G went away to California this morning for the RCA convention. He’s not coming back until Wednesday. Feh. RS went away to school this morning and boarded a big fat bus — you know, that kind of bus, with the really loud motor and the luggage thingies underneath — hazy wave of flashbacks hit me when I saw it and heard the sound — and it took her far far away and she’s also not coming back until Wednesday. Feh.   

On the one hand, it’s only three days. On the other hand, hello, it’s three days. Since when do newborn babies leave their mothers for three days?? Except I have this strange feeling that she might not be a newborn baby anymore. One hint was the eager look of excitement on her face when I dropped her off, and the fact that she said goodbye to me and ran off without looking back. Also, she sat in the front seat on the way to school. (Apparently, she could have been sitting in front for like the last two years, because it goes by height and not by age, but we just found this out last week, so this morning was the first time. It was actually totally fun having her up there. ) In addition to that, when you really think about it, it’s been more than 11 years since she was born.

Sigh.

You know what ST likes to do? Rip my scarves off my head and put them on her head. She also enjoys yanking her shirt up to show people her belly — perhaps she takes after my little brown ball of a Cleveland nephew — and then she likes to yank up other people’s shirts to view their bellies. This part is somewhat problematic. The other day I asked her if she was tired, and she reached over and rubbed my eyes. She also enjoys fuzzing my eyebrows back and forth. I’m pretty sure these are both signs of some latent form of genius, but until I find out for sure, I’ll just go with adorable.

You know how Monday is my day not in the office? You know how that means it’s also my day to do laundry? So today, the municipality decided to flush the hydrants, and my water was brown, and I couldn’t do any laundry. I don’t even know what flushing hydrants means. But I’m pretty sure it’s not as important as my laundry. I don’t think the municipality realizes that my entire week is now messed up.

This is what it says on the back:

1983-1984

MOTHER IN ISRAEL

AMERICAN MIZRACHI WOMEN

I have a vague idea of what that means. Could probably get a less vague idea by Googling, but not in the mood.

Bubbe Rose was still alive in 1984. Don’t remember if she was mentally there or not, but if she was, she was probably pleased. She was in favor of American Mizrachi Women and other such 1950s American Jewish housewife organizations. Grandma Jenny was also still alive then. She was less in favor. Heh.  God how I miss that feisty old thing. Is it rude to call your dead great-grandmother a feisty old thing? She probably would have loved it. And I know what she would have called me in return. Hee.

It would be nice to ask Savta Ruth where the charm came from, if it was part of some kind of reward/recognition (in which case it’s pretty cheesy — it feels like a $7.00 keychain), or just something all the “Mothers in Israel” got that year. You know, along with their pledge envelopes or whatever. But I can’t ask her, because she’s dead.

I’ll never get used to this. Never, never, never ever ever ever ever.

Happy birthday, Israel.

Love you, Savta. I wore your necklace today.

“Meet the newest member of the family. Wish me luck!” (or something close to that)

Then there was this picture:

That is a teeny tiny baby kitten. It was a week old at the time. It was abandoned by its mother, and my sister’s coworker was taking care of it, and she brought it to work — has to be fed every few hours, see, just like a human newborn — and my sister was smitten (hey, that rhymes with kitten), and home it went, much to the stunned shock and delight of my super-slick brother and my three nephews.  See what the kitty is resting on?  My sister’s hand. Yes, that is how small it is.

So, since our planned Central Park replacement outing was rained out yesterday (grr), as Cousin A had predicted it would be, I suddenly had a brainstorm: let’s go to the outerboro and meet the new kitten!  And let’s bring dinner!  So we did. It was wonderful fun. The kitten is even smaller than you expect it to be, and my nephews are even more grown-up than you expect them to be, and when my sister asked my oldest nephew — now aged either 8 months or 16 years, I keep forgetting which — if he’d called someone named “Rebecca” yet, since he was apparently supposed to, my head snapped up and I said sharply “Rebecca?  That sounds like a girl,” and my nephew said to me “No, it’s a boy.”  Hee. Funny little 8-month-old.  I warned him a while ago that girls have cooties and are dangerous, and he should stay away from them, but I’m not sure he’s taking me seriously.  In the meantime, the kitty is this itty bitty tiny little thing, and sooo cute and helpless and soft and warm, and my girls were charmed to pieces and the Boy was completely indifferent, and ST did her usual thing with my sister and brother wherein she pointed to their body parts on command (“Where’s Aunt R’s nose?  Where’s Aunt R’s hair?” etc.), much to the delight of all.  It was great fun, and amazingly, despite the big ol’ nor’easter that was in the midst of whacking the NY metro area, we had… no traffic getting back. On the NJ Turnpike and the GW Bridge. On a Sunday night. In the middle of a rainstorm. -???-  Bizarre. My Elder Sister texted me that we should do this more often, and I heartily agree.  We should. Maybe we even will.

Pesachs, I mean. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the worst Pesach I’ve ever had. 11th grade and sophomore year of college stand out as pretty awful too. So I think it’s a tie.

