Everything's coming up roses

What a glorious weekend here in the northeast!  The high temperatures were in the low 80s with minimal humidity and barely a cloud to be seen in the clear blue sky. After synagogue we chatted with friends outside for a while before heading home, and spent much of the afternoon sitting on our back porch.

We woke up yesterday to another glorious day and headed over to the NY Botanical Garden for the annual Rose Garden Celebration. Early June is the peak time for the thousands (maybe millions?) of roses, and it is a sight to behold. There was also other activity, including a piece loosely based on Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass performed by a small dance troupe, Jennifer Muller/The Works. The NYBG web page told that “the troupe, now in its 39th year, applies a multi-disciplinary technique that weaves dance, theater and visual arts to create dances that celebrate and illuminate the human spirit.” It was the first time that Barry and I could remember ever seeing a dance troupe performance. Maybe it was just the magnificent setting or the perfect day, but we were surprised at how much we both enjoyed it.

I really wish we had the children with us to pose for this one - a great picture frame:

  

And here is a little music to go along with the roses:

All that beautiful sun has given way to rain, so I am back inside in our little office once again. We have tickets to see The New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Yefim Bronfman play Beethoven’s Piano Concertos #1 and #4 at Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center) Wednesday evening. They are doing a series of all five piano concertos but this was the only one that worked for us.

Have a good week and stay out of the rain!

Love,

Rebecca

Aging baby boomers

We had a wonderful holiday with our family. The weather was not as nice as we would have liked, but the food was fantastic, first day at Dina’s and second day at Simmie’s. My cheesecake seemed to be a big hit. I just hope no one is having cholesterol levels checked this week.

We had to come back to New York early this morning because Barry had meetings he had to attend in person. We stopped briefly along I-95 in Connecticut to use the facilities and purchase drinks. While we were there, the PA system was playing ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man.” We saw them perform once years ago, and when I am in the right mood I still enjoy their music. But I was scratching my head hearing this at a highway rest stop. Who listens to ZZ Top? Is this something families are playing for their children? Rest stops along the highway are filled with families and children of all ages. Here are the lyrics and a video of the band:

Clean shirt, new shoes

And I don't know what I am gonna do.

Silk suit, black tie,

I don't need a reason why.

They come runnin' just as fast as they can

'Cause every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

Gold watch, diamond ring,

I ain't missin' not a single thing.

Cuff-links, stick pin

When I step out I'm gonna do you in.

They come a runnin' just as fast as they can

'Cause every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

Top coat, top hat,

And I don't worry cause my wallet’s fat.

Black shades, white gloves,

Lookin' sharp, lookin' for love.

They come runnin' just as fast as they can

'Cause every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

The best I can say is that these lyrics are virtually impossible to comprehend from listening to the song, so that the message and the fact that they are clobbering the English language is likely lost on the majority of listeners. Truth be told, I never knew many of the lyrics until looking it up today.

We baby boomers have a pretty self-centered view of the world. While it is true that many movies and television shows target a younger audience (although so few of the target audience actually watch TV the way people used to), we are accustomed to calling the shots. But as we age we will inevitably lose that control, and I doubt this will go down too easily. One of the things I have started to ponder lately is that, sooner or later, not only will we be retired, but many of our doctors, lawyers, accountants and financial advisors, who are generally our age, may also retire. Then what? We will be a bunch of old people being treated or advised by strangers who are “kids.” They will never even have heard of ZZ Top! A few years ago, when I was looking for a new internist, just by luck I ended up with someone quite a bit younger. I guess I am now counting on her to provide some continuity in my medical care over the coming years, and I hope that the other professionals with whom we work will bring in younger folks to help ensure a transition plan is in place. Still, it is a bit unsettling to have spent all these years establishing a comfortable network of people to guide us through all these things only to have to rebuild it as we enter this next phase.

Even though we just completed a two-day holiday, I am headed back to the kitchen to prepare for Shabbat. At least the weather forecast for these next few days is glorious.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Rebecca

Good advice?

