Each time I think of this number It makes me even numb-er. The amount is beyond just vast And grows each day ever so fast! More deaths, it blows the human mind, Than WW I, II & ’Nam combined But like these vets, were linked to others: Family, friends, co-workers, […]
Reflections on I’ve Lost a Year with My Kids Battling Over Remote School and I’m Done by Christine Derengowski. This made me ponder, almost cry For all those kids who don’t know why. They are worried and they are frightenedCan’t tell Mommy; her load should be lightened. Through no choice […]
Painting by my great uncle Paul Hausdorff. The Passover Seder was a big event in Dad’s paternal family. Some of my earliest memories are from these get-togethers. After all these years, now that so many relatives have passed, these Seder remembrances are precious. My earliest Seder memories begin at Mrs. […]
Photo: Marlene Wolff Solomon. My little sister, Ellie, sends me a text asking me to make a kugel for her Hanukkah party. Really? She wants me to make something that I must follow a recipe? Does she realize she’s texting Sister #2, not sister #1? “It’s really easy,” the text […]
I call the woodcarving that hangs in my dining room “The Old Woman.” She is ugly. Nobody wants her. Nobody likes her but me. My husband dislikes her; I offered her to my children, but they refused to take her. “She is hideous and depressing,” they both said, their feelings […]
Dear Heartthrob, “Be still my heart!” That’s what young people say when they fall in lust. At our age, no one says, “Be still my heart.” I mean, really, it could happen! Suppose you say, “be still my heart” and the powers that be take that literally! I’d be a […]
The triangular-shaped pastries eaten on the Jewish festival of Purim are called hamantaschen. According to the Book of Esther, which tells the Purim story, the villain, Haman, wore a triangular-shaped hat. We symbolically eat his hat to celebrate his defeat and demise. For readers unfamiliar with Purim, here’s what we […]
Stuart’s daughter, Meredith, arrived at 5:30 in the morning to drive us to Johns Hopkins Hospital for his hip replacement surgery scheduled for 7:30. Because they would not allow me to enter the hospital due to COVID, coupled with my poor night vision (I mean really! 5:30?), we made these arrangements so I wouldn’t […]
A naive American is like a fish out of water flopping around, unable to control its environment. This is how I felt during the six days in November 2011 when I accompanied my husband, Ken, on a trip to Dakar, Senegal, in Western Africa. Ken worked for the Johns Hopkins […]