Speaking of sophomore year of college, know who keeps sending me alumnae mailings? Barnard. Aka (on this blog) college #1. So I mean, that’s nice and all, except for one thing: I’m not an alumna. I graduated from a totally different college. But Barnard seems not to have realized this, though they did manage to track down my current address, but in the process apparently never noticed that I transferred out and did not transfer back in. Here’s what I want to know: if I have to get alumnae mailings, do I get to say on my résumé that I did graduate from Barnard? Not that I mind saying I graduated from Stern, but still, if for some reason I wanted to pretend, could I? If Barnard can, I should be able to also, right? And notice how I wrote alumnae and alumna and not alumni and alumnus. This is because Barnard is a women’s college (boy is it ever), and so all of the graduates are women, and alumnae denotes women, whereas alumni denotes either men or a mixed crowd, which is stupid and sexist but still true. Thank heavens I have a mother who educated me in such matters, even if it did come at the price of her also teaching me the difference between nauseous and nauseated, which just annoys me because I refuse to use them properly, but I know I’m supposed to. Feh. Also, alumnus is singular male. Alumna is singular female. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve edited that error. Grr. Hey, ow, growling hurts my throat, which I suppose is still healing.

Warning: The rest of this post will likely consist of me whining myself into pieces whilst I wash amidst waves of self-pity. If you don’t want to read it, don’t read it. And please, don’t offer me advice or try to problem-solve. Not right now.

This Pesach sucked. And it isn’t over yet (the suckiness, I mean; Pesach is over).

Thursday evening, April 5, I was on my way home from work, having stayed late to finish something, and I noticed I was feeling sick. Figured I was probably dehydrated, so I bought one of my favorite fancy green juice smoothie thingies. It made me feel worse. Heh.

Text G. “I might be getting sick.” Mind you, almost nothing was cooked; nothing was kashered; some of the shopping still had to be done; and bedikat chametz was that night. Oh yes, and we have five children, including a four-year-old monster and a baby, and a pre-teen who alternates between wanting to help with the younger ones, and freaking out completely if she’s asked to do anything with the younger ones. (The other pre-teens, or pre-pre-teens, since they’re 9 years old, are 85% useless and 95% useless when it comes to taking care of the younger ones. It’s a personality thing.)

Got home. I was sure it was just sleep deprivation. Positive. Told G I had to sleep, right away. So I did. Awesome JM to the rescue, as usual. G disappeared to do whatever; I disappeared into my bed; woke up later and felt mostly better. Started cooking. As the night went on I still felt off, but mostly ok. Ditto next day… except when I ate. Then I felt sick. Heh. Food tasted different, too. I knew I wasn’t pregnant (I’m not). Please don’t let this be a virus. I cannot get sick now of all times!!

The good news, relevant to life in general and not just erev Pesach, is that Babysitter Allison, via a נס נגלה for which I am not directly responsible, though I would have been if I’d known how to be, landed herself a job in a doctor’s office that….

…is not open on Friday. I don’t know why God loves us so much, but apparently God does. Hee. So Ahti has still been coming to our house on Fridays, dealing with the Boy, dealing with ST, dealing with the Boy, dealing with the Boy, etc. Again I say, hee. And, erev Pesach happened to fall out on Friday this year, and I’d informed Ahti weeks ago that we would need her ALL DAY on Friday April 6.

So, while I was feeling sick but pushing myself along anyway, and while G was pushing himself along and the kids were doing whatever, Yom Tov approached faster and faster and all heck was breaking loose and Ahti was completely freaked out by the insanity and the total chaos, and BOOM the clock struck sundown, and it was ready as it was going to be, and the guests arrived and the seder began. Um… yay. I guess. Except that I still felt awful. And it was so late at night. And I was sore all over, and exhausted and miserable, and still feeling a bit sick. Is that a fun way to have a seder? No, it is not. Not a fun way to do anything else, either. Every year when it’s about to be Pesach I remember that I want to try as hard as possible to avoid coming to the table on that first night feeling like misery and death, and acting irritable and snappish and feeling beyond my saturation point of burden and stress. Most years, I do a better job than this year. Now mind you, this year I’d put things off and begun rather later than usual (I think?), so my getting sick was a much bigger wrench than it might have been, but wow, was it bad. I’d texted BFFR earlier in the day that I was sending the family to her house for Yom Tov, and that nothing, no holiday in the world, was worth this much misery and hard work. It was insane, and awful, and so, so decidedly NOT worth it. What could be worth all of this? Are those glowing moments around the table so wonderful that we should put ourselves through hell to get there? Especially when there really aren’t glowing moments around the table when a key member of the family — namely, me, and sometimes G as well, because he works just as hard if not harder — is so trampled and worn out? Often we’re able to do a 180 and it ends up wonderful, but some times are more difficult than others, and even so — is it worth it? But what else can we do? How could I have started earlier? There was no time “earlier” either — the only reason I sort of had “time” on erev Pesach was because I didn’t go to work — not that the office wasn’t open; it actually was — and because I was paying money I don’t have for someone else to watch my kids. And I am not a person who’s physically able to stay up until all hours of the night without paying serious consequences. I don’t think I saw ST for more than half an hour total over two days. This can’t be what God intended, and yet, here we are, and I’m not the only one in this situation, either. And I didn’t have more energy “earlier,” either, and you know what? Even if I’d had more time and energy earlier, “earlier” there were other things to do. Like homework, and laundry, and doctor’s appointments, and so, so many other things, none of which can be ignored or avoided, but many of which often are ignored and avoided anyway because there simply aren’t enough hours, and as a result my kids’ teachers think we’re negligent and lazy and my kids get frustrated and let down and my house is a horrible mess (though it might be anyway, regardless of how much time I had, because I hate cleaning), and I’m constantly exhausted and overwhelmed and overburdened, and too often angry and resentful and snappish as well, because I know what needs to be done, and I know what has to happen in order to do it, but I simply can’t do more than I’m already doing, and I continually have to apologize to people and explain to people and try to justify why I haven’t done this, or that, and try to figure out just exactly when I’m going to do it. I know there has to be some way I could have done things differently so we didn’t come to the seder on a hair-trigger, but damn if I know how, unless I want to start preparing really really far in advance, in which case preparing for Pesach would be yet another item on the list of things preventing me from doing other things. The seder might be better, but other things wouldn’t be, and who knows if the net would be a gain or a loss. And anything that costs extra money, by which I mean more than we already spend, is out of the question.

