Seder

Posted on April 20, 2011 by 40andover

I am always nervous ahead of our family Seder.

I do some preparation ahead of time, including copying pages of the text (in English and Hebrew) with a theme in mind. This year’s theme was: how is our ancient story relevant to Arab Spring? Dad came up with that. Pretty awesome for a near-91 year-old.

Even though I plan it out and “run it”, I lose control of the Seder almost immediately. Our family’s idea of exercise is a rigorous argument, and it always starts with, “We are told . . . ” and every response starts with a silent “oh, yeah?”.

Almost immediately in the readings (think, “we are told”) G-d says he will stiffen Pharaoh’s heart again and again. (Listen for the “oh, yeah”s.) Ok, let the exercise begin: Don’t Jews believe in free will? If Pharaoh doesn’t have free will, then do any of us? Or does G-d sometimes intercede and constrain free will? And isn’t the concept illusory because how we act in any situation is dictated by our past and learned responses? And can we cast off that prior learning and should we?

I’m telling you, our brains hurt even if our guts were growing from the fantastic meal made by POB (partner of blogger).

(The brisket was delicious. Of course, my Dad couldn’t help criticizing my less-than-uniform carving. But his critique is a necessary part of our family tradition. If he didn’t, I would rush him to the hospital.)

On the Seder table is a Seder plate. The Seder plate contains the symbols of the holiday for all Jews — egg (rebirth and renewal), parsley (springtime), charoset (chopped up apple concoction for the bricks and mortar but sweet because of deliverance), bitter herbs (for the bitterness of slavery), salt water (for the tears of slavery) and the shankbone (representing the blood that was spread over the doorposts of the Israelites so the Angel of death would pass over).

For us, I would add a few more symbols of our family’s festive rejoicing:

זול יין — a bottle of the cheap wine my Dad brings because he can no longer taste the difference (for the record, I wouldn’t even cook with it);

משה בובה–our Moses action figure, complete with staff and detachable Ten Commandments (for the obligatory smashing episode);

שעון עצר — a stop watch because SOB (sister of blogger) gives me exactly one hour and then she shuts down the service, in favor of eating; and

הגדה — the second part of the Haggadah to remind us that we don’t persecute our family by making everyone continue the service after the meal.

Happy holidays to all.

Twas the day before Passover, and all through the house. . .

Posted on April 17, 2011 by 40andover

It is really the day before the eve of the holiday (because we celebrate holidays from sunset to sunset) but every creature was stirring. Heck, 15 people are coming over.

POB (partner of blogger) made a vat of chicken soup. She rendered chicken fat which, if you’ve done it, you know that is a disgusting necessity for light, floating matzo balls. The whole house smells like a barn. And while we are talking about matzo balls, I need to note for the record that the Blogger family tradition is that matzo balls sink, not float. Their intended purpose — so say those in my tribe — is to line your stomach for the coming week of no bread and also give you a reason to complain about intestinal issues, e.g., (in a Yiddish accent) “I ate such a heavy matzo ball that it is cement in my stomach, and boy-oh-boy, have I got troubles getting anything out!!”. However unpleasant, it is my inheritance.

But MOPOB (mother of POB), may she rest in peace, made floating matzo balls. And since Passover is all about MOPOB (my mother’s memory is invoked on Thanksgiving), we “sinkers” just sigh and “boing” the matzo balls with our figures, wondering if, with a little push, they might sink. No such luck these past few years. So part of our Passover narrative (“and you shall tell your children on that day . . . “) also includes the sinker-floater dichotomy, because as surely as there were Israelites on the shore of the Red Sea, they were also arguing about whose matzo was better. So, it is just in keeping with the tradition. So I shall tell my child that “on that day” there were no floaters in the land of Egypt. Ok, that isn’t fair because there weren’t sinkers either. There wasn’t matzo ball soup. But history is written by the conquerors and vanquished loud-mouths. I can live with being in the latter category on the matzo ball issue.

Those of you who aren’t Jewish may not appreciate that importance of this. This is a divide that can splinter families. We are talking about our grandmothers’ and great grandmothers’ recipes. We are talking about the overbearing, tyrannical beings that, upon death, miraculously turned into angels in everyone’s memories. We are talking about tradition. [Start singing from Fiddler on the Roof.] This is big.

But MOPOB’s traditions must prevail. She was terminally ill at our first Seder in our home in 2006. She pronounced herself satisfied with the celebration — a high compliment and tantamount to a blessing on our home and us — and then, within 36 hours was hospitalized and soon died. You can’t mess with that heavy trip.

I needed chairs and an extra table from my Dad. We had lunch and then went down to the storage bins in his apartment building. Dad is looking great these days, although slower since his fall two weeks ago. Still he grabbed the hand truck at the entrance to this scary storage room in the bowels of his apartment building. Only one light worked. He and I were feeling around in the dark for his folding table and chairs. We found them and managed not to fall or otherwise hurt either of us. Every year we go through this ritual and I make a note to self to remind the doorman about the lighting. Every year, Dad and I forget. Every year, we grope in the dark until we find what we need. So far, it has worked for us. Tradition.

