My allergies have kicked in big time, and the most likely culprit is all of the maple trees right outside my window and the thousands of seed pods they send raining down to the ground. The wheezing came out of nowhere one day last week: I heard this strange sound, like someone crying or screaming from a distance, and it took me a while to realize that the sound was coming from my own throat. Somehow all of the allergens have chosen to bypass my nose, and mostly my eyes, and lodge themselves in my throat where I inconveniently need oxygen to breathe. Sleep has been tough, and the allergy meds I take day and night are not helping much, but it is sort of fun to sound like Darth Vader every once in a while; it breaks up the monotony. Not that there’s been much monotony lately, to be honest.
I wonder if the mask would help me breathe better (not my picture)
This past week Mom and I went to see a cardiac surgeon to find out the next steps for dealing with her damaged mitral valve. I was very nervous about the appointment, we both were, in large part because there was so much we didn’t know. We spent about four hours at the hospital on Monday and met with the cardiac surgeon and then with his colleague who specializes in cardiac interventions other than surgery, and the plan going forward is to have a minimally invasive procedure (sort of a combination of an angiogram and an endoscopy with mitral valve clips thrown in), in the hope that clipping the mitral valve (rather than replacing it) will be enough to mitigate the damage. The doctor explained that at this point about fifty percent of the fluid leaving Mom’s heart through the mitral valve is going into the left ventricle, which is stretching it out of shape and wreaking havoc. The clips will close the holes in the mitral valve, at least partially, to redirect the fluid to where it belongs. This less invasive procedure will only require one overnight stay in the hospital (as opposed to a week in the hospital and then two weeks in a rehab facility after the full surgery), and recovery will be minor.
But there’s something so un-reassuring about the image I have in my mind of the mitral valve clips: I keep seeing tiny wooden clothespins, like the kind that hold laundry on the line so it won’t blow away in the wind, but the doctors say it’s worth a try and could reduce the symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath and heart palpitations to a more manageable level. The problem is that Mom’s mitral valve isn’t just damaged in one place, it’s more like Swiss cheese, so there’s a fifty/fifty chance that the doctor will go in to do this procedure and on the spot decide it’s not working and we will have to go ahead and schedule the full heart surgery after all.
(not my picture)
I feel a little better knowing the steps involved in all of this, even if we end up having to go the full surgery route after all. The worst part was not knowing and leaving it all to my imagination, which is vivid. The doctor made sure to say that the chance of death from the minimally invasive procedure is about 1%, which is close to the risk from, say, going for a walk on a spring day. The full surgery’s risk is at about 5%, which is higher, but not high. I’d prefer zero risk and full recovery, but I understand that I’m being unreasonable.
The cardiac surgeon was pretty optimistic about the success of the full surgery, and said we could just go ahead and do that if we wanted, but as soon as he used the words “heart lung machine” in describing the surgery I came close to having a heart attack myself, so I’m happy that we’re starting small. The ultimate decision to try the less invasive procedure first, of course, was Mom’s, but I think a small part of her was disappointed that she wouldn’t get to stay in a hotel (pardon me, a hospital) for a few weeks, with room service and house cleaning and varied and interesting company.
I think this is more evidence that Mom has reached the second phase of retirement. The first ten years were about making up for lost time, doing all of the projects and trips and socializing she didn’t have time for while she was still working, and the next phase looks like it’s going to include more pampering and siestas. I guess I’ll need to look into getting the co-cop to agree to a pergola in the backyard, and maybe a hammock, so Mom can get her moments of nature and her rest at the same time. If all goes well this summer, this second phase of Mom’s retirement could be even longer than the first, and filled with good health and relaxation, and time to build more happy memories with her grandchildren. And a dog. There really needs to be a dog.
Not my dog, but just sending this image out into the universe
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
I thought I was done with panic attacks. It’s not that I was free of anxiety or depression, but for a long time now I’ve felt like I could handle the difficult things that came up without shattering into a million pieces or becoming paralyzed, but something changed in the past few weeks. I’m pretty sure it started when I tried a new Rheumatological medication (Methotrexate), which was meant to lessen my overall body pain and allow me to exercise more, but instead made me even more exhausted and exacerbated my pre-existing depression and anxiety.
At first, I had no idea where the extra depression was coming from: was it from thinking about adopting a new dog? From watching the news? The exhaustion of doctor visits? Discovering that weight loss medication would remain out of reach? I don’t remember now what finally made me believe that it was the Methotrexate that was sending me into the deep dark, but after weeks of worsening depression I decided to stop taking it and see if things improved, and, gradually, I started to feel better and able to think and write and plan and hope again.
When I called the Rheumatologist to tell her what was going on, she said to wait a few weeks before trying the next medication, which shouldn’t have any of those side effects, and since I wanted to believe her and finally see some improvement in the overall body pain that has seriously restricted my life, I agreed.
But since I’d been taking the Methotrexate weekly, instead of daily, the timeline for it to leave my system was very slow, and in the meantime, I had my first panic attack: a small one, at Whole Foods. I used to have food panic all the time, because of the thousands of different diets I’ve been on, and because of old conflicts around keeping kosher, but after years of working on Intuitive Eating a lot of that noise had calmed down. Except, at Whole Foods (a ridiculously high priced store that rarely has the things I need, but always has fun stuff I want), I got all mishkebobbled by the prices and the choices and I had no idea what to buy. Eventually, I chose a few small things and got out of there as quickly as possible. It was only a small echo of my old panic attacks though, and I was mostly okay.
