Category Archives: Aging

First, fire the pundits. Second, let’s talk about race.

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday op-ed by Bob Herbert of the New York Times really got me nuts.  It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  I don’t care which party “gets it” or not.  That is not even a relevant question.

That we have a president named Barack Hussein Obama is in fact a delivery of his campaign promise of change.  The fact that he is decried as not that much different from other presidents is another delivery of his campaign promise of being President of all citizens, not just blue states.

You see, you may not have noticed, but the President of the United States is African-American.  Now, I am a middle-aged, white, Jewish lesbian (MWJL).  And I have no idea what it is to be anything or anyone other than who I am. But from my perspective (for what it is worth):

The President may be post-racial, but the country is not.  (We are making progress and, as we do, sometimes there is backlash that makes us think we are losing ground.)  The fact of his presidency is a challenge to much of the nation.  The fact that he is continuing some of the Bush policies in matters of war means that his opponents (the Grand Old White Man Party) need to frame his domestic policies as so radical as to threaten our very existence as a nation.  Thus, the charged rhetoric.

Because it is, at least in part, about race.  (Please no eye rolls — I am a MWJL, remember?)

Lest we forget that John McCain and Sarah Palin got a lot of votes and stirred up fears of the end of the reign of the Old White Man.

Remember when he let a little of his anger show when Professor Gates was arrested?  You would think that he created an international incident.  All he did was call the actions of white cops stupid.  Imagine George Bush doing that.  Not even a blip on the radar.

Listen to the racist language of the Tea Party.  These people are scared that they will be treated the way they have treated minorities.  They know that karma can be a painful boomerang.  So, now that the Establishment is run by an African-American, they are fighting the Establishment tooth and nail.

I had an epiphany the other day about DADT.  The President is Commander in Chief of a military run by conservative white men.  When he leads, they need to follow.  So, he needs to show he will listen, too.  So, maybe he needs to protect DADT for now as it winds it way through the courts and the Congress.

The President is the embodiment of the American dream, with the picture-perfect American family.  But he is not a reflection of America yet, but an aspiration of what America can be.  We all have some work to do.

Share

A Morning at the Museum

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday, POB (partner of blogger), SOPOBAB (son of POB and blogger) and I joined HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) and FOB (father of blogger) went to the Met to look at the Kubla Khan exhibit (everyone now spells Kubla in a more authentic way, but it was 10am on a Saturday and that kind of information will not get absorbed into my brain).

SOPOBAB is studying Chinese and the information on a significant dynasty was appealing to him.  Also POB talked up the portraiture galleries which had pictures of Revolutionary heroes, etc.  SOPOBAB has read a lot about that, too, and seemed interested.

Great, I think, ancient Chinese dynasties and portrait galleries, could there be anything else I would want to see LESS on a Saturday morning at 10am?  Arms and Armor.  Ok, I am lucky I think.  At least no trifecta.

As a child I hated going to the Met.  It was an overwhelming place with furniture exhibits, armory and ancient Greek statues.  None of it mattered to me.  As an adult, I enjoy the Modern Wing and some of the African art, probably because I have studied some about the art in these areas.

I actually enjoyed the Kubla Khan show, most especially because I watched SOPOBAB find things of interest and talk to FOB and HOSOB about portions of the exhibit.  SOPOBAB, at 8 years old, is a young man who can navigate an exhibit at a museum.

The American Wing was closed for renovation.  The gods were smiling on me.  No portraits of American heroes.  Phew.  Waaaaaitt!!! Where are we going now?  Not to the diner for lunch?  no?  Arms and Armory?  Really?

Ok, so I walk through the exhibit that totally freaked me out when I was a kid.  All of this body armor.  I am a sport and try to focus and learn something.

I look at the body armor and read about the history.  And then, in a moment, the one sight that compelled a blog entry:

It is hard to see, but Kind Ferdinand of Spain needed a lot of extra space for his genitals.  No other body armor has this.  I think this was a message to his adversaries.

So, I learned that in every exhibit, there is something for everyone.

