Let's put the fun in

 Another funeral. Another sad day, a day on which family, some too young have to start a process of living in the past. A contemporary passed away.  I know I have posted speeches, wishes and reflections, but I now want to add some things that need to be said or pointed out for and at my funeral.

First, many people laud the deceased for his willingness to “give the shirt off his back.” I want people who speak about me to make clear that I would give the shirt, the shoes, and possibly a hat, if it isn’t a really nice hat. Not because I’m particularly nice, but because it really isn’t that nice a hat.

I hope that my students remember me, and remember me fondly. I know that some teachers like to say that their students are like their children. I want it to be known that my students are not like my children because my children don’t laugh at my jokes and my students ask before they eat my food.

A note about my sense of humor. Someone is going to want to make a comment about the jokes I make, using words like “corny” or “dumb.” That’s ok, as long as these words are preceded by “not”. My sense of humor is fantastic and epic and if you don’t get it then I’m glad I’m dead.

When arrangements are being made for the funeral, book the room for like 4 hours. I want so many speeches that there has to be an intermission and a second act. As for speakers, I want my wife, my kids, my siblings, other family members (by blood, marriage or crime syndicate affiliation), former students, friends, colleagues, local politicians, religious leaders, celebrities and luminaries from a variety of fields. I want a Zoom link, a dedicated website with a comments section (moderated by my brother), Facebook live, a mosh pit, cheap seats, picnic area and (for the contest winners) a seat or two on stage.

Speaking of booking the room, I’d like a room reserved for a memorial service (30 days after I go, a year, who knows…surprise me). At this event, I’d like someone who gave a speech at the funeral to get up and begin speaking by saying “and another thing”. Another speaker should get up and talk about something completely unrelated to my passing but which I would have been annoyed at, like what’s the deal with “paddle shifting” in cars. If you want to drive stick, learn to drive stick dammit.

Reflections while shopping

 

I took M and her E2B to the local shoparite to pick up some staples (I get my food from Office Depot) and while we wandered the aisles I took some pictures so I could share my sense of gruntlement (dis and dat) with youse all because you haven't been quick enough to click on any other web address. Welcome to my nightmare, kids.

So, here's something I saw in the "kosher cakes" section:

First, off that cake is not white. It might be white underneath, but it isn't white. Racial concerns aside, I see chocolate frosting. Let's say, though, that the cake inside is white. In my experience, it almost always is, and if the cake is chocolate, then the goop between cake is white -- contrast saves lives everyone. But either way, which is the "layer" by which one counts a cake? Is it the cake, or the goop separating? Is it novel that either one or the other is white? Also, did you notice the fourth ingredient? "Cake emulsifier". Never heard of it. Emulsifier? Maybe. "Cake"? Yup. But not "cake emulsifier" as opposed to any other sort. My education progresses.

Next up, same section:

All I wanna say is that that middle container has the least appetizing food in it that I have ever seen. I shan't descend scatalogical, but, suffice to say, I'm thinking it. I also call your attention to the 3rd ingredient, "Fudge base." Choose your own adventure, humor wise. Just keep it to yourself.

Next up, we have this -- "Performance Muffins." I didn't know if the performance was Moliere or Ibsen, of if a muffin that had strength was a good idea so I kept moving. It also looked like the secret ingredient is "steroids." I swear he followed me out to the car and asked "you wanna go? Huh? Huh? Wanna go, wise acre?" A muffin called me a "wise acre." Farm to table, I guess.

I'm troubled by this and it is hard to explain why. The idea that a cereal has a "retro" version is problematic. Like the opposite of "new and improved" -- this box is "old and bad, from before we discovered how to make it edible". Then, to think that the retro version is the one that has actual honey in it...as opposed to what, exactly?

And finally (over here...Sparky has one to talk about on his page), we have this, a special for my Jewish friends. Now, I know there is an explanation which makes sense under Jewish law, but I want you to put yourself in the mind of a less informed kosher consumer and imagine how confused you might be:

Again, I know that there is no contradiction here to those of us who understand, but someone who is not as familiar with labeling and religious considerations, this must be a brain twister.

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

 DOD and DOM - 

Hi guys. I figured that this was a reasonable time to get you up to date with the world since you shuffled off. I don't know if you guys get a paper or watch news where you are so I'm just covering my bases here.

Mom -- it has been a year, and what a year. You didn't pay much attention to the Covid thing but it has been a top story. We are just now getting out from under it. Talia still has your bowling ball in her car. Speaking of cars, I returned yours after we repaired the damage. Someday, you'll have to tell me the story of how that door got dented. We have been untangling a world of bills, taxes, accounts and various and sundry financial confusions. I think we are almost done at least until the next thing pops up. I still monitor your email and try to unsubscribe from various lists and companies. Other than spam, you haven't gotten anything important. You have a lot of catching up to do in crosswords. A whole year...that should take you at least 3 days to do.

