November Weekend with Ari and the Girls

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This past week was especially busy for Saul and me. Saul has been overwhelmed with meetings as department chairman and as a student advisor, and spent long hours at school. On Tuesday evening, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, our friend Elsa had a showing with another artist of her works in connection with hidden children of the Holocaust. When Saul came home on Tuesday, we didn’t know if he would actually be able to “come home,” or if we would be able to go out to the art show. The police had closed off our street in both directions as someone had hit an electric pole with their car and compromised it to the point that nothing could be done until PECO arrived from another emergency to stabilize the pole so that they could work on the wires. Fortunately, the police let Saul sneak through, and by the time we were ready to leave for the show, the pole and wires had been fixed. The show was very interesting, especially since Saul’s aunt, his mother’s sister, had been a hidden child who had been saved by a convent. The show’s kickoff took place at Gratz College.

We had arranged for Ari to bring Sami and Izzy in to spend this weekend with us. Ari had Friday off for Veterans Day and the girls were off for teacher conferences. They were supposed to come down on Thursday evening when Ari finished work, but as luck would have it, he had a stomach-wrenching computer crash at work that afternoon as a result of upgrading some software. By evening, it had all been worked out with no loss of data, but they all decided that they would come the next day, which made me a happier mommy also. I worried about the long drive in the dark, late at night.

After my class with Faith on Thursday, where she introduced the background and life of Maimonides, she mentioned to me that she was doing Shabbat dinner with her son and two of her grandchildren, Alex and Hilary, as her daughter-in-law was away. I already knew that I would be preparing a vegetarian meal this week for Shabbat, and that Alex is a vegetarian. Also, Hilary and Sami were born only a week apart and I thought it would be a good time for some bonding between the girls. We had a wonderful evening together this past Shabbat. I made homemade challah, quick black bean soup, lettuce salad with assorted dressings, vegetarian meat balls, kasha with whole wheat noodles, soba with mushrooms, potato latkes (from the freezer), and a whole assortment of freshly-baked cookies along with some desserts from the freezer and pumpkin-flavored coffee.

This past weekend was to be our cookie-baking and decorating weekend. I suddenly realized, about two weeks ago, that Chanukah this year is extremely early, beginning only three days after Thanksgiving. Adele has been tied up with helping Irv clear out Fran’s house before he flies home to California this Friday. She hasn’t had time to make all the varieties that she usually has finished by now. On Friday, when Sami and Izzy arrived, however, Izzy was ill with a stomach virus that her mother had thought was already over. She threw up as soon as she got to the bathroom and spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping. Sami was a tremendous help this weekend, helping to get dinner on the table, and making snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies before dinner. We had a wonderful evening with Larry and with Faith and her kids. Sami and Hilary appeared to get along famously. On Saturday, Izzy woke up her usual energetic self, ate a big breakfast with us, and together with Ari, we decorated over 100 gingerbread bears that I had baked earlier in the week and glazed dozens of sugar cookies that I also made earlier in the week. Saul was committed for the day to an open house for prospective new students. He was delighted to see about 180 students where usually there are a few dozen, but he came home hoarse from all the speaking he had done, unusual for someone who has taught for as many years as he.

Since everyone was good and the cookies were looking fine, later in the evening we decided to go out for dinner and a movie. Ari purchased tickets through Fandango to take the girls to see Megamind at the 3D IMax theater in King of Prussia. We headed out for Jim’s Buffet, which is only 5 to 10 minutes from our house. By the time we arrived, Izzy was extremely ill again and only had some miso broth and some white rice. By the time the rest of us finished eating she was so miserable that we decided against the movie. By the time we arrived home, she was doubled over in pain and I thought I might have to take her to the emergency room. Jess put in an emergency call to her doctor, who said that this was characteristic of a virus that is making the rounds right now. We gave Izzy a Tums, and I massaged her tummy for a while while she and Sami watched a children’s video on their t.v. Both girls, thankfully, fell asleep within a very short time. I settled into an easy chair to relax and complete the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle from last week while Saul and Ari watched an episode of Dr. Who.

Erica was supposed to come early to pick up the girls and take them home with her for Brenna’s birthday party. She had rented a moon bounce for the day and was also going to be making and decorating gingerbread cookies with the kids. But on Sunday morning, Izzy was okay, but Sami threw up. She wasn’t as sick as Izzy the night before, so I left the girls home with Saul to goof around in their pajamas, and Ari and I went shopping for dining room chairs. Saul was happy to have the day at home with them as he had not really been able to see them much this weekend and he had computer work with which to catch up.

