Mother’s Day

Posted on May 10, 2010 by 40andover

Mother’s Day is about me as a child and my mother as the celebrated one. The one day when we muster up $5.00 for a card and still she did the dishes. Ok, I am living in the past. The past is easier; ok, only when nostalgia wipes away the discord and the angst.

So, POB (partner of blogger) and I are the moms of our generation (note that I didn’t say “mothers” — the connotations can be so tragic). And like our mothers before us, we got cards and did the dishes. This is how you make people feel good about dishes, you call it a “tradition”. SOB (sister of blogger) tried to convince POB to have take-out. POB, in tribute and in astonishing similarity to MOPOB (mother z”l of POB), refused take-out. POB opted for a horrendously, complicated — and delicious — dinner. (Note to self: block the Epicurious app on her iTouch.)

Between POB’s thinking of MOPOB and my thinking about MOB (mother z”l of blogger), we made quite a pair. Being a mom is the best thing I do; it is just that I want my mom in the world. Ok, enough self pity (for now; check back later).

So, we had most of the usual complement of family for Sunday night dinner. Notable exceptions were a Cousin Hockey Player, and Cousin Gentle who visits his mother’s grave (MOCG) on Mother’s Day. The warning was clear: be there or be talked about. Email me if you want the minutes of the family meeting.

FOB (father of blogger) is turning 90 this year. In an effort to have an intimate setting, the guest list was cut off on a generational level. Grandnephews and nieces are not invited. However, my father felt bad about certain members of that generation not being invited. So, I was designated as the most direct and “Larry King”-like child to dispense the news. FOB had to use the “facilities” as a ruse to find out whether I told his grandniece that he loved her but, in the interests of familial harmony, needed to exclude her from the celebration. Meanwhile, I wondered why I was escorting FOB to the bathroom because I am not the MD in the family. Does anyone else have this family or are we just nuts?

Back to dinner. Dear Cousin Gentle: HOSOB (husband of SOB) is winning the race for who can eat the most. He had two helpings on two different place mats (I won’t delve into that):

And there was your plate, sad and empty:

And did we mention the wine and the dessert?

Because you had a good reason for not coming (you were visiting MOCG), we didn’t talk about you — too much. But where were you for the bird walk lead by HOSOB? Two family gatherings missed. I understand through the family grapevine that you are alive and well (mother and father of Cousin Hockey Player), so HOSOB promises to let you even the score next time in the food eating contest. You know that I need to know you’ve had at least one home-cooked meal a week.

Oh, and Cousin Hockey Player, I talked to your mother today. Yes, I did. But since you weren’t here last night, you’ll just never know about our conversation. Be there or be afraid. Very afraid. (Ok, don’t be afraid; I didn’t rat you out as the incredibly hung-over Cousin in an earlier blog. Ooooops.)

Another typical day on the road to Utopia

Posted on May 6, 2010 by 40andover

I went out to lunch again with a colleague — one who indulges my need to document life around me.

These photos don’t really need a narrative. A tender moment (?) on not-so-tender 6th Avenue and 50th Street. Is this where you want to tell your children that daddy proposed and mommy said yes? I guess that I’ll leave up to you to decide who is crazier. I think it is the girl for saying yes. And the outfit requires a 911 make-over.

As if that weren’t enough, I read the Radio City Musical Hall promos and juxtaposed were:

Ok, Chelsea Handler shares billing with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And we wonder why our civilization is rounding the drain.

Hey, I just show what I see.

I love the camera on my blackberry

Posted on May 5, 2010 by 40andover

Today, I was walking with a colleague to catch a bite at lunch when I saw two ladies, somewhere between the ages of older and ancient, crossing against the light with their backs to a truck that fast approaching. I wanted to take a picture of this insane scene (after I made sure the truck stopped). I took out my blackberry although the ladies were going slow enough that (after I made sure the truck stopped) I could have gone to a camera shop, bought a camera and come back in time to catch a live “action” shot, as it were.

