Lightening Up… or Lightning Up?

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A long time has passed since I have written. In fact, almost two months have gone by and they have been very productive months indeed. My last blog post was about hoarding and the deleterious effects this can have, sapping one’s time and energy. I am very pleased to say that Saul and I have used the last two months to get rid of almost all the unnecessary stuff that has been clogging our attic storage  spaces, humongous basement, closets, and drawers. The result is that we both feel a tremendous relief at having organized our lives. What is left is the stuff we actually need and use. We were able to sell some of our unwanted items on Craig’s List. The baby grand piano in the foyer that hasn’t been played for many, many years went to a 10-year old boy who lives, literally, around the corner. He came with his father and a piano tuner who took it apart to assess it. Although we had owned it for almost 30 years, we learned a great deal about its previous history in a few minutes. The excitement of this child was palpable when he first laid eyes on the piano. Ari had been the same way when we had purchased it for him. The pool table was purchased by a guy in his early twenties, who came with two friends, a pickup truck, the appropriate tools, and the know-how to carefully disassemble it for moving to a new location. The dented samovar was purchased by someone who offered more than the asking price because we held it for her. We gave away an old coffee table and console table to a young couple that was just getting their first apartment. We sold an old cabinet that nobody but my mother ever liked. We went through carton after carton of old useless papers. We went through thousands of books. We donated cartons of books to Chestnut Hill College, which indirectly sends them to the Phillipines. Saul hurt his back for a few days lugging these, and ten cartons of books with Jewish content to Temple Sinai. Impact sent 20-foot trucks twice to haul away donations and then finally gave up. Adele and Larry came and emptied out half a closet in which I had been storing items for a garage sale. In the end, we hired a wonderful hauling service to clean out the rest. They worked tirelessly in very hot weather and filled a large dumpster on our driveway past the brim and hauled away another packed 20-foot truck with items they felt they could sell. With a few more trunkfuls that we delivered to Impact, we felt elated and that we were finished for the time being. Looking back on the process, it is hard to believe the volume of stuff that has been removed, all of it useless to us and unwanted by our children.

Faith’s last Bible class of the season took place in its usual venue at Temple Sinai and some of the ladies prepared a light luncheon to mark the occasion. I have been attending this class on Thursday mornings for almost 25 years. I hope that, even if the house is sold, I will find occasions to make it back to this area every so often to attend in the future.

I hosted a Mother’s Day brunch for family and friends as I have for many years. It was a lovely day that I knew would be the last time my home would appear pretty much as it had for the last 19 years and probably the last time I would be hosting a big party here. Beginning the following Monday morning, the clean-out process began in earnest.

To mark the end of the Religious School year, we attended a poignant Dalet Class promotion program for Sami.

While Ari was in for Shavuot, we attended my cousin Alan’s daughter Emily’s bat mitzvah. Unsurprisingly, it was a very lyrical and melodic service, in keeping with that part of the family’s musical bent. The synagogue was small and welcoming. Emily, whom we have not seen in a number of years, is a pale and lovely young lady whose resemblance to my maternal grandmother is striking. We were gratified to learn that it was because of her own desire and initiative that she undertook the training and responsibility to become a bat mitzvah. The celebration and luncheon following the service at an historical inn on Philadelphia’s Main Line was lively and fun. The three of us, my brother’s family, and our other cousin, Bob, were able to catch up with Alan’s life a bit and get to know Emily a little better. Adele and Larry and Beth were in the throes of the moving process and could not attend.

About the beginning of May, my niece Beth sold her house next door within a week of putting it on the market. Saul, Ari and I arranged to take off some time to help her drive her stuff and her dogs to Tucson, Arizona, right after Memorial Day weekend. Her fiancé, Paul, bought a condo and is taking a nursing degree there. In addition to packing up and moving across the country, she was faced with the unpleasant task of seeing that her aged dog, Yenta, her companion of 13 years, was put to sleep in the most humane way possible. Yenta had been living on pain killers and could barely walk. She was in no way up to making the long and stressful trip. Beth also gave up her engineering job. She has really shaken up her life.

Our week-long trip to Tucson and back turned out to be quite an enjoyable vacation in many ways. Ari came home for Memorial Day Weekend which was also Shavuot this year. We attended services with Jess and Alex and the girls. The older girls did a beautiful job reading Torah in the main sanctuary at TBS. Ari stayed with us and worked remotely after that. We found that we were all able to leave on Wednesday afternoon instead of early Thursday morning as we had planned, so we were able to get a jump on the driving. Saul and Ari alternated riding in Beth’s car with the dogs, while I rode shotgun in the 20-foot rental truck with whoever was not driving with Beth (because of my allergy to the dogs). Many of the motels along the way were amused that we needed both pet-friendly and pet-free rooms wherever we went. On that first day, we drove about 300 miles, stopping in Harrisonburg, Virginia, around 9:00 p.m. With difficulty, we climbed a slippery grassy hill behind the Sleep Inn to have a late dinner at O’Neill’s Grill just before closing. On Thursday morning, after a motel breakfast, we left around 9:00 a.m. We traveled about 650 miles that day. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and it was so hot that Beth had to keep running out to make sure the dogs were okay in the car. The last few hours of the 12-hour drive were the worst part of the entire trip. We drove into a torrential thunderstorm as darkness fell. We were all exhausted and found ourselves on rain-slick roads in the middle of nowhere Tennessee. Ari was having trouble locating a pet-friendly motel within reasonable driving distance. He finally located one, a Jamison Inn, in Jackson, Tennessee. It was adequate. We walked across the parking lot to have dinner at a Buffalo Wild Wings. By Friday morning, we discovered that we were better off leaving by 8:00 a.m. The Jamison Inn had a somewhat nicer free breakfast than usual.

Our third day of driving was much more pleasant. We drove over 700 miles, but by then, we were mostly driving on sunny, flat, lightly-traveled highways where the speed limit was 80 mph. We hit some heavy traffic when we reached Dallas around the 5:00 p.m. rush hour, but we were only slowed down for about half an hour. Having had a sketchy experience stopping for lunch at Cracker Barrel, we decided that snacking in the air-conditioned car was a better bet. I had loaded up with a bag of goodies at Trader Joe’s before the trip, and we supplemented this with purchases at gas stations along the way. Using Google Maps and Trip Advisor, late in the afternoon, I found a barbecue joint in Hope, Arkansas, that was highly recommended and had outdoor seating so we could keep the dogs with us. We never would have found Big Jake’s without the Internet as this gem was hidden on an industrial road behind a strip of the usual fast food joints. In addition to the homey feel and fantastic barbecue and sides, this place is known for its fried pies. With much difficulty, we chose five different flavors from among about two dozen. Hope, Arkansas, coincidentally, has the distinction of being the locale of the childhood home of former President William Jefferson Clinton which, we gathered from the locals, doesn’t get a lot of tourist traffic.