Ari and I began by heading out to King of Prussia to get credit for our unused movie tickets. We stopped into Nordstrum Rack which is right next door to the movie theater. Ari wound up purchasing a beautiful cashmere and wool formal overcoat at a terrific price. There was no price tag on the piece and the sales guy was having trouble locating the information, so he just made up and slapped a price tag on it to save himself and us further time and aggravation. The salesgirl who rang it up even commented about what a good price Ari was paying for such a great coat.

We headed over to The Dump, but were disappointed to find that most of their merchandise had not changed in several months. We also checked out a furniture place next door called Mahogany and More, especially since it was mahogany chairs for which we were searching. By late afternoon, we were hungry. When I called home to see how everyone was doing (the girls were only supposed to have clear liquids all day according to the doctor), Saul said everyone was okay and Ari and I should go ahead and have a late lunch. We decided on an Indian buffet we had spotted across the street from the mall called Desi Village. Ari had not had Indian food, a favorite of his, in many months. The buffet was very good, but did not compare to the one at Sultan near our house. The girls were packed and ready to leave as soon as we returned. Sami had produced some beautiful origami boats while she was hanging out. I don’t know if she followed a pattern from somewhere, or just designed them herself. Unfortunately, Ari encountered large traffic jams on the road back and both girls arrived home exhausted and a bit ill. By Monday morning, the worst appeared to be over, and both girls have been in school for the last two days. I cleaned up the house after this past weekend and have been preparing more cookies the last two days. This weekend, all three girls are coming and this will be Yona’s first time away from both mommy and daddy for the night. I hope all goes well!

Eat Dessert First

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You know the expression—“Life’s too short. Eat dessert first!” I wish I had taken this advice this past weekend as I feel a bit guilty having advised a few of us to be patient and “the best was yet to come.”

This past week was depressing in more ways than one. The election results were troubling as I am no fan of the tea party and one of my favorite placards at the Stewart/Colbert Rally was “Keep fear alive. Vote Republican!” Another source of depression was the influx of tiny ants through two tiny seams in my bathroom grout. I hate to kill ants. I really quite admire their sense of community and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group. I had let the bathroom go a bit since the lock box came off the front door, but when the flow of ants became too troublesome, I finally worked myself up to take some action and spent an entire morning spraying and scrubbing everything, including the shower, from top to bottom. The bathroom sparkled, but late that night there was still a trickle of explorer ants hunting for crumbs. The exterminator was due for his regular visit on Friday morning and I showed him where the ants were coming in. He put down invisible poison bait for them to take back to the nest to kill the others. He told me to wait a week before washing the floor again to give the bait a chance to do its work. About ten minutes after he left, I went to use the bathroom and was horrified to find big, crawly black mounds of ants covering and swarming around every invisible little mound of bait. I closed the door. Thank heavens I have more than one bathroom! When Saul came home, he didn’t even want to see what I described, and we quickly loaded the car and headed for another weekend in Baltimore/DC. To finish the story, when we returned from our weekend there were many dead ants on the floor and there were still live ants swarming around the bait. We stepped around this mess gingerly for a few days, not wanting to mess with the poison, but yesterday, I had waited long enough. After a few hours of procrastinating, I went in there with a vacuum hose and my spray bottle of Lime Away and cleaned everything up spotlessly again. So far, I haven’t seen a single ant. I hope those that may be left have gotten the message and found another home.

To balance things out, there were wonderful parts to my week as well. Last Thursday was Roxy’s birthday, and on Tuesday, Election Day, I treated her to lunch at Blue Sage. Our sandwiches (we ordered the same one) and salads were so delicious that I may never order anything else from the menu again. In the course of going through my box of memorabilia for Olney’s reunion, I pulled out a bunch of letters that I had saved that Roxy had written to me the first year she was in college and a letter I had written to Saul about an adventure she and I had shared on an evening that we had attended a Santana concert at the Philadelphia Spectrum. On this, her sixty-first birthday, we had a good laugh over the fact that she was lamenting that Saul was about to turn 21, and we were all so old!

Beth came home a bit early on Tuesday, and we went to vote together after she helped us move my big plants into the garage to protect them from the expected frost. Then, we went to Pho Thai Nam for dinner, where we left enough room to share their exceptional warm taro cake dessert, a great choice, especially in the crisp fall weather.

