Mitzi Woke Me Up

Mitzi’s loud, repeated cries pulled me from a deep sleep. I stumbled out of bed and started to go to her. She was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down to the first floor, and continuing to cry.

“What’s the matter?” I mumbled. No answer. She didn’t even look at me. The crying continued. But I closed our bedroom door and snuggled back under the covers.

“Do you think that she is trying to tell us something?” I asked my still half-asleep husband. “Maybe there is an intruder downstairs.”

With that thought, I felt a pain in the middle of my chest as though my heart was being squeezed like a wet sponge. I was hoping that Micha would get up and go investigate. But he had fallen back to sleep.

I was hesitant to go downstairs myself, both because I was a bit frightened of what I might find and also because I was still very sleepy. Despite the pain in my chest.

The crying had stopped, and soon I was asleep again.

But I didn’t forget what had happened when I woke up two hours later. A residual ache in my chest still remained.

“Why do you think she was crying like that last night?” I asked Micha.

“There was no intruder,” he replied.

Usually, she wakes us up by knocking over the plastic cup that I keep by the bathroom sink. Or she tickles me in the face with her whiskers or kneads at me with her paws. And usually, she doesn’t wake me up until later. She seems to understand somehow what days I need to get up for work. On those days, she wakes me between 7 and 7:30 if I don’t get up first by myself. Other days, she lets me sleep an hour later.

Why was this morning different than all the other mornings? Why on this morning, did she feel compelled to wake me up so roughly at 6 AM?

I heard her scratching at the bedroom door and opened it. “Come, Mitzi, I’ll give you some water.” We follow our usual morning routine as she follows me into the bathroom.

Mitzi only likes to drink water flowing from the faucet.

Afterwards we go downstairs and I look around as I head to the kitchen. No signs of an intruder. And no “gifts” from Mitzi that I need to clean up. Micha and I need to patrol the rooms every day now to make sure that Mitzi has not pooped outside her litter box. She seems to avoid the rooms that are used the most—the kitchen, the family room, and the bedrooms. She picks the rooms that we use more rarely now—the living room, dining room, and the little den. It doesn’t matter how clean I keep her litter box. But it isn’t something that happens every day. Sometimes, several days will pass with no problems. We are always bound to find something waiting for us if we have spent a whole day or overnight away—even though a neighbor will come to feed and check on her. Seems that she do this on purpose to signal us when we aren’t paying sufficient attention to her.

Annoying as it is, I realize that her “poop problem” is one of the challenges of living with an elderly pet. She is eighteen years old, quite a senior. Still a beautiful, long haired calico cat, even though she is now very skinny. The vet ran a whole series of tests on her and assured me that Mitzi is a very healthy, old cat.

She has always been very sweet, very affectionate, and very patient. But now, she is even more docile. She used to run and hide when we had a lot of guests over the house. Now, she likes to hang around in the midst of the action. And she seems to have lost her sense of self-protection when it comes to little children. We have to be vigilant on her behalf and remind the children to be “very gentle”, because Mitzi will not protect herself.

Remembering a Peaceful Visit to Thailand

Maybe it was all the news about stranded travelers due to the volcanic eruptions in Iceland that got me thinking about our last trip across an ocean—-to visit Thailand. Unfortunately, Thailand has also been in the news recently because of its political eruptions. But when Micha and I were there in November 2009, it seemed very peaceful. True, we were just there for a couple of weeks and we were only tourists. So we couldn’t tell what was going on beneath the surface.

Also, I did notice a couple of small articles in the Thai English language newspaper mentioning problems between the current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Nevertheless, I got the impression that the King, who seemed to be revered by everyone that we talked to, would be able to keep the peace. Obviously, I was wrong, but I hope that things will sort themselves out.

For those of you who are considering a trip to Thailand at some point in the future or who are curious about my impressions of the country, read on.

Bangkok
We started off in Bangkok. Our hotel, Navalai River Resort (www.navalai.com), was moderately priced and very comfortable with a pool on the roof, a good restaurant overlooking the river, and a dock where we could catch a water taxi. Water taxis are definitely the most comfortable way to move around in Bangkok, which has notoriously awful traffic.

Micha and I were both struggling with jet lag for the first couple of days of this trip, which made it a bit of a challenge to thoroughly enjoy the sites in Bangkok. My favorite activity was a dinner cruise that we took one evening--it was such a relaxing way to see the city at night. The classical Thai music and dancing added to the ambience. My favorite site in Bangkok was the Reclining Buddha. Of all the Buddhas that we saw in Thailand, the Reclining Buddha was the one that gave me the greatest feeling of peacefulness.

