I became a Mom 39 years ago today!
I stayed home until the last possible minute because: a) I couldn't believe I was really in labor, b) it was too hot to go outside for even a minute to get into a taxi, and c) I wasn't sure the labor room was air conditioned. It turned out it was, but the bathroom wasn't, and that's where they sent me first. Alone. By the time I came out, I was fully dilated and went straight to the delivery room. This was not what my Lamaze coach, Elisabeth Bing, had prepared me for. It took me years to forgive her (Elisabeth Bing, not elswhere). Total hospital time until delivery: 1.7 hours. Total labor time from first queasy feeling: 10 hours. Final cutting of the cord: never! Jewish mothers don't believe in that.
Now go on over to elswhere and see whether she's blogged her version of the tale. In any case, you could sing Happy Birthday to You in her comments section...writing there is off-limits to me. Somebody's gotta set boundaries y'know.
*************************************************************************************
Update: a birthday surprise! For all of us!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Floating on a Cloud of Bach
Last night I went to a concert at the Tel Aviv Museum. Three Bach Cantatas, sung by Musicus Koln choir and some excellent soloists, performed by the Camerata Israel chamber orchestra, with their truly wonderful French horns and oboes. I think it was the best choral singing of Bach I have ever heard, including but not restricted to, the various choruses I sang with in New York. The audience was packed and enthusiastic, although it looked like I was among the younger members. Never mind. I can't imagine a more sublime experience. Just say "Yes!" to Bach addiction.
Friday, June 24, 2005
What I Did Next Summer
Oooops, next summer has already started, but only just. If all goes according to plan (tfu tfu tfu), my summer will begin with a four-day excursion to Rosh Pina, to visit a friend relocated from Iowa, who insists on keeping her country bumpkin persona alive in Israel. In Rosh Pina I intend to do a lot of knitting, reading, and listening to the birds, with breaks for eating and sleeping. I am pushing for the title Queen of Hanging Out. This also counts as my pre-vacation vacation, because what comes next is almost too exciting to contemplate: Prowesslessnesslessness, Pippi Bluestocking, and the Little Bear, are coming to visit! Me! Here! In Israel! We will have much to celebrate, not the least of which is Little Bear's First Birthday, which happens the day they land on Holy Soil, and all the other birthdays we missed together this year.
But that's only the beginning: when they return to the USA (to Florida, in August), I plan to fly with them as far as Noo Yawk. There will follow NINE DAYS of gallery- and museum-hopping, perhaps a play or two, perhaps some Central Park summer evening events, and visiting the old friends who for whatever reason aren't chic enough to go away in August like most New Yorkers (chic was never a high priority for friendship with Savtadotty.)
Then follows my annual swing through the West Coast: first to visit Big Brother Sailorman and a phalanx of cousins in Southern CA, and then up to the Pacific Northwest for the Grand Finale: Mermaid Girl's Fifth Birthday, my puny grandmotherly contribution as a once-a-year nanny while elswhere and Renaissance Woman go on retreat for a few days, and the First Day of Kindergarten.
Why does my stomach go into knots? Because I hate airports and suitcases. John Travolta, where are you and your private Boeing jets?
But that's only the beginning: when they return to the USA (to Florida, in August), I plan to fly with them as far as Noo Yawk. There will follow NINE DAYS of gallery- and museum-hopping, perhaps a play or two, perhaps some Central Park summer evening events, and visiting the old friends who for whatever reason aren't chic enough to go away in August like most New Yorkers (chic was never a high priority for friendship with Savtadotty.)
Then follows my annual swing through the West Coast: first to visit Big Brother Sailorman and a phalanx of cousins in Southern CA, and then up to the Pacific Northwest for the Grand Finale: Mermaid Girl's Fifth Birthday, my puny grandmotherly contribution as a once-a-year nanny while elswhere and Renaissance Woman go on retreat for a few days, and the First Day of Kindergarten.
Why does my stomach go into knots? Because I hate airports and suitcases. John Travolta, where are you and your private Boeing jets?
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Filial Gotcha
Spanglemonkey tagged elswhere with a meme, and elswhere finessed the tag straight to me, with the option to write it about myself or about my mother:
1. How did your parents meet?
2. What was the most frustrating thing your mother faced in your childhood?
3. How does/did your mother feel about her mother?
I'll do both of us for the meeting.
