Olney High School Reunion

On Thursday evening, Saul and I went out to Costco for just a few food items just as they were closing, and decided to have a late bite at the Metropolitan Diner and to pick up a gift certificate for Larry. This past Friday was our friend, Larry’s, 58th birthday. By coincidence, Saul’s Olney High School 45th Reunion took place the next evening. Larry’s sister, Susan, is a classmate of Saul’s, and month’s ago, while we were visiting her and her husband, Ted, in Chicago, we made arrangements to attend the reunion together which took place this past weekend at Lamb Tavern. Susan’s husband, Ted, has children and grandchildren in this area, so the reunion became an excuse to drive in from Chicago, help Larry celebrate his birthday, visit friends and family, and attend some other related events in New York and Massachusetts.

Our Shabbat dinner this week, which was attended only by Larry, Susan and Ted, was of Larry’s choosing, at my request. We had homemade guacamole and chips with herbs from my garden; smoked turkey, split pea soup; wilted spinach salad with hot sesame dressing; stuffed cabbage; kasha and bow ties; and for dessert, a pareve chocolate sheet cake and a pistachio/praline-topped pumpkin pie, both made with coconut milk. We used this occasion to break out a very rare and delicious bottle of wine that was given to us as a thank-you by the father of one of Saul’s students. Several months ago, Saul had arranged a job interview for her with Ari’s firm, and we had actually driven her into Washington for the interview. It was a win-win-win-win situation. She was thrilled when they offered her the job. Saul was delighted that she took it. The firm was very pleased to have found such a bright and talented employee, and Ari got a generous finder’s fee for introducing her. Her parents, growers in Sonoma, California, were also delighted. Their gratitude took the form of the vintage that we uncorked on Friday—Benziger Oonapais Sonoma Mountain Red, 2006. Susan chose it from among our bottles, and she is one of the few people we know who could appreciate it. It was delicious—smooth, mellow, darkly fruity with notes of cherry and blackberry. We all had a lovely evening together.

Saul had a rendezvous with his students at Team Children the next day. That evening, we picked up Susan and Ted at Larry’s house and drove to the reunion. Many coincidences were about to unfold. Although Susan and Saul were classmates, they only became friendly as Saul’s friendship with her brother, Larry, developed. Saul and Larry met when they were both teaching at Jay Cooke Junior High School and Larry needed help moving into his new house on Thanksgiving. Saul and I both attended Cooke and met there as students. Through Facebook, Susan had renewed a friendship with a classmate, Joan, who was a bridesmaid at her wedding. Joan was the neighbor and cousin of my next door neighbor and childhood playmate for many years. Joan had an absolutely “Eureka!” moment when she realized who I was. Over the summer, we visited a couple from our teen years in Virginia Beach, Wayne and Pearl, with whom we re-connected on Facebook. At our table, during the course of our conversation with David and Karen (also re-connections on Facebook who live near my daughter in Baltimore), we discovered that the same girl, Nadine, who was responsible for Saul and me going out together on our first date to Olney High School’s Kix & Kapers (1964), was also responsible for getting the two of them together for their first Fourth of July date. Karen and Nadine had become close friends in a later class at Olney when I was disconnected from Nadine as I went off to a different high school, Girls’ High. I never knew Karen at all in high school. All this came about when I mentioned that Wayne was the reason that Saul and I had gone out together. Nadine wanted to date Wayne, but her parents said that, because she was so young (14), it needed to be a double date. Saul and I agreed to go along so that Nadine could have her first date. It was my first date, also. Wayne eventually married Pearl, who was in my Girl Scout Troop #222. Now, back to Joan. Her first husband died when she was 38. She remarried five years ago and introduced us to her second husband. He mentioned in a conversation with Saul and me that his uncle had owned a fish store in our Logan neighborhood, Zagar’s. Now, we had a “Eureka” moment, and hastened to grab Susan from a conversation elsewhere. We knew that Susan’s father was a partner in Zagar’s for several years. Susan and Larry’s father had been the partner of Joan’s husband’s uncle.

The reunion turned out to be a very pleasant evening. About 100 attended from a huge graduating class of over a thousand. The food was acceptable, the banquet hall inviting, and obviously, an enormous amount of volunteer work had gone into the planning. All at our table bought raffle tickets for door prizes, $10 for 3 tickets. The grand prizes were a $100 restaurant gift certificate and a Netbook computer. Our number was called and we won the gift certificate. While Saul was on his way back to our table with the certificate, a number was chosen for the grand prize, the computer. It was also one our numbers. A palpable hum of surprise and disappointment filled the room. We were both mortified, and with just a few words and some meaningful looks between us as he approached our table, he turned around and decided to return the computer to be raffled off to someone else. He already has a Netbook from Chestnut Hill College, along with several other laptops and computers that we own. Personally, we would have had no use for it and would have had to sell it or give it away. In hindsight, perhaps we should have kept it and given it to our friends, but it just seemed so unfair to walk away with the two grand prizes.

As the mass of graduates posed for a group photo, the atmosphere was convivial. When the women posed separately, they spontaneously broke into their school song at the mention of their alma mater and someone humming a few bars.

The worst nightmare of anyone who does computer-based presentations to groups occurred at the end of the evening. One of the organizing classmates had prepared a PowerPoint show for the occasion, with old photographs, videos and memorabilia. He had borrowed a company computer and had set up a large screen for the presentation. What came up before us all on the huge screen immediately as he began was hard-core porno! The computer virus that caused the problem was so virulent that he literally had to pull the plug to shut it down. He was freaked because he had just signed papers when borrowing the computer pledging that he would not be visiting porno or game sites. He feared for his job and we never got to see the presentation.

During the evening, my sister, Adele and her husband, Larry, called us to let us know that the mother of our mutual friend, Irv, from California, had just died. Irv’s mother, Fran, was 93 years old and was fiercely independent, insisting on staying in her home despite various health problems over the last few years. Her visiting nurse found her in a bad state of health about 3 weeks ago and had called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. She spent about 2 weeks there recovering from double pneumonia and died on Saturday night in a convalescent home after about 10 days there. Fran and my mother had been friends and we had invited her to all our family get-togethers for many years. When Irv, who originally had been Larry’s childhood friend and neighbor, had come home from the military in Viet Nam, he tried to date me, but I was waiting for Saul, who was on a carrier, The U.S.S. Forrestal, in the Navy. While on leave, Saul arranged a blind date between Irv and an Israeli girl he knew from his classes at Gratz College, Jardena. The sparks flew immediately, and they were married within a year. We all have remained friends ever since. Irv flew in from California yesterday, and his wife today from a short vacation with a girlfriend in Florida. Fran’s funeral is graveside, tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. My sister and I spent today shopping separately to make up shiva trays to serve an anticipated 35 mourners tomorrow. Saul and I made two smoked fish trays this evening and Adele made up cold cut trays.

Things Fall Apart

This is the title of a very famous book written by Chinua Achebe that Jessica and I read while she was a student, many years ago, at Germantown Friends School. I highly recommend it. Suffice it to say that, as ingrained as our acceptance of tradition may be, nothing lasts unchanged, except perhaps in our memories. There, if we are lucky, reside untarnished, pleasant memories of days gone by, stylized, enhanced, and comforting. When things fall apart, we are challenged to make our way in life discomfited, without the misguided certainty that what existed yesterday will be there for us tomorrow. Being human, we seem to count on this no matter what the evidence to the contrary. Perhaps that is why people commit suicide, mistakenly thinking that tomorrow will be just as painful as (or more painful than) today. As far as I can tell, death is the only thing about life that is permanent and unchanging, and I can wait for that. In contrast to my intellectual understanding that I need to appreciate all the pleasures of today, I find that, humanly and viscerally, I cannot begin to appreciate every little thing that goes right in my day. And when dumb little things go wrong, they upset me beyond what I think should be a logical reaction to them. Such was my week.

It began with a rather large tree falling down in the strong winds that assaulted us for a few days. Seeing it lying there upset me beyond all logical reasoning. The tree, a birch, was one of the few that we were able to save when we built our house 18 years ago. When it grew large enough, after about 10 years, we were able to attach our hammock to it and spend many pleasant hours there. Intellectually, I know that we were very lucky because it could have come down when someone was in the hammock and it could have maimed or killed. It could have hit the house or deck and caused major property damage. It could have landed on my quince trees and damaged them. It could have damaged a large fir tree, or it could have blocked a neighbor’s driveway. If I could have picked the spot ahead of time, I could not have picked a better, more innocuous way for it to fall. Yet looking at the bare spot left in my landscape, I felt only sadness at the change in my view.

Another hassle was with our thermostat as temperatures began to drop in the crisp autumn weather. On the evening of the day that our hvac people came to service our heater, our electronic thermostat went blank and our heat went off. We huddled under our down comforter waiting for our trusty guys to come and replace it the next day. Feeling the chill and suffering the insecurity of this uncomfortable, albeit temporary, change, I struggled intellectually with appreciating that it could have been a much colder evening, the comforter thinner, and our service people could have been much slower to respond and fix the problem.