Share

Migraines

Posted on by
Reply

I suffer from migraines.  They have gotten worse over the years.  A few years ago, an old white male ob-gyn cheerfully told me that my migraines should go away after menopause.  I have since moved on to another ob-gyn (not that I need the “ob” part anymore).  His name is Dr. Jew.  He is a great doctor and lovely man and, yes, I would go to him in any event because of his name.  Why?  Sometimes you have to laugh at the odd twists and turns of your grandmother’s every dream — a Jewish doctor.  In this case, the doctor’s last name is Jew.  He is Korean.  But I digress.

Back to my migraine.

I had a blow-out one yesterday.  The aura — no peripheral vision in my right eye, tingling in my legs — made me reach for the prescription medication and not just “tough it out”.  If I take the medication in time, it can really blunt the pain and limit the duration.  I got home at 6:30pm and took to my bed in the dark.  POB (partner of blogger) and SOPOBAB (son of POB and blogger) came home a little later.  I crawled out of bed with my sunglasses on (migraines make me sensitive to light) and looked like a holdover from Halloween celebrations.  I think I scared my son more than any Headless Horseman could.

Anyway, I had to go back to bed because it was all too much (those with migraines can understand) but I was feeling helpless and useless and getting angrier at my migraine (again, those with migraines can understand).  So, I put on my sunglasses, turned on my laptop to read up on new ideas for prevention.  Instead, I read, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/79402.php, which essentially says that having auras correlates to higher risk of stroke and heart attack in women.  I emailed it to Dr. SOB (sister of blogger) and, overwhelmed with this new information, I drowned even further in self-pity.

Luckily, SOPOBAB (who, at 8 years old, is sometimes a better doctor than Dr. SOB) came in and kissed me so that I would feel better, but really he wanted to tell me in full voice about some new train magazine.  Wallowing was over.  Happily, so, too, was my headache.  SOPOBAB is really good medicine.

Share

Family Album

Posted on by
2

I am the archivist for my original nuclear family (FOB (father of blogger), MOB (mother of blogger, may she rest in peace), SOB (sister of blogger) and HOSOB (husband of SOB).  And of course, for my nuclear family, POB (partner of blogger) and SOPOBAB (son of POB and blogger).  I also have archived pictures of some of POB’s extended family.

After struggling to identify people in old photos, I decided that we need to catalogue pictures with names because the people who would know are forgetful or “no longer with us”.

So, I upgraded my iPhoto program so now I have face recognition software.  I will have to press FOB about some people; MOB would have known.  Thank Goodness, Aunt Betty was at FOB’s party and helped with some identifications.

Still, there isn’t room for the stories behind the pictures, but I will work on that next.

But there are some people in these photos who were important at one point but turned out to be rotters.  But if we don’t name them, then later generations might think they remained important but their names were lost to history.  THAT won’t do. So we have to name them, but in a way that conveys the backstory.

In the pictures of my sister’s wedding, there are many – dare I say TOO many — pictures of the one-time fiancé of one of SOB’s dearest college friends.  Subsequent to the wedding, problems arose and we took to calling him Stan (not his real name) so that if they patched things up, we could revert to his real name without negative attachments.  (Brilliant idea by HOSOB.)

Well, they didn’t patch things up and he is figuring TOO prominently in the wedding pictures.  (see back story http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1907)  Just to call him “Stan” would only convey his loser-ish behavior to very few people in the family, leaving subsequent generations to think his name was Stan and there is nothing more to the story.  No, this will not stand. He was horrible to a dear friend of SOB, whom we have all known for 30 years and, despite her Republican party identification, is FAMILY.  Every time he ruins a perfectly good wedding picture by his mere image in it, I become enraged.  Yet, I am a mom, so I have to be careful how I characterize him (i.e., no profanity). I tried out a name, but I wasn’t sure.

As I was doing the endless name recognition (10,000 faces can be daunting), SOPOBAB was looking over my shoulder and asked, “Who is ‘Stan the Loser’?”  And so I explained to the next generation the sins of Stan.  And now the back story won’t be lost.

And then I knew I got the name just right.

Share

A Great Party

Posted on by
2

Our dad’s 90th birthday party was a wonderful success.  It was a beautiful day and the party was in a greenhouse with an outdoor space.

