If all goes according to plan. It’s one of the sub-sets of ‘It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time,’ along with others like ‘The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley,’ Mick Jagger’s ‘You can’t always get what you want,’ and, of course, the Jewish version, ‘Man proposes and God disposes.’ What these disparate sayings have in common is the understanding that life is often out our control, that things will NOT go the way we have in mind. Barbara and I were sitting in the office of our primary care physician, Adam Albert, showing him the list of tests I need to have completed prior to my laser surgery on March 1, asking him what does this all mean and where do we go to do so-and-so. In the course of the conversation, we mentioned that I would need to have my catheter replaced by the end of December, three months after it was last done. Our doctor, who is always on top of things, told us that we didn’t have to go to the emergency room, that the procedure could be done by a specially trained nurse in the relative comfort of the nurses station down the hall. At which point, the good doctor picked up the phone and called Rachel, the head nurse, for confirmation. Someone would call us in the middle of December to schedule an appointment. OK, we said; works for us. Of course, working for us doesn’t always translate into working at all, which, if it did, I’d have nothing to write about.
Author: fredcasden
Group Therapy Practiced Here
Making kiddush when you’re left by yourself is as much fun as playing tennis with no one on the other side of the net – although sometimes you have no choice. True, you can go about practicing your serve, or, in my case, perusing a stack of articles printed out from sources ranging from Lehrhaus and Mosaic to The New Yorker while I’m tasting my bourbon, herring, and coffee. But there’s something missing. As the sign says, ‘Group therapy practiced here,’ which sort of explains what it’s all about. Yes, you need a group of participants to make a go of it, and it just so happened that ‘the group,’ currently Ezra and sometimes Shoshana with occasional add-ons, was off to Eilat that particular Shabbat, leaving me alone with memories of kiddushes from bygone days. Maybe there’s something to learn from all this; maybe there isn’t. Either way….
AI, Oy, Yoy, Yoy
“I’m your personal AI assistant. I can help with any questions about your site or account.” Anyone who knows me well is aware of my above-average verbal fluency. But that comes from a lifetime of communication with fellow members of my species, where with a little give and take, a little clarification, a smile, a gesture, I can get my point across, even if it involves a little effort on both sides. But with greater and greater frequency, I am (make that ‘we are’) being asked to have a dialog, a conversation with something non-human, in which you ask a question and an answer appears on your phone or computer. I’m not as clueless about AI as the current U.S. Secretary of Education, who confused AI with A-1, a bottled marinade you can slather on a steak, but I’m never satisfied by outperforming the dumbest person in the room.
The Oy Gevalt Group
We have a few friends who worry a lot, so much so that Barbara and I worry that our friends are spending too much of their time and energy pursuing their worries. I have on several occasion told these worry-warts that they have crossed the line. They’ve gone beyond worrying and are in fact obsessing, and that’s not good. What do you mean I’m obsessing? If you are letting someone or something live rent free in your brain, you are obsessing. (Imagine your washing machine filled to the brim, endlessly cycling, and never getting your clothes clean. That’s what it’s like.)
The Oy Gevalt Group
We have a few friends who worry a lot, so much so that Barbara and I worry that our friends are spending too much of their time and energy pursuing their worries. I have on several occasion told these worry-warts that they have crossed the line. They’ve gone beyond worrying and are in fact obsessing, and that’s not good. What do you mean I’m obsessing? If you are letting someone or something live rent free in your brain, you are obsessing. (Imagine your washing machine filled to the brim, endlessly cycling, and never getting your clothes clean. That’s what it’s like.)
Coffee, Catheters, and More Coffee
Bad-Ass or Badder-Ass?
Should I start out this episode by discussing what I do have (…at least I have some coffee.) or what I still don’t seem to have (an appointment to get my prostate shrunk to its normal size)? Let’s begin on a positive note because…, well, because life seems better when we’re all properly caffeinated.
The Oy Vey Club — Part Seven
If I can use the story line in something I’m trying to write, then who’s to say it can’t and won’t happen in real life? Two people are chatting about something of minimal consequence, when their gabfest turns into a real conversation. It did happen to me, and I’ll tell you all about it. But first a little background information.
It was Monday, and I was coming back from the shuk… Wait a minute, don’t you usually go on Thursday? Well yes, except the Thursday in question was Yom Kippur. (Digression: when I was a callow youth, I composed a little ditty entitled, ‘I’m feeling chipper, ‘cause tomorrow is Yom Kippur.’ It only works if you do it New York style, Yum KIPper) I wasn’t going to wait until the last minute, i.e, Wed., to head into Jerusalem, and I had other plans for Tues (see below), so it was Monday or never, because I had, and you will agree with me, important things to take care of, to wit:
The Oy Vey Club Redux
Here are some thoughts that came to me as we were sitting around the table on a Fri. night, Barbara and I, with a woman we’ve known for many years and her twenty-year-old daughter. Why not share my musings with those assembled near and far?
A Dream about a Dream
Prologue
Don’t ask me why I still remember such a trivial incident, something that happened some twenty years ago, but here it is…
It must have been on a Friday, because I was heading home from work mid-day, walking the one block on W. 40 St. between the subway station and Port Authority. And there were two guys duking it out in the middle of the street. Not going at it, as in a bar room brawl with fists flying. More shuffling than scuffling, a lot of dancing and prancing, with every once in a while, one of the guys attempting to land a punch. One of the combatants was a good ten years older than the other, and it was obvious he was running out of steam.
Having Something to Do with a New Granddaughter
You mean you put everyone in a big machine and smush them around until they’re all mixed up?
Well, not exactly.
Try explaining to an eight-year-old what a blended family is. Probably better off giving an example, as in: Liel is Gil’s daughter from his first marriage, and one day this young lady was explaining to her cousin that she now has two mothers. No, said the cousin– a year older and hence much smarter – you have a mother and a step-mother. But she’s a nice stepmother; she’s not a mean stepmother. That’s what Natania became when she married Gil, the nice kind. And by extension, Barbara and I became blended grandparents – the nice kind. As my wife puts it, we’re related by love, not blood.
alittlebiteast 