Tag Archives: family

Last Day (and Last Supper)

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You would think that I had enough self-respect not to make a reference to the Last Supper.  But I don’t.

Before I start on today’s adventures, I must mention that during the visit to the Jewish Ghetto, we stopped at the Piazza del 13th (?) del Ottobre. (Sorry, IFOB, that I butchered the name of the plaza.)  It is the place where the Nazis rounded up the Jews and took them to Auschwitz on October 13th (?), 1943.  We were standing in the piazza and, as if on cue, a police car passes nearby, blaring Anne Frank noise (eeeeee-awwwwwww eeeeee-awwwwwww).  It is the sound that makes every Jew shutter.  The ambulances have a different noise, I noticed (eeeee-eeeee  eeeee-eeeee).  Now I have completed the tale of devastation and triumph of world Jewry.  Phew.

Today, our only aim was to shop.  Shop for things that are made here in Rome and not in Milan or elsewhere.  And of course look in the churches and walk in the piazzas along the way.  That is one thing about Rome, a church on every corner and lovely piazzas.  There is even an Episcopal Church that had Irish dancers and a bagpipe outside, trying to get worshippers to come inside.  Now that is a tough sell in the seat of Roman Catholicism.

So not a lot of things made in Rome.  We had to search out artsy areas, a hard thing for foreigners because it is so easy to get lost in Rome.  And, I get bored of shopping in less than an hour.  POB (partner of blogger) wanted to shop and so TLP (our son, the little prince) and I had to schlep along.  Mind-numbing and exhausting.  Some things but nothing really.  Milan would be the city for shopping.

So, nothing really absurd or crazy happened today.  We found some groovy areas that we would love to visit next time.

TLP had a great time in spite of his pre-trip whinings.  POB relaxed by mid-week despite her stress about traveling.  I got stressed as the week went on, because I was almost totally out of touch with everything in the US.  I did check in with the office daily and my secretary and colleague texted me as necessary.  I heard snippets of news — Dow tumbled on oil supply fears and not because of a massacre in Tripoli, Berlusconi’s Bill Clinton problems, Obama’s not defending DOMA anymore.  Other than the massacre, I really don’t care.  Monday I will care.

I think this means I actually had a vacation.  A real vacation.  But wait, the journey home is tomorrow.  So, I shouldn’t jinx it.

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Roma, Thursday

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Today we wandered a bit en route to the Jewish Ghetto.  We walked on meandering streets to the Tiber River and found our way to the Ghetto. We walked up to Capitoline Hill. We were a little lost until TLP (our son, the little prince) said, “this is Capitoline Hill.  I recognize it from our tour the other day and the map.”  POB (partner of blogger) and I looked at each other and sighed.  I guess we don’t have to worry about our child’s intellectual development.

IFOB (Italian friend of blogger) calls it the Jewish Quarter.  Euphemistic.  If an area was walled off with only day passes to the City, it was a ghetto.  A ghetto is a ghetto.  It was long ago and now the Jews of Rome thrive, with 15 synagogues.  We saw the two old synagogues and plaques from Roman times. But being Jews, we have to pick at the scabs of the past.  We have to wallow in the persecution.  All in, it took about 4 hours to recite the indignities since the 2nd century.  That was exhausting.

We had a kosher lunch.  That just means it is even more expensive than Rome generally and everything is overcooked.  IFOB gave us a suggestion for an eatery, but after the recitation of our people’s trials and tribulations we barely crawled to the first place we saw.  There was a sink and the blessing and men in yarmulkes.  All in Italian.  Very cool. A man came over to us and complimented us on how well behaved TLP was.  We were beaming, as in beatification beaming.  TLP got extra gelato.

We saw the four lesbians from the Jewish museum at the restaurant.  They were hard to miss in either place.  The particularly masculine one was flirting with a beautiful woman who worked at the museum.  The woman was clearly flirting back.  I was intrigued but my job as a Jew was to relive the painful past, so I didn’t have time for interesting side stories.  (IFOB: I am being my usual over-the-top self, so don’t be alarmed.  We really don’t going into excruciating details about the past.  We usually conflate a few centuries to save time.)

Then, we walked through various piazzas and along side streets where open doors showed courtyards and beautiful buildings.  Truly magical, as long as no one runs you over.

We took a bus to the Sistine Chapel and TLP survived, barely.  He is not a Raphaelite or a fan of Michelangelo or Titian.  I told him that I am not either, but one has to appreciate the art and the extraordinary talent and skill that is evident.  We took the subway back.  TLP was in transportation Heaven.

