Category Archives: Mothers

Just the G-d-Awful Flu

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Since Friday, I have been felled by the flu.  I don’t have mad sow flu, or H1N1, as it is supposedly called.

I am now recovering from the usual, seasonal, G-d-awful flu.  It happens.  The non-designer, non-pandemic one.  I even had a flu shot which I have to say probably made it less horrendous than it could have been.

My sister the doctor was concerned that I was dying of the plague because I didn’t blog for days.  Yes, I had to have been pretty hard hit not to blog, or, for that matter, to pay a shiva call to my friend whose mother’s funeral I attended last week (see prior blog entry).

The flu, once medicated, is the moral equivalent of a stubbed toe.  Yet, I longed to hear my mother say, “my poor tsakele, if I could have it for you I would,” as she looked into my eyes and caressed my cheek in that way that mothers do that make you feel better just by having them there.

POB, partner of blogger, has been in the trenches with our son, getting him from place to place, while I lied in bed doing the least I could do.  Really, the least I could do.  And she is a trooper (who is now coughing, because I share too much).

I took a walk yesterday because I was becoming self-radicalized watching CNN and MSNBC in between naps over the last few days.  I was woozy and thought it would be a great idea to go to the gym.  (I need a personal attendant.)  I went to the gym and did nothing except watch the people who are able to go to the gym on a Monday at 3:30pm, while I scrubbed with Purell.  Luckily the medication dried me out so much that I neither blew my nose or coughed much.  One general observation:  the beautiful, the buff and the young don’t go to the gym in the afternoon.  The older, schleppier and grayer do.

I left the gym having not sweat or done anything to shore up my sagging self and walked south for no reason (ok, no sane reason).  I went into PC Richards and Sons and looked at Plasma TVs.  I thought maybe if I bought a big plasma TV, I could tell POB that it was the delirium that did it.  Even in my delirium I knew that was stupid, yet wishful, thinking.

Friends tried to make me feel better by emailing me stories of the weird and blog-worthy.   My old friend started out his email by writing: “My dear son didn’t really do anything wrong (that’s what every parent says).”  Followed by, wait for it . . .

“Gotcha!!!”

Walk-weary, I took to my bed and resumed doing the least I could do.

Dr. SOB (Sister of Blogger), are you satisfied that I am on the road to recovery?

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Imagine Peace — Part 2

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I know my mother sounded a little saintly and we like a family of do-gooders in a prior entry, Imagine Peace, so we need to set the record straight.  We have our moments of community service but we are Seinfeldian in the usual ways.

First, the email from a friend of MOB [mother of blogger) and a co-founder of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence from FOBM (friend of blogger’s mom) to SOB (sister of blogger).

“Dear SOB:

Thank you for coming on Tuesday and for helping to make the event a great success.  I still miss MOB and would love to have her see how the organization has progressed from its fledgling days when she did so much to nurture it.

Also, would you send me blogger’s email address – she was quite a bidder at the Silent Auction and won a Fire Island week as well as French lessons.  Many thanks again for your continued support.

Fondly, FOBM”

Very lovely note, indeed.  So glad that Mom is remembered. SOB follows up with this email to me:

“Blogger:

I am forwarding an email from FOBM. That’s great that you won that Fire Island week.  (Have you heard there is a recession going on?  What else did you bid on?  What if you won everything you bid on?  Are you CRAZY?)
Actually, I was looking at that myself and considering bidding but then got distracted and didn’t return. When are we going?!! I hope it’s not a dump. You don’t have to invite us.

I feel very good that our family supports this organization – a way to honor Mom and her vision.

Kumbaya, babe.

Love, SOB“


It is important to be honest that we are riding our mother’s coattails.

Yep, Kumbaya, SOB, Kumbaya.
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Lip Creep

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For the last few days I have been wearing lipstick because I finally accept my mother’s opinion that a little lipstick hides that washed-out look that comes with age.  And, lipstick is a good lip moisturizer.

Still, I have noticed that not only does the lipstick make my lips look bigger, it is actually making them bigger. 

