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The Penultimate

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on December 13, 2015| 2 Comments »

Today is the next to the last day of Hannukah! How is this possible? I haven’t made latkes yet, or baked dreidel cookies. Times like these make me think about time; like why is the trip driving home always faster than the trip going to a place. It was the exact same amount of miles, it just seems faster.

Anyway, welcome to the seventh installment of Ada’s Yiddishisms. This one is about time, in a way:

Farshlepteh krenk

A drawn-out illness, neverending…

My niece told me about a TED Radio Hour podcast about adaptation, so yesterday I listened to it while I went through some motions at the gym. This I do on a regular basis so as to avoid a farshlepteh krenk. http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/455904076/adaptation

It was fascinating, and since I now have to put prednisone drops in my eye every four hours, my ears perked up at this story. A boy was born with cancer of his retinas (stay with me now) so that by the age of 13 months he had to have both eyes removed. He was blind and the first thing he did in the NICU after surgery was climb out of his crib and explore his room!

His TED point was that his parents never treated him as if he was special. They let him grow like a normal boy and explore his world. And so he naturally adapted to the darkness in the same way bats get along flying at night, echolocation – “…the sonarlike system used by dolphins, bats, and other animals to detect and locate objects by emitting usually high-pitched sounds that reflect off the object and return to the animal’s ears or other sensory receptors.”

In other words, he naturally adapted as an infant by clicking his tongue.

What does this have to do with a neverending illness you might ask? It made me think that some parents might immediately do everything in their power to shield that blind baby, to try and make his world carefree. They would emit sympathy from others, he would be labeled, classified and codified.

Some parents create a sickly child, where there is none.

Still, this month is the neverending season of joy, right? If you happen to be going through something hard right now, just remember that December can amplify those feelings. And that it is only one month, 31 days. And we are halfway there. And the second half goes faster!

Let’s hope you don’t come down with an illness, even a short one, over the Holidays, but if you do these two Jewish doctors will be working on Christmas day. L’Chaim!

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Grow Like an Onion

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on December 12, 2015| 2 Comments »

Ada has been trying to give me politically correct Yiddish expressions. When I called her yesterday she was at Red Lobster with her 90+ year old posse of ladies who still lunch. Was it someone’s birthday? “No,” she told me, “just because.” But she didn’t want to put her ancestral heritage out there in the blog world in a bad light; “I know many more that are curses,” she said “but I don’t think they are nice for the iPad.” Sometimes Yiddish can be naughty. “Like what?” I had to ask.

Vaksn zolstu vi a tsibele mitn kop in dr’erd un dis fis aroyf!

May you grow like an onion with your head in the ground

and your feet in the air!

Cursing out other people has a long history from those three wise women visiting a princess at her birth to Shakespeare. Now he was a genius at it, and I imagine Queen Cleopatra was pretty savvy at downgrading her handmaidens. One of my favorites since moving South is, “Stick a fork in him, he’s done!” Usually this is said slyly from an older woman to a young girl who has been betrayed once too often. Likening one’s straying/playa/boyfriend to a turkey will always make me smile.

But Jewish history is such that cursing had to be done in a smart way. After all, you’d be hauled off to a gulag or worse if you said the wrong thing to the wrong Gentile. Maybe this is why Jewish comedians like John Stewart and Seinfeld are so popular. Centuries of practicing the elegant put-down has twisted their psyche into the rhetoric of rebellion. It’s almost like they can’t help but see the world through a funny lens. It’s a coping mechanism, we laugh so we don’t fall apart.

The hook to this particular saying is that at first, it sounds like a compliment. We start out like a soothsayer with “May you grow…,”and finish with a one-two punch. Much better than, “Go jump in a lake.” It’s prophecy of the malignant sort. If your native language wasn’t Yiddish in fact, you would probably not get it. You might even say, “Thanks.”

So next time that clerk is too busy talking to someone else to even look at you, or that red car with antlers on it almost pushes you off the road, or yet another political robocall arrives to your landline, just smile and think about the noble onion.