1. My mother met my father at her older sister Rose's wedding. My father was a friend of the groom (Uncle Will). Will was a salesman at a sporting goods store, which at that time (early 1920's) also sold phonographs and records (78 rpm). The store had listening booths so the customers could listen to the records before they bought them, and my dad, who didn't have a phonograph at home, used to come in on weekend afternoons for lengthy listening sessions. Will got to know him and would leave him alone with Caruso in the listening booth for hours at a time. When Will got engaged to Rose, he met her sister (my mom) the pianist. Bingo: an opera lover and a pianist. Sounds like a match? It was, and they went on dates to hear Caruso at the Met.
Elswhere's mother (that's me) met her father (that's my ex-) at work. Both system programmers. Main frames. New York City.
2. The most stressful (frustrating is not the right word for it) thing my mother faced in my childhood was WWII, because my oldest brother served in the U.S. Navy, in the Pacific.
The most frustrating thing I, a divorced full-time working mom, faced in elswhere's childhood was having to depend on wobbly, unreliable after-school child care.
3. As far as I knew, my mother felt nothing but admiration for her mother, who died when my mother was 16.
I am really curious to know what elswhere thinks are my feelings for my late mother.
1. How did your parents meet?
2. What was the most frustrating thing your mother faced in your childhood?
3. How does/did your mother feel about her mother?
I'll do both of us for the meeting.
1. My mother met my father at her older sister Rose's wedding. My father was a friend of the groom (Uncle Will). Will was a salesman at a sporting goods store, which at that time (early 1920's) also sold phonographs and records (78 rpm). The store had listening booths so the customers could listen to the records before they bought them, and my dad, who didn't have a phonograph at home, used to come in on weekend afternoons for lengthy listening sessions. Will got to know him and would leave him alone with Caruso in the listening booth for hours at a time. When Will got engaged to Rose, he met her sister (my mom) the pianist. Bingo: an opera lover and a pianist. Sounds like a match? It was, and they went on dates to hear Caruso at the Met.
Elswhere's mother (that's me) met her father (that's my ex-) at work. Both system programmers. Main frames. New York City.
2. The most stressful (frustrating is not the right word for it) thing my mother faced in my childhood was WWII, because my oldest brother served in the U.S. Navy, in the Pacific.
The most frustrating thing I, a divorced full-time working mom, faced in elswhere's childhood was having to depend on wobbly, unreliable after-school child care.
3. As far as I knew, my mother felt nothing but admiration for her mother, who died when my mother was 16.
I am really curious to know what elswhere thinks are my feelings for my late mother.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
"You've Got To Pick Up Every Stitch"
That's what Donovan said, but my mother said it first. When she was teaching me how to knit, she said the most important thing about knitting is learning how to rip and start over. I hear her gentle, reassuring voice: "Never be afraid to rip and start over."
My first experience of The Power of Knitting was the "oohs" and "aaahs" I got as a three-year-old, wearing a winter coat, hat, and mittens set that my mother had knit for me, to match a pair of wine-colored leggings. The next memorable knits were two jumpers, one green, one blue, that I wore to kindergarten with white blouses underneath. I don't know how old I was when I learned to knit, but by age 12 I was knitting up a storm. I even knit a striped turtleneck sweater for my favorite TV star at that time, Ollie the single-toothed dragon puppet on Kukla, Fran & Ollie. (Ollie was a creation of Burr Tillstrom, mentor of Frank Oz). The sweater had yellow, green, and red stripes, and Ollie wore the sweater on one of the shows - I was thrilled, even though the black and white transmission (this was 1949-1950) lacked the joy of color.
When I got to high school, the girls were knitting argyle socks for their boyfriends. I was too young and dorky to have a real boyfriend, so I knit a pair of argyle socks for my brother. My best friend's mom was a champion knitter who spent a good part of her days sitting with the ladies of the local knitting shop. She was also a glamorous dresser. For my sixteenth birthday, she gave me a special gift certificate for a custom-designed pattern and yarn from Alice Maynard's shop on Madison Ave. That sweater was the most complicated and best-fitting thing I have ever made. I wish I still had it.