Having had the house up for sale, we have been discussing updating our large kitchen. I love my Wood-Mode laminated white cabinets with red oak trim, but I know that the look, while extremely practical, is very dated. This week, a hinge broke, causing a small, repairable crack in the outside edge of the laminate, and forcing Saul to remove the door. The gaping hole of the cabinet I can no longer close until we get the new hinge is also annoying me beyond all reason. I should probably take it as a sign that I really should replace the doors with something more up-to-date.

In between these petty annoyances are all the really great parts of my week—meeting Roxy and Adele for lunch at Wegman’s; and the following week meeting Roxy for lunch at Blue Sage; having dinner with Faith at Thai Orchid and attending her intellectually stimulating class on Thursday mornings; hearing Yona say “Shabbat Shalom” on the telephone as clear as a bell; listening to Izzy tell about losing her six baby teeth in the space of two weeks; speaking with Jessica every morning as she drives to work and Ari every evening as he drives home from work; and having a delicious and very inexpensive early bird dinner at the Fireside Bar and Grill with Larry, his sister, Susan, and her husband, Ted.

Only Larry and Beth joined us this week for Shabbat dinner. I baked fresh challah, made cold strawberry soup and a Capresé salad with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and fresh basil from my garden. We had leftover Mediterranean vegetable lasagna from the freezer as our main course, and for dessert we had whipped-cream-topped, Costco-bought, pumpkin pie and a huge chocolate and caramel-covered Granny Smith apple with our pumpkin flavored French-press coffee. Saul spent long hours over the weekend on his responsibilities for Chestnut Hill College, which gave me a chance to spend long hours on my desktop publishing work. Finally, taking a break on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we got away for a few hours and visited an art gallery in Lansdale called “Water,” where an associate of Saul and Larry, and a mentor of Larry’s brother-in-law’s granddaughter, has some works of glass on exhibit. When we arrived, a short distance down the block, a street fair was in progress outside of a new tavern called Molly MacGuire’s. There was a band, teenagers in costume performing Irish dances, children and adults carving pumpkins, and the usual assortment of vendors selling everything from Phillies sweatshirts to jewelry.

My work has been very frustrating this week as the people with whom I am working on this new publication do not have a full understanding of what it is that I do, and I am having trouble explaining the technical aspects of my work to people who have no technical expertise. They are very nice people, so I guess we will work it out to everyone’s satisfaction eventually.

In spite of the fact that we can be sure, in this universe, that things fall apart, I will continue to strive for the day-to-day appreciation of the myriad of wonderful blessings in my life which I so take for granted, and try not to let depression, pessimism, and pettiness get the better of me.

The End of the Holidays and The Beginning of 5771

As we had planned, we spent Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in Baltimore/DC with Ari and Jessica. Heavy rains in the area with thunderstorms caused unbelievable flooding such as DC had not known in many years. I wandered around the synagogue following my beautiful toddler, Yona, who loves to play with water fountains and is familiar with every nook and cranny in the gigantic building. On Simchat Torah, Alex had unraveled a Torah on long tables all the way across a large reception hall, laying paper markers on pertinent sections so that many of the children, working in teams for the contest, could have clues to answer questions about it with stickers on a three-page questionnaire—a sort of Torah scavenger hunt. We had lunch at the synagogue. Ari joined us at Jess and Alex’s for Shabbat dinner, wonderful as usual with Alex’s fantastic soups, chicken, and imaginative salads with ingredients from the Pearlstone CSA. During our weekend in DC, we spent an evening with Ralph, a fellow professor at Chestnut Hill College, and his wife, Ann Marie, meeting them at sunset on the Eastern Shore to dine by the waterside at Harris’s again. Saul and Ari picked up a few more shirts and sweaters at the Queenstown Outlet Mall. Saul, Ari and I also spent a few hours weeding a huge amount of crabgrass out of his new garden and replacing a few of his plants that had expired in the unusually hot month of September with new ones. We added a few new perennials on the theory that the more plants, the less weeds. After just a couple of hours, his front garden looked spectacular! I think that he is actually beginning to enjoy gardening a bit, taking pride in the fact that it is his garden, and enjoying the compliments of his neighbors. All too soon, it was time to head home again to begin our first full week of the school year.

Monday afternoon, my friend Laura, whom I hadn’t seen for several months, met me at the Metropolitan Diner for lunch and we caught up as much as we could with each others’ lives. During the week, I noticed, among my email, a cupcake contest for Scharffen-Berger chocolate. They provide a list of “adventure” ingredients from which to choose along with their chocolate. I began to think about it. The next day, there was a notification in my email of an event taking place, connected with that contest, that evening in two locations around the country. One of them was in a vegan bakery in Columbia Heights, Sticky Fingers, just a few blocks from Ari’s house. I took this as a sign and incentive and spent an afternoon inventing a delicious new filled cupcake using a few of the adventure ingredients. I was very happy with the results.

On Wednesday evening, along with Beth, we went to meet Ken and Randi at Luigi’s in Warrington for a late dinner to belatedly celebrate Beth’s August birthday. My dinner was an absolutely picture-perfect sashimi-quality tuna steak, perfectly seared rare, with grill marks so geometric and perfect that Saul joked that they must have been applied with Magic Marker and a ruler. It was glazed with a cumin-scented balsamic reduction. This was accompanied by perfectly-cooked homemade pappardelle in garlic and oil, perfectly dressed. Yum! None of us had room for dessert. Perfectly guilt-free, too!

Thursday morning was this year’s launch of Faith’s weekly study group which, over the last 20 years, has moved from a Bible-study group to a discussion of Jewish history, particularly the Talmudic period. I stopped on the way home at Trader Joe’s to pick up cans of organic pumpkin so that Laura and I could bake pumpkin-face cookies together on Friday morning as we had discussed previously. Saul was able to finish up at school and join me for lunch at a reasonable hour. I had been craving a visit to our nearby Indian buffet, Sultan, but although the food was delicious and satisfying, we both suffered afterward for having overindulged, especially in their rich and ample desserts, such as gulab jamun, currant-studded rice pudding, barfi, sweet carrots, fried honeyed pastries, etc. etc. When we returned home, we took down the Sukkah. Thursday evening, I made four batches of cookie dough and six batches of pumpkin butter filling for them.

Friday morning, while Saul caught up with endless amounts of paperwork from this semester as department chairman, and worked on our very overdue income taxes, Laura and I had a blast turning out about seven dozen gorgeous cookies. She called this morning to say that they had come in very handy this weekend as her youngest daughter had just become engaged, and on the spur-of-the-moment, she had entertained the whole family with a dinner to celebrate. Saul and I ducked out after she left to take care of her dog on Friday to deliver a few cookies to our friend Dori, who manages Lee’s Hoagies in Montgomeryville, (a long-standing tradition that began many years ago) and share a sandwich before heading home to prepare Shabbat dinner. We stopped at Assi Market and Redner’s to pick up some produce and Glad silicon trays to pack away my cookies in the freezer. Most of the dinner came from the freezer this week, including smoked turkey split pea soup and stuffed cabbage. I did make fresh challah, kasha and bow ties, and iceberg lettuce wedges with Russian dressing. Faith, who came with Larry, brought her pareve blond brownies and chocolate and marshmallow-topped brownies from her freezer supply for dessert. Saul cut up the pineapple from our Sukkah fruit basket. It was a wonderful and relaxing evening, and not too much work.

Saturday morning, we attended services at MBI-EE, where two of our congregants were honored for their many hours of volunteer work, one for the Yiddish club, and the other for organizing and teaching the children’s services. After a celebratory luncheon there, we headed for Lion’s Gate to visit Saul’s mom, who had been moved into a more supervisory wing by Saul’s sister as her condition has been deteriorating. We were pleased to find her in good spirits, although it is obvious that her mind is mostly gone. The facilities were clean, neat, and attractive, and her semi-private room is divided by a wall of closets and drawers into two distinct spaces to provide a more private feeling. She knew that we were friends and was happy to have the attention from us. When we arrived, she was at a table with a therapist and a group of others doing a hand-eye coordination task of putting small objects into a cup. She had a small, soft blanket over her shoulders and spent most of the time that we were there conversing with her folding and unfolding it, smoothing it out, and telling us that she was planning to buy it. She asked us about her father. When I asked what she remembered about her father, she only said that she remembered that he was a “good man.” She did not remember anyone we asked about, including her husband, sister, children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren. Physically, she looked okay, and her ankles were not swollen as they had been. I asked about the food and she said it was very good and she was very happy with it. In her pocket, along with some packets of crackers that she was hoarding, was a printed list with ounce-by-ounce quantities of everything she had eaten for lunch. It was a better lunch than we had eaten earlier. We spoke with the rabbi at Lion’s Gate, whom she sees regularly, as we ran into each other in the hallway, and privately, he lamented the dramatic loss of her ability to express herself and to read the Hebrew text as she had when she first came. But, he also spoke about the joyfulness with which she approaches the service and rituals, and about the blessing that she is in no pain and seems very happy with her situation.

