It was the eve of Hurricane Sandy and I was on line at Walmart. My cart was full of bottled water, but I’d also picked up camping-strength rain ponchos, thermal underwear, and a package of little candles for my son’s birthday, which we would mark in the aftermath of the storm.
While waiting, I overheard the store manager caution his staff about security issues. This one will be worse than Irene, he said, foreseeing panicked customers rushing in as the drops began to fall. After all, who wanted to believe this would really happen until it was already upon us?
As my chest heaved with anxiety, my first thought – oddly -- was to dye my hair. I threw a box of Clairol Nice ‘n Easy Natural Black #122 into my cart, figuring it would provide the perfect distraction from the perfect storm. I could simultaneously rid myself of grey while settling my nerves before the power went out.
But its real purpose was to convince me that all predictions of meteorological doom were overshot, that normal was right around the corner from that ominous cloud hovering above us.
In the end, though, I spent the day attending to the real business of preparing for a hurricane: stashing lawn furniture in the garage, securing the shed, bringing the couches up from the basement, and hiding the plastic bins that hold my favorite mementos of the boys in the safest, driest place I could think of.
We filled the bathtub in case we needed water to flush the toilets. We positioned buckets near the sump pump and gas cans near the generator. We lined up flashlights, batteries and radios on the dining room table and a stash of crackers, peanut butter, and water bottles on the kitchen counter. Both cars had tanks full of gas and our cell phones were completely charged.
We were as ready as we could be for a futile battle against nature.
All we could do then was to wait for Sandy to hit. While my husband fielded calls from patients, the boys fixated on the news, staring with fear and disbelief at the Seaside Heights boardwalk – the one we visit every year during Pesach break – which had already disappeared beneath the tide. I gazed out the window at the gradually darkening sky.
Like clockwork, the heavens opened at 6 p.m., and in no time at all, the power clicked off. As if curtains had been drawn, the sky went Natural Black, except for periodic flashes from the arcing power lines. The winds raced around the house, howling at us angrily as we cowered together on the couch in the living room. We turned on the battery-powered lantern and began our rotating shifts to check if water was seeping into the basement.
A sudden crash shook us. Our glorious maple tree had surrendered two massive boughs that slammed against the back of the house. Our barbeque toppled onto the patio, scuttling further along as the wind blew. My husband and our eldest son ran outside to bring it indoors, fearful that it would travel and wreak damage elsewhere. Those thirty vulnerable seconds they were out in the elements left me entirely unhinged.
An emotional haze hovered above us that evening and continued well into the morning. We awoke to the eerie hush of power outages, road closures and downed trees. In the background, generators rumbled and branches snapped, but mostly we heard our own breathing in the cold.
We invited neighbors over to join us for birthday cake. Perhaps too pedantically, we reminded the birthday boy that he’d been blessed to wake up in a house still standing with all of its inhabitants unharmed. He then reminded us that as a teenager, he would like to spend his day slothfully lying about since there was little else to do anyway.
Time, in fact, took on a surreal quality for all of us. Without school or work, we dozed when we dozed and awoke when we awoke, though it was by no means relaxing. We ticked off the hours of daylight during which we could tend to tasks around the house and the days until power would be restored. Still we wonder how many weeks before we return to normal and how long -– months or years -- before the areas hardest hit once again resemble themselves.
For days, I took frequent walks around the neighborhood, gasping at the property damage, the uprooted trees and sidewalks, the broken roofs, the smashed cars, the battered siding. I stopped to chat with those I met on my outings, and we shared stories about lives interrupted. We discussed gas rationing and empty store shelves, but mostly we expressed gratitude for having been spared the worst of it.
When the landscaper arrived to remove the tree branches from our yard, he agreed with me that they represented a miracle. That they hit our house with such great force yet broke nothing – no shattered windows, no structural damage – was uncanny. The tree, too, seems like it will survive the amputation. It is host to the feeder from which we have long fed the neighborhood birds, and my husband is convinced that one kindness led directly to another. At the very least it was blessed luck.
Our youngest invited his best friends to join him in overseeing the tree removal process. They donned safety glasses and gloves, marveled at the whir of the power saw, and reveled in lugging bits of wood onto the truck. For their efforts, they each received a few rounds from the largest branch, souvenirs from the storm and a reminder that Mother Nature is a force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, I mourned the branches whose sudden absence spoke to our insignificance in the larger scheme of G-d’s universe.
Thank G-d and PSEG, our power returned. Family and friends who still sat in cold, dark houses came to stay. Once our lights came on, we noticed all the dirt and leaves that had made their way into our rooms, but somehow we did not mind, even in the presence of guests. We just looked around at all we have to be grateful for in this world.
At last, our boys went back to school this morning. Since the traffic lights are not all up and running, the bus will bring them home early, well before dark. Everyone we speak with is tired, in various stages of recovery, and still reeling from the storm. Winter has not yet even begun.
The weather predictions for a nor’easter this week are daunting, further exhausting us. They are telling us to stock up again, warning us to get ready for more. Most of us cannot even fathom the potential impact of another storm. We may not be so lucky this time. For those already displaced, more wind and rain are surely unimaginable.
In the tumult of preparations and the storm’s aftermath, I realized that I never got to color my hair. I remain a natural black with a very natural streak of grey, a swath now larger after the past stressful week and growing even as I write when I consider what lies ahead. It is just as well, though, for the normal I’d hoped that box of Nice n’ Easy would bring will be a long time coming.
Making My Days Happy with Decoupage
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Everything Is Shrinking
This year, I swore things would be different.
The week before Rosh Hashana, I made my way to the kosher butcher and stocked up. Though I feared the sticker shock, what I really dreaded was having to wait on those crazy long lines while making idle chit chat. How wonderful it would be, I imagined, to simply shop in my garage freezer when it came time to cook over the course of this festival-filled month.
