Two Sides of the Family--One Building

green coat...

such a beautiful photo







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Izzie, Can't find the woids to tell you how much I loved that coat. What are the chances of finding a kelly green winter coat that's a poifect fit. My favorite color.

This photo of me was my father's favorite.

I can understand why - you look kinda... shy in the photo, almost like a little girl... so so beautiful - your father would have been so proud of you. x

(my fave colour too) - green goils

I just stumbled upon another picture. Returning soldier (my mother's brother) with his mother. I love my grandmother's hat in this picture. I also dearly loved my uncle.



When I grew up, he and I were close. He had been very successful at one time. Then he hit on hard times. I was sympathetic. He had a wonderful dog, a golden retriever, who was my Cousin Timmy. (Full name Timberlake something. I think I may have once mentioned this to Timber.)

He and my aunt both died relatively young. My aunt was in her sixties. My uncle, in his seventies. My mother was in her nineties.

Roberta, your uncle looks quite dashing!
He looked rather like Errol Flynn!
Two of your favourite relatives, by the sounds of it.

olga, My grandmother and I were close and I loved her a lot, but I can't call her a favorite relative. She was a chronic, perhaps genetic, nag. No fun. But I loved cooking with her and listening to her stories of growing up in the city I love. She was also a wiz at playing Casino. She always got the good ten!

Speaking of card wizzes, my father was unbeatable in gin rummy. I tried for years! Never once won a game. Sigh.

I'm not a total washout in the card game department. I'm better than average at Texas Hold 'em (a poker game).

Glad you think my uncle looked good.

I've been thinking about family seders in my grandparents' apartment.

For those of you who don't know what a seder is, here's a link that provides a summary:

http://www.jewfaq.org/seder.htm

And for those of you who don't know what Passover is, it's a seven or eight day (not sure) holiday that represents, in essence, the Book of Moses. The Jews' exit from Egypt. Big time stuff.

Seders are very, very, very long (yes, three verys). They are not a meal till the end. There are many traditions that must be followed and rituals that must be performed.

My mother's mother was the daughter of a rabbi. She believed fervently in following through on everything.

The pre-Passover activities were major. Cleaning like no other cleaning (my grandmother was an immaculate housekeeper). No amount of cleaning was clean enough. We all helped. In addition to super-cleaning, no crumb of anything with leavening was allowed in the house. No crumb. Nuttin'. Nada. The final i dot of leavening was removed from the apartment with a feather. I don't know why. I liked the feather part.

Another major production was changing all the dishes. A kosher home has two sets of dishes at a minimum. One for meat; the other for dairy. Also two sets of silverware. All of this had to be changed to two Passover sets of dishes and silverware. We didn't all help with this since most of us couldn't tell the difference between one set and the other.

Once we all gathered at the table, I had to remind myself that we weren't gonna eat for a long time. A nibble of this, a sip of wine. Some bitter stuff (bitter herbs are part of the ceremony). A lot of praying. Fortunately, I usually got to sit next to my cousin, who would occasionally make me laugh. However, I had a job to do. He didn't. For many years, I was the youngest. I had to ask, "Why is this night different from any other night?" I was always on the alert for my cue.

The seder went on for hours, until my grandfather said his version of amen--"Lizzie, let's eat." For my early childhood years, I actually thought the seder was over when he said that. My grandfather was a religious man. He went to temple every Saturday. But I guess hunger or impatience would get the better of him. We ate.

I once attended a seder at my mother's friend's house. No grandpa present. They had the whole seder--I think. Why don't I know for sure? I fell asleep.

So here I am at the ripe old age of 64, and I've never been conscious through a whole seder. That's ok with me.

Passover was also an event at school. Why? How do you bring a bag lunch to school with no sandwiches? It was a week of challenges for the parent who made the lunch and a week of, "Whatdya got?" from the students to each other in the cafeteria.

I can still hear Grandpa say, "Lizzie, let's eat." Yay Grandpa. How I loved dat man.

Such a great post.

Thanks, osso. This thread gets me remembering.

remember away, it's a great thread

Glad you think so, kid.

