Advancing technologically...

Tonight was my first Skype convo with my parents in Florida. Who would have ever thought??? I have to give them credit for figuring it all out. It made me stop and think that if my mom had been born 50 years later, she might have become quite the computer geek. Although they've sort of embraced the computer, they are still resistant to using an ATM card.

I keep wondering what modern advance I will someday resist? Have I already started this process? I am pretty limited in my IPOD tech abilities, can't make my own cell phone ringtones like my kids can, can never really figure out all the capabilities of my cell phone -- although I blame that one on my distaste for reading long booklets of directions. How come I never see my kids reading those long direction books? How come they can figure out cell phones, new cameras, and the like without reading the directions? It's like they have some kind of chip implanted in their brains that allows them to just know automatically what to do with their latest tech gizmo, while I have to plod through pages and pages of confusing directions that I know I'm going to forget anyway.

O-H....I-O

We're headed out to Ohio to visit Arlyn this weekend and I'm excited. Of course I'm excited to see my daughter, but also there is something about Columbus, Ohio that gets me pumped. I think its' the idea of hanging out with Midwesterners. A couple of trips ago Arlyn and I were in Columbus at Buckeye Donuts having some breakfast at the diner counter. All around us conversation swirled as if we were all part of the same family. It was then that it dawned on me that Midwesterners really are friendly. It's not that we Yankees aren't, because we are. But it just takes us a little longer to get to that open friendly place. Ohio folks are friendly from the get-go. They are also mellower and dramatically less sarcastic -- which I find refreshing but not quite as entertaining as my locals. Every trip to Ohio makes me appreciate the diversity in this big country of ours.

It's been awhile...

Well, it's certainly been awhile since I've written here. Much has happened in the past year. Most significantly has been the loss of my best friend Jean. This is the first time I'm actually sitting down to write about it and it's been over a year since her death. I guess some things just take awhile to work themselves out.

I don't think I really, really grieved this loss till recently. I went to the doctor last week. He asked me how I was feeling, and seemingly out of nowhere, tears welled up and I felt the first genuine flood of grief since her death. Before I know there was shock, anger,feelings of betrayal. But not real grief. Although I hadn't admitted it to anyone, I was wondering where that grief was and when it was going to surface. Well, last week it finally made its appearance. The tears flowed on and off all day. The shock was gone. The anger was pretty much gone. What was left was genuine raw grief and the ache of knowing once and for all that I can't ever again pick up the phone and share that secret language of best friends that takes years to develop. I finally have to acknowledge the gaping hole that once was filled with love, laughter, understanding, support, and unconditional acceptance.

She's gone, and she took with her our history, our stories and our secrets.

Where did the little boy go???

Well, Adam has been officially gone -- at college -- for two weeks now. People keep asking me if I miss him. Up until today, I'd have to say, "Not really." But I have had a good excuse. As a teacher, I had to hit the ground running with the start of my school two days after we dropped Adam off. So, I really haven't had much time to even think about missing him.

This morning was another story though. As I reached for the fridge door, my eye caught a photo -- actually a group of photos in a clump under a magnet. My kids started a tradition several years ago of going into the photo booth at Great Adventure once each summer and taking goofy pictures. Each year they add the newest strip to the collection. As my hand reached for the milk, my eyes were drawn to this photo montage of my funny-faced kids squished into a photo booth mugging for the camera. That's when it hit me. I don't miss Adam per se. I miss his boyhood, his innocence, his lack of self consciousness. I miss his cute little boy expression, his gawky, skinny, long-necked puberty face, his not quite, but almost a man-ness. As cliche as it sounds, where did the time go?

Tonight I picked up the phone to hear Adam's voice saying cheerfully, "Hi Mommy!" I must admit -- being called Mommy instead of Mom made me feel like maybe the little boy is still in there somewhere...

Summer daze...

God, I love summer. Today I woke up at 10:30, drank coffee, read for awhile, gabbed on the phone with a girlfriend. Now I am going to shower, go to the gym, and then get a deep tissue massage. Can you even imagine a better day? There is something so recuperative about the lazy days of summer. It's too bad that it takes me almost half of the summer just to slow down enough to enjoy the slow tempo. Here it is, the end of July, and I am finally "in the groove."

On another note, I received an email from a coworker about Israel that I just had to post here. My son returned from Israel three days prior to one of the towns he visited being hit by missiles. At no point in my life have I ever felt more strongly about future of this country. Dennis Miller echos my thoughts exactly. I wish I could be as eloquent as he is.

Middle East Conflict According to Dennis Miller

For those who don't know, Dennis Miller is a comedian who has a show called Dennis Miller Live on HBO.He is not Jewish.He recently said the following about the Mideast situation:

"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs,which is all you really need.Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country.There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years.Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in the 1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians." As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians,"weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation." So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" anymore to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths, until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death." I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David but if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it --for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth . . . you know that's really saying something. It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Midleast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: 500 million Arabs; 5 million Jews.Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear tha if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding. My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine 500 million Jews and 5 million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that, with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of super models who've just had their drugs taken away. However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight . We've already lost some. After September 11th, our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful.Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day),start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint. If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day,we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan.

Please feel free to pass this along to your friends. Walk in peace! Be Happy! Have a wonderful life!

On the Road Again...

My daughter and I will be hitting the road again as of tomorrow -- on the never-ending quest for the perfect college. I thought this was going to be a fun process, but I quickly learned last year with my son that 17-year olds are not even close to ready for this adventure into their futures. When we took Adam to look at colleges, it was an exercise in mind reading, trying to figure out what his impressions were. "Well," I thought, "he's a boy. They don't communicate." I figured Arlyn would be so much easier.

How wrong I was. On our first trip, which was down to the University of Florida and Florida State, Arlyn was, to put it bluntly, bitchy as hell. Not much gratitude to the mother who spent a small fortune for this little three day foray, I thought. On our third and last day there, Arlyn turned to me and said, "I'm not ready to go to college." AHA! Light bulb! Eureka moment! This is what the bitchiness has been all about. It's so much easier for her, like Adam, to hide in denial than to face these monumental decisions. I'm pushing my kids out of the nest. And a comfy nest it's been. No wonder...

The Countdown

Being a teacher has allowed me to relive a time-honored childhood tradition -- the countdown. Yes, even teachers begin the countdown to the last day of school at some point in May. Like the kids, I find myself recounting the days every so often, just to make sure my calculations are right, and squirming in my seat while daydreaming about endless steamy afternoons baking on the beach with a good book.

To me, summer is all about sleeping late, reading and beach time. Now that I think about it, my summer priorities haven't changed since I was in fifth grade. I specifically remember that year because it was the summer we moved. Since I didn't know many kids in the neighborhood, I spent most of my time reading anything I could get my hands on, and meticulously keeping a list of all completed books. While I can't remember the exact number, I think I hit somewhere in the 50's. (Yup, I was a closet nerd.) Any other free time was spent at the beach, since we lived only a few miles away, and belonged to a beach club. I could go on for hours about beach club memories -- the chlorine smell, pretzel sticks at the snack bar, running back and forth between the pool and the ocean, watching the moms sit around and gossip and knit, watching the teenagers make out under blankets on the sand...

I miss those long days of books and beach. Every summer I promise myself that I will read more and go to the beach more often. In reality, I do end up doing some catch-up reading, but it's usually while stretched out on my family room couch rather than in a beach chair with my toes in the sand. So here's my fantasy about how this summer will work: Get up early, stop by the gym for a vigorous workout, and then head straight to the beach, armed with umbrella, chair and fabulous book -- at least twice a week. Only 16 days to go...