My colleague looked at me as if I had three heads (I only have two). Then I started showing him the pictures I have on my blackberry — a colleague standing in front of a life-sized Catholic icon for sale, urbanites eating outdoors next to the garbage and the vagrants, a sign about septic danger, a scary food store somewhere on Cross Bronx Boulevard in Scarytown, NY where another colleague and I looked for Advil on the way home from a business trip.

Lunch was quick and awkward. I think he was scared I would take a picture of him with food falling out of his mouth. So, in an effort to try to calm what I thought were his concerns, I talked with food coming out of my mouth. I think I just grossed him out. And made him more afraid.

I’ll let you know if he asks me to lunch again.

My birthday weekend

Posted on May 2, 2010 by 40andover

So, it started in an annoyingly jaded New York way, “I was rushing to my acupuncturist and simply had to stop to take these photos”.

Here are the photos. As POB (partner of blogger) says, in New York, the rich live cheek by jowl with the homeless, and projects exist side by side with luxury condo buildings. So, on one of the first beautiful days of the year, restauranteurs put tables outside and voilá, amid the downtrodden and the garbage:

So, trite but still so unbelievable.

I wonder if the needles hurt more because I was late. Also, my acupuncturist is now a black-belt in karate. Ok, a little Jekyll-Hyde drama unfolding. But I digress. Ok, maybe I won’t digress. Now that I think of it, what am I doing having a black-belt shove needles into my nerve endings? I did have a particularly prickly acupuncturist session. More thought must be given and a full review is necessary (in another entry).

Dinner followed with my “adopted” daughter and her partner. My daughter went to law school against my better judgment and sounder opinion. Still, she seems to love it and, watch out, she will be a formidable adversary. Still she makes a fabulous chocolate birthday cake. Look and weep:

On the bright side, if you are her adversary and she cleans up the courtroom floor with your argument, she might bake you a consolation confection. Just a thought.

So, my brother came in for the weekend to see my dad. BOB (brother of blogger) had not been in town for over a year. He had planned to come in during the September High Holy Days, but contracted swine flu. So, we gave him a pass on that trip, without asking for the lab results (if you’re family, we don’t ask for proof of illness).

I was not looking forward to re-ordering my birthday weekend, but in the end it was fabulous.

BOB came solo — without wife and kids. While we missed the full family complement, I think he was able to relax more. BOB was dream uncle for my son. They played ball and watched sun bathers (my son’s idea) [see prior blog about his MoMA visit] and just did that male bonding thing that is not always so possible if you have two moms.

We gathered the extended family who lives in Manhattan for dinner. True to form, HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) and one of our dear cousins got into a food eating contest. At one point, one of our younger cousins took away the plates and forks but still there was salmon left uneaten. Not wanting to dirty another fork (cleaning that fork expands our carbon footprint), I told HOSOB to use the serving implement. Others thought I was joking. HOSOB knew I was serious and, such a sweet and wonderful guy, he listens to me even though I am not his wife, SOB (sister of blogger):

Of course, I had to take a picture for the family archives.

I am not so sure what BOB thinks of the odd antics of the evening. I would like to think that it was just like riding a bike — that he felt at home with the volume and the rhythm of an evening with the ganza mishpocheh (the extended family).

My birthday wish? To have my brother, my sister-in-law and their boys laughing around my dinner table at Sunday night dinners (with pictures), so that, years from now, we can say, “remember when we used to have dinner together on Sunday nights?”

Ok, maybe it’ll be fifteen years from now, when my nephews (by then, young men) move to NY and drag their parents, kicking and screaming, in tow. (A new agenda item at our weekly family meetings.) Wishes take time, I know.

But it was so great to be together again, if only for 36 hours. Mom z”l was happy.

