Reading for Pleasure

School is back in session for most kids by now. In accordance with the month-long theme “All About Me,” my six-year old has been asked his favorite color so many times he is contemplating his loyalty to green. 

Among other personal assessments, he was asked to declare his favorite book for a diorama. Without a moment’s thought he committed to a short kids novel from the seemingly endless Magic Tree House series.  (We happened to be reading it together at the time of his assignment.)  When I questioned him about his choice, (if you have read one or more of these Jack and Annie “adventures” with your child, you understand) he was emphatic in the affirmative. 

Although I come from a family of avid readers, in my youth I would not consider carving out a moment in my day to voluntarily crack open a novel.  It was not until a medical condition, Ulcerative Colitis, bound me to my house for long periods of time, that I recognized the charm and appeal of getting lost in a good book.

It was during a tough UC flare that my mother, who has an enormous personal library, handed me a book and said, “I think you will like this. Reading is good.” If you read my last blog entry, you know that my mom is always right when she’s not wrong.  And for the most part, I have liked or loved her recommendations. Plugging away at one novel she gave me, Mom mercifully lifted the “burden” and said life is too short to plough through a book you aren’t enjoying, so I cut my losses and moved on.  It was good advice.

Can you remember the books you have read over the past year? Two years? Your adulthood?  Often, I have trouble remembering the name of the book I just finished.  Sometimes, I blank out on the name of the book I am reading at the moment.  For example:

Me: I am reading this wonderful novel…it’s…it’s called…you would like it, really.  The title is....

Friend: (trying to be helpful) Who’s the author?

Me: Staring blankly.

(and scene)

With mom’s help, literally going back to her bookshelves, I backtracked and employed Pinterest to inventory and rate my “Reading is Good: Mom’s Book Recs.”  If you check it out, you can probably determine when I favor an author.

If I had to pick a single book to recommend, it would be: Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell.  When other people attempt to describe a novel before I read it, it rarely if ever does the piece of writing justice, so I will not commit the same crime. Just give Caldwell 100 pages and become immersed.

As for The Magic Tree House books, I will be recommending a new series to my son imminently, for while it has it’s place, I can only go on so many adventures with Jack and Annie before I want to burn down that tree house.

I'll just hand him a new book and say, "I think you'll like this.  Reading is good."

Yes, they are in alpha order by author.  Mom doesn't mess around.

3 Letters

Grandpa Norman Nash, always with a cigar.

Some blog entries will write themselves--especially when you literally have someone else who wrote for you.  Today, I share three love letters my Grumpy Grandpa Norman wrote to my sweet Grandma Lillian (for whom my daughter is named).   Grandpa passed away in 2004, several years after Grandma.  I love reading these, especially knowing what a grouch he could be. These are the first of about a couple dozen letters that I am grateful to have.  I especially love the "sex note."  Enjoy.

Below is his very first letter to Lillian written almost 75 years ago:
~ ~ ~

Norman Nash
1360 East Parkway
Brooklyn, NY

Miss Lillian Cohen
208 Hooper Street
Brooklyn, NY

Postmarked: September 8, 1938

Dear Lillian,

This is a little late, but I have an alibi.

To refresh your memory, I am he who rowed you around that bath tub of a lake at Alleban Acres and who promised to send you a snap-shot of yourself.* When the film was developed, the negative showed that you had lost your head. The rest of the picture was as clear and distinct as you could wish, but the head was cut off sharp as a knife. Probably, some one at the developing studio appropriated it: - they so rarely see a really pretty girl.

Since the film was in miniatures, I tried to have it enlarged, in spite of its dismemberment. But the negative was returned without the enlargement; they probably thought that I had not known about the decapitation. I’ll try again today.

To see you will be my reward for all this trouble. It’s your own fault. You gave me your address under no threats.

Sincerely,

Norman

*There probably were others who did the same, but I prefer not to notice.

~ ~ ~

Norman Nash
1360 East Parkway
Brooklyn, NY

Miss Lillian Cohen

208 Hooper Street
Brooklyn, NY

Postmarked: February 6, 1939

Sunday – Two lonely days since Friday

Darling-

Perhaps I had better sign my name and close now. Nothing can say more for me that one word.

Don’t expect this letter to equal my first magnum opus. I was inspired when I gave birth to that one. Now I must hurry to finish this by 9:30, when the last mail is collected. I can’t work under pressure.

