- Thread starter Meemselle
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LADIES ONLY! And Now A Few Words From Meemselle....because one word is never enough
Hey! Mrs. Bloom and I are from the same town. She bought her biscuits from my great-grandfather's shop.
Meemselle, let me know if you ever visit the east. We should meet.
Hey Ladies, la sfaradita Lunita Laredo was always my favourite Joycean, although I never did understand what she saw in that Major Tweedy except possibly that we share almost the same given name, and I too have been known on many occasions to be mustachioed like a turko................
Chiri, LMK when you're next around the capital, now that friend Gerry has reopened the splendid, new Bagels & More it's more than worth the trip just to try his (my home made recipe) shakshuka, and Meemsy consider yourself invited at any time..............
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Have to give a like to anyone with that homemade recipe, and especially because you actually edited to add an apostrophe.
Proud Grammar Nazi.
Meemselle, I was just kidding you, please don?t feel offended about it. After all, I am a sun of Auschwitz and other camp survivors.
I usually can't resist the opportunity to tell the old joke about the (any) US president and matzo ball soup, but in deference, I will just this once......!!!!!!!!!
This is a good one. Not my best one. I am saving that.
When You Wish Upon A Star
Posted on August 15, 2015 to blog
So here I am, back in the USSA for my 7-week Farewell Tour of the America. Seven weeks seems like a long time, but there are a tremendous number of tasks that must be accomplished, and many of them involve Great Institutions, i.e., banks, Social Security, DMVs in various states and commonwealths, Jewish divorce court (oy), voter registration, High Holidays, family, etc.
And lest we forget: summer sales (especially that NO TAX week in CT) to hit so that Meemselle will finally have some new clothes that fit. Heartbreak and parasites have apparently reduced my size considerably…..
I based myself in Fairfield, simply because I know where everything is, it’s where the bank is, it’s where the doctors I know are, etc., etc. It is bittersweet, to say the least. I have been very brave. I even drove past my former house without screaming in my car. But I have had several…..moments.
I made a promise to myself that this is the last time I will be in this part of Connecticut. No need to rip out my own heart and use it to fix a flat. There are so many ghosts, and it’s probably not emotionally kind. I’m not a very kind person . However, I like to delude myself into thinking that I am sometimes (however rarely) kind to other people, but not so much to myself. So I am trying to learn how to be kind to myself.
So I remembered that the Perseid showers were at their peak a couple of nights ago and that the absence of a moon made viewing this extraordinary annual celestial event especially productive.And I think that this might be something I can do that might be nice to myself.
Read on, Gentle Readers.
So I thought it would be a good idea to stay up a little late to try and see a few shooting stars. Yes, I know that technically they are meteors. But it’s hardly poetic to “wish upon a meteor.” It’s much more poetic to wish on shooting stars. And I’m all about the poetry. Imagine Jiminy Cricket singing “When You Wish Upon A Meteor.” Whole different song.
Propping my eyelids open with virtual toothpicks, I kept myself vertical until 11.30 p.m. Grabbing my room key (second one; lost the first—nowhere to be found), I headed out to the parking lot of the Fairfield Circle Inn, my home away from home, for some stargazing.
I knew it was a little early, but I also knew that anything past midnight or before 9 a.m. was not realistic. And I am nothing if not realistic.
So here I am, fairly tingling with anticipation, freezing (it was in the upper 60s) my bazookas off, waiting for some Perseid action. Within minutes, I was rewarded with what looked like a huge meteor blazing across the sky. With a full heart and prayerful sincerity, I made a wish. A very important wish. And I said a Shehekiyanu for good measure.
Within seconds, there was another, and another. By now, I am in tears, and can’t keep up with the wishes fast enough.
Then I looked over at the parking lot light, and realized that I had just wished upon a bat.
Deflated and downcast, I returned to my room and wept. Bitterly and for a long time. To the point where my upper lip swelled up. And not in a Restylane sort of way.
