Thursday Challenge: the theme for this week is “LARGE” (Big Things, Tall Things, Buildings, Cars, Airplanes,…).
I’m not big on photographing cars or airplanes or skyscrapers, but I did enjoy watching my daughter dragging that cart around when we went apple picking last Sunday.
Some of you enjoyed seeing my portrait posted, so here’s another one. If you’ll click on the photo, you’ll see the boy that I’m missing. I dropped him off yesterday so he could head off to camp for a month. He’s sure he’ll love it (Camp Stone), but I’m sure I’ll miss him. He’s my creative youngster, the one who was in the local teen film festival (shh, he’s only 11). On an aside, Michelle Reasso is back part-time at the Highland Park Public Library, so hopefully, there will be a new teen film festival this winter.
The photo was taken in the mirrored elevators of the King’s Hotel in Jerusalem. At some point, I will do a post on their “swimming pool” (they don’t really have one, it’s not the ritziest place in town), but it will be a fun post about an interesting city element with a Paris connection.
While I was driving my son from Highland Park, New Jersey to Teaneck, New Jersey, I asked my boy to take a few photos. Not because there is great scenery on the New Jersey Turnpike. It’s more like a nightmarish view, what gives New Jersey a bad name. I haven’t even looked at the photos yet; they are still in my camera, but maybe I’ll get up the guts to post a few, and submit something to Sky Watch Friday? As a contrast to all the beautiful sky photos from around the world one can find there.
Lion of Zion said he posted for a year about his trip to Israel, so I feel better about doing so here. Stay tuned for more postings about food in Israel, as Lion of Zion raised the topic of restaurants.
And just to add yet one more topic to this eclectic post, if anyone has any good thoughts on alternative energy research, would love to hear.
My daughter wanted a picture of her standing in front of our favorite toy store in Highland Park: Over the Moon Toys. She told me not to put up the one with her squinting (which may have been a better shot of the store).
Do you have an old-fashioned, mom-and-pop style toy store in your area? Or just chain stores? We like Over the Moon Toys because it’s friendly(the store is owned by two sisters, and varying family members are behind the register), they have a nice selection of toys, and they wrap presents beautifully–yellow and pink tissue paper, blue and green tissue paper, multi-colored ribbons, colorful dotted paper, your choice. If your child walks into the store when you need to buy a gift for a friend and says:”I want this and that and this and that”, they have a gift registry. So you then tell your child to put the items she wants on the registry, so when it’s time for her party, she can tell her friends to check the registry.
My daughter is standing in front of the store with her brand-new Webkinz that she bought with the money her saba (grandfather) gave her before Pesach. Webkinz are a big craze among kids in America; you buy the little stuffed animal, then you go online to take care of it. What’s really funny is when my daughter plays on the computer at our house with the little boy across the street who’s on his computer at his house, and they go into the same room in the Webkinz game and make their Webkinzes jump and down together on a trampoline.
This is the only finished artwork I have of one of my children that was done completely from real life. It is considered preferable to paint or draw from a real subject, as opposed to using a photograph. But how does one get a child to sit still, even for five minutes? This son in particular was an extremely busy four-year-old, the age he was when I did this drawing. So I captured him asleep. And as one of his teachers reminded me recently, he still has a hard time sitting still.
This a picture of my mom, z”l (may her memory be a blessing), posing in front of some fancy shop in Newton Centre. We used to enjoy window shopping together. I took the photo in the late 1970’s? early 80’s? It captures a little of her personality.
My mother, z”l (zichrona l’bracha, may her memory be a blessing), called it ‘the Big C.’ She couldn’t say its real name, Cancer. That would be too much of an admission of its arrival, of the arrival of this dreaded, unwelcome guest. My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer soon after my wedding. The early years of my marriage and of my sons’ babyhoods were marked by worry about how was she doing, how much longer would she be with us, could we do anything at all to reverse the decree, as it felt to us. The doctor gave her less than two years to live; she lived for more than five. Part of her longer survival might have been due to the force of the chemotherapy. My father’s care for her helped, too. A large part was her own desire to live just a bit longer, to see a few more grandchildren born, to dance at a few more simchas.
Unfortunately, I have been impacted by cancer much of my life. In 4th grade, a dear boy in my class died of this disease. Would I get a lump on my leg, too? I used to think. Every ache and pain for the next few years scared me. There was a little girl whose family had come all the way from Israel to the Boston area so she could be treated for cancer. The little girl lived a few more years, but then she too succumbed. As the years rolled passed, I learned of adults who had died of cancer. A friend’s aunt. A friend’s father. An aunt in Israel.
In my twenties, a friend’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember how warm a woman she was. I loved going to her home on Shabbat, the table spread with delicacies, and her warm smile making me feel welcome. Once, I went with my friend and her family on a hike in Maine. Out in the woods, we cooked hot dogs over an open fire. I remember her mother said: “I never ate these before I was diagnosed. I always avoided food like this (hot dogs). But now, what does it matter.” What a sad, sad day it was when we attended her funeral.
Years later, my friend would blame fat. “My mother made everything with fat, fat, fat,” she would say. What kind of fat wasn’t clear. One can only guess (saturated animal fat at the main course, with hydrogenated fat for dessert? With some rancid, overcooked oils thrown in anywhere?) Her father, too, would be stricken; about a year or two before my mother died, her father died of prostate cancer.
How I got stuck on the cancer and nutrition link and continue to follow this issue is a subject for another post. I can only write so much on this topic without feeling emotionally drained.
But I will say this: remember how my friend’s mother never ate hot dogs before she got sick? I gradually came to the opposite conclusion. Giving up hot dogs wasn’t merely enough. The food pyramid that we are taught about nutrition isn’t enough. There’s a lot to know about nutrition, and all our bodies are different.
In memory of my dear mother, here are some of her paintings.
I took a cue from blogger me-ander and decided to photograph part of last night’s dinner. Well, only the final product, not the process and ingredients.
Here are the ingredients for this vegan, pareve soup:
Put enough olive oil in a pot to cover the bottom. Chop your vegetables. Heat the pot, and then put in the onions. Saute until they are translucent. Add chopped yam, chopped carrot, then chopped zucchini. Add salt, pepper, thyme to taste. Add tomato sauce. Stir, so the yummy olive oil permeates the vegetables. Add enough water to cover the vegetables. Cook for about twenty minutes or the vegetables are tender. Add cabbage, beans and snow peas. When the snow peas are soft, it’s time to eat!
Note on napa cabbage: it has thinner, less fibrous leaves than your standard cabbage. I like it for my coleslaw recipe. I put it in the soup because I had leftovers from making the coleslaw for Shabbat. Will post the coleslaw recipe at some point…
My daughter tasted it, thinking it was chicken soup. I told her it was chicken soup without the chicken. She made a face, and asked if she could put some chicken in it. I told her we had none, and tomorrow night I will make chicken soup. Life with children!
My husband and I thought it was delicious.
If you are lucky enough to live in Central New Jersey, there will be a great Teen Film Festival at the Highland Park Public Library on January 27, 2008 at 1 pm. One of the film producers is a certain talented offspring of mine who has produced a series of murder mysteries with hilarious British accents for your entertainment. Also featured will be zombies and a pipe cleaner dude. Buy a t-shirt and support teen programming. Michelle Reasso, the teen librarian, works hard to channel the outstanding creativity of our local teens.
For more information, see www.hpplnj.org.