We spent our third night in Abilene, Texas, at a Best Western. We were still full from our late lunch and went to bed as soon as we arrived. In Abilene, the waffle iron at our free motel breakfast produced waffles shaped like the state of Texas. Everywhere we traveled in Texas we encountered things emblazoned with the state shape or the lone star—even on the highway bridges. Also emblematic of Texas, there is the perception of so much space that new things are built next to old things that have not been torn down or cleared away. One example would be a line of four gas stations right next to each other with only the second one in line being functional. The others had been defunct for at least 20 years. That, plus unsightly commercial/industrial complexes and slapped-together, awful-looking buildings made for much ugly scenery along the highways.

Our reward for pushing so hard to get the bulk of the miles behind us in the first few days was so that we could take our time at the end when we were sure to be road weary. Our fourth day became unexpectedly difficult when we traveled the highway in West Texas that took us along the Mexican border. We encountered high winds that were random and intermittent on roads where there was virtually no speed limit and the semis were passing us at 90+ mph while we had, as the saying goes, “the pedal to the metal.” On several occasions, a sudden gust of wind caught us and just about blew us off the road. Ari, who was driving the truck at the time, found himself gripping the steering wheel with headache-producing tension. When we stopped for gas, Saul drove the truck for the last few hours until we arrived in Deming, New Mexico. There was a customs-type border crossing between Texas and New Mexico where cars and trucks are stopped and are subject to questioning guards and possible searches. Luckily, after a brief wait in line and a few questions about our destination, we were waved through. After that, we began encountering road signs telling us that “Dust Storms May Exist” which in my case caused both amusement and consternation. Luckily, despite the high winds in Texas, we did not have a chance to answer this existential question in New Mexico. Unlike our previous days, we stopped at around 4:00 p.m. The brand-new Hampton Inn where we stayed was the best of all our hotels thus far. We had an early and very pleasant dinner at a Mexican restaurant in quaint downtown Deming called Si Senor which, accurately, was highly touted on Yelp. By the time we were leaving, the restaurant had almost filled up.

Our object was to arrive in Tucson on Sunday morning. Beth had hired a team of movers to unpack the U-Haul on Sunday morning, but since their hours were not flexible, she rescheduled them for Monday so that we would not be pressured to arrive before noon. After yet another very nice free breakfast, we headed for Tucson feeling that the last 250 miles would be a piece of cake compared to all the long hours of driving we had done, and it was. We arrived about 12:30 p.m. on Sunday morning, almost at the time we had set for ourselves. Paul met us at the gate of the condo complex and Saul, Ari and I switched over to Paul’s Mercedes SUV for the rest of the trip. We drove over to our gorgeous resort, Loew’s Ventana Canyon, within walking distance of the condo complex, and situated ourselves into our beautiful and spacious rooms. While Beth and Paul unloaded her car and small rented trailer, Saul, Ari and I lunched on cool salads at a nearby restaurant called Jasper. Then, we decided to indulge in one of our favorite pastimes, looking at real estate, since there were many Sunday open houses. Despite all our previous driving, we visited three open houses. One home was so cool that we revisited with Beth a few days later. That night, we all had dinner together at a very good Chinese restaurant.

Because we had booked our resort stay in Tucson after June 1, it was no longer prime time, and we stayed for the remarkable rate of $99 a night, which included a $25 per day food voucher that covered the most elegant white-tablecloth breakfast imaginable. Nestled against the side of a mountain, we had breathtaking views of enormous branched saguaro cacti, natural waterfalls, spectacular floral landscaping with soothing water features, and a beautiful pool area with hot tub and mini waterfall. The views from our rooms and balconies were just as gorgeous.

Beth’s movers arrived on Monday morning, way ahead of schedule, and she had to scramble out of bed to accommodate them. Ari went over to assist, while Saul and I hung out at the resort. We met for a late lunch at Beyond Bread. With the two days we had left over, Beth came over and joined us for breakfast and hung out at the pool while Paul was in class. Monday evening, we all met for a congenial and delicious dinner at Fleming’s where I used up a bunch of Bonefish Grill (they are related) gift certificates I found in a drawer when I was clearing out my old bedroom furniture. Lightening up does have its rewards! We helped Beth choose a new living room sofa and went to see the cool house we had seen on our first day in Tucson. On Tuesday evening, Beth met us and we had dinner again at Beyond Bread and dessert at a marvelous gelato place nearby. We were supposed to board the last flight of the afternoon (around 3:00 p.m.) out of Tucson, stopping in Dallas, and on to DC. Saul and I were to be picked up the next day in DC and delivered home to Philadelphia by Alex. Our flight was cancelled due to a huge thunderstorm and flooding in Dallas. In rescheduling, we were able to arrange to split up in Chicago, where we would catch a flight to Philadelphia and Ari would continue on to DC. Saul, Ari and I had a cab take us to a nearby Marriott, where we had a disappointing light dinner in their bar/lounge. It was too hot to walk even a few blocks to a restaurant, and we were exhausted with the whole airport scene. Our flight was rescheduled for very early in the morning on Thursday, so early in fact, that we caught the shuttle with some of our flight crew at dawn. So many flights had been cancelled because of the storm that the airport was pandemonium when we arrived because of overbooking, and we all volunteered to be bumped to a later flight in exchange for $300 in flight vouchers and additional food vouchers. To his chagrin, they managed to find a seat for Ari on the original flight. Saul and I waited comfortably for about 3 hours for the next flight, which was also overbooked. We volunteered again, and this time when we were bumped, we were given $500 vouchers and did not have to wait at all. They held the plane at the gate next to us for 10 minutes while we were re-ticketed through Dallas instead of Chicago. We were hustled aboard and took off almost immediately. Our layover in Dallas of 2-1/2 hours was just enough time to have a lovely meal at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen. We could have volunteered to be bumped a third time and have made another $300 and had our hotel and meals comped, but by then we were road-weary and I had a special reason for wanting to be home on Friday morning.