My thoughts turned to family today (first seder night). Already remembered the seder. For some strange reason I've been remembering the enormous pressure I was under to get married. One small tidbit of advice I got from my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt: You're too smart for your own good. You don't have to act so smart. They were also concerned that I had opinions and wasn't afraid to express them. Why does everybody have to know what you think?

Sigh. I could go on. But I'm digesting my matzo bry. Not easy.

Terrific post, Roberta.
Lovely to hear about the traditions you grew up with.
More, please!

I'm running out of traditions, olga. Memories, I have plenty, but traditions, not so much.

Missing family this week, especially my father and grandfather. Sigh. If I coulda found somebody like one of them, maybe I would have gotten married. And then again, maybe not.

I'm really sorry about your disappearing traditions, Roberta.
But can I say how happy I am that your memories remain so vivid?
They are fascinating, to many people here, not just me.


Aw, I do understand your missing of family members at such an important time, Roberta.
But seriously, even though I know you loved them dearly, you would have married someone like your father or grandfather?

Not when I was young. But as I got older, I think I would have. My values changed, and I knew myself better.

Now that makes perfect sense to me, Roberta.
My values have changed a lot, too.

My Brother the Tree

At the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, my mother, my eccentric aunt, and my mother's cousin bought a stick at the Thailand Pavillion. The stick would turn into a tree--a dracaena.

My aunt's tree grew nicely. My cousin's tree grew nicely. My mother's tree thrived, dazzled, and grew and grew.

My mother nurtured that tree. She polished each leaf separately. She spritzed it. She fertilized it. She watered it. And I believe she talked to it. Such loving care.

We all started teasing her about the tree--that she treated it like a child. This meant that the tree was a sibling of mine. Was I jealous that she lavished such love, tenderness and attention on that tree. Maybe a little, but let's face it. The tree didn't talk back and I did. Also the tree (IMO) was probably too afraid not to grow.

At one point, the tree blossomed! I got a call to come to the Bronx. I wouldn't believe it. Such a scent. Heady, sweet, wild. I slept in the same room as that tree that night and believe that I was drunk with the scent.

My mother called the NY Botanical Gardens to ask if there was anything special she should do about the glorious blooms. She was informed that dracaenas don't bloom in apartment environments. OH YEAH? It did not end there. More phone calls and photos. The botanists had to agree that my bro had blooms.

When the tree hit the ceiling, my father (and eventually my mother) would saw off the top and stick it in dirt. A new tree would spring out of the cutting. My mother had many trees hit the ceiling. She gave some to local public buildings (libraries, schools, etc.)

And when I moved away from home, I got a cutting. I now have five trees. I've had many more and given many cuttings to people who are spread out over the country.

I LOVE DEM TREES. Dat tree is my brother.

(I wanted to post a pic of the tree in bloom. New software on my computer. Can't figure out how to do it. Sorry.)

Such a great post. A dracaena rises and blooms to surprise experts. I love it.

Keep on spritzing.

Being from where I am, in my most heart of hearts, from a cottage in Venice that had a good if tiny yard, I didn't get into indoor plants. Outdoors and indoors are viscerally related in some coastal parts of california. I sort of understood my friends with leafy apartments, but not like they understood themselves. I also didn't really get the mix of blasting summers and frozen winter in other parts of the country, even though I lived in them as a kid, re having plants indoors. We didn't.

This was also true when I was a design pro - I wouldn't have been the one to outfit some mansion somewhere with household plants and would have punted if called upon, well, did.

Thus I never understood orchid madness, and so on.

But now in the homeland of hot sand, roiling wind, chilly winters, with about four seconds of mild sun, I get it.

Something like this, Roberta?
(I wasn't sure what a dracaena looked like, so checked.)




Wonderful story, loved it.
I'm now imagining apartments all over NYC populated with many, many offspring of you mother's original tree.

So yours still flowers to this day?

osso, Glad you liked the post. I grew up with indoor plants. My mother had a green thumb. She loved fussing with them. I have a few plants, but with five trees, how much greenery can I fit into one apartment.

olga, The only tree that flowered was the original. It flowered once. I still smile when I try to re-create the scent from memory.

Here's a picture that's close but not quite a cigar: