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August … Already?
I really hate winter and cold weather, and I struggle through the dark months of the year holding out hope for the reviving warmth of the sun. I have trouble with vacations, because my hopes and expectations often don’t match the reality that is possible. So far, this summer, we’ve gone away twice, once over the July…
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Feeling out of place
When I left high school for college, I boarded a train in Oakland, CA, bound for Kalamazoo, MI. Looking up the AMTRAK schedules listed now, I think it must have been the California Zephyr route, which ends in Chicago, and then there is a connecting train to Kalamazoo. Why was I headed for Kalamazoo? I…
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Addicted to reading
S actually feel asleep tonight in a sphinx-like pose in front of his tablet, reading the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief. How can anyone sleep like that? After about 10 minutes, he finally rolled off his elbows. Good night, dear readers!
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Mental illness … and the Nature of Evil
The past fifty years have seen a huge change in society’s understanding and attitude toward mental illness, but stigma still remains. Just this past week, the news that caught my ear (since most of my news comes to me via NPR) was that lawmakers are attempting to make it easier to force people with mental illness…
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A big change coming up
We brought J to Kindergarten orientation yesterday. What a day! We started off with a walk with S and our friend A, to the bus stop. J was already feeling a little anxious, and he fussed a bit on the walk, and then gazed mournfully at the bus for several minutes after everyone got on,…
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Familiar suggestions…to Thrive
I first engaged seriously in meditation when I was about 15years old. I had the tremendous good fortune to be part of the A-school (the “Alternative” school) as Palo Alto High School, and met an amazing teacher who invited us to participate in an optional “class” – meditation and chanting led on Wednesday mornings in…
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FaceBook, across the political spectrum
My daughter recently asked me: why do you keep engaging these people on facebook?! I understand the desire for conversation across political sides, but they don’t seem capable of rationality, or reading comprehension (if they’d at least post counter-arguments that were coherent, that’d be something) If you are a “friend” of mine on FaceBook, you’ll…
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Shopping kosher
Today is the first shabbat after passover. We’ll enjoy challah again (although with a crazy week at work and at home, I didn’t manage to bake). When we started keeping strictly Kosher in our home, shopping got simplified, because there are whole areas of the store that one avoids (no pork products, no shellfish, and…
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Reflections on Passover
For Jews the world over, the 8-day celebration of Passover (seven days in Israel – long story, which I won’t go into here…if you’re curious, you can check it out here) was observed last week, and ended at sundown on Tuesday night. When my husband and I first started being more observant, a lifelong process,…
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End of life – no discussion
Right after I had the encounter I described a few weeks ago, I received an email with terrible news. The email included a scanned hand-written letter – a farewell letter to family and friends. The writer of this letter is someone I have known for most of my life – a vibrant, lively, intelligent person…