Our friend, Marianne, had called just as we were leaving for Arizona. She remembered the carrot cake I had made a year earlier on Mother’s Day and told me she had been dreaming about it for a long time. Her twin sister was coming to visit from Jerusalem and they were having a family party to celebrate. She asked if I would make the cake for the family get-together and some cookies for her grandchildren. She offered to pay me, but I told her she could take us out to lunch sometime instead. The first thing Saul and I did when we awoke on Friday morning (after having arrived home courtesy of a late-nate pickup at Philadelphia International Airport by our friend Larry) was go to the supermarket to pick up the necessary ingredients. The cake and chocolate chip cookies were finished by 1:00 p.m. and were picked up later by her son, John. Shortly afterward, we met our friend Larry for an early dinner before Shabbat at the Metropolitan Diner. Shortly after that, by coincidence, Ken, Randi and her sister Sherrie showed up there for dinner also. We moved to their table outdoors at dessert time and passed a pleasant hour schmoozing before going home to light the Shabbat candles. On Sunday evening, there was a phone message from Marianne raving about the cake and inviting us to dinner and an architectural program along with her sister at Foulkeways. It was a lovely evening. As ever, the setting was elegant and friendly, and the food, delicious and ample.

I have waited so long to write, and there are so many important details to record, that I will continue the narrative in another blog post…

Getting Rid of…

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I come from a long line of hoarders. I think I understand the motivation. My grandparents who emigrated to the United States were poor to the point of starvation and had to scramble hard just to keep a roof over their heads and their children fed. I can understand that accumulating things when one has nothing can be very comforting (and even when one has lots of things). The grandparents and relatives who were in the United States for a few generations, and were relatively well off, were hit hard by the Great Depression and their children suffered economic woes. The compulsion to keep everything, just in case you might need it sometime in the future, was strong. When my parents and my family combined households 19 years ago, we brought along way too much of the detritus of three generations, despite our best efforts to weed through it. Although we did not know it, my father had only a few months to live when we undertook to build our home together. He died two months before we moved in. In sensitivity to my mother, and because I was overwhelmed as well, at the end we merely threw things into boxes, hired two moving vans and piled the boxes into the ample storage space in our new digs.

When my mother died a few years ago, it took the whole family weeks to sort through her possessions. She still had most of her clothing, coats, and shoes from the 1950s through the current decades. She had drawers and cartons full of papers, pamphlets, and magazines. She clung stubbornly to each tiny thing so that her spacious room was filled with boxes and knick-knacks that she resented us moving when it became medically necessary to clear some floor space for her to walk after hip surgery.

Saul and I are pretty old now and we have been spending a lot of time recently getting rid of the accumulations of not only the previous generation, but ours as well. We’ve had several garage sales over the last three years, and are tired of spending our time and energy preparing for them. Time has become a much more precious commodity as we age, and our energy must be allocated carefully. There is not as much of it as there used to be. As we are getting ready to put our house on the market again, the mantra of the realtors has been “de-clutter, de-clutter, de-clutter.” To this end, we completely filled a 20-foot truck from Habitat for Humanity with most of the contents of our garage. Saul and I decided that he could keep two cartons of his favorite tools, and he did that easily. I’ve sent at least ten trunk-loads of household items to Impact! so far. We expected to feel a little remorseful as we watched the materials that were attached to so many memories disappear, but instead, we both felt lighter and a bit giddy about it. So many people stand to benefit from our charity.

Neither of our children got the hoarding gene, so we feel that we are doing them a favor by taking care of this now. I don’t want as many of their precious hours wasted going through stuff as ours were. We are hoping for more of a gypsy lifestyle as we age that will allow us to travel for extended periods of time and move from place to place depending on the climate. It is surprising to discover how little one truly needs to live comfortably. When the desire to impress other people with our possessions diminishes, we can be much freer.

I am trying to free myself also of the angst associated with this process. After all, we have the luxury of a modicum of good health, a pension, and social security benefits. This change is not being forced upon us, as it is upon so many. We have chosen it for better or for worse.

This past month has been filled with many wonderful moments, besides the ones that have come from the clearing of our living space. Izzy read Torah for the first time and did a confident and masterful job. We’ve had some great and lively Shabbat dinners both at home and with Jess and Alex. We celebrated Yona’s third birthday at a Shabbat dinner with carrot cake cupcakes. A few days later, she received her first haircut. I tried a new recipe for coconut flan baked in a bundt pan that we ate for Shabbat lunch after Izzy’s aliyah which I am excited to add to my repertoire. Izzy was thrilled to learn how to open up a samara and stick it onto her nose like we did when we were kids. In preparing the garden for planting, Saul ran into a horseradish root that he thought must be buried down to China. I have been reading lots of books lately from a Kindle account on the iPad from Larry and love that I can read all night long without bothering Saul with reading lights. I finished the Hunger Games Trilogy; the new fourth Mysterious Benedict Society book, Mudbound, a book about the complex racial relationships in the deep South after WWII; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Madeline Albright’s new book, Prague Winter, which was written with amazing insight in part because of her VIP access to obscure and secret files, and her unique life experiences as the daughter of a Czech diplomat; and who could resist reading 50 Shades of Grey after all the hype? My 45th high school reunion took place this past month, and while I couldn’t attend that day, the correspondence and photos that have been going back and forth for weeks, thanks to the magic of Facebook, have given me a nostalgic and revelatory trip “down memory lane.” Comparing notes with my longtime high school friend, Roxy, has been great fun. Roxy, George, Saul and I had an incredible brunch together at the Wm. Penn Inn and celebrated George’s cane-less, second, successful recovery from hip surgery. Getting an early start on Cinco de Mayo, we had a delicious Mexican dinner at Tamarindos with Beth and friends, Ilsa and Manuel. I drank so much of the delicious, homemade, sulfite-free, free margarita’s which they refill like water, that I had to really concentrate on walking to the car without bumping into anything. It was the most pleasant high I have had since overdosing on French wine (Sancerre) in Paris twenty years ago, and like Paris, there was no painful sulfite reaction or hangover.

I woke up this morning filled with angst again for several reasons. We met with a potential realtor yesterday and the housing market for sellers right now is awful, to say the least. One of Jessica’s best friends, Cheryl, died suddenly of a heart attack at 53, and the funeral was this morning. Faith’s daughter-in-law, Sheri, lost her mother and that funeral was also this morning. As I prepare for Mothers Day for my family this week, I couldn’t help but feel a pang at the sudden loss of these two dear mothers to their families at this time of the year. But, I am determined to put all this in perspective. Saul and I have much work to do and I intend to make the most of every moment we have available. I want to continue to streamline our possessions, de-clutter our home and our lives, and get rid of the unproductive negative feelings that cause stress and diminish my ability to enjoy my life.

