The Last Bagel

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

and yes, I know this is totally and completely a first world problem.

Our bagels come from Boichik Bagels. On good days (for us), Angel comes home with a few that were unsold at the end of the day. But they are closed on Monday’s and Tuesdays. So bagels from Sunday are expected to last till Wednesday.

And this is the last bagel

The everything bagel

since no one else had claimed, guillotined, or toasted it – it is MINE!

 

(and for those of you watching – Those three funny looking falcon chicks are getting big!)

quiet and open

Holly Doyne Posted on by

My day is stretching ahead of me, open with possibilities. For the first time since Aug 2018, I don’t have any academic obligations. No classes to attend, papers to write, tests to take, or lectures to deliver,

If this was normal times, I would be boarding a ship tomorrow bound for somewhere, anywhere, to celebrate.  I have almost forgotten what the inside of an airport looks like, or the inside of a cruise terminal. Even the inside of one of the main train stations. Not surprising, I have no interest currently in experiencing train travel through LA, NYC, Chicago, or DC. I might want to travel across Canada, but they don’t want me. Or any other American traveler at this point.

Since  these are not normal times, so I am considering how I am going to plan my time for the next month. Our “shelter-at-home” was just extended here in the Bay Area through the end of May.

I made my morning coffee run to Peet’s. I put gas in the car. As someone mentioned a few days ago, this is now a monthly trip, rather than weekly. The furthest I have to drive is Angel’s work, or Shana’s house. The trips to UCSF are down to once a month.

The new normal for me will be keeping up professionally with a number of Webinars (hey – free CME/CPD? How can I turn that down?, participating a few times a week through ZOOM with knitting groups (Tues&Wed evenings, Sunday afternoon). Watching a few YouTube videos, including watching the falcons grow. Contemplating cleaning and organizing the sewing room. Which first might require that I deal with the garage so that I have someplace to temporarily put the “extra stuff.” I have sewing projects lined up, but with all the SciFi Cons now gone virtual, I am not sure that it is worth getting dressed up for them. I have knitting, and a bijillion cross stitch projects that I would really like to do.

For most of us over 65, life has changed, but in significantly different ways than for others. We are not traveling, or spending time with family that lives out of our local area. Our social groups are not meeting, except for those which have transitioned to on-line. Unlike for some of our younger family members, many of us have stable incomes (pensions, anything non-stock market dependent. I like savings accounts. the interest may not be high, but my money is still there….), we don’t have to supervise active toddlers or teenagers with ZERO interest in course work now that their friends and social lives are completely out of reach.

I am now setting my eyes on next fall. And gathering up the energy to deal with several phone calls regarding delayed/cancelled/postponed travel planes. Guess I won’t have any problem filling up my time. Wonder what would be easiest to work on while I am on infinite hold….

checked that box

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

this morning (or early afternoon) I finished presenting the last lecture that I had promised for a Cal School of Public Health course. Actually – it was three lectures, with the fourth in this series having been last Thurs. The semester ends this week. Their exams start sometime next.

For someone who is capable of chatting with friends for hours, I really don’t like lecturing. Even when I have come to know most of those in the class, it still feels uncomfortable. Perhaps this is  “imposter syndrome” that is so common to women of my generation. Or my lack of time in being able to completely re-write the lectures from what John has put together. He does them casually and fluently. OTOH – he has been teaching this particular course for 35 years – so his ability with the material probably should not be my standard. He is an ID (Infectious Disease) doc where as my background in Occupational Medicine, Travel Medicine, disaster planning, and policy means that I really don’t care about the mechanisms of the specific pathway that X enters a cell – it is enough for me to know that someone has figured it out – and Y interferes with that mechanism. If I need more than that – I can look it up.

So, here I am with the rest of the day stretching ahead of me….

and the rest of the day just sort of drifted away…

Family stories

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4

As I was sitting in the living room yesterday morning, stitching and enjoying the quiet, I started thinking about the reactions of different people to the “stay-at-home” orders that most of are complying with. Then my mind moved on to webpage updates, especially for those fixed pages where I attempt to record progress on non-knitting, and whether or not I should add some additional sections.