Dad -- as we approach 3 years (crazy that it has been that long) I'll try to fill you in: along with the Covid thing, the whole world is at sixes and sevens politically. You would be having a ball as the pool of material for righteous indignation is deep and rich. I can only imagine the letters you would have written. Your political party is turning more and more into not-your-party and the state of the mideast only confirms your lifelong beliefs about the various players. 'Nuff said...I keep hoping that you left a final-final blog post that will magically appears as a November surprise. Brandeis continues to disappoint. Even the virtual reunions are on Shabbat and their knee jerk social justice platform borders on the ridiculous.

Both of you (I'm saving postage by putting this all together): We sold the house. It wasn't easy but it is done. We had to get rid of all sorts of stuff and that all hurt more than abandoning a building. The phone number is no more and we have no connection to the notion of 55. Strangely, it is those little things, the ideas, which create the void, not the physical structures. Sparky is still Sparky, only blinder. Mad and Tal are wonders, making us all proud everyday. Plans for August move forward (just another momentous occasion which you will miss) and both girls will be in school in the fall (Mad in the city for grad school and Tal in NB working on clinicals). I am reminded of you, dad, in aspects of each girl (one was in the service, one will be in the medical field). And mom, these girls join groups and then run them because they know how to get things done, so thank you for that. They are smart, funny and, most importantly, kind. They both have a strong connection to the pillars of community, Judaism and Israel which you both valued so highly.

Guys, bottom line, it still hurts. It hurts every day and sometimes, it is all I can do not to sit and cry. Or at least wallow. I still have so many questions and I still regret missed opportunities and stupid decisions. I tell the world stories because I want your memory and memories to live on. I try to be someone you can be proud of and encourage my kids to follow in your footsteps. Sparky, less so. Mad is a vegetarian (sorry dad) and Tal doesn't have a preternatural sense of direction (sorry mom) but they are adventurers who are ready to take on the world. They miss you too and I'm grateful that they were able to know the both of you.

And the Mets are still difficult to watch. I would say that you guys wouldn't recognize anyone on the roster, but that holds true of people who were alive just 2 weeks ago.

As we say in Latin,

I miss you,

We miss you,

He, She, It misses you.

Love you guys,

Dan

My COVID story

 I just want to put this out there because, well, because I do. Ideas that bubble up and circulate in my brainal region need to escape. So buckle up and read.

I'm getting older. This is an inherent risk of living, but one that I have chosen to deal with. Along with getting older come the big three -- why does that hurt now, why am I awake and why is it so cold. But hey, we learn to deal with stuff, amirite? Yes. Yes, I am.

Last March, when the Covid (by law, old people must introduce all post-2001 nouns with the definite article and get extra points for doing the same for many pre-2001 nouns. It's in the rule book) was emerging, I was sitting at my desk, breathing. Back then, that was all the rage. Still popular now, I guess, but the memes have stopped so it is just "normal." I was doing it before it was cool. I work in a school that had a large number of "early adopters" of the Covid. The young people led our charge into the year, God bless 'em.

Anyhow, at around the same time, I was helping my DOM (Z"L) move into my big brother's house. This "helping" included listening to her when she made lists of things she wanted from her old house, and getting said things. I'm cool like that. Early to Mid-March, she wanted her clothes. So I, the dutiful horse, drove to the house and shlepped a whole mess o' clothes. I dropped them off at big bro's and hung out for a bit and then went home.

A side note -- I'm not the athletic type. I'm in no shape to be in any shape so I get shin splints and dry heaves from pushing the button to call the elevator. But I carried lady dresses, blouses, skirts, sweaters, pants suits and who the heck knows what else because, you know, mom.

This was on a Sunday.

By Monday, I felt like Balki and Larry Appleton after they went to the gym to impress the girls. If this cultural reference is lost on you, you need to review your Perfect Strangers knowledge holdings because the scene in which they "run" after each other while in paralyzing pain is comedy gold. It is the scene before this one, but you can start here if you want. I ached something fierce. I powered through with all the requisite self deprecation. No good deed goes unpunished et cetera.

By Thursday evening, those aches had subsided but, while sitting on the sofa (with no sister or two) I was possessed of the chills. I mean the CHILLS. Multiplying and all that, I couldn't stop shaking. I had no fever and felt mostly fine but I could not stop shivering. It was crazy with a capital Q. I assumed I had caught something innocuous like the flu or the plague and went to bed. All passed by the morning but what a story I had. Back to work I go.

