Shanamadele’s Coffee Break
Pet Peeve #162Archive for celebrations
Chanukah Puzzle
It’s been a great Chanukah, and it’s not over yet. Butternut’s firstmama is slated to see us tonight. Our friends, A, M and little A, welcomed E to their family. He arrived on Thursday night, fitting for our season of miracles.
Last nght we celebrated with them at their home. Pumpkin adores the new baby. Why aren’t there pictures? Chalk it up to the curse of second babies everywhere. But E is beautiful. He looks just like little A, only with more and redder hair.
Little A is simultaneous excited about his new brother and thrown into a new reality that brings out his worst. Ah, siblings.
Self Absorption and Its Consequences, Take I
Tonight, what with Butternut feeling much better and all, we went to services for Simchat Torah at our shul. It was very fun, and we only reluctantly left early to try to get everyone to bed at a reasonable hour.
So, very shortly after I walked through the door, an woman about 10-15 years older than me whom I recognize from years of going to services together asked very enthusiastically about Butternut.
I said a few brief things, but was trying to figure out where B-nut and Pumpkin had wandered off to and what this woman’s name was, so I was not really thinking about our connection.
After we returned home, I remembered the conversation we had had last year at Simchat Torah. Her child was about to bring home the child they were adopting from Guatemala (?). That child was born at about the same time as Butternut. I remember being very excited for her and her husband about their impending grandparenthood.
I want to remember things about people when I am talking with them! Or, at least, remember to turn my attention to the person who is talking with me long enough to learn something about her or him.
(Gentle readers, if you suspect you know who I’m talking about, would you e-mail me privately. Thanks.)
Lulav and Etrog
Or should I say, esrog? That’s what it says on the box. It’s a very yiddishe set.
I did not grow up with Sukkot, really. Not in the sense of my family having its own Sukkah or even seeking opportunities to dwell in a Sukkah. I’m sure my mother pulled us out of school to go to shul for the first day of Sukkot – I imagine this was her way of demonstrating her commitment to bringing us up Jewish. (As usual, we got all the duty and little of the joy. But I’m not bitter.) So, I don’t have lovely childhood memories of the smell of the esrog and the myrtle in the lulav. But, man! do I love it now. Sweet, spicy and exotic.
I do have lovely memories of seeing (from afar) the small, urban sukkot built on balconies of apartment buildings in Baltimore. I sometimes think it’s strange that there are arguments about whether manufactured bamboo mats can be used as skach – why would you need them? But, then I remember that not everyone lives in a city like Portland. This year, most of our skach came from the Ponderosa pine in the front yard and some annoying thorny bushes with lovely orange berries in the side yard. We also got fragrant rosemary and other branches from ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bikelovejones and her partner.
Butternut wants the lulav – “mine, mine, mine!” he whines. I tell him that we can shake it together, and we do, in the sukkah. Mama is so happy to have added this to her life!
Never finishing the Florida story
See, the thing about Sunday is that I would just write about how angry I got because my brother could not make any time to talk to me or interact with me on Sunday, even though we were hanging around each other all day.
I would talk about the brunch in the country club of the inlaws gated community. No changing table in the men’s bathroom. A wooden changing table in its own alcove, complete with disinfecting wipes and disposable changing pad, in the women’s bathroom (which was also stocked with mouthwash and cloth handtowels, natch).
There would be a description of the all too familiar decripitude, decay and chaos at my brother’s house. You may not be able to go home again, but you can re-create it whereever you are.
Plus, I would rant about how much time my brother spent in front of his computer, looking at photos from the night before and — bizarrely — checking out a guest’s computer at his hotel room while the rest of us were hanging out at the beach and awaiting his return so we could start grilling dinner.
The beach itself was really nice. I had a great time being buffeted by the gentle, warm waves with my neices and nephew. Watching Butternut react to it all was a blast. At one point, my mother, Pumpkin, Butternut and I went to watch the weekly (?) gathering of beach hippies, who come to drum and dance and, well, make us Portlanders feel more at home. Butternut excitedly went from thing to thing saying, in turn, “ball, ball,” “daw, daw,” and, the most exciting of all, “bi!, bi!.”
