My Mother’s Day Presents
Every day, my kids leave me things. Things that are not exactly presents, but that are always present in my presence that I need to take care of while they are in school and expanding their minds.
My dear children,
Must you leave your socks on your bedroom floor?
Can’t you throw away your rinsing cup after you brush your teeth and not leave it for me to throw away?
Kids, I really appreciate that you make your own lunch, but must you leave me your crumbs on the cutting board, the opened peanut butter and jelly jars lingering on the counter?
Must you leave me at my wit’s end and make me say things that I SWORE I would never say when I became a mother???!
At approximately 7:30 this morning, I had received no less than three text and voice mail messages both on my cell phone and land line from my daughter whilst I was in the shower and getting my youngest ready for school.
“Mom, I left my lunch home and I have no money and I have track practice and I’m going to be hungry so can you pleeeeaaase bring my lunch to school?”
One more present left behind for me, the mom.
Okay, I bring the lunch to my high schooler, because that’s what moms are for.
But then, for all the world to see in the high school’s main display case.. what’s this?
My daughter, my sloppy, beautiful brilliant, talented daughter, is featured artist of the week in her high school: I shot the following on my iTouch through the display glass so forgive me for the amateurish glare:
I 
Today, the hallways of high school, tomorrow… SoHo?
Thank you, daughter, for being my present. I can almost excuse the dirty socks, and the pencil shavings, on your bedroom floor.
Love,
Mom
A weekend of Butterflies and Supermoons
Rochester is in the midst of a sweet invasion.
If you’ve been noticing tiny creatures dancing over the roads in Rochester: along Route 590 off to Henrietta or along Monroe Avenue on your way to Pittsford Wegmans, you are not seeing things. These are not figments of your imagination. Rochester has been inundated by the Admiral Butterfly. These red-winged butterflies have been distracting motorists as well as Little League players in the outfield with their erratic flight patterns. Often, they flit through the air chasing another butterfly friend.
My kids and I counted at least 50 on the way to the orthodontist this morning and they look like this:
Rochester is witnessing the biggest population of these butterflies
EVER
Some have come to visit us as far south as Guatemala. Enjoy them, they will be around until summer.
Another visitor this weekend, don’t forget to look up at the moon Saturday night around 9, wherever you live and you may be treated to this:
Have a great, natural wonder weekend!
I thought I would repost this … in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis.
Since I’ve returned from Israel with my family, friends and acquaintances stop and ask me:”So, how was your trip?”
As much as I like talking about the trip, it is just so hard to sum up Israel in a quick conversation in the produce aisle. My husband is also experiencing the same when asked this question at work. How was the trip? Well, in a word: life-altering? Or, how about, transformative?
To start retelling a multi-generation trip of a lifetime to Israel, unfortunately one has to start with the hard things first. It is only from these low points: visiting the Har Herzl National cemetery, and then the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, can one only understand the miracle that is Israel and how hard we have to work to never, ever take for granted the existence of this tiny country.
Before I take you to the heights of happiness of three generations celebrating…
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just returned from Yom Hashoah service in my community. The survivors are dying and with it I fear is the raw horror and the inhumanity that seared the Holocaust into my generation’s memory. The question of how to transmit and honor the victims as first hand witnesses are being lost to us remains. There is no gentle way to teach the Holocaust and I fear that second-hand accounts are not hitting it home for the kids in my children’s generation. So, what now?
Leon Posen, a congregant from my synagogue, passed last week. He lived to the age of 94, blessed with a long life that could have been cut very short. His passing is still a sad one. Leon was a Holocaust survivor.
As the years and decades stretch away from World War II and Hitler’s war against the Jews, there are fewer people to tell first hand accounts of what happened in the ghettos and the concentration camps in Europe.
So who will bear witness in generations to come? Even if we don’t have a direct personal connection to the Holocaust, it is our turn to hear as many accounts as possible, and then tell them to the next generation. This is the only way to keep the vow of Never Again.
In Rochester, about 300 area Hebrew school kids in grades 6-12 watched their peers put on a play called…
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The Bronx is Blooming
Just got back from a visit from “the old country,” New York City, to visit family and friends. And I can’t stop raving about The Bronx.
We just returned from a place blooming with lilies and hyacinth, filled with beautiful views of the Palisades, the Hudson River and gracious stately homes and gardens.
I’m talking about the Bronx here. Da Bronx. Really!
As a fifth-generation native New Yorker, a lot of my family has roots in the Bronx. My father and grandfathers were born there as well as my father-in-law. But, at the height of the urban blight of the 1970s and 1980s, it was not exactly somewhere we went exploring when I was growing up outside of a trip to the Bronx Zoo.