The second panic attack, also small, also happened around food, this time at the enormous supermarket near my house. I blamed it on Passover, because there was a large section of Passover foods that made me feel like I should buy jars of borscht and boxes of cake mix and cans of chocolate chip macaroons that I would never eat. But, again, the panic passed quickly, and when the effects of the Methotrexate finally wore off I thought I was stable enough to try the second rheumatological medication.
And then the car battery died. This had happened once before, because one of the lights above the driver’s seat goes on accidentally at times and if I don’t notice it right away, and don’t drive the car for a few days, by the time I get back to the car the battery is dead.
This time it happened when I needed to take Mom for a medical procedure, an endoscopic ultrasound of her heart (called a TEE), but the car wouldn’t start and there was no one around to help, and instead of being able to problem solve, or even think, I panicked. Mom told me that she would call a cab, and then call AAA or the maintenance men at our co-op to help me charge the battery, and the idea that I would have to interact with strangers scared me so much that I left my mother and my pocketbook in the car and race-walked back to the apartment to curl up on my bed and hide.
Mom called me from the parking lot a few minutes later to say that the cab was on its way, and that the maintenance men would be able to help with the car in about half an hour, but in the meantime I should come back outside and get my pocketbook, because it wouldn’t be safe to leave it in the car. She didn’t seem to be upset with me, or to understand that I was curled up on my bed in an altered state, but I couldn’t think for myself so I did as I was told and went out to the car for my pocketbook. I was able to give Mom a hug just as the cab arrived, and then I walked back up to the apartment, resumed my curled up position, and cowered in my room.
There was a knock at the door a while later and I jumped out of bed and put on my jacket and answered the door on automatic pilot; some part of me was able to function enough to make chit chat and ignore the bad jokes about my lack of car knowledge. When the guys said I should drive the car around for ten or fifteen minutes before turning it off (and then on again), I did as I was told, even though my pocketbook, with my driver’s license, was still upstairs.
To fill the time, I decided to do a practice drive to the hospital where Mom was having her test done, to make sure I’d know where to pick her up later, and I got stuck in traffic for forty minutes, worrying the whole time that the car would stop suddenly or that I’d get into an accident and have no identification on me. But I made it home safely and turned off the car and waited a few minutes, as I’d been told, and then turned the car back on, successfully (which meant I wouldn’t have to call the maintenance guys again, which was good because I didn’t have their phone numbers). While I was still in the car, taking my first deep breath in more than an hour, Mom called from the hospital to ask if the car was working, because they’d been delaying her procedure until she could assure them that I would be able to pick her up when it was over, and I spoke to the nurse on the phone and reassured her that I would be there on time.
I survived the rest of the afternoon on automatic pilot and picked Mom up from the hospital and got her home safely. I felt awful for having had a panic attack when she needed me, and really scared that this would be my new normal, but most of all I was exhausted and needed sleep. When I woke up from my nap a few hours later I started to wonder if there might be a connection between starting the second rheumatological medication the night before and this latest, much more significant, panic attack. But my brain was telling me that I was always this useless, and I couldn’t come up with a convincing argument to fight back.
Two days later, Mom and I went to a dog rescue event, because my therapist had suggested (insisted) that I go, and because the depression was getting so dark again that I didn’t have the energy to think for myself. We got the address of the rescue event wrong, twice, but finally found it by following the crowd of cars. Once we’d parked and walked over to the row of tents and tables advertising all of the different rescue organizations, I was overwhelmed by all of the noise and people and dogs, and I couldn’t make sense of what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go.
We eventually found an enclosure filled with many small and hypoallergenic dogs, along with some full-sized Poodles and Golden Retrievers and a horse-sized Siberian Husky. But none of the volunteers seemed to know how their adoption process worked, or which dogs were still available for adoption, and no one knew about age and weight and health status, except that all of the dogs were probably around three years old and had been rescued from dog meat festivals in Asia (that’s hard to type, let alone to say out loud).
There was a little black poodle mix who was already on one of the rescue’s leashes outside of the enclosure, but when I asked about him a very possessive older woman glared at me and said she was considering adopting him, which seemed to mean he was off limits. Then we saw a little butter-colored dog who looked like the perfect size for us, but another woman had picked him up and held him tight while she looked for a volunteer to help her with the adoption; when she finally found the volunteer-in-the-know it turned out that that dog was already spoken for by someone else. I was getting more and more overwhelmed by the confusion and heat of the day and part of me wanted to leave (or escape), but part of me felt like it was my job to stay there and tough it out.
Finally, one of the volunteers asked me if I’d like to meet one of the dogs and I looked around and saw a little white dog who looked very much like Butterfly, and I chose her. I held her for a while and she was very calm, to the point where she didn’t even make eye contact or react to much of anything. When I put her down on the ground though, she freaked out at a noise I couldn’t hear and almost strangled herself trying to get out of her leash. The volunteer put her back into the enclosure with the other dogs and she sat down against the fencing, near where I was standing, and seemed to calm down again. She wasn’t the dog I was looking for, especially because she looked so much like Butterfly and was triggering all of the old grief and responsibility, rather than the love, but I couldn’t untangle my feelings or get myself to leave her behind in the chaos either. Mom finally found someone who could explain the adoption process, including the $2,000 adoption fee, which is basically what it would cost to buy a puppy from a breeder, and by then the Butterfly look-alike was sitting patiently on a little girl’s lap, so we took a brochure and finally walked away.
