It’s Chanukah, Charlie Brown!!

Posted on November 27, 2013 by 40andover

Growing up, I longed for Charles M. Schulz to write and produce a Peanuts family Chanukah special.

I imagined that Charlie Brown would wear a kipah and chant the blessings after lighting the first candle on the first night. And the Peanuts gang would sing “Rock of Ages,” tilting their heads back in that way they do, with Schroeder accompanying on his piano.

Linus would tell the story of the miracle of Chanukah and explain the letters on the dreydl.

“You see, Charlie Brown,” Linus would begin, “it started in the days of old. A band of Israelites led a revolt against Greek occupiers of Jerusalem and recaptured the Second Temple. When they took back the Temple, there was only oil enough to light the menorah in the Temple for one day, but the oil lasted eight days so that the Israelites could rededicate the Temple to G-d and make more oil. And that, Charlie Brown, is the miracle of Chanukah. And the dreydl, a four-sided top, which we use for a game is very significant. Each side of the dreydl has a Hebrew letter:

ש ה ג נ

It is an acronym for נס גדול היה שם – “a great miracle happened there”. And that is the great miracle and it happened in Jerusalem, Charlie Brown. Like the Great Pumpkin, only it is a true freedom story.”

Then, the gang would play games of dreydl.

SIDEBAR: For those who have forgotten the rules of the dreydl game, it is a little like poker, but with chocolate coins (gelt):

נ nothing, ה half, ג all, and ש for ante up

And, of course, Lucy would beat Charlie Brown and amass a small fortune of gelt. Then Lucy would offer some of her fortune lying in a mound on the floor to Charlie as a peace offering, only to whisk them away as he slid in to grab for them.

“Good grief!!”

Snoopy would be frying latkes (potato pancakes) and Woodstock would be spooning a mound of apple sauce (or dollop of sour cream) right on top of each.

And everyone would eat latkes. And because they were so greasy, even Pig Pen would fit right in.

The parents would be no where in sight. Except, of course, for the occasional:

“Whaaa whaaa whaaa.”

And at the end of half-hour special, there would be, OF COURSE, the theme song: http://free-loops.com/3520-peanuts-theme-song.html

Now let’s all scream: “Happy Chanukah, Charlie Brown!!“

Amen.

Silver Alert (for Dad and Us)

Posted on November 24, 2013 by 40andover

SOB and I had lunch with Dad and his aide on Saturday (and then on Sunday, with SOS).

As is our Saturday custom, we went through the mounds of scam solicitations targeting older people and settled upon two legitimate charities to which Dad could give. We love that about Dad: He always wants to share his good fortune with others.

And he feels so fortunate. Dad was still a little foggy from a nasty fall he took earlier in the week getting out of bed. But to him, he makes sense. So he is happy. The rest? It is our problem.

SIDEBAR: A few days ago, he had gone to bed for the night but needed to use the bathroom and he got dizzy and fell and hit his head against his night table. An ER visit and seven stitches (right between the eyes) later, we prevailed upon Dad FINALLY to let us move that damned night table, which had been in the same position for 50 years, so that something like this won’t happen again. Thank G-d for the night attendant. He was impaled on the the nightstand and helpless. She helped him, cleaned his wound and called us. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I still have nightmares. And I don’t doubt our decision to spend the money for 24 hour care.

We ambled over to lunch. Shredding scams gives me an enormous appetite.

SIDEBAR: Some serious intrigue was unfolding in the COSUD (COffee Shop of the UnDead). We went over to Sam to say hello and asked after Norma. Sam was with a couple whom Dad knows from the synagogue, but Dad cannot remember their names and neither can SOB or I. Sam seemed so consumed with worry that it was heart-breaking. We offered our help and gave our numbers as we have done any number of times before.

The woman of the couple whose name we can’t remember came over to us and started talking to me. “I may be out of line here. . . .” Oh no. What is she going to say? “But Sam is carrying an unbelievable burden and I think he can’t handle it.” Apparently, Norma wants Sam and only Sam to care for her. And he is older than Dad.

“Thank you for telling me. If you think of something we can do, please let us know.” What do I say? Sam won’t tell us that. Maybe he doesn’t see it. We want to help. Our families have known each other for 50 years.

Sometimes, there are no answer for these intractable issues. And then you give thanks for having parents who understood when they needed help and accepted help and guidance from each other and their children.

We sat down and Vassily came to take our orders. “I am saving you for last,” he said to me, “because you are so difficult!” At least he said it with a smile. COSUD is really growing on me.