And if you’re baking holiday cookies today, may you have a glass of wine at your elbow next to the butter! From this little Jewish Leprechaun I could plotz!IMG_3532

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Need vs Want

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on December 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

I grew up in a quaint, working class town on the western fringe of NJ. We didn’t have much, but on the other hand, we didn’t need much. Here is a blog about Dover, NJ you might enjoy! The photographer is the father of a dear friend. http://blogfinger.net/2015/03/22/dover-ata-christmas-1960-by-henry-boschen/   1960 Dover, NJ picture by Henry Boschenboschen

I lived in a tiny house on a hill outside of town with one bathroom, but it was a house filled with love and a nurturing though agoraphobic foster mother, Nell. I never thought of myself as poor; but when I moved to the Flapper’s big Victorian house in town, with older siblings, I must have noticed the difference.

My life immediately expanded to include a glamorous sister in NYC and two brothers, one still in high school. I acquired step-siblings and a step-father, who was a well respected judge in town. We lived across the street from the Jewish synagogue, and I remember my first visit on Purim with my step-father and boyfriend/future husband Bob. This Catholic school girl was delighted to hear people talking during the service, making noise in fact, and generally not listening to the Rabbi. No more kneeling, rosary beads or silent praying in Latin!

So raising my children Jewish, in a wealthy Jersey suburb should have been easy, right? Wrong. Rumson was and probably still is a mix of “old” and “new” money. The kids’ cars were much better than the teachers’ cars in the RFH parking lot. And my children’s peers pretty much got whatever they wanted, when they wanted it. I developed a saying for the Rocker, “Want? Work. Wait!” The three “W”s it was called. Just because all his friends had the latest gizmo, didn’t mean I’d run out and buy one for him. When the Bride wanted a car, we offered to pay for half and she ponied up the rest of her cash from summer jobs.

And so I give you Day 5 of Hannukah’s Yiddish saying:

Ich darf es vi a loch in kop!

In other words, I need it like a hole in the head! Yiddish words convey beautiful bits of sarcasm. In this season of giving, and getting too much, it’s important to differentiate between what our children want, and what they actually need. They may want a drum set, but you need that like a hole in the head! Most toys are played with for a few days, and thrown away because they break or they are lost forever at the bottom of a toy trunk.

I love the approach some parents are using – they have their children make a list for Santa of four things: 1) something they want, 2) something to read, 3) something to wear, and 4) something to give away to a needy child. Perfect right? But I’d have to come up with four more for Hannukah!

How about: 5) something they need (like an educational game), 6) something for or from nature (like a terrarium), 7) an experience (like Nutcracker tickets, or a trip to Rockefeller Center), and 8) how about a kiss? That’s always what my foster father wanted for Christmas. He got that with a can of Prince Albert pipe tobacco every year!

Now that’s enough of my kibitzing for one day!  21551_1194777985859_3581712_n

 

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I’m a Little Teapot

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on December 10, 2015| 2 Comments »

I can hear Ms Bean snoring at the foot of the stairs. Our pup has bad hips. She stopped climbing the stairs to sit on my mountain-view chaise, dutifully watching me write, last year. She knows her limitations, and although she’s not that old in doggy years, she’s made a few adaptations in order to continue living the good life. Adaptability, a very Darwinian trait.

While cleaning out and sorting through our unfinished basement last month, we came across an unopened box. “No,” I said to Bob, “absolutely not!” Up until that point I had been perfectly adaptable. It seemed like a fine plan to toss or donate whatever had survived the journey from NJ to VA without being opened and inspected. Why cart a bunch of packed boxes around with us forever?

But this box was filled with teapots. I don’t know why, and I wouldn’t call it a collection exactly, but I’ve always loved teapots.

There’s the red Chinese pot with a bamboo handle my first room mate in college gave me. There’s the aubergine art nouveau teapot I found at the Monmouth Art Show. And there are no words to describe the delicate, pale yellow Belleek teapot from Ireland, with its tiny, iridescent shell feet. One of the few treasures I have from my Nana is a small porcelain tea leaf strainer and saucer. Which is why Great Grandma Ada’s expression is so apropos this morning.

hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik

stop bothering me, leave me alone

It literally means don’t bang a teakettle at me; don’t hammer on a teapot.

