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.
This was posted on Facebook by the Striar Hebrew Academy of
Sharon, where our granddaughter Ella is a graduating fifth grade student:
Mazel tov to Ella Saks for receiving this
year's Rose Ruderman Scholars Award. Thank you to The Ruderman Family Foundation for this beautiful acknowledgement of the
works of chesed and communal engagement of our children.
Mazal Tov Ella! They could not have selected a more
deserving awardee. May your intelligence, kindness, and beautiful smile take
you from strength to strength.
During the 1984-1985 season, comedian/actor Billy Crystal starred
in a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in which he hosted a talk show
called “Fernando’s Hideaway.” The skit was a parody of Fernando Lamas, a fairly
well known Argentine-Americanactor and director. “Fernando”
would interview various celebrities, each of whom he would tell that they “look
mahvelous.” The interviews would
frequently end with what became an oft quoted line, “it is better to look good
than to feel good and you look mahvelous!”
Until reading about this today, more
than thirty years later, I had never realized that “Fernando's Hideaway” was
entirely improvised; neither the famous guests nor the writers knew what Mr. Crystal
would ask during the interviews. Mostly, he just tried to make everyone laugh, which
was, after all, the main goal of Saturday Night Live!
I was reminded of that great line yesterday when someone
said something to me that I seem to hear fairly frequently lately, “you look
terrific.” This is not a line I ever heard before the past couple of years, and
I am still not quite sure what to make of it.
I have never spent a lot of time fretting about my less than
stellar physique. In high school, my mother assured me that the smart boys
would want to marry a smart girl, and at least I had modest academic success. During
most of my adult life (before cancer) I was somewhat overweight. I do not wear
makeup, and have never been a fashion trendsetter. So it is a bit unnerving to
have people comment on my looks.
The other piece of this that is puzzling perhaps provides a
light in which to interpret these compliments. In movies and on television
shows, a good way to communicate the idea that a character is at death’s door
is to stick a nasal cannula on him or her. That may well be how people react to
this in real life. Perhaps those folks who feel compelled to assure me that I
look “terrific” are simply expressing encouragement that they do not see the
end as anywhere near. And with more than twenty years of smachot (happy occasions) ahead, I do hope their optimism is well
founded.
Meanwhile, I am grateful for a house with central air
conditioning. This extreme heat makes breathing difficult for everyone!
We had quite a busy week
in Sharon. All twelve of us gathered for a Memorial Day Barbeque for which Barry
had bought an especially large and succulent steak for our wonderful carnivore
daughter Dina, who likes her meat just barely warm, and posted this on her
Facebook page.
We had a lovely Shavuot on Wednesday and Thursday. Almost every year, our whole family gathers for lunch on the second day, which this year was the 20th anniversary of Barry’s father’s passing. We feasted on fruit soup, blintzes (Simmie made potato and I made cheese, of course), vegetable quiche, and an assortment of interesting salads Dina prepared. Then of course we had cheesecake – the same one I have made, with few exceptions, every year for decades. I do enjoy Pesach but Shavuot is hands down my favorite holiday for food!
On Sunday morning, we accompanied Maya to an exhibition of work from one of her art classes. Among other things, the students had done a project using popsicle sticks and clay to construct a replica of the famous foot bridge in Giverny that Money used in his paintings of water lilies. I must say (completely unbiased) that Maya’s was quite impressive.
After the art show, Simmie and I headed up to Newton (a suburb of Boston) with Eliana and Ella to look for an outfit for Eliana to wear at her Bat Mitzvah celebration in the fall. A few of Simmie’s friends had recommended two shops about a mile from each other, and we found something at the first but decided to check out the second before making the purchase. That turned out to be a good choice because the latter store had more dresses that fit the bill. We ended up finding two that were very nice, and figuring she would need clothing for friends’ parties, I convinced Simmie to let me buy her both. This is what Nanas are for, right?
We saw an excellent movie, “The Women’s Balcony.” The movie is in Hebrew with English subtitles. I still struggle with keeping up with reading subtitles, and my Hebrew is not good enough to understand the dialogue without them, so it was a bit of a struggle, but I think I understood most of it.
For those of you who are not familiar, in traditional Orthodox synagogues, men and women sit in separate sections. Sometimes the two sections are on two sides, sometimes front and back, and sometimes the women’s section will be in a balcony. The movie begins with the celebration of a Bar Mitzvah, when a boy reaches age thirteen and begins his responsibilities as a Jewish adult. In the middle of services at the community synagogue, the unthinkable happens and the balcony collapses. Although no lives are lost, the aging Rebbitzen (wife of the Synagogue Rabbi) is left in a coma, which in turn leads the Rabbi to something of a mental breakdown. A young rabbi named David appears on the scene and offers to help lead the congregation as they rebuild and restart.
Rabbi David seems like a nice enough fellow but it quickly becomes clear that he follows rather strict traditional interpretations involving the role of women in synagogue life. This fact, combined with the community’s limited financial resources, leads to a growing rift that even has an impact on the marriages of some of the couples themselves.
Watching the movie, I really was not quite sure how it would end. I do not want to ruin it for those of you who might want to see the film, which you should do if you have the chance.
Lately I have been feeling overwhelmed by the news. In my
earlier life, I lacked either intense interest or adequate time to watch or
read a great deal. But now that I have more time I seem to have developed more
interest. Since reading remains something of a struggle, television is a major
source of information for me. But I am learning that there is a distinct
downside to this obsession with current events, one that perhaps on some level
I knew all along: much of the news is focused on human misery. And because
things can only happen so quickly, much of the news is repetitive, which only
serves to make things seem more miserable than they already are. Having said
that, between the things we do to each other and the things that just happen to
us by virtue of being human and living on this planet, there is no lack of sad
news even without repetition.
At the end of the day, we humans cannot entirely escape
sadness. We awoke yesterday to the news of the death of Gregg Allman on
Saturday at the age of 69. I last wrote about The Allman Brothers Band in March
of 2014, when we saw one of their final spring shows at The Beacon Theater in
New York (they later performed their last Beacon gig in October of that year). The
cause of Gregg’s death was liver cancer. After years of hard living, he had
undergone a liver transplant in 2010, and from some of what I have been able to
read this morning it seems that liver cancer is not uncommon in transplant
recipients. Far be it from me to blame the victim: I am just sad that this
talented performer is no longer.
Jon Pareles of the New York Times provided his top ten list
of Gregg Allman songs:
Meanwhile, a much less upsetting loss was the 5-0 game that the Boston Red Sox lost to the Seattle Mariners. We were there at Fenway Park, where we remained until the very last pitch with the hope that somehow, miracle against miracle, the Red Sox would score. What is really amazing to me is that it does not seem to matter that Fenway Park is over 100 years old and that the Red Sox are not doing all that well: the fans flock to see them! It is quite a different experience from CitiField. The access, parking, and facilities are woefully inadequate by today’s standards; I was able to make use of a restroom near our seats for people with disabilities and mothers with babies, but the boys had to walk up two flights of stairs just to relieve themselves. It was far from a beautiful day, rather gray and chilly, but every seat was taken. I guess the Red Sox has a very loyal fan base.
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.
