Bubby Goes to Washington

Exactly thirty-nine years ago,  my Bubby, Rebbetzin Sarah Weintraub did me a huge favor.

It was January 19^th, in the middle of the night.

My mother had gotten tickets for the whole family to Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, and we had flight out of LaGuardia the next morning at 6:30 AM.

And then my father, presciently, came down with a—malaise.

This rarely happened, and when my mother looked at me with worried eyes, I knew it meant we couldn’t go.

I

 thought of the boast I’d made to Rabbi Brander, the principal at Yeshiva Central Queens. The grand announcement to my entire seventh grade class. In those days, no one in my life did anything remotely political.

Not to go would have been humiliating.

And then, as the clock ticked, I thought of the one person who had slept outside in a war-torn field, as the wolves howled, so she could see her hidden children. A woman who had secretly crossed a raging river into Switzerland with a baby on her shoulders, and a little daughter held fast by the hand, right under the nose of the night watchmen and watchdogs.

A woman who knew the Torah by heart, had written her own meforash, commentary, and who the Rabbis turned to during their sermons, to check their facts. I thought of the Emunah Chapter president, who made her gefilte fish with pepper, the proper Litvishe way.

A woman who now, despite arthritis, bursitis, colitis and phlebitis, was always up  for a movie and Shimon’s pizza on Main Street and would frankly be annoyed if she found out you went without her.

It was midnight. I called, and she answered on the second ring.

“Vat?”

“Bubby, it’s me, Lisa. Daddy isn’t feeling well and we have tickets to go to the inauguration tomorrow—will you take Dina and me? We need an adult.”

“Ver are vee going?”

“To Washington D.C.”

There was a slight pause.

“Vy?”

“To see the new President, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.”

Another slight pause.

“Valter Mandel,” she repeated.

Suddenly, a Jewish Vice President.  I didn’t dare dissuade her.

My mother drove us to the airport and somehow, my thirteen-year-old self got my nine-year-old sister and Bubby onto the right plane, into a cab and directly to the Capitol Lawn.

The Lawn was cordoned off with red ribbons. Waiting on the periphery were more people than I had ever seen in my life and I grew up in New York City.

I held Dina in one hand and Bubby in the other. Suddenly there was a sound like a horn and the ribbons were cut and there was a stampede. I don’t remember anyone checking our tickets, specially ordered from Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal’s office.

We were pushed along by the crowd—closer and closer to the East Portico. It was 28 degrees, but there were so many people that we jingoistically huddled together for warmth, like penguins in Antarctica.

The energy was exciting too—remember Jimmy Carter smiling that huge smile and promising a “New Spirit?”

There he was, about two hundred feet in front of us, up on the balcony in a blue suit. Roslyn wore turquoise and it was hard to see little Amy.

“Oy, I have to sit down,” said Bubby.

I startled. Sit down? Where?

I spied an ABC-TV cameraman. He had set up a small stage about two feet high and was standing on it with his tripod.

I pushed our way over and looked up at the cameraman. Bubby sat.

This is the best part of the story: Just at that second, just at that VERY SECOND, my mother and father were watching from their bedroom. My mother had just that VERY SECOND said—“Gee—I wonder if they”—and THERE WE WERE ON ABC-TV, BUBBY, DINA and ME, as the cameraman panned around.

My mother told me she plotzed.

I don’t remember Linda Ronstadt singing “Crazy.”  I don’t remember Aretha Franklin’s hat as she sang God Bless America. I don’t remember the United States Marine Band.

I do remember having been told that when Bubby was a young woman, but already a respected Rebbetzin, she went to visit her cousin to France and the cousin bought tickets to the Folies Bergere.

The cousin told me the story. “We sat down and there was a column partially blocking the view. The dancers came out wearing nothing but black lace and feathers and kicking their legs up in their high heels. I remember turning around for some reason, and when I turned back, your Bubby Sarah had disappeared. The first thing I thought was—oh no. She is such a religious woman! She must have been offended and left! Then I heard a yoo hoo. She was waving to me frantically.

“She had found us better seats.”

I looked at Bubby, happy to be among “pipple,” as she called people.  She was sitting and looking around, and she didn’t look “kalt,” in her winter coat and Roslyn- turquoise legwarmers, even thought she confessed she always wanted a “minik” coat, but the pipple might talk.

Later, our wonderful and generous cousins from Silver Spring picked us up, took us to a nice kosher restaurant and drove us back to the airport. Now that I think about it, they are staunch Republicans, and otherwise wouldn’t have been in town.

