September Reflections 2013

On the occasion of turning triple chai ... If I did the math right (which I may not have), the heaviness of the anniversary of September 11, and the awesomeness of the Days of Awe, (the days between Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur)...  I felt the need to share once again with a blog.  And a list.  

54 things I love, and you might too.  Here we go.

In no particular order.  If I can't come up with 54, I'll welcome your additions.  Even if I can.

1. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.  
2. FAMILY, in my case... My kids, my parents,  my in-laws, and brother, brothers-in law and their families.
3. GOOD FRIENDS
(yes, these are pretty classic, but you'd think I had my priorities wrong if I started with Patron Tequila.  Come on, you know that's true..)
4. MUSIC! (I have  feeling this will show up a few times.) In this case, let's go with FAVORITE MUSIC.
5. PETS (Though lately my house has been a vomitorium... but okay, that's not really what I want to focus on here.)
6. DANCE! Here's my suggestion: Go out and hear your favorite music, or crank it up loud in the kitchen.  At a certain point you realize that no one really cares how you look when you are dancing, unless you specifically draw attention to yourself, or you are as awkward as Elaine Benes.
7. GARDENING: I love growing something you can eat!  The tomatoes, cucumbers and basil I grew this summer were delicious.

Don't they look great?

8. PHOTOS.  I love looking at old pictures. Try this for yourself.  I have been having fun finding old photos and scanning them and putting them on Facebook and waiting for the comments to come pouring in.  Better than the comments are the memories.  I've also found it makes me slow down a little and and take time to just look at pictures which in this digital age, I realize I do not do.  I do a mental scan now.  I zip through, find the best one, pop it up online, delete the rest and move on.

Twinkle Toes... Me at age 7. 

9. JUDAISM, And working in this field of Jewish Education, my calling, which has brought me great joy and pride.
10. BIRKENSTOCK OR NAOT SANDALS (or shoes... they're so comfortable)

10a. Any cool shoes.  
11. DISCOVERING A NEW APP FOR YOUR IPHONE OR IPAD THAT YOU REALLY DO NEED!
12. FINDING OUT YOU HAVE A DAY OFF YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD
13. WRITE A LETTER TO SOMEONE INSTEAD OF AN EMAIL.
14. THE SOUND OF A BABY'S LAUGHTER WHEN YOU DON'T EXPECT IT.
15. CAMPARI TOMATOES
16. PATRON TEQUILA, or Milagro, also great and less expensive.
17. BOB DYLAN'S "BLOOD ON THE TRACKS" pretty much any time, anywhere.  Especially if you have a touch of the blues. But really anytime.
18.  I'm tired of typing in all caps.  Find a way to GIVE BACK. Clothing , books, time! The days when I start my day by dropping off bags of clothing in the basement of the church nearby where they give them to people in need are good days. Lots of schools require community service of our kids. Why not require it of yourself?
19. A Good Book.  I have not been taking the time to read.  All summer I tried to read one book because I felt I should.  Dang it. I missed out on reading a great book and losing myself in it.  Which leads me to...
20. Go to the library.  My grandmother taught me this one, and I forgot it for a long time.  But you can really lose yourself in the library.  Hey, it's just like Barnes and Noble, but you don't have to pay!
21. All the Harry Potter books! I'm jealous if you never read them!  But even if you have... you can re-read them, or give yourself a gift and listen to Jim Dale read them to you (on tape, cd, or digitally).  The movies are great too.
22. Go do something out of your comfort zone. 
23. Embrace Color.  I'm not sure why little kids, Noah, and the Gays suddenly have the sole rights to the rainbow, but it's really for all of us. Wear colors! Shoes, socks, hair... It's all good and it looks great on you.
24. Sushi
25. French Fries
26. An artichoke with lemon butter sauce
27. Anything with lemon butter sauce (and capers)  I'd eat a shoe if it had lemon-butter sauce, but then again, I love shoes.

American Beauty

28. Lobster
29. "Freaks and Geeks"
30. An unexpected phone call.  Even if you're the one who makes it.
31. A delicious ice cold beer on a hot day.  Better if it's been sitting a bucket of ice.  Best if it's not a light beer.
32. "Silverado"
33. "American Beauty"
34. Pretty much any new Western or baseball movie.
35. "Quah"
36. Finding out someone is pregnant,  about to adopt a baby, or engaged. I think my mush tolerance got all messed up when I became a mom, but I somehow my eyes get all watery when I hear this kind of news. 
37. Suet.   Not for me, of course, but for the birds.  You can buy a square of bird seed in brick of suet and hang it outside by your window, and it will attract birds all year long. (Though you should really only feed them in the winter.)  This is a pleasure of mine, just watching the brightly colored birds landing on the little block of fat and seeds and pecking away.  Woodpeckers, cardinals and blue jays are my favorites.  I have a bird identifying app on my iPhone and a bird book by the window in case an exotic new one comes along.  I realize that this may make me seem like I'm about 100 years old, but it brings me joy, it's safe, legal and completely non-fattening... provided that I do not eat the suet.
38. One Hit Wonder: Every once in a while, put the oldies station on.  And you'll thank me.  You'll hear that one song you haven't heard since high school or middle school that reminds you of your crush. Or your first broken heart.  Or the day you got your driver's license.  If you're like me,  you might even take out the iPhone and buy it on the spot.  Or if you're like normal people, you'll enjoy the moment and get back to work.
39. The Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
40. Smart Wool Socks
41. Beads!  Buying them, creating with them, wearing them, and presenting them to others.