In college, girls were still knitting. I remember once dropping a needle rather loudly in one of the lecture amphitheaters, much to the displeasure of the professor. Mine was not the only needle to roll down the aisle that year; the class was so large that the professor didn't know us by name.
Some of my mother's knitting equipment and pattern books moved with her when she came to my house at the end of her life. I especially like the 1940's pattern books...I wish I had saved more of them. Her last work was a blanket composed of triangles knitted from all the scraps of yarn she had leftover from her various projects. It reminds me of the sweaters and dresses she made for my dad, my brothers, me, and herself.
My daughter-in-law, Pippi Bluestocking, is a great knitter, and she makes objects as well as clothing items: animals, dolls. I tried modifying a knitted dog hand-puppet pattern to make mermaid puppets for Mermaid Girl last year, but was not that successful...the tail was problematic.
It's a great irony that knitting is making a comeback as an antidote to our techno-world, because the automation of needlework started that world in the first place. Joseph Jacquard, a French textile manufacturer, invented the Jacquard loom in 1801. The technology was adapted by Charles Babbage for mechanical calculating, and subsequently by Herman Hollerith for his magnetic punch card, exploited profitably by IBM for the first generation of computers.
It's not really a circle but a spiral: in 1905 we could knit. In 2005 we can knit and we can blog about knitting.
My first experience of The Power of Knitting was the "oohs" and "aaahs" I got as a three-year-old, wearing a winter coat, hat, and mittens set that my mother had knit for me, to match a pair of wine-colored leggings. The next memorable knits were two jumpers, one green, one blue, that I wore to kindergarten with white blouses underneath. I don't know how old I was when I learned to knit, but by age 12 I was knitting up a storm. I even knit a striped turtleneck sweater for my favorite TV star at that time, Ollie the single-toothed dragon puppet on Kukla, Fran & Ollie. (Ollie was a creation of Burr Tillstrom, mentor of Frank Oz). The sweater had yellow, green, and red stripes, and Ollie wore the sweater on one of the shows - I was thrilled, even though the black and white transmission (this was 1949-1950) lacked the joy of color.
When I got to high school, the girls were knitting argyle socks for their boyfriends. I was too young and dorky to have a real boyfriend, so I knit a pair of argyle socks for my brother. My best friend's mom was a champion knitter who spent a good part of her days sitting with the ladies of the local knitting shop. She was also a glamorous dresser. For my sixteenth birthday, she gave me a special gift certificate for a custom-designed pattern and yarn from Alice Maynard's shop on Madison Ave. That sweater was the most complicated and best-fitting thing I have ever made. I wish I still had it.
In college, girls were still knitting. I remember once dropping a needle rather loudly in one of the lecture amphitheaters, much to the displeasure of the professor. Mine was not the only needle to roll down the aisle that year; the class was so large that the professor didn't know us by name.
Some of my mother's knitting equipment and pattern books moved with her when she came to my house at the end of her life. I especially like the 1940's pattern books...I wish I had saved more of them. Her last work was a blanket composed of triangles knitted from all the scraps of yarn she had leftover from her various projects. It reminds me of the sweaters and dresses she made for my dad, my brothers, me, and herself.
My daughter-in-law, Pippi Bluestocking, is a great knitter, and she makes objects as well as clothing items: animals, dolls. I tried modifying a knitted dog hand-puppet pattern to make mermaid puppets for Mermaid Girl last year, but was not that successful...the tail was problematic.
It's a great irony that knitting is making a comeback as an antidote to our techno-world, because the automation of needlework started that world in the first place. Joseph Jacquard, a French textile manufacturer, invented the Jacquard loom in 1801. The technology was adapted by Charles Babbage for mechanical calculating, and subsequently by Herman Hollerith for his magnetic punch card, exploited profitably by IBM for the first generation of computers.
It's not really a circle but a spiral: in 1905 we could knit. In 2005 we can knit and we can blog about knitting.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Work in Progress
This is the front of what will be a long-sleeved V-neck pullover for Mermaid Girl's fourth cousin, in Seattle. He is two years old, and I made sweaters for his older sisters a couple of years ago, so now it's his turn.