One of my dad’s friends spoke about meeting Dad in 1943 when Dad was a corporal and his friend was a private.  They re-met during the Korean War (my father almost ran him over in Tokyo) and then at dental school and have been friends for 67 years.  I can’t imagine knowing someone for that long who could still say wonderful things about me.  Crazy.

Lots of relatives or people who are relatives just by longevity.  Follow me on this one.  My aunt, my mother and Blossom (among others) were sorority sisters at college in the 1940s.  (My aunt was dating my uncle and introduced my mother to her boyfriend’s brother (my dad) but that is another story for another blog entry).  Blossom married my aunt’s cousin whom she divorced.  (That cousin was there with his wife, even though they are not technically related either, but longevity is more important than blood anyway.)  Blossom then married Aaron.  Blossom died and Aaron married Marjorie.  The first time POB (partner of blogger) and I met Marjorie was at a cousin’s bar mitzvah.  But Marjorie must have been part of the family in another life, because she had no boundaries from the start.  POB was pregnant and Marjorie turned to her and said, “Known donor or unknown donor?”.  POB, having been raised in a good home and not quite used to direct, personal questions from near-strangers was so shocked that she actually answered.  I then turned to POB and said, “well, now that Marjorie knows, don’t you think we ought to tell our parents?” So a person married to someone who married into the family who was married to someone who was no longer married into the family asserted family privilege to ask any question that came to mind, without filter.  I love this family.

My cousins — Dad’s nieces and nephews — talked about things they remembered about Dad from when they were kids in the 1940s and 1950s.  Cousin Gentle (from prior blogs) talked about how Dad gave tickets to a ball game to his father (my Uncle Dave) so Uncle Dave could take Cousin Gentle to a ball game.  It turns out it was Don Larsen’s 1952 World Series perfect game.  Still the only ball game that Cousin Gentle has ever attended.

Another cousin talked about Dad’s teaching her to build card houses, and another talked about Dad’s taking him to the Opera.  All of them talked about the beautiful things he brought home for each of his nieces and nephews from Japan after the Korean War.  They remembered him as someone interested in them and kind and gentle.  It was really touching to hear new things about my Dad and hear the love expressed in those memories.

One cousin started talking about the meaning of family and how he is a trust and estates lawyer (I had to stop him from taking the opportunity for self-advertisement) and how he has seen families fight and disinherit each other.  He started to go off on a tangent and get a little worked up, without an end in sight.  SOB (sister of blogger) gave me a sign that I had to intervene, so I got up, went over to my cousin and took the microphone away and offered it to the next cousin who wanted to speak, in age order.  Cousin Gentle and SOB now call me “Hook” because I pulled that act off the stage.

SOB talked about the first night she was an intern and was in the hospital all night and was scared and overwhelmed.  At about 3am, she got a page.  It was Dad, wanting to make sure she was alive.  She never forgot that and it helped her through that rest of that night’s torture.

Then BOB (brother of blogger) talked beautifully about how Dad is a role model for being a good husband and father and how special it was that Dad was his best man at his wedding.  BOB is not usually that emotional, introspective or even talkative around us.  I was so moved.  But the moment was over like a shooting star flaming out, so all returned like a flash to status quo ante.  But for the moment, there was kumbaya in the air, as if it were being sung for the first time.

My dad is such a sweet, and humble man.  When it came time for the cake, he thanked everyone for coming and said how fortunate he was to be surrounded by friends and family and he was grateful to everyone for being there and for their kind words.  The cousin from whom I had to yank the microphone said in a stage whisper (really a stage SHOUT), “what, that is all he is going to say?”  Aaaaargh.  My dad said it all in a few words and did so with grace and humility.  Dear Cousin, a lesson might be learned here.

We had the quintessential Jewish goodbye — we all said goodbye but didn’t leave.  In fact, I must have said goodbye three or four times to the same people.  The rule is if there is more than a half-hour between goodbye kiss and departure, you have to start over again.   I don’t know the provenance of the rule, but it caused the goodbyes to go on for almost 2 hours.  Also, it probably didn’t help that we had pictures from 1920 to the present out on a table by the door so people starting reminiscing anew as they were leaving.  Some of the older folk sat down in comfy chairs to nap a little while they waited for the rest of their group to finish.  I wish I had pictures of that.

