Day, at the children’s school. I could have tried to
go up to Sharon on my own, but after a hectic weekend last week and plans to go
up again next weekend for Shavuot
(literally, “Weeks,” as it comes seven weeks after Passover following a daily
count), it seemed wise to stay here.
I might have tried to make plans with friends but I cannot
really go out because we have concluded that the battery in my mobility scooter
has died. Ordinarily, the display shows a string of green lights when the battery
is fully charged, and the scooter can be operated for many trips before those
lights start going out. But each of the last few times I have fully charged and
then driven the scooter, the battery lights began to extinguish into the yellow
zone when I have barely gotten half way to the synagogue. So far, I have been
lucky not to find myself stranded somewhere along Arlington Avenue returning
from a weekday class. We have ordered a new battery which is supposed to arrive
this week, and are hopeful that this will solve the problem.
During the past two weeks, the annual Teachers Tournament has
aired on Jeopardy. We had been dutifully watching every evening and did not
want to miss watching the last two games together. Originally, I figured we
would just TiVo the show (which we do anyway so we can fast-forward through the
commercials) and watch when Barry returned from Michigan. But instead we
thought, “why not just watch together in our different locations?” That turned
to be just a bit tricky because Jeopardy is syndicated and shown at different
times on different networks in different cities. I went ahead and taped it here
in New York, where it is on at 7:00 pm, and then Barry and I got on our
respective speaker phones when it came on in Detroit at 7:30. It was a bit
tricky getting the New York recorded version started precisely at the same
moment as the live broadcast in Michigan, so Barry muted his end. I am glad we
were able to watch the last two “together,” but I am happy he will be home for next
Monday’s show.
I was telling our daughter about this over the phone on
Friday afternoon and I could imagine she was rolling her eyes, wondering when
her parents became such boring old fogies. Having said that, I think she may have
also been wondering what it is like to have the time for such things; four
young children do not allow for such luxuries.
Nothing profound here
today, just want to share an especially nice weekend.
We spent a wonderful Shabbat
day with Dina and family, including some of the older children’s friends. On
Sunday, Eliana was invited to a Bat Mitzvah party at Dave and Busters, an
entertainment arcade at the South Shore Plaza Mall in Braintree. To be honest,
I was happy to wait in the car while Barry escorted Eliana into this place and
later went in to retrieve her!
After Eliana was
settled we went with Maya to Build-a-Bear, where she picked out a stuffed dog
and some accoutrements.
We then visited the real dogs at the pet store next
door, and stopped in at the Lego store as well, where we bought a project for
Maya’s week in New York this summer. Before
we knew it, it was time to pick up Eliana.
While we were with
the girls, their folks had a nice day including lunch at a vegetarian
restaurant called Pure Cold Press and a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston. Our little apple did not fall too far from the tree, did she?
Back in Sharon, we
all gathered for dinner at Dina and Aaron’s house, one of those rare
opportunities to at least try to get all six grandchildren into one picture.
It looks like the
warm weather is finally on its way – I even called this morning to arrange for
our annual air conditioning check-up. Enjoy!
Our surname has been much
in the news in recent days, as it is shared with a fellow who was recently
confirmed as the Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of
Justice, Rod J. Rosenstein. As you know, our family pronounces the name as if
it were spelled RosenstEEn.
Apparently, this fellow’s family uses the other pronunciation, RosenstINE. At 33:32 in the attached
video, you can see Mr. Rosenstein stating his name for the Senate Committee
considering his nomination. Given his current headaches, I am quite happy that we
are not, to the best of our knowledge, related to this Rosenstein!
With all the different
versions of the same set of events in Washington, DC floating around over the
last few days, I could not help but be reminded of the famous story of the
capital city’s namesake, George Washington, and his father’s cherry tree. We
all grew up listening to that story as a shining example of the value of
honesty. It turns out that the story is simply not true: young George never chopped
down that tree. But that does not change the moral of the story, and right now
a little straightforward honesty would be quite welcome.
This Sunday was the annual New York City Five Boro Bike
Tour, so about the last thing we wanted to do was drive anywhere in those five
boroughs! Barry spent the morning and early afternoon working on upcoming
lectures, and when he finished we headed to a small theater in White Plains to
see “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer.”