Wednesday evening, our friends Ruth and Giora, who moved to New Jersey a few years ago, called to say that they would be in our neighborhood Thursday afternoon to visit their former neighbors whose son had just perished in a motorcycle accident. We were glad for the opportunity to see them as we had canceled a date with them a few months ago and had not rescheduled. On Thursday, after Faith’s class where we reviewed poetry from Yehudah Ha-Levi and Hayim Nachman Bialik, among others, and viewed a short video about the travels of Benjamin of Tudela, I stopped at Giant to pick up some fruit and snack food for our friends. Then, I baked a chocolate rum cake which we shared with coffee. We caught up with each others’ lives for a couple of hours. When they left, we decided to meet Beth, a friend, Phillipe, whose wife just left for military duty in Afghanistan, and Ken and Randi. Ken had found Phillipe a job in the area through his employment service. We met at Gimaro and spent a couple of hours there eating, schmoozing and getting to know Phillipe.

Jess and Alex had programs for older students at the synagogue on Friday, and Izzy had a lantern-lighting program at Waldorf. Ari left work early and met us and we took Sami and Izzy for an early dinner at nearby Noodles and Company and then took them to Waldorf for the program. The festivities included a short skit outdoors by the fifth graders at the entrance to the school, a song by the first-graders, and a silent, homemade-lantern-lit walk through the woods while we were being serenaded by “fairies” (older students) who hid in the dark trees and played a haunting tune on their flutes. Red and green apples were distributed at the end of the program.
Ari said it was like a low-budget version of “It’s a Small World” at Disney World. We had a beautiful, moonlit evening to enjoy this and were very grateful for the perfect weather.

Ari, Saul and I hunted for furniture, having struck out the previous weekend, and visited one of the largest venues for furniture we have ever seen. Ari had seen some bedroom furniture online that he liked and that is how we found Belfort Furniture in Virginia. Not only was their warehouse the size of a two-story Costco, but they had purchased an entire shopping center directly across the street and had filled it with furniture, dividing it by categories, as well. We looked at dozens of bedroom suites, and, in the end, Ari wound up purchasing the one he had seen online. Another large purchase was a wall unit/bookcase with rounded, sliding doors to conceal a large-screen t.v. in his living room. He had also seen that online at another store, but had not wanted to make such a large purchase without having seen the actual furniture. As we were walking through, Saul spotted the wall unit on the floor and we all were delighted with the quality and construction. He also purchased a custom-made leather headboard, and two bedroom lamps that we were surprised to find that we both liked, despite the fact that our taste is very different. We rushed back to meet Comcast to try to get Ari’s internet working, but found that the service person had lied and filed a report that he had called and not gotten an answer and so had cancelled.

On Saturday night, Jess met us at a Thai restaurant called Little Spice that is near the Arundel Mills Egyptian movie theater. We had a late, delicious, vegetarian dinner and, after schmoozing for a hour, headed over to the theater to see Red, but when we arrived, we found it sold out. Having had such a large meal, we decided to walk it off by circling the enormous figure-eight-shaped mall where we were relegated to window shopping because all the stores had closed for the evening.

The next morning disappeared with waiting for Comcast to arrive. Someone did show up and fixed the connection for at least the dozenth time, but by the following morning, the signal was gone again. Trying to salvage at least part of the day, we called my cousin, Julie, who was being visited by her brother, Bob, so that they could attend a Flyers game that evening in D.C. and asked if they would like to join us for dim sum at China Garden in Rosslyn. We drove over and Julie showed us through the cozy, three-story home that she has been renovating in the tree-lined neighborhood of Lanier Heights where she had been living for a number of years. By the time we arrived at China Garden, it was quite late for dim sum. One of the first carts to come by our table had coconut buns and I convinced Julie, who was very anxious to sample them, that we should wait a while before ordering dessert so that the buns and other desserts would be warm. I was very embarrassed to find that by the time we were ready for dessert, there was literally nothing left. Our pleas to the maitre d’ brought nothing but the admonition that we should arrive around 11:30 a.m. if we expected to have a nice selection of dishes. In the future, should we be stuck with arriving late, we will be sure to eat dessert first.

After dropping off Julie and Bob to get ready for the game, which the Flyers lost, unfortunately, we went back to Ari’s to pack our suitcases, and Ari drove us back to Jess and Alex’s house so that he could retrieve his car that we had left in Baltimore for the weekend. Saul and I took the leisurely trip home over U.S. 1.

