Dear Everyone,
The big news this week was the birth of Isabella and
Ariella, Brittany’s (Cindy’s niece through her sister Cheryl) twins. The babies made it to 36 or 37 weeks, and one
is about 6 pounds, the other is around 5.
I believe everyone is healthy and at home by the time you read this. Unfortunately, having twins does not count as
a family emergency or medical emergency. As a result of this, Brittany will
have to use up all her PTO and sick days, and then have some unpaid leave to
finish out this school year as an elementary school teacher.
The next highlight was the wonderful Passover Seder at Andy
and Gail’s. Gail, as usual, served her fantastic brisket - - it was worth 40
years of desert wandering if the Jews learned to make this dish. The service was lightened by the presence of
Enoch, Cyrus, and, of course, Bluma, the latter of whom refused to search for
the afikomen. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to chat with Nick or
Alyssa, friends of Madeline and Joey, respectively.
Cindy had a good time in LA and Denver, but was beset by air
transportation woes. She was not able to
reach O’Hare in time for her flight to LA because the access highway was
temporarily blocked by pro-Palestinian protestors. She had to rebook her flight and hang out the
airport for about 6 hours. These protests, especially on college campuses, have
gotten quite frequent in the last two weeks. I don’t usually comment of
politics in these letters, but I think Netanyahu has been a disaster for Israel,
and I think the country has let itself get dragged into an ever deepening
morass. I had a long conversation with
John Feiger at the Seder about the speed that Israel armed forces are airlifted
out of the battle zone and taken to well-staffed and supplied hospitals minutes
away in Israel, while internally I was thinking about the relatively innocent
thousands of Gazans and their lack of medicine, food, shelter, water, and their
casualty rate. Innocents bear the brunt
of the decisions made by evil and incompetent leaders. I do not know what will cause the bloodshed
to end.
Anyway, Cindy spent time with the Ganzs in LA and went to
the two Getty museums and the tar pits (but she didn’t see Vivian’s handiwork). The Ganzs will be in town next week, and we
will be seeing a play with them, Judgement
Day, starring Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame.
Writing of Jason Alexander, Jasper and Vivian are here
watching him on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Afterwards I’m planning on cooking tteokbokki Bolognese,
a recipe out of my Anything’s Pastable cookbook. (I plan on doctoring the sauce
with some chili crisp and gochujang.
Reading - - I looked at the Education of
Henry Adams. This Adams was the
grand son and great-grandson of two American Presidents, born in 1938, served
as his father’s secretary in his ambassadorship to London during the Civil War
(Some English were quite pro-Confederacy), became a journalist, and then a
professor of Medieval History at Harvard.
The book is written in the third person, and assumes the reader is
fairly familiar with American politics of 1850-1870. It’s a famous autobiography, but I find the
style quite stilted, and I had trouble reading the latter half. I also read Joan Didion’s Year of
Magical Thinking. I actually find
Didion to be a name dropper, privileged, and a bit insufferable. Fiction wise,
I started the first book in a long series by Benedict Jacka, The Inheritance of
Magic that was enjoyable.
Love, H
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