Which led me further toward the fact that, unlike a lot of American’s (as well as people elsewhere in the world) because of my circumstances (retired from a US government position) I have a fixed pension that drops in my bank every month. My expenses have actually gone down (no cruises, no in-person conferences, no sci-fi conventions, no associated airfare or hotel bills). I have enough pocket money to buy craft supplies as well as contribute to those organizations in my area which are accomplishing what I can’t do personally.

Which further led me to shopping – now on-line rather than in person. And yes, I am getting to the family story bit – it will arrive shortly.

Anyway, shortly after George and I moved into the house (Dec15-Jan16), we started to “put stuff” in to the house and organize things the way we wanted. Obviously, nothing was the same about the furniture, room layout or shelving as we had in Germany. So it was new location for everything. Then, I started tackling the room upstairs that would be my “sewing/craft room.” About ½ the size of the space I had in Germany with zero shelf space for the hundreds of books and patterns which I had accumulated (and we are not speaking of the 8145 paperbacks donated prior to leaving Germany). Looking back, some of the decisions I made were sensible at the time, and others? Well, let us say that those items have been replaced.

As I started doing more sewing, I decided to use those wonderful JoAnn’s coupons for 50% off or the rare 60% off to accumulate a few of the bigger items. One of those was a dress form. Now, a dress form needs a name, even though she doesn’t have a head. So I named her Gertrude Mergatroid.  (see, I am getting there).

And then I thought, whoa – exactly where did that come from? After a few minutes I realized that this particular name had been often used by my maternal grandmother Esther when referring to a generic woman “of a certain age.” Esther was born right around the turn of the previous century (1900 era for those, like me who have a challenge moving their mental timeline back a century after decades of consistency). There were names in her childhood that are extremely uncommon anymore. Gertrude being one, Esmeralda being another. I am sure that you can think of more.

When I look at the dress form, which my youngest daughter Miriam is currently using, I feel a connection going back to that grandmother who died in the early 1990s. And wonder, how many connections and stories are we currently losing from the generation above us as we hunker down in place. What will be missing in family stories that we will not be passing from our previous generations through us to our children, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandchildren.

what kind of stories do we want them to know, want them to remember? About us, about our ancestors? And about how we contributed to our community and world in this time of challenge?

Done, done, done, done

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

and the song goes on.

I finished my paper yesterday at 1309 PDT, plus a minute or so to duplicate the file, rename the duplicate and PDF the sucker.  Then I emailed it off to a friend who promised she would do an initial read for coherency. 

It actually took me less than three hours to work through the formatting changes, deal with the references (45 of those suckers, or was it 46), and make sure that I didn’t sound too sarcastic or irritated. 

All of this was actually several hours after I had planned due to what I mentioned yesterday. But then, if I had knuckled down months ago, I wouldn’t be sitting here patting myself on the back for finishing one week before the absolute, final, last, drop-dead submission deadline now would I? 

The rest of my day was spent relaxing, stitching, knitting and checking in with various friends by FaceTime, WhatsApp, or Zoom. Aren’t choices nice?

And then there are the Cal Falcons who are so ugly they are cute. Fuzzy, which cheeping stomachs with wings. 

Quiet at six

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
The world is quiet right before 0600 in the morning as Angel and I head out to get him to work. It is still dark, but that grey-around-the-edges that hints of dawn coming soon. As we are west of the hills, the day seems to spring up suddenly as the sun quickly climbs, peeking over the top to release me from night to light my way back. The change is almost sudden. Driving down Bancroft, it is dark. Since Cal is on-line, I have fewer pedestrians to dodge, even at this time of the morning.

By the time I reach the light at Cedar and Oxford, I can see clearly without the benefit of headlights. Left turn for a block, then right on to Walnut. Peet’s is at the end of the block, corner of Walnut & Vine. Original store in the original location. I order from the app, then wait about two minutes. This morning there are two others waiting for coffee. One of the chiefs, and incoming day shift firemen from the Berkeley Way Station. They aren’t getting as many ambulance runs, they are concerned given number of over 65 they support in our area.

Their order comes up, my order comes up shortly after. Peet’s baristas now have a tray with which to carry beverages from the counter to the front door. Easier, fewer trips and less handling I guess. But delivery on a silvery tray? I digress.