Yeah.

I digress. (Please see above about offering your opinion. Some other time, perhaps.)

The seder began. My son was hilariously excited, but quickly became upset because he was not prepared for all the, you know, hagaddah part of the seder, and was expecting to flip through the pages of his homemade haggadah (two g’s? or two d’s? see, I did one of each because I’m too tired to find out) and do each thing one after the other. Then there was a hysteria fit from one of my older girls over where the Boy had decided to hide the afikoman (my kids are all insane). Then we ate, and… I was feeling sicker and sicker… and I had to leave the table. Nice. I disappeared during the meal and didn’t come back. Thank God, one of our guests had given us the gift of two people showing up at our house at midnight or so to clean up, do the dishes, and put the kitchen together, so G wasn’t left to handle everything on his own. Just almost everything. Yay.

The night was awful. I slept a little here, a little there, felt like total garbage, and in the morning informed RS that I absolutely could not get out of bed (this was true) and she had to take care of the Boy and ST. Nice. RS is 11 years old. G had made R stay home from shul to help, but R is, shall we say, not always the most gracious person in the world when it comes to things like that, and she wasn’t all that much help. (YS is generally summarily useless for such activities, not that she doesn’t try. Hee.) I also told G, as he was leaving, that he should send Awesome AW to the house the second she showed up in shul. How would I have felt, as a young adult, if I went to shul to daven on Yom Tov and was promptly summoned to the rabbi’s house because the wife was sick and couldn’t take care of her kids? I suspect I would have been pissed (pardon my language). I knew AW wouldn’t be, but sometimes I think she should be. However, my husband, being the rabbi, couldn’t stay home, and there is no one else we could ask for help, so right or wrong, we asked AW.

So, both Awesome AW and Awesome B, one of my guests from the previous night who suspected I would need some help, came to the house. God bless them. God bless God (huh?) for giving me such wonderful people in my life. Of course I don’t know what happened next, except that RS was saved from having to bear the total burden of the littlest siblings. And I stayed in bed. And… I slept… all day. Correct. I slept all day. I woke up once at 4 PM, and again at 8 PM. I don’t remember when I woke up next, but…

…I missed the second seder.

Every time I think about it I want to cry.

Whatever.

So, sleep is what I needed, right? And I got it, right (boy did I)? So I should have been better, right?

Wrong. I wasn’t better. I was still sick. Really sick. I was sick all day Sunday. I was sick all day Monday, though I seemed better enough for a while, so we all went to my sister-in-law’s house for lunch, and there was much playing with cousins. That was the only outing we had all Chol HaMoed long. I was still sick on Tuesday. I called Dr. R. I said stuff, he said stuff. I followed instructions… and on Tuesday night… it looked like I was better! Whee!! Which was a good thing, since my sister and her three children and my two parents were set to arrive on Wednesday. Then we were maybe going to go to Central Park with my sister and her kids on Thursday. You know, for the annual outing. Maybe Chol HaMoed could still be saved, even though I hadn’t been able to do ANYTHING and everything still needed to be prepared. So as I went to bed Tuesday night I noticed my throat felt a little scratchy. Hmm. Woke up Wednesday morning; still scratchy. Went to drink orange juice and sighed with relief. Ok, it stung a little, but it did NOT feel like I was swallowing razor blades. This means no strep! Plus I did not have a fever and did not feel sick — just exhausted and battered. And later in the day it stopped hurting altogether. Phew.

So, I proceeded to work like a mule, again. Getting the house ready for my sister. Getting the house ready for my parents. Trying to locate the clean laundry that I vaguely remembered doing before Yom Tov so the kids would have clean clothes. Sister and kids arrived, overtired and hyper (the kids were hyper, my sister wasn’t). My kids went nuts, mostly in a “good” (ha) way. Parents arrived, much later than I thought. Dinner overheated, everyone starving. I cannot stress the following point strongly enough: The house was in complete and total chaos. Children everywhere. Earsplitting noise everywhere. Boy and nephew going crazy. ST and CC (my little nephew — stands for Cookies and Cream, and if you ever see him you’ll understand why) shrieking and/or crying, a lot. Grouchy miserable adults everywhere. This is the sort of thing that would have been a fun and happy experience/memory if the adults had not been so completely trampled. Trying to get beds set up in the right places. Trying to feed people at the right times. Meanwhile I was aching everywhere, and… my throat started to hurt again. I tried to ignore it while I continued to jet through the house doing a-z. At one point when I swallowed, it really, really hurt. I grimaced. “What was that?” asked my ever-observant mother. “Pain from swallowing?” Heh.