But I was relieved to have been relieved of being a grown up.

I wonder what Bubby would make of today's inauguration.

She might recognize the authoritarian figure who seems to be consolidating power all around him. 

She might be familiar with the rising anti-semitism, and ugly talk. She would understand what can happen. What can really, really, happen.

I am a Rebbetzin now, too, Bubby. Thank you for putting my baby daddy on your shoulders all those nights ago. Thank you for holding on to little Aunt Jenny in that river even when she told you to go on ahead without her because the water was up to her neck. 

Thank you for the gefilte fish and for teaching me those Yiddish songs and for laughing at me when I was grossed out by your religious sheitl, your wig, when you used to take it off right before Shabbos lunch and stick it on top of the side table lamp. I don’t wear a sheitl.

Thank you for being a testament to the fact that gam zu ya’avor. This too shall pass, and, mercifully we shall all cross the raging river to freedom and sanity.

And thank you for taking me to that inauguration, thirty-nine years ago. Thank God you don’t have to see this one.

Peaches

I am eight years old and I am standing on the front lawn of my house in Queens with my little sister who is four.

We are standing under our favorite tree—a peach tree, a glorious, bursting peach tree, laden and heavy with ripe fuzzy fruit.

Lots of times, my sister and I would play together in the middle V of the two main branches of the tree—the shiny green leaves hiding us from all the neighbors.

But today we are both standing under the tree.

And we are both--crying.

Just a few minutes before, an enormous blue car has driven up to our house.

Out of the car came our Cousin Estee Veissman, who was older even than our mother.

We could never figure out exactly how such an old woman could be a cousin, and not an aunt.

She was at LEAST 40.

She has enormous hair. Enormous teeth.  And ENORMOUS—BAZOOMS.

We have never seen anything like those bazooms.

They stand out a few feet in front of her-- each pointing to a different time zone.

They are their own wonders of the world—cantilevered miracles.

Hello Cousin Estee Veissman and Cousin Estee Veissman.

She does not smile at us. She does not say hello to us.

She just stands on the sidewalk, barely out of the car, and stares at the peach tree.

OUR peach tree.

And then Cousin Estee Veissman does something I will never, ever forget.

he reaches into her pocketbook and pulls out something that looks like a little baggie.

She grips that little baggie in both hands, shakes it violently, and—FA-FOOOOOOOM!

That little baggie turns into the most gigantic, yes, enormous, bag we have ever seen.

And then Cousin Estee Veissman does the other something I will never, ever forget.

She starts to pick peaches off our tree. One, two, three, a hundred.

And my little sister and I are standing, watching it all, watching those peaches disappear into that bag.

Crying.

Finally we can stand it no longer.

We turn and run into the house—Mommy! MOOOOOMMMMMY!!

We gulp out our story. Cousin Estee Veissman. Here. Bazooms. Fafoom. No more peaches.

My mother puts her arms around us.

Is there a hint of a smile there? A smile, definitely.

“It’s okay,” she says.  “Let her take them and enjoy them.”

WHAT?????

“She lives in an apartment in Brooklyn, and it’s exciting for her to pick peaches off a real tree.”

Yeah, ALL of them.

“Next year we’ll have lots of peaches, again.”

Yeah, and next year we’ll have a visitor from Brooklyn, again.

My sister and I don’t learn our lesson in generosity that day.

We sit and glare at Cousin Estee Veissman as she eats the dinner of fried chicken, cole slaw and potato salad that my mother bought from Mauzone on Main Street, and that we had every single Sunday evening, like every single other orthodox family in our neighborhood.

Cousin Estee Veissman’s voice is clipped, her eyes sad. Her bazooms remain, defiantly--upbeat.

Later on, I find out that Cousin Estee has schizophrenia. What we now call severe bipolar disorder.  Depression.  That she’s been in an out of hospitals. That nothing works, nothing brings her out of it. It’s been going on for years and years.

Her three children and her husband, who was actually a pretty jolly guy, don’t talk about it. They are very frum, very religious, so these kinds of things back in those days are a shonda, a bit of a disgrace—and not to be mentioned. “Mama is sick,” they would say. And that was that.

The years went by, with many more Mauzone Sunday night dinners, and although the rest of her family often came, she did not.

The last time I saw her was at her son Abner’s wedding.  Abner was FINALLY getting married—at 45--and to an old High School friend of mine!

It was the first time I ever saw her smile. Just a slight lift of the corners of her upper lip—but a smile, definitely.

