25th Reunion

Posted on May 15, 2010 by 40andover

I have 5 weeks until my 25th college reunion. I have 5 weeks to be slim, prosperous, toned and, maybe, un-gray.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I was a crammer in college — I was still buying the books from the class syllabus three days before the final exam. (And my GPA showed it.)

I am 46 and, with 5 weeks to go, here is my status:

Slim: I am much slimmer now than I was in college, even though I have gained “more than a few” pounds in recent years. I call it the Recession 8. Better than the Freshman 15. (I had come in with the pre-Freshman 30, so I don’t have college to blame.) But, in truth, I look pretty slim. So, √ in that box.

Prosperous: Ok, things were better a few years ago, before people on Wall Street got stupid and greedy. But, while I don’t stack up to the crazy high-profile entrepreneurs in my class, I am really fortunate. So, √ in that box.

Toned: I want to be buff. I don’t look bad, although there is a certain sag to the skin on my legs from my fat days. And gravity does “weigh down” some erstwhile perky parts. So no short shorts and no tank tops for me. Anyway, after a certain age, a person looks ridiculous in that kind of outfit. I lost this last week to having injured my hip and back (a little arthritis in the hip leads to compensating with other muscles that spasm which leads to crippling pain), and so I think buff is out of the question, but quietly toned is still possible. So, X in this box (with an “*I don’t care anymore because I am not so shallow” followed by “**Does anyone outgrow that infantile sour grapes attitude? Surely not I”).

Un-gray: I am unconvinced on this. Covering the gray requires upkeep even after the reunion. That is a huge commitment. Still under advisement. So put a ? in that box.

My son just walked in and kissed me. He really wants to use the computer, but the kiss was also real. That’s the things with kids — they take you as you are and they don’t put on the artifices that we adults do as naturally as we get dressed in the morning. POB (partner of blogger) calls out to me and wants to know what we want to do for dinner tonight. I remind her to call her dad about coming over for dinner tomorrow night with my dad and assorted relatives.

Now, I think, do I care if I am thin, prosperous, toned and un-gray? Yes, but not because of reunion. I am happy and I don’t envy anyone or want to be envied. I simply want my family to be happy and healthy and safe. I have that. Add new box and put √√√ in it!!! (with an *”still would like to be slim, prosperous, toned and less gray”) .

[break for dinner out during which my son has a mother of all melt-downs and tests my resolve against spanking as a disciplinary tool.]

Ok, so my son was temporary invaded by an alien life form, and all because we cannot go to his choice of local restaurants (there were no tables available). This is not my son (usually). The following race through my mind: (i) aliens are clever, (ii) my parents grew up poor and would not abide such behavior in us, (iii) we knew not to exhibit such behavior and (iv) what have I done to create this monster?

Am I still happy and blessed? Absolutely. Am I pissed? You betcha. But keep the new box with the √√√ in it, and don’t forget the all-important asterisk.

If you love someone

Posted on May 13, 2010 by 40andover

If you love someone, then don’t make him or her executor of your will.

It is one of the most thankless jobs. Sifting through the detritus of someone’s life is bad enough (you simply don’t need to know some things), but, then, you have to file tax returns and speak to the IRS because one never really leaves one’s affairs in order. And there are clerical errors and the wrong tax identification numbers are submitted and life gets complicated and you remember that you love this person who died peacefully knowing all was in your care, and you know he or she would never have asked this of you had he or she known what it really meant. [SIDEBAR: Ok, that was one of those crazy long sentences reserved only for established writers who look elegant in smoking jackets and cravats. I am just a journeyman lawyer. If I were Hemingway, I would continue on: “That was a damn good sentence. A f@#$ing good sentence. They opened a bottle of wine — a damn good bottle of wine — and took turns taking swigs from the bottle because they were too proud of that f$%^ing sentence to move from the table.”]

I live my life so government stays far away from me, even as I am willing to pay more in taxes for better education, health care, etc. I believe in Obama’s presidency and what he wants to accomplish because all of my grandparents were immigrants who struggled to provide a better life for their children, my parents. And my parents embody the American Dream. And I represent downward mobility or “regression to the mean” (which means that subsequent generations will achieve the stupidity of Joe the Plumber). I support the “system” because it really can work (witness my parents and their entire generation in our extended family); I just work hard not to rely on the “system”. Yet now I have to deal with the government for the taxes on the estate of a person whose life is now reduced to a spreadsheet of dividend distributions and capital gains.

