It is a beautiful morning in a house of mirth

Posted on September 18, 2009 by 40andover

Mornings are always hectic in our house. But not for me (note to self: be grateful; gloating could get you in trouble).

My partner (POB) is an early riser. My son has to be, too, since he needs to get to school on time. I hear the noise, confusion and (mostly) gentle prodding of our son to get ready. I am still lying in bed with a pillow over my head. Then in barrels our son, ready for some rough-housing in the morning (which he quaintly calls cuddling — even when we play two crashing trains). I rise to the occasion and then fall back in my bed when he scampers off to school. Off they go to school via bus or subway — more than I could ever manage.

For the first week of school, POB was away on business and our son was anxious about his new school. The cajoling and prodding took a long time. Plus, POB told me that we had to be there a whole 15 minutes earlier than necessary — a lifetime in the morning. Hmmmmm. She now feigns innocence as if I conjured this up out of the air. Obviously, since I was barely compos mentis at these early hours, we took cabs to school.

The minute POB returned from her trip, our son gave me up but said helpfully, “We were running late.” Thanks for the cover, bud. I appreciate your sticking by me as you rat me out. Note to self: have his aunt, “the vault”, teach him some pointers about secrets.

So, POB is strong, fearless and awake enough to take public transportation. Our family fisc thanks her.

The good news is that she is adaptive to any situation.

This morning I get an email from POB that recognizes and affirms me in all my frailties and is also practical:

“[Our son] had to use the bathroom on the way to school [NOTE: he never wants to go before he leaves so we get into this problem] so we ducked into McDonalds which took FOREVER so I channeled my inner [me, the blogger] and we took a cab. We made it just in time – and [our son] was truly apologetic so we vowed to launch the Morning Team to better figure this out.” [Note to self: keep your head down and don’t make eye contact, lest you are picked for the team.]

An episode in the morning of a house of mirth.

Fairy godmother angel of love

Posted on September 17, 2009 by 40andover

So, I am in a mood most foul after a typical day on my own personal road to Utopia when I descend into the malodorous 42nd Street subway station.

There, to my surprise is . . . the Angel of Love.

And, she is handing out . . .

messages of love.

And, I am charmed. She seems so guileless and weird. She is probably an out-of-work actress rather than an out-of-her-mind NYer.

And then I think, does she make a living this way? Can I do this AND support my family?

One moment’s flight of fantasy is followed by the cold-hearted calculations, all in the City where there is a broken heart for every light on Broadway.

Good things on the subway

Posted on September 17, 2009 by 40andover

This morning on the subway, a man was laughing out loud as he read an article in the newspaper. It was a happy laugh as if someone were enjoying a good story.

This being New York, I immediately looked over to make sure he was not chuckling over the daily carnage reported in the national and international sections of newpapers.

To my relief, he was reading an article in the Arts Section of the New York Times. I relaxed and enjoyed listening to his delight while reading the article.

Conundrums for the High Holy Days

Posted on September 16, 2009 by 40andover

Each year I am faced with the same conundrums:

Issue 1: If the days of repentance and reflection start with Rosh HaShanah, what happens to the bad things you do between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur?

Example:Let’s say I see someone in a horrible outfit at synagogue and, over Rosh HaShanah lunch with the family, I discuss the sartorial transgression in all its gory details This is technically a sin (because it is gossip, aka loshen hora).

Quandary: Do I need the chuvah (repentance/atonement) ambulance or am I in a chuvah-free zone?

Issue 2: Why shouldn’t we shower and brush our teeth on Yom Kippur?

Example: If you have one date with G-d each year and you are begging for another year of life, shouldn’t you look and smell good? My mother would not let us out of the house without lipstick on a regular date. And this one is with the Almighty.

Quandry: With everyone getting back to basics, do you think bringing a burnt offering is a good idea?

Issue 3: Based on my observations, is the rule on Yom Kippur no animal skin on your shoes but not your purse or belt?

Example: Let’s say you see someone wearing canvas shoes (because no animal skin on YK), and you notice that the person is carrying a leather bag and wearing a leather belt.

Quandary: Do you say, “from one animal killer to another, nice belt and shoes”?

107 year old woman is looking for husband no. 23!!!!

Posted on September 15, 2009 by 40andover

107 year old woman is looking for husband no. 23!!!! (Even Liz Taylor can’t beat that.)

It is so odd on so many levels. The math suggests an analogy to buying a new car every few years (a new riff on the cash for clunkers campaign) or changing husbands every time your car gets an oil change (no lubes, please). Her current husband is 70 YEARS younger. No visual, please. AND, he is a drug addict. But that only adds a seamy aspect to this otherwise perfectly rational story. She thinks he is going to leave her for someone he met in rehab. Isn’t that always the way it is, huh, Britney and Lindsay? (I am guessing here, because I don’t keep up with either of these “stars”.)

What happened to the other husbands? Hmmmm. Would she be eligible for health care coverage under the Obama plan if she didn’t live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?

The truth is the best fiction.