Abner was finally getting married and Cousin Estee Veissman was finally getting a little naches from him.

She died about a year after the wedding.

Cousin Estee Veissman—I want you to know that I still think about you and about the all the things I didn’t understand when I was 8 years old and childish with selfishness.

I want you to know that I try really hard to be generous now.

I want you to know that the very first week I moved to Maine, our wonderful congregation gave me a gift certificate to a garden center, and I bought a peach tree and I planted it right in front of my new house.

I want you to know that the crows ate every single one of my peaches last year.

They must’ve flown up from Brooklyn.

But most of all, I want you to know that you have a little more naches. Your son Abner and my High School friend finally had a baby boy.

I wish you could see him. 

He has big blue eyes. He smiles a lot.

And you’d especially love his hair. 

It looks exactly like-- peach fuzz.

Water Torture

If you want to be a good Mommy and Daddy, I mean a really good Mommy and Daddy, who put their children ahead of their serenity, their germophobia, their acrophobia, and their own sense of financial prudence—have I got a place for you.

Great Wolf Lodge Indoor Water Park.

This is what I heard during the entire two-and-a-half hour ride in the car: Hurry up! Drive faster! Ok, as soon as we get there we go right to the waterpark and change into our bathing suits, no stopping at anything and Mommy, you go park the car and shlep the stuff up to our room so we don’t miss one SECOND of our first night there. Hurry up! Drive faster!

This, from my husband, who likes to maximize our vacation time.

Finally, we are there yet. I drop off Daddy and twins at the front door with their beach bag containing a shark bathing suit (boy twin), sparkly leopard ‘boo-kini’ (girl twin) and a wetsuit (husband gets cold).

I slowly load up the suitcases on the smart carts, leave the stuff with the front desk and slowly, slowly go outside to park the car.

Sticking out of the lodge is a giant growth lit up in the night  like an intergalactic rainbow and shaped like a toilet bowl. It houses a four-story slide that they call—wait for it—the toilet bowl. I sigh.

It is 7PM and there are 2 hours left of water play. There will be 12 hours of water play tomorrow, after breakfast. I sigh.

At least the room is nice. I slowly put everyone’s suitcases in the appropriate corners and slowly get into my bathing suit. I get into the elevator and press down. I sigh again.

The second the doors open, the noise hits. There are other people’s children everywhere. They are wearing fluffy wolf ears and dancing the Macarena. There is a giant stuffed wolf dancing too. His name is Wiley and he is some sort of mascot. He teaches everyone the Great Wolf dance: clap clap, stamp stamp, howl. Catchy.

On the way to the actual water park area, I walk through the hallway of hell.

On one side of the hallway of hell, a gift shop is selling Great Wolf Lodge t-shirts for 25 dollars and wolf paw print mugs for 15. There are light up necklaces and sparkly bathing suits and lots of paw-shaped candy. It is packed with other people’s whiny children.

On the other side of the hallway of hell is something that looks like an ice cream parlor. Everything looks like an ice cream cone, from the mirrors to the cute pink chairs. It is in fact, a kid spa called “Scoops,” where your princess can have an ice-cream themed manicure. For 45 dollars. I don’t even look to see how much the pink fluffy robes or the jewel eyed stuffies, or the glittering tiaras would cost the royal purse-bearer.

Onward. Two more shops that suck(er) you in; one to play the Magic Quest game (sword, 20 dollars) that your little prince can shove into one of the colorfully flashing stations around the lodge for an “epic” adventure, and another faux-natural shop that sells 65 dollar walking sticks, though I’m not sure why because the entire lodge is carpeted.

And then there was the Arcade. Noiseland. It was packed with other people’s shrieking children, wacking moles, cursing the Claw, throwing skee-balls, shooting aliens and riding virtual motorbikes through virtual wolfish terrain. And, over the din, the panicked pleading of change-challenged parents. “Ok, just one more game, Justin, I don’t HAVE any more money!”

And then—the hallway of hell ends at double glass doors. I open them and I am awash in the fumes of a chlorinated paradise. There are giant fountains, sprinklers, and slides. Water is gushing everywhere—from the walls, from the floor.

It is cavernous and it is deafening.

There a zillion things to climb on and on top of each one of these zillion things is a giant red bucket that is being filled up by an insidious hose. When the bucket reaches some mysterious level of fullness it tips over—dousing all the other peoples children with a lake’s worth of water whereupon the children scream with glee and shock, even though they have, of course, positioned themselves precisely in place for that very dousing.

