Cabbages, kings, and job counselors
Sometimes life events are so incredible as to necessitate writing them down. My plan is to keep a record for my children, for myself, and for others so that the oddities in my klita process can become a source for laughter and reflection. Consider the following.
Not too long ago, I sent in my paperwork to an ad provided by a fairly reliable list serve. Soon thereafter, I received a follow-up phone call. Whereas the positions available were full-time rather than part-time (given Computer Cowboy's knack for hopping around the world, I need to spend some time at home with our sprouts), and whereas the source turned out not to be an actual employer, but a placement firm, I was willing to pursue the lead a bit more; as I tell the folk with whom I am working on shidduchim, you never know where a connection for something suitable will be made.
Comments (0)60th birthday thoughts: bits and pieces
The banners were blue and white. The flags were blue and white. The girls, in their neat braids and modest skirts, too, were blue and white. Even the sky reflected all of this tribute back to us in blue and white.
It was not so much a scene where swords were beaten into ploughshares as it was a scene in which basketball hoops had been converted into nests for paper doves. It was not so much a scene about remembering, about hasty, makeshift attempts to recall, as it was a scene about not forgetting, about rehearsed, intentional efforts to not leave behind the lessons of the past.
The Challot and the Kallot
After three weary nights of trying to help with shidduchim, I opted for a morning off. Rather than bid my family adieu for the day and hide in the sanctum of my office, I asked Computer Cowboy if he minded my taking his place in driving the kids to school. My man was good with the plan as he was overworked; he nearly flew to the nearest bus which would return him to his source code. For my part, I marshaled the gathering of lunches, of books, and of shoes.
Thereafter, the children and I left only ten minutes off schedule. I deposited only one of them at the wrong corner (Missy Oldest got to walk a few extra blocks). My mistakes could be contributed to the fact that my head was still whirling with thoughts about the matches I had tried to aid the night before.
Parenting teens after the advent of the Internet
Ours is home filled with computers. My life's work is writing and teaching writing. My husband is a software architect. Computers have long served as word processors and data banks for me. They have long served as a livelihood for my husband.
He and I used to joke, decades earlier, that he could both pop together the hardware (he had studied electrical engineering during a time when no computer science departments, per say, existed) and then create sufficient code to program his creation. I used to joke that there wasn't a genre with which I hadn't fooled around or a research method that I hadn't tried (think physical file cards in physical libraries and physical periodical reference guides).
Pesach 5768
The last of the boxes have been packed away. Whereas I still refuse to eat off my bathroom floor, I admit that the surface there, as well as the surfaces in the rest of my home, Baruch Hashem, has been made to look shiny and clean.
Both Shabbat Ha Gadol and Hag Rishon Pesach have passed. The kids, when otherwise not occupied with their rotation, for an outing with their temporarily vacationing Abba, are sitting, for the most part, contently, on one of the sofas in the salon, reading the "afikoman prizes" awarded to them collectively. (This year they did not hide all of the matzah to prevent the grownups from using a substitute afikoman [ask your local rabbi about those laws], and this year we grownups did not surreptitiously pass that special half of a matzah from lap to lap, to thwart their search efforts. Rather, all of our antics were tamer this time.)
Pessach Cleaning 5768
When we sort our closets into stacks to keep, stacks to clean, stacks to gift to friends and family, stacks to give to charities, and stacks to place into the garbage, we are asking ourselves about our values.
Pessach cleaning is not only an opportunity to tidy up one's home (yes, I am well aware that dust isn't chametz), but it is also an opportunity to tidy up (at least a bit) one's neshemah (soul). Triaging physical goods creates an opening for triaging our personal intentions.
A flashy outfit we once enjoyed wearing may no longer be appropriate for our perception of ourselves. An elaborate serving dish might be too fancy for our newfound humility. If we've been Blessed to have grown comfortable with the balance of successes allotted to us by Shemyim, it may be time, as well, for us to say "good-bye" to our unprocessed piles of literal and figurative rejection letters and to our additional kinds of unprocessed detritus. When we sort our closets into stacks to keep, stacks to clean, stacks to gift to friends and family, stacks to give to charities, and stacks to place into the garbage, we are asking ourselves about our values.