Over the Passover Hump 2012

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The first seder was on Friday, April 6, this year. After much going back and forth about the venue, we belatedly decided that both sedarim would take place at Jess and Alex’s home in New Jersey. Alex would prepare the bulk of the meal, and I would supply my usual assortment of desserts. It all worked out very beautifully. I was especially pleased because Jess sent Inky to visit with Elaine and Shayna the week before the sedarim, before the house was cleaned from top to bottom, so I was able to spend hours at their home during the seder with nary a sneeze or touch of asthma. Saul and I kashered our kitchen beginning the Saturday night and part of Sunday before the sedarim, and, after a bit more kitchen prep on Monday morning, I was able to get started with my cooking and baking. Saul and I stopped at Simon’s Kosher Meat in Northeast Philadelphia to pick up the meat order on our way to have lunch with Jessica and our granddaughters after Hebrew School. Alex stayed behind to begin his kashering.

We had planned to lunch at Cheesecake Factory in Cherry Hill, but it was so crowded (45 minute wait), that we decided to go next door to McCormick and Schmick’s, which was just about empty. The three girls were ravenous by 2:00 p.m., so we were pleased at the accommodating, quick and pleasant service. The prices for lunch, however, were astronomical. The food was delicious, but the bill for three adults, two children and a two-year-old came to almost $100 with the tip. Needless to say, we won’t be going back anytime soon. There are so many wonderful places to eat in New Jersey without breaking the bank.

My weekdays were spent preparing dishes to feed dessert to almost 40 people during the two sedarim. With the second seder falling on Shabbat, all the cooking for both days had to be finished by sundown on Friday. As usual, Alex outdid himself with the array of dishes for the sedarim—two soups, matzoh balls, pepper salad, guacamole, grilled salmon with horseradish sauce, three different salsas, crudité trays, prime rib, smoked turkey, mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes, tossed salad with homemade dressing, pickled beets and turnips, quinoa pilaf, roasted lamb chops with cherry sauce, short ribs, etc., etc. On the first night, Sami led the seder with Saul’s help, and did a masterful job which made us all kvell. On the second night, we were 23 people and had a very lively seder using Alex’s custom-prepared family Haggadah. Cousin Bob called in sick the day before with a bad cold. In attendance were: Alex, Jess, Sami, Izzy, and Yona, Ari, Elaine W., Saul and me, Aaron, Stacey, Jacob, Lilly and Zach, Naomi, Matt and Talia, Larry, Beth, Elaine S., Aunt Ruth, Anne, and Ben, and Rifka.

Ari stayed with us for a few days, and needed food to take back to DC during his work week. All three girls were off from school for spring break and would be staying with me during Passover while Saul went to teach during chol hamoed. On Tuesday, his short day, he took Izzy along with him to her delight. I made a few batches of Chocolate Almond Bars; about six dozen Mocha Mousse Crepes with Raspberry sauce; eight flavors of fresh sorbet, including strawberry, orange, Meyer lemon, pineapple, grapefruit, banana, mango, and white nectarine; six dozen Passover Potato Knishes; two dozen whole wheat matzoh rolls; 100 whole wheat matzoh balls; Passover egg noodles; a Passover apple pie and strawberry rhubarb pie made with the Passover apple pie crust and topping. I reveled in the preparation, especially because I was caught up with all my computer work and could concentrate on the cooking with a clear head and without having to run into the office every so often to put in a few hours. I also decided to prepare a big Shabbat meal at home on the Friday after the sedarim, so I needed to prepare a few things for that as well. I invited Ken and Randi, Jamie and Andy and kids, Haley and Erik, Faith, Beth, Brenna, Larry, and my kids. We would have been 18 for dinner, but Jamie called about an hour before dinner to say that Presley was running a high fever and Erica called to say that Brenna was being punished for bad behavior. In the afternoon, Beth called to say that Paul had surprised her and flown in from Oklahoma, so he joined us and took up some of the slack (or snack?). Jess came to help ready dinner and take the girls home after dinner. The meal was delicious! We had crispy, honey/lemon steelhead trout with horseradish/dill sauce, a wildly successful recipe that the girls and I had invented for a dinner during the week, and which we decided we should repeat. This was followed by Alex’s chicken soup with his gigantic matzoh balls for which Haley was up to the challenge. I think she ate three of them. We had Passover potato knishes, Chicken Paprikash, Israeli salad, glazed Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pomegranate seeds, orange-glazed roasted beets, and steamed broccoli. For dessert, we had all of the above-mentioned desserts.

On the Monday after the sedarim, between hours of working remotely, Ari helped Sami put together the Lego White House, which turned out to be the most difficult of the three architectural kits (Falling Water and the Guggenheim Museum). Saul was home that Monday also, and we all enjoyed hanging out together for the day. The girls watched movies, shopped, and helped prepare meals most days during the week. We found that our public library in Blue Bell had dubbed versions of Miyazaki’s animations for loan, and we borrowed and watched My Neighbor Totoro, which I had recorded from television in 2005, but was not able to show the girls because I only had the subtitled version, which they were too young to read at the time. Evidently all the Miyazaki movies have been dubbed by the voices of big name movie stars since Disney acquired the rights. We all loved it.

Worse than the preparations for Passover is the cleaning up and putting away aspect of the holiday. Each year as I stow the special pots, pans, dishes and utensils, I wonder where we will all be next year at this time. I have begun getting the house ready to go up for sale again and that is a bittersweet activity. Camp Bubbie and Saba will not be taking place this year as Sami is off to Camp Ramah and Izzy and Yona will be going to different day camps in New Jersey. I am excited to get on with my life—the possibility of more freedom and travel, but apprehensive about what is to come, also. We have had such a wonderful time here for the last 19 years.

Last Wednesday was Ken’s 60th birthday and his girls had a surprise for him. They met him for lunch and presented him with a scavenger hunt they had concocted, which required him to follow rhymed clues and visit various friends and relatives. Our part was to prepare his favorite blueberry pie, which I decorated with his initials in honor of the day.

As the school year winds down and that big bump in my year which is Passover has passed, I look forward to new beginnings and a relaxing summer filled with fun with all the people I hold dear.