Ok, worse is to be guardian of a mentally incapacitated person. I know someone who took on that burden and I believe there is a place in Heaven waiting for her after what I hope is a long, happy and healthy life on Earth. But I digress.

POB (partner of blogger) believes that, in light of all of this, we need to rethink our financial future so that we give everything away except for two nickels at the second in time immediately before our deaths. That way, no one needs to do anything for us except have a little shiva cocktail party and light a Yahrzeit candle every now and again. But the two nickels are really important to her. I think she never wants anyone to say that we didn’t have “two nickels to rub together”. Which is why I love her so. She doesn’t want a “pot to piss in” because that is too crass. She also expects “a roof over her head” so that doesn’t factor in (although she would consider a reverse mortgage so that there is no fuss about the homestead when we “go”).

She picks her aphorisms and saws to conjure a picture that we timed it all with precision and aforethought. And she wants to live — and die — by them. Of course, being the disaster planner that I am, I need to have only “two nickels to rub together” but also a sack of gold just in case. Don’t tell her I have an extra stash, ok?

I guess the point — and I do have one — is that I am one of the lucky few who can be generally self-reliant and avoid government. And, I have no expectations of an efficient government because I believe that is frankly impossible to achieve and unrealistic to expect. If we were looking for efficiencies, we would ascribe to the Wall Street model and we know how that turned out. No, government is tedious, hopelessly inefficient, and sometimes catches the do-gooders in the web of bureaucracy. It is easy to complain about government. It is hard to defend government. There is a lot of paperwork to get benefits, but remember you are asking for money from the government. It should be hard to get.

So, SOB (sister of blogger), because I love you, I will relieve you of the executrix role. You are asking, “no, really, why?” Ok the answer is: (i) you’ll torture me for it and I will never get the last word for ALL ETERNITY and (ii) Mom would not want this to come between her two girls. I believe BOB (brother of blogger) is also protected because Mom would not stand for that either.

Did you think there would be a point to this? Are you a new reader?

Don’t cry for me, Argentina . . .

Posted on May 12, 2010 by 40andover

No, not “Evita!” the musical sensation of the 1970s about Eva Peron.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is living out loud and proud, trying to patch things up with his girlfriend. It was all a misunderstanding — when we heard Appalachian trail, he said “Argentinian tail”. [see http://40andoverblog.com/p?120]

But, at least he isn’t lying anymore and he maintains contact with his government on his weekends away. If only other “family values” candidates would be open about marital issues, gay issues and the tough stuff of life that affects all of us, maybe we can re-calibrate expectations of our politicians and ourselves. I am not saying that infidelity and lying are ok. I am saying live the truth so you don’t have to lie. So many less lives get shattered that way.

He behaved like a child but he is trying to live as grown-up now. It is a good start.

Mother’s Day

Posted on May 10, 2010 by 40andover

Mother’s Day is about me as a child and my mother as the celebrated one. The one day when we muster up $5.00 for a card and still she did the dishes. Ok, I am living in the past. The past is easier; ok, only when nostalgia wipes away the discord and the angst.

So, POB (partner of blogger) and I are the moms of our generation (note that I didn’t say “mothers” — the connotations can be so tragic). And like our mothers before us, we got cards and did the dishes. This is how you make people feel good about dishes, you call it a “tradition”. SOB (sister of blogger) tried to convince POB to have take-out. POB, in tribute and in astonishing similarity to MOPOB (mother z”l of POB), refused take-out. POB opted for a horrendously, complicated — and delicious — dinner. (Note to self: block the Epicurious app on her iTouch.)

Between POB’s thinking of MOPOB and my thinking about MOB (mother z”l of blogger), we made quite a pair. Being a mom is the best thing I do; it is just that I want my mom in the world. Ok, enough self pity (for now; check back later).

So, we had most of the usual complement of family for Sunday night dinner. Notable exceptions were a Cousin Hockey Player, and Cousin Gentle who visits his mother’s grave (MOCG) on Mother’s Day. The warning was clear: be there or be talked about. Email me if you want the minutes of the family meeting.