To be a writer, part II
In "To Be a Writer: Part One," this blog examined the impact of mechanical technologies on the vocation of writing.
During the early 1990s, the second generation of cell phones, those which could be used outside of a restricted range, were created, improved upon, and distributed. Although digital cameras and Internet access were not yet widely available on those devices, the ability for individuals to form coalitions, even of the purely social variety, had become greater than ever. Certain technologically outdated moguls opted for early retirement.
Wealthy western nations were embracing not "two chickens in every pot," or "two cars in every garage," but "two televisions in every home." Rap was becoming a progressively more popular form of music. Society cruised on audio-based literacy, with undergraduates balking at the requisite hours of writing classes (it was not until the present decade that college students and others began to holler for opportunities to improve their expository writing skills), posted in just about every postsecondary institution's curricula. The new hot stuff, the issue of the scion of the silicon chip, was not yet profoundly felt.
When that influence began to filter down from the research labs to other social echelons, members of my generation jazzed ourselves up to embrace the particulars of that technology's bells and whistles. Most of us resented the change.
I don't own a television and I certainly have no desire for one to be incorporated into my refrigerator. I refuse to use a video camera and I have no desire to be able to film, clandestinely, from a handheld computational device. As for mechanized automobile key pads, microwaves that send signals which interrupt international phone calls, or (the impositions created by) electronic gate keys, count me among the dissonant (See: "Cell Phones, Electronic Gate Keys, and Automatic Automobile Key Pads," March, 2008, and "Domestic Technology Woes," January, 2007).
To be a writer, part I
These days, "easy" work is available for writers either in creating documentation for software or in supplying content for websites. In contrast, when I began in this business, life was different; print media dominated. Tacit, mass produced, mass distributed ideas, sieved through gatekeepers like department editors, constituted the leading, cheap, popular, commercial platforms for writing.
In the 1970s, novice writers were considered to have established themselves if they had newspapers to which they contributed. A select few, among our wordsmith population, wrote for magazines (academic journals being a different matter altogether; great for tenure, impractical for most other portfolio needs). Rare was the author whose name was printed on the cover of a book (and rare was the book that was not produced by means of a mechanical press).
No more Murphy
Murphy the cat is gone. Computer Cowboy, Missy Oldest, Boy-Getting-Taller, Missy Youngest, and Boy-Who- Needs-Books brought her, in a box that I had saved to pack up our dishes during prepesach cleaning, riddled with carefully cut holes, to a farm. Murphy was no longer able to live as an indoor cat.
Not that we didn't try. Between the hormone injection, the pregnancy test (performed via house call), the bladder biopsy (the cat was sedated, heavily), and more, we used a lot of money and a lot of our veterinarians time to try to determine why poor Murphy-the-Cat was so miserable (See: "Little Smile," posted in "Cell Phones and Electronic Gate Keys," March, 2008).
Sweet Seudah Bar Mitzvah
Life before Pesach is not just about tidying up; life before Pesach is also about joy. Joy, per say, can be found in ordinary, but nonetheless elevated, events, such as watching the sun rise over the hills of Jerusalem or such as sharing Shabbot with a dear friend, her children, and her grandchildren. Joy can be found, too, in particular events, such as the obligatory festive meals associated with lifecycle moments. The Seudah Bar Mitzvah, which Computer Cowboy and I recently had the honor to attend, was in this latter category.
To begin with, the invitation to that seudah was especially beautiful. The paper, which beckoned to us, was not distinct because of its carefully crafted placement of type or because of the quality of fibers upon which it was printed (although both of which were noteworthy for an Israeli invite in their quality of being aesthetically pleasing), but because at the bottom of that celebrations note special kavod was given to the Bar Mitzvah boy's grandparents.
About this blog Old/New World Discourse
Professor, writer and mother of plenty explores "Israeliness."
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