Elul!

Even though the hot temperatures are lingering, the frivolity of summer is behind us. The kids have been back in school for three weeks. Life is regimented. Our family had lots of fun. We swam and saw family. We did not miss Shakespeare in the Park nor sleeping in the tent. Plenty of meals were enjoyed on the back deck (and still are). Our toes were painted and marshmallows were toasted in the chiminea. Summer, I can confidentially  say, was a success.


Even though it was filled with such happiness, my work took me to some not-so-happy places. I deployed to both the Joplin Tornado at the end of May and more recently, Hurricane Irene. Fortunately my children are spared from my experiences - even though they do see some of it portrayed in the media (and then worry about me the entire time I am gone). During an event I get very little time to reflect on what is unfolding in front of me. Fourteen hour shifts (if I am lucky) and the adrenalin rush, make it hard to even eat or sleep, let alone think.


But my last week deployed I got an email from a very dear friend that snapped me out of my 'responder' mode. He and his family survived a very scary MVC (motor vehicular crash). Suddenly I found myself with tears in my eyes as I read his email. Elul, Teshuva, 'the meaning of life' all came crashing down upon me. I spent the night reflecting on life, my friendships, my family, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Summer was over.


With that I will share a short excerpt. I apologize if it is a little choppy, as I have left out some lines in the middle. I wish everyone a contemplative, introspective Elul that elevates your Teshuva and self-growth. I know deploying and speaking with my friend has firmly set me on my way.



 ........there is a comfort when our whole family is together - especially if we are on a long drive; heading for an adventure, kids singing to Ray Charles, everyone nestled in with their pillows and books. Then suddenly I realize everything,  the ONLY thing, that is important in my world is in one place, hurling down the road in a tin can at 70mph. And as much as we like to think we are 'in control' of our micro environment, there is very little we can do to influence control over anything.

I work in this odd world of medicine and disaster, and I see a lot of sad unfortunate stuff. To function, I put a mechitza between my work world and my threshold. I do the science. I do the command and control. But I do not want to know the stories.

I do not want to hear of the two-year old who was ripped from his father's arms or the 18 year old who just graduated from high school 30 minutes ago was sucked out of the sun roof while his father was only 12 inches away. I turn off the television so I do not know. I don't read the news until enough time has passed so the body I am seeing in the morgue can remain a blank profile because it would just hurt me too much, and I would not be able to continue to do what it is I do.

When President Obama came to visit us in Joplin, I listened to his speech because everything was broken around me. I needed some structure and to feel part of something more whole and complete. His speech was excellent - like MLK or JFK. Succinct and purposeful.

Then it veered toward pathos as he told the stories. Stories I was not yet ready to hear since I was still responding, and we still had bodies at the morgue. The stories were of those people - who had lives and spouses and children and parents. They were no longer just numbered human remains. I got very angry suddenly because I did not want him bringing me so close to that which was so raw.

When I allow myself to think about it I realize, even in a world where we can contact anyone-anytime that in no way makes up for living in the moment with the ones we love. Our time is so finite. Our relationships fleeting. Our moments now. Because at the end of most of deployments I walk away saying, "There but for the grace of G-d go I." And why it all happens the way it does, when it does, nobody knows. I have learned I must live every day and moment to its fullest. Waiting until I 'retire' or 'when we have enough money', is just a pathetic excuse for choosing not to live.

The older we get, the more complex life becomes. Our experiences change us in ways we may have never expected. What we do with our experiences is for us to determine. 


From my home to yours.....L'shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem

Summer Fleeting...

We are in the heat of summer, and do I mean HOT! Kansas City has been in a heat warning for over a week. That is more than this girl from climates north can handle. Thank goodness our a/c is working! And can I tell you, I am not even a fan of e a/c, but this week I am grateful it was invented.

Even though I cannot stand the heat, I really do love the summer. I love the 'freedom' we have from bedtime routines and all the extra-curricular activities. I love to watch the fireflies flit in the night sky while I drink a glass of red wine in the adirondack chair. I love that the kids march down the stairs with their pillow and stuffed animals to sleep in the back yard in the tent. We let things like bed time and the quantity of  ice cream and marshmallows slide a little since it is summer. Today the kids went to the movies at 11am just because they could!

Yet, I am starting to gear up for the Fall; for Elul and the holidays; for our trip as a family to Israel. I am thinking about how I want to decorate my Sukkah and the crafts I would like to make with the kids. I rifle through magazines looking for perfect recipes to bring to the table. I want to can our summer harvest to make sure we have captured the abundance of the summer and can carry it into the waining daylight and dropping temperatures. I even started sewing an insulated plata cover to keep our food warm on Shabbat. 105F outside and I am inside quilting an insulted cover; even I am wondering how crazy I have become nesting for the fall.