Later that same lifetime, the Mrs. suggested that the fam take a trip to get tested for anti-bodies. As I have been anti-my-body for years, I was in favor of getting it documented. I had blood drawn (cue the red crayon) and found out a week or more later that I was in possession of a substantial supply of anti-bodies. It tapirs that the chills and aches were symptoms of the dreaded the Covid. I had survived (long enough to pass the condition on the child #2) and lived grumpily after. "Ever" has yet to be proven.

I continued with my process of living. I donated plasma, I woke up early every day (because I couldn't not...age...sigh) and I suffered the slings and arrows of not having a fortune. When the school year started, my employer issued fiat that all employees get vaccinated for the flu, so I masked up, got in line and let someone stick a sharp object in my left shoulder-region (from where we get sparkling shoulders).

I noticed not long after that that my left shoulder hurt. A lot. Limited range of motion, but I just assumed that some residual aches from a poke was normal. Eventually, I realized it wasn't so I went to a shoulder-guy. Not a shoulder-broad, but not because of sexism or a hatred of Chicago. I went to the doctor that my orthopedic practice signed me up for when I said "ow, my shoulder" to them over the disinfected phone. I saw him and he did a series of tests. He suggested that I had SIRVA (or is it SERVA) which happens, though rarely, after shoulder shots when the shot goes in the wrong place. Eventually, he discounted this and he decided that I had a rotator cuff problem so he sent me home with rotator cuff exercises and a prescription for ibuprofen. I told him that, since I was scheduled to get the vaccine for the Covid, I would do so in my right shoulder. Yes, I know that the shot produces short term aches, but my left shoulder was in a longer term relationship with pain already, I didn't want to disturb that. I downed the pills and tried the exercises (though the very notion is against my personal belief system). Nothing made a difference. At our next meeting, he recommended an MRI which stands for "noisy claustrophobia machine" but in Uggaritic. I had that test done.

Medium forward to the test results: 1. my rotator cuff is fine, 2. I have the degeneration of age and 3. I have a partial tear in my superior labrum, Superior to what, right?

Interestingly, I also started to notice that my right shoulder, even weeks after the Covid shot #1 still hurt and was hurting more and more. I couldn't sleep even more than I usually can't sleep and the ibuprofen wasn't doing much for the right shoulder. The pain which was at times constant and at other times, a little less than that included tingling down my arm into my hand, dull throbbing pain, a feeling like I had a dead arm and surface sensitivity to touch. And probably criticism because I'm me. The calendar marched into April and the weather stayed 45 and rainy except when it was confusingly 65 and windy. I continued to be cold because my body, the highly tuned machine that it is, has already set its internal thermostat for a constant 80, so anything under that is "freezing" until December when anything over 40 will be "balmy."

When it was time for shot #2, I opted for another LEFT should shot so I could leave the right shoulder alone (it, having made its opinion of shots abundantly clear). Yes, the left shoulder still hurt, but it was a different kind of hurt and that should count for something.

It is currently the next day (philosophical and linguistic concerns not withstanding). I woke up at 3. I played solitaire on the phone after a solid hour of trying to fall back asleep and looking at the clock and scrolled through Facebook until 5:45, so I have gotten more done before 6:30 than anyone, ever. I am wondering, should I go to work? Let's review the symptoms, one day after:

My shoulder hurts. Right and left. Big deal.

I have body aches elsewhere. Your are old. Deal with it.

I'm shivering and cold. Nothing new here.

I feel like crap. Does anyone ever wake up at 3AM and NOT feel like crap?

So I'm going to work, ready to bring happiness and joy into the lives of a bunch of teenagers who would rather I was on death's door.

Just some morning heresy

 

In the beginning there was no one to notice anything and the mountains grew and the rivers cooled the land. The grass grew and animals grazed but no one knew to pay attention. One day, one thing saw himself as himself and saw that he was a thinking thing and knew that he had not gotten there by accident.

As we walked around, alone, he saw the animals and grass and trees and light and he called them all by words to make sense of his world.

“There must have been those before me who were thinking things” he thought.” And those before them. At some point there had to have been a leap towards realization that we are thinking things”, he thought. He found another who had begun to think and he showed her his words and helped her make sense of her world.

He watched the snake as it shed its skin, rebirthing itself, newly naked. “I don’t understand,” he thought – why does he lose his skin and start over? Can I do that? The snake moved towards a tree and the thing beheld a fruit on the tree. “Can the fruit do that?” he wondered. "Whose tree is this? Should I be eating this fruit or will I get sick?" As he reached for the fruit, it fell from the tree and sat, bruised at his feet. Immediately, he felt ashamed, having caused the fruit to be unconnected. He came back later and the fruit had browned, and withered. It had not lost its skin, and it is had not been reborn. The snake fled.