Today, we wanted to have an activity more than just lunch. Dad is less inclined to schlep to museums these days. Dad needed to keep moving and not give into the weariness and fogginess that resulted from his fall. So, SOB decided on TJ Maxx which is two blocks away. We were going shopping and Dad loves a good bargain. SOB wanted Dad to have warmer pajamas for the winter.

Dad was a little confused about why he was there. Luckily, he was kibbitzing (light-heartedly arguing) with his aide. Like the Odd Couple.

Dad said, “I need boxers. I only have one pair.”

“You have a month’s worth in your drawers!” said his aide.

“But I only wear one pair at a time, so I need more.”

Well, all right then. He has a logic all his own. They were choosing among the clingy, perfect-gay-man body elastic boxers. And arguing whether they would be a good fit. OBVIOUSLY, I couldn’t listen to it, but they were having a good ol’ time. So I went to find SOB.

I found SOB. And then I looked back at where Dad and his aide were standing. All of a sudden, Dad and his aide VANISHED.

SOB and I were getting frantic. “Is it a white alert? A gray alert? An aged amber alert?” I asked SOB, barely containing my concern. “Silver Alert,” SOB said in a calm voice that belied her feelings.

“Wait! I will call [the aide’s] cell!” I dialed.

Voice mail. Turned out we were calling each other at the same time. They were sitting below sight line.

Phew. I bought pajamas and 20-something boxer shorts for the perfect body for my 93 year-old father. Doesn’t matter. It costs what it costs. Sand on a beach, as they say. He is happy and maybe will think he is Adonis. Ewwww Ewwwwww. Stop.

SOB and I crawled into a cab after seeing Dad and his aide safely across streets to his block. Because SOB and I have creepy twin speak, I don’t remember who said what:

“Remember when Mom used to hand the phone to us and say, ‘give your grandparents a thrill’ and we were so resentful of the two minutes out of day it took to call them?”

“I know. Kids don’t know what it means, our generation finally understands, and the grandparents live for it. Knowledge and appreciation come with age. This is the way it is with the young, the middle-aged and the aged. It will never change.”

The insightful comments must be my sister’s.

Why is the voice of a grandchild better than any medicine? Because when, as it happened today (Sunday) at lunch, the young and old enjoy each other’s company, it transcends time.

And brings joy to every generation at the table.

You never know the impression you make

Posted on November 17, 2013 by 40andover

Have you ever started a conversation with, “You probably don’t remember me, but when I was a kid, you [insert story]. And I will never forget that.” ?

Or maybe there was always someone you admired for having done something quietly and without fanfare and you know only because you were a passerby?

Today, during our lunch at COTUS (Coffee Shop of the Un-Dead), one of our favorite waiters stopped by and told us that a man asks after our family whenever he is in the diner. The waiter couldn’t remember his name, but he said man always said the parents in the family (Mom and Dad) were wonderful people, did wonderful things for the community and raised fine children.

Apparently, we come in earlier in the day than he does and we come on the weekends, and he comes mostly during the week. So we don’t see each other.

After some (mild) interrogation, we determine the identity of the man. Both families went to the same synagogue and 38-43 years ago, his son and we all went to the same elementary school and played in the neighborhood. In later years, Mom and Dad saw more of the man and his wife socially. But very little after Mom died, although the man’s wife looked in on Dad from time to time.

Here is a man who never seemed to be listening while someone else was talking, never seemed interested in anyone else, and never seemed to remember people he had met many times before.

Yet, he asks after Dad now and the family whenever he is in the diner and tells people about Mom and Dad and the good people they were and the good things they did, all these years later.

You never knew the reverberations of your good (and bad) deeds.

In the devolution of the species, hope

Posted on November 14, 2013 by 40andover

I was at a meeting outside of city today. I took a commuter train. It was exciting for me, the ultimate city dweller. No, I can’t imagine an everyday commuter thinking this way. And I was “reverse commuting” so the uncrowded train made it like I was going to spend a day in the country. (Except that I was in a dress and heels.)

Yes, it is ok to roll your eyes at the seen-it-all-yet-wide-eyed New York City girl.

I went to the 125th Street stop because who needs to schlep to Grand Central Station if you live on the Upper West Side? First thing: look at the landscape and determine that the on-coming train was going in the right direction. To get my bearings, I noted the Triborough Bridge (ok, the RFK Bridge to those born yesterday). The sky and views on a Fall morning were in fact spectacular (if you are a city kid, like me).

