The Festival of Freedom... but Whose?

I just watched my older son and daughter drive down the street from the bathroom window.  In our house the bathroom window overlooks the driveway and rather than have them see me standing in the driveway staring at them, I snuck here.  From this vantage point, I can open a spot between the white horizontal blinds and watch the car make its way down our street.

 My kids, enjoying a little together time before they say good-bye

For nearly a week, the house was full again.  More than full at times, with all three kids, my in-laws, and various  friends, a boyfriend, and a couple of sleep-overs of friends. My husband took off time from work.   We ran the dishwasher, the washing machine, and drier more times in a week than we usually do in a month, and went through more Poland Spring 5 Gallon jugs than the state of Maine probably exports in one week.

And the matza!  Like fur when my dogs are shedding, there are crumbs absolutely everywhere, even in places where I know that matza was not eaten.  (My bed?  The bathroom? Well, lets just say, it better NOT have been eaten in those places!) 


This was the joyful week of Passover... long anticipated and over so quickly.   We also call it the Holiday of Our Freedom, although that seems like a bit of an ironic joke if you are looking at it from my perspective.  Yes, of course we celebrate the freedom from slavery and we tell our children the story of the Exodus from Egyptian bondage.  But looking back at this past week, it only just now feels that I have even enough free time to finally reflect.


We are certainly bound to eat only very specific foods.  No bread, of course, but in our house it does not end there.  We, and when I say we, what I mean is, I clean the pantry, the snack drawers, and the refrigerator and remove every food item which contains any bit of "hametz," the generic term for food which contains flour, corn, soy, yeast, wheat, or anything which could act as a leavening agent.  I take this opportunity, as many people do, to thoroughly clean, wipe down, spray and re-line the shelves of the pantry.  This is both time consuming and cathartic.  I donate a few bags to the Center for Food Action, I throw away half finished boxes and bags, and I line up items on the counter for the kids to finish, much to their delight.  

I don't know why we do this, but we buy chocolate and other candy during Passover that we would never  EVER buy during the rest of the year.

Then there is the the cleaning of the rest of the house.  Depending on how early a start I have gotten, the de-cluttering will go one of two ways... true de-cluttering or shoving everything into boxes and bags and putting it all in the office.  I had to go with the latter this year, as my in-laws arrived on Thursday, and the first Seder was on Friday.  Today I will begin going through all those boxes and bags and looking for all that important stuff I buried a week and a half ago.  I carved a pathway to the computer so I that I could do my work and my son and I could manage to keep up with Facebook during this week. 

Next we have the cooking.  If you celebrate Passover, you know that the cooking does not stop after the first two nights... Oh no.  Because we are so fussy about what we eat, we pretty much eat at home all week.  So we are cooking (and in this case, it is "we") a LOT.  And though we cut out things like corn, rice, and pasta, we get very creative with other carbs like potatoes and quinoa.  This year, as it happens many times, Passover week was school and work vacation... so everyone was home and the kitchen was the hub of activity. 

Our Seder Table... almost ready.

Nana helps with the eggs.  

Can you say SCHMALTZ?  I know it's not healthy.  I know it's wrong.  But for one week a year, I cook with chicken fat.  I didn't read it in a cookbook, and my mom never told me to do this, but what can I say?  It's in my DNA.  And while I'm at it, I start speaking with a fake accent as if I'm from the old country, I cook and eat Matza brei, which I don't even like.  Gefilte fish and hard-boiled eggs make their way to every breakfast table.  Whipped butter appears, because it's so delicious on matza.  Some traditions I learned from my parents, some we started ourselves.  And I know my children will pass them along just as surely as I know they will tell their children that "we were slaves in Egypt."    I know that the taste of my matza-ball soup on their tongues tastes like Judaism as much as the sound of the chanting of the Shema sounds like Judaism.

Last night, I stood at the ironing board, ironing out number 2 of 4 antique tablecloths that were my grandmother's.  (I hope to beat my previous record and have all the tablecloths and napkins ironed and put away before Rosh HaShannah.)  I came across a new wine stain, and wondered if Grandma, known in her later years as GG (for Great Grandma) would be happy or furious to see that now-dulled to a rusty-red-colored mark.  Would she be glad to know that I use these so many times each year for all the Jewish holidays?  Or would she scold me (as she so often did) for not taking better care of her heirlooms  i.e. leave them folded up in the drawer and use a new tablecloth from Bloomingdales?  


So when will the feeling of freedom come?  When the mountains (literally) of laundry are done?  When the ironing is finished?  When the kitchen finally gets clean?  When I find the box that contains the two paychecks that I mistakenly put in a pile in the office somewhere?  


Or, wait a second.  


Am I feeling it now, in the luxury to ignore all those tasks, plus hours and hours of work (you know, the kind that pays the bills) that has been put on hold because I have had the freedom to give myself over completely to my family and my holiday.


Z'man Heirutainu... The Time of Our Freedom...is now.

This is actually the pile of laundry I'm ignoring while writing this blog posting.

Not exactly essential, but really helps with the feeling of freedom.
Let's call it the suggested Pesach aperitif.

Skip the Apple Pie

Click here for appropriate listening.

The New York Yankees just signed Andy Pettite for one year at $2.5 million.  (Read all about it here.)