The man understood that he could not remove his skin and that he, like the fruit, was destined to fall from the tree and wither and die. He cursed the snake for making him aware of this. “How can I stay alive and not be like the fruit?” He asked. Then he thought about those who came before him. “If I remember them, then they are as if still alive! I must go and continue my living by making others who can remember me.” And he and the other had children so as to live beyond when they fall and bruise and wither and die.

Old Soldiers

OK, so here's an idea and, as my daughter is wont to say, "Hear me out." That's kidspeak for "this is ridiculous but before you dismiss it, listen so you can mock it appropriately."

Fact -- in days of yore, when men were men and women weren't, there were rules for war. The big one, rule not war, (if Hamlet can be trusted) was that there was no fighting on Sunday. To make war prep or such then was a big no-no. Like "NO-NO" which is, clearly, bigger. So if we can accept that there are rules, and that even today, with the Geneva Convention (or, GenevaCon as those cosplayers like to call it) people want to play war need only a deck of cards and a respect for rules, I am advancing a new rule:

Soldiers must be over 45.

Brilliant, right? Yes, right, thanks for asking.

Let's work this through -- first, no one wants to sacrifice our youth. We need youth. Without it, we have trouble having oldth. Next, 18 year olds are generally disaffected and generally childish. Do we really want them to have guns? I vote "no." The young people have so much to live for and often try to evade the draft. Old people are convinced that there is ALWAYS a draft and we all just need to buck up and deal with it because when I was a boy it was always cold. Always.

Basic training seems to be obsessed with doing things late at night and early in the morning -- and as we age we need less sleep. I know that after I hit the mid to late 40's, I tended to fall asleep earlier but then I was up in the middle of the night frequently, and I find myself (when I look) awake at hours that I used to joke about -- 5AM who the hell wakes up at...oh.

Also, as we age, we lose interest in fighting. Unless the enemy is choosing to walk on our lawn or mess with our shed, I don't see why we wouldn't just say "oh, whatever...my knee hurts and the sun is really bright so I'm just gonna go lie down on the couch." Voila, no more war. Most men of this relatively advanced age would be happy to sit and talk through our problems with each other while drinking a beer or a Metamucil. By "our problems" I don't mean those "with each other." We would end up talking with each other about our problems, bonding while seeing the similarities in our complaints about life in general. We also wouldn't be able to carry really heavy guns because, you know, our back hurts, and there would be frequent bathroom breaks.

No fighting after, say, 7:30 and don't touch the thermostat. Damn kids, we PAY for that heat. 

Have Mercy

 

What does it mean to have mercy? Is it like pity? Is it something special beyond sympathy? I think that it signals a very special type of relationship.

 

Mercy is a favor. Mercy is an act of unnecessary compassion – unwarranted and undeserved. It is a show of connection that goes beyond simply being nice. It isn’t pity, because pity is just about feeling sorry for someone.

 

Because mercy is undeserved, asking for mercy is an admission, a confession. Asking implicitly includes “I know I have no grounds for asking but” or “Yes, I’m wrong, but still…” I would suggest that one of the components of repentance, the confession of wrong doing, could be considered to be fulfilled at least in part by the simple act of praying for mercy because asking God for mercy is an admission that, were it not for mercy, the individual would, indeed, be subject to punishment because of guilt.

 

The Hebrew word for mercy adds in another important dimension. The word is “rachamim” and this develops from (according to Ernest Klein’s dictionary) other middle eastern languages which all share a root meaning “mercy” or “compassion”. Mattiyahu Clark’s take includes another idea, “showing maternal-type mercy.” Why maternal? Back to Klein – the r-ch-m root goes back to the Akkadian “remu” which is the root for both mercy and womb (in fact, the Hebrew word for womb is rechem). Mercy is the compassion that a mother has, without concern for actual guilt. Your mother loves you no matter what and accepts you regardless of what you have done (as in “a face only a mother could love” or, more seriously, the maternal instinct to protect the young).

 

What is amazing though is that, while this is an attribute which we connect to the maternal sense, Hashem is often shown having this same connection to us even though he is also a father figure. We call upon the av harachamim and say before the morning Sh’ma that Hashem is “avinu, ha’av harachaman ham’rachem” our father, the father who is merciful (which is like saying “the dad with the womb”). This is a lesson to us all – the impossible is possible. We need to see this type of mercy, even by those whom one would think incapable, as our standard practice.

 

So when we are asked for mercy, we should approach the situation charitably – the petitioner is admitting guilt and we should find in us that Godly mother-feeling and be merciful to each other.