This weak and wavy handwriting may be blamed in part on a defective pen, but you are the real culprit. You’re making a nervous wreck of me. When at school the ugly face of the lecturer is transformed into the divine, smiling picture of you; when the words of a problem on girders amble across the page and take up their positions, much as at a football game, to spell out “Lillian”; when the beautiful models posing in the subway advertisement posters humbly beg to avoid comparison; when I breath your name’ – well,--

I’d better hurry. It is past 9:30.  The vocabulary building course has no date set; probably it means that you may set your own time.

I’ll call at 6:45, Friday.

How shall I sign off? That you are my darling, and I hope that I am always

Yours,

Norman

~ ~ ~

Norman Nash

1360 East Parkway

Brooklyn, NY

Miss Lillian Cohen

c/o Master Bookbinding Company

49 East 21st Street

New York, NY

Postmarked May 4, 1939

Lily Darling-

But that’s redundant. The words are synonymous.

And Lily is synonymous with goodness and sweetness and lovableness; at times, childlike simplicity; at others, poise and carriage and sheer “class” that would make the polished ladies of Hollywood turn a deep collective green. And at all times Lily rhymes with beauty.

A new page for a new line (of thought, I mean). I began to grind out this possible future bit of evidence Tuesday, but all that dropped out of the mental hopper was the first immortal stanza. But that was easy.  The obvious is always easy; the plain fact of your wonderfulness stared me in the face. And in my Homeric way, I responded. Words, even spoken, are such inflexible things, anyway. Wait until Saturday, Lily, and when that sick-dog look that I mean to be adoring creeps into my almond eyes, you’ll know more than my English II essay style will ever tell you.

We should never have had a date last Saturday. There was the same odd undercurrent of restraint that I remember of a Sunday last December.

You know—we’re a couple of queer ducks. If one of us thinks that the other has turned cold, he immediately freezes up. When the first, innocent, notices this, he congeals too, and we’re off building up to a letdown. It’s frightening. But we’ll have this out Saturday.

Progress Note: The answers to the patrolman’s exam have been published. My grade is 80: I think I’ll remain a clerk. I hang my head in shame, Lily. Of the twenty word-definitions, I missed five, ingloriously. To punish myself, I ate jello for lunch today. Ugh.

Angel!

Sex Note: After intensive examination, I have concluded that the kitten you have requisitioned is, for the most part, female. However, the remaining kittens of the second litter is, I feel, predominantly male.  You can tell me Saturday which you prefer. The time will be 7:00 P.M. at 211 Hewes St. (Somehow, it doesn’t sound like home.)

I’m left an entire sheet, Lily, to tell you that

I love you.

Norman

Grandpa and Grandma

My daughter smiles like this, sometimes.

Nana is Always Right--When She’s Not Wrong.

Part I

Ten years ago, my mother had the nerve, the gall, to suggest that my husband and I put our first born delicious dumpling, our bundled little tax deduction—into (gasp!) her own room, into (horrors!) her own crib, on the second night we were home from the hospital. My mother, had the audacity, nay the  chutzpa to calmly counsel, “You spent all of that time, energy and expense to create her room, why don’t you put her in it?”

Ack! I mean, really? Of all the—to suggest—that a baby should—

Ok. So, it was the best idea. Ever. We swaddled that kid up, plopped her in the crib and she "slept like a baby"* ever since. (By the way, swaddle is the operative word. I am the swaddling champion no matter what my husband tells you. The key is when done properly there is no such contrivance as "too snug" of a swaddle-if it's not tight, it's not right.)  From that moment on, my husband deemed, “Nana is always right.” You can imagine that sentiment went over nicely with my mom.

When it came to babies, Nana knew her stuff.  (Mom, helpfully, reminded me when she read this for "approval" that our baby's room was also convenient to our bedroom.  It just made perfect sense.  Yes. You were very right.  Thank you, Mom.)

Part II

“Don’t forget to clean her neck. Get in the creases.”

After Lily was born, Mom had stayed for two weeks in our South Florida home and was giving last minute bits of gentle instructive advice before returning to Savannah, GA. “Nana is always right,” was our general philosophy, however I was fairly confident I knew how to bathe my own baby—thank you very much. One month later: Nana’s back to visit, and gives Lily a bath. She tips Lily’s neck back so our baby’s chin is aiming toward the skylight. My mother proceeds to puuull and gather layers of skin folds with her fingers identifying new sub stratum like a baby archaeologist. “Ah-ha!”

(“Ugh!”)

Hidden beneath top-secret baby skin was a funky layer of milk-cheese and red irritation.