Wishing each other a good day, we head back to our respective vehicles. They to work, me to the last check on my paper’s references. It is essentially done. I still may want to make one last revision of the last section – but I will be hitting the send button either early tomorrow morning or Monday morning.

I had planned on making the run this morning so that I would have a couple of hours of peace and quiet. I function best when I don’t have other people to distract me. Early morning hours are best.

Perhaps it is a function of all those years in senior admin positions where I actually had my own office with a door that shut? Anyway, I returned home to find the cat had thrown up on the kitchen floor and George getting dressed.

So much for a couple of hours of peace and quiet.

Yom HaShoah

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
for those of you who have lost track of the date. It is the 27th of Nissan 5780, and the 12th day of counting the Omer. None, of which, is relevant to me on most days.

But in today’s world of conspiracy theories and re-writing of history to eliminate things that are uncomfortable, or that we don’t want to be true (leaving out Holocaust deniers, those claiming England never participated in slave trade, etc) it is good to remember what has been done, what has been lost and the cost to us, both as individuals and society.

As we have all heard the old saw “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”

Train Wreck in slow motion

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1
Watching the daily numbers as COVID-19 spreads around the globe is like being on the sidelines as two huge bodies head for the inevitable crash. You know it is going to happen; being an ostrich and talking about “relaxing things next week so that we don’t damage the economy further” is just total and complete idiocy.

I do have friends/family who are relatively safe. They live in rural Canada, rural Minnesota, remote Alaska. Used to functioning for weeks at a time during the winter, their chances of riding this pandemic out are fairly good. The rest of us? Especially the city dwellers? Not so good.

Especially those of us who have younger family and friends not taking restrictions seriously, use guilt if you need to. Use whatever lever required to have them act responsibly. Stupid behavior, ignoring social distancing, having loud parties and hanging out in crowds doesn’t just risk them, it risks the rest of us. The rest of us who are likely to put a burden on the medical system and decrease the availability of care for others.

Face it, the developed world has done an excellent job over the last 40 years of overall decrease of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Not perfectly, but with enough of an increase that we have a significant population of under 21s who have serious medical and physical challenges. We have done fairly good job with diabetes since the addition of insulin to treatment (around 1926) such that we have thousands upon thousands now alive with increased susceptibility to both infection and a nasty tendency to have their disease spiral out of control with any illness. There are all of us who are cancer survivors. Then add in everyone who is on various immune suppressive therapies for arthritis, connective tissue disease, auto-immune disorders.

In the developing world, there are just as many challenges, but of a different sort. Intercurrent diseases, like malaria and other parasites as well as malnutrition, We have seen huge demographic changes in most sub-Saharan African countries where HIV took out huge swaths of adults, leaving children to be raised by grandparents. Those elders who have survived to this point are now at risk in countries where 45+% of the population is aged 16 and below. Take a look at this site where you can see age distributions in the population.

Compare Western Africa to Western Europe. As an aside, looking at this also may provide some understanding about the lack of teachers, health care providers, and other what we might consider essential personnel. There are simply too many young people and not enough people & resources to train their replacements, much less the ability to expand the ranks.

And for another look at reality – as everyone panicked in mid-March at the thought of 18k deaths world wide – the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) alone had 6000 deaths from measles in 2019 – almost all young children and over 480,000 deaths from malaria.

Are we reacting as NIMBY?

Or have the US numbers of over 42,000 deaths finally struck home? The world is not the same as it was last fall. The developed world, for all its conveniences, medical access, clean water, and abundant power – is facing the grief, loss, and out of control that characterizes much of the developing world on a daily basis.

What each of us does, affects everyone else as well as having long ranging effect on society, the environment and potentially, all of our survival.

But there isn ‘t any baseball!

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
Last year, or perhaps it was the year before, I added the Oakland Athletics Schedule to my calendar. It provided me regular notice on the games including whether they were home or away so that I could plan the rest of my life. Life does revolve around purchased tickets (baseball, other sports, theater, concerts, whatever) since taking full advantage of sunk costs just seems sensible.