With carefully constructed menus in hand, I tackled the rest of the legwork in advance, too. Barrels of onions and potatoes and apples stood at the ready in my kitchen. I refilled the flour and sugar bins, and hoarded the few remaining bags of Trader Joe's pareve chocolate chips in my pantry.
Like a marathon runner in the weeks leading up to a big race, I polished my plan until I felt prepared, pumped for the culinary extravaganza that lay ahead.
When the time arrived to begin cooking for the New Year, I donned my favorite lounge wear and an apron, turned up the music, and got to it. First into the oven went the big ticket items, like the turkey breasts and briskets. As they cooked, I tended the stovetop fare, including vats of chicken soup and sweet and sour meatballs.
I monitored settings on appliances throughout the kitchen like a general in a military command center. Bells rang, lights flashed, and timers buzzed. Dishes cooled on every available surface.
Slowly, our menu came to life. It was magical surveying the traditional holiday foods that connected me with both generations of my family and Members of the Tribe around the globe. Their aromas reminded me, in a very tangible way, that I am forging for my boys an edible connection with their heritage.
The oven timer beeped suddenly, snapping me out of my reverie. I set the brisket atop the stove and peeled back the foil in horror. The 6.3 lb. roast that had cost me a mortgage payment had practically disappeared. Only hours earlier it had filled the pan. Now it was nothing more than a cocktail hors d'oeuvre, but no tinsel-wrapped toothpick was going to save me.
This scene repeated itself several times before I finally turned off the oven, sending me into a state of panic. There were so many guests to feed. My boys alone could be counted upon to make a significant dent in each dish. I had no choice but to defrost a twin of every item I'd already cooked.
Before I could say kreplach, my freezer stash of meat was gone. I had depleted in two days what I'd hoped would last the entire month.
Glancing around the kitchen, I noticed that everything else appeared to be shrinking, too, though not by my own hand. The stack of egg cartons was noticeably shorter. The heap of potatoes had also dwindled, all victims of the brothers with voracious appetites. Only the Trader Joe's pareve chocolate chips, concealed in a black plastic bag, remained undepleted.
The boys were metabolizing our food supply faster than a speeding train.
So much for all of my advanced planning. I ran back to the produce market and the supermarket and even to the butcher. I baked and roasted more than I could ever imagine us eating. And yet, as we cleared up after Rosh Hashana, the bounteous meals had shrunk to only a few small containers of leftovers.
Thinking while I washed the dishes, I resolved to take a different approach to the remaining holidays. I decided to tackle them one at a time instead of compulsively over-planning, even if it meant making idle chit-chat on some very long lines. It seemed that there would be no other way to keep up, especially with the eating habits of three insatiable boys.
That night as I scrubbed, my husband measured our middle son, marking his height on the wall in the kitchen adjacent to my cookbook shelf. All of that disappearing food had, thank G-d, been a nourishing blessing. But lo and behold, it had also worked wonders, enabling my boy to grow significantly in just a short while.
Excited to be within an inch of his not very towering mother, he exclaimed, "Mommy, you've shrunk!"
He and his brothers will, G-d willing, continue their climb north. Meanwhile, I will keep cooking -- faster, more often, and in greater quantity than ever before. Though I will appear to be shrinking, I will simply be looking up in wonder at the faces I once gazed down upon longingly.
The week before Rosh Hashana, I made my way to the kosher butcher and stocked up. Though I feared the sticker shock, what I really dreaded was having to wait on those crazy long lines while making idle chit chat. How wonderful it would be, I imagined, to simply shop in my garage freezer when it came time to cook over the course of this festival-filled month.
With carefully constructed menus in hand, I tackled the rest of the legwork in advance, too. Barrels of onions and potatoes and apples stood at the ready in my kitchen. I refilled the flour and sugar bins, and hoarded the few remaining bags of Trader Joe's pareve chocolate chips in my pantry.
Like a marathon runner in the weeks leading up to a big race, I polished my plan until I felt prepared, pumped for the culinary extravaganza that lay ahead.
When the time arrived to begin cooking for the New Year, I donned my favorite lounge wear and an apron, turned up the music, and got to it. First into the oven went the big ticket items, like the turkey breasts and briskets. As they cooked, I tended the stovetop fare, including vats of chicken soup and sweet and sour meatballs.
I monitored settings on appliances throughout the kitchen like a general in a military command center. Bells rang, lights flashed, and timers buzzed. Dishes cooled on every available surface.
Slowly, our menu came to life. It was magical surveying the traditional holiday foods that connected me with both generations of my family and Members of the Tribe around the globe. Their aromas reminded me, in a very tangible way, that I am forging for my boys an edible connection with their heritage.
The oven timer beeped suddenly, snapping me out of my reverie. I set the brisket atop the stove and peeled back the foil in horror. The 6.3 lb. roast that had cost me a mortgage payment had practically disappeared. Only hours earlier it had filled the pan. Now it was nothing more than a cocktail hors d'oeuvre, but no tinsel-wrapped toothpick was going to save me.
This scene repeated itself several times before I finally turned off the oven, sending me into a state of panic. There were so many guests to feed. My boys alone could be counted upon to make a significant dent in each dish. I had no choice but to defrost a twin of every item I'd already cooked.
Before I could say kreplach, my freezer stash of meat was gone. I had depleted in two days what I'd hoped would last the entire month.
Glancing around the kitchen, I noticed that everything else appeared to be shrinking, too, though not by my own hand. The stack of egg cartons was noticeably shorter. The heap of potatoes had also dwindled, all victims of the brothers with voracious appetites. Only the Trader Joe's pareve chocolate chips, concealed in a black plastic bag, remained undepleted.
The boys were metabolizing our food supply faster than a speeding train.
So much for all of my advanced planning. I ran back to the produce market and the supermarket and even to the butcher. I baked and roasted more than I could ever imagine us eating. And yet, as we cleared up after Rosh Hashana, the bounteous meals had shrunk to only a few small containers of leftovers.