So I went to bed. Waited for my body to realize it had stopped moving, so it could slowly calm down and relax, at which point it would ache slightly less, and then slightly less, and then I’d fall asleep. Instead, it ached more. And more. Popped some pain killers. Ow ow ow my joints are killing me. Oh my God I cannot sleep. Crapola, I’m getting sick, again, or still, for real, aren’t I. More pain killers. Took temperature. Around 100. How can that be. I felt like it had to be at least 102. I texted G, who of course was asleep, around 3 AM, because I was hoping I’d be asleep when he woke up, and this way he’d get the message right away. “I think I might have strep after all.” I stayed in bed until 11 or so. Might have slept about 3 hours. I was dizzy and weak and in so much pain. Said goodbye to my sister and her family, including my neuro brother who had driven in from Cleveland as planned, and was picking them up to proceed to whatever dumb place his parents live. What a waste of a visit this was. What a waste of a Chol HaMoed. I prayed through my pounding headache that my kids were experiencing it very, very differently than I was. My dear Ima (did you ever hear that awful song? Ick) drove me to get a throat culture. I didn’t need one to know the result.

The friendly lady at the clinic asked if I’d thrown my toothbrush out the last time, like they’d told me to. I hadn’t. Oops. This was because I’ve had strep many times in my life, and I never heard of doing that, so I thought it was stupid. As I was thinking that through, however, it occurred to me: perhaps this is why I have had strep so many times! Though it’s not like I’ve been using the same toothbrush my whole life. Heh, what a gross thought. I vowed to not only throw out my toothbrush but to boil everything in my bathroom. (G bought me a replacement toothbrush that has little rubber thingies on the sides. Tickles my gums. Super weird.)

Went home. G, who had been cooking everything, went to pick up my antibiotic. I took it. Was in horrible pain all night. Managed to sit at the table and eat a few things. Managed to smile at a few children. Friday was bad. Friday night was still bad but a little better. Shabbos was still bad but a little better. I did not make it to shul at all. At all, not once over the entire Pesach. I saw no one, I interacted with no one, I did not wear my new skirt. Finally Shabbos was over and my throat was only marginally sore. Pesach was over and I had done nothing. Worked like a dog beforehand so I could get sick and miss the seder with my family. Worked like a dog the minute I felt better so I could get sick and do nothing with my family. When it was over I was feeling slightly ok, so I started doing my usual thing and moving around trying to turn the kitchen back over. That didn’t go too well and I had to stop. G and my mother did everything. I sat on the couch feeling useless, just like when I was pregnant with ST and also sat on the couch feeling useless while the two of them put Pesach away, only this time I couldn’t even feel useful as the gestator. (“In a box?” Heehee)  Though on the (major, major) upside, this time I wasn’t spitting, I didn’t have heartburn, and my arms worked. See? Silver lining.  :-)

Anyway.

It’s now Monday night. (Um, Wednesday night) I wrote all this on Saturday night and Sunday. Feeling almost totally better physically, which is nice since YS now has a sore throat and a low fever, so we’re just in time to pass it around again and again.

P.S. YS had strep. She stayed home from school yesterday and today. Hopefully the buck stops there. Also, we’re planning to go to Central Park this Sunday to make up for the lost trip. We thought maybe we’d take a Circle Line cruise instead, but… the kids vetoed it in favor of Central Park. -???- Ok then. Works for me, to the tune of much, much less money, since Central Park is free. Weather’s been gorgeous this week, spring has arrived, and… away we go. Like I try to remember to say: It’s all good.

Top basement oven broken

Five gefilte fish loaves burned to rubber

Bottom basement oven not broken

Miriam needs more than one oven

Upstairs oven kashering now

Will the spinach souffles overflow as they sometimes do and fill the basement oven with melted butter and hence smoke?

Is it bad that we no longer have a smoke detector in the basement?

Miriam accidentally left three bags of frozen spinach out of fridge for two days

Luckily it’s cold in the basement, don’t think they’re spoiled

Doing work at same time

Only used 24 eggs so far

Might run out of pepper

Only seen two centipedes so far

One was dead

Make that 26 eggs

Anyone besides Baby Sissie actually measure out a third of a cup or an eighth of a teaspoon?

1/3 cup = “nice hefty blob”

1/8 teaspoon = “a bit”

Lemon juice still in car, must go outside

Dang, the timer on my new phone is LOUD

You know, in her early childhood, Baby Sissie also appreciated quantities such as “a bit”

34 eggs

Alas, there were many more adventures following. And I lost count of the eggs. This was from erev Pesach and was never finished (as you can see). More to come.

My son turned four years old yesterday He is soooooooo cute, and he is suuuuuuuuuch an impossible monster. But then he turns around and acts all delicious again, and you just want to eat him up.

I finally got this skirt I’ve been wanting for ages:

You can get one too, if you want, by clicking here. I got it on sale, though, which you probably won’t. It was only $18, I think. Definitely less than $20. I was supposed to get it last summer, but along with several other things — including my DIPLOMA  — that were supposed to be delivered to my house, it was sucked somewhere into the US Postal Service abyss and has yet to reappear. That’s what you get for trying to cancel your mail while you’re on your road trip. So I’ve been waiting for it to go on sale so I could get it again, and now I have. Yay

As you know, I’ve been refusing to acknowledge Pesach, but the march of time apparently didn’t get the message, so here we are. Unable to put it off any longer, I finally went to Monsey today. Blah. That’s not my most favorite thing to do in general, but the last Sunday before Pesach, let’s just say the happy little kosher stores are not on my top ten list of favorite places to be. Though at least I got to wear my other new skirt, from Hanes.com, which I think I like but I’m not sure I love. And every time I go to Monsey, I’m faced with the conundrum of being a total hypocrite (yes that’s a conundrum), because I say snide, condescending things (in my head, and to others via text) about the particular community of my brethren that runs these particular stores — and yet here I am, shopping in them, ready to take advantage of that community’s culture when it suits me. Is that nice? No, it is not. So I feel guilty, a little. But you know what else? My grandmother is dead, and I’m really not sure why we’re doing this at all. Certainly I don’t know why I bought jelly or whipped butter or coffee cake mix or chocolate syrup, though that was really for my grandfather, but so long as Savta Ruth was alive it wasn’t so bad to have it without him.