Tradition.

Tradition.

The Test: 42 days later

Posted on April 15, 2011 by 40andover

Remember the challenge posed by The COB (colleague of blogger):

Can I be wildly cheerful and hopeful for a month?

(subtitled, “can I arrange for DNA dialysis for a month long infusion of Mary Poppins’ genes?”)

Let’s review how I did:

I started singing show tunes; The COB kept correcting my rendition of the verses and made some snarky comments about my ability to carry a tune.
I tried to twirl and toss my hat like Mary Tyler Moore; there is no room to twirl in the streets of NYC.
I ran around the secretarial bay near my office because I believed the kids’ song, “happiness runs in a circular motion”; I got dizzy.

I don’t think I got the point of the exercise. But I did loosen up a little (okay, a teensy bit).

Remembrances of things past

Posted on April 14, 2011 by 40andover

TLP (the little prince, my son) checked out a library book on fishing. We had to read about each fish, length, weight, best bait and whether the species would put up a fight. Also we had to go through the various baits (it WAS a how-to book, after all) and the only thing I could add was when we got to fly fishing. I told him we could go on the Orville’s Fly Fishing School website (I silently prayed it had not gone into Chapter 11 or dissolved).

When it came time for me to read about a fish that was a pesky fighter, I recounted my family’s trip to San Francisco, circa 1968. Mom and Dad took us to eat at the Fisherman’s Wharf, which — at that time — was an exotic dining destination. My parents were dressed in evening wear, so I presume that after dinner we were being dropped off at the hotel with a sitter, but I can’t remember. I do remember fishing for our dinner and Dad’s having caught a pesky, fighting fish that flailed in and out of his tuxedo jacket. Mom and Dad must have eaten that fish (I think we kids stayed with hamburgers).

That was the first and last time we went fishing with Dad or anyone. Too traumatic. If TLP wants to go fishing, Uncle HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) or Cousin Gentle will have to take him. Thinking back 43 years ago, I am still traumatized.

Even more tales from the 60s

Posted on April 14, 2011 by 40andover

I mentioned to POB (partner of blogger) that if I don’t write down these memories, soon they will be lost because my brain is maxing out.

The 60s were not all days of wine and roses. Some of it was very confusing to a little kid.

I remember when our Jamaican-born baby nurse was not allowed to go into a Sutton Place apartment building to speak to the mother of a boy who hit my sister. Even in our own building, she had to stare down the landlord who told her she had to take the service elevator. She took the main passenger elevator. I was wide-eyed and only later understood what happened.

And yet, for years after his assassination, our baby nurse reminisced about that day that then Senator Bobby Kennedy held the door open for her on his way to the tennis club in our building. People born after those times don’t see how big that was.

Mom used to tell us that her secretary told her not to marry Dad because he was a Jew. Mom had to break the news to her secretary that Mom was also Jewish. To Mom’s credit, she continued to work with that secretary.

I look at it more practically: Mom was dropping an intimidating Polish last name for a generic Jewish one. In those days, it was also a question of: “pick your poison”.

Dear Paul

Posted on April 12, 2011 by 40andover

Dear Paul:

I am not a Ryan, but I know members of your extended family.

I know you come from such a good family, with strong community values based in religious precepts, like the one about taking care of the poor and the stranger. Or the other one about not putting a stone in the way of a blind person. And even though Rabbi Hillel said, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” that is totally in sync with the Christian Bible.

Here’s the big problem with your budget:

No amount of spending cuts is going to get us out of the hole caused by waging war in Iraq, Afghanistan and, now, Libya.

Paying for these requires tax increases. (Remember when the GOP just put the Iraq and Afghanistan tabs on the credit card and, oops, forgot to put these line items in the budget??????)

Cut all you want from social programs, etc. Go on.

But one year from now, when the deficit is still essentially as large as it now, there will need to be a tax increase on all Americans.

All you will have done is gutted the social compact that each generation has with another: we will not leave those vulnerable in our society — the young and the old — to fend for themselves. The very social compact that makes America great.

What are you thinking?

More tales from the City

Posted on April 11, 2011 by 40andover

These past days, I have been lost in the old days and vignettes from childhood.

I remember that my parents often threw cocktail parties for my mother’s colleagues in the advertising and cosmetics industries. My mother knew everyone’s cigarette preferences and she filled silver cases with the preferred brands and laid them on the coffee table.

And women had those tortoise cigarette holders that made smoking look so cool.

People drank Manhattans, Rob Roys and martinis (gin and very dry) and gimlets. People drank blended scotch whiskey and Gordon’s gin back then. I guess there weren’t that many other choices. Twists of lemon, little onions and olives were in dishes, and there was a bottle (?) of bitters, ready to finish off the drinks. My parents converted a closet in the foyer into a bar with an open front that faced into the living room.

