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Showing posts with label itsy bitsy spider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label itsy bitsy spider. Show all posts

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Shoes, Clocks and Potatoes

I remember walking home from the synagogue in early March several years ago with one of my sons. He was about 22 and had returned a couple of months early from his third year in yeshiva. Usually the kids stay until the summer, finish out the academic year.

I can remember it like it was yesterday. We noted the buds on the trees in the sunshine. He called them a remez, a hint to tchiyat hamaytim, the reincarnation of souls after death. Something from nothing.

Ya' gotta' love religion.

Anyway, we're nowhere near buds on the trees, I feel. But we HAVE to get away from all this depressing stuff, all this talk of death. Don't you agree? It's not good for us.

But how do you get away? In Chicago it's still very grey outdoors and I didn't even leave the house all day yesterday (so not me). The cold felt like an insult and the house wasn't even all that warm. Why would I step out to a place where for sure it wasn't warm?

So I stayed in under blankets and finished up some reading. FD buzzed in and out from shul, and the kids stopped over for some lunch, which is always happy. After dark, FD returned home to find me on my computer. "Getting some writing done?"

Nah, no energy. Lying around all day doesn't do it for me. Just reading right now.

We puttered a couple of hours, did some dishes, tranced out a bit, and our grandson gave us a call from California. He's three.

"Bubbie, when are you coming here? To my house. When are you coming here? I mean, to my house? When?"

Uh, no time soon, sweetheart. Let's SKYPE.

And in no time I had a live rendition of Itsy Bitsy Spider. I suggest this to most people who are still recovering from their SADS (seasonal affective disorder). Find a three-year old to sing you Itsy Bitsy Spider. And if he knows the you say potato, I say potahto, you say tomato, I say tomahto song, make him sing that, too. Teach it to him.

Then this morning, after a great hot shower, I snooped around my closet to find something happy to wear. I really felt like I needed a new pair of shoes. You know how that goes, right? The last new pair of shoes I bought were boots. And although ordinarily that might have done the trick (it IS still 30 degrees out there, maybe less, we're talking Fahrenheit), today the boots only made me feel worse.

They're SKI boots. You have to see what I mean. They fit on a wooden platform that attaches to my new used cross-country skis. Although they look and feel fantastic, my patients would look at me like I was out of my mind if I were to wear them to work.

So I settled on a uniform and breezed down to the kitchen and thankfully, FD had made a good pot of strong coffee (we go 50% decaf, we're old). I flipped on the TV to make sure I hadn't missed any more serious death and destruction while trying to get a good nights rest. Sundays are tough days at the office.

More student coeds murdered, two separate cases. Gorgeous girls. The killers are identified. Well. I guess that's good? Two young boys dead off the coast of Washington, one trying to save the other.

I flipped it OFF. What's a remote for?

Anyway, today is Spring Forward with the Clocks Day, and spring is a new lease on life. And speaking of clocks, I never did tell you about Switzerland. In Switzerland, I imagine that every clock known to man simply FLIES forward, that each tick and tock can't wait for events like DST (do they even have daylight saving time in Switzerland?). If so, it must be so exciting. All those clocks, jumping at the bit.

On your mark. Get set. Go!

Switzerland made me crazy is the truth. Everywhere I looked. Clocks. Large clocks. Small clocks. Medium clocks. But mostly LARGE clocks. Everywhere. All set exactly to the same time. I couldn't have missed my flight if I had a paper bag over my head.

But here in Chicago it's not that way, and confusion will totally reign, I'm sure, until everyone figures it out, Spring Forward, Fall Back. And I'll have to patiently go with the flow and tell folks this:
Actually? I can't reschedule you. There's no time this week.
You see, somewhere, somehow, I have to buy myself a pair of shoes.

copyright 2008 therapydoc

Transitions

   Rabbi Zev o nce  told us that a rabbi, a Jew, has to be ready to go to a funeral and then a wedding  on the same day, maybe within a few ...