Among the many, many amazing things about working for the Jews, as I do, is that you get off for Yom Tov and don’t have to use vacation days. Of course, no one else really does either this year, but I never have to. Another amazing thing is that at least for me, the workload tends to slow down right around now. I hardly have any deadlines creeping up on me, in contrast to the last few weeks when there were so many deadlines creeping up on me I was afraid to look over my shoulder for fear I’d see another one. So I may be able to use a vacation day or two during Chol HaMoed, and nothing terrible will happen to my colleagues.

Baby Sissie and her family will be passing through my house on Wednesday night of Chol HaMoed on their way to whatever stupid place my neuro brother’s family lives. As it happens, my parents will be arriving the same night. This is nice and all, but if I got to choose, I’d have them come on different days so I could have time with Baby Sissie alone. And by “alone,” of course, I mean “with our combined total of eight children,” but having your parents around changes things, you know? But I’m so, so glad my parents are coming. The first half is going to be lonely.

You know, I first picked up my computer because I was planning to do a little work on this thing that was supposed to be finished two weeks ago, but couldn’t be because eight or nine crises hit and I had to shove it to the back burner. But then I found myself opening iMiriam instead, and writing, yet again, about my grandmother being gone. Though I have to say I’m holding back quite a bit, because it doesn’t feel like anything constructive will come from my posting yet again about how much it hurts, and how it feels like my heart has been drained hollow and there’s an aching, dragging emptiness beating inside me instead. So I won’t post about that again. It’s weird to feel like that and feel so full and rich and overflowing at the same time, you know? But I do. I feel both at the same time. And I don’t know what I ever thought it would feel like after she was gone, but if I’d been able to imagine anything, I probably would have imagined something like this. Nothingness, that’s what. Aching nothingness, like a part of myself has disappeared… which I guess it has.

Ok then, that’s enough of that!  I know it will get easier, and that this is the first year, and of course I also know that of all the things that can hurt a person, losing your grandmother when you’re 37 years old is among the better ones, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t mean I don’t miss her, but as I said, enough of that.

Know what I bought in Monsey? Safflower oil. I love that stuff. And my usual six-month supply of foil pans. And bricks of frozen sole. I don’t know why they don’t carry it around here but they don’t, so I stocked up. It was fun, in its own little way, and now I have a whole bunch of cardboard boxes for holding paper for recycling, because the stores I went to offer boxes instead of bags if you want for packing your groceries. So tomorrow whilst I am home with ST I shall attempt to make five gefilte fishes (ick) and five spinach souffles (yum) and two turkey roasts (yum) and two briskets (yum) and perhaps a few chickens (ick), and I think that’s all I can do without kashering my stovetop, and I have no Pesach stovetop anymore because it got taken out when we did the construction and never put back in, but I still have my Pesach ovens and you know what, they’re going to see some action tomorrow, you mark my words. Pesach, huh? I might be starting to remember that I actually like  it…

Ever tried to type with no letter “n” key? It’s a pain in the heinie, is what it is.

Ever done the wrong thing knowing it was the wrong thing, and then gotten extremely upset when you didn’t like the results? Isn’t doing the wrong thing supposed to be fun? So why aren’t I having fun?

Ever get sick and tired of hearing people say stuff, and even sicker because you know there’s nothing you can do about it? Ever get tired of watching supposedly mature adults throw tantrums over absolutely nothing, and then wonder if other people think the tantrums YOU throw are over absolutely nothing, when clearly they’re not?

I hate everyone.

So the first week of no cell phone was sort of nice. But then it became a problem. Some Guy got sick of my procrastinating (possibly my whining, too) and without my even asking, he sent me a loaner. So far we’re hitting it off (the phone and I are, I mean) but I don’t love how crappy YouTube videos look on it. And it freezes up when I tell it to play in high quality. Just like my old phone! Maybe it’s me? Anyway, one strike, not out. We’ll see how it goes.

Get this: my son is obsessed with girls’ shoes. Still. He’s going to be four in a week. He spent a vast portion of his energy last Shabbos either freaking out because the twins’ playdate would not let him wear her pink sparkly sequin shoes, or nagging her and nagging her to let him wear her pink sparkly sequin shoes. What. The. The good news is, the other night when Babysitter Allison was visiting (only because Ryan was checking out my basement with G and me to see if he’ll be able to whip it into shape), she was playing with the Boy, and the Boy was using YS’s old Tinkerbell doll as a weapon and whacking another doll with it and yelling “You’re dead!” So maybe there’s hope for him after all. I encouraged Allison to play up the death and destruction. I had to refuse to let the kid dress up as Queen Esther for Purim, for heaven’s sake. Seriously. Testosterone injection needed.