When most think of the Bronx, they conjure images like urban blight. A crumbling school in the south Bronx that caught fire shortly before game 2 of the 1977 World Series inspired the book “The Bronx is Burning ” by Jonathan Mahler
Or, perhaps they think of the massive, impersonal apartment complexes they sluggishly traverse the Cross Bronx Expressway on their way to the Long Island Sound or the George Washington Bridge :
But on my last visit, my family and I got to visit the Bronx’s best-kept secrets: The Cloisters Museum and Wave Hill.
The Cloisters, right on the Manhattan-Bronx border, is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that specializes in European Medieval Art. It is set in a castle-like building jutting over the Hudson River set on four acres of parkland. If you have the time on your next visit and already paid admission to the main branch of the Met on Fifth Avenue, you can treat yourself to this as well:
View of George Washington Bridge from Fort Tryon Park
Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center
Further up the road, and I’m talking a country road that makes one feel as if they are in the middle of the countryside and not just 10 miles from Midtown Manhattan, is Wave Hill. Surrounded by 19th Century mansions,
Wave Hill is a semi-private park that consists of gardens and mansions once leased by the Roosevelts and Mark Twain. In the 1960’s, the Perkins-Freeman family, founding partners of J.P. Morgan, donated the land to New York City, allowing the rest of us New Yorkers, for a small admission fee, to afford views like this:
So, next time you find yourself in New York City, do yourself a favor and visit upper Manhattan and The Bronx. You might find a unicorn:
Or even a fair Bronx princess:
Brighton Woman Fights Cancer Again, this time with a little help from her son
I’m away right now, back downstate, but wanted to repost my latest D&C column, as my web links don’t last forever. Spending time with family and friends for Passover, just after my in-laws lost two close friends to cancer. My sister-in-law has a friend going through cancer treatment for liver cancer….. how many others around you do you know who are living with cancer?
9/2014 – Sad to report that Anne passed away after a courageous battle with cancer at the end of the summer. So sorry to hear about her loss and may her family find a way to keep her memory alive for her children.
When it comes to cancer, national statistics don’t always paint the same picture of the stories around you.
According to an October 2011 report by the American Cancer Society, the rate of cancer cases in women fell by one-half of a percentage point per year from 1998 through 2006.
But in my own personal circles of women in their late 30s and 40s, it just feels like cancer is on the rise.
Right now, I can count at least eight friends and acquaintances, women I know from my synagogue and women I know through my children’s schools, who are currently undergoing or are recovering from cancer treatment.
Unfortunately, you can most likely say the same.
One such woman in Brighton is Anne Mowrer, who last October received the news that after five years of remission, her breast cancer had returned as metastatic breast cancer and spread to her lungs and liver.
The first time she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her daughter Ellie was 11 months old and her son Timmy was 3 years old.
Her story, and how she uses the website CaringBridge.org to keep friends and family updated on her condition, was featured in an August 2006 issue of the Democrat and Chronicle.
Now that her kids are older, Anne said the news is harder to take because they have a better understanding of what cancer is.
“Timmy was quite devastated by the news,” she said. “We have had three close friends pass away from cancer in the last year.
“It’s hard but necessary to be honest with my kids — cancer treatment for me is not going to go away. It’s something I will have to do for the rest of my life,” said Anne.
However, being older means that her son Timmy, a third-grader at French Road Middle School, is happy he can do something to help his mom. Instead of accepting presents for Christmas and his birthday this year, he asked for donations to be made to the Pluta Cancer Center, where his mom is being treated.
Timmy got the word out to his classmates and on Anne’s CaringBridge website. A few of Timmy’s friends took his cue and also asked for donations instead of birthday and Christmas presents. So far, Timmy has raised $13,000 for “Timmy’s Fund” at the Pluta Cancer Center.
Right now, Anne is in pretty good spirits. A recent CAT scan showed that the tumors in her lungs have disappeared and those in her liver are shrinking. This is the first “good news” she has had in some time, she said.
She said she gets her strength from her kids, her husband, Joe, family and friends in town, and people leaving well wishes on her website. She also is grateful that on good days, she can still exercise and work on the phone as a triage nurse at Strong Memorial Hospital’s University Health Services.
“I am so glad I can work. I love my job. As a patient, my nursing skills also come in handy because I know how to be my own advocate.”
Although Timmy didn’t ask for gifts for himself, his generosity and efforts to raise money for cancer research have not gone unnoticed. Just last month, Timmy, an avid Boston Red Sox fan, received an autographed baseball from Sox second baseman Dustin Pedrolia and a letter commending his fundraising work from Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino. The two items rest in a glass ball holder and frame and are proudly displayed in his room.