And because up until that moment the evening lacked a (bloggable) weird twist, SOB handed me a copy of her Last Will and Testament, so I would have it for safe-keeping. So, I signed up for the Hemlock Society because it seemed a natural progression.

We ARE weird.

Synagogue Retreat at the Norman Bates Motel

Posted on April 25, 2010 by 40andover

Ok, this is a long, random recounting, so bear with me.

My sister thinks that her trip on a Greyhound bus to a casino — where, no joke, a medical conference and training were being held — brought her very close to the common denominator of humanity. She emailed me that when she got to the bus gate at Port Authority, the woman in front of her on line just started talking to her. The woman was traveling back from Florida to Providence. She had to go to Florida to get her mother’s ashes, which were in the shopping bag that she showed to my sister in case she wanted to see. (I wish my sister knew how to use the camera feature on her cell phone. A picture would have really made the moment.) The woman had spent 3 days on a bus and needed to smoke a cigarette, had trouble in her childhood but has now straightened out, etc.

Dear SOB (sister of blogger), welcome to my world. It is good that you experience your birthright — i.e., Mom’s magnetism for the strange, creepy and absurd.

Well, I am at a synagogue retreat. It was a rustic experience. Lots of rules — you need to observe the Sabbath and subscribe to the Jewish dietary restrictions — not on the quantity but on the depth to which the culinary arts must sink in order to conform to Kosher laws. Alcohol is Kosher, for which many people gave thanks to G-d. Also, no coffee Saturday morning because it is the Sabbath and one cannot use electricity or fire. Really? Really? Does anyone want really want to deal with me de-caffeinated? Also tonight someone by accident started making coffee before the end of the Sabbath. Before we could descend on the heavenly libation, the moshkiach (the Kosher police) told the kitchen workers that they had to dump out the coffee. Wastefulness CAN’T be kosher.

There are many blessings that are new to me. The place has helpful plaques to assist in mastering them. I took a picture of the blessing after one eliminates in the bathroom, thanking G-d for the creation of certain cavities in the body. Really? My orthodox grandmother said this prayer? Even when she had indigestion? This must be an invention of those “too cool for shul” types. I am not kidding. Look at the picture.

Ever trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I have decided that we would learn this prayer and recite it every time our father discusses his irregularity. Maybe we could teach it to him. Clearly, I am going on the slow boat the Hell.

The place was kind of like that. As you enter, there is a sign saying, “We are blessed by your presence”. Ok, someone should be holding judgment until we leave. There should even be a sign flashed for a specific few (like me), “We are blessed by your leaving.”

“Blessed by your presence”? Trying to create holy, kumbaya, religious space and energy at crash-landing impact, after braving hellish Friday night traffic. I thought to sing, “someone’s kumbaya-ing my Lord,” but I didn’t want to say kumbaya to that. This is getting to crazy, with the aggressive, reverse Kumbaya on the Sabbath. Slow boat. Nah, I am taking the express train to Hell.

As you may have surmised, we couldn’t do much documentation on the Sabbath because that required use of electricity or batteries, so I had to take pictures in secret and I couldn’t blog. Now that was harsh. As my own little rage against the machine, I turned on my iPod just BEFORE I left the premises to go on my run. Ah, the little subversities. But, as usual I digress.

Friday night, after blessing the group with our presence (or so the sign said), we proceeded to our promised charming two bedroom cabin. The advertising was so wrong it should be a felony. So one civil crime justifies a religious crime — desecration of the Sabbath — to take these pictures:

Is this a charming two-bedroom cabin? Type that into wikipedia and I bet that you won’t see a picture of this. Really?? This is a three-bed cabin. Ooops, there must have been a mistake. No? No mistake, this is the very finest that the camp has to offer? In the county in Connecticut with the highest per capita income? Really? Really? I am in a mood most foul and approach the rabbis about the relative merits of, say, a Ritz Carlton. Not so my friends can get business, but it is a base level that to which we should become accustomed.