The whole time we’d been near the enclosure I’d been beyond thinking, unable to figure out what I wanted to do or what I thought I should do, except that I knew I should adopt all of the dogs, including the big dogs, because what kind of monster leaves a dog behind just because of money or because the world is tilting, or for any other clearly not-good-enough reason. As we got further away from the dogs I started to be able to hear my own thoughts a little more clearly, but I still felt sick and dizzy and angry and confused. I was able to drive home safely, but hopelessness and the long list of things that were wrong with me was rushing through my mind and refused to shut up.
Hours later, on Mom’s prompting, I looked up the side effects for the second rheumatological medication, and depression and anxiety were at the top of the list, despite the doctor’s assurances that this medication would not be a problem, so I emptied the rest of the pills from my pre-filled weekly pill box and crossed my fingers.
It took a couple of days for the worst of the hopelessness to wane, but in a way the damage had already been done. I’d forgotten how bad things could get, and now it was right in the front of my mind. It didn’t help that the day after the rescue event Mom got the results of her TEE and told me that she would probably need surgery to repair or replace her mitral valve (her fourth surgery in three years).
I’m frustrated that these medication trials, which were supposed to help me function better, sent me so close to the brink; and I’m frustrated that this is how it’s been with so many medications over the years; and I’m angry that the one medication that was helping (Ozempic) was taken away; and I’m angry that the doctors still have no name for what’s wrong with my health, let alone any solutions.
But at least I can think again.
I called the Rheumatologist to tell her that I wouldn’t be trying the third medication on her list, at least not right now, because I needed to be in the best frame of mind possible to help Mom through her surgery, and the expected three months of recovery.
Only time will tell if the panic attacks were solely caused by the rheumatological medications, or if, with enough stress, they will return. I’m trying to be hopeful that I’ll be able to handle everything that comes my way this summer, but part of me is worried, remembering how bad it can get. Another part of me, though, is remembering Cricket’s insistent strength, and Ellie’s insistent belief in me and my strength, and holding those memories as close as possible, to inspire me and help me through.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
My ideal next dog would be a Maltipoo (Maltese/Poodle mix), ten pounds or less (small enough for Mom to be able to pick him or her up), non-shedding and hypoallergenic (as much as possible), and healthy enough so that I would have him or her for a long time (because having less than five years each with Butterfly and Ellie was heartbreaking). Ideally the next dog would also be a rescue, but I may have to accept that the ideal dog for me will have to come from a home breeder again, like Cricket did, rather than a rescue organization.
My biggest anxiety, dog-wise, is the cost; because I’m not sure I can really afford a dog long term, and all of the vet care and grooming costs involved, on top of the adoption/rescue fees. I still have a lot of medical debt to pay off, and I’m afraid it’s selfish to risk getting another dog without knowing for sure where the money to take care of them is going to come from. And yet, I really need a dog, or two, to make life worth living.
Back when we got Cricket, sixteen and a half years ago, we were still recovering from the death of our Lab/mix, Dina, who had died half a year earlier, at sixteen years and two months old, after a long but difficult life. She’d had false pregnancies for years, and for the first eight years, while we still lived in my father’s house, he refused to let us get her spayed to relieve her suffering. Either as a result of that, or just along with that, Dina had a lot of fears: separation anxiety that made it very hard for me to leave her home alone; fear of children and other moving objects; and fear of bridges and water and all kinds of sounds and smells. I learned an enormous amount from Dina about how to care for my own limitations with more creativity and compassion, because she couldn’t just “get over it” the way people always insisted I should be able to do, but by the end I was exhausted, and I just wanted an easy dog, a small dog, a happy and healthy dog.
My Dina
I researched breeds and temperaments and sizes and on and on and decided on a Cockapoo, and we found a home breeder in New Jersey that we liked and went to see the puppies in person, and Cricket chose us. She turned out to be cheaper than we’d expected because she had an underbite, which, the breeder told us, meant that Cricket couldn’t be a show dog. Fine with me.
Except, I discovered quickly that I am a terrible groomer. I spent two years trying to teach myself how to manage her and her hair, but in the meantime, and then forever after, she needed regular professional grooming, an expense I’d never thought of before. And when Cricket was a year old she started to limp, and we discovered that she needed knee surgery, first on one knee and a year later on the other one.
But most importantly, Cricket, who was supposed to be our easy dog, ended up having all kinds of behavioral problems, most likely as a result of neurological problems caused by being the runt of her litter. She spent sixteen years teaching me how to love someone who is difficult, someone who is capable of biting the ones she loves over and over again, and someone who needs to be protected from her own impulses most of the time. She taught me that not all of the people who need your help will inspire your sympathy, or even be grateful for your help. And she reminded me that being smart (and Cricket was very very smart) does not protect you from struggling with even the smallest challenges in life. She also taught me that it is possible to be so cute that even the people who know you best will keep forgetting what a jerk you are.
“I was adorable. It’s true.“
Maybe the most important lesson I’ve learned from all of the dogs I’ve had is that no matter what you think you are getting when you adopt a dog, each dog who comes into your life will teach you something you didn’t expect. You will be challenged and you will grow, whether you like it or not.
