A bit of this, and a dash of that

Yesterday, I had an appointment to tune up my hearing aids. The audiologist is on Columbus Avenue. I noticed as I walked south from 96th Street that there was a HUGE police presence. A neighbor who I met walking uptown (from her own audiologist appointment) mentioned that President Biden was due to travel down Columbus Avenue in just a few minutes.

The residents of our Zip code vote about 98% Democratic. A small but friendly crowd gathered at the police barricades. I didn't get the sense that anyone had particularly gone out of their way to be present, but if they were there, they may as well see the action and give a friendly wave.

I really needed my hearing aids to get tuned up. So I went upstairs to my appointment and when I was done the president still hadn't come by.

Sanitation Department trucks filled with sand were stationed to absorb the shock if any explosives or other untoward event took place.

I remembered my last near miss encounter with the presidential.

On a summer day when I was on afternoon session of kindergarten at the Furnace Brook School a large crowd of people gathered in the empty field across from The Adams Mansion. Lady Bird Johnson was visiting the national historic site just down the street from my house. The usually nearly empty field (my friends and I used to pretend that we were far in the country when we played there or hid under the big pine tree in the center) was jam packed with rows and rows of people trying to catch a glimpse of Lady Bird. I was probably ten rows back and a little kids so although I could tell that something was taking place up ahead I could see nothing except the backs of the crowd. I stayed until it was time to go to kindergarten.

When I got to school all of the students at Furnace Brook School were lined up along Furnace Brook Parkway. We were all given American flags to wave at Lady Bird as she drove past on her way out of Quincy. We all stood and waved our flags in the summer sunshine. We waited and waited but alas the first lady took a different route out of town.

Today, when I Googled Lady Bird Johnson visits Quincy I discovered why my mother hadn't joined me and the rest of the crowd on Presidents Lane awaiting the visit of the First Lady. That visit took place during the Six Day War. My mother was probably glued to the radio. Thanks to Google I can see that my odd memory of this almost encounter with Lady Bird actually took place.

I have been working away on restoring the mappah. I have been creating clouds.

It's getting there. I have used a mix of threads, merino wool yarn, silk thread, rayon embroidery thread, metallic thread and metallic cord to create the clouds.

The clouds are both decorative and structural. The hand stitching is attaching the blue wool to the mappah. each stitch is taken through the blue wool, the soiled white wool beneath and then finally the batting below that. I am careful to not poke the needle through the heavy Ultrasuede that backs the piece. I am working through this project one problem at a time.

Wednesday I spent the day with my dear friend

who had appointments all day at an East Side hospital.

By the time we were going home we discussed that it would be a good night for each of us to have a big stiff drink. My friend isn't currently permitted to drink and I was too tired---although I did feel that I needed a treat.

Yesterday i decided to treat myself to an ice cream. I went to the fancy shop a block away but I hated all of the flavors offered and I didn't feel like spending $7 for a small cup of something that I didn't love. Instead I made myself a microwave mug cake. It wasn't fabulous, but it was good enough

Microwave Mug Cake

1 Teaspoon cocoa

1T sugar

2T flour

a speck of salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

about 1/3 teaspoon of baking powder

1 T oil

enough water so the mixture looked like cake batter

mix well and microwave for a minute and a half

The result is something between pudding and a cake. This isn't the best cake you have ever eaten, but it isn't the worst and is nice for when you need a bit of a treat.

Shabbat Shalom!

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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