A month or so ago my pulmonologist suggested that I try Spiriva (tiotropium bromide). Spiriva has been on the market for about ten years. Boehringer Engelheim had partnered with Pfizer on the development and marketing of this product, and it was one of the drugs to which I was assigned for a while. Even at the time I was already struggling with pulmonary disease, although I was not using oxygen full time and kept my condition mostly to myself. I can still remember hearing discussions about levels of FEV₁ in the 25% range and having some of the physicians regard this as practically being at death’s door. By then my FEV₁ was below that, but there I was travelling to Germany for meetings!

Over the years I have tried many different inhaled medications for COPD, and none have been particularly helpful; if anything, using them would bring on terrible fits of coughing. I was never prescribed Spiriva until about a month ago, when my pulmonologist suggested it might be worth a try, although those commercials with the elephant sitting on the woman’s chest really do not work for me. To be honest, I did not remember anything about side effects and did not read the package insert before beginning therapy. But within a few days I started experiencing dry mouth. Barry and I went on line and read that rinsing the mouth after use might help. We also read suggestions to use Biotene. So I did those things, but it is still a troublesome side effect. So today I sat down to read a bit more, and I found a most curious item in the list of suggestions for handling dry mouth:

Avoid tobacco and alcohol, as these substances can also dry out the mouth.

Tobacco? You mean to tell me that Spiriva is a reason for a patient with pulmonary disease to avoid tobacco?

That one surely left me scratching my head!

Love,

Rebecca

All good things must come to an end

This is the phrase that came to mind during Finial Jeopardy this evening. I did not know its origin, so I looked on-line and found that Geoffrey Chaucer penned the phrase in his poem titled "Troilus and Criseyde," completed in the mid-1380s.

Julia did not quite seem at the top of her game this evening. But that in no way detracts from her wonderful accomplishment over the past four weeks. We will miss her sweet smile and calm manner, and look forward to seeing her on future “Jeopardy Tournaments of Champions.”

Love,

Rebecca

Take me out from the ballgame?

We had a nice Sabbath, saw quite a few friends at synagogue and spent a quiet afternoon at home. We ate our lunch outside but by mid-afternoon the skies began to darken and eventually it started to rain, so we had to retreat indoors.

I am beginning to think that I am bad luck to our baseball teams. Although the Mets did win that last game we attended, they only won after we left. Today we headed to Yankee Stadium for a day game against The Minnesota Twins. Yankee Stadium is very close to our house, but we had never been there so we left plenty early to have time to figure out where to park and orient ourselves around the area. Because it is a “city” stadium in a very congested area, the parking is not nearly as straightforward as at CitiField where the Mets play. We were somewhat surprised by the number of cars when we arrived 1½ hours before the game. We found our way to the handicap entrance and then to the section where our seats were located. What was extremely odd was that, although we had purchased an accessible seat and the row was “labeled” as accessible (with the usual symbol),

the only way to get to that row was to walk up 4 steps!  Fortunately I can do this, but we are still scratching our heads about the little picture of a wheelchair next to a flight of stairs. Then we had to spend time trying to find out what to do with the wheelchair, because there were few attendants and the first two we asked had no idea how to handle this. Finally we were shown an area within our view where we could leave the chair. All in all, I am sad to say they did not earn high marks for handicap services.

It does leave me wondering whether the management of the park would prefer not to see people with disabilities there at all (hence my header). Seeing someone with oxygen in a wheelchair may strike some people as their worst nightmare. Certainly if I could turn all this around, I would. But I am glad that there are at least enough people out there who are willing to accommodate those of us who have challenges and make available disability seating and parking so that we are not imprisoned in our houses. But back to the game….

After a little excitement early on, including the Twins scoring one run in the 3^rd inning and the Yankees scoring two runs in the 4^th, neither team scored any more until the top of the 9^th when the Twins scored 6 runs - yes, you read that correctly, 6 runs! We saw no point sitting through the bottom of the ninth, and by the time we got to the car and turned on the radio, the game was over, final score Twins 7 and Yankees 2.  So you can see why I am beginning to think I should stay away from baseball games. In fact, recently the Mets have been doing pretty well without me there. We have tickets for a Mets game when Joshua will be visiting us later this summer, and we have 2 tickets for another Yankees game given to us by a friend who has season tickets and cannot use one of the days Joshua will be with us; Barry and Joshua will use those two tickets. So assuming that I am the source of the bad luck for the New York teams, maybe they will at least see the Yankees win.