Butterfly, an eight-year-old breeding momma rescued from a puppy mill, taught me a kind of love I didn’t know I could feel. Even from the first time I saw her, dirty from the newspapers lining her cage in the shelter, and missing teeth, I refused to let her go, even though we’d gone to the shelter that day on a whim, with no intention of bringing a dog home right away. I learned from Butterfly that I can take care of someone else, very well, and with an enormous amount of patience, when necessary. And I credit Cricket, who was six years old by the time we adopted Butterfly, with making it possible for me to believe that I might be able to manage the challenges Butterfly presented, healthwise.
“I knew you were the one, Mommy.”
Then, Ellie came to us by luck, when Cricket’s groomer called us to say that she’d rescued a dog she couldn’t keep, because her previous rescue and the new one were not getting along. Ellie was four or five years old and had just been spayed, after spending years as a breeding momma at a home-ish breeder. I didn’t have the immediate “love at first sight” reaction to Ellie that I’d had with the other dogs, maybe because I didn’t choose her myself, but Ellie taught me that love can grow and become just as deep and strong, even without that coup de foudre at the beginning. I’m still too close to the loss of Ellie to take a full accounting of all of the things she taught me, but the realization that my heart can stretch and stretch, to sizes I could never have imagined ahead of time, is one of her gifts to me. And I also learned, in losing her, that a stretched out heart needs a lot of time to heal.
“Don’t worry, Mommy. Cricket’s keeping an eye on me.”
I have no idea what I will learn from my next dog, or how he or she will challenge me. I guess, first, I will need to learn how to feel like I deserve the next dog at all, and to believe that I will be able to live up to the challenges that come along with all of the love and joy and comfort. I hope that this part of the work doesn’t take too long, because life is pretty lonely without a dog.
“There’s always room for another dog.”
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
We had our yearly Women’s Seder at our synagogue recently (far in advance of Passover this year, because of scheduling issues), and the music was lovely, and I got a chance to sing with friends, but it was bittersweet because so many people I hadn’t seen in a while asked about the dogs. Some knew that Cricket had died, but not Ellie; most didn’t know about either one. And I found myself having to explain, over and over, that they’re gone and I’m heartbroken. Like a mantra.
The fact is, I’ve had to go over their deaths again and again, just for myself, to remind me why there won’t be a dog at the door when I get home, or to explain to myself how I managed to get through a whole day without going outside.
Kevin, the mini Goldendoodle in our complex, left a squeaky tennis ball on our steps the other day. I don’t know if he left it for Cricket, still hoping she would come out to see him, or if he just left it for me; either way, it felt like a gift.
I’ve started to have more memories of Cricket from before she got sick; just glimpses, of her standing on my chest to wake me up, or bouncing around the yard with Kevin, or flying like the wind when she was younger, fitting as many sticks as possible into her mouth at one time. But I’m still haunted by Ellie’s last days. It’s very hard to remember happy Ellie, for now. I just keep seeing her struggling to breathe, looking to me for help but I didn’t not know what to do. I hope this stage will pass soon and I will be able to remember her happy years, her joy, and her peace.
“I could’ve fit more in there.”
“I was so happy, Mommy!”
I’m trying to be patient with the grieving process, letting it unwind at its own pace, even though I wish it would hurry up. I’m still not ready to spread the dogs’ ashes and say a final goodbye. I think it took a year before I was ready to say goodbye to Butterfly, and back then we still had Cricket with us for comfort. Losing both dogs at the same time has been brutal.
One of the families at my synagogue has an emotional support dog who comes into the sanctuary for services. He’s basically a smaller version of Kevin: a poodle mix with curly reddish gold hair. He’s very well behaved and knows how to sit on a chair by himself; looking as if he’s listening attentively. A few weeks ago he came to services wearing his new blue satin Kippah, with a Jewish star on it, and the cuteness almost killed me.
I do my best to absorb my doggy vitamins from witnessing the joy of the dogs in my neighborhood whenever possible, and I watch a lot of dog videos on Facebook too, to take the edge off of the longing for another dog, because I’m not ready to start over again, yet.
There’s something about the Passover story, the escape from slavery to freedom, that seems to fit this stage of grief. We tend to see the Exodus from Egypt as an ecstatic, completely positive moment; but how can it be? There’s so much fear and grief in leaving a familiar place, even if it’s full of pain, and there’s so much anxiety in going somewhere new and unfamiliar. I like that the Seder encourages us to sit with all of those feelings, and I love that we go through this process every year as a way to practice these difficult skills so they will be there for us when we need them. It makes me think of how tennis players practice their forehands and backhands, or figure skaters run through their programs endlessly, or football teams practice different plays so that it can all be automatic under stressful conditions, when it’s impossible to really think it all through.
I like that the Passover Seder creates space for talking through the story of the Exodus, and asking questions and arguing about how the lessons of the past can apply today, but is also filled with physical experiences, like eating the maror, the bitter herb, with the Charoset, the sweet apple or date sauce, to remember that we can survive the bitterness, and this is how. I remember learning about a group of Sephardi Jews who would carry a pillow case filled with heavy books around the Seder table, to feel the burdens of slavery and then to experience the relief of letting the burdens go.
I’m trying to use all of this practice now, to remind myself that I can handle this transition better if I take the grief in small bites, and with the help of some sweetness to balance out the pain. I’m trying, but each day the grief turns again to a slightly different edge, and it feels like I have to learn all of the same lessons all over again. Maybe the point of all of the practice isn’t that it will make these difficult transitions easy or automatic, but that it will give me a memory of having made it through to the other side, so I can have faith that I will make it across the sea this time too.
