Today’s horoscope:
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). A prideful person you know may be making a mistake. Others are inclined to tear this person down emotionally. Make a sacred intention that you will be the kind of person who supports others when they need it.
Now, I’ll do my best to be that kind of person — really I will — but in the meantime, I don’t know who the “prideful person” is, and it may be you. Be careful! You could be making a mistake! And don’t let anyone tear you down emotionally! I’m here to support you when you need it!
Ahem.
In other news, today is my anniversary. 13 years. 
I’d wax sappy on the blog about my dear, darling, beloved, most excellent husband in the world (no really, he totally is), but quite frankly, that sort of thing is none of your business. Sorry. 
As to everything — EVERYTHING — else, you’ll just have to wait. It’s erev Pesach, we have 18 people (really, 18) coming for Shabbos, I have no working laptop and hence have to share G’s computer with G and with three little girls who believe it is their Constitutional right to play on Webkinz, and I have to copyedit, in addition to aaaaallllll the other usual stuff. So in the meantime, don’t make any prideful mistakes.
Tags: Husband, Nothingness
So. Tired. Worn out to the bone. This is pathetic. I’m 35 years old (35½, actually, as of Monday 
), and I can’t run half a block without feeling stiff and battered an entire day later. What gives? Perhaps the fact that I don’t exercise? I was on my 3rd successful day of a new exercise regimen when R had the stroke last July, and for some reason the regimen got jettisoned along with all sorts of other things. Heh. See, back then I was starting it because I wanted to be healthy and improve my energy level; now, I think I’d better start one as a matter of survival. Whew. I am wiped, I tell you. Wiped.
Oh, wait, did you want to hear any news about R?
Well for one thing, she has the body and energy level of a healthy seven year-old, as opposed to the body of… um… me. That’s why I ran half a block, see. Because during the Big Day of Testing yesterday, we had an hour or so for lunch, and there was a kosher establishment in walking distance from SuperStroke Hospital, and so we were walking, only R wasn’t walking, she was running, and she decided I should run too. “Come on, Ima, let’s go!” I believe were her precise words, as she grabbed my hand and bounced up and down eagerly while attempting to pull me forward. Heh. So at first I kept saying “Oh come on, R, I’m too old to run!”, but when she didn’t buy that, I decided to be a good sport and try running. YIKES. That’s the last time I try that, I tell you, at least until I get my old self whacked into shape a bit.
Oh wait, I’m doing it again. Sorry. Enough about me. (P.S. I’m tired.)
So, there was a Big Day of Testing yesterday (fully neuropsych workup, for those of you who know what that means, with a special SuperStroke pediatric neuropsychologist) (um, hello, God? THANK YOU FOR CREATING A SPECIAL SUPERSTROKE PEDIATRIC NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST), and it was fine. I sat in the waiting area trying, unsuccessfully, to get my dearly beloved laptop to turn on, which it wouldn’t 
, and finally I gave up and pulled out my secret weapon of my baby siSter’s antiquated dinosaur laptop, which I’d borrowed because I’d had a feeling mine might not go on, and I used it to work on my copyediting while R was being tested. I couldn’t get online, though, but at least I got work done.
HEY WAIT, ENOUGH ABOUT ME.
So of course all the tests need to be scored and so forth, and then we go back to SuperStroke for the feedback session, but in the meantime the doc told me that she does not anticipate any major surprises in the results, and that everything she saw was consistent with what I’d told her beforehand. And of course, R charmed the daylights out of her, and she does with everyone, all the time, no matter what. Everyone loves her. Everyone.
Everyone.
So that was all fine, and then last night G joined us at my dear, dear, dearest friend TNH’s house, and this morning he and R and I went back to the hospital to meet with Dr. SuperStroke and various members of the SuperStroke team. G had brought with him a CD containing the post-TIA MRI images from January, and Dr. SuperStroke examined the images as compared with the Super Duper MRI images from December, which she’d seen already, and for some reason I’m feeling very protective of the details and don’t want to go into much, but I will tell you this: It is likely — not definite, but likely – that the arterial narrowing will not continue to worsen, even though it did worsen between July and September. I literally found this out less than four hours ago, and I’m still absorbing it along with the rest of the information, but I didn’t want to make everyone wait, since I know at least a few people will be refreshing iMiriam all day long hoping for an update. Like I said, I’m still absorbing, and I’ve learned by now that my emotional responses to these things tend to be delayed a bit, so for the moment I’m withholding further expressions of anything. But I know that this is very good news, and that we might be able to close the door on that particular section of the uncertainty. But since this whole area of medical knowledge, etc. is very murky in general, we can’t assume that any door is ever closed forever. Heh. Learned that lesson, I have.