We napped and went shopping.  Then off to dinner, in a quiet restaurant. That is, until the LARGE, LARGE group of American adults and children came in.  Three huge tables.  And one of the adults thought it was appropriate in a public place to give a LOUD, VERY LOUD toast to the group’s leaders.  All the English speaking people in the restaurant looked on, stunned and gobsmacked.  The Italians also were talking, and I am sure not in the most glowing terms about the Americans.  One group of kids was being loud and I turned around and said, “Really? Really?  You think this is appropriate?”  They were silent.  Phew.  It could have backfired.

There was one family from the UK also in the restaurant.  They looked similarly distressed at the large (did I mention, LARGE), loud group. As we passed their table on the way out, I looked at the mother and said simply, “Oy.”  She held up her hand and we high-five’d.  Now, THAT’S international communication.

Another great day in Rome.

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More on Rome

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Last night, we had gelato and coffee in the bar of the hotel after dinner out.  I was talking with two retired travel agents from Detroit, Michigan.  It must be a good business because everyone I have ever met has wanted to get out of Detroit.  These older women were on a two-week tour of Rome and the surrounding areas.  Not bad.

Our conversation continued after POB (partner of blogger) and our son, TLP (fka SOPOBAB, and nka the little prince), went upstairs.  They were curious about how TLP was dealing with the violence depicted in the murals and other art.  The Renaissance Masters loved blood and gore.  As I mentioned in my last entry, kids figure it out, so I said that I think he’d be ok but it was a good thing to keep in mind.

I watched as TLP looked at the greatest collections of Renaissance and Roman art over the course of hours at museums and galleries.  He really didn’t focus on the blood and gore but he did like all the naked ladies.  He was disappointed that there was not full-frontal nudity and that the females were not prettier and more voluptuous.  So, my son reduced 2000 years of art into: “the girls look too much like boys”.  I responded that, for a long time, it was not ok for females to be artist’s models and, so, young boys were the substitute models.  TLP thought that was silly.

Out of the mouth of babes. . . .

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Calm in between the Storms

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New York, along with most of the rest of the country is under a siege of extreme weather conditions. (Can you sa-a-ay, “global warming”?  I knew you could.)

I think it is part of the human condition to look at events like sappy metaphors.  (Proof positive: the popularity of Made-For-Lifetime-Channel movies.)

So, I think about enjoying the respites between the real snow storms as a reminder that we must enjoy the respites between life’s storms.  There are more and more challenges and less and less easy answers.  There is so much uncertainty about jobs, about global threats, about economic, social and emotional recovery in this nation.  As we get older, we understand that good health is a gift and not a right, and that our days are numbered whether they be measured in days or decades.

Now, I look for the small moments, not the big triumphs.   My son was so excited that I picked him up from school today (his babysitter flaked out a little).  He hugged me and introduced me around.  In the cab (of course, I am such a princess), he said, “E-Mom, this is maybe the best part of today.” I wanted to bottle that (even with the “maybe” qualifier). I wanted to record it to play it back when he is a teenager and he hates me.  No such luck (or quick thinking).  But what a beautiful moment in the middle of the calamity we call the “new normal”.

My son has already forgotten those words, but for me, for me, it made me feel as if all was right with the world.

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What life holds in store for us

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I am usually snarky or maudlin or kumbaya in my posts.

But sometimes I am stopped in my tracks.

I have written before that my family is like a clan if you look at my parent’s generation of brothers (referred to as “The Five Brothers”) and my generation of cousins (we refer to ourselves as “The Cousins”). The children of The Cousins are less tied to the clan as a whole and while some are close to some of The Cousins (who are not uncles or aunts) and the last of the The Five Brothers, many are not.

The day before Thanksgiving, the son — whom I don’t know at all — of one of The Cousins was diagnosed with brain cancer.  He is 35 years old and has two little kids.  He had surgery and is undergoing treatment.

At 35, he probably knows that life likely doesn’t hold old age and grandchildren in store for him.  Probably life won’t allow him to see his children grow to tweenage, let alone adulthood.  I hope he beats the odds and life holds all those things for him, along with happiness and love and peace.

Some days you just have to stop, bow your head and be grateful for life, family and shelter — the basics.  And then, whether or not you believe in G-d, you have to pray for people like my cousin.

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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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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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A Quiet Morning

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I can’t wait until our son becomes a sleep-until-noon teenager.  Until then, as part of our Saturday ritual, he comes barreling in at the crack of 9am to watch cartoons.