Thinking while I washed the dishes, I resolved to take a different approach to the remaining holidays. I decided to tackle them one at a time instead of compulsively over-planning, even if it meant making idle chit-chat on some very long lines. It seemed that there would be no other way to keep up, especially with the eating habits of three insatiable boys.
That night as I scrubbed, my husband measured our middle son, marking his height on the wall in the kitchen adjacent to my cookbook shelf. All of that disappearing food had, thank G-d, been a nourishing blessing. But lo and behold, it had also worked wonders, enabling my boy to grow significantly in just a short while.
Excited to be within an inch of his not very towering mother, he exclaimed, "Mommy, you've shrunk!"
He and his brothers will, G-d willing, continue their climb north. Meanwhile, I will keep cooking -- faster, more often, and in greater quantity than ever before. Though I will appear to be shrinking, I will simply be looking up in wonder at the faces I once gazed down upon longingly.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Rounding Up
We are on the threshold of Tishrei, the beginning of a beautiful month of Jewish holidays. It is the New Year, a time for self-reflection and thoughtful resolutions, as well as my seasonal penchant for list-making.
True to human nature, my first list details the blessings I'd like for the coming year, requests that rarely vary: health, gainful employment, happiness, nachas from my boys, and that perennial favorite, fitting into a size 6 pencil skirt.
A second list itemizes what I hope to improve in myself. These are challenges that involve overcoming inveterate personality traits, but I really try to tackle them anyway.
There is a third list, a compilation of the sins I remember committing as well as a few transgressions I suspect I may possibly have committed. I throw those in just in case. Who wants to play games this time of year?
And then there is the fourth: a detailed list, by meal, of what I will be serving to friends and family. Let's face it. We may all be praying and repenting in earnest, but when we have a free moment, we are also thinking about holiday food.
So I am busy planning impressive meals, even if the only thing my children will eat is challah and schnitzel. Hence the onset of exhaustion levels concomitant only with yom tov preparations. As such, I tend to goof in the kitchen here and there under the strain.
Like the time I was so distracted by other tasks that I ignored the oven timer. I ended up overbaking the potato kugel to the point of disintegration, forcing me to toss it along with the pan from which I could not extract it.
For the Shabbes of one three-day yom tov, I zealously added so much barley to the cholent that I was roused in the night by the sacrificial aroma of a burnt offering.
On yet another occasion, I forgot the sugar in our favorite cake, the one I have baked so many times that I no longer (so I thought) need to glance at the recipe. And I have done this, too: oiling the Bundt pan for an apple cake with the garlic-flavored baking spray.
Sometimes I am lucky enough to catch my mistake in time to remake the dish. Other times, however, my gaffe comes to light too late in the game. But I know soon enough what has happened -- oh, I know -- because I catch my dear husband pursing his lips as he chews, too afraid to tell his sleep-deprived, overextended wife that something is terribly, horribly wrong.
Lord help me when it is my children who are the first to make the discovery. Guests tend to be more gracious, hoping to spare me the embarrassment.
When it happens, I try to shrug it off, but I am human and nonetheless turn beet red. And yet, when I am so very exhausted that I haven't the energy even to blush, I begin to laugh a slap-happy sort of laugh. It starts small, then expands to consume all the air in the room. It is genuinely cathartic. Sometimes it ends as a snort.
This year, I girded myself for an entirely new batch of culinary faux pas when I set to cooking. Not wasting any time, I baked enough challah to get us through Simchat Torah. I was so proud to have that big ticket item crossed off my list a full two weeks before the start of the holidays that I brazenly wrapped the loaves and went to bed, planning to stack the freezer early the next day.
Alas, when I returned to the scene, I discovered that I'd braided them all. Not a round challah in sight. I shook my head in disbelief, throwing a one-two punch in my own direction. When was I going to get everything done? How could I have been so off the mark? I crossed off the check next to challah on the menu, sprinkled on a little more self-deprecation, and with a sigh of exasperation, began pulling ingredients out of the cabinet.
Then something inside me made me stop short. Luckily, I'd caught the error of my ways before anyone -- myself included -- had time to taste its bitterness. The shape of the challah really made no difference. What I needed was a do-over on the message I'd sent myself.
So I sat down and neatly rewrote the menu on a clean page, adding ROUND in big letters next to challah. After all, I am as entitled to a clean slate and the sweetness of the season as the next girl.
Sure, I rebaked the challahs, not because I had to, but because I longed to reshape that regrettable moment.
Which leads me to think I should keep a fifth list. This one would track mistakes that at first seem to spell the end of the world but soon lose their edge, thanks to a little faith, some hearty humor, and a bite of what is on list number four.
True to human nature, my first list details the blessings I'd like for the coming year, requests that rarely vary: health, gainful employment, happiness, nachas from my boys, and that perennial favorite, fitting into a size 6 pencil skirt.
A second list itemizes what I hope to improve in myself. These are challenges that involve overcoming inveterate personality traits, but I really try to tackle them anyway.
There is a third list, a compilation of the sins I remember committing as well as a few transgressions I suspect I may possibly have committed. I throw those in just in case. Who wants to play games this time of year?
And then there is the fourth: a detailed list, by meal, of what I will be serving to friends and family. Let's face it. We may all be praying and repenting in earnest, but when we have a free moment, we are also thinking about holiday food.
So I am busy planning impressive meals, even if the only thing my children will eat is challah and schnitzel. Hence the onset of exhaustion levels concomitant only with yom tov preparations. As such, I tend to goof in the kitchen here and there under the strain.
Like the time I was so distracted by other tasks that I ignored the oven timer. I ended up overbaking the potato kugel to the point of disintegration, forcing me to toss it along with the pan from which I could not extract it.
For the Shabbes of one three-day yom tov, I zealously added so much barley to the cholent that I was roused in the night by the sacrificial aroma of a burnt offering.
On yet another occasion, I forgot the sugar in our favorite cake, the one I have baked so many times that I no longer (so I thought) need to glance at the recipe. And I have done this, too: oiling the Bundt pan for an apple cake with the garlic-flavored baking spray.