Phuket
After the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, we were happy that the next part of our trip was a leisurely week at the luxurious Marriott resort in Phuket (http://www.phuket.com/marriott/). We exchanged a week of our one-bedroom timeshare in Kauai for a two bedroom at the resort in Phuket and invited a couple of friends to join us. We walked on the beach, spent lots of time in the pools, took yoga classes, got massaged, and watched several of the sunset dance performances at the hotel’s reflecting pool.

One day, we hired a taxi and explored the island, stopping for a short hike to see a waterfall in one of the parks and spending a couple of hours swimming at Kata beach. This beach is particularly popular with families, because of its long shallow, sheltered bay.

Another day, we took a speedboat ride from the city of Phuket for a full afternoon of snorkeling and swimming around the smaller Phi Phi islands.

Knowing that I have a tendency to sea-sickness, I was pleased when the charter hostess handed out sea sickness pills for us to take prior to boarding. The boat accommodated about 20 passengers and crew. I had read that the seats in the back of the boat offered an easier ride. But they were already occupied. So I took a seat across the aisle from the driver and hoped for the best. Another member of the crew distributed bottles of water and soda before we got started and I selected a bottle of cola, because of its purported stomach settling qualities. I managed to take only one sip before realizing that it was impossible to drink anything while the boat was bumping over the waves like a bronco in a rodeo show.

I gripped the side of the boat and concentrated my gaze at the horizon—another purported technique to avoid seasickness. The water was dark grey and choppy. Would I be able to snorkel in water like this? Was the boat about to get hit by a sudden storm?

The Phi Phi islands are miles away from Phuket harbor and it took us about an hour to reach our first stop. What a relief it was to arrive in a sheltered bay. The sun had broken through the clouds. The water was calm and perfectly turquoise, the surrounding cliffs draped in tropical foliage, the beach an enticing carpet of soft, soft sand. Our guide told us that this spot was featured in the film “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio. I hadn’t seen the film. Seems that the film didn’t get the best reviews. But we added watched it eagerly on Netflix when we returned home—thirsting for another look at that gem of a beach where we had immersed ourselves in the deliciously warm, turquoise water.

We had only a short ride to our next stop, Monkey Island. Our skipper pulled in very close to the island, but we didn’t actually disembark. Instead, we watched as our guide tossed bananas to the monkeys clambering down the cliffs to greet us. It was the first time that I’d ever seen a monkey swim. Apparently, they sometimes jump into the boat. But not during our visit.

Afterwards, the boat took us to a sheltered reef. It wasn’t within a bay, but they managed to select an area where the currents were amazingly gentle. Nevertheless, the guide suggested that we might want to wear life jackets while snorkeling, so that we could feel fully relaxed. I figured that it would also keep my warmer. So I took him up on his suggestion. It didn’t interfere with my moving around at all. And it probably did add to my feeling of relaxation as I watched various kinds of colorful tropical fish swimming around and below me.


ChaingMai
We had hired a guide for several days that we were spending up north. I felt like we could have used more time in this area of the country, and I would have liked to do more hiking than we did.


Maetang Elephant Park
My favorite day up North was the day we visited Maetang Elephant Park (www.elephantchiangmai.com ) north of Chiangmai. I loved the elephant ride, though I hadn’t known what to expect when Micha and I got on board. Don’t worry. They don’t let the tourists ride an elephant all my themselves. Our mahout sat bareback toward the front of the elephant and directed the elephant by moving his legs against the elephant’s ears. I had a feeling that the mahout might have been distracted by talking on his cellphone as Micha and I struggled not to slip completely off of our metal seat while the elephant descended down a surprisingly steep and narrow trail into the river. We didn’t fall off, but I did get a colorful array of bruises on the back of my arm from hanging on to the back of my seat during the bumpy ride. No matter. I would be happy to do it again! It was so much fun bouncing along on top of the elephant as we rode through the river and along the river bank from the Elephant Camp to a nearby tribal village.

Another highlight of the Elephant Park that didn’t involve a bumpy ride was watching Suda, the painting elephant. There were two elephants that painted for us. The older elephant threw a lot of bright colors onto canvas, in a style reminiscent of Jackson Pollock. But Suda is not an abstract artist. She started by drawing a black curvy line, and kept adding more lines to create an elephant body, legs, tail, ear and eye—all in the right places. She even added a flower, putting in the details of a green stem with leaves and a yellow blossom. And finally, she signed her own name in clear block letters at the top of the painting. Very impressive.

Too Late for Conversation with My Mother

It’s too late to have the type of conversation that I would have liked to have with my mother. And who knows if that would have possible anyway.

I have seen photos of my mother as a wistful little girl, as a laughing teenager posing with her girlfriends, and as a young mother overflowing with love for the two small children in her arms.

Maybe I could have used those photos as a basis for talking to her person to person. Or maybe not.