But at least the turn-down service left conflict-free chocolate on the beds:

But the real kicker is that in the light of day on Saturday, I realized that I had parked my rented super-huge, gas-guzzling monstrosity here:

Ok, I am a convert: There, but for the Grace of G-d, go I.

~ the Blogger

Wall Street Cab Driver

Posted on April 20, 2010 by 40andover

It was too beautiful this morning to get into the subway (and, surprise, I was running late), so I hopped a cab and asked the driver to drive through Central Park, so that I could enjoy the beauty that the car exhaust was destroying. But I digress.

The cab driver mentioned how New York has changed since the 1970s even though he believes that there is more crime than the official statistics would suggest. I asked him if he had always driven a cab, knowing in the back of my mind that anyone who didn’t know that you could get the Park Drive going south at 100th Street and Central Park West hasn’t been a cab driver for too long.

No, he was a bond trader and was laid off in 2000 when the bond markets were rocked by one thing or another. He was a golf caddy for a while and he turned down a job back on Wall Street in 2001 because the pay package was too low. Yup, you guessed it — at a firm in the World Trade Center. Ok, Gordon Gekko, in this case, greed saved his life. Actually, he isn’t really Gekko-esque. After all, he is driving a cab. He said the pay package was too low because bond traders were a dime a dozen and people were scrambling to get work. But he had paid off his mortgage and cashed out of equities as soon as he was laid off, so he was ok. Not rich, but ok. Clearly, because he is driving a cab.

A serene cab driver who would rather compete for fares in New York City than go back to Wall Street. Now that is saying something.

One thing leads to another

Posted on April 18, 2010 by 40andover

I started the weekend early by slipping out to go to the ear doctor. Most people wouldn’t call that the start of a weekend. But my ears have been clogged and itchy on and off for some time and more and more people have told me that they’ve been to the ear doctor and the problem was wax. Deriving from a deep-seating egotism or martyrdom — I am not sure — I assumed that the ear doctor would look into my ears, faint at the sight of the wax and then, once regaining consciousness, would suit up (a HazMat, of course) and begin excavation.

He looked into my ears, my ears and my throat. He said, “No wax. Your ears are clean.” He looked at my expression and asked, “You were hoping for serious wax, weren’t you?” I nodded. He felt bad. He said, “I am really sorry, but your ears naturally dispose of excess wax, just the way they are supposed to. And it just may be allergies causing the itching and clogged feelings.” I was so dejected. He started to feel really bad. He continued, “Look, I kept you waiting for 30 minutes and there was no wax, so I am waiving the co-pay for the visit.” I protested, after all, it wasn’t his fault about the wax and he apologized for being late the moment he walked in the room, so my anger at that was assuaged. “No,” he insisted, “give it to charity.”

I walked onto the street and tried to hail a cab during that ridiculous time of day when ALL cabs are “off-duty” — why every cab company must have the shift changing times is beyond me. I inadvertently cut in front of a guy and ran to an off-duty cab because sometimes the driver will take you if the destination is on his way to the designated shift-changing location. I felt bad — I don’t usually cut a line and this was right after the doctor waived a co-pay. The guy looked odd but harmless enough. So, I offered him a lift to his destination — Port Authority. This is a very non-New York thing to do. A cab is one’s (rented) private domain from the beginning to the end of the ride. Don’t get between a New Yorker and his or her cab. It would get ugly fast.

It turns out the stranger in my cab was a doctor and a sheep farmer near Binghampton, NY and was in the city for a medical conference. He hates the city and the thought of living on a farm gives me hives. So, total opposites and that does not bode well for the 20 minutes remaining in our time together. That is an eternity in a small space with a stranger who somehow feels beholden to make conversation. And he was clearly not a natural conversationalist. For example, he mentioned that not only does he get wool, milk but he also gets hides. Picture a dead Bambi starring in the movie, “The Silence of the Lambs.” He had noooooo sense of humor and seemed somewhat sad. When we got to Port Authority, I declined his offer of payment and told him that my doctor waived the co-pay, and telling me to give it to charity and so I am doing the same here.