Sometimes I am lucky enough to catch my mistake in time to remake the dish. Other times, however, my gaffe comes to light too late in the game. But I know soon enough what has happened -- oh, I know -- because I catch my dear husband pursing his lips as he chews, too afraid to tell his sleep-deprived, overextended wife that something is terribly, horribly wrong.
Lord help me when it is my children who are the first to make the discovery. Guests tend to be more gracious, hoping to spare me the embarrassment.
When it happens, I try to shrug it off, but I am human and nonetheless turn beet red. And yet, when I am so very exhausted that I haven't the energy even to blush, I begin to laugh a slap-happy sort of laugh. It starts small, then expands to consume all the air in the room. It is genuinely cathartic. Sometimes it ends as a snort.
This year, I girded myself for an entirely new batch of culinary faux pas when I set to cooking. Not wasting any time, I baked enough challah to get us through Simchat Torah. I was so proud to have that big ticket item crossed off my list a full two weeks before the start of the holidays that I brazenly wrapped the loaves and went to bed, planning to stack the freezer early the next day.
Alas, when I returned to the scene, I discovered that I'd braided them all. Not a round challah in sight. I shook my head in disbelief, throwing a one-two punch in my own direction. When was I going to get everything done? How could I have been so off the mark? I crossed off the check next to challah on the menu, sprinkled on a little more self-deprecation, and with a sigh of exasperation, began pulling ingredients out of the cabinet.
Then something inside me made me stop short. Luckily, I'd caught the error of my ways before anyone -- myself included -- had time to taste its bitterness. The shape of the challah really made no difference. What I needed was a do-over on the message I'd sent myself.
So I sat down and neatly rewrote the menu on a clean page, adding ROUND in big letters next to challah. After all, I am as entitled to a clean slate and the sweetness of the season as the next girl.
Sure, I rebaked the challahs, not because I had to, but because I longed to reshape that regrettable moment.
Which leads me to think I should keep a fifth list. This one would track mistakes that at first seem to spell the end of the world but soon lose their edge, thanks to a little faith, some hearty humor, and a bite of what is on list number four.
Friday, September 7, 2012
A Driving Lesson
In accordance with our family's summer tradition, we took the boys on a meticulously orchestrated two-week road trip this past August. Because the experience is by design less about our destination and more about the adventures along the way, we are always thrilled to integrate pleasant but unexpected detours into the plan as we go.
Like every family hitting the highway, we happen upon less than desirable digressions as well. While these range from petty annoyances to more problematic inconveniences, they tend to serve up some of the most memorable moments of the trips. Sometimes, they even provide meaningful life lessons that we bring home like souvenirs actually made in the U.S.A.
We felt the full impact of that sentiment just outside Pittsburgh last week as we were preparing to head home.
My husband took the van for a little pre-trip snack while I walked with the boys up the street to a Get Go, a well-equipped convenience store. With the tank full, he soon joined us, parking the car in the lot. The boys hit the bathroom, bought drinks and selected RedBox movies for the ride.
We all moved sluggishly, dreading the return to our scheduled, busy lives. Vacation was over and it was time to go home.
But the car had other plans. It, too, was not quite ready to head back to New Jersey. Like its family, it had little interest in revisiting the days of shuttling to and from school and lessons and practices or wrestling with oversized shopping carts at Costco. Who could have imagined that a Toyota Sienna had feelings?
I took the boys back inside -- out of the heat and away from all those moving cars. We took note of the ironic Get Go tagline: Get In. Get Out. Get Going. My dears, we weren't moving. Under my breath, I uttered a quick prayer that it please, please, please be nothing more expensive or complicated than the battery.
Deep down, though, I understood the van's emotional response to our vacation's end. I shared its eagerness to get back on the open road, to chase the wind and allow the insouciance that travel affords to consume us.
Yes, I called AAA anyway. Meanwhile, my husband ran up the road to a conveniently located AutoZone, from which he returned with battery-powered jumper cables (the very same ones we'd forgotten at home). As my youngest hovered nervously, he set them in place and voila! The car turned over.
Then it died....again. The next attempt produced nothing but a screeching sound that signed the battery's death certificate. I called AAA back to confirm that their roadside assistant had a battery on board.
"Yes, ma'am. Our trucks are always equipped," the agent assured me.
After a not unusual wait of slightly more than an hour, we giggidly greeted the repair man as he parked astride our van. The gas fumes combined with the sweltering heat sent the boys back inside once again for drinks, making themselves comfortable at the little tables in the airconditioned store. One played with his Rubiks cube. The others investigated which snacks were kosher.
I just held my breath, then bought a scratch-off lottery ticket.
The good news was this: It was, in fact, just the battery. The bad news was that AAA trucks are, occasionally, not always so equipped. The repair guy had used the last one on his previous call. But our roadside hero left and returned in a flash. We were set to leave in no time, finally fulfilling the Get Go promise to Get Going.
Our automotive delay left us with the odd sensation of hovering between two states of mind: vacation and reality. Though of the less desirable sort, this unplanned distraction surely had us thinking. We began to wax nostalgic as soon as we left the parking lot, already missing the freedom of the journey while supressing our anxiety about what awaited us at home.
While the boys watched their movies, my husband and I gathered our composure and compiled the lessons learned while packed in a van with the boys for two weeks as we made our way more than halfway across the country.
Here is our list:
Whether at home or on the road, always have in hand what you need to keep your battery -- both the one under the hood of your car and the one that sits somewhere between your heart and your stomach -- charged.
Every break from the every day, be it long or brief, local or remote, is a gift.
Don't leave the wisdom garnered on a journey behind in the hotel room.
Family adventures are limited and priceless, so take too many pictures, especially if your children insist you should not.
Never speed up time. It passes quickly enough without human intervention.
And finally, this pearl: Pay your AAA bill on time.