Cherry Blossoms in DC

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Because Saul had a mandatory, college-sponsored lecture to attend, in full academic regalia, by celebrated portrait artist, Nelson Shanks, on Thursday evening, we were not able to leave for DC until Friday morning. We traveled to New Jersey in our SUV so that we would be able to bring home a stack of extra chairs for Passover that were still residing at Ari’s since his house-warming party. We met Saul’s sister, Rif and her husband, Paul, at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast before setting out, with Rif joining us, on the road to DC.

We had a very pleasant trip down. The weather has been absolutely spectacular this month. Last year I wrote that March came in like a lion and went out like a lion. This year, it came in like a lamb and is going out like a lamb. Peak cherry blossom season in DC is a full two weeks earlier than usual. As of this writing the crocuses, daffodils, and most tulips have come and gone already. All our flowering trees and forsythia are in full bloom. Outside, it seems more like early May than late March. After unpacking our gear at Ari’s house, we drove downtown and found a rare parking spot right in front of the National Portrait Gallery. Rif has never really toured DC and, in the two hours we had available, we ran around the enormous museum showing her all our favorite things. Then, we drove just a couple of miles to meet Ari for an early dinner at Founding Farmers. We left the car at a parking garage across the street where the rates went down considerably to $10 for the evening at 5:00 p.m. The attendants were kind enough to wait the ten minutes until the rates changed before validating our ticket and then sent someone across the street to the restaurant to locate us and give us our ticket. We were happy to tip them a few dollars for such great service. We shared a whole bunch of small plates for dinner which was great fun and very delicious. The restaurant is a very hip scene in DC and we would not have gotten a table on a Friday had we not eaten very early. We took advantage of the parking and late sunset by going for a long walk after dinner to see the White House. We had planned to drive to the tidal basin to tour the Roosevelt Memorial and Korean War Veterans Memorial at night, but when we approached the area, we were greeted with masses of traffic at a crawl and masses of tourists walking the streets and pathways around the National Mall. We drove around the clogged arteries looking for a parking spot for about an hour, and then finally decided that we would awaken early the next morning and head to the tidal basin, hopefully, before the predicted rain could wash out the blossoms from the trees. We were on Rock Creek Parkway, heading for Ari’s house when he realized that he had left his new iPad and computer at work. He wanted to finish reading the second book of The Hunger Games Trilogy, Catching Fire, on the iPad, so we decided to go to Moorenko’s for ice cream and then head back downtown to his office. Moorenko’s is really a gem. The ice cream is luscious and many of the flavors truly unique. The featured flavor was honey with sunflower seeds, which could have been bland, but the vanilla and honey flavors burst on the tongue and the seeds added a nutty crunch. Saul and I shared three scoops of different flavors because I couldn’t decide on just one (we also had cappuccino cinnamon and salted caramel pecan). Since office hours were long past, Ari was able to take Rif up to show her his new office space.

We were out of the house by 8:30 a.m. as the rain threatened to come pouring down at any second. We lucked out, however, and after much hunting, located a parking spot that allowed us to tour the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial and the Roosevelt Memorial with just a short walk through cherry blossom-lined streets. Then, famished, we headed to China Garden in Rosslyn for dim sum, and arrived at the perfect time, just before the crowds, and with a great selection of dishes steaming on the wheeled carts. After breakfast/lunch, we drove further into Virginia to find a Tuesday Morning store which was rumored to have a gadget to froth milk for use with the Tassimo, which has recalled all the capsules associated with milk because they sometimes would burst while in use and cause burns. We didn’t find  the item, but decided that since we were already halfway to Belfort Furniture, we would continue to look for bedroom furniture for the room that Saul and I use at Ari’s house. No luck there, either.  On our way back from there, we tried to stop for dinner at a Fleming’s, but the wait was too long. Eventually, we wound up at yet another Lebanese Taverna in Tysons II Galleria, where we, again, had a very satisfying meal and dessert. We wandered through the mall a bit before heading off to wait in line at a nearby AMC Theater to get good seats for The Hunger Games in the IMAX theater. We agreed that the movie was very well done. From finishing the trilogy, I knew where to avert my eyes to avoid the more violent scenes, but from what I saw, an effort was made to downplay the gorier situations. I was quite happy about that because the books become so gory by the third one that I had considered avoiding the movies altogether. By the time we arrived back home and got into bed, it was 2:00 a.m.

We slept so late on Sunday that we spent an hour driving around the neighborhood to find a place for brunch that wasn’t mobbed. We eventually went back to the place where we started, The Heights, because Saul had the foresight to put our names on the list. We had never eaten brunch there before, and it was exceptional and reasonably priced. I think we will be going often from now on, especially when the weather is nice and we can walk over. We parked on the lot of the Giant Supermarket across the street in Columbia Heights and picked up a few necessary items there before heading back home to drop off Rif, who waited for us while we attended Talia’s first birthday party at the home of her grandparents in Silver Spring. Jess and Alex had driven down with Elaine and the girls after religious school for the party, but left to drive back as soon as the party was over so that the girls would be in bed at a reasonable hour. By the time we arrived in New Jersey to return Rif home, the girls had already had dinner and were in bed. We met Jessica alone at Friendly’s for ice cream because Sunday was her birthday and we wanted to celebrate in some way.

Yesterday, after some minor cleaning up and the installation of LED bulbs in my new recessed lighting fixtures, the work inside my house was officially completed. We met Larry at the Fireside Grill for an early bird dinner and climbed into bed early as we both had residual exhaustion from our cherry blossom weekend. I was so relieved this morning knowing that no one was coming to knock on my door to paint, or sand, or anything. The house looks gorgeous, better, I think, than when it was new. With this beautiful weather, my own weeping cherry tree is in full bloom today.

MC Dinner, Dana's Wedding, Purim, March Birthdays, etc.

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Wow! Until I had to think of a title, I didn’t realize how packed this month has been so far. True to form, and as I should have known from past experience, the Men’s Club dinner and program on March 1, had a rash of last minute reservations. Fortunately, the preparations went so smoothly that we were able to accommodate over 40 people for dinner in record time. Because my trusty volunteers are well familiar with the drill, we were able to prepare the bulk of the dinner in three hours and adjourned to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants, Jasmine, where we were able to schmooze and be waited on while we recuperated from our labors. By coincidence, fellow congregants and friends, Burt, Janet, and Janet’s daughter, Michelle, arrived right after we were seated and they moved to a table right next to us. Apparently, they have been coming to this restaurant for years and are recognized regulars. Right before the Men’s Club dinner, I did a little extra shopping and we arrived an hour earlier than we planned to prepare additional chicken and rice and set up an extra table. The dinner went like clockwork and the speaker, armed with a PowerPoint presentation explaining Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program, was interesting and informative. More than just an art program, the murals represent a revolutionary approach to encouraging community involvement and empowerment through the access of social services.

