More Than Four Sides

Category: Family & Friends

  • Insomnia

    Did you see that movie?  A few years ago? With Al Pacino as an LA cop who goes up to Alaska with his partner to solve a murder.  I gotta see it again – I remember that was a great movie. I have always been a good sleeper.  I fall asleep easily, and generally sleep…

  • Next Year in Jerusalem…Last Year in Sierra Leone

    We close the Seder with the words “Next year in Jerusalem” (you can read an excellent article about the meaning of these words in the Passover liturgy here). And every year that I recite or sing these words, I think about how cool it would be to spend Passover in Israel, and specifically in Jerusalem. …

  • Clarification…

    I posted on Facebook on Friday the following: I’m hoping that April 1st will be an auspicious day for the start of my new life. Moving forward with some trepidation. So, the deal is – my husband and I are separating, after many years of marriage counseling, trying to arrive at a workable understanding.  I’ve…

  • Walking to synagogue

    This morning, it was just J and me.  S and Dad had a double-header baseball game scheduled at 9am.  We gave J the choice – go to baseball, or come to shul (synagogue) with Mom.  He chose the latter (I don’t flatter myself – he chose that because it gave him an extra 30 minutes…

  • Outnumbered

    Yesterday, as we began our walk home from Shabbat morning services, my friend, Father Goof, remarked that the adult:kid ratio was way off for my house that afternoon! He was right, but, thankfully, it worked out well. I had 6 boys, aged 7-12, and three dogs (we were keeping our friends’ pair of golden-doodles for…

  • About that New Good Habit…

    Two weeks ago, I hoped that I might regularly bake bread for my family.  Well, the following Sunday turned out to be a very long and exhausting day, and I didn’t get around to baking bread. But this past Sunday, I managed to do it, and the result looked like this: My first batch, I…

  • Hermit crabs…why?

    Last August, on our way home from our family holiday at the Heritage and Culture Camp near Harrisonburg, VA, we stopped at a pet store and bought a pair of hermit crabs. It was J who lobbied for them, because he had seen the hermit crab brought in to his after school program on pet-sharing day,…

  • Gone, 34 years…

    I’ve been absent from this virtual space for awhile.  My last post was in October and it was prompted by the book club I belong to (From Left To Write).  And, prior to that, I was posting from Sierra Leone. This month, January, is the month that my father died, 34 years ago.  My daughter was…

  • The Black Lagoon

    What a great image – the Black Lagoon. Maybe something like this image?  It communicates darkness, the foreboding, the potential danger.  It also signals the idea of Isolation, which the agoraphobic mother in the book If I Fall, If I Die suffers from. When I and my sister were growing up, our years followed the…

  • Monday – waiting for the Ferguson decision

    Last Monday morning, like most mornings, my commute was in the company of NPR, which, like all the news outlets, was describing the preparations in Ferguson, MO, anticipating the announcement of the Grand Jury decision. My last patient of the day was a man I have taken care of for some time, but this appointment…