When prompted, Mom would agree to tell me some stories about her childhood. I got the impression that she grew up in a happy family. Not so well off financially. But not living in a tenement like my father’s family. Her parents owned their own house and for a while, before the Depression, owned some additional rental property.

Mom had a lot of respect for her father, whom we all called Papa. Like Tevya, in Fiddler on the Roof, Papa had fled with his family from a Russian shtetl because of the pogroms. His two older children, my Uncle Harry and Aunt Esther, were born in Russia, while Mom and her younger brother Sol were born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For some reason, maybe because of the paranoia of the McCarthy era, no one ever mentioned the fact that two of the children were born prior to the family’s immigration. In any case, I think that Harry and Esther probably arrived in the United States when they were still very small children.

I thought my mother was lucky to have not one but two brothers AND a sister. I had only my brother Paul. He would play with me sometimes. But not when his buddies were around. I had the impression that more siblings would have meant that I would always have playmates available.

Papa had also brought over his own father, who lived with the family and looked a lot like Count Tolstoy. Papa’s brothers came, too. One brother settled down in the nearby town of Roxbury. Another moved to New Hampshire. My mother grew up surrounded by lots of family.

Mom told me that she would have liked to teach kindergarten, but Papa didn’t believe that girls should study beyond high school. “You don’t need to be a nanny for someone else’s children,” he said. “You’ll have your own.”

Mom and her sister acquiesced to his decision, although both their brothers managed to work their way through Harvard and Harvard Law School. “We weren’t as smart as Sol and Harry,” Mom told me.

In later years, Mom did manage to get a job teaching Sunday School and worked as a teaching assistant in a Jewish Day School and seemed to enjoy the work a lot. Mostly, she was a housewife, although she didn’t particularly like to cook, bake, or clean.

It was nice to have her home waiting for me and my brother with glasses of milk and cookies when we came home from school. I’m sure she liked the fact that she could be there and listen to the news of our day. But I think she might have been happier if she had been able to combine motherhood with a part-time job.

When I was in high school, Mom did take a clerical job to help with the additional expenses of my brother’s college tuition. She exchanged her frumpy looking house-dresses for business clothes and started getting her hair done more often. She became friends with her co-workers and would tell me funny stories about her day at work. It seemed to broaden her horizons, made her more interested in what was going on in the world around her, and gave her a sense of pride that she could earn money, too.

It’s almost 8 years since Mom passed away. I miss talking to her. Sometimes, I feel an urge to pick up the phone and call her. It was mostly on the phone that we talked, after all, since she lived in Florida and I live in California.


I think of Mom especially on Friday nights when I light the candles, remembering all the Friday nights when we lit candles together while I was growing up.

I thought of Mom when my daughter Orli got married and when my grandson was born. She’d be pleased to see what a wonderful mother Orli is.

I’m glad that Mom did get the nachus, the pleasure and satisfaction, of seeing her children grow up to get married and become parents, themselves.

Who knows, maybe she can still see what is going on in our lives today. If so, I think she must be pleased to see that all five of her grandchildren (my three daughters, and my brother's son and daughter) have grown up to become independent and productive—traits that Mom valued highly.

Day Trip to Monterey and Carmel

Some of the nicest trips are close to home – particularly when you live someplace as beautiful as northern California. Last weekend, we drove down to Monterey and Carmel with Uzi and Hava.

The morning started out sunny in Palo Alto, but we knew there was no guarantee that it would be sunny along the coast. So we felt lucky that the sun remained with us all day.

Rather than visiting Cannery Row or the Aquarium in Monterey, we chose to spend our time in the less crowded area around Lover’s Point. We explored the tide pools, walked along the shoreline trail strewn with wildflowers, and ate lunch on patio of Latitudes. The best thing about the restaurant is the location, which is directly across from Lover’s Point and offers a spectacular view of Monterey Bay. Unfortunately, the view seems to be the only thing that this restaurant has in its favor. The service was incredibly slow despite the fact that the restaurant was not full at all and the waitress was not even apologetic. And the food wasn’t worth waiting for.

But it was a beautiful day and I enjoyed sitting around talking with our friends.

Still, we were relieved when we could finally pay the bill and continue on our way to Carmel via the 17 Mile Drive. I was looking forward to seeing the harbor seals on the beach at Cypress Point. So I was disappointed to find fences up blocking entry to that area. Turns out that the harbor seals need privacy during pupping season. Guess I’ll have to come back again in early June.

We stopped for another highlight along 17 Mile Drive at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. We visited the posh lobby and meandered out to the balcony overlooking the tantalizing—especially for my husband—golf green. As we were admiring the view and drinking in the classiness of the place, we could see them setting up for an outdoor wedding. Some of the female guests began to arrive. They were so well coifed, so elegantly dressed, and so stunning that they could have been starlets walking down the red carpet to the Oscar Award ceremony.

