Looking hard for the silver lining

The Jewish holiday of Passover (Pesach) begins in just a few short hours. Our preparations are complete, so I am able to sit here and think about things.

Unfortunately, thinking about things often involves being overwhelmed by the sorrow of missed opportunities. This year in particular, we are spending the holiday here at our home in Riverdale, without our children and grandchildren. Our younger daughter and her family are spending the first part of the week with her in-laws in Baltimore. Our older daughter will be home in Sharon and we thought about going to her but we have to be in New York before the end of the holiday for my next treatment, and the idea of preparing two houses and kitchens for the holiday was simply overwhelming to me. We have a lot of help with all this in Riverdale because the woman who has been cleaning for us for over twenty years knows the drill. Even with that, it is still a lot of work. To take care of the Sharon apartment for just a few days was simply using energy I do not have.

Tonight, we are spending the first Seder at the home of our friends Judy and Lanny with a few other couples who are in similar situations: their married children are with the in-law families. We have not spent a Seder night with just other couples our age in a very long time. Something I found especially heartwarming was earlier today when Judy told me that they had figured out a seating arrangement that provides me with easy access to the restroom, something that is still a major issue despite numerous medications to ameliorate. Judy is a very special person.

I am going to try to get a little rest this afternoon so I can be awake for this evenings’ festivities. For those of you who are celebrating, have a chag kasher v’sameach!

Love,

Rebecca

First some fun, now some work

We had a lovely weekend. Our family gathered for Shabbat lunch and a couple of Julia’s friends and their families joined us for dessert to celebrate Julia’s fourth birthday. We have bought her a birthday gift but it is waiting for the spring to come: a replacement for their outdoor trampoline which was demolished by a recent blizzard. Pictures to follow.

On Sunday we went with Eliana and Maya to see the movie “A Wrinkle in Time.” It was playing at a theater near Boston that has only “lux level” type seating and accomodations, and the girls loved the comfy seats. Maya had read the book and really wanted to see the movie, so we went despite the mediocre reviews. She said that the movie did a pretty good job of following the story and would have been quite happy to sit there in her big chair and watch it a second time. To be honest, Barry and I were sort of lost, but it was a fascinating visual experience.

Our sons-in-law drove up and met us after the movie: Eliana and Maya went back to Sharon with their dad, and Aaron joined us to go up to Maimonides School for the 2018 Winter Sports Awards presentation. This was supposed to have taken place on a weeknight a few weeks back but had been rescheduled due to a blizzard, so we were able to attend. The biggest highlight for us was Joshua winning the “Most Improved Player” Award for the Boys Middle School Basketball Team. We had no idea he was to be honored, but having watched his development over these past few months I imagine it was a very easy choice for the coaches this year. Here is a picture of our guy going up to receive his award.

The other amazing thing that happened at this event occurred when we first arrived. They were serving a light buffet dinner and we had found some seats at a table and Barry went to get us some food when a couple came and asked if they could share our table. Within moments I realized that I actually knew this couple – he is the (much) younger brother of one of our oldest and dearest friends from our Rochester graduate school days. I am not even quite sure how we made the connection; I did not recognize him or his wife immediately, but it happened very quickly and it was truly a pleasure to see them. Their daughter is on the Maimonides High School girls’ basketball team, which is why they were there. One of the first things I did after we arrived back home on Monday was to call our friends, who live in West Hartford, and she knew right away why I was calling because her brother had texted her from the event and told her that we were also there. Talk about a small world!

I spent this morning doing some Passover baking, and now there are matzah balls boiling while I am writing this. I am trying to pace myself and do a few things each day.

With any luck, we will not be trekking through snow on the holiday!

Love,

Rebecca

It's beginning to look a lot like Pesach

Because we have two kitchens in our house, we have the luxury of starting our preparations for Passover early. So we have pretty much completed that work, and a song that was written by Meredith Willson back in 1951 popped into my head, just begging for a revised version appropriate to this particular situation. I have provided annotations for the Hebrew and holiday-specific words.

It's beginning to look a lot like Pesach¹
Everywhere you go
Take a look in the grocery store, boxes of matzah² galore,
Our houses sparkling clean from head to toe.

It's beginning to look a lot like Pesach
Knaidlach³ in the pot they are a’boil

The chometz⁴ is cleared away, special foods for the day,

Preparation helps remind of ancient toil.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Pesach

Children will ask the questions four⁵

Every family will gather round to the old familiar sound

Of the story of our freedom in days of yore

It's beginning to look a lot like Pesach
Everyone is beat

Having toiled so many days we’ll spend Sedarim⁶ in a haze

Maybe next year a hotel would be a treat!