Terrapin necklace, given to a bff

42. "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs"
43.  Going out for a really great meal.
44. "Paul McCartney Unplugged"
45. Sharing a laugh, a real laugh, with someone. That someone tends to be someone in my family.
Look at that, how easy it was to come up with 45 things I love... just 9 more...

46. Road Trips! 
47. Live Music, Concerts, and my new thing... Festivals!
48. Photography...taking a great photo is very satisfying
49. Teaching.  I know I mentioned it above, but I love what I do, and teaching is a part of it.
50. Social Media: no denying... I'm very happy with the various types of ways to connect... Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest.  Sometimes time-wasters... sometimes valuable tools.  I'm getting better at figuring out the fine line between the two.
51. Cooking a really delicious meal at home and not having to clean up.
52. Grateful Dead, Furthur, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia (z"l)... Well, there can't be a list without a thank you to these guys who, for most of my life (since age 17) have brought me joy. Before them my list was
53. Beach Boys, Billy Joel, David Bowie and THE BEATLES. My musical foundation.  Not too bad.
54. Every beautiful day makes me feel grateful. I love being outdoors and I know I'll look back on these perfect days when the bad weather comes.

and ... one to grow on...
55. I'm grateful to be healthy and alive.  You don't need to be a cancer survivor to feel this way.  It doesn't need to be September 11 or almost Yom Kippur for me to say how thankful I am to have reach this day, this time, this season surrounded by beauty and love.

May this year be a year of love, peace, family, laughter, music, good friends, good health for us all, while we still work together for a better tomorrow for our children and our children's children.

Me, on 9/8/13 

Have any to add?  Please do, by posting in the comment section. It may take a while but your comments will appear after I retrieve them from the spam folder. 

Also, as I wrote this on September 11, if you would like to take a moment to hear or read first hand accounts of that tragic day, this is a great website and organization, especially for educators. September 11 Tribute Center

Editor's Note September 12... feedback from the blog... Okay, for number 5, I should mention that I love my dogs, the two who are living, Bear and Scout, and beloved Jerry who passed away...(and lets not forget my childhood pooches, Shadow and Tzatzkeleh).  I love them to pieces, and they may have gotten short shrift in this blog due to the fact that they've been sick and costing us a fortune at the vet and making a general pooping vomitty mess lately. I also love Jinx the cat and Jack Straw the Turtle, but let's face it, I adore the dogs and they love me back.  In fact, Scout is sleeping on my feet right now.

Scout as a puppy, the cutest.

Handsome Bear

Addenda: Rusted Root (excellent Band), Dark Star Orchestra (phenomenal band!), Spring, Summer and Fall, and my new and absolutely gorgeous cowboy boots! Life is full of favorite things! I can't believe I forgot these in the first draft! 

JB

Lets finish off that Peach

The Peach Festival.  Chapters 1 - 7 can be found by scrolling back, or up, or whatever...  I felt that the blog was getting too long.  Here we have the final few chapters, thoughts, musings, photos and ramblings about my time at the Peach Festival...August 15 - 18, 2013 at Montage Mountain near Scranton, PA.  If you are a linear type person, and A type personality, or have been following along, that post comes before this one. Otherwise it doesn't much matter.

It's been exactly a week since I found myself immersed in a 4-day music festival featuring bands I know and love.  I could have stayed longer... the weather was perfect, the site was great, the company delightful.  I was in my element.  But all good things (and luckily bad things too) must come to an end, so I have decided to write about it and share my perspective on it... or some of it at least.  It's as much for me, to come back to it and read it and remember it, as it is for you out there in blog-land.

DEAD-ERCISE
Just a note about this... If you want to lose a few pounds, I recommend a four-day weekend of seeing music on  lovely mountainside spot.  With all the walking and dancing and the terrible and expensive food, this could really be a great weight-loss program for Deadheads.  Think about it.  I suppose you'd have to cut out the beer to really make all that calorie burning pay off, but I'll tell you with the water park and all that shlepping, it was quite the workout each day. 

Well, at least this guy is sleeping with his dog.

CONCERT ETIQUETTE
Okay, I don't want to get preachy or judgy here... but obviously just by saying that it's clear I'm about to do both.  
PETS:  Don't bring them.  If you can figure out how to come to a show like this, then you can figure out what to do with your dog.  (Or cat, tho I've never seen a cat in someone's car.)  There's no way this is ever okay for your dog, living in your car while you are at the show, then being walked in the hot parking lot, and then getting back in the car.  
KIDS:  Yea, I brought my kids to a concert here and there when they were growing up.  But not a 4-day festival.  Kids need their routine, their food, their beds, toys, structure.  But okay.  If you do bring your kids... take care of them.  Nothing ruins my great mood more than this sentence, "She's lost her kid, someone help her."