Lip creep is the culprit.  Tiny wrinkles around the lips allow the lipstick to run into the crevices that the wrinkles create which, as I grow older, will become ravines. 

Now when I see an old woman with lipstick down to her chin, I will be more kind.  Or as kind as I can be.

For now, back to Chapstick for me.  Sorry, Mom.

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Mothers and Their Daughters and the Perilous Schlepic to New Jersey

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Today I went to a funeral in New Jersey for the mother of a friend.   After my mother died, my heart always breaks for a daughter losing a mother.  And when it is a dear friend, the pain is excruciating.  Because daughters and their mothers have bonds that, well, you have to be one to understand.

I arrive at the rental place early this morning and the rental car agent and a customer were comparing menopause symptoms.  After enduring about 5 minutes of this (which seemed more like an hour), I ask if I can get a special discount for being peri-menopausal.  I cannot.  I rent the car anyway.

The car is equipped with NeverLost GPS and, confident in the GPS system, I set out for New Jersey.  It is a 21 minute drive with no traffic, but it IS New Jersey and, as a New Yorker, I must allot an extra hour to navigate New Jersey.  The GPS voice and I are getting along fine.  Smoooooooth.

Then GPS lady tells me I have arrived at my destination and it is a jewelry shop.  Ok, this IS a Jewish event but it is not a wedding and this is not the registry, so this is clearly wrong. New Jersey has stumped the NeverLost lady.  She is now the NeverLost-but-all-bets-are-off-in-New-Jersey lady.  I make a mental note that, at that moment, in that parking lot, in our generation, man triumphed over machine.

I call the funeral home and a man, who must be taught to speak in that Musak voice, gives me directions that a native would understand.  But I am not a native.  I am a foreigner in a foreign state.  It is moving from the State of New Jersey to the State of Agitation.  So, I try to follow the instructions and I go round and round and see some lovely sites.  In fact, I passed the funeral home once without realizing it, on my way to getting lost for yet another time.

I pull into a shopping center and walk into a Whole Foods and inquire at the help counter.  A lovely woman named Sheila googles the address, then calls the funeral home, then tells me some landmarks, walks me out of the store and points to the exact road where I needed to go.  I hug Sheila.  I think she is surprised and thinks she might be starring in a commercial, but no, it is the explosive gratitude of a person who fears that she may never see her family again even though she is just a few miles from the George Washington Bridge.

I arrive at the funeral just in time.  My friend speaks poignantly of her mother and said so many things that resonate for me in my relationship with my mother.  I keep thinking about Joni Mitchell and her stupid, stinking, painted ponies going around on the carousel of time.

My friend talks about being grateful for what was and not being resentful of what will not be.  Very poignant and resonant.  My friend, in her mourning, teaches me a life lesson.  My absurd trip that started out as an effort to comfort a friend and turns out inspiring me.    I leave the funeral feeling upbeat about the life and legacy of my friend’s mother because of the love and humor that poured out in the eulogies.  Only neurotic Jews of a certain generation can use words like “great” to describe a funeral.  You’ll have to trust me that it isn’t ghoulish.  There is something so life-affirming about love and humor amid the tears and the sea of people taking time out of the usual grind to stand in remembrance of person or in support of those she left behind.

Life is eternal and love immortal and death is only a horizon (Carly Simon).

But it WAS schlepic.

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Imagine Peace

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Imagine peace.

That was Yoko Ono’s ad in the journal for last night’s benefit supporting New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV).

My mother helped found the organization.  I remember vaguely that she would go up to Albany to lobby for tighter gun laws, coordinate the silent marches (the sea of empty shoes for those killed by gun violence) and generally be a nudge for the public welfare.  She was unassuming about her efforts for this cause.

I sat at the benefit and I was both stunned and brimming with pride at the flourishing my mother’s “seed” work, about which she was very quiet and very determined.  A young woman spoke about her work for the organization, doing outreach to youths at risk.  She spoke from the heart.  My eyes welled up.  I went over to her afterward to tell her how I was so taken with her words and her work.  I mentioned that my mother helped found this organization and she looked at my name tag, and then hugged me, saying “I have heard stories about your mother.”  Then a board member came over and said, “I knew your mother and we still talk about her and use her catch phrases.”