The Stewart/Colbert Rally in DC and Halloween in Baltimore

Saul decided to cancel his 11:00 a.m. class on Tuesday morning so that he could attend Fran’s funeral with me. We feared, because of her advanced age, and the fact that Irv’s life was in California, that there might not even be a minyan at the funeral. Larry and Adele had come to our house to pick up the shiva trays we had prepared and had gone to Fran’s house in Northeast Philadelphia to set up the food and prepare for the returning mourners. As it turned out, about 15 friends and relatives were in attendance. The day began sunny and crisp, but then turned unexpectedly gray and cold by the time the service began. A representative from the funeral home conducted the service and did a very competent job under the circumstances. The interment was at Har Jehuda Cemetery, which we had just visited last year with our friend, Larry, who wanted to check out some graves of relatives and some grave sites belonging to his family. Saul spent hours traveling by car to get to and from school, to pick me up so that we could travel to the cemetery together—an hour’s journey, then to the Northeast for the shiva, and then back home again. As usual this semester, his work was pressing, and he spent the rest of the day on his computer.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I prepared for our past lovely weekend in Baltimore and DC. Ari, Saul and I are big fans of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. We also TiVo The Colbert Report which follows it on Comedy Central. From the time we first learned about the “Rally to Restore Sanity,” which later became “The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” as both Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s two rallies became combined, we planned to attend it in DC. As we discussed our plans, our next-door niece, Beth, decided to join us at Ari’s for the weekend, and a few days ago, my cousin Anne, from New York, also decided to join us. At the last minute, Anne’s son, Ben, arranged to stay with friends in DC and join us for parts of the weekend. The day of the rally also happened to be Anne’s 54th birthday.

Not knowing what to expect as far as which meals we would be taking at home at Ari’s house, I decided to “kill two birds with one stone” and prepare some of my kids’ favorite foods which we could either eat, or could be stored away for future meals. On Wednesday and Thursday mornings I cleaned out and reorganized the kitchen cabinet on which Saul had replaced the broken hinge. I shopped, and then prepared dough and filling for more pumpkin-face cookies, made a huge pot of chicken soup that yielded 18 quarts, a large quantity of chicken salad from the four soup chickens, kasha and bow ties, macaroni and cheese, bread pudding, vanilla custard sauce, coconut/maple tapioca pudding, a brown sugar glazed sweet potato cake for Anne’s birthday, and a pareve carob sheet cake. Along with some other supplies, like milk, eggs, Hawaiian taro pancake mix, bread, avocados, tomatoes, etc., Saul and I packed everything up, including our suitcases for the long weekend and headed off to Baltimore on Thursday afternoon when school was over. We arrived in Baltimore at 6:00 p.m. just in time for a program for young families with toddlers that Alex had designed called PB & J—Pizza, Blessings and Jammies (pajamas). Jessica had been in South Carolina for several days at a conference on marketing retreat centers and was on her way home. We were able to take the responsibility of Yona and Izzy off Alex’s hands while he ran his engaging program. Sami was at a play date after school at her classmate Acadia’s house. Jess was supposed to pick her up at school and attend a PTA meeting for Izzy’s first grade class. Unfortunately, she got caught in rush hour traffic coming through DC and we never got to see her on Thursday night. She never got to attend the PTA meeting, either. She arrived exhausted and ill from six hours of driving, too many traffic jams, and several days of bad food.

Pizza not being one of my favorite foods, Saul and I stopped for a comforting late dinner of steaming soup, mu shu, and crispy sesame eggplant over steamed rice at Hollywood East Café in Wheaton on our way to Ari’s. Early Friday morning, as Ari prepared to leave for work, Saul was appalled to find that he could not get a Comcast Internet connection to answer the nearly 300 email messages that he had received following a controversial speaker who had presented at the college. A last-minute decision was made that he would accompany Ari to work so that he would have the connection to get his work done. I decided to go back to bed. Surprisingly, I slept until a little after 1:00 p.m. When I awoke, I had some late lunch, cleaned up the kitchen, looked at some magazines, played with my iPhone, watched some television, did all of Ari’s laundry, and made the beds. In short, it was a blissful day for me. The same was true for Saul, who managed to complete his work, socialize briefly with some of Ari’s co-workers, have a stimulating conversation at lunch where they were joined, in a rare instance, by one of the two founding partners, and leave in a reasonable amount of time to pick me up for our journey to Baltimore for Shabbat dinner.