POB (partner of blogger) gives him the paper to bring in, and she follows with coffee (and yes, I am spoiled and I am grateful every day).  Our son does remember to give me a kiss before he says “controls” with his hand held out expectantly, like a Grey’s Anatomy surgeon says “Metzenbaum scissors”.

Every other Saturday, POB and our son trek off to Hebrew School downtown and leave me to putter or go to the gym or read the paper with more leisure than usual.

As much as I love my family, I am reveling in the quiet.  I am focused on not letting the political mayhem, global suffering and warring intrude on these moments of personal calm.

I wish everyone, everywhere, could have a moment of calm and recalibration of priorities.  It won’t turn Ahmadinejad or other tyrant into a dove, but it might ratchet down the fervor of his followers. It might even act like a balm over the “Progressives” (on my side of the political spectrum) whose high-pitched whining is indistinguishable from their counterparts on the right.

Ok, maybe those people — the mean, the evil, the obstructionists, the liars and the screamers of every nation and political viewpoint — need a month-long medically-induced coma.   Then everyone else could spring into action:  air-lift food and medicine and doctors and teachers to areas in need.  And, we can show them that we achieved more for humanity while they were asleep than in all the years they were awake.

A month is not long enough.  Maybe the calm of this morning is sending my brain into “kumbaya” mode with psychedelic rhythms.

Still, everything good starts with a dream and ends with a “kumbaya”.

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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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Extreme Family

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On Sunday, just as we and our apartment were recovering from the New Year’s that was, we had two cousins (children of dear cousins Ricky z”l and Judy, and dear, if young, cousins in their own rights). FOB (father of blogger and their great uncle) joined and so it was a multi, collateral-generational event.

It was scheduled for 11am and then re-scheduled for 10:30am by one of my young cousins, so she could catch a train to get upstate for school.  She had lived in New York for a year but in short order we forgot that she is never, ever, ever on time.  If this fact was lost to save another, more necessary fact from slipping out of my memory banks, so be it.  [As a digression (of course), does anyone else fantasize about have one of those 8 GB memory cards inserted in your brain?  Did I just admit that this is the subject of my fantasies?  Ugh, my filter was gone years before I could blame age.]

I didn’t even bother to tell FOB of the earlier start time because, as I have discussed before, as a person gets older, a person arrives earlier and earlier at any event.   So I knew he would be on time, even early, for the rescheduled time.  And FOB did not let me down. I was a little worried that he would be so early as to eat dinner with us on Saturday night, but we aren’t at that stage yet.

POB (partner of blogger) got up early to get provisions.  She is a G-dsend and she reminds me of that daily (the memory thing again).

So while the rest of were all assembled at 10:30am (FOB even earlier and her younger brother exactly on time), my little cousin and her NEW boyfriend arrived at 11am.  We didn’t realize he was ACTUALLY coming — a little mix-up on that score — but we always buy enough lox, bagels and white fish salad.  And we have food on hand if a person is not Jewish — gastronomically or otherwise.

We endured her old boyfriend who was Dutch-Israeli (how did his parents get along long enough to procreate, you might ask, but I really, really can’t go there).  You might be having trouble imagining the effect of a Dutch and Israeli genetic mixture?  Rest easy, I have your answer:  You get someone who tells you his opinions framed as THE TRUTH (there is only one) in a smug and arrogant way.  Really, I am not joking.  But wait, it gets weirder, the old boyfriend works in the hospitality industry. Let’s pause on that point for a moment because you cannot make that stuff up.  There was something undeniably charming about him.  But I digress.  [Sigh] Yes, I digress AGAIN.

So, bottom line, we were prepared for anything. And quite curious.

Also, just some background on her (right) wing of the family.  They are somewhat religious so non-Jewish partners are problematic.

The boyfriend (now, probably, “ex” after meeting us) is not Jewish.  Never letting inappropriate conversation get in the way of a family gathering, my other young cousin reported that his grandparents on the OTHER side of the family have issues with their older brother’s relationship with an older non-Jewish woman who has two kids.  Pause.  I contemplate that both my siblings are happily married to non-Jews and that I, THE LESBIAN, am the only one with a Jewish partner.

Not wanting the new boyfriend to feel toooo bad about this xenophobic-is-it-good-for-the-Jews conversation, I offered helpfully that my cousin’s eggs are Jewish so the family should be ok with a Christian boyfriend (assuming that he wasn’t yet dying to run screaming out the door), but of course we will need some of his blood in order to make wine for Passover.

Did I really mention the blood for Passover wine?  Happily I can say, with little or no guile, that I honestly don’t remember.  Maybe I don’t want that memory chip after all.  [cheesy smile]

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