As the cab driver and I continued on to my destination, I said congenially, “Was I crazy to give a stranger a lift?” The cab driver looked at me in his rear-view mirror and said, “You seem like a very nice spirit and a professional, educated person.” I knew that that was a compliment and a way to say he thought I wasn’t crazy doing a good turn for a stranger, but it is fascinating how different cultures and the “immigrant experience” shape our language. He then asked rhetorically, “You are Jew?” Turns out Moustafa is a Muslim from Egypt and a civil engineer. (A weird factoid: he is the third cab driver — all were Egyptian — to ask if I were a Jew.) We had a wonderful chat about life, happiness and universality of humanity.

It is crazy how a doctor’s waiving a co-pay led ultimately to a conversation with Moustafa. A conversation that lifted my spirits and reminded me of our common humanity.

Dear Brother-in-Law,

Posted on April 11, 2010 by 40andover

Yes, we were impressed with your preparation of all those vegetables for SOB (sister of blogger) [see yesterday’s blog]. I know she was working in the hospital this weekend and you, the dutiful husband, prepared dinner for her again tonight instead of your both coming over for Sunday night family dinner. (Remind SOB that she scored so big when she met you.)

Because we want you to feel included, I am sending a picture of the food you could’ve had if you had come to dinner tonight. This is not a competition. No sirree. It is just that we missed you and we wanted you to know what you left on the table, so to speak. I made sure that we didn’t clear away the main course before dessert so you could see the full array: wild salmon, rice, and roasted asparagus. Followed by a delicious fruit selection of strawberries, melon and grapes. There was even ice cream if asked. Ok, this is a competition. And POB (partner of blogger) outdid herself.

So, maybe next time. We did miss having everyone together but FOB (father of blogger) and COB (cousin of blogger) rounded out our dinner table. (And ate your portions.)

Mwa, mwa (big kisses) to you and SOB,

~Blogger-in-law

“Youthful” moments at the gym

Posted on March 27, 2010 by 40andover

Why, at the gym on a Saturday morning, are cartoons playing on two the TVs?

My son watched these cartoons as a 4 year-old. 4 year-olds are not allowed to work out in a gym.

So, let’s be like Glenn Beck and just go with that. Hmmmm. Then, we are a nation of tall, strong, vibrant 4 year-olds. 4 year-olds so strong and impressive that they look like they are between 25 and 55. That’s why we don’t need universal health care because our youth, if left alone, will thrive. Ok, I have freaked myself out enough.

Setting Glenn Beck aside, does the scene I describe say something about the mental and emotional ages of my fellow Upper Westsiders? Actually, the networks had news shows on until 10, when the cartoons start. But it is 11am and no one has asked to change the channels. In a place where people routinely quarrel about the stations on the big screens, this is indeed odd.

Notes from Aboveground

Posted on March 27, 2010 by 40andover

I am on the Acela from Boston to NY. I came to Boston for a business lunch and am now going home. It is what you do to build business.

You might think that the “Quiet Car” sign is self-explanatory. It is not. I think we’ve diluted the meaning of our words so much that no one believes signs without adjectives. “Free gift”: when was a gift something other than free? Or does “free gift” reflect the cynicism in our society that nothing is without strings? But then why do people fall for too-good-to-be-true scams? But I digress (of course).

Back to the Quiet Car. So maybe we need signs like: “Quiet-like-a-church-mouse Car” or “No kidding: no cell phones or whispering-at-the-top-of-your-lungs Quiet Car”?

Why is ok to expect a call and then leave the Quiet Car as you are yelling, “hello? hello? hello?”

I might have to take a real chill pill to deal. Another reason why it is dangerous to unleash me on the populace.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Category Archives: Urban Life