Category Archives: Aging

Sunday School

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My son has a Hebrew tutor on Sunday mornings.  He goes to our synagogue’s bi-monthly Saturday program, but that is more about culture and being part of an LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community.  (Please don’t ask me to explain bi-sexuality or queer-identification.  Those concepts arose after I settled down and became middle-aged.)

He has 4.5 years until his Bar Mitzvah and he needs to be able to read Hebrew.  I would also like him to understand modern Hebrew, as well, which is about as different from biblical Hebrew as English is from Russian.  And I think it would be more fun and interesting for him.  And that means he would squirm less in class and learn more.  You get the picture and, of course, as with many of my blog entries, it all must end in Kumbaya (this time sung in Hebrew).

Today, POB (partner of blogger) and I took turns going to the gym while our son had Hebrew class.  Since my gym is close to West Side Judaica, I took the opportunity to go in and see about kids’ books that have been translated into Hebrew (POB’s great idea for transitioning into modern-day Hebrew).  I was looking for books like Goodnight Moon or the Giving Tree that our son read when he was young.  He would know the story and be able to connect Hebrew words with its English counterpart and . . .  you get the idea.

I walk into West Side Judaica looking, as one might expect, as if I had just come from the gym, complete with ear buds attached to my iPod.   All Hassidic men in this store.  Can you say culture clash?

So, I ask Shloymi (that is really his name) if he had children’s books.

“Do I have children’s books?  Of course!! I have a beautiful section full of beautiful books!! For every child, I have a book.”

The melodic Yiddisha English is comforting to me because it reminds me of my grandparents.  I decided that his last comment wasn’t a dig at the sad nature of my child’s life since he was not being raised in an orthodox home.  I also decided that I would not be passive-aggressive and mention that we were two lesbians raising a Jewish boy.  I think that admirable restraint deserves an honorable mention and, voilá, here it is.

There were indeed many books.  All in English and all about G-d and wonderful Torah stories that will keep children trembling before G-d.  Greeaaaat.

I ask a younger man, Chaim, whether there were English books translated into Hebrew.

“Ach,” he said, “we have Curious George [really, is that what we export?], we have . . . .”

He pointed me in another direction. I found shelves of books.  The problem is that I don’t speak or read modern Hebrew.  So, how do I know what I am buying?  I look at the pictures.  Like any other illiterate.

Then I saw it!!  The distinct pea green color of the “Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein.  And there is the tree on the cover (the back cover because Hebrew is read left to right).  And then, I read, in the only thing that is English transliterated with Hebrew letters:

של סילברסטיין

(SHEL SILVERSTEIN!!)

Hooray!! Reform Judaism’s redemption in front of Chaim and Shloymi.

My son was not as excited as I about the book.  So I have begun reading it, in Hebrew. Why is this book so important to me?

I bought the book years ago, when our nanny, Leta Murray, died (may her memory be for a blessing).  She was my siblings’ and my nanny for 18 years (make no comment).  I read it and cried, because she was the tree and I was the taking child.  I know she knows that I loved her and still do.  So, I will teach my child, in Hebrew and in English, the importance of being the giving tree and not the taking child.  At least, not always.

מדור לדור

(from generation to generation)

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Winter

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This morning there was a two-inch sheet of ice covering most of Manhattan.  I slip and slide on the un-shoveled sidewalks, comfortable in the knowledge that my father, who is over 90 years-old, is too level-headed to go outside.  He may be crazy when it comes to other things, and a little “vague” when it comes to yet other things, but about these things, he is a solid guy.

On a regular day, he would have gone to his sculpture studio, all the way down in Chinatown.  I call in the afternoon and, as I expected, he was home. 

“I am soooo glad that you didn’t go to the studio, Dad.” 

 “Oh, no, no,” he replied, “not today.” 

I think, see, he is a level-headed guy.  But he continues: 

“I had a check-up at 8:45am near NYU, so I wasn’t planning on going to the studio anyway.” 

My voice raised in alarm:  “Dad, that was when the ice was the worst!!!” 

Dad was reassuring in tone and demeanor, “Sweetheart, the sidewalks were shoveled in front of the doorman buildings.  And I only slid about an inch on one of those thick ice patches at a corner.”

THUD.  My head crashes to my desk.  I lift my head.  THUD.  My head crashes again.  This feels so much better than what I am hearing on the other end of the phone call.

“Do you need me to pick up anything for you for dinner?”

“Oh, no, after I came back from my check-up, I rested, and then I went down to the bagel store and over to the supermarket and bought what I need.”

Ok, my 90+ year-old dad carried groceries over icy streets.  He is fine.