But I am sure that I was much more comfortable in my jeans, t-shirt, and flats than they were in their dazzling, skin-tight dresses and stiletto heels.

Waiting for Rumpestilskin

This morning, I was sitting in my windowless cubicle, surrounded by fluorescent lights and feeling a bit like the princess that was locked in a tower room with bales of straw, trying to figure out some way to turn the straw into gold within three days. My network connection had gone down and I was unable to connect to any of the tools that I needed to do my job. I had called the Help Desk and done everything that asked me to try to no avail.

My case was supposedly marked as “high priority” and I was expecting a local IT person to show up at any moment and resolve the problem. But no one came.

True, I was not locked in a tower. I could have walked out of the building into the fresh air and sunlight without risk of life or limb. But I was being paid to produce technical documentation and I wanted to produce it.

Frustrated by the slow response from IT, I kept thinking about other analogies. I felt like someone who was asked to dig a ditch without being given a shovel or someone asked to cook a meal without being given any ingredients. The refrigerator and all the cabinets were locked shut and the guests were expected in a few hours.

Finally, it occurred to me to try something that the Help Desk had not suggested. I unplugged the coral-colored Ethernet cable from the coral-colored outlet that it had been plugged into and tried plugging it into an unused outlet that was colored green. Lo and behold, my connection worked.

Apparently, the color was insignificant. So I told the Help Desk that I no longer needed them and got back to work, feeling a bit abashed that I had not thought earlier of trying the other option. Another example of the need for thinking outside the box.

What about you? Have you found yourself stuck waiting for someone to help and then realized you could resolve the problem yourself by dealing with it another way?

Happy Thoughts

As I was steeping in my lavender bubble bath tonight and reflecting on my weekend, I recalled the words of Robert Lewis Stevenson from one of my favorite childhood books, A Child's Garden of Verses:


The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

That’s precisely how I feel right now as I try to decide which particular happy thing to focus on in my blog.

Owl’s Clover and Yona’s Birthday Hike and Picnic in Foothill Park
Should I talk about today’s hike and picnic with friends in Foothill Park? It was in honor of Yona’s birthday – the second time that we had a get together like this for her birthday. And I hope that we continue to do in for many years to come. Most of the participants are mutual friends, but were a few people that I didn’t know. A young couple that I hadn’t met before was walking along the trail with us and the woman, Rachel, seemed to know the names of all the flowers. She pointed out a flower that I hadn’t paid close attention to before, Owl’s Clover. Bending down for a closer look, I noticed for the first time that interspersed among the purple spikes were small white blossoms with tiny black markings that looked like the faces of miniature white owls.

After the hike we sat at a table in the shade for a potluck picnic lunch with lots of yummy salads, wine, cake, and easy-going conversation. We even got a perk of some free massage from a friend of Yona’s who specializes in acupressure.

Saturday with Torah Study and Babysitting for Gali
Yesterday was another good day. In the morning, we attended Torah study at Beth Am and discussed the biblical theme of the "barren woman", the repeated story about a woman who has difficulty conceiving a child and then gives birth to a son with special abilities. The rabbi referred to a book, The Art of Biblical Narrative, by Robert Alter, who says that it is intentional rather than a case of poor editing when certain stories are repeated in the bible with slight variations.

Later in the afternoon, I drove up to Oakland. I had agreed to babysit for Gali on Saturday night. This was a solo assignment, because Micha had heard about a concert of classical music at Stanford that night and didn’t want to miss it. I still prefer folk music over classical, so it was no sacrifice on my part to miss the concert and babysit for Gali instead. In fact, seeing Gali fills me up with so many happy thoughts that I find myself overflowing with them for hours and days after I see him. My 1 ½ year old grandson is a ball of energy and powerhouse of affection. He loves to run around and around—in the playground, in the yard, and in the house. Round and round he goes, pushing trucks, opening and closing doors, laughing at his own antics and hugging me and his mommy, his daddy, and his stuffed animals. If a campaigning politician could manage to say “hi” with as much enthusiasm and sincere warmth as Gali does, I bet he would win the election in a landslide.

Work is Therapeutic

It’s slightly over a month since the surgical pin was removed from my right hand and it’s still not “back to normal”. My physical therapist told me this morning that it make take up to a year for the hand to look and feel like a normal hand. But like the acupuncturist, my therapist encouraged me to use it as much as possible. “When are you starting work?” she asked.

I explained that I’m expecting to start working again this week. Any day now. Just waiting to hear that the company has completed processing my paperwork and finished their preparation for getting me back into their system.

“Good,” she said. “The work will help your hand to get stronger.”