However, in the interest of personal mercy, I decided that a wish, or a prayer, made with that kind of sincerity, still counts. Even a wish upon a bat
When You Wish Upon A Star
Posted on August 15, 2015 to blog
So here I am, back in the USSA for my 7-week Farewell Tour of the America. Seven weeks seems like a long time, but there are a tremendous number of tasks that must be accomplished, and many of them involve Great Institutions, i.e., banks, Social Security, DMVs in various states and commonwealths, Jewish divorce court (oy), voter registration, High Holidays, family, etc.
And lest we forget: summer sales (especially that NO TAX week in CT) to hit so that Meemselle will finally have some new clothes that fit. Heartbreak and parasites have apparently reduced my size considerably…..
I based myself in Fairfield, simply because I know where everything is, it’s where the bank is, it’s where the doctors I know are, etc., etc. It is bittersweet, to say the least. I have been very brave. I even drove past my former house without screaming in my car. But I have had several…..moments.
I made a promise to myself that this is the last time I will be in this part of Connecticut. No need to rip out my own heart and use it to fix a flat. There are so many ghosts, and it’s probably not emotionally kind. I’m not a very kind person . However, I like to delude myself into thinking that I am sometimes (however rarely) kind to other people, but not so much to myself. So I am trying to learn how to be kind to myself.
So I remembered that the Perseid showers were at their peak a couple of nights ago and that the absence of a moon made viewing this extraordinary annual celestial event especially productive.And I think that this might be something I can do that might be nice to myself.
Read on, Gentle Readers.
So I thought it would be a good idea to stay up a little late to try and see a few shooting stars. Yes, I know that technically they are meteors. But it’s hardly poetic to “wish upon a meteor.” It’s much more poetic to wish on shooting stars. And I’m all about the poetry. Imagine Jiminy Cricket singing “When You Wish Upon A Meteor.” Whole different song.
Propping my eyelids open with virtual toothpicks, I kept myself vertical until 11.30 p.m. Grabbing my room key (second one; lost the first—nowhere to be found), I headed out to the parking lot of the Fairfield Circle Inn, my home away from home, for some stargazing.
I knew it was a little early, but I also knew that anything past midnight or before 9 a.m. was not realistic. And I am nothing if not realistic.
So here I am, fairly tingling with anticipation, freezing (it was in the upper 60s) my bazookas off, waiting for some Perseid action. Within minutes, I was rewarded with what looked like a huge meteor blazing across the sky. With a full heart and prayerful sincerity, I made a wish. A very important wish. And I said a Shehekiyanu for good measure.
Within seconds, there was another, and another. By now, I am in tears, and can’t keep up with the wishes fast enough.
Then I looked over at the parking lot light, and realized that I had just wished upon a bat.
Deflated and downcast, I returned to my room and wept. Bitterly and for a long time. To the point where my upper lip swelled up. And not in a Restylane sort of way.
However, in the interest of personal mercy, I decided that a wish, or a prayer, made with that kind of sincerity, still counts. Even a wish upon a bat
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Meemsy, daigeh nit, you are not the first one.....wasn't it the Mad Hatter who first revealed the murci?laguian stellar qualities when he said: - Twinkle, twinkle little bat, How I wonder what you're at. Up above the world so high, like a tea tray in the sky......" Viva il pipistrello!!!!!
ha ha ha power to the people ride on....
when peeps go to the ritz -carlton....they take the robes..../towels....and the hotels charge them alot...but it is proof that u went /stayed there....injun
Mickey, Curious George, and Blue
Posted on January 19, 2015 on blog
I was still managing the small hotel in Sosua when I wrote this. I have since moved on. But not from the sentiments.
We always have the most lovely guests. And one of the most wonderful things about this funny, quirky little place is the number of guests who return again and again.
One such family is an American couple with four children, three lovely, smart girls and an adorable, quick-as-silver little boy. They live in the DR and do good deeds. All six of them. They wear their deep (Christian) faith as a tool, not a weapon, and they are perhaps the kindest people I have ever met in my entire life.
But even the most devoted good-deed-doers need a break from time to time, and when that time comes, this family comes to Fawlty Towers South for a few days of fun and sun. We were delighted to welcome them over Christmas, and it was a great visit all around.