What can I say.  I love my kids more than I love the music.  Maybe that's why my first festival was after my youngest son went to college.

Okay, I'm off my high horse.  I won't even mention bathroom etiquette, talking during songs, or cigarettes... 

Let's talk about why we even GO to the festival in the first place....

THE MUSIC and trying not to be OCD* about it.

Bobby

I love the music I love... well who doesn't?  I love being right up front, getting swept away by exciting new music. I like it really loud. I like the music to take me to new heights.  I like to hear a singer sing a phrase I've heard all my life and letting me hear it like I've never heard it before.  I get very excited watching two guitar players trade off the lead in a song seamlessly.  Three guitar players? Even better.  Love watching a jam among players who know each other so well that they intuit where they're going and miraculously a new song unfolds from what sounded like chaos a moment ago.  Delicious harmonies bringing new understanding to a song I thought I totally knew... but now wait a sec... what are they doing here... singing it in a minor key??? WHAT??? And I feel tears in my eyes that I don't even understand.  

I know people can relate to this, even if you don't like the same music I like.  The problem is at a festival like the Peach, there are bands playing at all times on three stages.  Starting at about 1:00 in the afternoon.  And those stages aren't near each other.  So that's a lot of running back and forth (HEY! They're the guys from moe. Come on!) 

or it's a moment of clarity where I say to myself...

"Juliet... you spend your life running around getting from place to place.  The people with you don't care that much.  They would be happy to just hang out.  Slow down and relax."

So I did exactly that.  I didn't go see Cabinet a second time, or run from stage to stage, or clamber to the front for Government Mule.  And it was all okay.  I had a great time hanging out with my friends Iris and Rob, and my husband Michael, on the lawn. I took pictures, created some jewelry, and even sold one of my bracelets (for $10 and a Rice Krispies Treat).   Later we packed up and moved up nice and close and I got back to my slight obsession with the music.

Pretty fancy display...

I realized that this festival was not just about the music, though the music was fantastic. It was about riding a ski lift to the top of the mountain just to ride it back down and take pictures and have a few laughs. It was about sleeping late. It was about relaxing with my husband and my friends.  It was about having a beer in the parking lot and letting things go one last time before my work becomes so intense that I might forget how to do this for a while.   

So, now what?  I found out Cabinet was playing tonight right nearby... But it was my mom's birthday so we all went out to dinner to celebrate.   I'll be scouring the paper, the internet and my email to see when the next music fix will be. While I'm writing this I've been listening to Ratdog's set from Friday night at the Peach.  And I've uploaded all my photos so I can attach a link to this blog in case the ones I've included here aren't enough.   As I conclude this lengthy blog I know that it means it's time to go back to reality.

Except Bobby just started playing Loose Lucy...

So, reality?  Maybe tomorrow.

Thank you.  For a real good time.

This is the link to my Picasa photo album if you want to see more.
I think.

https://plus.google.com/photos/101888049983386479881/albums/5914968144397249537?banner=pwa


*OCD : meaning: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, meaning... needing to hear all the music and not miss a note, at the expense of socializing with friend and relaxing in the sun.

A Byte of a Peach

Chapter One: It Begins

Greetings from beautiful Montage Mountain near Scranton.  I am at a 4-day music festival, and I will attempt to blog it as I go... the perspective of a 53 year old woman diving in head first to a weekend of fun.  

I have been to festivals like this before, but usually I go for one day, the day when my favorite bands are all neatly lined up in a row.  I knew what to expect, as much as anyone could without having been to this site, as far as the "scene" was concerned, and I'll try to describe that to you.  And full disclosure, I am not camping at the concert site itself, but staying at a very comfortable, clean Marriott with shuttle bus service (we hope!) to and from the venue.

The author and her husband take a selfie.  Yep, having fun so far.

So why now?  Because it's the anniversary of Woodstock? (It is, but no, that's not it.)  Because we can suddenly afford to do this kind of thing? (No, not really, in fact, I don't get paid during July and August and we need a new roof. Frankly things are quite tight in the Barr household!) Well, then, it must be because we are empty nesters and we are living the dream! (Again no, and not a midlife crisis thing either.)  It's because of the line-up of music at this particular festival and the perfect timing of it as well.  I have come to really love the Allman Brothers (over the last 15 years) and my favorite, Mr. Bob Weir and his band Ratdog are headlining this mighty event.  Not to mention Rusted Root and the Black Crowes and a host of other bands that I either like or am destined to like! (Click here to see what your are missing while you are reading this blog.)

So here's my thinking.  I am here, and experiencing this great, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating experience for the first time.  Mixing it up with the teens, the Deadheads, the Allman Brother fans (who are not exactly the same as Deadheads, though there's an overlap), the locals who are just here because, well, why not and the families who came to Montage Mountain to take their kids to the water park and are probably wondering, WTF is going on here! I'm here with some good friends and my husband. There are people of all ages, and to be sure, we are among the older generation, but certainly not the oldest. 

