Free Pillow/Kids Bedding...

Bedding and More is sending me a free pillow for reviewing their kids bedding site. I'm a big fan of Down pillows- synethic feel awkwardly flat and loose. More thoughts on the pillow once it arrives...

Again?

It just started snowing again. The air is misty white with flakes.

Falling, Falling, Falling...

Arlington, Virginia. The Blizzard of 2010 has started. The air outside is white with falling flakes, and forecasters are predicting 18-24 inches of snow this weekend.

1pm: The snow does not appear to be sticking. Apparently, it's thirty-three degrees (F) outside.

3pm. It just started sticking. 

A Short Trip to New York

I've just returned to Washington after a short, unplanned trip to New York. My grandmother (Sylvia, on my mother's side) died on Friday, and I left work early and went up to New York. The whole trip was spent in Brooklyn and Queens; I didn't once set foot in Manhattan. I spent Friday night with my immediate family in Brooklyn- the rest of the clan arrived on Saturday. The service and burial were in Queens, after which we went back to Brooklyn. The Shivah process is both comforting and exhausting as you're constantly with people. Took off Monday from work, slept in, and paid a shivah call to my grandmother's brothers and sisters.

Eulogy for Sylvia "Bubbie" Safron, 1921-2010.

Bubbie made the most delicious rhubarb. It was stringy and sweet, blood-red and soaked in sugar. She’d bring recycled glass jars of the stuff on visits to her grandchildren. Rhubarb was accompanied by compote, stuffed cabbage, fresh gefilte fish, carrot kugel, and mandelbread. The glass jars would remain in our freezers weeks after she left.

Sylvia Safron, or Bubbie, as we called her, had seven grandchildren: Jacob and Benjamin, Raphael, Yasha, and myself, Lena and Eli. While most of us were young or unborn at the time of Pa’s death, we all knew and adored our bright-eyed little grandmother from Flushing. Lena once compared her to Elmo: sweet, cuddly, and always smiling.

Bubbie often remarked on how much the world had changed during her lifetime. She was in continual awe of the material prosperity of our lives: our ipods and travel to faraway countries were met with a Yiddish phrase: “Anandade Welt.” Bubbie was our link to the old country and distant American past of the Great Depression and Second World War. She spoke Yiddish, clipped coupons, authored long handwritten letters, took public buses, practiced her water exercises in Florida pools each winter, religiously watched jeopardy, and prayed each night before going to sleep.

Bubbie was a ham. While modest to a fault, she had a dramatic presence and enjoyed dressing up in bright colors, charming someone she’d just met, and singing to capture a room’s attention. She had a voice like warm lemon tea, and would often hum songs from the nineteen thirties and forties. My favorite was the Rich Maharaja of Magabar, who According to Bubbie: “had diamonds and pearls, and plenty of girls…but he didn't know how…. to do the rhumba.”

Bubbie wasn’t a maharaja and this suited her fine. She was deeply satisfied with her lot in life: living in Flushing, speaking daily with her sisters by phone, visiting her children, attending simchas, and listening to “programs” on the radio. Only in the last year of her life did I ever hear her complain, and it was of not being able to do these things and becoming fully dependant upon others.

Bubbie somehow managed to find something positive even in this dependency: a gratefulness to her children for taking care of her. As she often told me, the best thing she had ever done was to have children. Even while suffering, Bubbie was full of gratitude, love, and concern. “Thank you for calling, darling” she’d say at the end of every phone call- “please take care of yourself.”

Back to Maggie's Farm

Back to work after the New Year's break. First day of a new job in Arlington, Virginia. Was amusingly taken to lunch at Brooklyn Bagel by co-workers.

The New York Times says that Bill de Blasio is going to turn the office of the Public Advocate into a community organizing center to rally new yorkers against city call.

Re-enabled blackberry service tonight on the way home from work. Turned off the buzzing after 10:30pm...

New Year's Day

Day one of 2010 was devoted to consuming media about Africa. Saw Invictus in the afternoon and finished reading "Strength in What Remains," by Tracy Kidder (who previously wrote the Paul Farmer biography). Morgan Freeman was terrific as Nelson Mandela, and the book is a thoughtful and moving account of a survivor of the 1993 civil war in burundi. Most remarkably, it raises criticisms of Paul Kagame and the current Rwandan government. Until recently, the Kagame regime was the darling of the international community.

2009, Year In Review

Cities Inhabited: New York and Washington, D.C.

Countries Visited: Canada, United Kingdom, Poland, Israel, The Palestinian Territories, Latvia, Turkey, Greece, Germany

Airlines Flown: AirCanada, British Airways, Continental, Delta, Swiss Air, LOT, Air Baltic, Aegean Airlines, United, Northwest, JetBlue

Significant Events attended: Obama Inauguration, Five Weddings (Toronto, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Delaware, Manhattan) , the first National J Street Conference, and the UJC General Assembly

Notable Movies: Up, District 9, An Education

Honorable Mentions:

Goodbye Solo, Inglorious Basterds, The Messenger, State of Play

Should have seen: A Serious Man, Invictus, The Road

Snowy Saturday

BROOKLYN - On my first day back in New York, a magical snowstorm appeared and turned Brooklyn into a whirling wind of white. I took the bus up Coney Island Avenue to Park Slope, where a friend and I got hot chocolate and walked around a deserted Prospect Park. We escaped the cold for tea at Provini, where another friend showed up to see James Cameron's Avatar at the Park Slope Pavilion.

While Avatar was visually breathtaking and a significant piece of film making, I was more impressed with the escalating snowstorm and the peaceful silence it brings to New York.

Gym Sighting #2...

Saw Senator Al Franken (D-MN) at the gym today, sitting by the squash courts in the back. He was instantly recognizable by his glasses, circular tortise-shell frames.

Apparently he plays squash.

A Warm Day in DC

It was a warm day (for December) here in Washington, a pleasant surprise. It was almost 50 degrees (F) today, and I didn't need a winter coat for my walk to work. The simple and unexpected pleasures of life...

Coming back from my shower at the gym, I snagged this shot (apologies for poor photo quality) on my blackberry:

I suppose everyone needs exercise.