This morning I had to turn off the news. This news junkie has had enough of Donald Trump. What does he mean, how do you feel about him, is this the final nail in his coffin? My head is spinning from too much teapot banging Trumpisms. I wish the media would leave him alone already!

My adaptability strategy? I’m going to a Christmas Concert at the Catholic School. Hopefully, tea will be served! Here is my antique doll cupboard with what else for the Love Bug, a porcelain tea set!   IMG_3487

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It’s the Busy Season

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, tagged , , , on December 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Good Morning folks. Sorry for sleeping in but I’ve been exhausted lately, how about you? I once thought that by marrying into the Jewish faith I’d get out of all the Christmas hubub. But as my psychologist brother Dr Jim reminded me, I should feel lucky since I have two holidays to celebrate!

That was the story of my young life; one birthday party in NJ, then over the Delaware Water Gap we would go to another birthday party with my birth family in PA. To Nell’s credit, she did make it seem like having two Christmases, and two birthdays was really special. Double the fun. Later, I realized it was the Flapper’s way of keeping me in her life.

So my question of the morning is, “Do you ever feel like you are overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time in the day?” Have three people invited you to their holiday parties on the same night, and you just learned your child volunteered your cookies for the Christmas party at church the next morning? It’s no wonder psychologists say depression shoots up this time of year – we are on a treadmill of presumed happiness. Just to help you out, I give you another Ada Yiddishism:

Mit ain toches kent mir nicht zizen af tsen uriden

This is one of my favorites, and if you’re from the NY area you might recognize one word, pronounced “Toockes.” Loosely translated it means,

“With one behind you can’t sit on ten toilets!”

Stellar right?! This little saying hits so many of our buttons: the need to please; the desire to be perfect; wanting to avoid conflict. Or just plain needing to be cloned so we can sail through this joyful season. Oy Vey! But what if you take a deep, cleansing breath, and think about just one toilet – maybe it’s a fancy new one where you wave your hand to flush and the seat is always down? I love it.

My other little trick that Bob taught me is, I don’t have to apologize…or go into long, lengthy explanations about why I can’t do something like volunteer to clean up after the school’s holiday party, or corral the Kindergarten kids before the Tree Lighting in town, or well you name it. He once told me that men do NOT do this! Men will just say, “No,” and they might add, “Scheduling conflict.” Practice this phrase ladies – “No. scheduling conflict.” The more you say it, the easier it gets!

As for me, I’ve discovered the wonder of online shopping this year. Don’t judge me readers. At least Hannukah is early which is actually helpful, it forces you to multi-task. And anyone who knows me knows I’m purely a one-task-at-a-time girl. Anyway, this month is all about the kids, right?Turning them into little, civilized mensches despite and amidst crass commercialization. But I have faith, as long as I have a toilet nearby.

Here I am going to only one wedding as the Flower Girl. Even though I had three older sisters, only one was married during my gypsy years between NJ and PA. Thankfully. IMG_3502

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The Times They Are Pressing

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on December 7, 2015| 4 Comments »

Es Vetzach Oispressen

Every morning for the next eight days of Hannukah I’m going to bring you one of the many instructive, sometimes funny and always calming Yiddish sayings my MIL Ada has peppered her language with over the years. A short vignette each day to share with your morning coffee. Enjoy!

Es Vetzach Oispressen Is one I’ve been hearing alot lately. It means “It will all iron out.” ie I tell her my worries, she does her best to listen and give me some advice, and then she’ll tell me it will all be ironed out like I used to iron my brother’s shirts. A little steam and voila!

Today I have an appointment with a retina specialist. It seems one retina is “wrinkled,” which explains the loss of vision in that eye. My “epi retinal membrane” may need surgery. But I’d prefer to think it will iron itself out without the help of a scalpel, or a laser, if you know what I mean.

