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:

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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?

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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.

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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.

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You have an appointment at the clinic at Ein Kerem in the morning and a wedding to go to that same evening? That should keep you on your toes. Well, yeah. The appointment at the urology clinic had been scheduled in the distant past (meaning months and months ago), and we were going to show up, come hell or high water. The wedding? Miri-tal and Michael were getting married on Aug. 7 at Lago, the meat restaurant at the Puddle at the new entrance to our fair city. That got scheduled much more recently. The moral of the story? It’s easier to schedule a wedding here in The Land than to book an appointment with your favorite medical specialist.

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‘Maybe you should be glad your body parts don’t connect to wi-fi?  Our wi-fi only works when it wants to…Feel better!!!!’

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Dr. Alon Schwartz: No, it’s not urgent. You can put off surgery for twenty years. Me: I’m not sure I’ve got another twenty years.

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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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