No Heat

On Saturday afternoon we returned from a walk to the library to discover that our furnace wasn't working. As I write a new furnace is being installed.

We were pretty fortunate. The weather has been mild and we have a wood burning stove. The stove, a cute little guy that sits in the corner of our living room, can generate enough heat to warm our living room and dining area. As a matter of fact, it got up to 74 degrees on Saturday night which is about 6 degrees warmer than we usually keep it during the winter months.

We did make allowances, though. On Sunday I went to the "Y" to take a shower and we spent most of the latter part of the day at my Mom's house. We were going anyway since my sister is visiting but it made the visit even more appealing.

This little inconvenience, though, has given me pause to consider how truly lucky we are. A new furnace is not a trifling matter but it is an expense that we can manage. We had relatives that we could turn to for a warm place to hang out and community services that we take advantage of.

For those of you for whom changing the year in the secular calendar is important, I wish you a very healthy, happy, and prosperous new year!

Best Books of 2007

One of the advantages to my 2 hour plus daily commute is the opportunity to do a lot of reading. In 2007, so far, I've completed 46 books. That's equal to my reading total for 2006 but does not equal my yearly average since I began keeping track in the mid 80's of 52 a year. I attribute the drop off to subscribing to the weekend newspaper which occupies whatever reading time I have on the weekends.

As the end of the calendar year approaches I thought that I would share my top books of 2007. Not all of these books were published in 2007 but they are close enough to qualify. When I complete a book I record the author, title, date completed, and a rating of 1 to 10. I started doing this because I wanted to be able to recommend books in case anyone asked me and to be sure that I was not reading something that I had already read and, perhaps, didn't like.

2007 was a pretty good reading year for me. Eleven books earned a score of 8 or better. For this posting I'll list 5. These are books that earned the highest rating and that I can still remember what they were about as the year ends;

1. The Road - Cormac McCarthy - A father and son struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic America. A dark novel but strangely uplifting as well.
2. God is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens - Hitchens spares none of the world's major and minor religions from scathing criticism of dubious stories and impossible to obey rules.
3. A Woman in Jerusalem - A.B. Yehoshua - The tale of an unknown and invisible migrant worker in Israel who is killed in a terrorist attack and the bureaucrat who attempts to do right by her and her family.
4. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen - A glimpse into circus life during the Great Depression.
5. The Brief History of the Dead - Keith Brockmeier - A story about the place that souls go after they die and while the living still remember them.

Looking back over this list it appears that what I enjoyed this year revolved around the dark and thoughtful. There doesn't seem to be a lot of escapism here. I'll stick with these choices, though. I had a hard time putting any of these down.

Thursday at Home

In keeping with the spirit of not working too hard this week, I took today off. I did it at my bosses encouragement who said that I should take a "comp" day for all of the extra time that I'd been working. I wasn't going to argue.

Any day that I don't have to travel far is a pleasant day in my current way of thinking. I slept reasonably late and got a newspaper first thing. I worked on various things around the house and then went to the "Y". Although, we joined over a month ago this was the first time that I went. It was nice being able to exercise and not have to brave the elements. The four of us then walked downtown and ran a few errands. The high point was stopping at Paneira for a coffee and an orange scone. I highly recommend them.

The good feelings of today are tempered, though, by the horrendous news from Pakistan. Oddly the assassination of Benazir Bhutto upset my elderly mother terribly. I think that she ignores much of the news but this event troubles her. It is upsetting to me as well. It makes me wonder what drives people to be so intolerant of opposing viewpoints. I don't believe that this is a problem particular to Pakistan or that it is a growing phenomenon. It's been here forever and will probably always be with us. There are small people who believe that killing someone can kill their ideals as well. The good news is that there are great people who are still willing to stand up for what they believe in despite the risks.

and then the day after

This week might have revealed the perfect work schedule. I worked on Monday was off yesterday, I'll be off tomorrow, and back Friday. There isn't enough time to get frustrated with anything.

Yesterday I got up early and took an hour long bike ride through the towns of Scotch Plains, Clark, and Cranford. It being Christmas morning the roads were empty. Temperatures in the high 30s and light breezes made for good riding. I was so lulled by the empty roads that I almost got into a collision with another biker. I was going to take the left fork and I glanced back just to be sure as another rider whizzed by me. I was going to be angry that he didn't have the courtesy to announce himself but thought better of it.

In the afternoon we all ventured down to Huber Woods near Navasink, New Jersey. We'd never been there before but I found the listing in one of our guidebooks about good hikes for children. The park is small but secluded and we were practically alone on the trails. It's a mix of hardwood, swamp, and sandy stretches. The woods are beautiful in winter. The leafless tress are stark but not lifeless. We enjoyed the quiet. We also sang a few rounds while we were walking to break the silence.

