Timing Is Everything

Forty-six years ago, my mother gave birth to a baby girl.

Apparently, that baby came out about three weeks early... I guess, curious to discover the world.

Why, then, is that "baby" no longer early for anything, but always running late, feeling flustered and flurried?

That "baby" should ask Bruce Springsteen, Julio Iglesias, Jason Alexander and Mickey Rooney if they also have trouble with time management. Kublai Kahn, Augustus Caesar, John Coltrane are TOO LATE to answer the question!
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I hope you all had an easy and meaningful fast. May your prayers be heard, may forgiveness be bestowed upon you and may you have a healthy and happy year.

Mi Yichyeh u'Mi Yamut...*

* Who shall live and who shall die...

"These words from the liturgy of the High Holy Days testify to our insecurity. As we grow older, our youthful illusions of invulnerability begin to disappear, and the questions become ever more acute. Perhaps the most difficult transition we make as adults is the first time we catch ourselves saying, “If you have your health, you have everything,”—and we remember how completely uncomprehending we were when we, as teenagers, heard exactly those words from our great aunt, the one who had doilies covering her tables and newspapers on her freshly scrubbed floors."

(from Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff, http://www.agudath-achim.com/)

Is this first paragraph not true? As young innocents, we don't think truly about the words we are saying, but as we age, we do.

I thought that perhaps I was morbid as I stood at shul over Rosh Hashanah and thought these thoughts. But in hindsight, as I think about all the things that are wrong with our world, all the people I know who are not well, or who have already been touched by grief and sadness in their lives, I think it is only right that I am aware of these words.

I looked around the shul and wondered who would be davening with us next year, who would be missing. Just like looking at a family photo album. Take out your parents' photo albums or look at your own wedding albums, if you're married. Scan the faces. You will see and say to yourself, "This one isn't here anymore; this one died a year after I married; he is in a nursing home." The list goes on.

And unfortunately, next year at shul, you will probably encounter similar losses. Familiar faces will be missing. Some families will be smaller and will need to buy fewer High Holiday tickets.

Perhaps I was most aware of the theme of this post as the kohanim went up on the bimah for "duchenin"; two of those men that were up there, whom I know, have cancer. They have been taking treatments and I believe that one of them has decided to stop his treatments. It shows in his face, in his body and in his wife's eyes as she looks at him.

As those men stood and blessed the congregants, as kohanim have done for centuries, I couldn't help but wonder if these men would be around next year to bless us again.

And moreso I thought that they are blessing us; Hashem should bless them hundredfold with strength and good health.

And how does one wish a true "refuah shlema" on someone who is so ill? Do you? Can you? Or do you wish them strength, as I do?

It is my fervent hope that we will all be inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year; that strength, and hope, and prayer, and tradition will be part of those pages of our own Book of Life.

Gmar chatimah tovah.

Out with the Old, In with the New

As I stand on the threshhold of a new Jewish year, I stop to take stock.

I review so I can see what I've learned this past year...if anything.

I review so I can see what my next step should be.

I review so I can appreciate what I have -- and what I still have.

It has certainly been a year filled with emotional strife as I've dealt with family members with ill health and lengthy and several hospitalizations. Each of those hospitalizations also had me review the past and hope and pray for a better future.

As I do now...for my family, for your families and for all of Klal Yisroel.

May you be surrounded by those near and dear to you...whether in person or whether in memory.

May the road of life you travel down this coming year be smooth, with no sharp turns or major detours.

May the wishes you seek for yourself become reality.

May good health be your best friend.

May laughter, not tears, prevail in your life.

To all of you: SHANAH TOVAH U'METUKA. A sweet happy New Year.

Forever Young

Talk amongst yourselves... Then you can shout out your answers.

If you could be immortalized in any creative form, by someone living or dead, what form would it take and who would create it?

1. I would opt for a caricature done by Al Hirschfeld. He was a brilliant artist whose drawings I looked forward to seeing in the NY Times and elsewhere. It's interesting to watch any caricature artist at work, especially someone as talented as Hirschfeld was.

How would he depict me? Would he make my nose big? My lips big? My freckles big?