Saul and I napped briefly after completing the hour-long drive home. Then, Faith came over and we went to the new Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting Mall for a snack before seeing the movie, Eat Pray Love at the AMC theater there. The prepared food selection at Whole Foods was mind-boggling and we just walked around in that wing of the store gaping at the exquisite displays for about half and hour before choosing our late dinners. In addition to the usual prepared food case, there was a fresh pasta bar where you could choose from about a dozen fresh pastas and then choose from a half-dozen sauces to accompany them. There was a pizza bar, a salad bar, a bakery, a gelateria, cheese cases, olive bars, a meat station, and, I am sure, many other selections about which I have forgotten because it was all so overwhelming. Housed within the store, as sort of a store-within-a-store, is a really cool-looking wine and beer-tasting bar. The attractive wooden tables and chairs and pub-like atmosphere would provide a great place to lounge with those who are into wine before a movie or shopping trip and it appears to be largely undiscovered on a Saturday night. Upstairs, there is a large, tree-lined roof-deck for hanging out in nice weather. The movie, starring Julia Roberts, had a mere taste of the richness of the book, but we all enjoyed it for its escapism potential and spectacular and quirky scenery.

On Sunday, Saul needed to complete and deliver the income taxes to our accountant, so just Faith and I met and went to see The Social Network at the restored Ambler Theater after a brief walk up and down Butler Pike to window shop the cute little stores. A bride and groom were being professionally photographed in the lobby when we entered. We both enjoyed the movie which was, thankfully, much more about friendship and betrayal than software. Saul and I had dinner at home on Sunday night to clean up leftovers from Friday. For better or worse, home is still the best restaurant in town.

September, Not So Good

We spent Labor Day Weekend in D.C. with Ari. He had much computer work to do, and so did Saul. Our journey began on Friday morning. Jessica arranged for us to pick up Izzy early from school as she only had a half day. We took her to Bahama Breeze in Towson for a lunch of her coveted black bean soup after doing some shopping at Nordstrum Rack. As we were leaving, we encountered a well-known Ravens booster in the parking lot and Izzy let it be known that she was a big Eagles fan, whereupon he got out a well-used Eagles towel and began wiping down his Ravens-purple car with it. Izzy was having no part in the joke and turned down a shiny purple bead necklace that they tried to put on her, running away from it. Saul and I took a long drive ourselves in the afternoon, after dropping Izzy at home with Jess and Alex, because between the dogs and my hay fever, I can’t stay there for long. Ari joined us for Shabbat dinner after work and drove us to DC afterward. Alex made an incredible dinner as usual, which was unique in his use of giant okra which came from the Pearlstone Farm CSA. The seeds inside the giant okra were soft and delicious, reminiscent of couscous or sesame seeds in their texture, a very unusual food experience. We spent one of the days sitting on the dock at Harris’s watching the yachts go by and shopping the outlet malls at Queenstown. We also dreamed about planning a trip around the country by yacht on the inland waterways. A long time ago, the whole family took a five-week car trip to see the United States. We were all very happy with our bargains and I finally got some new additions to my wardrobe for the holidays. Another day, just Ari and I went shopping, leaving Saul home to get his work done. We were looking for items for the new house, but not buying much. We left on Monday relatively early to try to avoid Labor Day traffic, and we succeeded.

The Jewish High Holy Days came unusually early on the secular calendar this year, so we were headed back to Baltimore on Wednesday afternoon, just two days after Labor Day. Naomi, Alex’s sister had driven up to Cranberry, NJ, to pick up her parents and bring them down to Jess and Alex’s home for Rosh Hashanah. Maury, Alex’s father, had been battling small cell cancer since November and was no longer able to drive. Along with Ari, we had booked rooms at a hotel just a few miles from the house at the Hyatt Place in Owings Mills so that we would not have to drive back and forth from DC both days of the holiday. Unfortunately, Maury was rushed to the hospital on Wednesday for an infection he had developed. Alex, who had been extremely worried about his father’s condition, had been cooking lots of soup. Alex cooks to relieve tension, so in this situation, we had lots of delicious food for Rosh Hashanah, including three different soups that were incredible. I had made and brought an assortment of desserts. We were joined by Stacy and Aaron, Alex’s brother and his wife, their three children, Jacob, Lilly and Zach, and her parents, Susan and Arnold for both days of the holiday. Saul, Ari and I took turns caring for Yona while Jess and Alex ran their respective services. Alex’s lively family services both days took place in the roomy gymnasium, were attended by at least 100 people with toddlers and small children and were absolutely spirited and amazing, galvanizing everyone to move around and participate with a combination of prayer, singing, shofar blowing, and marching around the room.

On Thursday evening, while Jess and the girls were at the indoor pool with us, Alex learned that his father would be coming home from the hospital on hospice, and Jess left immediately to be with Alex. Although Alex never travels on Shabbat, under the circumstances he decided to drive to his parents’ home after dinner on Friday evening to help his mother set up the house to accommodate his father, and return on Saturday evening so that he could be present to open the first day of Hebrew school on Sunday morning. Friday afternoon, Jess sent us to D.C. with Sami and Izzy and a carload of leftover food to make Shabbat dinner at Ari’s house. Taking Yona with her to be minded by babysitters, Jess covered Alex’s service on Saturday morning. Ari dropped the girls and me off at the nearby National Zoo the next day, while he and Saul stayed home to catch up with work. We had an absolutely gorgeous day at the zoo with perfect weather, bright sunshine, not too hot, and not too cold. Spending several hours there, I realized that the zoo is built on a steep hill. Next time I will arrange to be dropped off at the top, instead of the bottom. I was able to redeem the small stuffed panda that comes as a freebie with zoo membership for Sami and, since the membership bear cannot be purchased, I allowed Izzy to pick a different animal. She chose a small leopard. They also were very excited that I allowed them each to get a child’s adventure tool that flipped open to reveal a whistle, LED light, compass, and tiny binoculars. It kept them busy for hours. The gate where Ari had dropped us off, and where I was supposed to meet Saul and him, was padlocked and we had to do more walking around and over a bridge to which Ari drove to meet us. We drove towards Baltimore after that and Jessica met us with Yona in Laurel, MD, at a wonderful Chinese buffet, Empire, that was just as it was billed on Yelp. Thank heavens for the Internet! I think we will be meeting there often as it truly was a halfway point, the people there were incredibly helpful and friendly, the girls loved it, and Jess was able to purchase a big quantity of freshly-made assorted sushi to take back for Alex for only $5.00.

Maury came home from the hospital on Saturday, and on Monday, we learned that he was in renal failure. Alex drove again to Cranberry, NJ, this time with Yona, to spend time with his father. Sami and Izzy had just begun a new school year.

I had developed a terrible toothache during Rosh Hashanah that was sensitive to hot, cold and sweet foods. Fortunately, Advil had worked to completely remove the pain, so on Tuesday, I visited the dentist and found after x-rays that there were no signs of root damage or decay. The dentist and I decided that, probably, the sensitivity was caused by a combination of sinus problems from my hay fever and grinding of my teeth at night because of my nightmares and tension over Maury. Somewhat relieved that I didn’t need root canal work, I went home with samples of Sensodyne toothpaste and the recommendation that I use Advil as needed until hay fever season is over.

The next day, Wednesday, I was scheduled for my six-month checkup on my bad mammogram. Even though I had been told that it was probably nothing to worry about, I had a bad few hours waiting to hear the results, which thankfully, were again that the obvious small white spot on the film was a calcification and nothing about which to worry. I was feeling very relieved and lucky as I left the clinic. That afternoon, as I had requested when our three-month contract expired, the realtor came to collect the sale signs, lock box, and staging props (mostly fake ivy) that had made my life miserable for the last few months. What a relief to know that I could leave the house without having to worry about crumbs on the kitchen floor, made beds, or a hair in the bathroom sink! Late Wednesday afternoon, Jess and I discussed whether Saul and I should arrange to visit Maury at home before leaving to join them for Yom Kippur.

On Thursday, Saul left for school and I reminded Jess to check with Elaine about whether we should visit. Elaine said that there had been a long line of people in and out to visit since Saturday, that our visit would be welcome, and that if we were planning to come, we should do it right away. I called Saul at school to make sure he left immediately when classes were over so that we could drive to New Jersey to visit before heading down to DC. I made sure that our suitcases were packed and ready. Likewise, Jess and Alex were due to visit later that afternoon also so that Maury could say goodbye to Sami and Izzy. About an hour before Saul was due home, Jess called to say that Maury had only hours left and that they were leaving from Baltimore immediately. As it turned out, we arrived about 15 minutes too late to say goodbye. Maury died peacefully about 2:15 p.m. on Thursday. We arrived about 2:30 and Jess and Alex arrived with the kids about 2:45 p.m. We were met at the door by Elaine’s sister and her husband. At first, Elaine motioned us away and we waited on the lawn, but then she invited us in. Maury looked very peaceful in death. When Jess and Alex arrived, we met the girls outside. Elaine came outside to tell them that she preferred that they remember Maury as he was when he was alive. We decided right then to spend Yom Kippur at home and took Sami and Izzy back home with us. On the way, we stopped at the new Metropolitan Diner on Costco’s parking lot to get the girls and ourselves an early dinner, which was wonderful and a welcome relief from the tension. I had planned to shop at Costco, but was too exhausted when we finished eating. We called Ari to let him know what had happened and that we all would not be coming to DC and Baltimore for Yom Kippur. Our friend Larry arranged seats for us at our shul, Melrose B’nai Israel Emanu El. Jess and Yona stayed in New Jersey with Alex and his family. On Friday morning, I left the girls with Saul and went shopping for food to get us all through the weekend. It had been decided that the funeral would be on Sunday morning after Yom Kippur, which fell on Saturday this year. Jess shopped and Alex insisted on cooking Shabbat dinner for the family, his way of keeping occupied and dealing with the tragedy. Ari drove in from DC to join us. We drove again to New Jersey and had a very somber Shabbat dinner with Elaine, Alex, Jess, Sami, Izzy and Yona, Naomi, Matt (her husband), Aaron, Stacy, Jacob, Lilly and Zach. We learned that Naomi is pregnant and that her father knew before he died. After dinner, Jess came back to our house with Ari, and we brought the girls, leaving Alex to attend services with his siblings at his parents’ shul. Naomi stayed with Elaine at home, comforting her. We broke the fast at home with our friend, Larry, joining us. Afterward, Ari left for DC as he was catching a flight to Chicago for a Relativity Conference on Sunday and had to miss the funeral.