************************************************************************

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – A 107-year-old Malaysian woman says she is ready to marry for the 23rd time because she fears her current drug addict husband might leave her for a younger woman, a report said Monday.

Wook Kundormade headlines four years ago when she married Muhammad Noor Che Musa, a man 70 years her junior in northern Terengganu state, with pictures of the couple’s wedding splashed across regional newspapers.

But Wook is now looking for new love as she fears that Muhammad, 37, who is undergoing voluntary drug rehabilitation treatmentin the capital Kuala Lumpur, will leave her once the programme ends, she told the Star newspaper.

“Lately, there is this kind of insecurity in me,” the paper quoted her as saying, showing a photograph of the smiling, wrinkled-faced centenarian wearing a Muslim headscarf.

“I realise that I am an aged woman. I don’t have the body nor am I a young woman who can attract anyone.”

“My intention to remarry is to fill my forlornness and nothing more than that,” she said, adding that she felt lonely without her husband by her side to celebrate the coming Muslim festival of Eidal-Fitr next week.

Wook said she planned to visit Muhammad on the second day of Eid if her neighbours were willing to drive her to the capital.

Muhammad, who was a lodger in Wook’s house, had previously said it was “God’s will” that the couple fell in love.

An Outsider’s Perspective of US (and Us)

Posted on September 15, 2009 by 40andover

Yesterday, I spent almost two hours talking with a friend who is a businessman from the Cayman Islands. He is in New York on business. Since his business is somewhat US-dependent, he makes it his business to keep up with the news in the States. He is a Libertarian and a pragmatist. I am Democrat and (I like to think) a pragmatist. We agreed on many things, such as the need to compromise and get incremental reform because it is a matter of conscience that people have affordable access to health care. And I agreed with him that the public option will not pay for itself and should be phased in later if other measures don’t rein in the insurance companies. We simply cannot afford to institute this option at this point, given the deficit.

We disagreed on two points. The points of disagreement fascinate me.

First, he thought that death panels could be read into the legislation because it was not expressly disclaimed. My friend is an intelligent, well-read man; he is not Todd Palin. So I had to think about this more. Here is what I have deduced:

if a person distrusts “government” enough to believe that it would kill its own citizens, well, then you can make that argument.
if a person doesn’t believe that our government would kill its own citizens, you might argue that the panel of experts represented a disguised government take-over of health care.
if a person believes that our government is not trying to kill us and trying to cut down on defensive medicine by setting forth safe harbor protocols, then you think the concern is ill-conceived and politically motivated.

I guess what I am learning is while I am firmly in the third camp, not all of the concern may be politically motivated. Sarah Palin must have hit a chord with many, many people who have a deep, abiding distrust of government. Hey, I was scared of government under Bush/Cheney, so I guess I have to be more open to the fear that this legislation unleashed. Interestingly, it took my Cayman Islands friend — an outsider — to help me start to understand the perspective of blog commenter “Jordana”. We still disagree, but now I understand that we may not be starting from the same point of trust. That changes the dynamics of the conversation considerably.

The other point was related to torture. Some torture is understandable under some circumstances. I have never met someone who held that view. While I can see not prosecuting the CIA, I believe that torture is not understandable under any circumstances. I don’t want to be tortured and I would probably make stuff up just to make it stop. So, I don’t see how it helps get to the truth.

An excellent day

Posted on September 13, 2009 by 40andover

Every morning POB (partner of blogger) brings a mug of coffee for me and puts it on my bedside table, so I have coffee as I am waking up. I am a lucky person.

I am especially lucky this morning because the coffee is delicious and warm and my body is stiff and sore from my run yesterday and our son bounds into our bed and lunges over me to get the remote control lest we miss one moment of the senseless cartoons available to numb our children’s minds. Warm coffee (as opposed to piping hot) spills all over my jammies. Even if it were piping hot, I may not have been able to move. POB is already dressed and going out to get some groceries. No wonder I am tired. POB’s schedule is enough to exhaust TWO people.

I speak to my cousin who is recovering from major surgery and he says some chicken soup would do him good. What does POB do? Starts making chicken soup. I need a nap now and it isn’t even 10am.

By 10:45am, I am able to limp into the shower. Then we dash off to our son’s schoolmate’s birthday party. New school, new friends, new challenges. Our son is a little scared. We go to the amusement park and we meet up with the group and all is good. Except amusement parks remind me of horror flicks, sad clowns and freaky sideshows. There is an odd, clown-like man working at this place and I am as fascinated by him as I am ooked out.

Then pizza and cake and chaotic running around. The kids are so friendly and I can see that our son feels right at home. He has a crush on one girl whom he has known for many years — more than a crush really, because even though he is 7, he asked her to marry him and she said yes. But he is talking up another girl, too. Bad form, dude. It is your first week, so be circumspect with the girls. The other girl’s mom says that her daughter and my son may be competing for the affections of the same girl. I think, wow, this place is too groovy and hip for words. But I can tell already that there are back stories. I’ll ease into those. For now, I am happy because my son is happy.

POB and I are so happy that we do not want to ruin the moment by discussing wedding plans. As founding members of the Bridezombies, we have to set a standard for detail avoidance. We set a high standard. We are proud.