Me sputtering: “That just--I wasn’t—ew.” Who knew? I did not realize one had to unhinge the baby’s head to clean all parts of the neck. Live and learn.

Part III

“Nana is always right.” Except when she is wrong.
My father was insistent that the orange juice container was dribbling and leaking at the lid.
Mom: “No it doesn’t.”

Dad: “Yes, it does.”

Doesn’t.

Does.

(Very mature parental discussion.)

A little background: at the time we used frozen concentrated orange juice mixed with water in a Tupperware-like pitcher with a lid that screwed on. You had to shake it well or all you got was "orangey" tinted tasteless water.

“Michael," jaw-clenched in time-wasting point-proving mode,  "this container is perfectly fine! See?” Shake. Shake.

SPLASH!

I think to this day, this is the only moment in my life when my mom’s wrongness was so visually played out in front of me in the style of a slow-motion movie. Was "Chariots of Fire" playing in the background for everyone or just in my head as her mouth opened slowly in shock at her astounding miscalculation?

So, in regular real-life speed, the lid flies off the orange juice container and half a gallon of orange juice floods mom’s face and hair, the counter and floor.

The proverbial, "Does." hangs unsaid in the air.

To be fair, mom was not yet a Nana and had not received the official tapping of the “Nana is always right status.” I was probably only 11 or 12 years old. I was just old enough to know not to laugh at the absurdity of the “citrus-ation” unless mom did.

Which, she did, by the way. Sticky cold orange juice covered mom and the kitchen.

A smile spread across her face. Then laughs. Laughs of admission that she was incorrect, which was good, because, Nana is always right, even when she is wrong.

Nana imparting wisdom to one-day old Lily. Or perhaps just "kvelling."

*Sleep like a baby is a debatable expression.  Our two slept great as babies, and continue to sleep well. However,  I know of babies who perhaps did not sleep until they were 30 years old according to their parents. Don’t have easy sleepers? Do not be jealous of my sleeping babies. Those who know us, know my children have made my husband and I grey in other categories. Perhaps we "got" great sleepers to balance it out. Also, did  your babies sleep in your room, in your bed, the baby swing,  or on the roof and that worked for you? Great. No judgment here, folks. Whatever gets you from one day to the next. These are just my stories meant for a few minutes entertainment.

Also, There are several ways to swaddle.  Thought I would link to this cute demonstration, even though I swaddled a little differently.   

“Bubblz In Ur Chest—You Haz Dem.”

or  If my sister were a LOLCAT, how she would have broken the news to me that I had crepitus.

  I have a condition called Ulcerative Colitis (UC).  It is quite literally, a pain in the behind.  While it has “reared” its ugly head on and off throughout the last 17 years of my life, thankfully, I am in remission.  
  
  A few years ago, during a particularly awful UC flare, I was on meds that had me feeling bloated, batty and sad.  In an effort to get some endorphins swimming and elevate my overall demeanor, one of my best friends met me at the gym at 5:30 AM.  (What was I thinking? Working out never "works out" for me.  My sister, Becka, told me once that all exercise-related injuries occur while exercising.  Smart woman.)  Upon successful completion of the final exercise, I stood up, and lamented, “Ooph!” 

  Oy.  I pulled a muscle in my neck.  Stupid exercise.

  A muscle relaxer made my bloated, batty, sad neck pain feel all warm and loopy.  However, the pain persisted.

  Fast forward sixty hours to Friday night.  We are at a friend’s home for a group Shabbat event.  In hindsight, perhaps I should have mentioned to someone, to anyone, that I had developed a couple of new symptoms: 1) at the end of each sentence, my voice turned into something like Kermit on helium, and 2) it felt like there was bubble wrap under the skin in my chest. (Yes, gross, I know.  Or as it turns out to some, utterly cool.)

  My sister is a nephrologist, and she was in attendance at this particular Shabbat.  Here is the conversation that followed:

Mindy:  “I don’t feel so well, will you feel my glands?  Oh, and I think I have bubbles in my chest.”

Becka:  (blink, blink—she got that from our Dad.  Blink, blink can be translated a few ways depending on the context.  In this case, I believe it was a combination of  ‘beg pardon and WTF?”).  She felt my chest and neck.  I know now I can safely identify when a doctor thinks you are going to drop dead on the spot but wants to remain calm.  Then very measured,
“You.  Have.  Crepitus.  Sit.  Down. You’re not short of breath or anything, are you?”

Mindy:  “No. Am I going to die?” (Had to ask).