But still: Very good news.
Anyway, I apologize but that’s all for now. Thanks for checking in, and for caring about my child, and please continue to include the name בתיה רחל בת מרים שלומית (that’s me, by the way, that second part) (because I’m the mother of the חולה, see) in your prayers for a complete רפואה שלמה, along with the rest of the חולי ישראל. We’re deeply grateful to all (for real). And once again I’ll mention (can’t really do much more than mention this sort of thing) my indescribable gratitude to Hashem, for giving us this precious little girl, and for choosing us to be the guardians of this uniquely multicolored and spectacular נשמה, and for saving her life so many times, and for leading us to the miraculous doctors and specialists and sub-specialists and sub-sub-sub specialists who have been able to guide us, and to allow us to believe that there is comfort in the darkness. קטנתי מכל החסדים ומכל האמת. Have a wonderful and peaceful Shabbat of much rest for tired old bones.
Tags: Stroke
Not yet, but getting ready. R and I are leaving for SuperStroke, USA in about an hour and a half, and we won’t be back until like the minute before Shabbos. G is meeting us there tomorrow night. No, nothing happened (yet), thank God; it’s just the next step of testing and whatnot, plus a visit with the team. Should be loads of fun.
In the meantime, here’s some advice: Denial is a bad idea. Don’t go with it. It sucks, it doesn’t work, and it won’t last. And on that note, catch you later. If there’s WiFi at the hospital, maybe I’ll even post from there.
Tags: Stroke
I should be grateful, really. Sure, they opened my purse, removed my wallet, extracted my credit card, and used it to run up at least $1600 of charges (that we know of thus far), but let’s be reasonable; at least they didn’t take my driver’s license (though I’m not sure what they would have done with it), or my dead grandfather’s lifetime membership card to the Chicago Cubs fan club, or my dead grandmother’s Social Security card (I keep those two things in my wallet because I’m not sure where else to put them, and of course I want to keep them) (duh), or the picture of my deceased great-uncle whose name I bear (my middle name, in a feminized version), or my expired 15% off coupon to The Children’s Place, or my Costco membership card, or my various ID cards that allow me access to the facilities of various universities (though I doubt they still work), or — and surely you’ll recall the importance of this – my County Parks Pass (phew). Also, since I’m an incredibly, um, trusting (or something) individual, I happen to carry around in my wallet — um — heheh — my own Social Security card (yes, I’m aware that that’s stupid, but quite frankly I really don’t know where else to keep it), and the thief left that in there as well. Though I’m aware that they could have removed it, written down the number, put the card back, and then used the number to, I don’t know, buy a few BMWs or something, so we’re going to do our best to find out if that happened, though my instinct is that they didn’t do that, but hey, what are instincts in this sort of situation.
So as thieves go, this was really an outstanding one, the kind you’d want to have digging around in your personal belongings, the kind a person should feel proud to bring home to introduce to their parents. If you’re ever in the market to unload a credit card, I highly recommend you accidentally leave your purse in the auditorium at your kids’ school when you’re there for the Purim play, and then have your sister stop at the school on her way home from work and pick up the purse from the security desk where the maintenance people brought it after they cleaned up, and you might just get lucky. They didn’t even take my Macy’s card, or my spare change (there was no cash, since I’d used the two bucks I’d had on me to buy coffee on the way in). I’m telling you, this is one we want to encourage.
Tags: Nothingness
Have you ever cried during Megillat Esther? Have you ever cried during your kid’s second grade play? Have you ever cried during your kid’s second grade play because your kid’s classmates were acting out Megillat Esther? Have you ever cried during your kid’s second grade play because your kid’s classmates were acting out Esther 8:9–14? Do you know which part that is? That’s the part when it was decided hey wait a second, I don’t have to tell you, I’ll just paste it in.
