Travelin' Prayer

Some people are travelling this holiday weekend.  How apropros, then, is this video I finally uploaded from a few years ago.  In it, you will clearly see the early childhood educator and seasoned Music Together parent in me that gives my then-3-year-old child instruments of his own to use to play along with while his father plays the tune.

Such a bummer that where I live now doesn't have a Music Together franchise that is convenient.  Now, that is a quality program.




You'd think that I would have known that tune in the 80s since I was supposedly a big Billy Joel fan.  Leave it to Stango to pick the good, lesser played, more gemstone quality tunes from the repetoire.

I didn't own the Piano Man tape where "Travelin' Prayer" was on.  In fact, I didn't have all that many tapes.  My disposable income was limited and so I only had perhaps a box of tapes.  My music education continues even in 2014.

If You Will It It Is No Dream Tour

The Volvo Station Wagon

My freshman year college roommate pulled up in one on the first day.  My first friend had one growing up.  My husband did, too.  Some of my earliest memories are of riding in the back of my childhood friend's rust colored Volvo station wagon with the bench seats facing each other.  It was probably a 1976 model.  Nothing replaces the unique look and feel of a vintage Volvo station wagon.  I'm not the only fan:  check out what these people had to say about it.   If you add on college decals, bumper stickers or, today's incarnation, magnets, you've got yourself one nifty vehicle.

Here's one I spotted around town recently. 

I wonder if I am supposed to blacken out the license plate.  I would but I don't know how to do that.  I don't know whose car this is; just saw it around town.

My personal preference is to see dancing bears or skeletons adorn the bumper of a vintage earlier than this example (which I am guessing is a '92 model.  Someone correct me if I am wrong), but it is still a lovely specimen.

And naturally what type of music sounds best coming out of a Volvo Station wagon?  You got it.  Some good ole Jerry.  For some reason I just don't think hip hop works.

You say MOT, I say Landsman

When I learned the term "landsman" as a colloquialism for a fellow Jew, I really liked it.  For whatever reason, the more widespread term -- Member of the Tribe, or MOT -- didn't resonate as well with me.  Landsman just sounds better.

You can say landsman with a long "a" as in "Land's End" or with an "ah" sounding letter a like when you open your mouth at the doctor:  say ahhhh.

Roz Chast signing her new book

Here is a fellow landsman I met last night.  Roz Chast, illustrator and New Yorker cartoonist, came to Philly to talk about her new book Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant.  I love her work, and oh do we have what in common.  Brooklyn, Connecticut, even November birthdays!  As a landsman, she peppers in a lot of cultural Jewish stuff.  Sortof like Larry David or Woody Allen. Quite culturally Jewish.  And yet she appeals to a wider audience than just Landsmen.

Clearly from a secular background, she talked about how she doesn't believe in hocus pocus yet when she joined her children in a Oujia Board game and asked a question regarding the health of her ailing father, the board spelled out "heaven beckons."  She didn't say she's a believer because of that, but she did express a sense of "not sure how to make sense of that."  Hmm...truly a landsman with a spark inside no doubt.  Thanks Roz and way to go!

I tweeted that I felt like a youngin' among the crowd and that tweet was favorited by WHYY Radio Times.  Wow.  I am famous. 

Ribbit Robot on Goldeleh's Birthday

Here was us yesterday morning.

It was rainy.

Blueberries were involved.

Here is what 1st grade looks like.

Wow...Goldie is 1 year old!  Happy Birthday Goldeleh!

And while we're at it, my favorite Stevie Happy Birthday.  

What is a post without the good tunes?

Shabbat Shalom folks.  Parshat Bahar.  Shmita and it's a shmita kinda year coming up.  Speaking of which, check out my friends at The Shmita Project.  All good there.  For those of you unfamiliar with Shmita, you may save your expletives or jokes on that word.

Hey Mama, What's the Matter Here...Why You Treat Me Mean?

Well, Robert, if you want the answer to that, maybe it's as simple as:  No means no.  Perhaps said "mama" threw the beer in your face because she just didn't want to have anything to do with you.  And you didn't listen.

