sarah in nyc

 Several years ago I was in a museum, I no longer remember which museum it was and I saw two sculptures that just blew me away. One was by Ruth Asawa  and the other was by Gego (Gertrude Goldsmith) you can read more about here here. I just loved how both of them blended the universes of textiles and sculpture. I loved seeing the work of both women in close proximity to one another. Ruth Asawa has a big show at MoMA. I went yesterday. I was delighted and surprised to see a long time friend  in the lobby who just happened to be visiting the museum from out of town with her husband. My friend who was supposed to meet me didn't show up so i saw the exhibit on my own. There are nice things about seeing an exhibit with a companion. I also like to go on my own not tied to the pace and likes and dislikes of another human. When I was  younger and certainly when I was an Art History major I saw my job in an exhibit to look closely at every single piece in an exhibit. At some p...

 Many years ago my in-laws called us a week before Chanukah and as soon as we picked up the phone began singing Chanukah songs in full voice and chattered excitedly about lighting the first candle of the holiday. It was wonderful to hear their excitement, unfortunately they had misread their calendars and had begun the holiday a full week early. All this by way of saying that I was convinced until 4:00 p.m. yesterday that yesterday was Friday and I was rushing to finish up this piece of sewing, recovering a couch cushion before it was time to light Shabbat candles. The previous iteration of the couch cushion was made in the months before COVID when my son worked at Trader Joes. One of the essentials of that job was a box cutter that he kept in his back pocket, The first day the new cover was on the couch the box cutter tore the new cover. I flipped the cushion over and the next day, the box cutter ripped the other side of the cushion.  It took me until yesterday to actually re...

 I am on a few different Jewish genealogy groups on Facebook. The other day someone posted a question about a Hebrew high school in Brooklyn that was functioning from sometime in the 1930s to the early 1960s.The poster wanted to know if anyone had heard of the institution. I responded. I knew that my mother had attended twice a week during evening hours while she was in high school. I relayed the little that I remembered from conversations decades ago with my mother. In my reply I also made some suppositions that I was clear were based on educated guesses and not firm information. A day after I posted, I decided to do a bit more research. I Googled the name of the school. As it happens these days, an AI summary showed up at the top of the searches. Yup, I was quoted, by name, but with none of my hedges about the veracity of my information. UGH! UGH! So then I kept searching to find an actual source and I found it, (thank you JSTOR).I was actually mostly right. But just saying ---AI...

Dear friends were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in Boston. My husband had attended their wedding. Our friends had sent us an invitation assuming that we probably couldn't come, but how could we miss celebrating this event. We woke up early on Sunday and took the subway uptown. I loved the idea of taking a photo of windows as seen through the subway car window. Dear friends were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in Boston. My husband had attended their wedding.  Our friends had sent us an invitation assuming that we probably couldn't come, but how could we miss celebrating this event. We woke up early on Sunday and took the subway uptown. I loved the idea of taking a photo of windows as seen through the subway car window. We took the subway up to the George Washington bridge. As we got off of the subway there were three tables of vendors all selling exactly the same array of vitamin supplements, herbs and household goods. Oddly enough, they are all in comp...

  Before Chanukah ended , I was struck by the sunlight on the water tanks and  by the shadows that they cast. Thenthe sun began to set. Once Chanukah ended, it was time to clean our Chanukiyot.   Our oldest one unscrews with ease for cleaning and was easy to clean and polish. It is now back on our  living room window sill.   We did lots of hosting over the holiday. Nearly all of the tablecloths is washed and ironed and put away. All of this laundry made easier by the fact that we now own a working dryer.  Getting a new dryer was a long difficult and really boring tale that I won't be sharing unless you really want to hear each dull detai. Snow is promised for tonight and we are having a cozy meal of crock pot chicken soup with lots of STUFF. My husband loves a peasant soup filled with lots of goodies and doesn't understand why I would go through the effort of straining a soup. We are also having a chicken. This cute chicken was coated with sumac and hawaij ...