At Shabbat dinner on that Friday, no one seemed upset with a reprise of the leftovers from the previous evening. We were joined by Beth, Larry and Faith, who was just freshly returning from Israel and had spoken about her adventures to those of us in the Bible class that she taught the previous morning.

After services at MBI-EE on Saturday morning, we returned home to rest and get ready for Dana’s wedding that evening at Vie on North Broad Street in downtown Philadelphia. Dana is the daughter of Saul’s first cousin, Elaine. Her father and Saul’s father were brothers. The facade of the newly-renovated building with multiple sets of glass French doors, glimmered with candlelight from the thick, white candles within the staggered-height, cylindrical, clear, hurricane lamps that dotted the stairs as we drove up to have the valets park our car. Inside, in a reception area, we were greeted by butlers bearing silver trays of Champagne in fluted glasses and an open bar. As we had arrived just in time, we hurried in to greet family members and friends before the wedding ceremony. Dana was a very lovely bride. The officiating rabbi from Las Vegas, a relative of Dana’s father, told the amazingly coincidental story of how Elaine’s father, and the groom’s grandfather had become business partners for a few years after the Holocaust. The families, who emigrated to the United States and set up individual businesses, had lost contact for many years. Then, randomly, the groom’s mother contacted Elaine, who sells real estate (not even realizing the connection) for advice on putting their house up for sale. Elaine recognized the groom’s mother from childhood when they met, and began pulling out old photographs and a printed kippah that had been saved from their wedding that her father and mother had attended. Unbeknownst to both of them, their children had already met and were becoming serious about marrying when the families reunited and realized their connection. What a shame that neither grandfather was alive to see this union of their grandchildren after all they had suffered through in their lifetimes. After the ceremony, a long cocktail hour ensued with a buffet, butlered hors d’oeuvres, and a variety of food stations. This was followed by a full-course dinner with a selection of entrées. A live band performed in the enormous, chandelier-illuminated ballroom, flanked by floor-to-ceiling, time-lapse, moving photo displays of flowers opening and designs evolving. Later, this was replaced with slide shows taken from the photo albums of both bride’s and groom’s families. On Sunday, we left for a week in DC.

March 1 marked the beginning of Saul’s week of spring break. For two reasons, we decided to spend the whole week in DC. For one, Ari made reservations for my birthday at Central, one of Michel Richard’s restaurants. The other, Citronelle, is higher end, more pretentious, and has not been receiving such good reviews the last couple of years. When Ari got his first job in DC and moved there from California, we were supposed to celebrate at Citronelle, but never got around to it. Richard is my second favorite chef after Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame. He started as a pastry chef making the most intricate and imaginative desserts, and then took his art to other types of cuisine. Central did not disappoint. Although it is at the lower end (which, of course, is relative), the food was, indeed, imaginative, well-conceived, expertly prepared, and beautifully presented. Our server was efficient and friendly, and not in the least pretentious. At the end of the meal, I asked if people sometimes stop in later in the evening for coffee and dessert alone, as there were several additional desserts that we longed to try. She said that people do that especially because of Richard’s stellar reputation as a pastry chef. We ate out every evening during our break when Ari returned from work each day. One of our particularly satisfying meals was at “The Heights” in Columbia Heights. Saul worked to get our income tax figures ready for our accountant, and when he finally finished, we celebrated by going to the movies to see The Secret World of Arrietty, a Miyasaki animated film from Studio Ghibli. I adore Miyasaki movies and Arrietty did not disappoint with its intricately painted settings, filled with elaborate detail, in a lush kaleidoscope of color.

The second reason for spending the week in DC was that work began on our home. The wall-to-wall carpet in the great room was removed and a new red oak hardwood floor was installed to match the adjoining, existing floors in the dining room and kitchen. I never thought about all the work involved in getting that done. Both breakfronts were emptied of their contents—delicate crystal, pottery, china, and art glass—and disassembled for moving elsewhere by the workers, who were obviously very careful as nothing was chipped or broken when we returned. All the books were removed from a tall barrister’s bookcase. All the coats and cartons were removed from a double-doored closet and moved elsewhere, not to mention moving a baby grand piano, buffet, sofa, etc., etc. I naively did not realize the scope of the job until I returned home and was relegated to entering my master bedroom through an outside door because the furniture was piled in every available space outside the barrier of plastic walls that had been set up during the sanding phase. We also had access to the office and second master bedroom through the outside office door. But I am getting ahead of myself.

As Saul is still in mourning for his mother, we attended shacharit and a relatively subdued adult reading of the Purim Megillah early on Thursday morning. The congregation at Adas Israel in DC was extremely welcoming and the rabbi was kind enough to offer Saul an Aliyah. Not only that, he presented us with a mishloach manot package as we were leaving. Ari was particularly pleased with the nusah which reminded him of Camp Ramah. We dropped him off at his office afterward.

On Friday, we headed back home, taking two cars and following behind Ari. We had intended to have Shabbat dinner with Jess and Alex for Ari’s birthday, but we found ourselves in bumper-to-bumper traffic and finally had to resort to having dinner on the road at Pho Thai Nam. Although we left at 3:30 p.m., we didn’t arrive home until 10:00 p.m. Besides coming in for his birthday, Ari, and Saul and I, had an appointment to meet the accountant whom we have been using for many years. Ari joined us for services at MBI-EE Saturday morning. On Saturday night, we drove over to New Jersey and had a delicious and unusual vegetarian Afghan meal at Ariana with Jess and the girls, followed by a short walk across the parking lot to Spoon Me for frozen yogurt. On Sunday, Beth went with us for dim sum at a restaurant in Chinatown that our family used to frequent over 40 years ago, The Imperial Inn. It seemed like not much had changed in 40 years. Although the reviews on the net were really good, we thought it didn’t begin to compare with our favorite places near DC.

Once the floors were dry (and they look brand new!) I spent the next couple of days weeding out and organizing all the stuff I had sitting around from closets, cabinets, and drawers. I did some research on the net to find out if there were any rare or valuable, 78 rpm records in my deceased father’s five-carton’s-worth of a collection. My research showed that it was not likely, and, in the best-case scenario, the $100 or so I would earn if I did find one or two would not be worth all the time sifting through, tracking down and haggling with a possible buyer, or constantly checking eBay. Impact! was delighted to take them, because lots of their buyers like to sift through them and are old enough to still use record players.