“We’ll always be here.”
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
Even with many of the broadcast TV shows returning after the long hiatus (because of the writers and actors strikes in Hollywood) there are still a lot of empty spaces in my TV watching schedule that need to be filled. For a while there, I was happily ensconced in episodes of the Murder in (France) series, on Hoopla (though seasons 6 and 7 are missing for some reason), but I only have a certain number of monthly views, so I keep having to go back to the other streaming services, like Netflix, to fill the empty hours.
Murder In (France)
I started, of course, with One Day, the constantly-advertised-on-social-media-limited-British-series about a two-decades-long-bittersweet-love-story. Eh. It was okay. But when I finished watching that, I found a Spanish movie called Diecisiete/Seventeen, about two brothers and a dog and a grandma and a camper. Did I mention that there’s a dog? And that it’s really a love story about brothers finally figuring out how to be there for each other? It was wonderful! There was also a limited series, also from Spain, called Un Cuento Perfecto/A Perfect Story, about the romance between two (gorgeous) people with low self-esteem, who finally realize that in order to find love you have to risk being known for who you really are, with all of your imperfections. It almost ended badly, but Thank God, in the form of a Deus Ex Machina, it all worked out in the end.
Diecisiete, and a dog!
Then there was a Korean romantic comedy series, and a Croatian/German movie about mid-life love, and then I went through Chaiflicks, one of the Jewish streaming services, where I watched some episodes of Soon by You, an American show about young orthodox Jewish singles in New York City, and Yidlife Crisis, a Yiddish language show by two comedians from Montreal, and Checkout, an Israeli comedy set in a small supermarket, and The New Black, about misfits at a yeshiva in Israel, and Cupcakes, a silly, sweet movie about a group of friends who are accidentally chosen as Israel’s representatives at a Eurovision-type competition show. I finally landed on Unchained, an Israeli show set in the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox Jewish) community, about the difficulty of getting a religious divorce if the husband doesn’t want one; it was uncomfortable and enraging to watch at times, and not much of a break from the news, but it was definitely interesting.
The problem with watching all of these foreign language shows, though, is that I can’t get my typing done, or scan social media, or play video games, while the movies are on; I actually have to pay attention and read the subtitles in order to follow what’s happening, so it’s a more intense experience than just watching American broadcast TV. And the fact is, sometimes I just want the TV on in the background to remind me that the world still exists, while I focus on other things.
So, I gave in, and watched a handful of Hallmark-lite movies on The Great American Family Channel, and found myself unable to sit through a bunch of them, even with only half an ear paying attention. It’s as if someone came up with a list of plot points and then forgot to write the actual scenes. There are millions of good, heartwarming, reassuring stories to tell, and I really don’t mind repeating tropes or unreasonably happy endings, but I do care if I can relate to the people in the story, so that I can buy into their romance and live vicariously through them for a couple of hours.
Even if I only have my TV on in the background to remind me that the world still exists, I’ve discovered, some part of me is still paying attention and needs to be respected. It’s the same with junk food; I’m not eating French fries for their nutritional value, but, at the very least, they need to taste good.
So, I’m back to the foreign language films, mixed with some returning broadcast shows like Will Trent (there’s a dog!) and The Rookie and Law & Order SVU. But I’m craving something more hopeful, and believable, that will lift my spirits and block out the news; just for a little while. Oh, and I really think my cable and streaming bills should be covered by my health insurance. Because it’s medicine.
Will Trent and Betty
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
I was both thrilled and a little trepidatious when I heard that Jon Stewart would be coming back as host of The Daily Show one day a week; thrilled because he was always a voice of reason for me back when he was the host of the show, and worried because in the intervening years he’s said a few odd things, about Covid, about Israel, about comedy, that I haven’t agreed with. And he’s been wearing these weird grey jeans on every appearance he’s made on The Late Show with Steven Colbert that are just not flattering.
First and foremost, thank God, he’s back to wearing a suit on the Daily Show. That deserves a grateful paragraph all on its own.
Second, as soon as he returned to The Daily Show, the critics had a lot of things to say about his tendency to both-sides-ism (both Trump and Biden are really old), and about his age (not a Millennial), and whiteness (after Trevor Noah), and maleness (after a lot of the frontrunners to host the show after Trevor were female). For me, though, none of those things was a deal breaker, but the topic of Israel, which is always in the news lately and on which I know we disagree, was the big test, and on Jon’s third episode back, he started with a segment he called The Futile Crescent, about Israel/Palestine. Oh boy.
And, yes, he did simplify certain issues too much for my taste, and repeat some of the tropes about Israel that I disagree with, but even with all of that, it became clear to me that he is still the Jon Stewart I remember: vulnerable, funny, snarky heart intact. He ended that third episode with a moment of Zen dedicated to his dog, Dipper, a three legged brindle-coated rescue dog who had died the day before. He cried, and I cried, and I mourned Cricket and Ellie (and Butterfly and Dina) all over again, and I finally felt the relief that I used to feel every night when Jon Stewart was the regular host of The Daily Show, way back when. My buddy was back.