Of course, I'm just postulating.

But it's a good guess.  We all know the male species is driven by testosterone.

Even in 1972 when you recorded that tune, no meant no.  But maybe there wasn't a lot of awareness about it back then.  Contrary to today when accountability of universities regarding campus sexual assault is a timely news topic.

Still, I enjoyed "Black Country Woman" on the elliptical machine today.




 I do hope, though, that my boys won't have this attitude when the time comes.

Back when I had two boys.  Summer 2010.

Long Time Gone for a Baby To Nap

As my poor sweet baby cries away in his crib because he is so tired and can't continue sleeping without his mama by his side, I am grateful for this video I took just yesterday of him playing so peacefully.  He is engaged, interested, and curious.  He is human and healthy!  So grateful.  So not grateful for the sleep-deprived state we are both in at the moment.




Never saw CSN in concert.
Always wanted to.




That video is from the famous Woodstock concert you might have heard about.  It's the one my parents couldn't make due to my mother being pregnant with my brother.  At least that's the joke we always say.  No way my dad would have hung out with all those hippies.  My mom was busy singing along with Peter, Paul, and Mary and my guess is that if she was hanging out with other people at the time, she might have gone.  Reba's mother-in-law went.  So, that counts, right?  She still carries her ticket around in her wallet!

You know what they say, Man plans, Gd laughs.  The irony the irony.  They say things skip a generation?

Which reminds me there is a fun-sounding family and kids gathering this Sunday in Philly called Kidstock at Liberty Lands.  Just in case you had any pre-conceived notions that I might be a (cough, cough) hippy, no real earth mama would let her baby cry this long during the day to get down for a nap.

Since you asked, no that isn't a Moby Wrap, but good guess.  It is a NeoBulle and it is from Switzerland.  There are many, many wraps out there and the babywearers of the world are grateful for the Moby and its popularity!  Full disclosure:  I am not even terribly a huge wrapping geek, and only own 2 wraps!  The serious mamas out there are fully stashified and I am far from that.  But, I *am* in the market for a nice dressy slate or gray wrap for shul, so be on the lookout next time you see me at your friendly neighborhood synagogue.

BH.  Sleeping baby.

The Key to Good Hollie

Hollie is what my Grandpa Al called the traditional Sabbath bread also known as challah.  You know, that gutteral "ch."  Hollie to me is actually Holly, who is a new friend of mine.  (Hi, Holly!)

This week is the first Shabbat after Passover and an old but only recently popularized custom is that of the "shlissel challah" or , key challah.  The idea is that you bake a challah in the shape of a key, or, alternately, bake a key directly into the challah.  One of the explanations given is that the key will open up the gates of heaven for the next 7 weeks until the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. 

Early this morning I remembered the shlissel challah, whipped up some dough, and even got the big kids to shape some loaves.  Glad they fit it in before the bus. 

I wonder if Grandpa Al knew of this custom or learned about it during his youth at Chaim Berlin Yeshiva.  For some reason, I doubt it.  But I know he would have chuckled at the joke my dear husband Stango offered up this morning as I pulled out the last loaves from the oven.  Something that I should do more often.  Shlissel while you work. 

no keys in here, but these are the loaves shaped by the 3 children shown above.  Nistar's is the top.  Ezra's is the bottom left, with help from his big sis.  Eli's is the bottom right.

Kinderlach's challahs baked and finished product

will be needing this spare house key!

for those who care about sepsis, indeed we wrap the key

I do the traditional three strand braid

wow, I had a manicure last week!

peekaboo, I see you, key!

I braid from the center.  See the key?

moving right along...

almost there

I flipped it over after braiding

I also shaped one in the shape of a key.  I brushed the loaves with an egg-oil-chopped onion-salt mixture.  Yummy onion taste, thanks again to dear Leah Shemtov for that tip

Whelp, that's all folks.  Thinking of Grandpa Al, and Grandma Martha, all of blessed memories, since I mentioned Grandpa Al above.  Hope they enjoyed my handiwork!  Good Shabbes to everyone on the planet and in the past in the future and all the energy bodies everywhere.