Then, I had to ask the conductor or engineer (whoEVER) if it was getting on the correct train. Never, ever, ever, in decades of riding New York subways, have I ever had to ask such a question of train personnel.

But the truth is that for all my New York smarts, I have no confidence that I could navigate the commuting life successfully. Checking train schedules, timing it just right, missing a train because of subway delays, would send my blood pressure into the stroke zone.

It was a great meeting and a valuable trip. Business potential, brain engaging projects, blah blah. A promising day on the road to a working person’s Utopia. (Where did those days of idealism go? Oh, mortgage and tuition. Right.)

And then.

After our day long meeting, an assistant at the company drove me the three steps to the train station. (I am exaggerating; it is a FIVE minute walk.) She was so gracious and insistent and I was wearing heels, that I couldn’t refuse the offer and the hospitality.

We were having a lovely conversation on the way down to the parking lot and through the quaint suburban streets. A crazy driver with his (I assume) family nearly sideswiped us (at the time, I couldn’t help but think the road aggression was personal), as he tried to barrel ahead through non-existent traffic. Then he started to weave on town streets (but not drunkenly so), only to come up beside us and yell:

“Snapperhead!”

Whaaat? I never heard that word before.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” my gracious host replied.

“What does that even mean? I have never heard that before.”

“It is a derogatory word for Korean.”

Whoa. Did I imagine the earlier aggression? Was he gunning for her?

“Can I get out and beat him with my heels?”

I was so mad and so outraged at this man with a child in the back seat saying such a thing, TEACHING such a thing, that I was ready to fight hate with violence. And that is the wrong way to change hearts and minds but it would have felt really good, especially since he was getting ready to drive away and I only had a few seconds to deliver a message. And I thought a “FUCK YOU” message was the least I could do.

“I have heard worse and the really sad thing is that there is a child in the car who will learn from him.”

“I know. I get that. And I am sorry that about my outburst about beating him with my heels. That is not the answer.”

“I get called names a lot. It hurts but I don’t let it get me down.”

That stunned me. A lot? What is happening to this country?

“I sort of get that, in a small way.” But really the only reason I, an otherwise white, privileged woman, get it is because I am gay. So, I continued, “I am gay and the hateful things people have shouted at me when I least expect it is so much harder for me because my guard is down. Here we are having a very funny conversation, and someone spews hate out his window. What a misguided coward.”

“Now,” my new friend said, “I don’t get that discrimination. . . .”

I was shocked. How do you think of others in this situation? My new friend has a kind and gentle soul Our conversation continued as to how to undo and prevent these types of prejudices. I was almost late for my train.

In the midst of suburban quaintness, immense wealth and potential deal-making, there converged narrow-minded ugliness and the resilience of the derided person’s sense of humanity and justice.

And a moment shared between two women of different backgrounds, cultures, economic classes, and races, who have both been bruised by prejudice, albeit to different degrees.

That was moment that turned a good day into a great day. And filled an otherwise cynical New Yorker with hope.

Vestiges of a past cast off

Posted on November 12, 2013 by 40andover

ULOB was not a religious man. During his adult life, he went into synagogues only for family rites of passage. And only if my mother told him he had to be there.

When he was a boy, his mother wanted him to have a Bar Mitzvah. His father — my grandfather — renounced religion and didn’t care. But it was so important to Grandma. She wanted ULOB to be a man — a Jewish man –before G-d. Even though she was persecuted for being a Jew.

ULOB often talked of sitting with the foul-smelling rabbi learning to read Hebrew and practicing his Torah portion while the rebbetzin (the rabbi’s wife) washed the floor and did any number of back-breaking jobs.

I think his Bar Mitzvah was on a Thursday. I got the sense that it was mid-morning. My grandmother was possibly upstairs but definitely behind a curtain (michitza) and at least 10 old men were in the main room of the shtebl.

Grandma brought whiskey and some cake for the celebration afterward. She had to save to put out that meager spread. ULOB said the rabbi and the other men scarfed down the food and drink so fast that there were barely crumbs left. No one said a word to Grandma. She was invisible. But Grandma was proud.

ULOB never wanted to go back after that. Even more, almost every touch of Yiddishkeit and every tradition that a Jew learns by osmosis in a Jewish home seemed to drain out of his body over the years. The transition was so complete that he worked on Yom Kippur, ate ham and cheese on rye during Passover, and AROB and he celebrated Christmas.

Imagine my surprise when, as SOB and I were cleaning out ULOB’s apartment after his death, I found his tallis (prayer shawl) in a bag. He had kept that tallis for 73 years.