I would like to get paid $2.5 million dollars for one year of work.  In my field of Jewish Education, that will never happen, and I will be lucky to ever even see a job that pays any Jewish Educator remotely what I believe we are worth, but that's not what this blog is about.


This is about one of the truly American things... BASEBALL.   
I love it.  Well, I love New York Yankee Baseball.


But, getting back to Andy Pettite, I'm sure that $2.5 is a lot less than he used to make, and he's gotta start in the minors, but still, I'm thrilled.  I like Andy a lot. In my mind he's a true Yankee and it will be good to see him in pinstripes again.


As I said, love Yankee Baseball.  I know that if you live somewhere else it's cool to put down New York teams, especially New York.  Okay.  "Dis" all you want.  There's something very exciting about this team and they're starting to rev up now.


I did not grow up a Yankee fan.  I've lived in lots of different cities through my life, and had a only mild interest in baseball.  I don't like other sports at all.  (Rumor has it that a New York team won the football thing this year.  Big deal.)  I only marginally follow other sports so that I don't seem like a complete idiot if and when I am ever invited to a party and the discussion comes around to something other than Jewish Education, parenting or music.


When I lived in Boston in 3rd grade, the kids were allowed to bring in their transistor radios to listen to the Red Sox games in school, so I remember pretending to like baseball then.  My Grandmother was a baseball fan and I think my Dad might have taken me to Shea Stadium to see the Mets in the 70's.

I just spent an hour trying to photo shop my own face where Susan Sarandon's  face is.
If someone knows how to do this and then get it to stick on the blog, I'd be forever grateful.
And able to be even more hilarious.

While living in Durham, NC, I started to really enjoy the game, going to the Durham Bull Stadium to watch the Durham Bulls play.  The draw, at first, I'll admit was the dozen or so local brews on tap that they had, and the low priced tickets.  But I understood the game, and it was a fun, inexpensive night out.  (A short time later, the movie Bull Durham was filmed there, and by a lucky coincidence, I was there for a cast party and met Kevin Costner. I'll bet he remembers me too.  I'm not in the film, but my friend Jean is in some of the crowd shots.)


When life took me to San Francisco, my appetite for live music surpassed by far my interest in baseball, but I still took in a few games at Candlestick park and saw the SF Giants play there.


But it wasn't until 1995 that I became a Yankees fan.  I had been living in New Jersey for several years.  Three children, two cats in the yard...the American dream!  My husband and I were both working hard at our jobs and enjoying domestic tranquility.  We'd take our kids to the park, and to little league, and the movies, drive the carpools and have family dinners on Shabbat, and on Sunday nights with my parents and my brother's family.


And when it was time for the Grateful Dead to go on tour, we would line up our babysitters, save up our money, make some sandwiches, throw some beer in the cooler and spend a few nights doing what we loved best.  Going to concerts.


Until August 8, 1995.  That was the sad day that Jerry Garcia died.

Jerry Garcia, Captain of our team.

That night we put the kids to bed and stood on our back porch and listened to tapes till the middle of the night.


Everything was gonna be different.


And that was the summer I started to watch Yankee baseball.  I had concert tickets to a show that would never happen, and fan energy that had no where to go.  But the Yankees were on top... they were a young team with great energy and they were winning too!  My husband got a pair of pretty good tickets from a client at work, and we went on a starry summer night.  It was not a Dead show, but there was an undeniable air of excitement.  Yankee Stadium was fun.


And the the players!


Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettite, and one year later, my favorite Yankee, Tino Martinez... young handsome guys just playing baseball, every single night (practically) all summer and right through October?  How come other women don't know about this!?


Going to more games turned out to be a challenge.  It was difficult to get tickets and EXPENSIVE.


I watched a lot of baseball on tv and listened to it on the radio.  Once in a while, we would get tickets.


By another lucky coincidence, an old high school classsmate met my parents at a diner and had a conversation that I can imagine went something like this:

"Hi Doctor and Mrs. Cantor."
"Hello, didn't you go to high school with our daughter, Juliet?  Didn't I fix your broken nose in 1983?  How are you? Do you live here?  How's your family?  Look at those pretty girls, your daughters?  Is this your wife? She's lovely.  Just look at these pictures of our grandchildren!  You know Juliet lives in New Jersey again now, these are her kids, aren't they gorgeous?"
"Um, yes... I..."
"So where are you all off to on this fine day?"
"We are going to a Yankee game."
"Juliet is a Yankee fan.  Here's her number.  You should call her, she doesn't really have any friends here in New Jersey anymore.  She and her husband would love to get together with you."
"Um, well..."
"Okay, well, here's our lunch, you should try the Reuben here, it's fantastic.  Enjoy the game, I think you should put on the radio and check the traffic at the bridge.  I'll tell Juliet we saw you."

And that is how it happened that I was the lucky recipient of fantastic Yankee tickets at least once or twice a season.


That gravy train ended when he gave up his tickets... when the new Yankee stadium opened in 2009 he opted out of the price gauging upgrade and we've been fending for ourselves.


March is a very long month.  Typically it's cold and there are no vacation days or days off, unless you are lucky enough to have Spring Break, which I have never had.  (Well, I have once, but I can't write about it because this is a family blog.)  But March brings spring training.  And that means you can count down til opening day!