Alex had chosen a Mexican theme this particular week. We were joined by his sister, Naomi, and her husband Matt. After we lit candles, dinner began with the blessings over grape juice and warm, freshly-baked challah dipped in honey, which has remained their tradition since their honeymoon. Alex made dishes almost too numerous to remember—spicy vegetable soup, guacamole, salsa verde, warm flatbreads and tortillas, black beans, baked and mashed butternut squash, chili con carne, fake crab and avocado salad and a few other side dishes that I am sure I have forgotten to mention. For dessert, we had the pareve carob cake. Sami presented me with a little gift she made for me out of cardboard, crayons, sticks, glue, nylon string and mini origami that represented a forest with owls and monkeys. Anne had driven into Philadelphia to hook up with Beth after work and they were supposed to meet up with us in Baltimore, but they had gotten off to a late start, had picked up Ben downtown, and had encountered heavy traffic on the way down. We decided to meet in DC instead and all of us arrived there at around 10:30 p.m. A few minutes later, having slept most of the day, I decided to accompany Ari while he dropped off Ben at his friends’ house a short distance away. Ordinarily, it would have been a five-to-ten-minute drive, but after encountering heavy traffic on the way there, we encountered stand-still traffic on the way home no matter which street we tried. Eventually, inching along, we discovered that the police had set up road blocks for a few blocks around the Columbia Heights Metro station which they had shut down. Ari and I did not get back until midnight. By then, everyone else was sound asleep.

In the morning, we rose early; breakfasted on bagels, cream cheese, juice and tea; and discussed what we wanted to say on our signs for the rally. We cut up an old beige bed sheet of Ari’s, and Beth and Saul provided permanent markers. Beth’s sign said, “I like pie.” Ari’s sign said, “I don’t like pie, but we can still get along.” Anne’s sign said “Whatever.” My sign said, “Why isn’t the media reporting on the media reporting on the media?” Saul didn’t make a sign. Then, we packed up a backpack with some chicken salad sandwiches and box drinks, Girl Scout cookies, sun screen, band-aids, our folded, bed-sheet signs, and a few other necessities and headed off, on foot, to the Petworth Metro station at about 10:30 a.m. The trains were quite crowded and became increasingly so as we traveled the few stops down to The National Mall where the rally was taking place. The station was so crowded that it took us almost 20 minutes in shoulder-to-shoulder crowds to exit. We stopped to take some photos holding our signs. Then, as we reached the mall itself, we found ourselves inching along in massive crowds to try to get close enough to the four large outdoor screens to see and hear something of what was happening. A few yards in from Seventh Street, which was about halfway between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, we had to stop as it was not really possible to squeeze in any closer in the mass of humanity, and I, being somewhat claustrophobic, didn’t want to try any further. All thoughts of pleasant, picnic-like seating on our blanket went out the window as we all struggled to stay together, listen to the speakers, or catch a glimpse of the projection screens above the vast sea of heads. It was standing room only for everyone, except those who were willing to climb nearby trees for a perch above it all, and there were quite a few of those. Although I could not see anything, Ari, Saul and Beth were tall enough to see the screens over all the heads, and Ari, who was standing next to me, filled me in periodically about what was happening. Eventually after about an hour, those who grew tired of standing, or needed a bathroom, or just gave up, filtered their way out of the crowd and I was able to find a spot a few feet further up where I could just see the screen if enough heads in front of me moved in the right direction as people shifted around in their spaces. The most poignant moments of the show were not really from the comedy, the music, or the satire, which were not stellar, but just from the experience of being present on that beautiful October day in that colossal, benign crowd (some estimates put it as high as 300,000). Singing, and hearing that huge throng singing the National Anthem on the National Mall, poised between the two iconic monuments of this country brought chills to my spine and tears to my eyes. I enjoyed the show, such as I could in such a situation, standing shoulder-to-shoulder for over three hours (five by the time I finally got to sit down on a concrete bench at the Metro stop). I thought the show was almost beside the point, a raison d’etre for bringing everyone together in such a way. No show could ever have met the expectations that accompanied this gathering.

At the end, we inched our way out of the crowd, struggling to stay together, and proceeded down Seventh Street, which becomes Georgia Avenue and is almost a beeline to Ari’s house about 4 miles away. Ari and Beth walked the entire distance home, but Saul, Anne and I gave up after a mile or two and headed down into the Mt. Vernon Square Station. There, we encountered green line trains so tightly packed with people that we could not hope to get on. The yellow line trains emptied out there as well, and those people just turned around and waited at the edge of the platform for a chance to push onto the green trains. After about 45 minutes of frustration, Saul hatched a plan for getting us home. We got on a train going in the opposite direction and took it well past the Archives station at the National Mall to the Waterfront Station. There, we crossed the platform and actually got seats on the train before it began to encounter the huge crowds from the rally. When we finally arrived at our Petworth stop, we had the idea, as we exited, to make reservations for Anne’s birthday dinner at Sala Thai Restaurant, which was right there. We made a reservation for seven people at 7:00 p.m. Ari was waiting for us in the car so that we did not have to walk the additional few blocks home.