Like every family hitting the highway, we happen upon less than desirable digressions as well. While these range from petty annoyances to more problematic inconveniences, they tend to serve up some of the most memorable moments of the trips. Sometimes, they even provide meaningful life lessons that we bring home like souvenirs actually made in the U.S.A.
We felt the full impact of that sentiment just outside Pittsburgh last week as we were preparing to head home.
My husband took the van for a little pre-trip snack while I walked with the boys up the street to a Get Go, a well-equipped convenience store. With the tank full, he soon joined us, parking the car in the lot. The boys hit the bathroom, bought drinks and selected RedBox movies for the ride.
We all moved sluggishly, dreading the return to our scheduled, busy lives. Vacation was over and it was time to go home.
But the car had other plans. It, too, was not quite ready to head back to New Jersey. Like its family, it had little interest in revisiting the days of shuttling to and from school and lessons and practices or wrestling with oversized shopping carts at Costco. Who could have imagined that a Toyota Sienna had feelings?
I took the boys back inside -- out of the heat and away from all those moving cars. We took note of the ironic Get Go tagline: Get In. Get Out. Get Going. My dears, we weren't moving. Under my breath, I uttered a quick prayer that it please, please, please be nothing more expensive or complicated than the battery.
Deep down, though, I understood the van's emotional response to our vacation's end. I shared its eagerness to get back on the open road, to chase the wind and allow the insouciance that travel affords to consume us.
Yes, I called AAA anyway. Meanwhile, my husband ran up the road to a conveniently located AutoZone, from which he returned with battery-powered jumper cables (the very same ones we'd forgotten at home). As my youngest hovered nervously, he set them in place and voila! The car turned over.
Then it died....again. The next attempt produced nothing but a screeching sound that signed the battery's death certificate. I called AAA back to confirm that their roadside assistant had a battery on board.
"Yes, ma'am. Our trucks are always equipped," the agent assured me.
After a not unusual wait of slightly more than an hour, we giggidly greeted the repair man as he parked astride our van. The gas fumes combined with the sweltering heat sent the boys back inside once again for drinks, making themselves comfortable at the little tables in the airconditioned store. One played with his Rubiks cube. The others investigated which snacks were kosher.
I just held my breath, then bought a scratch-off lottery ticket.
The good news was this: It was, in fact, just the battery. The bad news was that AAA trucks are, occasionally, not always so equipped. The repair guy had used the last one on his previous call. But our roadside hero left and returned in a flash. We were set to leave in no time, finally fulfilling the Get Go promise to Get Going.
Our automotive delay left us with the odd sensation of hovering between two states of mind: vacation and reality. Though of the less desirable sort, this unplanned distraction surely had us thinking. We began to wax nostalgic as soon as we left the parking lot, already missing the freedom of the journey while supressing our anxiety about what awaited us at home.
While the boys watched their movies, my husband and I gathered our composure and compiled the lessons learned while packed in a van with the boys for two weeks as we made our way more than halfway across the country.
Here is our list:
Whether at home or on the road, always have in hand what you need to keep your battery -- both the one under the hood of your car and the one that sits somewhere between your heart and your stomach -- charged.
Every break from the every day, be it long or brief, local or remote, is a gift.
Don't leave the wisdom garnered on a journey behind in the hotel room.
Family adventures are limited and priceless, so take too many pictures, especially if your children insist you should not.
Never speed up time. It passes quickly enough without human intervention.
And finally, this pearl: Pay your AAA bill on time.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Clearing House and Mind
With the August sun bearing down upon me, I spent this past week cleaning. I don’t mean your average sweeping and dusting kind of cleaning or your mother-in-law is coming cleaning or even find every crumb pre-Pesach cleaning. I mean scorched earth, take no prisoners, it’s like we’re moving cleaning.
But this particular cleaning cycle was less about dirt and more about the things that have cluttered up my life. The time had come to simplify, to have less and to breathe more. My intention was to empty shelves and closets, finally making the hard decisions about what should stay and what should go. In the process, I’d hoped to clear my mind, too.
Armed with a case of garbage bags and a few cartons, I set to work.
I started with the library in the den. Letting go of books - my beloved books! -- meant determining which ones really mattered to me and which ones did not. They’d long been a happy conglomerate, a collection gathered over the course of a reading life. Staring at the teeming shelves, I felt like a surgeon readying a patient for an amputation.
Some choices were black and white. College textbooks and the skinny paperback on the metric system that I bought at the fifth grade Scholastic book fair, for example, spelled an unemotional goodbye. A hardback edition of Little House in the Big Woods, a gift from the Waldenbooks store manager after a shelf fell on my eight-year-old self, was an unquestionable keeper.
The sports-themed, much-read paperbacks from the boys, so symbolic of these young years of their lives, presented a struggle. In the end, my eldest pointed out that they would be available in digitalized versions for my grandchildren down the line. The boys chose, instead, to cling to their favorite picture books, like Everyone Poops and Pete’s a Pizza. By the time we were done, we had filled two cases.
With a handle on the den, I moved down to the basement. I tossed a stack of shoe boxes after transferring the miscellany of photos they contained into albums. I sold the rocking chair in which I’d rocked my babies, and gave away the foosball table, once a popular novelty that had lately been taking up valuable space. Afghans torn beyond recognition went to needle crafters patient enough to fix them and the “Dora the Explorer” videos to families with working VCRs.
My husband began to fear what he might find at the curb upon his return home each evening.
A friend visiting for the weekend helped me with my own closet. Her message was clear: What is too big, I should hope never to wear again. What is too small will be out of style by the time it fits me. I rehung what remained – not very much indeed – and bagged the rest to give away.
Even the boys got in on the action. We tackled their closets and bookshelves, their toy chests and desks. It was they, in fact, who cheered me on when I decided to send the foosball table packing. In the process, we each became all too aware of how much excess was weighing us down.
The laundry is still daunting, but now there’s less of it. My sons see the empty space where clutter once stood and realize how many more friends they can have over to watch football. And I have reclaimed a carpeted area on which to play Xbox Kinect Soccer with my husband (he always wins) and to watch him play with the boys (they always win).