But with the date of April 6 being opening day and the first Seder of Passover, my excitement for some Yankee baseball may have to wait for the first few home games of the following week.  In the meantime it's time to bring up the Passover dishes and the pinstripes too, both signs that winter is almost over (was it ever here at all?) and spring feels like its on it's way, with unseasonably warm temperatures in the Northeast.

(And for those of use who can't wait, there's spring training baseball which is also televised and on the radio!)


So welcome back to Andy Pettite, I hope you play a lot this season and do what we need you to do for our pitching on the Yankees.  And good-bye and thank you to Jorge Posada for your great tenure as a Yankee since I became a fan, and was a real mensch and role model for (almost) the entire time. 


Anyone for a hot dog and a beer?

It's Just A Box of Tapes

You and Me, iPod!

I have been involved in a love affair.


It began in 2003, on Valentines Day.  And it continues to this day...


This is sounding cliche, and wait, because it gets worse.  My husband is responsible for introducing us.


He bought me my first iPod with his first bonus check from a then-new job, and I have never looked back.


This did not start my love affair with the recorded song, of course.
My first records, two 45's,were given to me with my first record player when I was 6 by my parents.  I remember vividly sitting right down on the kitchen floor in our little house in Sacramento, California, and playing "Heroes and Villains" by the Beach Boys and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles over and over again.  These were the brand new hits (1967) and being played on every radio station in America.

A small sampling of my wonderful collection of 45's.
I'm waiting til we get a Jukebox for the billiards room.
I'm waiting til we get a billiards room.

When I hit middle school, I would save my allowance and babysitting money to buy records.

My  record collection was expanding, and now technology had really taken off.  Cassette tapes!



I never was one for buying pre-recorded tapes, but I quickly realized the joy of making a mixed-tape.  Every new car had a cassette player ... (or an eight track, but I seemed to skip that whole genre somehow).


When my boyfriend got his license I made him a tape for his car. Car songs, mixed with my favorite songs to hear while riding in a car.  I'm sure he never played it.  My creativity was bursting.  When my friend moved to Chicago, I made her a poignant tape of songs about being friends, imaging how she'd cry when she heard it.


Headed down the Jersey shore?  I made the "perfect" mix of classics by the Beach Boys, Steve Miller Band, the Beatles, SuperTramp, Kansas, Foreigner, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and the Who, with a few of the radio's top hits mixed in to get us down there and back.


What started as a few tapes for a car ride, however, morphed into a shoe-box of tapes for longer rides. By the time I was in college, my record and tape collection was still modest compared to what it is now, but it all had to come with me.

American Beauty...A New Reality?

And then came the spiritual awakening  known to many as American Beauty.*


Can a record album be life changing?


Yes.


(You know this scene in Freaks and Geeks?  Yeah.  Like that.)


Once I got on the bus**, my music collection took a weird and wonderful turn.  My record catalog doubled, my tape collection grew exponentially. I no longer stuck to one favorite radio station. I began to search to the origins of blues, soul and country music and had to discover the roots of everything.  At parties I'd gravitate to where the music was.  Soon I was travelling with a wooden crate of tapes just to get back and forth from Boston to New Jersey for breaks.


  When my friend Patti was going on a road trip I made her a tape (Life in the Fast Lane by the Eagles and Helen Hell on Wheels by Wings).  There were party tapes and mellow tapes.   All my mixed tapes took a psychedelic turn as my musical tastes did as well.  Jefferson Airplane, It's a Beautiful Day, Blind Faith, lots of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Jimmy Cliff joined the Grateful Dead on the lovely montages I was putting together with still contained classics like the Eagles, Elton John, Chicago and Paul McCartney's solo stuff.  I had dreams of becoming a radio DJ and playing what I thought were perfect mixes of music, getting lost for hours in my own record collection. 



  And then, there were the Grateful Dead live tapes.


  One of the more remarkable and outstanding things about the Grateful Dead is, and always has, been their generosity with their music.  They have allowed and encouraged taping of their live shows, and these tapes used to be traded around, mostly for free or for a blank tape.  If you attended a concert that you loved, you'd make a few calls and try to find a good version of that tape, so you could hear it over and over. (The sharing of the music continues, by the way.  It is now done online, by those "tapers," who upload their shows, with the generous permission of the band.)


I'd hunt down rare versions of singles and live versions of concerts.  Did Jerry Garcia actually make a little joke at Bob Weir's expense in Buffalo?  I had to have that tape! The Blues Brothers joined the Dead for the closing of the venerable Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco? I needed the soundboard this time, not an audience version!

I did go to class, in case you were wondering.  By this time, the Walkman was invented!  So wonderfully small, you could take this thing everywhere and bring your music with you!

The Walkman, next to an iPod shuffle, in my hand.

After college, I married my boyfriend, and we decided to make San Francisco our home. He understood my music addiction and was okay with it.  That drive required a new dimension of tape toting.  All the tapes fit snuggly into a wooden crate, re-purposed from a wine crate, that had a rope handle.  Well, let me be honest here.  The tapes fit into three of these.  And these were just the tapes I chose for the car ride across the country.  The rest were packed into boxes and I prayed they stayed safe and dry on their trip.