Ok, so that’s like the biggest font that has ever existed, but I am soooo not going to try to mess with it right now. Just deal with it, please.
I got that from my most favorite text-of-Tanach website, of which I am quite fond in spite of the large number of apparently extra and pointless bits of punctuation, and in spite of the very (very) outdated translation.
So which part of this little excerpt had me bawling my head off, or threatening to, rather, when the little second graders started acting it out? No; not the part where we got the good news that we would be able to defend ourselves and that the king was on our side. No; your friendly neighborhood lunatic former historian of Jewish antiquity started weeping under a torrent of emotion when….
…the kids acted out verse 14, that is, when a few of them started running around giving out scrolls, i.e. being the messengers who delivered the life-saving decree. That’s what made me cry.
Ok, to be fair, I was crying a little bit already, first of all because seeing my kids (my twins, in this case) putting on a deliciously adorable performance always makes me a bit teary, and second of all because I could hardly take my eyes off R, whilst thoughts like the following insisted on coursing through my head:
This isn’t how she used to be when she was putting on plays. This is not how she used to be at all. [I am not going to share details. But it was not how she used to be.]
What if she has a stroke right now, while she’s on stage? What if I think she’s having one but I’m not sure? Would I run up on the stage in the middle of the play, in front of all these parents and administrators and teachers? Then what if she wasn’t having one after all? I’d feel like an idiot. But what if she was? What if she does? What if she’s starting to have one right now? What if she has one in the bathroom one day and it’s hours before anyone finds her? Do the teachers watch her all the time? How do I make sure someone is watching her all the time?
This is not how she used to be.
Hey Miriam, you have another kid in this play too, you know. Why don’t you watch her for a second. It’s not her fault she didn’t have a stroke.
Oh God. YS is exactly how she used to be in plays. In fact she’s exactly how she used to be, and a bit like R used to be. I can’t watch her. It hurts too much.
Well that’s not fair. There I go again, practically resenting YS for being healthy and normal and progressing along the same line she’s always been on, instead of progressing, or not progressing, along some completely unknown vague undefined f*ed up nonexistent line that may or may not kill her and this isn’t YS’s fault, for God’s sake watch both of your children, you overemotional overstressed melodramatic high strung doomsday moron mother.
Hey, you know, I should have made sure to get this on video, because if R dies, I’m going to be upset that we didn’t video her saying her part. I’ll bet someone else got it though. I should get a copy.
Damnit, I’m doing it again! Watch the play, Miriam, just watch the play!
Heheh.
Right.
So, as you can see, I was already a bit (perhaps a teeny tiny bit overly) emotional even before they went and acted out 8:14, but when I saw those cute little kids in their elaborate costumes running around pretending to be the messengers, a big button inside me got pushed, real hard, because for half a second I imagined the real messengers and the real Persian Empire and the real, live, actual human beings who were part of these events. It’s those little bits of realia that sometimes come floating through a narrative in Tanach — like the threshing-floor in Ruth, and the sheep-shearing in Bereishit 38, and all sorts of other things that escape me right now — hardly central to the plot, but they form the backdrop, and they anchor the people and the events in a particular time and place, and at least to me, that’s what makes it all come alive. And being a (former) historian and all, and for that matter a historian of the era that formed my entire religious existence, well, I get a bit emotional at times when Tanach feels alive. Not just Tanach, mind you. Anything from antiquity, and to a lesser extent the Middle Ages (not modern so much; perhaps the romance is lessened when it’s not as far back?), but certainly Tanach in particular. And so there I was. Tears streaming down my face, staring and beaming at R, beaming at YS, gripping G’s arm as images of Persian messengers danced through my head, whispering to G “I’m totally crying”, and having him smile in response while continuing to watch the stage, and then yanking on his arm and whispering “No, I’m serious, I’m about to bawl my head off, look at me”, and having him glance over at me and see the tears and laugh a little bit in that particular way, and then continue to watch the stage. And of course, the girls did a great job with their parts, and they did a great job in the dance they were in, and after each of their lines I whispered loudly “That was my kid!” and there was general laughter from the people around me (hardly anyone heard, don’t worry), and it was just all too cute and adorable and they got their Chumashim and they’re growing up so fast and making me so proud, and hopefully that small neurological matter won’t continue to circle around my brain forever and color my appreciation of everything they do.