2. Also in the realm of caricature art, I would pick Norman Mingo to duplicate me.

Who the heck is Norman Mingo, you ask? Just think of Alfred E. Neuman...MAD Magazine...cover art. Also a brilliant, detailed artist who made his MAD Magazine cover people come alive.

(revelation: I didn't know his name either. I had to GOOGLE "Mad Magazine Cover Art" to find the guy whose design style I enjoyed.)

3. And last but not least, I would like James Taylor ("Sweet Baby James") to write an original, wholesome, mellow but catchy tune about Pearl.

YOUR TURN..................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forerunner to the State of Israel Bonds Pledge Drive?

There's a new children's book out and it features some interesting historical facts intertwined with the story.

"Myths and stories have gathered around Salomon, a slender Jewish immigrant from Poland. The stories have help up because they are good, if not entirely true." She goes onto add that while the book is "based primarily" on authoritative historical sources, "Most of my dialogue and dramatic scenes… are my contribution to engage young readers in the story." So where does the history begin and the dramatic reenactment end? Very hard to tell. Check out the scene in which Rubin tells us about the relationship between Robert Morris, a Philadelphia businessman whom George Washington appointed the minister of finance during the War, and Salomon.

The story goes that on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Haym was attending services at [Temple] Mikveh Israel. A messenger came in and asked for him. "Robert Morris sent me," the messenger said to Haym. "He needs you to sell two bills of exchange for twenty thousand dollars."Members of the congregation gasped. "For shame!" They were shocked to hear talk about money on the holiest day of the year for Jews. Haym, however, knew that at no other time would he have so many people gathered at once. He asked the rabbi for permission to speak. "Let us all help General Washington," he said. Within a few minutes, Haym raised all the necessary money, including three thousand dollars of his own.

Fact ... or fiction?

Which came first -- this scene or the Israel Bonds Pledge Drive every Yom Kippur?

Name That Spouse!

I've mentioned many times throughout blogging that I have these little neuroses/hang-ups/idiocyncracies/"jewkim barosh". Here's another one to note on that list.

I was probably twenty-one or twenty-two when a friend got married; she was my first peer to do so. Before she married, she'd talk about her fiance as "Alan this, Alan that." After she married, it was no longer, "Alan this, Alan that." It was "My husband this, my husband that."

That's when my hackles first rose.

"What??!! I know his name. Why do you have to refer to him as "my husband" all the time?" I never said this aloud to her; I just figured she was in that honeymoon stage and liked the sound of "my husband."

But she wasn't the only one who'd be so formal.

I discovered my aunt would talk about "my daughter-in-law." Now, Sara is the ONLY daughter-in-law my aunt has; why didn't she address her by name? Why did she appear to distance herself with such a generic tag?

My cousin, Sara's husband, mostly talked about Sara, but sometimes did refer to her as "my wife."

When my brother-in-law got married, he constantly talked about "my wife". Granted, he was older when he married, she was on her second marriage, so each was happy to have found the other. Did he have her on such a pedestal?

I did not like the sound of "my wife" all the time; it sounded as if he were talking about a possession, something materialistic. If I wouldn't have known her, that's something else. But I know her and I know her name...so use it!

After witnessing him and my cousin refer to "my wife," I began to wonder if it's a Yeshivish etiquette thing that nobody had told me about. Is it a means to give kavod/honor to one's spouse...or is it just a possessive kind of thing?

Moreso, why did/does this bother me so much? I wonder.

If I ever use "my husband" in conversation, it's: 1. to someone who doesn't know him at all or 2. if I use the expression, I'll follow it with my husband's name, as an identifier or 3. i'll be cheeky to a friend in conversation and say it with great cynicism and emphasis if he's done something to irritate me.

But my husband has a name, and I make sure to use it.

I know other frum couples where the husbands refer to "my wife" and the wives refer to their husbands by name.

(it's funny, but I don't have the same problem when someone refers to "my son" or "my daughter.")

If there are any Yeshivish-type readers out there (Chaim? Ezzie? Elie?), please do tell me if there is some kind of unwritten rule among the more frum that you give one's spouse -- specifically the wife, the "eshet chayil" more honor by referring to them by their "title" rather than by "name".

