Tag Archives: family

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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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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Chicken in so many ways

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I can eat cooked chicken, I can cut a cooked chicken and I am not bothered by chicken remains.

But, I cannot buy a raw chicken.  It was on the list of groceries and I had to tell POB (partner of blogger) that I could not cope with that.   The chicken is well, recognizable as a chicken, although it is headless and dead.  And there is always a scare about bacteria with a raw, dead, chicken.

Meat is so much easier, because you don’t see the cow. 

Thanksgiving is a nightmare in this regard.  Not just some small bird, but a huge beast that is so big it needs a special pan.  And then people talk about dressing the turkey.  Work with me on this.  On the start of Thanksgiving Day, there is a naked, dead, headless turkey with a plastic bag holding the gizzards stapled to it.  Loooooooooovely.  Does dressing the turkey make us feel better about a roasted dead, headless, naked bird on our dinner table? And what message am I sending to my son and brother-in-law who are bird nerds?  That we will eat you one day?  (We are tough family, but we only figuratively chew people up and spit them out.)

AND, eating leftovers means reliving this for a week. 

So, this year: BRISKET. 

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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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Blackberries, iPhones and other means of electronic torture

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A few years ago, we were always on our blackberries because we were always juggling deals and family, etc.

Sometimes, we would look at our blackberries to be passive-aggressive if we were angry with our spouses.  Not with my spouse, however.  I tried that for one week and, thereafter, when I came home there was the ceremonial handing over of the blackberry to her and she would throw it somewhere, at least until dinner was over.

Now we are always on our blackberries, fiddling with the battery, checking whether the wifi is on, because we can’t imagine that no one needs to reach us immediately.  In fact, I have three different electronic gizmos just in case one doesn’t work.

Blackberries won’t give us business and restart the economy, but looking at it all the time will anger friends and family.  Sooooooo, I am starting a 12-step program.

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Why I often focus on politics

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So, I focus on politics which is sometimes a downer.  But I can’t write about the Seinfeldian experiences in my family life because many of them read the blog.

In talking about a future gathering, the purpose of which is to pick at the emotional scabs over a wobbly relationship, I advised the person to wear a HazMat suit because although the people present vary in intensity, all will want to ask inappropriately invasive questions.  But I can’t go into the background because I don’t want to be excommunicated from my family.

So, you see my predicament.  I find people endlessly fascinating, but I need to keep it out of the family.

That is why I am going back to the gym and try to take public transportation.  Because the Seinfeldian experiences happen to me or to strangers and then it is fair game.

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Mr. President, please let me see you sweat

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Mr. President, I am sweating.  I am sweating the outcome of the healthcare reform votes.  I am sweating the outcome of financial system reform.  I am sweating the recession.  I am sweating Iranian nuclear proliferation.  I am sweating global warming.  I am sweating more troops in Afghanistan, which just seems to be a quagmire.  In short, everything on the micro-level of my life seems still as precarious as it was when you were elected. 

We elected you in part for your No Drama Obama comportment and you words of empowerment and calm assurance.  But now I want to see you sweat, too, Mr. President, in a take charge way.  Twist some arms to get the reform you promised.  Support the process of stripping health care insurers of the anti-trust immunity if they are bad players. 

LBJ was not Mr. Nice Guy when it came to getting Medicare passed.  And generations of Americans are in his debt.

Mr. President, be principled, be honorable and please be ready to rumble in order to get things done.

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Run home. Run like the wind.

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This was my sister’s plea to me while I was away on my business trip to Texas.  Run home.  Run like the wind.

That was after I told her about the sign prohibiting weapons in the bar/lounge.  (Why do people need to be reminded that weapons don’t belong in a bar/lounge.

Renting a car in a city of freeways invites problems, especially for me, someone born and bred on the Island of Manhattan, amd driving in the Big Country.  But it is ok to have lapses of judgment on the little things.  I just hate having to ask people to call taxis for me everywhere.  I thought I would feel more in control having a car.  Also, I had a few different meetings scheduled during my trip. 