Anyway, here they are with their Chumashim, until such time as I decide I should not have posted a picture without whiting out their faces, at which point I will white out their faces and then say here I am, accompanied by outlines of their heads (still in costume):
So that’s them. Gorgeous, I know. Thank you Hashem, for miracles large and small.
Found a costume in the attic for the Boy that I thought we’d given away years ago. It’s a bit small on him but he was Whinnie the Pooh (is that spelled right?) and he will be again tomorrow. Phew; that’s one crisis I won’t have to face. The girls were their usual array of princesses, ballerinas, etc., only this time RS was required to wear a skirt under her ballerina dress, about which she was very distressed, because “It looks stupid!” I assured her it looked great, but she’s neither blind nor stupid, so she knew better. Know what she said? “This isn’t fair! I don’t WANT to grow up!” Heh. I suppose that’s better than “I don’t WANT to have to wear a skirt!” but I figure it’s just a matter of time. Anyway, they all looked great, as per usual, and they stayed in shul for half the Megillah, and they all said “That was AWESOME!” Know what? I agree. I really, really enjoy the Megillah, especially when my tall handsome brother-in-law reads it, which he did, and he did a smashing job.
So here’s a funny story. This afternoon when we got home from shul, we were doing our usual thing of sitting around for a while digesting our kiddush food before attempting lunch, and the Boy was being all crazy and cranky and running around, etc., and suddenly he disappeared into the dining room and was silent. G and I were in the living room talking, and the Boy called something out to us, and I was able to discern the word “challah.” So I said “G, I think he’s in there eating the challah,” and G said “Oh,” which just about summed up my feelings on the matter. So we continued talking, and he continued being in the dining room, and the girls continued playing in the basement, and after a while RS showed up, and I asked her to check in the dining room to see if the Boy was eating the challah. So she went into the dining room and cried out “OH YES, he is!” and came back and said “He’s sitting there holding the big challah in his hands, taking bites!” So G and I went to check it out, and indeed, he was sitting at the head of the table in G’s chair, and the challah cover had been thrown off, and my son was grasping the large challah in his two hands, and the end of it — probably about 2 slices’ worth — had been gnawed off, and he was chewing rather happily, and he held the challah out when he saw us and shouted out “[Baby babble baby babble] CHALLAH!!”, and took another bite. I positively shrieked, and doubled over laughing so unbelievably hard that I ended up with tears in my eyes. G laughed too, but not quite as hard as I did, and when RS saw how hard I was laughing, she joined in and sort of forced herself to laugh harder, and the Boy saw all of this and his face lit up and he forced himself to laugh too. I begged G to let me go next door and get Babysitter Allison’s mother to take a picture — “It’s a דרבנן, and this is SO TOTALLY a צורך גדול!!” — but for some reason he didn’t agree, so I had to ingrain the image into my mind instead. And indeed, I hope I never forget it. It was positively hilarious, and adorable beyond description. And incidentally, when RS called the other girls in to see, R said to me “Ima, since we couldn’t take a picture with the camera, I took a picture in my mind,” so at least two of us have it down somewhere. I was pretty impressed that she said that; she’s not even the one who reads Cam Jansen.
Anyway, I wanted to be sure to get that down. It was One Of Those Moments. And tonight after Megillah reading, the quartet of Miriams (that is, Sisterhood President Miriam, Other Sisterhood Board Member Miriam, myself, and Other Miriam from shul) stayed at shul chopping and beating and simmering and whatnot in preparation for the brunch tomorrow (yes, all four of us are named Miriam, and one other non-Miriam was there for a while too), and it was great fun. There was no music playing, so I treated everyone to a partial rendition of the Monestriczer Shoshanat Yaakov, and everyone was gracious enough not to tell me to shut up. Remember the Monestriczer Shoshanat Yaakov? It will happen tomorrow, God willing. Can’t wait. We were practicing with the girls today, at least as much as we could with the Boy going bonkers and forcing them to hold his hands and dance in circles, like he does every time he hears singing. Going to try to record it tomorrow on RS’s iPod, and then get permission from everyone to post it here. We’ll see how that goes.
