![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Late last night I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot...
I don't think I'll be able to get this song ("Big Yellow Taxi", Joni Mitchell) out of my head for a while.
Anyway, so today we did Bar Mitzvah stuff. My cousin did a LOT of reading. He did 2/3 of his Torah portion and 1/3 of the Haftorah portion. We thought we'd be called up for an Aliyah, but we weren't (whew). My brother and I still have major sections of the service memorized - the odd thing was that they had an organ player and used all these weird tunes I didn't know, even if I knew the words or could still read Hebrew well enough to follow along. My cousin also made a ton of speeches - he'd even written rhymes to invite people up to light candles on his cake at the reception and all. It was overall a little weird, since I feel too old to be at a Bar Mitzvah -- too old to be a kid and do kid stuff, but too young to really qualify as an adult either. I mean, just because my first cousins on this side are ranging from 10-13 right now, they are technically the same generation as me... I think. I made Eli get up and dance a lot. And this time my grandmother was a lot nicer to him. I hope she is ok. She had one of her aides come with her to the Bar Mitzvah to help her with the wheelchair, and stuff like putting on a bib when she was eating, and all. On the other hand, my grandfather seems to be doing really well - he is in great health and was dancing and going around and all. I think his biggest stress is watching my grandmother just worsen and worsen, but he seems to be taking things pretty well.
A pattern for the day was:
"Hi! How are you doing?"
"Uh fine..."
"...do you remember who I am?"
"You're, uhh... aunt Gloria from Toronto?"
"Cousin Gloria from Winnepeg."
"I'm so sorry... You were at my Bat Mitzvah, right?"
"Yours, and Danny's, and at your grandparents' 50th anniversary party, and.."
"Well, so anyway, how are you doing?"
I got a lot better at remembering who everyone was towards the end of the day, but in the morning I felt bad staring at my grandmother's numerous first cousins (of which she has like 50) like "Uhh... yeah... you were at my bat mitzvah... I am so sorry I forget who you are..."
My uncle the rabbi was his usual self. After his aliyah he started lecturing my cousin about the part of the Torah he had just read. (This is typical - my uncle "expands" on the readings a lot...) Most of my family was in good moods though. My uncle whose son was the Bar Mitzvah, was in a really great mood. The party was really extravagant... it had a movie theme, and they had this wacko DJ/emcee, and he had these three dancer girls who were like 19-20 years old and looked like those "fly girls" on MTV or something - they were all wearing tight black outfits, were really well-built and attractive, and demonstrated dances as well as referreeing dancing games and encouraging kids to go dance and all. Now that was odd. But it seemed like most of the kids were having a good time. And it was good to hang out with my brother - I think I've convinced him to come to Pittsburgh for thanksgiving, yay!
Oh yeah, the kids had this routine to Cotton Eye Joe that looked like DDR. I thought I'd mention that here since I couldn't really mention it there. Lots of hopping and stuff.
Oh, so anyway, the time between the service in the morning and the reception in the evening... We called Stewart and met up with him here, and walked to South Street. It literally took us like an hour and change to eat lunch - first 15 minutes walking there, 45 minutes waiting in line, and another 15-20 minutes eating. But damn, I looooooove real Philly cheesesteaks. Shopping on South Street was sort of fun too - I went to the anime store and got some posters, and went to Tower records, and all. My only regret was that I did not find a copy of "About the B'nai Bagels" for my cousin as a Bar Mitzvah present (I just ordered it off Amazon for him though). Did you all know that E.L.Konigsburg (who wrote that book, as well as the famous "From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler") went to CMU (well, Carnegie Tech)? I think that is way cool - I loved her books when I was a kid.
So it's pretty convenient to visit Stewart when I'm in Philly, as we found out. The PATCO line takes like 15 minutes to get here from his stop and they come pretty often. Tomorrow we're getting dim sum with him and Sippy. Whee.
Ok, it's late, and I could use some sleep...