I have one other bone to pick with Yankee Stadium. Barry went to buy me some ice cream. I prefer to eat from a dish than a cone because cones can be so messy. But the only “dish” they had was a whole PINT of ice cream. That is 4 servings! Someone please call Morgan Spurlock (of the 2004 movie “Super Size Me”). Even if I could eat that much, I hope I would stop myself from doing it. Of course Barry bought it anyway (because that’s just the kind of guy he is) but needless to say most of it went to the garbage.

We will be heading up to Sharon on Tuesday for Shavuot.  So you all get a break from me for a few days.

Have a wonderful week.

Love,

Rebecca

She won!

Julia Collins Wins 20th Victory On 'Jeopardy!'

What more can I say? It was a real cliff-hanger but we were thrilled when she got that Final Jeopardy and had wagered enough to beat the second place player. Her total winnings are now $428,100.

Go Julia!

Love,

Rebecca

Cheese glorious cheese

And while we are on the topic of food….next week is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, or Weeks, seven to be precise, since Pesach (Passover). This practice is known as Counting the Omer. Traditional Jews actually count the days, one by one, according to a specific formula: today is the 45^th day, and we count by saying a blessing followed by

Today is 45 days, which is 6 weeks and 3 days of the Omer

Barry and I have long had a tradition that we count together each evening. In order to remember, we hang what is known as an Omer Calendar on the door to our bedroom so that we remember each night to stop and do the count. I am forever cognizant of the fact that two years ago this lovely tradition was completely obliterated, so something that we always found a sweet custom has become all that much sweeter now.

There is a strong tradition to eat dairy foods on Shavuot. I wrote about this in a post on May 9^th of last year, but will briefly repeat here. One of the reasons given for this custom is that when the Jewish people received all the instructions at Mount Sinai, they were only first learning about the laws for properly slaughtering cows and preparing meat. They needed some time to get their act together, so meanwhile they ate dairy. So Shavuot is a vegetarian’s delight! Often when people eat Shabbat and holiday meals at our home, they are disappointed not to have the meat or chicken they are accustomed to eating. But on Shavuot, everyone expects cheese blintzes, vegetarian lasagna, and cheesecake. If I say so myself, I do make a mean cheesecake: not heart healthy but really good!

This year our Shavuot will be further enhanced by a friend of our daughters who has been baking and selling challot (the braided bread we eat on Shabbat and holidays) under the name Mandylicious. For Shavuot she is offering three special options:

Gooey Cheese Filled Challah, with Ranch or Marinara (Challzone!)

Cheesecake Challah with Chocolate Dipping Sauce (WOW!)

Cream Cheesy Spinach Artichoke Challah

We are not big artichoke fans but we did order the first two. I suspect we will use these more for dessert than for the meals. But we also have my cheesecake, which will be tough competition.

Before I leave the subject of cheese, here is a commercial for the American Dairy Board that ran frequently in the 1980s. It is great fun just to watch!

Because we will be going to Sharon early next week for Shavuot, we are spending this Shabbat in New York. Shabbat starts this evening at 8:01 pm. It is permitted to begin an hour early and that is our usual custom during the summer. But tonight we will not start until 7:30 so that we can watch Julia Collins play (and hopefully win) her 20^th Jeopardy game, which will put her in 2^nd place for total number of games won after Ken Jennings, who won 74 games (and $2,520,700) back in 2004. You can see here that the statisticians are having a field day with this (note that this plot is cut off after 20 games). 

To see the full piece on this, here is the link.

Julia Collins, winner of 19 games on Jeopardy

Sunday is predicted to be a beautiful spring day and the Yankees are playing a day game. Barry tells me he has never seen a Yankees game, and like Citi Field (formerly Shea Stadium), Yankee Stadium has also been replaced with a newer model. We do live in the Bronx, after all, and our rabbi and his wife are huge Yankees fans, so Barry bought tickets for Sunday. Barry actually has two box seat tickets for a game to which he plans to take Joshua later this summer; these came from a friend who cannot use them. He told me that he wants to learn about the stadium before taking Joshua there in August, but I think the young boy who was an avid baseball fan has come out of hiding!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Rebecca