There is a beautiful aquarium in his house, so I'm hoping he likes fishies. I couldn't wait to see how they looked, so I started the sweater front first this time.
There is a beautiful aquarium in his house, so I'm hoping he likes fishies. I couldn't wait to see how they looked, so I started the sweater front first this time.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Where Did The Week Go?
I guess the holidays at the beginning of the week left fewer days for ordinary weekday activities; it's jarred my inner rhythm.
I've been reading local newspapers and The Atlantic Monthly, and I think it's been bad for my health. Is the world really in such bad shape, about to run out of everything (oil, breathable air, water) and become nuclear wasteland or am I just getting older and more anxious? You don't have to answer that...I've already decided what to do about it, in either case: read more good books, knit more sweaters, water my plants, and stay away from current events, unless there's an election where my vote may count.
Do I hear "stick to your knitting?" "Cultivate your own garden?" Yup.
I've been reading local newspapers and The Atlantic Monthly, and I think it's been bad for my health. Is the world really in such bad shape, about to run out of everything (oil, breathable air, water) and become nuclear wasteland or am I just getting older and more anxious? You don't have to answer that...I've already decided what to do about it, in either case: read more good books, knit more sweaters, water my plants, and stay away from current events, unless there's an election where my vote may count.
Do I hear "stick to your knitting?" "Cultivate your own garden?" Yup.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Being an Outsider in Israel
Interesting takes on the issue of Israeliness for us immigrants can be found at Postcards From Israel and at This Normal Life. The bloggers confront the problems of being relative newcomers. I discovered that my view is somewhat more indirect, probably because I came to Israel at age 51 and did not bring expectations of becoming fully integrated, but neither was I old enough to come to Israel as The Holy Retirement Village. By now I am convinced that being an "outsider" is essential to me, and Israel is the best place for me to live out my outsiderhood.
I am fascinated by the conflict between individual and collective living here. Specialists in cross-cultural studies have ranked the USA as the most individualistic country, probably because the ideal there has always been a meritocracy and the national mythical hero is the Self-Made Man. By the time I left the USA in 1988, I felt the myth had morphed into worship of Selfishness and Greed, and I was disappointed in the direction things were taking.
Israel is only 57 years away from its collectivist beginnings, and even though it has waves of immigrants from everywhere, they are all supposed to be Jewish and therefore to consider themselves collectively part of The Jewish Nation. The Israeli mythical hero of the kibbutznik-paratrooper ignores the Arab, Beduoin, and Druse citizens of the State of Israel. I suspect they may think of themselves as second- or third-class citizens, but not as "outsiders," if for no other reason than the fact that they never lived "outside." As Israel moves towards capitalism, I expect the Corporation will very slowly replace the collective, and life here will become more comparmentalized and, yes, individualized. I guess there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, so plenty of things can happen to alter that course. It's so complicated!
I am fascinated by the conflict between individual and collective living here. Specialists in cross-cultural studies have ranked the USA as the most individualistic country, probably because the ideal there has always been a meritocracy and the national mythical hero is the Self-Made Man. By the time I left the USA in 1988, I felt the myth had morphed into worship of Selfishness and Greed, and I was disappointed in the direction things were taking.
Israel is only 57 years away from its collectivist beginnings, and even though it has waves of immigrants from everywhere, they are all supposed to be Jewish and therefore to consider themselves collectively part of The Jewish Nation. The Israeli mythical hero of the kibbutznik-paratrooper ignores the Arab, Beduoin, and Druse citizens of the State of Israel. I suspect they may think of themselves as second- or third-class citizens, but not as "outsiders," if for no other reason than the fact that they never lived "outside." As Israel moves towards capitalism, I expect the Corporation will very slowly replace the collective, and life here will become more comparmentalized and, yes, individualized. I guess there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, so plenty of things can happen to alter that course. It's so complicated!
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Sweater for MermaidGirl
Another knitting project completed. This one is for Mermaid Girl. Don't tell her - it's a birthday surprise!