FOB (father of blogger) is turning 90 this year. In an effort to have an intimate setting, the guest list was cut off on a generational level. Grandnephews and nieces are not invited. However, my father felt bad about certain members of that generation not being invited. So, I was designated as the most direct and “Larry King”-like child to dispense the news. FOB had to use the “facilities” as a ruse to find out whether I told his grandniece that he loved her but, in the interests of familial harmony, needed to exclude her from the celebration. Meanwhile, I wondered why I was escorting FOB to the bathroom because I am not the MD in the family. Does anyone else have this family or are we just nuts?

Back to dinner. Dear Cousin Gentle: HOSOB (husband of SOB) is winning the race for who can eat the most. He had two helpings on two different place mats (I won’t delve into that):

And there was your plate, sad and empty:

And did we mention the wine and the dessert?

Because you had a good reason for not coming (you were visiting MOCG), we didn’t talk about you — too much. But where were you for the bird walk lead by HOSOB? Two family gatherings missed. I understand through the family grapevine that you are alive and well (mother and father of Cousin Hockey Player), so HOSOB promises to let you even the score next time in the food eating contest. You know that I need to know you’ve had at least one home-cooked meal a week.

Oh, and Cousin Hockey Player, I talked to your mother today. Yes, I did. But since you weren’t here last night, you’ll just never know about our conversation. Be there or be afraid. Very afraid. (Ok, don’t be afraid; I didn’t rat you out as the incredibly hung-over Cousin in an earlier blog. Ooooops.)

My birthday weekend

Posted on May 2, 2010 by 40andover

So, it started in an annoyingly jaded New York way, “I was rushing to my acupuncturist and simply had to stop to take these photos”.

Here are the photos. As POB (partner of blogger) says, in New York, the rich live cheek by jowl with the homeless, and projects exist side by side with luxury condo buildings. So, on one of the first beautiful days of the year, restauranteurs put tables outside and voilá, amid the downtrodden and the garbage:

So, trite but still so unbelievable.

I wonder if the needles hurt more because I was late. Also, my acupuncturist is now a black-belt in karate. Ok, a little Jekyll-Hyde drama unfolding. But I digress. Ok, maybe I won’t digress. Now that I think of it, what am I doing having a black-belt shove needles into my nerve endings? I did have a particularly prickly acupuncturist session. More thought must be given and a full review is necessary (in another entry).

Dinner followed with my “adopted” daughter and her partner. My daughter went to law school against my better judgment and sounder opinion. Still, she seems to love it and, watch out, she will be a formidable adversary. Still she makes a fabulous chocolate birthday cake. Look and weep:

On the bright side, if you are her adversary and she cleans up the courtroom floor with your argument, she might bake you a consolation confection. Just a thought.

So, my brother came in for the weekend to see my dad. BOB (brother of blogger) had not been in town for over a year. He had planned to come in during the September High Holy Days, but contracted swine flu. So, we gave him a pass on that trip, without asking for the lab results (if you’re family, we don’t ask for proof of illness).

I was not looking forward to re-ordering my birthday weekend, but in the end it was fabulous.

BOB came solo — without wife and kids. While we missed the full family complement, I think he was able to relax more. BOB was dream uncle for my son. They played ball and watched sun bathers (my son’s idea) [see prior blog about his MoMA visit] and just did that male bonding thing that is not always so possible if you have two moms.

We gathered the extended family who lives in Manhattan for dinner. True to form, HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) and one of our dear cousins got into a food eating contest. At one point, one of our younger cousins took away the plates and forks but still there was salmon left uneaten. Not wanting to dirty another fork (cleaning that fork expands our carbon footprint), I told HOSOB to use the serving implement. Others thought I was joking. HOSOB knew I was serious and, such a sweet and wonderful guy, he listens to me even though I am not his wife, SOB (sister of blogger):

Of course, I had to take a picture for the family archives.

I am not so sure what BOB thinks of the odd antics of the evening. I would like to think that it was just like riding a bike — that he felt at home with the volume and the rhythm of an evening with the ganza mishpocheh (the extended family).

My birthday wish? To have my brother, my sister-in-law and their boys laughing around my dinner table at Sunday night dinners (with pictures), so that, years from now, we can say, “remember when we used to have dinner together on Sunday nights?”