The one vestige. I bet he couldn’t let go of it because of what that day meant to his mother.

The Wholeness of Life

Posted on November 11, 2013 by 40andover

Alfred Nobel made his fortune in creating, manufacturing and selling agents of destruction (dynamite, etc.) He was called the “merchant of death”.

SIDEBAR: I got this information from Wikipedia and I am happy to cite this source. Are you listening Rand Paul? Also, Randy (may I call you Randy), citing Wikipedia is ok for a blog, but not in a speech if one is looking to fill the Oval Office.

Posthumously, Nobel set up the Peace Prize(s). Seems a little like Andrew Carnegie, a psychopath in life who wanted to be remembered as a generous and civic-minded man.

While I tease SOB about getting the Nobel, I love that she was awarded the Wholeness of Life Award, on Thursday night.

The award is given to a person who is an exceptional teacher, mentor and professional, embodies compassion in the treatment of patients and their families, and exemplifies the gold standard of commitment to patient care.

SOB is grateful every day that she gets to go to work and help people. She doesn’t think she deserves the award. (She is wrong.)

I had to tell SOB not to ruin the ceremony by being too self-deprecating. Anyway, the evening was all about Mom, whom I was channeling, who would have been over the moon at the award and a little miffed that it took so long to recognize her first born.

Nobel, Shmobel. He was not a good guy and we don’t need his stupid, stinking award.

In fact, I am canceling our trip to Oslo.

Operating Instructions

Posted on November 10, 2013 by 40andover

People gave us books when SOS was in utero and after he was born. For every cry, there were three interpretations and four potential psychiatric problems that could arise from handling that cry incorrectly. I thought I would go insane. Do I read more and get totally neurotic or do I do what feels rights and put money away for SOS’s therapy fund? I opted to do the latter.

When it comes to the cycle of life, when the elderly become children again, there are no books. I guess because babies are blank slates, but grown children and their aging parents have lifetimes of issues and patterns of behavior that make meaningless those grossly generalized “operating instructions”.

After much heartache, I finally realized that there is no right way to navigate this time in our lives. I cannot “cure” Dad of his loneliness and his confusion. SOB, the NYC family and I can see him three times a week, and at least two of his three children call him every day. And poor BOB flies in for less than two days every few months.

But there are hours — those damned, never-ending hours in a day — that no one other than Mom (who is gone almost 11 years) can animate. We cannot replace this with our calls, and the kibbitzing he enjoys with his home aides. He is lost even more now than in the years that followed Mom’s death.

And I cannot beat myself up about that.

And when he wants to take over his finances again, because as he says, “I am embarrassed that I haven’t been following up,” I have to be firm and relieve him of responsibility: “Daddy, you cannot manage this anymore. That is why I am here.” He always seems relieved and yet deflated. He knows that he cannot handle these things.

I am honest and, I hope, gentle. He was concerned about his taxes today. “Daddy, I have it covered. No worries.”

Still there is a part of him that doesn’t want to accept that he has given up control. I love that because that is my Dad trying to break through the confusion. The never-let-go and never-give-up fighter who is my Dad. So, I go over everything with him and explain all the expenses. He deserves this and I, quite frankly, am accountable. It is a sacred trust.

But, every week, I have to shred mail he sends back to scam outfits. That is also my sacred trust.

He won’t believe that they are scams and we have to substitute our judgment for his. We no longer tell him because it unnecesarily sets up a challenge of his pride against reality. No one needs that. And we, his kids, need to navigate that gray area between what is the right decision for him and the preservation of the specter of his independence and pride. The bubble of his life — safe, even though mostly lonely and a little confused — is too important.

I know how long precisely how long his savings will last at his current “burn rate” (24 hour care is expensive). And it is a good long while, but it won’t last until he is 120 — Moses’s age. The problem is I made him promise he would live at least until then. So, his kids will pick up the slack if we are lucky enough for him to be with us for another 27 years.

Because I can’t lose Dad, even if he hasn’t existed as such for a long time. I lost my “dad” when Mom died. I lost my “father” on September 19, 2012, when he tripped and had a brain bleed.

But the lovely old man who inhabits my daddy’s/father’s body is a lovely, cheerful, optimistic man who loves us and makes no sense when he tries to be in the conversation. But we know what he wants to say and we respond to that. And we love him.

And I owe it to my father to shroud him in the same abundance of love and safety in which Mom and he raised us. Until 120 or whenever.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Monthly Archives: November 2013