Sunday was a nightmare. The service was at 11 a.m. at Orland’s Ewing Memorial Chapel. We readied Sami and Izzy, ate a hasty breakfast and began the long drive to Ewing, New Jersey. The Chapel was clearly not expecting the number of people who arrived for the funeral and there was standing room only during the hour-long service during which several rabbis, close friends, and Alex spoke, all very eloquently. Yona, for whom I was responsible during the service, was an angel and fell asleep in her stroller as soon as the eulogies began. I was able to hear everything clearly in an anteroom adjacent to the chapel. The interment was at Mount Sharon Cemetery, where Saul’s father is also interred. The memorial chapel did not put any markings on the cars to indicate a funeral procession, did not advise the participants to put on their blinkers, and the hearse zipped through E-ZPass lanes on toll roads and took a complicated route over major highways going 75 mph most of the time. This nightmare of a procession took over an hour and I am sure raised everyone’s blood pressure to the boiling point. Somehow, everyone who was essential to the process was able to arrive within a reasonable amount of time of the arrival of the hearse. Thank heavens for G.P.S. systems! As is the family’s tradition (Maury was a participating member of the chevra kadisha), the plain pine coffin was buried completely by the funeral participants, a difficult job on such a hot day.

Then began the long ride back to Cranberry, New Jersey. Sami and Izzy had developed a relationship with one of their many cousins, Melissa, and with her parents permission, we took her with us on the long ride back. A huge traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike made the long ride even longer for everyone. The limousine got lost on the way back and the family arrived long after everyone else. Shiva was only to be observed for three days, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday as the holiday of Sukkot was to begin on Wednesday evening, so everyone made an effort to get there quickly. The family stayed together for those days, including Elaine’s sisters and Alex’s siblings, some staying at nearby hotels. Alex’s assistant, Abby, and her new husband, Isaac, who had been staying at their house in Baltimore to take care of the pets, made the long drive to Baltimore to pick up Sami and Izzy so that they could attend the three days of school before the holiday, during which there were some special programs that the kids did not want to miss.

On Monday, at Jessica’s request, we stayed home to put up a sukkah so that the kids and family would have the availability of it during the holiday. Tuesday and Wednesday, I prepared food for the holiday while Saul was teaching. We drove to New Jersey again on Tuesday for the last night of shiva. On Wednesday afternoon, Abby drove Sami and Izzy to Maryland House, a rest stop on I-95, where Jessica picked them up and brought them back to us so that we could decorate the sukkah and have dinner inside on Wednesday evening. Beth joined us on Wednesday. Abby rushed back to cover the festivities at the synagogue that would have been Alex’s reponsibility. Jess and the girls stayed with us the first few days. On Thursday evening, we hosted Alex and his family in the sukkah for dinner. We were 11 people, including my cousin, Anne, who drove in from Metuchen, NJ, to join us as well. The girls helped me prepare and each made a tiny challah with small pieces from the main ones. Izzy’s had a tiny Jacob’s Ladder on top as I told her the design would be appropriate for this holiday.

On Friday, honoring a request from Elaine, Jess and the girls drove back to New Jersey after services at MBIEE and a large lunch in our sukkah for another Shabbat dinner prepared by Alex. Larry had booked ahead for a community Shabbat dinner in the synagogue sukkah, and we had not been planning to be home for the holidays, so we found ourselves alone for the first time in years on a Friday night. Jess had invited us to join them for dinner, but we just were too tired to make the long drive yet another time. As it turned out, we napped for most of the afternoon and got up just in time to light the Shabbat candles and say kiddush. Then, we had a light snack and went back to bed. Ari was supposed to come in this weekend to partake of the sukkah and help Jessica return everyone to the Baltimore/DC area, but, under the new circumstances, we called and told him not to make the long drive just for us as we would be coming down to Baltimore/DC on Wednesday for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. We spent a lot of time this past weekend resting up and catching up with paperwork so that we will be free to join the kids for this last leg of the holiday season.

Headlong and Happy Through August

I haven’t made an entry for a whole month, and reading over the last blog post, I am really regretful of that. My kids always rib me for including so much detail, but I know that in waiting a month to write about it, I will have forgotten details about which I so enjoy being reminded when I read it over. The whole month becomes a blur of happy memories, but without the detail, it is just a blur. Camp Bubbie and Saba has officially ended as of this past Thursday. We were so busy enjoying ourselves, and had so much going on, that I never found the time or energy to write.

On the last weekend of July, Jessica drove in with Yona to spend the weekend with us and visit with the girls. On Sunday, Saul and I dropped Jess and the kids at the pool and went to look at open houses in our neighborhood. Within two hours, a huge thunderstorm developed and we retrieved them just before the downpour began. The last week of July was spent preparing for Ari’s housewarming party on August 1. Each day we made a different hors d’oeuvre or dessert to put in the freezer before going off to Beachcomber for the afternoon. The girls had been keen to see our friend, Faith’s, doll collection, and we were finally able to arrange it on a day when she was babysitting for two of her granddaughters who were born around the same time as Sami. Sami created a scavenger hunt, leaving notes among the dolls for the other girls to follow. This was capped by a birthday cake and ice cream party provided by Faith. On Thursday, July 29, after Saul did a stint at the college for a few hours, and Adele came over to join us in our adventures for the next few days, we packed suitcases for the girls and ourselves, food, equipment, serving trays, etc. and headed off to Ari’s house in D.C. We were all so exhausted by the time we finished unloading the car into both Ari’s house and his new rental apartment below it, that we didn’t have the energy to deal with going out to dinner. We ordered pizza, French fries, stromboli, and gyros to be delivered from a nearby take-out place. Ari ordered the Disney movie, Bolt, for us to watch from Netflix curled up on his comfy sofa. Bolt was the movie that stumped us on Disney Trivia Night at Jake’s in Ocean City, because none of us had seen it. I still haven’t seen it because I fell asleep shortly after it began. The girls, who had both been extremely helpful preparing, traveling, loading and unloading, were very pleased with their day. Adele slept in the apartment downstairs, and was very happy for the peace and quiet.

In the morning, Ari found a bag of Hawaiian taro pancake mix, and I made us all taro pancakes along with strawberries, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. After Ari left for work, we began to organize preparations for the party that could not be done well ahead of time. At lunch time, we headed to Columbia Heights Town Center and took Adele and the girls for a late lunch at The Heights. The girls really liked the food, although not what they ordered. We wound up switching lunches, but we each enjoyed what we had. While Saul and I went into the Giant Supermarket across the street to pick up soda and last-minute odds and ends, Adele waited with the girls while they cavorted in the imaginative fountain that spurts up from the sidewalk. Ari was able to leave work at a reasonable hour on Friday, and was surprised to find us in the throes of some of our cooking downstairs and not quite ready to leave. We were going to be the only guests for Shabbat dinner at Jess and Alex’s, so timing was not totally an issue. The traffic between D.C. and Baltimore on Friday evenings is usually horrific, but we soon discovered that we arrived at almost the same time we would have had we left an hour earlier. Alex had prepared a delicious stuffed veal roast and grilled hot wings accompanied by a salad loaded with fresh veggies from Pearlstone, along with the most delicious, sweet local corn that we had tasted in a long time. We really pigged out on the corn. Yona was now walking by herself a great deal, and we all really enjoyed the reunion of the family. It was a beautiful evening. After kissing the girls goodnight, Saul, Ari, Adele and I headed back to D.C.

We tried to take things easier on Shabbat. Our preparations had gone well. The food we had previously prepared and brought had arrived in good condition. Ari was particularly wowed with our surprise, which had been gingerbread cookies in the shape of his house, decorated intricately to evoke the major features of his house, with his address lettered with food-color marker over the door. A few years ago, Saul and I had ordered a kit which allows one to make custom cookie cutters. Saul had spent an hour or two fabricating one that I had designed. When Shabbat was over, we spent long hours into the night doing the final prep work.