My husband knows how I feel about this topic and wouldn't dare refer to me as "my wife" unless he added "Pearl" to the mix. That's why I love this guy; he respects me and my wishes.

See, people? "My husband"...Mr. TorontoPearl" ... earns respect and shows it too -- doing so on a first-name basis!

And Now A Word from Our Sponsor

"....and last but not least, here's helpful hint # 99:

When you wear eyeglasses that have protective coating on the plastic lenses, never, NEVER open the oven door and stick your head closer to remove some hot food. That GUST of hot air has a way of damaging that eyeglass coating and eventually you see these very fine spider lines on the lenses of your glasses.

It happened to my husband and his optician explained the fine "spider veins" to him.

My husband warned me.

Wouldn't you know it! I put my head in the oven...once...another time...and another time.

My eyeglasses are new, and maybe only a month old. They are already damaged...showing very fine lines...perhaps like this 45-soon-to-be-46-year-old skin of mine!

By the way, my eyeglasses were ordered online by a Winnipeg optician; the sample frames were sent to me in Toronto. The frames came from Denmark, and the sunglass lenses came from Quebec. I'm wearing an international pair of eyeglasses.

See this link. My glasses are the exact ones shown in this post -- Model 1641, collection 5132.

I guess if I keep sticking my head in a hot oven, I will have to begin "reading between the LINES!"

"WE'RE CLOSED!!!"

After my last post, I went grocery shopping.

I have a tendency to go late at night, within the last hour that the supermarket is open, and I like to "close up the place." ie. be one of the last, if not THE LAST, customer. Maybe it's a subconscious power thing:

"You can't close up the store until I'm all done... You can't start to count what's in your till until you've finished with me."

There are two supermarkets nearby with a large Kosher selection of just about everything. I often go first to one, and then to the other. On Thursday nights, I luck out because one of them closes at 10 p.m. but the other closes at 11 p.m. Often I see the same people I saw shop in the first store then shop in the second store...like me.

Tonight I went to the first store, which closes at 10 p.m. and then I headed to the second store, which closes at 10 p.m. But I had about a 20-minute window to get what I needed at the second store, so off I rushed.

I was NOT the last customer, but it was about 10:07 p.m. when I was at the checkout.

As I left the store, there were two employees just outside the front doors. I said good night to them, figuring they would lock the doors after the last customer left and then go back inside to deal with the closing procedures.

I was already at my car nearby when I heard in a booming voice: "WE'RE CLOSED!!!"

I didn't look back, but figured that someone thought they might just manage to get in and attempted to do so, only to be met by the "door police." It then hit me in a funny way that these store employees were actually serving as bouncers.

And then I realized that most stores, primarily Jewish ones where customers like to bargain, sweet=talk, insist, DEMAND, rant, and KNOW BEST, could stand to use bouncers like these men. Guards. De-motivators.

I can picture a couple of burly, musclemen, with stubble on their faces, staring down a little old Jewish lady with a shopping cart.

"No, the store is closed... No, you can't just check one more thing... No, the manager has already left... No, you can't park yourself here till morning; come back at 9:30 when the store re-opens."

Before going grocery shopping, I was in another department store, looking for a gift. Over the loudspeaker, I heard, "The time is 8:45; Winners will be closing in 15 minutes. .." "The time is 8:55. Winners will be closing in 5 minutes. Kindly bring all your purchases to the cash.... "The time is 9:00. Customer service is closed. Please bring all purchases to the cash. The store will re-open at 9:30 tomorrow."

Now, wouldn't you think that after listening to that series of announcements over a 15-minute time span that I would get the hint and get my butt over to a cashier with the gift I'd found to buy?

Nah...I'm at the far side of the store, but scanning over the aisles to see if any cash registers are free.

No such luck. There are lineups at each cashier's counter.

So I continue to browse in the housewares.

"I'm sorry...it's 9:00. This section is closed. The store is closing, " is what a store clerk greets me with.

So you think I'd take a hint then?

Nah... "I know, but there are lineups at the cash anyway," I explain -- and continue to browse. I see that I am not the only customer in that section seeking some last minute purchases. I even think that to myself, "Hey, if you [Winners]throw me out, you might lose out on some customer cash. Maybe I'll find something else to buy in the last minute..."