However, when I was doing the room walk-through after they left, I discovered that the little boy had left little stuffed Mickey Mouse and Curious George behind. They seemed to be very well loved, and it didn’t seem to me that they’d been left intentionally.
So I wrote a quick note to the mom and offered to send them. Then again, I don’t know what I was thinking as there is no postal service. Maybe in the Capital or Santiago, but not here, and definitely not in the campo where they live. Every so often I have a First World Lapse like that…..
She said to hang onto them and they’d get them the next time they come through the North Coast, as the baby hadn’t mentioned them and didn’t seem to notice.
Well, of course: delayed reaction and the poor child was sobbing to a teacher about the loss of his beloved comfort guys, so Mom promised him that Mickey and George are with Meems and she is keeping them safe until the family can come and collect them. I hope he is hanging on to the thread of that hope.
I’m an old hand at this, having called hotels from Montauk to Baltimore to track down Blue, the much-beloved blanket of Beloved Son, who was left behind on several occasions. The blanket, not the Son.
Blue was a gift from my youngest sister, a navy blue fleece blanket with a soft satin border, about 45″x 36″ in measurement, and soft as rain dripping from willow trees, just like my sister. Blue was meant to be a nursing blanket for me. Somehow he got co-opted by Beloved Son, and they are still together. Blue is greatly enjoying college life, thankyewverramuch. (Say it like Elvis)
Blue has seen it all, from the Tooth Fairy to girlfriends. I can only hope that Blue gets washed from time to time, because back in the days of childhood, he got pretty ripe, and I had to pry him away from Beloved Son as he slept, wash and dry him, and return him to my slumbering child, who was also known to get pretty ripe. I wish I could have washed and dried Beloved Son in his slumber, but there are pesky Child Protection Services about that. We were always pretty anthropomorphic about Blue, too, and he was always a “he,” never an “it.”
I think that at that age (three-ish) they’re almost, but not quite, ready to let go of the comfort object, because in theory they’ve learned to comfort themselves. It’s hard to let go. I know there are some schools of parental thought that insist on doing a weaning. In theory, the tears and panic are over in a couple of weeks, and the child will have achieved a new level of maturity and independence and the parents have made their point.
I am of a different school of parental thought, and always figured he’d give up the object when he was ready. I never wanted to exert parental authority when I thought that my child could figure it out for himself. My parental goal (if I ever really even consciously thought of it) was to raise a child capable of making his own decisions and being in touch with his own feelings. Never too early to start that.
In the larger picture, I wonder how many of us—as adults—secretly wish we still had a Mickey, or a Curious George, or a Blue.
If we’re lucky, I guess that’s what our relationships/partnerships do.
If we’re not lucky (and who is?), I guess that’s what adult beverages and food and any number of other activities or substances are for.
Or if we’re extremely unlucky or extraordinarily brave, I guess we do without emotional comfort.
But you can’t do it forever. Because either you go crazy with longing or you stop feeling. Having done both, I can attest that one is just as painful as the other.
Loss is one of the most horrible of the four-letter words. And while we may smile indulgently at the tears of a toddler at the loss of Mickey or George or Blue, his loss is just as real, just as devastating, and just as painful as life’s later losses.
We spend so much of our time teaching our children, but I think that what we really need to do sometimes is to step back and learn from them. We can learn about devotion, and joy, and love, and we can also learn about mourning, and sadness, and loss.
Right now I’m reading Marilynne Robinson’s extraordinary “Gilead” trilogy. In the second book, “Home,” she writes this incredible sentence:
“Why did I ever expect to keep anything? That isn’t how life is.”
So hang on to Mickey and George and Blue as long as you can, in any way, shape, or form. Because if the only comfort is Southern, you may want to look at it again.
Posted on January 19, 2015 on blog
I was still managing the small hotel in Sosua when I wrote this. I have since moved on. But not from the sentiments.
We always have the most lovely guests. And one of the most wonderful things about this funny, quirky little place is the number of guests who return again and again.
