I like to read. But I don’t care for much of the fiction written these days. So I am looking for recommendations; please leave some in the comments. Or else I will read yet another health book.
Some blogger recommendations that sound good:
The Physician by Noah Gordon (Ilana-Davita’s recommendation)
Update: I was at the library this morning for a meeting (because of budget cuts in Highland Park, the library is now having a part-time consultant–me–update their website instead of a full-time employee). The Highland Park Public Library owns the top three recommended books on this post, as well as three copies of The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn. It turns out The Lost is a biography, and I was looking for it in fiction! I took out Dara Horn’s book and Nancy Geary’s book. Noah Gordon’s books will have to wait; they were the fattest.
I met her once at an art class. We shared a table. She cheerfully told me about how she does art in between chemo sessions. If there is a gene for optimism, she had it.
Here is her obituary, which will appear in today’s Star Ledger:
Kiersten E. Hickman-Perfetti, 22, of Highland Park died at home with her parents after an almost 4-year battle with cancer on April 23.
Kiersten was born in New Brunswick New Jersey on July 5, 1985. She attended public school in Highland Park. Kiersten played varsity basketball, threw the shot put, discus and javelin, and managed the football and baseball teams at Highland Park High School. She swam at the YM/YWHA and the University Swim Club from ages 5 to 14. Kiersten was an avid music lover. She played the clarinet was in the high school band.
Kiersten attended Goucher College in Towson, Maryland for her freshman year in college 2003-2004. Kier played basketball at Goucher College her freshman year, and she was awarded an honorary degree by Goucher in 2007. She was an avid Rutgers Women’s basketball fan and friend to the team, and a member of the Rutgers Cager’s Club. The RU women’s bball team dedicated their 2007-08 season to Kier. Kier enjoyed scrapbooking, reading, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, music, and movies. She took art lessons. Kiersten loved children and became an important person in the lives of many children in Highland Park and at the Children’s Hospital of Philly.
During her illness Kiersten developed a list of things to accomplish. She went to The Daily Show four times and met Jon Stewart, who was very kind to her. We thank Jon Stewart and Teri Abrams. She went to the Ellen DeGeneres Show, several Fab Faux concerts, Saturday Night Live, The Lion King, Rent, the WNBA 2007 All-Star game, and the NCAA 2007 Final Four women’s BB game. Kier also started a foundation, Kier’s Kidz, to raise money for research into the treatment and cure of pediatric cancer.
Kiersten is survived by her mother, Mimi Hickman-Perfetti, her father, Larry Perfetti, her brother, Keith Hickman-Perfetti, and her grandmother, Betty Perfetti of Maple Shade, NJ. Her other grandparents, Al Perfetti, and George and Nancy Hickman, predeceased her. She has numerous other relatives and friends.
Viewings will be held on Sunday, April 27, from 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm at Jacqui-Kuhn Funeral Home, 17 S. Adelaide Ave., Highland Park, NJ. Full memorial services will held on Sunday, May 4, at 2pm, at Kirkpatrick Chapel, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
In lieu of flowers, Kier would appreciate your making a contribution to: Kier’s Kidz Lemonade Stand, c/o Alex’s Lemonade Stand, 333 E. Lancaster Avenue, #414, Wynnewood, PA 19096.
Three kids. One day trip. Where do you want go?
Eldest: Nowhere.
Middle: NOT to a zoo.
Youngest: To a zoo! Someplace with animals.
In the end, we went to Sandy Hook, at the top of the Jersey Shore. Sandy Hook has beautiful beaches, dunes, rocks, waves. Eldest Son stayed home, as he preferred, and tended to the homestead (he’s a teenager, he’s allowed).
We took one of my son’s friends.
The sky was a lovely blue, and the weather warm enough, considering it was mid-April.
The kids had a great time, climbing the rocks and playing in the sand.
I tried to get a little artsy with my photos.
There’s a lighthouse at the end of Sandy Hook, and there’s another lighthouse called Twin Lights that’s on the road on the way home from Sandy Hook. My kids opted out of going to the lighthouses today, but in the past we’ve gone to both. The Twin Lights Historic Site is a good place to visit if you were planning to go to the beach, but it ends up raining.
What do you do when your kids disagree? Do you just take them where you want to go?
My neighbor’s cherry tree (but it doesn’t produce cherries, alas) in front of his forsythia.
This plant is called vinca or periwinkle. I bought a sizable amount of it from someone who moved to Israel several years ago. It is finally growing in nicely on the side of my house.
A plant named for people who “care” so much about others (really, they identify with them) that they will cause their own hearts to bleed. Hopefully, this bleeding heart plant, which did not flower last year, will be much healthier than that and produce pretty pink hearts soon.
I love the contrasts in Judaism. On Purim, we have v’nahafoch–as we turn around Haman’s decree against us. On Yom Kippur, we try to be sealed in the Good Book, as opposed to the other one. After Tisha B’Av, a sad fast day when the Temple was destroyed, we soon have Tu B’Av, a day where unmarried girls wearing white danced in the fields outside Jerusalem. Passover is a time when we remember both the sufferings of bondage and sweet taste of freedom.