One of the other people’s children, a little boy about 3, is hurrying along in front of me, shivering. Suddenly, he stops, spreads his little legs, and pees right on the edge of the kiddie water area. A gentle wave comes and laps it up.

I sigh.

My kids are in the wave pool, waving at me in desperation. “What TOOK you so long? WE want to go on the Sheer Drop Canyon Slide—NOW!”

My husband looks at me guiltily, then with a smidge of self-righteousness. “I told them you would take them. You know I can’t go on those things.”

“Me first!” Charlie decides. Her beautiful new leopard boo-kini is partially obscured by the mandatory (provided) kiddie life-jacket.

I wrestle a huge yellow floatie from the pile and Charlie runs ahead, her little legs hopping up the four-and-a-half flights of freezing stairs. I lumber up behind her, shlepping and resigned.

The lifeguards around the place are, I swear, twelve. They are local Fitchburg, Massachusetts, high school kids and they work tirelessly, trained in the apparently award-winning Great Wolf safety protocol. They pace back and forth along the edge of the water, and as they pace, their heads move in a jerky choreographed motion: head up, head down, to the right, to the left and up again. The head moves independently from the pacing—you can get dizzy just watching. 

Four times a day, a dummy baby, yclept “Timmy” is thrown into one of the pools and these lifeguards have to rescue him within three seconds. You think YOUR job is pressured.

It is our turn. We plop down on the yellow floatie atop the slide awaiting the signal. Charlie is on my lap. “She shouldn’t sit on your lap,” says the twelve year old. I move her off and she climbs back up. I can only see a few feet into the tunnel. I hold Charlie tighter and tell her to grab the grips. “She shouldn’t sit on your lap,” says the twelve year old again. But POOF! We are pushed.

Within a few terrifying seconds, I realize that Charlie should not have sat on my lap.

That is because we have both fallen off the floatie. We are hurtling down, down, twisiting and turning through the pitch-black tunnel at a crazy speed.

I am flat on my back and Charlie is riding flat on her back on top of my belly. Both my arms hold tight around her as we ricochet from one slimy side of the tunnel to another, the water rushing in my ears.

Desperate to slow down, I stick out my right big toe. I am afraid to let go of Charlie in any way—not one scratch is gonna get on that child—and I feel my toe catch each divot between slide sections. 

We are not slowing down in the least, so I focus on saying stupid things to her like “isn’t this fun?” and “wow, isn’t this fun?” and “whee, this is so much fun!” She does not answer. I can only imagine her beautiful, terrified face.

The water is relentless and the turns are getting sharper, faster, and more twisted. Just when I think my arms or most probably my toe will give out, we are PLOP in the water. We come up disoriented and coughing.

WACK! Something hits me in the head—it’s the yellow floatie.

I grab Charlie who is now bobbing right in front of me, and carry her to the steps. We both try to catch our breaths. “Wasn’t that fun?” asks the twelve year old as she heaves the floatie onto the pile.

Of course I have to do the whole thing again, (sigh) this time with Johnny. We don’t fall out until the very end, and Johnny thinks it’s the greatest thing ever.

The hours pass slowly. My one dream—that at least one twin will sit on my lap as we gently float down the lazy river together, sharing secrets, giggling and cuddling—is dashed. “Boring, Mommy,” they say.

My toe has turned every shade of purple.

What else do we do? Everything More slide. More wave pool. More slide. More buckets. We get them Dippin’ Dots and pizza. More slide. More hot tub. We do not get a manicure or a #$&!! expensive sword.

We stay ‘til the very last moment, of course, then shower, change and make it to the lobby for a fluffy-wolf-eared bedtime story and a clap clap stamp stamp howl.

The twins decide to leave their park-pass bracelets on, even though they are suddenly not comfortable, “to show everybody at school tomorrow.”

I volunteer to go and get the car, load it up and meet everyone by the front door.  Sruli buckles the kids and gets into the passenger seat. “Wasn’t that fun?” he asks me.

I turn around. The kids are already asleep. I am exhausted, still moist, still deaf, and my big purple toe is throbbing. We have a two-and-a-half hour drive home.

I put the car in gear and sigh.

Guess where my sister is taking her daughter and all her friends for an all-day splash party in honor of her Bat Mitzvah?

In a mere two months?

We’re invited of course.

Won’t that be fun?

Child's Play

I was eight years old. I wore a red and white polka dot dress, with a matching bow in my hair.