One of the boxes of tapes.

When CD's started to become popular in the late 80's I was cautious, but excited.  Recorded music that doesn't get warped, scratched, melted, or tangled up in the player? And the sound quality is better than anything yet? Of course I had to try it.  The last records I remember buying were Paul Simon's Graceland (1986) and the The Traveling Wilburys (1988).  We did not have the technology to burn CD's yet, nor did we have a CD player in our car or van, so we pretty much stuck with records and tapes for quite a while, while slowly adding CD's to our collection.


Lets just say that if they had not come up with the iPod when they did, I might have qualified for a role on that show called "Hoarders."


Now, don't get me wrong, I still have all the tapes, CD's and records.  I still buy a new CD every so often.  But when I want ONE song off one album?  Or I have the record already and I just need it digitally? I am thrilled to save the room and click "buy" from iTunes.  I can even do it right from my phone when the muse hits me waiting online at Shoprite.  (Come on, haven't you ever heard the Muzak version of Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum and needed the original immediately?)


My latest download was, like many people, a Monkees compilation, to round out my iTunes catalog and join the world in mourning the death of the cutest Monkee, Davy Jones.  My favorite download lately?  I guess the one I've played the most is Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood at Madison Square Garden. It amazes and delights me that I can now carry all my music, create moods, cheer myself up, and quickly "name that tune," all with this one magical perfect little device.


Well, two little devices.  My iPhone doesn't quite hold enough music, so I still cart around my iPod as well, because, well, you just never know which of the 4,500 songs you might need at any given moment.  The good news is they all fit in my pocketbook!

True love 4ever.

NOTE: I guess a blog post about my love of my iPod would not be complete without a playlist to accompany it.  So,  if you'll notice some of the songs are highlighted, so they are clickable links.  They should lead you to YouTube links of songs to listen to as your read about my somewhat abbreviated journey through the recorded song.

*You know, man, that if you look at the lettering just right, dude, it also says... American Reality. WHOA.

**Became a fan of the Grateful Dead

New note:  This iPod has since actually died, may it's memory be for a blessing.  I am now, somewhat dubiously, in the cloud, trusting my catalog to the people at Apple.  We will see how that goes for one year.

I Will Survive

A True Story.  

About being in the prime of your life and learning you have cancer.

My husband has a motto:  Sweat the small stuff.  It's funny, and if you think about it, you may as well, because sometimes the big stuff is just so big that if you think about it you'll just have to crawl under the covers and never come back out.

I went for a mammogram yesterday.  This weekend I'll keep nice and busy and wait for my results Monday or Tuesday.  I'm sure they'll be fine.    I go every year right around now.  At this point, you are probably thinking I am a breast cancer survivor.  I am not.

Here is my story.


It was about twenty-one years ago.  I know a lot of people would remember the exact day they were diagnosed.  I don't, but I know it was in January of 1991.  

I'll back up a little bit.


My second child, a perfect, beautiful daughter, was born on September 18, 1990.   Our first child, a son greeted his baby sister with delight, and relatives glowed to see that a baby girl had finally arrived to the family on the Cantor side... where we had so far only had boys.  We named her for my beloved grandmother, who passed away only two weeks after my Bat Mitzvah and her naming was a joyous affair at my parents' house. 


It took a while for me to get my energy back after this baby though.  In fact, I never did seem to get my energy back.  Unlike after my  first pregnancy, I was lethargic and napped each time the baby napped.  I shed the weight quickly, which I thought was great, but developed a slight cough, and then a skin rash which spread from my knees and elbows to my arms and legs... and then suddenly... everywhere.


I finally dragged myself, upon my mother's insistence, to the dermatologist,who took a look at me and decided I should be hospitalized.


WHAT?


This is one of those life changing moments when you seem to catch up to the others who are seeing things way before you.  It's a skin rash.  I'm just tired.  It's post-partum!  I have a new baby.  I can't go to the hospital.  And, Dr. Fine (his real name and the man who saved my life) wants me at NYU Medical Center.  I live in New Jersey.  We have hospitals here, in fact, my dad works at a great hospital here... I JUST HAD MY BABY THREE MONTHS AGO AT A HOSPITAL HERE!    I didn't seem to have a say, and people around me all had this solemn and serious manner. 


I went, of course.  I don't remember packing. I was placed on the Dermatology floor, since the primary cause for alarm was a skin rash that was, as yet, undiagnosed and spreading like crazy. The next few days were a blur...the itching was unbearable and no amount of creams, or antihistamines brought relief...a lot of tests, a lot of poking and prodding, stronger medication, steroids, that made my face turn into a big round dumpling, and ruined my appetite and my sleep, but also gave me back my energy... and the itching is giving way to blisters and hives.  A week goes by.  I had a few visitors, but mostly I wanted to make sure that my children were being taken care of.  Save your schlep into the City, and help by driving my son to Nursery School and my daughter to my parents' house. 


I kept busy by watching tv, reading, when I could focus, and looking after my elderly roommate.  Mrs. Rosenbloom was a tiny woman, of an undisclosed age, with the nastiest infection on her leg that I have ever since, before or since.  It was gross, and she was feeling pretty bad for herself... and was a bit of a kvetch.  I think she saw my placement in the bed next to her as the arrival (AT LAST) of that private nurse she had been hoping for. I helped her get up and down from bed, change the tv channels, order food, and translate what the doctors were telling her, from "Doc speak" to "Little Old Lady from the Old County" speak. 