The party, for what we estimated to be about 40 to 50 guests, went very smoothly. We were delighted with our helper, Monty (whose real name is Montserrat, after the city), whom Jessica had arranged from Pearlstone. She arrived early, did everything we asked efficiently, and cleaned up during and after the party. The girls had been very excited about helping serve at the party in order to help out Monty, who needed to keep an eye on the oven downstairs. We discussed it beforehand, and so Jessica dressed them in black and white and provided them with aprons, which made them feel very important. They ran with their silver trays of hors d’oeuvres to the door each time the doorbell rang and practically assaulted the guests until they chose something to eat. They were very proud of helping to prepare everything. As things worked out, most of the family and our friends arrived at the beginning of the open house at 1:00 p.m. and most of Ari’s friends and co-workers arrived after 4:00 p.m., so it never felt like the house was crowded and we were able to socialize in small groups. Julie and Bobbie, who had been at a Phillies vs. Nationals game which went 11 innings before the Phillies won at the new Nationals Park, arrived at the very end just as the last of the other guests were leaving, so we had some personal time to spend with them as well. The day of the party, Yona decided she was now a walker. She didn’t crawl at all through the entire party. Alex made a delicious, fruity, alcoholic punch in a large glass crock that Ari had bought, and that was very popular and kept a lot of people very happy. He also prepared a carved watermelon and fruit salad that was so gorgeous that no one would disturb it, thinking it was a centerpiece. He made a number of other dishes as well. The food was very successful and abundant and some of the leftovers provided a great repast for the following Friday. The girls stayed over on Sunday night. After packing as much as we could into the car, we headed for home on Monday. My work, with deadlines, was beginning to come in, and I was nervous about getting it well underway before leaving for our vacation in Virginia Beach. Otherwise, we would have spent more time in D.C.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked on my computer well into the night, finishing up at 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday, but feeling terrific that I could play with Saul and the girls at the pool on Thursday and relax while preparing for my mother’s unveiling and subsequent Shabbat dinner on Friday afternoon. I was greatly worried about the weather. Aunt Ruth, Mom’s sister and an octogenarian, was worried about standing at the cemetery in 90+ degree weather. I also worried about hurricanes and thunderstorms, which we have had in abundance this summer. Family was coming from all over, and I worried about everyone arriving safe and sound and on time. As it turned out, the weather was very hot and sunny, but everyone arrived within 15 minutes of each other. We found a nearby shady tree to stand under while waiting, or we sat in air-conditioned cars for a few minutes. Saul did a very brief (20-minute), but poignant service, covering all the required prayer elements and soliciting words from the participants. After that, everyone rendezvoused at our house and spent a couple of hours before Shabbat dinner socializing and reminiscing. It was a memorable afternoon. Watching all the cousins together with all their little girls of varying ages interacting was beautiful to behold. And the cousins got together and moved Mom’s potentially lethal glass coffee table upstairs so that we didn’t have to worry about babies falling in the great room and creating the kind of facial scar that Jamie received from such a coffee table accident many years ago. I don’t know why I never thought of moving it sooner. Before dinner we used up most of the hors d’oeuvres leftover from Ari’s party—bouchees savelli, mini potato latkes, mini quiche, spanakopitakia, sesame-cheese logs, etc. For dinner, I made strawberry soup; a composed salad with hard-boiled eggs, avocados, cucumber, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and cheese with a hot dressing; vegetable lasagna; cod lamaize; and for dessert we had leftover mini raspberry-topped cheesecakes, mini chocolate peanut butter cheesecakes, mini filled chocolate cupcakes, Presley Bella cake, Yona Rae coconut cake, chocolate mousse crepes with vanilla custard sauce, and fresh fruit. On top of all that, Sami’s actual birthday was Saturday, and she had made her own birthday cake. She and Saul had baked a marble, sour cream pound cake that she improvised while I was at the computer, and later topped the icing with a sugar design with doves that she had made herself.

Saturday afternoon, Ken and Randi, with Presley (they were babysitting while Jamie was training to get a Zumba certification) Jess, Ari, Saul, the girls and I went to the pool and had a lovely afternoon, but when we returned, we learned that Alex’s dad was very ill, so Jess and Alex packed their stuff, taking Yona, and left almost immediately to visit him. I wanted to make Sami’s birthday special, despite the disappointing change of plans. Saul, Ari, Beth, Ken, Randi, Andy (who joined us to pick up Presley) and I took the girls for dinner at King Buffet. Towards the end, Jamie surprised us by joining us for dinner there, too, after her Zumba course had finished. Then, we had two free rides on the carousel in Plymouth Meeting Mall. As it was getting late, Ken, Randi, Jamie, Andy and Presley went home and Beth, Ari, Saul and I bought the girls special credit cards at Krazy City in the mall that allowed them to partake of all the entertainment until closing time. This included arcade games, small amusement park-type rides, rock climbing, a playground area with a ball-shooting cannon, Deal or No Deal machine, water pistol target shoot, motorcycle simulator, etc. etc. At the end, they cashed in the tickets they had won for little prizes. When her mom and dad called, Sami told them it was her best birthday ever!

Ari left for home after a late, leisurely breakfast with us on Sunday morning taking Jess and Alex and Yona as they returned our car from visiting Alex’s parents, and we spent the afternoon at the pool. We were all so tired from our eventful weekend that the girls wanted to stay at home, eat leftovers for dinner, and watch movies in bed for the evening. We didn’t argue.

Because I found the energy to put in hours on my work for the next few days to get caught up, I felt comfortable leaving for the Virginia Beach vacation a day early. My mother’s yahrzeit was on Wednesday, and we decided to head down to Baltimore early so that I would have a minyan at Chizuk Amuno on Wednesday evening. Unlike many of the Conservative synagogues in our Philadelphia area, which have to scramble to get a minyan of ten Jewish adults together during the week in the summer and rarely succeed, Chizuk Amuno had a well-organized and very well-attended minyan in place when Saul and I arrived to say Kaddish. We took Jess and Alex and the girls to dinner beforehand at a nearby kosher restaurant in Pikesville called Accents. Then, we proceeded to D.C. with Sami and Izzy, preparing to spend fun days in D.C. on Thursday and Friday before our shore vacation.

We were awakened very early by one of the most torrential thunderstorms I have ever seen in my life. We were enjoying the sound and fury when suddenly, we began to hear water dripping close by. Water was streaming in from the fire alarm on the ceiling next to our bed on the second floor of Ari’s three-story house. I ran to get a trash can bucket to put under the leak to protect the hardwood floor and began to mop up the water on the floor with a bath towel. I called to Ari, asleep upstairs that the ceiling was leaking. He called down that it was coming in under the door to his roof deck. Within a moment of all that, the fire alarms throughout the house went off sending out an ear-splitting signal. It took us a while to figure out how to get them to stop as they have battery back-ups that powered them despite the short in the electrical system. Ari has very high ceilings, and we had to get a ladder and remove each battery one-by-one until we finally had quiet and the girls could take their fingers out of their ears. Mercifully, the heaviest rain subsided after a few minutes and we managed to staunch the leak at its source.

After Ari left for work, I made the girls breakfast and we went to take care of some errands for Ari, such as picking up a shower curtain bar for the apartment bathroom, as he had rented it and the new tenants were due to arrive that evening. Considering how the water had been pouring in, we were all incredibly relieved to find the sub-ground apartment dry as a bone, especially since the new tenants were driving all the way down from Boston with their belongings in a rented truck and their car. After our errands, we took the girls for lunch at The Heights, where our waiter recognized us from the previous visit. This time, everyone knew what to order. We had promised the girls they could play in the fountain again, but the skies opened up just as we were ready to play. After returning home for a little while to drop off our packages, we decided to visit the National Zoo as the sun was peeking out again. The zoo is near Ari’s house, and is free, so we decided to risk getting caught in the rain. As it turned out, we managed to get in an hour and a half before we needed to leave for Jess and Alex’s house for Shabbat dinner. We especially enjoyed the primate house where the girls sat for a while watching a mother gorilla playing with her baby. We liked the reptile house, too, and when I decided, a few weeks later, to begin reading the first Harry Potter book to the girls, this experience made the episode where the glass disappears in the reptile house especially poignant. As we were leaving, we decided to join the zoo as membership includes free parking and discounts on zoo merchandise. Although entrance is free, parking can be quite pricey. We are hoping to visit a lot.

Ari was not able to leave work in time to join us for dinner in Baltimore, and, at the last minute, Saul and I decided not to take the long trip to Baltimore for Shabbat dinner. Jessica had decided to drive to VB herself rather than try to squeeze all of us and our luggage into one car. From the zoo, we stopped at the Giant Supermarket in Columbia Heights and bought provisions to make Shabbat dinner at Ari’s. With the girls’ help, we quickly prepared a cream of mushroom soup, a tossed salad with thousand island dressing, maple and lime-glazed seared tuna, buttered fusilli noodles, corn on the cob, and for dessert, ice cream. We set up Ari’s new table with tablecloth, stemmed glasses and our Shabbat candles. Ari arrived in time to join us for dinner, and the girls really enjoyed the meal they had helped to prepare. When Jessica joined us in DC the next day, we got a rather late start traveling to VB, not anticipating the amount of traffic we would encounter just outside of DC on our way down. We drove, caravaning in three cars, so that Ari could drive back for work on Wednesday. We arrived with the girls sound asleep and were fortunate to have people meeting us and checking us in, handing us our room keys right at our cars as we drove into the parking lot. Ari had to put his car in another lot, about a mile away, though, because the lot at our hotel was full. Saul followed him there so that he could be driven back to our hotel, although he really wanted to walk. All three girls were so excited to be at the beach, however, that it took us awhile to settle them all in for the night. We had two identical adjoining suites at Ocean Sands, right at the oceanfront, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking out over the concrete boardwalk, beautiful beach, and Atlantic Ocean. In the morning, we had a buffet breakfast, put on suits, and headed for the beach.