Miss Cricket in full flight
Miss Ellie ready for a snack
Miss Butterfly resting on my dog-walking shoes
Dina on her way to the beach
It took me a few weeks, but I finally realized that the fact that Jon Stewart and I disagree on some things is actually a feature, rather than a bug in the program. His willingness to accept that, of course, his viewers won’t agree with him on everything, is what makes him Jon Stewart. He doesn’t expect everyone to agree, in fact, his goal seems to be to have difficult conversations with people who can respectfully disagree on a wide range of important issues (as long as he can find a joke in it). Sometimes he makes me angry or uncomfortable, and sometimes he makes me laugh, or cry, but most of all he somehow creates this space that allows me to breathe more deeply, and feel less alone. And given the rigidity of opinions that has become the norm for both political parties in the United States, and the replacement of actual discussions with Tiktok videos and memes and mantras and marches, I really appreciate how Jon Stewart looks around at all of us, laughs, and says, uh, no.
I remember learning about the bell curve in college, in relation to IQ scores at first, but then with almost everything else, and the lesson was basically that even though some small amount of people live at the extremes, of beauty and intelligence and wealth, the majority of us are somewhere in the murky middle. So, why aren’t we actively listening to the variety of opinions that make up the wide political middle, and trying to find common ground and even reasonable compromises, and instead we’re required to pledge allegiance to Alexandra Occasio Cortez on one side or Donald Trump on the other when they don’t really represent who we are?
There’s so much to learn, and so much nuance and complexity to each one of us, and all of that gets steamrolled when we’re told what we’re allowed to say before we even open our mouths.
Back when Jon Stewart hosted The Daily Show full time, which feels like a million years ago now, there were always things he said that I didn’t agree with, or sex jokes I really didn’t want to hear, and yet I loved him anyway, because he made me laugh and think and feel just a tiny bit less overwhelmed by the news of the day. And that hasn’t changed.
I don’t know how long he’ll stay at The Daily Show this time, maybe just long enough to get us through the 2024 presidential election, and if that’s the case then I’m going to work hard to be grateful for whatever time he can give us, and treasure the chance to disagree with him in good faith, knowing that our differences are part of what makes him worth watching. Unless he becomes a cat person. Then we’re done.
“Oh come on. I’m adorable.”
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
As expected, I spent the weeks leading up to Mom’s second hip replacement living in existential dread, afraid she would die on the table and I would be left alone in the world with no one to fight off the gardeners trying to cut down my paw paw tree. And then, as everyone around me seemed to know it would be, the surgery was successful and Mom came through with all of her humor and energy intact.
The days leading up to the surgery were full of worry, both because of the pre-surgical clearances coming down to the wire, but also because Mom’s hip was deteriorating incredibly quickly and she was struggling just to get from one room to the other, especially after the ban on NSAIDS was put in place five days before the surgery.
I filled the time preparing: filling the freezer and the pantry with prepared meals; organizing all of the random crap in the apartment that might get in her way when she came home with the walker; carrying boxes of books to the thrift store, and bags and cans of dog food to the animal shelter; and finally replacing the old crooked bookcase with a new, slightly crooked bookcase (put together by moi – which explains why its wonky), so that she wouldn’t be toppled by falling books and sent back to the hospital.
New bookcase, before the wonky drawers were put in.
We still have new rugs waiting to be put down, after we removed the un-cleanable rugs from the last months of Cricket and Ellie’s lives, but I’m going to wait on that until Mom’s walking is steadier and she doesn’t need the walker anymore; hopefully the neighbors will be patient with the uncovered floors for a bit longer.
The need to clean has been profound since losing Ellie. When both dogs were still here I didn’t mind a few extra boxes here and there, but in the quiet I keep wanting to clean and find order and make things neat, as if making the apartment more orderly will heal the grief (though it doesn’t really work).
My Ellie
It was so strange to be in the apartment alone. For two days it was just me, no Mom, no dogs, and I don’t know how to describe the stillness in the air. I kept hearing noises and thinking Ellie was coming back down the hallway after a midnight snack, or Mom was getting up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack (Mom and the dogs seemed to have a club I was not invited to). But no one was actually there.
Thank God, the surgery itself went well, and now that Mom’s back home, everything feels like its back to normal, where the noises around the apartment are real instead of phantoms, and even on pain meds and using a walker, she’s more energetic and busy than I am, always texting with someone or planning something. I think the lesson here is that I am a very boring person on my own.
Next up is physical therapy and occupational therapy and nurse’s visits and keeping track of all of the post-op medications and worrying about something else going wrong. But Mom is in a surprisingly good mood so far, and I’m feeling hopeful again.
Oh, and we got a note from the board of our co-op saying that from now on there won’t be a pet fee charged each month for each (or any) pet you own, so when the time comes I can clearly get as many dogs as I can fit into the apartment. Five sounds like a good number to me. It’s possible that Mom will disagree, so, shh, don’t tell her.
“One dog is always enough.”
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
After Ellie died one of the many practical, and depressing, things we had to do was to contact Chewy and cancel our standing dog food delivery. A few days later an Amaryllis appeared at our front door, with a card from the Chewy team sending their condolences.
For a while the plant looked kind of sad sitting on the coffee table in the living room, with no flowers and a bend in its green spine. The plant came with a brace (with a twig and some twine), and Mom moved it into place above the curve, and gradually, the spine of the plant started to straighten, and then, slowly, the flowers started to bloom. The red of the petals is so vivid and the size and number of the blossoms keeps growing so there’s no way to ignore it now.
The shape of the flowers, like a speaker on an old Victrola, makes it seem like the plant has something to say, though try as I might I can’t hear the words. And while there are no new puppies growing from this magical plant, there is life: beautiful, bright, and temporary.