This year, obviously there is no baseball. I am sure that it might give someone else comfort. But for me, it is just one more almost daily reminder that there is NO baseball. Or softball. Or soccer. Or cruises with Dani from Hawaii to Vancouver.

I have been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to get rid of this paritcular calendar. There is absolutely no point in notes that “there is a game tomorrow” or “your games starts in 15 minutes. Watch on MLB app…” since there is NO baseball. Unsubscribe on my computer? It repopulates from my iPad. and/or phone. And round and round. And if I take all devices off line, I can’t unsubscribe.

My last ditch attempt this morning was to unsubscribe each device in turn and immediately take it off line till the last one done.

So far, so good…

ahhhhh NOOOOoooooo

something else out there…..

And in Falcon Chick update
– the third hatched. The live cam is here for those who want to be entertained by something other than a screen saver. Warning, just because you don’t potentially hear some of those high pitched shrieks (GRINNELL – where ARE YOU???) doesn’t mean that cat/dog/or other person in your house is going to wonder exactly what annoying soundtrack you have playing.

Watching Annie

Holly Doyne Posted on by 2
Before you think this is either a spy mission or something less than savory – let me introduce you to Annie and Grinnell. This is their fourth year nesting on the UCBerkeley Campanile. Either they have excellent taste in music, or the noise level just doesn’t bother them.

As part of the Institute for Wildlife Studies – there are cams on the nest feeding live into YouTube 24/7. There are four eggs. The best prediction has them hatching starting early this afternoon (PDT). The link is here if you want to see yourself. Otherwise, if you just put Falcon Cam into the You Tube search box – you can probably find the other 2-3 cams also trained in the nest.

I had planned on finishing my paper this afternoon. But Annie proved to be too much a distraction. So I am stitching and watching instead.

The Coffee Fairy

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
Seems to be one of the few positive contributions that I am making around here.

I can stop for a coffee when dropping someone off. I can pick up coffee and bring it back to anyone who I would like to see vertical, rather than hanging out in bed, in a chair or on a couch. (I will include tea drinks for the non-coffee people in my household).

And it is not that I can’t make a pot of coffee. That happens regularly. I even have a small steamer to which I can add milk in order to make my own cafe-au-laits. Or non-dairy flavorer additives (probably complete with a full set of chemical additives and preservatives) should I want to create an imitation of flavored beverage.

But there is something nice, and perhaps comforting about picking up a coffee on my way somewhere.

It isn’t as nice as going out for an afternoon tea in England. Or a morning coffee in a German or French Cafe in spring.

But it will have to do for now.

the Baristas know my name

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4

(and WordPress eats another post…..)

My environment is worlds better than living on Bagram Airbase. No matter what aspect I look at: my bed is more comfortable (and not a sleeping bag); I have much better food (Miriam has been cooking dinner); the company is sooo much better (and all related to me); there is a cat.

But the sameness is there…the same things at same time. The circumscribed route which is pretty much inside the house. Bedroom, kitchen, dining room, living room. And around. 

And going outside the wire? Excuse me, leaving the house. That is fraught with decision making and risk assessment. Where am I going? Why am I going? What route? When will I be back? Should I maximize my route for safety, efficiency, or people avoidance? Priorities…

All of this came up because Miriam needed to “go to work” which apparently has the designated location of her older sister’s second bedroom. Which is in Richmond. (California, not Virginia). Planning takes the route past the local Peet’s so that she can bribe her sister with a latte while drinking her own chai latte. 

All of this leads me to not having my own coffee. So I stop on the way back. And the guy at the door looks at me and say – Holly, your order will be up in a minute. 

And I hadn’t even had a chance to say hello….

Neighborhood Concets

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There are a number of musicians in my neighborhood. Individually, and occasionally cooperatively, we are treated to music at various times of day. Right now it is piano music.

And no, they are not violating any of the social distancing rules. Rather, they are overcoming the challenges of playing together while not together. George says the one woman has her studio on the second floor and opens both doors and windows so that the music flows out from her balcony.

Today it seems to be mostly show tunes. 