Our weather was glorious most of the time we were there. Before we left, I had spent an hour or two researching restaurants on Restaurant.com, so I was armed with a bunch of $25 and $50 certificates for food that I had purchased for $2.00 to $4.00 on the 80% off sale. One night, we had dinner on the outdoor covered patio of a restaurant overlooking the yachts docked at the marina—Hooks Saltwater Grill. Our waiter was very attentive and efficient and the food was very good. The ambience was priceless. Another night, we had wonderful sushi at an unassuming place where I never would have ventured had I not researched the reviews beforehand—Domo Sushi. A short drive from our hotel, we found the new sister restaurant to the Thai restaurant that had done a cooking demo at Pearlstone for one of Jessica’s programs. Thai Arroy was the most spotlessly clean restaurant I have ever entered. I literally could have eaten off the well-polished floors. The restaurant was almost empty, however, but the food was really exceptionally good. I hope they succeed. If it were in my neighborhood, I would be eating there all the time.

We experimented with breakfast on several days, one day taking a long hike down what the locals call “Beach Street, U.S.A.” to the popular pancake restaurant, Pocahantas. We had a really terrible and overpriced buffet breakfast at Honey Bee. One morning, I cooked us all eggs and taro pancakes in the condo. On the last few days of our vacation, we discovered on the Net that across the street and a little down the block was one of the best restaurants of all. Two houses had been converted to restaurants, one serving only breakfast and lunch, and the other serving only dinner. Neither of these places had a sign, so it was no wonder that we had never noticed them although they were less than a block from our hotel. The only indication that we had found them was a very small sign at the entrance to their driveway showing where to park and giving the names of the two restaurants, Doc Taylor’s and Tautog’s. We had a truly exceptional dinner there, with imaginative and generous appetizers, succulent fresh fish entreés, and irresistable desserts. Once we found this place, sadly on the last two days of our vacation, we had breakfast, lunch and dinner there.

We were happy to discover that Yona liked the sand and surf as much as her sisters. VB provided street family entertainment every night, from excellent magicians, to fire dancers, to jugglers, to singers and musicians. On one of our afternoons, Saul and I took Sami and Izzy with us to play in their pool with the grandsons of Wayne and Pearl, friends that we had not seen in 45 years with whom we had reconnected on Facebook. Wayne had doubled with us on our first date to Olney High School’s Kix and Kapers on May 23, 1964. He and Saul had lived in the same duplex apartment house above a beauty shop around the corner from me. Pearl had been in my Girl Scout Troop #222 in Philadelphia. We spent two pleasant hours trying to catch up with each others’ lives. It was gratifying to see that they had such a wonderful life together, had such great families, and still looked so good. Pearl did not remember Saul at all, and I don’t think Wayne remembered me very much, but we all had a great time finding out about mutual friends we all remembered.

On one day, when it rained, we went swimming in the indoor pool in our hotel, and the girls made crafts at a program there. An exceptional part of our trip to VB was a trip to their aquarium on a rainy day. Next to the one in Monterey, California, it was the best I have ever visited. We purchased discounted tickets at the hotel early in the morning and were there an hour after the aquarium opened. There were many hands-on exhibits that kept the girls occupied. Our prepaid tickets untitled us to a 3D IMax movie about whales and sharks that was amazing. At one point, Sami held up her hand as if to touch a whale that appeared as though it was within arms length. We left shortly after a light lunchtime snack in their crowded cafeteria and were appalled to find a line of several hundred people waiting to get into the museum. We were very glad we had made our last minute decision to visit the aquarium early.

We decided to leave VB a day early to avoid a last minute rush (checkout time was 10:00 a.m.!) and to get Jessica and the girls home in time for Shabbat. We had lunch at our newly-discovered restaurant, Tautog’s, down the street, and Saul and I drove separately from Jess and the girls as we were headed to Ari’s house. Jess decided to take a detour to avoid the heavy tunnel traffic, but wound up going in a circle around the naval base in Norfolk and arriving back at the same place where she had decided to take a detour. After several hours of sporadically heavy traffic, Saul and I had an early dinner with Ari at Café Asia down the street from his office. On Sunday, we retrieved Sami and Izzy and headed home for the last few days of “Camp Bubbie and Saba.”

Saul began his new semester on the Monday after our vacation, and the girls were wonderful about keeping themselves occupied while I worked on finishing up my publications. On Tuesday, one of those gray days when it kept looking like it was about to rain, I took them to the pool anyway, and we discovered that we were the only ones there. After about an hour and a half, it did begin to rain and I was sorry that our last day there this season was so lonely.

Saul worked 10-hour days on Monday and Tuesday so that we could enjoy our last day of camp with the girls and so that we could host Sylvia and her son Elie, Saul’s cousins who were visiting from Israel. On Wednesday, the last day of camp, we took the girls for pancakes at Cracker Barrel. Then we took them to Chuckie Cheese’s to use up all the tokens and tickets we had saved from a previous visit. Our friend, Larry, who had just returned from Russia, met us there with presents for us and the girls including paint-your-own Matrioshka dolls, an assortment of flavored vodkas, and honey in a little bear container for my collection. The girls redeemed their tickets for little prizes.

Later in the day, we arranged for many of Saul’s cousins from the area to meet at kosher Max & David’s Restaurant in Elkins Park for a small family reunion. At dinner were Sylvia and Elie; who had been driven in from New York by cousin Willie; his brothers, Abie and Bobby, who came with his wife, Cheryl; his sister Elaine, Saul, Sami, Izzy and me. Dinner was delicious and the staff very accommodating in this lovely setting. Elaine brought a family album with lots of old photos. Sylvia had grown up in Philadelphia and New York and had been close with the family before making aliyah to Israel as a teenager. After dinner, the men went to Young Israel in Elkins Park where they found a minyan so that they could say Kaddish for their mother, who died a few months ago. We waited in the car with Sylvia and the girls until they finished so that we could retrieve Elie to take him home with us. Saul was driving the two of them to Newark Airport the next day. The most remarkable thing happened after that. Sylvia’s mother had a store in East Oak Lane many years ago, a community right next to Elkins Park. As the sun was setting, at Sylvia’s request, we drove her through her old neighborhood so that she could show Elie where she grew up and went to school. As darkness fell, we arrived in front of the duplex apartment building where she had lived as a young girl. She and Elie got out of the car just after we turned into the street. Just then, an approachable-looking young man came down from the upstairs apartment to retrieve some groceries from his car. Sylvia spoke to him and found out that he did live in her old apartment and she asked him to invite her and Elie inside so that she could show Elie the apartment. And he agreed! The apartment was just as she remembered it, and it meant a great deal to her to be able to see it again and show it to her son. The number of unplanned coincidences that needed to align for all this to occur at just the right moment was truly mind-boggling!

We spent the rest of the evening at home reminiscing, and I took out our family tree, which is emblazoned on a chuppah cloth so that we could clarify some of the ancestors. Then I took out the accompanying book that has a page for each name. Sylvia and Elie began filling out their pages. When we awoke the next morning, we found Elie perusing through the book some more. After we all had a big breakfast of lox and bagels and salads, Saul set out for Newark airport while I helped the girls finish packing up all their stuff. Unfortunately, on the way back from the airport, Saul encountered a tremendous traffic jam. He returned just in time to load the girls’ baggage into the car to head for Baltimore so that we could meet Jessica in time for her to take them to an open house pot-luck supper for the opening event of their Waldorf School year. I spent about six hours in the car that day, but poor Saul was driving from 9:30 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.

Larry and Beth joined us for Shabbat dinner the next day and we marked Beth’s birthday, but after that, Saul and I spent practically the whole weekend sleeping.


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Party, Prep, Programs and Pool

We have five weeks of Camp Bubbie and Saba before our next scheduled vacation to Virginia Beach. Before camp began, I had spent a morning trolling the Net for scheduled summer activities in nearby parks and venues and printed out those that were appropriate for the kids. Particularly helpful was a site called “4kidsinpa.com.” While we were unpacking from Ocean City, Sami and Izzy had read over them, chose a few things that interested them, and wrote them on my calendar. Among them was a butterfly and insect program at Lorimer Park in Huntingdon Valley. The day was gorgeous and sunny and not too hot. Armed with Izzy’s insect-capturing equipment in a supermarket bag, we headed off for the half-hour drive and parked in the designated lot across the street. We were incredibly impressed with the natural beauty of the park as we wended our way down a long curved driveway to the program area. There were about a dozen families with children there and the park ranger was explaining pertinent facts about bugs and insects, their life cycles, feeding habits, etc. She provided special boxes with magnifying lenses built in to catch and examine specimens, and butterfly nets. After a brief talk, the participants were directed to the nearby magnificently planted garden to catch some bugs, examine them, and then release them. Besides the array of butterflies, insects and bugs, we were thrilled to watch tiny hummingbirds darting up and down from the overhanging old trees to sip nectar from the panoply of flowers. After the program was over, the girls begged us to stay and spent the entire afternoon, joined at various times by other children, hunting bugs in the garden while Saul and I watched from a nearby shaded park bench—an idyllic afternoon! On the way home, we had an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory in Willow Grove, arriving in time to beat the crowds for Sunday dinner.