Midmorning:
"Are you Kosher, Mrs. Rosenbloom?" 
"No, no. Just tell me what they have." 
"Okay, they have the matza ball soup, the turkey sandwich, the chicken pot pie, or the ham and cheese." 
She looks up suddenly.  
"Oh, is that what you want, the ham and cheese?"
 "NO!" She screams at me. "That's trayfe!*"


It's funny the things you remember.


The tests were endless.  At this point, I'm feeling better, missing my children so badly it feels like a physical ache, and losing my patience for the patient next to me. I have been given a Gameboy (the first one ever made, I believe) by my husband, and I learn to play Doctor Mario.  I see a lot more of Doctor Mario, than any other doctor at NYU Medical Center, and he and I get pretty good at gobbling up germs.  


On one occasion, when my dad, a doctor, was visiting, he heard me coughing, and I guess my cough had worsened by this point.  He asked if I had gotten a chest x-ray.  I hadn't.  With the myriad of tests I had been subject to, a simple x-ray was not one of them.  


On day ten, an x-ray showed a grapefruit-sized tumor in my chest.


I met with a top notch thoracic surgeon who gruffly let me know just how busy he was and how lucky I was he was squeezing me in to perform a biopsy on this "mass."  Yep.  Feeling pretty lucky.  I remember lying there, thinking about his abrupt nature and callous attitude; wishing I could tell him that a person was lying here in this body. This "person" has two babies at home and a huge tumor in her chest and right now her time is way more valuable than his, no matter how famous he might be in the medical world.


That night I dreamed I was shot in the chest. 


The biopsy showed that the mass was indeed cancer, and it is a blur now how we learned that it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  A more treatable type.  After several more uncomfortable and invasive tests to see how far this cancer spread, I was finally promised I could leave the hospital.  15 days later.  


I do not remember coming home, or hugging my children that first day.  I don't remember sleeping in my bed that first night.  I remember the sickening feeling of anxiety that would overwhelm me. I went in to NYU Medical Center for more tests to discover if I would need chemotherapy and radiation, or just radiation.  Thanks to the fact the the bone marrow biopsy was clean, I met with the oncologist and he said we could try just radiation for 12 weeks and see if that would work.  If not, then we would have to introduce chemotherapy. I told him about my anxiety and my difficulty sleeping.  He prescribed Valium, and told me it was normal.  He did not say I'd be fine.  He did say my prognosis was good.  I trusted him.


The radiation treatment became my new job.  A really horrible job, where you dread going in,  your co-workers are nice and you feel like puking all day when you are done.  You are never comfortable,  or happy, and there's always someone much worse off than you.  To make sure that you don't get zapped in the wrong spots, you get tiny little tattoo marks on your body so that the machine gets lined up correctly.  


The radiation did burn out the cancer... and while it made me feel bad, the medical marijuana helped a lot during that time.  I'm not getting on the political bandwagon about that right now, but it saved the day, gave me an appetite, and no, I would never have considered smoking it, I could barely swallow from the radiation.  It was a tiny little pill that was legal even then. 


I had to go in to New York every day for 12 weeks.  I took only one day off (which I had to make up at the end) for a dear friend's wedding, and I also remember truckin' up to Buffalo to see the Grateful Dead.  Nothing like a little music therapy to soothe the soul.   I remember my husband and I each took our younger brothers to the concerts and though I didn't have my usual energy, remember feeling wrapped in love that weekend. 


When the treatment was over, it was time to get back to life. Was I cured?  The tumors had shrunk down, and would continue to shrink.  I was to go to the doctor every three months for scans for the next year.  Will I be able to have more children?  I was told no, and not to try, due to the radiation and the damage it likely had done to my ovaries.  And I would not be able to breast feed. 


I got back to work, and enjoyed my children.  We went to Seaside Heights in the summers, and saw the Grateful Dead when they came around.  I went to my doctor appointments and each time got good news.  The cancer was disappearing.  No new signs of cancer were showing up anywhere.  The side effects of the treatment were vanishing. 


After no trace of the lymphoma or other blood disorders for three years, and defying my doctor, we did have another child, a healthy boy.


He was born on Shavuot... this is the Jewish  holiday when we received the law on Mount Sinai... so we gave him the middle name of "N'tanel" which translates to mean "Gift of God."


The little tattoo marks are still there, as my constant reminders that I am Super Woman.  So is my scar from my biopsy.  I don't try to hide it when I wear a v-neck top, I'm proud that I am a survivor.


And most of the time I don't think about it.  Until I do.  Like now, when I am waiting for that phone call that tells me I don't need to go back for a mammogram for another year.






*Yiddish word for not Kosher.

Today's blog is dedicated to all those who are fighting cancer, who love someone who is, or lost someone because of it.




Feb. 29, Leap Day, 2012... got the results of my mammogram today.  This is the one case where I like being told I'm "normal."   Leap day... an extra day in every four years...despite the fact it's somewhat cold and rainy, I'll consider it the gift that it is and gift it back to others today.  


