Is it Possible that Saul is 65?

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Saul and I were childhood sweethearts. We have known each other since I was 11 and he was 14. He walked me home from my friend’s twelfth birthday party. We all lived down the street from each other in a section of North Philadelphia called Logan. On our first date, when I was 14 and he was 17, we double-dated with that same friend and attended Olney High School’s Kix and Kapers in May of 1964. I still have the program from this variety talent show that the students of the high school performed, and some subsequent ones that we attended for a few years after that. It is unbelievable to me that we now have a granddaughter who is 11.

As we were lucky enough to grow old together, we still feel an element of that youthful relationship. The way we look belies our perception of each other. My friend Roxy and I are always laughing about the fact that we are shocked each time we walk past a mirror. In our heads, we are still in our twenties. My mother used to say that inside every old lady there is a 16-year-old girl screaming to get out. Saul and I are so lucky to have all the shared memories of our youth together, and it colors the way we see each other, much as it would be if we were “looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.” I don’t think either one of us minds being perceived in a more flattering light, however unrealistic that might be. A 65th birthday celebration is both a shock and a privilege. We need to make serious plans for our old age, but how lucky we are to have reached this milestone together and to have had the time to enjoy each other for all these years!

Ari has been visiting the last two weekends to help us celebrate Saul’s birthday. In the intervening week, the holiday of Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish Arbor Day, has occurred and we have had three separate Tu B’Shevat seders. The first was at a Shabbat dinner at Jess and Alex’s house. Jess wrote a beautiful ceremony, gleaning from various sources, and including a very clever poem of her own creation. Alex, as usual, made a delectable meal ordered up by Izzy. We celebrated her eighth birthday as well as Saul’s 65th. When we arrived for dinner, Saul was greeted at the door with a crown that the girls made that said “King Saba,” and a royal robe, trimmed with gold, that had been part of a Purim costume for Jessica. Jess was able to find a great variety of fruits and nuts for the seder, all grown in the U.S. Rif brought a box of caramelized mixed nuts from Trader Joe’s that had us all addicted the moment we tasted them. We had the required four cups of grape juice ranging in color from white to dark. The dinner Izzy ordered for her birthday, so unusual for a child’s taste, was black bean soup, baked glazed Brussels sprouts, salad, seared tuna, glazed salmon, and mashed potatoes. We also had the birthday-cake-shaped pasta that I had bought the week earlier, and for dessert, brown-sugar-iced sweet potato cake and carob sheet cake brownies. Attending the seder and dinner were Alex, Jess and the girls, Saul and me, Ari, Larry, Faith, Elaine, and Rif. We had picked up Larry and Faith for the drive to NJ, and Ari drove us all home, tired, but sated and happy.

The next day, Saul, Ari and I attended services at MBI-EE and participated in our second Tu B’Shevat seder and luncheon there. Again, there was was an incredible variety of fruits and nuts, various colors of grape juice and a thoughtful series of readings and blessings in a pamphlet prepared by Rabbi Addison. On Sunday, we had bento box lunches with Jess, Alex and the girls at Chez Elena Wu where we are now recognized on our once-a-month excursions and treated very well indeed. In the late afternoon, Saul, Ari and I decided to take a short trip to The Dump in New Jersey. We found the merchandise there to be quite a bit different from what we had seen at the one in Oaks. Ari found the perfect, one-of-a-kind console table for his foyer and also bought a beautiful, room-size Oriental rug for under his dining table made of wool and silk. We figured that we would find a way to get them to DC eventually.

During the following week, I spent several days in front of the computer working on an international publication. In whatever free time I had, I continued to scan the descriptive and engaging letters from my father to my mother during WWII from the months of March through July 1945, a very auspicious time during the war. In the last year, with a long hiatus, I have scanned over 500 letters and have just scratched the surface. On Thursday, I attended Faith’s class where we sampled leftover fruit and nuts from the previous night’s seder at Temple Sinai and read from a seder pamphlet compiled by the daughter of members of our class (a fourth seder for me). Saul and I shopped on Thursday afternoon for the supplies for our own Tu B’Shevat seder, going to Costco, Produce Junction, Assi Market, Trader Joe’s and Giant to assemble all the necessary and diverse components. Ari arrived late on Thursday evening after attending a work-related dinner. The three of us spent most of the next day enjoyably preparing dinner and the seder, although Ari was interrupted by work much more than he had anticipated. We took a break and had lunch at Eastern Dragon. We used our traditional seder from previous years and were joined by Saul’s colleague, Sister Lisa, Beth, Larry, Faith, Jerry and Betty. For dinner, we had homemade challah; chestnut soup; spinach salad with hot sesame dressing, goat cheese, pomegranate seeds and slivered almonds; Israeli salad; slishkas; mashed cauliflower, and maple-glazed steelhead trout. For dessert, we had coffee and an upside-down fresh cranberry cake topped with whipped cream, and assorted tree-related cookies, such as mango teacakes, mini pecan pies, lemon cheese logs, lime cornmeal cookies, and walnut cookies. On this day, Saul became 65 years old and we marked his birthday again.

An icy snow began to fall in the wee hours of Saturday morning and travel became treacherous, so we lounged around on Saturday morning, and had a big breakfast. While Saul took a long nap, Ari helped me assemble and decorate the roller skate cake that Izzy had baked a few weeks earlier, which was waiting in the freezer for her birthday party. As with the Cat in the Hat cake that I made two years ago, I used the standing lamb pan from Wilton to get the basic shape I needed. We had taken a photo of Izzy with her lavender roller skate a week earlier so that I could copy it. I was very pleased with the result.

On Sunday, the three of us packed up both cars and headed for Izzy’s roller skating party in New Jersey, stopping to have breakfast at the Marlton Diner on the way. Izzy had a rollicking celebration with a dozen other children, including her cousins, Brenna and Ava. Alex’s sister Naomi, her husband Matt, their baby Talia, Elaine, Rif, Erica and Danny came to the rink as well as some of the other parents. Jess had provided all sorts of crafts projects for the kids, as well as packs of glowing light sticks. At the rink, there were also mazes, a giant inflated slide, which Yona climbed until she could not take another step, arcade games and air hockey, to name a few of the delights there. After two hours, all rendezvoused back at the house for snacks, drinks, birthday cake, and ice cream. When the party ended, Rif and Paul drove with us to The Dump where we loaded Ari’s table and rug into the back of Paul’s large SUV. We met Jess, Sami and Izzy at a Thai Restaurant, Bankok City in Voorhees, where we had a delicious and leisurely meal. Transferring the table and rug to our SUV on the parking lot after dinner, we decided that we would visit Ari this coming weekend so that we could deliver his stuff.

Now well into winter, we are hoping that this unusually mild weather will continue so that we can begin some major renovations to the house with an eye to putting it up for sale in the spring or summer. The future of Camp Bubbie and Saba for this year has yet to be determined. Sami is going to overnight camp at Ramah this year. Izzy may be at the JCC day camp, and a day camp program is available for Yona as well. We hope that the number 65 is only a number and that we have a healthy future in store with lots of energy to enjoy the summer with our kids and grandkids. We childhood sweethearts have to keep ourselves active and moving if we want to reach “Infinity and Beyond!”