I went to the eye doctor on the thirteenth for the follow-up to the broken blood vessel at the back of my right eye and was delighted to find that there is no trace of it left.

On Thursday, the fifteenth, I attended Faith’s class and then Saul and I went shopping when he returned from school to pick up produce for Shabbat dinner and the weekend. I could not resist buying two enormous flowering gardenia bushes for $6 apiece, one of which I presented to Faith the next day as she is as smitten with gardenias as I am. That evening, Jessica treated Elaine and me to tickets to a gala fashion show at TBS. Alex was one of the reluctant models. Saul babysat for the girls, fed them pizza, and put them to bed, while we drank flavored martinis and filled ourselves with a huge variety of diminutive foodstuffs—tiny pareve Caesar salads stuffed into cones of bark paper, chicken sausage lo mein in petite take-out boxes, sliders of beef, turkey or veggie with various toppers and sauces, morsels of ceviche, seared mahi, sushi, and felafel to name a few. After the very enjoyable show, in which models of all shapes, sizes and ages displayed very wearable clothes, they began choosing raffle winners. I won $52 in a 50-50, which I gave to Jessica to cover the cost of my ticket. A dessert buffet followed the show which was very attractive in its presentation of tiny desserts, but the desserts were mostly flavorless because they were pareve and made from artificial creams and canned fruits.

After the fashion show, Sami and Izzy came home with us, sleepy, and in their pajamas. They had no school on Friday because of an in-service day for their teachers. Friday morning, we breakfasted on bagels, cheeses, and strawberries. Then we took the girls to Baja Fresh for a lunch of bean and cheese burritos, which they both loved, a rare occurrence. We went to Giant to pick up additional kosher chicken for Shabbat dinner and some other odds and ends. Saul and, particularly, the girls helped me prepare dinner in record time when we returned. We had homemade challah, homemade chicken soup with dumplings that Izzy had helped to make a few months earlier, deviled eggs, Israeli salad, sautéed mushrooms, glazed Brussels sprouts, steamed cauliflower, black and white rice, and chicken paprikash. For dessert, we had fresh strawberries, bananas, grapes, raspberries and cashews dipped in individual pots of chocolate. Beth brought Brenna over after school and we taught her how to form the challah dough into braids. Beth, Brenna, and Faith joined us. Larry stayed home with a fever which turned out, after a visit to the doctor the next day, to be an infection. After dinner, Beth took the three girls next door to her house for a sleepover.

In the morning, before we went off to shul, Beth came over with the three girls and we had a big breakfast of bagels and kippered salmon, salad, and cheeses. When we returned, Beth joined us with Brenna again and we lunched on the leftovers from dinner. After lunch, outside in the gazebo, the girls painted wooden birdhouses that Beth had purchased. Then they played a bickering game of Monopoly. Eventually, we discovered a 5 p.m. showing of the Arrietty movie nearby and took the girls to see it. Saul and I were happy to see it the second time so that we could spend more time taking in the intricate details of the art. I brought them all home as Izzy and Brenna were beginning to get antsy, and made them soba noodles with the leftover sautéed mushrooms from the previous day. After Havdallah, we met Faith with two of her grandchildren, Hillary and Alex, at Friendly’s for ice cream. We invited Brenna to sleep over in Yona’s bed. Everyone went to sleep easily after such a contented day.

On Sunday morning, the girls and I made banana taro pancakes and French toast with whole grain bread accompanied by maple syrup, fresh fruit, juice, and whipped cream. Beth again joined us. They worked with their paints and clay for a while longer after breakfast. Jessica called to say she needed shoes for Yona and clothes for Sami to take to camp. We decided to meet at Nordstrum Rack in King of Prussia. We sent Brenna back to Beth’s house, I fear a bit disgruntled, because she was not accompanying us for lunch later. After an hour of trying on shoes, the girls had what they needed and we walked across the parking lot to our reservations at Bahama Breeze. The waiter was an angel who put in the order for the two hungry and cranky little ones first and returned with their smoothies and food in short order. Once the crankiness disappeared, we had a very enjoyable lunch. Jessica returned the $52 in one-dollar bills that I had won at the fashion show by picking up most of the check for lunch. Saul headed for home to grade papers while I accompanied Jess and the girls to Old Navy where we spent almost two hours helping the girls try on clothing. Sami left with a very reasonably-priced, entire summer wardrobe for camp. The girls ate leftover soba for dinner. We had a mishap where Izzy’s heel found a tiny shard of glass that we had missed after I broke a dish. Jessica removed the shard with magnifying glass and tweezers, applied antiseptic and a band-aid, and left for home with the girls.

Over the weekend, Larry gave me his old iPad as a birthday gift as he had replaced it with the latest model. Among the first apps that we put on it is the Kindle app and I immediately signed up for a Kindle account.

A work crew arrived yesterday and began to hang up plastic barriers against dust from drywall. I decided to stay out of their way in my bedroom and began reading The Hunger Games on my new toy. I spent almost the entire day reading, engrossed in an absorbing tale that is not always very well written. Surprising! But the story was engaging enough that I went on to finish the second book last night. The first movie is coming this weekend and Ari, who also read it, wants to see it. We have plans to visit him again this coming weekend as it is cherry blossom season in DC and we are invited to a party there for Talia’s first birthday. My reading obsession right now is reminiscent of my first encounters with Harry Potter. Today, I actually finished some work, both house and computer, even though the banging on the roof above my head went on for hours as heavy sheaves of new roofing tiles were carried up and dropped there followed by the banging of nail guns as a crew began to affix them in place. When the home improvements are getting me down, I can’t think of a better place to escape than curled up somewhere really comfortable with a good novel.

The Rest of February 2012

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After all the birthday excitement in the beginning of February, we were looking forward to settling into our routines again, but Ari’s room-sized oriental rug and foyer cabinet were hanging out in the rear of our SUV and we were excited to see how everything would look together in his home. So despite the weather forecast for a snowstorm heading north up the East Coast the third weekend of February, we set out for DC on Friday morning figuring we would head back on Saturday night if it looked like the storm was going to materialize. Luckily, it didn’t, and we drove back Sunday after breakfast without even encountering any rain. On our way down to DC, we took our time, and stopped in Wheaton for lunch at Hollywood East Café, where I overindulged my craving for their crispy sesame eggplant, for which I have had a hankering for almost a year.