I had fun re-creating the above salad presented by Ellie Krieger at The Jew and the Carrot. In general, the Jew and the Carrot is a great blog for anyone with culinary interests. I stole that gorgeous photo from their blog post. Here’s the description prior to the ingredients for the salad:
The tension between bitter and sweet is most clearly tasted when we eat charoset, which represents the mortar used during our bitter servitude, yet is most likely the sweetest thing at your seder table. Here’s a wonderful salad that Ellie created which plays off this tension in new and unexpected ways:
So, with this recipe’s combination of sweets and bitters, I decided to nickname it my Avdut L’Herut Salad, or From Slavery to Freedom. My kids won’t eat it (my Eldest Son already complained my kitchen smells disgusting, he doesn’t share my love of onions, garlic and herbs), but hopefully, my nieces, sister-in-law and mother-in-law will enjoy! My husband eats all my food. My best customer.
Paper Goods: All are acceptable, including all paper plates, bowls and cups, all paper and plastic table cloths, as well as all paper towels. It is suggested to not use hot foods or drinks on starched paper goods. Styrofoam products [emphasis mine] may be used instead.
So this is the only time of year I buy Styrofoam. Not only is this stuff bad for the environment, it’s bad for your health, too. (I try not to think too much about this. Stress is bad for your health as well). DO NOT put Styrofoam in the microwave. Buy some uncoated paper plates and use those.
On a positive note, it is always so wonderful to see the greens on the Seder table. In Eastern Europe, where it was hard or impossible to get greens, potatoes were substituted for Karpas and horseradish for Maror, the bitter herbs. Nowadays, we can have both the greens (Romaine Lettuce for Maror and Parsley for Karpas) and the Eastern European traditions.
A tradition I’ve heard of for pre-school children is to plant parsley in a cup on Tu B’Shvat (usually occurs in February) and to nurture the plant so that it is ready to be used by Pesach. Not being very good at indoor gardening, however, (outdoor gardening is much more forgiving; Mother Nature helps), I do have some parsley growing outside my kitchen. Parsley is a biennial, so the little plants I grew from seed last summer (the ones that didn’t die in year one) are now thriving:
Menachem Wecker just posted an interview we did over email on his blog, Iconia. I really enjoyed answering his questions; the connection between Judaism and art for me brings up many issues, struggles, joys.
One Friday, when R’ Aryeh Levin davened Minchah at the Kossel, he saw a woman crying bitterly. To his inquiry about her distress, she said that her son was hospitalized in isolation in a Jerusalem hospital for lepers. R’ Levin decided to visit the hospital, where he found that there were twelve Jews along with three hundred Arabs. Upon seeing him, the Jews burst into tears. “We have not had a visitor for years,” one man said. R’ Levin made it his business to visit them every Friday. One time they said to him, “Each time you come, we think this is the last time we will see you. All we do here is await death. No one has ever been discharged from this place.”
When the Jews asked for kosher food, R’ Levin’s wife would cook for them, and he personally brought the food to them. On Rosh Hashanah his son accompanied him to blow the shofar for them.
One time, R’ Levin asked the Rebbe of Sochachov to assist him in bringing food to the patients in the leper hospital in Bethlehem. He noted that R’ Levin went into each patient’s room to exchange a few words with them.
“Why do you take so much time to visit this Arab hospital?” the Rebbe asked. “Don’t they have their own clergy?” R’ Levin answered, “There is one Jewish patient there who needs my visit. Once I am there, I will not discriminate, and I will visit all the patients.”
This is the only finished artwork I have of one of my children that was done completely from real life. It is considered preferable to paint or draw from a real subject, as opposed to using a photograph. But how does one get a child to sit still, even for five minutes? This son in particular was an extremely busy four-year-old, the age he was when I did this drawing. So I captured him asleep. And as one of his teachers reminded me recently, he still has a hard time sitting still.
This is a “baby” blog. It was born in December 2007. One of the ways I hope to bring it from babyhood to toddlerdom is by honoring my commenters.
Taking a cue from the Rambam, the twelfth-century philosopher and expert in Jewish law who talks about 8 degrees of charity, I came up with 4 levels of commenting etiquette.
Level One: this is kind of a pre-level. It just learning how to leave a comment on someone else’s blog. You are not writing a whole post, but stating something in as clear a fashion as you can.
Level Two: Thank those who leave comments on your site. I still remember when I posted a comment on E-Kvetcher’s site on loshon hara (laws of gossip–a topic I would like to blog about, some time, some day). Look what a nice comment he left for me, after I left a few longish comments (I initiated the use of the term ‘blab’): “Leora, welcome and feel free to blab away.”
Level Three: If someone comments on your site, and you have never visited their site, go back and visit their site. And leave a comment. On something. Here was Jack’s first comment on my site, on my anti-pantyhose post: “Men are far more practical. No pantyhose, no pumps, no girdles.” So I went back to his site to find a post on which I could leave a comment. No comment on the particular post I found; it was one of Jack’s strange ones. I’ll give a link to Jack’s Comments on Commenting instead.
Level Four: Finally, the highest level is to link to a blogger or a blogger’s post in one of your posts. Search engines don’t follow the links in comments. But they do follow the links in posts. So here are links to blog posts by people who commented in the past week:
A while back I wrote about a young woman’s battle with cancer:
This is a “baby” blog. It was born in December 2007. One of the ways I hope to bring it from babyhood to toddlerdom is by honoring my commenters.