He sounded exhilarated, in fact.  Maybe because he is 90 years-old and can still take care of himself (on a day-to-day basis, at least).

Me?  I have grayer hair.  Maybe I am scared because one day he won’t be able to.

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My mother’s words . . .

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“My poor baby, if I could have it for you, I would!”

My Mom would say this in a soothing voice whenever one of her children was sick, be it mind, spirit or body.  I say that now to my son whenever appropriate.  And I mean it, for all loving and nurturing, yet practical, goal oriented reasons.

My son had an upset stomach last night (no fever or other symptoms).  He started feeling sick at 9pm when he was already in bed, at around the same time the Jets were a lost cause and Janet2 was cleaning her kitchen floor (because the Patriots WERE OUT OF CONTENTION — these digressions are getting worse).

POB (partner of blogger) and I dutifully took turns in the night soothing him when he woke up and giving him Children’s Tums.  Because I was just recovering from a thrown-out back at around the same time our son got sick, POB did more turns initially.  Each time he woke up and I went in (and freaked him out by yowling in pain), I would rub his head and back and say Mom’s magic words that always comforted me.  He would eventually drift off for 45 minutes or so. And I would roll out of his bed and crawl to my room so as not to scream in pain and wake him.  Of course, that woke POB, so I probably did more harm than good despite all loving intentions.

3am rolls around and he is up and really, really feeling bad.  I go in, because I know POB has to get up in 2.5 hours and I can stretch my alarm until 8am if necessary.  He is really feeling bad and I say Mom’s magic words and, lo and behold, like a miracle swept in from the sea, he vomits all over me and then runs to the bathroom for the other end of the story, so to speak.

Nothing makes you feel more mom-like than having your child yawn in technicolor all over you.  I cleaned up and started to strip the bed and hose everything down.  (At this point, POB was up and ready to crank up the washer/dryer.)

Our son has a strong stomach for all that to have stayed in for six hours.

I couldn’t help thinking that if he were able to give it to me at 9pm, my system would have expelled everything in 5, maybe 10, minutes and we all would have been happier and all have gotten a good night’s sleep.  Instead, today, our wiped-out son stayed home, I was essentially in traction and POB had to be nursemaid to two babies at once.

Do you think Mom ever had the same thoughts about wanting to be sick instead of us, or am I just a diluted (and deluded) version of her?

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These Arrrrrrrrre the “Good Ol’ Days”

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Forgive me, Carly Simon, for the lack of harmony in the title.  I tried.

A camp friend tagged in an old photo on our camp’s website.  I was 8 years old.  About my son’s age.  It sent me time-traveling through memories.

I was a camper for 10 of the 11 summers, from 1971 to 1981.  Some of my earliest camp memories are Saturday night campfires where we sang and listened to stories under the night sky.  Only as I am older do I understand the importance of those campfires.  In my mind’s eye, we were sitting in the majesty of nature and day turned to night, singing together about friendship and emotions we were too young to understand (like those in Carly Simon’s Anticipation), and being part of a group as we each let our minds wander — sometimes to homesickness, sometimes just in the music, sometimes to how much we loved our friends sitting next to us.   Sugar-coating in part, but only in small part.

So, this morning I had to follow the link to see other pictures.  I found some crazy old pictures of people I hadn’t recalled in years.  And I got so excited that I shared the pictures with camp friends on FaceBook whom I thought could remember their names.  I wasn’t sure that my best friend for many of those years would remember so I didn’t send to her.  Now I think I will, it is less important that she remember the names, but it will evoke for her a (I hope, happy) time — in all its wonderment and angst — that we, those campers of the 1970s, think of as the “Good Ol’ Days”.  When we sang, “these arrrrrrree the good ol’ days”, we may not have known then what we know now:  they were indeed so.

Just a little aside about FaceBook:  Too many levels of contradictions and irony, among them, that it connects people who were friends in a time before fax machines and copiers (rexograph machines were it).  Another blog entry, perhaps.

I was looking at these photos and smiling.  Then my son switched off the cartoons and wanted to cuddle.  I paused my trip to the OLD good ol’ days to enjoy the here and now.   And I think, I am old enough to know — in real time, as this time with my son unfolds — that these moments, too, will be the Good Ol’ Days in short order.

I guess good ol’ days happen all the time.  We just have to remember to enjoy the moment and then, years later, relive the memory.

And stay right here
‘Cause these are the good old days

Everyone, click YouTube of Carly Simon from 1972 and sing along.

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Past and Future

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So, after someone dies, at some point, you just get on with life.   Right?  Not so much.