Becka:  More measured in her voice, but now earnestly waving over a fellow doc in the room.  “Noooo.  Sit down though. Are you SURE you’re not short of breath?  Really?”
To the other physician, “Feel this.”

  So here I am getting “felt” by another doc.   And for kicks, I watch his facial expression, eyebrows first, morph from casual to surprise, maybe awe.

Other doctor:  (did I detect the smallest of smiles?) “She has crepitus.”

Mindy: Again, with more feeling: “Am I going to die? What is crepitus?  It sounds like I’m going into a crypt or something.”

  Next I become the episode of Gray’s Anatomy where the residents of the hospital are lining up to feel my crepitus.  Apparently, one does not often behold many walking talking 30 somethings with spontaneous pneumomediastinum, let alone have the opportunity to gawk and squish one.  (Turns out I popped a hole in my lung, which leaked air into my chest and neck which caused all of those nifty bubbles, I referred to earlier.)

  There’s much more to the story, but it turns out that I never pulled a muscle in my neck.  When I said, “Ooph!”  that was the hole going “popsies” in my lung.  As such, I learned the new word,  “bleb,” a small air blister on my lung.  The bleb was bound to rupture one day, and it decided that 5:30 in the morning at the gym was as good a place as any. (Can’t say I disagree.  I was not all that happy to be there either.)  
“Blebz. I may haz dem again.”  I have a 17% of this reoccurring.  If it does, I then have a 99% of it happening again.

  I do not know why people look at me oddly when my hands are all over my chest; I feel I clear it up for them with my simple explanation, “I am just checking for bubbles.

5 Times to Be Mindful of the Pick of the Litter Thrift Shop!

  Recently, I helped my mom and a few volunteers from The Pick of the Litter Thrift Shop on Sallie Mood Drive, pack up an estate, the contents of which were donated to the thrift shop in order to help the animals. These ladies are loyal and dedicated volunteers who have been serving the Humane Society for Greater Savannah for decades.  For them, it was another day working towards a common goal.  For me, the experience called for FB posts, Tweets, and full-blown attention. (So this is how a blog begins?)

  (Cue the trumpets!)

  Presenting: Five times you should think, “OH! Of course! Pick of the Litter Thrift Shop (PLTS) benefiting the Humane Society for Greater Savannah—Yes!”

1.  Too heavy? Too big? Too much of it? How are we going to get it out of here? The next time you are thinking of selling your furniture or appliances, but you ponder or stress about how the buyer is going to get it out of your home, simply contact the HSGS staff for a free pick up!  They will provide you with a receipt for your generous donation; your items are no longer in your home; and you have contributed to helping homeless animals. Nice.
2. Kid closet clean out time?  Make a pile for the PLTS.  The shop takes all items in good condition. Your kids will love that their items are going to help the animals.  While you're purging, don’t forget to clean out your own closets as well as "shed" any technology that is working but which you no longer use. (Yes, I said shed-I'm punny that way.)
3. What about books?  Yes, please!  If you aren’t going to read it again, please donate it to the ever-changing wonderful collection at the shop.  It is maintained and organized like a bookstore, and your donations will be treated with care.
4. No longer suffer with buyers regret on clothes you never ended up wearing! Every week, the "Wednesday Ladies" price and put out new clothes in the shop.  Often, tags are still on the clothes donated to the PTLS.  It’s a great way to clear your conscience for clothing you bought but never wore.  Of course, clothes that are gently used and in good condition are welcome.
5.  Ho! Ho! Ho! Happy Hanukkah-Thanks-o-ween St. 4th of July!  Holiday decorations go fast at the shop!  Tired of your old ones?  Send them to the PTLS.  The volunteers display the holiday decor in plenty of time for any given holiday.

  Of course, the PTLS and the Humane Society for Greater Savannah gratefully accept good old-fashioned cash/check donations, too.  In fact HSGS relies on the generosity of private donations to function.  Click here or visit their website www.humanesocietysav.org to learn about the many ways you can help. 

  Always wanted to volunteer for the Humane Society, but you have your reasons for not wanting to be hands on with the animals?  Look into volunteering for the Pick of the Litter Thrift Shop.  The shop operates 6 days a week, relies on volunteers and provides 25% of the income for HSGS.

  "Got $20 in your pocket?" (Sorry couldn't resist!) Do not forget to go shopping at the Pick of the Litter Thrift Shop.  The crew of volunteers works diligently to turnover merchandise with monthly half-price sales and regular quarterly "quarter" book sales.  Did I mention the clothes with the tags still on and the holiday decorations at a fraction of retail prices?  But beware—they sell quickly!