My violin was a three-quarter size. I played a simple version of the Barcarolle from the Tales of Hoffman by Offenbach.

I can still sing it on command, lo these many years later.

My parents gave me a big bouquet of roses afterwards, and gave one to my sister Dina, too, who had just turned five and didn’t play anything yet, but no one wanted her to be jealous.

My teacher, Mr. Ezrachi, had no use of his left pinky—a crazy thing for a violinist. He was facile enough, and in those days I had such a heightened frightened respect for teachers in general, a state-of-being very much encouraged in my family of teachers, that I never thought him compromised in any way. I would sneak lots of peeks at his pinky, though.

This, my first recital, took place in Tel Aviv in a hall that seemed huge to me, but might actually have been my teacher’s living room.

My father, a Math Professor, was on Sabbatical for a semester, the only Sabbatical he ever took. We moved to Israel for four months. He taught at Bar-Ilan University, I went to Netzach Yisroel School for Girls, across the street from Netzach Yisroel School for Boys who threw rocks at us; Dina went to Kindergarden which they just call ‘garden’ in Hebrew, where she was the only kid with long hair-- every Israeli mother chopped her kids’ hair off because of the lice-- and my American mother, who was all of 30 at the time, tried to make it work in a new apartment in a new land where she barely spoke the language. Without a dryer.

I had been playing violin less than a year, scratching and squeaking away, but in my family there are a few prodigies, so I was given the benefit of the doubt.

Procuring a teacher for me in Israel was a priority for my father.

Every week we went together to Mr. Ezrachi’s apartment: my lesson was first and my father’s was second. My father’s violin was a very dark wood—almost black. Apparently it was a pretty good instrument, but I never dared try it.

I don’t remember what else I played besides the Barcarolle, because the violin lesson itself was beside the point.

The point was that the minute my lesson was finished, and his was about to start, my father gave me a shekel to go to the tiny corner market, called a Makolet in Israel--and buy myself a candy bar.

I can still remember the smell of that Makolet, lo these many years later.

The freedom of those few minutes, the burning shekel in my hand, the choices—so so many colorful choices!--something chocolate or something different, oh who am I kidding, of course chocolate—the act of paying for it myself--was the closest thing I had to grown-up-hood.

For those few minutes, no one knew exactly where I was. No one told me what to buy. And no one knew exactly where I actually ate the candy bar, which was in the lobby of an apartment building next to the Makolet.

I thought to myself—this is worth playing the violin for.

A few weeks after the recital was my actual one-year violin anniversary.

My parents took me to the Mann Auditorium, in Tel Aviv, to hear the great Isaac Stern.

He picked up his bow and I sat back in my chair in a state of stone solid shock.

How could anyone do that? How could anyone play like that?

I KNEW how hard it was to play the violin. I mean, I PLAYED the violin.

It was my first taste of the divine. The first time I saw God in a person.

I was little, I was young, but I knew.

After that, I practiced harder.

Over the years, my violin was kind of a frenemy. I had to spend lots of time on it, time my friends had for other things like TV.

I had to shlep it to every summer sleepaway camp I ever went to, and my father would pointedly ask me on Visiting Day, if I had ever taken it out to practice.  Of course I had, so I wouldn’t have to lie. Once. The day before Visiting Day.

It shadowed me everywhere, like a little hoyke, a little hunchback, slung over my shoulder in its little black case. Wither Thou goest, I goest.

And while I was pretty good at it, and I guess I am pretty good at it, God never made me one of His soloists.

I am ok with that and my father is actually ok with that too, and kvells and marvels that I play professionally. “Oy, did you hate to practice! Oy did you fight me over every note!”

He cries with pride at my concerts. It makes me cry too. Once he even offered to lend me that dark wood violin. Of course I said no. No thank you.

“One Day,” he used to say when I was 8,  “One Day,” he used to say when I was 9 and 10 and would groan and make eyes and squirm, “One Day,” he used to say when I was 11 and12 and 13 and 14 and my attitude could make even Mozart sound unpleasant, “One Day you will have children of your own and you are going to have to force them to practice, too!”

It is the only thing he was wrong about.

Zachary and Aaron (ok Aaron maybe he was a little right about) practiced when they wanted to, and they wanted to a lot.

It was never fraught, never a fight, never anything but—happy.

Maybe it was because neither of my boys played the same instrument as I did? Maybe it's because (poopoopoo) they really DO play divinely? 