The freedom from all the regularly scheduled activities and all the extra daylight makes me manic!!!! When we lived in Alaska it was even more sever. With 18-19+ hours of light, it was as if every day was a work day followed by enough hours of daylight to feel like a week-end day. I was so manic there. I got a year's worth of work done every summer. October I would crash from exhaustion and move my sleep from 5 hours a night to 9 to compensate for not having gone to bed before 1am since sometime in April.

There is just so much more for me to do before its time to get all serious and have the kids tucked away every night by 8:30pm, teeth brushed, lunches made, clothes washed, homework done. I have books to read and trips to the library to make. I want to plan family vacation to Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Hawaii - not all at once mind you, but I want to think about how we can make all that happen over the next five year. I want to figure out the finances, make sure everything is high and tight so we can spend 9 months not thinking about that and rather thinking about math and the study of halakha and Talmud. I want to paint the front room - that I have had the paint since December, maybe even November.

I will sign off for now so I can get to work on my audacious manic summer list. Or maybe not. Maybe I will just pour myself a glass of wine and enjoy the fireflies before they go away for the year.

Longest Shabbat

It is 4:40pm on Friday afternoon and I am lounging around as if it is Tuesday. I have plenty of time! Just three days from the Summer Solstice, candle lighting in our neck of the woods is not until 8:30pm. But you would think I would know by now that there is NEVER enough time to get ready for Shabbat whether it is winter and candle lighting is closer to 3:30 in the afternoon or you live in the Arctic, as I once did , and in the summer it is closer to mid-night.

Truthfully I find the late Shabbats much harder than the earlier ones. Sure I complain vociferously in January when I have to cook starting no later than Wednesday and I am arriving home within 15 minutes of candle lightening even when I take the absolute earliest bus from the city. Despite the grousing, it is fun, we are all in it together. We are a little club with a common mission, trudging through the snow to get our last minute ingredients. And as soon as Shabbat starts, it is over as quickly. Havadalah and then there is time for a movie, and I am not talking a 10:15pm show! A reasonably time show - one where you can be home and in bed by 10:15pm.

So with my late Shabbat today, once my cooking is done (assuming I get off this couch), Yair and I plan to wander to the other side of the golf course and listen to the FREE Jazz in the Woods concert. We will be able to hear two hours of it before we need to come home to daven and light. There will be no Saturday night movie this week, but we will still have a good time. When we walk into the house we will be welcomed with a scrumptious meal of kebab and rice with African peanut sauce.

Next week, Shabbat is almost equally as late. I think a few hours of swimming in the Delaware River is in order! See you Up-Camp!

Never too early to start reading

A dear friend and colleague of mine sent our little boy a gift certificate to buy books. Boy did we have fun!

The whole family loaded into the rig (with specific instructions) so we could pick the "perfect" books.

We looked at lots of books. We went with a few classics and a few that were just fun to read. We made sure not to buy any books we already had. That was the hard part because we have lots of books already.

Thank you Carl! Our library is five books happier! Maybe someday we will have a Nobel Prize in Literature.

What Dat! A baby?

The bambino and I just got back from a whirlwind tour of New Orleans! We flew in late one day and left dark and early 36 hours later. He is a charm - he really is, but I forgot just how challenging it is to travel alone with a little one. They like to be fed, and they like to be fed every 2.5-3 hours!!! Plus the diaper bag needs all sorts of extras - a change of clothing (or two), bottles, burp cloth, toys, etc. All of this competing for space with the standard laptop carry-on. Navigating the conveyor belt, taking off the shoes, not dropping the baby (or the laptop), not losing the wallet or the ticket can all be very very stressful at 6:00am!

I just heard on television that the airlines are ranked 49/49 in customer service with other service industries. I usually am fairly forgiving, but this morning I saw the industry at its absolute lowest, and I was not feeling so generous with my wailing 5 month old in my arms only wanting to eat. I rarely pull rank, but felt it best for everyone that I move myself to the "first class" line and told them I was active duty and on orders. I left out the part about the crying infant since that part seemed self evident. He told me he would help me next. Wow! I should have thought of that sooner. Not one of the other couple hundred people batted an eye when I moved myself to first class. I think they all felt like my little boy did, and had it been socially acceptable for us all to be crying this morning, I think many more of us would have been. Later, when I was on the plane, people from the line came up to express their empathy with me. And to think I was afraid I was bothering everyone.