That was useful for me to hear, because I had worried a bit that multiple hours of typing might be problematic.

“It will probably hurt,” she predicted, “But the exercise is actually beneficial.”

As you know from reading my blog, I have already been typing at home—not as part of my job. But since it’s voluntary, I tend to quit as soon as my hand begins to hurt. Typing as part of my job will encourage me to work through the pain.

She added more exercises to the list of recommended stuff that I’m supposed to do for my rehabilitation. Yes, some of that hurts, too. And yet, it’s good for me.

When I came home and found a sink full of dirty dishes, I was not upset. Prior to breaking my hand, I used to feel grouchy and resentful that my husband didn’t feel the same need for a tidy sink as I do. But at this point, I am still taking pleasure from the fact that I can hold a dish. As I scrub the sink and squeeze out the sponge, I am conscious of the fact that these movements are helping my hand to heal. It gives me a totally different attitude about household chores.

Remembering My Father at Passover

On the last day of Passover this year, I attended synagogue and participated in the Yizkor service, the special memorial prayer that is recited on Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, Shavuot, and Passover.

Rabbi Sarah Graf (Congregation Kol Emeth) suggested that the fact that the Yizkor prayers are recited on four different holidays invites us to use the themes of the holiday as tools for remembering the loves one that we are commemorating.

So she selected some themes from the Haggadah, the book that we use to tell the Passover story during the Seder, to use as prompts for our reflections.

Kadesh – Sanctifying the day: When was your loved one born? When did they die? How long has it been? What kinds of days did they live through? What periods of history? What personal periods of time?

I always think of my father at Passover, because he died the second night of the 8 day Passover holiday. While buying supplies for the Passover Seder, I also buy a yarzeit candle, the special memorial candle in a glass that they sell in the kosher section of many grocery stores. It burns for 24 hours. On Shabbat morning, my synagogue announces his name together with others in the list of people that members of the congregation are commemorating as we recite the Mourners Kaddish after the torah service. My father was also born during Passover, yet another reason to think of him at this time. It’s been ten years since my father passed away. He was just a few days short of his 90th birthday. We had planned to fly across the coast to Florida to celebrate his birthday and had to attend his funeral instead.

My father lived through the period of the two world wars. But his life was probably most impacted by the Depression. He was also very influenced by the establishment of the State of Israel. An ardent Zionist. Almost all the books that he read were about Israel. He sent letters of support to multiple Israeli leaders and prime ministers and wrote fervent letters to the editor of local American papers in defense of Israel.

Shehechiyanu over the first cup of wine: What shehechiyanus did you share – in their life, and in yours?

One of my favorite prayers is the shehechiyanu blessing that is said to celebrate special occasions and in thanks for new or unusual experiences. Happily, I mulled over dancing with my father after my wedding and at the bat-mitzvahs of my three daughters. One of my favorite pictures shows me dancing with my father at the bat-mitzvah of my youngest daughter, Keren. He was 84 years old and still seemed to be in his prime. Another shehechiyanu that I didn’t think of during the service but that comes to me now is that thanks to my living in Israel, my father finally got to go there. It was in 1973, shortly after the Yom Kippur War, that my parents came to Israel for the first time in their lives. I was teaching at Haifa University and they came on one of the first organized tours – maybe through the Jewish Federation—that was allowed into the country. Many of the soldiers were still mobilized and I took some time off to travel around the country a bit with them. My parents were able to come back two times after that to visit while I was living in Haifa with my husband and small children.

The Four Questions: What were the questions of this person’s life? Their worries? Their doubts? Their curiosities? Their passions?

Throughout his childhood and most of his adulthood, my father worried about supporting his family. He loved foreign languages and enjoyed practicing the smatterings of other languages that he knew – a few words of Chinese that he picked up in his neighborhood growing up, his high school French. He never forgot the Yiddish that he spoke to his own parents. He loved to sketch and paint. He loved Israel. He loved children. He loved my mother.

Avadim Hayinu: We were slaves in Egypt. What were their struggles? Their slaveries? Their oppressors? Their narrow places?

My father grew up in a tenement in Boston’s West End. He started working at a young age doing whatever he could to help his family. I think he would have loved to study literature, history, and foreign languages, but he never had a chance to go to college. He worked two jobs for much of the time when my brother and I were children. He was rarely at home during family mealtimes. My grandfather, Papa, was at our Friday night dinners more often than Dad was. Papa also led the Passover Seders in our house until he passed away when I was a teenager. After that, my mother’s brother, Uncle Sol took over as leader and the Seders moved to his house. Did my father feel bad, I wonder now, that he did not lead the Seder, himself?

Yad Chazaka and a Zroa Netuya: Were their times that they experienced a strong hand and an outstretched arm?