But in all the years of saxophone and piano lessons, I cannot remember ever having to resort to even one bribe, even one chocolate bar.

Which brings me to the Twins.

This past summer, they started violin. Their violins are cute and tiny, just like them, but they get bigger and more difficult. The violins, too.

Their teacher goes by his first name.

He smiles a lot and tells them funny stories.

Every time we practice at home, and yes, they take their violins out almost every day, we do something fun—we make up silly songs, have wacky contests, or Sruli and I jam with them.

I also taught them how to pluck which they think is the coolest thing.

Last week was their first recital. They each played a rhythm while their teacher played Twinkle Twinkle.

Charlie was resplendent in a peacock blue dress. Johnny had a fancy blue button down shirt.

Sruli and I video-ed the entire minute-and-a-half of it on our phones. We both cried when they took their bows

We had to run to our Temple’s Chanukah party right after their performances, but the next day I took them to Walmart.

“Each of you gets to pick out a candy bar—whatever you want.”

Times are different, and Walmart is no Makolet, and I would never in a zillion years let them go anywhere by themselves, but joy is joy and chocolate is chocolate.

While they stood in front of all those choices, so so many colorful choices!--I thought:

Was it all worth it, just to play the violin?  All these years?  And after all these years, am I finally feeling the joy of being able to play?

Finally?

I can’t decide. I know that I seem to bring joy to other people when I play the violin, and I guess that is enough for me.

It is different for Zachary and Aaron. And I really want it to be different for the Twins.

Neither of them picks chocolate. She gets sour gummies and he gets pink and purple Nerds.

“How come you always let us get candy after a violin lesson, Mommy?”

I come up with an answer.

“Because playing the violin is-- delicious.”

Sins of Emission

For the past two weeks I’ve been super-mommying the twins to their swimming lessons at Bates College.

They each get one-on-ones with impossibly adorable, impossibly polite, and impossibly fit members of the Bates Swim Team. 

Major hero worship.

Here’s why I mention it.

Back in the Mesozoic Era, when I was in second grade, something Momentous happened.

I still remember it exactly:

I am sitting at my little desk. It is soon after lunch. We are supposed to take out our arithmetic books. That’s when I hear it. From the back of the room.

“Mrs. Chasen, I have to----BLLLLAAAAAAAAH!!

And this little black-haired girl throws up.

That’s it. That’s the gantse mayse, the whole story.

Ok, so we all had to get up and go to a different classroom while the custodian disinfected. And we got to waste about 20 glorious minutes.

Trouble is, I still remember this girl as The Girl Who Threw Up In Second Grade.

Never mind that she was incredibly smart, interestingly left-handed like my beloved sister, Dina, AND she won the Oratorical Contest in eighth grade with a Sam Levinson monologue—what is WRONG with my memory!

Beating moi, by the way. Whose monologue I cannot remember at all.

Now she is an accomplished professor with a beautiful daughter who is a rising journalist.

So, my fixation on something that happened when we were both seven is—obviously my problem.

I wonder if anyone else from my class back then even remembers it.

Here’s another reason I mention it.

The first week of school, Charlie’s teacher sends one of her newey-agey notes home.

She finds it very important for children to stay hydrated throughout the day. She cites some sinister statistics. She is therefore requiring everyone in her class to bring a water bottle to keep on his or her desk. Fine.

Hey—another excuse for a trip to Walmart.

I buy Charlie the most purply-glittery bottle she can find.

Two days later, noonish, I get a call from the school nurse.

OMG are the twins ok?

There is a hideously long pause—an ENTIRE millisecond.

Yes—but Charlie had a little accident.

ACCIDENT?!?

You know, in her—panties.

Oh.

Maybe certain newey-agey teachers should also study the sinister statistics of seven-year-old bladders forced to overhydrate from purply-glittery bottles.

I’ll be right there.

Damned lucky I heard my phone.

I get to the school with a complete change of clothes, which includes one of Charlie’s Celestia Twilight Princessia Sparkalicious My Little Pony dresses.

She is waiting for me in the nurse’s office.

She turns to me, and I will never forget that look.

It is a gut-wrenching gallimaufry of shame & horror & sadness & pathos & help me because I am very very small.

And her eyes are also wet.

She leaps into my arms and buries her beautiful little face in my neck.

I whisper all kinds of truths and lies. This happens to everyone. It happened to a friend of mine. It’s not your fault. It’s no big deal. And the whopper: nobody will even remember it.

Speed. Speed is of the essence.

I change her up and in five minutes flat we are back in the gym where the whole thing went down.