I concluded the evening at the movies. We saw The Golden Compass which just didn't succeed as a movie. It was confusing, dark, and didn't hold true to the novel. There were only five of us in the theatre.

Twas the Night Before...

the 25th of December and it was hard to figure out where everyone was today.

The buses were on a holiday schedule meaning that they ran infrequently and local. It didn't matter much, though, since there was no traffic on the roads and I made it into New York in near record time. This was a record on the fast side not the slow as has been the norm lately. At work there was hardly anyone there. None of the management was there and the regular folk took their cues from them and stayed at home.

I truly love days like today. I had a single phone call and it wasn't even someone wanting something from me. It was actually someone looking to help me with a problem that I was trying to solve. I had a short list of things to get done and I was able to do them all, thoroughly and carefully. Even nicer was the fact that I had time at lunch to get my hair cut and eat away from my desk. A colleague invited me to join them in the cafeteria and we talked about stuff other than work.

Tomorrow, unlike December 25ths past, I won't go into work. I am on call but things have been pretty stable over the last few weeks so in all likelihood I won't have any calls to answer.

Days like these make me wonder if I wouldn't prefer to work more from home. I do like the quiet time to concentrate on what I am supposed to be doing. When I work from home, though, I find myself restless and craving the human contact.

Saturday Night

It's the Saturday before Christmas and this will have to be one of the most benign holiday seasons that I've ever experienced in the US. There have been almost no festivities that I was aware of at work and there were no gifts to make me feel uncomfortable from vendors. I couldn't be more delighted.

Five years ago we were still having holiday parties at work. These were loud boozy affairs that always made me feel as if I needed to keep my guard up. It wasn't cool not to go but it certainly wasn't fun going. I wasn't sorry when they said that our budget cuts wouldn't allow for them any longer. My boss did take us out to lunch yesterday. It was a last minute thing and relatively unthreatening.

The coming week seems to be an unofficial company holiday. I think only one other member of our team besides me will be in. Some of these people have just started working for the company so it's a little hard to understand where they have the time coming from. I recently read in the newspaper that IBM has stopped recording vacation time for their non-hourly employees. It's sort of an honor system. I think that de facto is where The Times is now.

Camp Kindervelt

From the time I was 11 years old until I was 16 I went to a summer camp in Orange County New York about 50 miles north of New York City. They were very happy summers and while, in reflection, it wasn't a great camp, it was a place that I felt very comfortable and I felt I belonged.

The camp was called Kindervelt and it tread a middle course in the Jewish world. It wasn't particularly religious although it had services on Friday night and Saturday. It wasn't particularly Zionist but Israeli dancing and songs were part of the programs. It couldn't decide to be Hebrew speakers or Yiddish speakers or what. There was a time when the color war cheers needed to be in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish. Vus es der fahr der Kindervelt?

About 3 years ago I discovered that, although the camp had closed in 1971, there were a dedicated bunch of folks collecting memorabilia and stories from the camp years which spanned from the 20's. Golda Meir had visited in the 1940's and many alumni had gone on to great careers.

Recently, I discovered that many of my old friends had gotten their names on the mailing list and they had never lost touch with each other. Today I got a call at work from someone who I had met at camp who I had not thought of, seen, or heard any news of in 36 years. When we spoke it was like we had just seen each other last week. The problem was that we just had too much to talk about.

Just when you think life holds no more surprises there is something new to marvel at.

Photographs

Lst week I bought a negative scanner. What prompted me to do this was the pile of negatives that I had found in my mother's apartment which seemed to have no corresponding photos attached.

The device is incredibly easy to use. You put the negatives in a plastic tray, slide it into the device, center the image, and click. The negative appears in a viewer where it can be cropped or touched up using a very simple program (Photshop is too overwhelming for me).

While there are no big surprises yet there are some very charming photos from about 20 - 25 years ago. It seemed like a pretty happy time with everyone in good health and good spirits. I suppose that you don't generally photograph the bad times but it's good to see us at the beach, around the dinner table, and on vacation. It also made me wonder if we were documenting our current lives adequately. I certainly don't remember to bring my camera enough places so perhaps this is the time to start.

This also makes me wonder about the permancy of these images. Most folks, I think, just toss the negatives when they lose the prints. Here's my plea:

If you don't want the negatives...send them to me!

I'll make it my life mission to preserve them and organize them in some coherent fashion that will only make sense to me.