Throughout the process, we took evening breaks to watch the Olympics. Still, almost magically, our living room filled up with garbage bags designated for the charities coming to collect them. As the pick up deadlines loomed, the score from “Chariots of Fire” began to play in our minds, and before we knew it, our bag tally rivaled the Team U.S.A. medal total.
Decluttering should be an Olympic sport. After all, the process began with pole vaulting over piles of unneeded accessories and turned into a long-distance relay. There was some synchronized swimming, too, as we made our way through the muddy waters. Like a lithe high diver, we took a leap of faith, believing that we would get to the bottom of it all.
Summer is now in the home stretch, the final sprint toward the school year and shorter days. We are off soon for our annual family road trip which, not unlike clearing out a house, is about simplifying, moving forward, and figuring out what really matters. But at least we will, G-d willing, return to a reasonably clean, more manageable house.
If you are interested in receiving daily updates from the field about our family adventures, please email me at mypaperedworld@gmail.com and I will add you to the distribution list for those posts.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
But this particular cleaning cycle was less about dirt and more about the things that have cluttered up my life. The time had come to simplify, to have less and to breathe more. My intention was to empty shelves and closets, finally making the hard decisions about what should stay and what should go. In the process, I’d hoped to clear my mind, too.
Armed with a case of garbage bags and a few cartons, I set to work.
I started with the library in the den. Letting go of books - my beloved books! -- meant determining which ones really mattered to me and which ones did not. They’d long been a happy conglomerate, a collection gathered over the course of a reading life. Staring at the teeming shelves, I felt like a surgeon readying a patient for an amputation.
Some choices were black and white. College textbooks and the skinny paperback on the metric system that I bought at the fifth grade Scholastic book fair, for example, spelled an unemotional goodbye. A hardback edition of Little House in the Big Woods, a gift from the Waldenbooks store manager after a shelf fell on my eight-year-old self, was an unquestionable keeper.
The sports-themed, much-read paperbacks from the boys, so symbolic of these young years of their lives, presented a struggle. In the end, my eldest pointed out that they would be available in digitalized versions for my grandchildren down the line. The boys chose, instead, to cling to their favorite picture books, like Everyone Poops and Pete’s a Pizza. By the time we were done, we had filled two cases.
With a handle on the den, I moved down to the basement. I tossed a stack of shoe boxes after transferring the miscellany of photos they contained into albums. I sold the rocking chair in which I’d rocked my babies, and gave away the foosball table, once a popular novelty that had lately been taking up valuable space. Afghans torn beyond recognition went to needle crafters patient enough to fix them and the “Dora the Explorer” videos to families with working VCRs.
My husband began to fear what he might find at the curb upon his return home each evening.
A friend visiting for the weekend helped me with my own closet. Her message was clear: What is too big, I should hope never to wear again. What is too small will be out of style by the time it fits me. I rehung what remained – not very much indeed – and bagged the rest to give away.
Even the boys got in on the action. We tackled their closets and bookshelves, their toy chests and desks. It was they, in fact, who cheered me on when I decided to send the foosball table packing. In the process, we each became all too aware of how much excess was weighing us down.
The laundry is still daunting, but now there’s less of it. My sons see the empty space where clutter once stood and realize how many more friends they can have over to watch football. And I have reclaimed a carpeted area on which to play Xbox Kinect Soccer with my husband (he always wins) and to watch him play with the boys (they always win).
Throughout the process, we took evening breaks to watch the Olympics. Still, almost magically, our living room filled up with garbage bags designated for the charities coming to collect them. As the pick up deadlines loomed, the score from “Chariots of Fire” began to play in our minds, and before we knew it, our bag tally rivaled the Team U.S.A. medal total.
Decluttering should be an Olympic sport. After all, the process began with pole vaulting over piles of unneeded accessories and turned into a long-distance relay. There was some synchronized swimming, too, as we made our way through the muddy waters. Like a lithe high diver, we took a leap of faith, believing that we would get to the bottom of it all.
Summer is now in the home stretch, the final sprint toward the school year and shorter days. We are off soon for our annual family road trip which, not unlike clearing out a house, is about simplifying, moving forward, and figuring out what really matters. But at least we will, G-d willing, return to a reasonably clean, more manageable house.
If you are interested in receiving daily updates from the field about our family adventures, please email me at mypaperedworld@gmail.com and I will add you to the distribution list for those posts.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
Friday, July 13, 2012
If You Give a Girl a Checklist
In the early weeks of summer, I found myself fantasizing about all the things I would accomplish in the extra hours these longer days have to offer.
Like a child, I set a mighty weight upon the season’s shoulders, expecting it to hold more promise than its mere two-month cycle could possibly contain. But unlike the learn-to-do-flips-against-the-wall sort of goals of my children, my July-August expectations tend to be of the fix-it-sort-it-organize-it ilk.
Hey, a girl’s entitled to dream…
My bubble burst quickly, though, and I have been forced to accept the harsh fact that a summer day is still a mere twenty-four hour period, just like its fall-winter-spring cousins. I hardly manage to squeeze in my regular work and family obligations, let alone painting the den and rearranging the book shelves.
Despite my best intentions, little distractions that devour time by the mouthful have been popping up all over the place.
For example:
While writing an article, I stumbled upon the word lammergeyer in the dictionary. Eurasian vultures, in case you’re wondering. My eyes continued to play pinball on the page until I happened upon the only slightly more useful lambrequin, which I learned is a sort of valance. What I got out of that little exercise was writer’s block.
I closed the computer and popped outside for a breath of humid air to clear my mind. Scanning the yard, I realized that the pine trees were shedding needles in the brutal heat. I decided to water them, but the hose, I quickly discovered, had a leak and I had to table that plan.