Eight years ago, my mother died.  I am less ok with it now than I was, let’s say, two years ago.  Time is passing too quickly.  Maybe taking care of my Dad’s monthly and business affairs is taking its toll.  And he found old slides that I am transferring onto the computer.  Some fabulous vintage pictures (and some that so tragically epitomize the 1970s that it is painful to put them in the family album).  And I see my mom, at my age, in the 1960s. I look like her.  I have some of her traits.  Mostly good ones, although the wrinkles are unpleasant.

And then I look to pictures of my family.  My young-ish family: my wonderful son and fabulous spouse.  A life graced with good fortune and love.

Like most days, I look back with pain, sadness and love, and I look forward with gratitude, hope and love.

But these past days my Mom’s loss has been so present, so palpable, that I wasn’t sure I could breathe.  I guess that is the nature of grief: it hits you sometimes lightly, and other times, it lets loose a prizefighter punch.  And it makes the highs higher, the lows, lower and the precious moments that Mom missed ever so more poignant.

Love endures.  Loss sucks, no matter how many years it has been.

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No pulse

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Dick Cheney has no pulse.   Another fact that points to his being Satan.

He had a new procedure (read about it in the Huffington Post — Dick Cheney’s procedure) that inserted a pump that essentially overrides the heart.  As if he had one to begin with.

Let’s set aside whether he should be eligible for a heart transplant at his age and physical condition and whether it is right of the living to go hunting and shoot his friends.

Who in America can afford this procedure without insurance?  He had a pre-existing condition.  Luckily, he is wealthy and has a government health plan that will pay for him.  What about a 69 year-old factory worker? 

The health care overhaul is designed so that we don’t have to choose whose life is more valuable.  So, health care reform is the exact opposite of the “death panel” lies and propaganda. 

In fact, those who oppose health care reform don’t want to kill the Grandpa who is rich like Dick Cheney but they will let the Grandpa who is a retired factory worker die.

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The love that endures

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We are coming up on 8 years since my mother died. 

It is harder this year than in the last two, maybe because we can’t say she’s been gone “about 5 years” anymore.  We are probably going to start saying she’s been gone “almost ten years”. 

A DECADE.
A DECADE. 

A DECADE. 

Last night I was thinking about Mom and I remembered how, when any of her children were sick, sad or scared, she would cup one of our cheeks, look into our eyes and say, “my poor baby, if I could have this for you I would.”  And we knew she meant it.  It was a fierce connection between mother and child(ren).

It was also ferocious on the flip-side.  When Mom was dying of cancer, my sister said to her, “I wish I could take some of it from you because I am strong enough to handle it.”  My mother got so agitated that she looked like she might burst.  My sister got the message:   Mom, until the day she died, would try to protect us.  There was no two-way street in this circumstance.

I still feel my mother’s love.  It endures.  Unfortunately, her voice and her hugs are gone.

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Oh, The Rapture

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Ok, according to ebiblefellowship.com, “we’re almost there!!” 

Almost where?  Almost to the Day of Rapture when G-d’s Elect will ascend to Heaven.  (I tried to use a Heavenly color.) 

May 21, 2011, to be exact.

Then, a great fire will consume the rest of the earth, in October.  I guess it is too much of a transportation headache to transport everyone (down?) to Hell, so G-d is just going to throw lighter fluid on an out-of-control oil well or something.

I know this is terrible, but I keep singing Blondie’s song “Rapture”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnhKPw2NXIw (with a little Jim Morrison mixed in for a full apocalyptic/conspiracy theory montage).

SO, I don’t get what happens on the day that the Rapture begins. 

G-d will rule the Earth and G-d’s followers will abide by those rules. 

Ok, according to the Christian theology, G-d already rules and these believers follow the rules. 

Will G-d reward them with “life”? 

They are already alive.    Eternal life?  As long as you stay young, because aging is not for the faint of heart.

Is it just that G-d will rid the universe of the rest of us? 

The Christian thing to do would be just to ignore us.

To be honest, I would like to have that strength of faith.  I would like to believe in a Great Benevolence that will save us.  Because I do believe that this world could be destroyed, except I think the end will come because of human action.   

I guess if Hell will be a place on Earth (in either scenario — theirs or mine), I should cancel that airport limousine I reserved for the End of Days. Because Hell is coming soon to a place near you — check newspapers for times and listings.

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The Day That Was and Is (Happily) Almost Over

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Today was a bad day.  I think it is because we are so close to my mother’s yahrzeit.

Even SOB (sister of blogger), who is an uncommonly happy and cheerful person, had a hard day.  And I was too angst-ridden to lift her mood.  And that only added to my sadness.  So, we discussed whether to visit our mother’s grave THIS weekend or NEXT weekend.  [Don’t worry, no bringing in the Joni [Mitchell] until her actual yahrzeit.]  You get the mood.