Spring is in the air. We changed the clocks, which means more daylight (yay!), and it also means Pesach is coming (not yay!), and it also means that I feel Baltimore in the air, because that first, fresh, light, beautiful feeling of spring always, always brings me back to Baltimore, because that’s where we used to go for Pesach, and there were always pink flowers on those trees and daffodils and lilacs and spring in the air, and now Baltimore is gone and I’m never going back there and it really, really sucks. (Yes, I know I could go back there any time I feel like it, but I have no intention of doing so, because really, why would I? Except for the unveiling, I mean.) I keep having dreams that I see my grandmother again. It’s so unfair. I have those dreams about other dead relatives at times, or about the mother of my childhood BFF who died when my BFF and I were 11 years old,  and it’s so absurdly painful and unfair. I’m with them again and feeling what it’s like to be with them and tell them all the things I want to tell them, and then I have to wake up. It sucks. I have to start taking dream suppressants. Is there such a thing as a dream suppressant? There should be such a thing as a dream suppressant. There was in Nightmare on Elm Street 3.

Every day I wear one of Savta Ruth’s rings, either the black and silver one or the green and gold one, which looks to us to be a men’s ring, but we have no idea whose it was or where it came from, and there’s no one left to ask. I don’t really like that ring at all, to be honest, but I wear it anyway, because it was Savta Ruth’s, or rather it was with Savta Ruth’s things, and that makes it hallowed and precious, because Savta Ruth is gone. So last Shabbos, instead I wore Grandma Jenny’s giant old horrible ugly ring. (Grandma Jenny as in Savta Ruth’s mother, my great-grandmother, may she rest in peace.) Or should I say one of Grandma Jenny’s giant old horrible ugly rings, because there are many, and I have more than one. So I wore it. Not sure why. Maybe because spring and Pesach make me think of her too, and the way she would always show up in her old maroon car and hobble into the house and sit in the rocking chair and tell us stories, mostly about our second cousins about whom we could not have cared less, but it was fun because it was her. (She was fun.) Or she would ask me about my friends, and my Barbie dolls, and occasionally scream at my mother for God only knows what, usually for not feeding me enough, because I was a scrawny stick. (This was not, for the record, because my mother didn’t feed me enough.) Anyway the ring looked completely absurd. On me, I mean. Grandma Jenny, with her old gnarly spotty hands and her long, gorgeous perfect nails, could wear stuff like that. She was made to wear stuff like that. Me, not so much. It’s missing one (minuscule barely visible) ruby and one (minuscule barely visible) sapphire. It’s sort of pretty in an artistic kind of way, but as a ring, it’s horrible. At least I think so. I’m quite sure it’s worth very little if anything at all, but obviously I have those daydreams on occasion wherein I imagine myself bringing it, or any of the other old icky jewelry I inherited, somewhere to get cleaned or something (yeah, that’ll happen) and find out it’s worth thousands of dollars. Then I get stuck in my daydream trying to decide if I should sell it or not. Do we sell family heirlooms, or keep them? Is an ugly old inconsequential ring to which I have zero sentimental attachment beyond the fact that it was Grandma Jenny’s even considered a family heirloom? It’s good that none of what I have is worth anything, so I’ll never need to answer any of those questions.

Speaking of family heirlooms, RS asked me recently if we have any family heirlooms, and if she could bring one to school, because they’re doing some kind of project. So my answers were that yes, we have many, and hell no you cannot bring any of them to school, though I didn’t really say it like that. She was mad, of course, but then she asked me “Whose was that copper pot?” And I brightened immediately and said “Hey, that’s a great idea! Sure, you can bring that to school!” The copper pot, see, is an old battered gross-looking thing that was brought from the Old Country by my great-great-grandmother, for whom I am named. Apparently she used to make her husband’s oatmeal in it every morning. The bottom has a strange pattern on the outside that probably was burned into it from sitting on the stove, if such a thing is possible, and Savta Ruth used to have it on top of her china closet lying on its side facing out, so the pattern was always visible, and from the floor it looked like some sort of decorative something-or-other. So last year when my Elder Sister and I drove to Baltimore to take what we wanted from Savta Ruth’s house before it was emptied out and sold (feh), I climbed up and took down the pot, and I discovered it was a pot — though it’s possible I’d known that and forgotten — and I said heck, why not, and I took it home. That’s when my mother told me what it was. Heh. Who knew; a priceless family copper pot heirloom from good old Ukraine. I assume it’s from Ukraine; I’m pretty sure we’re Ukrainian on most sides. Though I found out recently that one of my great-great-grandfathers, whom I always knew was from Ukraine, though it might have been Russia, but I thought it was Ukraine, actually only came to Ukraine (or Russia) after fleeing Vienna. Um, hello? So I’m Austrian? Feh. This is all meaningless anyway, of course; it’s not like we were indigenous to Ukraine or wherever. Even my Ukrainian family came there from somewhere else, and whoever was from that place had also come from somewhere else, etc. So I suppose we’re really all “from” Iraq, or wherever it is that we think was the cradle of civilization.

Anyway, the point is, I have this old battered copper pot from the Old Country, and it’s about to receive heirloom status when my daughter brings it to school for her project. Every now and then I consider cleaning it up and kashering it and trying to, you know, use it or something, but you know what, I have enough pots.

My son is still not completely toilet trained, though we are making progress, thank God.

ST walks, only not very well. She totally needs physical therapy. It’s screamingly obvious. But she is SO adorable when she walks. When she doesn’t walk, too, for that matter, but oh my GOD, you should see her walk. Hee hee.

I explained fractions to R (again) the other night, and… she got it. She actually got it. I saw the “aha” light go on. I don’t know why this time was different, but something struck the right chord, and she whizzed through her homework sheet in record time and felt excited and great. “I can’t believe the most boring thing in the universe is actually fun!” (Her words.) She thanked me a few times for teaching it to her. I hugged her so hard my arms hurt.