Here are my Grandma Martha and Grandpa Al, at my bat mitzvah, sitting in center.  Other dear family members include, from left to right, by couple:  Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Murray , Aunt Henny and later husband Dave, aforementioned Grandma Martha and Al , and Grandma Mayme and Grandpa Archie .  May all their memories be for a blessing.  Miss all these good people.  What a nice representation of families.

TBT: That's Throwback Thursday for the Techno-Challenged

If you don't know what TBT means, and you're interested, or at least want to brush up on your iPad, iPhone, Facebook, Internet, Ebay, Etsy (you never heard of that, huh?) skills then I suggest you contact your

Friendly Neighborhood Tech Coach.

Main Line Tech Coaches.  Alas, that's for another day.

For now, it's Thursday, and my TBT is my dear Stango and I on our honeymoon in Hawaii.  It was March, 2002, just a few months after our wedding.   This photo is from our 7 hour boat ride out into the Pacific along the Na Pali Coast.  From a distance, we viewed the forbidden, private island of Niihau.

May I take inspiration from this photo that we go as soon as possible to another resort vacation filled with exploration and adventure.  And that we have clean, fresh, new clothing to wear at it.  And that we can get back into the shape we were in here.  It's 2014...plenty of Gen Xers are fit, in shape, and healthy.  Forget Gen Xers, what about all the Baby Boomers and Between the War Babies.  So many people are taking good care of their physical health, whether it's walking, swimming, yoga, pilates, Zumba, spinning, barre method, elliptical machine, whatever!  No excuses!  Now that we relived our freedom at the seder(s) as Passover just passed over, and some of us have been renewed (those who celebrate Easter and other spring festivals), and we enter into warmer weather, let us all take a pledge to ourselves to be more active physically.  We have it in us.  I know the food is so delish but we could put down that 2nd portion of food and say we're full and now it's time for physical activity.

At long last.  A photo from the Stango Loony Affair.

Stango and Loony, March 2002, Na Pali Coast, Hawaii

Happy Passover

There are two videos I would like to share with you.
And one illustration, shown at the end of this blog post.

The first is a Happy Passover message from me and Levi.  He is enjoying his egg matzah tam tams already.  Wishing you and yours a happy holiday!  May it be sweet.  Considering I need a quick food to give him, and have no cooked food yet like roasted carrots, sweet potato or zucchini, the tam tams are good.  Soft enough like Joe's O's (Cheerio's).

The 2nd is the most appropriate message from Mr. Marley.  It is the time of our Exodus. I actually posted this video in the past.  But that link no longer works.  Movement of Jah people. We are all moving towards our freedom.  Jews and all people alike.  Let's speak nicely, be kind, and help each other out every day.  Let's share ideas and listen to one another.  Let's follow the good word and love the earth we inhabit. Let's respect all creatures.  Let's be positive and walk away from evil, bad words, and negativity.  Let's rise up against our oppressors.  Speaking of which, and I thank my friend Leah for reminding us to think of this today on the eve of Passover, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Overland Park, Kansas. 

Finally, here is a drawing I am sharing that was sent to the Nunever.  It was done by an anonymous fan of his drumming.  Talk about it all coming together on one wacked out frazzled Candy man (look at the dude's tie). It's a lot of band music references -- as if the illustrator is thinking that these are *the most* important music influences out there -- but I can see that the illustrator is trying to take it to another level.  All things together and connected I agree.  Gotta wonder what his very official-looking notes are on the right.  Very Wall Street, I would say.  Who knows, this person could be a Kellogg or Wharton graduate.  My interpretation is that this is what happens when the candy man at shul forgets his kippah and has too much candy.  Remember often times the candy man and kiddush club guy is one and the same.  So, just remember whatever you do, take care of your shoes.  And wear something on your head to shul, dude!

From an Anonymous fan of Noah Lehrman