There were times that my parents got some help from family. Perhaps the best change in their lives came from circumstances that at first glance seemed bad, but had some beneficial consequences. My mother had developed a heart condition in her fifties and both my parents worried about her delicate health. When a couple of friends decided to leave the Boston area and move to retirement village in Deerfield Beach, Florida, they encouraged by parents to join them. My father might have preferred to keep working longer, but he also wanted to spend more time with my mother. They managed to buy an inexpensive one-bedroom condo in Century Village. My mother was thrilled to have their own place with a modern electric kitchen and 1 ½ baths after multiple years of renting an apartment in an old fashioned building. Without the stress of his jobs, my father was so much more relaxed. The next twenty years (before my father’s health began to deteriorate) were probably the best years of their marriage.

Dayenu: What were the blessings of your loved one’s life? Their talents, their accomplishments, their moments of fulfillment? What are the blessings that they gave to you? – the gifts, the teachings, the life lessons?

When my father in his seventies and eighties, the blessing that he spoke of the most was being married to my mother. He was very affectionate and liked to give my mother a kiss or hug as he passed by where she was sitting. He would say, “I’m so lucky that your mother married me.” He loved his five grandchildren and was wonderful grandfather. He was a real people person. It used to embarrass me when I was little that he talked to everyone – waitresses, salesclerks, people standing near us in a line. Now, I find myself doing the same thing.

He didn’t hold grudges. He grew more mellow and open-minded with the years. I’d like to emulate that.

Shulchan Orech: the Meal. What were the foods they loved? Holiday foods. Everyday foods. Are there perhaps foods that you eat that remind you of them?

My father had simple tastes in food and thought anything and everything that my mother made was wonderful whether it was beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, or a simple tuna salad. He loved ice cream. So do I.

Songs: What songs did they like to sing? Or to listen to?

My father did like to sing. The song that I most associate with him is the one he sang to all the grandchildren when they were little, “A frog went walking in the park one day...”.


Thank you to Rabbi Graf for inspiring these memories.

Trying Acupuncture for the Final Stretch

It’s been three weeks since I had the surgical pin removed from my right hand. At first, it looked more like a lobster claw than a hand. And the only finger that I could move at all was my thumb.

My daughter Shelli, who is a licensed medical doctor, is also a supporter of alternative therapies. She suggested that acupuncture might help reduce the swelling sooner, which would allow me to regain more flexibility more quickly. I asked my hand doctor about it, but he wasn’t convinced that acupuncture can make a difference so he wouldn’t prescribe it.

That meant that I would have to go outside of my HMO and pay completely out-of-pocket if I decided to pursue that type of treatment.

So I waited. The prescribed once-a-week physical therapy and my diligent daily finger exercises helped. But I continued to have a lot of swelling.

After the Passover Seder, Shelli slept over the house and as she was massaging my hand the following day, she encouraged me to call Frank He, a sports medicine specialist and acupuncturist (http://www.hecares.net) that had treated her for a knee injury a few years ago.

I decided to give it a try.

My first appointment was last Wednesday and I could see an immediate improvement. I was able to move my fourth finger more easily and my knuckles were becoming more visible. I had an appointment with the physical therapist the same day and I told her about the acupuncture. Unlike the doctor, she actually did believe in the efficacy of acupuncture and had considered training for it, herself.

I felt even better about making the decision to pay for acupuncture on my own when the physical therapist told me that I wouldn’t have another appointment until two weeks later and later that same day I got an offer to return to my contract tech writing job on April 12. I need to have my hand fully functioning by that date.

I was able to start typing for the first time with all my fingers—touch typing—for the first time after one visit with Frank. I have told Frank about my deadline and he feels confident that I will be ready.

Passovers Past and Present

Passover is one of my favorite holidays. Not that I’m a big fan of matzoh. And admittedly, it’s a lot if work to prepare for Passover. But I love having the family gather together for the Seder. I love the story telling and singing the songs together,

When I was growing up on the East Coast, the Seder was always held at our house. We didn’t have the biggest house. In fact, we lived in a rented apartment, whereas my cousins lived in large suburban homes with multiple bathrooms and guestrooms that could have more easily accommodated both the Seder and overnight guests. But we had the honor of hosting, because we lived in the same town as Papa, the patriarch of my mother’s family. Papa sat at the head of the table and led the Seders until he passed away when I was a teenager.

After I got married, I never lived in the same area as my parents or my brother. My husband and I lived either in Israel or in California. They moved to Florida. Once or twice, when my parents were still alive, we managed to fly across the country to spend Passover with them and my brother's family. But for most of my married life, we have hosted the Seder at our house.

Often we have twenty-five people or more at the Seder, a combination of family and friends. This year, I had a special challenge, since I’m still recovering from my broken right hand.