Family dinner tonight, but my sister and brother-in-law bag out. My sister cannot seem to follow doctor’s orders (even though she is a doctor) and her foot is not healing. She over-exerted and now can’t move. Let’s work through this problem together.

Let’s say you are a competent doctor (as in you didn’t get your medical degree from the internet) and another doctor whom you respect (as in it is ok for the doctor to examine you but not cut into you) tells you to use a cane and stay off your feet as much as possible. Then let’s say you have a conference where if you were really healthy you would stand all day and present an interesting case (work with me here; I know we are talking about diseases). So, even though you aren’t healthy, you stand all day and don’t use a cane.

Ok, so maybe my sister did get her medical degree from the internet.

Bottom line, Sis and the Man cannot come to Sunday night dinner. I call them afterward to tell them about the fun and the food they missed so they feel really bad. It is, in fact, the least I could do. My brother-in-law sends a grovelling email. A little more grovelling ought to do the trick.

A young cousin comes over. My son wants to know why he didn’t become a professional hockey player since he played in college. I want to know, too, because he is depriving the extended family of an element necessary to the true American family. We need a sports star. We already have doctors, lawyers, artists, entrepreneurs, felons (ok, only one), mixed marriages, gays and lesbians (ok, only one), etc. What a crowning achievement for a Jewish family to have a member who suits up in armor and carries a club to do battle on ice and someone keeps score. But, he is taking the easy way out and going to school, going into debt, to become a professional. So old school. Still, he is a lovely guy and it will be great to see more of him.

I am so happy to have (some of) my family together around my table. I think wistfully of a bigger gathering, one that includes my sick cousin, my dear cousin who is his niece, all together. I know my cousins who are uncle and niece need to work out their issues, but I love them both and family is so precious.

Family United

Posted on September 12, 2009 by 40andover

My partner (let’s call her POB, as in partner of blogger) arrived home from a business trip last night and today we are a family happily re-united. Our son was so happy that life was back to normal that he behaved as a typical 7 year-old, with all the toilet humor and “I never get to do anything I want” whines. Ah, life in all its facets.

We were at synagogue today for Saturday school, which is really an excuse for the kids to get together and play and the parents to catch up. POB and I saw the rabbi across the room and thought we need to re-start our wedding plans.

It is a great idea to get married but the details get in the way. We love each other. We will be happy to have a wedding once the day comes. Getting from Point A to Point B is the trick.

Ok, so we need to move forward on this. Stay tuned for painful details of the Bridezombies trying to plan a wedding for a year from now. I am stressed already. POB and I decided that we would discuss it during the period between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur in order to maximize the self-flagellation that goes the repentance and atonement required during these days.

Odd things against the backdrop of a sad day for our nation

Posted on September 11, 2009 by 40andover

In New York City, it is overcast and raining. Not just a sprinkle but the bone-chilling, clothes-drenching kind of day that can make a person melancholy. That is fitting for the anniversary of September 11, 2001.

I got my son off to school this morning. 6am-9am are not my “prime time” hours. Let’s just say that for the first two mornings, I returned to the house after drop-off, to sleep a little, shower and get to the office. Given the cost of the various taxis, this is not a sustainable practice even for the “AM challenged” like me. Luckily, his other mom comes home tonight from a business trip. She likes mornings, G-d bless her.

But today I was meeting a friend at a coffee shop at 8:30am, so I had to be showered and dressed BEFORE drop-off. This required success-oriented self-coaching last night. Today I could not hit the snooze button. I had to be fully groomed and ready with breakfast, packed lunch and washed, dressed and fed child. After a successful drop-off (phew) off I went in the whipping wind and drastically cooler temperatures to meet my friend.

Neither of us had been to this coffee shop, which turned out to be a 1950s style, singing coffee shop. The servers (the genderless version of waitress or waiter because “waitron” sounds like a machine) sing. At 8:30AM. Think about that. Most people don’t want to hear another’s voice until the crack of 10:15AM, but these servers are belting out songs at 8:30AM.

Some servers/singers are good, some not so much. The guy who sang Paul Simon’s “Call me, Al” should have had the microphone ripped out of his hands. At the risk of being redundant, it is 8:30am, and he is crooning in full voice WITH microphone in a cavernous space where there are few customers. My friend and I, as 40-and-overs, asked another server to turn down the volume of anything, the senseless movie playing in the background, the background music or the singer. The response was, “well, we are singing servers.” How nice for you, really; how unlucky for us. This is when I wished I had a hearing aid to turn off.

My friend and I called on our powers of concentration and focused. We giggled about things, talk business some, and talk family (the latter is always bittersweet). At one point, all the noise — oops, I mean music and singing — stopped and I realized was yelling over the din. So, I guess I did get the experience of what it must be like to have a hearing aid.

Apparently, one goes to the place for the entertainment and not for the food. Which makes a person wonder how this place survives the recession.

But it was a great place to have coffee because it created a bloggable moment. And the guy who sang, “Call me, Al” really should look for another line of work.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Category Archives: Life