Ah, Purim. I like it. I’m maybe in a 20% better mood than I’ve been for the past several weeks, and I haven’t even had any wine.
Look, this was in my local paper today. They’re exhibiting — and SELLING — original artwork by Dr. Seuss, this Sunday (Purim, that is) at the White Plains library. Whimper whimper I totally need some original artwork by Dr. Seuss. NEED. Accepting donations now.
I think Dr. Seuss is totally perfect for Purim, by the way. Could there be any better example of ונהפוך הוא than some of his surreal landscapes, etc.? Different worlds in which nothing appears to make sense and yet in which an invisible hand is directing all? ”A shoe on the wall, shouldn’t be there at all.” “But be glad! Wacky Wednesday will soon go away.” (Yeah, that would be nice….)
So here’s some proof that my son is a boy. Ready?
Last week he was running around the first floor racetrack, pushing one of the girls’ doll strollers with a doll in it. (RS had brought them up from the basement playroom.) Suddenly he stopped, removed the doll, dropped it on the floor, and continued running with the stroller. G cracked up laughing. “That’s right,” he said. “Get this thing out of here! I just want the thing with the wheels!” (The Boy has NO interest in dolls, by the way. Since he was less than a year old, he’s shown a powerful affinity for balls, but dolls may as well be invisible. He’d be sitting in a room packed to the gills with baby dolls and stuffed animals, and he’d take no notice whatsoever, but his eyes would shoot like radar beams towards the one ball-shaped item in the room, even if it was in the far corner and buried under a stack of things and virtually undetectable by anyone else. He’d point to it and shriek. “Ball! Ball!!” He did this with the globe, and with a light fixture, as well as with actual balls. He’s since taken some interest in stuffed animals, but generally only the very very large ones that he can body-tackle.)
There have been millions of stories like this over the past year plus, and I keep forgetting to write them down, so there you are.
I didn’t make pancakes this morning, by the way, because my family let me sleep until 10:00. Boy did I need it. And there are now hamentaschen baking (mmmm), but I had nothing to do with that, since first of all I reaalllly do not like baking hamentaschen (in fact I don’t really like baking anything except perhaps the occasional banana muffins and one particular chocolate cake, but I especially dislike baking hamentaschen), and second of all I had the job of watching the Boy while everyone else was baking. Heh. By which I of course mean, being repeatedly assaulted by the Boy. But mother of all things holy, he is so cute.
There’s a lot of snow outside, by the way. I like snow days, and I like when Babysitter Allison’s planned illegal* weekend getaway is canceled so that she’s forced to be with us on Friday afternoons, just as God intended.
[*Illegal according to the Law of Miriam, I mean. My guess is that other (evil, depraved) systems would have let it go.]
Anyway, Shabbat shalom and Purim sameach, if I don’t show up before then. Baruch Hashem we have our seudah at Aunt C’s house again this year (speaking of things that God intended). I expect to be even more emotional this time around, if such a thing were possible (heh), on account of my kid having had a stroke and stuff, and how that impacts my reactions to present, past, future, family, God, people, places, things, life, death, etc. Too bad I’ve sworn off drinking.
Have a good one.
You know that episode of Raymond where he took his sons and his sons’ friend to a sporting event of some kind, and he told them not to bother cleaning up their garbage because that’s what they pay the janitor for? Or something like that? So it turned out that the friend’s father was a janitor, and it was this whole big fat awkward thing, and I didn’t see the whole episode but I’m assuming it was a big fat awkward thing because Raymond was being a big fat lazy insensitive dolt who was taking the janitor for granted, and teaching his kids to do the same.
So here’s what I’m wondering. Never mind, I’m not wondering anything. Thank you.
So there are two things that I don’t think Einstein really said. One is that there are two ways to view the world — as if nothing is a miracle, or as if everything is a miracle. This quote is all over the Internet, attributed to Einstein, but being both a skeptic and a historian, I didn’t just blindly accept that he’d said it when a bunch of websites was my only evidence. So I did a little digging, and now I’m pretty sure he didn’t say it, but I invite anyone to prove me wrong.
The second thing that I don’t think he really said is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. Or something like that. Now I didn’t bother researching this one, but from now on I’m just going to assume that Einstein didn’t really say anything that anyone thinks he said. I’m betting at this point that he didn’t even say that weird thing about gravity, or the universe, or whatever it was.