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Lumbago
Isn't that a lovely word? It sounds quaint, chronic, kind of English, like chilblains. I've decided that I'm tired of having a "bad back," and from now on I refer to what I have as Lumbago. There is nothing bad about my back. Lumbago is something old people have, and I like being an old person. One fringe benefit to living in Israel is the lack of generation gap...old people are people, not a niche market or a Problem to Society.
I started standing incorrectly when I developed breasts, at age 12-13. In order not to shrink from my newly-adult protrusions I stood with my shoulders far back, causing pressure on my lower back. I didn't know this until four years ago, which is roughly 50 years later. I was sitting on the floor pushing boxes full of papers from here to there, and suddenly my back "went out." The orthopedist who examined it prescribed physical therapy. The physical therapist was so skillful that I've been going to weekly exercise sessions with her ever since, long after the pain subsided and mobility returned. She promised me that my back would never be the way it had been originally, but I would learn exactly what to do by myself to stay comfortable and mobile. And she kept her promise!
Before her, I had never met a physical trainer who was so rational and minimalistc. She doesn't believe in special equipment, although she has it at her studio, and there are no mirrors on her walls. She got me to work from the inside, and it was the first time since childhood that I made friends with my muscles. We are working on general strength and flexibility, not body-building or sculpting. My "exercises" are carried out upon waking in bed (!), or while doing other things like eating, walking, talking on the phone, waiting for red lights to change, watching TV. Nobody knows that I am "doing exercises" and I am doing them all day long, on and off.
I love my lumbago for what it and my physiotherapist have given me.
I started standing incorrectly when I developed breasts, at age 12-13. In order not to shrink from my newly-adult protrusions I stood with my shoulders far back, causing pressure on my lower back. I didn't know this until four years ago, which is roughly 50 years later. I was sitting on the floor pushing boxes full of papers from here to there, and suddenly my back "went out." The orthopedist who examined it prescribed physical therapy. The physical therapist was so skillful that I've been going to weekly exercise sessions with her ever since, long after the pain subsided and mobility returned. She promised me that my back would never be the way it had been originally, but I would learn exactly what to do by myself to stay comfortable and mobile. And she kept her promise!
Before her, I had never met a physical trainer who was so rational and minimalistc. She doesn't believe in special equipment, although she has it at her studio, and there are no mirrors on her walls. She got me to work from the inside, and it was the first time since childhood that I made friends with my muscles. We are working on general strength and flexibility, not body-building or sculpting. My "exercises" are carried out upon waking in bed (!), or while doing other things like eating, walking, talking on the phone, waiting for red lights to change, watching TV. Nobody knows that I am "doing exercises" and I am doing them all day long, on and off.
I love my lumbago for what it and my physiotherapist have given me.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
We Made Kreplach
Kreplach are a Polish-Jewish version of dumplings. The name is actually a Yiddish diminutive of "little crepes," but the results are much heavier. We made a cottage-cheese filling, because the 13-year-old is vegetarian and coincidentally Shavuot is coming soon, when the custom is to eat dairy-based foods. The project was a success because the 13-year-old chose the recipe and participated actively in the preparation, while the custodial father had laid in all the ingredients, and the results were edible. However, my inner perfectionist considers the project a failure because the kreplach were rubbery, the filling leaked out the sides, which rendered them flat and empty instead of puffy and stuffed, and we had a huge amount of filling leftover, although that meant at least we could plop it on top of their emptiness when we ate them. I'd rather have blintzes, which can't possibly be more trouble to prepare.
East/West Cultural Divide
Honor/Dignity
Shame/Guilt
Collective/Individual
U.S. Red States/Blue States
As a Western-raised person living in the Middle East, it took me a long time to really understand this fundamental difference in mentality. And to realize that the difference is a Big Deal.
Merits further research. Add to to-do list.
Shame/Guilt
Collective/Individual
U.S. Red States/Blue States
As a Western-raised person living in the Middle East, it took me a long time to really understand this fundamental difference in mentality. And to realize that the difference is a Big Deal.
Merits further research. Add to to-do list.
Friday, June 03, 2005
A Country Weekend
I'm off for a weekend in the country, visiting my recently-divorced custodial dad relative and his two daughters. I wonder how many doggies will be on the train this time, in addition to mine?
Shabbat Shalom!
Shabbat Shalom!
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