Ari arrived early from work and when he and Saul moved everything into position, we all thought it looked spectacular. No buyers remorse, whatsoever! We all had been searching for the right cabinet for the foyer for over a year. Ari knew it was perfect the minute he saw it. The same happened with the oriental. It took him less than five minutes to decide to buy it. He has kept to his plan of finishing the house little-by-little with just the pieces he wants, and not accumulating stuff just to fill space.

As the afternoon progressed, I was developing stomach pains. Since I was not hungry, for dinner we ate at a downscale, but very delicious Middle Eastern chain restaurant in the city that Ari had tried and liked on his lunch hour—Roti Mediterranean Grill. I had only a bowl of lemon chicken soup. It is the type of place where you order at the front and they give you a number that they call when your order is ready. It was perfect considering the good quality of the food and the way I was feeling. Later in the evening, the stomach pains increased so much I considered going to the emergency room. As I waited for the doctor to call me back, I threw up and immediately felt much better. Then, I feared I had caught the norovirus as Saul and I had eaten exactly the same things at lunch and he was okay. As the hours passed, and Ari kept us company, I continued to feel fine and was grateful that I had not needed a trip to the hospital or that our weekend had not been ruined by a three-day bout of illness.

Over the weekend, Ari made an appointment for Saul to have his beard shaved, and treated him to an awesome experience at Grooming Lounge where a progression of seven hot towels were used, he was shaven, massaged, and his face was treated with a variety of emollients that left his face not only clean-shaven, but as smooth as a baby’s bottom for a few days. His beard had become a nuisance to him as its coarseness began to prickle him as he slept. Afterward, we stopped by Ari’s new office in DC in a gorgeous office building that has modern installations of color-changing glass walls, and huge panels of grain-matched white marble backlit with white light. His work area is light and airy and recently done in an ultra-modern color palette of gray, yellow, blue and white. Common areas, such as the lunchroom, were the epitome of practical, modern, sleek design with every up-to-the-minute convenience imaginable. After touring the office, we walked down the street to Bobby Flay’s new fast food concept, Bobby’s Burger Palace, where Saul and Ari had lunch while I just sipped a ginger ale to make sure I was fully recovered from the trials of the previous evening.

In the evening, I finally felt up to eating and we revisited the Lebanese Taverna in Pentagon City for a reprise of the meal we had enjoyed so much a few weeks earlier. It did not disappoint, although the waiter did not have the spark of the guy on our previous encounter. After dinner, we wandered around the mall for a few hours until it closed, not buying anything, but enjoying the diversity of people from all over the world, in every type of native garb, who had been deposited there by buses or tours to get their fix of American goods.

On Sunday, after stopping for some supplies at Home Depot, Saul and Ari affixed his bed to his headboard, a project that has been waiting for some time. The weather, unlike what was predicted, was beautiful, and the bulbs Ari and I planted a couple of years ago have begun to emerge in his garden, a gratifying result of just an hour’s worth of labor. We had brunch together at the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring before heading home. On Sunday evening, I decorated a Presley Bella cake for Sister Lisa’s birthday while Saul caught up with a ton of schoolwork.

In the ensuing week, I finished my publication and shipped it out. Saul and I picked up Marianne and took her to lunch for her birthday at Thai Orchid in Blue Bell. She had never had Thai food before and seemed to enjoy it very much, especially the fried bananas we shared for dessert. Work began on our house and we are pleased with the progress being made. I finished reading two books in the last week on the Kindle app of my iPhone, Rob Lowe’s autobiography, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. I like that whole new worlds opened up to me in reading these, something I find particularly gratifying about non-fiction. Whether the information is biased, or has an “axe to grind,” is mostly irrelevant to me. It represents the way in which an author chooses to reveal a perception of reality to the rest of us. Trying to take some meaning from the apparently random experiences of our lives is something with which I struggle all the time in this blog.

Adele and Larry bought a house in The Villages in central Florida a few days ago. They are planning  to spend several months there in the winter each year. Ken and Randi, who are still in Hawaii, called to let us know that, next year, they have booked a place there from January through April. Beth spent the week out in Tucson looking for a place. Her house next door will be going on the market in the next month or so. It seems the whole family is on the move. Only Larry joined us for Shabbat dinner this week. Faith is in Israel for her grandson’s bar mitzvah on Masada. Beth was in Tucson. We had homemade challah, leek and cauliflower soup, spinach salad with hot sesame dressing, sesame-crusted seared tuna, and homemade potato knishes. For dessert, we had cranberry upside down cake with whipped cream and coffee. Saul and I went from store to store gathering our supplies for the Men’s Club dinner on Thursday that we are cooking tomorrow at MBI-EE. At services on Saturday, we learned that there are very few reservations, so we may not have as much work to prepare everything for this Mural Arts of Philadelphia program that is being presented. It is a subject that is very interesting to me.  I think the murals all over the city are exceptionally beautiful and diverse.

Last night, on the spur of the moment, Beth called to ask if we would like to join her and her friends and former tenants, Manuel and Ilsa for dinner. We were delighted to see them again, and we met at a Mexican restaurant in Blue Bell called Tamarindo’s that they liked. I will probably never eat at any other Mexican restaurant than this one. The food was delicious and authentic and the entreés came with free margaritas that were the best I have ever had. The staff came around with beautiful hammered copper pitchers and refilled our glasses with margaritas, just as good waiters usually fill one’s water glasses with water, which they also did regularly. I usually suffer quite a bit from drinking margaritas because the prepared mix that most restaurants use is full of sulphites, which give me sharp pains beneath my ears. Last night I was feeling no pain at all. In fact, I was as pleasantly high on margarita’s as I have ever been. Manuel and Ilsa seemed incredibly happy. Ilsa says she is now in her dream job. They insisted on treating us to dinner. Afterward, we stopped in at Beth’s house to see the progress of the work there and meet her second rescued Cairn terrier. Arriving home a short time later, I tried to stay awake to watch the Oscars, but I was feeling wonderful, sated, and drowsy. All I really got to see was the incredible Cirque du Soleil performance. Today, I had to be content with watching the highlights on the red carpet from reruns of last night. After a little more shopping today, I will be ready for preparing a dinner for 30 to 40 people tomorrow. Glad there was no hangover from my overindulgence this time.

Is it Possible that Saul is 65?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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