Norman Oppenheimer, played by Richard Gere, is a New Yorker
who dreams up financial schemes and maneuvers himself into the lives of the
rich and famous, an example of networking run amok. Along the way, he meets Micha
Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), a charismatic Israeli politician to whom he gives an
expensive pair of shoes that ensure Eshel’s lifelong devotion to him. Three
years later, Eshel is elected Prime Minister of Israel. Oppenheimer’s attempt
to use his friend’s name to enhance his own deals does not go quite as planned,
so the intricate web of connections and lies begins to unravel around him.
Definitely worth
seeing if you have a chance.
A bit of levity (thanks to my friend Orah for posting this on Facebook) seems appropriate as good has prevailed over evil in France:
After careful planning, a thief in Paris entered the Louvre, got past security, stole some paintings, and made it safely to his van.
However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.
When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied, 'Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings.' 'I had no Monet to buy Degasto make the Van Gogh.'
Do you have De Gaulle to send this on to someone else? I posted it here because I figured I hadnothing Toulouse.
Finally, I try very hard to stay away from politics on this blog, but over the past few days I have been repeatedly reminded of two things our beloved Rabbi Avi Weiss often says:
1.There are only two categories of
people, the sick, and the not yet sick
2.The best measure of a society is how it
treats its weakest members (variations on this have been penned by politicians,
clergy, and others)
It has been a busy
week and a half, with routine medical appointments and still trying to catch up
from having been sick for a while. But we have managed to squeeze in some fun.
Last Sunday we went
to Film Forum to catch “Le Doulos” (The Finger Man), a 1962 film screening as
part of a Jean-Pierre Melville retrospective. I am still struggling with
reading so keeping up with the subtitles was not easy. In addition, it was
often the case that both the screen and the lettering were white, which makes
it nearly impossible to see. Hence, to be honest, I barely knew what was going
on, so I will share this brief summary I later read about the movie, which
makes a lot more sense now that I’ve read this. You can find more detailed
descriptions on line if you are interested.
Maurice Faugel has just
been released from prison when he kills his friend Gilbert Varnove. Maurice
then attempts to commit a robbery. The police appear and he tries to run but
the police shoot at him and he is wounded. He loses consciousness and awakes in
his friend Jean's apartment. He believes that his friend Silien (played by
Jean-Pierre Belmondo, the only actor with whom I was familiar) told the police
about his plans because Silien is rumored to be a police informant. Silien is
questioned by the police about the murder of Gilbert and the robbery before the
police collect Maurice from a bar where he is reading a newspaper report about
his girlfriend, Therese's death. Therese has been found in her car at the
bottom of a quarry. Silien is released and goes to meet his ex-girlfriend
Fabienne. With Fabienne's help, Silien frames someone else for the murder and
robbery, leaving Maurice in the clear. Maurice is released from prison and
discovers that it was Therese who told the police about the robbery and Silien
and Jean who killed her. Maurice reveals that he killed Gilbert because Gilbert
killed his girlfriend Arlette four years ago to keep her quiet. Silien returns
home but once Silien has left, Maurice remembers that he hired a man to kill
Silien because he thought he had betrayed him and chases after him.
So basically, this
movie went from one murder to another, with the star, Jean-Pierre Belmondo,
dying in the final scene (he had shot his killer, who managed to fire that fatal
bullet at him before his final collapse). This really was quite a dark view of
the world, probably best not taken too seriously.
A couple of months
ago we had tickets for a New York Philharmonic concert in David Geffen (formerly
Avery Fisher) Hall at Lincoln Center that we were unable to attend, and were
able to exchange them for another concert this week. There were just two pieces on the program. The
first was a piece by Arnold Schoenberg, “A Survivor from Warsaw.” I am
including here the program notes as well as the text of the piece. The notes
tell of his conversion to Lutheranism in his early 20s and his return to
Judaism in his late 50s following the Nazis’ rise to power in 1932. While I
have to admit that Schoenberg’s music does not comfortably find a way into my
ears, this was a very compelling performance.
The second piece was Beethoven’s Symphony #9 in D minor. Most of us who grew up in the United States in the 1960s are familiar with the second movement of this piece, which was the “theme” for the NBC Nightly News with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. And then there is the very famous 4th movement, commonly known as “Ode to Joy.” I have attached recorded versions of both here, as well as the text of the 2nd and 4th movements.
There was a huge orchestra and chorus on the stage, and all in all it was quite an experience to see this performance. This composition was quite an accomplishment, especially when you remind yourself that Beethoven was deaf when he wrote it! If you ever happen to have a chance to see it performed, I would highly encourage you to do so.
We are expecting a lot of rain here in New York over the next few days. We have some friends coming to join us for lunch tomorrow who fortunately live near by.