During the week, we began seriously preparing and freezing party food for Ari’s upcoming housewarming party on August 1. In addition, we needed to use up leftover food from our vacation. The girls and I, sometimes with Saul’s help, spent most mornings cooking and baking, which they love to do. We made two broccoli kugels, and a broccoli cheese soup with leftover fresh broccoli. We made over 100 bouchees savelli, mushroom cheese puffs, for Ari’s party, using the liquid squeezed out of the mushrooms to augment a smoked turkey and split pea soup. The stock needed to be defrosted and used up to make room in the freezer for stacks of hors d’oeuvres. Izzy loved the soup so much that she was eating two bowls a day for several days. The girls worked beautifully together to make dozens of perfect little mini quiche. We used up stored egg whites from the freezer to make Presley Bella Marble Cake and Yona Rae Coconut Cake. We used leftover mini organic carrots to make an Ultimate Carrot Cake. Haley had written an email during our vacation to ask for the recipe for fresh Glazed Blueberry Pie, which had apparently escaped my recipe blog, so we made one of those so that we could photograph it and post the recipe. The girls made Mini Filled Chocolate Cupcakes, enjoying putting the colorful little cupcake papers into the mini pans, a task I find extremely tedious.

We spent several afternoons at Beachcomber, during which the girls spatter painted, worked with clay, had their faces painted, and learned how to dive into the pool with Saul.

On Tuesday, I finally, after ten years of waiting for her to take on new patients, was able to schedule a gynecological appointment with Dr. Leslie Frankel, so I caught up with having an overdue PAP test taken. I had put off all routine doctor appointments while Mom was on hospice last year. Tuesday evening, we set out to see something billed as “The Verdi Band” which Sami had penciled in on the calendar. We thought it was in a park, but when we arrived, it turned out to be in an auditorium at Central Bucks High School South. None of us felt like sitting in an auditorium on such a beautiful night. To salvage the evening, we headed for Freddie Hill Farms, where we viewed the farm animals on display, and enjoyed ice cream cones. Izzy had Cookie Monster ice cream, blue with crushed chocolate cookies inside.

On Thursday, Friday, and Monday, Saul was at Chestnut Hill College for Griffin Days to help introduce incoming freshman to the school. Thursday afternoon, I took the girls to the pool myself. The weather was so nice, and the pool so uncrowded, that Saul went home after school, put on a suit, and joined us for a few hours.

Penciled by Sami on my calendar for Thursday was “Flower Heads” which turned out to be a retro rock group called “The Large Flower Heads” who were performing at a park in Doylestown. Although the day had been very hot, the evening was temperate. A well-equipped playground nearby kept the girls busy within earshot of the concert until darkness fell. The group played music from our teen-aged years and we found them to be much better instrumentalists than singers. They were followed by a stargazing session sponsored by a local astronomy group as night fell. A number of astronomy buffs had set up their diverse telescopes on the grass, and the girls were able to view the moon and Saturn.

Jessica had asked us to come to Baltimore this past weekend. The largest arts festival in the country, Artscape, takes place there every July, and usually we are on vacation and miss it. She really wanted us all to see it this year. While Saul was at school on Friday, the girls and I spent a few hours cleaning and dusting to get the house ready to be shown, just in case a realtor wanted to bring someone through while we were away; all in vain, I am afraid. No one came. It was nice to come home to a perfectly clean and neat house, though. Around 3:30 p.m. we were on the road to Baltimore, the frozen food for Ari’s party packed into insulated containers. We took the long scenic route over the Conowingo Dam and arrived around 6:15 p.m. just a few minutes after Ari and a few minutes before Jessica’s friends, Maury and Alice, with their youngest daughter, Danielle. Their older daughter, Leeann, is at Camp Ramah Poconos this summer. Alex made chicken soup with matzoh balls, as Izzy had requested. We had a variety of salads made from fresh vegetables gleaned from the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) at Pearlstone. Alex made grilled chicken and sweet grilled corn on the cob. Jessica brought out frozen chocolate mousse crepes and chocolate almond bars that I had made previously for dessert, along with store-bought cinnamon and chocolate rugelach. After a delightful evening, Ari left his Mercedes in Baltimore, and drove us in our SUV, loaded with food, furnishings, and extra chairs, to his house.

The weather was absolutely stifling on Saturday, and we opted to skip the outdoor venue of the arts festival in favor of meeting Jessica, Sami and Izzy for dinner at Chevy’s in Arundel Mills Mall, and then the new 3D movie, Despicable Me, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. Sunday dawned just as hot and humid as Saturday, and again we decided to skip the festival. Saul did some work around Ari’s house, we shopped for furniture in Silver Spring a bit on the way to Jess and Alex’s house, and had a leisurely lunch together, finishing up with the fresh blueberry pie we had made together, topped with vanilla ice cream left over from Abby and Isaac’s pre-wedding Shabbat luncheon that Jess and Alex had prepared and hosted a few weeks earlier. After lunch, Saul, Alex, Sami and Izzy stayed behind while Jess, Ari, Yona and I went shopping to look for chairs for Ari. We went to Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn in Towson Town Center, and then went to check out a Tuesday Morning store nearby. The only success we had was square European-sized pillows to fill the shams from the new bedding we had purchased for our bedroom in Ari’s house at Macy’s Home. We felt badly about missing the arts festival entirely, for which we had specially made the trip to Baltimore, but just walking from the car to the stores in that kind of weather was miserable.

Jess gave the girls dinner before we got on the road home around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday evening. Saul and I weren’t hungry after our big lunch, but we stopped at the Royal Farms where we usually stop for gas in Maryland, and bought drinks and their delicious french fries on which to snack. During the ride home, we had a bit of a scare with Izzy. She had been toying with the plastic lid on her lemonade. One of the plastic points at the center perforation circle for the straw had evidently dropped into the drink. She sucked it up through the straw and it got caught at the entrance to her throat. We heard her gagging and could not understand why she was sticking her finger down her throat, but luckily, she was able to remove it quickly enough to prevent swallowing it or vomiting. I am always amazed at the number of ways children can get into serious trouble!

On Monday, after the pool, we decided to take the girls out to a nice restaurant. I ordered a $25 coupon from restaurant.com for Thai Orchid, which has nice vegetarian selections in addition to their regular menu. While we were showering after the pool, a violent thunderstorm passed through the area, but the rain had stopped by the time we were ready to leave. When we arrived, they had to turn us away because the storm had knocked out their power. Disappointed, we wound up having dinner at an IHOP in the same shopping center. They did have power, surprisingly. Dinner was unexpectedly pleasant and enjoyable. The food was capably prepared and nicely presented. The service was efficient and congenial.

On Tuesday, we awoke to find that all our water had been shut off by the crews working on the nearby massive 202 bypass construction. Saul had misread a hang-tag that had been placed on our doorknob warning us. He thought the water would be off from 2:30 to 4 p.m. when, in fact, the seven for 7:30 a.m. had a little tail at the bottom. We all quickly dressed and, on the spur of the moment, decided to visit the Franklin Institute for the day because the weather, again, was supposed to be scorching. We began with breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Plymouth Meeting. We parked beneath the Institute and purchased a family membership, which entitled us to discounted tickets for the special Cleopatra exhibit that is there right now. The exhibit was well done and even Izzy enjoyed finding the numbers and pressing the buttons for the interesting audio tour that accompanies the exhibit. I especially liked that, behind and around the exhibited items, were underwater photos of them, sometimes with divers viewing them, before they were actually excavated. The girls loved the sports activities area, and a hands-on science exhibit on the third floor. Izzy liked walking through the heart, which grosses Sami out. We all loved the planetarium show on black holes. The girls each made a sheet of paper. We were continuously busy for 5 hours and did not even get to all the exhibits. Sami, impressively, had a turn on the Sky Bike, which is a bicycle suspended on a tightrope and balanced by a large pendulum at the ceiling of the building. Halfway out, she suddenly realized how precarious it felt and carefully worked her way back. Izzy was not tall enough to ride and was quite bent out of shape about it. We spent the last hour doing brain-teasing puzzles at tables set up outside the grand hall.

On the way home, we stopped for dinner at Thai Orchid. I was not sure how the girls would like the food, but the evening turned out to be a great success. Both of them so loved the crispy fried tofu appetizer with satay sauce, that I ordered a second one. We had Buddha’s purses (crisp vegetarian dumplings), jasmine rice soup, tofu soup, a special tuna dish, jungle to jungle, and a vegetable fried rice with pineapple that Sami adored. The desserts were a big hit also. We all loved a homemade mango ice cream served in a chocolate cup with beautiful sauces beneath, and Izzy wanted to lick the leaf-shaped plate that contained the sauce for her warm fried bananas.

