Thinking of You

Yesterday I was returning home on a flight back to Atlanta. My husband Scott and I went to New York City for a fun weekend. I picked this particular weekend because we always get Good Friday off. It was also Passover as well. This year was a special year too as Birkat Hachama occured.

Rockin'-and-Rollin'

I had a particularly good violin practice session last night. (In my opinion) I usually have problems playing. However, last night was good. As I was playing I heard my father's voice: You are rockin’-and-rollin’!!

I guess he agreed.

I also imagined him saying, “I didn’t know you could play the violin?”

Retirement

When I was younger, I asked Dad when he was going to do when he retired. His answer was, “Work.”

“Non, Je ne regrette rien”

Yay! Marion Cotilliard's performance as Edith Piaf truly defines the word ACTING. She won the best actress Oscar for her outstanding performance in the film La Vie En Rose in the USA and La Mome in France. Marion Cotilliard is French and some were surprised that the academy would choose her. It was a very well-deserved win.

I did not know who Marion was before watching this film and her transformation is one of the finest I have ever seen. I wish my Dad was around to see it. I know he'd have truly loved it. My heart aches really, really a lot because I can't share this with him. That is the problem with death of a loved one, it is so utterly and totally permanent.

You got a home? Go Home.

When my father was little, he used to like to play in the city drains. He would also like to play in the shed at a neighbors house. This neighbor, I believe, was the mother of one of our dear friends, Sam Appel, and of course his mother was from the old country too. But they were from Kaluszyn, Poland. So when I was growing up, I heard the word, "kalashina" often and this was to refer to some other Jews we know but were from elsewhere - wherever that was. Whenever Mrs. Appel had had enough of Dad's shenannigans, she'd say, in her Yiddish accent: "Pheelee, You ghad a whome? Go whome."

“2 Minutes”

Dad used to say , “Just give me two minutes.” He was always in a hurry.

Poetry Thomas Hardy

One day, Dad and I had lunch. After we ate we went to a bookstore on East Bay Street. While there Dad looked for a particular Thomas Hardy poem to read to me called At Tea.

AT TEA

The kettle descants in a cozy drone,
And the young wife looks in her husband's face,
And then at her guest's, and shows in her own
Her sense that she fills an envied place;
And the visiting lady is all abloom,
And says there was never so sweet a room.

And the happy young housewife does not know
That the woman beside her was first his choice,
Till the fates ordained it could not be so . . .
Betraying nothing in look or voice
The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,
And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.