I guess that all stores where I shop might also stand to use the services of a good bouncer to...put me in place...OUTSIDE THE STORE!

From the Sidelines, aka Some Observations....

I'm still here on the periphery of the blogging world, checking in with many or most of the blogs on my blogroll. I might be negligent about doing so equally or regularly, and I apologize for that.

Even if I don't visit often -- and post even less -- I still have a soft spot for you all, and admittedly some bloggers more than others.

Danny never ceases to amaze me with his entertainment knowledge and his journey through family history and family photos.
Neil, the funny rabbi, is always so eclectic and enlightened in his writing.
Neil, the funny non-rabbi, continually makes me smile with his wonderful wacky world and words. HE IS ADORED BY MANY, IT SEEMS.
Oriyenta brings her daughter's life -- and her own life -- to life for us.
Old Old Lady of the Hills captures spectacular photos and wonderful stories of the natural world around her...both in the Hollywood Hills and outside them.
Fancy Maven is anxious...and funny...and pretty blunt.
Shalom from Jerusalem is simply a wonderful and warm and down-to-earth person who welcomes everyone into her blog, as if it were her home.
{Cruisin' Mom...we miss you!}

Last week I ran into a professor, who was also a fairly well-known blogger in the Jewish blogging world. I asked if he's still partaking in blogs and in the conversation he said that he thought blogging, especially in the Jewish blogosphere, is not as popular as it was a couple of years ago. He thinks it peaked after a couple of years and then slowly, people pulled out.

I believe it's true, although there are always some new people jumping aboard to replace the old people.

The blog is not as "essential" to my life as it truly was between late 2004 and early 2006. I don't spend as much time or effort on my own blog. In Hebrew, I'd say that the "cheshek"/desire isn't there; in fact, it's been lost.

But I can't pull myself away completely. The blog -- mine and reading others -- has continually been a source of inspiration, emotional strength, interest, etc. I can't just go "cold turkey."

If you've been blogging for more than a year already, do you feel strengthened by your blog? Do you think your blog has developed into "a crutch" of sorts? ( mine had been one for quite some time. I'm pleased to say it no longer is.) Has your blog evolved in any way?

When I think of something to blog about, it's usually lately about my weaknesses, my fears, my flaws...and I wonder why I feel I need to share those with you. Do I have to air my laundry, just so you can gather up that laundry, fold it for me and put it in its place?

Maybe I've outgrown my blog in some ways--the dimished posts and visitors prove that--but I certainly haven't outgrown yours. So do keep writing, and I'll continue to read, and comment if moved enough.

Ten...

My middle child, Adina, celebrates her tenth birthday today. Her Hebrew birthday was on Shabbos Nachamu.

Everyone always says truthfully, "Where did the years fly?"

As I wrote her a birthday card message today, I reread my words. They sounded more appropriate for her birthday card for when she'd turn 12, bat mitzvah age. I talked about her father and I being proud of the young lady that she's proving to be, and I thought that even though "10" is not really yet equated with a "young lady," it was certainly appropriate for Adina.

She is feisty, she is loving, she is creative, she is sensitive. Simply, she is adored.

"Adina": noble, gentle, delicate.

A perfect name for an "almost-perfect"...young lady!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

(Adina is my kind of girl; she read the birthday card I gave her BEFORE she opened her present!)

Keeping a Low Profile

Are you taking attendance? Have I been missing blog class?

I'm still around, just without any blog posts due to several reasons:

1. I'm now back in the workforce (since mid last week), have no access to personal use of the computer during the daytime and am pretty wiped by the time I get home (I've forgotten what that's like, with commuting and dealing with the family afterwards). Am learning many new things on the job and find it a bit overwhelming in these early days. Thus "brain drain" takes hold of me. Thus...
2. I can't think of too much to write about
3. My dad just came home on Friday after another 10-day "sojourn" in the hospital -- 10 days in July, 10 days in August. Needless to say, I was busy with that.
4. Dealing with the kids and their camp pick-up and drop-off schedules have kept me busy
5. Editing shul bulletins for the High Holidays
6. Volunteering and helping with suggestions for children's/YA book selections for the upcoming Toronto Jewish Book Fair
7. A couple of weddings to attend

So I guess you can see that I'm pretty busy with...LIFE.