Yesterday, after more baking for Ari’s party, we spent the afternoon at the pool. Yesterday was clay, and I had a difficult time tearing Sami away from the intricate vase she was constructing so that we would be home and showered in time to have dinner with our friends, Susan and Paul, whom we haven’t seen in several months. Saul cleared out the SUV so that we could raise the third row of seats and only take one car. We all drove together to King Buffet in Plymouth Meeting Mall. Susan and Paul said that they really enjoyed it, and the girls always love it. The girls were very well behaved and went off to their room to watch t.v. before bed while we had a few hours to catch up with Susan and Paul.

This morning, I made a flyer on the computer for my brother-in-law Larry’s 50th high school reunion. Then, by the time we were finished baking, I was too tired for the pool. While Saul took them, I cleaned up, did laundry, and took a nap. They had so much fun there (today was a face-painting day), that they did not return until 7:15 p.m. When they woke me, I made some tortellini for dinner, we watched some cartoons on t.v., and they went off to bed. I finally had the energy this evening to catch up with my blog, and now, I see from my computer clock, that I am already into Friday.

Second Week of Ocean City, NJ 2010

Ari left Ocean City on Monday morning to avoid the horrible shore traffic that results after a holiday weekend. He was also anxious to clean up to get his house ready for filming by the HGTV show, Real Estate Intervention, which was taking place on Thursday morning. He had consented for it to be filmed as a comparison house when the directors wrote to him through his realtor a week after he purchased it. On Monday, I made apple cinnamon taro pancakes. We dawdled together as long as we could before he set out on the road. Larry left a short time before him, also to avoid traffic. The day was supposed to be deadly hot, possibly up to a hundred degrees. We decided that it would be a good day to catch a movie, also in view of the fact that the beach would probably be incredibly crowded because of the three-day holiday. We all went to see Toy Story 3 in 3D at the Shore Mall. The movie was delightful, but much longer than we had realized. By the time it was over, 2:30 p.m., we had just about missed lunch and especially Izzy was ravenous. The Shore Mall looked derelict inside, and a nearby sushi place was closing before dinner. On her iPhone, Jessica located a small Mexican restaurant called Sombreros, just 4 miles away, which had an 88% approval rating on Urbanspoon, and which stayed open between lunch and dinner. We were the only people there at that odd hour, but the place was spotlessly clean, the service was extremely accommodating, and the food was reasonable and delicious. I had two wonderful margaritas for $2.50 each, an incredible bargain compared to our neighborhood restaurants. The flan for dessert was exceptional. Having the place to ourselves was delightful because Yona has taken to the habit of shrieking whenever the mood strikes her, probably a successful tactic at daycare, but we haven’t quite figured out how to modify the behavior. Alex gets very embarrassed, even in restaurants where the ambient din drowns out any attempt at conversation. After brief naps when we returned, we headed up to the boardwalk for ice cream—a wonderful way to end a delightful day. The next day, we learned that there had been an electrical fire on the 9th Street Bridge and that it had been closed at around 1:00 p.m., stopping holiday traffic for three hours. By the time we returned from our afternoon excursion we had been spared the nightmare of having to park for three hours on a horribly hot day, with two children and a baby in an overheated car.

Tuesday was promising to be just as hot and humid as the previous day. None of us wanted to go biking with temperatures in the mid eighties by 8:30 a.m. After breakfast, Jess and Alex took the girls, as the temperature began to grow steamy, for a walk down Asbury to the Potomac Bead Company so that they could make the projects Jess had promised them. As it turned out, the store was not air-conditioned, but they came back with unique necklaces, bracelets and a beautiful ankle bracelet for me. Saul took a long nap while I worked on the blog. When the kids returned, we went to the beach for a few hours, and had a late lunch of leftover hot dogs, hamburgers, and smoked turkey before our nap. In the evening, we set out by car for a Japanese/Chinese restaurant, Tokyo Mandarin, a few miles away in Marmora, for sushi for dinner. When we arrived, it turned out to be a very tiny, but nice restaurant. Since we were a large group, had not made a reservation, and most of the tables were filled, we were asked to return in 25 minutes and they would seat us. Lunch had been late, so we were not particularly put out. We went for a brief, air-conditioned, circuitous ride around the area, and were seated immediately when we returned. The only quarrel I have is that there seemed to be an interminable amount of time before someone came to take our order. The sushi was wonderful, and the staff, which was somewhat brusque when we began, really warmed up to us after a while. Some of the rolls were so delicious that we ordered a second round of them. The prices were very reasonable compared to what we pay for sushi in both Philadelphia and Baltimore.

On Wednesday, a sand sculpting contest was held on the 6th Street Beach. I was a bit disappointed because there had been so many professional sculptors at the competition 30 years ago. There were a few very special ones, but no where near the number that had competed many years ago. The temperature, even early in the morning was very hot and humid. We walked a few blocks down Asbury to F&M Restaurant, where we had great breakfasts with exceptionally good and varied toasted bagels, which are a specialty in that place. Jess and Alex set out with the girls for the long walk to 6th Street, but Saul and I opted to replenish juice, milk and eggs at Boyar’s Market on our walk home, and then drive in air-conditioned comfort to view the sand sculptures and drive the family home. The heat was sweltering as we viewed the sculptures, and the walk back to get in the car was practically unbearable. Yona had fallen asleep in the stroller, which could not roll on the sand, and Alex walked back home with her rather than wake her before we arrived. When we returned home, Jess and Alex decided to take the girls to the nearby community gym where Alex had bought a one month family membership so that he could work out there. The gym had an indoor pool and Saul and I were happy to just veg out in the air conditioning of our house in the afternoon on such a hot, sticky day. Just the short walk back from breakfast carrying the groceries and the hour we spent viewing the sand sculptures had totally exhausted us. I spent the afternoon blogging. On Wednesday evening, we bought the girls extra rides at Castaway Cove and finished up our block of tickets.

On Thursday, it had been pouring for several hours when we awoke, so biking was out of the question. We watched the sun go in and out a few times and eventually decided to head down to the beach anyway around 11:30 a.m. Within an hour the sun emerged fully, the beach filled up with people, cool breezes were blowing, and the water was delightful. We were happy to have one last fling on the beach before we needed to begin packing for home. Our plan was to leave Friday afternoon and drive to have Shabbat dinner with Alex’s parents in Cranbury, NJ, before ending our vacation. Thursday evening for dinner we grazed along the boardwalk, buying the kids and ourselves all the bad-for-you guilty pleasures, like huge cups of French fries drenched in ketchup, fried fish tacos, pizza, funnel cake, ice cream and water ice. The girls watched impressive choreographed yo-yo routines by several teenaged youths at the boardwalk pavilion. Jess had told the girls that they could have a woven and beaded braid put in their hair on our last day, but the lines were very long and she told the girls that she, herself, would do an even nicer job at home this coming weekend when we visit. We wandered in and out of shops all the way down the boardwalk so that each could chose a souvenir to remember the vacation. Izzy was first to choose a sleek and colorful art glass dolphin. Sami eventually settled on a glass and crystal nautical-themed wind-chime for her bedroom. When we returned on Thursday evening, we discovered that our air conditioning had broken down. We opened all the windows and sliders, and turned our ceiling fans on high. The evening was bearable, although very humid.

The broken air conditioning made Friday morning packing really unbearable. We called the realtor first thing in the morning and someone came over and repaired it within two hours, but those were the two hours that we were packing up. Drenched in sweat, we decided to find an air-conditioned place for breakfast and settled on Uncle Bill’s Pancake House. Even at that early hour we were really dying from the five-block walk in the sun. Luckily, when we were finally seated, after about a 10-minute wait, we were in a very cool spot with an attentive waitress who immediately brought us large glasses of iced coffee. We recovered quickly and really enjoyed our breakfast there. Shortly after returning home, the guy appeared to fix the air conditioner and had it working within a half hour. We had a chance to cool off before leaving around noon. All of the girls traveled with Jess and Alex to visit Alex’s parents. Saul and I decided to take the opportunity to visit Saul’s mom at Lion’s Gate on our way home. She was in good spirits and playing Bingo when we arrived. She really did not seem to know who we were this time, but was very happy that we were there to visit with her. Saul brought in his laptop and was able to show her the photos and videos of our vacation, which delighted her. We had decided to stop at home before going to Maury and Elaine’s to unpack food and switch to the Prius for the drive. Unfortunately, between the visit to Lion’s Gate and creeping Friday rush hour traffic, we arrived too late to have dinner together, but had a chance to see the kids off, have a delicious dinner with Maury and Elaine for company while the girls watched t.v., and had a chance to schmooze with them for a while. We tucked the girls into bed after the hour’s drive home, and left all the baggage to unpack in the morning.

All of us were too tired to do anything on Saturday but lay around and, piece-by-piece, unpack all our stuff. In the evening, we drove to King of Prussia Mall, more to get some exercise walking out of the heat and to try to check out Bloomingdale’s for chairs to go with Ari’s table. We ate in the food court and were pleasantly surprised at the reasonable upscale food that we purchased, a personal pizza for Sami, a bean burrito for Izzy, and a large slice of spinach quiche, which Saul and I shared. We bought the girls gelato for dessert which was the real deal, exceedingly rich and creamy. By the time we finished, all the stores were closing, and all we had was a nice walk around the mall with some window shopping before heading home for the evening.