I know that I will always miss Cricket and Ellie, but this little (or not so little) plant has given me hope that my heart will be able to make room for new love, when the time comes.
“We still get veto power.”
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
Since the Israel/Hamas war started, our congregation has looked for as many ways as possible to help us express all of our mixed feelings and get educated about what’s going on and how it impacts our Jewish lives in the United States. Recently, since tourism has all but stopped in Israel, the Israeli tour guide who led the synagogue’s last few trips to Israel has been doing zooms for us once a week, way too early on Sunday mornings, to give our congregation a connection to an Israeli point of view.
The Israeli tour guide knows a lot of my fellow congregants from the trips, and they know him, but he was mostly a stranger to me. Except, when he saw my name on the screen he said he almost cried, because his mother’s family were Mankowitzes too. I have no idea if we are actually related, because I’ve found a few different Mankowitz families on Facebook over the years who have been scattered around the world, but it was nice to feel that connection. I’ve never been able to afford to go on our synagogue’s trips to Israel, but I’ve seen pictures and heard stories and felt the pangs of jealousy.
One of the first things our tour guide told us was that, despite the danger he and his children and grandchildren face in Israel right now, he is grateful not to be in the US or Europe, where anti-Semitism has been making a roaring comeback. Instead, he’s surrounded by people who understand the existential threat to Jewish life, and the danger of living in such close proximity to a terrorist organization, and he doesn’t have to explain his complex feelings of grief and anger and empathy and fear, because his neighbors are feeling all of the same things.
They can see the same things we are seeing on social media, where some people are calling Hamas “freedom fighters” and denying the reality of rape and murder on October 7th. They too are hearing the UN be unwilling to condemn Hamas, and the International Red Cross say they can’t do anything to check on the wellbeing of the hostages in Gaza. And they can see Hamas’ lies being taken as truth by so many, even after evidence to the contrary has been presented, both by Israel and the United States government. And just like us, they are hearing Jews being called Nazis and vermin and being accused of genocide, and seeing huge protests calling for ceasefires, even during the temporary ceasefire, where people who have to know that Hamas will never stop attacking Israel are demanding that Israel stop fighting back.
The recent accidental killing of three hostages by the IDF, who mistook them for terrorists despite waving white flags, broke so many hearts in Israel and opened the door, a crack, to questioning the tactics of this war and if it will really bring the hostages home. Though I don’t know if the Israelis are questioning the efficacy of the airstrikes the way Americans are. I saw a report that said more than half of Israel’s airstrikes were made with “dumb bombs,” and I’m not a military expert but I assume that means that US critics believe Israel could be using “smarter” bombs that are able to be more carefully targeted and less likely to cause civilian casualties and collateral damage. If that’s true, I want to know why the IDF has chosen the strategy they’ve chosen. If they are capable of limiting collateral damage, why wouldn’t they do that? If they’re not capable of limiting collateral damage, why are their friends suggesting it’s possible?
I want to believe that the Israeli military is doing everything possible to limit civilian deaths and injuries, because I see them warning civilians to leave targeted buildings, and setting up safe escape routes, and bringing in humanitarian aid. But then why are whole families dying in Gaza? And journalists? And aid workers? These are my questions, and I don’t have the answers. Part of the problem is that there are no international journalists in Gaza right now. There are Israeli journalists embedded with the IDF and there are Gazan journalists, but none of the images coming out of Gaza show Hamas militants, and certainly don’t show Hamas fighters in the act of fighting. It’s as if they are invisible. And maybe they are, because they are in the tunnels, but the images from this war are incomplete, and the reporting of facts is incomplete and that leaves a lot of people retreating to their safe corners and believing what they want to believe is true, rather than being able to judge for themselves.
The almost unanimous calls for ceasefire from the United Nations General Assembly, despite the fact that Hamas refuses to return the rest of the hostages and has never stopped sending rockets into Israel, and has been stealing humanitarian aid and preventing the escape of civilians, confuses me. Is the rest of the world ignoring the existence of Hamas and seeing Israel invade Gaza with only civilians as their targets? Because if that’s what people believe, I can understand why they would demand a ceasefire from Israel alone. I just don’t know why the world would believe that.
With all of the noise in the outside world, our once a week zooms have been a respite. Our tour guide has children serving in the army, and so do most of his left-leaning friends in Israel, and he has grandchildren who could easily have been killed or taken hostage on October 7th, but he remains a progressive, believing in equal rights for Arabs and Israelis, and women and LGBTQ people. But his liberal point of view is informed by his service in the Israeli army and his knowledge of the many peace deals that have been attempted and have fallen apart over the past seventy five years.
He is as frustrated as we are by the settlers in the West Bank who keep attacking Palestinians, and he is as disillusioned as we are, no, more, by the current government of Israel and its anti-democratic leanings. He, like so many Israelis, has dreamt of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian people for so long, looking for reliable partners to live side by side with, but they know that that has never been the goal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
So I dutifully set my alarm clock each Saturday night, and try to remember to brush my hair in the morning before logging onto the zoom, and I listen to our Israeli tour guide lead us through the latest events in the news and how Israelis like him are experiencing them on the ground: like the incredible relief of seeing the first hostages come home; and the joy of finally being able to laugh again, even for a moment; and the horror of the IDF accidentally killing three hostages; and the frustration when the hostage negotiations broke down; and the reassurance of knowing that so many Israelis are working together to take care of the evacuees from the north and the south of Israel who had to leave with barely the clothes on their backs amidst rocket fire from Hamas and Hezbollah.