Share

Sanchez and Stewart — A Re-Think

Posted on by
Reply

A friend from high school sent me a message and thought I should rethink my prior blog entry on the Sanchez and Stewart dust-up (http://40andoverblog.com/?p=2921).

I re-read it and my high school friend was right that I was unduly harsh and outrageously judgmental (and, although she didn’t say it, I will add, hypocritical) in my comments about Jon Stewart’s religious observance.  It is none of my business and I was out of line.

I still believe that there was a potential for a teachable moment with Rick Sanchez, where we could talk about the source of the anger.  There is so much anger in our society right now that I just wish we would look more closely at it, together, and find some common ground and possibly healing.

And even as I was trying to make that point in my prior blog entry, I took a needless and shameful pot-shot at Jon Stewart.  As much as I love Jon Stewart and I would bear his children if I could (POB (partner of blogger) knows this and accepts this because, well, it is biologically impossible anyway), some things about him push my buttons and I react irrationally.  Maybe that it why I feel bad (a little) for Rick Sanchez (whose show is, in my opinion, so bad as to be unwatchable).

Anyway, to my high school friend, thank you for “calling me” on this and I expect you to keep me in line as you see fit.

~ Blogger

Share

Dad at 90

Posted on by
2

So, Saturday is the big birthday celebration for my dad who turned 90 this week.  SOB (sister of blogger) told me I had to give a tasteful toast.  (Did she think I was going to give a bawdy bachelorette party toast?)

I have been having the hardest time coming up with something to say.  I don’t want it to dwell on the past because it sounds to funereal, but there is more road behind than ahead, if you see what I mean.  My dad did promise me that he would live to 120, just as Moses did.  Some days he is up to the task; other days, not so much.

Dad is not someone who is comfortable in the spotlight.  He always referred to himself as Mom’s husband. But people are drawn to him by his effusive optimism, unassuming nature, cheerful disposition and kind heart.  (He also makes us crazy by recounting every little ache and pain and digestive discomfort.)

Most of Dad’s nieces and nephews and dear friends (who are still alive) are coming to the party.  In some ways it is the gathering of the clan in honor of an elder.  He is the last of five brothers who lived the American Dream in varying degrees of happiness and success.  He and his sister-in-law, my aunt, are the last of a generation.  They will have seats of honor.

But really his birthday is about us — his family and his extended family and what his generation meant to us and how we define ourselves as more than a family — really, a clan.  He and our aunt form our link to our heritage  — they are the last of our family’s Yiddish speakers, they are the last to be born into poverty and ride the rising tide of the American Century.

We stand on their shoulders as we do on the shoulders of our uncles and aunts who are no longer alive.  They made possible our lives and our choices.

Of course, it IS about Dad on his birthday.  I hope he looks back with satisfaction and wonder at his years so far, and I hope he doesn’t think that this party is the coda, but rather a reflection point on a continuing life well lived.

Share

Dreaming

Posted on by
Reply

I had multiple and elaborate stress dreams last night.  (It is unfortunate to remember one’s night terror.)

It started out in the usual way: there was a test coming up based on FOUR years of college-level mathematics and I had cut all of the classes for ALL four years.  So, I had to find a tutor.  My college friends suggested someone, another friend from college.  So, we went in search of her and that takes us to Brazil.  But we can’t see any of the sites while we are there (we are always stymied) so we are looking for a cybercafe to look up all the must-see things in Rio that we are missing.  We walked by an open-air stadium and we heard Diana Ross and the Supremes.  We whipped out our hair brushes, and used them as mics as we did a lip-synching street show.

Some facts to know:

  1. I cut almost every 8am calculus class freshman year and scraped by with a C (given the grade inflation that existed at Dartmouth, it was as if I passed by the grace of G-d) and never went near another math-related course.
  2. On rides to and from school, we often whipped out our hair brushes to sing back-up for whatever song was on the radio (no CDs or iPods then).
  3. I have been to many cities in Brazil, as well as the rainforest.

So, stress and life conflated into an intricate, colorful and stressful dream.  Maybe the humor in my stress dream signals a growing maturity in handling of stress.  Or, more likely, I was lucky that my dream amused me, in addition to sending me into a cold sweat.

Paging, Dr. Freud. . . .