Personally, I think it is a much better and more sensible way to entertain everyone than declaring professional wrestling as an essential business. Seriously, I know that several of you live in Florida, but exactly what medication is your governor on? Now, I could perhaps agree if the decision had involved the Grapefruit League (baseball for the non-US readers). But those teams, including managers had more sense than to even talk to the Florida state governor.

So I, as much as I can be a sports fan for certain activities (baseball, soccer=fussball, hockey) I don’t see risking either the participants or the audience. 

But then, perhaps I am completely warped by the lack of bagels in my diet?

Whatever in 2009

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

I looked back at 2009. Eleven years ago. The blog is mostly about the sweater I was knitting at the time – the infamous Phoenix –

prior to blocking

 

and dashing to the train. nothing about Passover, little about work or the family. A bit of remembrance of heading to Bosnia. A time of restricted movements, being stuck inside the fence with care about where I went, when I went and with whom

Gee, little has changed.

And 2008

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
Unlike for the last several years — I am now stationed in the UK with my duty station located on the Sandhurst grounds in Camberley. If you don’t know where that is – neither did I before being assigned. My choice that year was staying by myself or taking some time to head back home to Heidelberg, be with the family. Not to mention joining the community Seder at the Mark Twain Village Chapel for the third year running (2004 was spent in Kuwait).

Being both too cheap to pay the exorbitant parking fees at Heathrow plus not feeling particularly secure about leaving a car at the airport anyway, I was facing the logistical challenges of getting from here to there with the UK patchwork of public transportation.

So – (and, no – I haven’ yet gone through all my backup drives to find the photos. Maybe if shelter-in-place lasts a few more months…

Oh joy, it was raining when I crawled out of bed this morning with less that 5 hours of sleep. Getting dressed was not that rough and my suitcase was packed. I even located my car keys, cell phone, and passport.

There was the particularly jobsworth at the train station who informed nformed me at 0610 (the train comes at 01618) that I should have purchased my ticket from the vending machine

Vending Machine didn’t have a place for a discount.
Yes, it does.
Well, I could not easily find it and could not see my way clear to paying full fare when I am can use HRM Military discount.
It is right there.
Fine, but you are here to sell tickets, aren’t you?

80 minutes later I am at Heathrow, much of it slow train, waiting, and even slower bus which connects train to airport . No way could I have taken the 0718 and made the flight.

I had preprinted my boarding pass. The first gatekeeper stops me – your wheeled carryon looks too big. I demonstrate- it fits in the size thing. Been taking it on the plane for two years. Never mind that the airlines have dropped the size of their overheads, I can make it fit (grin).

Heading down the runway – I got to see the infamous Terminal 5

with its line up of British Airway flights (can you spell Lufthansa? Nicer and cheaper).

Yes, it was raining – rapidly ascending through the clouds

The extremely kind, wonderful guy to whom I am married even picked me up at Frankfurt. After a stop at the commissary, we were home in plenty of time to wash, chop, and cook vegetables. The youngest two pitched in with minimal complaints. The Mole did wonderfully and didn’t even blink at being up and about.

Seder

From getting ready (anyone want to explain why my brain kept telling me 1830 like every other year when it turned out the starting time was 1930? I could have taken a nap. Really could have used that nap).

 

To holding the service –

(photo links which go nowhere removed….)

to the six (hard to get both sides of the table with this particular lens) who sang every single last concluding song. I guess it is one way to entertain those who are cleaning up.

Turning the Voice lose with the camera – she even proved that I was there.

It was well after 2300 when we returned – turkey and leftover tzimmes in tow. Staggered toward bed, it was a really long day, to be topped by a week of eating flavourless cardboard (excuse me, Matzah!)

 

And to 2007

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
During which, as it turns out, I was just about as up to date on posts as I have been so far this year. Life, I believe, sort of got in the way. Which means that there was nothing between 1 April-9 April 2007 or there about. I was working at 10th Med Lab during this time period – which been renamed to CHPPM-EUR (Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine-Europe) several years prior. The commute from Heidelberg to Landstuhl was a total pain and made only marginally sane by the steady diet of audio books into the CD player

 

So the best I can do for 2007 is the following from the end of March*.

