I was all set to travel to New York City for my usual troika of delights — shows, museums and nonstop gastronomical gluttony. But this trip was unusual in one aspect. I was also scheduled to attend two separate reunions with childhood friends, friends I hadn’t seen in decades and had lost touch with.
When is enough enough? I’ve been asking that question a lot lately. In a land of plenty, in a life blessed with plenty, when — and what — is enough? My questioning began benignly. Each year, my husband has a business trip to Europe. I join him, and after his meetings, we do some additional touring. We’ve gone on some great trips and learned a lot about the countries we’ve visited.
I know Passover has passed, but I’m living through a series of personal plagues. They’re not Biblical in proportion, but for mere mortal me, they’re epic and loathsome. Of course, good Jewish wife that I am, I blame my suffering not on G-d but on my spouse. You can appreciate my faultless logic. He, my spouse, not G-d, dragged me away from civilization — Berkeley, Calif., land of museums and theater — and moved me to the godless wilderness of Reno, Nevada.
I’m Jewish. My husband was raised Catholic. Yet we were married by my rabbi and raised our children as Jewish. Our son had a Bar Mitzvah, and both children went to a Jewish Day School. We rock Rosh Hashanah like nobody’s business, and I display Grandma’s hand-stitched matzah cloth each Passover seder. And immodestly, I note, I make a brisket that is the envy of the neighborhood!
Declutter is the rage. Like snakes, we’re supposed to shed, not our skin, thankfully, but our beloved possessions. We’re supposed to make it easier for our kids, you know, for later.
Jews are called People of the Book because of their proud connection to the Torah and their multi-millennial love of learning, but in my case, I fear I’ve taken that love affair too far. In 2025, I read 93 books. Now I know there are super-readers out there who boast of reading lists of 300+ books a year, but some of those folks are retirees. I work, so 93 seems impressive . . . at least to me.
When a beloved children’s author unleashes a brutish anti-Semitic screed, his career is threatened. His publisher and wife scramble into damage control mode. Will the author back down? Will he apologize? That is the subject of “Giant,” coming to Broadway in the spring.
Is it really a compliment to say, ‘You don’t look your age?’ People often say I don’t look my age. They mean it as a compliment, and I take it as such, but lately I’ve been wondering. Is it really a compliment, and why does it make me so happy to hear it?
As we age, we frequent the Land of Good-byes. The good-byes are sometimes large. Sometimes small. Sometimes subtle or merely annoying. Others hit like tsunamis. We lose keys. We lose mobility. We lose loved ones.
I’m not a sports fanatic. Couldn’t tell you who plays in the Super Bowl if my life depended on it. I don’t buy lottery cards or even have a lucky number. Yet suddenly I’m obsessed with numbers of a particular kind. What kind? The age people die.
I like to start my day with a kvetch and a stretch! One gets my aching mind going and the other, my aching body. Yet, in truth, as any “almost oldster” knows, resilience is the key to getting through life. Last week, coincidentally on the same day, I met two models of resilience who supercharged me with inspiration and delight.
Manna from Heaven. It’s mentioned 17 times in the Bible, but did you know it’s more than an “olden days” expression, but an actual harvested product used today for baking and medicinal purposes? The white sap-like resin — for that’s what it is — is a natural sweetener harvested by cutting the bark of an ash tree, the Fraxinus ornus tree to be exact, found in the Mediterranean.