On the way back to the house, I checked out the side garden and noticed that the deer had decimated the flora. Determined to put an end to the all-you-can-eat breakfast, I grabbed a shovel and my gardening gloves from the garage, and set out to conquer the hostas. Once they were gone, I could see that the prairie grass had taken over. I pulled that up, too.
With piles of discarded greenery to gather, I left to fetch garbage bags from the basement. Since the load in the washing machine had finished while I’d lingered outdoors, I scrubbed the dirt from my nails and opened the dryer, which I found full of towels. I folded them and put the wet wash in to dry before grabbing the bags to clean up the mess I’d made in the garden.
Before heading upstairs, I selected a few items from the pantry from which I planned to concoct a reasonable dinner. While dropping them on the kitchen counter, I smelled something funny. My investigation revealed a wet rag of vague provenance among the potatoes in the wicker basket on the floor. In a house of boys, that alone wasn’t enough to raise an eyebrow, but it did require me to empty the basket and sort the tubers, leaving a trail of potato dirt on the kitchen floor.
I swept, of course, and decided to wash the floor, too. I went back to the laundry room to rinse out the mop and empty the bucket in the slop sink, but in the process, managed to soak myself with dirty floor-potato mud water. I tossed my filthy clothes into the washing machine and ran upstairs to get dressed again.
En route, I broke my Golden Rule: Never look in the boys’ rooms while trying to accomplish something else.
There was a silver lining to my misstep, however. I managed to solve the mystery of my missing coffee mugs. After making their beds, sorting their laundry, and discarding a trail of snack wrappers (no, I don’t let them eat in their rooms), I looked up and noticed how nice the place would look if I just added a lambrequin above their windows.
Before I knew it, it was almost time to pick everyone up from camp. The day had come and gone. I looked over my checklist – twice! – but there was nothing I could cross off. Not one item. I’d accomplished nothing.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and took a few deep breaths, grateful that at least my distracted dictionary trolling hadn’t been entirely for naught. While gazing out the window, I could have sworn I saw the afternoon breeze carry my ambitious agenda off into the distance.
So I made myself a cup of iced coffee and tried to come to terms with this Summer of Distraction. After all, I may as well find some way to use those extra hours of daylight.
Like a child, I set a mighty weight upon the season’s shoulders, expecting it to hold more promise than its mere two-month cycle could possibly contain. But unlike the learn-to-do-flips-against-the-wall sort of goals of my children, my July-August expectations tend to be of the fix-it-sort-it-organize-it ilk.
Hey, a girl’s entitled to dream…
My bubble burst quickly, though, and I have been forced to accept the harsh fact that a summer day is still a mere twenty-four hour period, just like its fall-winter-spring cousins. I hardly manage to squeeze in my regular work and family obligations, let alone painting the den and rearranging the book shelves.
Despite my best intentions, little distractions that devour time by the mouthful have been popping up all over the place.
For example:
While writing an article, I stumbled upon the word lammergeyer in the dictionary. Eurasian vultures, in case you’re wondering. My eyes continued to play pinball on the page until I happened upon the only slightly more useful lambrequin, which I learned is a sort of valance. What I got out of that little exercise was writer’s block.
I closed the computer and popped outside for a breath of humid air to clear my mind. Scanning the yard, I realized that the pine trees were shedding needles in the brutal heat. I decided to water them, but the hose, I quickly discovered, had a leak and I had to table that plan.
On the way back to the house, I checked out the side garden and noticed that the deer had decimated the flora. Determined to put an end to the all-you-can-eat breakfast, I grabbed a shovel and my gardening gloves from the garage, and set out to conquer the hostas. Once they were gone, I could see that the prairie grass had taken over. I pulled that up, too.
With piles of discarded greenery to gather, I left to fetch garbage bags from the basement. Since the load in the washing machine had finished while I’d lingered outdoors, I scrubbed the dirt from my nails and opened the dryer, which I found full of towels. I folded them and put the wet wash in to dry before grabbing the bags to clean up the mess I’d made in the garden.
Before heading upstairs, I selected a few items from the pantry from which I planned to concoct a reasonable dinner. While dropping them on the kitchen counter, I smelled something funny. My investigation revealed a wet rag of vague provenance among the potatoes in the wicker basket on the floor. In a house of boys, that alone wasn’t enough to raise an eyebrow, but it did require me to empty the basket and sort the tubers, leaving a trail of potato dirt on the kitchen floor.
I swept, of course, and decided to wash the floor, too. I went back to the laundry room to rinse out the mop and empty the bucket in the slop sink, but in the process, managed to soak myself with dirty floor-potato mud water. I tossed my filthy clothes into the washing machine and ran upstairs to get dressed again.
En route, I broke my Golden Rule: Never look in the boys’ rooms while trying to accomplish something else.
There was a silver lining to my misstep, however. I managed to solve the mystery of my missing coffee mugs. After making their beds, sorting their laundry, and discarding a trail of snack wrappers (no, I don’t let them eat in their rooms), I looked up and noticed how nice the place would look if I just added a lambrequin above their windows.
Before I knew it, it was almost time to pick everyone up from camp. The day had come and gone. I looked over my checklist – twice! – but there was nothing I could cross off. Not one item. I’d accomplished nothing.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and took a few deep breaths, grateful that at least my distracted dictionary trolling hadn’t been entirely for naught. While gazing out the window, I could have sworn I saw the afternoon breeze carry my ambitious agenda off into the distance.
So I made myself a cup of iced coffee and tried to come to terms with this Summer of Distraction. After all, I may as well find some way to use those extra hours of daylight.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Ice Cream for Dinner
The calendar passed into June when I wasn’t looking, so now I’m busy wrapping teachers’ gifts and ironing labels onto the waistbands of camp shorts at warp speed. Though there are still finals to take and essays to write, summer is about to be crowned king. You can practically wrap your hands around the excitement pulsing through the house.
What I love most about summer is what goes missing. Evening extracurricular activities come to a halt. I can stow my nagging voice that asks if homework is finished, tests have been studied for, permission slips signed. For two whole months, I can just be that cool mom who shouts “Nice shot!” from the kitchen window.