My mother has been dead for nearly seven years.  And she is remembered by both colleagues and people who never actually met her. A life well lived.

My sister is standard bearer for our generation.  Her wedding registry was composed of two charities, one of which was NYAGV.  When same-sex marriage is legal in NY, I am going to follow my mother’s and sister’s examples and make it part of my registry.

My mother’s legacy is a challenge to me to leave this world a better place than it was when I was born.  Not fix everything, just fix or enhance something.

Imagine peace. I hear her saying, “now go and make it happen”.  Mom is a tough lady in death as in life.  And an inspiration.  May she rest in peace.  Her memory is always a blessing.

Imagine peace.

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Taking Candy from Your Baby

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So, here I am at 7:25pm on Thursday after Halloween and I am eating candy that my son gathered on his trick-or-treating extravaganza.  I am feeling guilty, but only a little.  My son is 7 years old so it isn’t exactly like taking candy from a baby (she writes defiantly).

Halloween was its usual hell-ish experience.  As I have written before, I don’t like the holiday because of, among other things, the ghoulish costumes and behaviors, and I didn’t know what to do with the carved pumpkin except put it in the refrigerator where one would normally put ripened or cut fruit.  Leave it out for the bugs and the vermin?  Now, that’s not a plan for an urban dweller who likes to keep both nature’s jungle and the urban jungle at bay.

A major issue was my son’s costume.  He did not want to dress up and wanted a general pass on the occasion (that’s my son!!).  POB (partner of blogger) had long ago convinced me that Halloween was important (as were scooters and other toys of potential death and dismemberment) because we should stress social inclusion (but not assimilation or group think).

As you can tell POB is the intellectual in the family because I am still trying to apply these principles to daily life and parenting.  Realizing that I was still struggling, she recently restated her position in words I can understand: having two moms will be tough enough when he is a teenager, do you want to add the deficit of Halloween?  Because we are two women, our son’s societal acceptance depends on celebrating Halloween.   Ok, I get that thinking. Sort of.  My straight parents were dismissive of some societal norms and my college friends thought I was a Soviet spy.  It was lovingly meant as weird and kooky, I think.

So, Halloween it is.  It took some cajoling for our son to agree to a costume: “why can’t I be ME?” he asked. As part of the inclusion model, I did not say that a transitive verb takes a subjective pronoun and the question is “why can’t I be I?” which, while non-sensical, is grammatically correct.  But I digress.

He loves the Natural History Museum which was founded by early 20th century President Teddy Roosevelt.  So, he decided that he would be Teddy Roosevelt in the age of the Rough Riders.  We got a rough rider hat, bandana, round spectacles and I taught him to say, “bully, bully!!” just like Roosevelt.  But it was a little — how shall I say — cerebral for a 7 year-old.

Mindful of inclusion model, I tried to get him to think more commercially — work with me on the inclusion part here — and I asked, wouldn’t you like to be a Power Ranger or an X-Man?  Nah, not so much.  Teddy Roosevelt it was.

My parents would have beamed with pride and joy if I wanted to dress up as Eleanor Roosevelt for Halloween.  One generation later, I am begging my son to be an X-Man.  There is a PhD thesis in here somewhere but not now.

Needless to say, in No-Where-istan, there is no Halloween.

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Deja Vu All Over Again

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I saw my sister in the gym tonight.  Actually, I bumped into a trainer just outside the gym who told me my sister was working out.  I looked shocked; the trainer then looked puzzled.  You see, my sister has a stress fracture in her foot and should not be on an elliptical machine (and that is all she does at the gym when I am not around to coach her about weights).  I march upstairs in my “street clothes” to confront my sister.  I go to the heart of the matter and ask her whether she did, in fact, get her medical degree through a correspondence course with an off-shore medical school. In our family, that is the sum total of trash-talking.