Passover preparations

There is less than 48 hours to go until the first Seder. For the second year in a row I am organizing it for our community. Since we are holding it at MTV Chapel Fellowship Hall, this gives me two kitchens to kasher. Naturally I spent a large amount of today either cleaning or pushing the four members of the family in residence to do their share. After a few flare-ups (no, I don’t give a whit about the grass length, no one can see it and doing email during daylight hours is not essential) I managed to brow beat the guys taking a large amount of trash to the recycling center and vacuuming.

The girls were supposed to be working on the kitchen and their rooms. Well, they have spent a lot of time in the kitchen and made some progress. But mostly I have been hearing their voices raised in harmony for the last few hours with interludes of solo opera from Nina. So I don’t think all that much is getting done. There are no cleaning or sorting sounds.

I am on load #8 of laundry and the turkey is thawing (the only kosher meat the commissary carries is turkey, chicken drumsticks and hot dogs. Since I did not have time to make a run to Strasbourg, turkey it is. No way is this crowd going to settle for a vegetarian meal.

I don’t see that I am going to have time until next weekend to update my projects webpage. At that point coding is going to look easy compared to eating more matzah!

* And, yes (they are absent), I am well aware that when I transferred almost 10 years of blog posts to the current server, the photos that I thought I had linked to import… well they didn’t import. Of course, I didn’t figure this out till the old server went off line…

MTV 2006 – Community Seder

Holly Doyne Posted on by
Continuing my drift into the past, given that is it infinitely more interesting than the present where everyday is like every other day (and not, why is this day/night/meal different)….

12 April 2006, Wednesday

Community Seder, MTV Chapel

After finishing the final email to explain, once again, that tonite was a Jewish community Seder and not open to the general public, we got out the door.  Shana came over to help once again (turkey in the oven, potatoes on the stove) but was not feeling well and decided to head home rather than come along.

Menu:

All the usual on the Seder Plate + turkey, potatoes, tzimmis, potato kugel, apple kugel, spinach pie, salads x 3, soup. There was also a variety of deserts: you simply can not forget either deserts or wine. Even better, two families came early and helped with the set-up making all the difference in the world to my sanity. The teens, sincere there were so many, set up a teen table facing the head table with places for all 9. 

The people: 43 three of us all told. Seven families contributing children (Expat, and military) along with six Israelis, a few other military members, some civilian US employees, a couple of locals and few more Expats that we see on occasion. The youngest was barely two, our oldest — I am not sure so I will be polite and figure somewhere well upwards of her seventies.  A number of our regulars are back in the States or in Israel: but this is up a significant number from last year, even it being  the first night.

The Seder: lead by Annette and Bill as our fearless leaders.

The order: 

Well, the Haggadahs (Shire’s) that we wanted to use didn’t get here in time. No fault of anyone but for amazon.co.uk whose 1-2 day shipping wound up being 14+ to Jen making it too late to ship them across the Channel by MPS.  (would you believe time spent at the Xerox machine this afternoon? Next year we will not do the copyright violation but this is one of the Haggadahs that has both an English and German version). With a fair amount of enthusiasm, we went through the order of the service. Bill moved  the piano making it easier to follow the melodies and Annette  made packets of the music. 

The service is so familiar to me, cup after cup, asking questions, dipping items, mixing and matching the symbolic foods and adding a lot of music to what is both a celebration as well as a solemn ritual. Ducking in and out from the kitchen so that the matzoh ball soup would be ready on time, sometimes I was behind and sometimes ahead. 

We added Miriam’s cup with music to the first half of the Seder leaving the rest to the end as well as offering hand washing to those who were interested.  The four questions were sung by a couple of the younger boys with everyone helping and Dayenu was sung by just about everyone (well the chorus – how many verses does one need? Four or five – Dayenu!)

The meal: everyone got enough to eat and then some. Even better, there was plenty of help cleaning up right after the meal so that George, Bill and I were not the only ones. Kathie  brought containers along to send home care packages  for some of the singles  plus anyone who was willing to take leftovers. The rest of the turkey came home with us, although not much was left from two full birds. 

There were only three young enough to officially ransom the affikomen (which they found, and tried to raise the stakes on the return). 