It’s hard to cook or serve without a fully functioning right hand. So I pared down the guest list and made it clear that I would need a lot of help. Our three daughters are all grown. Shelli was going to be away traveling on vacation. Orli is married with a 1 ½ year old son and I knew she wouldn’t be able to help much, because my adorable grandson would be needing attention. So I was counting primarily on my husband and my daughter, Keren, to set up the table and serve our somewhat smaller, but still not tiny group of thirteen adults and three small children.

It turned out that we got a nice surprise. Shelli cut her travel short and returned home the day before the Seder. Thus, I had two daughters pitching with the final cooking and setting up. Guests also brought food to share. As usual, we had more than enough to eat and plenty of left-overs.

We didn’t get to go through as much of the Haggadah as we usually do—that’s really a challenge with a toddler at the table!—but we did get through almost all the songs and everybody had a good time.

UPDATE ON MY HAND

I’m also feeling optimistic that my hand will return to normal sometime soon. It's getting more functional in multiple areas. In the kitchen, I can now cut an onion and use scissors. In the car, I can turn the key in the ignition and shift gears with my right hand. And finally, I am beginning to type with all my fingers! Just need to work some more on the strength, so that I can type for longer periods of time. I have started supplementing the once a week physical therapy from Kaiser with private visits to a sports medicine doctor who does acupuncture and therapeutic massage. It's expensive, but I could feel a difference after my first session yesterday. Still have pins in my right arm and have three more follow up sessions to go. Planning to return to work in the middle of the month.

P.S. I am hoping to get a couple of photos of the Seder from the family. Will update the posting when I get them.

Walking in Half Moon Bay

Taking a walk almost always makes me feel better. Particularly when the sun is shining and the weather is temperate – not too hot and not too cold. And I’m fortunate to live in beautiful northern California, an area blessed with lots of days just like that. One advantage of not being able to work just yet is that I get to spend a lot of time outdoors.

Yesterday, Micha got an urge to go to the seashore, so we headed over to Half Moon Bay. It was a lot cooler and breezier over there than it had been in Palo Alto, but we were prepared with sweaters and jackets. Luckily, it wasn’t foggy.

We lived in this area for twenty years before my friend Hanna introduced me to this ridge. Now, it’s one of my favorite spots--with the surf pounding against the rocks below, the fog horns blowing in the distance, and the wildflowers surrounding the trail. Different flowers pop up at different times of year. I don't know their names. One of the many things I could add to the list of things that I should take the time to learn. Yesterday, the most abundant flowers were yellow. I'll post some pictures and maybe one of you can tell me their name.

Trees

I have always loved trees. I love to look at them and to draw them. I can still remember the weeping willow tree that stood across the street from my favorite childhood home and the primitive water color paintings that I created, featuring that very tree.

So it pleases me that the other members of my immediate family feel the same way that I do. None of us has been ardent enough to camp on a tree branch in order to prevent someone from cutting it down. But we do not easily accept the cutting down of trees.

One of our neighbors was angry with us for years, because we refused to cut down a redwood tree on our property at a time that we were making other changes to our house. Our neighbor claimed that the tree belonged in a forest, rather than in someone’s yard. The tree was there when we bought the house, and was probably there long before our neighborhood was built (sometime in the 1960s). Maybe at some time in the more distant past, there had been a small patch of forest here and that tree is one of the few remaining survivors. Our refusal to remove the tree transformed our formerly friendly neighbors into a hostile border.

Last year, our city, which has long had a reputation for respecting and preserving trees, seemed to get caught up in a frenzy of removing mature shade trees and replacing them with little saplings. Some of the trees were lining a major thoroughfare near our neighborhood and I’m proud that my husband initiated a petition to stop the city from proceeding. He was unsuccessful. The city arborists had convinced the majority of people that it was necessary to remove the mature trees in order to resolve a problem with the roots causing the road to buckle.

Most people didn’t get upset until later in the year when the city in one fell swoop removed all the trees on another street, popular for its small sidewalk cafes. It happened during a heat wave. Suddenly, there was no shade. A major outcry ensued.

Still, it seems that more and more trees are meeting an untimely demise.

Some trees are being cut down out of fear. There was a very sad story that made headline news in our area, where a tree on a street in a neighboring city fell down on a car, crushing and killing its occupants. This didn’t happen during a storm. In this case, the tree really was sick and should have been cut down. So now people are feeling hyper vigilant.

Thus, I could understand why the neighbors on the other side of our home might decide that it was prudent for them to remove the tall Douglas fir that stood for so many years in that backyard and graced the view from ours. One of the workers rang our doorbell to apologize for the debris that would be falling in our yard and explained that our neighbors felt the tree was showing signs of leaning.