Back at the house, we collapsed on the sofa with big glasses of water and watched the movie Shaun of the Dead, a precursor to Halloween, for about an hour before it was time to walk over to the restaurant for dinner. We were being joined by my other cousin, Julie, who has lived and worked in DC since she graduated from George Washington University many years ago. Anne left very specific instructions with an address for her son, Ben, who needed to get on the metro where he was staying and go two stops to meet us. Somehow, he wound up at a different Sala Thai in that neighborhood and had to take a cab to meet us. Anne was delighted that the restaurant had live jazz performers which she really enjoys. The singer, accompanied by an excellent pianist and bassist, had a terrific voice and sounded a bit like Ella Fitzgerald to me, reprising some of her classic songs. The food was wonderful, but the service was embarrassingly bad. We could not quite figure out why, except perhaps the waitress was new and had received no instruction at all. The restaurant was extremely small and did not seem to be understaffed. It began when she brought our hot appetizers and then disappeared without bringing any napkins or utensils to the table. Ari got up and found napkins, and a signal from the sushi chef spying our distress brought her running from somewhere eventually with utensils. When our entreés arrived, only half the table was served. We mistakenly assumed the others would receive theirs shortly. With no explanation from anyone, including our waitress, who again disappeared, we had almost finished eating before the other entreés arrived. I had asked about a chocolate mousse cake with a candle at the beginning of the meal, but the waitress seemed to have completely forgotten our discussion and we were all exhausted from our day and anxious to leave after so much time spent at the table. Ben left to join his friends even before the other entreés were served, so there didn’t seem to be much point in pursuing it. Julie drove Saul back to the house and joined us as we celebrated Anne’s birthday with tea and brown-sugar-glazed sweet potato cake with a tea-light candle in the center. We had a lively conversation until, one-by-one, we began to fall asleep. After Julie left, Ari cleaned up the whole downstairs before going off to bed. Next door, a wild Halloween party was raging and, as Ari was cleaning up, one of the drunken party-goers leaped from the deck next door onto his garage roof and passed out. Someone else leaped over and helped him get back eventually. In the morning, Ari swept or threw all the broken bottles and beer cans from his yard back in front of their door. Later in the day, while we were out, a hand-written note of apology was dropped into his mail slot.

We decided to go for dim sum on Sunday morning. Ari picked up Ben while Beth and Anne packed, and then we went in two cars to Hollywood East Café again so that they could get on the road home directly from there. We waited briefly for a table and enjoyed the assortment of steaming hot dumplings, taro cake, and lotus-leaf-wrapped sticky rice as always, but the big favorite of Beth, Anne and Ben were the assortment of warm desserts—egg custard-filled crispy mochi “carrots,” mini custard pies, toasted sesame balls with sweet yellow bean paste inside, green tea balls with sweetened black sesame filling, and fluffy pineapple buns. Beth, Anne and Ben headed for home after that, and Ari, Saul and I went shopping for odds and ends for Ari’s house at a nearby Tuesday Morning, Bloomingdale’s, Pottery Barn, and World Market. We began heading to Clarendon to check out the furniture-laden Crate and Barrel there, but realized, looking at the traffic on the other side of the road resulting from the Marine Corps Marathon that took place on Sunday, that we might get into a tremendous traffic jam on the way back and immediately turned around. We were disappointed with a lack of new merchandise everywhere we went. Stopping to pack up our things at Ari’s, Saul and I headed for Baltimore to go trick-or-treating with the girls, who were due back from a costume party at 6:00 p.m. As darkness fell, Jess, all three girls, and I pushing Yona in a stroller, went from house to house in the neighborhood for about an hour and a half. By the second house, Yona in her stroller realized that the other two girls were being given something and began to loudly protest in her own way that whatever they were getting, she wanted also. When she figured out that it was candy, we were assaulted by an endless stream of “open!, open!, open!” until Jess meted out some M & Ms.

We took the long relaxing way home over the Conowingo Dam and were unpacked and in bed by 11:00 p.m. It was a great long weekend!

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.