A hired waiter passed hors d’oeuvres to men in slicked back hair and square hankies in the front pockets of their thin-lapeled suits and women (including Mom) who had Jackie Kennedy hairdos and dresses with shoulder wraps. No one dressed like Lady Bird Johnson.

We would come out in our matching pajamas and say good night. And then Mom or Dad would tuck us in bed. As soon as they were out of sight, we would creep back to the closed door closest to the “action” and listen and giggle until we were discovered and sent back to bed.

Only in retrospect, can I place the end of those heady days as around 1968. I am guessing that it all ended as a result of social upheaval from the 1968 assassinations and the Vietnam War. And because raising three children in the city was expensive.

Everyone tells me I ought to watch Mad Men. But I prefer the memories.

PLaza3-9285

Posted on April 10, 2011 by 40andover

That was my family phone number for 50 years.

Not 212 753 9285.

PL3-9285.

PL for PLAZA, meaning midtown east.

My dad’s office phone was JU2-1455. JU meant Judson for midtown west. There was MU for Murray Hill, etc. GR for Gramercy Park. POB (partner of blogger)’s home phone was GR3-9119.

And it wasn’t just a series of numbers, but it located you in area of town. Like old-fashioned GPS. Your phone number made you less anonymous. And you couldn’t take your home or business number with you if you moved across town. Wires and technology couldn’t handle that. So, if you had a GR or MU or JU or PL number, you lived or worked in a geographically defined area.

And our zip code was 22, not 10022. In the 1960s, you didn’t need five-digit zip codes, let alone the new nine digit ones.

Of course, some people (very few still alive) remember 6-digit phone numbers. They probably think I am late to the game of recognizing the lost nuances of day-to-day life in New York City.

But, today, I came across my birth announcement, among the memorabilia that I, as family archivist, need to preserve. And it held more information than the fact of my birth (as a result of which my family was forever changed — some say for the better, others say “not so much”). It captured a time and place in New York in the 1960s, where my family’s PL prefix in our phone number and our home address reflected upward mobility, into places where Jews mostly couldn’t find apartments. It also suggest certain life that fashioned after JFK’s Camelot (at least until private school tuition kicked in).

The 60s gave way to the 70s and the urban decay. Then came the late 70s, 80s and 90s and urban renewal and soaring population growth. The end of the 20th century and first decade of the 21st gave rise to untold fortunes and a sea change in the socio-economic-racial-cultural urban landscape.

The nuances of numbers and two-digit zip codes were irrelevant and unworkable even in the late 70s. Every now and again, I see a decades-old advertisement on a building that time forgot (until the lot next to it was demolished to build a high-rise) that has a six-digit phone number with a prefix that refers to a neighborhood.

And I think, I was born in a small town. I was raised in small town. It just got big and anonymous during my lifetime. And these strangers don’t know the secrets of my small town.

And that’s good enough for me.

Carpe Diem

Posted on April 5, 2011 by 40andover

Tonight SOB (sister of blogger) and I had dinner with our uncle. He is 81 years-old. He has been in a slow decline in the last two or so years but able to dance (his life-long passion) and go about his life.

Unfortunately, he has aged rather dramatically in the last month. So, SOB and I needed to convince him to let us help. Just when we were bracing ourselves for the image we had, when he walked into the restaurant, the even further downward trajectory was so profound that it was hard not to cry.

He has our aunt, his partner of 60+ years, and he has SOB and me. There is no one else close by. (And our aunt has her own medical issues.)

He always said he lived every day as he wanted. He said he hated going to sleep because he never wanted to end a day.

But living life on his terms and according to his muses often meant that he didn’t show up for his family (his parents or my mother — his sister) in their times of need.

I guess carpe diem means different things to different people.

As SOB and I helped him into our aunt’s apartment building (they have always lived separately), he lurched for the elevator and forgot to look back or kiss us goodbye.

Life on his terms.

The world is too much with me today

Posted on April 4, 2011 by 40andover

I have been close to many in my life who did not have children. They were/are blood relatives or relatives-by-love.

Now, another set needs SOB’s (sister of blogger’s) and my help. These two people were the heroes of our youth, the fun and youthful aunt and uncle. They had lives in theater, dance, and the arts. They knew interesting people and were “mod” when “mod” was cool. They lived life on their terms and expanded our imaginations behind where our parents tried to direct our paths.

They are old now and much diminished. A generation slipping through our fingers, as we try to make the twilight comfortable and the darkness not so scary. They once were kings and queens of their destiny and audaciously bohemian in their lifestyles.

And now their nieces, a doctor and a lawyer exactly as their parents had planned, must introduce — gently, very gently — the calculable reality.

Because even free spirits need grounded guides through the indignities of aging. But we have to learn their terms and conditions for aging. There is no room for hubris in thinking we know what they want. We have to ask and we have to listen.

When Mom died, we knew what she wanted — we had talked about it for years, as the cancer began to win — and it was easier to do what needed to be done. It was excruciating but the details and the path forward were clear. How ironic.

And yet I am concerned and sad, but not “down” because we are trying to do what must be done in the gentlest, most honest way possible.

Wish us luck.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

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