sarah in nyc

 The weather these days keeps bopping back and forth between balmy and filled with the promise of warmer weather and springtime, and days like this. that make you feel like winter will never   ever come to an end. We delivered some things to a friend who was in the hospital across the park. We were rewarded with bits of beauty on our way. Later in the week, we met a friend for a balmy walk in the snowy park.    We passed this statue of Daniel Webster and remembered a beautiful walk we had taken on the grounds of his New Hampshire home with our kids many summers ago. We left the park and wandered home.  This van reminded me of my aunt's Russian neighbors in Jerusalem who called my Aunt Sophie, "Mrs. Sofa".   It was just the best name.  If anyone ever called me such an excellent name you can  be sure that all of my passwords would include that name.  We passed an architectural rarity, an original glass door awning. The original door is gon...

  It is pretty safe to say that Covid-19 has made pretty much everything in our lives worse. However, tonight Covid-19 made one thing better.   Tonight is my mother's sixth yahrzeit. Normally, my two sisters in Boston attend evening services together and I mark my mother yahrzeit here at my home shul.  Tonight we agreed that the three of us would say Kaddish together at Zoom services at KI Kehillath Israel) in Brookline.  It would be nice for all three of us to be together. As the screen filled up with faces we soon realized that another Quincy family had joined together to say Kaddish as well. Marcia Cohen, a longtime Quincy friend had died several weeks ago. Her family, her widowed husband, and four daughters gather at the KI Zoom service every day. The service ended and we all just hung out for another hour and more, talking and laughing and remembering the two women who were so fond of one another and catching up on all of our lives. Just before we said goodbye, ...

 Today, my husband and I met a friend for a socially distant visit and walk in Central Park.  An artist had created an installation of polar bears as a statement about global warming. Political message or not, they were completely charming. I loved how the familiar landscape was transformed by the snow. We saw wildlife. As we continued our walk and the sun began to sink a bit in the sky the snowy landscape looked more and more like the photos on the front of ecumenical Holiday greeting cards. We continued our walk. We walked towards home. I loved catching the reflection of the trees in the puddles. Today's walk felt like a gift.

  Since you asked, this is what we are eating for Shabbat dinner, chicken cooked with Herbes de Provence and fresh lime. Our vegetable matter will be blanched asparagus. The L'chaim portion of our dinner is a super local chocolate-flavored whiskey which our older son bought for my husband as a birthday gift. And I digress. My mother's yahrzeit comes in just a couple of weeks. The winter my mother died was an especially snowy one. Packed plowed snow aged at the side of the roads. As friends asked me how my mother was, I often likened her condition to that old packed snow at the side of the road. The packed snow melts from the top and from underneath. It used to be beautiful fluffy white snow but it was disintegrating from above and below and in the center. My mother's body and mind were failing in many ways all at the same time. So now, whenever I see old snow melting away days or weeks after a storm looking shrunken and diminished, I think about my mother during the last co...

 My last post created a bit of a conversation. My friend Nancy was impressed with the  shrug  I had made and mentioned that she couldn't even thread a needle. I told Nancy that I could teach her how to thread a needle in a way that doesn't require the best vision. Ronna then asked that I give her a tutorial...so here it is. I learned this method of threading needles from a needlepoint book when I was a kid. As you can imagine, threading a needle with yarn is not the easiest task. Once I learned this method I no longer wet the end of a thread with saliva and hope for the best. My eyes are no longer what they were when I was eleven or twelve and this method has worked for me even when I am due for a new prescription on my eyeglasses.   Some of the photos in this tutorial were taken by me as I was threading needles ( Yes, it is tricky to be both threading needles and taking photos of the process.)and some were taken by my husband so some of the thread is black and ...