I went to a funeral this week where there was no body. Not “nobody,” but no body, as in there was no corpse, because the deceased had bequeathed his remains to science. ["Mr. Body's body, it's gone!"] Apparently when science is finished with them, they’ll be returned to the family, and presumably there will be a burial then. This was a first for me. You may or may not recall that some of my father’s many neurologists are eager to get their hands on his brain when he’s finished with it, so they can use it for science as well. Yeah, I don’t think so. Not that I don’t approve of science, but it can get its brains elsewhere.

G and I celebrated our 15th anniversary a few weeks ago. My Elder Sister and my super-slick brother-in-law celebrated their 19th anniversary the other day.  G turned 39 last month, and I’m still 37. Perhaps by the time I’m 50 I’ll accept that any of this is possible.

Ok, I think that’s enough morbid emoting for one evening. Oh, I was cleaning out my study and I found my dead student’s final exam. Among other things, but wow, that sort of jumped out at me. He wrote some really good essays. I need to send it to his parents. Ok, NOW that’s enough morbid emoting for one evening. I still haven’t gone to Monsey. I figure we’ll live on matzah and jelly this time around. Happy Nisan!

Not going to apologize for not blogging because I have had not much interest in blogging, not to mention no opportunity to have any interest in anything.

Went halfway to SuperStroke on Monday for R’s yearly examination by the team. Suddenly we came to a full stop and sat for a while, then we inched forward for a while, then the traffic cleared up but we were already too late, so we had to reschedule. Deja vu anyone? This time it wasn’t a blizzard or a funeral or another blizzard, it was a fourteen-mile jam on the NJ Turnpike because of an accident involving a horse trailer. Weren’t expecting that, were you? Rumor has it the horses were ok save a few scratches on the nose. Ok then. Anyway, by some rather strange miracle they had an opening at 9:45 am… the next day. Huh? Weren’t expecting that either, were you. We weren’t. So we took it (duh), and we sent the monster (my son) to a friend’s to sleep over (God bless this family, don’t know how we’d survive), and my mother-in-law came to sleep over with the three remaining girls, and G, R and I drove to SuperStroke City and stayed at a hotel. Got a huge discount via the Ronald McDonald House, which didn’t have space for us so they got us discounted space elsewhere. May I just pause to note that if TNH hadn’t picked up and made aliyah, we would have been able to stay at HER house, but noooo, she had to go get all holy and idealistic on us, just like BFFD, so hotel it was. Feh.

So we went, and thank God, R’s arteries still look good/stable. No change since last year, blood flow all swell, but we aren’t stopping the aspirin or anything like that, at least not now, because blah blah still a child brain can blah blah consult with colleagues present her images blah. Whatever. I was so happy to see Dr. SuperStroke, as always, and as always R remembered all kinds of random things about the various team members that we had no idea she even knew. I’ll never figure this kid out. So, the big news is that the OT cleared her. Apparently her right hand has recovered and she no longer needs OT, and her ridiculous handwriting is a result of other matters rather than weakness in her hand. So, excellent. As it happens we’d paused the in-school OT anyway because it was not at all a good thing to have her be pulled out of class so much, and we were very glad to hear that it’s all for the best, like more than we realized. Yay.

Know what happened? I lost my phone. At my niece’s bat mitzvah, last Sunday. One second it was there, the next it was gone, and we looked everywhere and told everybody but nope, nothing. Oops. And yes, we tried calling it (duh), like seven million times, and yes I went totally off the wall hysterical that night, but it didn’t help and it has not been found. So we deactivated it or whatever it’s called when you tell T-Mobile that your phone is lost and they should make it not be your phone anymore, and all of my years’ worth of SIM contacts are gone, and if anybody actually stole it, they’re going to be rather disappointed when they try to put it up on ebay and find that it’s worth nothing. Because that phone is a piece of junk, as it was already when we bought it two or so years ago. Remember? I do. So now I need to find a new phone. Ha.

My niece had her bat mitzvah, by the way. As usual it was stunning, and as usual my sister-in-law is a phenomenal amazing human being, and my niece is… surreal. Inside and out. She’s so breathtakingly beautiful, I have no words.

I’m having a moderate amount of difficulty conceptualizing Pesach this year. Apparently, the fact that my grandmother is gone is sort of digging like a corkscrew all the way into my soul, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason for Pesach anymore. Which makes no sense for an infinite number of reasons, but since when does that matter. Anyway it’s taking me totally by surprise. I did not expect to feel this way. I expected it to be emotional and maybe different, but I didn’t expect it to feel like a hollow space on the calendar. Feels like all life and meaning have been sucked out of Pesach and what’s left is an empty shell, and I don’t understand what it’s doing there. I don’t know how to do this. I think I’m going to have to fake the whole thing. It doesn’t feel like Pesach exists anymore. I’m going to have to find a new meaning for it and start all over again, and frankly at 37 years old I don’t know that I have the energy to create another holiday from scratch.

All these years I thought Pesach was about יציאת מצרים, you know? Weird. Apparently it was about my grandparents, and the rest was just the stuff we did. Who knew.

I hate triteness. This post is annoying me. Have a good night. Look, it’s ST playing with my scarves.