Ok, maybe it’ll be fifteen years from now, when my nephews (by then, young men) move to NY and drag their parents, kicking and screaming, in tow. (A new agenda item at our weekly family meetings.) Wishes take time, I know.

But it was so great to be together again, if only for 36 hours. Mom z”l was happy.

And because up until that moment the evening lacked a (bloggable) weird twist, SOB handed me a copy of her Last Will and Testament, so I would have it for safe-keeping. So, I signed up for the Hemlock Society because it seemed a natural progression.

We ARE weird.

The Downside of Exposing Your Child to “Culture”

Posted on April 27, 2010 by 40andover

My son went to the Museum of Modern Art today with his second grade class and loved it. Why am I shaking my head and wondering how the world gets so skewed?

My son saw Jackson Pollacks and figured he could do that, too. Check, he understands that no one knows why art is art. So far so good.

He noted that you can get the Picasso effect if you spin around and around and then look at someone sideways. Check, he already understands cubism. He is a prodigy.

He loved some of the Picassos and he thought Matisse’s dancers were fabulous. Ok, why? Because they were girls, and they were naked. He is a boy (with a heightened sense of the opposite sex for a nearly 8 year-old).

It sounds like the set up for my standing riddle: What do two lesbians moms produce? A hyper-heterosexual son.

Still, some of his aunts, uncles, cousins and grandfathers might think he is a prodigy. I won’t tell them that he stares at Victoria Secret ads with probably more zeal than he showed for the not-so-representational works of Picasso and Matisse.

I thought the prevailing wisdom was that boys get easier as they age . . .

I think my mother would giggle at this problem. And that makes me smile. But then I get back to reality and just shake my head.

Synagogue Retreat at the Norman Bates Motel

Posted on April 25, 2010 by 40andover

Ok, this is a long, random recounting, so bear with me.

My sister thinks that her trip on a Greyhound bus to a casino — where, no joke, a medical conference and training were being held — brought her very close to the common denominator of humanity. She emailed me that when she got to the bus gate at Port Authority, the woman in front of her on line just started talking to her. The woman was traveling back from Florida to Providence. She had to go to Florida to get her mother’s ashes, which were in the shopping bag that she showed to my sister in case she wanted to see. (I wish my sister knew how to use the camera feature on her cell phone. A picture would have really made the moment.) The woman had spent 3 days on a bus and needed to smoke a cigarette, had trouble in her childhood but has now straightened out, etc.

Dear SOB (sister of blogger), welcome to my world. It is good that you experience your birthright — i.e., Mom’s magnetism for the strange, creepy and absurd.

Well, I am at a synagogue retreat. It was a rustic experience. Lots of rules — you need to observe the Sabbath and subscribe to the Jewish dietary restrictions — not on the quantity but on the depth to which the culinary arts must sink in order to conform to Kosher laws. Alcohol is Kosher, for which many people gave thanks to G-d. Also, no coffee Saturday morning because it is the Sabbath and one cannot use electricity or fire. Really? Really? Does anyone want really want to deal with me de-caffeinated? Also tonight someone by accident started making coffee before the end of the Sabbath. Before we could descend on the heavenly libation, the moshkiach (the Kosher police) told the kitchen workers that they had to dump out the coffee. Wastefulness CAN’T be kosher.

There are many blessings that are new to me. The place has helpful plaques to assist in mastering them. I took a picture of the blessing after one eliminates in the bathroom, thanking G-d for the creation of certain cavities in the body. Really? My orthodox grandmother said this prayer? Even when she had indigestion? This must be an invention of those “too cool for shul” types. I am not kidding. Look at the picture.

Ever trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I have decided that we would learn this prayer and recite it every time our father discusses his irregularity. Maybe we could teach it to him. Clearly, I am going on the slow boat the Hell.

The place was kind of like that. As you enter, there is a sign saying, “We are blessed by your presence”. Ok, someone should be holding judgment until we leave. There should even be a sign flashed for a specific few (like me), “We are blessed by your leaving.”