The good news – no cataracts – for “someone my age” the first eye doctor told me. Yippee! This was me, wearing pink, going to a Planned Parenthood rally this past weekend. Wondering why I still have to march on the street across from people carrying lurid baby killer signs for my fundamental human rights. Will this press out too?   IMG_3586

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Saving Face

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on December 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The house is empty today. No Legos on the floor, Puffins on the table, or Love Bug saying “Nana!” The kitchen is clean, towels are washed and the bed sheets have all been changed; Bob went into the hospital for a full day of meetings. Great Grandma Ada called to ask me how I feel, and I said, “Strange.” I was just getting used to children’s laughter and smiles. To cuddles for no particular reason. My back however, after picking up a red headed 25 lb Buddha Baby monkey time and again, was telling me another story. Yesterday was spent on a heating pad.

Today it’s not entirely quiet, the drumming rain on the roof is soothing. It’s a good day to write while the mountains are shrouded in fog.

Giving Tuesday is really a day of reflection. Before the holidays move into high gear, and just in time for year-end tax deductions, many of us tithe to the charity of our choice. You may remember that I have a special place in my heart for the Salvation Army. And no, it’s not because of Guys and Dolls, or their irresistible red buckets. The Salvation Army showed up in the Flapper’s life when she needed help and was too proud to ask for it. They knocked on her door in our Year of Living Dangerously, when the Catholic Church turned its back.

But this week is also highlighting Climate Change in Paris. World leaders have gathered to pledge an end to carbon emissions, to try and stem the tide of extreme weather and drought. And just like Bernie Sanders has pointed out, climate is interrelated to conflict, and is directly responsible for  hunger and forced migrations of people due to environmental degradation and natural disasters.

If temperatures rise by only 2C, then millions more people would be affected across Central America, Africa and Asia. If temperatures were to rise between 4C and 5C, the map becomes covered in hotspots – suggesting a semi-pemanent food disaster in many parts of the world. WFP executive director, Ertharin Cousin, will not predict the cost of providing humanitarian food aid on a much larger scale, but accepts it is likely to be many tens of billions of dollars a year. “Climate change has the potential to reverse the whole development path,” she says.              http://www.theguardian.com/environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris

When Bob returns home, we’ll talk about giving to some different non-profits today. Like:

The City of Light has stood up to terrorism by hosting the COP21: UN Climate Change Conference following November 13. But the news I found most hopeful was the back-door dealings of President Obama and Putin. I don’t need to know what was said, if any agreement was reached. Both men could save face by staying behind a beautiful French silk curtain. Iron curtains are so last century. Because we need both of our countries to lead in this global struggle for Mother Earth.   IMG_3508

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Unbearable

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on November 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

It’s been a whirlwind week. On Thursday, we cooked up a storm of scrumptious sides for Thanksgiving in Richmond. On Friday, the Great Grandparents boarded their Amtrak chariot and arrived home safely; for the first time ever, because of a Bar Mitzvah, Ada stayed with us more than three days! This had always been the rule when visiting us in MA, she would stay no more than three days, and I’m happy she broke it.

Later we managed to stop at friend’s farm so the Grandbabies could see her miniature horses. Then off we drove to Culpeper for a double duty day of two sets of Grandparents. The Groom’s parents and his brother and sister live in Northern VA, so a meeting for brunch midway between Cville and our nation’s Capital was on the docket. It was wonderful to spend time with Grandma Shavaun and Grandpa Mike, and fantastic to see the love for these miniature miracles spread around town.

Against my better judgement, I even slipped into a small toy store while walking around town. Christmas spirit was evident in Master Card swipes and helpful elves.

But when we got home, ahead of the Bride’s family, I heard the news about another shooting in Colorado. About Planned Parenthood. It was the same newscasters, the same nouns, the same verbs, the same phrases were used to describe an unbearable and all too common event in our culture.

“A LIVE SHOOTING!”

Come one, come all and gather round your TV to watch the event unfold – like a modern day scene from a Civil War battle with people picnicking on a hillside overlooking the battle. And I just couldn’t. I can no longer listen to the slaughter or onslaught of talking heads trying to find rhyme and reason. I’ve said it before, it’s the guns. Period. And I fear our homegrown/nutjob/terrorists much more than a refugee with a different religion.

