We were in Washington last weekend and visited a wonderful exhibit at the Renwick Gallery, a small gallery near the White House dedicated to the crafts. The exhibit was "Wonder" and explored and evoked in me (and, if the purpose of the exhibit was realized, in others), the reaction, response, and significance of wonder. "It is not understanding tha …
Sometimes there are things that are right before your eyes, but you never notice. Or you never realize what you're looking at...or exactly what it means. Also, you're never too old to learn something new. That's how I felt a few months ago when I learned that the little gas pump symbol on your car's dashboard has a little arrow that tells you wh …
There is no doubt that the picture accompanying this blog is worth a thousand words. It is a picture of my mother holding her newest great grandson a few days ago. Four generations in a single picture. (Yes, although not immediately visible, I am in that chain from my mother to my grandson.) It is a beautiful picture. One that I will cherish foreve …
Sidney Rosen passed away last weekend, a day after his 92nd birthday. Many in our Gotham family had met Sidney over the years as he accompanied my mother to Gotham events. Mom and Sidney had twelve wonderful years together -- sharing their love, companionship, friends and families. They both grew and blossomed over those years. There ought to be a …
While we were in Hawaii recently, we were told that there is no word for “hate” in the Hawaiian language. I am not sure whether it's true. But we heard it several times. Nevertheless, the notion that there is no word for “hate” in a language is a beautiful thing. Imagine (with a nod to John Lennon) a culture developing without the need to find a …
We were at the local diner. Seated in a booth by the window overlooking the stairs leading up to the front door. A perfect perch to view those coming and going. I noticed the couple as they walked carefully from their car to the stairs. They were elderly. As he reached to hold her hand and help her toward the stairs, it was with the tenderness of t …
A lesson in how it works. Last Sunday there was a Fredslist posting from Warren looking for a nurse in Delray Florida for his mother. I saw the posting and got an email from Debbie highlighting it and asking me to forward it to the Advocates. I did and also emailed Warren with my suggestions for how best to proceed. But that wasn't the end. Fl …
Flo and I were cleaning her mother's house in anticipation of the closing. The house that Flo and her brothers grew up in. The house where her parents spent almost sixty years. There was a lifetime in that house. I was packing the breakfront and I came to the crystal. There was a set of tall water glasses, wine glasses, and both large and small st …
For quite a while, I had fantasized about writing this blog. It would have been after a Game Six or Game Seven clinching of the World Series by the Mets. But that, as it turned out, was a fantasy. The “would have been” did not materialize. We were in Lenox, Massachusetts last weekend while the Mets were hosting the Royals at Citifield. There was …
New York has Mets fever and I’ve been part of it. Last week, I bought a Mets hat to send to my daughter, Mea, who lives in Washington, DC. I was in Manhattan and decided to wear the cap for the day before sending it off to Mea. I was on the street for less than three minutes when, crossing Seventh Avenue at Thirty-Fourth Street, a young wo …
One of the aspects of watching the Mets on TV is that, in addition to watching the action on the field, you get to watch the fans in the stands watching the game. When the Mets are away, watching fans takes on an especially heightened level of aggravation, annoyance, empathy or joy. So it has been watching the Mets play in Chicago. (I like the …
Mr. Moskowitz, my seventh-grade Math teacher, was a nice enough guy, and a pretty good teacher. One thing that annoyed us, as students, were his “surprise quizzes”. The quizzes invariably came on Mondays - but not every Monday (otherwise where’s the surprise?). Mr. Moskowitz liked to challenge us. For example, he would give us a sequence of number …
I first felt it about a week ago. An evening breeze and the question of whether I should have taken a light sweater with me. A few days later, it was there in the morning. The crispness that was the bellwether of things to come. The acorns from the oak trees up the block. Plummeting cars like hail forcing neighbors to move their cars from their …
When I was a teenager, I printed business cards for myself and my best friend that said "Nachas Machers". (My father was a printer so I had access to my own little letterpress printing press.) It was important for me to give my parents “Nachas” -- that special warm pride that only a child can give to his or her parents. Parents get Nachas from t …
As I stood on the ballfield at the Gotham picnic/softball game a few weeks ago, I had a feeling that brought me back decades to the ballfields of my youth. Being in the group between the two "captains" who are picking sides. I remembered the thoughts that went through my head when I was a kid. Whose team did I want to be on? When would I be chosen? …