“Blessed by your presence”? Trying to create holy, kumbaya, religious space and energy at crash-landing impact, after braving hellish Friday night traffic. I thought to sing, “someone’s kumbaya-ing my Lord,” but I didn’t want to say kumbaya to that. This is getting to crazy, with the aggressive, reverse Kumbaya on the Sabbath. Slow boat. Nah, I am taking the express train to Hell.

As you may have surmised, we couldn’t do much documentation on the Sabbath because that required use of electricity or batteries, so I had to take pictures in secret and I couldn’t blog. Now that was harsh. As my own little rage against the machine, I turned on my iPod just BEFORE I left the premises to go on my run. Ah, the little subversities. But, as usual I digress.

Friday night, after blessing the group with our presence (or so the sign said), we proceeded to our promised charming two bedroom cabin. The advertising was so wrong it should be a felony. So one civil crime justifies a religious crime — desecration of the Sabbath — to take these pictures:

Is this a charming two-bedroom cabin? Type that into wikipedia and I bet that you won’t see a picture of this. Really?? This is a three-bed cabin. Ooops, there must have been a mistake. No? No mistake, this is the very finest that the camp has to offer? In the county in Connecticut with the highest per capita income? Really? Really? I am in a mood most foul and approach the rabbis about the relative merits of, say, a Ritz Carlton. Not so my friends can get business, but it is a base level that to which we should become accustomed.

But at least the turn-down service left conflict-free chocolate on the beds:

But the real kicker is that in the light of day on Saturday, I realized that I had parked my rented super-huge, gas-guzzling monstrosity here:

Ok, I am a convert: There, but for the Grace of G-d, go I.

~ the Blogger

A Typical Family Dinner

Posted on April 19, 2010 by 40andover

As we do almost every Sunday, the extended family — dispersed far and wide on the Island of Manhattan — gather for dinner prepared by POB (partner of blogger). Three generations of the family are represented and range in age from 7 to 89 years-old.

My 26 year-old cousin who is a runner was talking about her gastro-intestinal problems, which she believes somehow is a sign from her father, z”l, who was a gastroenterologist (sp?). Ok, as much as our family is fixated on our intestinal fortitude, I am skeptical that her father, my dear cousin, would cause these kind of issues from Heaven so that she could remember him. I suggested it might be a parasite from living for 5 years in China. Food for thought, so to speak.

All my father had to hear was that someone was having issues with diarrhea and he started a sidebar with my sister the doctor about his own issues. Here is where there needs to be a firewall between parents and children. Ok, even if there were such a firewall, we would have drilled a tunnel under that it a looooong time ago. How did I know the topic of this sidebar, you ask? The look on my sister’s face told me everything I needed to know. Since my sister doesn’t drink, I needed to give my father more wine to stop the conversation.

All this is going on while I watch my 23 year-old cousin fade in and out. He came over early to toss a football with my son, and just as we were getting into the really gross intestinal details (over hors d’oeuvres, mind you), he was finally feeling the hangover from the night before — as in, it took him more than 14 hours after his last drink to process all of the alcohol in his system. I am not naming names, but he is a former hockey player and maybe some of my family will recognize the descriptions so far and call him out on that. But I am not saying anything. Nope. Lips are sealed.

Then a cousin of my generation put together a beautiful, stirring composition, “At My Daughter’s Wedding,” for my sister and brother in law in a CD with the cover featuring a photo at their wedding with my mother’s picture in the foreground and my sister and brother in law in the background. My sister and I fought hard to hold the tears back. We talked today and we were both choked up that my cousin captured the joy of the event and the sadness that our mother was not alive for the wedding, all in the beauty of his music. It was an extraordinary moment. We also played a song he wrote about our family history so the young ones could be further indoctrinated into the cult of our family. I really cannot say enough about my cousin’s music — it hit a chord in my sister and me that is too deep for words and I hope he understands the depth of his gift from the looks in our eyes.

Of course, this same cousin gave me cassette tapes about dealing with loss when my mother died and I had forgotten about them for over seven year until POB reminded me about a week ago. Then, my head and heart exploded when I realized I had the tapes when his mother died. Oy. Oy. Just when he needed them. Oy. Oy. I returned them to him last night. A little late. Oy. Oy.