Seriously, though, I think it is important to chronicle our lives and we need to keep and refresh these images. Digital will provide a new challenge. Since most of the images are not getting printed how can we ensure that they make the transition from one computer to another and from one storage technology to another?

Another thing that has happened that has piqued my interest in this subject is a web site from the summer camp that I went to, Camp Kindervelt. People have been submitting photos for the site and last week someone posted a picture of me! It was a bit of a shock but in writing back to the person who posted it I discovered a whole bunch of people who had never lost touch with one another.

Here's the photo:

Scary, isn't it?

A Blustery Day

Last night all of our windows were rattling from the high winds. Today, the garbage can holding our recycling blew away. Fortunately, they had already taken the recyclables. We're down a trash can, though. Last time this happened we vowed to put our address on the can. Maybe this time we'll actually do it.

It's cold outside but I'm baking a potato bread and that should make the house nice and warm and give us nice smells to go to sleep to.

I've just finished getting the papers together that we'll bring to the lawyer tomorrow. We are finally going to get advice on how to best ensure that we can take care of my mother for the rest of her days. This won't be fun but I'm hoping that we can rest easier knowing that we'll have a plan and understand what we need to do.

Enchanted

Today was the first lazy day I've had in a long time and I truly appreciated it.

My daughter and I just returned from seeing the Disney movie Enchanted. It's not a deep or important film but it was fine entertainment for a cold night at the end of a a rainy, icy, dreary day. The story revolves around a cartoon fairy tale princess who through the machinations of an evil queen finds herself in very real New York City. It's a clever premise and we both enjoyed it. Again, not high drama but it would rate an 8 on my entertainment scale.

The rest of the day was spent reading the newspaper and getting familiar with my new negative scanner. We're going through some old negatives that were hiding in drawers in my mother's house and discovering some treasures. This should keep us occupied for the next few weeks of winter.

We didn't venture out until the late afternoon. We took a walk over to Radio Shack that turned out to be unproductive. We stopped after that in a Pathmark supermarket where they've set up a little cafe. Hot lattes on a cold afternoon, what could be better?

Elections

I have to admit that I haven't been paying very much attention to the 2008 presidential election. It's hard to avoid hearing about, though, and in about 3 weeks time the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire who probably represent about 2% of the country's population are going to knock several people out of the race. It's hard to believe that we call ourselves democratic.

I'm going to make a prediction now. John McCain will be the next president of the United States. Here's how I come to this conclusion. Americans like conservative presidents. Anyone the democrats put up will automatically earn the liberal label and thus be disqualified. It really doesn't matter what any of them stand for or say.

The sad thing is that there could be issues in this election. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, and everywhere else will be discussed but will ultimately not be a factor. Health care, immigration, the economy should be discussed but won't.

For the record, if I had to vote today I would probably vote for Hillary Clinton. I'm probably doing this for the wrong reasons but I would like to see a woman as president.

I look forward to next November when all the shouting stops.

Careers

I've been working at The Times for over twelve years now. On the more frustrating days I think that it's time to go and do something else. The problem is that I don't feel that I can. It is not an unfamiliar story. Even if I don't like the life that we have it still is the life that we have and I need to be a responsible adult.

At one of the first places I worked, Hunter College, I met a man who was in his early sixties and in his third career. He had started out as an accountant, went to law school and became a lawyer, and then worked until his retirement as a computer programmer. He seemed like the happiest man I had ever met. I told myself back then that this was the way that I wanted my career to go. So far, it hasn't turned out that way.

I am afraid of many things. I am afraid of taking a large pay cut that a new profession would likely entail. I'm afraid that if I leave this job that I won't be able to find another one. I'm afraid that my external obligations will get in the way of pursuing any other interests. I don't believe that these fears are unfounded. Last Spring I enrolled in a guitar class at The New School. The Sunday after the first class my mother broke her hip launching us into an odyssey that continues.

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't just try to be happy with what I have. Maybe learning to accept the "is-ness" of the situation is the secret to contentment. The quandary that I am in is that this goes against the things in my life that I am proud of. Twice we packed up and moved to Israel. Somehow, back then, we didn't worry about money. I worry more now. I find myself the sole wage earner and this seems like the time in life that I need to ensure that the girls get a solid start and we can have enough to suffice us in old age. I feel that only I can do that.

The other fear is that I won't succeed or if I do succeed it will still be too late for me. There are so many things that I want to do. I want to live in Israel as a productive member of that society, I want to write to inform and entertain, I want to explore the outdoors on my bicycle and on foot, I want to have good friends and good conversations. I want to take great photographs that allow people to see things that they haven't seen before.

Am I wanting too much?