The last glasses of wine and juice saw a mellow group; some participating, some helping with clean up, and a few headed home as not everyone has the next day off. Suddenly it seemed rather late being well after 2100. I sent two out the door (Miriam to a friend and Noah to see her safely there) while Nina pitched in like an adult. 

The cups – Elijah for what will happen, Miriam for that which sustains us now, are on the table  with the door open welcoming in the future.

May we all be healthy and able to celebrate for the rest of this Passover Season and the rest of this year coming together again next year to talk about our freedom when we came out of Egypt. 

May all of you who celebrate the Easter holiday find joy and peace.

Chag Sameach.

-Holly

MTV 2005

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
MTV = Mark Twain Village. 2005 is obviously a year. The specific date was the 23rd of April. I thought about waiting till then to post, but, since Passover dates float – it wouldn’t make much sense to post it them. If you were on my email list way back when – you have seen this post before. Admittedly, I really don’t expect you to have any recollection of whatever I was scribbling 15 years ago, but there you are. It is a serious contact to both life here retired in the SF Bay Area. And the current reality of living in a “plague” year.

23 April 2005, Saturday
Mark Twain Village Chapel, Heidelberg Germany

Wasn’t up too very long before I had my list of everything that I had forgotten, resulting in a PX run for a couple of knives, cutting boards, dishpan, mixing bowl, and the like.

Oh, did I mention getting the turkey in the oven before I left? Which, of course, led to the usual discussion of how to set the oven. Since I am not the expert on how to cook various assorted kinds of bird, fowl, fish, and beast, I normally defer to George and the kids. They got out the manuals for the oven, a couple of cook books, and looked up cooking times.

I will say that the freezer bag did an excellent job of keeping the bird nice and cold. So I adjusted the cooking time for ice bird, rather than counted on frosted bird. This, unfortunately occurred at the same time George decided that he liked the idea of convection AND conventional heat. ARGH! (end of the story is we wound up on low heat and sealing said bird in with foil a whole lot earlier than planned.)

Dropped the crew and the first part of the supplies around 1600. Got the kids to help set up, haul out trash that no one recognized as trash the night before (go figure), and do one more sweep of the floor. We also brought down the supplies that Aleph had donated (same plastic prestocked and printed Seder plates we used last year downrange, matzoh, grape juice) since our small chapel area is off to the right of the main sanctuary. It was at this point I discovered two key points:

The first was that there was a Catholic Mass at 1700. The second, and much more problematic, was that in spite of arranging for use of the kitchen and downstairs hall, no one had bothered to put the Seder on the Chapel Calendar. As a result, the Catholic Congregation was expecting to be able to use the Fellowship Hall that evening.

I talked to one of their senior people. He was not at all pleasant. Neither was the same Little-Old-Lady that was the PIA yesterday. I quietly pointed out that this event happens once a year. I had arranged for exclusive use of the fellowship hall and the kitchen with the Chapel staff, and thought that part of the duty of the Chapel staff was to inform the other congregations, and to put things on the calendar. He allowed this was so. The priest came in about then. He is active duty. He is staff at this chapel. He did understand, but had no clue.

Don’t these people ever talk to each other?

Meanwhile, we beat feet back downstairs and put up polite signs that said, thank you…….

By the time 1800 rolled around, just about everyone had arrived. The tables were set up in a U with munchies on the tables. Nina put out juice, salt water, and matzoh. Noah opened up everything needing cutting open with his trusty pocket knife. With the addition of Kerstin and Bill’s three, we had enough kids to get everything ready. Plus, with adults getting the last of the kitchen prep done, by 1830 we actually were ready to start the Seder. Matzo balls cooked, the soup simmering on the back of the stove, vegetables warming, and the turkey on hold in the oven. Yep, all the food ready.

I think the end head count was ~33, five families with kids, and a number of singles making up the numbers. Bill brought his guitar and some printed music as well as some transliterations to make it easier.

If you have never been to a Seder, it is hard to describe, except to say that it is an ordered and orderly set of rituals and prayers reviewing the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. There are foods and prayers for different parts, cups of wine, a recitation of plagues and lots of songs. There was more than enough food for everyone, and then some.