Then, of course, my cousin and brother in law had to have an eating contest, just like two brothers, which warmed our hearts. POB made a traditional roasted chicken and vegetables using a Kosher chicken for our young cousin and an Indian chicken dish with basmati rice and some other vegetables for those of us more culinarily assimilated. Of course, the “boys” kept asking our kosher cousin if she had had enough so they could consume the rest. In other words, eat fast or don’t eat at all. It’s a tough world out there and our house is sometimes a little like boot camp.

Of course, one never knows what will happen next at a family function. My sister and brother in law brought over their wills to be witnessed. My sister wanted to do this quietly, so of course I had to announce what we needed to do to all assembled. So after dessert, we assembled the necessary witnesses and signed as appropriate. The lawyers at the table asked if they were each of sound mind and then we decided that no one in our family could really pass that test. We respectfully withdrew the questions and proceeded with the signing ceremony.

From the mundane (diahrrea) to the emotional (music for my mother z”l) to the eternal (the wills). No wonder these dinners are exhausting. And wonderful.

Lego

Posted on April 19, 2010 by 40andover

My son is into Star Wars and really, really, really, wanted a battleship cruiser (or something like that). It was expensive so we said this was an early birthday present. And he is really good about not asking (ok, not begging) for things everywhere we go and, well, he is our one and only child, so ok, we spoil him.

He and I go to the store to buy this colossal box and return home immediately to assemble this, the “most-awesome-gift-ever-thank-you-so-much”. Here is the trick, this thing requires assembling 1,180 Lego pieces, ranging from small to minute, in the right sequence and in the right place. There are two, yes, two, instruction manuals because all the instructions can’t fit into the first manual that is the thickness of, say, telephone books for most towns across America.

Who was I kidding — my son got distracted with the easily-assembled action figures almost immediately, leaving me with the assembly of the mother ship. I learned many things from this experience (which isn’t over by a long shot), the most important of which is that I need a stronger bifocal prescription.

Within an hour of starting the assemblage, POB (partner of blogger) takes my son off to a playdate in Brooklyn, leaving me on the floor with 1,180 pieces of a battleship. Two hours later, I am still on the floor. I go to the gym for 45 minutes but really can’t focus because I must conquer the Lego monster that is in pieces on the floor. The box says “For ages 9 through 12.” Hah!! I don’t know anyone that young that has a PhD in Lego construction.

POB and son come home to find me on the floor of his room, in a defeated, “woe is me,” pose. I simply need to take a nap. POB eyes me with that “you’re a wimp but I love you” look as I take to my bed with great pomp and ceremony.

That night is our date night, so we leave our young prince in the capable hands of a wonderful young woman studying to be a special ed teacher. When we get home, our babysitter says to me, “G-d bless you for trying to put together that Lego thing! It is impossible!!” Ahh, validation. Still, POB eyes both of us with suspicion.

Next morning I wake up (later than POB and our son because, well, my son may be a prince, but I am the Queen) and POB says, “Omigod, that LEGO thing is impossible!! I tried to attach some things, but I think I did it all wrong. It is insane!!” Ahh, validation.

I look and she got it backwards AND upside-down. Impressive.

My hopes of a project with my son are dashed. But I take appreciation — and, ahh, validation — where I can get it.

And I am reveling in it!!

Dear Brother-in-Law,

Posted on April 11, 2010 by 40andover

Yes, we were impressed with your preparation of all those vegetables for SOB (sister of blogger) [see yesterday’s blog]. I know she was working in the hospital this weekend and you, the dutiful husband, prepared dinner for her again tonight instead of your both coming over for Sunday night family dinner. (Remind SOB that she scored so big when she met you.)

Because we want you to feel included, I am sending a picture of the food you could’ve had if you had come to dinner tonight. This is not a competition. No sirree. It is just that we missed you and we wanted you to know what you left on the table, so to speak. I made sure that we didn’t clear away the main course before dessert so you could see the full array: wild salmon, rice, and roasted asparagus. Followed by a delicious fruit selection of strawberries, melon and grapes. There was even ice cream if asked. Ok, this is a competition. And POB (partner of blogger) outdid herself.

So, maybe next time. We did miss having everyone together but FOB (father of blogger) and COB (cousin of blogger) rounded out our dinner table. (And ate your portions.)

Mwa, mwa (big kisses) to you and SOB,

~Blogger-in-law

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Tag Archives: family