Shwarma

For today, another dining out recommendation. This one is very literally a hole in the wall. Lunch is all that's served and the place ain't pretty.

It's called Pick-A-Pita and its on West 38th Street near 8th Avenue. You have to walk slowly down the north side of the street since there's only a banner draped across some scaffolding to mark the entrance. Even when you turn into what looks like the service entrance of a building you're still not sure you've done the right thing. It's there, though. Walk past the service elevators and open the glass door and you're in an oasis of middle eastern snack food.

Like many places that I tend to frequent, this place used to be totally kosher. They used to say glatt kosher on their sign but now the glatt is covered by a piece of duct tape. That keeps most of the real religious folk out. It doesn',t however, deter the Israelis, Arabic speakers of every flavor, and those who know what a good falafel, shwarma, shnitzel, and middle eastern salad is supposed to taste like. The schwarma is my favorite. The meat is tender and the salads plentiful. The pita is fresh and as good as I remember from the the open air markets in Tel Aviv and Haifa.

The only bad thing you can say about this place is the price. At $7.50 for a shwarma it's a bit steep. This was alwasy the cheap meal in Israel and here it's one of my more expensive take out lunches.

This place is the cure for those days when I am feeling blue.

Parties

I've missed writing for the past few days. Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings we've had guests each night to celebrate Chanukah. Its been a bit exhausting.

These evenings all have a rhythm to them. Each family brings a menorah and we light them in our family room. We tell a story from a bunch that we've collected over the years. The stories tend to be about winters in eastern Europe and the miracles that seem to surround the holiday. Maybe the miracle really is that we get together and have a good time despite the fact that it is cold and gray outside and we've done this for generations. After the story we eat a different kind of fried food. I'm guessing that has more to do with trying to stay warm and build up fat for the winter than the oil in the temple lamps.

On Friday night it was eggplant parmigiana
On Saturday it was potato pancakes
On Sunday it was ricotta pancakes and fried oreos
Tonight it was french fried potatoes
\
Had enough? There's one more night!

Birthdays

Today is my daughter's 20th birthday. It's funny how easily I remember that day. It's been quite a journey and I want to say that I enjoyed being there while she was growing up and I admire the woman that she has become.

Fortunately or unfortunately for my daughter, I wrote down the details of that days events in 1987 and it's included in a photo album of her baby pictures. I also included the front page of The New York Times of that day. It may not be a day that will go down in inter-galactic history but it will mark one of the most exciting days in my life. Most of this isn't of interest to anyone but her immediate family but I'm sure the feelings that fathers and mothers feel, particularly about their first born, are very similar.

I have 2 pieces of advice for new parents. These hold true for me even today:

1. Everything that you do is wrong.
2. When you think you finally know what you are doing it all changes.

This really isn't meant to be cynical. I am trying to say that we all make mistakes and that we should be ready to change our way of thinking and doing as the situation dictates. Sometimes changing the diaper works, sometimes it's a car ride, and sometimes reading that story just one more time does the trick. In later years it seems to be more about listening. Throughout it all I think it's about providing a good example.

Popularity

Today I could have been the most unpopular person at work. Fortunately, most people did not know I was responsible for their chagrin.

We are in the midst of tightening the security of our computer systems. There is a lot of tension as people scramble to get things done in very short time frames. One of these changes fell to me. Each computer, if it is idle for 15 minutes, must begin displaying its screen saver and can only be used again if a password is entered. Some people have done this on their own to ensure their privacy but most have not. The change occurred this morning and I think it was a rude shock. It came along with an edict that everyone who had not changed their password in the last 90 days needed to do so immediately. There was a lot of grumbling going on.

Tonight is the 2nd night of Chanukah and we read a storybook while the candle burnt down. The story was called Latkes and Applesauce by Fran Manusken. With a name like Manushken how could the story be bad?

The First Night of Chanukah

There is a lot to like about Chanukah. It's bright, festive, and the food is satisfying and fattening. In our family we make a special effort to make the holiday fun. Each night we try to invite someone else over. We light candles, eat a different fried food, tell a story, and try to banish the cold and dark.

For me, that's what the holiday is all about. I've always found the story a bit confusing. It's sometimes hard to figure out who the good guys were and I'm not always sure it was our side. Who can argue with latkes and suvganiyot (potato pancakes and doughnuts for the uninitiated). We tend to substitute other stories that we have collected over the years for the Judah Maccabi tale. Isaac Bashevis Singer and Sholem Aleichem's tales of Chelm are personal favorites.

Tonight we were out at my mother's hopefully bringing some joy to her. She seemed to appreciate our visit.

I'm looking forward to the coming days.