One such family is an American couple with four children, three lovely, smart girls and an adorable, quick-as-silver little boy. They live in the DR and do good deeds. All six of them. They wear their deep (Christian) faith as a tool, not a weapon, and they are perhaps the kindest people I have ever met in my entire life.
But even the most devoted good-deed-doers need a break from time to time, and when that time comes, this family comes to Fawlty Towers South for a few days of fun and sun. We were delighted to welcome them over Christmas, and it was a great visit all around.
However, when I was doing the room walk-through after they left, I discovered that the little boy had left little stuffed Mickey Mouse and Curious George behind. They seemed to be very well loved, and it didn’t seem to me that they’d been left intentionally.
So I wrote a quick note to the mom and offered to send them. Then again, I don’t know what I was thinking as there is no postal service. Maybe in the Capital or Santiago, but not here, and definitely not in the campo where they live. Every so often I have a First World Lapse like that…..
She said to hang onto them and they’d get them the next time they come through the North Coast, as the baby hadn’t mentioned them and didn’t seem to notice.
Well, of course: delayed reaction and the poor child was sobbing to a teacher about the loss of his beloved comfort guys, so Mom promised him that Mickey and George are with Meems and she is keeping them safe until the family can come and collect them. I hope he is hanging on to the thread of that hope.
I’m an old hand at this, having called hotels from Montauk to Baltimore to track down Blue, the much-beloved blanket of Beloved Son, who was left behind on several occasions. The blanket, not the Son.
Blue was a gift from my youngest sister, a navy blue fleece blanket with a soft satin border, about 45″x 36″ in measurement, and soft as rain dripping from willow trees, just like my sister. Blue was meant to be a nursing blanket for me. Somehow he got co-opted by Beloved Son, and they are still together. Blue is greatly enjoying college life, thankyewverramuch. (Say it like Elvis)
Blue has seen it all, from the Tooth Fairy to girlfriends. I can only hope that Blue gets washed from time to time, because back in the days of childhood, he got pretty ripe, and I had to pry him away from Beloved Son as he slept, wash and dry him, and return him to my slumbering child, who was also known to get pretty ripe. I wish I could have washed and dried Beloved Son in his slumber, but there are pesky Child Protection Services about that. We were always pretty anthropomorphic about Blue, too, and he was always a “he,” never an “it.”
I think that at that age (three-ish) they’re almost, but not quite, ready to let go of the comfort object, because in theory they’ve learned to comfort themselves. It’s hard to let go. I know there are some schools of parental thought that insist on doing a weaning. In theory, the tears and panic are over in a couple of weeks, and the child will have achieved a new level of maturity and independence and the parents have made their point.
I am of a different school of parental thought, and always figured he’d give up the object when he was ready. I never wanted to exert parental authority when I thought that my child could figure it out for himself. My parental goal (if I ever really even consciously thought of it) was to raise a child capable of making his own decisions and being in touch with his own feelings. Never too early to start that.
In the larger picture, I wonder how many of us—as adults—secretly wish we still had a Mickey, or a Curious George, or a Blue.
If we’re lucky, I guess that’s what our relationships/partnerships do.
If we’re not lucky (and who is?), I guess that’s what adult beverages and food and any number of other activities or substances are for.
Or if we’re extremely unlucky or extraordinarily brave, I guess we do without emotional comfort.
But you can’t do it forever. Because either you go crazy with longing or you stop feeling. Having done both, I can attest that one is just as painful as the other.
Loss is one of the most horrible of the four-letter words. And while we may smile indulgently at the tears of a toddler at the loss of Mickey or George or Blue, his loss is just as real, just as devastating, and just as painful as life’s later losses.
We spend so much of our time teaching our children, but I think that what we really need to do sometimes is to step back and learn from them. We can learn about devotion, and joy, and love, and we can also learn about mourning, and sadness, and loss.
Right now I’m reading Marilynne Robinson’s extraordinary “Gilead” trilogy. In the second book, “Home,” she writes this incredible sentence:
“Why did I ever expect to keep anything? That isn’t how life is.”
So hang on to Mickey and George and Blue as long as you can, in any way, shape, or form. Because if the only comfort is Southern, you may want to look at it again.
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