On the other hand, what I dread most about summer is what goes missing. Clearly defined bedtimes become a thing of the past. Schedules, those backbones of structure, suddenly bend and flex. In their absence, the fine line between chaos and order ends up with sunscreen in its eyes.
Still, I know how therapeutic it can be to let a little air out of our extensively programmed bubble, despite the potential to throw our lives into disarray. As the stress of school recedes into memory, the house becomes more disorganized, yet more peaceful. The boys are better rested, too, now that they can slough off sleep naturally, not on the mad dash to the school bus stop.
Like sunflowers, they grow taller as July chases August. Their muscles become more defined, their shoulders broader, from hours in the pool and on the basketball court. They glow, their skin bronzed with youthful exuberance. To my amazement, they also mature, because there is opportunity to dream dreams and imagine the impossible, activities for which exams and practices leave no time.
The older they get, the faster the school years seem to fly. Suddenly, my first grader is finishing his freshman year of high school. My toddler is entering middle school and his baby brother is right behind him. Kiddie pools are history, though water balloons have not been entirely eclipsed by teenage ennui.
For now, my boys are still Boys of Summer. As each new school grade chips away at their youth, the summer hiatus helps them to cling to it a little longer. These hot months compose a sweet, sticky moment that slows down time long enough for them to enjoy the magic and wonder of their days.
I remember the exact instant when that feeling first escaped me, when that last bit of my youthful spirit fled in the night. I initially embraced its absence, naively thinking it a sign of my arrival at independence and adulthood.
Then I woke up one Monday morning at the end of June and realized that nothing had changed while I was sleeping. It was not the first day of a two-month break. Work just picked up where I’d left it the previous Friday. Summer had come, but it no longer intended to transform my day-to-day existence.
Gone were those carefree hours catching fireflies, running barefoot through the sprinkler as the blades of grass tickled the balls of my feet. Responsibility had replaced insouciance, clouding that part of me that secretly longed to chase down the ice cream truck and build a sandcastle. Out of necessity, I soon learned to forget all of the promise that summer once held.
These days I spend a lot of my time thinking about the future, about how my children will do in school and how they will fare in the world. So I struggle to let the summer pass unscathed by my worries. I allow the boys to play basketball until the sun goes down and to stay up late watching movies. I ignore the muddy footprints left behind as the screen door slams again and pay no heed to banisters sticky from melting ice pops.
Unbeknownst to them, the boys exude an aura of freedom, and for me, it is summer’s greatest gift. This time, I intend for their shouts of joy to jar my memory of the magic that can still be a part of my adult, mature, responsible life. Rather than mourn those feelings of wonder that long ago escaped me, I hope to recapture them, like fireflies in a jar at dusk.
I will poke holes in the lid to keep them alive, setting the jar on the counter as I offer the boys ice cream for dinner. And then I will join them.
What I love most about summer is what goes missing. Evening extracurricular activities come to a halt. I can stow my nagging voice that asks if homework is finished, tests have been studied for, permission slips signed. For two whole months, I can just be that cool mom who shouts “Nice shot!” from the kitchen window.
On the other hand, what I dread most about summer is what goes missing. Clearly defined bedtimes become a thing of the past. Schedules, those backbones of structure, suddenly bend and flex. In their absence, the fine line between chaos and order ends up with sunscreen in its eyes.
Still, I know how therapeutic it can be to let a little air out of our extensively programmed bubble, despite the potential to throw our lives into disarray. As the stress of school recedes into memory, the house becomes more disorganized, yet more peaceful. The boys are better rested, too, now that they can slough off sleep naturally, not on the mad dash to the school bus stop.
Like sunflowers, they grow taller as July chases August. Their muscles become more defined, their shoulders broader, from hours in the pool and on the basketball court. They glow, their skin bronzed with youthful exuberance. To my amazement, they also mature, because there is opportunity to dream dreams and imagine the impossible, activities for which exams and practices leave no time.
The older they get, the faster the school years seem to fly. Suddenly, my first grader is finishing his freshman year of high school. My toddler is entering middle school and his baby brother is right behind him. Kiddie pools are history, though water balloons have not been entirely eclipsed by teenage ennui.
For now, my boys are still Boys of Summer. As each new school grade chips away at their youth, the summer hiatus helps them to cling to it a little longer. These hot months compose a sweet, sticky moment that slows down time long enough for them to enjoy the magic and wonder of their days.
I remember the exact instant when that feeling first escaped me, when that last bit of my youthful spirit fled in the night. I initially embraced its absence, naively thinking it a sign of my arrival at independence and adulthood.
Then I woke up one Monday morning at the end of June and realized that nothing had changed while I was sleeping. It was not the first day of a two-month break. Work just picked up where I’d left it the previous Friday. Summer had come, but it no longer intended to transform my day-to-day existence.
Gone were those carefree hours catching fireflies, running barefoot through the sprinkler as the blades of grass tickled the balls of my feet. Responsibility had replaced insouciance, clouding that part of me that secretly longed to chase down the ice cream truck and build a sandcastle. Out of necessity, I soon learned to forget all of the promise that summer once held.
These days I spend a lot of my time thinking about the future, about how my children will do in school and how they will fare in the world. So I struggle to let the summer pass unscathed by my worries. I allow the boys to play basketball until the sun goes down and to stay up late watching movies. I ignore the muddy footprints left behind as the screen door slams again and pay no heed to banisters sticky from melting ice pops.
Unbeknownst to them, the boys exude an aura of freedom, and for me, it is summer’s greatest gift. This time, I intend for their shouts of joy to jar my memory of the magic that can still be a part of my adult, mature, responsible life. Rather than mourn those feelings of wonder that long ago escaped me, I hope to recapture them, like fireflies in a jar at dusk.
I will poke holes in the lid to keep them alive, setting the jar on the counter as I offer the boys ice cream for dinner. And then I will join them.
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