Westfield

We live in a leafy suburb about 35 miles southwest of midtown Manhattan. I've disliked it almost from the moment we set foot here. When we moved back to the US from Israel in 1995 my wife and I divided up the chores. I would find an income and Lenore would find us housing. Sometimes it is hard to change things once they are in place. I found my job at The Times six weeks after our arrival (and I am still there 2 blocks from where I started) and Lenore found us an apartment in Westfield in about the same time frame (and we are a half mile from there now).

We ended up in Westfield because another couple who we became acquainted with in Israel lived here. Lenore did not want to return to Brooklyn because after 4 years of being away from there she couldn't face the headaches of parking, crime, fighting to get your kids in the right schools, and the other unpleasantness of life in New York City. The choices in the rest of New Jersey were overwhelming and Westfield seemed like an OK choice to her at the time.

On paper, Westfield has a lot going for it. The school's are good, crime not a concern, and the housing stock varied. I feel out of place here. I don't think I can count a single friend. My children and wife have fared a bit better but I think we all feel like outsiders. We don't play golf and only have one car and it's just a sedan, not even an SUV. Our kids were never involved in the programming that everyone else's children were. It's just never felt like home. I would often joke to people that I don't actually live in Westfield, I just sleep there.

In another year my younger daughter will be finished with high school. In spite of my unhappiness it didn't seem to make any sense to uproot her. I am hoping that we will begin the search for a better place next year.

What am I looking for? I think what tops the list is a community. I want to feel that there are neighbors I can drop in on and that feel comfortable dropping in on us. I want some kind of natural draw; a beach, park, bicycling route. I want a decent (less than 1 hour) commute to work. A Jewish community would also be nice but one that isn't necessarily based on synagogue life. Maybe this is asking too much. The truth is I think very fondly back on our lifestyle in Karmiel and even on Kibbutz Hannaton.

If you have any suggestions I would love to hear about them.

Back From Brooklyn

We woke up today with snow on the ground. It was wet but pretty. It wasn't biking or running weather but I've been so lazy lately it was pretty easy to talk myself out of doing anything strenuous. I also realized that Lenore would probably not be accompanying me for my Brooklyn visit due to her lingering cold and not liking to drive on potentially icy roads.

I caught the bus at 11:50 and was out to my Mom's house by 2 PM. She was in surprisingly good spirits today given that she has been cooped up at home for the past 2 days. She'd made some phone calls and had a healthy appetite. She even consented to play Scrabble and her game was not bad at all. I beat her by only 3 points and I wasn't really going easy on her. We went over her bills, had dinner and then sat down to a movie. We watched East of Eden on DVD which I'd never seen before and she claimed she hadn't seen either. We both got pretty engrossed in it but I had to leave before the end. I was worried that I wouldn't be home until 11 PM if I didn't duck out then. James Dean was fantastic but Julie Harris wasn't bad either. I promised her that I wouldn't return the movie until we had a chance to see the ending.

I'll say one thing, James Dean had sullen and troubled down.

Real Estate

By far my favorite section of the Sunday New York Times is the Real Estate section. Even before I look at the headlines of the main news sections I reach for this section. The reasons for this are not entirely noble. From my perspective the section graphically describes the selfishness and greed that can make the world and particularly the New York metropolitan such an uncomfortable place.

Several things make the reading of this section such an engaging experience. One is a feature called The Hunt which focuses each week on one family's, couple's, or individual's search for the perfect housing experience. In a recent story a couple, both of whom were investment bankers, decided that their monthly rental budget for an apartment was $7,000. In case you are reeling at that consider that comes to $84,000 a year! They, of course, were frustrated at how little they could find in that price range. This week featured a couple that wanted to make sure they weren't too far from their favorite bar. Most of the people seem self centered, ostentatious in their spending, and caring little for the history of the neighborhoods they are invading.

Here's the link to this week's installment:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/realestate/02hunt.html?_r=1&ref=realestate&oref=slogin

Another feature of Real Estate that I turn to eagerly is Neighborhoods. Each week a different town or neighborhood is showcased for its history, schools, length of commute to midtown Manhattan, and prices and quality of its housing stock. I look to this to provide me with ideas of where we can escape to after we are done with Westfield. Today's location was of personal interest to me since it featured Flatbush where I went to college and had many friends growing up. Actually, as I was growing up most of my friends were moving out becasue of fears that the neighborhood was in a rapid decline. Now, at least according to the story, it is having quite a resurgence. I'm anxious to visit. I haven't been back to Brooklyn College in 20 years!

Here's the link to the Neighborhoods piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/realestate/02livi.html?ref=realestate