For those of you who have – we balanced a traditional Seder with the realities of kids – we started well before sundown (2130 at this northern latitude), we skipped several sections (the rabbis talking about all of the days and all of the nights). We took turns reading, the two youngest attempted the four questions with a lot of help from everyone else. And, there was more than enough charoseth, matzoh, horseradish and other bitter herbs for half a dozen Hillel sandwiches each.

The final menu:
Matzoh Ball Soup (vegetable broth)
munchies
Tzimmis
Broccoli
Carrots
Potatoes
Asparagus
Turkey
Matzoh

We did not throw frogs, put an orange on the Seder plate, or put out Miriam’s cup.

The kids ate enough they did not argue about opening the door for Elijah, singing or cleaning up. For that matter, we even got the afikomen back without a bribe.

Everyone helped with cleanup. We split the remaining food, sending care packages home with all the singles so that they would have several days supply. Getting home, I decided that I was not going to be making the drive out to the field site tonight.

Hag Sameach.

-Holly

Different Places – different years

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
I have been thinking back over where I have been in different years for Passover.

Over the next several days – I am going to try and work my way forward from as long as I have been writing this email list/blog. Some editing has been done for punctuation, clarity, and common sense. I am starting with 10 April 1998 when I took TFME (Task Force Med Eagle) from Wuerzburg, Germany to Blue Factory, Bosnia and will continue forward in time for those years when I can find anything resembling an interesting entry. Don’t know about you, but I need a break from COVID-19.

10 April 1998 –

Meanwhile – the Chaplain and I had our frolic and detour. It started with the shuttle ride to the Taszar Main Base. The 4 km bus ride manages to include every last back corner, all the bus stops, which turns the ride into 20 km in more than half a hour.

The vehicle fleet from which we drew our two vans for the trip consists of Ford 9-pax vans under lease for more than a couple of years. Saying it can be a rough ride is putting it mildly. Our route included back roads through several small towns, down a number of narrow roads. We passed horse drawn carts with their truck tire wheels, kids on bicycles, old people walking, and a number of pre-unification oil burning small cars from the former East. Not surprisingly it took an hour to travel the 70km to the autobahn. The next 120 km took about 90 minutes.

We arrived at the Old Synagogue in Budapest to find that it is still under renovation; not appearing much different than it did when I was last here in 1995. One courtyard features a memorial. Another has a collection of grave markers and tomb stones. The Seder was held upstairs in the attached building. Think of a large open room with high ceilings. The Head Table was at one end with the Rabbi, Cantor, and important guests. The rest of the room was filled with dozens of small tables of four plus several longer tables for visitors at the back. There was a small Seder plate at each place. Let me just say it was interesting trying to follow the service order. Hebrew accented with Hungarian does not sound like Hebrew accented with German or English. Hungarian falls into the category of “one of the thousands of languages about which I am clueless.” To cap off the fun – this was a “bring your own Haggadah” service; a fact that none of us knew a head of time. The whole evening was a challenge. For those of you whose Passover memories include children shouting and running, this was tame evening. Almost all in attendance were adults, many of whom were elderly.

It was about 2200 when we headed back to Taszar. Budapest was full of lights, people, and traffic. By the time we had driven 50km the roads were empty, the houses dark, little traffic and no one out. We arrive back to base after midnight

Why is this night

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4
different from all other nights?

Around here, it turned out to be not so. When it really came down to it – I have three of us coughing and hacking up our lungs. Tests have come back neg for Covid-19 for both Maus and George. Still, trying to sit and concentrate for any length of time wasn’t reality. My two downstairs, plague or no, were not terribly enthusiastic about spending time around anyone coughing. Noah is in San Diego with a full load of classes and Shana is running enough errands for everyone. So, there you are. Cough, sneeze. No bread. For that matter – there is little access to wine. Not only is not on the list for people post-stem cell transplant, it is probably not a good idea for anyone fighting off any kind of infectious disease. And frankly, the thought of cooking any large meal? Meh. For anyone who got it together, whether in person, Zoom, or other on-line, community gatherings – a tip of the kippah to you. Next year in Jerusalem? How just about – next year, may we all be healthy?