To help
If you would like to contribute to Timmy’s fundraiser for the Pluta Cancer Center, checks made to the center with “Timmy’s Fund” indicated on the check can be mailed to Pluta Cancer Center, 125 Red Creek Drive, Rochester NY 14623.
Contact Stacy Gittleman with news and notable people from east-side towns at dnceastextra@gmail.com.
Staten Island, the original Organic farming town
This is reblogged from one of my favorite blogs, Secret Staten Island. As the growing season starts and with the growing trends of community supported agriculture and organic farming, this farm story comes from the least likely of places. Staten Island today has only one remaining farm.
Window Shopping in Tel Aviv, Windows Shattering in Ashdod
As the violence between Israel and her neighbors in the Gaza strip heats up, I have been glued to not CNN for updates, but the news feed on my Facebook page from The Jerusalem Post. I am relying on the Jerusalem Post and accounts from my friends in Israel to give me the scoop on the latest to what is going on there. I have given up on US media on getting any story related to Israel right. The latest picture on the JPost newsfeed brought back memories of my last nights in Israel spent in Tel Aviv.
When you think of Israel these days, I bet that fashion does not come to mind. No, no, you say, nothing is ever reported from Israel except conflict and war. What else can possibly be going on there?
A lot. Fashion, for one. Israel is entering the international stage for its fashion design. Israeli designer Ronen Chen’s can be found all over the world. Tel Aviv Fashion exec Molly Grad is one of Israel’s top female executive at Gottex Swimwear.
Tel Aviv designers teamed up with designers from Milan, its sister city, to put together Tel Aviv Fashion Week last November Some Milan designers included Milan’s Roberto Cavalli.
On our last nights in Israel this past December, we spent time wandering the streets in Tel Aviv, particularly the fashion district on Northern Dizengoff Street. The stores were closed, and that was a fortunate thing for my wallet because I knew I had no need to buy any of these clothes. Never mind my suitcases must have been already over the weight limit because of all the artwork, books and souvenirs I already purchased.
But the styles were oh so beautiful:
So, this is why this morning’s picture of a bombed fashion boutique in Ashdod really resonated with me.
Rockets from Gaza hit clothing store in Ashdod, 40 kilometers south of Tel Aviv. Photo by Jerusalem Post staff photographer Nir Elias
This is a picture that I bet will never make it into US papers. It is not until you walk the streets in Israel, until you drive along her crowded yet modern highways, feel the beauty and the utter vulnerability of the land that you can really understand what is going on there and what Israel needs to do to survive. And thrive.
Israel, I stand with you.
America, if you want to know what is going on in Israel, do yourself a favor and get your news from The Jerusalem Post.
So What Exactly am I doing in this Photograph Anyway?
Sandblasting glass is a BLAST!
So, over the February break, I got myself an overdue haircut. And over break, my husband of almost 18 years snapped a photo of me, and this does not happen often, because I’m usually the one behind the lens. And so what if I am wearing safety glasses, I finally got in a photo!
I liked this shot so much it’s my new Facebook profile picture. Which raised several questions from my funny Facebook friends. Actually, they were my friends long LONG before Facebook ever existed. I’m talking about my college newspaper friends, the original social networkers. We IM’ed one another on our ancient Video Display Terminals across the newspaper office long before the kids today were texting. Long before they were even born!
And, over the years we have reconnected over Facebook, they have historically left the most hysterical, laugh out loud (oh, I mean LOL) comments and status updates.
One asked: Is that a glove box?
Another: Ummm, Stace – are you getting a mammogram here?
No. Nope. Both wrong. Look at me in that photo. I’m smiling. Happy. Usually, when we women get our mammograms, it is something we don’t want to photograph. Because we are not smiling. We are usually grimacing in anticipation of the squish. And, I would be wearing a hospital gown and not a nice red sweater.
So, really, what am I doing?
Give up?
I am taking a sandblasting workshop at the Corning Museum of Glass.
Corning, NY is located just 90 minutes from Rochester. Not only is it a great visual museum that showcases the art and science of glass, the museum also offers great hands-on workshops in glass flower making, glass bead jewelry making, and sand blasting.
Sandblasting, according to the workshop listing, is the process of removing glass or imparting a matte finish by bombardment with fine grains of sand that are propelled by compressed air.
It sounds very violent, but it’s not and is actually lots of fun.
First, we covered our glass with either stickers or masking tape to create a design.
My daughter was making some asymetrical design with her tape, I just couldn’t figure it out:
We then brought them over to a sandblasting machine, where the glass object is inserted, and then with a foot pedal and a hose, we blast our piece with a strong plume of sand:
And now, we have the following creations to keep forever, or at least, until they drop on my tiled kitchen floor:
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