Her new dress gets a roar of approval from the girls. Check.

I put her back in the middle of the relay race line.

You know, I oh-so-casually mention to a little boy behind her, Charlie was in the Auburn Track and Field Club this summer. 

Ooooo--wow, he says. Check.

I stand there watching her run and pass the baton in that cool under-handed way she learned at Track and Field.

The gym teacher comes over. That was fast, she says.

I felt so bad for Charlie, she says. She had just started to run her relay and, well, Mr. Tim had to come and clean it up. Then she confides: At least it wasn’t-- you know. We’ve had THAT happen after lunch.

Oy.

I see Charlie chatting happily with another girl on the relay line.

She doesn’t notice when I leave.

I notice a big anti-bullying poster on the way out.

The next morning when I drop her off at school I say, oh-so-casually: Hey Charlie, maybe you don’t have to drink so much water all day long.

Yeah, she grins at me. I’m not gonna keep the water bottle on my desk anymore.

Way to pass that incident like a baton, girl!

So, this evening, right before the twins’ 6 o’clock class, there is a sudden commotion in the pool.

The Swim Coach (a fabulous congregant!) is up and moving one of those long pole thingies back and forth in the shallow end.

I have a feeling, but I wait to be told.

Yep. Poop in the water.

Oy.

They’re going to clean it and shock the water, but lessons are cancelled for tonight.

I think.

Why does that momentous event from over forty years ago still affect me? Why was it so freakin’ momentous?

Why did it prevent me from ever being proper friends with a perfectly nice girl?

Why was I so determined to erase the event for Charlie? To protect her from forever being That Girl?

To protect myself from thinking that everyone else is thinking she is That Girl?

Why are some things so damned hard to forget?

Am I still poop-prurient?

And then I realize:

I never told a grown-up about that day in second grade. Never told my mother—not ‘til years later.

I don’t remember our teacher, Mrs. Chasen, saying anything soothing to us—truth or lies.

I had to process it all by myself.

And for a seven-year-old, it was momentous. A momentous there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I-AND- in-front-of-the-ENTIRE-CLASS-pre-anti-bullying-posters event.

A nightmare I seem to have never gotten over.

So this week between Charlie and the poopy pool kid, I had a flashback. But this time, I guess, I got to be my own mom.

And, you know, moms can make everything ok.

Oy.

I hustle Charlie and Johnny out of the pool area.

I let them talk me into getting them snacks from the vending machine.

But I still keep my head down as I pass the ongoing pool commotion on our way out.

I don’t dare look up.

In case it was the kid of someone I know.

Not Humerus

We were in CVS the other day—exactly 2 hours out of surgery. I had to persuade Sruli that getting his meds was more important than getting his phone fixed at the AT&T store, which is where he really wanted to go, cast, sling, titanium plate, pins and all.

So we get the meds, which are variations on Percocet, and I plop my favorite Arizona Iced Tea, the one with the honey and ginseng, on the counter. If you’ve never tried it, it’s delicious.

“Kinsey” rings us up, and-- zzzbbbzzz zzzbbbzzz!-- out come coupons.

Oh look, says Sruli. Coupons.

The guy just had his wrist sliced open, is high on narcotics and falsely enjoying the pain-supression qualities of something called an arm block. I should know what that is, since I was also there while the anesthesiologist told us, but I couldn’t stop staring at the doctor’s diagonally moving teeth, and thus did not hear anything he said.

Seven coupons in all, zzzbbbzzz.

You want anything?

Let’s see. Two dollars off Pepcid, three off any purchase of fifteen dollars or more of Brilliant Brunette Hair Enhancers. Meaning shampoo. Four dollars off body lotion—please try Eucerin, Neutrogena or Aveeno.

At least it’s not Fixodent, Poise and New Chapter Estrogen Supplements.

I didn’t really need shampoo, but it was easy to rack up the brunette enhancers and hey, three dollars off puts it in Walmart league pricing.

Charlie Re complained her knee was itching the other day, so I please tried the Aveeno natural lotion with oatmeal.

I do some Einsteinian calculations. I have saved seven dollars and am spending twenty-three.

I bring the stuff, plop, in front of Kinsey.

She is very proud of us.

Oh that’s good lotion, she says. Aren’t coupons great?

She has many piercings and is younger than most of our kids.

Zzzbbbzzz, she rings us up. More coupons!

Sruli looks at me with disapproval as I try to snatch the elongated and probably Bisphenol A-infected receipt and shove it, unexamined, into the enhanced bag.