I will try to update this blog from an app I have on my phone, and include pictures.  

Of course this means finding my reading glasses and increasing the font on my iPhone.  
But I think it will be a fun experiment in live-blogging.   Did I just invent that?

Rock on.
Chapter two

Strangers stopping strangers, or "Are you Juliet?" 

I guess it's not too surprising that at an event like this, I'd run into one or two people that I know. And it's been happening at an alarming rate! A religious school principal from Long Island that I've gotten to know from Jewish education conferences, a 21 year old friend who advised me on what to pack (who I saw about 15 minutes after I arrived), a guy we met on a Jamaican vacation, and the most surprising: A woman who said : "Are you Juliet Barr? "

Me: "Um, yes..."

I know for a fact I don't recognize her. Could it be? The blog????

No...

The woman: "Didn't you go to the Grateful Dead Movie recently? Sunshine Daydream? At Clifton?"

I did in fact. Yikes. A stalker ?

She continues: "You commented on that website and asked where people were meeting up. You look just like your picture! I'm Kari!" 

She did not look like her picture, which was a kitty wearing a tie-dye bandana. 

Ok, back to the music. 

Chapter 3: 1:09 am Saturday 

Wow! What a night of music! I'll write more tomorrow from my computer but while I'm still buzzing from the hours of dancing to great guitar gods, here are some highlights: 

•Railroad Earth and Cabinet! Great bands that I had never heard before and will absolutely go hear again! These guys can really play, harmonize and both bands bring several genres together.  I am excited for the future of live music when I hear this kind of stuff. 

•Bob Weir's set was AMAZING!! "Althea," a favorite of mine, did not seem to be a favorite of his, but he was just great on everything else. " Easy to Slip" may have been the most special surprise. Most annoying was his flirtation with Grace Potter, when he called her out for "Dear Prudence" and "I Know You Rider."  Still sporting the man capris, but he looks great to me!

• Allmans were great, especially when Greg let Warren take the lead. A nice surprise came near the end of the set when they invited Bob Weir back out for a very bluesy "Good Morning Little School Girl." 

And remember in chapter two, I mentioned an educator friend that I had run into here? Amazing karma connected us where we needed to be. Her seats were right next to mine! I enjoyed the show with her tonight and look forward to spending time with her again tomorrow. I still can't get over that! A photo will be coming soon of the two of us. 

I can't wait for tomorrow!!

Chapter 4

Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, and Steve Kimock. Yea. 

Chapter 5

Different font to show that I am no longer at the festival. Yes, that's right. It's Sunday night, and I'm home.  You know how they say they have charging stations? Well, they CHARGE you to charge your phone at those charging stations.  Big scam.  So my brilliant plan to live blog while at the festival... well as brilliant as it was... turned out to be a good old fashioned plan to keep a hand written journal which I am now transcribing into my blog.  And it's probably better this way.  I can edit.  I can add photos. Did I mention I can edit?  So here we go.

Chapter 6:  My husband sometimes sleeps at concerts.

Deadheads are very forgiving about this.  Looking back, he has a long history of concert-napping, and if you've been a fan as long as we have, then you might even kind of get it. Remember those old shows?  Come on... there were about 20 minutes between EACH SONG!! So think about the second set of a Grateful Dead show in about 1979 or 1980... drum solo followed by a really long instrumental tuneless jam ... some of us might go use the bathroom and get a snack.  And others, MANY others, I might add, would use that time for a quick (30 minute) power nap.  (Except we didn't call them power naps back then.  We called them Drums ->Space, but not the point.)  

As I mentioned earlier (chapter 3) we had assigned seats for the headliners of the show on Friday and Saturday nights at the Peach Fest.  I sat next to my new/old friend Karen, from the education world, and my husband Michael found himself next to a great guy, Mick, and Mick's friends Pat and Amy.  (Those ARE their real names.  Hi if you happen to read this! The friends we came to the show with were in the next section over.) Somewhere during the Allman Brothers' set on Friday night, Michael dozed off, as he is wont to do. Mick gave me a look, I smiled back and asked him to please keep his voice down, so we wouldn't wake him.  When the music picked up, Michael woke up and rocked on 'til the end of the show.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon.  Michael and I are hanging out by our car, enjoying cocktail hour before the show.  Along come Mick, Pat and Amy... another great coincidence in a huge parking lot that they walk right past us... and Mick makes a few jokes... about Michael being awake long enough to finish his beer and so on. We go back and forth at Michael's expense, and throw in a few barbs about Greg Allman and say good-bye until later.

Now, to steal a line from Ron White, I tell you that story, to tell you this one... As I say, Deadheads are much more forgiving than other fans.  