Post-holiday blues set in and all the promises of deal flow in the new year now have to happen.  STRESS. The usual complement of day-to-day life.  But somehow today’s sturm und drang was harder.  And if you look at the paper, well, you start to believe that sect that thinks the world is ending on May 11, 2011.

I was surprisingly productive (angst and the fear of homelessness –inherited from your Depression-Era/children-of-immigrants parents — will do that), but I needed the stress-relief that either a bath-tub size martini or a good work-out would give.

In a fit of self-preservation, I chose the latter. When I got to the gym, I looked around at all these calm, self-absorbed people who obviously didn’t know that the end of the world is near (whether because of some religious group’s prophecy or based on today’s world news).  By the way, I reserved one of those huge airport limousines for the End of Days, in case anyone needs a comfy lift to Hell.  But there I go, on a digression, AGAIN.

So, I decided that I would see what it felt like if I acted like them and just let go of the angst and the fears (with some medicinal assistance).

“Walk like they walk; do like they do” became my mantra.  I got a towel and stripped down.  As I noticed, the women don’t use the towels to cover their bodies, so I wrapped the towel around my dry hair and contemplated the cuticles on my toes.  Just like they did.  Then I stretched, making sure that my breasts got in the way of traffic flow in and out of the locker room, all the while yawning.  Just like they did.

I walked over to the mirror and patted my tummy as I sucked it in and the open my eyes wide to reduce the more obvious wrinkles.  I applied moisturizer, just like they did.  Then, I took off my towel, bent over at the waist and shook out my dry hair.  I lifted my the upper half of my body in a whoooooosh and sucked in my cheeks (facial cheeks) like a deranged model on the catwalk.  I guess you do that to see what you would look like if you had as much plastic surgery as Joan Rivers has had.

Then I moisturized my whole body and looked in various mirrors.  I used the mouthwash.  As I spat in the sink, still buck naked, I felt liberated.

If you believe anything I wrote after “[w]hen I got the gym,” then you don’t know me at all.  I worked out, lifting weights and successfully doing (ok, only two) unassisted military pull-ups, among other stress-reducing and pain-inducing exercises.  And afterward, I changed in the most unobtrusive way possible and did so quickly so I could get home to my family before my son went to sleep.

But every now and again, it would be fun to pretend . . . .

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iFamily

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For my 40th birthday (just about 7 years ago), POB (partner of blogger) gave me an iPod.  There is new, souped of version of this dinosaur called “iPod Classic”.  Just like those “classic” Chryslers with all the conveniences of modern technology but with the fins and the chrome edges.  It was amazing in its time and, just seven years later, its limitations are quaint — in that way that a lop-sided homemade cake is really so, so, so, “homey”.

Then, it wore out  as iThings are designed to do after 360 charges. So, it stays planted in its iPlayer for music when we are in the house.

Then, we got something for the gym.

And this doesn’t really hold a charge anymore.  And so I get iRate at the gym when the battery idies on me and all I have to watch is the 24-hour-news-recycle to pass the tortuous 30 minutes on a constant-sweat machine of choice that day.

Ok, so then we got one that had more “juice” for the family.  But we didn’t know about the iDeath that happens after 360 charges (don’t leave an iPod in a charger or re-charge willy-nilly).  So this iDevice splits its time between two places: the kitchen, and, after hours, in SOPOBAB’s (son of POB and blogger’s) room so he can listen to audio books and then go to sleep to the music of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (yes, SOPOBAB is an old soul).  This requires TWO iBose systems for its two iHomes.

Ok, that was not enough, so we got two, TWO, iTouches.  Two iTouches. SOPOBAB has dinosaur, bird, football, baseball and hockey apps so he can play, too. (Our child cannot conceive of a world with typewriters, dial-up connections, Basic 8 computer languages.  Thank G-d, he loves real, honest-to-goodness books.)

The batteries are draining too quickly.  So we are probably going to get another one.  Oy.

Then we got an iMac.  [picture not included because of iMalfunction] [imagine iPicture here].

THEN, a MacBook Pro.

Now, an iPhone.  Not for me.  For POB.  Cool and groovy.

But I am a little iParanoid that our dependence on Steve Jobs is getting addictive.  But I really hate PCs since Microsoft Vista came out and ground our PC to a halt even for simple tasks, like say, logging on.

There was a time when there was no “I” in “team” (but there IS an I in family, which stinks for the metaphor).  Apple will get rid of that problem by creating the iTeam (who knows if that is true, but one has to believe that something like that has to come out in order to continue the mind control and advance the global domination).

In life, you pick your battles.  Steve Jobs, you win. iLove you and so does this iFamily.

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