And the healthy baby boy I mentioned above has just gotten in to Tufts, and will be starting there in the fall.  

An Open Letter to Governor Christie

This started as an open letter to the Governor, begging him to do the right thing and allow the bill to become law.  The very day I wrote it, he vetoed the marriage equality bill, so I edited my letter, changed it to an essay, and mailed it to the newspaper, as I could not keep quiet.  

This is the copy I sent to The Record, the local NJ newspaper.  So far it has not been published.  But this blog post has been viewed quite a few times.  And it looks like Maryland is about to be the next state to pass same-sex marriage.

February 18, 2012

I have been ranting on my Facebook page, and doing a lot of tweeting lately, and even though the world is going the way of the social media, due to the seriousness of this issue, an actual letter is in order.  You see, lives are at stake- lives of people we know, and countless people we don’t know.

The need to write send this letter to the paper began as I read yesterday’s Record. There were two front page headlines: New picture of defendant and Gay Marriage Backers Plan for Coming Battle.  The first refers to the tragedy of Tyler Clementi’s suicide, and the planned court date of his roommate.The second refers to The Marriage Equality bill, passed by both the New Jersey State Senate and House, which would soon be reaching Governor Christie’s desk for a signature, and the preparations being made for a potential battle which is likely to ensue if he should decline. A few hours later, as he promised, Chris Christie vetoed this bill that meant so much to so many.

He had said publicly that he planned to veto the bill and “...move on to other things that the people of New Jersey say are more important to them… (Gay marriage backers plan for strategy for coming battle, 2012).” It made me wonder if he thought to ask voters if saving the life of a young college student might be right up there with creating jobs and lowering taxes.

I’ll explain the connection.

Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers freshman, jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge, after being “outed” as gay by his roommate.  He was more than outed. He was exposed publicly, virally, on Facebook and Twitter. Because being gay is still being “The Other,” and because of the speed and scope at which this occurred, Tyler, overwhelmed, decided he would rather take his own life than face the fallout of this public “outing.”  As a result, and in the wake of this horrible tragedy, schools all across New Jersey, and the United States, have increased their efforts to stop bullying.  

As positive as this development is, there is an interesting twist. There are specific laws which support moves to stop bullying on the basis of prejudice or bias. If you make a racist comment about an ethnic group, it is considered a hate crime.  Any action taken against a religious group is likewise punishable based upon that principle.  It seems that the intention of the law is to protect against any crime against any group based upon cultural difference. Clearly, a veto of same-sex marriage now marginalizes an entire segment of our population. Our own government has just provided an excuse for the ignorant and cruel among us to continue to behave in a way that is reprehensible. Chris Christie missed an opportunity to teach a new generation that the bigotry of their parents will not be tolerated. He missed the chance to teach them the true meaning of democracy and equality. By vetoing this bill, he gave kids the go-ahead to bully and tease gay and lesbian kids.  He allowed teachers to stand idly by when they see it. Christie is saying that gay and lesbians are not equal to heterosexuals. In fact, even the children of these couples will now be subject to another generation of ostracizing and elitism rather than acceptance and understanding if we do not work together for change right now.

The state senate and legislature have voted. Polls clearly indicate that the majority of those living in New Jersey currently and strongly support Marriage Equality.  And for those who may not love the idea of a gay marriage, the wonderful thing about our country is that they never have to have one. 

I am saddened and disgusted that our governor did not hear the voices of his constituents, that he did not represent our state and his voters by doing the right thing. He had the chance to make New Jersey the seventh state to boast marriage equality.  Doing so would only have helped our state.   Hopefully the New Jersey government will be able to override his veto.  Then, like our parents, who knew that people of color were not “separate but equal,” and that women and men all have solace in the job market, in just a few years, we would be able look back at this milestone, and say that we were part of the generation who made this change.  

Juliet Barr

Ramsey

Mother, Educator and Voter 

In Memory of a Friend at Christmas

Click here to hear Christmas Wrapping By the Waitresses


What's a nice Jewish blogger like me doing with a Christmas opening like that?

Whenever I hear this song, I think of living in Boston in my early 20's, Christmas of course, and I think of my friend Patti.


Patti was my college roommate, randomly chosen, but deliberately kept.

Massell Quad, Brandeis University, Fall 1977, Usen Dorm is to the right.
Photo Credit: Michael Eggert

It might seem like we were opposites back then, in 1977.   We were both young, obviously, but Patti had been a bit more sheltered before she stepped foot on the Brandeis campus.  Catholic school, all girls, until then. Good clean living, right from Lowell, Massachusetts. Here comes Juliet from New Jersey with big plans for college.  I remember I got there first on move-in day, in our little third-floor dorm room double.  Mom and Dad helped shlep my stuff up all those stairs, and set up the stereo (record player and cassette deck, of course) with all my Billy Joel, Beach Boys and Beatles records, among many others, in alphabetical order in milk crates, which held up the huge speakers. The little fridge and hot pot, as Patti and I had discussed by letter, were all set up, and I went off to get my mealbook and phone.

Yes, I've saved my meal book all these years.