Several years ago, I'll guess '93 or '94 (I could Google it now that I'm home, but I don't feel like it) we went to see the great and wonderful Eric Clapton. The show was in the never wonderful Long Island.  Getting there from New Jersey is horrible.  We got there, it was a Friday night so OF COURSE there was traffic.  Michael had been up since 5:30 am, worked all day, and, okay, let's put it out there, has never been a huge fan of the the Mighty Slowhand.  So at a certain point in the show, he dozed. I was up and dancing, and a few guys were yelling.  I suddenly realized that they were yelling at us.  Actually they were yelling at Michael.  

"Wake the fuck up! You can't sleep during Eric Clapton!" 

"How can you sleep? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

And other things as well.  Worse things that I won't type.

Then they started throwing things at him. 

Luckily he slept through all of this and has no memory of it at all. 

Well of course he does now because I've told the story about twenty times.

So, okay. He falls asleep during concerts sometimes.  If I feel like he's missing something crucial I wake him up. It doesn't bother him and it doesn't bother me.  And if it bothers those "Clapton is God" guys... well... they need to wake the fuck up.

Chapter 7: How to Pack for a Four Day Festival 

You need to know this about me.  I'm the one who needs a suitcase just for my shoes. I'm a low maintenance kind of person, but I like to have a lot of stuff to play with.  I have my hobbies, I like my music, and I enjoy eating and drinking.  So when I don't have to get on a plane, and there are no passengers in the back seat, I tend to fill the car up until there's no more room.  So, you might want to take these packing tips with a grain of salt.  Actually, I brought salt and pepper, of course, to season the food.  I also brought Krazy Salt, a 50's throwback seasoning that helps a hardboiled egg become delicious. 

Funny that I have not uploaded any concert pix yet, but I manage a photo of Krazy Salt.

So, here you have the step by step instructions for packing for a festival, for grown-ups:

1. Do all the laundry in the entire house.
2. Call Text a young person who has actually been to a festival. Ask for some tips.  Edit that list so it's appropriate for someone your age.  Add it to your list.

(My list had a baby list, which went on to have twins. I needed a small suitcase just for my list.)

1. Take the day off from work to start getting ready.  
2. Deal with your kids/pets. (If you are bringing your kids/pets to the show, please see my next entry about concert etiquette.)
3. Clean up your entire house, or do the best you can and prioritize.  For me, it was kitchen, cat boxes, bedrooms, bathrooms.  NEVER leave the washing machine or dishwasher running when you're gone, by the way.
4. Now you can (and really should) start packing!
5. Sunscreen, bug repellent, flashlights, citronella candles, beach chairs, lawn chairs, coolers, ice packs, ice, beach blanket, beach towels, hats, sunglasses, raincoats, umbrellas, shoes that can get wet, shoes for walking, sandals, extra sandals just in case, long pants, shorts, t shirts, sweatshirts, toiletries, medication, jewelry, i-stuff (pod, pad, phone and cords), laptop if necessary, little bluetooth speaker, corkscrew and bottle opener, books and magazines.
6. Food and drink... this is your choice of course.  I hardboiled eggs (as noted above) and brought bread, cold cuts, mustard, tomatoes, hummus, babaganoush, 4 different kinds of pretzels, including the stale kind, pita chips, 2 different cheeses, yogurts, and cottage cheese. I had bananas and peaches which got kind of mushy, but we ate some of them.  We had beer and tequila, and our friends had wine and vodka.  I packed 2 knives, a cutting board, napkins, forks, spoons and plastic knives.  I did forget plates.  We managed to get all of this in my little red Prius, and I was still able to see out the back. 
7. Things I brought that you might not bring: My bead box, so I could play and create. My laptop to upload photos and to write.  My husband also brought his laptop because he had to do some work on Friday and he wakes up much earlier than I do. (See chapter 6!) We had a lot of limes to go with the tequila.  You may not need to bring limes. That could save you some room.  It also turned out we did not need four chairs, but we had no way of knowing that.  

So, how would YOU pack for a 4-day festival?  Did we NEED all that stuff?  Well, now let's not confuse want with need, okay?  We did not need the flashlights, bug repellent, or citronella candles, but I think it was a good call to bring them. 

And it could be argued that one pair of sandals might have sufficed. After all, Bob Weir wore the exact same outfit all three days he performed.

Continued in the next blog entry... with photos and picasa link ...

Once In A While You Get Shown the Light

August 6, 2013

I'm in the midst of composing two other posts... but this just happened and for all of you teachers, educators, and counselors out there who wonder why we keep fighting the good fight... this will remind you, and make you feel like truth, justice and the American way is on your side.  Or at least you'll feel all warm and fuzzy for a few minutes.

I got a call from my son yesterday.  He works at the URJ Eisner Camp, so a call is rare.  He was on his way back from a doctor's appointment so he had time to chat.  (Let's not think about the fact he was using his phone while driving, okay?)

First things first.  How'd the appointment go? This is not germaine to the blog, but as a Jewish mother, I wouldn't want you to think that we didn't discuss my son's health.  He and I then checked in on the rest of the family, and I told him about some adventures I had. 

Then this.