But when the muse hits -- hopefully soon enough -- I'll be typing away and hitting PUBLISH !

Leave the Porch Light Burning

Just as I've always had a "thing" for the Ner Tamid (Eternal Light found in every synagogue ), I've always had a "thing" for a porch light. Not just any porch light, really but one that's on -- a beacon in the dark. If it has a yellow bulb or yellow glass encasing the bulb, even better.

I've always felt that the yellow bulb is warmer and more welcoming.

I know my neighborhood rather well, thanks to being a dog owner who has to become a dog walker. As I pass each home, I determine if they appear to be welcoming. Sadly enough, no.

So many of the homes in the area do not even leave on outside lights, much less yellow-coated lights. They appear to be cold-looking, giving a "leave me alone and stay away from me" attitude with the lack of illumination.

There are homes that might not have a porch light on, but they have statuesque coach lights lining their walkway, beckoning the way to the front door with their bright, white light. Other houses have some feeble lighting lining their bushes and driveways, relying on the light of the sun to light up the way.

Other homes have glaring spotlights poking up from beneath bushes and greenery enhancing their front yards. Sometimes these spotlights are colorful with red, green or yellow hints of color to guide visitors to the front door.

Conservation of energy -- is that what keeps people from keeping their outside lights on? Or is it simply that if they don't illuminate the exterior of their homes, nobody will bother them after dark?

A Blur

The woman...she sat across from me in the medical center's waiting room.

I noticed...her jewelery, her tan, her shoes and then her arm.

Were those bruises? Was it dirt?

And then it hit me -- a number embedded on her delicate, tanned skin.

Embedded on the outside of the arm...for all to see.

Numbers -- not so legible, but never truly fading.

A blur.

A memory, in fact a nightmare of something too difficult to comprehend.

My heart clenched.

My heart clenches each time it sees one of these numbers, one of these blurs.

Those times are becoming much more infrequent.

She passed close by and asked me a question. I answered, then grasped her arm and told her how I was taken aback...by that number. I told her I hadn't been sure it was a number--

I was used to numbers on the inside of an arm, more hidden.

I told her it seemed like a blur.

I asked her where she'd been.

"Where everyone was -- Auschwitz."

"You must've been young."

"I was. But I lived through it and I went on with my life."

"Thank G-d for that," I told her.

That number. A blur to me. Certainly not a blur to her.

Scenes from a Marriage (TorontoPearl-Style)

My husband, who started a new job in January, is working like a dog, learning his way around this job and staying on his toes. He didn't want to totally neglect his family, so he booked off a couple of days this summer, days to tack on to an upcoming long weekend.

He booked off this coming Friday and next Tuesday...which we thought was great. The only thing is that my kids have camp on Friday and camp on Tuesday, and my oldest son's camp will have an outing to a Blue Jays baseball game on Sunday as well as a great outing on Monday, and my son doesn't want to miss either day.

What to do...?

"That's okay, honey. So we'll do something on Friday while the kids are at camp," says Pearl.

"CAN WE GO TO HOME DEPOT...? AND WAL-MART...?" says Mr. TorontoPearl.

I laughed, telling him that this excerpt was certainly worthy of a blog post.

Jewish Lego Wedding

A Lego Film: A Brilliant and Very Unique Anniversary Present

And Now You Know

My daughter and I spent Shabbos -- Shabbos Nachamu-- at my parents. It was my daughter's Hebrew birthday (ten years ago, I was a bit busy for the last half hour of Shabbos Nachamu!) and I didn't want my parents to be alone. My husband and sons managed fine on their own.

Being Shabbos Nachamu, we truly relaxed, read, talked, played games, looked at photo albums and just lazed around.

As we were sitting around, my mother read aloud an excerpt from a book I'd given her -- Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler. The excerpt had to do with the origins of the word "kike." This is a derogatory word used to mean "Jew"-- although I knew that, I never stopped to think about its origins.

I just GOOGLED several sites to see if what she'd read aloud was, in fact, true. Yes... And now you too will know where the term KIKE comes from. [Don't say that my blog never taught you anything.]

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "KIKE"?