Recently, a young college student from our congregation came to the weekly zoom to tell us what it feels like to be a Zionist on campus who is also sympathetic to the pain of the Palestinians. She said that everyone on campus seems to have chosen sides and if you are not completely in one camp or the other it can be very lonely, but she has friends in every group and is doing her best to see the complexity of the disagreements and hold onto her empathy and connection even when those emotions are overwhelming. We were all crying, listening to her, but also feeling really hopeful because her ability to hold on to her own identity and point of view while also respecting and even loving people who disagree with her is a powerful thing.
There’s this funny thing about Israelis where it seems like everyone calls everyone else by their first name, or by their nickname, whether they know each other or not. Everyone is “brother,” and all of the hostages belong to everyone’s families, even when some members of the family, like Bibi, are deeply infuriating and would never be invited to Friday night dinner. And I have to admit that I don’t feel that way about the American Jewish community; we are much more spread out and divided than Israelis, or at least that’s how it feels to me. But I keep looking for ways to connect, and to feel less alone with my grief and fear and confusion over what’s true and what’s possible in the future. My hope is that the large majority of American Jews who both care about Israel and about liberal values can find a way forward, together with non-Jews who care about the same things.
As always, there have been a few articles and videos and songs that have given me hope:
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
As if things around here haven’t been dramatic enough, Mom finally went to see a new orthopedist in November, to check on the pain in her left leg, and the new doctor confirmed that the left hip is now at the bone on bone stage and needs to be replaced, like, now.
I keep having flashbacks to two summers ago when Mom had her right hip replaced, and ended up needing a second surgery six weeks later to fix the mistakes of the first surgery, and then had to be hospitalized again a few weeks later when fluid filled her lungs as a result of the two anesthesias. I spent that whole summer feeling like the world was crashing down, and now, after losing two dogs in two months and with Mom going in for surgery again, my existential dread is back in the danger zone.
And then came Covid.
The day before Ellie died, Mom and I went for our yearly Covid shots and quickly forgot about them in our grief. Within a week I had what I thought was a cold, and it made sense to me that I would get sick given how awful I felt at losing Ellie, so I didn’t question it. Though I do remember thinking, huh, this is the first cold I’ve had since before the whole Covid thing started.
When I finally had the energy to go out and do my chores I wore a KN95 face mask, thinking I just didn’t want to spread what was left of my cold. I went to the drug store and did some food shopping, and then I went home to take five naps. The symptoms of the cold (sneezing and coughing and nausea and feeling like my limbs were about to fall off) seemed to be over, but I still thought I should wear my mask when I went to teach the kids, just in case.
I’ve been organizing things around the living room, since Ellie’s death, so when I got home from teaching that day and was too tired to move from the couch, my eye caught on a box of Covid home tests across the room and I thought, huh, maybe I should just check. I don’t know why this thought didn’t occur to me before I went out, but it didn’t. Honestly, I’d taken so many tests over the past few years, each time I had a bad allergy day or heard about someone who’d gotten Covid, and the tests had always been negative, so it just seemed like a science experiment, and a way to use up the leftover home tests now that they were a month or two out of date.
I took the test, and it was positive. So I took another test, and it was positive too. Then Mom took a test and she was positive too, and I felt like shit. I wrote to my boss to let her know I had Covid, expecting her to be in a rage that I’d been so stupid to not think of taking the tests before coming to work, but, of course, she was kind and just asked how I was feeling and what she should teach when she subbed for my class.
I have never missed work since I started this job. It’s a very part time job, so that’s probably not as big of an achievement as it seems, but to me it’s a big deal, because I am often very, very tired and I always impress myself when I get up and out and actually manage to drive safely and even teach. I had on my KN95 mask for the two hours I’d been at school with the kids, and most of my symptoms were already gone, so, fingers crossed, I didn’t get anyone sick. But even knowing all of that, I felt like a mass murderer (I’ve been watching the news a lot, and the way the world seems to think every Jew is killing people just by being Jewish has hit me hard. My father made it clear that, as a female, I was the cause of all evil in the world, and now large swaths of the world seem to think that being born Jewish makes me the cause of all evil too, so…I’m feeling it).
I don’t know where I got Covid from, and the fact that I gave it to Mom, who was already suffering with her hip pain, just sucks. But we spent the next few days at home, rescheduling Mom’s pre-op testing appointments, and hoping for the best.
And now that we’ve both been feeling better, at least Covid-wise, I’m back to grieving for Ellie, and being consumed by the news about Israel, and worrying about all of the doctors’ appointments coming up, and having nightmares about what will happen during the surgery, and after.
In normal, and even not so normal times, Mom does everything she can to make things easier for me, often too much. But she won’t be able to help with anything for a while – not cooking or cleaning, certainly not errands and laundry and food shopping; and there’s no dog to help lift my spirits and put things in perspective, and it’s so dark and it’s getting cold and the world is such a scary place and…
I know I’m supposed to be an adult, with all kinds of inner resources and strengths to manage things like this, and I’m doing my best, watching as many Christmas movies as possible to distract myself, and taking each challenge one at a time, but I’m not okay. I want Ellie back and I want Mom to be healthy and I want the war to be over. Now.
The stuffed animals are keeping the dog beds warm.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
rachelmankowitz 