Mom, do you remember a kid named Alex P. back from when you were the principal at Temple B'nai Emunat Yisrael? 

YES!  Of COURSE I do!  I LOVED Alex!  

Well, he is in my friend Steve's bunk, so I don't know him that well. Apparently he had a pretty good first half, but then all his friends left, and he's struggling during the second half of camp.  When he comes to adventure he seems like a good kid but Steve said he's starting to act-out in the bunk.  Then when they were at Limmud (the educational period of camp) he was asked who his role model was. He said, "Juliet Barr."  I wasn't there, but Steve figured out that it was you, Mom.  So I reached out to him, and told him who I was, so he would know he had a connection and a friend.

I was temporarily speechless.

Then I went on to tell my son about my special connection with Alex, and what I thought might work... he was really great with younger kids and took on responsibility very well.  I felt like reaching out to Alex's mom, but I might just hold on to this moment.

I am his role model.  Why?  Because I saw past his behavior and into his heart?  Because instead of punishing his "attitude" I saw something beyond it, found a way to turn it around and allowed the synagogue to become a safe place.  I'm sorry the rest of his teachers and counselors still aren't seeing this too.  

And how wonderful that I found out.  That somewhere at Eisner Camp, a counselor put two and two together, with this exotic last name of BARR and mentioned it to my son, who actually remembered to tell me.  So I can know that that meeting when I stood up for this child and explained that punishment and make-up assignments would do absolutely NOTHING to help him, but having him help in the first grade class would, actually did.

May all of you teachers have a moment when you hear that you are a student's role model, hero, or favorite teacher.  I feel like SuperWoman today.  Where's my cape?


Of course the name of the student and the synagogue have been changed.  The name of the camp really is Eisner Camp and magic happens there.  And my name is actually Juliet Barr.

Barr Family Reunion

I arrived at #5 Seabreeze last Saturday in my shiny red Prius cranking "Little Deuce Coup" with my 26 year-old son in the passenger seat.  We were the last to arrive actually and squeezed the tiny car into the last remaining spot, bounded out of my tightly packed car to welcoming arms.  Literally.  Hugs and kisses, smiles and laughter greeted us.  Even from those we had seen just yesterday.

It's the Barr Family reunion at Old Orchard Beach.  We wouldn't miss it for anything. And except for 2 summers, we haven't missed it in something like 32 years.  (I'll be happy to correct that number, but I am pretty sure that's about right.)  My in-laws and their four sons, their wives, and kids have all gotten together on this beautiful beach for a week at the end of July or beginning of August.  What we have is uniquely ours and incredibly special.  We've shared more laughs and yes, some tears, than most families do.  We repeat the same stories, and they are still funny. AND they're becoming the kids' stories now!

It's Friday afternoon, and our week here is coming to an end.  A few of the family members have left already.  We're doing laundry and eating up the leftovers today.  About an hour ago we said good-bye to the youngest member, sweet cousin Zoe, just two now. As she waved bye-bye to Nana, clutching her Cookie Monster doll and talking about eating "sushi at the airport" we all tried to smile, but it was not so easy when we saw the tears in Nana's eyes.

We will have one more family dinner tonight and maybe walk down to the pier for ice cream if it doesn't rain.  We will all pack up our cars and suitcases, and spend the next few weeks emailing and facebooking our memories and photos back and forth.  But the bigger picture is the imprint that this ritual has made on our lives, not that we did it this year, but that we've been doing this every year.

We taught our children that no matter how busy we were, this week was the most important week of the year.  We came to Maine right after babies were born, or when babies were soon to be born!  We came to Maine instead of going on a honeymoon! (And by the way, Michael, I would like to remind you that you still owe me a romantic get-away...)  We went to Maine when we had very little money to spend on any other vacation.  And we came up here when I had just finished my cancer treatments.  I did not even know yet if I was cancer free, and I was very weak and tired.  But I did know that I wanted to be surrounded by family, and love, and lots of energetic children.

Since I am writing this blog from the kitchen table of the beach house and not from my desk at home, I can't post lots of photos from the last 30 plus years, but please use your imagination.  Picture toddlers playing in the sand.  Little children laughing on kiddie rides at the pier.  Shots of sand castles that all look alike even though every year we exclaim, "THIS is our best one EVER!!"  And all of us laughing over cheese and crackers during cocktail hour.  The inevitable lobster fest, with my brother-in-law and me listening to Sugar Magnolia as we crack open the leftovers for lobster rolls the next day.

And then picture me again, not aging a bit of course, with the biggest smile on my face, wishing it would never end.

Good -bye for this year, Old Orchard Beach, and beloved extended Barr Family.  I'll see you all again next year, and I'll miss you until then.

I'll try to add more photos to this blog as I download them from my camera.  

Post script: as I finished writing this, and family returned from various outings, I posted the blog...asked for feedback, got a hug from my sister-in-law, and threats not to post any pix that were unflattering of anyone! A few minutes later, cousin Debbie, who actually lives here, came to say good-bye, with a fresh baked challah. With that I took out the Shabbat candles, and my brother-in-law got the last and best bottle of red wine, and we welcomed Shabbat as a family. 