Share

Photographs and memories

Posted on by
Reply

We — the kids — are throwing a 90th birthday party for our Dad.  It is coming up, so SOB (sister of blogger) and I spent a few hours combing through old pictures that would go on a big poster board put up on an easel.

It wasn’t easy choosing among the pictures.  There are some as old as 1926 and as recent as last weekend.  Some are of individuals, and others are group shots.  We have pictures of cousins, friends, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents and some long-forgotten friends and family.  I looked at pictures of long dead relatives when they were young and laughing (and smoking and drinking).  Happy moments in sometimes hard lives.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, as an old adage goes.  Except the people who know those 1,000 words — and can tell the story, the back-story and gossip that brings the picture to life — are dead or have forgotten.  And when they were alive or could remember, I was too young to be interested.  And so, we have the pictures and sometimes notes and dates jotted on the backs.  There is a picture of my uncles in uniform with my grandparents.  Were they shipping out?  Were they on leave?  Were they home after the war was over?  The picture is small and the resolution not so great, so it is hard to tell their ages.  And my grandparents always looked ancient, anyway.  So, were my uncles scared about going to war, just on leave, or relieved that it was over and that they survived?

I wish I had 1,000 words for each of these pictures because now I am ready to hear the stories and learn the personal histories.  Now I know that people don’t live forever.  And I was so young and self-involved when people were trying to tell me.  And so I lost the richest part of my inheritance.

Share

Sunday night dinner chez nous

Posted on by
1

Further reinforcing my hypothesis that older people progressively allocate more time to traveling and invariably arrive early, our fathers came for 6pm dinner at 4:30pm, which coincides with the time-honored “early bird” hour.  Which makes one wonder whether restaurateurs named, rather than caused, the phenomenon.

I don’t know about other Jewish families, but the first dinner after the Yom Kippur holy day involves comparing Yiskor books (books of remembrance for those who have died) and book plate honors (having someone’s name put in a prayerbook) from the various synagogues to which various members attend.  It is a morbid combination of “Bingo”, “Wheel of [Mis]Fortune” and “Celebrity Match-ups”.  I like to think of it as “Did You Remember to Name that Dead Person?”

My dad was upset that he forgot to list POB’s (partner of blogger’s) mom (z”l).  I said, “Don’t worry.  You’ll remember next year, Dad.  We had her covered.”

I mentioned that we also covered several uncles and cousins and he mentioned a few we forgot and also the grandparents.  Oooooh.  Darn!!!  Missed that!  Harumph. We need to have a huge list for next year, even if the dollars pile up (wait, you thought it was free?).

But we had a book plate put in a prayerbook for Dad’s 90th birthday.  SCORE!!!  (POB is sooooo awesome.)

POB’s father and our son were watching the football games.  The other Jews shrugged and then started to talk about concussions and debilitating diseases, as a way of showing interest in the football game.

Then SOB (sister of blogger) wanted to take out the old family pictures so we can mount them on poster board for my Dad’s birthday party.  We all got a little teary-eyed about how young and vibrant everyone looked and how most are now gone.

So, to recap:  we have talked about death, destruction and death again.  Just what Jews need to work up an appetite.

POB made a delicious dinner, over which we discussed the importance of building that Islamic Cultural Center right where they planned it and argued about the meaning of life, chaos theory and the mysteries of the universe.  It got rather heated when we were contrasting a Jewish, G-d-centric approach that assumes that actions have meaning and can cause change versus the view that most of what we do doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.  I ventured that, while I am not so sure that I believe the former, if I in fact believed the latter, then what’s the point and POB should just get my life insurance.  At that point, POB’s father then asked, “how much?” in a very oddly interested tone.  My brother-in-law (the bird nerd from other entries), quietly advised me not to go anywhere alone with my father-in-law.  All this while I was choking over the salad course.

Dessert brought calm to the table as we talked about the Million Moderate March on October 30th and exhorted our TV-challenged relatives to tune into Jon Stewart on the web.  (I could not speak to Stephen Colbert, because I remember him when he was really a right wing-nut at Dartmouth.)

So, death, destruction, death, religion & chaos, politics and comedy.  Another excellent family dinner with the extended family.

Share