I had a GPS gizmo.  I kept typing in LBJ Freeway which, by the way, is the largest vehicular artery into Dallas, and the GPS gizmo didn’t recognize it.  Everyone calls it LBJ Freeway, so it never occurred to me to type in Lyndon Baines Johnson Freeway.  Doesn’t GPS recognize “JFK Airport”?  So I was driving blind, knowing only that LBJ Freeway is 635 and I wanted to go east.  Dallas is sprawling so I was driving for what felt like hours and seemed not any closer to anything looking like a business district.  I did make it finally, with my brother’s help in the last few minutes, so I could meet him for lunch.  GPS worked after that. 

It was a good trip and I saw friends and family and did a little business.  But, I missed my family and was ready to come home. 

I tried to get an earlier flight, which was already delayed 3 hours.  Sometimes I was No. 2 on standby and sometimes I was kicked to No. 10.  No one could tell me why.  The attendants wouldn’t let a husband and wife fly together, but they bumped me as I was about to get on the plane because a 20-something woman needed to connect in NY for a flight to VT for a wedding weekend that started the next day (with wedding probably on Sunday).  No one asked if it was ok with me. I would have said, “sure” but I would have insisted on priority standby status in return. So, of course, the airline staff knew better than to ask me or make eye contact with me. That enraged me but I kept it in check, since I don’t break FAA or TSA rules because Homeland Security still makes me think of Dick Cheney and so it freaks me out. And I dropped to 22 on standby for the next oversubscribed plane that was also delayed.

So I just went to the counter of the NEXT flight and met a perky customer assistant who told me there were 20 unsold seats on the flight.  I knew that all the people ahead of me on the new standby list would fill those seats, so I paid a transfer fee and got a seat with a seat assignment and everything.  Then all the angry people who didn’t get on the second flight came storming through the airport to get on my flight.  Cost of transfer ticket: $50; the smug feeling that you’ve outsmarted the hoards: priceless.

All of this so, as a result of delays, I could leave LATER than my original departure. But I think my scheduled flight was canceled because after awhile, LaGuardia shuts down. The thoughts of being trapped in the Republic another night and staying at an airport hotel were more than I could handle.

My earlier smugness had a karmatic boomerang effect.  The man across the aisle on the plane was really loud and was the kind of guy who acts as if all the world’s his stage and every comment is for his benefit and requires his response. Then he had two gin and tonics. The perfunctory handing out of the ear phones was cause for a lively (no, actually, deadly, deadly boring and exasperating) exchange between this guy and the flight attendant. I put my ear plugs in just to close out the noise.

All in 9 hours either in an airport or on a plane.

So while I wanted to run, run like the wind, I schlepped in a glorified cargo pit. G-d, I love this City, even the gross cab air freshener.

 

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Republic of Texas

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Just today a Dallas newspaper had an article about secession.  It posited that more people outside Texas than inside would like the state to secede from the Union.

I saw my brother for lunch.  My sister-in-law suddenly got sick at the sight of me and begged off lunch.  I am trying not to connect the dots.

I sat in the bar/lounge of my hotel, waiting for my friends for dinner, and saw a sign that weapons are not allowed in the bar/lounge.  I’m from New York City, where grit and crime are part of the  urban landscape, and I have never seen such a sign.  I suddenly felt safer in NY.  At least I know that in No-Where-istan, that fabulous, mythical place, there are no weapons, concealed or otherwise.

Actually, given that my hotel was in the seamy part of Dallas (my secretary allowed “cost-cutting” to go too far), I am feeling like I am in an area of Dallas that, if this were NY, would be called Fort Apache, The Bronx.

But no gunfights so far, so I don’t really feel like I am in the Republic of Texas.  This is already a long, strange trip and Jerry Garcia had the benefit of drugs.

republc

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