This was the scholar-in-residence weekend. The visitor was one of my absolute favorite favorite favorite scholars in the whole wide world. I worked with him on something a million years ago. He’s a top top person in my former field. Been waiting years for him to come, because hey, if I can hear one of my favorite dudes speak three times without having to travel further than my shul, what could be bad? Also the scholar always stays at my house (rabbi perk), unless I’m pregnant/dying, which is totally fun. Anyway I already knew a lot about the topics of the first two lectures for this weekend, but much less than I used to (feh), and never did I know as much as he does (nor will I) (feh), and I didn’t know anything at all about the third topic. So I was pleased about the whole thing. So of course I got strep, and I barely made it through last night’s lecture, and of course I had pushed myself much too hard too soon last night, and then — God only knows why — I could not sleep, and I stayed up staring at the wall until five AM (no, I am not pregnant), and so I was sick as anything this morning and had to stay in bed all day (grrr), so I missed today’s lecture, and then I was still so not good that I didn’t even bother trying to go tonight. Feh. But I did stop in, with G and RS and ST, at Babysitter Allison’s ENGAGEMENT PARTY next door. Didja hear that? Engagement party. Yes, that’s right, Ryan finally popped the question. Well “finally” might be a bit unfair. They’d been together for a year, so I suppose it was reasonable. Anyway Elaine (Allison’s mother) bought kosher cupcakes to be sure we could eat something when we got there. I felt bad that the Boy and the twins weren’t there, but they were at playdates, and the twins ended up sleeping over at their friend’s house, even though they were supposed to be grounded, but the father of the friend got on the phone and negotiated with me and I didn’t have the strength to argue much. I still maintain that the Boy is going to challenge Ryan to a duel over Ahti, but he hasn’t done it yet. Me, I can’t really threaten Ryan anymore, because he’s proven himself to be sort of perfect. For Ahti, I mean. I can’t find anything to criticize — anything — though Lord knows I tried. Hey, the chick’s father is no longer with us, so someone’s got to hover protectively and be impossible to please. But I’ve failed in that role, because he won me over almost immediately. Guess I’m not a good father.

ST’s new thing is touching and/or pointing to every single thing possible and saying “Diss?” And then you have to tell her what it is. Then she does it again, and/or makes a speech about it. Also if you say “Niiiiice,” she’ll gently stroke whatever it is. That’s how I try to keep her from pulling my hair. It doesn’t always work. Also, for as long as I can remember, she’s been wrapping everything possible around her neck or draping it over her head. Her favorite thing to do this with is fabric of any kind, but she also does it with, um, anything else she gets her hands on. Or she tries to. It’s really very funny and cute, which is why I’m mentioning it, because I want to be sure I remember that she does it, because it’s cute. Strep, however, is less cute.

Going to sleep now.

(Heehee, see what I did there? I hope it comes out right.)

Ugh.

So since my light box is a little bit broken, and since there’s no convenient place to keep it and the cord is too short, I went online and purchased the cheapest full-spectrum lamp I could find that didn’t look like total junk, and I unwrapped it and assembled it and turned it on and stuck my face directly under it, and you know what? I think it might be total junk. But at work, my boss found a different one for me — an awesome one, a super expensive fancy one, and now it’s on my desk, and I have it on while I’m working, and I LOVE it and I complain every time I have to leave my desk. (There’s always a reason to complain.) And my colleagues don’t like it because it shines down the hallway and hurts their eyes, but I believe they’re just jealous, because wouldn’t you be?

The twins’ report cards arrived. Their English teacher gave YS an A- in reading comprehension. Insert rib-splitting laughter here. This is a child who scored on an 11th-grade reading level during first grade. My guess is that the teacher doesn’t understand what YS writes, and hence assumes it’s wrong. R, in the meantime… heh. Let’s not go there. Let’s instead jump off a bridge. Oh, speaking of R and going places, she wants to make her wish, and she’s going to wish to tour Buckingham Palace wearing a princess gown. She also wants her sisters to wear princess gowns. I’ve been procrastinating calling the wish granters; guess why? Because I have no interest in touring Buckingham Palace and no interest in flying overseas with my five children unless we are going to Israel which would be the only thing that might make such a trip worthwhile. If I knew for sure that it would be sunny and warm in England, then sure, let’s go. But to the best of my knowledge it is rarely if ever either sunny OR warm in England, so what do I need this for? And princess gowns? Seriously? Pah-LEEZ. Three more dresses that will clutter up my house and then the girls will outgrow them, and then what do I do with them? Feh. Just send us to Israel, you silly fools.

Have I mentioned that winter makes me grouchy?

Speaking of grouchy, someone emailed me today to ask my advice on how to keep grouchiness in check when interacting with people, and how to avoid biting people’s heads off. HAHAHAHA. I have no idea what made her think I have any knowledge to share on that subject.

My kids’ summer camp closed down. Like the one RS has been going to for seven years and the twins have been going for five years. We were maybe going to send the Boy this year too. Everyone else has been scrambling like crazy, trying to find alternatives, whereas we have been pretending this did not happen and that another solution will present itself forthwith.

I discovered that my computer, by which I mean the computer my job gave me to work with, which means it’s their computer and not mine, has a webcam. I’ve also discovered that webcams do not offer flattering presentations of me. Or of my son. Want to see?

We’re both so totally much cuter than that. And look, I’m wearing one of my old camp t-shirts, see the B’nei Akiva thingie? So ST and I made a video anyway, and it mostly consists of me trying to get her to look at the camera and say “hi,” and I sent it to my mother. Next step: getting my mother to get Skype.

Do you speak fluent German, by any chance? Let me know if you do; I need a favor from someone who speaks fluent German.

RS turned 11 years old a few weeks ago, and apparently this means we’re supposed to start planning some sort of coming-of-age celebration. Ok then. Bagels and cream cheese in my basement, everyone. Please ignore the crunching of the toys and centipedes underfoot.