There are many explanations:

* One explanation is that the word kike originates from the word "keikl", in Yiddish, which means "circle". At Ellis Island, one of the main immigration check in points, immigrants were intially grouped by religion and language in order to make it easier for them to communicate with each other and also to be identified more quickly by waiting relatives there to meet them. Christians were marked off with an 'X' which was likely really supposed to be a cross; Jews were marked with a circle which was really likely supposed to be the Star of David. It is easy to see how the staff could become sloppy at drawing these symbols as 'x' and 'o'. The word "keikl" was used by the Jews making fun of the poorly drawn star; they referred to each other as being 'circles'.

Unfortunately, from this innocent usage, the term aquired a derogatory meaning.

Robert L. Chapman's "American Slang" has a slight variation on the above. Rather than saying the circle was a mark made by the staff to symbolize the Star-of-David, the book says: "Jews who could not sign their names would make a circle." This suggests that it was Jews themselves who started using the circle- presumably to avoid the X which was reminiscent of a cross.

* According to "Our Crowd", by Stephen Birmingham, the term kike was actually coined as a putdown by assimilated American German Jews for their Eastrern-European bretheren: "Because many Russian [Jewish] names ended in 'ki', they were called 'kikes'- a German Jewish contribution to the American vernacular. (Germans are also said to have invented the term "Bohunk", referring to Jews from Bohemia.)". Following this explanation, the name kike was deliberately coined to put-down Jews- but only a certain subset of Jews. The name then proceeded to be co-opted by Gentiles and used against all Jews in general.

* Robert L. Chapman's "American Slang" also notes that the word could be a reference to "Ike", a nickname for Isaac.

The Power of Persuasion

Media. Print ads. Commercials.

All have a message.

Sometimes the message is lost on me.

Other times the message is captured in the images.

Other times the images supercede the message.

I just stumbled onto a wonderful website. You can spend lots of time filtering through its messages.

Put it on your favorites list. I just have.

About twenty-plus years ago I used to go to a downtown restaurant that featured screenings of Cannes award-winning TV commercials; these commercials were international and -- for the most part -- brilliant. Each screening featured a different year's winners, and my friends and I often paid for and sat through two screenings.

I feel the same about this website...I just want to continue sitting here and scanning through it, both its print ads and its commercials.

Canada's Marshall McLuhan voiced it best: "The medium is the message."

Check out this site: http://adsoftheworld.com/

Excuses...or Reasons?

Many, many years ago, I attended and graduated from the University of Toronto. The Toronto downtown campus I attended was somewhat prestigious, and you had to submit high school marks of a minimum of 85%, if not more, to be accepted at that campus.

It was a place I always wanted to go; there were no questions about it. And my marks were more than good enough to get accepted.

But once I was on campus and a full-time student, I began to see things in a different light.

"Pearl, why'd you choose U. of T.?"

I couldn't say, "Because they have a great pre-meds program" when I wasn't taking sciences. I couldn't say, "Because my brothers went here and I wanted to go here too," ecause that's a lousy reason.

I found the most entertaining -- and seemingly honest -- response: "I'm here because of the architecture and the squirrels."

University of Toronto has a sprawling campus that exemplifies all types of architecture -- modern, cold stone buildings, and dark, gloomy Gothic buildings with turrets and stained glass windows. This blend of buildings was so appealing to me, as was the overflow of squirrels running rampant across the campus lawns and stone walls.

So was "Because of the architecture and the squirrels" an excuse or a reason? Hmmmm....

In the same way, you hear people/men mostly say "I read PLAYBOY for the articles." Uh-huh, and no doubt these same people are reading between the lines.

For many years I would "read" THE NEW YORKER. I put "read" in quotes, because even though the publication featured some wonderful short stories and fillers and tidbits, the main reason I would peruse the magazine was for the cartoons. That is what sold me on its pages. They are some of the most brilliant wordsmiths who apply themselves to those simple pen and ink lines. My journals from years past are filled with cartoons from THE NEW YORKER, cartoons that made a lasting impression on me, enough to destroy an issue of the magazine and tear something out.

There is truly a fine line between reasons and excuses.