Hours of waiting on line, filling in forms, and getting settled. Mom and Dad left and still, no roommate.  When she finally arrived, I couldn't tell whether to be happy or not. She was with her sister, not her parents, and they appeared to have been fighting.  I offered to help her with  her stuff and there wasn't much to bring up.  The good-bye between Patti and her sister was brief and made me uncomfortable.  I remember I started to talk too much to ease the tension, and Patti was very quiet.


That night Usen dorm had a "getting to know you" event. It helped.


Two nights later they had a wine and cheese party.  That REALLY helped.  We got to know quite few of the people who are still good friends today.  Little by little, I got to know this shy, quiet person.


Classes started and I got busy and involved and met lots of other people.  I had a  boyfriend and joined the chorus.  I got connected with the people in my Hebrew class so we could practice our Hebrew at lunch.  (I just realized how lame that must have looked, but we had fun.) I made it into the Gilbert and Sullivan Society.  I joined the Waltham Group and became a "Big Sister" to a young girl in town. But there was always Patti, back at the room at the end of the day.  More often than not, we headed to dinner together.  And before I knew it, we were becoming true friends. When Christmas came around, I brought home a few scraggly branches from Faneuil Hall and made her a little Christmas tree in our dorm room.  She and I exchanged small gifts and shared stories of our family traditions. (No, Patti, that was not a latke that you had in the cafeteria.  That was a hash brown.  Wait until you taste a real latke.)  At the end of the year, we agreed to room together as sophomores.

Champagne brunch on a Sunday at the Marriott Hotel in Newton.  High Times.

Our friendship grew stronger, with only a few moments of tension here and there.  We socialized together and our group of friends grew bigger.  When Patti's mom died, we all supported her, and spent the day in Lowell, attending the funeral.  During breaks, she would visit me in New Jersey, or we'd both visit another Brandeis friend somewhere else. 


 After college, Patti and I lived together one last time, in Brighton, Massachusetts. It was just the two of us, with her cat, Sugaree , my cat Jasmine, and thousands of cockroaches.  We had a lot of adventures that year.  Most were great:  a Halloween party that couldn't be beat, a road trip to see Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park with half a million of our best friends.  Some of the times were challenging, like the break-in to our apartment that left Patti without the precious earrings that had been her mom's.  The most difficult was the death of her beloved father, Jack.  Jack spent weeks sleeping on our couch as he traveled back and forth from Lowell  to Boston for his Cancer treatments. When he died, I knew that Patti was changed.  I think she wanted to get closer to her brother and sister then, but didn't know how.   I finally broke the news to her that I was going to live with my boyfriend, Michael.  She knew that it was bound to happen.  


While I still lived in the Boston area, we spent a lot of time together.  We both worked jobs where the hours were 3 - 11pm, so sometimes we would actually go out after work.  One night we saw The Cars play a midnight show in Boston.  We really thought we were hot shit.  Another time we saw Hot Tuna at Jonathan Swifts in Cambridge and realized it was too late to take the "T" home.  I felt it would be fine to accept a ride from a couple of guys we didn't know.  The whole time she kept frowning at me and reprimanding me with her eyes.  Or  the time I picked up a hitchhiker on the way back from Martha's Vineyard because he looked cold.   Patti glared at me til he got out of the car.  (He did not stab us, you'll be happy to know.  But she was furious with me.)


Then I moved away.  Michael and I took off for Durham, NC.  And Patti continued with her life, caring for adults with developmental disabilities.  She had moved up in this field and was working 9-5 now.  She was a compassionate, caring person who was no longer shy, especially when it came to speaking up for the needs of the clients she served.


Over the years, Patti would visit me wherever I lived.  North Carolina, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, and especially New Jersey.  When my kids were born she'd be here, and when she needed a little vacation, this was where she'd pick.


In the late 90's she began to have health issues.  I brushed them off as unrelated.  Maybe she did too, or maybe she was being deliberately vague with me.


One time, though, in the summer of 1998 or 1999, she called and said she had to go to the hospital.  She had been at Cape Cod, with some friends, but had to leave due to what she referred to as "hemorrhaging," had driven herself all the way back to Boston.  It didn't make sense to me.  When I asked her questions, I didn't get answers.  When I went to visit her, she had received a transfusion and was seemingly okay, but I was alarmed.


I made several more trips up to Boston and Lowell to visit Patti, in and out of the hospital after this.  I never really understood what was wrong.  It was as if her body was just breaking down.  But at the age of 42, this didn't make sense.


Patti had moved out of her own place, and into the apartment of a dear friend who agreed to help her out. On one visit, she collapsed as we walked down the hallway.  I tried to help her up.  I could smell smoke on her skin, and another smell too.  I wondered if the friend smoked, or if Patti had started smoking.  She offered me a beer.  I took one, and asked if she were having one.  She said no, she had to stop drinking, those were just for me.  I sipped at it and started to wonder about that.


While we sat, Patti asked me to "do her funeral when she died."


Patti, a lapsed Catholic, asked me, a Jewish Educator to "do her funeral."


I said ok. I asked what she'd want.  She said I'd know.


Patti died on February 11, 2002.


I did her funeral.


I put together a playlist of music and invited everyone to get up and speak about Patti.  It was a beautiful and touching tribute to our dear friend and sister.
I think she would have liked it.