Today is a free day. There will be no more news on any device. We will visit with old friends and play with Grandbabies. No more cooking. We will dine at a kid-friendly place tonight. And later, when it’s time for bed, I will try and explain to my Love Bug that monsters are just pretend. That the noises she hears are just our house creaking and pipes carrying water. Or maybe there’s a fox in the woods? I will fib when I tell her that the gunshots we hear from hunters in the valley are just cars backfiring.

I could not bear to tell her the truth. We have accepted active shooter drills in our schools, what is next?    IMG_3548.jpg

 

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A Primer for Gratitude

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on November 24, 2015| 2 Comments »

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake Bob and we list the things we are grateful for – sometimes, the list is short. But in the full light of day, before we gather at a friend’s table for Thanksgiving with Ada, Hudson and the Bride’s family, I thought I’d do my Norman Rockwellian best to write a current gratitude primer.

I am grateful for the sun bathing the mountains this morning.

I am grateful for the deer stomping his greeting to me.

I am grateful for Ms Bean and her willingness to cuddle.

I am grateful for a fireplace that lights up at the push of a button.

I am grateful for my sanctuary, the aviary.

I am grateful for my First World problems in our free country.

I am grateful for my family, all over the world, and all our quirks.

We were all once strangers in a strange land. And I am grateful to you my readers, who sometimes comment, email, text or tell me that what I write resonates.  Thank You!

 

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A Life Story

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2015| 5 Comments »

Hold the applause and pass the champagne for our little coterie of writers in Cville. This past weekend I attended another writing workshop on Memoir at The Writer House. Our fearless leader, Sharon Harrigan, helped us dig into our past, crystalize our vision and discover a theme that might shape the story of a life. This town is a veritable estuary of literary types, it seems I have found my people!

Although I’m not crazy enough to think my life story gives me the right to run for President, for instance, I wondered if it’s worthy of a book, I thought that delving into my past could help me structure the fictional story I’ve been working on for years based on the life of my Flapper. You see, I didn’t really get to know my biological Mother until I moved in with her at the age of 12, and I never knew my birth Father. He died of a brain tumor when I was seven months old.

I could write a scene about the automobile accident three months later, on July Fourth weekend in 1949, our family’s Year of Living Dangerously, only through the eyes of my sister Kay. It might start like this scene in a drugstore in Scranton, PA:

Robert P. Norman’s name was emblazoned on the door and he was always happy to see us. I’m the oldest, and only girl at home, so I’m the sugar in his coffee. Only lately, Daddy was having trouble moving his left arm, and sometimes he had headaches, headaches that sent him stumbling towards his office in the back. I was heading there to see if he needed me when I heard my name.

She was fourteen at the time and is currently my living archive. She helped our Father pound chemicals into pills in the back of his pharmacy. After the accident, she was in a coma for a month. She had to care for me that summer and her brothers, and eventually the Flapper when she was discharged from the hospital, her dancer’s legs broken in so many places she would never walk normally again.

But first I had to get to know myself better. Sharon had us make a list of our quirks, which was a fun exercise and kept me busy jotting down things like:

  • “I need to keep my hair short, or I’ll twirl it all the time;”
  • “Small talk is painful, but I’m told I’m good at it;”
  • “Sleep will sometimes elude me for no particular reason;”
  • “I stop for stray dogs.”

I was getting discouraged, my quirks didn’t seem quirky enough. Then someone said we should ask a friend or family member to list our quirks. Genius!

“You have to load the dishwasher a certain way,” Bob said. Now that is true, and it did show up at the end of my list. I’ve even been known to return to a dishwasher only to reload it, if someone else was kind enough to “help” with the dishes.

I’m also pretty particular about hanging clothes out on a line. One of my very first memories is of getting stung by a bee under clouds of crisp white sheets floating above me on a clothesline.

And I love to dance. The Flapper signed me up for ballet at Phil Grassia’s studio in NJ. I chased a dream in high school and commuted to Martha Graham School in NYC to study modern dance. I continued to study all types of dance under Bill Bales at SUNY College at Purchase.

And when Bob, who never liked to dance, wouldn’t take me to our Junior Prom at sixteen, I asked our good friend Bernie. Because I was that girl who had two Mothers and was never afraid to ask for what I wanted. I guess that was pretty quirky in 1965.   Junior Prom 20151111

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