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot...
I don't think I'll be able to get this song ("Big Yellow Taxi", Joni Mitchell) out of my head for a while.
Anyway, so today we did Bar Mitzvah stuff. My cousin did a LOT of reading. He did 2/3 of his Torah portion and 1/3 of the Haftorah portion. We thought we'd be called up for an Aliyah, but we weren't (whew). My brother and I still have major sections of the service memorized - the odd thing was that they had an organ player and used all these weird tunes I didn't know, even if I knew the words or could still read Hebrew well enough to follow along. My cousin also made a ton of speeches - he'd even written rhymes to invite people up to light candles on his cake at the reception and all. It was overall a little weird, since I feel too old to be at a Bar Mitzvah -- too old to be a kid and do kid stuff, but too young to really qualify as an adult either. I mean, just because my first cousins on this side are ranging from 10-13 right now, they are technically the same generation as me... I think. I made Eli get up and dance a lot. And this time my grandmother was a lot nicer to him. I hope she is ok. She had one of her aides come with her to the Bar Mitzvah to help her with the wheelchair, and stuff like putting on a bib when she was eating, and all. On the other hand, my grandfather seems to be doing really well - he is in great health and was dancing and going around and all. I think his biggest stress is watching my grandmother just worsen and worsen, but he seems to be taking things pretty well.
A pattern for the day was:
"Hi! How are you doing?"
"Uh fine..."
"...do you remember who I am?"
"You're, uhh... aunt Gloria from Toronto?"
"Cousin Gloria from Winnepeg."
"I'm so sorry... You were at my Bat Mitzvah, right?"
"Yours, and Danny's, and at your grandparents' 50th anniversary party, and.."
"Well, so anyway, how are you doing?"
I got a lot better at remembering who everyone was towards the end of the day, but in the morning I felt bad staring at my grandmother's numerous first cousins (of which she has like 50) like "Uhh... yeah... you were at my bat mitzvah... I am so sorry I forget who you are..."
My uncle the rabbi was his usual self. After his aliyah he started lecturing my cousin about the part of the Torah he had just read. (This is typical - my uncle "expands" on the readings a lot...) Most of my family was in good moods though. My uncle whose son was the Bar Mitzvah, was in a really great mood. The party was really extravagant... it had a movie theme, and they had this wacko DJ/emcee, and he had these three dancer girls who were like 19-20 years old and looked like those "fly girls" on MTV or something - they were all wearing tight black outfits, were really well-built and attractive, and demonstrated dances as well as referreeing dancing games and encouraging kids to go dance and all. Now that was odd. But it seemed like most of the kids were having a good time. And it was good to hang out with my brother - I think I've convinced him to come to Pittsburgh for thanksgiving, yay!
Oh yeah, the kids had this routine to Cotton Eye Joe that looked like DDR. I thought I'd mention that here since I couldn't really mention it there. Lots of hopping and stuff.
Oh, so anyway, the time between the service in the morning and the reception in the evening... We called Stewart and met up with him here, and walked to South Street. It literally took us like an hour and change to eat lunch - first 15 minutes walking there, 45 minutes waiting in line, and another 15-20 minutes eating. But damn, I looooooove real Philly cheesesteaks. Shopping on South Street was sort of fun too - I went to the anime store and got some posters, and went to Tower records, and all. My only regret was that I did not find a copy of "About the B'nai Bagels" for my cousin as a Bar Mitzvah present (I just ordered it off Amazon for him though). Did you all know that E.L.Konigsburg (who wrote that book, as well as the famous "From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler") went to CMU (well, Carnegie Tech)? I think that is way cool - I loved her books when I was a kid.
So it's pretty convenient to visit Stewart when I'm in Philly, as we found out. The PATCO line takes like 15 minutes to get here from his stop and they come pretty often. Tomorrow we're getting dim sum with him and Sippy. Whee.
Ok, it's late, and I could use some sleep...