The cars a loaded now and I have to go. But I just thought you'd like to know. 

August 2014:

I sat down to write about this summer at the beach, and I realized I had written these thoughts before. So instead, I'll repost, with a few additional thoughts after another great week!

Tradition!
As I mentioned above, we calculated that we have been coming to Old Orchard Beach for 32 years now.  We have only missed two summers in all that time.  Some of them stand out.  The summer after my husband and I got married (actually it was the week after we got married) we earned the only room with a double bed.  It was, after all our honeymoon.  (How many of you took your honeymoon with your in-laws, three brothers, two sisters-in law, and a baby nephew?)  One summer we rented a house where the walls didn't go all the way up to the ceiling, so you could hear absolutely everything everyone said in the house.  That was neat. There was the summer it was so unbearably hot, no one could sleep. And the summer it was freezing cold the entire time ... oh wait, that's every summer. 
Some things have changed.  No more buckets of toys, and boxes of videos.  And crates of cassettes tapes. I still ambitiously bring three books, this year I nearly finished one, which is a record for me lately.  Gameboys have given way to iPods and iPads.  My mother-in-law has finally allowed us all to participate in the kitchen so she can sit and relax and enjoy the company.

Three generations in the kitchen. 

The House Itself

First, let me say it's really quite a little house.

I posed the house next to my Prius to give you perspective.  Inside we sleep 9 or 10 adults.  We used to fit more of us, but at a certain point people started to care about little things like privacy, sleeping past 6:30 am, and having hot water for showers. So some of the grown kids opt for the hotel down the street.
It's decorated in "down the shore decor" of timeless lime green and sea foam blue that we really have gotten used to by now. What hit me a few years ago what that the photos of the owners children are still the same baby pictures as when we started renting this house 8 or 9 years ago.  I wonder what would happen if I surreptitiously replaced those outdated photos with our family photos.  (Here we have Uncle Ronald, eating a lobster.  Here we have Aunt Jean, working on a jigsaw puzzle...  all in those dorky tiny nautical frames they have all over the living room.  You get the idea.)


The Salami
A few years ago, when one brother couldn't make it, he sent a deli salami from LA to our beach house. My father-in-law got very excited about this, and missed several beach days, sitting in the driveway on his beach chair waiting for the UPS truck to come for this hard salami delivery.  No once can deny it was delicious.
The next year, the prodigal brother came to the beach with two salamis in tow.  And they were devoured.  But the following year, I guess he got busy, and forgot.  And I do believe that was the year my father-in-law stopped smiling, and the weather turned bad, and the kids got cranky, and well, things just weren't right.  So, I am now the provider of the salami.  I order two of those bad boys from Katz's Deli in NYC, have them delivered to my house, where I bring my lawn chair out to my driveway and wait for them to arrive.  This year the second one made it almost until our last day of vacation.

The Family Portraits

I could not get my father-in-law to smile, or even look at the camera, to the delight of his sons.

Three blessed kids, with their parents and both sets of grandparents. Aug 1, 2014. Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

The Cousins!  We are missing a few this year, and truly hope they make it next summer!
Photo credit: Vicki Barr

1983- do you like the leg kick? Or Adam's photobomb?

I guess we went out for dinner.  Once. Also, 1983,

2010

1996 - the first year we started taking this kind of photo

My name is Juliet B.

My name is Juliet B. and I am an addict.  

I am addicted to my phone.  Seriously.  Though I'll attempt to find some humor in it.

For those of you who know me, this may not come as a shock.  And whether you know me personally or not, you might think, "What's the big deal? Every person you see is one his or her phone all the time."  True.  But yesterday, I had a few minor epiphanies, and I thought I'd share them.  Maybe they will give you insight into your own phone use (abuse?) as well.  Or just open a window into mine.

I live in a New Jersey suburb, but I had to commute into Manhattan for a seminar downtown. I packed for a 45 minute train ride and a 10 minute subway ride, as I have many times, with my wallet, my iPad, a small note book, my new Bose headphones (not tiny earbuds any more... going for the superior sound quality and comfort), a train schedule, a water bottle, a pencil case filled with pens, pencils, & sharpies, my camera, and a few other things, including, my iPhone, SO I THOUGHT.

It's a very short drive to the train station, and when I got there, I locked the car, and bought my ticket for the train and sat down to send a few texts to my husband and son.  I left them each  $50 and wanted to make sure they knew it.  I rummaged around my fairly sizable pocketbook* for my phone and couldn't find it right away.  With the train coming in 2 minutes, I figured I'd wait until I was on the train and seated to really look for it.

Settled into my spot by the window, I began to look in earnest for my phone. It wasn't the first time this has happened.  It's a big bag. Out came the wallet, the iPad, the notebook, my new headphones, camera, reading glasses, sunglasses, water bottle... getting near the bottom now... oh, look, those ginger mints I got at Sea-Tac airport...hand cream, lip balm (a mild panic is setting in as I start sifting through the small stuff), loose change, the missing button from my suede jacket...no phone yet.  I look in the pocket compartments of the bag. Nope. I check my own pockets again. I check the outer lining of the pocketbook, as if an invisible rip could have appeared. Nothing. 