Sometimes I get mad at her for missing these great moments life has offered up since she died, nearly ten years ago.  She loved her niece and nephew deeply.   She adored my kids, how she'd kvell to see them now.  She could never understand how I could let them go away for a month to camp.  Imagine how she'd feel as I now face imminent empty nest-hood. 


How many more people could she have helped in her work?  Patti was patient, calm, and never judgmental.


Mostly, now, though, I just miss her. And I think of her with love. I think of the Beatles albums she snitched from her brother.  (Yes, Jeff, that's what happened to them.)  When I see an SNL skit that's actually funny, I think of her, or wear the jacket we bought together, or the earrings, or that leather bracelet...  When I think of Christmas, I think of Patti.


And when I hear a song by Sting (her favorite) I stop what I am doing and I remember Patti.


Fields of Gold




By the way,  I inherited Jack's guitar, and I plan to learn to play it.  That's my New Year's  Resolution.  I think she'd tell me it's about time. 

The Music Never Stopped

Click here for some appropriate background music.

Dead Freaks Unite... remember that?

When I first started my job, I was introduced to the people in my new office, and I remember going into Arthur's office at the end of the hall.  Arthur has two computers, one for his work and one for his music.  As I was brought in I heard Sugaree loud and clear from computer number two.  He didn't bother to turn it down, and we could barely hear each other.  And as I stood there, I spaced out for a second on our conversation as I wondered, "Jerry Garcia band, or Grateful Dead? No, must be the Dead, because that's defnitely Phil, not John Kahn.  That must be early 80's judging by the keyboards, gotta be Brent... I wonder if that's the Lewiston show..."  When I realized that it was my turn to say something, I said the only thing I could..."Nice to meet you Arthur!"


Our boss, who was introducing us did not seem to notice the secret handshake, or the quick acknowledgement of shared shows.  Well, that's because we Deadheads don't have a secret handshake (though some of us are huggers) and Arthur and I have not had the "favorite show" conversation yet.  


There's a T-shirt I've seen at shows that says "We are everywhere."  And I love how that's still true.

Yesterday, the Spring Tour was announced!


Yes, Furthur Fans, Deadheads, and Fellow Freaks on the East Coast spent yesterday calling, emailing, tweeting and texting each other to spread the news.  Boston, Connecticut, and, can you believe it?  The Beacon Theater in New York City.


So, while the rest of the world is up and at 'em, doing things like Christmas and Hanukkah shopping, driving their kids to sports, going to synagogue, and of course, sleeping, a tiny percent of us were decorating envelopes and taking out huge amounts of cash to be turned into postal money orders.  What am I talking about?  Read on.


The Grateful Dead has always been deadicated to their fans, in a way that has paid off for them with not only financial success but a fan loyalty that has spawned its own culture.  It's lasted since the early sixties and survived the decades of change, including the early and tragic death of beloved band leader (and now ghostly tie designer) Jerry Garcia.  One way in which the Dead shows their love is the fact that they allow people to tape their shows, despite the fact that you can buy the show from the website. 

He just keeps making them, and you guys keep buying them.  

Another way they have shown their love for us is by reserving blocks of tickets for all their shows for the fans to recieve via mail order.  It used to work by calling in to a certain phone number an writing down the info, now it appears online  at the Furthur website.  One of the sadder days in my life was receiving my tickets for the show right after Jerry died in 1995.  I still have those unused tickets.  That was the last time I did the mail order.    

My unused tickets.  Of course, they were horrible seats, but, oh how I wish we could have seen that show.

Until today.


After the news went viral yesterday that tickets were going on sale, I was pumped. I knew I could not be by my computer on Monday morning to try order online for the the eight night stand at the Beacon.  (I do actually have to work.)  Because they are playing in April during Passover, I have the whole week off, so it means I can go out late, sleep late, and just not eat or drink anything!  (Unless the Beacon has Kosher for Passover vodka, and this being New York City, that could be!)  So I got my mail order together, modestly decorated my envelope, and went to the post office with a huge wad of cash.

Waiting in line with everyone with their stacks of Christmas cards, and bags of gifts to be mailed, I smiled.  I hadn't done this in a while.  The geniuses at the post office, not thinking that today would be busy day, had two people working, so the line was out the door.  


As I waiting, I scrolled through the tweets on my phone.  Hot Tuna played last night at the Beacon.  I am going tonight, so I searched for the set list.  I texted a friend who went last night and asked for a run down of the show.  


After trying to ignore two very whiny children, a woman having a loud conversation on her cell that none of us wanted to hear, and three extremely inappropriately dressed people among a line of about 30 of us, it was my turn.  I asked for my postal money order for the exact amount for my four tickets.  $298.  I'm grinning ear to ear.  I take it to the filthy little work table where someone is addressing a pile of 110 Christmas cards.  (I know this because I heard him ask for 110 Christmas stamps 20 minutes ago.  He's nowhere near the end of his pile.) As I take my groovy envelope and put it into the mail slot, I hear the scruffy guy at the counter request a postal money order for $298 along with a stamped number ten envelope.   He and I did not do the secret Deadhead handshake... but I couldn't help but think...
"We are everywhere!"

P.S.  This was the first time I got my money order back.  I had to buy my tickets online with the rest of the world.