We really have to go and pick up the twins, I say.

Aw c’mon, he says. You know that if you don’t use those coupons now you’re not even going to remember where you put ‘em.

Last week we went hiking up near Rangeley Lake. The twins get out of school early on Wednesdays, and we’ve decided to take some tiyulim—day trips-- around our new and magnificent state.

We drove for hours, oohing and ahhing at the mountains, cooing at the cute towns and their shoppes, getting all excited at the flashing “watch for moose in roadway” signs.  By the way, there are no moose whatsoever in Maine and I will not believe there are until I crash into one myself.

We stopped at a supermarket near the lake for sandwiches, and set off on the trail, twins and doggies and lunch in tow.

20 minutes in, Sruli went down. Slippery mud? We were walking on planks over a bog. Ice? They still have ice up there. New boots? Maybe. Maybe everything.

You know that moment when someone is suddenly on the ground and there is a disconnect. Like, why are you not standing up?

And then it’s—ok, you’re just gonna get up, right?

And then it’s—Lisa—OW—I think I really hurt my wrist.

And you stand there as the pendulum swings from nothing to something and you find yourself explaining to 2 six-year-olds that Daddy really has to go to the hospital right now and no we are not going on an adventure after all, and you will have to eat your egg salad in the car.

And then the miserable 45-minute race--passing everyone on those narrow roads, honking in apology-- to the closest hospital in Farmington.

Where we waited, him in the ER and me in the waiting area WITH THE TWINS, FOR FOUR HOURS.

Where I idiotically bought Johnny a ball from the sour-faced gift shop lady.

Whereupon Johnny threw it—right into the crotch of a young man waiting to be admitted.

Whereupon the security guard came running.

Whereupon the security guard thought Johnny was a girl and totally let it go.

Whereupon I resolved, again, never to cut those long blond curls.

Whereupon the admissions lady turned on the waiting area TV to Nickelodeon.

And finally, where they splinted Sruli up without even washing off the mud from the bog.

And then the doctor/congregant who called and got him an appointment with the surgeon the next day. A surgeon who trained in New York, in case you’re worried, and who, apparently has worked on everyone who’s anyone at the shul. And who, I have to say, is darned cute.

Now Sruli sports a titanium plate and pins, screwed into his actual radius, which, on the x-ray, looks a lot like a broom we once got at a Home Show but also looks a bit like a menorah.

He cannot play any of his instruments.  Not the clarinet. Not the accordion. Not the (hallelujah!) banjo, either. It must be a terrible and scary feeling.

T

he surgeon told him he will get everything back. He will have to have some physical therapy, but by summer he should be refulgent in his new rocker on our front porch, pickin’ out tunes on that dagnabbit banjo.

In the meantime, he has found his noseflute. Don’t ask.

So, at CVS, I pick out a garden ornament, a purple dragonfly that I will use to mark the new rosebush I planted, so no one steps on it or lets Teddy the Pomeranian pee on it.

Still have five dollars left to spend. Or save.

Sruli comes over with an enormous jug of ProHealth Mouthwash. Fine.

I don’t want Kinsey to ring us out.

Sruli sees my hesitation.

And we really do need to pick up the kids.

Don’t worry, he says, I’m sure this is the end of the coupons.

Sruli is rarely wrong, but this time he is.

ZZZBBZZZ—TEN DOLLARS! Kinsey exults for us. Anything in the store!!

Oh for pete’s sake.

I look at Sruli, already giddy from this new assignment.

I watch as he disappears into the seasonal aisle.

I am going to have to find subs for him for our upcoming gigs. It takes at least two musicians to replace him. Three if we also need a DJ, which we always do.

It’s going to be hard not being able to leave the kids with him if I have to go out.

He’s going to be tired and cranky from all the meds.

He is going to be bummed that he can’t ride his bike to shul, which he absolutely loves. He can’t drive his stick shift, either.

And he just bought an inflatable boat to ply Maine’s glorious lakes.

And the weather is sublime, now.

But sometimes life throws you down and you land on your hand instead of on your feet.

And sometimes life goes zzzbbbzzz and you get an embarrassment of riches. From companies that know too much about you.

An embarrassment of riches.

His beautiful and accomplished daughter. My boys who are like sons to him. The twinkies. Our warm and wonderful congregation. Our beautiful red house. Me.

I am so, so sorry about this, Sruli.

But you have to admit, most of your breaks have been-- lucky.