We hadn’t noticed any leaning, but I would consider it presumptuous to object to removing a tree that my neighbors considered potentially hazardous to their family.

Nevertheless, we could not help but feel sad to see it go – a task that took an entire day.

Our daughter, Shelli, had slept over the night before and woke up to the sounds of the crew sawing off the tree limbs. Her anguish at losing the tree made her feel a desire to be in the midst of trees.

So she decided to delay running errands and suggested taking a hike instead. I was more than happy to comply.

Appreciating Feeling Better

Do you know the feeling that you get when you get well after being sick?

I feel much more appreciative of being able to breathe freely after suffering from a bad head cold, or being able to enjoy a good meal after recovering from a bout of stomach flu.

Since breaking my right hand in early February, I have had to cope for the first time in my life with a longer term impairment. This gives me a renewed appreciation of simple things as I am starting to regain functionality.

I'm even enjoying doing some tasks that I previously considered bothersome chores.

This morning, I actually enjoyed washing the breakfast dishes, feeling the warm, soapy water running over both hands.

Even managed to help prepare dinner tonight. Mostly using my left hand, but with a little help from my right. And I enjoyed doing it.

Not to mention the fact that it is so much easier to eat now that I can hold a fork in my right hand.

Still have a lot of work to do to get the hand fully operational. But it helps to see some progress.

What about you? Have you ever felt this way yourself?

One Day at a Time

Today I reached a milestone. The doctor removed the pin from my broken right hand. I had some anxiety that it would be painful to have the pin pulled out. But that part didn’t really hurt much at all. Just a tugging sensation.

What hurts is the part that comes afterwards, when the doctor says, “Now, try to move your fingers.”

I want to cooperate. I want to get better. But I can’t push past the pain to bend my fingers as he suggests. When he offers to put the splint back on for additional support and protection, I eagerly agree—despite the fact that I was so eager to get the splint off.

I am meeting friends for lunch and I’m not yet ready for my hand to go unprotected into a possibly busy restaurant.

Later, though, in the privacy of my home, I unwrap the elastic bandage and remove the splint myself. Now, my hand is bare except for the bandage covering the spot where the pin was removed. Tentatively, I try again to move my fingers and stretch my hand.

It doesn’t hurt to move my thumb. That finger was furthest from the point of injury and was never in a splint. I can move my index finger a lot. It doesn’t bend on its own, but I can bend it using my other hand. And it doesn’t hurt to do so. I can move my middle finger a little. It is stiffer than my index finger, because it’s closer to the injured area. But, I can bend its knuckles using my other hand. This is better than I could do earlier today, so I feel like patting myself on the back for making progress. I check my pinkie and find it behaves the same. It won’t bend on its own, but it is pliable enough for me to bend it using my other hand.

I’m afraid to try the fourth finger. The fracture was in the fourth metacarpal and my still blue and swollen fourth finger was immobilized for an entire month with a surgical pin inserted from my lowest knuckle down to my wrist. But I try and manage to bend it just a smidgen.

I will try to keep doing this a little at a time. Tomorrow, I can get my hand wet. Thursday I have my first physical therapy appointment.

I don't have any new pictures, so I am going to include a photo of me and Stephanie Bennett Vogt (http://www.spaceclear.com) taken during one of the parties from the Writer's Conference in San Miguel de Allende. Stephanie is the person who inspired me to start writing my blog and I continue to get inspiration and comfort from reading hers. Thanks, Stephanie.

Family and Flowers on My Birthday

I really wanted only one thing for my birthday this year – to be surrounded by my family. It’s somewhat ironic, because if my hand hadn’t been broken the only family that would have been with me for my birthday was my husband, Micha. That had been my original choice when we decided to spend my time off from work on an extended visit to San Miguel de Allende.

But we modified our plans at least a little bit and returned immediately after the Writer’s Conference, arriving home a few days before my birthday. I told both Micha and the girls that I didn’t want to do anything elaborate. I didn’t have any desire to go to a fancy restaurant, didn’t even have any yen for any particular kind of food—other than ice cream cake with chocolate for dessert.

We had someone staying in our house while we were away, so that our 17 ½ year old cat, Mitzi would not be lonely. Mateja, took excellent care of Mitzi and has several more days before she finishes her medical rotation at Stanford and returns to her family. We invited her to join our birthday party and she blended right in. She even gave me a bouquet of flowers. So my house is still full of flowers from my birthday – the mixed bouquet from Mateja, bright yellow and orange long-stemmed tulips from Keren, and an arrangement of orchids from my friend and neighbor, Miri.

The weather was sunny and warm, so we spent a lot of time outdoors, in our backyard and also in the playground with Gali. It was a perfect day.