¹ Hebrew word for Passover

² Unleavened bread eaten on the holiday

³ Ashkenazi Jewish soup dumplings made from a mixture of matzah meal, eggs, water, and fat

⁴ Leavened foods that are forbidden during Passover

⁵ Four questions traditionally asked via song by the youngest capable child attending the Passover Seder

⁶ A ceremonial meal with prescribed ritual reading observed in Jewish homes on the first night or first two nights of Passover

If you are preparing, or planning to start over the coming days, have fun!

Love,

Rebecca

Another red-letter day

Today is the 21^st day of the third month of the year. Beginning in France in 2005, a number of European countries began to mark this day in recognition of Down Syndrome, a genetic disorder involving a third copy of chromosome 21 which causes developmental and intellectual delays. Beginning in 2012, the United Nations General Assembly invited “all Member States, relevant organizations of the United Nations system and other international organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and the private sector, to observe World Down Syndrome Day in an appropriate manner, in order to raise public awareness of Down syndrome.”

I have written about Coby, the son of our friend Michal. When Coby was born and diagnosed with Down Syndrome in late 1999, my first reaction was immense sadness. But Coby was blessed to have a mother who, rather than drowning in self-pity, set out to learn and do everything she could to ensure the best possible outcome for her first born. The challenges remain but I will forever be in awe of her strength and resolve to provide him with all the tools humanly possible to maximize his ability to function in the world.

The snow is falling heavily now, as predicted. Having heard the weather forecasts, we managed to get out to see one more movie before being stuck indoors for a bit and went to see “Oh Lucy!” I was a bit hesitant because the movie is mostly in Japanese with subtitles, but fortunately I was able to keep up pretty well.

The movie focuses on Setsuko, a single woman in a dull and seemingly meaningless life in Tokyo. Her niece, Mika, had enrolled in an English language class that she no longer wants to take, and convinces Setsuko to attend and give pay her for the tuition that was no refundable. The class is taught by a young American named John who insists that his students take on American names and customs. Setsuko dons a curly blonde wig and becomes Lucy, and as Lucy she develops romantic feelings for John. It is only after she makes these feelings known that she learns that John had been seeing Mika. When John disappears, Setsuko and her sister Ayako travel to Southern California to find him and discover that he had previously abandoned a wife and child there. All of this has a tragic impact on Mika and leaves the relationship between the two sisters shattered.

Although the movie had its comic aspects, particularly relating to the efforts of Setsuko and a fellow student in the small English language class to learn American customs, overall it was a rather sad tale.

Stay safe and warm! The only redeeming quality of snow this late in the year is that it does not last for long.

Love,

Rebecca

International Day of Happiness

I offer a sincere thank you to my friend Bernice who shared with me that the United Nations has declared today, March 20^th, International Happiness Day.

Here is what I found about it on Wikipedia:

The International Day of Happiness is celebrated worldwide every March 20, and was conceptualized and founded by philanthropist, activist, statesman, and prominent United Nations special advisor Jayme Illien to inspire, mobilize, and advance the global happiness movement.

In 2011, Illien brought the idea and concept of creating a new global day of awareness, the International Day of Happiness, to senior United Nations Officials.

Illien successfully campaigned to unite a global coalition of all 193 United Nations member states, and secured the endorsement of then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki moon, to support the concept of establishing a new official international UN calendar day of observance known as the International Day of Happiness.

Illien authored UN resolution 66/281 ”International Day of Happiness”, which was ultimately adopted by the unanimous consensus of all 193 UN member states of the United Nations General Assembly on June 28, 2012. Jayme Illien chose March 20 for its significance as the March equinox, a universal phenomenon felt simultaneously by all of humankind, and which occurs the moment when the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun's disk.

It is unfortunate that the United Nations cannot do more to ensure happiness of people around the world than to call for it on just one day out of the 365 we have every year. Call me naïve, call me a cockeyed optimist, but why is not possible for all the people in all the countries on the planet to find some happiness every day?

If only…but meanwhile, I am going to try not to worry and just be happy today. It’s not so simple with this blizzard heading our way, but I will give it my best.

 

Love,

Rebecca

Keep the Change

We saw a fascinating film at the Quad Cinema in lower Manhattan on Sunday. We had not been there in a number of years and had not realized that it was closed for renovations for almost two years before reopening about a year ago. It is barely recognizable now: all modern and sleek like other new movie theaters.