Once we breezed through TSA (and I am not joking - TSA has been fabulous on my last several flights) and I was able to get him feed, he started making friends with everyone in the terminal. He actually made friends with everyone on our 36 hour trip. Holding a baby makes people want to talk with you! Strangers on the street, people on the elevator, LTJGs at my meeting, Navy Rear Admirals, children, the elderly, parents missing their own children, men, women - everyone wanted to come talk to my baby.

I felt fairly honored. I am his mother and do think he is one cute little kid, but then I realized the magical power of a baby and how as a society we are taught to tuck our children away so they are not a "bother". Here, I had brought my baby out into the world - first to a professional conference and then through the airport. People were just not used to seeing this little bit of perfection in their otherwise drab world. He smiled and coo'd and finally fell asleep. Then he would wake and do it all again. Believe me, the whole time it was running though my head whether I had been too presumptive to bring an infant to a professional conference. In the end, the little voice inside my head was quieted. The world needs to see more babies!

With that revelation, the two of us will be flying again next week. Not sure I have the energy to do it all again so soon, but here goes. Yair will be out as an ambassador for all the babies, and I as his mother will not be so worried that he is bothering everyone.

Small things make me happy

With five kids, dates are hard to come by.

Yet my husband and I have managed to make the ritual of tea drinking our daily date. It may only be 10-minutes but it is 10-minutes once, maybe twice, a day we manage to keep sacred.

Dates are even more important when an already crazy schedule is being asked to 'flex' just a little bit more. We are finishing up home-school this week; preparing for Shabbat; making logistical arrangements for the mutt; the baby;  and my job; while packing for a three+ week road trip (crossing into Canada) for the majority of the family; camp for my daughter, and road trip/business trips (Yes-PURAL) for me and the baby. My head hurts just typing about it.

6/7th of the family have their passports. Upon investigation the world wide web last night, it appears the baby will be able to pass through with just his birth certificate. But eeks - one more thing to remember to pack (and more importantly not lose while trekking). Never the less, it is not our nature to let the littlest among us be without passport, so David is off getting his photo taken, and we will have the application submitted prior to pulling out of the driveway.

Now that it is summer, we have moved away from our creamy British tea in the ceramic winter mugs and have moved to Earl Grey with Fresh tea leaves and Lemon Verbena in clear glass cups, with an optional splash of agave. Needless to say, I am looking forward to my evening tea break with David. It will be a well-deserved 10-minute island of time to ask him how is day was between Kumon math lessons and the mounds of laundry.

Summer bucket list

I love my lists. They make me feel accomplished and validate that I was indeed productive. 

Summer is not complete unless I get through my summer bucket list. So as not to be disappointed that I 'did not get to do enough', I make sure to get started right away. In Alaska, anything over 40F qualified as summer. In the Lower 48, I may wait until it is a bit wamer, but not much....there is just too much to do!

So what are the things on my bucket list? Lightening bugs and Shakespeare in the Park.  Ice Cream Cones, homemade popsicles and S'mores made in the chiminea on a random Tuesday night after dinner. Sleeping outside is a favorite - sometimes it is in a tent, but usually it is on my Romeo and Juliet balcony. Once I get started sleeping outside I do not want to move back in. Fresh tomatoes and basil, and dinner as many nights as humanly possible on the deck. Red wine in the Adirondack chairs on the front lawn making small talk with the neighbors walking their dogs.

No summer is complete without just one margarita. Occasionally I will make a pitcher of Sangria when I invite friends over to sit on the deck with me. Another guilty pleasure is going to Starlight Theatre to watch off-Broadway productions under the stars. Once a summer is my goal, but going three times (or more is ideal). We capitalize on the half-price military seats and can get the whole family there for next to nothing.

Those are the easier parts of my list. The next part of my list requires a little travel. So once a summer we load the dog in the back of the rig and take a road trip. I must must must swim the Delaware River at least once a summer. Being 'Up-Camp' is a genetic mandate and one I am required to instill in my children. I am blessed to know my, second cousins twice removed or third cousins or something like that, since I have been a child. And it all because we have been swimming on the muddy bank of Oliver's every summer since we have been born.

Most ideal is to spend a few days on Cape Cod with my other cousins. Now that is a real vacation! The water is freezing cold and invigorating. In the evening we return to the cape house for a New England feast while we watch the sun melt into the bay. I am not sure if we will be able to make that happen this summer, but I really would like to try.