Anyway, whether or not Einstein said either of those things, I think they’re both instructive statements, only unfortunately, at least by this definition, I appear to be insane.
When will you learn. Cease and desist doing this thing, Miriam. You will never, ever get a different result.
I know, you have no idea what I’m talking about. But I do. Maybe I’m hoping that I’ll listen to my blog, if I won’t listen to myself.
Do you ever feel like you’re two different people, and that talking to one of them is like talking to a wall? I do.
See? Insane. If you don’t believe Einstein, you’ll believe me. She’s two people. She talks to herself and she thinks she’s two people. Lord have mercy, she’s lost it.
Only I haven’t lost it, and here’s the proof:
That’s a really bad, really blurry picture of the stand-up comedian I went to see last night, in the back room at the end of a long, twisting corridor behind a particular kind of establishment in Brooklyn. And when I say “I” went to see him, I of course did not go alone, but I was accompanied by a person who was… decidedly not my husband. Heh. This really isn’t G’s sort of thing, see. I don’t exactly know that it’s “my” sort of thing either, except when I really, really need to get the hell away from everything, as far away both physically and mentally as I possibly can on a random night in the middle of a regular week, and then… it is totally my sort of thing. And again I say: Heh.
So we went, and the comedian was hilarious, and one of the four who preceded him was also hilarious (more hilarious, in my opinion), and one of the four was horrifically stupid and torturous to listen to, and the other two were fairly funny, although one of them made one joke that was just too dirty and unpleasant to be funny. I mean, I appreciated the humor on a sort of intellectual level, but the unpleasantness really pulled the rug out from under it, at least for me. I don’t know what my fellow runaway thought of it. I’ll have to ask her on our next excursion. Because God in heaven, there will be another excursion. And you see, this excursion proves that I haven’t lost it, because it shows that I’m handling at least one level of my insanity.
Hats off, by the way, to my husband, once again. He handled the homework-dinner-bedtime routine by himself for three nights in a row, so I could drive out of state to visit my poor suffering bedridden friend (Monday night); pass out asleep at 6 PM because I’d gotten up at 5 AM so I could drive back home (Tuesday night); and then go out for a wild night on the town (ha) in an effort to handle my insanity (Wednesday night). He’s really a wonderful human being. And so, by the way, is the dear friend at whose house I crashed on zero notice at 11 PM Monday night, and so is her husband, and so is the dear friend with whom I traversed to Brooklyn last night, and so is her husband, and yadda yadda yadda. No really, it’s all true.
Perhaps I should go to sleep now. Snow day tomorrow, and I now know how to make pancakes from scratch, so maybe it’s time for some warmth by the proverbial fire. Or maybe we should bake hamentaschen. Or both. Good night.
Thinking about the approaching summer fills me with fear and dread. This is perhaps not totally surprising, but still.
I have been stressing about Pesach for two weeks already. -??- This is most unlike me.
I have exploded at my son twice today. What gives?? The kid is only 23 months old. Perhaps my temper is unusually short. (I have since removed myself from potentially similar situations, ergo it is under control. No need to worry/report me.) (Also, he tends to laugh like crazy whenever anyone yells at him (not that this makes it ok).)
The boys will go to sleep after I give them lunch, thereby enabling me to freaking get something freaking done alfreakingready, and yet I have not yet chosen to give them lunch.
I have a house full of toys that are guaranteed to enthrall toddlers for hours, plus vertical window blinds guaranteed to invite whacking by toddlers for hours, plus a circular racetrack through the kitchen/hallway/dining room guaranteed to provide toddlers with hours of running around fun, and yet both toddlers who are currently in my house consistently choose to spend their time jumping on top of me, thereby, among other things, causing my computer to shut off and preventing me from doing ANYTHING AT ALL. What gives??
Tags: Nothingness
Twitter was not responsible for my spam problem after all. As a matter of fact, someone or something somehow managed to turn off my spam filter. -?!- It is now back on, however, and the spam has ceased. Funny how that works. If only all problems could be solved so easily. Are there spam filters out there for life in general? I know a lot of people who could use one.
Tags: Nothingness
