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.