We went there to see a new film called “Keep the Change.” The movie focuses on the lives of a group of young adults with various degrees of autism, all of whom are played by young adults with this diagnosis. The main story is based on the life of the lead actor, Brandon Polansky, a friend of the film director and writer, Rachel Israel.

In the film, Brandon plays David, an aspiring filmmaker who is mandated by a judge to attend a special program called “Connections” at the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side after telling a pig joke to a police officer. At this program he meets a lively young woman named Sarah (played by Samantha Elisofon), and the two of them begin to develop a romantic relationship. But the challenges are many. Living with her alcoholic grandmother, Sarah is mostly on her own trying to navigate her world without anyone to protect her from men who use and abuse her. David, meanwhile, does not appear to recognize that there is anything different about him, while his mother (played by Jessica Walter) has a hard time accepting the idea that her son might try to function independently or be involved in a romantic relationship. They are surrounded by and spend much of their time with a group of friends who have similar functional limitations.

It is a sweet and moving story, and amazingly well acted given the fact that the main characters are played by actors who suffer from various degrees of cognitive and social disability.

If you have a chance, this one is worth seeing.

Love,

Rebecca

One TLA, two meanings

Lately on the news we have been hearing the three-letter-acronym (TLA), NDA. These news reports have been focusing on something called a Non-Disclosure Agreement:

… a contract through which the parties agree not to disclose information covered by the agreement. An NDA creates a confidential relationship between the parties to protect any type of confidential and proprietary information or trade secrets.

That pretty much explains why we keep hearing about them on the news.

But every time I hear something about an NDA, something quite different comes to mind. In the world of pharmaceutical development, an NDA is a New Drug Application, defined on the web site of the Food and Drug Administration:

The NDA is the vehicle through which drug sponsors formally propose that the FDA approve a new pharmaceutical for sale and marketing in the U.S. The data gathered during the animal studies and human clinical trials of an Investigational New Drug (IND) become part of the NDA.

What is particularly amusing to me is that while the first NDA is essentially about hiding information, the second is a process by which every last bit of information is shared and carefully considered.

There is actually a web site where you can look up the meanings of acronyms: https://www.acronymfinder.com/

This lists 53 different uses of the three-letter acronym NDA, many for agencies and organizations outside the United States.

         New Drug Application (US FDA)

          Non-Disclosure Agreement       

          National Democratic Alliance (group of political parties in India)      

          Notre Dame Academy     

          National Defence Academy (military training school in India)

          National Disability Authority (Ireland)         

          Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (UK)      

          National Defense Academy (Japan)     

          National Dance Association       

          National Department of Agriculture (South Africa)

          Next Day Air        

          No Data Available 

          National Dental Association      

          Nissan Design America (La Jolla, CA)  

          Nevada Development Authority

          National Dart Association         

          National Defence Act (Canada) 

          National Day of Action    

          National Directory Assistance (Sprint)         

          Non-Destructive Assay   

          Nederlandse Dealer Associatie (Dutch)        

          National Deaf Academy  

          Non-Data-Aided    

          Never Die Alone    

          New Defence Age (Brussels, Belgium) 

          Non-Destructive Analysis

          National Drilling Association     

          Niagara Divers' Association      

          National Defense Area    

          Non-Disturbance Agreement    

          National Defense Act (USA)     

          Nepal Dental Association (Lalitpur, Nepal)    

          Not Diagnosed with Anything    

          Network Data Anonymization   

          No Detectable Activity   

          Northern Domestic Airspace    

          Night Duty Allowance (on overtime forms)   

          Nebraska Dietetic Association 

          Nebraska Dressage Association

          Natural Disaster Assistance     

          National Distribution Authority

          National Dealers Association    

          Normal Daily Activity      

          National Diploma of Agriculture (UK)  

          Network Design Activity 

          New Dimensional Applications (SAP)   

          Nigerian Defence Academy (est. 1964)         

          Nevada Department of Agriculture (est. 1915)       

          Natural Death Act (Washington)        

          National Dance Agency (UK)     

          Nonprescription Drug Advisory (US FDA)     

          Not Deliverable as Addressed (shipping)      

          Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics (University of Oxford; UK)

Meanwhile, back to reality, I received treatment #2 on Friday, and that went pretty well. I was a little less wiped out afterwards than I had felt after the first dose, and although I was not able to make it to synagogue for Sabbath morning services, I was up to going to a special presentation in the afternoon followed by the evening services.

Have a great day!

Love,

Rebecca