A sick feeling was rising up.

I forgot my phone. I must have left it on the dining room table.  

As I replaced the contents of my bag, I looked out the window of the train. I'm now two stops away from home. I could disembark, wait for the next train, go home, get the phone take the next train and I'd just be late for the seminar.  No, that's not right.  I could call my husband, ask him to bring the phone to the next stop on the train jump out, get the... no, I can't call him, and he's probably gone to work.  I could go home, get the phone, drive to New York, pay to park, maybe be on time, maybe hit a ton of traffic in either direction... or maybe I can go one day with no phone.

Maybe I can do this. Maybe I have to.

The first thing that happened is I started to think about all the things I could not do.  I could not do what I always do on the train, which is text people, check my email, play sudoku, scrabble, and check the return trains on the NJ Transit app.  

As I mentioned, I do have an iPad, but I have the type which requires wifi.  I am my own personal hot spot. (I know how that sounds, but I pay a little extra to AT&T and through some voodoo magic, my iPhone makes me a wifi  hotspot.)  My iPad does have a book on it, and I decided to read.  I took it out and read a few pages, and then actually took a nap on the train.  So, for those of you waiting for the silver lining in this tail of woe, that was it.  I slept on the train.  

Part of my plan was to grab breakfast in town before the seminar, so I looked for a place with free wifi (which in NY is pretty easy) and while eating my omelet I sent off messages to some of the people on my list with whom I had hoped to connect.   "No phone, talk to you later."  "In the city today with no phone, home tonight."  To my son, I typed where I was going to be all day, in case of an emergency.  (He later said he hadn't seen that email, but it gave me peace of mind at the time.)  

I pictured my iPhone on the dining room table buzzing and ringing all day.  Poor little ignored thing.  No one to Tweet with it.  No one checking Instagram regularly.  No one looking at email and Facebook.  All those missed texts.  And the calls I was missing!  I could not stop thinking about that.  

As I walked through New York to my seminar, I was not noticing the beautiful day.  I was not people-watching, or smiling at the parents with their kids, or the dog-owners with their dogs.  I wasn't even noticing fun shoes or great architecture like I usually do.  I was still thinking about my phone, and the things that I hadn't done, follow-up work calls I hadn't made, emails I hadn't sent, texts that had to wait until I got home much later. It was my parents' anniversary... should I borrow someone's phone to call them? Would I even know anyone at the seminar well enough to impose on them like that?

This was when it hit me.  I am addicted to my phone.  I don't need to be ON IT all the time, but I need it to be ON ME all the time.  Is there a 12-step program for this?

I do sometimes unplug, from my computer for sure, and from my phone... almost completely.  But even at those times, I know that my phone is nearby, and available if there is an emergency.  If I had an emergency yesterday, it would have had to be at a Starbucks, so I could use the wifi to email someone from my iPad!

At the seminar, like any good presenter, our teacher went around the group and had us introduce ourselves.  When it was my turn, I nearly said, "I'm Juliet, and I forgot my phone today."  I didn't, but I did have a hard time focusing in the beginning.  Luckily, he was a great teacher, and I dove into the day.  The building had wifi, and I checked my email during the break, and had the chance to follow up with a few of the things that were pressing.  

By the time it was time to leave, I knew I was going to be okay.  I walked back to the subway station, this time cutting through the park.  I looked around and noticed people this time.  Everyone was on their phone, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, and so on. Even a young man and woman who looked like they were having a fairly intimate moment both had their headphones on and were holding separate iPhones.  Only one 20-something guy was reading an actual book as I walked through the rows of benches.   

I got near the subway station, and dug out my ticket. Normally I would have checked the NJ transit app to see which train I could make.  Instead, I pulled out the paper train schedule when I got on the subway, and calculated my timing.  

When I got home, I remembered to hug my family and say hi to my dogs before I rushed to the phone.  And there it was. Right on the table.  Now to see how much I missed.  

No calls.

A few Facebook posts, none specifically for me.

One text.

Several emails, but nothing urgent.  Most of the people who received my earlier notes replied with "No iPhone, Juliet? Are you okay?"

Life went on without my phone.  It didn't kill me.  Did it make me stronger? I don't know about that.  It did make me a bit more self-aware.  Will it make me change my phone habits?  Maybe.  I consider myself a polite cell phone user already.  But maybe after I'm done writing this, then Tweeting it, I'll turn of the phone and go outside to my garden and leave the phone in its spot on the dining room table.  It seems that I generate a lot less work for myself that way.

Oh my apps, how I missed you!

*Fun fact:  They don't say pocketbook in the Pacific Northwest.  They say Purse or Handbag.  They looked at me like I was Ethel Mertz when I referred to my bag as a pocketbook when I was out there.