Wishing that all your internals get sorted soonest, although I fear you, like xxx and, I suspect, myself, may not be able to keep your appointments this week. Shortly after posting my article about the Oy Vey Club, I began receiving a series of ‘oy vey’ responses from fans near and far. And then I received the message above from a friend who lives below – down the hill from where we are. He was simply reminding me of the unpleasant possibility that things might get worse before they got better. Well, all we can do is try.

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Every so often, I get an email from the World Trade Center Health Registry, asking me to fill out their latest on-line survey on the health and well-being of people who were around and at least peripherally involved with 9/11, and if I don’t respond in some reasonable time frame, I’ll get a reminder and then another reminder, until to get them off my back, I take the ten or fifteen minutes needed to fill out their survey.  Are they doing anything useful with the information they collect or is this just one more boondoggle, I have no idea. But I figure that some of us who were there but weren’t damaged emotionally or physically should be included in their sample, so their results won’t be too skewed. But when they ask about my personal assessment about the quality of my health, I have to stop and pause. Compared to what? A whole bunch of people I hang out with are members in good standing of the Oy Vey Club, meaning that they are legitimately entitled to kvetch about what has happened to their bodies over the decades that have gone by since they were spry and in their prime. Compared to them, I’ve been in reasonably good shape, still able to hightail it to catch a bus when the occasion warrants. So when I got another survey last week, I checked off the box saying I’m doing more than OK. But all good things must come to an end. My application is ‘in the mail’ for membership the Oy Vey Club, this honorary association of men and women who have climbed to the top of the hill and are having trouble making it back down. Details to follow.

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If you’re on to a good thing…

It was just before Yom Haatzmaut in 2008, the first year we were here, and we were acutely aware that we were out of the loop – to use an expression that would befuddle most Israelis. Imagine if you were stuck in Teaneck on July 4^th and you and the missus were sitting in your kitchen by your lonesome whipping up a package of Wacky Mac on the stovetop. That would be equivalent of being here in the Land among a nation of hard core barbecuers with no grill, nothing to grill on it, and no one to share your viands with. Thank God for Jeff and June, who had a place to go and enough room in the car to take us (probably including Natania) with them for us to celebrate our first Yom Haaztmaut here in our adopted homeland.

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