My memberships to CURVES was up at the end of March; my husband encouraged me to rejoin (he encouraged me to join in the first place and the day that I was let go from my job and I called him en route home crying, he told me the best thing I could do was go home, get my workout stuff and go to CURVES for that 30 minute circuit -- he was SO RIGHT!), and I said I would, for sure. We are nearing the end of July and I haven't yet rejoined...for what reasons? Oh, I'll wait till after Pesach....I'll wait till the kids are finished school...I'll wait to see how my father is feeling... These are certainly not reasons, but excuses!

People find themselves in relationships -- whether they are marriages or friendships -- that are troublesome. Yet they continue to linger in these relationships, often wearing themselves down for their troubles. These people think they are giving reasons for remaining with these partners, these friends, but when these reasons are closely examined, they are often discovered to be simple excuses.

If you think about it, excuses generally relate back to "I"; they have to do with something about you -- something you're lacking (perhaps confidence?), something you're afraid of (perhaps retaliation from another person?).

Although this post was originally meant to be light-hearted -- I'd thought I'd just incorporated the reasons for my attending the University of Toronto, along with my reason for reading THE NEW YORKER -- it turned into something heavier. I want you each to examine your reasons for doing or not doing certain things. Examine them closely; decide if they are in fact excuses. Then do something about it...or at least try to.

Stop making excuses for things. Start doing. Don't wait for tomorrow or the next day to start or complete a project. Don't wait for that other person to make the first move -- you take that first step toward them.

You will be happier; you will have a sense of accomplishment; you will know that you didn't sit on your tushy, thinking up reasons --EXCUSES! -- for not doing something.

Now...let me think of a reason why I can't heed my own advice!

It's Harry Potter Time

I am not a Harry Potter fan.

Neither of the movies, nor the books, nor all the regalia that goes with Pottermania.



But I'm probably also premature in just saying this because it's all based on assumption.



Not once did I read a Harry Potter book...not even aloud to my kids.



Not once did I see a Harry Potter movie.



"I don't like that kind of stuff. I don't like fantasy." (as if the romance book publishing industry, in which I worked for close to twenty years, is not made up of fantasy!)



I simply never gave Harry and his cohorts a chance.



Perhaps it's "my bad."



My son, who's now twelve has been reading the Potter series for several years. In anticipation of the newest book, which was released yesterday, he began rereading earlier volumes in the series. He also introduced his sister, who will turn 10 next month, to Harry, and she began reading the first book on Friday night, much of Saturday, and even taking the book to shul when she went back later in the day.



My husband preordered the latest book in hardcover for my oldest son. Of course, it was to be delived yesterday, on Shabbat. So before Shabbat, we -- I! -- had to prepare a box on our front landing, along with a note: "Courier/Postman: Please leave package in box below."



When we got home from shul around 12:30, there was no package in the box. But somewhere in the time that we ate lunch, between 1:00-2:00, it had arrived. And luckily, the book wasn't packaged in anything that had to be torn; it could just carefully be slipped out of the cardboard holder and then held and admired by my son. My husband had ordered "the adult version." My son was disappointed about that...until we found out that only the cover/jacket art was different than the standard version.



Yesterday, my oldest son was reading an earlier volume throughout all of Shabbat; today, he began to tackle the newest version.



Thanks to Harry Potter, today was what I believe to be the most peaceful day in our household -- with my daughter reading her first Harry Potter, and my older son reading his newest Harry Potter, and my youngest son lost in his Pokemon adventures on GameBoy.


And if that wasn't enough, later in the day, my oldest son watched a Harry Potter film on the computer and the other two watched one on DVD.


Harry Potter is welcome in my home anytime; not only is he a wizard, but he also makes a great baby-sitter.


You think if I gave Harry half a chance, and check him out, he might just work his magic on me, too?

Get a Leg Up

We've had Max for a year and a half, and he will turn two years old in a couple of weeks.

Although we already had a dog before Max, I'm still observing and in awe of learning about canines.

Now, if anyone out there knows, please please tell me this: Why, if Max has already peed -- with evidence -- at the onset of a walk, does he continue to lift that leg at every light post, hydrant mailbox, and bush ... ? Doesn't he know that the reservoir has dried up? What the heck is he "marking his territory with"?