After having laid down the gauntlet, my sister sputters some rationalizations, all of which I reject in an imperious way (after all I am a doctor, too — ok, a juris doctor).  I give her THE LOOK (Mom’s look of disappointment).  She doesn’t flinch.  She is not my sister.  My sister would have flinched.  I am confronted by the realization that my sister’s body is inhabited by an alien who is not scared of THE LOOK. THE LOOK proves the old adage, “if looks could kill . . . ” Well, not exactly, but THE LOOK with the eyes of my mother can really make a person plead for forgiveness. No sign of recognition by the alien inhabiting my sister.

Still, she knows about “our” Dad’s procedure tomorrow.  Clever aliens, these pod people.

So, I test this alien with other facts that my sister should know.  I mention some things I had written in my blog.  She is a little hazy about some of my latest entries.  But she does zero in on some with incredible accuracy.  I am not convinced yet but I leave to regroup and give the alien a false sense that she fooled the sister of her host body.  I come back up and flash an old picture of my parents and my sister at camp visiting day, circa 1969.  The alien looks at the picture, sighs and hugs me.

Maybe my sister is inhabited by an alien, but it is a really endearing alien.  Maybe the alien can heal her stress fracture.  Maybe the alien can help with my sagging neck.  After all, aliens have special powers that can conquer humanity, or at least that is true in the movies.

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Soldiers and civilians will die whatever the Afghanistan strategy

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G-d bless the men and women in our armed services.  They put their lives on the line in Somalia, on the DMZ between the Koreas, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and in many other places known and unknown.  They are heroes.  (Ok, there are some gross exceptions to the rule — Abu Gh’raib for example.) 

I hate the war in Iraq and I know I am blessed to have others fight those dangerous battles.  Regardless of how you feel about the war, the veterans deserve all that a grateful nation should give them — honor, respect, the best medical care in the world, the best jobs, the best education for them, their spouses and children, economic security in old age and even throw in a country club membership.  And still, there is no way to repay the dedication and honor of these brave souls who have seen and done the unspeakable.

Afghanistan seems to be a quagmire.  We are damned if we pull out, we are damned if we keep the status quo and there are no assurances of success if we commit further troops there.  In short, soldiers and civilians will die no matter what decision is made. 

I will not allow my son to fight unless there is an imminent threat to our country.  And, in that case, I will go to war with him to protect this nation.  So, I can’t say that other people’s children should go.

For everyone involved in the decision-making process, I hope they have children in the line of fire.  Then, I’ll believe it is the best decision and not a political one.

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School days

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Today was our parent-teacher conference.  Our son is blossoming at his new school.  The feedback is that, although he has some areas that require work, he is smart, well-liked and presents as a kind, warm-hearted kid. (Note to self: confirm we are really talking about the same child.)  That is great news.

After the conference, we wait because he wants to come out and greet us.  He runs into our arms and then runs away because he is in the middle of something he finds fun. (Note to self: wait until later to cry over how independent he is.)

After last year’s terrible experience in a large public school, my son who needs some extra attention, is finding his place in his new school.  And we, his moms, are slowly shedding the stress of last year and enjoying the re-kindled love of school and learning.  (Note to self: approach networks about a made-for-TV movie.)

It is true that a parent is only as happy as his/her saddest child.  Today, my son is happy.  And if my son is happy, then the economy can stink (but not for much longer).  Life is good today.

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Home Sick

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My son complained of a sore throat and running nose this morning, enough so that my partner (POB — partner of blogger), who usually takes no prisoners, relented and let him stay home.  She had meetings and I could telecommute, so I am staying home with him.

He wanted to watch cartoons, especially a particular one that combines his favorites — dinosaurs and trains.  I told him no because being home sick is different than a vacation day.  Now, he is feeling better and is bored and misses his friends at school.  My child is whining, angry and saying hurtful things out of frustration.  (I am not really sure he was sick in the first place.)

The usual child sturm und drang, right?  No, not for our child.

This is a breakthrough for him to feel included, to say he misses his friends, to prefer to leave his toys behind and engage in a group activity, ALL at school.  This is a great, great day in our lives.

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