Do the Yak

...after reading these personal ads . * * * Awesome weekend: the town garlic mustard pull on a beautiful Saturday morning... then an afternoon of fun with friends grilling, sipping beer and finding out that Ben is ridiculously good at Chuck-O ... then a date night seeing " The Secret in Their Eyes ," which was fabulous and which reminded me why I used to love to go to movies (still love to, just never do). The only slight flaw in a perfect evening was my cell phone buzzing repeatedly in my pocket -- tearful calls from Sarah missing us (combination of a new sitter and us having no lives and thus not having had any sitter for ages). On the other hand, we didn't go completely broke (the main reason we never see movies) because we skipped dinner due to the afternoon BBQ, and the sitter was a teenager who charged only $10 an hour. Yeah, only. Goddamn inflation. So then yesterday it was even more beautiful. We took the kids to Hebrew school and Ben asked around to see i...

Our drive to New Jersey on Friday was punctuated by frog-choking downpours, mostly on the Mass. Pike. On Sunday in New Jersey, there was another FCD, but fortunately it held off until everyone was back at Ben's brother's house having brunch. An hour earlier, and dozens of people would have been drenched, standing outside at the cemetery for the unveiling ceremony for Ben's aunt, who died last September just 22 days after being diagnosed with stomach and liver cancer. Unveilings are apparently a uniquely American Jewish custom. Traditionally, family members bury the deceased within 24 hours and sit shiva (mourn) for seven days (shiva means seven in Hebrew). Some think the unveiling evolved as another life-cycle occasion to bring together geopgraphically scattered members of an extended family. Or if you're more cynical, you might see it as a way of saying "It's been a year, let's move on." In any case, it was very moving for the adults and sort of so...

Haven't posted in a while but have been accumulating topics, so I'll tackle them in bite-size chunks. When Two Religions Collide Such was the case last Monday, April 2, date of the first Red Sox game of 2007 and also the first of the two Passover seders . Fortunately we were not hosting; we went to the house of a friend of Sarah's and had an abbreviated seder necessitated by the presence of five children ranging in age from 2 to 7. Q: Why is this night different from all other nights? A: It isn't. The Red Sox lost the first game of the new season behind their supposedly ace pitcher. Maybe next year. What's the Hebrew for "Bah"? But... they have done better. Last night Papelbon was Da Bomb, getting the last five outs against Texas after the two middle pitchers, Piniero and Lopez, choked. And now that Passover has almost passed over, as in tomorrow sundown, we can commence the important ritual of dematzification , which means removing the bajillion c...

That magical time of year is here when I can do online shopping 'til I drop with no guilt whatsover (unless I do something silly like ordering from Brookstone's). Now that we have Amazon wish lists, it removes any embarrassment from stating exactly what you want and any uncertainty about what you'll get. Just as well I converted to Judaism. We buy the kids a few things and fire up the ol' menorahs (including the lumpy and dramtically multihued one that Sarah and I made together a couple of years ago). So we can just skip over the disturbing mall Santas, retail frenzy and other manifestations of Christmas, some of which are described by Mimi . As Wilma Flintstone says: "Doo doo doo doot do doooo... CHARGE it!" It's also the time of year -- actually before the time of year -- when we start expecting snow. We had about two inches a few days ago, which delights the kids but makes the grownups scowl because it refuses to melt. The reason is that it's been s...

A Sarah comment out of the blue that stopped me in my tracks: "Life never ends." She's five. A terrific James Carroll column (Boston Globe, 10/17/05) eerily echoes a piece that Ben read in our synagogue on Rosh Hashanah about God being not unknown, but by definition unknowable, so therefore we must say... Attention religious zealots: don't waste your time and irritate everyone else by claiming to know what God wants people to do, why he causes things, etc. -- or more to the point, don't even assume God is a sentient being who causes anything or wants anything, period. Please note once again: the Bible is not literally true nor the word of God. Why do people have so much trouble with the concept of METAPHOR? Your life is your own, so do whatever you want, or think you ought to. It doesn't matter to anyone but your own conscience and people whose lives you directly affect. So please keep your simplistic concept of God to yourself and try not to impose it on the...